It happens in a second, and it happens in a lifetime. Time always seems to move in odd ways during moments like this.

  I watch as Sutherland’s arms jerk with the motion of the car first, and the rest of his body follow. The heat of a fireball sears my cheek as it flies past me and directly towards Sutherland. At the last second I throw a hand out and use my telekinesis to steer the fireball away its direct path to Sutherland’s head and instead just beyond, to the rope attaching him to the truck. The fireball hits true, though it takes a moment for them to do their work. By the time the rope frays and snaps, Sutherland has already been dragged for a few too-long moments.

  Sutherland rolls along the road, almost raggedy, a few times over before he comes to a stop. Marvin’s long gone, either not having noticed that he lost his load or not caring. I’m still reacting slower than I ought to be, and someone rushes past me and to Sutherland’s prone body before I realize it’s Nancy.

  And then all at once, time speeds back up, sound comes back to me, and I realize all at once that Sutherland didn’t give me the address at the Town Hall to bring me here. He gave it to me for this moment, for Ryder’s fireball and Nancy’s healing to save him from being dragged behind Marvin’s truck to his death.

  The man I met at the Town Hall, who held the command of the room with such ease, suddenly seems so human.

  I rush forward, to Nancy’s side, Ryder landing beside me a moment later. Nancy’s pulled off the paper bag from his head. “How is he? How bad is it?” I ask, my hands out in front of me like I could somehow help. His face is pale, dots of sweat along his brow and temples. There’s black lint stuck to his bald head. He’s still wearing that black turtleneck sweater that makes him look like a beat poet, and it’s somehow still pristine, but there are snags on his black slacks.

  “He seems to be okay,” Nancy says, though the way her voice goes up at the end sounds a little too much like a question. “A few scraps and scratches, which I healed, and from what I can tell his body is… His body is fine.” She lifts her eyes, her hands still on Sutherland’s chest, and looks right at me. “But he’s out cold.”

  “I would be, too,” Ryder mutters beside me.

  “Hey,” I say to him, bumping my shoulder into his. “Good thinking on that fireball.”

  “I thought I was going to burn him,” Ryder whispers. “You used your powers to aim, didn’t you?”

  I nod.

  Ryder’s face crumples a little, and I nudge him again. “We’re a team. Sutherland needed all of us.” He nods, holding his composure a little better. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Beaker!” Ryder shrieks, and I flinch at the sudden volume in my ear.

  But then the tall, broad man is beside Nancy, and he and I hoist Sutherland up. We sling his arms over our shoulders—very unevenly, of course, since the men are both so much taller than I am. And then we start moving. Awkwardly at first but we soon fall into a rhythm, with Nancy right behind us and giving us small boosts of health if we start to flag.

  Not that Sutherland is heavy, considering he’s so slim, and I’ve been packing my strength stat since this whole thing started.

  The address Sutherland gave us really is perfect because we get there as easily as we got to the back of the crowd, just going around the other side of the small plaza that sat at the street. Sutherland lets out a small groan as we get him seated in the car, but he doesn’t wake up, and Nancy climbs in to the driver’s seat to get his seatbelt buckled. Ryder hops into the trunk, the other three adults climb into the backseat, and the residential road we’re on gives me ample room to do a three-point-turn and drive away.

  “Well, that was an adventure,” Ryder says from the trunk.

  ***

  We bring Sutherland back to our block. I want him in our house, where Nancy can keep a close eye on him, but there’s just not enough room. So we go across the street—into the house right beside Gigi’s—and get Sutherland set up in the master bedroom in the house. It’s a second-floor master, unlike my house or Gigi’s house, but Beaker and I manage to get the tall man up the stairs. Nancy pulls an oversized fabric rocking chair out of her inventory and drops it right beside the bed, getting herself nice and cozy without prompting.

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  “Do you need anything?” I ask her.

  Her answer is to pull a blanket out other inventory, draping it across her legs in the same moment.

  I add a quick, “Never mind,” as she laughs, but then both of our gazes turn back to the prone man on the bed.

  “I’m not actually a doctor,” Nancy says quietly. “So I don’t know what’s wrong. Everything my magic is telling me is that he’s physically fine. I don’t get why he won’t wake up.”

  Her soft confession has me coming closer, reaching out a hand. She takes mine with one of hers without instruction. “He went through quite the ordeal,” I say. “Maybe it’s not the physical that needs some time to heal.”

  Nancy squeezes my hand before letting it drop. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” she says, her dismissal obvious. I leave her to her thoughts and Sutherland’s company, heading downstairs where Beaker, Savannah, and Ryder are doing some organization of the house.

  “Any updates?” Ryder asks, his wide eyes darting to me. I shake my head, not trusting myself to say anything else.

  I’m rescued by the sound of a car horn honking from outside.

  The four of us come outside just a few moments after Gigi did next door, and find her heading down her driveway with excitement as a familiar red Mustang idles at the curb in front of my house.

  “Well, today just got a whole lot more exciting,” Beaker says, stealing a glance at Savannah, who brightened when she realized whose car it is.

  I probably did too, but I don’t have anyone scrutinizing me about it.

  “Why? Who’s car is that?” Ryder asks.

  As if in answer to his question, the man himself opens the door and climbs out of the car.

  Colton.

  Like when I first saw him, the pull to him is unmistakable. It’s like he sucks in all the air around him. Him standing on my street feels wrong somehow, like it’s too small for such a big person. And not big physically, though it still seems crazy that he fits in the tiny sports car. But big in presence.

  Gigi wraps her arms around his middle. “You came back!” she croons.

  He laughs, patting her lightly on the shoulder, as the rest of us head down the driveway to the road. Colton spots us, looks back at the house we exited from, and then glances over his shoulder at my actual house.

  “Hi Colton!” Ryder says with an excited wave.

  He lifts a hand in return.

  “I didn’t think we’d see you again,” Beaker says. He sounds little disappointed.

  “Not that we’re complaining,” Savannah adds. Beaker harrumphs.

  “It wasn’t part of the plan,” Colton says, finally extricating himself from Gigi’s embrace.

  “Wait,” I say, remembering what his plans had been. “Your cousins—?”

  He shakes his head. “They apparently did not make it.”

  “Oh, Colton,” Savannah breathes.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

  He meets my eyes, gives a small nod. “I packed up some of their personal stuff and now… back to my sister’s, I guess.”

  “And then?” Gigi asks, all business.

  “What do you mean, and then?” Colton asks her.

  “And then! What do you do then!? You put them in their car and you drive your butt right back here!” Gigi says.

  Beaker takes a couple quick steps forward. “Oh, Gigi, he doesn’t want that—”

  But Colton speaks right over him. “You’d want that?” he asks Gigi. His gaze lifts and turns to the rest of us, all standing right there in the middle of the street.

  “I want that!” Ryder calls, lifting his hand in the air. “More people is always nice. And it would be cool to have other kids around!”

  Colton grins at Ryder, and he turns that smile onto me. The words slip out of my mouth. “The more the merrier.”

  Gigi pats Colton’s bicep. “It’s decided. You, and your sister, and your niece, you can all move in here, with me!” She throws her hand out and gestures to the house she chose.

  “I’ll have to figure out how to scrounge up some more gas,” Colton says, a sort of thinking aloud. “I found a canister at my cousin’s, but I don’t know if that’ll get me all the way.”

  “Jane has more,” Gigi says, turning to face me. “Right? You’ve been driving your dad’s car around the city for a whole week! You must have extras somewhere.”

  We’ve made a few more stops at gas stations over the days, perfecting our gas collection, and the stronger my telekinesis got, the easier it was to siphon. So yes, I have extra gas canisters. I wish Nancy were here. She’d be able to tell me if it’s worth it, to give a couple away.

  And do I just… pull one out of my inventory, here and now? Colton doesn’t know about the Game, how it works.

  Beaker lets out a sigh. “Go ahead, Jane,” he says. And then he drops his voice a bit. “Might as well get it over with.”

  Whether he means revealing the Game, or accepting Colton’s presence, I can’t be sure. But I take him at his word and pull two canisters from my inventory.

  Sure enough, his eyes go wide at their materialization out of thin air.

  “Magic,” I say with a grin, and leave it at that. I hold them out to him.

  He takes them from me, still a little stunned, and turns to put them into his car.

  “If you get a chance, stop at a Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire,” I tell him. “Grab a manual pump and some extra canisters, if you can find them. Oh, and an extra long hose. Then just help yourself at a gas station.”

  By that point, he’s put the gas in his car and is facing me again. “Easy as that, huh?” he says to me.

  “It’s the Apocalypse, Colton,” I say, ignoring the rush down my back at saying his name out loud. “I’ll take easy when and where I can get it.”