Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

When Allie and Milos returned to the interstate, Moose and Squirrel were there, but Mikey was nowhere to be seen. Now that Milos's advances had hit a brick wall, he was itching to move on, and didn't appreciate waiting for Mikey.

"It is just like him to make the rest of us wait," Milos said.

"How do you know what he's like?" Allie said, defensively. "You barely even know him."

Milos knew better than to argue the point.

Allie looked around--to the fields across the interstate, and behind her, to the neighborhood they had just come from. She tried to catch a glimpse of Mikey's afterglow, but the moon was too bright; everything seemed to be glowing.

"Wherever he's gone, he couldn't have gone far," Allie told the others. But when Mikey wasn't back by midnight, Allie began to worry.

"What if something happened to him?"

Squirrel stayed silent about it, but Moose--probably following Milos's earlier cue--was annoyed. "Let him catch up with ush." Milos, on the other hand, had moved past his irritation, and recognized that Mikey's absence was something out of the ordinary. "There will be a sensible explanation," Milos reasoned, "and when he does come back, we can all be suitably angry at him. But for now we will wait."

Allie kept a vigil all night, her mind filling with all the things that could have happened to him. What if the Nashville Afterlights kidnapped him? What if he got caught in one of Mary's stupid soul traps? Yet she knew she was grasping at straws. Those Nashville Afterlights were timid things--and as for soul traps, there was no evidence that Mary had ever been this far west.

When dawn came, and Mikey still hadn't returned, Allie was beside herself. The others kept their distance--not even Milos knew how to handle this. It was in that early morning light that she took special notice of Squirrel. He had nothing to say about the matter all night long--yet he was even more antsy than usual. He kept bouncing his knee and shifting his weight from leg to leg. He wouldn't meet Allie's gaze, and that clinched it. In an instant she had him tried, convicted, and sentenced.

"It was you!" She stormed up to him and pointed an accusing finger. "You did something to him!"

Squirrel's jaw dropped open and he shook his head. "Not me! Not me! I wouldn't do anything to him!" He looked to Moose, who backed away, hoping this plague of guilt wouldn't spread to him, but he was too late.

"It was both of you!" yelled Allie. "I know it just by looking at you!"

Moose's beady eyes seemed to widen within his helmet, like a cornered opossum. She half expected him to suddenly play dead. "We didn't do anything! Milosh tell her it wazn't ush!" But Milos was not taking sides.

"You're both lying!' Allie screamed at them. "Tell me what you did, or I'll tear you apart with my bare hands!" In that moment, she believed she could do it, and they believed it too.

"We didn't do anything! I swear, I swear!" pleaded Squirrel. "Cross my heart and hope to fry! I'd be afraid to do anything to him, honest!"

And that, coming from Squirrel, just sounded odd. It was just a further indication to Allie that he must be lying.

Finally Milos stepped in. "Afraid of him? Why afraid?"

Squirrel looked to Milos then to Moose, and finally to Allie. "I think ... I think your friend is some kinda monster." And the expression of horror and hatred that Allie gave him made Squirrel back away. "It's true, it's true! He's got all these eyes--and tentacles. He hides 'em real good, but I know he's got 'em."

"You're LYING!" screamed Allie, and she rushed him. "Take it BACK! You're lying, take it BACK!" She began pushing him, shaking him, hitting him.

It was Milos who pulled her away from Squirrel, and she collapsed, sobbing like she never had in life. Milos tried to comfort her, but she just pushed him away. "He's lying," she said over and over, her voice getting weaker each time she said it. "He's lying... ."

"Maybe Squirrel saw something else, and thought it was Mikey," Milos suggested.

"Yeah," said Moose, butting Squirrel in the head with his helmet. "You alwayz shee things that aren't there!"

"But ... but--"

Milos put his hand up and silenced him, then he knelt down to Allie, who still wept. "I think ... we need ... to consider ... "He spoke slowly, measuring each word like the tick of a metronome, "... that maybe ... Mikey took his coin ... and got where he was going."

"He wouldn't do that," said Allie. "No. He wouldn't just leave without saying good-bye."

"Maybe he did not mean to," suggested Milos.

"Yeah, yeah--maybe he took the coin out just to look at it," said Squirrel, "but once that tunnel opens, there's nothing you can do."

Allie still wasn't ready to believe it. "There's got to be another explanation."

Then, after a long silence, Milos said, "Then we will wait."