by Matt Blake
Adam smiled, and Chaos felt herself melt a little inside.
She got up from the bar and walked toward him. When she did, he turned around and left. She felt the frustration of the chase building again as she budged past the people in the nightclub. She could swear some of them were looking at her closely like they knew exactly who she was.
She reached the back of the nightclub and stepped out of the fire door.
He was standing outside in the uncharacteristically silent street. He was looking up at the night sky.
Chaos walked toward him.
“You wanted to see me?”
He turned around, and she felt his charming allure all over again.
Chaos couldn’t look him in the eye. If she looked him in the eye, she wouldn’t be able to tell him exactly what she had to tell him. She nodded, staring at the ground. “I—”
“Before you start, I just want you to know how proud I am of you,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You did so well at the mall.”
“People died.”
Adam shook his head. “Sometimes people have to die for others to be saved.”
“You really believe that?”
He smiled, and that smile filled him with total warmth. “Yes, I do.”
Chaos had never thought that way. In fact, she’d only been going by the name of Chaos since Adam asked her to. Before that, she was Annabelle.
“Well, I don’t. I think it was wrong.”
Adam pulled his hand away and frowned. “You agreed to do what you did.”
“I agreed to something completely different. I didn’t agree to kill people. Just to block one of the doors then confuse Glacies. I did that. But you… you sent gunmen in there. You rigged the place with explosives.”
Adam lifted his hands. “I didn’t do a thing, Chaos. I’m not in control of the militants in that area. Both of us know it’s a dangerous location.”
“So you’re saying it was just a coincidence that there was a load of gunmen there? You’re saying it was just chance that Glacies happened to fly into a bomb? Because that explosion wasn’t me. You know that, Adam.”
“I’m saying that sometimes in life, we have to let chance take its course. And chance really is taking its course right now. It’s on the brink of rising up for good. Don’t forget what I gave you, Annabelle.”
Chaos looked down at the ground. The booming bass from the nightclub thumped on behind her. She remembered the explosion at the cafe when she was going to date Adam. Her anger had caused that. She hadn’t been an ULTRA before that day. But when she came across Adam, something had happened. “I don’t forget. I won’t ever forget.”
“Then you’ll carry on as we planned. Soon you’ll see the world’s better for it.”
Chaos wanted to agree. She wanted to stay by Adam’s side.
Instead, she shook her head, looking right into his eyes. “No.”
He frowned. “What?”
“I said no. Just… just no. I can’t do this. It isn’t me.”
“But you’re so—”
“It’s over, Adam.”
Chaos turned around and walked down the alleyway. She wanted to get out of the darkness and onto the main street. She didn’t want to be with Adam anymore.
“We can’t just let you go,” he said.
Chaos looked back.
Adam wasn’t alone anymore.
Behind him, there were people.
The more Chaos looked at them, the more they creeped her out. Some of these people she recognized from inside the nightclub. Only they weren’t enjoying themselves anymore. They weren’t just in there having a drink and a laugh.
Their hands were sparking with blue energy.
Chaos turned around and started to run.
More people were in front of her now.
Blocking her way out of the alleyway.
“You don’t just walk away with a gift like the one you have,” Adam said.
Chaos felt a sharp pain stab her back.
She fell to the ground, hit the sidewalk hard.
She rolled over, tried to fight back with her powers. But she couldn’t move. Her powers were weak. She felt all out of energy, all out of life.
And all around her, the crowd stood.
In the middle of them, a smiling Adam.
“I’m on the way to becoming a messiah, darling,” he said. “And a messiah doesn’t take rejection lightly.”
“Ple—”
The crowd lifted their hands.
They fired their energy at Chaos, collectively.
She felt the energy fading from her body.
The last thing she saw was a little rat poking its head up from the gutter beside her.
Then nothing.
9
“Dude, since when have you been such a daredevil?”
I smiled when I heard Damon’s voice. I’d taken him and Avi with me to an inactive volcano in Iceland. We were in our caving gear and surrounded by total darkness.
Well. We would be if it weren’t for the light beaming from my forehead.
And not a flashlight either.
“Man, wait. Seriously. Do not run away from me. Do not abandon me.”
“I wish I’d stayed at home,” Avi said, fear in his voice. “Take us home.”
I turned around and looked back at Damon and Avi.
“You’re gonna have to step inside the cave at some point,” I said.
They both stood at the mouth of the cave, barely a foot over the threshold. I couldn’t help but smile at them standing there so fearful. Even though none of us had ever exactly been daredevils, I always used to be the most cautious of all of us. So seeing them cowering right now, yeah. It was a pleasant surprise.
“Could we not just, like, do normal things like go to the cinema or something?” Damon asked.
“I hear the new Mission Impossible’s out on Netflix now,” Avi said. “We could go back and watch that.”
I turned around and looked at the darkened cave ahead. “All my powers, all the places I can take you, and you want to be at home watching Mission Impossible?”
“More than you could ever imagine, man.”
I shook my head and sighed. I walked back over to Damon and Avi. Their breath frosted in the cold, and specks of snow covered their helmets. I put my hands on both of their shoulders. “Okay,” I said. “I think I know the place.”
“You do?”
“Oh, yeah. A great place. You’ll love it. Especially if you’re a fan of thrills.”
“Space?”
I frowned. “What?”
“Space,” Damon said. “Like, Jupiter or something.”
“You don’t want to stick around an Icelandic cave, but you want to visit Jupiter?”
I saw Damon’s eyes glazing over, like the cogs in his head were spinning. “Well, maybe not. Have you ever been, though?”
“Been where?”
“To Jupiter.”
I wanted to tell Damon that of course I’d not been to Jupiter. I didn’t have a death wish. But I had to admit it wasn’t a bad idea. I’d have to at least try heading into space at some stage. “We’re not going to Jupiter,” I said. “But somewhere else hot. Somewhere to get the pulse racing.”
“Wait—”
Before Damon could finish, I teleported us over to the other side of Iceland.
“Jesus!”
We were hovering right above the mouth of an active volcano. Hekla. I’d quickly created an invisible barrier between us so we couldn’t fall, but Damon and Avi were already both running to the sides.
I created a couple more invisible barriers around the perimeter. “You don’t want to run,” I said.
“Of course I want to goddamned run,” Damon said. “Get me out of—”
He hit the invisible barrier and tumbled back onto the invisible floor beneath him.
I’d never heard him scream so loud, which triggered Avi to scream even louder.
Tears of laughter streamed down
my cheeks.
I walked over to them and put a hopefully comforting hand on their backs. “Now this is what we’re gonna do.”
“Just get us home, Kyle,” Avi spluttered.
“We’re going to go ten feet down into this volcano.”
“No!”
“We’re going to go ten feet, and if you still want to go home then, I’ll take you home.”
Damon shook his head. Avi shook his. Both of them looked like they were going to puke.
“Five feet,” I said.
“Minus five feet, bro,” Avi said.
“Come on. Five feet’s not even your own height. You can do that, can’t you?”
“I don’t know, man,” Damon said.
“You can do it. And when you do it, you’ll feel amazing. Trust me. You’ll feel like you can take on the world.”
“Is this how you get your kicks? Dipping your toes into volcanoes?”
“Five feet,” I said. “You ready?”
Damon and Avi sighed and shook their heads. They looked totally defeated.
“Okay,” I said, easing them to the middle of the volcano. “You like roller coasters, right?”
“What—”
I banished the invisible floor from beneath us.
We fell right down. I heard Avi and Damon both squealing. I felt something warm hit my face, and I knew it had to be sick.
As we fell, the wind blowing against me, the heat of the volcano getting hotter, I felt totally at ease with what I was doing. A total thrill. I was having a laugh with my friends. That was the main thing that mattered in the world. It was a shame Ellicia was ill today. For their sakes, more than anything. I might’ve taken it easier on them if she wasn’t.
When we’d fallen quite a way, and I’d heard enough of my friends’ screams, I stuck my hands out to create a bouncy invisible barrier right beneath us.
Nothing happened.
I tried again. Threw everything I had into forming some kind of barrier.
Again, nothing happened.
I felt my stomach turn. Below, I could see the orange glow of lava getting closer, as the smoke intensified. I looked to my side and saw Damon and Avi both hurtling past me, heading towards the lava first.
Shit.
I fired again. Tried to fire again and again, but nothing was happening.
I watched my friends inch closer to that lava, and I realized right then that I’d done something wrong. Very wrong.
And then they hit a spongy blanket of thin air, myself following not long after, and we all went flying right back up towards the mouth of the volcano.
I eased our landing as we fell back out of the volcano’s mouth. Avi and Damon were on their knees coughing, puking. I brushed some of the dust from my hair and rested my hands on my legs. I couldn’t help laughing. “How was that?” I said. “How frigging awesome was—”
“That was not cool,” Damon said.
He stood right in front of me. He didn’t look impressed at all. He was crying, and Avi didn’t look too far off tears either.
“Hey,” I said, lifting my hands. “It was just a bit of fun.”
“For you, maybe. But we could’ve died.”
“You wouldn’t have died.”
“You were playing games with our lives, man,” Avi said. “That’s not on.”
“Oh, seriously,” I said. “Get a grip. I could save your lives with the click of a finger. I did save your lives with the click of a finger.”
“Just like you saved those lives in Kenya, hmm?” Damon said.
I looked into Damon’s eyes. I was surprised to hear him mention Kenya. It was the first time he’d ever pulled me up for anything like this before. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
I thought Damon might hold back at that point, but he clearly wasn’t happy. “You play games with people’s lives all the time. It’s just what you do now, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea what happened in Kenya.”
“I know people died!” he shouted. “And I know everyone’s saying it was you who let the entire Resistance down. So that’s enough.”
I was literally speechless.
Damon dusted himself down. “Take us away from here.”
“Damon—”
“You know, I didn’t want to tell you this because you’re my best friend. But Ellicia isn’t ill. She isn’t ill at all. She just didn’t want to come here because she’s afraid of you. Of what you’re turning into.”
That halted my words more than anything else. I felt myself choking up. Ellicia was afraid of me? Why would she be afraid of me? What did she have to fear?
“I’m doing my best,” I said. “You have to understand that. It’s not easy. I’m doing what I can.”
“I miss the old Kyle, bro,” Avi said.
“You miss the old me? That wimp who got bullied all the time? Who let people get the better of him?”
“No,” Avi said. “I miss the Kyle who really cared about other people. I miss that Kyle. Now get us home. Please.”
I stood there for a few seconds, the wind intensifying around me. The smell of sulfur was strong from the volcano. My best friends were turning against me. Even my girlfriend was afraid of me. What was my life coming to?
I sighed and walked towards Damon and Avi. “You two have nothing to worry about. I swear.”
I teleported us back down to the side of the volcano.
I was about to teleport the three of us away from here for good when I saw we weren’t alone.
There were people all around us with crowbars and hammers. Some of them looked big and tough, the kind of people I really didn’t want to have to mess with.
We were surrounded.
10
I looked at the mass of people surrounding me and I was positive they weren’t here to just talk.
Some of them were holding crowbars. Other, broken off metal pipes. It was weird seeing so many people down here by the side of an Icelandic volcano. It freaked me out in many ways. How had they found me? How had they got here? I’d made my best efforts to get here under the radar, as I always did. So how had they caught on to me?
“Kyle?”
I looked to my right and saw Damon by my side. Avi was by his. They were both shaking. They’d pretend it was because of the cold, no doubt, but I knew they were afraid.
I looked back at the surrounding crowd and lifted my hands. “There’s no need for any trouble here.”
The crowd just peered back at me, eyes narrowed. There was something strange about them. Something distinctly… other. They looked like normal people. Men with bushy beards, well built.
But the look in their eyes was so cold.
And the weapons in their hands weren’t much more reassuring.
“Is that right?”
I scanned across the crowd to see who’d spoken. It took me a second for my eyes to land on a thick-chested man with wispy blond hair. He was holding an ax. “Yes,” I said, trying to cover the concern I had for this situation. “Now if you’ll excuse us—”
“I wouldn’t try to get away if I was you.”
I narrowed my eyes. I could feel the agitation building inside me. “What did you just say?”
A smirk twitched at the sides of the man’s face. “You heard.”
I felt my fists tense. I couldn’t believe how this man was speaking to me, and how everyone was just standing by him and letting him. He was too confident. Too cocky. Too sure of himself.
I wasn’t used to people standing up to me like this.
“After all,” the man continued, “you’re ‘Glacies’. And Glacies isn’t gonna do a thing to hurt another human now, is he?”
The rest of the crowd chuckled. The main guy’s accent was strange. It was American, but with a Scandinavian twinge.
“Don’t try me,” I said.
“Oh,” the man said, his eyes widening and a grin stretching across his face. “Is that the great Glacies making a threat?”
“You
haven’t even heard the start of it,” I said.
Damon tugged my arm. “Kyle, let’s just go—”
“See if you got that head of yours out of your ass for five damned minutes, you’d realize that there’s something coming. Something you should be very, very afraid of. You probably don’t know what it is yet. You’re probably close to figuring it out. But when it arrives, I promise you, you’ll feel it, and you’ll know.”
My skin went cold. When this guy spoke those words, I couldn’t help thinking of Daniel, and what he’d said to me as we’d sat in the middle of the Australian outback.
“Something’s coming. Something very big. And I just hope you and your little team of soldiers are ready for the storm when it finally arrives.”
I wanted to fight back against this crowd. I knew I could obliterate—or at least neutralize them—in an instant.
But then I remembered all the damage I’d caused already, all the negativity that surrounded me in the public eye, and I didn’t want to make that any worse than it already was.
I cleared my throat and smiled. “Been a pleasure speaking with you, gents. But now me and my friends are getting the hell outta—”
I felt something smack against my back, felt electricity cripple my skin, tighten around my throat.
I fell to my knees and hit my head on the rocks beneath me. I tried to fire back at these people, but the electricity crippling me was too strong. They’d shot me with some kind of electromagnetic device like the ones Saint used to use to restrain ULTRAs in his tower. I was stronger than those devices. I could battle through them.
But just as I started to compose myself, taking a few deep breaths, I felt a boot smack against my ribs.
Then another one kicked my face.
Then a metal pole hit my head.
I took more and more punches and hits, shielding myself with the slightest powers I could. I could taste blood though, and my nose was blocked, so the shield couldn’t be working completely.
I spun onto my back and tried to drag myself out from this animalistic crowd. When I looked up at them, saw the anger in their eyes, I realized they saw me as a monster. This was what they thought was right. This was what they thought I deserved.
