by K. K. Perez
“The Initiates have been subdued,” she said to Victor as she approached the limo at a measured pace from between the parked cars, her breathing even.
He nodded. Had her mom subdued the Initiates? Single-handedly?
“There’s no cavalry coming to your rescue, Professor Weston-Jones. I suggest you get in your car and leave while I’m still inclined to let you go.”
She kept the gun on Lucy as she issued her threat. This brought monastic composure to a whole new level.
“I’m afraid I’m not inclined to let you take my granddaughter against her will,” replied Professor T. “Elaine, isn’t it?”
Her lips parted in a brittle smile. “You don’t have a choice in the matter.”
Suddenly, Professor T’s driver clutched his chest, trying to brace on the hood of the limo, and toppled to the asphalt.
Lucy’s hands flew to her mouth, too stunned to scream. Lucy’s mom didn’t move a muscle. The shot had been silent, but it hadn’t been fired by the woman in front of her.
Who had taken the shot?
“As I was saying,” Elaine said to Professor T. Another scream died in Lucy’s throat. How many life-or-death situations had Lucy’s mom been in? Just this morning, she had told Lucy her father was all bark and no bite, and Lucy hadn’t believed her.
“Sophists are always so quick to violence,” Professor T chided. He didn’t seem concerned about the man crumpled on the ground. Although Lucy suspected he’d never show fear in front of the Sophists.
“We have more discipline than the Initiates,” Victor rebuked. “You nearly got Lucy killed after her prom.”
“As did you.” Professor T narrowed his eyes.
While the men argued, Elaine said, “Lucy, we need to go.” Her tone was dispassionate. “I won’t let the Order of Archimedes take you.”
“And if I don’t come with you, then what? You’ll make sure no one else can have me?” Lucy’s accusation rushed out in a hysterical jumble.
“I took an oath to protect you, and protect you I will.”
Elaine Phelps spoke with conviction, never raising her voice. Victor might do menacing really well but Elaine’s calm was exponentially more frightening.
Lucy’s gaze zoomed in on her trigger finger.
“You can’t protect me if I’m dead!” she yelled.
She thrust out her hands, screwing up her lips, and concentrated on attracting the gun in her direction and out of Elaine’s grasp. Tears burned her eyes and yet she felt none of the exhilarating anger that had preceded the stapler flying at Megan’s head.
Come on. What was wrong with her powers?
Elaine watched Lucy’s efforts with no reaction. “I blame myself for not taking the threat to you more to heart,” she said in an infuriatingly rational manner. “After all these years, I had dropped my guard.” She cast a poisonous glance at Professor T, who stood immobile by the open limo.
“I blame myself for not destroying that photo. I blame myself for underestimating my daughter. Even when you caused a neighborhood blackout. Even when Dr. Rosen concluded that your abilities had begun developing at an accelerated rate.”
The fine lines tightened around Elaine’s eyes. “I ignored the warning signs because, like your father, I wanted you to stay my little girl a little longer.”
“I was never yours.” Lucy hurled the reproach as hard as she could, once more attempting to magnetize the gun. Nothing. “Our family is a lie.”
Elaine exchanged a heated look with Victor and his muscles tensed as if preparing for a punch.
Before the bullet had a chance to hit Lucy, pain like she’d never known set her body alight. The pain of a betrayal like no other.
Elaine had pulled the trigger.
The woman she had called mother was willing to end Lucy’s life as if she were nothing but a failed experiment.
With more strength and speed than Lucy ever imagined she could possess, she clawed her nails into Victor’s forearm and levered him in front of her.
His mouth opened in a grunt of disbelief as the bullet hit him square in the back. His eyes went glassy and he collapsed on top of her. Lucy fell to the ground under his weight, his body banging against her rib cage. As Lucy braced her hands on his shoulders to roll him off, she realized there was no blood. Anywhere.
A sprig of silver stuck out from his scapula. It was a dart—a tranquilizer dart.
Relief—if it could be called that—washed over Lucy that Elaine hadn’t intended to kill her, only render her unconscious, take away her free will.
Professor T arced his walking stick in a broad stroke and the ouroboros connected with Elaine’s hand. Lucy heard a sickening crunch. The gun fell to her feet. Elaine howled in pain, cradling her injured—possibly broken—hand and lunged for Professor T. The older man lost his footing and crashed against the open car door.
The walking stick fell from his grasp, rolling under the limo.
“Lucy!” It was the lilt she would recognize anywhere. “The bracelets!”
Ravi was running at full speed across the parking lot. From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw another man in a dark suit sprinting toward him at a diagonal.
At the same moment, Professor T felled Elaine with a sweeping kick. They began to struggle on the pavement beside the limo.
The bracelets. Of course. She stared down at the black stone coiled around her wrists. A small piece of tourmaline grounded Lucy’s powers. Too much must neutralize them.
Her skin crawled. Her parents had tricked Lucy into putting on her own handcuffs. If she hadn’t seen Claudia, their plan might have worked. She would be halfway to some Sophist safe house—or prison.
Lucy removed the first bracelet and, almost instantly, Victor’s frequency rushed over her. In his unguarded state, she saw a tall briar in her mind. Sunlight sparkled on the tips of its thorns. Was that how Victor saw himself? Was he guarding Lucy from the world—or the world from her?
She wanted to believe her parents, but they had never trusted her, never believed in her. All the rules and restrictions were meant to contain Lucy, not protect her. As she removed the second bracelet, she glimpsed several more black-clad figures weaving through the parking lot. Whatever the Sophists’ equivalent to the Initiates were, she supposed.
Adrenaline jolted through Lucy’s system, bitterness glazing her tongue, and she shoved Victor’s drugged mass to the side.
Raising herself to standing, Lucy captured Elaine’s gaze from where she grappled with Professor T, and pitched the ebony shackles toward the football field with all her might.
Claudia O’Rourke
Lucy had tuned out Principal Petersen’s monotone announcing the graduates, but her ears caught on her best friend’s name. This was her big moment. I’m sorry. For missing it. For everything.
Claudia was the only true thing about her childhood and the best thing about growing up in Eaton. But to keep her friend safe from the feud between the Orders, Lucy would have to give her up. Jess had been right.
If Lucy truly loved Claudia, she could never see her again.
Sorrow eddied inside her and she stretched her hands in the air toward the tranquilizer gun on the ground behind the struggling forms of Elaine and Professor T. Lucy squeezed her fists and concentrated harder. The gun began to quiver.
She heard another shot. Her eyes dashed in Ravi’s direction. It looked like he was locked in an embrace with the man who’d been chasing him.
Then the man keeled over. ThankGodthankGodthankGod. Ravi seemed unharmed.
Lucy stalked closer to Elaine and Professor T. Metal rattled against the asphalt. She pictured the arc of the trajectory the gun would need to take in order to land in her hand and bit her lips until she tasted blood. Then the pain dissipated, swept aside by a raging elation.
Elaine bashed Professor T’s head against the open door. He groaned. She moved toward Lucy, and Professor T managed to grab a fistful of Elaine’s skirt, holding her back.
The gun flew through
the air and landed at Lucy’s feet. Professor T’s eyes widened. She glimpsed pride there.
Ravi had just reached Lucy when Elaine spun back around toward the professor. He spotted something Lucy didn’t, his features contorting with fury.
“Professor!” he shouted in warning. Ravi dove into the small space between Elaine and the car, leaping in front of his mentor, who remained on the ground.
Elaine staggered back a step, away from the limo, knife in her good hand. It was tipped with blood.
Ravi’s blood. Hissing, he gripped the top of the car door to support his weight. Red blossomed across his abdomen.
“What did you do? What did you do!” Lucy screamed at the woman who had been her mother. “Ravi!”
Elaine rounded on her. “I didn’t—I…” She swallowed. Ravi hadn’t been her intended target, but this was not a woman who apologized. She stilled her shaking hand. “Protecting you is all that matters. You’re my daughter.”
Ravi released a painful groan, losing his balance and slipping toward the ground.
“I am no one’s daughter,” Lucy declared.
Lucinda Minerva Phelps.
Principal Petersen could keep his diploma.
She grabbed the dart gun from the ground and pulled the trigger.
WONDER WOMAN
Lucy watched as Elaine tumbled to her knees, sprawling next to Victor.
She blinked away her tears. There wasn’t time to give in to the fear or sadness spreading outward from her heart.
Another shot rang out. The back tire of the limousine burst. This getaway car wasn’t going anywhere.
“I s-see three…” Ravi forced out, struggling to drag down air. Lucy wheeled around. More Sophists. They were coming from the direction of the school.
On the other side of the parking lot lay the football field, where commencement was still proceeding without interruption.
Lucy rushed to Ravi’s side. “Can you stand?” she asked. She wrapped an arm around his waist and he leaned against her as the blood continued soaking his shirt.
“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth. But clearly he wasn’t doing well. Ravi’s shield had crumbled and a comforting warmth—like sitting by the fire on a rainy winter’s night—filled Lucy. The affection jarred with the anger that was holding her together.
Professor T pushed to his feet and wiped the trickle of blood from his temple.
“Lucinda, help Ravi behind the car,” he ordered in the tone of someone used to giving orders. “I’ll hold off the Sophists.”
“H-how?” she said. The Sophists were drawing closer by the second. Professor T motioned for her to follow him as he dashed around the back of the limo to the other side. “Let me take your weight,” she said to Ravi. His eyelids were fluttering, his complexion growing pallid. Static crackled between them. Lucy’s chaotic emotions were too much for the tourmaline pendant alone.
Ravi didn’t speak, mouth set in a grimace, as he panted and leaned further into Lucy, using all of his energy to stay upright.
As they rounded the back of the car, Professor T lifted the gun from beside the fallen Initiate and fired. He motioned for them to get down.
“We have instructions to take the girl alive!” shouted a male voice. Lucy couldn’t see exactly how close the Sophist was from where she cowered behind the barricade of the stretch limo.
Ravi’s blood seeped onto her hands. Oh God. She couldn’t lose him. She refused. Not like this. Not after all the things she’d said to him—but especially the things she hadn’t.
Lucy looked from Ravi to Professor T: her grandfather. She’d just found him. She didn’t want to lose him either.
The Sophists said they had instructions to take her alive. They didn’t say anything about Ravi or Professor T. She had no reason to think they wouldn’t kill them to get to her.
“I’m giving myself up,” she said, resolved, slackening her grip on Ravi.
“No!” Professor T made a guttural sound as he grabbed Lucy’s arm, eyes blazing. “I won’t let them take you from me again.”
Ignoring her grandfather, she propped Ravi against the limo door and began to straighten when Ravi squeezed her arm. “Wait, Lu—” he strained to whisper. “Help is … coming…”
He must be delirious. “It’s not. My mom—Elaine—said she subdued the Initiates.” Lucy shuddered, not wanting to know precisely what she’d meant.
“Look up,” he said. The effort of speaking made him groan. Look up? Definitely delirious.
“I’m coming out!” Lucy yelled to the Sophists. “Don’t shoot!”
Then she heard it. Whirring. The distinct whirring of—
A helicopter. A helicopter was heading straight for the football field!
Eyes closed, an almost-smile on his lips, Ravi said, “Go.”
“Run!” Professor T urged. “We’ll catch up.”
Frak that. Lucy had already lost one family today. “I go, you go,” she said to Ravi, using his words from prom night.
Lucy circled her arm once more around his waist and hoisted him to his feet. He hissed in pain. Professor T met her stare. “Just like Quentin,” he said, realizing she wouldn’t be dissuaded from her plan. “You two first. I’ll cover you.”
There was no more time to argue. Lucy nodded and began running, half dragging Ravi. He limped alongside her. Professor T had probably been training with the Initiates since the moon landing. He’d hold his own. He would. He had to.
Ravi’s wheezes grew more labored, like wind whistling through a cavern. Each of his strained grunts tightened her own chest.
Lucy heard the shots behind her, as well as the glass of windshields exploding, but she didn’t look back. She kept the dart gun clamped in her right hand as they reached the football field. “Just a little farther,” she whispered to Ravi.
The whirring intensified as the helicopter began its descent at the opposite end of the field from the dais on which Principal Petersen was handing out diplomas.
From the corner of her eye, Lucy spotted a hundred caps and gowns turn to gawk. Shouts of surprise rose from the graduates and their families.
How would the local news explain away a helicopter landing in the middle of graduation?
Not Lucy’s problem. She just prayed Claudia didn’t come looking for her.
Ravi lost his footing on the grass, which was soft and muddy from last night’s rainfall. He fell to his knees, bringing Lucy down with him. Dirt spattered her graduation dress.
“Please,” she murmured. “Please, get up.”
As the helicopter landed about twenty feet away, a shot bounced off the tail.
Lucy swiveled on her knees and released the trigger of the gun. A woman cried out as the dart struck her in the chest.
Professor T was on the heels of the Sophist. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled at Lucy. Using all of her strength to raise herself to standing, she pushed Ravi up with her. Her thighs quivered.
Professor T checked that the woman Lucy had shot was unconscious, then sprinted to Lucy’s side. He slung Ravi’s other arm around his neck, and took the majority of his weight. Lucy let out a short huff of relief. They ran together toward the chopper.
The door to the main compartment slid open and a pilot with light-brown skin angled her head at Lucy from the cockpit. She took off her headphones.
“I’m Camila,” she called over the roar of the blades. “Ready to get out of here, chica?”
Frak yeah.
“Get in!” Professor T commanded Lucy. Lucy stepped onto one of the landing skids and turned around, reaching her arms for Ravi. She looped her arms through his from behind as Professor T lifted Ravi’s lower body off the ground.
Lucy pulled Ravi onto the floor of the chopper, scuttling backward, laying him flat. Professor T set Ravi’s legs down carefully and hopped in. He pulled the door closed behind him.
“Move!” he yelled at the pilot.
Camila nodded. “Vámonos,” she said as she replaced her headphones.
/> The helicopter lifted off the ground, and Lucy glimpsed her former classmates scattering across the football field, some running for the parking lot, others hiding behind their folding chairs. Talk about making a dramatic exit from high school.
Returning her eyes to Ravi, Lucy pressed her hands as firmly as she could against his wound. Blood continued to gush. She wished she’d been paying closer attention when Amara had treated Pedro in the back of the Freelancers’ van.
Buttons popped as Lucy tore open Ravi’s shirt. The gash lay between his ribs on the left side. He needed a doctor.
“There’s a hospital about fifteen miles from here,” she told Professor T at the top of her lungs. The noise from the rotating blades was nearly deafening.
Barely audible, Ravi said, “No hosp…” Obviously he wasn’t thinking straight.
“We’re meeting an excellent doctor at the airfield,” came Professor T’s reply.
“Airfield?” Lucy shot him a confused look.
“It won’t take the Sophists long to regroup. We can’t afford the diversion.”
“He’s losing too much blood,” she hollered, more adamant.
“Ravi’s a strong young man. He’ll make it.” Professor T smiled in a kindly way, a grandfatherly way, but it was forged from iron.
“You can’t know that! Please.” In trying to protect Lucy, Ravi had been tased by her father, and stabbed by her mother. Please don’t let him die.
“It’s what Ravi would want.” Professor T patted Lucy on the back but she couldn’t read him.
Could he be willing to trade Ravi’s life for hers? Well, she wasn’t.
“Stay with me!” Lucy hated to do this but—she slapped Ravi open-palmed across the face. His eyes shot open, then his lids trembled. “No going to sleep!” Looking to Professor T, she barked, “Do you have a pen?”
He raised his eyebrows. “A pen?”
“A pen,” she repeated, almost hysterical. “A metal one. Or anything metal.”
Professor T reached into his suit pocket. Lucy wiped her hands on her skirt, smearing it with blood, then snatched the silver fountain pen from his grasp with desperate hope.