by Tonya Kuper
I followed her into the room. No Eli. No Mrs. Harper.
No signs that either of them had passed through the escape tunnels. There were no signs of destruction or that this hidden room had been discovered.
Josie inched her way across the lab and then froze. She stood before the lab table like it was an altar, regarding it with quiet respect. I approached her from behind. “Josie?”
She didn’t acknowledge me.
Taking a couple more steps, I looked over her head. The vial lay in the middle of the table on top of a yellow sticky note that read, You can do this.
My gaze immediately jumped to Josie’s face. Tears stained her cheeks.
She wouldn’t make eye contract. “I have to do this on my own.” The hurt in her soft voice ran deep. “No one took them. They…they left me.”
She melted to the floor. Her body rocked with sobs, but no sound came.
I folded myself around her, pulling her into me, holding her. I wanted to take the pain away, but I didn’t know how. After the serum handoff, I’d be there, for however long it took to help her heal—as long as she wanted me.
Eventually, she fell asleep in my lap, and I swept her into my arms. Climbing the stairs to her room, I laid her in her bed, slipped off her shoes, and covered her. I pulled her chair over by the head of her bed and watched her sleep, smoothing her hair.
She was the only beauty in this mess.
Josie
I
woke with a jolt, the room dark. Then it all came crashing down around me. My mother had left me. She’d abandoned me. She’d taken Eli. I didn’t get to hug him one last time. I didn’t get to tell him I loved him or say good-bye.
The agony and despair bored an non-repairable hole in my heart. There was no filling it.
Then my gaze darted around me, to the closet door, to my blanket. My bedroom. I was in my bedroom. I rolled over and found Reid asleep in my chair, leaning on my nightstand, about to fall on the floor.
Pushing the blanket back, I pulled his arm. He startled awake, sucking in a quick breath. “Hold me.”
He didn’t hesitate. He climbed into bed, pulled the covers over us, and circled his arms around me.
23.
Josie
I
arrived at the back check-in area of Del Mar Hotel, Reid not far behind but not looking as though we were together. I responded to Hannah’s text wishing me good luck and told her I’d call her later. I gave my name and was promptly escorted to the identification station. The security attendants asked for the letter sent from the vice president’s office, my birth certificate, driver’s license, and social security card. My fingerprint was scanned and checked against the fingerprint that had been taken several weeks ago.
I was escorted backstage and snagged a tissue once I found my place, since we weren’t allowed to bring anything with us. The awards would be presented before the campaign speech, thank Thor. A kid, about Eli’s age, stood in front of me. Oh, man. This needed to go right. Innocent people were here—kids.
The vice president addressed his hometown and received hoots and applause. He went on to talk about the importance of “our youth” as he prepared to present the science awards. I tuned out most of what he’d said. Not because the politics didn’t interest me, but because I needed to focus.
I catalogued the people around me. The positions of the security personnel. The exits and entrances to this backstage area. I Pushed my shield, so that it tingled just along the surface of my skin.
A name was called, the crowd clapped, and the kid in front of me moved in front of the curtain. Huh? It was happening.
“Are you ready?” the event coordinator asked. The tall woman smiled around the ear-microphone combination that blocked her mouth.
“It’s an honor,” I managed.
I grinned, but my smile was a contradiction to the way I felt. I could die at any moment. Any breath could be my last. My heart kicked like a bronco.
I Pushed my shield wider, turned away from the people backstage like I was blowing my nose, and grabbed the vial from my bra. I wrapped it in the tissue, holding it comfortably in my hand.
Someone cleared her throat directly behind me, giving my heart palpitations. I swung around, and my lungs seized. Mom’s green eyes stared back at me.
I let my shield fade and threw myself at her, and now I could breathe again. I didn’t think she’d leave without saying good-bye. She wouldn’t do that. Eli was too young.
I drew myself out of her grasp. “What…?”
“I had to make it look like it was me. Needed to be a decoy. I can take it now,” she whispered.
She was taking back the responsibility? Oh.
“It was wrong of me to put this task on your shoulders. I’ll meet with the VP.” She leaned forward to kiss the top of my head. “You’ve been through so much, Josie. Too much.”
The boy who stood in front of me pranced around the corner, past Mom and me. Did she think I would fail? I wouldn’t let her down. I could do this.
“Josie Harper.” My name was announced. I had to go. I pressed the vial into Mom’s hand and turned. I stepped in front of the curtain from the side of the stage, and the crowd roared.
Glancing across the stage, I saw Reid, dressed in black pants and a button-up with a camera in his hand, posing as someone from the school newspaper. Behind him, men and women in suits and gowns clustered at round tables, enjoying a dinner that I’d heard cost fifteen hundred dollars a plate. The VP might not Push money, but he had no trouble raising it.
I immediately found Mr. Mac in the back of the room and a man standing beside him, guarding the doors, as I peered out over the crowd. Mr. Mac said something to the man, who I realized had to be one of the undercover Resistance operatives, before he slipped out of the room. Then the spotlight hit me, and it was hard to see beyond the stage.
If the Consortium knew about me, would they target me now? I concentrated on my shield and on placing one foot in front of the other.
I sucked in a deep breath when I approached the podium, my lungs having forgotten how to breathe. To any onlookers, they would’ve thought my gasp—which echoed over the podium microphone—one of delight at coming face-to-face with the soon-to-be commander in chief. When Vice President Brown shook my hand, he said, “Congratulations on your achievement, Miss Harper.” I smiled at him. He looked like such a kind man, with his wide green eyes and clean-cut face. I glanced over my shoulder at my mom.
She had her back to me, shuffling away from the stage, leaning on her cane. Which was in the wrong hand.
My heart hesitated.
The world seemed to slow down as my mind worked in fast forward. That wasn’t my mom. And the realization must’ve shown on my face, because in that one instant when she glimpsed over her shoulder, she dropped the facade entirely and jogged away, carrying the cane.
The VP pulled his hand out of mine, taking the real vial of serum with him.
“You honor your family and our cause,” he said.
I turned, with my award in hand, and caught the back view of my mother fleeing around the corner. I moved as quickly as I dared off the stage. Never reveal abilities to Plancks.
I wanted to run. To Push shackles around the imposter and bring her to her knees. Once beyond the curtains, I sprinted through the backstage area. I followed the stage back to one of the main halls and I saw her face—and Mr. Mac’s—an instant before the elevator doors closed. I ran to the elevator and watched where it stopped, pounding on the door. Reid ran up behind me—I didn’t know how he made it past security, and I didn’t care.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
I told him about my mother, or whoever was pretending to be my mom, and how my physics teacher was in cahoots with her. I watched where the elevator stopped. Top floor.
We took the slowest elevator on the face of the earth to the top floor, ready to find whoever took the fake vial. The doors opened to a sign with an arrow and fancy script that sa
id: Rooftop Access. I followed the arrow around the corner, but Reid shoved past me and Pushed the roof door open, waiting a few seconds before crossing the threshold. My heart jumped around in my chest like a bouncing electron as I surveyed my surroundings. Thick air clung to my body and a warm wind blew wisps of hair free from my ponytail.
I searched the rooftop for movement. Nothing. On one side of the hotel were the city lights, sprawled along the coast. The Gulf thrived on the other side. Twinkling stars dotted the darkening sky above, but a storm brewed out at sea. Big mechanical boxes sat randomly around the roof, housing exhaust and air-conditioning type things…and possibly hiding someone.
Reid leaned toward my ear. “Stay here but be ready.”
He crept around a corner, and something creaked behind me. I spun, hands up, ready for an attack. Nothing there. Where did that noise come from? I wedged myself into a corner and Pushed a mirror into my hand. Using the mirror, I peeked around the other side of the wall. Clear.
I dropped the mirror, and a blonde in shorts and a tank pointed a gun at my head.
I blinked and a brick wall, eight feet tall, erected a foot between us. It didn’t promptly disappear, so the girl, who I guessed to be a Consortium chick, just let me know she couldn’t Retract. She rounded the corner of the wall I’d just Pushed and sprinted at me. She looked so much like every other girl from my high school that I almost expected her to ask me for my physics notes.
I widened my stance and braced as she dove at me. Her hands went for my neck and we crashed to the rooftop floor. I looped my hands between her arms, swept them out and down as quickly as I could, then reared back and slammed my head into her face. The girl groaned and went slightly limp. I rolled her off me while keeping hold of her arms. I straddled her body and crashed my knuckles into her cheekbone. One, two punches, and her head rolled to the side. She laid there, breathing but not moving, her eyes closed.
I stood, my legs trembling under me, and Pushed rope around her wrists, ankles, knees. That might keep her for a minute. I backed away, keeping my eyes on her, my breath shaking in my chest. I needed to find the person who looked like my mom. Or Reid. I hit something behind me.
Turning, I found a dude who could grapple with The Rock and was at least six and a half feet tall. Judging by the maniacal gleam in his eyes and the tattoo of Your Pain, My Gain on his forearm, it was safe to assume he ate nails for breakfast and played with scorpions because they tickled.
His eyebrows furrowed as he looked over my shoulder. The girl I thought was unconscious stood with blood dripping from her nose. She looked pissed. She released an anguished scream as Mr. Mac slammed into her. They tumbled to the ground. My teacher was fighting against the Consortium. He was one of us. Thank Thor.
I stepped sideways away from both of them, but the guy’s enormous hand clutched my wrist and reeled me back to him. I Pushed my shield a second too late, since he already had a grip on me. So I Pushed a KA-BAR knife in my hand, the one Reid and some Marines preferred, at the distance from his body where it’d have enough momentum to plunge into his gut.
It disappeared. The thug smiled. He’d Retracted the knife. Good to know.
He wrapped both hands around me in a hug, pinning my arms down at my sides.
As he held me against his chest, the air squeezed out of my lungs and my back cracked. This would’ve been a great time to be able to Push living things, like vicious animals.
Reid’s voice echoed in my head again: Think quick. I took in my surroundings. I was close—unusually close—to the person trying to kill me. My arms were still pinned to my sides and I couldn’t maneuver my feet due to the strength of the guy, but I could move my wrists just enough.
The man holding me squeezed harder. Pain shot through my chest like nothing I had ever felt before. My ribs were close to their breaking point. I Pushed and Tasered the guy’s crotch within the same two seconds. He dropped to the rooftop, and I wasn’t sticking around to see if he’d get up.
Damn it, I knew not to Push a Taser. But I’d panicked.
I ran for the door, but the chick came at me. Behind her, I saw my physics teacher on the ground, his eyes open, glazed with death. She killed him? I wanted to cry, to run to him, but I couldn’t wholly process his death.
I’d caused this. I’d spared her life and, in turn, she’d taken Mr. Mac’s.
He was dead because of me.
No.
Reid was right. I’d have to kill to defend myself and others. I had to step it up whether I wanted to or not.
An image slipped through my mind, and in the next moment, her hair went up in flames. I Pushed freaking fire? This was a new development. Her shrill screams cut through the night air, but I only had a second before she’d Push something to extinguish the blaze. I Pushed a handful of knives and chucked three of them at an attacker approaching from my left, one of them sticking in his gut and another in his leg. I threw two at the girl on fire, one hitting her side and another in her chest.
I Pushed, and Kevlar wrapped around my chest. An assault rifle clanged against my back. I clasped a gun in my hand.
I was able to make it to the rooftop door without any more Consortium crazies getting in my way. The door opened and a cute bellboy about my age walked out onto the rooftop. I hoped he wouldn’t be able to see the bodies behind me. I shoved the hand with the Glock behind my back. “I was just leaving,” I said as I sidestepped him.
He moved in front of me, blocking my way. “I don’t think so.”
Are you effing kidding me?
The next thing I knew, I was on my back, looking up at the dark clouds skulking in from the Gulf, hiding the stars. The back of my head throbbed. Damn. I needed to remember my stupid shield.
The bellboy sat on my hips. He Retracted all of my weapons. I half sat up, grabbing for his skull to head butt, but he caught my hands and forced them to the concrete. I wasn’t moving as fast as I usually could after that blow to my head. Everything seemed disjointed. His eyes narrowed, and he said, “This won’t hurt…for long.”
I kicked my legs and attempted to move my arms in every direction to no avail. He must’ve sensed my movement because his head swung around, and a second later, my ankles were strapped together and anchored to the rooftop. The bellhop smiled. I dragged in a breath, knowing it would probably be my last. His hand covered my mouth.
Reid was going to be so pissed. Someone would get his head bashed in.
I tried to Retract my restraints and managed to free my feet. But with his hand covering my nose and mouth, it was hard to focus on anything other than breathing. I bit at the hand constraining me.
The clouds moved fast above me, and they gave me an idea. Not knowing if it would work, I Pushed anyway.
A full-throttle migraine exploded in my brain, pulsing against my eyes. But instead of nausea, everything was clearer and the scent of my surroundings overwhelmed me. Salt, my perfume, the deodorant of the guy on top of me.
Lightning struck nearby. Wind howled. Rain was on the way.
The guy looked to the sky above us. Thwack. Snap. His head jutted forward and he collapsed on top of me. Pushing away his limp body, I sat up. An industrial shovel lay at my side, the one I’d used to hit the guy on the back of the head. The undercover Resistance guy who’d stood beside Mr. Mac at the back of the room during the award ceremony was running toward the huge guy to make sure he was dead. Probably a good call.
He hauled me to my feet before bending to deal with this attacker. “You need to evacuate the premises, Miss Harper.”
No kidding. But I wasn’t leaving without Reid.
Utter chaos had broken out.
Clouds swirled around the rooftop and thunder shook through the building below. I couldn’t believe it. I’d Pushed a tropical storm. Wind whipped through my hair and took my breath away. A familiar electricity skidded over my skin. Lightning flashed, brightening the figures fighting around me. A face I recognized flickered in the light.
Reid. Relief a
nd guilt hit me at the same time. His fist connected with a guy’s face, in a crunch of bone and spurt of blood. The Consortium dude pulled a gun of some sort, but it disappeared immediately. Shiny metal objects released from Reid’s hands but dropped short of the guy. He’d Pushed his shield.
The undercover Resistance guard fired three times to my right. The blond girl’s body shuddered and tumbled to the rooftop.
Someone grabbed my ankle and yanked my leg backward. I pitched forward and Pushed a thick pillow under me a second before my face hit the cement. It buffered the impact, but my head still ached.
I turned my face and saw Mr. Mac’s lifeless body across the distance again. I wouldn’t let him die in vain.
I couldn’t hold back. Not anymore.
24.
Reid
P
laytime is over, fellas.
The Consortium dude I’d been fighting was an Anomaly, which meant we were in an endless game of Push and Retract and Shield. It could go on forever. Or until one of us slipped up, anyway.
The guy’s eyes narrowed as he Pushed stairs up toward the sky, one appearing under his foot as he stepped. I wasn’t sure where he thought he was going, but it wouldn’t be far. I Pushed a ramp, a section at a time, manifesting under me as I stepped closer to this d-bag. We were on a collision course.
I Pushed a spear into my hand, and it arched gracefully through the air until it hit his shield. I picked up my pace, and as soon as I was about to crash into him, he dropped out of my line of sight. I glanced down. He’d landed on top of a rooftop exhaust unit. I Retracted my makeshift bridge, ran along the ramp I’d erected, back to the rooftop before Retracting that, too. The sky spit large drops as I sailed through the air, my eyes trained on the Consortium guy.
My feet hit the hotel rooftop and I paused to breathe. A bolt of lightning hit something close on the beach side of the hotel. I’d lost the Consortium goon, but the quick glow from the lightning illuminated the scene like it was momentarily daylight. Bodies lay around the rooftop. The blonde, the big guy. At least one undercover Resistance. Mr. McIntosh. Josie was standing, bracing herself against the short wall that ran the perimeter of the rooftop.