Powerless (Bird of Stone Book 3)

by Tracey Ward

  The inside of the car would make my mom’s mouth water with designer delight. It’s all white, smooth and perfect like a sanctuary for some minimalist god. She’d add a single rose gold vase and call it heaven.

  “Hang on to something,” Carver tells us, his voice faint.

  I look around, frowning. “There’s nothing to hang onto, man.”

  “Then hold onto your sweaty butt, because here we go.”

  The car lurches forward, sending Beck and I sliding into the back wall in a heap. Nick is able to hold his ground because he holds the stone. Alex wisely holds on to him.

  I was worried that a passenger train going a hundred miles an hour would outrun us easily. That’s when I was thinking logically. When you open your mind a little, remove the rules, and write your own playbook the way Nick does, you find out that’s not a problem. Not much is. Our train is going as fast as Nick wants it to go, and he obviously wants it to go very, very, very fast. I can’t gauge our speed as we tear down the tracks, but when I spot a train ambling happily along ahead of us, looking like the tortoise racing the hare, I take a wild guess at around two hundred miles an hour.

  Carver slows us down as we close in on the back of the train. The door opens, three men stepping out onto the railed platform facing us. Without hesitation, they raise assault rifles and fire at us.

  I instinctively hit the deck, dodging the shot. “Get down!”

  “The bullets won’t get through,” Alex assures me.

  I lift my head hesitantly. The shots keep firing, but she’s right. Not a single one has penetrated the car. She and Nick stand unmoving in the line of fire, perfectly safe.

  “How is that possible?” I demand.

  She smirks at me over her shoulder. “Because Nick won’t let them.”

  I glance back at Beck to make sure he’s alright. He’s sitting on his butt, his eyes wide with fear, his mouth hanging open.

  “You okay, man?”

  He shakes his head slowly. “It’s a lot sometimes.”

  I grin sympathetically, still laying on the floor. “Yeah. I hear you.”

  We came to Morocco today by teleportation. The train we’re in was a stone the size of a peanut less than three minutes ago. Now it’s traveling upwards of a hundred and eighty miles an hour, powered entirely by one dude’s dreams. Oh, and it’s bulletproof.

  Beck is right. This life is a lot sometimes.

  I stand slowly, bracing myself on the wall as much as I can. Through the window I see the men panicking. They’ve realized their bullets are useless. They’ll have to come up with a new plan. One that I’d guess involves some sort of—

  And they have a rocket launcher.

  “Carver,” I warn deeply.

  “I know.”

  “Do we have a plan for that?”

  “Alex,” he says calmly. “Is he in there?”

  Alex is still for long time. Long enough for one man to hoist the rocket launcher onto his shoulder. Long enough for another man to load it. Long enough for me to start to realistically consider crapping my pants. It’ll make a mess of this white room, but that’s life, I guess.

  “He’s there,” she answers Nick. “He’s on the ground. They’re guarding him.”

  “Good.”

  Our train car jerks, the power going out of it immediately. We’re slowing, and fast. Nick steps forward to the front window. The same window that took at least thirty rounds without a scratch. He touches it with his palm, exploding it with a thought. Wind rushes inside the car, making it impossible see. Sand pelts my skin. Rips at my face. I drop to the ground again just as Nick puts his hand forward out the window, opening his palm. The bird is in it. It hovers there for a second, untouched by the wind. Then it bursts into the sky.

  I hold my forearm across my eyes, trying to watch it, but it’s almost impossible. I catch glimpses of it as my eyes blink rapidly. It’s like watching a flip book that’s missing every other page. One second the bird is nothing. The next, it’s bigger than a car. Bigger than a tank. Big as a shining, black house hovering over the train car ahead of us. It blots out the sun, it’s wingspan insane. It’s talons like daggers.

  Men run and scream, terrified out of their minds. More shots are fired, but they’re worthless. Someone bails off the back of the train, landing on the tracks at the wrong angle. His neck is probably snapped. And if he survived the fall, he definitely doesn’t survive our car driving over him.

  Carver lowers the bird just as the men try to reposition the rocket launcher. They’re too late. With a scream of protesting metal, the bird digs its talons into the top of the train car, ripping through the roof to take hold of it. Then it’s dragging it slowly into the sky. It twists it back and forth, battering it with the powerful beat of its wings until the coupling gives way, disengaging it from the rest of the train.

  Nick lets go of the train entirely then. We’re slowing more and more, the bird getting farther and farther away from us as it lifts into the sky. More men jump from the car. More men die on impact. Finally, when the passenger train is fading into the distance and we’re at least a mile from the bird that’s climbing into the sky, he lets go of everything.

  Alex takes his hand as it falls. As they watch their creation destroy itself and the man who hunted them. They do it together.

  Thanks to the movies, part of me expects there to be an explosion when it hits the ground. But what’s there to explode? The munition for the rocket launcher, maybe. When the massive heap of metal, man, and bird hit the ground, though, there’s nothing but a plume of dust and a shower of debris that scatters in every direction. It’s sort of an unceremonious end. It’s dirty, ugly, and loud. But it’s over.

  Jokinen is dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Alex

  What do we do now? That’s my first thought after the bird crushes the life out of every living thing in that metal box. Not ‘how could we?’ or ‘can I live with myself?’ Not ‘Am I a monster? A killer? Am I going to hell?’. That’s how I know I’ve changed. That these powers and this life and this love with Nick have moved me because two months ago I would have agonized over this. Just twenty-minutes ago I had an overpowering moment of doubt that left me breathless, wondering how I’d manage it. How I could kill someone.

  Now that I’ve done it, it’s not as bad as I thought. I mean, it is awful and it will probably haunt me for a very long time in a lot of ways, but I don’t feel disgusted with myself. My hand was forced. A lion was at my back and if I didn’t kill him, he’d definitely kill me. And he’d enjoy it. So I put him down the only way I knew how; I pointed Nick in his direction. And Nick does not hesitate.

  As we exit the train car, saying goodbye to another stone, he holds my hand tightly. He hasn’t let go of it since we watched Jokinen die, and I’m worried about what it will be like when he does. I think he is too. That’s why he hasn’t done it yet.

  “What now?” I ask, carefully keeping my voice solid. Steady. I need him to know that I’m okay inside, even if my hand is shaking on the outside.

  Beck glances around at the nothing surrounding us. “The train will have radioed for help. They’ll be sending people out to check the crash site. We shouldn’t be here when that happens.”

  “David Bannon is right,” Campbell agrees briskly. He pushes his windswept hair off his forehead. “On to phase two.”

  “Can you get us to the base, Alex?”

  I nod, eager to move on to the rest of the plan. I want to finish this, all of it, and I want to put today behind me. Forever. “Jonnie and I talked a lot about it. I even managed to see it through her memories a couple times.”

  “You got in her head?” Campbell asks, suddenly very, very interested.

  “Yeah. She let me in to show it to me.” I raise my eyebrows inquisitively. “Does that bother you?”

  He shrugs, feigning indifference. Avoiding my eyes. “No. She’s a big girl. She can make her own decisions.”

  “You jealous?” I jok
e.

  His silence is a surprise. It’s also a pretty strong confirmation, and I’m very curious what he wishes he could find inside her head. Does she think he’s hot? Does she think he’s a good kisser? Does she think about him at all?

  I don’t have to rummage around in her mind to know the answer to all of those questions, but I keep the answers to myself because Campbell has to find them himself. He deserves the joy of that journey for answers, a journey Nick and I took not that long ago. It was arduous and beautiful, but every fact I know about Nick, I earned, and I wouldn’t trade a solitary struggle for a single simple answer.

  The boys circle around me, Nick and Campbell at my sides. Beck at my back, forever watching it. I send the vibration up quickly, watching at my feet where the sand shivers against my shoes. I crank it harder, stronger, watching it dance until finally it falls away into the void. Then it’s back, but it’s different. More sand in another country not far away, but too far for it to be normal. Just odd enough for it to be me.

  They release me, scanning their surroundings. There’s not much to see. We’ve landed in the middle of the desert without a building in sight. Campbell and Nick take it in with their critical eyes while Beck falls in next to me, his hands clenched at his sides. He’s nervous and I don’t blame him. I feel it too. I imagine somewhere in his cold, dead heart, Campbell is kind of nervous as well, even if he’d never admit it. Nick is the only one staunchly keeping his cool because the man doesn’t know another temperature. Not when it comes to the fight.

  When it comes to me, though, he’s figuring it out. He’s reaching for boiling at times. Repeatedly.

  “How far away are we?” Campbell asks briskly, sounding like the soldier he still is inside.

  “Jonnie guessed about three miles.”

  “Which direction is the base?”

  I gesture to the west. “That way. I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “I can’t see it.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” I remind him impatiently. “If we could see them, they could see us. And shoot us.”

  He grunts, but that’s all the answer I get. I guess that means I’m right.

  Nick nods, happy with our position. “This is good. This is where we’ll bring the prisoners when we pull them out.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to take them straight to the authorities?” I ask hesitantly. “It’d be less Slipping for all of them. And they’d be free sooner.”

  “And we’d be more likely to be taken in by the cops,” he reasons. “We can’t bring them all out at once. We have to make a couple of trips and that means time between prisoner drop off. Any amount of time opens a door for the police to come looking for us.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “It’s cold.”

  The four of us turn as one, spinning in the sand to look behind us. To find out who spoke. When we see her, it doesn’t make any sense.

  Standing behind us in the middle of the desert, is Naomi.

  My heart stops when I see her. When I feel her. It’s impossible. It’s insane. But there she is, in the flesh, just standing there staring at us.

  “Naomi,” I breathe. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s cold,” she repeats calmly.

  No, it’s not. It’s hot. It’s the flippin’ desert. What is she talking about saying it’s cold?

  “How did you get here?” Beck asks, his voice unnaturally calm, like he’s forcing it to be that way. Inside he’s probably like me; freaked out.

  Naomi blinks slowly. “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what she calls the void,” Campbell explains numbly. His face looks as shocked as I feel. “She says it’s cold there when her brother Slips her through it.”

  “I go,” she tells him.

  I frown. “When you go with Liam.”

  She shakes her head. “When I go.”

  “When you go?” She nods and I nearly faint. “You mean, when you Slip?”

  “It’s cold.”

  “Oh my God,” I whisper, taking a step back from her.

  “She can Slip,” Nick mumbles.

  “But I thought only Alex and Liam could do that,” Beck argues unhappily.

  “Yeah. So did we.”

  I shake my head hard. “What the hell is happening? Why is she here? Naomi, why did you come here?”

  “To follow,” she answers softly, her voice raspy and low.

  “You followed me?”

  “Follow the light.”

  “What did Jonnie say about Slipping?” Nick asks us urgently. “Do you remember? She said that it punches a hole in the void.”

  “And that our energy leaves a trail,” I finish, remembering. “And in the void, you light up like a sun. You probably leave a long, long trail behind you.”

  “That’s how she found us. She followed the trail. The holes.”

  “But she can Slip? Since when?”

  “How long have you been able to go inside people’s minds and see through their eyes? A day? Maybe two? You did it before on accident, but you only mastered it recently. We’re all evolving. We’re getting stronger.” He pauses, looking at Naomi warily. “And so is she.”

  “That’s a sobering thought,” Campbell grumbles.

  “What do we do?” I ask Nick. “Send her back?”

  “Back where? Home? To the train wreck? She could get lost trying to follow the holes back.”

  “I could Slip her home and come back here.”

  He looks at her long and hard before finally shaking his head. “It’s a waste of time and energy. And she could just end up following you right back here. Beck and Campbell, keep an eye on her. Keep her safe. Alex and I will Slip inside, free the prisoners, Slip out, and I’ll bomb the balls off this place before we go home. Sound good?”

  Everyone nods their heads, muttering their agreement, but we’re all watching Naomi out of the corner of our eyes. She’s adding a level of anxiety to this mission that I really don’t need. I want her gone. I want to talk to Liam and find out if he knew she could do this. And if he did, why, for the love of God, didn’t he warn us?

  “Alex?” Nick prods.

  I take his hand eagerly. “I’m ready.”

  “Then let’s do it. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can get out of here.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “After what we just did, saving lives is the easy part.”

  I shake that off before it can sink in. In fact, I shake everything off. Naomi, Nick, my guilt over the destruction of a train car full of lives. I put it all on hold because I can’t deal with it right now. I have prioritize. Compartmentalize. Now, in this moment, I deal with the base. Now is the prisoners. Now is the painful, erratic beat of my heart as I Slip Nick and I straight into the lion’s den.

  And I’m going in blind.

  Jonnie showed me images but it’s still a loose Slip. It’s all instinct and hope and prayers that I get us to the exactly right spot, my landing zone a meager six-by-eight feet rectangle with at least four other people already inside. I really hope I don’t Slip us in on top of someone.

  I come in slow, trying to avoid just that. I’m lucky. Or talented. I can’t tell the difference between the two anymore. Either way, we land in the center of a dim room that smells painfully of pee and sour something. Sour milk or cream or cheese. Sour, soiled people, maybe? Whatever it is, it’s overpowering and for the first time in my life, I almost puke coming out of a Slip. One look at Nick tells me he’s struggling with it too, but as he lets go of my hand, his gun is up. Ready. He’ll be sick later when he has the time.

  Prioritizing. I wonder where I learned it.

  Eyes glow in the low light around the edges of the room. They’re full of shock and worry. Fear. I’m not used to being looked at like that anymore; like I’m a freak. The same way my parents used to look at me. Lately, I’ve gotten used to being around other p
eople like me and when you’re the queen of Freak Mountain, being weird is a bonus, not a problem. But here in this prison cell, I’m a problem. A big one. I’m pretty sure they like Nick’s gun more than they like me. The gun they can understand.

  “What do I do?” I whisper to Nick nervously. “They’re afraid of me. Do I just grab them? I don’t think I should grab them.”

  He shakes his head tightly, his eyes scanning the room. I count four sets of eyes, unblinking and afraid. “No, don’t do that.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “We didn’t think this through, did we?”

  “There’s a language barrier we didn’t account for.”

  “Can Campbell speak…” I hesitate, not sure what language they speak here in Mauritania. Turns out, I have no idea. Campbell would love that. “Never mind.”

  “Arabic, and no,” Nick fills in for me.

  “Crap.”

  “Yeah.”

  “English,” a voice mumbles quietly from the dark. It’s high and strained, almost childlike. My heart clenches painfully at the sound.

  I squint into the dark, hunching down as I take a slow step toward the voice. “You speak English?”

  No answer.

  I freeze, waiting for something. Anything.

  Nick steps up behind me to speak into the dark. “We are here to help you.”

  “We are Ameri—”

  He bumps me with his shoulder, shaking his head hard. His lips are a flat line of pure ‘no’. It takes me a second to realize why, but when I do, I feel sad inside. Not everyone loves Americans, especially in this neck of the woods. My nationality is not my friend today.

  “We want to help you,” I tell them quietly.

  Nick glances behind us to the dark hallway running along the open front of the cell. There’s no movement, no sound that I can hear, but his senses are better than mine. Not as good as Brody’s but better tuned in than I’ll ever be. I wait as he listens, unmoving and agonizingly afraid. Finally, he turns back to the shadows, taking a step in closer to the people there.