by J. B. Garner
"Indy, you need to step away from the criminal and surrender yourself to us," Ex said mechanically, riding a stable platform of ice. "We don't want to hurt you."
"You can trusssst usss, Irene," Meds hissed. "Thingsss have changed in wayss you can't -"
I didn't want to hear this anymore. What had been shock and pain turned into sweet, hot rage and that rage sang in my heart. I didn't feel that sickness or weakness as I ducked past Mr. Mystery and ran forward. No one on the team could ever match my quickness, except perhaps Medusa, and that fact hadn't changed as I was in the midst of the group before they could react.
Medusa was the least immediately dangerous to me and thus the one I could have the best chance of saving, assuming what I was about to do would save her. I grabbed her around the sinewy waist and bulled through the center of the team's formation. Scaled fingers snaked around my throat, but I ignored them even as they began to squeeze. Hoping to get at the apparent source of the problem, I hurled us both down as hard as I could to the ground, confident in Meds' Pushed durability to prevent permanent harm.
As we slammed into the packed earth, Medusa's grip loosed slightly, enough for me to breathe freely. From behind, I heard the air torn by burning plasma and freezing air. God, Irene, did you just leave the man that helped save you, even if he was a Natural, to get torn apart by three of your friends? I ignored that nagging in my mind as I pinned Medusa down with a forearm.
"Thisss iss a misstake, Irene!"
"I don't know what the hell he did to you but I'm going to fix it." She tried to block my reaching hand with her arm, clutching it by the wrist, but I was stronger and my willpower was steady. My fingertips touched the crown of metal bands. Just another inch.
"Doc!" came the hurried shout. "We have to go!" The sounds of struggle and unnatural energies echoed through the open field. At least he wasn't dead yet.
"No, I can do this!" I had the lip of the gizmo with the cuff of two fingers now. Medusa hissed and thrashed but there wasn't anything she could do at this point to stop me. Her gaze had no effect at all on me. It would just take a few more seconds.
"Vee!" The mystery man's cry for help was pained. Having been on the wrong end of the Five early on, they were dangerous even for a Natural like the two of us. It didn't help that they knew how to fight someone like me. The smell of ozone heralded blinding light radiating from behind me amid cries of surprise and pain. My hand clutched around the metal band across Meds' forehead now as several of her hissing snakes chomped down into my arm. They tried at least; to me, it was like being whipped with strands of hair.
"Ma'am, we have to go." Vee's static voice was all military. "Damn, Quentin, where's Frost?" I ignored him. I had it now and I wasn't leaving without at least one of my friends.
The scream of agony ripped through my ears as I twisted the steel and plastic in my grip. Meds' entire body spasmed for a moment before going entirely limp. With a final cry I tore the rest of the headdress loose and tossed it aside like a cheap piece of trash. Now, I could go.
Assuming that I would live through the next five minutes. I saw a familiar blue light in my eyes and everything became very cold. Ex ... Extinguisher ... intimately knew my strengths and weaknesses. Sure, he couldn't freeze me directly, but he could freeze the air around me. Specifically my head.
Cloudy ice obscured my vision as the horrific sensation of imminent suffocation came over me. There had been no chance to hold my breath and already things were starting to go gray. That grayness made me think I might have been delusional when I saw the massive dragon woman swoop down under a nearby underpass, sweeping over my head as I collapsed. My knuckles broke as I beat on the ice, but my fists just weren't hard enough to crack it. Maybe if I had been in better shape, not that it was going to matter in a few moments.
I was right, but not in the way I had thought. Just as everything turned a uniform black, the splitting of ice filled my ears and the cold went away. I didn't care how or why, I just pulled in a deep breath, happy to be alive. For obvious reasons, I didn't struggle as I felt myself being hoisted by powerful arms.
"I can't leave you boys alone for a minute, can I?" the resonating voice next to me said as wings beat the wind. Mr. Mystery's pain-tinged voice cried out against the growing wind from somewhere beside me.
"Probably not, Frost, probably not."
"Did you get her?" It was a gasping wheeze of a question and I doubted anyone heard me, but the dragon woman did.
"Voltage took her," Frost, I assumed her name was, said through the wind as we flew off to who-knew-where. "I only hope they got away."
As weak as I felt, I could feel my fists clench. I promised myself, as we made our escape, that I was not only going to free my family but I was going to make the Crusaders pay for what they did, no matter what it took.
Chapter 4 Fever
I passed out sometime during the flight, with only a last few sensations of silvery scales and that sickeningly unreal golden glow in the skies above to keep me company. There were a few fleeting moments of awareness at certain points; I was fairly certain our flight wasn't entirely uneventful, but whatever happened, it didn't stop us. What brought me back to my senses fully, at least for a few minutes, wasn't roughness, but softness. The warm embrace of a soft bed and blankets swallowed me as I was laid out on them.
It was a clean, plain room, though I could see, staring up from the bed, that the ceiling plaster was yellowed and cracking with age. I wanted to prop myself up on my elbows to look around the room but I was too spent from everything. My body ached from being forced into action, my mind swam in alternating fever and chills, and as for my heart? Well, my best friends, my only friends left, most of them had just attacked me like puppets on strings. Let's say my heart was not doing well either.
I gave up for the moment and fell into a deep sleep.
"- telling how long it will take," Duane Brooks said. "Truth is, she'll never get over it entirely. That isn't how this kind of shit works, assuming the rules are even the same for people like her."
I must have been semi-conscious and that sentence wormed its way faster through my brain than I thought possible. Before whoever else he was talking to could respond, I was bolt upright in bed. Something, an IV probably, tore free from my arm as I grabbed the black man's arm. It had been a gesture of urgency that turned into necessity as my head swam with vertigo.
"What happened to her?" I croaked out. "Where's Meds?"
"Doc, Christ!" There was pain laced in Brooks' voice. I let the pressure off of my grip, only now becoming aware of the looming presence behind me. Phantom scales brushed my wrists as hands took hold of them.
"Duane, should I-" It was Frost's rumbling voice beside me.
"No, no, it's cool." Duane looked into my eyes. "It's okay, Irene. Let go and lie back now."
I nodded slowly and let go. With how horrid I felt, I would have dropped back to the bed if the dragonwoman hadn't shifted her grip to lower me back gently. The loose scrubs I had been changed into, the sheets, my hair, clung to me with sweat and my own sudden movement had done my throbbing head no favors. Even though it was soaked, the soft pillow was still some comfort as I looked between the two figures now staring down at me.
Duane was still the same, though I would swear that the week, if it was even that at this point, had aged him a year or more, earning him a few more worry lines. He had forgone shaving for a few days and sleep seemed to have evaded him for a while as well. The seemingly coarse detective had served as our primary medic ever since I had met him so it was no surprise he was here.
Frost, well, I hadn't gotten a good look at her before and, even now, it didn't help that the room kept wanting to dip and spin. Still, I could tell that her Pushed form was tall and powerful, covered in sleek, silver scales, dulling along the chest and belly. There were teeth, claws, and wings ... everything you would expect. Inside, I was a bit surprised to realize that I recognized the woman. In fact, I had seen Aileen Frost's face on the b
ack of more than a few book jackets in Eric's stack of well-thumbed fantasy novels.
"Doc." I found myself focusing on Duane again. "Medusa's okay. More or less." Before I could croak out anything, he continued. "Having someone mess with your brain isn't something you just get over like a cold but she's not in any danger anymore."
"Voltage is fine as well," Frost added. "He transmuted the both of them into electricity and escaped through the city's electrical grid." Even though it wasn't real, the sparkle of her scales was almost hypnotic. I shook my head, trying to think clearly.
"I need to get up, got to-" I tried to push off the bed, but my hands just seem to push into the mattress. Frost took one arm and Duane held onto the other.
"No, not now. You aren't getting up and doing shit, not yet anyway."
"Indomitable, you are still quite ill, especially with..." There was a moment's pause. "...you are still 'drying out'."
I relaxed against the grips on my arms. I was feeling too shitty to get up anyway. As I went limp, both of my apparent caretakers let my arms loose.
"So you were talking about me, I guess?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure how much you heard, but Frost and I were talking about your condition." Brooks glanced at Frost and she began to very carefully reattach my IV.
"So when is your touchdown dance?"
"I'm not petty like that, Irene." He couldn't resist a bitter smirk though. "I did tell you so though."
"Bite me, Brooks." My vision swam a little. "Isn't there something you can do to at least get me to where I can see straight? We don't..." The entire world was wavering again as my body started to involuntarily shiver.
"The amount of time we have doesn't have any relevance to your health." I'd give the dragon that much, she seemed insightful. "No matter how dramatic it would be, you won't recover any quicker if you know there's a deadline."
"More importantly, it's not like I can talk to my usual sources to get the right supplies." Brooks let out a short bark of a laugh. "Shit isn't going well inside the dome. The only reason your ex's boys haven't tracked us down is they're too busy keeping the population in order and the army boys on the outside."
"The dome?"
"Aye, you must have seen it when you emerged from your prison. It came into being not a day after you and yours were taken captive." Frost walked over to the window, carefully pushing open a blind with her claw tips. "We only barely managed to make it into the city before it closed off entirely."
"Why did -"
"Look, Irene, don't worry about all of this." Brooks put a hand on my forehead and frowned. "You just need to rest as best you can."
"I-" That first syllable was all that escaped my lips before I sighed. "- you're right." My eyelids drooped closed. "I'm dead weight right now. No matter what is going on out there ..."
"Just give it a few more days." Brooks tried to sound optimistic. He sucked at it. "I don't know what they were stuffing in you but you've almost purged the worst of it." He didn't sound certain and, even more confusing to me, the Crusaders hadn't been giving me anything. Had they? "That's my best guess anyway."
There was little else I could think to say, not right then. Every new fact about the Crusader occupation would make me either upset or angry and neither of those two things would make me recover any quicker. Honestly, both of those things would simply make me far more prone to do something very stupid.
"Okay, Brooks." I let out a sigh. "Just take care of Meds." I glanced in the direction of Frost. "I didn't get a chance to thank you and your friends earlier."
"There's no need, but I appreciate it all the same." She turned away from the window, regarding me with those strangely warm, blue eyes. "I would only wish that we had the time to implement the original plan."
"...the key..." I muttered it to myself just so I wouldn't forget about it in my confused state. Where the hell had that key come from?
"Don't worry about that right now," Brooks said, getting up off the side of the bed. "I'll check up on Medusa. You get some rest." He walked towards the door. "Someone will always be keeping an eye on you, okay?"
"I'll try."
The fact of the matter was it was actually very easy to comply with his prescription. Sleep swallowed me up almost as soon as he closed the door behind him.
It was the crawl of static electricity on my skin that brought me to being fully awake once again. I am sure I drifted in and out of a semi-aware haze over the ... however long it was ... but everything was crystal clear now outside of the aches that throbbed in every muscle group of my body.
"...think there was anyone else like me until Rachel tracked us down." There was the slightest sound of a playing card ripped off the top of a deck, then laid down.
"Funny, huh?" It was definitely Voltage's humming voice. "I always figured she was just a Push Hero like everyone else. Hell, I figured you were the same, Quentin."
"Well, Vee, in the end, the final dish matters as much as the ingredients you put in." That was Mr. Mystery from before. I tried to push myself up on my elbows. My success in doing so came with the price of throbbing pain. No doubt it was the cry that I tried to stifle that got the attention of my current watchers.
"Hey now, the sleeper has awakened." No longer in disguise as a paramilitary guard, the mystery man looked amazingly ... plain. He wasn't bad-looking or handsome, but he looked like he could blend into any crowd in any city in the U.S., with brown, curly hair and dark brown eyes. To his credit, though, he had a big smile on his face. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."
"...right." I bit down on the pain and glanced between him and the always-painful-to-look-at electrical being. "How long-"
"Mr. Brooks and Ms. Choi both think that's something to wait on, Indy," Voltage said. "Best to take it one step at the time, I believe was the order."
"It hasn't been that long though," Quentin, if I was attaching names properly, added. "Vee, Frost, and I have been trying to make as much trouble to can to give us more time while you've been, er, indisposed."
"Quentin..."
"Hey, if anyone has an idea of what Dr. Roman can deal with and when, it's me." With delicate fingers, Quentin flipped out another card from his deck. Solitaire, I guessed.
"It doesn't really matter, fellows." I didn't understand why I was in the pain I was, but I knew so little about how I had been progressing. "I need to see Rachel. Just let me get up -"
"Now that is right out, ma'am." Voltage, standing ... floating ... whatever ... next to Quentin on one side of the bed, reached out in my direction, not straying too close. "You need to stay here until Mr. Brooks gives you the A-O.K. to be up and around."
"She's not going to listen, Vee." Quentin smirked as I proved him correct, continuing to push my way up to a sitting position. "That's not how I'm wired, so I doubt she is." He faked a cough. "Sorry for talking about you in the third person, Dr. Roman."
"Very astute." It sounded much less cool and off-the-cuff as the words were pushed out between clenched teeth. Voltage's sparking features were impossible to read, but the man inside looked exasperated and defeated.
"Fine, sure." The annoyance was writ large in his voice as he hovered back. "Thanks for the backup, Quentin."
"Anytime, Vee my man." Quentin slapped the deck down and got to his feet. Even out of his disguise, he stuck to blacks and muted colors. "Want a hand, Doctor?"
I shook my head, sweat beading on my brow, either from another fever spike or just exertion, I wasn't sure which. It took a good minute before I felt well enough to swing my legs off the side of the bed, then another thirty seconds before my courage had risen enough to try to stand. While I prepared myself, Voltage let out what I could only describe as a huff of static.
"I'm going to tell Mr. Brooks what's going on then. At least do something useful instead of goading the patient on." I was fairly sure I'd never grow accustomed that that electrical dispersal of his. Human bodies weren't supposed to split apart like that. Turning from the unnatural display, I pushed o
ff the bed.
Maybe I should have expected my legs to collapse like wet noodles. There was no telling how long I was bed-ridden and even before that, in prison, my detox sickness had cut severely into my exercise. Still, to me, it was a shock, so much so I made no attempts to catch myself. So much for dealing with life's strange twists with aplomb.
Before I could let out a grunt of pain, Quentin had hopped over the bed and landed beside me. Without a word, he took my right arm, slinging it over his shoulder.
"Ready?" There was no worry or fuss in his voice. I didn't think it was a lack of concern. No, I thought he understood that I didn't want that but I also wouldn't turn away his help.
Maybe Quentin did understand me and my thoughts as much as he said he did. After all, Mackenzie had an understanding of me beyond what he had observed and likewise I understood him far more than I expected to be able to. There was a common thread that connected us Naturals together, much like the Pulse connected the Pushed.
I grunted and nodded my assent and, with his help, I pushed up to my feet. There were no more need for words about where I wanted to go. I needed answers. All of the answers I could get. No matter the pain I was going through, the weakness, or the ... yes, best to call a spade a spade ... addiction I still had, I couldn't stand for this to wait any longer.
Quentin helped guide me to the door and out it on our way to see Rachel Choi.
Chapter 5 Angry
"Quentin! You were supposed to keep her resting."
Rachel Choi had rarely ever raised her voice during the months I had known her, but considering we had just barged through her door unannounced, maybe she had some cause.
