Nora knew even before she heard Beethoven's Fifth ring out from her cell phone.
Lucas had survived.
An uninhibited grin stretched wide across her cheeks, flushed from battle. "Apollo?"
Lucas panted in his relief, smiling as his sleek Mustang cut through the heavy torrents of rain. "They're done, Art," he said proudly into his tiger-striped Nokia. "They're done. They're never coming back."
Nora felt an electric, ecstatic feeling burst inside of her. She threw back her rain-drenched head in a long, shrill scream to release the energy, drunk off her exertion. There was no need to hold back, Lucas felt it all the same. She beamed so hard it hurt. They had escaped. They were free. They weren't going to be killed.
"We won. We beat 'em," he said, his muscles aching.
Suddenly, a calmer, more serious sensation struck her. She held the cell phone hard against her ear. "You don't think they're following us, do you?"
"No way." He sounded so sure of himself that Nora allowed herself to be comforted. "Not a chance in the world. We trashed them. They don't even know what hit them. They're still combing the front yard for their back molars."
Nora felt apart from time and space. She couldn't believe that she was talking to him. She couldn't believe that they had survived.
Her voice quivered over the line. "For a minute, I thought…" Nora swallowed. "I thought we were-"
"I know you did," Lucas replied in a somber voice. "But we're not. They can't touch us. And even if they could, after what we proved we're capable of they wouldn't even try."
Navigating the road in front of her, Nora searched her brother's thoughts. "They hurt you," she said abruptly.
"It's nothing." Lucas smiled wanly, thankful to have his sister's concern. "Just a few bumps and bruises. Nothing that won't heal overnight."
"I take this exit?" she asked, leaning the car to the left.
"Yeah." During their conversation, his Mustang had easily caught up to the family van. "Yeah, take it." Her left blinker predictably began to flicker, and they shifted in formation onto the exit ramp. "We keep to back roads from here on in, got it?"
"Got it." A long, comfortable silence stretched between the twins. "I'm so glad you're okay."
"Hey. Whoa. The last thing I need is for you to get misty on me, nerd," Lucas ordered in jest. He laughed a little. It hurt his chest. "But, yeah. I'm glad you're okay, too."
Nora smiled. "It was a good plan."
"It was a great plan."
She arched her neck to survey the wooded area surrounding her van. "I think I can remember the way from here. I'm gonna shut off."
"You do that," he said, staring past rows and rows of Suburban houses so much like theirs had once been. They were quiet and secluded, a sanctuary from the dangers out of the outside world.
Now, Lucas knew better. "I'll call you in an hour," he promised.
"Okay, Luke."
He spoke quickly to catch her. "Hey, Art?"
Nora fumbled to secure the phone against her ear. "Yeah?"
Her brother's voice rang with respect. "You and me. We make one hell of a team."
"Yeah, we do." She smiled warmly, as she realized just how truthful the statement. "Always have."
Lucas laughed gently. "Alright, Artemis. Be good." He clicked off the phone and let a solid smile crease across his face. They had done it. Together, they had defeated their enemies.
Taking a pause, Lucas wiped thick beads of sweat off of his forehead and heaved a tired sigh. It was the weary hour of 3 a.m., and they still had two and a half hours of driving before they reached the campsite at Carmel's Pond.
Blinking a set of exhausted eyes, he popped open a can of Red Bull from his bag and chugged down half of its fluorescent green contents. Lucas studied the can against the rain-washed windshield and smirked.
If he ever needed the "wings" promised by the power drink's ad, it was now.
