"Get the stuff!"

"Working on it!" Patrick stuffed food from the pantry into the backpacks while Elena ran for the first aid kit. She dumped a couple of light bulbs, batteries, wires, and her energy detector into her own as well, because they'd still need to be able to measure flux. Sam stood in the middle of the motor home looking panicked.

"Here." Elena put a backpack over his shoulders, careful not to touch him. "Can you climb out of the window?"

He nodded, and Patrick opened the one on the opposite side from the freeway. He peeked out. "Coast is clear. Let's run."

With the window open, Elena could just make out the conversation taking place at the front of the motor home.

"What seems to be the problem, officer?" Michelle's voice asked.

"We have reports of a missing child that places him on this motor home."

"Wow. Well, hey, I don't have any kids, but . . ."

It was difficult to hear all of the words, so Elena focused on the task in front of her. Patrick was the first to jump through the window. It looked to Elena like he landed a little hard on his feet, but he straightened up almost immediately. "Alright, Sam next."

Elena helped Sam climb up onto the sill, and Patrick helped him down. Both of them got shocked, but didn't pull away. Now wasn't the time to balk at small pains.

Elena pulled herself through the window and dropped onto the pavement below. The curtains inside the window fluttered in the wind, but Elena couldn't reach the window to close it.

"We'll have to make a run for it," Patrick whispered.

"Freeze."

A husky male voice. Elena slowly turned to face the officer who held a gun out in front of himself. Her breath stopped.

"Hands above your heads, all three of you!"

She lifted her hands. Sam whimpered beside her.

Another officer followed up behind the one who had stopped them, also holding out a gun. "I've got them," she said. "Be careful with the kid."

The officer in front lowered his gun. "Easy, now." He took a few steps toward them. Elena froze in place. She couldn't have moved if she had wanted to.

A third police officer came in from behind, leading Michelle her handcuffs. "These the kids you don't know?"

Michelle kept a casual expression—Elena would never know how. "What are you going to do, shoot them?"

Sam let out another whimper and broke into a run.

The police officer holding the gun shoved it into her waist band and ran after Sam. Patrick followed close behind.

Michelle sprung into action. She whirled around, jamming her elbow into the gut of the officer who had been leading her. He grunted and sprung forward, whipping out his baton and raising it.

"Michelle!" Elena cried too late. Michelle turned to fight back at just the wrong moment—the baton struck her in the side of the head. She dropped.

Elena ran to Michelle while Patrick ran toward Sam. She put a hand to Michelle's neck. A weak pulse. She was alive, but out cold, and Elena couldn't imagine she'd last long without medical attention. Blood spilled from her nose.

Strong arms lifted Elena to her feet, but she whirled around. She swung her first, but the officer blocked the punch. He raised a baton and cracked it down on her back.

The breath whooshed out of her lungs, and she stumbled forward onto her knees. The pain came a second later—spreading down her back and through her limbs, crippling, excruciating. Fight it! she told herself. Don't give in now!

But even as she did, the police officer forced her hands behind her back, and cold metal pressed into her wrists.

The pressure from the handcuffs released before they could be clicked into place. Elena forced herself onto her feet—Patrick had kicked away the officer.

Elena breathed into thank him, but Sam came rushing up to them too soon. "Guys, I'm going to pull the manomalies in."

Elena squinted at first, then she gasped. "You can't—"

The officer Patrick had kicked down rose to his feet, and Elena began to run. Patrick was close behind her.

"Elena, we have to stop him!"

"We can't. Now run!"

Men and women's shouts, and Sam's tiny cries, faded against the slapping of Elena's shoes against the ground and the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

A loud cry sounded from the direction they'd just left, then died out altogether.

Elena stopped midstride and almost stumbled forward. Panting, Patrick came to a stop and walked back to where Elena was.

"What happened?" Patrick whispered.

Elena's limbs went numb. "Sam? Sam?"

"Oh no." Patrick broke into a run, and Elena followed as fast as her dead legs would allow.

The three officers who had been fighting them before, plus two others, laid unconscious on the ground. Michelle laid a little distance away, still bleeding.

"Give it a couple of minutes," Elena managed to choke out. "The static needs to dissipate a little. The electrocution could stop your heart."

Patrick grimaced and reached into his backpack. He pulled out a water bottle. "I used to prank my little siblings by shuffling on the carpet and then shocking them. This is how my mom punished me, but it also got rid of the static."

He uncapped the bottle and splashed the cold water all over Sam's body. Little snap!s accompanied the first few drops, but the rest simply drenched him.

Sam pulled his breath in and rolled over, groaning. Elena stepped forward and picked him up, shivering as the cold water on his clothes soaked her as well, then she turned to Patrick. "Okay, now you get Michelle."

He shook his head. "Elena, I can't carry her far. We're going to have to take turns with Sam as it is."

"We can't just leave her!"

"She's going to be okay."

"She's bleeding, she got hit in the head—"

"And someone will be here to give her medical attention. Any minute."

Elena stared at the scene around her for a long moment. She knew Patrick was right, as much as it pained her to admit it even to herself. Cold water had been enough to rouse Sam, if only a little. The other officers would wake up any minute. If they hadn't already called for backup, someone would notice the scene of destruction any minute and call in more police to the area. They had to get out as fast as they could.

Hot tears spilled down Elena's cheeks. "Okay," she said. "Let's run."

Any other day, she might not have had the strength to run with an seventy-pound child on her back. Today she barely felt him. Her ankle should have protested as her stitches bulged. She could be sore in the morning. Right now, her body was numb.

Patrick believed Michelle was going to be fine. By all logic, he should have been right. So why couldn't she believe it?

She had always thought she was the logical one, but everything with Sam had thrown her into question. It seemed the worst things came to them. What were they going to do without Michelle? Elena and Patrick had barely been able to stop arguing for a long enough time to make any decisions. She wasn't going to be able to give Sam the medical attention he needed; she could barely do first aid!

Patrick and Elena, you've got to solve this, Michelle had said. It's the only thing that's going to get me out of prison.

Sam's anomalies had pushed back outwards again. Even when they were a long distance away from the fallen bodies, and Elena passed him off to Patrick, the small electric shock that passed between them barely hurt.