The Light of Redemption

by Natalie Damschroder

  I winced. That was a bad thing to say in show business, and this felt like getting ready to go on stage. But I just nodded and gave him a thumbs-up, and then Conn and I started toward the stairs to Emeraud.

  After a few steps, he took his phone out of his pocket. “Olive’s tracker still shows she’s here. Can’t confirm TC, though.”

  He’d been calling Harris TC despite knowing who he was now. I suspected it was distancing, though it could just be habit. Sark had reported that patrols saw Harris get into Olive’s car, which they followed here, but they couldn’t get or stay close enough to keep watch. They could tell us that the car hadn’t come down the street in either direction, and they hadn’t seen a man fitting Harris’s description in any other car, but Emeraud’s position on the road made direct, ongoing surveillance impossible. This was the best we were going to get.

  No one had been able to confirm Angie’s whereabouts. We only knew where she wasn’t—the cottage, her home, and the diner, which closed at two on Wednesdays anyway. She had no home phone and never answered her cell. That didn’t tell us anything, either, because we didn’t know if Harris had taken her phone or just hacked her voicemail.

  I went first up the stairs, ready to throw a shield in front of us, but there was nothing at the top. Olive’s car sat by the door we used before, but it appeared empty. Nothing moved except the grass swaying in the river breeze. We hunkered side by side on the top set of steps, keeping low as we studied the ground between us and the building.

  “They could have put that compound anywhere,” Conn reminded me.

  “Yeah. So let’s find it.” I spread my hand wide, fingers straight out, and swept a blanket of light across the field and parking area, my other fist ready to counter flames with another ball of light. The sweep hit the building and swept upwards. Nothing happened, and I pulled the light back, ready to use again.

  “Huh.”

  Conn frowned at me. “Maybe they only used it inside? If they have limited quantities they’d want maximum effectiveness.”

  And they would have limited quantities, since they couldn’t have obtained more than a few drops of my . . . “Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  I slumped against the crumbling stone. “We were in the hospital.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “Bleeding. And unconscious.”

  He got my point. “Shit. They could have gotten plenty of blood. Either by collecting waste or just by walking up and sticking us.” He stared at the building. “Not a game-changer. We were prepared for that weapon to be used anywhere.”

  He was right. It didn’t change our approach or our preparedness. “Okay. Enough dilly-dallying. Let’s go.”

  We ran across the field, and Conn slammed against the sticky door, which didn’t stick. His momentum carried him into the dim interior, out of my sight. I cursed and darted in after him, light ready but still held inside because I didn’t want to light myself up as an easy target.

  Conn stood with his back to the wall running perpendicular to the door. Silence hung heavy. I made eye contact with Conn and eased to my left, toward the ladder I’d climbed to the window platform the day I got shot. As my view of the interior broadened, I braced harder for attack. Or to see Angie tied up or with a gun to her head, or both. But it all looked exactly as it had the last time I was here.

  “We can’t stand here all day,” Conn murmured, his voice right in my ear. If we weren’t in the middle of a life-or-death situation, I’d shiver at the slight scrape of roughness that poured liquid heat into my body.

  “Moving.”

  I went left, toward the office, and he went right, around the wall that held our samples. “Clear,” he said before I’d reached the office. My heart pounded, a sour taste crawling up the back of my throat. This was wrong. They’d set us up, but for what? I eased into the office, knowing there were two options for what I’d find. Nothing, or Angie’s body and a message. When the answer was nothing, I almost threw up in false relief. Just because she wasn’t here didn’t mean she was okay.

  Conn reached my side and pointed toward the ceiling. “What’s that?”

  I jerked my head up, but it was only a faint shimmer in the shape of a ball. “I don’t—”

  As soon as I spoke, the shimmer crumbled, and Olive’s voice filled the room with laughter.

  “Did you think it would be that easy? Please. Remember our fifth grade scavenger hunt, Harmony? Let that be your guide.” With a faint hiss, the recording stopped.

  “Dramatic.” Conn grabbed my elbow. “You okay?”

  I rubbed my forehead, drained of wasted energy. “I’m so sick of this. I should have known. An ambush before we came up from the river would have been the smartest move if all they wanted was to take us out.”

  “No, it’s my fault. This isn’t how they do things, secret meetings with one innocent in the line of fire.”

  Dread weighed down my limbs, pressing the light deeper into me. This was the next step in a twisted game. Angie wouldn’t be their only target. I pushed past Conn and ran for the door. “Simon and Julie!” I yelled.

  A blur passed me, a wave rippling the air. I realized I had no idea of the extent of Conn’s powers. Apparently, he could harness that wave for speed.

  A shimmer near the base of the wall caught my attention just before I went outside. We’d left the door open, and the sunlight now struck at an angle that made it shine. I crouched, my hands tucked in to my torso and my light carefully buried. The shimmer had to be the same compound from the jewelry store. I used the burner phone’s screen as a flashlight and followed the shimmer swath around the base of the building’s interior. By the time I’d reached the corner where Wig had been sleeping, the sharp sting of gasoline reached my nose. I halted, shocked.

  “They’re not here, Harmony.” Conn’s voice in my ear was not so warm and lovely this time. “You were right.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” I rasped. “Conn, they might be collecting our team, but that’s just Plan B. The building is rigged. If I’d used my light . . .” I swung the phone around, frowning. There was something familiar. I inhaled, and deja vû slapped me. I’d smelled this before. Over, or under, the gasoline was a dusty, faintly body-odor-ish scent. I’d smelled it here before without paying much attention to it, but I’d smelled it somewhere else before, too. The jewelry store. Right before it blew. But there was something different. Not just because of the gasoline. I watched the air swirl in the stream of sunlight through the open door. That was more than dust motes. That was— “Noooo,” I said on a long breath.

  “What?” Conn demanded. “Harmony. Are you okay?”

  No. I clenched my teeth around the word. I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t know if I was right. My gut told me that dust in the air was another version of the compound. They were absolutely determined that I would die, and Conn along with me, if I used my light. They’d filled the air with explosive.

  Which was fine. No big deal. I just wouldn’t use it. I could walk out the door and away from the danger and everything would be fine. Harris and Olive and CASE would have to face me in a real battle. Except I couldn’t do that, because I’d been in here for a few minutes, walking through the dust-filled space, breathing it in. And I’d collected a massive amount of light. If I used it, I’d explode. Hell, if I released the light, I might explode. And because what I’d breathed in was going to make its way through my bloodstream, eventually it would come in contact with wherever it was I actually stored the light, and I’d explode.

  My moment of self-pitying panic down by the river was ridiculously melodramatic compared to what I felt now. Wisps of despair and fear and rage took their turn, but none found a grip. Too much space was taken up by a bigger truth. I was probably going to die, and if I did, I was taking the bad guys with me.

  “Conn.” I stro
de out of the building and headed his way. He was already at the edge of the parking lot. I stopped with a good twenty feet between us, and the same space between me and the building.

  “We’ll find them,” he assured me, but the edge in his voice betrayed his own fear. I couldn’t tell him what was happening to me. And I couldn’t go near him. I didn’t know how long I had, but there was no way I was putting him in danger. Or anyone else. I just had to figure out what to do and how to do it. First was securing the light as long as possible. I’d done it in the hospital, drawing it so deep I couldn’t access it. I had to do that again and try to seal it somehow.

  “I know where they are,” I told Conn through our communicators. “The diner.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too. The flooding was probably a ruse. The restaurant is closed now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it’s downtown. Maximum collateral even without the usual crowd.”

  “You know the place better than I do. What do you—” He stepped forward. I jerked back reflexively, keeping the same space between us. Conn slowed, wary. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I pointed where Simon’s car was parked, on the other property. “You take Simon’s car. I’ll take Olive’s and meet you there.”

  “What?” He frowned at Olive’s car and stepped toward me again. This time I held my ground, but it was too late. “What’s going on, Harmony?”

  “Nothing. We just need all the resources we can—” I broke off, annoyed with myself. Five years of keeping secrets and this was the best I could do? No way Conn would buy it. As dramatic and frightening as the transition from ‘helping in secret’ to ‘ultimate public sacrifice’ was, I had to tell him. “I’m a walking bomb,” I told him. “They’ve modified the compound. It was floating in the air inside. Which means I’ve inhaled it. And so have you,” I realized. Great. Because the danger wasn’t already high enough. I watched as he processed that information, coming to the same realizations I had, but then narrowing his eyes and firming his jaw against reality.

  “You don’t know that’s true. You’re assuming.”

  “True. But I can’t test it without killing myself or you. Or both.”

  He stormed toward me, stopping when I held up a hand, his fists clenched and the tendons in his neck standing out. “So, what were you going to do? Go off and die in the woods alone?” Rage made his voice tremble.

  “No,” I barked back. “I was going to go save my friends and take the bad guys out with me.”

  “Not alone.” He came closer, glaring when I tried to move away again. Nerves began buzzing inside me. Not a good thing. I had to stay calm to keep hold of the light.

  “I need you to get the police to clear a few blocks around the diner. And then to get the others clear.”

  He shook his head. “It won’t work. They want me as much as they want you. More.”

  “All the more reason for you to keep clear,” I tried, but it made no sense and I knew it. I understood him from a whole different place now. My friends were in danger because of their association with me, and if anything happened to them, I’d blame myself every bit as much as Conn blamed himself for the losses in Chicago and San Diego.

  I couldn’t add to it. I couldn’t be the new layer of guilt and pain on his heart. But I didn’t think there was any way to avoid it.

  “Don’t,” he warned, and crossed the remaining distance to take hold of my arms. “Don’t do that to yourself. To us. This is not your fault.”

  But it’s my responsibility. “I know.”

  “Come on. We’ll get this done together.”

  I let him lead me away with the obvious unspoken. Get it done how?

  Chapter 18

  I tried to call Sark as Conn drove us back to town. No answer. Smith. No answer. The diner. No answer. Evan had texted us the number of our contact on the task force. No answer there, but that didn’t make my heart try to slam itself out of my chest on every beat. I texted that number with the location of the tearoom and got a response as Connor pulled over in an empty parking space down the street from the diner. ETA: 30 min.

  The street wasn’t very busy, being late afternoon on a Wednesday, but there were people around. People who stared and pointed when I began walking toward the diner, decked out in full Eclipse.

  “Harmony, wait!” Conn barked through the comm, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. There was no plan to be made. No time to make one.

  “Stay back,” I warned him fruitlessly. “Call the police station. Help them clear the area when they get here.” I stopped and pointed at a guy outside Carmichael’s salon who had raised his phone toward me, camera out. “No.”

  He shook his head rapidly, mouth in an O, eyes buggy, but I could tell he didn’t stop filming. “You need to remove yourself from this block,” I told him. “Get as many people away from here as you can.”

  “What’s happening?” he croaked.

  Carmichael came out his door and put a hand on the guy’s shoulder. He somberly asked, “What can we do?”

  I blinked back a sting of gratitude. “A dangerous situation may be evolving in Millie’s. We need everyone in the area to clear out. I’m serious.” I grabbed the other guy’s phone and shook it in his face. “This will be meaningless if you’re dead. Remember the jewelry store?”

  That did it. He gulped, took the phone back, and dashed down the street, yelling something about running away.

  “I’m on it,” Carmichael told me. He opened his door, his deep, booming voice filling the room beyond. “Everyone, we have a situation. We must leave downtown. I need your help to spread the word.”

  An excited babble rose up, and I left them to it. As I continued toward Millie’s I saw that people were emerging from other businesses, and Conn was in front of the hardware store across the street, talking to the manager and pointing at the apartments overhead.

  Okay. That was working. I settled a little and kept moving. There was little point in trying to sneak in, but something told me not to go in the front door. I ducked down the narrow corridor between buildings and around to the back entrance into the storage room. I could see the bolt wasn’t locked, which told me they expected me to come in this way. My hand hovered over the doorknob. What if it was rigged?

  Unlikely, I decided. They wanted this showdown. They’d lured me into this position, with no choice but to sacrifice myself for my friends.

  I took a deep breath and wrapped my hand around the knob. “I’m going in,” I told Conn.

  “Be careful. I’m in the apartment above the hardware store. I’ve got a clear shot through the front window but the dart won’t go through the glass, so I can’t stay here. It will have to happen as I come through the front door.”

  “I’ll make sure it’s clear. Can you see anyone?”

  “They’re all in the booths.”

  I didn’t ask if they were okay. If they weren’t, I didn’t want to know yet.

  I opened the door and stepped inside, bracketed by stacks of boxes on either side of me. It was silent back here, and I didn’t see any signs of the compound, either on the storage or in the air. There didn’t need to be. I was their weapon. But I heard murmuring voices in the front of the restaurant and crept up to the swinging door. I would have peered through the round window at the top, if they hadn’t covered it.

  The hinges thumped, announcing my presence as I stepped behind the counter. Olive twisted from where she sat on a table in the center of the room, facing the hostages in the booths. She grinned. “Welcome to the party.”

  I ignored her. My friends were spread out across the booths, one per bench. Closest to the door, Gladys wept into a lace-trimmed handkerchief while Trillium stretched to pat her hand. A trickle of dried blood from her ear was a hint at how they’d captured everyone. Olive had disabled them with sound
. In the next booth, Sark looked like it had taken more to get him in here. He sat propped with his back to the window, one eye swollen shut, his lip split, and his arm wrapped around his torso. Broken ribs? Julie was on the other side of his booth, sitting with her feet on the bench, wrapped in neat white rope. Matching rope bound her hands, and she had a diner towel stretched through her mouth and tied at the back of her head. She glared so fiercely at her kidnappers her pupils could have shot laser beams.

  Angie shared the next booth with Simon. She slumped with her head in her hands, elbows braced on the table, and Simon sprawled unconscious across from her. At least, I hoped he was unconscious.

  Finally, I turned to the last person in the room. Harris squatted on top of a table where he could survey everyone. He’d make a great target if he stood. At first glance, he appeared to be like any other guy in town. On the Hollywood end of good-looking, with tousled blond hair, worn jeans, and a soft T-shirt that hugged nicely developed muscles. But his eyes were lit with a strange euphoria and a smile played around his mouth as he watched me take in the room. He didn’t say anything, clearly enjoying the show. This was a whole new opportunity for him. He was used to operating from darkness, where no one knew who he was or what he’d done. Maybe he was tired of not getting credit. Maybe whatever sick drive made him do the things he’d done was hungry and needed more direct contact with the havoc he wreaked.

  Olive hopped off her table and swung to face me, and now I could see that she held a semi-automatic rifle, pointed at the floor.

  “Oh, come on.” I couldn’t help myself. “Who brings a gun to a superpower fight?”

  She looked down at it and shrugged. “It looks cool.”

  “Yeah, you would care about that.” I eyeballed the front door. I couldn’t tell if it was locked, but the blinds were closed, which was a benefit to us. From here, I didn’t see any wires or traps. “Door’s okay,” I whispered, barely moving my lips. “Clear shot down the room. I’ll signal.”