“Okay,” Gage said. “We need to get him as far away from here as we can. If you two—”
Photon sat up, gasping for breath, causing the others to jump back in surprise. He patted at his body, as if he hadn’t felt it in a very long time and needed to be sure that it was actually there.
“Photon!” Lone Star shouted. There was a hesitation in his voice. They couldn’t be sure it was actually their teammate and not some Cloak puppet.
“Lone Star?” The man looked up at him, recognition dawning.
“Is it really you?” Lux whispered.
Photon looked around the battlefield, blinking. Finally his gaze landed on Shade, who was staggering toward Alex. Photon’s eyes widened and his fists clenched together.
“We should get you out of here,” Gage said. “We don’t know how long—”
“No,” Photon said. “I’ve seen everything that woman has done and I haven’t been able to stop it. Until now.”
With that, he shot up into the sky, hovering in the middle of the battlefield. He raised one hand, and all around him Uniband weapons floated into the air. With a flick of his wrist, they became nothing more than a mangled ball of scraps. Around the lawn, the Ranger statues began to move again, this time attacking the Unibands, holding them off the ground as they kicked and struggled.
“You!” Shade shouted, her eyes wide and bloodshot, her hair a tangled mess standing out in every direction thanks to Bug’s previous attacks. “You’re mine.” Her eyes went silver, her limbs shaking.
“Not anymore,” Photon said.
He twitched his fingers. The metal bracelet around Shade’s wrist shattered, and the Umbra Gun flew out of her hands and up to him. He gave it a quick once-over before a piece of the weapon detached itself and disintegrated. The bomb was disarmed.
From the ground, Barrage shouted in rage, sending a series of blasts at the Ranger. Photon dodged. As he did, the Umbra Gun turned in midair, and he used his powers to fire off a single round. The dark energy hit Barrage in the stomach, the icy black seeping over him.
“No,” he grunted. “No, no, no!”
“Dad!” Julie shouted, running toward him, but Titan reached out and grabbed her arm, holding her up in the air. She tried to wriggle out of her brother’s grasp as she shouted at him. “What are you—”
“It’s not me, you idiot,” Titan said, glaring at Photon, who had taken control of his metal body. Several of the nearby Ranger statues ran to the brother and sister. They wrapped their arms around the pair before becoming lifeless once again, forming a cage around the siblings.
“Wrangle up what’s left of Cloak,” Lone Star shouted. “We’re taking them in.”
Across the battlefield, Barrage melted into shadow and disappeared. Julie screamed.
From the trees, a stream of purple electricity shot up and zapped Photon. He cried out, plummeting toward the earth, then landed in a heap in front of Lone Star, the Umbra Gun falling beside him. Mallory and Lux sprinted toward the direction of Volt’s charge.
Alex turned to face his mother, but she was nowhere to be seen. Gone.
“Where’s Shade?” Kirbie asked, running to his side. “Where’d she go?”
“This way,” Alex shouted, already headed toward the trees. “We can’t let her get away.”
He got several yards before Kirbie’s talons were on his shoulders, lifting him off the ground. They climbed into the sky. Together they would find his mother. Together they would keep her from escaping.
22
THE FATE OF STERLING CITY
They soared over the trees and paths and lawns of Victory Park. The air dried out Alex’s eyes as he tried to catch sight of his mother. She had to be somewhere near them. The tunnel underground was all but caved in after Barrage’s explosion, and Photon certainly wasn’t going to be flying her anywhere. They had to find her before she made it to a vehicle and had a chance to escape. This would be their only chance. If they didn’t catch her now, Alex had no doubt that the next time he saw her she’d be putting some other plot into motion. It would be too late.
Kirbie began to dive, causing Alex’s body to jerk back. Her avian eyes had spotted Shade, who ran toward the edge of the park, almost to the street. Alex focused on his mother as they drew closer, preparing to stop her dead in her tracks.
Shade must have sensed they were there. She turned and fired several shots from a laser pistol over her shoulder at them. Caught off guard, Kirbie swooped and twisted, making sure the shots missed Alex, but a stray bolt hit one of her wings and sent the two of them tumbling down side by side. Alex lost his telekinetic focus on Shade as his body was torn from Kirbie’s grip, and he found himself falling very quickly to the ground below. He covered his head and pushed at the earth with his thoughts, landing with a relatively soft thud on the grass.
Kirbie alighted beside him, changing back to her human form.
“You all right?”
Alex nodded, already on his feet, moving in the direction they’d been flying. “We have to get her. If she disappears into the city, we’ll never be able to find her.”
They sprinted wordlessly through the park and out onto the street, where Shade began to fire at them once more.
“Now who’s running, huh?” Kirbie shouted as they chased after her, weaving to avoid shots from her laser pistol. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”
Alex tried to wrap his thoughts around his mother’s feet, but with the fall and her lasers and the slight ringing in his head from her previous psychic attack, he was having trouble focusing on the fast-moving woman. Instead he brought everything he could down around her. She leaped over streetlamps that he sent sweeping toward her, and dodged trash cans.
“Why, dear, it’s like you’re not even really trying to hit me,” she shouted over her shoulder as she jumped on and then over a flying park bench.
They reached a grassy section of land, where Shade turned and stopped. Her eyes flashed, and Alex heard Kirbie make a strange noise behind him. He turned to see her frozen, though her eyes were wide.
“I can’t move my—,” she started, but something small and black exploded in the grass in front of her, causing her to fly through the air. She landed in the bushes clear on the other side of the street at an entrance to Victory Park.
“Kirbie!” Alex shouted.
“I’m okay,” she yelled back, but as she tried to stand, she stumbled forward, one of her legs giving out.
“I swear that girl has nine lives,” Shade said with contempt. “I wonder what number we’re on now.”
“You . . . ,” Alex muttered, clenching his fists.
“Oh, come now, son. It was only a concussion grenade. The only weapon I had left. Perhaps I should just shut down her brain and—”
Alex shot his hands forward, hitting his mother with a bolt of telekinetic energy that sent her flying onto the steps of the building behind her. She let out a groan as she landed on the cement, and Alex pulled the laser pistol from her hand, tossing it far from her reach.
Shade let out a small, angry laugh.
“Of course we’d end up here.”
For the first time, Alex realized where they were. Shade was getting to her feet on the steps of Silver Bank, where he’d failed to open a vault door weeks before and had then saved the life of a Junior Ranger. Where the unraveling of all the things he knew to be true and right began.
Alex felt a small tug at his thoughts. It was something that would have gone unnoticed to anyone who hadn’t grown up with a telepath for a parent. He immediately let his powers flare up around his mind, imagining it in a powerful blue box of energy, one that his mother could never break through.
“Don’t worry,” Shade said. Her voice was tinged with defeat, but Alex wasn’t about to let his guard down. “I honestly just wanted to know what you were thinking. Do you realize what’s so amazing about that imaginary blue box you keep your secrets hidden away in?”
Alex stayed silent. He’d never really thou
ght much about it. It was a simple use of his powers, something he’d done many times before. But he didn’t know how it worked, really. Just that it did.
“That box doesn’t exist,” his mother said. “It’s fueled by your powers, sure. But it’s imaginary. You can’t keep your brain locked up. There’s no way to wrap your entire mind in telekinetic power without killing yourself. What keeps me out is your belief that I can’t get in. That’s all.”
Alex glanced to the side. Kirbie was still struggling to stand.
“You know, your father was still fighting back there when I left. He could be dead now. Don’t you care about that?”
“Of course I do,” Alex said. “And if you were worried about him, why did you leave?”
“To survive,” Shade answered immediately, her voice growing harsher. “To carry on our mission.”
“Just turn yourself in, Mother. Please. I’m asking you as your son, not your enemy.”
“So we’re back to this stalemate?” she asked. “They can’t keep me locked up. There’s no place that can hold me. They’d never even get me to a facility if they had one. Their minds would be mine. I’m more powerful than any other person on this planet, Alex.” She shook her head. “Except for you, right? So it’s your choice. Are you going to end me here and now, or let me walk free across this earth? Because I guarantee if you do that, you have not seen the last of me. The Cloak Society lives on. It’s in my blood. It’s in your blood. We will lurk in the shadows until you have all but forgotten about us, and that is when we will strike. We have rebuilt ourselves before, and in Phantom’s name I swear we will do it again.”
Alex’s mother glowed a brilliant blue in his vision. He held her there, a fragile body, as pure energy streamed out of his eyes. He lifted her, almost subconsciously, off the ground, until she floated a few feet in the air. She was right.
His thoughts tightened around her.
Shade winced, staring back at him. She smiled, then closed her eyes and tilted her head back, raising her face to the sun.
Alex let her go. She dropped to the stairs with a thud.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Alex asked softly. “For me to kill you. To prove that I was the weapon you’d raised me to be. It’d be like some sort of final proof you were right. But I won’t give you that satisfaction.”
Shade let out a grunt, staring up at him with narrowed eyes. Her words dripped with pure spite. “So, what are you going to do, son?”
“Nothing,” a baritone voice said.
Alex turned to find Lone Star behind him, the Umbra Gun in his hands. There was a deep electronic sound as he fired the weapon.
Shade’s eyes went silver as she scrambled to her feet, but it was too late. The bolt of dark energy hit her in the chest and began to spread over her body. She reached out to Alex and managed to take a few steps toward him before the oily black seized her legs. As she stared at her son, her eyes faded back to normal. Human.
“For the glory,” she said, her voice betraying the smallest hint of a tremble as the darkness rose over the sides of her head, framing her face.
“Hail Cloak,” Alex whispered instinctively, his eyes wide.
And then his mother was nothing but a silhouette that melted onto the ground and scattered into the dark corners of Silver Bank and the shrubs and his own shadow.
Alex didn’t move. He felt as though he couldn’t, as if some force was keeping him frozen in place. He stared at the spot where his mother had just been standing. There were only steps there now. They were the same steps he’d stood on during his first mission when he’d proudly proclaimed himself to be Alexander Knight, fourth-generation member of the Cloak Society—a moment that now seemed like it had happened long ago, or in some sort of waking dream.
His body shivered. It was an unexpected sensation, since he wasn’t particularly cold. It was simply that he didn’t know what else to do, couldn’t even figure out how he was supposed to think. More than anything, he suddenly felt lost.
Lone Star stepped next to him. He stood beside Alex for what seemed like a long time before finally speaking.
“I’m sorry, Alex. If you have to hate someone for what just happened, you can hate me. But know that your mother’s fate rests on my conscience, not yours.”
Alex couldn’t speak. He turned to look for Kirbie. She was standing with one foot twisted awkwardly to the side as she leaned on Misty, whose hair was wild and sticking out in every direction.
“Is everyone okay?” Alex asked. His voice was wobbly and parched. “My father?”
“For the most part, everyone’s fine,” Lone Star said. “A little battered and bruised. We have Volt. Barrage is in the Gloom. I think the Legion boy got away. Everyone else is captured. We lost Zip. Bug’s pretty inconsolable right now, but Mallory and Kyle are with him.”
Alex nodded. “What about Amp?”
“He’s got a few bad burns, but he’ll be fine.” Lone Star reached a hand out to put on Alex’s shoulder. “Lux and a few police officers are taking him to the hospital just in case. Gage went with them. I think his arm needs to be looked at again. What can I do for you?”
“I’m ready to go home,” Alex said. It was the first thing that came to his mind.
“Of course,” Lone Star said. “Where do you mean?”
Alex looked up at the man and exhaled a short laugh through his nose.
“I have no idea.”
EPILOGUE
ONE MONTH LATER
Alex Knight stared at his father. Volt sat across from him, behind a thick layer of bulletproof glass. In the background was a small wooden bed and table piled high with books and journals. The room itself was covered in black rubber tiles. The man who could conduct and control electricity had been rendered powerless by a few materials from a hardware store.
Neither of the two spoke for what felt to Alex like a very long time. He couldn’t get over how different his father looked with several weeks’ worth of beard on his face. The whiskers made him look warmer somehow.
Finally Volt broke the silence.
“Has there been any word about your mother?” His voice was piped in through speakers hidden somewhere in the walls.
Alex hesitated at first, unsure whether this was something he was allowed to tell his father. But there was nothing, really, that Volt could do with the information, and deep down, Alex didn’t want him having to wonder about his wife’s fate.
“No,” he said. “But we can get into the Gloom now that Gage and Photon have reverse engineered the Umbra Gun. We’ve been in contact with Amp’s parents, so we’ve got eyes on the inside.”
“You mean they’re still alive in the Gloom after all these years?”
“Not very alive, from what I hear,” Alex said. “They’re scouring the Gloom looking for Mom. So far they haven’t found any trace of her. Or Barrage. They’ve got Ghost locked away inside there somewhere, though. There’s been talk of sending a team inside, but . . .”
His voice trailed off. Volt nodded.
“It would be dangerous. Not worth the risk.”
“I’m sure she’s all right,” Alex said. He hoped this was true, despite everything that had happened. “She’s not exactly someone who gives up.”
“I have no doubt that she’s plotting her way back into this world right now.” Volt smiled to himself, looking at the floor. It was a sad look, one that Alex couldn’t easily interpret. “The Gloom must be a nightmare for her. Old enemies as wardens. An entire world to rule, but no one to rule over. It’s quite the prison.”
Alex stared hard at his father. There was a question that had been lingering in the back of his mind for some time now, but it wasn’t one that he knew how to ask. He wasn’t even sure he really wanted to know the answer. His eyebrows drew together, crinkling his forehead. Volt took notice.
“What is it, son?”
“I just . . . Obviously Mother used her powers to control people and get her way. She told me that she did it to othe
r Cloak members sometimes. Pushed them one way or the other. Is it possible her powers were influencing people around her even when she didn’t know she was doing it?”
“Are you asking because you want a free pass for the first twelve years of your life?”
“No,” Alex said, meeting his father’s eyes. “I’m asking because I want to know if she was controlling you all this time.”
Confusion flashed on Volt’s face before being replaced by a small grin. His eyes looked almost proud.
“Son,” Volt said slowly, “does it matter, really? What’s done is done. The Cloak Society as it existed for generations is no more. Even if I wanted to blame my actions on your mother’s powers, how could I do that knowing that you were able to break away from her influence? Not only hers—the influence of all of us. How weak would that make me look?”
Alex wasn’t sure what to make of that answer.
“I’ll let you know if we find her,” he said. With that he rose from the uncomfortable metal chair he’d been sitting in and made his way to the door. Just before he reached it, Volt spoke again.
“When did she tell you that? About using her powers against the High Council sometimes.”
“Not too long ago,” Alex said. “I was sitting in the same room you’re in now. Only I was cuffed to a metal chair.”
Volt started to say something several times, then stopped. Finally he sighed.
“I hope that in the end, you find some of what we taught you to be worthwhile.”
Alex was still, searching his father’s face, trying to crack it. He knocked on the metal door twice. It slid open with a slight whoosh, and he left.
“Did you get the answers you were looking for?” Photon asked. His fingers flew over an electronic screen in his hands, though he was looking at Alex.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “I think so.”
They stood in the lowest level of what had once been the Cloak Society’s secret underground base, home to the High Council’s apartments, the formal dining room where Alex had taken countless meals, and a handful of maximum-
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