Absolved (Altered series)

by Marnee Blake

  Turning the corner, he bounded down the steps two at a time. They hadn’t even gone a few feet, when they were both thrown sideways.

  Luke hit the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of him. Gasping, he swung his head around, trying to find the mover. They were positioned above him, but the damn goggles messed up everything.

  Scurrying down the rest of the stairs, he stayed as small as possible. Their opponent was probably using night vision, too, which meant they were under the same constraints. He needed to get out of their line of sight.

  He tripped, smacking his shin on the steps and going down hard, but he scratched and clawed to his feet, flinging himself around the corner.

  If he called to Kenny, he’d alert the person hunting them to his location. The landing he was on was clear. No sign of anyone.

  Through the thunder of his heart, he anticipated what he would do if he were lying in wait. He’d position himself high, like their attacker, where the vantage point would be better

  On the landing, probably directly above him.

  Lifting his gaze, but remaining mindful, he cast the scope of his goggles up the stairwell.

  There. A leg.

  Holding his breath, he slid safely out of sight. If the guy paralyzed him while he remained out of Luke’s line of vision, he’d have no hope.

  Luke still had no idea where Kenny was. If this guy followed them, they weren’t going to be able to get to the boiler room. They were wasting time. He crab-walked backward to sit against the wall.

  The trash can next to him offered his best shot.

  He lifted it into the air. With as much force as he could manage, he whipped it up and around the landing above him, following it with his goggle-enhanced vision. Since he didn’t have their adversary in his sight, he was making his best guess at his position. When the can smashed above, he heard a cry, but he didn’t know if he’d incapacitated him.

  Where the hell was Kenny?

  He waited what felt like a long moment but might not have been because he’d learned months ago that when the adrenalin was flowing, everything slowed. Still, it seemed like forever.

  Slipping his head over the railing again, he attempted to locate the person on the stairs.

  His head turned, he didn’t see the bench before it slammed into his side. The force of it knocked the wind out of him. The pain exploded along his left flank, and he cried out.

  His adversary had stolen Luke’s idea.

  “Luke!” Kenny’s voice split the silence. “Luke!” Then his scream echoed off the walls. What the hell had happened? Why hadn’t Kenny kept his mouth shut?

  Luke crawled out of line of sight, gasping and trying to absorb air when there didn’t seem to be any left. He didn’t hear anything except his heartbeat for a long moment.

  Kenny. He needed to get to Kenny.

  But first, their attacker. He half rolled and half low-crawled to the left ten feet. His vision was blurred, or it could be the damn goggles, but he had to wait until the room steadied.

  Reaching into his pocket, he rifled around for options. Seth had insisted that they carry a bunch of survivalist stuff with them, even though Luke had barely made it out of Cub Scouts.

  A Swiss Army knife. Not directly helpful unless he threw it at the guy. Considering he couldn’t aim properly without seeing him, that wouldn’t be effective. A whistle and a compass. Not terribly necessary. A paracord. No need for a lasso or knots, really…

  A box of matches.

  He stared at them.

  Was he really going to start a fire? In the Capitol building?

  Yes. He was.

  Along the stairs in front of him, the trash he’d thrown at his adversary littered the floor. With a mental tug, he pulled some of the paper toward him. He’d have more luck if he had some light.

  Mentally balling the trash, he lit it on fire, holding it in the air. He added more and more debris to it until it was roughly the size of a cantaloupe. Shifting to his feet, he floated the fireball in front of him. Thanks to its light, he didn’t need his night vision goggles. He slipped them up and on top of his head.

  Without them, it was easier to see. This might work if he didn’t burn them all to the ground.

  He only had one shot at this. Pressing the fireball tighter, he shaped it into a burning cannonball. Briefly, he closed his eyes. Somewhere in the past year, he’d become the kind of person who lit someone on fire. Beth’s face flickered through his thoughts, and he inhaled, holding her sweetness inside him.

  Then, he lifted his gaze and flung the ball of flame up and over the landing, following it upstairs at a run.

  The first thing he noticed was that Kenny was floating above the ground on the staircase above him. Luke couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

  The second was that their adversary was a boy, probably no older than eighteen. He was on the stairs going up, peeking through the railing with his night vision goggles.

  There was a moment of surprise, and then Luke’s makeshift fireball hit him in the chest.

  He screamed, scurrying backward. Flailing, he flapped at his chest, beating at himself.

  In the boy’s panic, Kenny dropped to the stairs. Luke did his best to catch him before he hit the ground, but he couldn’t completely halt his momentum. As Kenny bumped against the staircase below him, he groaned.

  While the kid continued to cry out, Luke joined his friend. Kenny panted, rubbing his side. “Are you okay?” Luke asked.

  “No. Broken ribs.” Kenny grunted. “We need to keep going.” He glanced at their tormentor. “What about that guy?”

  The boy was frantic. He was young, too young to be here doing Parker’s bidding. Still, Luke didn’t want him following them.

  Luke picked him up, his clothing still on fire, and tossed him to the landing above them. As the boy continued to flail, he took a couple steps up, torn between helping and running. Come on, get it together. Save yourself. “Stop, drop, and roll!” he yelled.

  Still trapped in his pain, the kid continued to thrash around. Giving in to his pity, Luke hurried to the landing with the burning boy. He twisted the kid himself, doing his best to put out the flames.

  When the fire was out, he slunk away. The boy continued to sob above them. The sound would haunt him.

  More fodder for his nightmares.

  “We need to go,” he told his friend. They had other lives to save.

  Kenny stumbled to his feet. Luke attempted to help him walk with his power, but Kenny waved him off.

  They headed down the stairs, dropping their night vision goggles over their eyes again, leaving the boy on the landing above them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “It’s done.” Beth pushed back from her worktable. Beside her, one of her assistant lab techs, Michelle, clapped her hands together and exhaled.

  On the other side, Steve covered his mouth with his hand. His guard stood nearby, his hand on his weapon.

  She’d overruled the head of security to get Steve brought back into her lab. The man would pay for his crimes in the end, but his remorse was real. She convinced him that she’d stand up for him when it came time to beg for leniency if he agreed to help her.

  Thank God, he had. If not for him, she wouldn’t have put this together as quickly.

  “I need to get to the Capitol.” Bouncing up, she grabbed her jacket. She paused to study the mechanism, lifting it into the air. Please let me not be too late…

  “I’ll come.” Michelle snagged the sweater she’d abandoned earlier and put it back on.

  “It’s going to be dangerous.”

  Michelle nodded. “I know. But I’d like to help.”

  She stared at the girl she’d only spoken with a few times. A handful of years older than Beth, she’d probably gotten her PhD from an Ivy League school. She didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who would involve herself in life-threatening situations. Yet, here she was, volunteering.

  Trying times brought out the warrior in all of
them.

  “Thank you.” There weren’t better words than that. Because as much as Beth was trying to be strong, things were always easier with help. “Let’s go.”

  Beth hurried into her office and grabbed her coat and her phone. She’d heard that they’d taken out the tech with another EMP. While her phone worked, everyone there, everyone she cared about, would be without theirs.

  She would need to send a message to Colonel Martins somehow, to let him know she was coming. Gathering her things, she nodded to Michelle. “We can make the last couple of adjustments on the helicopter on the way there.”

  Beth couldn’t help looking at her Solvimine mechanism with pride. She’d used Parker Sinclair’s mechanism for distributing the drug as a gas. Then, she’d added her own aspect to the device, with her own component. It would use the same method to disperse her drug, but hers would counteract the part of the formula that opened neurological pathways.

  With a little more time, she could have developed a way to distribute her Solvimine countermeasure independent of the gas distributer. For now, though, she’d need to inject it into the ventilation system, the same as Parker.

  “Thank you, Steve,” she said as they hurried out. “I won’t forget.”

  He shook his head, his mind full of regret. “I’m so sorry, Beth.”

  Yes, he was, but people had died because of his actions. It was hard to forget that, to be forgiving, especially when she was on her way to stop more deaths.

  On the way past the command center, she snagged one of the communications specialists. “Radio Martins. Tell him we’re leaving now.”

  It took her longer to load her mechanism than she’d have liked. Every second was important right now, another moment she didn’t have to waste. When it was done, the pilot had them in the air quickly. On the trip, she made some minor adjustments, second-guessing every calculation. There was no room for error, not with this many lives in the balance.

  Was she already too late? Had they already released Solvimine into the Capitol? It had taken her ten more minutes than she’d hoped. She’d been fast, but had she been fast enough? The further into the change, the harder to reverse the damage.

  With nothing else to do on her flight, her worry turned to Luke. Was he all right? She might be hurting, but she loved him. Would they have a chance to work things out, to get past everything between them? She didn’t know.

  They landed on the Capitol lawn about twenty minutes later, in record time. After they disembarked, Martins greeted her, yelling over the noise of the rotors. “What do you have for me?”

  “I got it. I can neutralize the drug.”

  He exhaled. His relief reminded her that Martins hadn’t asked for this role, either. He’d been dumped into it. The past year had aged him, exhibited in his crow’s feet and the lines at his mouth. “Thank God.”

  “Except I need to do it from the mechanism they used to distribute Solvimine. I’ll administer my component the same way they did. Into the vents. That’ll fix everything.”

  Martins blinked at her. Then he cursed. “Beth, for Christ’s sake. It’s not that easy. It’s in the bottom of the damn building.”

  “I know. In the boiler rooms.” She’d memorized the map. “I’m going in.”

  “Jesus…” Gazing up at the sky as if looking there for guidance, he put his hands on his hips. “Beth, you aren’t trained for that. We’ve gotten reports from inside. It’s not going well. Luke and Kenny are on their way to the boiler room, but they’ve met some resistance.”

  She listened as he ran through what resistance meant. Pockets of changed soldiers lying in wait. Kenny had broken ribs, and Luke…

  “He has a broken arm.”

  “Who? Luke?”

  “Yes.” Martins ran his hand over his face. “I know you were going to ask.”

  Maybe her feelings for him were more apparent than she’d ever imagined.

  Martins stretched his neck. “The hostages… They’re in the Senate chamber. They’re afraid. The rest of our guys are there, but people are hurt. I’m not sure we can hold the enemy off.”

  “I get it.” A reminder of the hostage situation wasn’t helping her queasiness. “So, Kenny and Luke haven’t arrived at the mechanical room yet?”

  “They weren’t there as of seven minutes ago. That was their last check-in via radio.” Martins studied the sprawling building in front of him. “It’s hard to keep communication open. They set off an EMP about a half an hour ago.”

  “I need to get in there.” She motioned to Michelle. “Michelle is going to fill you in on what we’ve done since you left the compound. I’ll go in by myself.”

  “No way.” Martins motioned to two armed guards. “Rodgers and Ahearn will accompany you.”

  “Sir, I respectfully…”

  “It’s dark in there, Beth. You aren’t going to want to be alone.”

  Fine. Creeping through dark underground tunnels did seem frightening. “All right.” Nodding, she turned to the men Martins assigned to her. “I can read minds. I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”

  “We’ll do our best to keep you safe, too, ma’am.” These men were courageous. Some of their country’s finest. She appreciated the sentiment, if not the ‘ma’am.’

  Martins leveled his soldiers with the authoritative glare he was known for. “Do you know the clearest route?”

  “No need.” Tapping her forehead, she offered him a wry grin. “Got it up here.” Some of the benefits of this gift were really amazing.

  A few minutes later, she floated the mechanism behind her as they wove through the dungeon-like basement of the Capitol, the guards following her.

  She didn’t wear the night vision goggles, instead relying on the guards’ vision to guide her as she listened for anyone around them. As they descended farther, she didn’t hear anything for a long time as they wound through the labyrinth of hallways beneath the Capitol. The thick concrete and stone walls that made up the stabilizing force of the building muted some of her power, but as they turned a corner, she heard a boy waiting for them.

  She paused the guards behind her, well out of his hearing.

  His fear gripped her like a vice. Parker hadn’t been able to send his people in pairs—too many corridors. So, this boy had been sent down here with nothing more than night vision goggles and a gun, like a lamb to slaughter.

  He was no mover. He was like Seth…and only fifteen years old.

  I shouldn’t be here. I should have run when we got here. Home. My mom hasn’t seen me. But he said he’d find me. He’d hurt mom and the girls. I need to stay. He’ll hurt my family.

  She lifted her hand and spoke to the guards. He’s young. Afraid. I’ll handle him.

  Reaching out to the boy, she tried to keep her thoughts calm, soothing. Put down the gun, she repeated until he obeyed her.

  Then she told him that he didn’t see her. She walked right up until she could see herself in his goggles. Picking up his gun, she pointed it at him, already regretting how much it would scare him. She allowed him to have his faculties back. Through his mind, she could see herself threatening him

  After a moment of confusion and disorientation, his heart kicked up and he panicked. “Shit. Who are you?”

  “Hi, Dylan. I’m Beth.”

  He backed up, his panic gave way to terror. “How do you know my name?”

  “I can hear you. How you’re worrying about your mom.” Stepping closer, she kept the gun steady. She had no intention of using the weapon, but he didn’t need to know that. “How you don’t want to be here, but you’re afraid Parker is going to hurt your family.”

  He swallowed awkwardly, his hands up. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to live through this, Dylan. And I want you to be on the right side.” The gun seemed pointless. It might even be making things worse. She lowered it. “Go back that way.” She pointed over her shoulder. “If you get outside, lift your hands. Don’t do anything too fast. Ask for Colonel Martins
and tell him that Beth sent you, that you’re unarmed, and that you’d like to surrender directly to him.”

  “Why are you helping me?” he whispered, his voice shaking.

  “Because I worry about my mom, too.” She squeezed his arm. “And because Parker Sinclair is a liar and fanatic. You deserve better. We all do.”

  He swallowed again, doing his best to hold it together. The poor kid had no idea how he even got here, so she planted directions to get out into his memory. Jack had led them around, snaking through the basement, dropping other soldiers off along the way and completely disorienting the boy. All he’d been told was where to stand and wait. He had. He was afraid of Jack. They all were.

  When the kid took off, practically running, she handed the pistol to Ahearn. “Here.”

  He didn’t take it, unsure what to make of her. Admittedly, from his perspective, she did look pretty scary. “You don’t want it?” he asked.

  “I don’t need it.”

  Nodding, he accepted that was probably true before he retrieved the weapon, readying it.

  “Let’s go.”

  They were getting closer.

  …

  “We need to get in there,” Luke whispered through gritted teeth. Where they crouched around the corner to the utility room, the hum of the machines masked their voices. They probably didn’t have to worry about being overheard, but he didn’t want to chance it. Kenny had broken a mirror in one of the restrooms, and they had positioned it to see what they were facing. There were three guards stationed outside the entrance, probably all telekinetic. Through the open door, Luke could see at least three people hunched around a machine.

  Solvimine.

  There was no way to know if they’d released the drug yet or not. He hadn’t wanted to reach out to the rest of their group because the damn radio was so loud it would give away their location. That left it up to him and Kenny to do what needed to be done.

  He hoped it was enough.

  “What do you suggest? We’re outnumbered. We won’t do anyone any good if we get caught or killed now.” Kenny hunched closer, glancing behind them. He’d been moving slower, more jerky than usual. His ribs were hurting.