Somehow, she rolls our bodies midair so she takes most of the impact. Still, my ears ring and my whole body pulses with pain. Dust clogs my throat, and I cough, pushing off her, scrambling to my feet. Each cough feels like a punch in the ribs. Her hand clamps down on my arm, and through the stench of mildew, the familiar scent of citrus shampoo mingles with musky body odor.
My chest seizes. “Bianca…”
24
My pulse is racing. Bianca can probably feel it pumping against her firm grip. I squint into the fading darkness, and the coppery color of her eyes almost seems to glow. The only hints of light come from the window covered by musty curtains. But she’s so close to me that I can just see her features. The shape of her face and slope of her nose.
Bianca is alive? But I held her in my arms as she died! My gut churns in a torrent of confused emotions. The ache in my ribs becomes more acute as my chest tightens.
“Don’t resist,” she says. Her voice chases away any doubt.
It’s actually her.
“You are in DMA custody. If you resist—”
“Bianca, it’s me.”
“—I will be required to use force.”
The darkness. She can’t see me. “Stop. It’s me… It’s Ugene!”
Bianca doesn’t relent her grip on my arm. “Put your hands behind your back,” she says as if she hadn’t even heard my words. “Resisting is pointless.”
What is wrong with her? I do as she says, if for no other reason than to buy a few seconds to collect my thoughts. Bianca is alive. How? Sometimes I can still feel her blood coating my hands and arms, making my shirt stick to my chest.
Bianca waits patiently as I turn slowly, moving my free arm behind me. She holds tight to my other arm but allows me enough freedom to move it. The way Bianca acts reminds me of someone, and it takes a second in my flustered state to recall his name.
Derrek—the Strongarm test subject from Paragon. He wasn’t in control of himself in that final fight in the Paragon lobby, just as we escaped. Could they be doing the same to Bianca?
Maybe I can snap her out of it.
As she nudges me forward, my words pour out. “Bianca, it’s Ugene. We grew up together. I lived right across the street. We were friends. We played in the rain and built mud castles. Your brother, Forrest, broke your arm and blamed it on me.”
Bianca’s boots stop scuffing the ground behind me, and I risk turning around. She faces me statue-still, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking or feeling. Still, I hold my breath and pray that something I said reached her.
I take a bold step closer. “At Paragon, you fought beside me, helped all of us escape. They shot you and I carried your body. Just before you died, you told me to go and kissed me. God, please, remember me. Remember something.”
The two of us linger in front of the window, and the light is just bright enough here to see her more clearly. Her lips are compressed and forehead pinched. Her shoulders draw tight and her muscles tense. Bianca struggles with something. I struck a cord!
I shudder, and pain throbs at my ribs, forcing me to take shallow breaths. Clutching at my side, I reach an unsteady hand toward her.
Bianca’s hand shoots out and snatches my wrist, twisting it away from my body. I cry out as the sudden movement makes my ribs burn and my shoulder pulses. Every breath is like another punch in the ribs.
“Don’t touch me,” she says, and I notice for the first time that her voice sounds vacant.
“What did they do to you?”
A thump against the outside wall makes her jump into action. Bianca twists my arm around behind my back and places me between her and the window like a shield. I try to move out of the way, but she’s so much stronger. Resisting only makes the pain worse.
My pulse drums in my ears as I struggle to hear what’s going on outside. Who is out there? Bianca isn’t the only person trying to capture me. Is this her DMA backup? Did Sho and the others reach Willow?
Silence settles over us. Her warm breath rolls across my neck as we wait, unmoving. After a minute, her body never relaxes, but Bianca loosens her grip on my arm enough for me to pull away from her and the window. Something else caught her attention.
Then everything happens at once.
Glass shatters. A musclebound body barrels through the window into Bianca. I’m shoved back by the force of the collision and stumble into a corner, knocking the air from my lungs. The two tumble across the floor.
A scream tries to escape as burning agony in my chest makes it hard to breathe, but no sound comes out. Gasping for short breaths, I lean against the wall and collect the strength to help her.
Bianca and the other Somatic throw punches at each other, each one sounding as vicious as a car wreck as it connects. In a flash of light from the window, I recognize Chase’s bald head as he winds up then launches an uppercut into Bianca’s jaw, his thick arms rippling with muscles. She flies into the opposite wall, cracking the plaster and leaving a Bianca-sized indentation. But she doesn’t slow. Bianca pushes off the wall like the blow was nothing, launching her body with incredible speed and force into Chase. They slam into the outer wall of the room and break through the brick exterior, tumbling out of sight into the alley.
It takes everything I can muster to suck in air, but I manage to get up and follow them. Should I try and intervene? If Bianca wins, I could end up back in Paragon. But I can’t stand by and allow someone to hurt her again. What do I do?
Gingerly, I step through the hole in the wall, wincing at the searing agony in my chest, puffing out short breaths. The fall must have broken at least one of my ribs. Rosie and Lily rush to my side the moment I step through.
“Ugene!” Rosie calls.
“My ribs…I broke my…” I lean against the wall, yearning to step into the fight even knowing I’ll be no good to either help Bianca or shut down Chase.
“Don’t move,” Rosie says, pulling up my t-shirt.
I don’t protest but can’t help jumping as Bianca picks up Chase and throws him into the brick wall, embedding him in the stonework.
Rosie’s Healing Hands are less than pleasant, like she’s actually grabbing my ribs and popping them back into place. Every muscle in my body seizes. I clamp down my jaw and growl a guttural scream.
When she finishes, Rosie stabs a finger in my face. “Don’t you dare leave us behind again.”
Before I can respond, Noah bursts into the alleyway, shoulder-checking Bianca off Chase and sending her flying sideways. I push away from the wall, but Bianca tucks and rolls as she hits the ground.
Noah yanks Chase out of the wall. Chase stumbles, stunned. In the growing light of early dawn, the damage Bianca did to Chase is obvious. One arm hangs limply at his side. Blood seeps from several wounds on his arms as well as through the fabric of his shirt. His face swells around one eye. He falls sideways into Noah, who grabs his arm and rights him. This isn’t Bianca. She wouldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this.
By the time Chase and Noah are steady, Bianca has vaulted back to her feet and launches at both men. While her black DMA uniform is torn in places, she doesn’t show any signs of injury. And Christ is she ripped! The muscles in her arms are far more defined. Her skin-tight pants show off the chiseled shape of her legs. This isn’t Bianca. It’s like a Super Bianca.
Rosie grabs my arm, pulling me toward the mouth of the alley. “Let’s go before the rest of the DMA finds us.”
I can’t leave Bianca. Not again. She may not be the same person at the moment, but I have to believe the girl I know is still in there somewhere. What will happen to her if we leave her behind?
Bianca takes down both Noah and Chase—one with each arm.
Willow charges into the alley. Chase grabs one of Bianca’s arms and Noah grabs the other. What are they doing to her?
Rosie’s healing did its work, and cool morning air burns in my lungs as I rush toward the three of them.
“Stop!” I call out.
“Get Ugene out o
f here!” Willow snaps. She jumps and lands on Bianca’s back with cat-like grace, grabbing Bianca’s head.
Rosie gives my arm a more urgent tug toward the mouth of the alley. Lily pushes on my back.
“I can’t.” I pull away from Rosie, repeating with more fire, “I can’t leave her again.”
I rush toward them as Willow focuses on Bianca, who struggles more feebly each second. Bianca’s body slumps. I skid to a stop, chest heaving with anxious breaths. “What did you do to her?”
“Her?” Willow jumps off. “Look at these two! She did that. All on her own.”
Noah sits up and touches the back of his head. His hand comes away with blood.
“We gotta…” Chase wheezes, squeezing his one good eye shut and clutching his chest with his good hand. “Gotta go.”
Willow nods in agreement. “But you won’t get far without healing.”
Rosie is already rushing to their sides, tending to Chase first. Rosie’s hands shake, and her skin seems paler, but her Healing Hands do their job on Chase.
Noah waves her off. “I’m good for now. We need to move.”
“We can’t leave her here,” I say.
Willow’s brows shoot up her forehead as she helps Chase to his feet. “Why not?”
Because I already left her behind once. “You obviously can subdue her, and we might be able to get information from her. Bianca has value to our cause.”
“She’s one of them,” Willow says. “They travel in squads, and hers will come after her soon. And I guarantee they can track her. She can’t come with us. It will put all of The Shield at risk.”
The echoes of tactical units calling out orders to each other emanate from inside the building. The DMA will be here in moments. I left her once before. I can’t do it again.
Willow is right. I know it, but compassion overrides logic and I clench my hands into fists. “There has to be a chance she is still in there somewhere. I won’t leave her in their hands.”
The rest of our group enters the mouth of the alley, and my friends freeze, staring at Bianca’s prone form. Jayme grumbles something, then moves to the hole in the wall and uses his Power to close the gap and buy us time. His face is scary pale, and his eyes are bloodshot. Enid freezes in place, looking from me to Bianca, and back again, trying to sort out what’s going on and how this is possible. Then she turns on her heel and leaves the alley.
“She helped save us at Paragon,” I plead, looking from one of my friends to the next. “This is our chance to save her.”
Leo shifts, glancing at Sho. Rosie chews her lip, staring at Willow with a sense of admiration that makes me uncomfortable. Bri’s forehead wrinkles as she enters the alley. For a second I think she’s moving to help me, but she walks up to the brick wall instead. Even Noah won’t meet my gaze. Miller slumps and pulls his hood tighter around his face. They would leave her.
“Jayme, what would you do if they wanted you to leave Miller behind?” I say in a rush. If anyone can understand, it has to be him.
Jayme glances from Miller to me to Bianca’s prone form. He scrubs a hand over his exhausted face and heaves out a sigh.
“He’s right. She might be useful to us.”
“Get us to a safe place and I can disable her tracking,” Bri says, placing her hand against the brick wall of the building the DMA now searches.
Willow scowls at Jayme. “We don’t have time for this. Chase, get her. We will sort this out once we put distance between us and the DMA.”
Bri turns to face Willow from beside the brick wall of the building. “I scrambled their signal, but it won’t last for too long. We have about a minute to get away.”
Chase grumbles and hauls Bianca over his shoulder.
Jayme and Willow lead the group out of the alleyway. Enid waits petulantly with her back against the wall. The second she sees me walking beside Chase, with Bianca in tow, Enid joins Jayme at the front of the group as Willow falls to the back.
The sun begins to rise, breaking over the houses and apartment buildings. Throngs of people begin filling the streets, hustling along with their heads down as they rush off to work. DMA troopers are stationed at each corner, but we melt into the crowd of people, spacing out just enough to still see each other without appearing to all walk together. Chase shifts Bianca and he and Noah share the weight so it looks like she’s walking with us.
A DMA trooper stationed along the side of the street watches the crowd. We keep our heads down like everyone else. I pray she doesn’t notice us. When she steps off the curb, my breath catches.
“You!” The trooper approaches Enid near the front.
I tense, ready spring into action.
But the trooper grabs a young man three feet from Enid and pulls him out of the crowd. Simultaneously, I feel terrible and relieved.
Most of my attention sticks on Bianca, minus the few glances I make toward Enid. Where before she’d clung tightly to my side, now she is about as far from me as she could be. She’s upset, and rightfully so, but she will understand. Enid is smart and reasonable. I can convince her this is the best course of action…right after I convince Willow.
We don’t stay in the open for too long. Jayme leads us to another alley three blocks away. Just as Willow slips into the alley at the rear of the group, a shuttle hums to life, speeding down the road. Did they catch sight of us?
The jack-booted march of DMA troopers thumps along the street. They won’t stop looking now that they know I’m here.
“Citizens,” a male voice announces from a megaphone somewhere in the street. “A group of rebels walks your streets. Report any sightings of unusual activities to the tented stations posted at the corners. Your safety is our priority.”
That can’t be good.
The announcement repeats on a loop as Jayme stops at the back door to one of the buildings along the alley. Everyone else presses against the wall.
“We have to get off the streets,” she says just loudly enough for all of us to hear. “Then we can find a safehouse to wait for extraction. Our mission is shot.” While her comment sounds like an assessment of the situation, the way Willow glares at me makes it clear she is far from pleased.
I risked the mission for the information Dad left behind, and to help Bianca, but I’m convinced that this will play out in our favor. How, I don’t yet know. But it will. It has to.
Jayme opens the backdoor, and he and Sho enter to make sure the space is clear. Every second of delay could be a potential chance for the DMA to track Bianca’s location. We all wait in the alley for their return, listening to the announcement repeat. I pray no one spots us hiding in the alley. Would these people turn us in to the DMA?
Jayme and Sho announce that the building is clear and we all slip inside.
I have either given us a deadly weapon or doomed us all.
25
The narrow shop we currently occupy is maybe twenty feet wide at most. We entered through a backroom containing empty metal shelves, mistaking a tiny bathroom for a closet. I follow Chase into the front of the shop, turning sideways to slip past Willow when she tries to cut me off in the doorway.
“Ugene.” Willow grabs my arm. “She endangers us every second we stay with her.”
I stop and turn to her, though I give her no indication she can change my mind. “She sacrificed herself for the rest of us. The least we can do is try to save her this time.” I flick my gaze between her grasping hand and her eyes.
Willow drops her grip, though I know I haven’t heard the end of it.
The front of the shop has a few old barber chairs and mirrors covered in years of dust and grime. The stations are bare of haircutting tools, though wrappings and empty food cans litter the floor. Shutters cover the windows with a few of the slats broken. This place closed shop a long time ago, and people have used it to squat in. The dust in the air makes someone sneeze as we kick it up.
Chase thumps Bianca down in the middle of the floor and glares down at her.
Leo and Bri kneel beside Bianca and start seeking out the tracking device.
I hover nearby. Bianca is alive. The memory of her dead weight in my arms grows into a fresh, painful wound.
But she was alive.
The whole time.
The Paragon crew crowds around Bianca.
“How is she here?” Rosie whispers, as if Bianca will hear.
“She died, right?” Sho says, matching Rosie’s hushed tones. “I mean, that’s what Ugene and Enid said.”
Enid. She is the only one missing from among my friends.
I scan the barbershop and find her sitting on one of the chairs in the back corner of the room staring into the dirty mirror with her back to the rest of us. I can’t see her face clearly. I was ready to give up on Bianca, to move on. Where does this leave us? Not that there is an us for either Bianca and me or Enid and me.
Bianca stirs, waking up, and Willow hustles to Bianca’s head. In seconds, she has worked her Power again. What is her power? Bianca returns to a state of unconsciousness. Back at Paragon, Trina knocked out Forrest with her Hematology Powers, and it took a toll on Forrest, exhausted him. Is Willow doing the same?
I step forward. “What are you doing to her?”
“Relax, she’ll be fine,” Willow says. “Which is more than I can say for the rest of us.”
The looped announcement continues outside. “…Your safety is our priority.”
I just wanted the information Dad left behind. I didn’t mean for all of this. I never could have anticipated the DMA showing up so quickly, or Terry or Bianca working for them. And I’m well aware that I have put our group at risk, but Bri said she could disable the tracking.
I swallow the lump swelling in my throat.
“Bri, Leo, have you found anything?” Willow asks.
“Almost,” they say in unison.
Sho and Lily are perched at the edge of a window together watching the street through shutters.
“Lily,” I say, hoping for a distraction. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned your Power.”
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