by Jo Schneider
Projectiles continued to fly around her. Another net caught a victim—this one a girl who couldn’t be any older than Lys. She went down with a scream, but it sounded more like anger than anguish. A blue flash lit up the twilight behind her, and Lys saw Mark through another perspective. All of this came through other people’s eyes, and Lys knew she was about to hit the overload point.
So she shut down everything but the images of the object and her own view. She watched intently, but still had a hard time discerning when the gray cylinder began to fall. The instant she could tell Lys yelled, “Now!”
Lys loved roller coasters. She loved being thrown around every which way, and she rarely got sick on them. The sensation of leaving her stomach fifty feet behind her made her scream in delight.
This, however, made her scream in terror. One second she stood on the ground, watching the cylinder fall, and the next she had been yanked off her feet. Not just off her feet, but off the ground and up past the trees—completely ruining her concentration. Like a claw from one of those toy vending machines in the mall had reached down and plucked her into the air at the speed of light. Not only did it feel like her stomach was still on the ground, it felt like her soul had been ripped from her body, leaving the flesh and blood behind.
Only the screaming proved that she still had both lungs and vocal cords.
Cody didn’t just have her by the waist, but he held two others by the arms. She saw half a dozen more clusters of people jumping into the air, and she wondered if Kamau was still on the ground or if someone had a hold of him.
“Go get ‘em, boys!” Cody yelled as they reached the apex of the jump. He literally launched the two people he held in his other arm out over the trees. Lys could see a cluster of the New along with their gray cylinder—Cody’s guys were headed straight for it.
Lys tried to watch, but she started to fall, and the tree tops got in her way. Wait, they were falling! She took a breath so she could scream again, but before she had to, Cody landed on the ground with no more than a light thump.
“Good job,” he said with a grin.
Screams filled the air. Not yelling, like before, but screams of pain and terror.
“What’s going on?” Lys asked, flinching at the noise.
“Some of the other groups didn’t get out of the way in time,” Kamau said as a woman set him back on the ground. Lys noticed that his dark skin was a shade or two lighter than it had been a moment before.
“Pulse is a nasty business,” Cody said. “It messes with our magic. Makes it feel like your head is going to explode if you don’t get out of the way.”
“Did we . . . did we get out of the way?” Lys asked, her hands shaking a little. Too many feelings ran through her and she couldn’t tell magic from pure fear.
“Sure did, thanks to you.”
Kamau held up a hand. “They say to fall back to the outside of the cabin. Mr. Mason’s orders.”
“Okay.” Cody ducked as a clod of dirt the size of his head buzzed by. “You two follow those two.” He indicated a pair of touch users who were whipping projectiles out of the air with tree branches. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Lys felt Kamau grab her hand.
“Fall back!” Cody yelled. “Left side first.”
Kamau led Lys toward the left side of the line. She barely kept her feet under her as they ran, following the two touch users as they made a break for the tents.
“We’re clear,” Kamau said.
“Of what?” Lys asked.
Kamau didn’t get a chance to answer. A wave of heat hit Lys in the back, pushing her forward and causing her to fall to her hands and knees. A ringing filled her ears as smoke and heat engulfed her. Lys shook her head in an attempt to stop the world from spinning.
Lys blinked, trying to clear her vision. She coughed and inhaled smoke. Behind them a wall of fire raged. Dirt, burning branches, and rocks fell all around them.
“We need to move!” Kamau shouted, pulling on her hand.
Lys barely heard him. She looked back to where Cody had been standing only moments before. Flames engulfed the entire line of touch users. Were they gone? Really gone?
“Lys!” Kamau shouted again. “We need to move.”
She allowed herself to be hauled to her feet. Smoke and screaming filled the air. One of the screams she recognized.
“No!” Brady’s voice cut through her shock. “Mark!”
Lys followed the sound of Brady’s voice with her eyes. On the other side of the tents, she could make out Brady’s slight form, crouching on the ground next to someone else.
“This way,” Lys said.
“But,” Kamau said.
“Brady’s over here!” Lys snapped. “We have to help him.” They were not going to leave him.
Kamau didn’t argue, but she had to drag him behind her. They ran through the remains of burning tents to where Brady knelt next to Mark.
“You need to get out of here,” Mark said, his voice haggard.
Lys skidded to a stop and knelt on the ground next to Brady.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I got hit,” Mark said through gritted teeth. “You need to get out of here. Brady, get Lys out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you!” Brady protested, placing a hand on Mark’s chest.
Lys’ss eyes traveled to Mark’s leg. The bone in his thigh stuck out of a gaping wound. Blood poured from it, creating a dark pool on the ground.
“Mark!” a new voice yelled.
Lys turned to see Ayden running toward them. His eyes were swirling gold, like a cat.
“What happened?” he asked. Then he noticed Lys. “You need to get back to the cabin right now! Brady, Kamau, take her—” He stopped, looking down at Brady. A dark glow had begun under Brady’s hands.
“What are you doing?” He asked. Brady didn’t respond.
“Hey,” Ayden said, pushing Lys to the side. “I said what are you doing?”
Kamau grabbed Ayden’s shoulder. “Wait.”
Brady moved one hand to Mark’s injured leg. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The dark glow increased before Brady said, “I can fix him.”
Chapter 27
“What do you mean you can fix him?” Ayden asked, his golden eyes traveling to Mark’s wound.
“Someone come get ready to pull on his leg,” Brady said softly, sweat beading on his brow. No one moved. “Now!”
The urgency in his tone provoked a response. Lys backed away as Ayden and Kamau knelt on the ground. Kamau went to Mark’s shoulders and Ayden went to his leg.
“Set it. Do it fast.” Brady said in almost a whisper.
Kamau clamped down on Mark’s shoulders and upper body while Ayden took his leg. “One, two . . .”
Lys turned away. The crunch made her flinch, but Mark’s scream brought tears to her eyes. Pain lanced through the air, and Lys buried her face in her hands.
“Hold him! Just a little longer,” Brady said.
Mark groaned. Lys raised her head. The exposed bone had been replaced by a wound as big as her hand. Blood continued to pour out, but almost as she realized this, Lys watched as it first slowed and then stopped.
“How?” she said, stepping closer.
They all watched in fascination as the wound sealed up. Just like what Jodi did to Lys’s leg, only on a much larger scale. An angry, red welt replaced the wound. Another crunch, this one softer, sounded as the bones meshed back together—or so Lys imagined. Mark’s eyes fluttered open as Brady removed his hands.
Mark seemed confused. “What in the?” He looked down at his leg and then back up to Brady.
“You healed him,” Lys said, amazed.
Brady nodded. He sat back, swaying. “I could feel it. I could feel everything. And when I pulled him over here, I knew I could fix it.”
“Fix it?” Ayden demanded.
Brady nodded again. “But it’s not healed. At least, not all the way.”
“I’ve ne
ver heard of a chaos touch user being able to heal,” Mark said, his voice strained.
“Can you heal?” Lys asked.
“No.” Mark shook his head. “Like I said before, not even a paper cut.”
Ayden looked hard at Brady. “How did you know you could heal him?”
Brady’s pale face regarded the man. “I just knew I could. The bone is back together, but I don’t know how good I did on the rest of it.”
Lys flinched as a burning ember flew past her cheek, searing her flesh, reminding her that they were standing in the middle of a war zone.
“We need to get to the cabin,” Ayden said. He studied Brady with a guarded expression.
“We can carry him,” Brady insisted. He stumbled to his feet and took one of Mark’s arms.
“Why don’t you let us take him,” Ayden said, indicating to himself and Kamau. “You make sure Lys gets to the cabin in one piece. We’ll be right behind you.”
Brady didn’t look like he was going to be much help. He limped over to her as the other two lifted a groaning Mark to his feet.
“Come on,” she said, putting her shoulder under one of Brady’s arms. He didn’t resist as she started off toward the cabin.
All around them, people ran. Some fought back, but most were headed in the same direction as Lys. Small explosions filled the air with debris while the loud siren sounded again. Lys flinched, but the sound wasn’t as powerful as before—Kamau didn’t go to the ground.
She wound them through what remained of the tents and back toward the front door of the cabin, almost retracing her steps from earlier. Probably less than thirty minutes earlier, Lys thought to herself. How quickly things changed.
“Over here!” Inez’s voice cut through the noise.
“Hey!” Brady put on his winning smile. “What’s up?” He stumbled, only staying upright because of Lys.
Inez jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “They’ve got some people working on an escape route down at the garage. Mr. Mason said he wanted us there as soon as we found you.” The last word was addressed to Lys.
Lys swallowed. “Me?”
“You two best buds now?” Inez asked as she took Brady’s other arm.
“I thought you were leaving,” Lys shot back.
Inez shrugged. “I need to live through the next hour if I want to see Peter again.”
A group of people ran past them back toward the hill where Cody and his line had been. She hoped they were healers.
“Go to the garage!” Ayden said from behind them.
“We’re going,” Inez said. “What was that thing?”
“Someone called it a pulse. It disrupts magic, or so he said,” Lys said.
“You didn’t get hit by it?” Inez asked, wiping her face with a hand. She looked pale.
“Uh, not exactly,” Lys said. “Did you?”
“A little, but some of the sound users blocked most of it.”
They were almost to the end of the cabin. The ground rumbled beneath their feet. Lys hoped it was magic, and not the New. With Inez in the lead, they rounded the corner. Lys expected to find more fighting. Instead, a handful of the New had fifteen or twenty magic users surrounded.
The magic users were on their knees—a few lay unmoving on the ground. Lys tried to pull Inez back, but one of the New heard them and turned around.
“There he is. We were worried that you’d been caught in the crossfire,” a metallic voice said through the helmet.
Without visible eyes, Lys couldn’t tell who the member of the New was talking to. Not her, surely.
“Where is Mason?” the voice demanded.
“Like we’d tell you that,” Brady said with disdain.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” the man said. “Net them.”
Everyone scattered. Brady surged forward, trying to tackle the man in the black armor. Inez dove one way and Lys went the other, hitting the ground with a grunt and rolling to avoid the net she could hear coming through the air. She didn’t roll far enough.
The net landed on her torso and upper legs. It pinned one arm, leaving the other free. She tried to crawl forward, but found that she couldn’t move anything under the net. Rolling over didn’t work either. Her free hand grabbed a hold of the edge of the net to try to push it away. A wave of dark energy engulfed her. She couldn’t see.
Lys let go of the net and balled her fists together. Not the dark. She shook her head.
Blinking, Lys found that she could see, but not in the dark and not from other people’s eyes, like someone flipped the switch off her magic.
“Don’t struggle,” Kamau’s voice said. “It’ll only make it worse.”
Lys nodded. She lay face down with Kamau behind her. Without her magic she could only make out the boots of someone lying near her, maybe Mark. The flickering light from the fires didn’t penetrate this far around the cabin.
“Is this the one?” a metallic voice asked.
“Yes,” Kamau said.
“Good. Leave her until we get these others taken care of. She’s not going anywhere.”
“Kamau, what’s going on?” Lys craned her neck as far as she could. Did they mean her?
“Oh, don’t worry,” the metallic voice said as a dark figure crouched down near her head. “Kamau made us promise to take good care of you.”
“What?” Lys demanded. Her stomach constricted into a knot.
“He’s working for us.” He shook his head. “I told you not to trust Mr. Mason.”
“Doyle?” Lys asked. “What are you talking about? Why are you doing this?”
“We wanted to know Mason’s plan, and Kamau wants his sister back. Since we knew that Mason hoped you were something special, we sent Kamau in to keep an eye on you.”
To keep an eye on her? Lys turned her head, trying to find Kamau. She couldn’t see him. They sent him in to keep an eye on her? To discover Mr. Mason’s plan?
Images of the past few days flew through her mind. Kamau had always been right there, ready to help. All concerned eyes and soft touch—he’d been keeping an eye on her? But, he kissed her.
Had everything between them been a lie?
Anger flared through her, and she began to struggle, determined to get out of the net.
“Don’t bother,” Doyle said. “You’re not going anywhere.” Before he could go on, an invisible hand threw Doyle back. He hit the log wall of the cabin with a thud.
“Get Ayden! Burn that net off Lys!” Mr. Mason’s voice shouted.
Lys heard footsteps stomping around her.
“Don’t move,” someone said, “at all.”
Lys held her breath. She felt pressure from the net, closing in on her—constricting. For a second she thought it might cut through her as it got tighter and tighter, but suddenly the pressure disappeared. Cold enveloped Lys and she began to shiver.
“Up,” the voice ordered.
Lys got to her hands and knees. Shards of ice, leftovers of the net, fell to the ground with a tinkle. A pair of hands helped her to her feet.
“Get her to the garage,” Mr. Mason ordered. “I’ll be in the van.”
Darkness still surrounded her. For having not been able to see in the dark for her whole life, Lys was surprised at how much she missed it. She couldn’t even clearly see her rescuer.
“What’s going on?” she asked weakly.
“Mr. Mason is getting us out of here.”
“What about everyone else?”
“They’ll be behind us.” A pause. “Close your eyes for a second.”
Lys did so, and even through her eyelids she saw the flash of light that must have lit the entire mountain up. She hoped it blinded the New in their technology helmets.
“Okay, this way, we’re almost there,” her helper urged, dragging her forward.
Lys glanced back the way they had come. Someone started a fire close by, and she could see at least ten people trapped under nets, including Inez and Mark. Almost everyone else in the clearing was on the groun
d or just getting to their feet.
She pulled her arm free and turned back. She would not leave Brady and the others.
“What are you doing?” her helper demanded.
Lys ignored her, taking a few steps toward Mark.
A dark shape came out of nowhere and blocked her path. Lys stopped in her tracks. Even without her magic she could see Kamau’s broad shoulders.
“Lys,” he started, reaching for her.
Tears sprung to her eyes as she backed up. “You used me.” Used her to get to Mason, to get his plan.
Kamau shook his head. “Lys, you have to listen to me. Mason has my sister.”
Lys could hear the worry in his voice, but now she knew the concern had never been for her. Kamau was a cold, calculating predator, and she had been his prey. The feel of his lips on hers, of his arms around her started an ache inside that blossomed into fury.
“Leave me alone!” she shouted, slapping his hands away. “You lied to me!” She hardly recognized her own voice. “None if it meant anything!” Her hands shook, but this time hate flowed through her. The meaning and truth of her own words sunk in, and Lys knew that he had used her. All of the attention, sticking close to her all of the time and pretending to care about her; it was all part of a plan to betray her—to betray Mr. Mason and his ambition to save magic users.
“Lys,” he said, grabbing her wrist.
She jerked her hand, and when it didn’t come free, she stepped forward and stomped on his foot as hard as she could.
Kamau let go. Someone grabbed him from behind.
Her escort pulled her away. “Come on!”
She allowed herself to be dragged down the road to a waiting van.
Her escort shoved her through the door and into the nearest seat. “Ayden is right behind us,” she reported.
“Good,” Mr. Mason said from the driver’s seat. “Are the others prepared to help us get out?”
“They’re ready.”
Lys watched as her escort, whose name she didn’t even know, helped Ayden into the van and shut the door, staying outside.
The van had three benches in the back. With her and Ayden, most of the seats were taken. Ayden took the passenger side. The woman sitting next to Lys smiled, but it felt empty. Everything felt empty. Lys felt empty—betrayed and alone. She wanted to cry. But it didn’t seem like she had time for it.