Absolved (Altered series)

by Marnee Blake

  Luke completely understood. His own broken arm throbbed. He tried not to think about it.

  The hallway was a dead end. Neither of them wanted to be stuck with no exit. But that meant that Parker’s men didn’t have an escape route, either. That could work in their favor.

  “I don’t know.” He checked the radio, making sure it was off, using the moment to think. There had to be something. “Bring down the roof? The ceiling above them?”

  “We’re in the basement. I doubt unsettling the structure is a good idea.”

  Luke sighed, repositioning his shoulder to alleviate pressure on his aching arm. Kenny was right. They’d do no one any good buried under concrete. “There are three of them. You take the two guys on the left, I’ll go through the one on the right. I’m going to try to get a shot off at the mechanism, then.” Even if they couldn’t incapacitate all of the guards, they could destroy the mechanism. It was the best they could do.

  As he met Kenny’s eyes, understanding passed between them. This plan meant they probably weren’t getting out of here. He recognized the resignation in his friend as well. After a long moment, Kenny nodded.

  This was it, their last stand. They were going to die here, in the dark, in this hallway. He’d expected it to feel more dramatic, full of meaning. The only thing filling him now was emptiness, the nagging suspicion that he’d left too much unsaid, and a general anticlimactic acceptance.

  Not how he expected to go, but maybe this was the best he could ask for.

  He pulled his gun from his pocket and turned off the safety, stretching his neck from side to side. “Let’s go…”

  Stop.

  As quickly as he’d prepared himself to dive into the mechanical room, he was paralyzed for a brief moment and then let go.

  Beth. His relief was intense, a warm wave over him. Every word he’d wanted to say to her sprang to mind, every regret. Was she okay? Was she safe?

  He turned, and his night vision goggles captured the gritty shape of her. As she skirted around him, he noticed the machine floating behind her. Two guards flanked her, wielding automatic weapons.

  “Can you all go and secure the men in the other room? I need to get to the Solvimine mechanism.” Her voice shook, probably from the effort it took to hold the soldiers. He didn’t wait. Around the corner, three men stood frozen. He, Kenny, and the two guards walked right up to them and removed their weapons. He dug out his paracord and used it to tie two of them together. “Beth. Are they telekinetic?”

  “Two of them.” Her words were tight, strained with effort.

  He didn’t know which ones were which, so he ripped a strip from the bottom of his shirt and used it as blindfolds. Beside him, Kenny did the same.

  When the guards were restrained, Beth released them. They responded with outrage, groaning and arguing. As fast as they complained, though, they were silent. Luke guessed Beth was responsible for that, too.

  She ducked into the mechanical room, the machinery she brought with her settling on the ground beside her. “They’ve already released Solvimine.”

  The words sent an icy chill down his spine. This was disastrous. All those senators…

  “Don’t worry. They’re going to be fine.” She didn’t even look up as she said it. Removing portions from the Solvimine mechanism, she replaced them with new parts. Then, she connected the machine she brought with the one that was here.

  Pieces moved, valves opened, and she did it all with her powers. He’d never seen her so focused, but he did recognize the determined set of her jaw. Finally, she rocked back on her heels, wiping her forehead. In front of her, the whole contraption wheezed and hissed.

  She’d done it all in the dark, without night vision goggles. She must have used one of their eyes to see. Or all of their eyes. It was so impressive that he wasn’t even sure where to start. “What’s going on?”

  “That”—she pointed to a canister now attached to the Solvimine dispenser—“is the antidote to the part of the drug that opens neurological pathways. Solvimine causes the brain’s neural plasticity to work in overdrive. This will have the opposite effect. It should put all of the senators into a stupor while they wait out the effects.”

  “Jesus.” She was a genius.

  “Yes. That’s what I’ve been telling you.” The old Beth would have said it teasingly, but now there was only resignation in her voice. It mocked him, reminded him that he’d been too afraid to focus on anything but his own vendetta. That he hadn’t been able to put his faith in her.

  “Beth…” He had no idea where to start. He’d fucked up. After the last hour of fear, of thinking this might be the end of the line for him, he wondered if it had all been worth losing her this completely. It hadn’t. He was already sure.

  “Parker and Jack are upstairs with the senators.” She cut into his regrets, closing him out. Standing, she wiped her hands on her jeans. “My counteractive will cause them to pass out. When they do, Parker will know something went wrong. Who knows what he’ll do then. We need to hurry.”

  She didn’t want to hear whatever he was going to say. He’d lost his chance with her. It was nothing he didn’t expect, but it gripped his chest like a vice, squeezing him.

  As the rest of them filed out, he snagged her arm. The night-vision enhanced vision of her didn’t do her justice, and it didn’t hide the pain on her face. He didn’t know if anything could.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he had.

  “I know.”

  Turning away, she left him staring at the tinny view of her, leaving the mechanical room, hurrying after Kenny and the guards.

  Leaving him behind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The closer Beth and her group got to the hall outside the Senate Chamber, the louder it became. The sounds of battle sliced through the air, shouts and scream, crashes, and even a bang loud enough to be an explosion. Sharp pops of gunfire punctuated the chaos. In response, Luke, Kenny, Rodgers, and Ahearn drew their weapons, too.

  The only bright point was that a generator had been brought into the corridor outside the Chamber, and there were lights. She could see normally. Downside? That only highlighted the destruction.

  The rest of their friends had taken up a defensive position against the southern wall, outside the chamber. She looked for Kitty. If anyone could do something to convince a room full of fighters to change their minds, it was her. Yet, when Beth reached out for her, she found only Nick and his worry and fear.

  Kitty was down.

  The noises around her faded. Her vision clouded, and the now-familiar panic attack threatened to consume her. It was up to her to do something to stop this.

  Guns needed to go. They increased the destruction and disorder. She reached out to Parker’s fighters. Throw your guns to the military. Throw your guns to the military.

  One by one, rifles, pistols, and every type of weapon in between flew through the air. They landed in a heap at Seth’s feet.

  All of it had to be removed from the room, before someone here figured out a way to circumvent her. She reached out to Seth. Take all weapons to Martins. Take the guns to Martins.

  As Seth disappeared, his arms weighed down by guns, she sighed with relief. One less threat.

  From there, she told all of the fighters to stop. After that, it was a short time before she had them tied up and indisposed.

  When they were neutralized, she hurried to where Blue, Kenny, and Luke stood watching as Nick hunched over Kitty. As she bled from her thigh, he attempted to apply a tourniquet through his cloud of panic and terror. Seth hadn’t returned yet, but he would. Nothing would keep him from this.

  The entire group looked ragged—all of them bleeding, with black and blue marks everywhere. Luke favored his arm, Kenny his leg. Blue was pale, obviously losing a lot of blood from a gash on her shoulder.

  This needed to end, fast. They couldn’t sustain much more damage.

  “We need to get this over with.
You take that entrance,” she told Blue and Kenny. “And Luke and I will go in this way. We’ll rely on surprise.”

  They all nodded. Again, she listened as each wondered in their own way if this might be their end. Their minds wandered. The two couples gazed at each other, doing their best to memorize their faces. Luke’s mind hazed with remorse, and she closed her eyes, unable to carry it with her own fear.

  She sent out her wishes to them, her friends, just in case. I’m honored to know you all.

  “Go,” she said before she stood and threw open the doors to the Senate Chamber.

  The floor was covered in bodies. Martins had told her that some of the senators had escaped before Parker gained control, but there were still at least thirty people here. While so much news was made of how split the government was, the legislators that remained had huddled together in the back of the room, behind the crescent of chairs. Some had fallen where they’d been holding each other. Others had curled in on themselves, but their hands rested on feet, on arms, on whatever parts of their colleagues they could reach.

  Having been through the change herself, she remembered the isolation. She’d ached and writhed through the pain. But she’d been able to hear the others around her, and she’d wanted to reach them. Knowing they were near—knowing she wasn’t alone—had made it tolerable. That had been the gift of her telepathy.

  Hopefully, none of these senators had gotten far enough in their change to find out if they could read minds.

  They weren’t actively writhing, though, as they would in the grips of Solvimine. Instead, they were in stupors.

  Relief pulsed through her, tinged with triumph. I did it.

  “Mr. Kincaid.” At the front of the room, Parker Sinclair leaned against the podium. Beneath him, Jack stood with his feet wide and his arms crossed. There were ten armed guards spaced through the room, and four of them were telekinetic. “And Dr. Jenkins, I presume.”

  So he’d let them in here. She should have guessed. The door had been unlocked.

  “You have devised a way to stop the drug.” His tone was level, but his fury vibrated from him.

  “I have.” He had her same skills, but as she got closer, she couldn’t hide her surprise. He looked older than she expected, frailer. They’d told her he was in his fifties, that he had taught at a remote college before leaving civilization behind. He’d grown paranoid of crowds, of outsiders.

  But he didn’t look frightening. A short man with a receding hairline and a ruddy complexion, he was even on the pudgy side, lending him a bit of a snuggly, harmless look.

  Her assessment upset him. She smiled. How typical. All his power, yet he was worried about his hairline and waistline.

  “You are a bothersome child.” His frustration had grown. The guards lifted their rifles and pointed them at her. “You and your little team are completely outnumbered. You can’t believe you can win this.”

  “If you plan to change the senators, you’ve lost today.”

  I haven’t lost.

  She narrowed her eyes. Maybe she should be more afraid. All day, she’d functioned in a near-constant state of panic. Here, under the watchful eyes of the guards with the guns, she could only manage irritation. “You should come quietly, Mr. Sinclair. You have many skills, but you can’t evaporate or fly. You’re not going to get out of here a free man.”

  You don’t know anything.

  His thoughts refocused on the senators on the ground. He evaluated his options. If these elected officials weren’t also gifted, they wouldn’t understand his plight. Right now, their kind—everyone who was changed—was forced to either run and hide or be kept under the watchful eye of the government.

  He didn’t want to be trapped under the government’s thumb. Freedom, that’s what he craved. He didn’t wish to conform, to be told what to do or what to think.

  “You don’t want to be told what to do, yet you force others to do as they’re told. You’re a hypocrite.” She glanced at Jack, who wasn’t meeting her eyes. His mind was blank. She recognized the tactic, remaining purposefully unfocused. It was a skill that required talent, to defy telepathic attempts.

  She wondered if Sinclair realized he did it.

  Sinclair scowled at Jack before returning his eyes to her. “There will be other chances.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Not if I can help it. I can adjust my antidote. I’m smart, smarter than you. I’ve already done this, and I’ll stand to defy you again and again. She smiled to punctuate her thoughts.

  She may be right. If she is smart enough to make changes to the drug, she is smart enough to be useful to me. His eyes narrowed, and he folded his hands behind his back. “Miss Jenkins…”

  “Dr. Jenkins.”

  He lifted his brows. “Doctor. Perhaps we don’t understand one another…”

  “Do not attempt to tell me of things I don’t understand.” Her voice was clipped, betraying her anger. “I can hear your thoughts. I can hear that you’re going to try to convince me that what I know to be true is false. But I have eyes. This is wrong. I will work against you at every step.” I will stop you. You have lost.

  So be it. “Then…” He lifted his hand. As he did, the rifles of all of the guards also rose. “If you aren’t going to help, you are harmful to our cause.”

  Staring him down, she sensed how he tried to block his intentions, but though telekinesis hadn’t come easy for her, this skill did.

  Won’t attempt to use telepathy. She will resist, and I will be distracted. She’s weak with her other power. That is my advantage.

  The gunshots filled the air, a nearly simultaneous boom.

  …

  As Beth faced off against a semi-circle of armed guards, Luke’s heart jumped into his throat. She was going to be killed. Absolutely not.

  He needed to protect her.

  They weren’t paying attention to him. He’d used that to his advantage. With a desperate mental flick, he forced the gun muzzles into the air as they all went off simultaneously. Beth dove to the side, falling behind one of the senators’ desks.

  He used the moment of confusion to throw Parker forward, off the elevation at the front of the room.

  The older man didn’t fall gracefully, hitting the ground hard on his left shoulder. By the time he righted himself, his guards were running from the room.

  Beth’s work. They stopped, though, suddenly, as if regretting their decision—or like Parker had put them on pause.

  From his position behind a column, Luke watched Parker stumble forward, clutching his shoulder, glaring at the guards. They all seemed to struggle, caught between Parker’s wishes and Beth’s. From her perch behind the desks, Beth stood, her shoulders firming, glaring Parker down.

  Everyone still had guns. The battle would be decided by which telepath lost control first, but Luke wanted to dull the potential damage. He searched the room, desperate to find something that would help tip the scales in Beth’s favor. Only then did he realize that Kenny had fallen.

  Rushing forward, he skidded to his knees beside his friend. Blood trickled from a gunshot wound on Kenny’s side. “Shit. Kenny.”

  Kenny cringed; his blood-stained hand clutched the wound. “Fuck, that hurts.” He glanced around, bringing a couple of the desks to shield himself. “It’ll wait. Right now, we need to get these people out of here.”

  Luke had been so worried about Beth, he hadn’t even considered moving the senators. Kenny was right. Beth would want him to save the hostages. Blue sat across the room, rubbing her forehead, as if trying to shake off a head trauma. They were all so broken. He yelled to her, motioning at the elected officials, “Can you help?”

  She stumbled to her feet, nodding.

  The three of them quickly shifted two or three of the senators at a time out into the hallway. They kept them low to the ground, out of sight of Beth and Parker in the front of the room, trying not to draw attention, hoping that Parker was too distracted to realize what they were doing.

 
Kenny and Luke would pass the unconscious senators to the doorway, and Blue would get them around the corner. At least they were safe there, for now.

  Meanwhile, Beth and Parker remained in a deadlock, struggling for control over the guards in the room. Blood trickled from both of their noses, signaling how intense the fight really was. With the senators gone, Luke tried to figure out what he could do to help. A couple of the guards were unconscious. He had no guess as to how much damage their brains had taken, having two telepaths tear at them.

  Right now, Parker appeared too busy to notice him and his friends. But the moment he did, they’d be frozen—or worse, potential weapons. He couldn’t let that happen. Glancing to where Kenny and Blue hunched in the back of the room, obviously hurt, he decided quickly. He yelled to them, motioning them outside after the senators. They were too bruised and battered to fight him. The fewer telekinetics here, the better. He slammed the door closed.

  He needed to think of something, anything, to help Beth.

  If Parker got the upper hand, Beth would die. He refused to abandon her. Never again.

  He did what he could to tell Beth he believed in her. The words were long overdue. If something happened, he needed her to know.

  Beth trembled with the exertion of fighting with Parker. One slip, one wrong move, and Parker would have all of those guns pointed at her.

  In desperation, Luke picked up one of the senator’s antique desks and threw it at Parker. It paused in midair, careening back at him. He dodged it in time.

  If he’d tried to draw Parker’s attention, he’d succeeded.

  He was frozen, then free, and then frozen again, like a radio station going in and out of frequency.

  Distracted by Beth, Parker couldn’t keep hold of him. That had to be a good sign.

  “Jack. Dispose of Mr. Kincaid.” Parker’s voice was strained.

  Apparently, he didn’t intend to deal with Luke himself.

  Across the room, Jack didn’t move. He had remained still since they entered the room. Standing against a desk, his arms crossed over his chest, he was all college-boy good looks.