The aircraft swerves and makes contact with the wall of the building, snapping off the tail rotor. It plummets towards the street, and the officers below dive for cover. Flipping upside down as it reaches the ground, the rotating blades hack several squad cars to pieces and dice human flesh as it crash-lands with a powerful eruption.
Goto seizes the opportunity and rushes towards the window, standing behind Dia for cover.
“Hold your fire!” the voice commands from below, instructing the snipers to stand down.
With intense concentration Goto reaches out towards the roof across the street, rotating his fingers in the air. The four snipers drop their rifles, screaming in agony. They claw at their skulls and fall to their knees, crippled by the searing pain.
Emerging from the wreckage below, Cole tears his way out of the twisted metal, exploding into a blind rage. He swings wildly and strikes one officer after another. His fists collide with his targets like wrecking balls, sending their broken bodies spiraling through the air.
A number of police open fire, perforating him with lead from every conceivable angle. Cole continues to attack, but his body can’t heal as fast as the bullets enter his torso.
In an attempt to offer assistance Goto retrieves his handgun and shoots several rounds into the crowd below, and a number of officers return fire. He’s forced to step back from the window and reload from behind the safety of the brick wall as bullets lodge into the ceiling. “There are too many of them,” he shouts, slapping a new cartridge into the bottom of his gun. “I don’t know what else we can do.”
Cole rips a street light from the sidewalk, swinging the giant metal post like an oversized baseball bat. It collides with a number of his attackers, sending their remains into the side of the building with a revolting crack. His blitz is halted by a series of tranquilizer darts, embedding into his back and shoulders. He drops to a knee as the officers reload, preparing to fire another volley.
“We need to help him,” Dia shouts frantically. “Cole doesn’t have much left.”
Holding the side of his head, Brodie stumbles into the kitchen and retrieves his metal briefcase, rapidly typing the security code into the keypad. He reaches in and extracts five syringes filled with his powerful Plan B serum, injecting one dose after another into his forearm.
“Stop it Brodie, you’re going to overdose!” Dia’s screams are muffled by the gunfire below, but regardless, her appeal is too late.
Fresh blood is already trickling from his nose, and Brodie’s eyes are once again smoking, flaring with a red-hot energy. He runs to the window and gently shoves Dia aside, concentrating on the ground below. His tightly clenched fists catch fire as he begins to scream, and the entire building shakes.
Cole, more than thirty police officers and dozens of vehicles elevate from the street, along with lamp posts, a mailbox, and a number of trees that are torn out by their roots. They float upward with increasing speed until they’re hovering above the roof of the apartment.
With his power depleted, Brodie releases his hold and sends everything into a dizzying free-fall.
Bodies and steel crash to the ground from over seventy feet in the air; the impact is so powerful that it causes a small earthquake.
Brodie teeters and nearly falls forward, but Goto pulls him back from the ledge before he loses his balance. His flaming hands extinguish as he collapses into Goto’s arms.
Dia races back to the window, transfixed by the catastrophic scope of the damage. She scans the wreckage for any sign of Cole, but can’t locate his body.
She’s ready to accept the inevitable when a sign of movement catches her eye.
Clawing his way out from beneath a pile of flaming metal, Cole crawls from the debris and staggers to his feet. Most of his injuries have healed but he’s moving slowly, and he’s noticeably weakened. Through the smoke that’s pouring from numerous car fires he doesn’t notice the vehicles approaching: tanks. Enormous six-wheeled riot control tanks with turrets mounted on their roofs barrel down the narrow street, scraping parked cars as they relentlessly plow towards him.
“Cole,” Goto screams from the window. “Incoming!” He fires several rounds from his handgun in an attempt to slow the tanks, but the bullets ricochet harmlessly off the reinforced steel doors and bulletproof windows.
He contemplates running for cover, but Cole glances at his forearm and notices the gauntlet that Brodie designed is somehow still intact. It took a few rounds on the casing during the firefight, but it vibrates with electricity when he presses his thumb against the monitor.
He wipes the blood from the screen and taps in his security code; within seconds he’s injected with Plan B, and he feels a surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins. He doesn’t need a trigger to manifest anymore, but the serum gives him a renewed sense of energy.
Cole heaves the remains of a nearby police car over his head and launches it at one of the tanks. The turret rotates and fires an explosive shell into the incoming vehicle, blasting it from mid-air.
A second shell rockets towards Cole and he leaps to avoid it – twenty feet straight up. The explosive round detonates into a pile of wreckage before Cole lands safely on the street, cracking it beneath his weight. He looks down at the fractured pavement and takes notice of the damage, stretching down the road towards the oncoming tanks like a disjointed spider web.
He leaps again, as high as he can, and stomps down with incredible force. The ground shakes beneath him and the shockwaves rattle the windows of the building.
A third stomp results in a thunderclap as he drives his feet downward, causing a fissure to stretch down the block. The gaping hole widens and swallows the tanks into the earth, along with the remains of the helicopter and several overturned cars.
Barely conscious, Brodie pulls himself along the floor and peers out the window at the devastation. “Cole threw salt on my game again, didn’t he?”
“I’m not entirely sure what that means,” Goto replies, “but I’m going to say yes.”
Chapter Thirty – Nescience
The Basement
Sitting in the waiting room of The Basement – like all waiting rooms – is like being stuck in a suspended animation chamber; time passes more slowly than anywhere else in the world, and if you stare at the clock, the second hand seems to move in slow-motion.
At least in regular waiting rooms you get terrible coffee and outdated celebrity gossip magazines to pass the time. Here in The Basement, the room has nothing more to offer than an angular white couch and a perfectly clean table, good for little more than a makeshift footrest.
Dia rests her head on Cole’s shoulder, eyes fluttering from exhaustion. He absently tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear, gently pressing his lips against the top of her head.
“No one has ever done that for me,” she says softly.
“Done what?”
“Run their fingers through my hair and kissed my head. Not even as a little girl.”
Cole isn’t sure how to respond.
Dia sits up slowly, rubbing her bleary eyes. “That’s something I guess a parent would do; sit on the edge of your bed, read you a story, and then give you a little kiss before you drift off to sleep. I don’t have any memories of my mom doing that, and my dad...” Dia trails off and her eyes moisten. “The only person who ever tucked me in was Paige. She was always more together than me, more mature. She took care of me so much when we were growing up it felt like she was the older one most of the time.”
“She’s going to make it,” Cole responds, cradling Dia’s chin with his thumb and index finger, gently tilting her head up until their eyes meet. “She’s tough, like her sister. One little bullet isn’t going to finish her off. If she’s half the bad-ass that you are it would take a bazooka to finish the job.”
Dia allows herself a tiny smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I know. And Jens...”
“Don’t,” he responds abruptly. “It’s alright. I’ve said my goodbyes.”
Cole straightens his posture and steels himself, not willing to be overtaken with grief.
“I told you back in Hawaii that once you go down this road it can change you, and you might not change back. Being a superhero suits you, Donovan – if anyone deserves this power it’s you. Just don’t let it turn you into something you’re not.”
“And what’s that?”
“Cold.” She takes his hand, running it along the side of her face. “Your warmth is what attracted me to you. The moment we met I could see your vulnerability. Don’t let it go.”
A tall middle-aged man with straight blond hair and a white lab coat emerges from the operating room, as blank and expressionless as the room that surrounds them. “We have excellent news,” he says in a Swedish accent, not looking up from his clipboard. “Paige Davenport is doing fine. The bullet passed straight through and no damage was done to any arteries. She needed minor surgery, but she’ll make a full recovery.”
“And Jens?” Cole asks tentatively.
“Todd Jennum is recovering as well. He had several organs replaced and he won’t be back to a hundred percent for two or three weeks. They will both be out of the operating room and into the recovery bay in the next hour. I will make an announcement when they’re ready.”
“What about Brodie – he’s recovering too?” Dia arches her head up to peek at the clipboard, but the doctor tilts it away and shoots her a small frown.
“Brodie Hamilton required twenty-two stitches in his head and suffered a concussion, as well as second degree burns on his hands. I’ll let you know when they can all receive visitors.” He turns and exits through the sliding doors, not allowing for any additional questions.
Cole sits back and lets out a long sigh of relief.
Dia lunges into his arms, holding him so closely they can feel each other’s heartbeats. He clutches her just as tight, and remembers, before all this began, the magnetic feeling that drew them together almost involuntarily.
When they draw back their eyes meet, and their walls crumble.
“We need to talk about this,” Dia whispers.
Cole nods and smiles brightly. “You were right, you know.”
“I’m right about a lot of things,” she says with a laugh, “you’re gonna have to come at me a little more specific than that, cowboy.”
He leans forward, resting his forehead against hers. “The timing for this – for us – is still terrible.”
“Couldn’t be worse,” she agrees. “But someone told me that there’s no such thing as perfect timing. I’m sick of waiting for the future to happen; I’m going to start making it what I want it to be.”
“I can sense a watershed moment starting here, but let’s pick this up after we see the gang in recovery. We have a lot to talk about.”
“It’s a date,” she replies, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Just promise me that after our talk we can check out the thread count on those sheets I keep hearing about.”
“Remarkable.” Goto stares at a small monitor in the security room, watching Cole and Dia’s interaction from an unseen camera. “See Cole’s right arm?” He points towards the screen.
The security guard nods, not certain what he’s supposed to be noticing.
“In Paris it was almost completely severed during the firefight,” he continues. “And that was mere hours ago. It had absorbed so many bullets that it appeared as if it was about to fall off. I don’t know how many rounds he took to the head and torso, but it couldn’t have been less than a hundred.”
“He looks fine to me,” the guard replies, scratching his thick beard.
“Exactly – he doesn’t have so much as a scrape to show for it. He was almost healing as fast as they could fire. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Goto shakes his head, eyes still fixed on the monitor as he folds his arms. “He has no idea how much power he has. What he could do with it if properly trained. But Dia, on the other hand...”
The guard glances at Goto. “We’re still on high alert, right?”
“Absolutely,” he affirms. “She’s not lying or putting on an act; I can tell that much just from a surface reading. But until we can figure out exactly what happened to her, we need to watch very carefully. If I give the signal we go into lockdown immediately.”
“Yes sir,” the guard replies without hesitation. He stares at the screen, fascinated. “I just...I can’t believe that’s really her.”
“Oh, it’s her,” says Goto. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
Cole wanders the halls of The Basement to clear his head, awaiting the announcement that his team is available to receive visitors. He hears a noise echoing from behind two large doors and swings them open to find Allison alone in a sports training facility, standing next to a basket of tennis balls. Still dressed in her blood-spattered tennis outfit, she serves one ball after another into a small target on the wall with pinpoint accuracy, screaming in frustration with each swing.
Pausing to take a mouthful of water from a small plastic bottle, she wipes the sweat from her forehead with her wristband and turns to the doorway.
“Nice swing,” says Cole.
“It’s not working,” she replies, retrieving another ball from the basket. She bounces it several times and prepares to serve again.
“What’s not working? You seem to be on target.”
“The fireball thing,” she mutters.
He approaches and stands next to her. “You can’t force it, you know – it has to come naturally. Most people manifest once, and then they need a drug to change their brain chemistry and trigger it again.”
“Drugs?” she lets out a short laugh, but doesn’t smile. “No thanks. I haven’t eaten a carb since I was in diapers; the last thing I’m going to do is let you freaks pump my body full of some chemical. I saw what it did to that Brodie guy and he looked like he was about to drop dead afterwards.”
“That doesn’t usually happen; he overdosed on purpose. But he’s going to be alright.”
“How is the rest of the team?” She tosses another ball into the air and swings, slamming it into the target once again.
“Fine,” Cole replies. “I just got word from the doc that everyone is going to make it. How are you holding up?”
“Fine,” she groans, tossing another ball above her head.
Cole reaches out and snatches it from mid-air before she has a chance to swing her racket. “I’m not a psychologist, but when you say the word ‘fine’ it sounds a lot like ‘I feel like shit’.”
Allison carelessly drops her racket, letting it bounce off the floor at her feet. “The last thing I need right now is a shrink. When I was twelve I went to a sports psychologist and it didn’t help then, so I doubt it’ll work now.”
“Really? Why?”
“My game was slipping and I was losing focus. My parents wanted me to get my edge back.”
“Huh,” Cole raises his eyebrows. “So why didn’t it help?”
She shakes her head. “Because this overpaid retard had me doing visualization exercises, pretending to ‘be the ball’ and all this other stupid shit. It was pointless. So Richard had a different idea: he thought it would be better if I channeled some of my rage onto the tennis court instead of just trying to focus so hard. So he started showing me all these violent movies; martial arts, action, horror – pretty much anything where someone was getting murdered.”
“He showed all this to a twelve-year-old? And your parents were cool with it?”
“Yeah,” says Allison, chuckling under her breath. “And the funny part is that it actually worked. I still do it all the time. Like last week I watched this one about some boring war; I can’t remember the name of it, but Matt Damon was in it so I gave it a shot. The strange thing was that after watching soldiers get shot, stabbed and blown to bits for over three hours, I felt totally numb.”
Cole shrugs. “Not everyone gets emotional when they see a movie.”
“But it was more than that. When I put a t
ennis ball through my trainer’s chest I didn’t have any remorse. I never once thought about his family or his friends – the people who would have to go identify his body.”
“It’s perfectly natural. I think you were just in shock.”
“That’s the thing, I wasn’t. I knew exactly what happened, and I knew what I did; I just didn’t care. The way I’m able to ratchet up my aggression and beat my opponents on the tennis court is because I can hate them. I turn my emotions on and off like a switch. But when Richard was lying there, blood squirting from his neck, I just...I broke down. I tried to stay strong, and I really wanted to help, but I couldn’t. I lost it and became useless.”
“No,” Cole replies, “You lost it and felt something. I’d be worried about you if you didn’t. You can’t stay strong all the time, Allison. You’re fifteen.”
“Sixteen next month,” she adds without missing a beat.
“You need to let yourself fall apart now and then. Let people take care of you.”
“You didn’t break down. You just flew out the window and started kicking people’s asses.”
“I let my anger take over, and look what happened – it nearly killed me. When I’m like that I lose control, and can’t regain it until I destroy something; that’s not the person who I want to be.”
Allison stares at the floor, fidgeting with her wrist band. For the first time her confident exterior dissolves and her posture softens. She actually looks her age – like a vulnerable teenage girl. “I know Richard was a jackass, but he was a loyal jackass. And he always treated me fairly, even when I was treating him like shit, which was most of the time. And now that he’s gone...”
Relapse (The Vs. Reality Series Book 2) Page 15