The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade

by A. P. Kensey

  Colton could tell Kamiko was hitting him with more energy, but he could no longer feel it. His body convulsed under her hand with each pulse—he was unable to control his own muscles. The only thing that remained within him was the desire to reach out and take Haven’s hand, to tell her it was going to be okay.

  Another pulse, stronger than all the others put together. Something broke deep inside him, as if a tube had cracked in half to release his soul. Kamiko let go of his forehead. Colton lay there, finally feeling something. He felt his life leaving his body. He felt his essence flow out from him like a deep, satisfying sigh. Yet he was not at peace. He always thought that people who were dying experienced absolute clarity, as if they were finally at rest after a lifetime of struggle.

  He heard Haven screaming from far away, calling his name and pounding on the floor. The bright white nothingness of Colton’s vision grew more intense as he felt himself slipping farther and farther away from her. Her screams faded. He exhaled and realized he could not breathe in. He did not experience terror, nor bliss, nor a sense of a completed life. Colton felt like he had never made any difference at all.

  He faded slowly, unable to breathe. He lay there thinking of Haven, wishing he had been able to hold her one last time.

  Then, there was nothing.

  43

  Haven saw him die. She saw the life leave his face in one long moment where it looked like he was going to speak. And then he was gone, just like that.

  The burning sensation in her chest disappeared while she looked at Colton’s body, motionless on the ground. His eyes were burnt, empty pits. His skin smoked and sizzled. Kamiko stood over him, looking down at his body. The remaining fire snake still writhed from her back, looping through the air and plunging into Haven’s throat and chest. It swelled to cover her stomach. Soon it would be thick enough to consume her entirely.

  Haven barely noticed. The pain had been replaced with anger and regret—regret for not being able to save Colton. Kamiko turned to her and smiled wickedly.

  Energy bloomed within Haven’s chest—her own power, reaching out from far away to answer her rage. Light blue flames flared up from Haven’s hand to meet the dark, vibrant blue of Kamiko’s twisting fire snake. Haven pushed with everything she had, forcing the stream of plasma out of her chest. Her own energy flowed over the fire snake and crawled quickly toward Kamiko, who pushed back even harder. Haven’s energy flickered and died. She rolled out of the way and the fire snake slammed into the ground where she had just been a second earlier. Kamiko screamed in anger and lightning erupted from her back like an insect sprouting enormous legs. They struck the floor next to Haven as she dove out of the way.

  She landed on her stomach and a bolt of lightning stabbed into the small of her back. Her body was paralyzed. A second later, the bolt disappeared. Haven rolled onto her back and another bolt struck her in the stomach. Kamiko walked toward her slowly, brushing black hair away from her eyes.

  “You’re a lot more trouble than the last girls,” she said.

  A sphere of plasma surged down the lightning bolt from Kamiko’s back and hit Haven in the stomach like a cannonball. It pushed the wind out of her lungs and she lay on the floor gasping for air.

  Kamiko smiled and stood over her. “Such a little bird,” she said, shaking her head in pity. “I will send you to be with him. Isn’t that what you want?” She knelt and put her hand over Haven’s forehead. The lightning bolt growing from her back crackled in the air as it lifted away from Haven’s stomach.

  Warmth flooded out of Kamiko’s palm and spread across Haven’s skull. She found it easy to lay there and let it happen. It was almost peaceful. But then there was pain, such as she had never felt before. The light from Kamiko’s palm grew too bright and Haven closed her eyes, except the light did not go away. She had a horrible vision of Colton’s face and his burnt eye sockets.

  Above the sizzling of her own bones, Haven heard Kamiko laughing.

  Then she heard something else—a loud CRACK as the air in the room was forced apart. Kamiko stumbled backward and Haven’s vision returned. Standing a few feet away, looking down at Colton’s body, was a tall black man in a long green coat.

  “It’s impossible,” whispered Kamiko. She scrambled back, pushing herself away from the intruder. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

  He was tall and muscular. White scars covered his bald scalp. A particularly vicious scar ran down the left side of his face and crossed his left eye. The iris of that eye was clouded white with blindness. The other carefully took in his surroundings. His dark green trench coat had many pockets. Beneath it he wore black pants and a black shirt. The muscles in his jaw bulged visibly as he looked at Colton. Then he turned and saw Kamiko.

  She screeched and threw up her hands. There was a tremendous surge of light from her palms. Haven and the intruder looked away from the blinding pulse, and when it faded, Kamiko was gone. Her footsteps receded quickly down the long hallway that led outside.

  The intruder looked after her thoughtfully. Haven lay on the ground, breathing heavily. She groaned as she sat up, keeping a wary eye on the man. He turned and noticed her for the first time.

  “Who are you?” asked Haven. He stepped toward her and she backed away. “Don’t come any closer!”

  He stopped. Haven had her closed fist in the air, pointed at him in what she hoped was a threatening gesture. He cocked his head as he looked at her, then in two long strides, crossed the distance between them and grabbed her fist with his own massive hand.

  She tried to call upon her ability, but she was empty inside. Not empty from lack of energy—it was in there, somewhere. She could feel it swirling in the depths of her soul, waiting to be called. She was empty for another reason. Her eyes drifted slowly over to Colton’s body. It felt like someone had carved out her insides and left nothing but her skin and bones.

  The man’s one good eye glinted with understanding as he looked between Colton and Haven; the clouded iris of his other regarded her without emotion. He squeezed her fist and pulled her to her feet.

  Haven started to protest but the man reached out and grabbed her other hand before she could pull it away. Suddenly she felt as if she were being ripped into a billion tiny pieces. The floor dropped away beneath her feet and she was suspended in space. The room exploded around her and swirled away as if it were being sucked into a black hole. The universe blurred out of existence. Haven was surrounded by an infinite void of nothing. Her stomach dropped and she felt like she was going to vomit. A distant noise—a scream of wind and metal—grew louder.

  The man held her close. A tiny pinpoint of light appeared far away and approached quickly. They were heading straight for it at an incredible speed, as if they were standing on top of a bullet train in complete darkness. The light grew and grew until Haven was sure they were going to slam right into it—whatever it was.

  Then it hit them. There was a loud CRACK as the air ripped apart to make room for their arrival. Haven was suddenly standing on firm ground. The man released her and she collapsed. Her ribcage felt compressed and she couldn’t force air into her lungs. The man slapped her on the back and she sucked in a deep breath, then coughed and bent forward. Her coughing turned to weeping as she thought about Colton.

  Haven clawed at the grey dirt beneath her hands. She wept and her whole body shook with her sobs. It took her a moment to realize she was no longer in the black building. She forced herself to calm down and sat up. Haven opened her hands and soft grey dirt fell to the ground like sand from a broken hourglass.

  The man stood next to her, offering his hand. Haven looked up at it hesitantly, then took it and stood. She wiped away her tears with the back of her hands and looked around.

  They were standing in a wide field of the grey dirt. The grains were so fine that small clouds lifted up from their shoes whenever they took a step. At the edge of the dirt lot, all around them, were the ruins of buildings.

  Skyscrapers and parking garages�
��an entire city had been destroyed. Haven looked up and saw a dirty grey sky, much the same color as the dirt that covered the ground. A hot wind howled throughout the buildings.

  The man walked away and Haven hurried to catch up.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Don’t you recognize it?” His voice was deep and pleasant.

  Haven looked at the broken buildings. Rebar skeletons pierced chunks of charred concrete like shish kebabs. “It—it looks like Chicago.”

  “It was Chicago.”

  “So…” she said, thinking. “When are we?”

  A small smile crossed his lips. “Now you have it.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of anything like it, not even rumors.”

  “I haven’t always known the method,” he said. “I spent years probing the limits of my capabilities. Life is energy, all the way down to the molecular level. I thought that if I could manipulate something as pedestrian as heat or light, why not reach farther? Why not try to manipulate a section of space on the other side of the planet?”

  “Or in a different time,” said Haven. He nodded.

  She couldn’t tell where they were going. The buildings surrounding them formed a barrier around the dirt lot, and she didn’t exactly feel like climbing across the ruins.

  Haven studied him as they walked. Somehow he looked young and old at the same time. His skin was smooth and youthful except for the scars on his scalp, but his eyes, even the left one with the scarred iris, were deep with experience. A small gasp escaped her lips when she saw the tiny black veins creeping up his neck from beneath the collar of his jacket.

  He smiled again. “Yes, I’m infected. A parting gift from Alistair when last we met.”

  Haven thought back to a conversation with Bastian. “Australia. You were the one who fought him.”

  The man nodded. “Too much devastation without any result. Alistair still lives. He was gravely wounded, and I may have slowed him down, but he will return stronger than ever.”

  “We have a cure,” said Haven. “For Fade.”

  The man shook his head slowly. “I have accepted the inevitable.”

  “But—you’re a Nova!” she said. “Aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Long thought dead by my own kind.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wished it. When you have been around as long as I have, you start to see things differently. You start to see the big picture.”

  They walked for a moment in silence.

  “What’s your name?” asked Haven at last.

  “Nathaniel.”

  “You have a last name?”

  “It was taken away by the man who bought me.”

  Haven looked at him. “How old are you?”

  “Old enough to know that people don’t change. Old enough to know that nothing we do makes any difference.”

  He led her to the base of a fallen skyscraper. The building lay on its side, its top propped against the building next to it so that it formed an enormous, gently-ascending ramp. Nathaniel climbed over the rubble leading to the flat side of the skyscraper. He reached back, offering his hand to Haven, but she ignored him and climbed up on her own.

  They walked up the steady slope on the side of the skyscraper, heading slowly higher. Parts of the wall on that side of the building had been torn away in large chunks, and they had to be careful to avoid soft spots in the concrete as they walked higher. Every window was shattered. Haven looked down into the rooms as she walked past—nothing but ash within.

  “Why would you not take the cure?” she asked.

  Nathaniel walked a short ways in front of her, studying the building before him carefully. “Look around you. This is what happens to humanity in the future.”

  “How far into the future?”

  “My time here is finished,” he said, ignoring her question. “There is nothing else I can do to prevent what is happening.”

  “You can travel through time and you’re pretty much a self-powered nuclear generator,” said Haven irritably. “I think you might be selling yourself a little short.”

  “I used to think so as well. By the time I first learned how to use my abilities, a century of persecution, torture, and murder had already passed. I could do nothing to save my people from a lifetime of despair. Even if I went back and changed everything, an equally devastating scenario would arise. Believe me, I’ve tried. The hard truth is that men like Alistair will always exist to inflict such pain on the rest of the world.”

  “And people like us are there to stop them,” said Haven. It felt good to say the words—to know she served some purpose in the world. In the background of her mind, Colton’s death tugged at her, begging her to break down and cry. She forced the thought far away and choked back her tears.

  Nathaniel shook his head as they climbed higher up the fallen building. They neared the top and the air grew thinner, even though they were only two hundred feet off the ground.

  “If you could take a step back and observe things as I do,” said Nathaniel, “you would see that Alistair and all the men like him are nothing but ants fighting over a piece of grass.”

  He reached the edge of the building and stopped. Haven stood next to him, looking out upon a horizon of destruction. The entire city of Chicago was laid to waste. As far as the eye could see, there existed nothing but crumbled buildings and piles of debris. The grey sky extended in all directions and had no end.

  “Earth will eventually tire of your presence,” said Nathaniel. “The skies will darken to block out the sun. The oceans will rise to swallow half the planet. Humanity will die.”

  They stood there, looking out onto a world of nothing.

  “Don’t you see?” he asked.

  Haven nodded. “I see,” she said. “I see that you gave up, and you’re asking me to do the same thing. But there are things worth fighting for that maybe you’ve forgotten. Things like family and friendship.” Her eyes welled with tears. “And love.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I have not forgotten them. Perhaps they have forgotten me. Do you know what it’s like to be alone, Haven? Truly alone, with no hope of salvation?”

  She swallowed hard, thinking of her parents and Colton. “I know enough.” She waited for him to speak, but he remained silent. “Why did you really bring me here?”

  Nathaniel looked out at the horizon for a long time. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I knew all of those things you mentioned. Love most of all. And then my family was taken and sent far away. I never saw them again. I worked for a man and his wife in South Carolina, plowing fields, sowing crops. If I misbehaved, I was punished.”

  He turned away and lifted his coat and shirt. His back was covered with dozens of long, thin scars. Several chunks of skin had been ripped away and lumpy scar tissue covered the old wounds. Nathaniel lowered his shirt and jacket and turned back to Haven.

  “I didn’t know what I was at the time, so I had to take the beatings. But there were others like me, too. Boys and girls, each with their own special ability. You know what happened to them when they were discovered?”

  Haven shook her head, afraid to hear the answer.

  “They were dragged away and shot in the fields like dogs, before they could learn how to fight back. Every great tragedy throughout humanity’s bloody history—every war, every genocide, every century of slavery—leaves a scar on the soul of this world. And so out we come,” said Nathaniel, pointing at Haven and himself. “Soldiers to turn the tide in humanity’s favor—to staunch the flow of innocent blood. Kind of hard when the people in charge kill you before you realize what true power lies within.” He tapped his chest.

  “So you were too afraid to save your own people,” said Haven, “and now you’re going to let everyone else die? Did you bring me here for comfort? So you could hear someone tell you it’s a good idea to roll over and welcome extinction?!”

  Nathaniel sighed. “No. I tried to stop what was coming. I
met Alistair in battle, and we both failed. I did not bring you here for comfort. I brought you here to say goodbye. Soon I will be moving on.”

  “To where?”

  “To wherever it is my kind goes when this world is finished with us. One day you will understand. You’ll feel it in your bones, as I do. I was led to you to tell you that it’s no longer up to me to keep those like Alistair from spreading their evil. It’s up to you, and anyone lucky enough to call you their friend.”

  Haven shook her head. “I don’t believe it. You can go back and fix everything. You can take me to my parents, the night before everything went wrong.” She was crying, unable to stop her tears. “Noah could have a normal life, not the one I’m scrounging out of the dirt. You have the ability to change anything you want, and you choose to fade into the background. Why do you get that luxury but I have to stay and watch my friends and family die all around me? Who made that decision?!”

  She sat at the edge of the building, dangling her legs over the side. A gentle breeze pushed her hair back and she wiped away her tears. Nathaniel quietly sat next to her and looked out at the horizon.

  “It is not our place to change things in such a manner,” he said. “It is our place to go on—to accept our fates and to live accordingly. What you’re feeling now is what I’ve been feeling for decades,” he said. “It never gets better. I wanted you to hear it from me before it hit you later in life, when you don’t have the ability to adapt and survive. Maybe if I would have figured it out sooner, things would have been different. But it’s too late for me to change. Is it too late for you, Haven?”

  She sniffed and kicked her heels against the building. Small chunks of concrete broke free and tumbled down the wall to the ground below. “I worry about what all this death is doing to me,” she said. “As a person.”

  “At first it hardens you,” said Nathaniel. “And then it destroys you. I can see all of you, Haven. Little lights glowing bright across the world. Every Source, every Conduit—you’re all there, in my mind, burning with life. Every time one of those lights goes out, a part of me goes with it.”