Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1)

by Laura Welling

  When the doors pinged open, I stuck my head out quickly, reconnoitering the reception area there. There were three people at the desk, all seated, all occupied with work. I had seconds to decide—sneak or fight?

  One of the women there looked up at me and smiled. “Oh hi,” she said. “Are you here to see your brother?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” I said. I fought to stay calm. How much time did I have before someone raised the alarm?

  She stood up and walked down the hallway to Eric’s room. After swiping her card, she waited for the LED to go green, and then opened the door.

  “You have a visitor,” she said brightly. Turning to me, she said, “He’s doing much better now.”

  I stepped into the room and the door swung shut behind me. Eric sat staring into space, his eyes unfocused.

  “Eric,” I said. “We’re leaving.”

  “Hmmm?” His head swiveled toward me. “Leaving? No.”

  “They have Jamie in a cell. I’m getting him out. I want you to come.”

  Eric licked at his dry lips, pallid in his gaunt, gray face. “I can’t go back out there, Cat. I can’t risk killing anyone again.”

  “We’ll wean you off the drugs this time,” I said. “Without those you’ll be back to normal.”

  “It’s the drugs that keep me under control,” he said slowly.

  “You should have told me you were still taking the Nova-22,” I said.

  “I did. I told you everything.”

  “You didn’t tell me you kept taking it after you left here.”

  Eric looked genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  Nothing in his body language led me to think he was lying, and a cold, hard certainty swept over me. “You never took the drugs on the outside?”

  “Never,” he said. “Why would I? There are more fun drugs to take out there.”

  “Eric,” I said, my voice distant and shaking, “Justine drugged you, every day, with the Nova-22. That’s why you lost control. That’s why you burned those people. You didn’t kill anyone. You were an instrument.”

  His face showed confusion. I wondered what cocktail of drugs he was under, to think and move so slowly.

  “She wouldn’t,” he said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You have to believe me. We have to go and go now,” I said. At that moment, a klaxon sounded. Shit. The game was up. I took his arm in both my hands. “Come on.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I don’t understand what you’re telling me. I don’t think I can run, either.”

  “I need your help to get Jamie out,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve taken the suppressors and I have a useless arm,” he said. “I can’t help you.”

  “Damn it, Eric,” I said. “Trust me. I’ve given up everything for you.”

  He paused, and then nodded, slowly. “You’re my sister. I’ll help you,” he said. “But I’m not leaving.”

  I pulled him to his feet. “We can argue about that later.” I swiped the card over the panel and yanked the door open. The klaxons blared, making it hard to focus. Eric followed me down the hallway. In the reception area, the staff was all on phones, shouting to be heard over the alarm. I kept moving.

  The woman who had shown me to Eric’s room saw us and dropped the phone like a stone, her mouth open. “You can’t be out here,” she said.

  I stabbed the elevator call button.

  She began to come around the desk.

  “Eric,” I said, “can you do something?” I looked back at him.

  His eyes were closed, and he swayed slightly, back and forth, back and forth. “I can’t reach my Talent,” he said.

  “Shit,” I said. I put my hand on his arm and made that inner twist inside my mind, the world inverting, my stomach going with it, and I was inside his head. It was easier each time.

  Embers here, only embers of the flame that usually burned strongly. His mind was full of chemical fog. I reached out and took the spark of his Talent for myself, carrying it like a lit torch.

  How to rekindle it? I threw myself open, willing every ounce of Talent I had to build the fire stronger. Power ripped through my head. Abstractly, I felt a distant pain, the sinews of my power tearing with the effort of absorbing a second Talent on top of the power and speed. A migraine throbbed instantly, but the drugs kept me from caring.

  A woman’s scream brought me back out of my head. Everything burned: the walls, the ceiling, the floor tiles, even the potted plant on the desk. I’d started the fire without even trying. The woman took off, running down the hallway in the direction of the EXIT sign.

  “We’ll go that way too,” I said. Stairs went down as well as up. “Come on,” I said, tugging Eric’s hand. He stumbled along beside me as we hurried to the stairwell.

  The fire door slammed behind us and we were in a polished concrete stairwell. I began to jog down the stairs as fast as I could. Eric’s fight-or-flight reflex seemed to be kicking in. He’d sped up, and could keep up with me now.

  The klaxon that had started before stopped and was immediately replaced by an unbearably loud whooping sound. A distorted electronic voice cut in: “Evacuate the building. Follow secure evacuation procedures. This is not a drill.”

  People began to enter the stairwell, all heading upward. A man grabbed my arm. “You’re going the wrong way,” he said.

  “Following procedure,” I parroted. “We have a task on the lower levels.”

  He shrugged and ran. The whooping continued.

  We finally arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Unlike most fire stairs, this one did not have a push bar door at the bottom, but another of the ubiquitous swipe card doors.

  I swore, long and loud. I had assumed the doors would open on the lowest level, but this wasn’t the exit level.

  “It’s a fire door,” Eric said. “You can’t burn your way through it.”

  “I have to think. Think.” Maybe I could burn through the walls. I put my hand on the wall next to the door, pushing power outward, and recoiled. The wall felt like a cold slap in the face to the heat of Eric’s Talent.

  The cage. The whole floor was wrapped in it. We had no way through.

  Finally, it was all too much. I lost it, screaming wordless obscenities and pounding on the door with my fists, breaking my knuckles, pouring out my fury on the damned thing until I could scream no more. At last I rested my forehead against it.

  Eric said nothing. He sat down on the bottom stair and put his head in his hands. “You can’t beat them,” he said. “We keep losing.”

  His words carried even through the continued whooping of the fire siren. This couldn’t be the end. But it was.

  The cold door against my face calmed me down a little, and suddenly I realized something.

  “Eric,” I said. “This is a fire door.”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice barely audible in all the noise.

  “It’s not a special door. It’s a fire door.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  I closed my eyes and probed the door with Talent. There was no cage mesh embedded in the door. The door itself might be fireproof, but it was not resistant to Talent.

  I thought back to my visit to this floor earlier. The fire stairs had to be accessible from the guard station. I tried hard to recall where the fire exit signs had been, but I hadn’t been paying attention to that at the time. All I knew was that somewhere on the other side of this door were Jamie’s guards.

  Eric had used this Talent at a distance, which meant I could too. I visualized the guard station as I had seen it earlier—the bored guards sitting in a booth. Gathering up power, I pulled it into a white-hot fireball inside me. A fireball that would get me in to see the man I loved, the man I had betrayed.

  I paused for a second. Embracing my Talent was one thing. If I did this, blindly, there was a good chance I would hurt or kill those guards. They were Institute staff, true, but they were human beings. Human beings
who imprisoned other human beings. Innocent ones.

  “This is war,” I said.

  “What?” Eric said, looking up.

  “Nothing.”

  I drew a long, slow breath, and held it for a second. As I let it out, I visualized blowing with it a stream of Talent through the door. A tiny stream, that grew into a cavalcade, a bolt, a weapon of unspeakable power. I let it loose.

  The door jumped under my hands, a muffled explosion. I stepped back, involuntarily, and then readied myself.

  A few seconds later the door opened and one of the guards came through, his face black with soot. He stopped, shocked, when he saw me, long enough for me to punch him hard in the nose. He doubled over, blood mixing with the soot on his uniform.

  “Get his card,” I said to Eric, who began reaching for it.

  I hadn’t hit him hard enough. He recovered enough to slap Eric’s hand away, then straightened up.

  “You,” he said.

  “Me.” I kicked at him, aiming for his groin. He caught my leg and dragged me toward him, trying to throw me off balance.

  “Eric,” I gasped.

  My brother brought down his elbow on the back of the guard’s neck and he fell to the ground. I kicked him hard, and he grunted and lay still.

  Eric bent over him and came up with the card. He swiped it over the card reader, the LED turned green, and we were back in business. The handle turned in his hand. We made eye contact, and then burst through the door together.

  The scene that greeted us was horrific. There was little left of the front wall of the guard station, and flames licked at every surface, filling the area with a thick, choking black smoke. Broken glass lay over everything like hail. Another guard lay on the ground, blackened and not moving. I had done that. I had killed him.

  I didn’t let myself look at his body, but swung around the corner into the booth. Despite the front wall burning, the monitors were still running. Each of the prisoners still waited in their cells. On the last monitor in the row, Jamie.

  He was up and pacing back and forth. No doubt he must have heard the explosion. I tore my gaze away from him and down to the array of switches below. Despite the fire alarms, the doors were still locked. I began pushing buttons, and the doors began to open.

  Jamie was out in a flash, and striding down the hallway toward the airlock. I jabbed at the end buttons.

  “Only the outer door is opening,” I said.

  “It’s an airlock,” Eric pointed out. “You can only open one door at once.”

  I unlocked the inner door, letting Jamie into the airlock. The seconds while it closed seemed endless, and then I punched the outer door button, repeatedly.

  Suddenly Jamie was there, and I pushed myself away from the console and flung my arms around him.

  “Oh God, Jamie,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’m out. Let’s get these other poor bastards out.”

  We turned back toward the airlock, and at that moment the elevator doors slid open with a gentle, friendly, department store ding!

  “Good afternoon,” Major Hudson said, stepping out into the hallway. He had a small, sleek gun in one hand, and what looked like a remote control in the other. Ryder, his white hair glowing under the harsh neon lights, stepped out behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “I think it’s time to break up this party,” the Major said. “Ryder, open the airlock.”

  Ryder crunched over the broken glass to the still-smoking guardroom and activated the controls. The outer door opened.

  “In you go,” the Major said, gesturing with the gun.

  “No,” Jamie said.

  “My dear boy, I’d rather not shoot anyone this evening. But if I have to, I will.”

  Eric stepped in front of him. “You won’t shoot me,” he said, his voice low. “And you’ll have to get through me to get to him or my sister.”

  “Mr. Wilson.” The Major paused. “I’m beginning to think you’re more trouble than you’re worth. I’m also trying to understand what you’re doing here. By my calculations, you should be without Talent for another six or so hours. I am curious how this fire got started. Especially in this area.”

  Turning to me, he continued. “I can only conclude that our experiments have finally brought out your sister’s Talent, and that you have figured out some way around the cage. Congratulations, Catrina, you’re no longer useless to me. Now, please step into the airlock.”

  If Jamie could stare down the barrel of a gun and say no, I could too. I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” I reached out and took Jamie’s hand for strength.

  His palm was warm and dry against mine. I dared not look at him but he squeezed my fingers and that was enough for me.

  “Fine.”

  The report of the gun deafened me. Eric dropped like a stone, gasping and clutching at what had been his good shoulder.

  “Eric,” I said, taking a step toward him, my stomach twisting.

  “It’s fine,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  We were screwed. The Major meant business. I couldn’t see an easy way out of here. The only weapon we had was Eric’s Talent, under my control. Could I burn the Major while looking in his face? Could I burn anything with enough control not to kill us all? I needed to buy some time to think.

  Turning back to the Major, I said, “Why did you arrange for Justine to drug Eric when he was on the outside?”

  Jamie twitched beside me.

  Major Hudson shrugged. “Eric was useful to us, and I didn’t want to lose him. I knew if he got into trouble out there, he’d come back eventually, and this is the only life he’s ever known. Justine did a lot of work to help with that, slipping him the drugs, setting fire to his hotel to draw the police’s attention, and giving us his location in West Virginia. Of course, most of you escaped from there. Then of course, you put him into our hands, which I appreciate.”

  I wished I had a gun so I could shut him up.

  “What’s he talking about, Catrina?” Jamie said in my ear.

  “Oh, didn’t she tell you?” Major Hudson’s voice rose in triumph, a trickle of emotion showing through for the first time. “She and Ryder brought Eric in. They did work well together, and I hope will continue to do so.”

  “Cat,” Jamie said, strain breaking his voice.

  I couldn’t look at him, beaten and broken as he was. My fingers slipped from his. “It’s true,” I said. “I did it because I thought it was the only way to save his life.”

  With a snarl, Jamie threw himself at the Major. He knocked him to the ground and they struggled among the debris and broken glass for a moment. My feet were frozen to the ground as I watched.

  Major Hudson freed a hand. He made a small movement. Jamie opened his mouth to scream. At the same moment his spine arched so hard I thought it would snap. His limbs twitched spastically and his head beat a tattoo on the floor. Then he lay still. The scent of ozone filled the air.

  The Major rolled over and got to his feet, dusting off his uniform. He waved the remote control at me. “The wristbands,” he said. “We put them on prisoners for a reason. Sometimes chemical restraints aren’t enough.”

  I rushed over to Jamie’s side.

  “He’ll live. It’s nothing he’s not used to, after all,” the Major said. “We’ve been using this as an inducement to get him to tell us where you were. Lucky you came in when you did—he was starting to break down. The good news is that I have wristbands ready for your brother, assuming he survives.” He shot a glance down at Eric, who was pale and conscious, sitting with his back against the wall. I hadn’t even noticed him dragging himself upright.

  “Sir,” Ryder said from the still-smoldering control room. “We need to evacuate the building. The fire is spreading.”

  I’d forgotten he was there.

  Ryder stepped out from behind the console. “We need to escort these three out.”

  Major Hudson shrugged. “Put them in t
he secure area. It’s relatively fireproof. We can deal with them later.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, reaching down a hand to help Eric to his feet. He half carried him to the airlock and put him down. Eric didn’t try to resist. His skin grew chalkier by the minute, and his forehead beaded with sweat as he went into shock.

  Ryder came toward Jamie and me. “Into the airlock,” he said. “It’s the safest place right now. Can you help me carry him?”

  I wanted to punch him in the mouth. Once we were in the airlock, we would be stuck. The Major had his gun ready, pointed at me. I’d have more chance of escaping alive than I would dead.

  “All right,” I said. I’d get Ryder later.

  We each put an arm around Jamie’s shoulders and lifted him together, his bare feet dragging behind us through the broken glass. We put him down next to Eric. He’d left a trail of blood in his wake.

  Ryder patted each of us down, taking the keycard I’d removed from the guard and showing it to the Major. We had little else of use.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said, and closed the airlock door. He was smiling, the cold bastard.

  I checked Jamie’s pulse and pupils. He was out but breathing fine and his heartbeat was strong and regular. As the Major said, it looked like he would live. I shoved my guilt down inside.

  “How’s that bleeding?” I said to Eric, stepping over. His eyes were closed, his teeth chattering.

  “It’s slowing,” he said. “I’m trying to keep some pressure on it, but it’s only a graze.”

  “Good plan. I wish I had a bandage, or even a useful shirt.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said.

  “Wish I could say the same,” Jamie said, startling me.

  I rushed back to his side. “You’re awake. What hurts?”

  His gaze slid off mine. “Just a headache.”

  The conversation petered out there, and we all three sat still for a long minute, listening to the sirens above us.

  “Do you think the fire will spread down here?” My voice shook, making me flush with heat.

  “I doubt it,” Jamie said. “I don’t think anything will get in or out. Worst case, the building might come down on top of us, depending how bad the fire is.”