“I don’t want it either.”
“Last chance, then. Step aside.”
He shook his head and before he even finished the motion, Hope flew at him. She shot a front hand jab at his nose and, when he barely managed to slip to the side before it hit him, followed it up with a reverse punch.
Drake blocked it and resumed his guard stance.
He saw her right foot come off the ground as if to kick and moved to block it. But even as he committed himself to stopping the right kick, her left foot came up, too. The front kick hit him high on the chest, and Drake stumbled backward as she came back down to the ground from the flying kick.
She took advantage of his momentary balance problem, rushing in with a forearm strike toward his head, and then an uppercut aimed at his ribs. Somehow, Drake blocked both, but he was backed up against the bomb now, with nowhere left to retreat.
“If you don’t play offense, you can never score,” Hope growled and drove a hard straight punch right at his nose.
Drake dropped straight down, ducking the punch, and her fist slammed into the metal of the device. Hope swore in pain and from under her arms Drake exploded up into a tackle, pushing her back several feet before she recovered and allowed herself to go over backwards.
His momentum carried him out of control, and Drake stumbled forward to collapse into a table.
Hope leapt back to her feet and charged him again. He barely got to his feet in time.
Painfully, he retreated before her unending hail of punches and kicks. He clung to a fierce determination not to hurt her, but Hope had no such compunction. Every new attack drove Drake back toward the glass windows encasing Evening in the Stars. Finally, backed up against the clear wall, he saw her shoulders move and twitched his head to the side, barely avoiding a palm-heel strike that would have broken his nose.
Behind him, her palm slammed into the glass window.
It liquefied and splashed out of the open space behind him, plummeting to Earth.
“Hope! That could’ve been my head!”
She paused and shuffled back. Confusion blinked across her face, and then she set her jaw. “I want you to leave, Drake. But if you won’t, you’ll end up dead like Sebastian.”
Wind howled through the newly created opening to the sky. There was nowhere left to run. And Drake had to confront the fact that the woman he loved felt enough anger to kill him.
Grimly, he straightened up and held his fists up to cover his face.
“If I have to, Drake, I will kill you.”
From behind her came a shout in a brand new voice.
“Hope, don’t!”
Drake couldn’t see past her. Hope blocked his line of sight to the newcomer directly. But even as she turned to see who it was, he recognized the voice.
He had heard it more recently than Hope, after all.
Pitch stood in the broken glass doorway.
***
Hope turned to face him. In his tan slacks and white polo, he looked so different. No more Legion black. No more tank top. Corded, muscular arms stretched his short sleeves. His thick frame took up more space and created a commanding presence.
“Don’t kill Drake,” he said again.
Hope’s reply dripped venom. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not his fault. It’s mine.”
She snorted, and he walked calmly across the room toward her. He stepped wide to avoid the massive hole in the floor. Not even a sidelong glance betrayed any memory of how close he had once come to death there.
“I’m the one who ruined your life, Hope. I’m the one who cut you off from someone you loved. I’m the one who almost killed you. Don’t kill Drake. Definitely don’t nuke the whole city of Las Vegas. If you have to kill someone, Hope, kill me.”
She glared. She slammed her fist into a glass table; it became fine powdery white beach sand and blew away in the wind through the windows.
“Believe me, I want to.”
Pitch walked with perfect cadence. His steps drummed out a slow bass rhythm, almost like a dirge.
“Just let me say something before you do.”
“What? What could you possibly say, Pitch? What could you possibly say that would make up for tearing Drake away from me? What could you say that would make up for turning the only man I ever loved against me? You want to say something? Say it. And then get ready to die. I think I’ll just turn your lower body to stone and leave your heart and lungs, so it’s slow.
“There’s nothing, Pitch. Nothing you can possibly say.”
He stopped in front of her.
He locked eyes with her.
His lips moved, but whatever words came out were too soft to be meant for her.
Her eyes were fire, her fists tight. Hope drew her lips back in a snarl that showed her teeth.
And then he knelt in front of her.
“I’m sorry, Hope.”
Pitch dropped his head toward the floor, exposing the back of his neck.
“I was wrong. I destroyed your relationship. I tried to kill you. And you’ve endured months of pain because of my bad decision. It was my fault. You have every reason to be angry. I was wrong, and I will never do it again.
“I want your forgiveness if you can, Hope. But if you can’t, I’m ready to face the consequences of what I did.
“If you want it, you can have my life.”
Hope stretched out her hand.
From near the vanished window, Drake stared in horror as her finger reached toward the back of Pitch’s neck. “Don’t do it Hope.” he whispered under his breath.
She took Pitch’s shock of brown hair in her fist. The same glowing line Drake had once seen travel from one end of a stone to the other as it became gold now crept down through his hair toward his scalp. Pitch’s brown locks became dust and blew away, but the effect went no further.
“You deserve to die, Pitch.”
At that moment, three other people walked into the room: Kila, Anna, and Renee.
Hope looked up when they came in. Her eyes went to them. Her mouth dropped open.
She let go of Pitch and took a step back.
Her mouth moved several times, but no sound came out.
She stumbled backward, until Drake caught her and held her up.
“What is it Hope?”
Instead of answering him, she finally managed to speak to the young women who had just walked in.
“Y…Y…You?”
When she spoke, Renee seemed to give her a new glance, and then stare with just as much disbelief as Hope.
“It can’t be.”
Drake asked, “Hope, what is it?”
“This… This is the woman who saved my life. The one I just told you about. I’ve always had this mental image of her leaning over me and crying. She’s real. I thought she might have been a fever dream from my injuries.”
Renee ran to her and embraced her, pulling her up from leaning on Drake.
“I’ve always wondered where you went. I’ve always hoped for the best for you.”
“You took me to the hospital. After I regained consciousness I… I walked out. By the time you got me there, I wasn’t injured anymore anyway. I didn’t want to answer any questions about what happened.”
“It’s OK. I don’t blame you. I’m so glad to see you again. I’ve been praying for you every day since I found you in the desert.”
Embarrassed, Hope looked away. Her eyes fell on her improvised atomic device.
Her bomb would have killed the woman who had once saved her life.
She collapsed to her knees.
She tried to speak, but a wordless sob heaved out of her instead.
She threw her arms around Pitch and wept on his shoulder. Over and over, she gasped out two words.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Drake stumbled over to them and sat down heavily beside Hope. She clutched his hand in both of hers.
“I’m so sorry, Drake. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, Hope. It’s over.”
And then a new voice interrupted.
“Isn’t this just cute. What a bunch of crybabies.”
Sebastian stood in the door, his trademark sneer more arrogant than ever.
***
They all turned to stare. Hope and Drake, Kila and Pitch, Renee and Anna. For the longest of seconds, they stared without moving their lips.
To either side of Sebastian stood Lincoln and Spooky. All three, of course, wore black from head to toe.
Finally, Hope hissed out his name.
“Sebastian!”
As if the saying of his name made it so, Sebastian disappeared. The space between Spooky and Linc became vacant as if he had never been there.
Kila had time to say, “Not good,” and then Sebastian became visible again just in time to punch Renee in the side of the head. She cried out and flopped gracelessly down to the floor on her backside, unconscious.
Anna let a wordless shout fly and a wild punch at the same time. She succeeded only in delivering a glancing blow to his shoulder as Sebastian became invisible again. Sons and Daughters of Thunder looked frantically around, each of them closing their fists and covering up, adopting a fighting stance.
He became visible again seconds later behind Drake. Sebastian grabbed him by the back of his black tank top and threw him across the room. Drake slid on the glass floor, grunting as he collided with tables and chairs. One of the chairs pitched out the wide open hole in the floor, and Drake slide to a stop alarmingly close to it. He lay there, apparently dazed from the impact of his head on so many different items of furniture.
Sebastian shouted, “All of you weaklings better just leave now! I’ll take this bomb, thank you very much. You can run away and leave me with it, or you can stay and get beaten down before I leave with it. Either way, I’m keeping it.”
Using his gift, Pitch levitated a glass table and threw it at him. Sebastian, though, became invisible again right away. The table flew through the place he’d been standing.
Lincoln and Spooky attacked. Both of them ran at Pitch, but Lincoln’s power got him there much quicker. Super speed left a trail of knocked over tables and chairs behind him and brought him up right in front of the former football player faster than anyone could even see.
Pitch barely had time to levitate another table for throwing before Linc punched him in the ribs over and over again. Each blow landed like a jackhammer, all of them impacting faster than the eye could follow. The bulky ex-football player doubled over at the waist and groaned. The table he’d been about to throw collapsed to the ground and cracked.
Spooky took longer to get there — long enough that Kila could step in front of her. The two girls stared at each other.
“Don’t do this, Spooky. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“You’re the one who made it like this, Kila. If you hadn’t deserted, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Deserted isn’t the right word. I found a better way. Sebastian’s ideas sound cool, but they only lead to terrible places — like fighting your best friend.”
Kila’s head whipped to the side even before Spooky’s fist moved. Then she slipped the other way, dodging the second fist while Spooky lagged in the middle of trying to throw it. For Kila, dodging blows came easy. Striking her own blows, on the other hand, came not at all. This was her best friend. She didn’t want to hit her. It hurt that Spooky did want it.
“Come with me, Spooky. We’re friends.”
The only answer was a kick aimed at her head. Kila saw it in her mind and slipped to the side before it happened.
Just as she felt smug about her application of Chojin Ken, Sebastian appeared behind her and wrapped his arm around her throat, choking her.
Lincoln’s punches already had Pitch doubled over at the waist. The former football player took advantage of that position and slammed into his assailant, catching him in the gut with his broad shoulder. Linc groaned and tipped over to the side as Pitch charged past him. He barreled right at Sebastian and Kila.
Sebastian, though, became invisible and slipped away before he got there. Pitch collided with Kila, and the two of them tumbled to the floor. Lincoln stumbled over and kicked both of them while they were down, making sure they wouldn’t get back up right away.
Spooky and Linc stood next to each other. Sebastian shifted into visibility. All three turned to face Anna and Hope. The two young women had never met before that moment. Now, they traded glances before squaring their shoulders to confront the Legion.
“Deja vu, Hope?” Sebastian’s words oozed sarcasm as he curled his lip. “You, me, and Spooky, fighting here all over again. Only this time, I won’t send Pitch to kill you. I’ll do it myself.”
“Not if you’re stone!”
The words barely left her before Hope launched herself at Sebastian, flying through the air with both hands outstretched. He dropped to the ground and rolled as Linc and Spooky scrambled to either side. Hope hit what had once been the restaurant’s glass bar with both hands. At once, it transformed to crumbly sandstone, and the glass floor beneath it cracked ominously.
Lincoln kicked her in the ribs. Anna tried to come to her defense, but Sebastian got back to his feet and tripped her. With Anna down, he grabbed Hope by the back of her shirt and threw her as far as he could. She landed on a table that broke under her weight. Her breath whooshed out of her on impact, leaving Hope flat on the ground and gasping.
“Stay down, both of you,” Sebastian said. “We’re going to take this nice bomb you built for us, Hope. You can’t stop us, so you might as well not go through the pain of trying.”
Connor Merritt came through the gaping hole where the door once stood, glaring at Sebastian.
Chapter 24
The one-time formal restaurant of the Star of Fortune casino stood in shambles. Its theme — every single bit of it made of glass — lay shattered and broken all over the floor. Half of the floor to ceiling windows were gone. A gaping hole in the floor waited like a trap for the unwary. Wounded or unconscious Sons of Thunder dotted the floor, sucking in ragged breaths or wincing in pain.
Connor Merritt walked through it all without ever taking his eyes off the founder of the Legion.
“This has gone on long enough, Sebastian.”
“You again? Haven’t we settled this yet? You can’t fight what you can’t see, Connor. How many times do I have to prove it to you?”
“You can’t win, Sebastian. Even if you beat me, the hotel lobby is filled with AAA agents. I hurt them pretty bad to get past them, but the reinforcements are probably already on their way. You can’t get past them.”
Sebastian snorted and said, “Maybe you can’t. But I doubt they’ll be any better at stopping an invisible man than you are.”
“Sure, you can turn invisible. But Spooky can’t. Linc can’t. How do you two feel about being left behind?”
He paused to glance at both of them, then went on. “And you can’t turn the bomb invisible, Sebastian. There’s literally no way you leave here with it. Give up now.”
Before Sebastian could reply, Lincoln Blunt stepped between them. “Let me,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
Lincoln followed the Legion’s teaching. Once he saw the other guys and girls with powers, he wanted them for himself. He wanted them more than anything. And he’d been willing to sacrifice anything to get them — even his friendship with Connor. So now, he moved with more speed than anyone else. His left jab flew in at Connor faster than a bullet, and the two follow-up kicks came in even faster.
Connor had his own advantage, though. That friendship Lincoln so quickly sacrificed went all the way back to their freshman year in high school, when Connor introduced his friend to the martial arts. Connor had taught him everything he had learned, and he knew Linc’s fighting style backwards and forwards. Dodging his blows came easily. They might come in too fast to see, but Connor knew they’d be coming before Linc ev
en threw them.
Just like Kila, he found that the hardest part was throwing a punch at his friend.
Connor slipped left, then right, but the quick front hand jab and reverse punch that should have followed never came. Instead, he spoke.
“I don’t want to fight you any more than I did the last time we met, Linc.”
“I’m tired of your pity, Connor. Last time we met, I was still your student. Not anymore.”
Bullets couldn’t penetrate his skin, let alone fists and feet, so when Connor dodged the first kick, blocked the following punch, but couldn’t stop the third kick in the combo, it didn’t do any serious damage.
“We were friends, Lincoln. Isn’t that worth something?”
That’s when Sebastian grabbed him from behind, wrapping his neck in a choke hold.
Connor used a Judo move to throw the attacker over his back, but at the same time a hard roundhouse kick from Linc plowed into his ribs. He grunted and spun to throw a crescent kick at his old friend’s head. Linc ducked under it and catapulted himself forward to catch Connor around the midriff and tackle him. They both went flying, but Connor leapt back to his feet faster.
Sebastian again grabbed him from behind, wrapping his arm and bending his wrist back in an immobilizing hold.
At that moment, a fireball blazed across the room and hit Sebastian in the back of the head. His hair caught on fire, and he screamed. He released Connor and ripped off his black tank top, using it to smother his hair to stop the burning.
Drake was back on his feet, walking away from the hole in the floor and toward Connor. But Lincoln charged him, hitting him before Drake had a chance to do anything about it. Linc slammed his fists into Drake’s gut over and over, until he collapsed back to the floor.
While Sebastian was distracted by his burning hair, Connor slugged him in the jaw as hard as he could. He stumbled backward, crying out in pain. Linc, however, having put Drake back down, flew at his one-time friend, leaping into a flying kick. Connor didn’t quite dodge in time, and the two young men rolled to the floor, struggling to either pin each other or land a hard enough blow to break the other’s grip.
Fire and Thunder Page 17
