THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

his hand and said in a calm, logical voice, “Computers aren’t computers, flowers aren’t flowers so why should a cryin’ kid be a cryin’ kid?”
    He had a point.
    Gabby paid no attention to him, her voice turning to steel. “I don’t have an answer for you and that still sounds like a child. It could be hurt. Who’s to say someone else isn’t here if we are and I’d think you’d be interested in checking it out if that child arrived here in a pod as well.”
    The gears started turning in Tony’s head. “You’re absolutely right, sweet cakes. We can’t risk that bein’ a child left alone in this place. Let’s get humpin’.”
    Surprise at his quick shift in attitude showed in Gabby’s face. “Uh, okay.” 
    I almost wished she hadn’t handed him such a convincing argument for checking out the noise. Tony perked up the minute he realized the arrival of another person might open the path to go home, which meant he’d go charging forward without thinking about the dangers.
    Tony looked right and left, anxious to move out. “Which way, sweet cakes? That kid’s our GPS to the pod area.” 
    Gabby turned toward the sound of the child’s voice. “This way.”
    “Wait.” I grabbed her arm, feeling sudden determination rigid in her muscles. “It could be a trap.”
    In the moment that I touched her, I caught a buzz under her skin and saw a visual of Gabby as a young child, alone, crying. Who’d left her to fend for herself?
    And how had I seen that?
    “Or it could be just a child,” she said emphatically, shaking off my hand. “We haven’t found water or a way back. If there’s a child here then there may be other people here. Regardless, are you willing to gamble a child’s life and leave a vulnerable kid exposed to this place?”
    Something inside me shouted, “No,” that I’d defended younger ones before, but I had no idea when or where. Nothing felt right in this place, but if I was perfectly honest with myself, nothing had felt right since opening my eyes this morning.
    “What’s it going to be, Rayen?” Gabby asked, fidgeting to get going.
    Tony added, “Like you said, we can’t split up.”
    More than that, Tony had just admitted that he trusted my judgment. Something not to be taken lightly. Not if we were going to make it out of this alive.
    Were they right to trust me?
    I didn’t have a reason to stop them from going to the child other than sensing that sounds had been used as bait for traps at some point in my life. On the other hand, I couldn’t honestly live with the thought of ignoring a child in need. “We’ll go, but if it is a child let’s not race straight to it without a plan.”
    “Agreed,” Gabby said and Tony nodded.
    I didn’t like the thought of walking back toward the clearing where the sound was coming from, not with my gut still screaming the metal pod area wasn’t a safe place to be, even if it was our only connection to the school. But I raised a hand, indicating to Gabby to lead the way with Tony following and me taking up the rear.
    Not an ideal setup for defense, but I felt better suited for this terrain than those two and could keep an eye on both of them this way.
    The hike back to the clearing seemed to take a lot less time as the cry grew louder, though decreasing in intensity as if the child, or whatever, was winding down from full pitch bawling to a pathetic whimper.
    I noted purple light again through a break in the trees. But this time, the green stripes were back. The way the sky had looked when we’d fallen out of the pod. Call me superstitious, but I had an uncomfortable feeling about that sky.
    I jogged past Tony, calling to Gabby. “Wait up.”
    “What now?” she asked in a snappish tone. I looked at her more closely. Maybe I’d heard exhaustion.
    “We agreed to scope this out before walking up to the noise,” I pointed out.
    A child in distress clearly bothered Gabby on some internal level, but she nodded a reluctant agreement. “As long as...if it’s a child we’re going to help it and not just make a dash for the pod, right? If there is a pod.”
    I nodded. “If it is a child, and alone, we’ll take care of it.”
    “We doin’ this today?”  Tony stood with his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans, waiting. Sweat beaded down the side of his face, streaking through patches of dirt. He might have been a self-centered jerk at the school, but he’d been working with us better since the flower attack and I