The shattering glass from the floor above acted like an executioner’s axe, splitting the world in two. One moment, they froze in the crushing despair of their discovery. Next, a jolt of pure, panicked adrenaline coursed through them.

  “Get back!” Damon shouted, shoving Frankie and Dee Dee behind him, his body instinctively shifting into a protective stance. Ted grabbed a heavy iron pipe from the floor, his knuckles white.

  They stared up at the dark second-story catwalk from which the sound had come. Silence. The howling wind outside and the frantic, ragged sound of their own breathing filled the void.

  Had they imagined it?

  No. A shower of tiny glass slivers, glittering like evil confetti in the dim light, rained down on the concrete floor.

  They were not alone.

  Then, a figure dropped from the catwalk above, landing on the factory floor with a silent, unnatural grace that defied gravity. Not Jax. Another one of the Jetty Crew, a lanky kid named Sketch, known for his bad tattoos and vacant expression. But his expression was not vacant anymore. His eyes glowed with a faint, predatory light, and a hungry, feral grin stretched across his pale face.

  A scout. A probe sent to test their defenses.

  He lunged at Damon, his hands curled into claws. But Damon was ready. And Frankie, her fear momentarily eclipsed by the hunter’s instinct that now hummed in her blood, was faster.

  Fists. A sickening thud. A grunt of pain. Damon’s shout. The creature’s hiss, like a snake. The coppery smell of blood in the air. Frankie moved without thinking, a blur, her body reacting, intercepting, twisting. It was over before it began. Before they could finish it, the creature scrambled back into the shadows and up the wall, disappearing back into the darkness whence it came.

  Silence descended again, heavier and more menacing than before.

  They had won the skirmish. But they had lost everything else.

  “He knows we’re here,” Frankie whispered, the reality of it a cold stone in her stomach. “The cannery isn’t safe anymore. It was never safe.”

  Their fortress. Their sanctuary. Compromised. Exposed.

  The ticking clock of the lunar eclipse—less than forty-eight hours away—was a frantic, pounding drum in their heads. They could not stay here.

  “We have to go,” Ted said, his voice shaking. “We need to go home. Grab supplies. Figure out a new plan.”

  A terrible idea. Splitting up was the last thing they should do. But staying together in this compromised tomb was a death sentence. They had no choice.

  “Okay,” Frankie agreed, her mind racing. “We go. But we stay in touch. Constant contact. No one is alone for more than a minute. Agreed?”

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  They all nodded, their faces grim masks in the dim light.

  They gathered their things—the journal, the maps, their pathetic, makeshift weapons. The walk out of the cannery and into the raging storm felt like walking out of a frying pan and into a fire. The wind tore at them; the rain plastering their hair to their faces. The night was a chaotic whirlwind of darkness and noise.

  They made it to Ted’s car, the old station wagon a fragile, metal shell in the middle of the tempest. One by one, they piled in. The plan was simple: drop everyone at their homes, lock the doors, and get on a group call to plan their desperate, last-ditch plan.

  Damon was first. His house was the closest. He got out of the car, promising to call the second he was inside.

  Then Ted’s house. He grabbed his bag, gave Frankie a look of grim resolve, and disappeared into his home.

  Finally, it was just Frankie and Dee Dee. They drove the last few blocks to Dee Dee’s small, brightly painted house in silence, the squeak of the windshield wipers a frantic, rhythmic counterpoint to the storm.

  “Be safe, Frankie,” Dee Dee said as she got out, clutching her backpack, which held Henry Rivera’s precious journal. “Call me the second you’re home.”

  “You too,” Frankie said, watching as her friend ran through the rain and disappeared inside.

  Frankie’s own house was only a few blocks away. As she drove, her phone buzzed. Damon. I’m in. But something’s weird. A car just pulled up outside. Looks like Jax.

  Frankie’s blood ran cold. Stay inside. Lock the doors. Don’t engage, she texted back, her fingers clumsy with fear.

  Another buzz. Ted. Home safe. Locking everything.

  Then her phone rang. Dee Dee’s face flashed on the screen. A wave of relief washed over Frankie. She was home. She was safe.

  She answered, putting the phone on speaker. “Dee Dee? Are you in? Are you okay?”

  No answer. Just a strange, static-filled silence. And then… a sound. A low, rhythmic creaking. Like the timbers of an old ship.

  “Dee Dee?” Frankie repeated, a knot of pure dread tightening in her gut.

  Then, a voice came through the speaker.

  Not Dee Dee’s voice.

  A voice, ancient, and cold, and crackling with a power that seemed to suck all the warmth from the car. The voice from her nightmares. The voice of Captain Blackmane.

  “She is quite safe,” the voice rasped, a sound like coral grinding against bone. “For now.”

  Frankie’s hands clenched on the steering wheel, her knuckles white. She could not breathe.

  “What do you want?” she choked out, her voice a thin, reedy whisper.

  “What I have always wanted, child,” the voice on the phone purred, a sound of pure, triumphant evil. “The key. You.”

  Frankie heard a muffled cry in the background. Dee Dee.

  “You have orchestrated a clever brief diversion at the home of the Rudd boy,” Blackmane continued, his voice dripping with condescending amusement. “A noisy, brutish affair to keep your little friends occupied. It is… admirable. But I have been playing this game for much, much longer than you.”

  A diversion. The attack at Damon’s house was the decoy. All to get Dee Dee. To get the journal. To get to her.

  They had fallen into his trap perfectly.

  “The ultimatum is simple,” Blackmane’s voice crackled, cold and non-negotiable. “Your life, and your blood, in exchange for the life of your friend. Come to my ship. Alone. Before the shadow of the earth consumed the moon.”

  The line went dead.

  A single choked sob escaped her lips, a sound of pure shattered despair. Frankie had led her best friend to the slaughter.