Running to the back corner of the room, I checked the gas tanks and started turning the knobs, letting the methane flow freely. Ethan didn’t ask what I was doing, simply taking my lead and turning the other knobs until all five tanks were releasing the highly flammable gas into the air.
I did a quick calculation. The room was approximately seventy by fifty feet with seven-foot-high ceilings, meaning it had a volume capacity of 24,500 cubic feet. With all five tanks flowing, it wouldn’t take longer than two minutes to fill the room with enough methane to cause a pretty big explosion.
“Close that window! Let’s go!” I yelled. Tyler obeyed immediately, pulling the small window shut and leading the way out of the room.
The building was deserted, and I prayed that it stayed that way.
When we made it outside, I pointed to a building across the avenue.
Tyler shook his head. “Too exposed. We can’t go running across their path.”
“We need to be farther away when it goes boom,” I explained. Without waiting for a response, I dashed across the wide avenue, forcing myself not to look toward the south gate, where I knew there were many people with loaded guns.
The guys were hot on my heels as we rounded the corner of the building opposite the chemistry lab. Tyler looked back to where we had come from, then whirled on me. “I said you do exactly as I say. What the hell were you thinking?”
Ignoring him, I reached out to give Ethan another quick zap of Light, then pointed up at a window on the second floor. “I need you to throw a fireball through that window. One of the blue ones.”
“What?” His face twisted in panic. “This whole plan hinges on me? I’ve never thrown a fireball that far!”
“You’ve never had me. You can do this.” I checked my watch. It had been four minutes. It was more than ready to go.
“They’re on the move.” Tyler cursed profusely. His ability was still coming in useful. “Ethan. Now!”
Narrowing his eyes and squaring his shoulders, my big guy stepped out from behind the corner and rolled his neck. After another moment of hesitation, he lifted his arm by his side, and an angry blue ball of fire appeared in his grasp. He leaned back, lifting his front leg, and pitched it like a baseball. It arched through the air magnificently and smashed, dead center, through the window I had pointed out.
There was a split second of silence and then a BOOM, louder than anything I’d ever heard. The burst of heat that followed was so intense it was hard to inhale. Ethan pivoted, shielding my body with his, as Tyler pulled me back behind the safety of the wall. A shard of glass still managed to make it to my face, slicing a fine line across my right cheek. It stung like a bitch but didn’t feel too serious.
With the immediate danger over, Ethan backed away from me, and Tyler leaned in.
“You OK?” He raked his eyes over my face and body, looking for injuries more serious than the cut on my face.
“I’m good.” I nodded as he ran his thumb under the cut gently, his brows furrowing. I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and pressed it to the cut, giving him a reassuring smile.
All three of us peered out from our hiding spot. One corner of the science building was on fire, flames licking the sides of the walls, and all the windows of the second-floor lab had been blown to pieces. The explosion had been visually impressive and probably loud enough to be heard miles away. If Squiggles hadn’t made it to Alec, this would have gotten his attention.
It had certainly gotten the attention of the gun-wielding people, now inching toward the charred building.
“It worked.” Tyler pulled us back behind the wall. “But it won’t last long.”
“What do we do now?” Ethan was breathing as hard as me, fire flickering down the length of his arms. With all the danger, coupled with the extra Light I had pushed into him, he was having trouble controlling his ability.
“You two do nothing. Find a way into this building and hide. Ethan, you fry anything that moves in your direction. I’m going to go check if Zara and Beth managed to warn the others.”
“No!” Ethan and I protested at the same time.
I folded my arms. “We are not separating right now. I refuse.”
“I agree. We should stick together.” Ethan matched my stance, backing me.
Tyler’s gaze flicked between us, exasperation leaking into his features. He dragged a hand down his face, growling. “Fine! But this time you do exactly as I say. No running off. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir,” I agreed readily as Ethan nodded. I was more than happy to take his lead. I had no idea what I was doing.
“They’re everywhere. We’ll have to go around this building and come around the back of the admin building to get to where they’ve set up the marquee for the event.” He walked past us and away from the carnage we’d just caused, setting a rapid pace.
We circled around the building, sticking close to the walls, then darted across a clearing and into some trees. The woods at the periphery of campus provided decent cover as we looped around the massive admin building. The morning’s rain had made the ground soft and muddy, and we made a mess of our clothing as we trudged through the undergrowth.
Tyler made us stop at the edge of the trees. The lawn where the event was to take place was clearly visible. It had stopped raining, but the heavy clouds were still casting a dull grayness over the whole scene.
Everyone had heard the explosion, but they didn’t know what to make of it. People were milling about, talking to one another hastily, some of them walking away.
Finally I spotted the Reds near the entrance to the admin building, speaking with a man and a woman both dressed in suits. Beth was gesturing wildly behind her while Zara stood next to her, nodding.
“There!” I pointed. It looked as if they were having trouble convincing the staff to evacuate.
We were running out of time to get people to safety. Maybe we should go up there. Surely Tyler could convince them.
Just as I was about to suggest it, I heard movement in the brush behind us.
Tyler and Ethan had kept me behind them, peering between their shoulders to get a look at the lawn, so when we all turned, I ended up in front. Before us stood two people, bandanas over their noses and multiple weapons strapped to their bodies. They wore matching black clothing and had identical semiautomatic pistols in their hands.
We all froze.
A little machine in one of the gunmen’s hands bleeped. He looked down at it in surprise, then lifted his gun to point at us. “We got one. Grab her.”
They both moved forward, weapons raised.
The sound of gunfire from both sides was deafening. Tyler stepped up on my left and let off three quick shots, aiming at the gunman with the little machine.
The first two bullets thudded against his chest, knocking him back but not penetrating the Kevlar he was wearing. The last one went straight through his forehead. Blood gushed down his face as he crumpled to the ground, a spurt landing on Tyler’s expensive shirt. The bright red was a stark contrast to the crisp white.
At the same time, Ethan came up on my other side, pushing me behind him with one strong arm and throwing his other arm forward. A blast of fire shot out of his hand, intense and angry, and hit the other gunman. The impact threw the man onto his back, enveloping him in fire immediately.
The man screamed—an animalistic, terrifying sound—and I found myself screaming too. The blood and the fire; the death and the pain—it was all happening too fast.
Tyler pulled me into him one-handed, his other hand still holding his gun at the ready, and blocked my view of the burning man. I clutched his shirt as if my life depended on it and screwed my eyes shut, my screams collapsing into long shuddering breaths.
After a moment, I forced myself to open my eyes. There were armed maniacs on the loose, and I needed to be aware of my surroundings.
I looked over to the two forms on the ground. Ethan was standing above the burned man, who was smoking and moaning on
the ground. As I watched, the man stopped moving and lay still.
Panic rose in me again. “Is he . . .” My voice was shaky.
Ethan came over to stand with us, his eyes wide. “No. He just passed out from the pain. The other guy though . . .”
The other guy had a bullet in his brain. You didn’t need to be a doctor to know he was dead.
Tyler had killed someone.
My hands were shaking, but his were steady, his hold on the gun firm.
That’s when I realized the flames that had been licking up and down Ethan’s arm had been replaced with streaks of crimson.
“Holy Thomas Edison!” I yelled.
Ethan’s left bicep was red and glistening, macabre streams of blood trickling down his arm. A single drop from the tip of his middle finger fell to the forest floor.
I pushed out of Tyler’s arms and rushed over to him. My hands hovered over Ethan’s skin, unsure, panic beginning to set in. I couldn’t figure out how badly he was hurt.
He pulled me into his embrace one-handed, as Tyler had. “Shh. It’s OK. It only grazed my shoulder. I’m fine.” He was the one that had been shot, and he was comforting me.
Before I had a chance to reply, a piercing woman’s scream drew our attention back to the lawn. Tyler swung his gun in that direction as we all turned to look.
The field had erupted into chaos. Gunmen had swarmed the main area and begun shooting. This group, however, didn’t look like the two assailants we’d just encountered. They appeared less organized, without the matching black clothing, their weapons a mishmash of handguns, shotguns, and automatic rifles.
The rain had started up again, and most people had gathered under the marquee to stay dry. They were easy targets. Bodies fell to the ground like ragdolls as terrified, guttural screams mingled with the menacing sound of bullets cutting through the air.
There was blood everywhere.
Just as Tyler had predicted, the Variants were not taking this lying down. While some people were running away in abject terror—many falling down lifeless in midstride—others were fighting back.
A man in a blue suit, one of the sleeves ripped, was standing in front of a group of huddled students. He had his hands up in front, feet wide apart. He must have had some kind of defensive ability, because there were several gunmen firing directly at them and the bullets were bouncing off, inches away from hitting him.
A girl about my age was standing in the thick of it all, holding hands with a boy, her Vital. She was using her ability to form the rain into icicles, their deathly sharp points embedding themselves in gunmen’s chests. The pair took down three of the assailants before two attacked them from the back.
The two men who approached the Variant and her Vital looked identical to the ones who had attacked us in the woods, uniformly dressed and carrying identical weapons. The gunmen hit the boy and girl in the back of their heads, their bodies crumpling to the ground. Then they dragged the boy away, leaving the Variant girl lying lifeless in the rain.
Another young man was running through the crowd throwing bright bolts of lightning from his hands. I recognized Rick—the friend of Ethan who had introduced himself and his electric ability to me.
As Rick charged the bulk of the gunmen, Zara and Beth ran out from the cover of the admin building’s entryway, trying to get away from a scuffle there. Their red hair was like a beacon, and I watched them run, terrified, into the crowd, straight into Rick’s path.
I could see what was about to happen, but I was too far away to stop it.
With a panicked “NO!” I burst past Ethan and Tyler and ran straight for them.
Rick threw another bolt of angry electricity just as the Reds ran into his path. It hit Beth directly in the chest. She flew back several feet, her hand wrenched out of Zara’s grasp, and flopped to the ground behind a row of chairs. The force of Beth getting blasted away knocked Zara to the ground too.
Neither one of them was getting up.
I pumped my legs faster, desperate to get to my friends, but I was no match for Ethan’s athleticism. He caught up to me just as some of the gunmen noticed us, wrapping his big arm around me and twisting us sideways as bullets sailed past our heads. Tyler was right behind him and started returning fire.
We were out in the open and definitely outgunned.
An engine roared in my ears, and a motorcycle came to a screeching halt in front of us, blocking us from the gunmen. Alec climbed off the bike with grace and speed, turning his attention to our assailants, and Josh pulled up on his bike only a second later. They were soaked from riding in the rain, and they must have come straight from yoga, because they were both in shorts and tank tops.
I had a momentary spark of annoyance that they hadn’t worn protective gear on their bikes, then nearly let loose a frantic giggle at the absurdity of that thought. Just as it had during the plane crash, my brain always seemed to throw useless information at me in moments when everything was falling apart. Was it some desperate bid for control? An attempt to feel better by focusing on the mundane—facts, statistics, the importance of wearing helmets?
People began moaning in pain. Everyone—human or Variant, crazed gunman or Bradford Hills student—was doubled over. Alec wasn’t targeting specific people; he’d just unleashed the pain and let it incapacitate everyone. As soon as the bullets stopped flying, Josh flicked his hands up, and a shotgun flew over his head, landing somewhere behind us.
They were working as effectively and in tune with each other as Ethan and Tyler had in the woods. One by one, firearms sailed past as Josh pushed his ability to the edge.
I watched them for a few moments, transfixed by their abilities, and then remembered I could help. I pushed against Ethan’s chest, trying to get to Josh, but he held me firmly.
“I need to juice him up!” I yelled, and Ethan let me go.
I ran to Josh and wrapped my arms around his middle, pressing my face into the cool wet skin at the back of his neck. He jumped in surprise, his muscles tensing, but relaxed as soon as he realized it was me. I pushed his tank top up and placed my palms flat on his stomach, letting the Light flow freely.
He rolled his shoulders, standing taller, more confident, more energized. I craned my neck to see around him as he lifted both arms, every remaining gun flying up into the air.
With a sharp motion, Josh brought his hands down, and the guns landed on the backs of the assailant’s heads, all the Human Empowerment Network gunmen falling to the ground unconscious in perfect synchronicity. Then, with another gesture from Josh, the weaponry stacked itself into a menacing pile of metal behind us.
Alec took a shaky breath, and his shoulders sagged. The remaining people in the clearing stopped moaning and straightened, looking a little dazed.
Josh turned in my arms and crushed me to him. His breathing was erratic, the staccato rhythm only matching mine in its unevenness. He placed several firm kisses on my forehead and cheeks as he pulled away slowly. Then he held me by the shoulders at arm’s length, his eyes raking over my body methodically, lingering on the cut on my cheek.
“I’m OK. I’m OK. I’m OK,” I kept repeating in a quiet voice, my hands gripping his wrists until it sunk in. His green eyes finally looked into mine, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m OK.” I said it once more, nodding for good measure. I needed to convince myself of the fact as much as I needed to convince him.
I was dirty from the mud in the woods, wet from having run around in the rain, and tense in every muscle. There was blood on me, but most of it wasn’t mine. All the bullets had missed me, and thanks to the guys, none of the gunmen had gotten close enough to lay a hand on me.
“More are coming.” Tyler stood a few steps away, looking in the opposite direction of where the first group had come from. He pushed a wet strand of hair off his forehead. The rain had settled into a steady patter, and we were all getting soaked.
“What?” Josh went to stand by him. “How do you know?”
“Shit. How far out?”
“Two minutes. Maybe three. Alec.”
Alec was still standing next to me in the same position, shoulders sagging, head bent.
“ETA on reinforcements?”
Without moving or even looking up, he answered, “At least nine minutes.”
All three of them cursed profusely, and then Ethan piped in. “We need to get these people somewhere safe, and then we need to get Eve the hell out of Dodge.” He was breathing hard, the white T-shirt stretched across his heaving chest nearly transparent from being so wet.
“Right.” Tyler turned back to us, his face grim. A dark splatter of mud had joined the blood on his shirt. He directed the others to start maneuvering the crowd to safety, and he, Ethan, and Josh shouted at people to go hide, that there were more gunmen coming, that it wasn’t over.
I kept my eyes on Alec. He was still staring at the ground.
I didn’t understand it. Alec was the one who worked for the Melior Group in the field. Tyler outranked him and was a natural leader, so it made sense that he was taking charge of the situation, but Alec had the most combat experience. Shouldn’t he be in his element here? Not standing there as if he had no clue what to do with himself?
He was breathing hard, his shoulders bunching with tension, each ripple of muscle making the visible tattoos under his tank top dance. His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides, and his eyes were flicking around almost wildly, calculating, looking for the best course of action.
Around us, the others weren’t having much success with steering people into hiding. Some had heeded the warning and taken off for the comparable safety of the buildings, but others, mostly Variants with active abilities, were insisting on staying and fighting. Rick was being very vocal about it, getting in Ethan’s face and yelling about defending our people.
Variant Lost (The Evelyn Maynard Trilogy Book 1) Page 30