Hackman had given us five minutes to get into position before he gave the signal, and our time was nearly up.
“We need to move,” Stanley whispered.
I nodded. Time to go.
One by one, we scrambled over the top of the ditch and sprinted for the bushes. Stanley first, then his two team members. Vicki moved, and my turn came. My feet skidded on the dirt as I climbed over the edge, and I lost my footing, slamming hard into the cracked earth. I was winded but didn’t have time to stop. I was exposed, and every second out in the open was a second closer to being seen, a second closer to death.
Launching back to my feet, I ran, with James close behind. We were halfway to cover when the ground lit up, freezing us on the spot like the world’s scariest game of Red Light/Green Light. Someone had turned on the kitchen lights, which were shining blue-green out over the yard. We were completely in the open.
A figure moved around inside. It walked to the cupboard. James and I stayed still, breathing heavily.
The others’ eyes gleamed, wide and motionless, from the bush in front of me. My legs were paralysed. I couldn’t feel them at all.
The figure inside drew a knife out of a drawer. We were so close to the house I could hear the cutlery crash together as he closed it. He walked to the window and looked out. My mind screamed Run! but my body wouldn’t listen.
I held my breath.
The figure walked back out of the kitchen, and the light went out. My whole body came to life, sprinting as hard as I could. I dove for the scrub, but James didn’t move. He was still frozen with fear. I whispered his name, but he didn’t respond. Vicki dashed out of her hiding place and grabbed his arm. When she touched him, it broke the spell, and he followed her to cover. As he reached us, he collapsed, exhausted.
“Rookies,” muttered one of Stanley’s teammates. Vicki glared at him, and he looked away.
James started to apologise, but Stanley stopped him. “No time for that. Look.”
I followed his gaze to the back corner of the farm. A lone tree stump lit up with flames, like a lantern in the night. Hackman’s signal. The attack was ready.
THIRTY
A ripple ran under my feet and out across the paddock. Then searing heat, my face burning to the point of pain, and a blast of air that punched me to the ground.
It was a huge explosion behind the silos to my left, probably a fuel storage tank. While I was on the ground, a second, blinding plume of fire rose next to the first. The unit had done their job, and it didn’t take long for the distraction to be effective. I counted eleven people running out of the house, six from the back door and five sprinting across the driveway from the front of the house. There might have been more; it was hard to tell in the dark.
Once the Unseen were halfway to the silos, Hackman’s voice took command from the radio on Stanley’s hip. “Go!” Radio silence was over.
I pushed through the thicket, ignoring the thorns ripping up my skin. I flicked a branch into Vicki by accident, but she didn’t say anything. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered but the mission.
A few steps later, we found freedom, breaking out of the bushes and running across the lawn. The explosions had died down, and the bright light with them, replaced by a crackling amber from the flames now building behind the largest silo. Stanley flew past me, his much longer legs giving him an advantage. The back door was left open, but we didn’t dare run in blind. Stanley, James, and I took up positions on the right side of the door, crouched underneath the window. The others joined Vicki on the left. My long training sessions were paying off. It was all down to instinct now.
Stanley poked his head around the corner. Screams melted the air from the silos. The unit had engaged. They were outnumbered two to one, but it seemed they were holding their own. Stanley clicked the button on his radio twice, and two bursts of static came back. Hackman’s group were in position at the front door. Counting to three, we moved in through the back.
The house was pitch-black, but I could see right through to the front door. It creaked open, and the others moved in, silhouettes against the dark sky. It was so black it would be hard to tell who was friend or foe in here. We entered a second living room. A small TV sat on a low bench, possibly left here by the previous occupants. Six mattresses filled the floor, stripped of linen. Five half-packed suitcases lay against the window.
There was a small bathroom to my right, and I split off to check it out. The flames and yelling at the silos covered my footsteps. The house itself was quiet but oppressive, like a blanket lay over the place. This house felt heavy.
I stepped through the door to the bathroom. Mouldy tiles festered under the toilet, thriving in water pooled by a leaky waste pipe under the pedestal sink. Colours were muted in the darkness, but the sink and bath were pink, with green tiles trimming the fixtures. It was gross. And it was empty.
As I moved to leave, the shower curtain rippled. I tried to run, but huge arms grabbed me from behind, one across my front and the other over my mouth. A sharp sting at my neck stopped my struggle. He had a blade pressed against my throat.
A trickle of blood ran down my front from where the knife cut in. His breath was heavy on the back of my neck, warm and musty. His skin was oily, and hairy arms scratched against my shoulders. I could feel his stomach pressed against my back. I couldn’t run. If he flicked his wrist, the mouldy tiles would be sprayed with my blood. The flames died down and the screaming dimmed to a background hum, in my mind, at least. He asked me a question, but I didn’t hear it.
I took a deep breath and tried the only thing I could. “I’m a friend of Rachel’s,” I mumbled through his hand.
It was enough. He was surprised by the mention of her name and relaxed his grip on the knife, dropping it slightly from my neck. It was low enough to be out of his view, so I tuned in to the cold steel. It was a one-piece knife, the blade and handle all made from the same metal which rang a high, clear note as I locked in to its resonance. I raised the note, and the knife burned glowing hot.
The man swore and dropped it on the tiles. I ducked to escape his grip, but he tightened his arm around my neck to choke me. I bit hard into his arm, and his blood filled my mouth. He yelled and let go of my neck, giving me enough leverage to reach for the knife despite his other arm still firm around my waist. I picked up the knife, and it was still burning hot. Pain shot through my hand. I stabbed blindly behind me, hoping to connect with something that would force him to loosen his other arm still wrapped around my waist. The blade glanced off bone. He swore again but didn’t let go, the other arm coming up to try and regain control.
I slashed behind me again, and this time the impact was far softer. When I let go of the knife, it stayed in the air next to my head. His arm dropped—both did—and he tumbled limply into the bath. I didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see what I had done, but I could feel a wet spot near the back of my head where his blood had soaked into my hair. I turned slowly. The knife protruded from his eye, gory mess dribbling down his cheek and into the bath drain. The blade was long enough that it had passed all the way into his brain. He groaned. My head swam, and I crouched so I wouldn’t pass out.
Vicki barrelled around the corner, having heard the noise. She stopped, taking in the dying, bloodied body in the bath. “You okay?”
I nodded. I wouldn’t be later, but I could hold it together for now.
The rest of the house had sprung to life. Shouting came from somewhere near the front. I had to get up there. I had to find my family.
Vicki and I ran toward the living room at the front of the house. James and two of Stan’s unit came out of the kitchen, signalling that it was clear. There was no sign of Mum or Skye yet. If they were here, they’d be in one of the front rooms.
The closest bedroom had two doors, one that opened out onto the dining room and the other into the hall around the corner. James crept towards the hall door while Vicki and I took the other, closer one. The rest of Stanley’s unit w
ere quiet, probably either dead or fighting elsewhere, but there was yelling from the front lawn. James reached his position, and we flung open both doors at once.
The room was empty save for mattresses on the floor. There was no one in here. A door opened behind James across the hall, and I shouted for him to turn around.
Too late.
There was a sizzling sound, and smoke rose from his chest. He grabbed at his throat, gasping, but it was useless. Smoke poured out of his mouth and nose too, like a demon leaving his body. The flare had torn apart his lungs, burning him from the inside out. In my mind, he became Noah, eyes glazed, dead before he hit the floor, but of course he wasn’t. This was James, the little boy who wanted to be a superhero. He fell slowly, and I had a memory from primary school. Mum once had a meeting with my teacher after school, and James was there. I’d been feeling sick, so he played with Skye on the playground for probably an hour, taking care of her for me. He was an only child and must have loved the chance to have a little sister for an afternoon. I’d forgotten about that until now. It had been a beautiful moment, in a life that must have been filled with beautiful moments.
Now they were gone.
Vicki took action faster than me. She was so angry, she didn’t even try to use her abilities, just ran at the man in the doorway at full speed. She almost made it to James’s body before the figure got her. Her back exploded as the silhouette repeated the deadly flare. She staggered and fell to her knees, letting out a sob before slumping over James. The man turned to me.
THIRTY-ONE
I ran, throwing furniture and slamming doors behind me to block the man’s line of sight. I burst out the back door and onto the grass. There was no way I could take on someone of that skill and focus. Not directly. I had never seen someone that strong, except perhaps Hackman. My eyes hadn’t left him, but he had broken through the interference and slaughtered James and Vicki in seconds. My only choice was to hide.
I ran toward the back of the yard, letting out a cry. It was primal, nothing in it but animal terror. But before I reached the bushes, something else took over.
My legs locked up and wouldn’t let me run any farther, like I was tethered to my family back inside the house with rope.
They were still in there. I had to finish this. I had to get them back or die trying.
The garden shed was close, and I ducked behind it, cutting my arm on the rusted tin. The man who’d killed James and Vicki burst out the back door, slowed by the obstacles I’d put in his way. I stayed hidden in the dark behind the shed. I couldn’t take him directly, and I couldn’t let him see me. But I wasn’t good enough to flare from this distance. To win this, I had to be smart and deadly.
The garden path was made of pebbles, and he sank slightly as he stepped onto them. A plan formed in my mind, but was it possible to execute?
I tried to focus, to tune in to a whole section of the path at once. A million tiny stones swirled in my head, each a different resonance, pitch, and texture. My mind wanted to explode, and the pain made me lose tuning. I refocused and tried again. I had to tune every single pebble at once and then the dirt underneath. I could hear earthworms and beetles and cockroaches in the layers of soil beneath his feet. They would have to move if they wanted to survive this.
My nails bit into my palms as I pushed through the pain, raising the resonance of a large chunk of earth under his feet. I tuned it higher and higher, past the point of integrity, right up to where I had vaporised the mug so many weeks before. At the last moment, he saw what I was doing. The dirt and rocks and worms and roaches vaporised, splitting into their basic elements, most likely hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon gas. A void opened under his feet. He leapt for safety but missed and tripped backwards into the huge hole I’d created beneath him. There was a loud snap as he disappeared from view.
I lost focus, and my mind shattered. My vision blurred and went dark for a moment, and I dropped to the ground to avoid fainting. My ears were wet, and I put my hands up to them. My fingers came away red with blood.
It took me a minute to recover enough to stand. The house was silent, although I could still hear a battle near the silos. I crawled to the side of the hole. My pursuer lay upside down, his neck twisted at a horrible angle. It’d broken when he fell. If he hadn’t tried to leap for safety, he would probably just have broken a leg. Ironic.
Hackman, Nareem, and Frank made their way out of the house with Stanley. The rest of the house was quiet. It looked like these guys were all that was left of our team. Stanley swore as he saw the hole I’d made. Hackman looked at me and then back at him. “Told you she was special.”
“I’ve never seen anyone ... not this soon,” Stanley mumbled.
“Later.” Hackman motioned for him to be silent. “Ari, I’m sorry. We’ve cleared the house, and there’s no one inside but the Unseen. Dead Unseen, that is. Your family isn’t here.”
“But the person I saw through the window …” my voice cracked.
“The level of security in this house is far too high for them to be holding such low-value hostages.” Hackman saw the look in my eyes and stuttered, “I-I mean from a-a purely strategic standpoint. Whoever they were holding here is far more valuable to them than your family. I don’t know if your mother or sister were ever here. Whatever target they were holding is gone. We’re coming from this empty-handed, but at least we killed a few of them in the process. Including the simultaneous attacks on the other safe houses, we’ve dealt the Unseen a very serious blow tonight. We must celebrate any victories we can.”
I was too empty from the violence and death to be shocked, or sad, or even angry. I nodded and sank to the ground.
A voice came over Hackman’s radio, asking for assistance. Four of the original six in the distraction unit were still alive, holed up behind the silos in a standoff with seven remaining Unseen. Hackman raised an eyebrow at Stanley.
Stanley nodded. “We can take them.”
“Let’s clean this up then,” Hackman replied. He looked at me. “You look like you need a few minutes, but we need to move now. Will you be all right if we go on ahead? You can stay here and join us when you’ve caught your breath. This area’s clear, so you’ll be safe.”
I agreed, and they left to assist the others. My head was ringing, like I had just come home from a massive concert. I started to feel dizzy again, so I put my head down between my legs to recover. I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea with my ears still bleeding, but it seemed to help.
After a minute, the ringing began to clear, and I tried to stand to go help the others. There were fireworks behind my eyes, and I sank back down again before I passed out. Tuning always had a slight mental cost, but this was too much. Vaporising such a large chunk of earth, especially with the complicated organic bits, had almost broken me. I couldn’t have done any more. I felt if I had pushed much further, tried to make the hole bigger, I could have died, my brain turned to soup in my head or something. No one had explained that in training.
More yelling came from the silos. Hackman’s cavalry were on the scene. A few pebbles fell into the hole, clattering down the sides.
I felt like the hole was watching me, judging me. I had taken two lives in as many minutes and hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t stopped to wonder if it was okay. Maybe the men I killed had families, or friends, or lives outside of this ridiculous secret world I was caught up in. What gave me the right to decide my life was more important than theirs? Nothing, really. But nothing had given them the right to decide mine was less valuable than theirs, either. They’d tried to kill me, and the dead body lying broken in the hole next to me had made two corpses inside, as well.
Who was going to bury them? It was an absurd thought, given the situation. At least the guy down the hole was halfway there. That made me smirk, but I caught myself for smiling. I couldn’t allow myself to be okay with what I had done, and I sure couldn’t start finding it funny. If I did that, the darkness would take over for sure. It had al
ready become such a constant that I was used to its presence. Somehow it belonged, it felt right at home. That scared me more than anything. I put my hand to the inky black splotch on my stomach. It felt colder and wetter than before, and I withdrew my hand.
I tried to stand up again. I was more successful this time and made it totally upright. The few steps I attempted were all right but still unstable; I wasn’t in fighting condition just yet. Even so, the hole was creeping me out and I wanted to move away, so I stumbled towards the house. Hackman said Skye and Mum were never here, but I wasn’t ready to give up on their trail just yet. I had to check it out. I might find something the others had missed, and besides, sitting still while the others were risking their lives at the silos was driving me crazy.
The back door still hung open, and as I stepped inside, the house smelled like someone had cooked steak. I gagged when I realised what it was. Burned flesh.
The back room looked the same as when I’d first entered—no battles had been fought here. I steered well clear of the bathroom; I didn’t want to see my handiwork in there. Gingerly, trying not to make the floorboards creak, I crept to the hallway entrance at the left of the double-doored bedroom where James and Vicki had died. They were still there, and as I came level with the door, I jumped. James’s eyes were staring at me, still open. He almost looked alive, but as I came closer, I saw they had already glazed, and my hope of a miraculous recovery was shot to pieces. Death always looks so peaceful on TV. Even when someone dies in an action show, they just grunt a bit, close their eyes, and fall forwards. It’s not like that in real life. Not even a little bit. I really wished his eyes were closed, but I didn’t want to touch him. That was too scary, especially because his mouth was still open, lips blackened from the smoke inside.
The Fire Unseen Page 19
