“Come on,” called Bledsoe. “We haven’t got all night.”
Winston still couldn’t see the man yet, but, of course, Bledsoe no longer had to worry about line of sight. He could be anywhere, keeping one eye on Winston around the clock. Winston cringed, heart hammering in his chest, then forced himself to keep ascending the hill.
A moment later, Winston found Bledsoe and his mother standing in the compass circle. Their heads came into view as he approached, then their bodies. Both faced him, but Bledsoe had learned his lesson in the blimp hangar. The gun in his right hand aimed steadily at Winston while his left hand clamped onto Amanda’s collarbone. Bledsoe kept her positioned to block most of his body. The geoviewer dangled near the crook of his left elbow.
Winston noticed that both of them appeared relatively dry, although Amanda’s cheeks were streaked with tears. They hadn’t been out here long. Bledsoe’s car must be parked out of sight somewhere.
“I love the idea of this hilltop compass,” Bledsoe said with an almost jovial bounce in his voice. “And the view! It’s like some message from the universe saying, ‘You can go anywhere from here.’”
Winston approached more cautiously. He knew what the man’s touch could do.
“Mom?” he asked as he approached the line of rose shrubs that lined the stone wall. Their pink blossoms and sweet aroma seemed out of place under a heavy night sky roiling with shadows. When he reached the end of the roses, he gingerly sat on the wall and swung his legs over to enter the circle, always with his eyes on Bledsoe, his next jump spot at the ready.
Winston meant to convey a lot with his one-word question. Mom, can you talk? Are you hurt? Why did you let yourself get captured?
“I’m fine, honey.”
She didn’t sound fine. She sounded shaky and hopeless.
“Look at the three of us,” said Bledsoe. “We have so much in common. I practically feel like we’re family.”
“Yeah,” said Winston. “You’re the skeezy, predatory uncle I never wanted.”
Bledsoe sighed with exaggerated patience. “And kids like you are why I never wanted children.”
From behind Bledsoe, he heard a sudden scuffling that seemed to originate from the water tower. Winston heard a sharp slapping sound followed by Shade crying out in pain.
“And like that one,” added Bledsoe.
Lynch and Shade appeared from behind the tower. Lynch, still with his left arm in a sling, hauled Shade along by the back of his collar. Shade cupped one cheek with his hand. When he met Winston’s glance, Shade scowled and said, “It wasn’t fair. He was hiding in the pump house.”
Lynch grunted with satisfaction.
“I can’t believe he slapped me,” muttered Shade. “My sisters can do better than that.”
Lynch didn’t miss a beat. He pulled Shade off-balance, spun him around, and landed a punch right in his solar plexus. The air gushed out of Shade, and he crumpled onto the grass just outside the compass circle. He fell on his side, both arms hugged around his middle, unable to make a sound or breathe.
Winston raised Little e and aimed it at Lynch. In that moment, he forgot about Bledsoe. He didn’t know if Little e could hold the Alpha Machine and control energy bursts at the same time, but he was willing to find out.
Suddenly, his tinnitus flared in his left ear louder than he’d ever heard, and two words burst above the intense ringing:
Winston, don’t!
It was his mother’s voice — in his head. Even before he could begin to question how that was possible, the tinnitus subsided to its usual level. He met his mother’s wide-eyed stare. Her mouth remained closed, but the fear and ferocity in her expression left no doubt that he wasn’t imagining this.
Winston, trust me.
He lowered Little e and shook his head slightly.
Mom? he thought to her. Can you hear me?
It had to be a function of the QVs. How had he possibly never known this about her? For that matter, how had she known about it if she’d never communicated with him?
Yes. Be patient. Wait for the right moment.
“Good choice,” called Lynch as he knelt beside Shade, grabbed one of his arms, and set it across his knee. “Point that thing at either of us, and I’ll make sure your friend never suits up for a game again.”
Bledsoe sucked in air through his teeth, eyes shifting everywhere. “See? Now, it’s getting interesting. Oh — here’s something you probably don’t know yet.” He leaned in closer to Amanda’s ear and lowered his voice. “Your mom and I made a deal.”
Mo-ommm? Winston thought with more urgency.
Wait, Winston. Trust me.
“What deal?” asked Winston.
Bledsoe smiled. His lips moved against Amanda’s hair. “Your mom comes with me, wherever I want to go, and you and your friend get to go free. Forever.”
Winston narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”
Bledsoe shrugged. “Well, and you hand over the Alpha Machine, of course. But that’s it.”
“My mom would never agree to that,” said Winston. “I sure don’t. What’s your plan B?”
“Plan B?” Bledsoe began to laugh. “Plan B? Oh, son. You need to be more careful what you ask for.”
Bledsoe’s hand scooted a couple of inches up Amanda’s neck, far enough that Winston could see a couple of his fingertips on her bare skin.
Wait, Winston. Just—
Amanda’s body went rigid, back arching, mouth opening in agony as Bledsoe poured energy into her.
“Welcome to Plan B!” yelled Bledsoe.
Winston felt terror and rage roar through him like a flash flood. However, these feelings pressed against something else inside him, an icy calm that had not been there a moment before. That calm kept the rage in check, kept his hands at his side. His mind went into overdrive as time slowed to a crawl.
A gurgling escaped from Amanda as she stood on her tiptoes, hands trembling uncontrollably. Sparks flew from where Bledsoe touched her.
She might only have seconds to live. That was fine. Winston could work with seconds. Because somehow, in some way that would come to him in the next instant, he was going to kill this man, even if it meant losing the whole world.
Then something changed. Amanda closed her jaws, screaming through gritted teeth, but somehow she had taken back control of her body. In turn, Bledsoe’s eyes grew very wide. His mouth opened, and Winston saw blue arcs form between his lips. A guttural cry grew in his throat.
Amanda’s body twisted in his grip. Although her hands remained bound before her, she made a grab for Bledsoe’s gun. Amanda couldn’t quite reach it, but she did seize his wrist just below his handgun and redirected it into the air, away from her son.
Winston stood paralyzed with awe and terror. He had no clue his mother could do such things. He’d always assumed she was like Theo, that the QVs had barely touched her. Apparently not.
She and Bledsoe now fought to the death. Blue sparks danced where their skin connected. They gasped to breathe, eyes locked on one another. The metal in the butt of Bledsoe’s gun began to glow a dull red, and he screamed in agony.
***
Bledsoe felt as if his body were being flame broiled from the inside out. His muscles all but refused to obey him, and his vision darkened as his limbs trembled. Despite that, the torment seemed to focus his mind, as if every unnecessary thought and perception had been burned away. He felt explosive rage that this woman, the love of his life who had so viciously rejected him, now compounded his torment by physically using their shared power against him.
No one had ever been so cruel to him. No one had dared.
Even as his muscles betrayed him and his knees began to buckle, Bledsoe felt his senses heighten. From behind, he heard a quiet thrashing in the grass, followed by a small squeal of pain and Lynch growling “stay down.” The scent of late roses and rain-soaked grass, normally sweet and pleasant, felt overly sharp and cloying in his nose. From above and to the south, he heard the low
, rhythmic thumping of a distant helicopter. The expression of stunned, immobile surprise on Winston’s face would have been laughable at any other time. All Bledsoe cared about was that he stood there, paralyzed, and didn’t interfere.
The part of him occupied with pain realized that the skin on his right wrist was sizzling. Blue light spilled out from his flesh around Amanda’s hands, just as her neck now glowed fiercely under his fingers. Bledsoe realized that his right fingers weren’t only burning with the sense of raw energy flaying his nerves. His gun was also quickly becoming unbearably hot in his palm. The metal of his gun butt began to shift from black to a dark red. The weapon would soon literally melt in his hand.
The energy that passed between him and Amanda crackled and snapped. The air itself felt like millions of steel pins jamming into him, and yet he could still feel the softness of her skin under his fingers.
That skin would never be his to touch, at least not in this timeline.
He had hoped all along. His ultimate victory was so obvious, and if she could have loved him once, it was foolish not to try again. Yet she denied and sneered and mocked and fought against him. Like now. This moment represented every injustice she and Claude had ever heaped upon him, and knowing that brought a new clarity to Bledsoe’s mind.
He watched as Amanda realized that he was sinking. His eyes were almost level with hers. Soon, he would fall to his knees. Her expression had gone from total fear to a budding sense of victory. She had held on to all of her reserves, presumably for years, waiting for this one moment to unleash everything and strike him down. She wanted to heat his gun until the bullets within it exploded like a grenade. He had seen the aftermath of a loaded gun thrown into a fire, and he knew neither of them would survive it. No doubt, that was her intention.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He was the Theta Factor, right? The unknown variable. Time to act like it.
Bledsoe pulled back some of his energy output. She would take it as a sign of his weakening. For sure, he couldn’t last much longer like this. But where QV-granted power might fail, he could still fall back on good old-fashioned force.
He couldn’t control his limbs well, but he could stop resisting the urge to double over from the cramping and agony. Bledsoe threw himself into the impulse, and the top of his forehead smashed down into Amanda’s face just above the bridge of her nose. Her head rocked back as blood gushed from her nostrils. Bledsoe felt the rush of her energy into him suddenly slacken to a trickle.
She managed not to release his gun hand. The burning there was a phenomenal spike of misery ramming into his mind, but he held it at bay, even as a primal shout burst from his throat. He released Amanda’s neck, drew back his left fist, and slammed it into the side of her head.
Her grip went slack, and the last of her energy attack vanished as her head and body lurched to the right. Still, her fingers remained on his wrist, proof that she refused to stop defying him. Her eyes met his, and there was still resistance in them.
Careful not to let the Alpha Machine piece fly from his left arm, Bledsoe hit her again. The crack of impact rang around the hilltop as her lips split and left a trail of blood across Bledsoe’s knuckles.
Amanda’s body spun around toward Winston, and she collapsed onto the flagstone compass rose. Bledsoe took one step forward and pressed his gun to the back of her motionless head. He tried to squeeze the trigger, but his burned fingers wouldn’t obey.
Fine. His other hand would have to do.
Bledsoe reached up and wrapped his left fingers over his right.
***
Sixty interminable seconds ago, Winston had been at least slightly confident of his plan: wait for Bledsoe to be distracted, placejump right beside him, grab the geoviewer off his arm, and knock the surprised Bledsoe aside just enough to jump away with his mom. Clearly, none of that was going to happen. Discovering that his mom shared his QV powers only compounded his disorientation and shock.
When Bledsoe head butted Amanda, though, Winston snapped out of his reverie. He admired strong women, and his already-high opinion of his mom had multiplied several times since discovering her unbelievable history. When she fought through Bledsoe’s torture and began frying him like a chicken leg, his heart had leapt with pride.
Now, the intensity of his love transformed into an all-encompassing hatred for Bledsoe. Every plan in his head vanished like fog before a gale. The city lights, the water and radio towers, even Shade pinned to the ground under Lynch’s bulk, all ceased to exist in his vision. He only saw Bledsoe’s tight knuckles smeared with his mother’s blood and the strangely slow swing of his gun toward her head.
Perhaps the flash of Winston’s disappearance distracted him, because when Winston reappeared behind him, Bledsoe was bringing his left hand up to his right. His hands met around the gun, but by then Winston was already swinging. If Bledsoe wanted to go back to old-school fight rules, Winston could do that, too.
He smashed Little e into the back of Bledsoe’s skull. It was a testament to the alien device’s engineering that the three Alpha Machine pieces still spinning within its arms remained in place rather than scattering across the hilltop.
Bledsoe collapsed to one knee.
“That’s for hurting my mom!” Winston cried. He drew back his arm. “And this is—”
Winston had hoped that Bledsoe would be knocked unconscious, because that’s what was supposed to happen. The man should at least have been stunned. Then Winston could have swooped down and grabbed the geoviewer from his arm.
Instead, with far more speed and agility than Winston would have thought possible, Bledsoe twisted and pushed off from his planted foot. His right hand, still clenched around his gun, whipped up and caught Winston on the side of his jaw.
For a moment, the world went black. Winston knew he was moving, but he couldn’t tell where or how. Slowly, his senses reconnected. He was still on his feet, stumbling backward. His arm was pulled up protectively around his face. Lights moved in the distance. The world was supposed to have a distinct up and down, but Winston couldn’t tell which was which. His feet tangled, and he crumpled onto his back.
More movement filled his vision. A face. Bledsoe. On top of him, teeth bared, eyes black in huge white fields.
Bledsoe swung his gun at Winston’s head again, and Winston barely had the coordination to block the strike. Gunmetal bit into his forearm with incredible force and pain. Winston cried out, sure that his bones had broken.
If Bledsoe had moved to strike again, he surely could have beaten Winston’s face into ground meat. Instead, Winston saw Bledsoe lunge for his right hand — for the Alpha Machine.
Fingers clawed along his arm. Nails scraped his wrist as Bledsoe tried to get his hand inside Little e.
“No!” Winston cried as he tried to scoot out and away. “You can’t!”
The hand fled from Winston’s wrist, and Bledsoe’s elbow landed in nearly the same place the gun had struck him. Winston’s head rocked to the side and stars erupted everywhere.
He felt Bledsoe move on top of him, leaning out for the Alpha Machine, the man’s weight crushing his ribs.
And then the weight vanished.
***
Bledsoe’s desire to kill the boy nearly outweighed his craving for the Alpha Machine. He couldn’t get the thing off the kid’s hand while he kept squirming.
He thought about putting his forearm into Winston’s throat and choking him, but he didn’t have the two or three minutes that could take. He might be able to shoot him, but that required two hands, and he didn’t want to give the boy a chance to fight back.
Bledsoe rocketed his right elbow into Winston’s face. His elbow protested with sudden pain, but he suspected the boy had the worse end of the deal. He could tell from the emptiness in Winston’s eyes that if he wasn’t knocked out, he was really close.
Bledsoe launched himself toward the Alpha Machine again.
Leave the tube thing. Don’t need it. Get the pieces.
Fingers closed around Bledsoe’s throat.
He glanced down in surprise. Not the boy. Winston was struggling just to blink his eyes.
The hands lifted Bledsoe up and back, dragging him.
The grip wasn’t crushing, so it couldn’t be Lynch. Amanda, then.
Bledsoe tried to draw breath and couldn’t. That was bad.
He tried to get his feet under himself as his assailant continued to drag him away from Winston.
The hands dug into Bledsoe’s windpipe, searching for an even deeper hold. As he fought the grip, the pressure lessened but managed not to let go. Bledsoe still couldn’t breathe. What few reserves of adrenaline were left to him shot into his bloodstream.
Bledsoe stopped trying to stand and instead let his feet trail out in front of him. Then he jackknifed his body, folding at the waist, and kicked a foot up and over his head. His instep collided with something hard.
The grip lessened enough for Bledsoe to turn within the fingers before they clamped down anew. By the time his air supply closed off again, Bledsoe was on his knees and staring into the face of his attacker.
It wasn’t Amanda.
At first, he didn’t recognize the person in the dark. It was some wrinkled old man, lips peeled back, blood beginning to trickle from one gray eyebrow. Wispy ashen hair fluttered about his face, stirred by the breeze.
Bledsoe could have ended it right then. The thought occurred to him: Raise gun. Point at face. Pull trigger.
But he had to know who this man — this bold, insane, surprisingly strong, ancient man — was and why he had come here.
Bledsoe tried to put the pieces together. Who would Winston have trusted? Height, build, jawline, eyes…
Winston Chase and the Theta Factor Page 31