“Won’t do any good,” Mr. Chu replied, stepping close to Tick. He stretched out one of the things in his hands, two strips of cloth attached to a circular ring of metal in the middle. “Until we get these on you, they’ll follow you wherever you go, until you’re dead.”

Mr. Chu grabbed Tick’s right arm and started wrapping the cloth strips around his bicep. Tick was so stunned by the odd situation that he didn’t move or resist. In a matter of seconds, Mr. Chu had snapped the metal ring around Tick’s elbow, and wrapped the attached strips of cloth, like sticky gauze, in candy-cane fashion down the length of his entire arm.

“What . . . what are you doing? What is this thing?” A sick, uneasy feeling spread through Tick and he started to sweat.

“Yeah, what is that?” Sofia asked.

“You all have to put them on,” Mr. Chu answered.

But when he stepped toward Sofia, she swiped his arms away and held up her fists. “You aren’t touching me, you crazy old man.”

The sounds—the spinning saws, the crunching and crashing of trees, a mechanical roar that sounded like something out of an old sci-fi movie—it was all coming very close, very fast. Though Tick couldn’t see anything yet, he could feel whatever was approaching, as if it were pushing the very air away as it rushed through the woods.

Mr. Chu tried again to wrap his gadget around Sofia’s arm, but she swatted him away, then actually swung a fist at his face, barely missing. “I said, stay away!” she screamed at him.

Mr. Chu turned toward Tick, his face intense. “Atticus, I’ve known you and your family for a long time. I taught your sister, I taught you. We’re friends, are we not?”

“Yeah.” Tick looked at Sofia, then Paul. His head swam in confusion. How could this be happening? Why did he feel so . . . wrong? Was this a dream?

“They’ll be here in seconds. If we put these devices on our arms, they won’t see us. Do you hear me?”

Tick didn’t say anything.

“Just wink us away again!” Paul said. “You can do it, Tick. Concentrate and wink us away. Forget this dude.”

“Give me a break,” Tick said. “I have no clue how I did that.”

“Just try,” Sofia said in a calm voice, as if she were trying to talk someone out of jumping off a skyscraper. Tick barely heard her over the mechanical chorus of horrible sounds.

“Atticus!” Mr. Chu yelled. “We have only seconds left! They . . . are going . . . to eat us . . . alive!” He pointed toward the sounds with every pause, his voice filled with fire.

“Just do it!” Tick finally said. “Sofia, just let him do it!”

“Tick, you expect me to trust this nut—”

“Just do it!”