by Lee French
Liam curled up to avoid getting shot and saw nothing. He went downwards abruptly and slapped to the ground, letting out a grunt as something crunched under him and a sharp pain stabbed into his leg. Something small and furry tapped his face. In agony, he opened his eyes to find himself lying on the concrete with a squirrel trying desperately to wake him. Beyond Jasmine, he saw Paul lying on the ground, unconscious. The gunfire had stopped, so he looked around and caught sight of Chelsea crumpled on the ground, bleeding and gasping for breath. Next to her, Kaitlin got unsteadily to her hands and knees, shaking her head.
He saw Dianna at least thirty feet up in the air. Someone else up there flailed one arm while the other clutched at his neck. Taking in the assault rifle dangling from its strap and military fatigues, he guessed it to be the man who’d been shooting: Riker.
More gunfire made Liam flinch down again, giving him a fresh rush of adrenaline. When nothing hit him, he rolled to see Riker’s men shooting up at Dianna. Propping himself up on one elbow, he saw that his leg stuck out at a funny angle. Seeing it made it hurt, and he groaned, wishing he could heal himself.
Jasmine became human again beside him and pulled on his arm. “You have to help Paul!”She dragged him to the telepath and slapped his hand on the closest part, his knee.
The telepath could have prevented all of this if he’d only been prepared to handle this kind of stress. Now, he lay on concrete, bleeding to death on the inside with a dozen or more cracked bones, including his skull. Liam braced for the pain and still let out a tortured cry when his bones ruptured and repaired themselves.
Someone screamed, masculine and shocked, and then it stopped abruptly. Shouting followed while Paul groaned and Liam lay there in agony from his leg that stubbornly refused to heal. How high up did they get before Dianna threw them back down? It must have been at least twenty feet.
“Bring him here, quick,” Paul called out.
Liam took deep breaths to keep from hyperventilating, knowing what to expect next. Even prepared for it, the intense torture of Riker’s injuries overwhelmed him. Dianna had definitely tried very hard to kill him.v
“What about Dianna?”
“The wind chick? She’s toast,” said Carter, or maybe Platt. They sounded too similar to tell through the pain. “Body’s over there. This winged girl won’t last much longer, either.”
“Chelsea,” Paul said, voice full of anguish.
Jasmine sniffled. “She seemed so nice.”
Liam shut the rest of the chatter out to focus on not letting himself go mad. Sure, he’d healed men in bad shape before. No amount of experience would ever make it pleasant, fun, or easy the next time. “I’ll heal Chelsea,” he grunted as Riker’s injuries faded from his own body.
Someone dropped her hand into his. He found three bullet wounds, one serious enough to kill her. Liam gritted his teeth and healed all of it. With the others, the injuries had been all internal. Hers made holes in him and put blood stains on his shirt. She coughed and sucked in air while Liam gasped and wheezed. He heard the soldiers threatening her, Paul and Jasmine trying to ward them off, and Kaitlin fussing over Riker. No one, it seemed, felt he needed any attention.
The pain of everyone else’s wounds faded, leaving only his own leg tormenting him. He needed someone to give it to. No one here qualified, until he listened to the tone of Chelsea’s voice as she protested her treatment. It grated on his nerves, and he knew there would be no talking sense to her. Having a broken bone would keep her out of trouble. He opened his eyes and grabbed her arm. Her squeal of surprise bothered him as he pushed the bone break onto her. It scared him that he could do this.
“Liam, what are you doing?” Paul gasped.
He let out a sigh of relief. “Experimenting.” To see what would happen and assuage his guilt, he tried to heal her. Nothing happened. “Sorry, Chelsea. You shouldn’t have tried to take Kaitlin.” Thankfully, she wasn’t up to retorting right now. “Tie her up to be on the safe side, and let’s get inside. They’re bound to need help by now.”
Getting to his feet, he averted his eyes from Chelsea, now curled up in a ball and crying over her own broken leg. That left him noticing the heavy stares of his team. He wondered if Bobby felt the same way when people gave him these looks. He’d done something horrible and he knew it, and everyone else knew it, and he knew they knew and judged him for it. Maybe, the next time he saw Bobby, he could cut the guy a break.
Riker sprang into action, pulling a rope out of who knows where and tying Chelsea up. Hegi hurried to the door and pointed his gun at it. A few short, sharp reports announced his method of lock picking. Carter grabbed what remained of the handle and yanked it open. The five soldiers assaulted the entrance, taking gunfire and returning it.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Paul’s mind voice accused him.
“I thought I could take it back and heal it, but I guess I can’t.” He winced at how defensive and petulant that must have sounded. “Can you contact Bobby? We need to know what’s going on.”
Chapter 12
Bobby opened the next door to find Lily and Sebastian as he’d last seen them, sitting with the book again. Sebastian lit up with a broad smile at the sight of Bobby and Jayce. Lily’s face twisted with fear and she grabbed the boy up. Sebastian chirped with surprise and waved cheerfully.
“Bobby!” Sebastian tried and failed to wriggle free of his mother’s grasp. “Mama, it’s Bobby. Want a hug.”
“Lily, what’re you doing?” The expression on her face hurt. She hated him, enough to see Privek as better. “I ain’t gonna hurt you or nothing. We gotta get outta here. No time for this kinda thing.”
“We’re not going anywhere with you.” She said ‘you’ like he was the lowest of the low, something she scraped off her shoe. It hit him in the gut, worse than her slapping him and still being mad, worse than trying to accept there couldn’t be anything between them, worse than just being avoided by her.
“Lily,” he said helplessly, “please. Privek’s gonna do things to Sebastian, you know that.”
“Mama, let go.” Sebastian squirmed in her arms, struggling against her desperate grip. He broke free and ran to Bobby, who bent down and picked him up. He settled the boy on his hip and small arms wrapped around his neck while he snuggled close.
Lily jumped up and screamed at Bobby. “Don’t you dare take him away from me!” A white brick formed in her hand, and she threw it at him.
“What in—” Bobby curled away from it to protect himself and Sebastian from the brick. It hit him in the back, and it hurt. “Lily, what’re you doing?”
She raised her hand and another brick formed. “You can’t take him, he’s not your son!”
He ducked away as she swung for his head. Thank goodness she’d never learned to fight. Setting Sebastian down, he turned to face her. She slammed the brick into his head hard enough to blow it into dragons. They snapped back into place and he grabbed her wrist to make her stop. Shoving his body at her, he pinned her against the wall, brick-holding hand over her head and the other bouncing around and smacking him ineffectually.
“What’s going on, why in heckbiscuits are you hitting me with…bricks…” She had her power and wasn’t sedated. Why did she have her power without being sedated? That made no sense. Privek wouldn’t leave her like that unless he trusted her. He stared stupidly at her face as she screamed and raged. Things clicked into place. Kanik. He messed with heads. He must have made her think they’d protect her from that evil Bobby who wanted to take her boy away.
How was he supposed to break that? Could it be broken? Was she stuck like this forever? No, there had to be a way. “I’m sorry for this, Lily.” He forcefully covered her mouth. “You gotta pipe down, just hear me out.”
She bit him and his hand dispersed into dragons. “Get off me, you perverted freak,” she snarled. “If you take Sebastian, I’ll kill you.”
In a storybook, kissing her would work. Bobby had a feeling she’d bite him
again if he tried that, which wouldn’t solve anything. “Lily, knock it off. I ain’t taking your boy. I just come to see you, right? I know he ain’t my son.” She’d called him a ‘perverted freak’, so maybe it would help if he explained and apologized. “I also know you’re pissed at me on account I done some stupid crap. I didn’t mean to spy on you, I just didn’t think first. And I shoulda left you a note. I never seem to do nothing right, not for you, and I’m sorry.”
While he kept talking, Bobby noticed Jayce slip in and, with a finger to his lips, snatch Sebastian up and out of the room. “I ain’t never tried to take Sebastian before, why d’you think I would now?” He did everything he could think of to get Jayce to understand he wanted Andrew to come in and stop Lily from making any more bricks.
She must have caught Andrew running towards her out of the corner of her eye, because she turned with another shriek and a white glob formed in her hand. Andrew barreled into them both, knocking all three of them to floor in a tangle. Bobby opened his eyes to find himself face to face with Lily.
“What…happened?” She blinked and squinted, then her eyes went wide in horror. “Oh my gosh. I walked right in here, I let them lock us up. And I called Privek on you. Why did I do that?” Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed her face into Bobby’s neck.
Bobby slumped in relief and held her close. “Andrew, go get Lisa. Next room.”
The Creole nodded and scrambled to his feet. They knew now that he could cut off whatever control Kanik had over a person without having to get at Kanik himself. That didn’t really make sense, but Bobby’s own dragons didn’t really make sense, so he had no room to cast that kind of stone.
“It’s okay, Lily. Your head got messed with. Ain’t your fault, ain’t nothing to feel guilty for.” He reveled in the fact that she didn’t pull away or punch him, or hit him with a brick again.
When she did finally pull back from him, he brushed tears from her cheek and tried to guess how this would work out. He never could quite figure out women, not really, especially this particular one. For all he knew, she’d wriggle away and focus on her son. To his surprise, she broke into a smile and kissed him.
Jayce cleared his throat. “Much as it pains me to stop you, we do still need to escape with as many of our people as we can.”
“Yeah.” Bobby lay there on the floor with her, marveling at how something so simple could wipe away everything else. All the doubt and guilt still huddled inside his head, of course. Somehow, the feel of her soft, warm body against his made it matter a lot less. He had a job to do and he’d get it done.
“We’ll talk later,” Lily said. She wriggled away from him.
The way she moved put all kinds of ideas into Bobby’s head, enough so he had to adjust his jeans as he hauled himself to his feet. “Right. Yeah. Okay. Right.”
Jayce grinned. “Do you need a minute?”
“Shut up,” Bobby grumbled. “There’s still a lot to do here, and we got places to go and all. Dragons outside’re telling me they had some trouble, and one of ours is dead. They’re coming in.”
That wiped the smirk off Jayce’s face. He turned without another word, leading them all back to the elevators. Everyone else waited while recovering from the drugs, some more patiently than others. Bobby saw no guards and figured they’d been stuffed, unconscious, behind doors.
Lizzie showed off a ball of fire in her hand, lighting up her pleased grin. Stephen punched the button for the elevator. “Everyone is doing alright now, except Dan and Anita.” Those two both drooped, in need of a nap or a shot of caffeine. Behind him, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
Kaitlin stood there, in front of Jasmine, Liam and Paul. “Howdy, campers. We’re holding the lobby. I see we have a bunch, but not everyone. These two are on our team, no molesting them.”
“You have Maisie and Brian,” Liam said, “Chelsea is out of commission and Dianna is dead. That leaves Kevin, Camellia, and Ray, plus the rest of your people. Kevin can turn invisible, Camellia does a chameleon thing, and Ray can make a protective shield. He’s also good at punching.”
Bobby nodded and thought about the situation. “Everyone get to the lobby and get out. Stephen, Andrew, Jayce, and me are gonna go through this building and get whoever else we can find.” He ignored Lizzie’s pout in favor of glancing back at Lily with Sebastian on her hip. “Don’t bother being quiet. See what you can do to get us all outta here.”
Lily smiled and kissed Bobby on the cheek on her way to the elevator. It warmed him to his toes to know she still wanted to be on his team Somewhere inside, he’d been half worried she’d slap him once she had a minute to think about it. She’d put a dumb grin on his face, and he didn’t care that everyone could see it.
Stephen grabbed the door to the stairwell and hauled it open. Bobby gave Andrew an encouraging pat on the arm and led the way up. The room they’d seen through the portal had to be here someplace, and the upper basement seemed the most likely, making it their first stop.
“I’m gonna—” Bobby stopped on the landing for the next floor when he saw Lizzie step up next to Andrew. She had a hand on her hip and her expression dared him to challenge her. “What’re you doing?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m coming with you, duh. What are you going to do when you find Alice? Run really fast so she doesn’t ice you up?”
“What’re you gonna do when Kanik tries to take over your mind? Burn him up first? ”
“That’s an idea.” She grinned and held up her hand, now engulfed in flames. “Jayce can’t defend against it, either.”
Jayce shrugged. “If he gets me, he can’t blow up the building.”
Pushing the door open, he burst into the swarm as an unexpected volley of darts flew at him. Ice filled the space along with his dragons, catching and encasing more than half of them. Fire roared into life behind him, then Jayce’s metal fist slammed through the rapidly melting sheet of ice, followed by his body.
“I really don’t want to hurt anyone,” Jayce said as he barreled into the group of men in tactical gear. In the time it took the dragons to get through the space now hosting a duel between fire and ice, Jayce knocked two of the shooters down and out. The swarm streaked in and shoved guns around, forcing several to clatter to the floor. Stephen stayed back for the moment, ready to knock Lizzie aside if he needed to. Andrew kept his back to the wall and out of sight.
Jayce clocked a third man with his steel fist, then a fourth with his elbow. “Why can’t we just all be civilized?”
Bobby spotted Alice and went for her. She stood behind the men, peering around a corner to throw ice. They needed to get Alice and Andrew together. Hoping to circle around behind her, the swarm streaked up the hall, away from the fray. By the time he found her from the other side, Alice screamed with wordless frustration. He slipped up behind her and re-formed in the act of grabbing her arms and pinning them behind her back.
“Come on, Alice, why’re you fighting us? Andrew’s cooking ain’t that bad, is it?”
“Dammit, Bobby!” She squirmed and struggled, kicking out and flinging her head back. His head blew into dragons that re-formed again immediately. “Let me go!”
“Lizzie, cover Andrew over to here!” One slow, difficult step at a time, he hauled Alice in that direction. Her body chilled in his arms, and his breath came out in little white puffs. If she kept that up, he’d wind up in the swarm again.
A curtain of fire sprang up, forming a curve around Jayce and the last few men still resisting him. Andrew sprinted around it and crashed into Bobby and Alice, not bothering to try to stop on the now slippery, icy floor. Without Alice affecting it, and with Lizzie’s fire roaring, the temperature shot back up.
“What the…” Alice shook her head to clear it and Bobby let go of her.
“Welcome back,” Bobby said as he relaxed onto the floor. “We’re gonna need your help getting folks outta here. You up for that?”
Panting, Andrew wriggled out of the small heap of bo
dies and sat up on his knees. “I hope the rest are easier.”
Alice sat up and stared stupidly at Lizzie, now by their side and offering her a hand up. “All I wanted to do was freeze everyone except those guys.”
“Yeah, we know.” Lizzie grabbed Alice’s hand and yanked her to her feet. The fire dropped and disappeared, revealing Jayce standing in the midst of ten bodies in black tactical gear. Her eyes flicked from body to body and she licked her lips. “Isn’t he great to watch? All those bulging silver muscles. It’s all over, you know. Everything is metal. Can you just imagine?”
Jayce ignored her and, with Stephen’s help, pulled weapons off the unconscious men. “I hate these darts,” Stephen said with a scowl. He dropped a handful of them on the floor and stomped hard, smashing them. “Like we’re rabid dogs that need to be controlled.”
“Using them against our own may make things easier,” Jayce said with a nod, “but I’m feeling like we shouldn’t actually do it. I know I shot that one girl downstairs with her own dart gun. I just don’t like it.” He unloaded the one in his hands with a smooth motion, popping the loaded dart out and letting it fall to the floor. “Lizzie, can you burn them all up without hurting these guys? ”
Instead of answering, small pops announced her doing it.
“Good deal.” Bobby got to his feet. “Alice, there anyone else on this floor?”
“No, it was cleared out two days ago. Ever since they realized you were loose, they’ve been prepping the building for when you come back. Security was tightened and all nonessential employees were told to stay home. Some of us are here, some went to another facility. Sam’s got the building wired, I’m not sure what all for. They’re using Greg for something, too.”