by Lee French
“Are we going to blow the building up?” Lizzie asked hopefully. When he looked back, she licked her lips.
“Not unless we gotta. We’re in the city here, DeeCee to be precise. Blowing it up’ll get folks hurt. This ain’t a base with a fence round it, nor a house in the middle of nowhere. It’d be best if we don’t actually hurt nobody.”
“Aww.” She pouted as she held her sheet close. “When you threatened the guard, I thought you were—”
He cut her off, not interested in hearing it. “I ain’t. You thought wrong. I want us to be safe and free. They ain’t never gonna leave us alone if we go around killing and destroying and all that.”
“They won’t leave us alone regardless.” Jayce put a hand on his shoulder and gripped it firmly. “The idea they will is a fantasy.”
Bobby stopped and rubbed his forehead. “Look, yeah, I know. I got a plan. Most important thing right this minute is to get outta here. After that, we get into the rest. Ain’t keeping ya in the dark, just trying to keep from explaining over and over so much.”
His attention went to his dragons with the patrolling guard, because they saw Lily. “I’ll be right back,” he told Jayce, then he threw himself into the dragon doing its best to hide behind the guard’s ear. Lily sat with Sebastian in a living room, reading a picture book with him. They looked normal and happy, and had no signs of any sort of mistreatment. He didn’t know what to make of that. Lily noticed the guard and smiled, then ignored him. Sebastian completely ignored him. He jumped his dragon off the guard’s ear as the man left, sending it to land on the book.
“Look, Mama, Bobby!” Sebastian scooped the dragon up and presented it proudly to Lily.
“Yes, that’s one of his dragons. We should call Mr. Privek to let him know.” Lily scooted Sebastian off her lap and, to Bobby’s horror, went for what must be some kind of intercom.
Bobby wriggled out of Sebastian’s grip. He darted to Lily, trying to get between her and the button on the wall. “Mama, Bobby wants you. ”
“Yes, well, Bobby is—” She sighed and put her hand on the button. “I know, Sebastian. Mr. Privek said he might act strangely if he came here.” Despite Bobby landing on her hand, she pushed the button. “Please inform Mr. Privek that Bobby is here. One of his dragons just showed up.”
A male voice responded, “Yes, Ma’am. Thank you, Ma’am.”
Why did she do that? Bobby had no idea why Lily would do that. She was mad at him, yes, and he knew it. It boggled his mind that she could be that angry just because he did a few dumbass things. His stupidity didn’t rate siccing Privek on him.
“We got a problem.” He told the dragon to get out of there and threw himself back into his body. “Lily just done told Privek I’m here. Any of you getting your stuff back yet?” He watched Jayce put a hand on the bank of drawers. A silver sheen slowly crept up his hand.
“Mine is coming back, but it’s sluggish. Doesn’t feel solid, either.” He swatted Lizzie’s hand away as she reached over, probably to squeeze his butt. “Take my word for it,” he told her with a smirk. “It’s just a thin coating on the outside.
She gave a husky chuckle and turned her palm up. It threw some tiny, harmless sparks. Her amusement died and she pouted.“It’s so pathetic.”
“It’s okay, baby. It’ll come back, we just need more time.” Dan put his arm around her waist and kissed her neck.
“We don’t got no more time.” The rest of the dragons with the guard let him know Lisa was the woman in the other room, currently taking a nap. He had no idea why they singled her out. Nor did he understand why both women stayed with the door unlocked. Had Lily poured out her anger to Lisa? How would he ever get either of them to forgive him?
“I can still punch people,” Jayce pointed out. “I just can’t deflect bullets or break walls.”
“Same here.” Stephen stood on his toes, still unable to leave the floor.
“Don’t look at me,” Andrew grunted as he got to his feet. “I can scrap a little, but not nearly well enough to deal with trained guards. And if I help anyone walk, we’ll never know when their powers come back. Why am I even in here with you guys?”
Bobby had no answer. Wait. Yes, he did. “Kanik. He does some kinda mind control. You turn powers off. Stephen’s immune, too.” Now that he got rolling, he understood why every last one of them had been stashed here. “Jayce, you were really hard for them to put down. Dan, you were on camera making people shoot themselves. Lizzie done blew up Hill good, and Matthew got seen there as a werewolf. Anita, they knew you wrecked up that house. Owen, you woke everyone up at the farm. All of us’re the ones they see as threats. Nobody else caused ‘em no trouble, just us. We’re the ones they used to motivate the others.
“Lily’s gotta be under his thumb, that explains why she just called Privek on me. We gotta expect the rest are, too. That means we’re gonna be up against our own. Worst of ‘em is gonna be…I dunno. Maybe Alice, Andrea. Sam, depending on what they got set up here. Hannah’s smart, Greg maybe built them something. ‘Course, we got no idea about the ones we never met. My gut says they got some of ‘em here, expecting this jailbreak. Lizzie, you’re gonna have to deal with Alice’s ice. Don’t blow nothing up you don’t gotta, since there’s ordinary office folk here.
“Jayce, Stephen, you gotta protect Andrew. He’s the one what’s gonna get everybody outta Kanik’s grips.” He hoped so, anyway. “We’re going for Lily and Lisa first, on account we know where they are. Owen, I don’t know what to suggest for you, just do whatever seems right.” His eyes went from face to face as he spoke, ideas coming to him in the moment. “Anita, Dan, keep folks from shooting any of us soon as you can.”
Matthew, who Bobby found himself staring at, used the rolled-out slabs to haul himself to his feet. “I know, I’m just a wrecking ball. I’ll do my best to keep a lid on it. What’re you going to do? ”
Glad he didn’t have to be the one to say it out loud, Bobby nodded. “Folks on the outside’re gonna set up a diversion soon as they get the word from me. I’mma leave a couple dragons behind with y’all. When they squawk, get moving. I’ll be spread over the building, getting you some warnings when I can.” He dearly wished they had Sam. “If’n you hear a voice in your heads, it’s just Paul and don’t freak or nothing.”
With that, he blew out into dragons and left through the ventilation system. Four stayed behind—one for Stephen, one for Jayce, one for Matthew, and one in case someone else had to split off. Most of the dragons broke off to search the building from top to bottom while a handful went out to where Riker and the others waited. Along the way, he found Jasmine again and beckoned to her, getting her to follow him. She’d be able to tell them at least a few things.
“Liam!” Jasmine stood into her human shape and threw herself into a hug that took Liam by surprise. He’d been squatting behind a shrub and she knocked him onto his butt. “Are you helping Bobby now?”
“Yes.” He hugged her back as he got his feet under himself again. “Is Will inside? ”
Bobby wanted to give her a real hug when he saw the fierce, unhappy determination on her face. More, he wanted to give her Will back. “That’s where they took him after the helicopter ride. I haven’t seen him come out yet. I saw them put a gun to his head. Do you think he’s okay?”
Liam patted her shoulder. “I think he’s alive.” In one of the dragons, Bobby chirped and danced on Liam’s shoulder. Another dragon sat on Riker’s shoulder, and another on Paul’s. He figured Kaitlin would be fine without. “Paul, can you reach the dragons individually?”
“Bobby, or dragon, or whatever, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear ya.” Relieved to hear Paul’s voice in his head, Bobby passed along the important points quickly, and heard Paul repeat it all out loud for the rest.
Riker stared at the building hard enough to peel paint. “Are Privek or Kanik here? Can you tell, Paul?”
“There are too many people here for me to tell if anyone in
particular is around, so I can’t say who’s here and who’s not.” Paul sighed heavily. “I want to help more than that, but I just can’t.”
“Do what you can,” Riker said.
In unison, his four men finished for him. “Don’t waste time worrying about what you can’t.” They all grinned.
“It’s a Sarge-ism,” Carter said with a chuckle. “How long should we wait?”
Distracted by goings-on back in the freezer room, Bobby paused and thought about it. Jayce smacked one of the cabinets again, checking his power and finding it still sluggish. Stephen rolled his head, neck cracking, and lifted half an inch off the floor. Seeing that, Lizzie cupped her hands and a little ball of fire boiled in the center. “I don’t know. It’s gonna be a—” The door slammed open.
The guy with the icy blue eyes standing in the frame had short brown hair and skin tanned from time spent outdoors. He wore a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt.“None of you are going anywhere.” His body melted into water and expanded to fill the doorway.
Inside the room, a strange metallic whump noise came from the back wall. When his dragon turned to find the source of the sound, Bobby caught sight of a person-sized blue-edged disc on the wall, outlining a view to someplace else. That other place had a dozen men in body armor with dart guns pointed into the room. Behind them, Alice stood in front of a wall of ice, probably intended to cut off anyone who tried to escape that way.
They’d set a damned good trap. Bobby let out an expletive for Paul’s benefit, then threw himself into the dragon Stephen’s shoulder and trilling in alarm. He sent an urgent call for the dragons to converge in the room again. A barrage of darts streaked into the room. Everyone dove for the sides to avoid them, or tried to. Anita, too slow, took two darts and groaned. One hit Dan in the shoulder, another tagged Matthew in the leg.
Jayce ducked out from behind the open door and punched the nearly transparent barrier blocking their escape, only to recoil in pain from the impact. The swarm poured into the room and settled over the blue disc opening to catch any more darts they might shoot.
Venomous rage settled over Lizzie’s usually smirking face. She glared through the swarm, ready to run in and murder their attackers with her bare hands.
Owen opened his mouth and shouted, “Let us go!” He only managed to be a tiny bit louder than a normal voice.
Everyone seemed so stymied by this. Add a little stress to a situation and everyone panicked. Stephen, at least, had his back plastered to the wall beside the blue disc, and seemed to be trying to think.
For some reason, none of these people could come up with the answer that seemed so obvious to Bobby. He needed to be able to…to give orders. Damn, Head Cowboy had climbed up on his high horse. A handful of dragons flew to Andrew, trilling at him where he cowered in the corner, urging him to his feet. They pointed frantically at the water-guy in the doorway.
Andrew took forever to get the idea, then he lunged out and slapped his hand on it. Him. Whatever. Bobby had his own problems. Alice shot shards of ice at the swarm, ripping through the tiny bodies. Most of it, they dodged. She managed to hit twelve head-on, and encased twice that many in ice.
Stuck there to defend against the darts, Bobby had to let the dragons take it. While the guy in the doorway slowly oozed back to his body, Alice kept shooting the dragons with globs of ice. Lizzie stood in the middle of the room now, staring so hard through the swarm he thought laser beams might shoot out of her eyes to hit Alice in the chest any second. She took deep breaths, her hands held out with tiny flames dancing in her palms. Slowly, they crept up her arms, but she needed more time to be able to fully counter Alice.
Stephen lunged at the water-guy and bit him in the arm. Water-guy moaned and dropped to the floor, revealing the girl standing behind him with a dart gun in her shaking hands. Bobby recognized her as the one who shot him at the farm, and she seemed as terrified now as she’d been then.
She squeezed the trigger while Jayce hopped over Stephen gulping down water-guy’s blood. The gun clicked—she’d forgotten to switch the safety off. In one smooth motion, Jayce took the gun away from her, flipped it around, thumbed the safety, and shot her before she managed to do more than stumble back.
he blue disc and the view of the other room disappeared. As Lizzie screamed out a rage-filled cry of challenge, Bobby re-formed in agony, one arm missing because of all the ice encrusted dragons littering the floor. “Little help, Lizzie,” he grunted. So many of his dragons had been smashed that he felt like a walking bruise.
“Baby,” Dan said, still on the floor, “Calm down and help Bobby. C’mon, heat up the ice. You’ll get your chance later when you’ve got more fire to burn.”
“Nobody shoots you but me!” Flames flashed out, engulfing Lizzie’s body and making everyone flinch away from her.
Bobby held an arm up to shield himself from the fire. “Lizzie, get a—” He bit back a few choice swearwords, instead making a wordless noise of exasperation. “—grip. We still gotta get outta here.” Since she kept doing what looked to him like throwing a temper tantrum, he scooped up and chucked his frozen dragons at her. The ice sizzled and popped, and it seemed to soothe her.
Stephen sighed in contentment and sat up. “That’s more like it. No drugs in that blood. I think it’s chasing the rest of it away for me.”
“We should take these two with us. How long will he—” Jayce used his chin to indicate Water-guy. “—be out?”
“A while.” Stephen floated to his feet and picked Water-guy up easily. “Oh, yeah.” Rolling his neck around made it crack loudly. “I’m good to go.”
“Jayce, how you doing?” Bobby lobbed a large chunk of ice at Lizzie, and melting it both released five dragons and got Lizzie back under control.
“Not solid yet, but getting there.” He picked the girl up and hefted her over his shoulder. “I should be able to repel the darts, but maybe not bullets yet.”
“Good enough for now,” Bobby nodded. “You, me, and Andrew are going to get Lily and Lisa. The rest of you go clear a path to the elevators and get a car for us. Do what you gotta, but remember not to hurt no one too much.”
“We’re the good guys, Baby,” Dan said as he got gingerly to his feet and grinned. “At least for now.”
Jayce handed the girl off to Matthew. The werewolf had a fresh dose of the drug, making him unsteady. He shouldered the girl well enough anyway. Bobby and Andrew followed Jayce down the hallway. A small group of guards clustered around the door they needed to go through and Jayce kept walking, letting their darts bounce off his metal flesh. Bobby burst back into the swarm and surrounded the poor guards, biting their hands and ripping guns away.
The pair of them knocked all the guards down in half a minute. “Good work,” Bobby said as he re-formed, proud of his dragons for avoiding killing anyone. They listened to him. That mattered. He pushed the door open, beckoning Andrew to follow, and took the first door in the new hallway to get to Lily.
Chapter 11
Paul spat out an expletive. “Go, go, go! They’re under attack, I think.”
Riker nodded and led his men through the parking lot at a jog. Liam didn’t like this part of the plan very much, mostly because it involved a high probability he would have to heal people. A shame that just asking Privek nicely to let everyone go would never work. He stuffed Jasmine the squirrel into his pocket and led Paul and Kaitlin up to the front doors, only to find them locked.
Liam frowned as he rattled the door again, refusing to accept their condition. “Why are the doors locked? These doors are never locked. Not even in the middle of the night.”
“There must be an alarm going.” Kaitlin made a face. “I didn’t see that coming.”
The wind kicked up, tossing small debris into the air. All three of them looked up to see two women dropping down out of the sky. Chelsea’s feathery wings caused most of the breeze, and Dianna’s ability to control the wind made it worse. They landed together, one on each side of the tri
o.
“What’s going on, Liam?” Dianna put a hand on one hip and regarded her fingernails casually. The attractive black woman had taken to wearing spandex bodysuits now. Liam supposed that being able to fly would make skirts particularly unattractive, and loose clothing would get in the way. It made her look like she dropped off a comic book page. This particular outfit was dark red with a yellow sash across her waist and subtle black stripes up and down her body that brought a tornado to mind.
Chelsea, a pretty blonde with sparkling green eyes, turned her head in sharp, abrupt movements that reminded Liam of a bird studying a worm. “Where’ve you been for the past few days?”
Privek had arranged a welcoming committee, apparently. Liam shrugged, knowing he could fool these two at least well enough to keep them from doing anything regrettable. “Just enjoying the fact I’m not in Afghanistan.”
“Uh huh. Who’s this?” Dianna stared at Kaitlin.
“Kaitlin Tremont, here to meet Privek and hopefully join the home team.”
Kaitlin gave them a good impression of a chipper person smiling and waving. “That’s me, just looking to be on the winning side and all.”
Dianna and Chelsea shared a look. Chelsea wrapped her arms around Kaitlin and snapped her wings out. “Let me help you with that.”
Dianna put her hands out and the winds kicked up again. “The building is on lockdown until Mitchell is taken down, so we’ll get you all in to see him.”
Behind him, Paul made a little eep noise. Liam stifled down a sigh. “That’s really not necessary, ladies. We don’t mind climbing stairs.”
Kaitlin screamed out, “Riker!”
Idly, as his feet lifted off the ground, Liam reflected that when the precog screamed, it was really more of a frantic yell without the shrieking high pitch some women are capable of. Nothing he could do would stop Dianna, or anyone else, so he tried to keep his feet under him and not provoke her to drop him. Gunfire took him by surprise, though it shouldn’t have. Riker was a soldier and he had a gun. Obviously, when a girl he liked made noises like Kaitlin did, there would be shooting.
