Bisabuela had died before the DNA results came back on Kennewick Man, before Calliope could tell Bisabuela she’d been right all along—of course she’d been right—the Ancient One belonged to their people, his genome closer to modern Native Americans than any other living population. But Bisabuela was not there, not with Calliope, to celebrate when the Ancient One was released to his rightful ancestors and repatriated back into the ground so his journey could continue uninterrupted. If a renowned Smithsonian white coat had been wrong, if they were all wrong about separate waves of migration, and if Bisabuela’s people were all linked, like she said, then maybe she’d been right about the other stories. Why couldn’t Calliope believe Bisabuela was right about emergence? That there was no land bridge. There was no coastal migration. Bisabuela believed the Ancient Ones came from the earth. And returned to the earth. Calliope was determined to find answers. To prove her earlier research wrong. To find evidence that would support Bisabuela’s belief instead. She knew that wasn’t how science worked; you didn’t go looking for evidence of a long-drawn conclusion but rather let the evidence guide you. Still. She was searching for evidence of a different explanation. She owed Bisabuela. She’d come back to New Mexico to find the truth, whatever that meant.

But Calliope had not intended to find the truth quite so literally. Not careening toward her, this monstrous beast. Eight feet tall, it hurled its muscular, athletic body toward the plane. Chance yelled at Amy to drive, and she turned the plane toward the creature. Calliope resisted the urge to shut her eyes. Her throat constricted, her breathing came in labored puffs. From the cabin, she watched the monster launch itself into the air, a panther onto a cliff. A forceful thud, and they careened backward, the nose of the plane tipping at an angle. It was on the rudder.

Amy screamed, “What is that?”

Still she held the wheel steady, taxied forward, gaining speed. They would hit the hangar doors. Except, the hangar doors were no longer there. Dim light through the ash, a hole through the aluminum, the propeller Chance had jammed into the handles cast aside, crumpled like a soda can on a sidewalk. In its place, another creature. Identical to the one hitching a ride on the back of their puddle jumper. The other creature must have ripped off the hangar doors and was waiting for them in the hangar’s gaping metal mouth.

Amy was screaming expletives, Chance still yelling his one-word mantra. Drive!

Could they gain enough momentum to outrun the second creature?

The wings juddered precariously. Calliope shut her eyes, refusing to face the creature balanced atop the plane, afraid it would break into the cabin at any second.