A man burst from the tree line, brandishing a rifle, with a second man carrying two handguns close behind him.
Instinctively, Ava swept the guns from their hands and threw them back into the forest.
Tiernan glared at her. “Leave some for the rest of us.”
She shrugged, fighting a hysterical giggle. Then all hell broke loose.
A fireball burst from the forest, smashing into the trees over Gideon and Tiernan and forcing them to dive for cover. Tiernan rolled to the side, yanking a gun from beneath his coat and firing into the forest. Ava noticed he shot into the air, more as a warning than anything else, and knew he was waiting until they laid eyes on Caleb before he truly started to fight.
Another fireball flashed through the air, and the Rogues attacked, descending on them in a smattering of gunfire. Ava held her breath, overwhelmed for a moment by the cacophony of shouts and blur of bodies moving at Race speed, unable to focus on where to aim her own gift. Someone, however, didn’t have the same problem, for after only a few seconds, a handful of Rogues let out pained shouts, their guns falling to the dirt and sending up wafts of steam where they hit the damp grass.
“What happened?” Emma poked her head around the corner, eyes widening in awe. “Looks like the Guardians have a thermo.” At Ava’s confused glance, she tried to quickly explain. “Thermal manipulator—someone who can heat or cool things by messing with the atoms.”
“Of course,” Ava said, stunned. She shouldn’t have been, really. This was her life now.
With most of the weapons out of the mix, she’d thought the Guardians could dominate easily, but apparently the Rogues had a few tricks up their sleeves as well. In seconds, Guardian weapons were flying into the forest, and the hand-to-hand combat began.
A Rogue charged at Tiernan, but he stopped suddenly and lay down on the ground as if he was going to take a nap. Emma giggled when Tiernan gaped at him in surprise for a second before knocking him out.
Ava barely noticed. She scanned the tree line as her fingers clung to the corner of the building, feeling Caleb nearby . . . almost there. Her gift flared, excited at his proximity but confused why he was still so far away.
And then he wasn’t.
One moment, Ava turned her attention to a Rogue, throwing him off Tiernan’s back—without so much as a thank you from the Protector, she begrudgingly noted—and the next she whirled around to see Caleb appearing a dozen feet before her, breathing heavily from repeated shifts, but whole and healthy and looking exactly as he should.
Not as if he was under some strange mind control. Not as if he was a Rogue puppet.
Just Caleb.
Perhaps a little thinner than usual, a little more tired, with dark smudges staining the skin below his eyes—no glasses, she noted absently, and no contacts, his eyes the same mismatched blue and green as Tiernan’s. Caleb’s shoulders seemed stooped a bit more than normal, breath rasping in and out as his gaze searched the surrounding bodies. He didn’t spot her at first, tension radiating from his clutched fists as he shouted her name.
She stepped out from behind the building, wrenching her wrist free of Emma’s tight grip. She ignored Tiernan’s shouted warning as the sounds of fighting—fists slamming into flesh, bodies hurled into buildings or each other— dulled to a low roar under the blood rushing in her ears.
Caleb whirled around, his blue-green gaze locking on hers as his mouth dropped open on her name. His eyes fluttered closed briefly as relief swept through his tall frame, and he started toward her, heedless of the battle around him.
Ava’s gift propelled her forward, impatient, and like the heroine in some old black-and-white movie, she ran into his arms. He held her close, his warmth seeping into her bones as he breathed in her scent. And just like that, the puzzle piece slipped into place—the gaping hole inside her filled to overflowing, and her gift seemed to sigh in satisfaction.
“Are you all right?” Caleb whispered into her hair.
She nodded frantically, clutching at his back.
He pulled away. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, taking her hand in his and pulling her into the cover of some trees as the fighting continued around them. “Where’s Emma?”
“What?” Ava still felt a bit disoriented, almost drugged, by having him so near. She reached up, sliding her palm over his shoulder and up the back of his neck, her fingers slipping into his hair.
“Emma.” He turned back to her, taking her face in his hands. “Focus, Ava. We need to get Emma and get out of here. I can’t shift again. Something’s blocking me.”
“Adam,” she said slowly, her mind racing to catch up with what was happening. “He’s a dampener.”
Caleb cursed under his breath. “We’ll have to make a run for it, but we need to get Emma first.”
“No.” Her voice was weak . . . wavering, but she shook her head, trying to gain her footing again. “No. Caleb, Emma is safe. The Guardians won’t hurt her.”
“You don’t understand,” he said distractedly, watching the fighting and searching for the girl. “You and Emma are important. You’re part of the plan. We need to get you—”
“Plan?” Ava’s stomach churned, her palms sweating as she remembered what Emma had told her.
“They had me change Caleb.”
She’d thought she understood, but she’d denied the truth this whole time. “What plan, Caleb?”
He huffed in frustration, fingers clutching his dark hair. “We don’t have time for this!”
“What plan, Caleb?” She reached for his arm but hesitated. Her heart ached at that hesitation.
“The plan, Ava,” he said, turning wide, urgent eyes on hers. “The Council has had too much power for far too long . . .”
“They needed him to work with them—to forget his loyalty to the Council.”
“They think they own us. They think they can keep us down . . . make us all but slaves to the humans . . . keeping down our own kind, for God’s sake . . .”
“So I had to instill doubt in him. Make him doubt the Council, the Law—his purpose as a Protector. Open his mind to the possibility of something different.”
“But we’re the ones with the power, don’t you see?” He gripped her shoulders, pleading with her to understand. “The Council has let the humans all but destroy this world. It’s our time. It’s our turn. We can fix this!”
“Caleb, no . . .” Ava’s voice cracked.
He didn’t seem to hear her, instead turning away to scan the area again. “But you and Emma are part of it. We need you both.”
“We?” She grabbed at his arm, desperation snaking through her. “They’re Rogues, Caleb. You said it yourself; they destroy whoever gets in their way!”
“Sometimes sacrifice is necessary,” he said, brow furrowed as if he was concentrating, pulling the words from deep within him. “None of us likes it, but sometimes it can’t be helped.”
Ava’s skin chilled. In that moment, she truly understood what Emma had done to Caleb. What the Rogues had done to him. With tears sparkling in her eyes, she reached for her gift.
Caleb examined her face and his own softened. “We can talk about this later. You’ll understand . . .”
Ava could only shake her head and whisper, “No.”
Her gift drifted out to wrap Caleb in tentacles of restraint. It took him a moment to realize, to struggle. “Ava? What are you doing?”
Gideon appeared in her peripheral vision . . . Tiernan . . . there was Emma. Ava absently noted the fighting was over, but couldn’t find it in herself to care. They watched, frozen in place, as she bound Caleb tightly, lifting his body so his toes barely scraped the ground. Adam stood off to the side, and she spared a moment to wonder how he blocked Caleb and not her. How he picked and chose where to target his gift. Odd the things you focus on when you’re breaking someone’s trust.
“Ava?” Caleb’s eyes were wide . . . betrayed.
“I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down her face, blurring
her vision.
A hand on her shoulder startled her, and her gift lashed out, shoving Tiernan back roughly. He staggered, but came toward her again, not touching her this time.
“Ava,” he said, his voice soft and soothing as she hadn’t heard it before. “You can let him go. We’ll take him.”
With a choked sob, she nodded, pulling back until Caleb slumped, held upright by his father.
He didn’t even seem to notice; his shocked gaze was still focused on Ava. “How could you?”
“I’m sorry!” she cried, reaching for him and then letting her arms fall to her sides, empty. “They’re going to help you. They’re going to fix you.”
“Fix me?” Caleb shouted. “I’m not broken, Ava! What have you done?”
She felt a thick arm encircle her shoulders and allowed herself to be pulled into Tiernan’s broad chest.
“Oh, is that how it is?” Caleb’s bitter voice cut through her quiet sobs. “Tiernan, Ava? Really?”
“He doesn’t mean it,” Tiernan said quietly. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You let him touch you now?” Caleb shouted as Gideon led him away. “Is that what you want?”
And in that moment, she did. She curled into the heat of Tiernan’s solid bulk and gave into her tears.
Caleb knew it was of no use to struggle. He couldn’t shift, and he was surrounded by Guardians, including his own father, the worthless bastard. He grimaced as he spotted the group of Rogues, including Bartok, on their knees in the middle of a patch of grass, surrounded by armed Guardians, and the man he assumed was Adam, the dampener. He absently wondered about the man’s range—if he could continue to block Caleb when he got far enough away from the rest of the group. Such hopes were dashed, however, when Gideon simply stopped, watching as Emma Reiko walked into the midst of the Rogues, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
After a while, she smiled with satisfaction, and wound her way back to Gideon. “I’ve removed the memories of how they got here—everything about the Colony,” she said. “Your men can take them back to Ontario. They’ll be kind of out of it for a while.”
“You’re not going to kill them?” Caleb asked in disbelief as he glared at his father and struggled to shake off the Guardian hands holding him captive.
“We’re not animals,” Gideon said calmly. “And we don’t have the facilities to hold them long-term. We only want to be left in peace.” The Guardian leader turned back to Emma. “What about Caleb?”
Caleb froze. “What about me?”
“I’ll need somewhere quiet,” Emma replied, ignoring Caleb’s outburst. “He’s a bit more complicated.” She glanced over to where Ava stood talking quietly to Tiernan. “Is Ava all right?”
“I think she’ll be fine once Caleb’s back to normal.”
Caleb glared at his father. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
“You’re not,” Gideon said gently. “At least not entirely.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” A wave of fury swept through him, along with a niggling uneasiness he couldn’t quite put a finger on.
“Your mind has been tampered with.”
Caleb flashed a glance at Emma.
“Yes,” Gideon said, maintaining a calm and even tone. “The Rogues had Emma alter your thoughts.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Caleb knew he was fine. There was no way anyone had messed with his mind. “I’ve just seen through the lies of the Council.”
“Think about it, Caleb.” Emma stepped before him, looking deeply in his eyes. “You’ve never felt that way before.”
Caleb felt her reaching into him, invading his mind, and he stepped back abruptly to break the contact. “Stop that.”
“I think you’ll have to restrain him,” Emma told Gideon as they turned to go into a large metal building, one of the Guardians holding tightly to Caleb’s elbow. “It looks like he’s going to fight me on this.”
“Damn right,” Caleb said through gritted teeth.
Yet, something was off about all of it. He’d known his mission when they’d arrived at the Colony. Get Ava and the girl and fall back to regroup. Evade the Guardians. Wait for further orders to be relayed through Bartok.
Orders . . . from who? Why?
Why did they need Emma and Ava? The question sent a stab of pain through his head, and Caleb fell to his knees, clutching at his scalp.
“What’s happening?” he heard Gideon ask. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m not sure. Get him in here and on the table.”
Strong arms lifted him, dragging him along down a dark hallway and into a brightly lit room. The pain in his skull ebbed to a dull throb, and he blinked in surprise to find himself looking up at the ceiling.
“Where’s Ava?” he rasped.
“Hold him down,” Emma said, her voice gruff and businesslike. “This might hurt, and he’s not going to like it.”
Something heavy bracketed Caleb’s chest and held his limbs immobile. He struggled, unable to move an inch, and squeezed his eyes shut. Slender fingers pried them open, Emma’s mismatched eyes appearing inches away from him. They almost matched, actually, the pupils blown so wide that only a thin circle of pale green differentiated one from the other.
“Try and relax,” Emma said, her cool palms framing his face.
He felt her prod at his mind, and in a flash of white-hot pain, Caleb screamed.
Chapter 12
Ava could hear Caleb’s agonized bellows from where she stood with Tiernan, wringing her hands and overcome with guilt.
Sure, she knew it was useless. She knew it was unwarranted. She’d done what she had to do to help Caleb. Still, she couldn’t help how she felt. The look of betrayal in his eyes had cut her deeply, and she knew it was something that would haunt her for a long time to come. She could feel Caleb fighting against whatever Emma was doing to him, and her gift longed to reach out and help—to fight off whatever was hurting him.
“He’ll be fine,” Tiernan told her, trying to assure her again.
Ava wasn’t convinced, but she nodded just the same. She wanted to believe it—needed to believe it.
Finally, the screams stopped, the last of them echoing through the treetops before fading away into silence. Ava could feel Caleb calm, and with a choked gasp, she ran toward the building, Tiernan on her heels.
She sped through the hallway and jerked to a stop when Emma and Gideon emerged from a room and closed the door behind them. Gideon looked up at her approach and held up a hand.
“He’s asleep,” he told her. “We gave him some R-cubes, but he really needs the rest, I think. It took a lot out of him.”
“But he’s . . . is he . . .”
Is he fixed? Is he him? Is he Caleb?
“He’s fine.”
Emma was trying to assure her, but Ava turned to Gideon for confirmation. She still couldn’t shake the lingering tendrils of anger that Emma had done this to Caleb in the first place, no matter how undeserved that anger was.
“He’s back to normal,” Gideon said. “As far as I can tell, all the effects have been removed. He also remembers everything about his time with the Rogues, which should prove useful. He wanted to tell us everything, but he’s so exhausted.” He glanced back at the door, pride on his face. “Brave kid.”
It took a moment for his words to register with Ava, and when they did, the rush of adrenaline drained out of her, and she slumped against the wall in relief. “So he’s all right.”
“He’s all right.” Gideon reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder. “He kept asking for you.”
Ava blinked back tears.
Perhaps he’d forgive her. Perhaps he’d understand.
“Can I see him? Can I . . . I’d like to stay with him.” Now that he was back, she couldn’t bear the thought of being away from him. Even if he was sleeping.
Gideon seemed to understand. “I’ll check on you later,” he said before heading down the hall to the control room.
<
br /> Tiernan eyed her carefully. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” She nodded briskly, brushing away her tears. “I’m fine now.”
He cleared his throat, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Then I guess I’ll . . . go . . . debrief or something.”
Ava fought a smile. “Yeah. Go and loom and grunt with Gideon.”
To his credit, Tiernan just rolled his eyes and walked away.
Emma, however, reached out to take her hand. “Come on,” she said gently, reaching for the doorknob. “See for yourself. He’s going to be fine.”
She let Emma lead her into the room, only letting out a breath when she saw Caleb lying peacefully on a small bed against the wall.
Caleb slept deeply, his chest rising and falling under a thin blanket. Unable to resist touching him any longer, Ava left Emma standing at the door and rushed to his side. She brushed the hair away from his forehead, and he shifted into the touch, a pleased sigh slipping from his lips. Her gift settled within her, finally calm and quiet.
“I can do the same for you,” Emma said, startling Ava slightly. She hadn’t realized the girl had moved to stand next to her.
“What do you mean?” Ava whispered.
Caleb let out a quiet sound, his head rolling on the pillow, and Emma pressed a finger to her lips and indicated the door with a tilt of her head.
Ava nodded, touching Caleb’s cheek lightly before following the girl to the other side of the room.
“I know you’re having trouble with your gifts,” Emma said. “And I’d like to help you.” She glanced at Caleb. “Now’s not the time, of course, but when you’re ready, let me know.”
“You really think you can lift the rest of the block?” Ava asked. “How would that even work?”
“I’ll explain it all later. But for now, Caleb needs you.” She smiled. “And I can see that you need him, too.” With that, she stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Ava blinked in confusion, a little scared about Emma’s proposal but intrigued, nonetheless. Caleb let out a quiet whimper and she hurried to his side as his eyes fluttered open.
The Guardians (MORE Trilogy) Page 18
