So Rob did the only thing he could. The same thing I'd have done, in his situation.

He threw an arm around Jim Henderson's neck, brought the knife blade to his jugular vein, and said, "Anybody moves, and Jimbo here gets it."

C H A P T E R

14

Have you ever been to a football game where the higher ranked team was so certain of winning, there wasn't even a doubt in the minds of their fans that they wouldn't? And then, through some total miscalculation on the part of the superior team, the underdog got the upper hand?

The faces of the True Americans looked like the faces of the fans of the winning team, seconds after their team mangled some play so horribly, their opponent, against all odds, scored a touchdown.

They were stunned. Just stunned.

"Thanks," I said to Red Plaid Jacket, as I relieved him of his rifle. "I'll take that."

I had never held a rifle before in my life, but I had a pretty good idea how one worked. You just pointed at the thing you wanted to hit, and pulled the trigger. No big mystery in that.

Of course, if you thought about it, there was no reason in the world for us to be so cocky. Okay, so yeah, Rob had a knife to a guy's throat, and I had a rifle. Big deal. It was still about fifty to two. Well, three, if you counted Seth. Four, if you included Chigger, who was still following me around, hoping for more mashed potatoes, even though I'd put down the bowl.

But hey, we had the upper hand for the moment, and we were going to take advantage of it while we could.

"Okay," Rob said, as the blood slowly drained from Jim Henderson's face. Not because Rob had poked a hole in him or anything. Just because the leader of the True Americans was so very, very scared.

"Okay, now. Everybody just stay very calm, and no one is going to get hurt." Hey, he had me convinced. Rob seemed totally believable, as far as knife-wielding hostage-takers went. "Me and the girl and the kid and Jimbo here are going to take a little walk. And if any of you want to see your fearless leader live through this, you're going to let us go. Okay?"

When no one objected, Rob went, "Good. Jess. Seth. Let's go."

And so started what had to have looked like one weird parade. With me leading the way, rifle in hand and dog at my heels, a dazed-looking Seth following me, and Rob, with his arm around Henderson, taking up the rear, we made our way down the length of the barn. I wouldn't want to give you the impression that Mr. Henderson was playing the silent martyr in all of this, however. Oh, no. See, people who haven't the slightest qualm about doing unspeakably horrible things to others are always the ones who act like the biggest babies of all whenever anybody in turn threatens them.

I'm not kidding. Jim Henderson was practically crying. He was wailing, in a high-pitched voice, "You may think you're gonna get away with this, but I'll tell you what. The people are gonna rise up. The people are gonna rise up and walk the path of righteousness. And traitors like you, boy—traitors to your own race—are going to burn in hellfire for all eternity—"

"Would you," Rob said, "shut up?"

Only Jim Henderson was wrong. The people weren't going to rise up. Not all at once, anyway. They were too shocked by what was happening to their leader even to think about lifting a finger to help him. Or maybe it was just that they really did believe that if they tried anything to stop us, Rob would slit their beloved Jim Henderson's throat.

In any case, the people did not rise up.

Just one person did.

Kerchief-Head, to be exact.

I should have seen it coming. I mean, it had been way, way too easy.

But I'll admit it. I got cocky. I started thinking that these people were stupid, because they had these stupid ideas about things. That was my first mistake. Because the scariest thing about the True Americans was that they weren't stupid. They were just really, really evil.

As became all too clear when I heard, from behind me, the sound of breaking glass.

I realized my second mistake the second I turned around. The first had been in assuming the True Americans were stupid. The second had been in not covering Rob's back with the rifle.

Because when I spun around, what I saw was Kerchief-Head standing there with two broken pieces of my mashed potato bowl in her hands. The rest of the pieces were all over the floor … where Rob also lay. The bitch had snuck up behind him and cracked his skull open.

Hey, I didn't hesitate. I lifted that rifle, and I fired. I didn't even think about it, I was so mad … mad and scared. There was a lot of blood coming out of the gash in Rob's head. More was pouring out every second.

But I had never fired a rifle before. I didn't know how they kicked. And it is not like I am this terrifically large person or anything. I pulled the trigger, the gun exploded, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor, with Chigger licking my face and about a million and one handguns pointed at my face.

Whatever else the True Americans might have been, lacking in firearms was not one of them.

The worst part of it was, I didn't even hit Kerchief-Head. I missed her by a mile.

I did, however, manage to do some major damage to the "Don't Tread On Me" flag.

"If you've killed my boyfriend," I snarled at Kerchief-Head, as a lot of hands started grabbing me and dragging me to my feet, "I'll make you regret the day you were ever born. Do you hear me, placenta breath?"

It was childish, I knew, to stoop to name-calling. But I'm not sure I was in my right mind. I mean, Rob was lying there, completely unconscious, with all this blood making a puddle around his head. And they wouldn't let me near him. I tried to get to him. I really did. But they wouldn't let me.

Instead, they locked me up. That's right. In that little room Seth had been locked in. They threw me right in there. Me and Seth. In the dark. In the cold. With no way of knowing whether my boyfriend was dead or alive.

I don't know how much time passed before I stopped kicking the door and screaming. All I know was that the sides of my wrists hurt from where I'd pounded them against the surprisingly sturdy wood. And Seth was staring at me like I was some kind of escapee from a lunatic asylum. Really. The kid looked scared.

He looked even more scared when I said to him, "Don't worry. I'm going to get you out of here."

Well, I guess I couldn't blame him. I probably wasn't exactly giving off an aura of mature adulthood just then.

I crossed over to where he was sitting and sank down onto the bed beside him. Suddenly, I was really tired. It had been a long day.

Seth and I sat there in the dark, listening to the distant sounds of the women banging pots and pans around in the kitchen. I guess no matter what kind of murder and mayhem was happening over in the barn, dinner still needed serving. I mean, all those men needed to keep their strength up for making the country safe for the white man, right?

Finally, after what seemed like a million years, Seth spoke. He said, in a shy voice, "I'm sorry about your friend."

I shrugged. I didn't exactly want to think about Rob. If he was dead, that was one thing. I would deal with that when the time came, probably by throwing myself headfirst into Pike's Quarry, or whatever.

But if he was still alive, and they were doing stuff to him, the way they had to Seth....

Well, let's just say that whether Rob was dead or alive, I was going to make it my sole mission in life to track down each and every one of the True Americans, and make them pay.

Preferably with a flame-thrower.

"How …" Seth scratched his head. He was a funny-looking kid, tall for his age, with dark hair and eyes, like me. "How did you find me, anyway?"

I looked down at my Timberlands, though I wasn't exactly seeing them, or much else, for that matter. All I could see was Rob, lying there with his head bashed in.

"I have this thing," I said, tiredly.

"A thing?" Seth asked.

"A psychic thing," I said. Which is another thing. If Rob were dead, wouldn't I know it? I mean, wouldn't I feel it? I was pretty sure I would.

But I didn't. I didn't feel anything. Except really, really tired.

"Really?" In the moonlight, Seth's face looked way younger than his thirteen years. "Hey, that's right. You're that girl. That lightning girl. I thought I'd seen you before somewhere. You were on the news."

"That's me," I said. "Lightning Girl."

"That is so cool," Seth said, admiringly.

"It's not so cool," I told him.

"No," Seth said. "It is. It really is. It's like you've got kid Lojack, or something."

"Yeah," I said. "And look what good it's done for me. You and I are stuck in here, and my boyfriend's out there bleeding to death, and another kid is dead, and possibly a cop, too—"

I saw his face crumble, and only then realized what I had said. I had let my personal grief get the better of me, and spoken out of turn. I bit my lip.

"You said he was all right," Seth said, his dark eyes suddenly swimming in tears. "That cop. You said he was okay."

"He is okay," I said, putting my arm around the little guy. "He is, really. Sorry. I just lost it for a minute there."

"He's not okay," Seth wailed. "He's dead, isn't he? And because of me! All because of me!"

It was kind of amazing that after what this kid had been through, the only thing that really got him upset was the idea that a cop that had been trying to save him had ended up catching a bullet for his troubles. Seth Blumenthal, bar mitzvah boy, really was something else.

"No, not because of you," I assured him. "Because of those asshole True Americans. And besides, he isn't dead, all right? I mean, he's hurt bad, but he isn't dead. I swear."

But Seth clearly didn't believe me. And why should he? I hadn't exactly been the most truth-worthy person he'd ever met, had I? I'd told him I was there to rescue him, only instead of rescuing him, now I was just as much a prisoner as he was. I'll tell you what, I was starting to agree with him: As a rescuer, I pretty much sucked.

I was just thinking these pleasant thoughts as the door to the room we were locked in suddenly opened. I blinked as the light from the hallway, which seemed unnaturally bright thanks to my eyes having adjusted to the dimness of our cell, flooded the room. Then a figure in the doorway blocked out the light.

"Well, now." I recognized Jim Henderson's Southern twang. "Ain't that cozy, now, the two of you. Like something out of a picture postcard."

I took my arm away from Seth's shoulders and stood up. With my vision having grown accustomed to the light from the hallway, I was able to see that Henderson looked slightly disconcerted as I did this, on account of him being only an inch or two taller than me.

"Where's Rob?" I demanded.

Henderson looked confused. "Rob? Who's Rob?" Then comprehension dawned. "Oh, you mean Hank? Your friend with the smart mouth? Oh, I'm sorry. He's dead."

My nose was practically level with his. It took everything I had in me not to head-butt the jerk.

"I don't believe you," I said.

"Well, you better start believing me, honey," Henderson said. His eyes, blue as they were, seemed to have trouble focusing, I noticed. He had what I, having been in enough fights with people who have them, call crazy eyes. His gaze was all over the place, sometimes on the boarded-up windows behind me, sometimes on Seth, sometimes on the ceiling, but rarely, rarely where it should have been: on mine.

See? Crazy eyes.

Unfortunately, I knew from experience that there was no predicting what someone with crazy eyes was going to do next. Generally, it was just about the last thing you'd expect.

I'd have taken my chances and reached out and wrapped Jim Henderson's crazy-eyed neck into a headlock if it hadn't been for Red Plaid Jacket standing there in the hallway behind him. Red Plaid had retrieved his rifle, and had it pointed casually at me. This was discouraging, to say the least. I had a bad feeling his aim was probably better than mine.

"You know," Henderson said. "It's not just minorities like the Jews and the blacks who are ruining this country. It's people like you and your boyfriend back there. Traitors to your own race. People like you who are ashamed of the whiteness of your skin, instead of being proud—proud!—to be members of God's chosen race."

"The only time I'm ashamed to be a member of the white race," I said, "is when I'm around freaking lunatics like you."