The silence stretched on for several more uncomfortable seconds as Christopher and Cindy waited for an explanation that clearly wasn't coming. I could feel the heat radiating from Rachel and Elena's faces, and Sydney's grip on my hand had tightened in a way that suggested she was putting together pieces I really didn't want her to assemble yet.
"Look," I said finally, desperate to redirect the conversation away from territory that would only make things more complicated, "the how doesn't really matter right now. What matters is that we're all on the same page, and we need to figure out what we're going to do about that device sitting in our garage."
"Nice deflection," Christopher muttered, but he seemed to recognize that pushing the issue wasn't going to get him anywhere. "Fine. Let's talk about the alien doomsday machine. What exactly did you see when you touched it?"
