by Somers, Jill
She refocused her thoughts. She wouldn’t force her abilities onto Rory; she would focus her abilities into having the premonition for her. Admittedly, she’d never had a premonition before; she’d had little more than fleeting feelings about the future. Admittedly, she probably wasn’t a seer at all.
But if there was even the tiniest sliver of a chance that she was—that she could bear this weight for Rory—then she would take it.
Time passed—maybe minutes; maybe hours—and Quinn saw nothing. She couldn’t tell whether Rory did or not.
Finally, the overwhelming power became too much for her, and she felt herself give in to it.
• • •
When she woke up, she was in his bed again. She knew the feeling of those glorious sheets before she even opened her eyes. Not to mention, the soft, charged touch of his perfect hands.
“Quinn,” he was whispering to her. “Please wake up. Please.”
Her eyelids fluttered open as she looked around in confusion. Where were the rest of them? How long had it been? Where was Rory?
“Did it work?” she asked, sitting up.
He smiled softly, not letting go of her hand. “Not exactly. She did see things—new things—more specific things. But we couldn’t gather a time, or an exact plan, which was what we were really after.”
“What did she see?” she asked, eyes settling on his. His eyes instantly calmed her, but her fear for the girl remained. “She’s just a girl.”
“I know. But she wants to be more.”
Quinn understood. She had been the same way at Rory’s age. She had to be.
“She saw death,” he continued. “The same thing she had seen before, but more specific. Skeletons, almost entirely decimated. Rendered to ashes. The whole island, ruined.”
“Yeah,” Quinn said grimly, curling her legs up to her chest and resting her chin on her knees. “Well, we pretty much already knew that, didn’t we?”
“There’s more. She saw a mushroom cloud, Quinn. She said it was unmistakable. It’ll be a nuclear attack.”
That was new information. She shouldn’t be shocked, she supposed; it would be too easy for deviants like her and Dash to deflect firebombs or grenades. Crowley and Savannah were smarter than that.
Still, she had imagined some sort of battle. Not the coward’s approach.
Her mind wandered to the logistics—where the nuclear weapon would come from; how many leaders around the world would have to approve of the attack. It made her shudder, how much the rest of the world must still hate deviants.
“So that’s it,” she said quietly. “Their plan. Just to eradicate all of us in one, fell swoop. No soldiers needed.”
“I know,” he said, squeezing her hand. “It’s disgusting. There aren’t even three hundred of us, and that’s including those in the alliance… a regular old bomb isn’t good enough for them?”
“They want to fry us all until we disappear entirely,” she muttered. “And our island right along with us.”
“They know how strong we are. They fear that anything less than nuclear, we can handle.”
“And what do you think? Can we handle nuclear?”
“None of us have nuclear-specific abilities. Nor do any of us have experience stopping such things. But between all of us, banding together, sort of like we did today… I have hope.”
She nodded sadly, finding comfort in those golden eyes of his. Comfort, despite their impending doom. “You know, it’s funny… I was always so ready to die. I knew it was inevitable. And now, here I am, at death’s doorstep, and… For the first time, I’m not ready at all.”
His eyes were sad, but he refused to give in to it. “Good,” he said, reaching to touch her face. “Because I’m not ready to lose you.”
• • •
They brought it up at dinner that night. Without any specifics, any real explanations of how they had been doing the digging they’d been doing, they revealed to the rest of the resistance that they thought the attack would be nuclear.
“That is a very serious prediction,” Evelyn told Dash when he announced it to the room full of wide eyes and nervous faces. “Our preparations for the attack would change drastically if that were true. How can you be sure?”
“We can’t reveal the identities of those who have shared this information with us,” Dash said. “Not with the forced decisions of so many as of late. Not with the chance of moles existing among us. But I can tell you all that we do have a seer amongst us. And that person is confident that the attack will be nuclear.”
Whispers and gasps erupted amongst the dining hall. Quinn tried to avoid the glances in her direction; most of them probably thought it was her who had seen the future. To her relief, no eyes seemed to be cast in Rory’s direction.
“Very well,” Evelyn said. “We continue our efforts with Tommy, Izzo, and Roxy. We still need to learn of an exact date and time to expect this attack. Meanwhile, we must form a plan of defense. Who here knows anything about defending against a nuclear attack?”
No hands raised.
“I know that it’s impossible,” Angel finally offered. “I know that the US government has spent trillions of dollars trying to figure out how to do it, and that we’re kidding ourselves if we think we have anything they don’t.”
“Forgive me, but I think you’re the one who’s kidding yourself, Angel,” said Zerrick. “We’re deviants. What they spend trillions on, we can do with our eyes closed. Besides—wouldn’t it feel good? Showing them how easy it is for us?”
“I’m sure we would all agree that it would feel good, Zerrick,” Evelyn said. “But Angel’s question is one I believe many of us share: Is it really possible?”
“I think there’s a chance,” he said. “A slim chance, perhaps, but a chance. We use our abilities to make a shield—one that we project high enough in the sky that it destroys the bomb before it gets close enough to impact us.”
Simon, the English teacher Quinn had never liked half as much as Dash, was the first to question this idea. “If we were able to completely destroy the bomb, we would—in theory—be able to keep it from going nuclear. But is that a chance we are willing to take? What if something goes wrong? What if it does go nuclear? A shield wouldn’t be enough, even if we could project it upwards. The odds of us eliminating all of the fallout radiation would be miniscule.”
“We would need more than a shield,” Dash agreed. “In order to destroy the bomb before it reached us, and negate the effects of its detonation if anything went wrong…. We would need a blanket of energy so thick and so powerful that nothing could travel through it without being eradicated. Not even the fallout radiation.”
Evelyn looked doubtful. “Not a single one of us has a shield ability. The only one in the world we know of who does, currently works for the DCA. And to my knowledge, none of us can create ‘blankets of energy’—especially not one that happens to solve our radiation problem. What would you suggest?”
“I would suggest we band together,” Dash said, rising to his feet. “Project everything we’ve got. Zerrick uses his telekinetic force to push the bomb up and out—up toward the sky, out toward the ocean. We implement Roxy’s fire, Haley’s gravitational forces, me and Quinn’s elemental forces… We focus everything each of us has, a mile up in the air, spreading those abilities like a dome around our island. Protecting it. Focusing on nothing but destruction—way above us.”
“I just want to be clear about something,” Evelyn said, not backing down. “Radiation—bio-warfare—rolling the dice and taking our chances with things we don’t fully understand—it’s exactly how we got here. And we’re the lucky ones. I don’t think I need to remind anyone here how many people died in the event.”
Everyone fell silent, letting Evelyn’s words sink in. For a moment, it felt as if everyone in the room had lost hope.
Finally, someone spoke: Haley. Her voice was soft, shaky, but her words were confident. “I can do it.”
All eyes turned to her.
“I’ve only tapped into the full force of my abilities once,” she said. “It was when Quinn compelled me to. In that moment, I had a whole new sense of the world. My abilities weren’t just limited to the earth itself… I could feel the wind. I could feel the elements. I could feel every wave on the spectrum. Each of them, independent of each other. And they… obeyed me. Now, I’m not saying I’m at a point where I could single-handedly deflect this bomb. My abilities aren’t that finessed. But I think, with some of practice and Quinn compelling me to give it my all… I think I could transmute the fallout.”
Everyone fell silent again, this time for the opposite reason: hope was returning to them. Quinn tried to ignore the tears prickling at her eyes; she was so proud of her friend, she could barely keep it together.
“It’s not a bad idea,” said Michael. “It’s just… there’s no guarantee. We can help Haley practice manipulating the elements, but there’s no way for us to simulate the situation we’ll be in—for her purposes or for the shield’s. We’d have no idea whether it would work or not until it was too late.”
“We could run,” Tommy said, offering the same option Angel had suggested earlier. “I don’t mean far, and I don’t mean now. But once Izzo and I find out when it will happen, we could leave then—just far enough and just long enough to avoid getting hit. Then we’d come back. The real world wouldn’t even know we left.”
“It won’t work,” Angel said, shaking her head. “Believe me, I’d love for it to work; it was my idea first. But I went on a flight a few hours ago, just to see what it’s like out there—how it’s changed. Reese isn’t the only one patrolling the skies. They’ve got helicopters surrounding us, just far enough to not pose an immediate threat, just close enough that they’d try and take us down if we moved to escape.”
Quinn smiled to herself, impressed not only that Angel had the guts to sneak out, but also that she had the same thought process as Quinn about the helicopters. Not that it was anything to celebrate.
“It was never our best option, anyway,” Dash pointed out. “There are too many other risk factors once we re-enter the real world. Here, we remain grounded. We fight defensively—not offensively.”
Quinn could tell from the expressions of those around her that it was unanimous: this was their best shot.
• • •
The dinner meeting broke apart shortly thereafter, murmurs spreading amongst every member of the resistance. The plan B group met up briefly to touch base, but agreed to take a break for the evening. Rory and Quinn both needed rest.
Rory headed back for the fourth floor, deciding she was ready for a nap. Haley left with Ridley for an undisclosed location, promising Quinn that they’d catch up that night at their guard posts. One by one everyone else scattered until it was just Quinn and Dash, alone again.
“What do you think?” he asked her, eyes tired. “Do you think that between us, we can all stop a nuclear bomb?”
She held his gaze, thinking carefully about her answer. The old her—the Quinn she had been forced to be for most of her life—would have said no. That was the Quinn who had always erred on the pessimistic side; the Quinn who had refused to trust anyone; the Quinn who had almost gotten herself and everyone she cared about killed.
This Quinn, though, was different. This one actually had hope.
For hope is the thing that saves us from ourselves.
“I think we’re going to have to.”
12. THE MEMORY
Quinn spent the next few hours in Dash’s room. They didn’t make love again. They didn’t delve deep into each other’s pasts again. Instead, they just talked. About anything; about everything. About their favorite colors. Both blue. About their favorite bands. He had always loved Led Zeppelin. She had always loved Pink Floyd. Neither of them had ever cared for the Beatles. Then they put on the Beatles and closed their eyes and decided that they had both been wrong all along. They did like the Beatles, after all.
Finally, the time came for Quinn’s guard duty, and Dash was having a hard time letting her go.
“Let me go with you,” he urged. “It’s the middle of the night. Who knows what could happen?”
“Savannah and Reese are still here. Angel’s been checking. There’s not going to be a nuclear attack—not tonight. Anything else, I can handle.”
He held her gaze, hesitant.
“I’m starting to be able to trust for the first time,” she told him. “But that doesn’t mean I’m also now going to let other people fight my battles for me and protect me all the time. Come on, Dash. You know me better than that.”
He smiled softly. “I guess you’re right.”
She smiled back, leaning forward to kiss him. “I’ll see you soon,” she whispered, and she left to go meet her friend.
• • •
It was strange down there, on the first floor of the tower, late at night. There were lights on in the lobby, but they were dim. As Quinn looked out through the glass doors toward the island, she noticed that there were no lights anywhere. Not even the usual street lamps. Savannah had turned them all off.
Haley hadn’t made it there yet by the time Quinn got there. The two on patrol before them were Simon (Quinn’s English teacher) and an older woman she didn’t recognize. Quinn was starting to realize just how many people on the island she still didn’t know.
“Quinn,” Simon said good-naturedly when she arrived. “I’d heard you had the next shift. You get some sleep in before your shift?”
Quinn considered lying just to appease him, but she decided that the time for pleasing her teachers was over now that Savannah wasn’t in charge. She could finally treat them like equals.
“No,” she admitted, “but don’t worry—I’ll have good company. I’ll stay awake.”
Simon nodded. “Good. Quinn, this is Rita. She works at the library.”
Quinn raised her eyebrows; she hadn’t even known there was a library on the island. “Nice to meet you, Rita,” she said politely. The woman looked very kind. She looked like a librarian, if that was possible. Soft-featured, petite. Older—one of the oldest people Quinn had met so far on the island.
“Nice to meet you, too, dear,” Rita said warmly.
“Rita, why don’t you head on up to bed?” Simon asked the woman kindly. “I’ll wait with Quinn until Haley arrives.”
Rita smiled gratefully and waved goodbye to both of them as she headed up the stairs.
“Wow,” Quinn said, turning to face Simon. “They put her on patrol? Doesn’t look like she could hurt a fly.”
“No, and she probably wouldn’t. Rita’s ability is intelligence. You’d be surprised how much that can come in handy on patrol. Half the people who agreed to be in Savannah’s ‘alliance’ could probably be talked out of it with enough wisdom.”
Quinn didn’t doubt it; she had a feeling even she could convince some of them, if she really tried.
Her thoughts flashed to Shade, whose mind she hadn’t been able to change in the slightest, and she second-guessed herself.
“If she’s so smart,” she said, “one of us should ask her whether our nuclear shield plan will work.”
“Believe me, I did.”
“And?”
His face grew more serious. “She thinks it’s risky. She thinks our chances of destroying the bomb aren’t bad, but our chances of neutralizing the radioactive fallout if we fail are much slimmer. Everything Haley said made sense, but… It’s a lot to put on the shoulders of one girl.”
Quinn smiled softly to herself. How many times had that phrase been thrown at her growing up? How people had told her she wouldn’t be able to survive on her own, wouldn’t be able to outrun the DCA? Admittedly, she had eventually been caught. But she had lasted longer than any of them had ever predicted. She had proven them all wrong. And she knew Haley could, too.
“She can do it,” she told Simon, not a doubt in her mind. “I know she can.”
Haley reached them at that point, blushing deeply
over her tardiness. She clearly still thought of Simon as her teacher, even if Quinn didn’t. “Sorry, Simon,” she said when she stepped into the lobby. “I totally lost track of time.”
“All good,” Simon told her. “It gave me the opportunity to have a very reassuring conversation with Quinn here.”
Haley raised her eyebrows at Quinn, looking half amused, half confused. Simon took his leave.
“Don’t worry about it,” Quinn said, waving a hand. “We’ll get back to the whole you-saving-the-world thing. What the hell is going on with you and Ridley?”
Haley’s blush turned much more crimson. “Shit,” she said, forcing Quinn to laugh out loud. She was fairly certain she had never heard Haley curse before. “Are we that obvious?”
“I could lie and tell you no, but who are we kidding? Who cares, anyway? We’re all about to die. No time for secrecy.”
“You would know. I’m pretty sure everyone and their mother knows about you and Dash by now.”
Quinn chuckled. She couldn’t care less what anyone thought about her at this point—not that she ever really had. “Me and Dash has been a long time coming. But you and Ridley? When did this happen? Wasn’t it not so long ago you were ripping me a new one for making out with the other love of your life?”
Haley gave her a sarcastic look. “Whether I’m in love with him or not, Trent will always be my dear friend, and what you did was wrong on every level, Quinn.”
Quinn sighed. She knew Haley was right.
“Anyway,” Haley said, “you’re right—it was recent. I just never really knew Ridley until you started bringing him around. That first party, when you went up to the rooftop and he was still down there, chatting with Drax and Angel, I started talking to him. Then, when I joined the resistance, I started talking to him more. About you, mainly. Me, him, and Dash, we were all so worried about you, and we were trying to figure out a solution when—”
“When I screwed everything up,” Quinn finished for her. “By outing the whole operation.”
“Yeah. But you know what? I think you did the right thing. That bomb could drop any day now. And we could still be holed up in secret, plotting without really accomplishing anything. Leaving everyone blissfully unaware of their options.”