She felt the first tug then. Someone pushing her with telekinesis. Trying to force her down to her knees.
John must have felt it too because he quickly put his arm around Taylor’s waist. There was a rush of air and then the Peacekeepers and Earth Garde receded away. She was flying. Well, John Smith was flying, holding Taylor against him with ease, like she weighed nothing.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to presume,” John said. “But that was getting ugly.”
“No. We definitely needed to bail,” Taylor said into the wind. She could see the full layout of the Academy below them—the dorms, the training center, the Peacekeepers massed at the border, their makeshift barricade that suddenly seemed flimsy. Her eyes watered from the crisp wind. “They aren’t going to give up, are they?”
“No, I don’t think so,” John said. He started to float them downwards, towards the clear grass of the quad. “I know you want to make a safe place for our people. It’s noble. I want that too. And I know you think that place should be here. But you need to consider the very real possibility that this place could fall.”
Taylor’s shoulders tightened. She pulled away from John as soon as their feet hit the ground. “So what are you suggesting? That we give up and let Earth Garde put their Inhibitors in us?”
“No. Of course not.”
She laughed incredulously. “Then what? Should I convince the entire student body to leave the Academy and move to India with you?”
John Smith didn’t blink.
“Yes.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ISABELA SILVA
LE ROYAL MANSOUR—CASABLANCA, MOROCCO
“OH MY GOD, THIS DUDE HAS SO MANY WATCHES!” Isabela cried out as she rummaged through Derek King’s luggage. One by one, she slipped five expensive timepieces onto her arm, each one a different glittering metal. “Who travels with five different watches?”
“You are supposed to be looking for intel,” Ran said from the other room, where she and Duanphen were tying up King’s bloated bodyguard.
“Intel,” Isabela muttered. “I don’t know what that looks like.” She held up her arm, clinking the watches together. “This would pay my family’s rent for a year.”
Isabela prepared herself for another reprimand. Sometimes it seemed like all these people did was chide her, even when she’d done a good job. All of them sitting around and watching while Isabela paraded about in her different forms, then endured hours of King Loser groping her and blowing his peanut-smelling breath all over her neck. She was entitled to go through his stuff and add the most expensive items to her growing hoard on that gross spaceship. It was only fair.
Surprisingly, Ran didn’t say anything else. Instead, Isabela heard a grunt of pain and a thump as something hit the floor.
Isabela stood up from her crouch over King’s luggage and called into the living room. “What was that? Did the fathead wake up?”
Duanphen appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, a weird little smile on her face.
“Hello there,” she said.
“Uh, hey,” Isabela replied. She started to slide King’s watches off her arm. “I didn’t find anything. You two finished?” She tossed a gold Rolex in Duanphen’s direction. “Check that out. Guy’s loaded.”
Duanphen caught the watch in the air with her telekinesis, spun it around and then whipped it back at Isabela’s head. Isabela was too surprised to even duck. She cried out as the watch struck her on the cheek, opening a cut there.
“Vaca!” Isabela shouted. “Why—?”
“Aw, come on now,” Duanphen said with a laugh. “You had to know all that covetousness would end in consequences.”
Isabela stared. It was Duanphen’s voice, but she suddenly had one of those twangy American accents.
“Shit,” Isabela said, realizing that while it might have been Duanphen’s body stalking towards her, it wasn’t Duanphen at the controls.
“You know, when I first read the file on you, I was like—hey, me and this girl are pretty similar. We both try on other people’s skin. But the more I thought about it—and now, seeing you in action—I realized that we ain’t the same at all. You’re nothing but a petty liar. A little thief. Stealing people’s forms. Tricking them. All for your own gain. It’s downright devilish, what you do.”
As Duanphen closed in on her, Isabela leaped onto the bed and then stumbled to the other side, putting the furniture between them. It might not have seemed like it to her companions, but Isabela had been paying attention when they talked about this Lucas bastard. She couldn’t let him touch her or he’d be able to possess her. Or, if not that, he’d use Duanphen’s electrified skin against her. Isabela wasn’t eager to experience either outcome.
Duanphen circled around to cut off Isabela’s path to the door. “Me, on the other hand? When I’m inside a person, I’m doing the Lord’s work.”
“My English isn’t so good,” Isabela said. “But that sounded nasty.”
Isabela managed a glimpse through the doorway. She could see Ran slumped over in the other room, her body right next to the sleeping bodyguard. She was breathing, at least, but must have been shocked into unconsciousness by Duanphen.
She needed to stall. That was the right move. Either until Ran woke up or the guys came back down to check on her.
Although, if Lucas was allowed to touch Five or even Einar, the rest of them wouldn’t stand a chance. Best to keep him talking, though, while she figured something out.
Luckily, Lucas seemed happy to flap his borrowed gums, rambling on through Duanphen.
“I see right into people’s hearts and decide if they’re worthy. It’s my calling. There’s no better judge on this plane of existence than me. This one, for example?” He shook out Duanphen’s limbs. “Do you know how many people she’s hurt? Hell of a lot. Beating people up for pocket change.” He fired off a dramatic high kick. “What a sad, sorry life. What a waste of potential, slithering around in dark alleys, hiding from the Lord’s light.”
“You don’t know her,” Isabela snapped. “Shut up.”
“I know she trusts you more than anyone else in this little group. She’s got a crush on you.” Duanphen made a face, like she’d tasted something sour. “Blech. Unnatural.”
There was another option besides stalling. Isabela could go on the offensive. Knock this sicko out cold and send him back to his own body. That might mean hurting Duanphen, but she didn’t think her friend would care. She used to do fight club. Girl was used to getting clocked in the head.
Isabela let a slow, confident smile spread across her face. This trailer-trash zealot thought he could mess with her head? Please. She invented mind games.
Duanphen made another lunge towards her, then stopped abruptly when Isabela changed shape.
She’d seen pictures of the late Reverend Jimbo all over the bar where the Harvesters held a wake for their assassinated leader. She’d heard his voice on the recording Einar played them. Isabela’s approximation of Lucas’s father wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough.
“Lucas!” Isabela boomed. “I’m up here with Jesus and we both think you’re a piece of trash.”
“Bitch!” Duanphen shouted. “You take that mask off!”
Duanphen sprung forward, her fingers crackling with electricity. It was a sloppy move and Isabela was quick, even as Jimbo. She ducked under Duanphen’s grasping hand and swept her legs out from under her. Duanphen stumbled forward, crashing against the nightstand.
“Sonny boy, I can’t believe you sprung from my saintly balls,” Isabela crowed, bouncing back on her heels and into the living room where there was more room to maneuver. “You ain’t right.”
A wild look in her eyes, Duanphen shrieked and charged after her. Isabela stood still, let her come.
When he was almost on top of her, Isabela used her telekinesis to grab an unopened champagne bottle from where it sat chilling on the table. She let it fly, striking Duanphen right in the temple. The bottle exploded, foam and champ
agne spewing everywhere, shards of green glass tinkling onto the carpet. Duanphen fell down in a soaking heap right at Isabela’s feet.
“Sorry,” she said, changing back to her normal shape.
“Sneaky,” Duanphen grunted, on her hands and knees. “Very sneaky.”
Damn. Duanphen must have had an exceptionally hard head. Isabela had failed to displace Lucas. Not wanting to get too close, she danced backwards, looking around for something else to hit her with.
“You freak, get out of her!” Isabela shouted in frustration.
“Make me,” Duanphen replied petulantly.
As Isabela looked on, Duanphen snatched up one of the larger pieces of glass from the carpet. Blood dripped down the side of her head, pinkish where it mixed with the champagne. Her eyes focused on Isabela. That crooked smile returned, giving Isabela a chill.
“Make me,” she said again, calmer now, and then dug the glass into Duanphen’s forearm.
“What’re you doing?” Isabela shouted. “Stop!”
It was her instinct to race forward and try to stop Duanphen from hurting herself. Isabela realized that she’d made a mistake, but it was too late.
“Got you,” Duanphen whispered, and brushed a bloody hand across Isabela’s cheek.
The world fell away. A blackness closed in on her, like someone had pulled a hood over her head.
A glittering disco ball spun over Isabela’s head, dangling from crisscrossed wooden rafters. Strobe lights flashed and a fog machine belched cool mist.
“Oh no,” Isabela said.
She stood in the middle of an empty warehouse. Confetti and glitter and red plastic cups littered the floor. There should have been music—Isabela remembered music—but the only sound was the too-fast beating of her own heart, reverberating through the speakers mounted near the unoccupied DJ booth.
“No,” Isabela repeated. “No, no, no.”
This was the place. She’d been partying here just weeks before the invasion. Someone dropped a cigarette into a puddle of spilled paint thinner and the whole place went up in flames. She couldn’t get out.
Isabela looked down at her hands. Wavy burn scars covered the backs. She tried to use her Legacy to transform herself, but it didn’t work.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. A second ago, she’d been fighting that freak in King’s hotel room and now—
“This is in my head,” Isabela said.
There was fire. She could smell the smoke but not see the flames. Sweat dripped down the back of her shirt.
Across the room, a neon exit sign flashed. Isabela ran for it, desperately needing to get out of this place. But even sprinting, it felt impossible to make any progress. The warehouse’s makeshift dance floor kept getting wider and wider. And, somehow, the closer she got to the exit, the smaller the door became, shrinking into the wall like something out of Alice in Wonderland.
Isabela wiped a hand across her face. Her eyes were watering or maybe she was crying. The air was hot now. It burned her lungs. She was in hell.
“Don’t be dumb,” she said to herself. “This is all bullshit.”
She forced herself forward. This room wasn’t so big, the air not so hot. If this was happening inside her own mind—like a dream—then she should be able to exert some control.
Isabela willed herself to make it to the other side of the room and—just like that—she was there. The exit door was still shrunken, though. It was like the tiny portal of a dollhouse. Isabela needed to crouch down on the floor to push open the door with her index finger. Light spilled in from the other side. Isabela wedged herself in close to the wall, putting her eye up to the opening.
Through the door, she could see into the hotel room, where it seemed like only seconds had passed since she’d been fighting with possessed Duanphen. Isabela realized that she was peeking out through her own eyes, a fact which felt both disorienting and enraging.
“Let me go, you bastard!” she screamed into the tiny opening, but there was no response. No one could hear her. Or—if Lucas could—he was ignoring her.
Duanphen sat on the floor looking dazed, the girl getting paler and paler as blood seeped from the gash in her arm. She clutched at the wound in an effort to stop the bleeding.
“The good news for you is that the Foundation doesn’t want ya back,” Isabela heard her own voice say with a dreadful Southern accent. “Gosh, I suppose that’s also the bad news.”
And with that, Lucas kicked Duanphen in the face with Isabela’s foot. Duanphen couldn’t offer any defense at all—her head rocked back and she tipped over, unconscious.
“Stop it,” Isabela whispered.
Lucas swung his gaze towards Ran—she was still out cold, slumped next to the bodyguard. He clapped Isabela’s hands.
“Suppose them others should be along any second,” he declared. He was narrating. He must have been able to sense that she was watching.
Lucas knelt down over Duanphen and cradled her head. Made it look like he was trying to help her.
He had Isabela posed just like that when Caleb burst in through the balcony doors.
“Holy shit!” Caleb exclaimed, seeing the wreck of the room, the carnage all around. “Isabela?”
Lucas made Isabela hold out one of her hands.
“Caleb,” her voice said. “Help me!”
Trapped in that perpetually burning warehouse, eye pressed to the solitary opening, the real Isabela pounded her fists against the walls of her prison.
“Caleb!” she shouted. “Don’t!”
But he couldn’t hear her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CALEB CRANE
ISABELA SILVA
LE ROYAL MANSOUR—CASABLANCA, MOROCCO
RAN WAS CRUMPLED IN A HEAP ON THE FLOOR NEXT to the hog-tied bodyguard. Duanphen was also unconscious and looked half-dead, clutched in Isabela’s arms. A lot of blood. Too much blood. And Isabela wild-eyed, grasping for him.
Caleb took all these details in quickly, seconds after he kicked open the balcony door. He’d been dropped off there by Five, the Loric flying at top speed back to their cloaked skimmer. Einar had stayed behind in the penthouse garden to keep an eye on Derek King. If Lucas was still here, it was too dangerous to risk his possessing either of them. It was up to Caleb to sort this out.
“She attacked me,” Isabela said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
If Lucas had been controlling King’s bodyguard, then he must have jumped to Duanphen when she used her electrified touch. Then, Caleb reasoned, he must have used Duanphen to take out Ran, but encountered trouble when it came to Isabela. Caleb knew that Isabela could handle herself in a scrap, could be vicious. She might have knocked out Duanphen and sent Lucas flying back to his own body.
Or . . .
“I think I hurt her too bad,” Isabela said shakily. “I didn’t mean to. Please, Caleb, help me stop the bleeding.”
She didn’t quite sound right, but then, that could’ve been on account of Duanphen bleeding to death in her arms.
Still, there was only one way to know for sure.
“It’s okay, baby,” Caleb declared. “You’re safe now.”
Swift strides carried him across the room, where he knelt down next to Isabela. She smiled at him and grasped his hand.
“Calling me baby! What the hell is wrong with you, you stupid, stupid boy?” Isabela seethed, watching through the tiny doorway as Caleb came too close. She saw her hand reach out to pass along Lucas. Her fingers brushed against Caleb’s in what felt like slow motion.
The disco ball hovering overhead stopped moving, beams of light frozen in midair. The warehouse began to come apart in chunks. It was like Isabela’s world was a puzzle and that puzzle was sliding off a table, the pieces breaking free from each other. Through the gaps, she could see the real world through her own eyes—Caleb, Duanphen, the hotel room. She felt herself being pulled into that space. Released.
Lucas was letting her go. Which meant he was taking over Caleb.
/> She readied herself. She would have only seconds to react. She’d need to hit Caleb hard and fast, put him down before Lucas could create any duplicates. The idiot had a good punch in the mouth coming for falling so easily into Lucas’s trap.
“Come on,” Isabela said, psyching herself up, clenching her fists in this bullshit dreamland and hoping that would make her hands ready when she regained control of her body. “Come on!”
But then, suddenly, the warehouse snapped back into place.
Lucas still had her.
The moment Isabela had taken his hand, her frightened mask slipped away and Caleb saw that same crooked smile he remembered from Italy. But now, a heartbeat later, that smile was gone, replaced by a brow furrowed in confusion.
“You . . .” Isabela sounded bewildered. She sounded Southern. “You ain’t human.”
“That’s rude,” Caleb’s duplicate replied. “I have feelings, you know.”
The duplicate grabbed Isabela in a bear hug, squeezing her tight and lifting her off her feet. She screamed in frustration and head-butted the duplicate, not at all mindful of the welt that immediately formed on Isabela’s cheek.
“Go,” the real Caleb said from his spot on the balcony. “Don’t let him hurt her.”
Four more duplicates charged into the room. Together with the original, they quickly wrestled Isabela’s arms behind her back and secured her legs. One of them looped a forearm under her chin in a loose chokehold, the duplicate totally ignoring Isabela’s teeth gnashing into its flesh.
“Devils!” Isabela screamed. “Get your hands off me!”
Objects swirled through the air—broken glass from a champagne bottle, a chair, a vase filled with orchids. One of Caleb’s duplicates went down under this bombardment of telekinetic debris, but the others were able to maintain their grip.
“Cover her face,” Caleb commanded. “Don’t let her aim—”
A couch exploded through the balcony doors. Caleb dove aside at the last possible second. A pillow landed on his head, but otherwise the bulk of the furniture missed him. The couch broke the balcony’s railing and sailed into the night.
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