by Jackson Ford
It’s her. Amber-Leigh Schenke. No question about it. And there, getting out the car, his face just visible around the edge of the windshield…
“Delta One, Alpha. I do not have a clear line to target. He’s blocked by the car.”
“Don’t worry.” Okoro’s voice is as soft as a snake sliding through grass. “I got him.”
“Okoro, hold,” Burr says. “Frost, can you see him?” His voice quietly urgent. No jokes now. No freak show jabs.
I let a long, shaky breath. A big cloud of white vapour. This is happening. This is really fucking happening.
“Cruz,” Burr says to Annie. “What do you see?”
“It’s him,” Annie replies.
“You’re sure?”
“Damn right I’m sure.”
Little kid with a soccer ball approaches a checkpoint…
“Frost?”
There’s no denying it. It’s Matthew. His face is seared into my mind. He’s standing dead still by the car, almost sniffing the air, gazing around the campground. He glances at the building without interest, looks away.
Four years old. Definitely no older than that. What was I like when I was four? Had I even started reading yet?
There’s a coppery taste in my mouth. Bitter. I swear the pounding in my ears has gotten louder. And at the edges of my mind, Carlos, begging me to help him.
“Delta One, Alpha. Still no clear view to target. I can attempt a shot through the car itself, but—”
“Alpha, this is Delta,” says Burr. “Stand down. Secondary has the target.” To me: “I need an answer. I know you can see him – do we have the right kid?”
Matthew looks in my direction. I don’t think he can see me, not really – but his face changes, just a little. A narrowing of the eyes, a tightening of the mouth. The fear jumps, like I’ve touched an electric wire. Now it’s not just Carlos in my head. It’s Paul, too, dropping into the earth.
Someone is going to die here. Right now. And it’s going to happen because of me.
“Frost.”
“… Yes.”
I don’t realise I’ve spoken aloud at first, not until Burr says, “Again?”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
Burr doesn’t waste time. “Okoro. Green light. Execute.”
Okoro exhales very softly and squeezes the trigger.
Inside the cabin, the gunshot sounds like the end of the world.
FIFTY-THREE
Teagan
Okoro is a god-level sniper. No one lies that still and is that focused unless they’ve had the kind of training to make the shot, no matter what.
Problem is, no matter what doesn’t take psychokinesis into account.
It doesn’t take into account someone reaching over and, in the split-second before you fire, giving your gun barrel the tiniest little tap.
I told myself I wouldn’t do it. And I kept thinking that up until the moment I did it. I knew I could end this, right here, right now – this whole fucking nightmare, all of it – just by doing nothing. And until I moved Okoro’s aim a fraction of an inch off-centre, that’s exactly what I planned to do.
I guess some things are hardwired into me. No matter what the stakes, no matter how important it is, I can’t kill a kid.
The bullet blows a huge chunk out of the ground beyond him, setting off a landmine of dirt. He whips his head round, ducks on instinct. His mom is looking everywhere at once, eyes wide. The gunshot echoes through the trees.
“Shit.” Okoro’s voice is no longer soft. It’s husky, ragged. She rips the bolt back, chambering another round.
Oh boy. I may not have made the best decision here.
Matthew’s head whips back towards the cabin… and looks straight at me. Sees me. I don’t why I’m the one he focuses on, but his face twists into the worst expression I’ve ever seen.
Anger. Hatred. Rage.
“Shit!” says Annie.
I yell, “Everybody down!”
A huge wave of earth explodes in front of the cabin. That’s what it looks like: a wave. Ten feet tall, fifty across, ripping out of the ground with a sound like God clearing his throat. The kid and his mom vanish from view, and then the windows of the camp building explode inward, showering us with dirt and glass.
Annie and I roll off the table. I hit the floor hard, yelping in pain as my shoulder takes the impact. Burr is shouting orders, but I can only just make them out. Grayson’s voice over the radio, urgent, heated. “Delta? Do you copy?”
The wave of dirt has become a hurricane, fragments of rock and soil ripping through the air. They’re moving so fast that there are rocks embedding themselves in the walls, the smaller ones shattering completely. The racks of trail mix and sleeping bags go to pieces, toppling over, spilling their contents.
Garcia has been knocked right off the table. Okoro, however, is still there. She’s hunkered down, gritting her teeth against the storm, her face scratched and bloody. Eye to the scope. I don’t hear her, but I see her mouth move. “Got you, motherf—”
Something shoots through the window, and hits her in the head.
It’s not a rock, or a chunk of dirt. It’s more like a battering ram – one made of soil. But it’s twisting and writhing, curving as it punches through the window, like a tentacle. Okoro’s head snaps back, and she tumbles off her sniper nest.
I have to fix this. I sent us down this path, so I’m the one who has to find a way off it. And I need to do it before anyone else gets hurt – this whole situation is already deeply fucked.
Annie moves in a leopard crawl to cover, heading for the thick wooden counter, frantically gesturing at me to follow. I ignore her, getting to my knees, then doing a roadie run for the door. It’s wide open, blown back off its hinges. My mouth and eyes fill with dust, flecks of dirt and rock shredding my skin. Like fighting through the world’s worst sandstorm.
I have no idea where Burr is, what’s happened to Okoro or Garcia. I just know that I’ve got to get out there. Nobody else has to die today.
There’s another wave of earth roaring towards the building. It’s even bigger than the first one. And here’s me, standing in the open doorway, goggling at it like a damn tourist.
I reach out with my PK, trying to pick up something that isn’t made of wood – and find the metal sheets. The roofing material, leaning up against the wall of the camp building. I grab one, send it whirling into the storm, put it right in front of me.
Just in time – the second wave hits it so hard that the impact nearly knocks me over. I have to use every ounce of PK energy to keep my little shield in place. More dirt tentacles shoot past, ripping into the wooden walls of the building.
“Wait!” I yell. I may as well be shouting at a thunderstorm. I can’t see the kid, can’t see anything.
I need a bigger shield. I grab more of the metal roofing, scythe it through the flying dirt, holding it up in front of me. From the sound of it, he’s switched from attacking the building with the tentacles to attacking the metal. It bangs and crashes together, like the world’s most fucked-up set of cymbals.
I start to walk, pushing forward against the hurricane. Five feet. Ten. I’m at the steps, now – the ones leading down from the porch. As I descend, I move the metal sheets a little, so there’s a tiny gap – like a viewing port in a tank. Dirt surges through, the particles forcing their way into my mouth and nose.
But I can see the boy. I can see him!
He’s still looking right at me. And now, there’s another expression on his face. The anger is there, but so is curiosity. The dirt assault slows. Just a little.
The idea comes out of nowhere, the next stage in my shitty excuse for a plan. I take a deep breath, close my mouth and eyes, and use my PK to spring my shield apart. I send the metal sheets rocketing towards the kid, slice them through the barrage.
I bring the first ones down behind him, slamming them vertically into the dirt, so they stick straight up. I sprint forward, skidding to my knees in front of him.
If he’s still angry, if I’ve misjudged his curiosity, then I am fucking dead. There’s no question. He’ll jam one of those tentacles down my throat.
It doesn’t happen. I seize my chance, slamming more of the sheets into the dirt. There are just enough to form a circle around us, a shield of metal, six feet high. It’s definitely not a perfect circle, and there are plenty of small gaps, but it’ll have to do.
“Woah woah woah!” I hold my hands out. “Stop, OK? Just stop.”
Burr’s team are back on their feet. I know this because I’m sensing a lot of guns being pulled from holsters, Okoro’s rifle moving as someone – Garcia maybe – pulls it back into position. Which means that any second now, a hailstorm of gunfire is going to break up our little party. They won’t give a shit that I’m in the way, and I don’t know if my half-assed circle of roofing material is going to stop them.
I grab the guns out of the hands of whoever is holding them, wrenching them away. “No!” I shout, not knowing if they can hear me. “Just give me a second. I can fix this.”
Tell that to Okoro.
I take the thought, bury it good and deep.
We’re in a huge crater where the middle of the parking lot used to be. The dirt we’re on is all freshly churned-up soil, dark and damp. Rocks that probably haven’t seen the sky in decades lie scattered everywhere.
The first sniper team is still out there, maybe with a scope trained on us right now. I send my PK out as far as it’ll go, but I can’t pick any inorganic objects in the forest. They’re out of my range. I have to hope they still don’t have a shot. They might be moving to a better position. Which means there isn’t long. Maybe no more than a few minutes.
Beyond the wall of metal, there’s a panicked voice: female, high-pitched, terrified. “Matthew? Honey? Please don’t hurt her! Please—”
“Be cool!” I shout – and yes, I am aware of exactly how dumb it sounds, thanks.
I’ve pinned the guns inside the building to the ceiling. Someone is trying to tug one of them down. I resist, locking it in place with my mind. “I just wanna talk to him.”
“Who the hell are you?” the mom shouts. She’s visible past the gaps in the metal wall, trying to push her way through. The car behind her – or the little bits of it I can see, anyway – looks like it just came out of a NASCAR crash.
I ignore her, and turn to face the boy.
He’s still pissed off, but curiosity has gotten the better of him. He’s staring at me, head cocked.
There’s the sound of running feet. My PK picks up a sidearm – one I must have missed – along with zippers and a belt buckle and a metal lighter, all of them moving towards us.
“Frost, stand down!” Burr yells.
I take his gun away, ripping it out of his hands and hurling it into the forest. “Just. Give me. A second!”
“Frost!”
“You have powers too,” the boy says.
I nod, ignoring the fact that Burr is circling the metal, looking for a wide-enough entrance. There’s a scuffling sound, the mom crying out. I ignore that too. “I do.”
“You’re like me.”
“Guess you could say that.” I start to get off my knees, then stop. Right now, I’m on his level. I don’t want to loom over him. I want us to talk, face to face.
My hammering heart fills my ears. This is only the second person with abilities I’ve spoken to since they took me out of Wyoming. The first was insane; he attacked me, and I had to kill him to defend myself. Not this time. I’m not going to let it happen. Step one: talk him down. Step two: find out where he came from. How he got his ability.
“I don’t remember you from the School,” he says. He’s wearing little thick-laced sneakers, scuffing the dirt with his right toe.
“What school was that?” I ask.
“The one in New Mexico. There were other people with powers there, but I didn’t see you.”
Other people with powers.
I knew it.
I fucking knew it.
Someone figured out my parents’ research. I don’t know who – Tanner, someone else in government, an independent operator – but they did it. And if there are others like Matthew…
When you’re little, you think the world revolves around you.
If you have abilities, if you’re the centre of an enormous hurricane of people and demands and danger, that feels more true than ever. Why wouldn’t it? You’re special in a way that others can only dream of. Even if I spent my days dreaming about not being special, about cooking and owning my restaurant and living a vaguely normal life, I still acted like the rules didn’t apply to me.
Jake was one thing. My parents made him same as they made me, even if they didn’t realise they’d gotten it right. This boy… He’s proof that there’s a whole lot more.
First things first. Stop him from destroying the world. Stop anyone else from getting hurt, including him. We can figure out the details later.
“I know about Cascadia,” I say.
He nods, like this isn’t surprising. “You should let me go,” he says, raising his eyes to the treeline.
Burr is still trying to restrain Amber. They’re struggling, just beyond the metal circle. I do a quick check with my PK; still no guns in play, and I can’t feel any from Grayson and De Robillard. Keep him talking.
“It’s Matthew, right?” I force a smile onto my face. “I’m Teagan. It’s nice to meet you.”
He turns to look at me again. His gaze makes me feel like a zoo animal. Like he’s studying me. Mia was right: this kid is smart. Much smarter than I was at his age. Much smarter than anybody was.
“Listen.” I lick my lips, tasting dirt. “I know your ability can be scary. I know what it’s like.”
“It’s not scary,” he says. “It’s fun.”
“Fun… is a word for it,” I say, trying not to let my voice betray me. “But it’s also dangerous, if you don’t know what you’re doing. The quake in LA—”
He looks at me like I’ve told him the sky is purple. “Of course I know what I’m doing.”
The last hope I had that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t understand what he’d done fades away.
“Why?” I say. “Why would you…?”
He shrugs.
It’s the shrug you’d normally see in a kid who just pinched his sister, or drew on the wall with a magic marker, or stole a cookie from a plate.
I’ve seen some shit, OK? I have seen my family burn to death. My former best friend impaled, choking on smoke. I know the world can be an ugly, fucked-up place, and I thought I had a good idea of just how fucked up.
But that little shrug? That little who-me innocent rise and fall of a shoulder?
It’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
“Hey,” he says suddenly. “Can you move buildings and stuff?”
“… What?”
“Like how strong is your power? What can you not move? I’m pretty sure you can’t move people, and you can’t make the earth fly, like I can.”
Let Burr shoot him. Let Garcia. Give them their guns back. Give Alpha a clear shot.
And still, I don’t move.
“Matthew,” I say, making my voice stern. “If you trigger Cascadia, a lot of people are gonna die. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Do you understand that?”
He smiles. The same evil, joyous grin he made when he put Paul under the ground.
“You didn’t answer me,” he says. “About how much power you have.”
“Just…” I get to my feet. “Just turn around. Go back. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He looks at me as if pondering a very difficult question. “You can’t hurt me,” he says. “I can hurt you though.” Stated as a simple matter of fact.
“Frost!” Burr is trying to force his way through one of the gaps now, Amber sobbing behind him.
“That’s your mom, right?” I say, ignoring Burr. “You think she wants you to hurt people? Cause all those quakes?”
> “I don’t care what she wants. She’s my mother, she’s supposed to help me. And you still haven’t answered my question about your powers.”
I hold out a hand. “Matthew… just—”
He looks right at me. Nods, as if coming to a conclusion. “I don’t think I want to talk to you any more.”
There’s no chance for me to answer.
One second, the ground under my feet is stable. Firm. Then it’s just… gone. It flies outwards, like a pond that someone has thrown a rock into, rippling away from me. I fall, too stunned to even scream.
My brain still expects me to land on my back. When it doesn’t happen – when I keep falling – it goes into overdrive. My PK supercharges, grabbing onto everything in a hundred yard radius. Every single inorganic object, inside of an instant.
None of it helps me.
Matthew creates a ten-foot-deep hole within a second, right where I was standing. I hit bottom, teeth clacking together, biting my lip. Blood fills my mouth, and stars fill my head.
There’s a frozen moment where I get a glimpse of the kid, the sky above him. And the rising, circular wave of dirt, leaning over the pit.
My PK. If I can just—
The dirt crashes in.
And there’s nothing but darkness.
FIFTY-FOUR
Amber
Get the gun.
It’s the only thing Amber can think to do. It’s a lizard-brain thought, instinctual. She doesn’t even try to process what happened the other woman, the one with powers like Matthew’s. She doesn’t think about who she is, or where she came from. It doesn’t matter now.
Get the gun. Not one of the big assault rifles – she wouldn’t even know how to use one of those. No, the gun she wants is the soldier’s sidearm, the one that the woman with powers threw into the forest. Amber saw where it landed, saw it skid to a halt in the ferns.
It won’t help, of course. What’s a single pistol going to do against a platoon of soldiers? But it’s better than nothing. And maybe, just maybe, she can get Matthew away…
