“I don’t know!” Tick snapped back. The room shook again with another ram from the spider; an alarming chunk of the entrance crumbled to the ground, the hole getting wider. A second metal arm squeezed through, two rough blades attached at the end, snapping together like alligator jaws.

“Boys!” Sofia said. Tick was shocked to see her smiling. “You’re so busy thinking, you forgot to use your brains.”

With a smirk, she darted over to the corner, ignoring the steel blade of death that sliced through the air a few inches from her shoulder. Then she sat down on the chair.

The second her bottom touched the warped wood of the seat, she disappeared.

Chapter

14

~

The Council on
Things That Matter

Tick felt like an idiot. Sofia was right; sometimes they thought too much.

He grabbed Paul by the shoulders and pushed him toward the chair, following right behind. “Hurry!” A blade whipped past his left shoulder, slicing his shirt.

Paul reached back and shoved Tick against the bricks. “Careful, dude. Inch along the wall.”

Sally stood next to the chair, looking confused as he glanced back and forth between the chair and Tick. Paul and Tick scooted along the wall until they reached the corner.

“Sit down, Sally!” Paul yelled. “Don’t worry, it’ll take you somewhere safe.”

Sally didn’t reply but leaned toward Tick’s ear until Tick could feel Sally’s beard scratching his cheek.

“What are you doing?” Tick asked, feeling uncomfortable. “You need to tell me something?”

“Just lookin’ at yer dadgum ear, boy.”

Before Tick could stop him, Sally reached up and rammed his pinky finger into Tick’s ear canal. Tick stumbled backward into Paul’s arms, a sharp pain exploding inside his head like an eardrum had just ruptured. The pain went away as soon as it had come, and Paul helped him back to his feet.

“What’d you do that for?” Tick yelled at Sally, glaring at the man who’d seemed completely harmless until that very moment.

“Weep to yer mama, boy, not me.”

Sally sat down on the chair, not bothering to hide the grin on his face. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, Sorry, can’t help myself, and disappeared.

“What in the world was that all about?” Paul asked.

“No idea,” Tick replied. “But we’ve gotta get out of here.”

“You first,” Paul said.

Tick wanted to argue, act brave, be the last one out. Then he realized that’d be the stupidest thing in the world and hurried to sit on the chair. Every second they wasted meant the spider was that much closer.

He had just enough time to see the entire front of the building collapse in a swirl of dust and flashes of metal before everything around him turned bright.

~