The sun fell further along the horizon as the others packed up again. I didn't have much to take with me and it'd meant all of ten minutes shoving things into a bag.
We probably weren't going to make it through this intact. I'd already lost Cassie once; just like she'd lost me. It'd nearly destroyed both of us. What would happen if everything really fell apart? We weren't going to have this bastion of safety like we'd had the past couple of days. There would be nowhere to go, no one to turn to except for each other.
Imagine; we might even have to pay our own insurance rates. You want to talk about breaking the bank, good lord.
Cassie tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up at her reflection in the window and raised both brows. She jerked her head toward the door. We still had the stolen car and Izzy's, but I wished we'd been given less noticeable transportation. Doubtlessly, Scribe would know we were coming the second we hit the edge of town; but anything that helped would have been worthwhile.
It was time to go and I wasn't ready for it.
I followed her off to the door, my bag over one shoulder. She pulled it open and Starseer blinked down at us and tilted his head. "Did you think you were leaving without company?"
Tears came to my eyes in an instant. I wiped them away before he could see and let Cassie do the talking.
"I assumed that we'd catch the interest of a few of you. Logan says you're on your own. That means paying your own hospital bills. You know that, right?" she asked
He shrugged. "We've all got more than that set away for a rainy day, and this looks like a hell of a storm coming in. Besides, he already knows we're coming. We told him so. And if Whirlwind was willing to die to protect you, it seems like shitty idea for his death to have been in vain."
"Well. I'm with you there." Cassie stuck her head out into the hallway and frowned. "Five of you? I didn't expect so many. Do you guys have a car or what?"
James pushed through the others to wrap his arms around her. "Three cars in case any of you needed to move anything. And a truck. I can't believe you all still suffer through transport issues."
"Yeah. Well. Maybe we can change that after we get things done back home," she said, then hugged her cousin back.
Adam snaked his arm around my shoulders. I eyed him and he smiled. "You just looked kinda lonely. That's all."
I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right, but I didn't squirm free of him, either. We'd been friends when I was alive and I'd nearly scorched him when he'd tried to pin me down in that bar, but we loved the same woman. There are few things out there that bring people closer together than that; even if it's some stupid love triangle.
Kharmia had somehow managed to heal herself overnight. She wouldn't give us the details, but she was visibly pleased to be there with us. Two other superheroes I hadn't caught the names of, but each gave us a nod as we filed out. The walk down to the parking garage was quick, painless, but I felt eyes on us everywhere.
With the rest of the Thomaston group, we made a stiff dozen ready to do battle with a guy that could write us out of existence if he so desired. Isabella's madness had been rough. The Dream had been unbearable. I couldn't begin to guess how we were going to fight a man who could erase us all in the blink of an eye.
But we weren't quitters. He'd beaten that into us, perhaps not literally, but certainly throughout our training. Giving up had never been an option when you were trying to save your friends or the civilians entrusted to you. And we just didn't do that. Superheroes weren't allowed to throw in the towel when something was hard.
Too many people depended on us.
I let the others drive, settling myself in the stolen vehicle because it only felt right to go home with Cassie. Adam settled himself behind the wheel and I realized, that it was just us. Me, Edwin, Cassie, Adam, and Nate had somehow gotten the car to ourselves and I'd managed to get one of the two seats to nestle up against my girlfriend. Edwin had the other. Nate rode shotgun with Adam, which seemed appropriate: if we were attacked, Nate would be one of the fastest melee sorts to respond. It'd take Cassie a while to wedge herself out from between Edwin and me.
Even so, our trip remained more or less silent. I held hands with Cassie and hoped for the best, the night black as pitch around us, the moon high above and following our every move.
We ran into the first bit of trouble ten miles outside of the city. The shacks that had stood there for years were nothing but mounds of ash and mostly burnt timbers, the paint roasted from them. Though the fires had obviously gone out some time ago, it felt as though we'd come upon them in flames.
Because most of the rest of the city was, in one way or another.
It seems silly, perhaps, for a Pyro like me to dislike the visible appearance of fire. When I'm in control of it, it's wonderful. I can blast, fry, and roast everything I come in contact with; for the greater good, of course.
But when I come across a fire that's completely out of control, even one that's in a trash can, I feel a little sense of unease. It's something that I can't quite shake off no matter what I do. It's some combination of an itch to take control of it and let it feed, let it grow into something worthwhile, and the need to protect those around it.
Fire burns. Its sole purpose is to destroy. When humanity harnessed fire, we became the most powerful animals on the planet. It's no surprise that other beasts fear us; we hold the ultimate destruction in the palm of our hands and don't even flinch.
There is no terrestrial animal that hangs around when a fire rages out of control. Even sea life know better than to try to deal with flames above the surface or those that manage to burn beneath the waves.
No Pyro on this planet is a good person all the way through. We can't be if we're going to connect with the fires that love us so much. But I tried to be better than most.
And I'd still scorched some poor kid when the Dream had hold of me.
I closed my hand as we encountered fire after fire, killing them one by one. Yet, it felt as though I couldn't do enough. When I accessed one, another thirty screamed for my attention. They begged for me to help them find fuel, food, more things to consume and fricassee. I fought back against it and kept my mouth shut about it.
A jet of pale blue magic shot from one of the cars in front of us, drenching a particularly gnarly dumpster fire with a raincloud's worth of water. The Presto was joining in, then, conjuring to try to stop my fires from launching an attack. Did she think I was going to hurt someone now that we were heading back into Scribe and Allison's territory?
Because I thought I might.
I let her deal with the rest of them and took Cassie by the wrist, instead, holding her close but not trying to overpower her. My mind ticked away as we drove through wreckage that was blissfully clear of Kipas.
Maybe there was some way to protect her. We could keep her in reserve until the very end if we needed to. I thought she might actually listen to that because it was the smartest thing to do. We couldn't go in guns blazing; Scribe would just write us all away. But if some of us went in to distract him while others worked toward a different goal, say one that involved getting rid of Allison's Dream, it was possible that a double-pronged attack would be enough.
We had to go around the back streets to avoid the Yarborough Alliance building, but it was worth it. Little had I known that the Thomaston Alliance had a small set of apartments about three miles from our place, but Starseer had been kind enough to let us known about them.
Ditching the cars about half a block before we got there, the walk through the deserted streets felt like some sort of terrible dystopian movie. I hung back from the rest of the group, slowing down enough to walk with Nate. He frowned down at me and jerked his head at a nearby alleyway. I followed him into it.
"I know what you're thinking and she'll be livid if we do it," he said.
That caught me off guard. "If we get wiped out, she can still stand a chance against him. Maybe he doesn't know she's here until that last, wo
nderful moment. Then she jumps in and saves everything, fast as she can. She could even save us if it came down to it."
"It won't come down to it like that, Nishelle. And if it does, it's only because we've already failed. Cassie isn't going to sit quietly by while the rest of us move out to go fight the guy that helped raise most of us."
"No, I didn't say that," I said, readjusting the strap on my bag. "I'm sure James or Edwin know how to make chloroform."
"You want to drug her?"
I rolled my eyes. "Like you've never knocked someone out for ethical purposes. Yes, I want to chloroform her. And I want to do it because, like you said, she'll never agree to anything else otherwise. She wants to be in the middle of the fight trying to protect all of us. That's well and good. It doesn't work like that."
"A Blitzer has the best chance in-"
Glaring, I interrupted him. "In what? A fight against a Psychic and whatever Scribe is? I mean, he's the only guy we know of that's ever had those powers before. Who knows what he's really capable of?"
"I don't like it."
"Well, neither do I. But I think it's best that we get a move on. Think about it and tell me if you want to do it. If you do, I'll speak to Edwin and James, see if they can figure out how we can-"
My voice faded away as the world shuddered around us. Blackness engulfed us for a brief second, then dragged us back into the real world. I immediately pinched myself and flinched. Okay. Not the Dream. But maybe some sort of search wave based on it?
Cassie and Adam cried out up ahead of us. I took off at a flat run, trying to draw a breath as I hurried to catch up to them. Bodies fell and I was certain it had to be her, tortured and trapped in the Dream in that horrible moment.
She stood with her back against a wall, her head tipped up as she scrunched her eyes closed. I went to grab her, but Nate stopped me. "Would you look at what she's doing before you just snatch her?"
An aura of pale purple-ness floated around her, Adam, and several of the others. Their eyes were closed, their faces grim, but all of them still seemed to be inside their bodies. That was more than I could say for most people who experienced the Dream. Sure, your body existed but your mind left it.
Yet even as I watched, it just looked like whatever Cassie was doing wasn't strong enough. I didn't have any way to help her, but I wanted to. I looked back at Nate, who pulled me close to him and turned my head away from my girlfriend struggling to protect herself and those who were being dragged kicking and screaming, bit by bit, into the Dream.
Pain worked to pull yourself out, but it seemed to need to be self-inflicted. I wasn't certain enough to go trying to punch her or lighting her hair on fire.
But we were in Yarborough, the city of opportunity. The place where, when you thought there was no hope left, a superhero turned up and fixed your day for you.
A car trundled down the road toward us, not quite laying rubber on the pavement when it slid to a stop. Out popped the two people that I hadn't expected. Either Cassie's parents were more capable of survival than I'd thought, or they were here to wreck us. I walked forward, pulling away from Nate, but he grabbed me again and held on to me.
"If they're here to kill us, I want to go out fighting!" I snarled.
He shook his head. "If they were here to kill us, they wouldn't approach so quickly. People with nefarious intent don't do that."
"Fucking nefarious. You medical assholes can't talk normal, I swear-"
"Fine, if they were here to be motherfuckers they wouldn't run up on us so fast," Nate said, flatly.
I scowled back at him. "I didn't say I didn't know what nefarious meant, you prick."
"I know."
"Fuck you."
"Maybe later," Nate shrugged. "More worried about what they're up to right now. You ready to not scorch them into the dirt?"
Without another word, I yanked away from him again, and started off toward the Clarks. Cassie's mom wrapped her arms around my girlfriend and drew her away from the wall, whispering in her ear. I threw a sparkle of flame at them, letting it crash on the wall beside her. The embers skittered across the ground.
"How did you know where we were and what are you doing?" I snapped. Most would have said I was on edge but I was so far beyond that. Everything was a clusterfuck and, while I'd been trained to deal with situations like that, I was getting pretty sick of all of it.
"We're helping," her father said, offering his hand out to me. "Come here. I'll explain. I don't think you'll understand it all, but I'll try."
I eyed him for a moment before I came to crouch beside him. He cast some sort of weird indigo aura over Cassie's purplish one and spoke as he worked. "Allison's trying to drag them into the Dream with her. Cassie's fighting her off, barely. We're helping her keep things separated until we can do something a bit more direct. If we strike back at Allison, she'll know we're off on our own. She'll hunt all of us down like animals at Lamar's request-"
"Scribe," I corrected instantly.
He nodded. "Scribe. Right. You haven't been here the past few days, Nishelle. It's bad."
"I couldn't have guessed that from the state the city's in," I muttered.
"Don't be a smartass. Move back and give me a moment with this group. It must be an area of attack issue, not one directed at all of you. Otherwise, the two of you would have been caught, too."
It was a struggle not to kick him in the ass, but I did as I was asked to do. The color from whatever he was doing intensified until it took up most of the sidewalk. Izzy came around first, then Lexi and Adam. Slowly but surely, the group came out of the Dream without so much as Cassie breaking a sweat. She was the last and she hit her knees, head tipping back, staring at the sky above.
"You okay, honey?" her mother asked and I clenched my fists, only wanting to be the first thing she saw when she woke up.
The Dream wasn't exactly a comfortable place and who knew if she'd been there or if she'd only been defending against it? Her parents had a short conversation with her, then she squirmed away from them and came over to me, pressing her forehead against mine. "Got a problem, Emb."
"Yeah, I'd say we have a lot of problems right now."
She shook her head and smiled. "Don't think I'm just a Blitzer after all."
"Well, we always knew you were something else," I said, wrapping my arms around her.
My girl was a Psychic. Maybe she wasn't the strongest one in the field or even a very good one. I assumed that most Psychics had their Awakening like most of us did; right around puberty or maybe a bit before or a bit after. Generally not in their 30s.
Cassie nestled her cheek against my shoulder, slowly sinking against me. "Always wanted to be part of the family."
And then she passed out, right then and there, so utterly exhausted that she couldn't resist it. I whistled at Nate, who helped me pick her up and carry her the rest of the way to the apartment.
Chapter 16
I'd fallen asleep, passed out really, on the sidewalk but I woke up in a soft, warm bed surrounded by the people who cared so much about me. The sky outside showed the bright pink of the coming morning and my head threatened to split wide open.
I can't say enough about how bad it hurt to use so much Psychic energy. I wasn't used to it, wasn't ready for it, but I couldn't let Allison drag us back into the Dream again. I figured we'd had enough of that to last us the rest of our lives, however short they may be after today.
Perhaps the thing that bothered me the most, as I lay there, was how close my parents had been. It was if they'd been waiting on us to show back up. Why not take care of the situation themselves? They were more than capable of ruining Scribe's mind, but maybe there was another problem back at the Alliance building that we weren't yet aware of.
The problems never seemed to stay as simple as they once were. Some small part of me yearned for the quiet of punching a drug dealer on the face or bringing justice to your average terrorist psychopath trying to blow up a stadium full of people. This insid
e fighting thing sucked and I hoped, after we brought down Scribe, that it would be the end of it.
Something told me it wouldn't be. There were always the occasional superheroes who flipped villain on other members of their group, they just weren't so common as this seemed to be. Maybe I'd suggest we all put in for a transfer after this. We could be together somewhere else; somewhere quieter. A place that didn't have so much goddamn drama attached to it.
I slid out of bed and tried not to disturb the others. Mom sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in her hands. Another, fixed to my preferences, stood waiting for me in front of her. I frowned at her. "It's kinda creepy when you do that. Besides, don't you ever sleep?"
Allied: A Superhero Reverse Harem Romance (The PTB Alliance Book 3) Page 14