by Somers, Jill
• • •
“Stop,” Rita shouted from her spot at a laptop nearby. “Stop!”
Quinn looked over at Rita, confused. “What?”
“We’re not broadcasting any more. Something’s wrong.”
Quinn glanced out to the east, scanning the skies. Was Crowley landing? Was he close enough in range that he could already tamper with their signals?
Sure enough, she spotted his helicopter on the horizon. And behind it… Countless others.
It could just be precautionary, she tried to tell herself. A security measure… just in case something were to go wrong.
But she knew she couldn’t kid herself. It was an army.
“We should still record this,” Pence said, keeping the camera up. “He might be able to stop us from live streaming, but he can’t stop us from filming altogether.”
“Not unless he breaks our camera,” Charlie pointed out. “Let me take it. We’ll need you more than me if a fight comes. Besides, I can run from anyone who tries to tamper with it.”
Pence nodded, handing the camera over to Charlie. She glanced back at Quinn, eyes full of concern. “Is this it? Is it going to be a battle?”
Quinn hesitated, but she knew the answer. It had been clear in his voice during the phone call. It was clear from the army of helicopters behind his. The answer was yes.
She didn’t end up having to answer; Evelyn did it for her.
“It’s going to be a fight.”
“We could put up a shield again,” Angel said, running up to them. “Cast it out at them… Keep them from making it to the island.”
“We can’t,” Evelyn said somberly. “That shield was a hostile mixture of elements designed to incinerate anything that touched it. We’d kill dozens of them before they even figured out what it was.”
“Well, then we should start firing at them,” Angel urged. “Not to kill them—just to bang them up. Scare them. Maybe they’d turn away.”
Evelyn glared at her, gesturing to the camera, which was still rolling. “Even if we think they’re going to attack us, you know we can’t throw the first stone, Angel. We need to prove to the rest of the world that we’re not the problem. That we’re the victims.”
Angel sighed. It was clear that she knew Evelyn was right, as much as she hated to admit it.
“We won’t always be the victims,” Quinn said softly to Angel, offering her the most encouraging smile she could muster. She could feel Charlie panning the camera over toward her, but she ignored it. This wasn’t about the camera. It was about the fact that despite their rivalry, despite any issues Quinn had ever had with Angel, Angel had stayed on the right side of things. She hadn’t betrayed her friends, and she hadn’t buckled out of fear when things got tough. If she needed support, Quinn would offer it willingly. “We’re showing the world who we are. Who we really are—not who they’ve twisted us to become. I’m not worried about how it will go with Crowley today. I know that we’ll win. And I know that we’re good, and that we’re right. And soon, the rest of the world will, too.”
Angel nodded, offering Quinn a small smile in return. “I know.” She took a deep breath. “I know.”
Dash took Quinn’s hand, squeezing it gently.
But none of them had any more time to linger on the plan, because Crowley’s helicopter was landing.
With no regard for who stands below it, Quinn mused grimly as she watched people scatter beneath its shadow.
Crowley stepped out first, gesturing to the pilot to kill the engine to reduce the noise as he headed straight for Quinn and Dash.
“Ah,” he said, extending his arms as if coming over to hug them. “My two favorite monsters.”
Quinn snorted. “You took down our live stream. There’s no need for pleasantries.”
“Those weren’t pleasantries,” Dash told her, glaring at Crowley. “We’re not monsters.”
“Oh, but you are. You accepted that, Quinn, for so long. Didn’t you? You acted accordingly with your nature. Why try to change that now? The world has already seen the real you. Why try to pretend?”
“I was what the world forced me to be, in order to survive,” she snarled at him. “I never had a chance to figure out who I really was. Not until I came here.”
“Right. This ‘godforsaken’ place that I allowed you all to live and prosper in. And what was the thanks I got? Secret allegiances? ‘The resistance?’”
“You weren’t ‘allowing’ us to do anything,” Haley said, stepping forward. She may have never met Crowley before that day, but Quinn could tell from her tone that she hated him already. “You put up with our limited freedom so that Savannah could build an obedient little army for you, all the while gathering secrets and intel on the rest of us so that you could slaughter us when it best suited you.”
“That is preposterous,” he said, smug gaze suggesting that she was spot-on.
The other helicopters were landing. Quinn saw figures in the distance coming over to them. Most, she didn’t recognize. Some, she did. Shade, Tommy, and…
Trent.
She had to look away the moment she saw him. His eyes were sad, but it didn’t help.
“Quite an army you brought,” Dash said to Crowley. “You know—considering you’re here to talk terms of peace.”
Crowley chuckled. “Mr. Collins, you are quite possibly even stupider than your dead girlfriend.”
Quinn saw it coming a mile before it happened, and she didn’t blame him in the slightest: Dash was going for the punch.
But she stopped him—for one, because she was the only one who could; and for another, because they were still recording everything, and they couldn’t be the ones to throw the first punches. No matter how hard they were provoked.
“Save it, Crowley,” she hissed. “There’s nothing you can say that will surprise us. We all know you murdered Blackout in cold blood. We all know you framed her at the embassy. We all know you murdered my best friend after promising you’d let him go. We all know you’re a sick, twisted shell of a man. But we’re not going to throw the first punch. We’re going to prove to the world that we wanted peace. And you were the one who attacked us. Again.”
“Won’t matter, anyway.” He gestured to his soldiers to come into formation. “We will win, we will destroy the video, and that, as they say, will be that.”
• • •
Quinn, Dash, Ridley, and everyone else in the group that was bulletproof stood front and center when the shooting started. They absorbed the bullets for everyone else. Zerrick stood just behind them, telekinetically forcing guns away from their wielders; Charlie zipped through the thick of it, simultaneously recording the whole thing while removing as many guns as he could safely do.
The hardest part for Quinn was not being able to unleash her abilities onto them. They were recording the battle, which meant the more violent she was, the more the real world would fear her. And besides that, she didn’t want to kill anyone.
Well, she corrected herself, except one person.
From the moment the shooting began, three people circled around Crowley, protecting him. One was Shade, which didn’t worry Quinn, who had long since mastered overcoming his illusions. Thank you, power tech, she thought; thank you, Dash. The second was Shield. Back at Crowley Enterprises, when she’d relied on her compulsion, Shield had scared her—him, and the threats that had been made against Kurt. But Kurt was gone, and she didn’t have to rely on her compulsion any more. She had support; she had friends. Powerful friends.
The third person protecting Crowley, Quinn didn’t recognize. He was a regular, she decided as she watched him shoot his gun. He was nothing.
She wanted to embrace her instincts—attack Crowley, then and there.
She could, she was convinced. No one protecting him was strong enough to beat her. She could kill him.
But just before she could make her move, she heard a scream. Rory’s scream.
Suddenly, Crowley didn’t matter. Nothing mattere
d but that little girl. She turned her back on Crowley and ran to find her friend.
• • •
As it turned out, Reese had Rory in the air.
She could hear him through her link with Rory. He was shouting at her. Threatening her. “You’re making a mistake! They’ll kill you if you don’t join us!”
“Oh, will they?” Quinn asked him, flying up next to him, snatching Rory back from him before he had the chance to stop her.
He glared at her. “Quinn. Annoying as ever, I see.”
“I’d say I’ve thought a lot about you,” she told him. “About what you did to me. All the lies you told me. But I haven’t. I’m in love with your brother, and for the first time in my life, I’m happy. And really I haven’t thought of you at all.”
She could see the rage and envy in his eyes at her words, but he tried to hide it. “I’m glad you’re happy, Quinn. In your final hour.”
She laughed, genuinely unafraid. “How could you possibly think this is it? I could kill every last one of you right now with my bare hands.”
“Right. But you won’t. Which is why we’ll win.”
She floated closer to him, struggling not only with keeping up the flight but also with having to carry Rory. But the moment she thought it, she felt Rory feeding her more energy, keeping her strong.
“You’re right about one thing,” she told him. “I won’t kill you. You wouldn’t be worth the sweat… Not that I’d even have to break one. But we will win. Because as easy as it would be for me to kill you, it’s even easier for me to do this.”
For the second time in a matter of weeks, she punched him. It was harder this time—so hard, he didn’t manage to stay airborne. She watched with a calm smile as he slammed back down to the earth. She watched Hank and Ridley tie him up and take him to the basement of the tower. The new prison.
• • •
When she touched back down, she tried to convince Rory to go back to the tower and stay hidden.
Of course, she failed.
“We don’t have time to have this argument,” Rory snapped at her. “Look behind me. Angel and Drax are fighting Shade and Tommy. They’re going to lose. We have to help.”
Quinn glanced behind Rory, raising her eyebrows when she realized the girl was right. Shade had abandoned his post at Crowley’s side, probably after seeing that Quinn had steered clear of him. But Angel and Drax didn’t seem to be holding up well against the illusions and invisibility.
“Try and get inside Shade’s head,” Quinn told Rory as they ran over to their friends. “Stop him from projecting those illusions. I’ll worry about the rest.”
But when she reached them, she realized someone else had gotten there first: Trent.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him. He looked exactly the same on the outside—cool, calm, collected—and yet, there was something in his eyes, which looked straight over at her…
He looked unbelievably sad.
Well, she thought, he should.
And she slammed him to the ground.
It was strange, she thought as she did so, engaging him in the same sort of fight she had back then in class—the day she had kissed him. Strange that back then, the stakes had been so low, and here, today, they were everything.
But as she hit him, repeatedly, fiercely, she realized something: he wasn’t hitting her back.
He’s not fighting us, Rory told her in her head. Quinn stopped hitting him, body keeping him pinned to the ground, looking back over at Rory, whose expression was calm and collected.
He’s protecting us, Rory told her.
Quinn stared down at Trent, eyes wide, confused. “Is that true?” she whispered to him, even though of course he had no idea what she was referring to.
Somehow, he nodded, anyway. Eyes sad, but honest. “I’m so sorry, Quinn. The moment I left, I wanted to come back. I just thought I’d be more useful this way.”
She could hesitate. She could decide she didn’t trust him, that she should knock him out, anyway, have the boys take him to the prison.
But she was tired of that. She was tired of not trusting people. With Trent back on her side, that meant no one she had truly cared about had betrayed her, after all.
She stood, reaching a hand out to help him to his feet.
But not in time.
Bang.
Invisible man. Visible gun. Visible bullet. Only one person had seen it coming: Drax. He dove in front of Angel so quickly, one might have thought he had borrowed Charlie’s speed, if only for that instant.
The bullet hit him square in the chest. Angel’s scream was loud enough to freeze every person on the island, if only for that instant.
“I’ll kill you!” Angel screamed at Tommy, who of course she couldn’t see, launching for the direction the shot had come from; the gun had already been dropped to the ground. Quinn stared from the fallen Drax to Angel and back, frozen. She wanted to go to her friend, to comfort him, to tell him everything was going to be okay, even if it wasn’t—but it shouldn’t be her. It should be Angel.
“Angel,” Quinn said, reaching out to stop her. Angel writhed away from her, screaming profanities toward a Tommy that she still couldn’t see. Tears streamed down her face. Quinn knew those tears well: they were tears of anger. In that moment, Angel wanted vengeance more than love.
It was a mistake Quinn had made that she wouldn’t let Angel make, too.
“Angel,” she said again. “Drax needs you. Let me take care of Tommy.”
Angel turned to look at Quinn. Her soft, blue eyes looked bottomless in that moment—like a well of sadness that could swallow her up. It broke Quinn’s heart. She knew how Angel felt all too well.
But Drax wasn’t gone yet.
“He needs you,” Quinn whispered.
Swallowing her pride and anger, Angel nodded and went to her fallen friend.
Quinn turned to face the direction the shot had come from, narrowing her eyebrows. She glanced over at Trent, who seemed to be waiting for her cue.
“Take care of Shade,” she told him. “Don’t worry about the illusions—he can’t get you with Rory here. And, Trent?”
Trent waited, listening. She could tell Shade was listening, too. It was her intention.
“Don’t hurt him, okay? I don’t blame him. For any of this.”
Trent nodded, making his way over to Shade with confidence and bravery, leaving Quinn to face her invisible nemesis.
She didn’t have the power to see Tommy when he was invisible. But if she were able to reveal him some other way…
As if on cue, Haley appeared, sprinting over to them.
“I heard Angel’s scream.” Her eyes fell to Drax, and her hand flew to her mouth, instantly devastated. “Oh, my God.”
“There’s no time,” Quinn said, grabbing her by the arm. “You’re Earth powered. Do you think you could conjure up oil?”
“Yeah,” she stammered, eyes still on Drax, “I think I could—but where?”
“Everywhere,” Quinn said, not letting go of Haley’s arm. “Everywhere you can’t see someone.”
It would have worked with just the oil; Quinn knew that. But in that moment, filled with rage and ferocity toward Tommy for what he had done to both Drax and Angel, she couldn’t stop herself. She didn’t want to kill him, but she wanted to hurt him—to punish him. So as Haley conjured the oil, Quinn conjured the flames.
Within seconds, she found him: the invisible man, up in flames. Screaming.
She pounced, not subduing the flames until she had him flat on the ground with his hands behind his back. Within seconds, Ridley and Hank were there with the cuffs, injecting him with enough liquid sedatives to tranquilize a small horse.
It still wasn’t satisfying. It still wasn’t enough. Drax was going to die, and Tommy wasn’t going to pay for it, and that wasn’t enough for Quinn.
But just as she had told Angel, she knew what had to matter more to her more than revenge: getting to say goodbye. So sh
e turned away from the charred body being dragged away and made her way toward her friend.
Angel was a mess—not that Quinn could blame her. She was sobbing, begging him to hold on, to stay with her. Telling him he was the most important person in her life. The only person who had ever truly understood her.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly, reaching up to touch her cheek. “I’m going to go be with my family now, Angel. Yours is still here. I want you to promise me that you won’t give up. Not until you find them again.”
“You are my family,” Angel whispered.
The tears were streaming down all of their cheeks now, Haley and Quinn included. Angel seemed to see in Drax’s eyes that it wasn’t enough, that he had to know that she was going to be okay—that she was going to find her real family when he left her.
“I promise,” she choked out.
Drax smiled, taking Angel’s hand and kissing it. Sensing that Angel had said all she could manage to say to him, Quinn knelt beside her, looking down at Drax, taking his other hand. She couldn’t let him go without one last goodbye. “I’m sorry we let them get you.”
“Ironic, isn’t it? I can take a tree, but I’m still not bulletproof.”
She tried to laugh, but it came out more of a sob.
“I don’t regret it,” he whispered to both of them. “Angel, I’d die for you a thousand times over. And Quinn… If not for you, I probably wouldn’t have even been out here, fighting, risking my life for the people I love. It took me so long to realize that I was strong. But once you showed that to me… It changed my world.”
“Yeah,” she muttered, hating herself, “it got you killed.”
“No. It saved Angel.”
• • •
She wanted to be there with him until the end, to hold his hand and never let go. But Angel was there with him, and she knew that she had a more important mission: Crowley.
She had to kill him.
He was responsible for all of it. Drax’s death. Tommy’s betrayal. All the other deaths, all of this war…
She tried to focus on the plan as she made her way back to him. Knock them out. Knock them unconscious, get them to Ridley and Hank, get them to the prison.