Just before Jessica hit the ground, the asphalt seemed to change texture, suddenly dark and uneven. When she struck the earth, it was covered with something unexpectedly soft. She rolled and rolled, the ground pummeling her from every direction.

Jessica finally came to a stop, bruised and breathless. She lay there for a second, feeling terribly heavy. When she could breathe, the smell of grass filled her nose. That was what had broken her fall.

Jessica sat up slowly. She looked around.

She had just missed the runway, landing where thick Oklahoma scrub grass led up to its edge. There was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, and she was dizzy, but her arms and legs all seemed able to move.

The sounds of slithers came from in front and behind, closing in on her. In the distance their shapes moved against the vast, dark moon like a haze of gnats. Jonathan was nowhere to be seen.

Her normal weight felt as heavy as lead now that she could only run, not fly.

She stood slowly. Started painfully to walk.

“Jess!”

Jonathan was skimming across the ground toward her, one hand extended.

She thrust out her right hand. As he flew past, Jonathan grasped her wrist, and she was transformed into a toy balloon again, pulled in his wake. The bruises on her hands complained, and she cried out.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just banged up.”

“I thought you were dead!”

She giggled, a little hysterically. “I thought you were halfway to Texas.”

Jonathan didn’t say anything, just grasped her wrist tighter.

“Thanks for coming back,” Jessica said. She could hear the crazed sound of her own voice and wondered if she’d bumped her head. It was hard to tell if her light-headedness was brain damage or the effect of Jonathan’s touch.

“They’re on three sides of us now,” he said.

Jessica blinked, trying to clear her mind. She could see a cloud of slithers to their right and a lone darkling to their left and assumed there were more of each behind. On the open ground they were moving quickly again, one of her ankles twinging with pain whenever they jumped. Eventually, though, they would be driven out over the badlands, and if another group of pursuers appeared in front of them, they would have nowhere left to go.

Suddenly Jessica spotted a mesh of girders off to the right. Rising into the sky a few stories, a brand-new building was going up at the edge of the complex.

“Steel,” she said.

“What?”

She pointed. “New steel, untouched by midnight.”

“Let’s hope so.”

The sounds of their pursuers came from all around now. Chirps and squeaks and caws, like being trapped inside some insane bird sanctuary. As they angled toward the new building, a flock of flying slithers drew closer.