by Jena Leigh
Alex reappeared in the middle of the small room, prompting the two men standing watch to spin around… and look directly into her eyes.
She held up a hand before they could react.
“Silence,” she ordered.
Only one of the two men had opened his mouth to speak upon her arrival. At her words, his mouth snapped shut.
Annnd thank you, Jessica, for generously providing me with the answer to our first major obstacle, Alex thought to herself.
“You,” she said, pointing to one of the men. “Open the gate a bit. Stop it after only a few feet.”
He moved to a small console and flipped a switch. The gate rolled open.
“After I go, I want you to leave this tower and start walking down the road. Head for the nearest town and don’t look back,” she said. “Oh, and no talking for at least three hours. Don’t want you warning anybody that we were here.”
With that, Alex jumped again, returning to the group in the woods.
Let’s go, she projected.
What did you do? Pike asked as the pack moved forward, walking down the road and through the small opening in the gate.
I kindly suggested they let us in and then take a long, quiet walk toward the nearest town.
Seriously? Kenzie asked. It was really that easy?
Alex shrugged. Did I forget to mention I borrowed the push from Jessica Huffman earlier? Because that might have happened.
Declan audibly sighed. On that note… Time to split up. Nate, Brandt, and Trent, with me. Everyone else, with Alex. Brian, I want you by Alex’s side for the duration, is that understood?
Yes, boss, Brian joked, his pearly white smile shining brightly in the moonlight.
Declan rolled his eyes. Move out.
They broke into two groups. Alex’s team moved toward the hangar, while Declan’s made for the cluster of smaller buildings behind it.
There was an elevator at the rear of the hangar that led directly down and into the underground holding areas where Alex and Jezza’s cells had been. The hope was that they’d find the others being held in similar cells on a different level.
A few yards away, Trent came up short, projecting, Wait!
Alex glanced back in the direction of the other group.
Almost forgot! Ready to take over the shade for your group, Lex? Trent sent her a smile that he probably meant to be reassuring, but mostly just came across as cocky, instead. Remember—you gotta embrace the chill.
Embrace the chill.
She bit back a groan. Why were the instructions for controlling Variant abilities always so ridiculously vague?
Alex surrendered to the chilly sensation that covered her like a cold pocket of air… and found herself in control of her own invisible cloak. Trent’s group immediately vanished from their sight. Now that the two teams were being concealed by two different shades, they couldn’t see each other anymore.
“Alright,” Alex whispered aloud to her team. The obsidian would render the telepathy useless soon enough, anyway. Might as well switch back to speaking aloud. “Let’s go.”
They moved slowly and silently through the darkness, doing their best to avoid the better illuminated swaths of the area, cast by the hangar’s exterior lights. Better safe than sorry. Just because she was successfully maintaining the shade now, didn’t mean she wouldn’t slip up and render them all visible by accident later.
Her group was roughly forty feet from the hangar door that was their destination when an alarm rang out, shattering the stillness of the night.
Everyone stopped dead in their tracks.
“I knew that was too easy,” Kenzie mumbled.
Alex conducted a quick scan of their surroundings. Back the way they’d come, she could just make out the two guards moving steadily down the road and away from the complex.
She waited for a team of agents to spill out of the nearby buildings and surround them all—but aside from the cyclical drone of the klaxon, everything remained the same.
“Actually… I don’t think that’s for us,” said Alex.
“So then what should we—” Jezza’s query was cut short as a door in the distance burst open and the missing resistance members emerged from the hangar at a run.
Immediately, Alex extended the shade to include them.
“Wow. This rescue mission is going way better than I thought it would,” said Kenzie, waving at the escaping group to get their attention. “They’re coming to us.”
Cassie and Alex’s Aunt Cil emerged from the building first, with Linus following hot on their heels.
Alex’s heart leapt in her chest at the sight of her best friend running flat out in her direction; so relieved to see Cassie alive and breathing, that she was slow to make sense of the scene unfolding behind them.
Grayson and Aiden were bringing up the rear, running as fast as they could manage. Aiden’s arm was slung over Grayson’s shoulder and the older man supported his weight as best as he could while still loping awkwardly toward Alex and the others.
Even from this distance, she could make out Aiden’s noticeable, hopping limp—and the dark stains covering his face and clothing.
“Run!” Grayson shouted.
“Aw, crap,” said Kenzie.
“So much for making it easy,” said Pike.
Just behind Grayson, a group of three agents dressed in black fatigues emerged from the hangar in hot pursuit, all of them armed with automatic rifles—though whether their weapons were loaded with bullets or tranq darts this time was anyone’s guess.
The guards slowed their pace upon making it outside, presumably thrown by the escapees’ inexplicable disappearance.
That moment of hesitation was all Alex needed.
With a wave of her hand, she picked up all three of the men and sent them careening at high speed into the wall of the hangar. They fell to the pavement, unmoving.
Telekinesis, one; Agency, nil.
She’d acted on instinct, but looking back on her choice of ability, Alex was forced to admit it probably wasn’t her best course of action. She could very easily have crushed the men to death by accident.
With any luck, their continued stillness meant they were simply dazed or unconscious. The other possibility wasn’t one she wanted to consider right now.
She needed to be more careful.
Cassie reached the group first and nearly tackled Alex with a hug so tight it momentarily prevented her from drawing breath.
“You’re free!” Cassie said, smiling.
“And you’re alive!” Alex countered.
“Yeah,” said Aiden, hobbling up to join them. “And we all need to move before more of those guards arrive. So let’s shelve the happy reunion for later and bust ass again before they throw all of us back in a cell, shall we?”
“No argument from me,” said Linus. “Are we free of the shield yet, Miss Cross?”
Cil shook her head, “Just a little further. We need to keep heading for the gate.”
The others resumed their run, but Alex stayed behind, casting a glance back over her shoulder in the direction Declan’s team had vanished.
Cassie and Pike both stopped jogging after only a few feet.
“Lexie?” Cassie called.
“What’s the hold up, ace?” Pike asked her. “Targets acquired. Our mission’s over. Time to book it.”
Alex shook her head. “Our mission is—but Declan and the others still need my help. I can’t leave yet.”
“Fine,” said Pike, walking back to her. “Then I’m comin’ with.”
Cassie appeared torn, looking back and forth between Alex and their escaping comrades. Her face hardened into a mask of determination.
“Me, too,” she said.
Alex shook her head. “No. Pike, they’re going to need another jumper to get everyone out of here at one time. My aunt can’t teleport with that many people at once. And Cassie, you need to go with them… This is something I have to do alone.”
The burly m
an hesitated—and then nodded his agreement.
“Oh, like hell you do,” Cassie argued.
In the distance, Alex could see more men in black fatigues emerging from the scattering of buildings.
“Pike, get her out of here,” Alex ordered. Pike gripped Cassie by the elbow and began pulling her along in the direction of the gate.
“I’ll be with you again soon, Cass,” Alex called.
“Dammit!” Cassie gave up struggling against Pike’s grip, but she was clearly unhappy about it. “Don’t do anything reckless! Promise me!”
“I swear I’ll be careful,” she replied.
Alex turned, walking directly toward the small army of approaching agents, and knew immediately that she wouldn’t be keeping her oath to Cassie.
If she ever hoped to make it inside the facility and locate Declan’s team, then reckless was the new order of the day.
Twenty-Eight
By the time Alex took out the contingent of guards standing between her and the buildings containing Declan’s team, she was feeling fairly confident.
Six men and two women successfully incapacitated, and it had only taken her twenty seconds.
And, okay, she’d had the element of surprise on her side, what with the invisibility and all… but still. After snagging one of the agent’s rifles and firing a round into the concrete to discover that it was, in fact, loaded with tranq darts, taking them out proved incredibly simple.
What came next, however, was more than enough to wreck her newfound sense of calm.
Three things happened in rapid succession.
The first was that she caught sight of a certain boy genius trailing along inconspicuously behind her.
The second was the eardrum-shattering explosion that erupted from a structure less than fifty feet away.
And the third…
Well, the third was the sight of Carson Brandt staggering from the now smoking wreckage of the aforementioned building, clutching his midsection with a pained grimace. He only made it a few feet before collapsing to the ground in a heap.
Alex was racing to Brandt’s side when she realized that the blanket of electromagnetic static covering the facility had just evaporated.
The explosion had taken out the EM shield. She was free to jump at will again.
And from the looks of Brandt, she might just need to.
When she reached his crumpled form and knelt beside him, Brandt rolled onto his back and Alex felt her stomach sink. It was so much worse than she’d feared.
There was a giant piece of metal shrapnel lodged in his side.
She sensed Brian come to stop just a handful of steps behind her.
“Stay back, Bri,” Alex said, softly.
She didn’t want him to see this.
Brandt stared up at her from behind the cracked lenses of his glasses. And then he did the last thing she ever would have expected.
He smiled, reaching his hand up toward her.
“Take it,” his voice croaked. “My hand, Alexandra. You have to take it.”
Alex did, joining their hands together and grasping his tightly.
“Tell Cecilia that I…”
Alex would never find out what it was he wanted her aunt to know, because in that moment, Alex was overwhelmed with an entirely new—and wholly unexpected—sensation.
Brandt’s fire-wielding ability was cascading into her through their joined hands, taking up root in every last cell of Alex’s body. She wasn’t just borrowing his ability this time. It was becoming a part of her.
And suddenly, she understood.
Samuel Masterson was only able to keep his borrowed powers by absorbing them from his victims at the very moment of their death. That was how he made the acquisition permanent.
And this… This was Carson Brandt’s final act. He was bequeathing her his ability. From this moment until the day she drew her own last breath, Alex Parker would be a fire-wielder.
Brandt’s hand went limp.
“Carson?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Brian said gently, still standing somewhere behind her. “But he’s gone… and we really need to move. Declan and Nate need our help.”
“What?” Ever so carefully, Alex lowered Brandt’s hand and released him, getting back to her feet. Finally processing Brian’s statement, she repeated, “What? No. No way. Give me your hand. I’m taking you back to Pike’s and then I’ll come back and—”
“No!” Brian’s voice took on an angry edge. “There isn’t time for that. We have to go! Now!”
The boy broke into a run. Alex raced after him, winding between burning buildings and down narrow corridors, passing the occasional injured guards and fleeing scientists—all of whom were suddenly too preoccupied with saving their own asses to notice the girl and boy racing past them in the opposite direction.
Brian might have been a full head shorter than Alex, but he was deceptively fast. She only caught up to him when he finally came to a halt at one corner of a massive building and abruptly turned to face her.
Alex opened her mouth to repeat her intention to teleport him back to Pike’s, but Brian silenced her with a wide-eyed shake of his head and a finger pressed against his lips.
He pointed toward an expansive field of wildflowers and grass gone to seed that stretched out behind the building. Alex followed his gaze, then immediately put the shade back in place, hiding herself and Brian from sight.
She motioned for Brian to stay put, then cautiously crept out from the alleyway and tread lightly into the field.
Eventually, she arrived beside a man lying on his back in the tall grass. Trent stared up at the night sky, face twisted in pain, his right arm clearly broken. Between that and his previously fractured ribcage, the guy had to be in a world of hurt right about now.
Still invisible, Alex crouched beside him, then extended her shade to include a small part of Trent’s right hand. Not enough to hide him from the group standing just a few yards away, but just enough to make herself visible to him.
He flinched in surprise, but wisely said nothing.
She mouthed the words, You okay?
Trent nodded and then jerked his head toward the group to their right. His message was clear.
Help the others.
Alex nodded her understanding, then stood and dropped her shade. She focused on keeping Brian hidden, but it was important, now, that the others see her.
Nate and Declan stood in the distance, their postures inexplicably rigid.
She walked confidently forward, coming to a stop directly between her friends and the Director.
Alex met Carter’s eye in defiance.
The older woman’s outstretched hand fell to her side and Declan and Nate suddenly bent double behind Alex. Gasping and unable to speak, they struggled to catch their breath.
What had Carter been doing to them?
Either because he’d been following Alex’s line of thinking—or because he was hoping to warn her—Declan eventually choked out the words, “Air-wielder.”
Alex narrowed her eyes at Carter’s smiling face.
Well, that explained some things.
“It’s over, Director,” said Alex. “Your facility is going up in flames, Grayson and the others are free, and all your agents are on the run. The devices you put in Jezza and me have been fried to a crisp. You don’t control me. Not anymore. And you never will again.”
Carter’s laugh bordered on the hysterical.
“It’s not over, my dear.” Carter raised her hand and Alex felt every last wisp of air ripped from her lungs. “It’s only the beginning. This is just one facility. One! Out of dozens! So you stopped me once. So what? Tonight, you’ll die, and the uprising will be just another memory. And when I hunt down the rest of your little family, they’ll die just as painfully as the rest of you. For heaven’s sake, child, don’t you see? I’m the head of the most powerful organization on the planet! Your little uprising hasn’t changed that and…
and…” Carter tilted her head to one side and looked Alex up and down. Her smile faded slightly. “How is it you’re still standing? You should be on your knees like the others right now.”
Ignoring the agony in her chest and her slowly watering eyes, Alex teleported, reappearing directly beside Carter. Alex reached out and grasped the hand that had previously been pointed right at her.
One second, two—Carter ripped her hand away, staggering a few steps backward and out of Alex’s reach.
It didn’t matter. The contact lasted just long enough for Alex to absorb a fraction of the Director’s ability.
As she countered Carter’s control and sucked in a blissful lungful of cool night air, Alex smirked.
“Swim team, bitch,” said Alex. Her smirk transformed into a full-blown grin. “I helped take my team to the state championships three years running and practically lived in the pool growing up. I know how to hold my breath.”
She heard Declan laughing somewhere behind her. Nathaniel let out a triumphant whoop.
Alex was still readying herself to contain Carter should she try to use her ability again, when the woman inconspicuously slipped a hand beneath her coat.
Alex’s reaction came exactly two seconds too late… And that was all the time it took for Carter to pull her gun from its hidden shoulder holster, take aim at Nathaniel, and pull the trigger—and for Brian to dive directly in front of his kneeling older brother.
The crack of a gunshot filled the air, and Brian fell to the ground. The shot originally meant for Nathaniel’s head had just hit Brian in the chest. Stunned, Alex dropped the cloak of invisibility that had surrounded the boy, revealing his presence to the others.
“No!” Nate roared.
Alex stared numbly at the scene unfolding before her—at Declan and Nate rushing to the side of their fallen brother—and then she turned back to see the sneering face of Dana Carter.
And whatever control… whatever restraint she might have had…
Alex lost it.
A spark from a nearby fire sailed toward Alex at impossible speed, hit her square in the chest—and began to ripple outward.
