Freya hadn’t expected this to work, and Randall’s truck seemed as surprised as she was when it sputtered to life. Not far up Elliot Road, she lost traction and almost panicked, but she managed to keep the truck on the road.

She stalled out several times on hills, and she was certain the police would light her up and haul her back to jail, adding grand theft auto and driving without a license to her already lengthy rap sheet. But everyone just saw a sixteen-year-old girl who didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. They honked and smiled.

Room 7 at the Saco Creek Motel was vacant. She looked in and scanned to make sure there was no luggage hidden in the corner, an excuse prepared that they’d given her the wrong key at the front desk. It was the right key. It had been in her pocket when they took her to Long Creek, and she got it back with the rest of her property during discharge.

Freya inhaled when she walked through the door, stupidly expecting to smell him, but it was just sad carpet and distant cigarette smoke.

She stood on the toilet again and removed the tile, terrified the bundle would be gone, but it was just out of reach. She had to balance on the tank of the toilet to reach it, afraid the whole time the toilet would shatter, and she’d fall on the shards.

She reset the tile and escaped with the bundle, then glanced around the parking lot after. No one noticed her. Freya was becoming quite the accomplished criminal. She could add breaking and entering and petty larceny for the theft of the godawful motel towel. She climbed in the truck to leave and stalled out trying to get it in reverse.

Sighing, Freya started Randall’s truck again. As she turned the ignition, the moment thrummed, every detail in perfect focus, her head clear. She felt at the bundle, wondering if the Starball had somehow slipped free, but it was still tied up. There was none of the tampering feeling.

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As she put the truck in gear, she realized it was because she was seeing everything for the last time. Across the street was the spot where Dan had died. She had a vision of gunning the engine and hurtling at the pumps, vaporizing herself in a tremendous fireball. But they wouldn’t really be vaporized. The pumps might not even explode. The Starball had survived atmospheric entry, a little gasoline fire was probably nothing to it. She had other plans.

In the strange, shimmering sati, she drove back to Sillas. The snow that had seemed so endless and tiresome was new and pure. The sun broke through, her hands on the steering wheel Randall had held so many times.

She was at peace for the rest of the drive. It was shaken only when the truck’s bumper hit the chain stretched across the path. Freya felt the ping of the shattering links in her teeth. The springs bounced as she rolled up the snowy path, and she came to a stop at the clearing where this had all begun.

The sun was already setting. The Quadrantids were tonight, but she didn’t think she would hang around to see them. There was ice along the edges of the river. The center was still running, swift and black.

In the passenger seat was the bundle. For all her thoughts of lead sheeting and cement, she had finally decided she was just going to wrap it in duct tape and lock it in the red toolbox behind the truck’s seat. It just had to hold together for a century or so, and then all the people would be gone.

As Freya undid the towel to tape it up, she knew she was lying to herself. There was a reason she hadn’t stopped at a hardware store. A temptation at the back of her mind building with every mile she drove.

It was the part of her that always wanted to finish a book. She wanted to find out, wanted to know. Wanted to know more than she wanted to cease to exist. She told herself she had beaten the Starball once, she could do it again if she didn’t like the explanation. Had it killed Dan? Who had sent it? What was its plan?

She stared at the meteorite. Gadget at Trinity, a little atomic bomb ready to split the world in two. Freya as Pandora, poised to unleash all the evils of the world.

Freya didn’t owe anyone anything. She set down the tape and pulled the top half off the meteorite.

Everything went black.