“Animals,” she says, “a bunch of animals.”

“We’ve got to do something,” I say. “Go out there.”

“What then?” asks Jim. “Start shooting? Nothing to be done except sit tight. The kid will be okay. Things will go back to normal.”

“How can you believe that?” I ask.

“Because most people are good,” says Jim. “But not when they’re afraid.”

I glare out the open front door toward the field. The spotlighters are still out there. Getting drunk. Hooting and hollering. Raking their lights over our trailers. I’d love to go out there and seek retribution. I know how to activate my Zenith. But I have no idea what I’m capable of.

“The assholes who did this don’t seem afraid,” I say.

“They’re terrified. Waiting for an excuse to start shooting. If we set one angry foot in that field, it won’t end out there. It will end here, in Eden. We have to swallow this. Nick is safe. It’s a small price to pay.”

“It’s a price we shouldn’t have to pay.”

Jim kicks the coffee table, shouts. “We’re lucky to pay it! Because Joseph Vaughn will take any excuse. Any excuse, Owen. His Priders would love to come in here tonight and shoot us down like dogs. We are sitting on gasoline-drenched kindling from sea to shining sea. You want to be the match that lights the fire?”

I blink at Jim, surprised. His sudden rush of anger has sapped the venom from my veins.

“Owen,” says Lucy, softly, “we have a bigger problem.”

A wiry hand clamps onto my shoulder from behind. Gently, I’m shoved out of the doorway. A skinny cowboy walks past me and into the trailer, boots clomping on the linoleum. He smells like gasoline and beer.

“My nephew all right?” asks Lyle, impassive.

“He’ll be fine,” says Jim, moving to block Lyle’s sight of Nick’s temple. He’s too late.

“Spotlighters did that?”

Jim says nothing. None of us do.

“You with me, Gray?”

“We can’t go into that field. Not tonight.”

“Okay then,” he says and turns on his heel. He strides out the door and into the warm night. Just the ghost smell of gasoline left behind. Gone so fast it’s like he wasn’t even here.

Except we all know where he’s going.

BLOGGING THE NEWS

Police Use Tear Gas on Pro-Amp Protesters

Are you there? Share your photos and videos.

Last Updated 7:48 p.m. Riot police in downtown Phoenix have fired canisters of tear gas at protesters, dispersing the crowd of thousands after it refused to move off the steps of the state capitol building.

Phoenix police explained their use of tear gas in a statement:

“Our police officers deployed a limited amount of tear gas according to established protocol to clear a small area of protesters who had turned violent. The protesters were throwing objects at police officers, including rocks, firecrackers, paint, glass bottles, and paving stones. In addition, protesters were destroying public property on the capitol grounds.”

Last Updated 10:43 p.m. In a similar show of force, hundreds of officers in Chicago have coordinated an operation to clear out a group of about 1,000 demonstrators who refused to vacate Lincoln Park. At least 200 people connected to the Free Body Liberty Group were arrested, and small amounts of tear gas were used before the camps were dismantled, The Chicago Tribune reported.

“The city is committed to protecting free speech rights, but our duty to protect the safety of our officers and the public welfare of our citizens must always come first,” Chicago police said in a statement.

Thirty seconds later I’m trotting down the empty main street of Eden, listening to my own whistling breath, and I can’t help but picture it: the end of Lyle’s sad, furious life. Inescapable as the sunset.

The skinny cowboy strides into that dry field, talking about war and new worlds and retribution. Takes a shotgun spray to the belly. Goes down cackling and firing his pistol, guts in the grass. Nails one or two of those beer-soaked morons and they go down like sacks of mud. Then, spotlighters flood into Eden on a rampage.

The scene plays out in my mind so clearly, it’s got the familiar feel of a memory. I jog faster down the dirt path, past dark trailers and buzzing streetlights.

The shouts are already starting from beyond the fence. Rising on the breeze, thin and shrill. Lyle must have marched straight into the field. He’s pure anger and military trained, but he’s alone and the spotlighters have firepower.

Five Zeniths left and it looks to be four real soon.

Coming around Lucy’s trailer I have to push past gawkers. People stand in clumps, keeping away from the porch lights. Some of their faces are familiar in the twilight, but many more are newcomers. The stream of cars packed with blankets and groceries hasn’t let up. Every day it’s another family, another car parked in the lot, another dog leashed to a tree. And now just about all of them are watching the field, worried.

I see why pretty quick: it’s just Lyle out there.

From behind the fence, I make out a semicircle of maybe two dozen spotlighters standing two or three deep around Lyle.

Thankfully, none of Lyle’s soldiers in Astra have figured out what’s happening. Otherwise this wouldn’t be a fight. It would be a war.

Guns and beer bottles and clenched fists. The mounted spotlights blaze down on Lyle’s thin frame and a flurry of handheld spotlights hit him from odd angles. In a wifebeater and dusty jeans, he’s a prizefighter slouched in the ring, outmatched. There’s nothing to the guy, just that thin silhouette burned in crisp detail. A dozen narrow shadows splaying out behind him like knife blades.

The fighting hasn’t started yet, but I can see in the angle of Lyle’s shoulders that it’s close.

A twinkle of light flutters past Lyle’s head and he doesn’t flinch. An empty whisky bottle bounces into the grass, thunks into the fence a few yards from me.

“You ready to fuckin’ die, Frankenstein?” calls somebody.

I clamber over the fallen wooden fence, scale the new shiny chain-link, and jog into the field. My breathing isn’t coming easy. Moving toward Lyle, I’m having to concentrate on pushing my breaths out. Each pant squeezes out of my mouth as a strained, grunting curse.

Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck this.

As I cross the field, a few lights swing my way and shove my shadow out behind me. Light-kissed moths flutter overhead. For one absurd second, it feels like Little League baseball. Like I’m trotting onto the field for a night game. Must’ve left my glove on the bench.

Then someone fires a shotgun into the air, and a cold tickle of fear crests my scalp and cascades down the back of my neck.

“Here comes your girlfriend, cowboy,” calls a voice from behind the lights.

Laughter.

I get close to him, but Lyle doesn’t turn around. He’s swaying in place. I can hear him humming a tuneless song. I grab his shoulder and turn him around. Thank God he doesn’t have a weapon in his hands.

“This isn’t happening,” I hiss.

Now that I see Lyle up close, I get the feeling he isn’t seeing me back. His eyes are black and dead, half lidded, like they were in that rotten trailer. Just a pair of lifeless doll eyes anchoring an idiot grin to his face.

Lyle has gone inside his own mind. Letting the machine step in and do the work. Now I know we’re in real fucking trouble.

“Where are you, Lyle?” I whisper. “Come back.”