“I think I can solve the money problem,” she said.
“Does your family have money or something?” Drake asked. “I mean… Sorry. That was awkward. I’m not trying to pry. I just mean… You can’t have a job any more than I do.”
She grinned even wider. She giggled. She stepped away from him and pried a stone loose from one still-exposed stone wall of her room. She held the rock in her hand, offering it to Drake as if expecting him to take it. But as he reached for it, something happened to the granite. The bottom of it, touching her hand, reflected more light all of a sudden. A line marched up the fist-sized rock. Below the line, a highly reflective surface. Drake began to see his reflection in it as the bright part of the rock grew and grew.
Gold.
Solid, gleaming, polished gold. Much larger than a nugget. The material finished transforming in her hand, and Hope Cameron held enough gold to buy large portions of the state of Nevada.
“No, my family doesn’t have money. But we do. You and I,” she giggled.
Drake took the gold rock from her, almost dropping it from the surprising weight.
“Hope, that’s…that’s…”
“That’s proof that Sebastian is wrong,” she said. “He thinks my power’s not good for anything but making food. He won’t even hear me out when I ask for a chance to show him what I can do. So, fine. He doesn’t get to know. I could fund everything he wants to do with his Legion, but now I won’t. Instead, I’ll buy you dinner, Drake Tesla. I’ll buy you the priciest meal at the most expensive restaurant in all of Las Vegas. And don’t you go trying to be a chauvinist about paying. We’re rich, you and I. We can make a real difference around here. We can alter the course of the Legion.
“The power to change one thing into another is the power to change the world.”
***
The windows created an illusion of sitting in midair. The restaurant at the top of the Star of Fortune casino had no surface through which one couldn’t see. Walls, floor, ceiling, tables, chairs — all made of glass. The full moon of a cloudless night shone in like the spotlight at center stage. The glow of the city and traffic below rose up like a gas that gave everything a slightly neon electric tinge.
Drake never imagined himself here.
He wore a tuxedo in black, long tails hanging down his backside. The matching teal cummerbund and bow tie caught the light and glowed a little bit.
They perfectly matched her clothing.
Hope shone in a long formal dress that spread out around her legs like a gown from a fairy tale. A flower pattern decorated the silk, and the high neck showed off her delicate face.
Drake almost cried as he gazed at her. How could he deserve this? A young lady so beautiful, so rich and deep in character, so full of life? Over the past months, his knowledge of her grew beyond the laugh and the eyes and the looks. He had come to know her love of science and physics, her passion to do the right thing, and her unwavering loyalty. If occasional dark flecks — her jealousy, her temper, her pride — revealed themselves in her personality, they became like the smoke that makes a warm blaze real.
Now she perched daintily on the seat across from him, bright red lips revealing gleaming white teeth in a smile that spoke of perfect trust.
How could he deserve this?
He almost felt guilty about their date tonight. But she made a perfect point: why should they be the only teenage couple in the world without the chance to dress up and go out? Just because life in the Legion made it hard shouldn’t ban them from the rituals that other couples enjoyed.
Only the method of payment gave him pangs of conscience. Using your power to make your life easier came naturally. Using your power to rent out an entire restaurant and hotel ballroom? A little harder to justify.
And yet, the gold was real. The coin shop that bought it from them would suffer no ill effects from taking it. The restaurant was completely paid for. Nothing stolen, nothing counterfeit. Yet somehow he still felt weird.
Try though he might to make himself feel guilty, the glowing pinnacle of beauty winking at him across the table constituted the most effective argument of all. Drake’s worries melted away like ice on a warm spring day when she batted her eyes.
“What are you going to have? Steak? Lobster? We can have whatever we want,” Hope said.
“I just want to sit here looking at you.”
Her bright, chime of a laugh created even more beauty. “You’ll just be starving later tonight then.”
Sitting at their corner table felt like floating on a cloud. On every side, nothing but glass came between them and the lights of Las Vegas. How fitting to feel like they sat in the sky, since Drake imagined nothing else on Earth could be closer to heaven.
Outside the restaurant’s main entrance, someone screamed.
A person flew through the double doors, knocking them off their hinges, still screaming until he flopped like a rag doll over the bar at the end of his flight.
Some waiters and waitresses ran away from the violently opened doors. Others ran toward the man who had collapsed over the bar. Many screamed and cried out. Chaos invaded the portrait of a fantasy date night.
Sebastian Crest strutted into the Star of Fortune.
Unlike the wait staff and Drake, no tuxedo adorned his gaunt frame. Instead, he wore, of course, only the black fatigues and tank top of a Legion Enforcer. His heavy boots thudded on the dark hardwood floor.
Behind him, Pitch, Kila, and Spooky walked in wearing the same uniform. One of the restaurant employees went for a phone, presumably to call security. Pitch reached out his hand and, from across the room, the phone flew out of the worker’s hand and through the open door behind them.
One waitress tried to rush them, but Pitch used his telekinesis to push her over. She fell flat on her back as if she had hit an invisible wall of air.
A waiter produced a concealed pistol from under his jacket but before he could pull the trigger, Pitch had redirected the barrel toward the window. The sharp explosion of the gun going off rang louder than Drake ever imagined, but the rush of air from outside the tower almost seemed louder. The bullet had punctured the window; now shards rapidly fell away, increasing the size of the hole. A fierce wind rose up in the once-peaceful restaurant.
Several people in the room screamed, their cries jumbling together indistinguishably.
The larger boy shouted, “Everybody out!”
At first nothing happened. But when he mentally picked up a person and heaved him out the door, waiters and waitresses began to run. Pitch threw a second one out, and the trickle became a flood of tuxedo-clad restaurant workers barging out the ripped-open doors.
Hope cringed back in her chair, pushing it up against the glass wall behind her. Drake stood up to get between Sebastian and her.
“So. You thought you could take over the Legion,” Sebastian said. “You thought you could take my place. Tonight, you pay for that.”
Drake couldn’t imagine what Sebastian was talking about. He never had any thought like that. So, of course, the first words from his mouth were, “What are you talking about?”
“Not you, stupid.”
Behind him, he felt Hope rise to her feet. Drake stepped back and to the side to look at her. The eyes that batted at him moments ago now flashed with righteous anger. At her sides, clenched fists posed ready to fight. Her beautiful teal gown made her look like a queen denouncing one of her subjects.
“You’re evil, Sebastian. Your thirst for power and vengeance corrupts your Legion. I won’t let you take in innocent people and turn them into killers and criminals!”
Drake felt his lower jaw dropping open as he stared. “Hope, what are you talking about?”
“Everything we talked about. Every conversation we had about how Sebastian’s goals were morally wrong.”
“Yeah, but you never said anything to me about taking over the Legion.”
“I never said anything to anyone,” Hope replied. “I didn’t have to.�
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She fixed Spooky with a cold stare. The pixie-haired girl in black combat fatigues stuck out her jaw and glared right back.
The truth dawned on Drake. When Hope asked him if he wanted to make things different, she meant that they could lead the Legion instead of Sebastian. And wasn’t she right? Neither of them harbored fantasies about ruling the world. Neither of them wanted to create a supernatural cell of domestic terrorists. He moved his feet slightly to stand beside Hope, then turned to face Sebastian.
Before he could speak, though, Sebastian said, “Pitch?”
The broad, muscular boy lifted his hand, getting ready to reach for Hope. Drake’s eyes widened. He had never thought about how to fight Pitch but if the boy used his telekinesis, they might never even come close to him.
Without a second thought, Drake flung a fireball at him.
Pitch cried out and ducked, distracted from Hope.
Kila ran at Drake, shouting a kiai and launching into a flying kick. He tried to respond by throwing fire at her, too, but she hit him before he could.
Hope’s dress made it hard for her to fight with her legs, but she threw a punch at Kila’s face. It landed so hard that blood spurted out, and the brown-haired girl cried, “You bwoke my node!”
And then Sebastian appeared right behind Hope. Drake hadn’t even seen him disappear. He just materialized and grabbed her by her arms, lifting her up off the glass floor. She kicked frantically.
Drake drove an uppercut straight into Sebastian’s ribs, and the fight degenerated into a wild melee. Fists and feet flew through the air. Cries and grunts filled the restaurant as Drake and Hope fought the leader of the Legion and his most loyal followers. Somebody hit Drake hard in the kidneys. He threw a blind kick backward hoping to get them. Someone else swung at his head, and he blocked it just in time, getting an up-close view of the cut on her knuckles.
He found himself facing Spooky, her black hair framing a face full of anger and fear. She twisted and threw a high kick at his head.
Drake caught it with an upward block and gripped her leg tightly just above her ankle, where the fatigues were tucked into her boot. At once, the place where his hand touched her clothing burst into flame. Her pants caught fire, and Spooky screamed. She threw herself on the floor and rolled around, trying to put it out.
Reminded of his power, Drake threw another fireball. He didn’t take time to pick out individual targets; he just picked the place where he couldn’t see any teal silk. The sizzle of his fireball added more noise to the wind and the cries. He saw another black tank top drop to the ground and begin rolling to put out the fire.
Drake allowed a savage grin to spread on his face, thinking he had the key to winning this fight.
That’s when he floated up into the air. Frantically, he swung fists and legs, but it did no good. Pitch had him in his telekinetic grip, and struggling changed nothing. With horror, Drake felt his hands and arms forced against his will until the palms of his hands were aimed directly at his own cheeks. If he tried to throw fire, he would only burn himself.
Laughing, with one hand extended in Drake’s direction, Pitch stretched out his other hand toward Hope. Drake’s heart fell. What moments ago had seemed like certain victory now looked like certain defeat. How could you fight someone you couldn’t even touch?
But Hope saw him and dove for the floor. With a shout of triumph, she landed not far in front of Pitch, almost at his feet.
And with a growl, the girl who had turned stone into gold slammed the heel of her bare hand to the glass floor.
Around Pitch’s feet, it became water.
He screamed pitifully as he dropped at once. Nothing but that thin layer of water stood between him and the thirty-story drop to the desert floor. Drake saw his face turn to a look of sheer terror. Pitch grabbed the sides of the floor to prevent his fall. There was no one around to grab him.
Until the invisible Sebastian materialized beside him, grabbing Pitch’s arm.
The weight pulled Sebastian down, and he almost fell through the hole in the floor along with Pitch, until Kila grabbed the bigger boy’s other hand. Sebastian shifted his grip, getting both hands on him, as Spooky ran up and threw herself on top of Hope while she lay on the floor. The two rolled around, fighting and trying to hit each other as Sebastian and Kila hauled Pitch back up.
Once they did, Pitch renewed his grip on Drake and telekinetically took hold of Hope as well. He held them both in the air.
Blood leaking from her nose where Spooky had punched her, Hope flailed against thin air as Pitch’s telekinesis held her. She screamed in wordless rage.
“Let’s get out of here before the police come,” Sebastian panted. “Pitch, we’ll be dropping you and Hope off in the desert on the way back to the cave. Kill her.”
Drake shouted, “No!”
As his scream died away, Hope’s were just beginning.
“You won’t get away with this Sebastian! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill every last one of you. I swear it!”
“Pitch, knock her head against the wall to shut her up. Let’s get going.”
“I’ll kill every last one of you!”
***
Drake sat in the Legion’s prison. His back rested against the bars. He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. He felt empty inside, like there was no emotion left. In the past few days, he had screamed, he had cried, he had thrown fireballs all over the prison. But none of it helped.
None of it could bring her back.
At intervals, Spooky and Kila came in to sit with him. Even Sebastian sometimes. Pitch tried to, but that was a disaster. Drake screamed and wouldn’t stop throwing fire until he was gone.
“She was planning to murder Sebastian, Drake. We had to do something.”
“I don’t believe that. She wasn’t a killer.”
“Drake, this is me.”
Spooky sat on a wooden chair outside his cell with her legs crossed, the laces on one of her combat boots coming undone. Her right hand fiddled with a strand of her hair, twisting it into a tight loop around her fingertip. She looked down at the ground.
“I didn’t want it to be true. I liked her. We all liked her. But you know how she could get so angry sometimes. So it came to me. A Truth with a capital T. Hope will try to kill Sebastian. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him. Maybe then none of this would have happened. I don’t know. I did the best I could, Drake. I wanted to stop her from murdering; I didn’t think Sebastian would just make Pitch do the same thing. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I tried to do the right thing.”
Drake didn’t answer. He didn’t want to. Spooky’s power to know the truth made the whole conversation seem unfair. He wanted to defend Hope, but how could he argue with someone who just knew things about you, whether you wanted her to or not?
But he didn’t need Spooky’s power to know that Hope had trouble with anger.
What if she had told him? He imagined a hypothetical world where Hope had said, “Drake, Sebastian and his ideas are too dangerous. I think we have to murder him.”
What would he have done?
He liked her so much, and he wanted to be hers so much, would he have gone along with it? Or would he have tried to change her mind and risked making her mad at him? Would he have been able to change her mind? Might he have persuaded her to try to solve the problem another way?
After he remained quiet long enough, eventually Spooky got up and left. Only thought and memory remained behind. Thought and memory, but no hope.
Hope was dead.
Chapter 19
The Present
Drake rubbed the back of his hand over his cheek, pushing the trickle of moisture away as if to hide it. The memory still hurt.
“Ever since Hope’s death, I’ve been just kind of going through the motions,” he said. “I hate Sebastian. I hate the Legion. I hate all of them. But at the same time, I don’t have anywhere else to go. Who else is going to accept a guy who randomly sets things on
fire by touching them? Spooky and Sebastian are some of the last people who knew Hope. I like to just be around people who remember her like I did.
“I don’t like their goals, and I don’t like their methods. I don’t want anything to do with the Legion. I haven’t been on a mission since Hope died. The only reason I came along on this one was because Sebastian said I could get revenge against Pitch. I’m still so angry at him… I want to kill him. Or I thought I did.”
Terri perched on the edge of the couch, leaning forward to listen to him. Her dress clothes were wrinkled and dirty after everything she’d been through today, and her hair felt greasy. But she felt no desire to do anything but stare into Drake’s eyes and listen to him.
“But you didn’t, even back at the coffee shop when you had the chance.”
“I know. When it came down to it I… I don’t know. I wanted to kill him, but I couldn’t.”
She didn’t answer at first. Terri let the silence build for a while. Sitting on opposite ends of the couch in her rarely-used apartment, they looked at each other. Her tea had grown cold while he had told his story, but she took a sip of it anyway before speaking.
“That desire for revenge eats you up, Drake. It crumples you up from the inside out. If you ever get what you want, it’ll only make things worse, not better. I think deep down you know that. I think that’s why you never actually hit Pitch with fire when you fought.
“That’s why I haven’t turned you in to the AAA. That’s why I came with you when I should have gone with my fellow agents. There’s hope for you, Drake. You can change. You can let go of this desire for revenge, and I want to help you.”
***
“Ms. Flake, I know nothing about a power like an atomic bomb, but I have an idea that might help you.”
Maven Flake stood in front of him, hands on her hips. Pitch felt awkward about looking at her. Whenever he stared her in the face, he felt like he was rudely staring at her misshapen nose.
“I don’t believe this anymore, but the Legion believes that powers come from wanting them bad enough and being willing to sacrifice for them.”
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