“What about the prisoners? Were you able to find out if your friend Samantha is there?” Avery asked.
I shook my head. “They were being quiet. I do know they’re in the library, though. I was thinking that I’d go there and rescue them, while you all take on Raven and his people.”
“Yes, that’s what we thought,” Leopold agreed. “You seem to know your way around a gun, and you’re competent enough, especially if you took on Raven in South Africa. Still, I’d rather that Avery go with you. I can’t in good conscience send you in without backup.”
Avery stepped forward. “It would be my pleasure to help you liberate your friends.”
I met her dark green eyes and nodded. “Thank you.” I turned back to Leopold. “So, you ready to go?”
Leopold nodded. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
44
THE LIBRARY
Avery and I watched the doors to the library from behind a parked truck, waiting for the sounds of Leopold’s attack. I wasn’t sure how the four of them were going to take on Raven’s men. I knew Raven didn’t have that many soldiers, but still, Leopold’s people were outnumbered. I just hoped that their special training and strategy wouldn’t fail them. I made a mental note to ask for some tips once we’d gotten out of this mess.
An explosion sounded.
“That was Thomas’ RPG blast,” Avery said. “They’ve started their attack.”
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, sending my heartbeat soaring. I was itching to run in and rescue my friends. The vial of asthenés plásma felt hot in my pocket, and I felt as ready as ever to save Doug.
“How much longer do we have to wait?” I asked Avery, growing impatient.
“Just another minute,” she said, looking down at her watch.
We were waiting to see if anybody left the library to see what was going on, which would mean less resistance as we rescued Samantha and the rest of the group.
Guns fired in the distance, and I could barely stand the wait any longer.
The door to the library swung open. Three guys and a girl took off running towards the sounds of the fight. Avery and I ducked further behind cover, and once their footsteps were gone, we peeked out.
“I think that’s the only help God’s gonna give us,” she said.
“Then let’s get in there,” I said, stepping out.
We ran towards the library, holding our guns steady. I moved a bit faster than Avery, since I still had a sliver of my powers. From either side of the door, we scanned the room. Two soldiers were standing next to the librarian’s desk, talking to each other and looking worried. Their grips on their guns were turning their knuckles white.
“I got right, you get left,” Avery said, then stepped into view, aiming her gun.
It took me a moment to respond; my mind was in a million places at once. “Yeah,” I said. I stood next to her, aiming at my target. I tried my best to keep my breathing calm, but my nervousness was growing. After this, everybody in the library would know we were here.
“Three,” Avery said. “Two…one…”
We fired, and the glass door in front of us exploded. Glass flew everywhere.
I heard people shouting in the room in front of us. Avery bolted inside the room and took cover behind the nearest bookshelf. I followed suit, slamming into the shelf so hard it swayed slightly.
“Keep cool,” Avery whispered. “We’ve got this.”
I nodded, and she leaned out and fired a barrage of bullets at the soldiers coming down from the second floor to see what was going on.
“Get to the other side of the bookshelf,” she ordered. “Make sure they don’t flank us.”
I ran to the other side without hesitation. I scanned the rows of books, waiting for anybody who might come my way.
The setting sun cast a fiery orange light through the windows of the library. The smell of old books was almost overwhelming to me. Avery’s gun fired constantly, but I didn’t see anyone coming from my side. I watched the staircase on the left, waiting for someone to come down. But it seemed most of them were taking the staircase on the right, near Avery.
Then I saw someone descending the stairs. I raised my gun and fired. It took a couple of shots for me to get the weapon under control, but once I did, my shots were accurate. A couple of Raven’s soldiers dove down the stairs into cover, but I was able to take out two of them.
“How’re you doing over there?” Avery shouted.
“Under control!” I called back.
She nodded. The gunfire paused, and she leaned out from cover, returning fire.
I peeked out and watched two soldiers with their guns raised descending on my position. I stuck my gun out and fired blindly, then stopped and looked out. The two men had dove into cover, dodging my bullets. I saw one of them move behind the bookshelf. I fired at their position, sending paper from books flying through the air like confetti.
My gun clicked. I pulled back into cover and reloaded while they returned fire. I winced and tensed up, waiting to feel the unbearable pain of hot lead tearing through my flesh. But it never came, and their gunfire ceased.
I leaned from cover and returned fire, continuing our cat-and-mouse game. But then I heard gunfire to my right, and saw two puffs of red. I leaned out a little farther and saw Avery standing there, pulling her gun down. We made eye contact and she smiled. Her flanking maneuver was an obvious success.
She pointed towards the stairwell that I’d been watching, and I got the message. I stepped out from cover and the two of us walked towards the stairs. We got there at the same time, and I took a step up. Avery put a hand on my shoulder, pulling me back.
Me first, she mouthed.
I nodded and let her go ahead of me. She took the steps with her gun up and at the ready. She reached the first landing, turned, and motioned for me to follow. Once we were up at the first landing, I took the second one just a step behind her.
We reached the second floor, where nothing but bookshelves met us. “We’re going to have to take this slowly,” Avery whispered over her shoulder.
I breathed as quietly as I could. I wanted to just sprint to the back, find Samantha and everybody else, then kick the asses of any of Raven’s men who were up there guarding them.
But I couldn’t do that, which meant I’d have to go slowly and follow Avery’s lead.
We went from bookshelf to bookshelf, peeking around the sides, looking across three rows, making sure nobody was hiding there. I watched our front and back, making sure nobody snuck up on us.
We reached the end of the second floor without finding anybody hiding in the rows of books. In the middle of the back wall was a small hallway which led to two classrooms, an office, and a bathroom.
We placed our backs to the wall and snuck down the hallway. Avery peeked around the corner, and a shout and a blast from a gun greeted her. She jerked back into cover and waited a few moments before firing back into the hallway as she jumped to the other wall, giving me space to move up. Now the two of us were standing on either side of the hallway, firing at the soldiers who were hunkered down at the other end.
After firing an entire clip into the hallway, I gritted my teeth in frustration as I went into cover to reload and the soldiers began firing back. Why couldn’t we just take them out so I could save Samantha and everybody else?
“Hey, Kane,” Avery said. I turned my attention to her. “You feel that?”
I tried to figure out what she was talking about, and then I realized that my powers had returned little by little. I felt like I was at about ten percent of normal.
I nodded. “Yeah, and it’s giving me an idea.” I looked to the closest doorway and fired down the hall blindly before running at the door as fast as I could. I slammed through the door, the wood exploding under the force.
I fell to the floor of the classroom inside, groaning in pain. It grew less and less, and just a few seconds later I was able to run to the doorway, where I pulled what was left of the door op
en. Avery stopped firing once she saw the door open, giving me the chance to shoot without having to worry about her catching friendly fire.
I still didn’t have a good angle, though. I couldn’t get a shot at Raven’s soldiers, who were taking cover to my left. I fired a couple more shots before running as fast as I could to the doorway to my left.
I burst through the door and slammed into the sink in a dark bathroom. It broke away from the wall, sending water shooting into the air and soaking me. The blue light from my eyes glowed brighter and brighter, filling the bathroom. When I opened the door, I was greeted by two guns being thrown into the hallway. Two pairs of hands reached out from the corners the soldiers were hiding behind.
“We surrender!” they shouted.
“Step out into the hallway, very slowly!” Avery shouted back at them.
Two men stepped out, their faces white with fear. When they saw me aiming my gun at them, my eyes glowing, they practically jumped out of their skins.
“Please,” one of them said. “Don’t shoot.”
“Where are the prisoners being held?” I demanded.
“In the office at the end of the hallway behind us.”
“Keep walking towards me,” Avery said, keeping her gun up.
Our two prisoners walked down the hallway towards her. Once they were past me, I bolted from the bathroom and ran to the end of the hallway.
At the end was another small hallway. To the left was an emergency exit, and to the right was a door behind which was a small office. I ran to it and yanked the door open so hard, the door fell off one of its hinges.
Drew, Selena, Eddie, and a couple of our other soldiers turned to look at me, their fright turning to happiness. They jumped up and ran to me, talking a million miles an hour.
“Where’s Samantha?” I said, which silenced them.
“What do you mean?” Selena asked. She took a step back and looked me up and down as I stood in the doorway, my hand wrapped around a door half off its hinges. “Are you okay?” I scanned the faces around me one more time, just to be sure. My suspicions were confirmed.
Samantha wasn’t there.
45
THE AMULET
I walked out of the library, determined to find her. What was left of my team followed close behind, along with Avery.
“Kane, wait!” Avery shouted, then grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. “Stay here with your team. Let us take care of the rest of it.” “No,” I said. “Not if they have Samantha.” I looked past her at Selena and the rest of my group. “Go grab guns off Raven’s men, and let’s go get Raven the hell out of here.”
“Kane, you’re going to get in our way,” Avery said.
I took a step towards her, my frustration growing. “I’m not standing aside and doing nothing. Stop acting so high and mighty. You and your team may train 24/7, but this is our home and we’re going to take it back.”
I turned around, not letting her get in a response. I ran as fast as I could towards the gymnasium, where all the gunfire was coming from, leaving everyone else in my dust.
As I neared the gym, I saw Leopold speaking into a radio atop the Visitors Center, a sniper rifle propped up next to him. I also saw Ellie, Thomas, and Nathan set up in strategic locations around the front of the gymnasium. A fair amount of bodies were at the mouth of the entrance, which had been blown apart by the opening RPG fire from Thomas. Now there was only gunfire coming from Raven’s men here and there, as they had quickly learned their lesson.
I was about to start walking towards Ellie, who’d been set up closest to me, when a black streak came down from the sky and slammed through the gymnasium, interrupting me. The sound of the object crashing through the building was as loud as an explosion. Everybody nearly jumped out of their skin, then turned to the site of the crash.
Seconds later, a figure was ejected through the front wall of the building. It flew right past me before slamming into one of the military Humvees behind me, the whole vehicle bowing under the sudden force.
I took a step towards it before realizing it was the lifeless, bloody body of Raven, the bottle of asthenés plásma in his hands, not a single scratch or crack on it.
The same black streak that had crashed through the gym flew past me. It stopped in front of Raven’s body and pulled the asthenés plásma from his dead hands. The man let out a satisfied chuckle, his black coat blowing slightly in the wind. He turned, and I was paralyzed with fear.
It was Atlas.
“Oh, I knew you had this, Raven. I told you not to keep secrets,” he said, standing in front of the destroyed vehicle he’d thrown Raven into. Holding asthenés plásma in his hands, he examined its glowing white contents.
Any power I had once had was now gone; not even a fraction remained.
Atlas took the crystal cork off the bottle and placed it inside the pocket of his black trench coat. Then he reached up into his shirt and pulled out some sort of amulet. Its had a blue crystalline center surrounded by a silver circle, and was attached to a black strip of leather.
As I made eye contact with the necklace, I felt a buzz rush through me. I looked down at my feet to find that the rocks around them were floating in the air, just like they had before I flew for the first time.
I looked back up at Atlas and watched as he lifted the amulet from his neck and clutched it in his hands. He slowly dropped the amulet down inside the bottle of asthenés plásma.
An intense white glow exploded from the bottle, blinding me for a couple of seconds. I felt all my powers return at a level I had never experienced before. It was as if the flash of light was the fuel to the engine that was my powers. But a moment after I felt the surge, it was gone, along with all of my powers.
The light dimmed, and I was able to look at Atlas again. He was holding the asthenés plásma in one hand and the necklace in the other. The amulet was now glowing a bright blue, just as our eyes did.
Atlas grinned as he placed the necklace back on and corked the asthenés plásma.
His skin began to turn a sickly pale, and it seemed to crack. Atlas gasped for air, stumbling backwards against the Humvee he’d destroyed with Raven’s body. I took a step forward, my fear leaving me. Even though I had no powers, I wasn’t about to let a moment of weakness from Atlas go unexploited.
But then he opened his eyes, and they glowed as bright as ever. His cracked, sickly-looking skin receded, and he once again looked normal.
His gaze met mine and he smiled, finally acknowledging my presence. “You’re falling behind, Kane Andrews,” he said as he floated into the air, laughing.
His ascent wavered for a split second, but he recovered. Our eyes stayed locked for a few moments longer before he turned to the sky. He blasted off, and a sonic boom slammed into me.
The asthenés plásma had barely affected his powers.
46
SAMANTHA
Leopold Renner stretched out his hand, and I shook it without hesitation. “Thank you for everything you’ve done,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t know about the asthenés plásma.”
I nodded. “Except now it’s in the hands of Atlas.”
Leopold waved that off. “Which means he’s even weaker than normal. Besides, now we’ve got a lead to go on.” Leopold paused, then smiled. “It sounds sappy, but you’ve given us hope, Kane. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
I returned the smile, but it was fake. I had never told them about my experience with the asthenés plásma—with Athena. I’d never even told them about what had happened with Doug. If I had done so, there was no telling what their superiors would have them do to make sure the asthenés plásma belonged to them. “These next couple of months are going to be interesting ones, that’s for sure.”
Leopold chuckled as he turned and walked towards his team. “You’re right about that. If you need anything, you know where to find us.”
“Same goes for you,” I said.
“I’ll be seeing you, Kane Andrews.” Avery locked her arm through Leopold’s, and a few moments later, after having spent a week in Texas helping us get back on our feet, Leopold and his team were gone.
I turned to my own team: Selena, Drew, and Doug, with the big-box store we’d escaped to after Dallas standing tall behind them. Eddie had already run off and found something else to tinker with.
I walked towards them, their warm smiles greeting me. All except for Doug, whose gaze was cold, and his skin still a bit pale, even though it’d been a week since I’d used the asthenés plásma on him, bringing him back to life.
“So, what do we do now?” Selena asked.
I stopped and took a deep breath. I reached out and laid a hand on Doug’s shoulder. His eyes met mine, and he did his best to seem happy. “We’re going to find out what happened to your sister.” I gripped his shoulder, doing my best to comfort him, even though I needed comforting as well. “We’re going to find her and bring her home.”
Doug nodded. “I’m sure she couldn’t have run far. She has short legs,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.
“There’s the Doug we know,” Selena said, patting him on the back.
I forced a smile. I wished I could laugh along, but the situation weighed heavily on me. Instead, I walked far enough away from the group that they couldn’t hear me.
“Samantha,” I whispered. “If you can hear me, please say something.”
I stood there for a few moments, but—like every other time the past week—I got nothing in response. Still, I closed my eyes, tensing my body in anticipation. I just knew this would be the time she answered.
“Hey, Kane,” Drew said from behind me, bringing me back to reality. “We’re going to go out to the woods and see if there’s anything we missed. You coming?”
I sighed. “We’ve searched a million times.”
Drew shrugged. “You never know. We could’ve missed something.”
The War of the Supers (The First Superhero Book 3) Page 17
