Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray

doesn’t help much.
    Tsunami alert , my mind supplies. Or wildfires, or maybe a tornado. That’s what sirens would mean at home.
    But we’re not at home.
    â€œWhat the hell—” Theo starts to say, but then Dad dashes into the living room in his pajamas.
    Instead of asking why Theo’s here after midnight, particularly with both of us this rumpled, my father yells, “Come on! We’ve no time to waste!”
    Mom runs behind him, a plain beige robe knotted over her nightgown. She goes for the desk and slides open a panel on the computer to withdraw the hard drive. “What are you two waiting for?” she says. “Move!”
    I start running after them, Theo only steps behind as we exit the house. Josie’s the last one out of the house, racing past us with a helmet under one arm. “I’m headed to the base!” she yells, racing for a small black car that must be ours. “I love you!”
    â€œWe love you, too!” Dad says, looking back over his shoulder for only an instant.
    By now dozens of people have joined us on the sidewalks, all of them running like hell. Parents hold their small children in their arms, to make better time; one little boy, maybe nine years old, clutches his kitten to his chest. Nobody has changed out of their nightclothes. Nobody has brought any physical object, except Mom and her hard drive. And everyone’s headed in the same direction.
    â€œWhat the hell is going on?” Theo yells, his voice almost lost in the shrieking of the sirens.
    â€œI’m not sure,” I say, “but I think—I think it’s an air raid.”
    â€œ What? ”
    That’s when we hear the buzzing overheard. Thunder thatis not thunder. Fire in the sky illuminates the clouds so that we can see the outlines of airplanes overhead.
    Bombers.
    I realized as soon I saw the gas mask—this is a world at war.

7
    I’M RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN, BUT IT’S NOT FAST ENOUGH.
    Shouts and even screams echo through the streets as we race toward whatever counts as safety. By now hundreds of people have joined the stampede. If I stumbled and fell right now, I’d get trampled to death.
    Worst of all, over the din, I can hear the distant thunder of bombs.
    â€œWhat do we do?” Theo yells.
    â€œFollow Mom and Dad!”
    â€œI mean—do we stay here? Do we leave? What?”
    He’s hoping I’ll say we should leave this universe altogether, leap away and escape the consequences of the bombing. Go home.
    When I’m the reason one of my other selves is in trouble, I feel obligated to stay so they don’t have to face the consequences of my actions. Here, though, this Marguerite wouldbe screwed no matter what. I didn’t endanger her in any way; this is just the reality of her world.
    But if we leave this dimension without completing Wyatt Conley’s work—without retrieving this splinter of Paul’s soul—then Paul is lost to us forever, and Theo might die.
    â€œKeep going!” I shout back to him. “Hang on!”
    If this gets bad enough, I’ll send Theo back to safety, and face whatever comes.
    The sirens scream louder now, sound reverberating from every building until my ears hurt. I’d had a vague impression of this street as derelict, run-down; only now do I realize that these buildings haven’t fallen apart over time. They’ve been bombed.
    â€œCome on!” shouts a man standing at the door of what looks like a warehouse. He wears a bright red armband and a helmet, which I hope means he knows what he’s doing. “We’ve got to seal the doors in four minutes!”
    People press in desperately. Mom tries to reach for me, but the crush pulls us apart. Suddenly I’m wedged in among dozens of strangers in nightclothes, in regular outfits, even a few in their underwear; I’m not even facing forward anymore, being carried along by the tide of bodies around me.