“We can’t fight the Supers without those bullets,” Willow says, forcibly relaxing her shoulders and using a compellingly calm tone. “Without them, without the same firepower, we’d be wiped out in seconds.”
My own shoulders begin to relax, and the nerves building in my stomach slowly dissipate. Just like they did in the barbershop. That’s her Power. Willow is an Empath. With that sort of Power, she can not only feel what others feel but help them calm down—or inspire others to follow.
Is that what Willow did? Is that how she started The Shield? Did she use her Power to get others to follow her? So why did everyone else trust her except me?
“You mean fight people like Bianca, who’ve been brainwashed by Paragon?” I ask. “We don’t even know what it will do to the Supers. It nearly killed Miller. It could kill them.” How do I fight against an Empath’s grip on others?
Willow’s expression turns cold. “To win this war, that’s a risk we are willing to take.” Her words slam against my chest.
I shake my head. Jimmy has always been a monster, but Terry wasn’t—not completely—and Bianca certainly wasn’t. If there are others, they could be like Bianca. Whether those bullets remove Powers or kill, it doesn’t matter to me. Using them is wrong.
“She might be right,” Jayme says, his shoulder sagging.
“What?” I round on him, then shoot a challenging look at Miller. How can he say nothing right now?
Miller just shrugs. “Maybe.”
I clench my jaw, anger burning in my veins. “Tell them what you’re doing.”
Willow crosses her arms. “What are you talking about?”
“Your Power.”
Willow doesn’t budge.
“Willow isn’t who you think.”
Before I can explain, Sho runs into the room, grabbing the doorframe to keep from losing his balance as he skids to a stop. “They’re—”
Sho’s words are swallowed as a massive blast shakes the ground.
Enid throws a shield around the two of us as she pulls me down. The safehouse explodes around us.
34
I cough and slowly blink, dazed. Ringing in my ears drowns out all other sounds, making me wince. Warm tiles press against my cheek. Where am I? My muscles ache as I push myself more upright and try to see through the haze of smoke and dust swirling around me.
“Enid? Enid!”
My voice is muffled by the ringing, but the sound begins to weaken.
Black boots thump down on the cracked tile, chunks of broken plaster, and splintered wood, landing directly in front of me. Before I can look up, a strong hand pushes me down against the floor. Someone is punched, followed by a braking bone and scream of pain. I dare to peer up as a DMA body sails overhead and crashes through the only remaining wall, rolling across the grass in a heap.
A hand grabs my jacket collar and yanks me to my feet. Surprisingly, I haven’t suffered any serious injuries thanks to Enid’s shield, but the sudden motion still sends agony through my limbs and back.
Bianca drops me on my feet. “You said my parents are alive. Prove it. We need to go now.” She pulls me closer and whispers in my ear, “Play along.”
Erratic panic tangles my ability to think clearly. Enid. My gaze flicks around on the floor to see her just a couple of feet from where I fell, unmoving under the rubble. Fear seizes my chest, and I jerk against Bianca’s grip, but she’s much stronger.
“I have the suspect,” Bianca announces as she pulls me over the rubble toward the street at the front of the house. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
My heart hammers hard against my ribs. She told me to play along, but can I trust her or has she been toying with me this whole time?
“We didn’t come for you.” The familiar hint of disgust in Terry’s voice makes me freeze, all the muscles in my body tense. “You allowed them to capture you.”
“Allowed?” Bianca roughly shoves me to my knees on the pavement in the street and I can feel the scratches through my jeans. “They used some sort of Power on my mind and knocked me out.”
My heart leaps into my throat. What can I believe anymore? Should I play along or is she manipulating me? I survey the rubble of the safehouse. Only the back wall and one corner remain. The rest of the house collapsed in the blast. Some of the rubble begins shifting. Someone survived! I can’t have been the only one. Did Enid’s Power shield anyone else?
A few feet away, Bri scrubs her hands together anxiously and stares at the destruction. Her gaze flits to mine and quickly dips away so her hair blocks her face, but not before I see the shame flushing her cheeks.
Terry grunts at Bianca then marches in front of Bri, his boots thumping on the pavement. Every step makes my breath shorter.
“I did what you asked.” Bri’s voice quivers. “I reactivated her tracking, and you said I would be let go.”
Bri, no! The stab of betrayal plunges deep in my chest.
Bianca snorts and rolls her eyes.
Terry’s teeth bare in a vicious grin. “Did you really think the Directorate would forgive you for siding with the radicals?”
Bri shrieks and jumps at Terry with her nails, scratching his face. Terry stumbles back in alarm. Bri’s voice is hysterical, repeating the same words over and over. “You promised.”
Bianca glances at me, and Jimmy hops out of the DMA shuttle, raises a hand like he’s grasping something invisible.
Bri’s voice chokes off. Her eyes pop. Her feet lift off the ground.
I struggle to try and get my feet under me, but Bianca presses a hand against my shoulder to force me down.
Terry turns his back on Bri and Jimmy, moving toward the rubble to seek out survivors.
Bri’s mouth opens in a silent scream. Blood leaks from her pores and swirls in a cloud around her as her body shrivels then goes limp. Jimmy flicks his wrist aside, and Bri’s body slides across the pavement as the blood bathes the street.
Sickness rises in my stomach. I gag, then fall forward on my hands and knees as dinner comes back up.
Bri reactivated Bianca’s tracker. Why? I blink back tears. Noah. It must have been. Enid sat in that room with her and consoled her, then Bri disappeared. When I fixed Miller, Bri was the only one missing from our group. Did Bri leave to find the DMA and make a deal? But she sided with the same people who killed Noah. It doesn’t make sense.
Booted feet step in front of me, and I look up, wiping my mouth on my jacket. Jimmy looms over me. Fury burns in my veins. Logic slips away. If I thought I hated Forrest before, it was nothing compared to the rage now consuming me. I surge to my feet to charge him but can’t even take a step before intense pressure pushes down on me. I stumble, lose my balance, and fall on my side. Gravel digs into the fabric of my jacket.
“You’ve really become full of yourself in the past few months,” Jimmy says.
I try to push myself to my knees, but a vice-like grip on my head makes it difficult to gather enough strength, and I fall forward again. It’s impossible to catch my breath. I flop on the ground.
Jimmy crouches beside me. “Time to face the facts. You’re too pathetic and weak to survive. You were never meant for this world.”
“That’s enough, Jimmy,” Bianca snaps, pushing her way between us. “They want him alive.”
Jimmy raises himself to his full height and squares off against Bianca. “They didn’t say unharmed.”
All the cells in my body feel like they are ready to be ripped out, and I flip onto my back, gasping for breath. The force of his Power lifts me off the ground, and my feet dangle inches from the pavement.
Jimmy’s arm quivers and the whites of his eyes turn redder and redder as the blood vessels in his eyes thicken.
I can’t speak. My skin turns cold, clammy. Blood trickles from my nose, and my skin feels like thousands of tiny hot needles are pricking it from underneath, trying to break outward.
“I do owe you one debt of gratitude, though,” Jimmy says, flexing a hand. The sensation of h
ot needles intensifies. “Thanks to you, I’m more powerful than just about everyone else in this city. Who knew you could make me stronger?”
Instead of fighting him, I close my eyes. If this is the end, I won’t stare at his face as I die.
“Jimmy, that’s enough!” Bianca shoves him back, but it doesn’t stop him from pulling me apart.
I gasp for breath.
“I said enough!” Bianca punches Jimmy in the jaw so hard something cracks and his eyes water. She leaps at him.
Someone screams my name. Enid…
Through the pain, I’m only vaguely aware of something landing nearby. Another DMA shuttle, maybe full of troopers. The struggle between Bianca and Jimmy has distracted him enough to release the pressure, but I just lie there on the street gasping for breath.
Two of the troopers grab me and drag me toward the shuttle as the blood pumps hot back through my veins. I scratch at their gloved hands but am still too weak from Jimmy’s attack to fight back and escape. I can’t let them catch me. Not yet. Not until I’ve had a chance to show the city the truth.
A body crashes into one of the troopers, breaking his grip on my arm. Chase rolls over the trooper on the ground and rips off his helmet, tossing it at the second trooper, who drops his grip on me to block the blow. Before the helmet strikes, Chase is already throwing punches into the first trooper’s jaw. I grab the second trooper’s ankle and sweep his feet out from under him.
As he falls, a gunshot fires and the second trooper falls to the ground, writhing in pain and seizing as Miller did on the floor of Paragon.
I push myself upright and stare at Willow with wide eyes as she turns the gun on another trooper. No! She’s using the Power-removing bullets. She fires again.
“Willow, stop!” I struggle to rise.
The moment I get my feet under me, Enid calls my name and a loud thump! echoes off the houses along the street. Instinctively, I duck and seek out the source and see Bianca push away from the wall of a DMA shuttle, running toward me. I spin to see Jimmy charging in my direction from the other side.
“Ugene, down!” Willow yells.
I duck, not thinking twice, and Willow fires a shot at Jimmy. It slices his uniform but he doesn’t slow. He throws his Power at Willow, forcing her to the ground. The gun falls from her hands. He grabs my collar and yanks me off my feet and into the DMA shuttle.
A bright light flashes, temporarily blinding me, followed by the stench of burning flesh. Something heavy falls on top of me and I blink hard as my eyes adjust to the dim evening light. Jimmy’s body drapes over my legs with a gaping hole burned through his chest. A wound caused by lightning. Miller…
I yelp and push Jimmy off, scrambling away toward the door, but the door slides shut as the pilot secured in the front cab lifts off the ground.
“No!” I throw myself at the door, but it’s too late, leaving me to peer through the darkened window at the scene below as we lift into the air.
Miller crouches beside Jayme, who’s gripping his broken leg among the safehouse rubble. All of Miller’s focus is on me—or possibly the shuttle. Rosie kneels at Jayme’s other side, healing his wounds.
Terry struggles to hold his own against Bianca and Chase, but they are too strong for him. While his Telepathic Power is clearly slowing them down, it doesn’t help him overpower their superior strength. Chase struggles to stay on his knee as he holds Terry’s leg to pin him down. Bianca throws punches that should have knocked Terry out cold.
One of the troopers grabs Willow in a stranglehold. Willow kicks her legs up and uses the momentum to pull the trooper down and flip him over her shoulder. Then Willow punches the trooper’s neck, leaving the man gasping as Willow turns and swings a leg out to take out another approaching trooper.
Sho and Lily fight back to back, using whatever debris they can get their hands on to fight off attacks. In hand-to-hand combat, their Powers are useless. I try the door handle, hoping to free it and jump out. Enid will catch me with her air to break the fall. I just need to get the door open.
Enid keeps her body low, using debris as cover as she creates small tornadoes of wind that kick up debris and lob the shards and pipes at troopers to hold them back. Her attack punctures one and throws two other troopers into the wall of an adjacent house. Another trooper rises from the backyard, stumbles a step, then rushes Enid.
I bang my fists against the glass, calling out a warning pointlessly, watching helplessly as the trooper stuns her in the back with a dart that materialized out of his bare hand. Enid crumples to the ground in a heap as I scream her name.
A ball of blue lightning the size of a soccer ball flies at the shuttle, and I stumble back, throwing myself into one of the rubber-coated seats and strapping in as I lift my feet off the pressed-metal floor. The entire shuttle flickers with light as the lightning strikes, then it tumbles from the sky. I pull my legs to my chest and wrap my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. My stomach drops out.
The shuttle slams into an apartment building and rolls. We tumble back toward the earth. Momentum yanks me in several directions so hard I can’t control my limbs. Jimmy’s body smashes into a locked cage separating the front of the shuttle from the back. The pilot curses, punching at buttons until his helmet hits the side wall, knocking him unconscious. My own head snaps to the side, sending spikes of needles along my neck and shoulders. Finally, the motion stops. The shuttle comes to a rest on its side, leaving me strapped into the seat, hanging sideways, too stunned to move.
Boots thump on the metal frame above me. Someone growls out a battle cry. Metal screeches against metal as the bolts and pins holding the shuttle door in place bend and scratch against the frame. Bianca rips the door off, tossing it with a roar back toward the street, then she jumps into the shuttle. The second her boots hit the wall, now serving as a floor, she seeks out other troopers before approaching me.
My neck and limbs ache from the crash. Bianca grabs the harness holding me in, snapping it off the seat with a mighty yank. I fall into the side of the shuttle.
Bianca reaches for me. “Are you okay?”
I take her hand, shaking. “I think so.”
Miller’s voice calls from outside the shuttle. “Ugene?”
“He’s okay,” Bianca calls back, then pulls me up. “Let’s get out of here before more reinforcements show up.”
I nod stiffly and hobble toward the open shuttle door above. Bianca jumps up and hauls herself through the opening, then reaches down. I wrap my hand around her wrist, and I can feel the insanely strong muscles coil up just before she hauls me easily through the opening. As I fall back onto the side of the upended shuttle, the ache from the impact in my side reminds me of when Bianca used to haul me onto the self-driving tram before school.
Enid limps over pulling away from Rosie’s healing hands in her haste to get to me. I draw away from Bianca and throw my arms around Enid, gathering her up and holding her close to me. Enid presses her whole body against mine, arms clinging to me and fingers digging into my back.
Bianca’s boots retreat. I turn my full attention on Enid, away from the carnage. Her eyes are a nice distraction.
Blood trickles from a small cut on Enid’s forehead. Her clothes and face are covered in dirt and her hair is a rumpled mess. But she’s alive. Thank god, she’s alive.
“I saw you fall and I…” I slide one hand along her cheek, cradling her face.
“I’m okay.” She kisses my cheek. “Are you hurt?” Enid draws back a little, examining me.
I shake my head. I am hurt, but not seriously.
My attention shifts to the house. None of the DMA troopers remain. For a moment, we can breathe.
The door Bianca ripped off the shuttle struck down three DMA troops when she tossed it aside. Two others are dead from further wounds. The remaining five seem to be unconscious, but Willow makes rounds over each, laying her hands on their heads, presumably to knock them out longer like she did Bianca.
Chase and Bianca dig through the wreckage for survivors, but to my count, only Leo remains unaccounted for. Lily clings to Sho, her arm cradled against her chest. Miller and Jayme survey the situation. Rosie moves slowly from one person to the next, healing wounds. Even from a distance, I can see how badly her body is shaking. The healing is taking too much of a toll on her.
The shuttle crashed into a nearby apartment complex. The residents file out to escape the fire lapping up the side of the building.
I slide my hand into Enid’s and pull her toward the building. “Can you put out the fire?”
“I can try.” Enid raises her hands and sweat beads her forehead as she focuses her energy on the burning building.
As she does this, I climb onto the shuttle, calling the growing crowd to attention. “Please, for your safety move away from the building.”
The residents listen, but they also shuffle closer to me asking questions about what happened and where they can go. They have nowhere else to stay.
“Why did this happen?” one woman asks, holding her shaking child against her chest.
I glance back at the others, still busy with the fallout. Enid has created a wind funnel to pull the flames up and out of the building toward the sky.
“The Directorate sent super soldiers into Pax to attack while we slept,” I say. “They blew up our house, killed at least one of our friends, and injured several more just to protect themselves from the truth we now know.”
“What truth is that?” another resident asks.
“That we are stronger united than divided.” I wave a hand at my friends. “Most of these people want nothing more than the same freedom the Directorate affords itself. Most of us have little to no Power to speak of, but together, we are a real danger to them because we want equality for everyone. Take this night to tell everyone you know, the Protectorate is here, and united we will make the necessary change.”
Bianca rushes to the edge of the shuttle, waving me down.
The hum of more DMA shuttles approaches. Several of them.
“Go, before the DMA comes back,” I tell the residents. “And tell your friends the Protectorate is here.”
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