by Angel Lawson
She goes to Owen next and lowers his mask over his brilliant green eyes. Before she can speak he says, “Don’t do anything impulsive.”
“Me?”
“No running off, no picking fights, no diving into danger,” he ticks off one-by-one on his fingers. She grabs them and he flips the table, pulling her close. “Promise me.”
“I won’t be stupid,” she swears.
His eyes hold hers and his fingers dig into her hips. “I love you, babe.”
“Love you, too.”
He kisses her goodbye and she drags her eyes away from him to stand toe-to-toe with Quinn. He says nothing, just takes her face in his hands and kisses her passionately. She feels his everything in that kiss; his heart. His love, his trust and protection. He’s her rock and she knows damn well that she’s his. They got into this together and they’ll finish it the same way. They break apart and she pulls his mask down over his eyes.
“No lecture?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “I know you’ve got this, Astrid. And I know we’ll come home when it’s over, fuck and fight and laugh and do everything it takes to keep this city safe. It’s everything Atticus wanted for you and Holden wanted for me. We end this today and reclaim our city.”
She nods, feeling the passion in every word; she squeezes his hand and he joins the others.
Astrid takes a final moment on the rooftop of her home and business, knowing this could be the last time she sees it. Rowe may destroy it. He may destroy her.
She gazes over at her team, noting that they’re looking at her, not the city. They’re clad in supersuits, fierce and ready to take on the biggest villain they’ve ever challenged—as well as three of their own. As the sun sinks below the harbor, one thing is for certain: none of them will go down without a fight.
Chapter 26
Astrid
Reluctantly, they agree to separate, taking the swamp from different directions.
“We’ll meet on Fourth and Main,” she says, synching up their maps. “Pan and Charger, you take the southside. Draco and I will head north.”
Owen frowns at this decision. “How about Draco not go with you.”
“Are you saying I can’t be trusted?” Draco retorts.
“No, but you just did. How do we know you won’t lead Echo into a trap? Hand her over to Scheid?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Shut.The.Fuck.Up,” Casper says over the com. “And stop being dicks. Are you seriously playing this game right now? Pan, get the fuck over it. Draco, stop being defensive. Don’t you see this is what Scheid wanted? How Rowe played you? He’s in your head. Get him the fuck out.”
Both men are silent with their eyes cast the ground.
“Echo, babe, I love you, but I’m taking the lead on this and my intel says to nix Fourth and Main. Meet at the gates of Crescent City homes.”
“The housing project?” she asks.
“Yep. Just do it. Intel is too sensitive to transmit.”
Their schematics adjust to the route he wants them to take.
Under the cloak of darkness, they separate on the roof, she and Draco descending the fire escape.
They have three goals tonight:
Protecting the citizens of The Swamp
Getting to the meet up spot
Stopping Rowe and his father once and for all.
*
Astrid flips herself over the fence, landing on both feet on the other side. Getting around the crowd unnoticed wasn’t easy. Once the sun went down, bright lights flooded the streets and armed guards roamed around. She recognized more than a few as recruits from the Elite program—Rowe’s men. Draco paused when he saw them, ready to take them on, but the crowd was too testy—like Rowe said, they don’t like her, and what happened if they turned on her and Draco before they even got over the fence.
Too risky.
The chain link shakes when Draco climbs over easily. His landing is quiet as a cat.
They’re in the park across from the gym, somewhere Astrid has been many times. She came here with Atticus as a child, roamed the park alone as an isolated adolescent and jogged through as an adult. It’s as familiar as her home, which is why she immediately senses something is off.
She touches her com. “Cas, I’m getting something weird here.”
“What?”
“It’s just…wrong.”
“My map overlay and satellite imagery come in clean. Is it through your empathy? You feel something?”
Draco also studies the park, forehead furrowed. “You sense it?” she asks him. He may not be an empath but Draco’s core ability is enhanced everything—peak human condition. So yeah, if there’s something going on, he feels it.
He doesn’t get a chance to answer before the night air is consumed with the sound of crickets chirping louder and louder. The sound ricochets off her ears and she covers them with her hands.
“What the hell?” Draco says, covering his own.
Tiny shadows leap from the trees, jump out of the shrubs; small, black, and moving.
Like a plague.
The chirping sounds more like screams and Astrid fights one building in the back of her throat. The bugs cover her feet, her legs, and jump for her fingertips. Draco flails. On her screen her vitals shoot up—heartrate, pulse, breathing. She pushes Draco in the back and shouts, “Run!”
Exoskeletons crunch under their boots as they race toward the fountain on this end of the park. They need to get somewhere high. Somewhere clean, and the statue in the middle of the fountain looks like a good target.
The bugs follow them, leaping and screeching at her heels. Draco arrives at the fountain first, bugs floating in the water. “Can you jump?”
“Yeah,” she says, zooming past him. She uses the momentum of her speed and panic and careens over the pool, landing hard against the bronze statue of a man riding a horse. Draco follows, his boots clanging against the hollow metal, and they stop to catch their breath.
The crickets don’t stop. They leap, most dropping into the fountain, but they don’t stop—piling high around the edge of the water, creating a wall.
“Draco, what do we do?”
He looks around and shakes his head. “I have no fucking clue.”
Chapter 27
Quinn
Normally, the good thing about partnering up with Owen is getting through tough spots with his power. Unfortunately for them they’d agreed to not use any abilities where the crowd could see—they’re too volatile. Fighting the bad guys right now was enough, they didn’t need an entire city on their backs.
Since the roads were thick with refugees, they traveled to the south by rooftop; leaping building to building.
“How many of Rowe’s men are down there?” Owen asks, leaning over the last building. They’re by the harbor and it’s clear the new order doesn’t want the evacuees to cross into the historic area.
“Eight?” I reply.
“Try ten,” Casper confirms. He pops them up on the screens. Fuck.
“They’re carrying massive firepower,” Owen says. “Assault weapons. Heavy artillery. You sure we can’t use some Super juice to get past them?”
A row of streetlights brightens the main road. Quinn’s hand twitches.
“Don’t even think about it.”
He curses and eyes the soldiers below. “Look, we can fight them. I can blind them or Pan can get us through. Otherwise we’re never getting on the other side of that fence.”
Owen leans over the rooftop wall and looks down. “Charger’s right.”
“Ugh. Well don’t tell her I gave you permission, but fine. Use Pan’s cloak. It’ll get you in safely.”
“You sure you don’t want us to fight them? Because I’m down with that.”
“A trail of bodies may be a tip-off we’re back.”
A strange movement catches Quinn’s eye in the park. It looks like something fluttering—a wave of something dark. He climbs to the edge of the roof and hold
s on with the grip of his gloves. “Something tells me they already know.”
*
They shimmy down the side of the building, timing it perfectly with the passing soldiers. Using Owen’s cloak, they move quickly and quietly through the street and climb over the fence, only stopping when the metal wire rattles under Quinn’s weight. Two guards stop and look around. A sharp wind blasts past them and he jumps to safety, blending in with the shadowy dark of the park.
“Thanks for the assist,” he says about the wind gust.
“No problem. Just don’t tell Cas or Echo. I didn’t spend all that time training not to use my abilities.”
They jog across the park, knowing they lost time getting over the fence. Hopefully they won’t be too far behind Astrid and Draco. The park is eerily quiet with so much of the southside of the city cleared out. He does pick up on a strange hum of electrical current and as they reach the kids’ playground he says, “Have I ever told you that when you use your manipulations, I can sense a shift in the electricity in the area.”
“No. You haven’t.”
“Are you doing something now?”
“Not at all,” he replies, slowing his gait. They’re under a large climbing structure surrounded by five or six slides. The hair prickles on the back of Quinn’s neck and a sense of dread bears down on his chest. Owen reaches into the air—toward something on the playset that Quinn certainly can’t see, but it’s out there—something’s out there.
“What is it?” he asks.
Owen shakes his head but his feet are already moving when the first sound of rumbling shakes the ground. In a blink the structure shifts and turns, no longer a playground but a monstrosity of thick woven vines, erupting and twisting…
“Run,” Owen whispers.
Quinn does, keeping an eye behind him as the vines chase him like oversized snakes. The ground crumbles below them, thorny vines snatch at their feet. He follows Owen, trying to keep up, but the plant attacks his legs like jagged, sharp fingers.
Without looking back, he charges his hands and sends out a bolt of electricity, shocking the vine. It does little but skitter and jump before splitting into three long tendrils that lunge and wrap around his calves, dragging him to the ground.
He grabs for his whip, unfurling it and lashing out at the tentacles. He yanks, snapping the three threads apart and getting to his feet.
“Charger!”
Quinn searches the mass of leaves and thorny vines and spots the top of Owen’s head as he’s engulfed by the rope-like assault.
“Pan!” he uses his whip again but finds himself overwhelmed, thicker, stronger vines wrapping around his legs and torso. He fights, squirming, but they get tighter and tighter, crushing his body.
Finally, he stops, relaxing this body and allowing a thin noose to wrap around his throat.
Disoriented and confused, Quinn succumbs to the lack of oxygen and pain, drifting into nothingness.
Chapter 28
Astrid
“Bugs,” he says, watching them surround the fountain. “I mean…bugs? It’s like we’re back in the—”
“Simulation,” Astrid says, finishing his sentence. “She knew. Monroe knew we’d come up against something like this. She warned me.”
“And trained us.”
“But how? How is this a simulation.” The crickets piled against the edge of the fountain and even away from them, Astrid’s skin crawled.
Draco’s gray eyes caught hers. “This isn’t a simulation,” he says. “But it’s also not real.”
“But how—” She curses under her breath. “Demetria.”
“Yep.”
Astrid gazes around the park at the cricket plague surrounding them, realizing now they’re not real, it’s all just mind games. “Monroe knew we’d face her.”
“And Demetria’s upped her game.”
“Hell yeah she has.” She smacks the back of her neck. “But we beat the simulation and we’ll beat her.”
He nods and they count to three, jumping off the statue and onto the ground. Crickets crush under their boots with a crackle and snap but they don’t flinch—well at least not much--and run toward the other side of the park.
She senses the bugs behind her, knowing she just needs to get to the street. It’s fake. It’s fake. It’s fake, she tells herself over and over, focusing on the far exit. Without realizing it, she’s chanting the words like a mantra, balling her fists with every repetition. Demetria’s manipulations are so good, so real that the terror she feels consumes her. She won’t let that stop her. Not the bugs, not the mind-games, not the fear.
We’re not doing this, she calls to Demetria. We’re not playing your games. You fight us, you fight us with your fists, face-to-face. Don’t be a coward.
The fear slowly fades, replaced by a strong sense of understanding. Monroe prepared her for this. Jensen prepared her for this. And Atticus raised her to face this moment. A feeling of peaceful understanding washes over her and she barely notices as Draco races past her, using his strong, fast legs to get to the gate. There’s no going through it—just over it to get to the Swamp. He leaps to the top and hangs, arm down to pull her over.
Until he looks past Astrid, mouth slightly agape, forcing her to glance back and slow her run. The path behind her is littered with dead and decaying crickets. At the gate, Draco grabs her hand and lifts her to the top.
“What the hell happened?” he asks incredulously.
She looks down at the littered path behind her and then down at her hands. “I think I did it. I think I killed them with my echo.”
“Holy shit.”
“You know what else?” she asks.
“What?” he jumps to the other side. She follows, feet landing quietly.
“I think we’re going to win.”
Chapter 29
Owen
A moment, that’s all he had before the vines wrapped around his body like massive fingers on a giant. Prickly with thorns, it attacked his hands first, like it knew he needed them to escape. Quinn’s feet and legs were next and Owen watched helplessly as Quinn was consumed, swallowed whole by the slithering vines.
But in that moment, just before darkness overtook him and the loss of air and light made things worse, Owen grapples with the vine, scratching at it with his nails. He feels a vibration, a shift. The hum of his own power jolting back at him.
This isn’t real, he tells himself.
Not real.
He closes his eyes and clears his head and incredibly, even with the pressure of the vine around his chest, he inhales.
Not real.
If he had to guess he’d say he was doing it, but that’s ridiculous. He isn’t, but there’s someone else they know who can.
Demetria.
He’s not surprised Wendy would take them down. He knew it—never trusted her. Never trusted Draco when it came to her. They underestimate what she can do—why she does it.
She’s fucking batshit crazy.
And Owen? He’s not crazy, but he’s passionate. He’s in love. He wants his girl and her cranky, cheese-eating cat and everything that comes with it.
That little kernel of want builds in his chest and he knows that this trap is nothing but mindfuckery and a distraction. A distraction to get her alone.
“Charger!” he calls, voice muffled by the vines. He visualizes the man. His teammate and friend.
The air shifts before him, not quite ripping—not opening a portal or a door to another place but cutting through the vines, revealing the dark, curved sides of a tunnel.
Owen looks at his hands—they’re free. His feet, unbound. He moves into the dark hole, propelling forward on hands and knees.
“Charger!”
The name echoes back, bouncing off the walls.
The tunnel twists. Turns. Narrows in awkward places. Owen shimmies, crawls, squeezes through. There’s no light behind him. Not light ahead, but he’s creating this crevice, with his mind—his gift--so he forges ahe
ad until he sees light.
Small, blue charges flickering in the dark. Owen stills, hearing the volatile zap, the surge of current building. He waits a beat. Then two, before scrambling toward the faint, weird light. The kind of light created by one man who could wield it to take down an entire city.
“Quinn,” he whispers, using his friend’s name. “Can you hear me?”
A muffled grunt comes in reply, but the light brightens enough for Owen to see. Their eyes meet. Quinn’s mouth is gagged with a thin band of vine.
“Hey man, do you see this bullshit? It’s bullshit,” he says approaching his friend. “It’s fake. False. Demetria’s doing.”
Quinn’s eyes widen and Owen finds a tendril of loose vine, squirming with life. He shoves it between Quinn’s fingertips and says, “Blow this fucker to pieces.”
Owen wraps them under a shield and Quinn blows it up.
Chapter 30
Astrid
The explosion knocks her over, hurtling her across the sidewalk. Draco catches Astrid, rights her and pushes her on her way.
“What the hell was that?”
“I hope it was Quinn,” she replies.
“Definitely Charger,” Casper says in her ear. “His electrical levels just went through the roof.”
“Where the hell have you been?” she mutters. “We could have used your help back there.”
“I got knocked off. Something big.”
“Yeah, big and dangerous and out of her loving mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wendy’s in the game, Cas, get ready for it.”
Footsteps sound ahead and Draco holds his hand up for Astrid to stop. “Casper, what do you see?”
A pause. “Eh, not sure you want to know.”
“Cas…”
“Looks like fifty or so uh…well I don’t know what they are. None have a heartbeat.”
“So manips.”
