I’d thought the helicopter was coming from the north, about to appear over the top of the quarry, but instead it swept up behind us, blades thumping, deafening, the air whipping the hair from my face.
Confusion filled me.
What the hell was a helicopter doing all the way out here?
Then Hunter yelled, “Ari, get down!”
I’d been staring at the chopper in bewilderment. I caught a glimpse of the figure in the open doorway of the aircraft, before the crack of gunfire sounded beneath the thwump thwump of the helicopter blades.
Hunter’s body struck mine, shoving me down to the ground. Bullets hit the ground where I’d been standing, dust bursting up in little spurts. Hunter shot a look at the helicopter, swiping his hand through the air, and the chopper immediately veered off to one side.
“There’s another one,” I cried.
A second chopper appeared on the skyline, across the rise of the quarry walls. That must have been the one I’d first heard, the wind carrying the noise in this direction.
We managed to scurry to our feet, running at a crouch to the car. It would be scant protection against two helicopters filled with armed men, but it would buy us a minute or two. The others ran with us, Sledge with his arm around Dixie, pulling her in front of his much larger body as protection. Natasha ran just ahead of them.
The five of us bunched down the side of the car, sheltering from any further bullets, though all the people in the helicopters needed to do was fly over the top of us and start aiming at this side.
“What are they doing?” I had to shout of the noise of the blades. “What do they want?”
“Us,” Hunter yelled back. “We need to take them down.”
“What?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead, he got to his feet.
I dragged at his shirt sleeve. “What are you doing, Hunter? Get down.”
He shook me off.
Suddenly the wind whipping up the dirt and dust around us wasn’t only caused by the helicopter blades. I squinted against the grit threatening to blind me, my hair lashing around my face, my clothes billowing. I realized what was happening—Hunter was using his control of the air to push the helicopters away from us. I risked popping my head up over the roof of the car to get a look. He’d created a whirlwind, which had lifted all the air and gravel from the ground, and was pushing closer and closer to the first helicopter. But he could only take on one chopper. While that helicopter lifted higher into the sky to try to avoid the magic Hunter had conjured up, the other one was heading in a sweeping curve in our direction.
“Use your strength, Ari,” Hunter yelled. “We need it now more than ever.”
Fear paralyzed me. “I don’t know how!”
Sledge and Dixie both got to their feet and focused their energy, using the power they had in order to upset the movement of the second chopper. The blades fought against the power exerted upon, slowing their rotation and bringing the aircraft lower in the sky.
“Tash!” Hunter called over. “Heat the fuckers up!”
“I’m trying,” she cried. “They’re moving around too much. I can’t get a fix on them.”
Hunter’s whirlwind caught the other chopper. The aircraft spun around and around, propelled by the air. The pilot fought against it, trying to break free of the funnel, and in doing so the chopper listed sideways. I stared in fascinated horror as something fell from the open doorway, twirled in the whirlwind for a few seconds, before being spat out like an unwanted morsel. The thing landed on the ground and lay still. One of the people who’d been shooting at us.
“We’re not strong enough, Ari,” cried Dixie. “We need you.”
I wrenched my gaze from the fallen man. Was he dead?
More bullets sprayed from the doorway of the helicopter Dixie and Sledge were trying to control—a desperate effort by those onboard to try to put a stop to us. It worked momentarily, distracting their focus, and the chopper straightened up and flew back toward us.
“Ari, now!” Hunter’s voice tore me from my shock.
The helicopter was approaching again. The effort Dixie and Sledge put in had lost its strength, and now the aircraft was able to fight against the force they’d been applying, though the blades still seemed slower than before, the machine lower to the ground. If it got over top of us, it would shoot us all, and Hunter, still standing with all his mental energy pinned on the helicopter caught in the whirlwind he had created. If he lost control of that, we’d all be dead.
I took my terror and placed the chopper heading toward us in the middle of my line of sight. I remembered how it felt to have all that energy building up inside me, and how it had fought for an escape, a release. This time, I needed to direct that release to one place. Natasha had the power to stop the helicopter for good—perhaps I did, too, but I was too new at all of this to understand how to use it. No, all I had to concentrate on was keeping the damned thing away from us.
I centered my fear and anger then let it pour from me. Somehow, letting go of all that negative energy made me feel different—stronger, powerful. I stood straight, everything happening around me fading away. All I knew was that helicopter, and how I couldn’t let it come any closer. My will was stronger than that of a machine. The mental force I applied to it was like a glass box, trapping it like a bug in a glass jar.
The machine blades continued to whip around, keeping it suspended in the air, but it was no longer moving forward. Any efforts the pilot made to pull back around were also thwarted. The helicopter was caught in the invisible box I had created for it. I only wanted one thing. Destruction.
“Natasha,” I said, quietly, not looking at the other woman.
I sensed her stand beside me, felt the air between us tingle with shared forces. Red and orange flames suddenly licked up from the middle of the chopper, where the fuel tank was positioned. The flames spread across the body of the helicopter, painting the machine in a strange fiery glow. The effect was only noticeable for a few seconds.
The helicopter burst into a ball of bright flames, the explosion deafening. Instantly, I was taken back to the moment of the bombing and I lost all control I had over the chopper’s position. It didn’t matter anymore. What was left of the helicopter was completely out of control, spinning in a crazy circle, one, two, three times, before it veered off to one side and hit the ground.
A second explosion boomed through the quarry, sending rock falls skittering down from the sides. The ground vibrated and hot air hit us, causing everyone to lift their arms to cover their faces, and crouch back down beside the side of the car. A piece of broken, white hot metal pinged across the top of us and hit the ground only a matter of feet away. If we’d still been standing, it could have easily taken one of our heads off.
Hunter had lost control of the whirlwind, but the pilot of the other helicopter must have decided he didn’t want to meet with the same fate as his friend. Hunter had done enough to drive it off. The machine flew away, the sound of the chopper blades barely audible over the roar and pop of the fire.
I was breathing hard, trembling. After the bombing, I didn’t do well with loud noises, and this had shaken me down to my core.
Hunter got to his feet and rounded the car.
“Where are you going?” I called out, fresh panic firing through me.
“Seeing if the other guy is still alive.”
I didn’t want him to go alone. What if the man was still alive and armed?
“Wait for me.”
I forced myself to my feet and took after him. We gave the fallen chopper a wide berth and ran around the edge of the quarry. The heat from the burning, twisted pile of metal was intense, warming my face even from this distance. The man who’d fallen from the chopper appeared even more twisted than the machine had. His limbs were all at unnatural angles. I didn’t know what I wanted to find—him alive or dead? I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle it either way. If he was alive, would we be forced to kill him? Or would we try to
save his life? I couldn’t decide either way.
We got closer and I saw the man was alive. He moaned, his body jerking in strange spasms. He’d fallen from a massive height and must have broken half the bones in his body. I couldn’t even imagine the sort of pain he must be in.
Hunter dropped to one knee beside him. The man was in his late twenties, dressed fully in black—a close fitting long sleeved t-shirt, and black cargo pants. I was amazed he didn’t have a black balaclava over his head, but I figured he must have thought no one would ever recognize him from the chopper. The man groaned again, a wet rattling emitting from his chest.
“Hey!” Hunter grabbed the man’s jaw. “Who is behind this?”
The gurgle came again and his eyelids fluttered.
Hunter’s fingers dug hard into his skin. “Tell me and I’ll end this quickly. You’re going to die, you know that, don’t you? You can either die easy or die hard. Trust me, you don’t want to die the hard way.”
My breath caught, horrified. So we were going to kill him.
The man’s eyes fluttered open, glazed but fixing on Hunter leaning over him. “Eee …” he managed to rasp.
“Easy? Is that what you’re saying? Give me a name then. Who is behind this?”
The man’s eyes slipped shut again, his head falling to one side.
Hunter reached down to where the man’s arm was folded in half, but backward, the elbow completely shattered. He grabbed the bloodied mass of elbow and squeezed.
The man screamed, his eyes pinging open.
“There, that got your attention. Now tell me who sent the helicopters after us.”
“Mm …” the man managed. “Mm—”
“He’s trying, Hunter!” I cried as Hunter reached to his shattered arm again.
“Aaa,” the man said, but I couldn’t tell if he was trying to tell us, or suffering with the pain.
“What? Say that again.”
“Mmm … Aaah …” The man sucked in a breath. It caught in his chest, as though his own lungs were choking him. His eyes bulged and a bubble of blood swelled from between his parted lips, glinting in the bright sunlight.
“Dammit,” swore Hunter.
I stared on. This man was dying right before me. We’d done nothing to help.
The exhale of air finally came, popping the bubble of blood in bright red spatters across his now pale skin. The light from his eyes died, and his chest didn’t rise again.
Sledge’s deep voice called over. “Hunter, we need to go. Someone might have reported the chopper going down.”
“Yeah,” said Natasha, “or the people in the other helicopter will have reported our location and be sending backup.”
Hunter got to his feet and wiped his bloodied fingers on the seat of his jeans. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
Leaving everything, we ran back to the car and jumped inside. We were lucky nothing had happened to the vehicle when the chopper had gone down. We’d have been stranded out here if it had.
“Take shotgun, Ari,” Sledge told me. “Dixie needs me.”
I looked over at Dixie. She appeared as shaken up by all of this as I felt. Yes, these guys might be trained with supernatural abilities, and perhaps had noticed themselves being followed on the odd occasion, but I didn’t think any of them had ever experienced anything on this scale.
Why had the men in black upped the ante? What had changed?
I climbed into the passenger seat, glad to be sitting beside Hunter. He’d shown me a different side to himself back there—hard and ruthless.
It was a side I wasn’t sure I liked.
Chapter Nineteen
Hunter drove away from the quarry at a breakneck speed, screeching the tires and sending dirt spurting out from under the wheels. Smoke from the burning helicopter rose in a plume into the air, and I was still able to see it even when we’d put several miles between us and the scene of the crash. The taste of hot fuel and burned rubber lay thick in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t get the image of the dying man’s face out of my head. I figured everyone else felt the same way. The tension inside the vehicle was palpable. No one spoke.
Even back on the main road, with the quarry far behind us, we couldn’t relax. In the rear seat, Sledge, Dixie, and Natasha twisted around to peer out the back window, trying to see if anyone was following us. I sat, leaning forward so I could see the sky above the car out of the windshield. I was waiting for the remaining helicopter to return, though I’d be amazed if they started shooting at us on the highway. Not only would they risk a multiple pile-up, they’d have numerous witnesses.
I suddenly remembered my father and the worry I’d had for him before the helicopters had shown up. Leaning onto one hip so I could reach into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and tried his number again. My hand shook as I held the handset and pressed it to my ear. As the phone rang, I willed for him to pick up—wanting to hear his voice now more than ever. There was still no answer.
Dread thickened and solidified in my gut.
“I have to go and check on my dad,” I told Hunter. “I know this isn’t convenient, but something is wrong, and I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t.”
He glanced over at me as he drove. “You can’t. We have to go back to the Cavern. Kit needs to know what’s happened.”
“You go, but I have to go home. My dad’s still not answering. Something’s wrong. I can feel it. You say I have more skills than anyone else, that I’ve not even started to explore what I can do yet. Well, what if I’ve got a little of what Dixie can do? Maybe I can pick things up about people, I just hadn’t realized it.”
He shook his head. “Checking on your dad can’t be our main priority here, Ari.”
“You don’t have to come. Go back to the Cavern and tell Kit, if you want. Drop me off on the bridge, and I’ll thumb down a cab to take me the rest of the way.”
“I’m not going to let you go alone, Ari. We’ve never experienced this sort of attack before. They’re closing in on us.”
“Then maybe they’ve figured out I’m one of the people they’re after. What’s stopping them going to my father’s house?”
“They have no interest in your father.”
“No, but maybe they think they can use him to get to me.”
Hunter didn’t answer me, staring straight ahead at the road.
“Okay,” he said eventually. “I’m not letting you go alone, though.”
“Thank you, Hunter.”
He leaned back slightly in his seat to address the others behind us. “I’ll drop you guys off on our way through, okay? Tell Kit exactly what happened and that I’ll be back within a couple of hours. If we don’t return, tell him to send backup.”
“Sure, Hunter,” said Sledge.
Nerves churned my stomach. Backup. What would we need backup for? Did he expect to find more men like the ones in the quarry waiting at my father’s house? If so, there was only one thing they were waiting for, and that was me. I prayed my dad was safe. I might not be directly responsible for what was happening, but I knew if I lost him, too, I’d never forgive myself. I would be completely alone in the world. I might be an adult in years, but I wasn’t ready for losing my only remaining parent.
“Who do you think those people were, Hunter?” asked Natasha, breaking me from my thoughts. “More government people?”
“They must have been,” he replied, his eyebrows drawing down, creating lines between his eyes.
“The man didn’t sound like he was trying to say the government when you were questioning him,” I said.
“He wasn’t saying anything at all. He was just moaning from the pain. The guy was as good as dead when we got there.”
I wasn’t so sure. To me it had sounded as though he’d been trying to speak.
“How do you think they found us?” asked Dixie, her voice small. “Did they follow us from the Cavern?”
Hunter nodded. “Possibly. Or they spotted the car and followed that. They might hav
e been waiting for us to stop in a remote location so they could take us out. We gave them the perfect opportunity.”
I shook my head in amazement, recalling the number of bullets that had rained down upon us. “We were lucky no one was killed.” Everyone was looking at me. “I mean, none of us were killed.” Obviously, the guy who’d fallen from the chopper, and everyone who’d been inside the helicopter Natasha had set on fire had died.
“Those sons-of-bitches deserved everything they got,” said Hunter, his voice hard. “They were the ones who open fired on us.”
I couldn’t argue with him, though the image of him digging his fingers into a dying man’s wound flashed in my head.
“Do you think someone might be watching the entrance to the Cavern now?” Dixie asked, leaning forward, between our two seats.
Hunter shook his head. “Impossible. The entrance is completely hidden. They’d need to have a boat on the water to see anything, and we’d spot them for sure.”
“What about a satellite?” Natasha suggested. “Wouldn’t they be able to see using one of those?”
“If they’re watching us using satellites, then we’re in some serious shit. But I think the bridge would make it hard to see the entrance, even from the air.”
“Plus, if they know we have a base there,” said Sledge, “they’d have just stormed the place already. It’s not as though the Cavern has a ton of escape points. Why pick us out miles away when they could get us all together, trapped, in one place?”
Hunter nodded in agreement. “Okay, so they don’t know about the Cavern—not yet, anyway. But they must know we have a base somewhere near San Francisco. They must also know this car belongs to one of us, or they wouldn’t have known to follow it.”
I thought of something. “Kit picked me up in this car.”
Hunter glanced over at me. “Sorry?”
“If whoever is after us knows this car belongs to the Kin, then they might have seen Kit coming to pick me up. If they did, they know my address, and my father’s not answering the phone. I want to think this is only a coincidence, but my gut is telling me something completely different.”
Flux (The Flux Series Book 1) Page 15