The shadow could protect him. It was his special power, his shield, his protection from death. It could do things he couldn’t. It wanted to protect him. He would die without it, he suddenly knew—a second bomb was going to strike any moment now, and it would be right over him, and if he didn’t let the shadow save him, he would die. Tom could not explain how he knew it, but somehow he did. It was as if his special power allowed him to be just slightly outside time itself, or to know things before they happened.