“WHAT…THE HELL?”

I clenched my hair in my hands, squeezing my eyes shut, concentrating on the silver thread, imagining it there, coiled in my mind. The longer I crouched, my heart kicking at my ribs, the deeper I fell into that spiral of horror.

Someone screamed—they screamed my name.

I snapped back into myself, registering the weight of the gun in my hand and the reality of that moment. The White Noise was shredding the silence, and it seemed to only scream louder the longer I stood there, doing nothing, feeling nothing.

But in the dark chaos of the moment, a single, clarifying thought managed to get through.

“Like you need psionic powers to destroy a speaker, you idiot,” I breathed out.

Shutting out the sounds and movement on all sides, I took aim and fired directly into the face of the device. It leaped off the ground as the shot pierced it. A second bullet finally silenced it.

The other speaker was close enough to track by sound alone. I braced my feet against the ground, swiveling until my ears pricked with pain, pinpointing the direction of the sound. My gaze narrowed, searching through the fog, the darkness, the trees—everything that stood between it and me.

It was an impossible shot—impossible because I couldn’t see to aim, and I couldn’t get any closer, not with the men and kids on the trail. Instead, I pointed up, aiming at the thick arms of the oak that supported the unfinished frame of Tree House Ten.

It felt like the gun was trying to rocket out of my hand as I fired, unloading the clip on that branch. Bullets swarmed the trees like wasps, coming in from every direction, but I didn’t stop shooting, not until the massive branch cracked.

I threw myself down as it split off the trunk. I heard, rather than saw, the branch crash to the ground, taking with it the beginnings of the tree house Liam had built. The wood pounded the ground, and, in the end, I hadn’t needed to find the exact location of the speaker. The limb and debris buried it, muffling the White Noise.

A branch snapped behind me. I spun, catching a glimpse of something moving in the corner of my vision. I trained my gun at it.

At a girl.

The teen was a shade of white too pale to be truly healthy—her skin had hollowed out beneath her wide eyes, and her cheekbones looked too thin, like you could strip away her clothes and see where all of her blue veins connected to her beating heart. Full, dark lashes framed her startlingly blue eyes.

I relaxed, just slightly. At least one kid had gotten away from the tree houses.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She reached up, touching the small gold flower charm on her necklace as she stared at me. Clearly overwhelmed by what was happening.

“You need to run,” I told her quickly. “Go in through the back of the house and take the hatch in the laundry room out—the others have already gone ahead.”

The girl smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Thanks for letting me know.”

I hadn’t heard the man come up behind me, but I sure as hell felt the butt of his rifle cracking against the back of my skull.

Lights burst in my vision, and I dissolved into agony, into darkness.

“—u! Owen—!”

That was…

My legs dragged against the damp ground, feeling like they were filled with sand.

“Zu!”

That was…The name…Owen was…The thought was there in my mind, just out of reach. It fluttered beneath the insistent tug of sleep, and each time the name was called out, only one color flashed in my mind.

Red.

My eyes snapped open, and the memory of the last few hours crashed into me, taking the air out of my lungs.

Haven. The girl. The man in the black. The rifle.

Captured.

My hands…I tried to lift them, to claw at the tight pressure I felt at the back of my neck. The man, his radio buzzing just above my head, hauled me over stone and root and thorny brush. Everything below my waist felt like it had been carved from stone, but my upper body was air, so insubstantial that I wasn’t sure I was even fully there.

The dirt suddenly softened beneath me, evening out. Blood rushed into my limbs along with that painful, hot sand sensation as feeling returned to them. The man had me by the scruff of my neck with one hand, twisting my shirt’s collar until it choked me.

“Owen! Owen, don’t!”

The fog wound up through the night, swirling the shades of midnight. I squeezed my eyes shut again, trying to clear the dizziness. When I forced them open once more, I couldn’t see the house.

But I could see a kid, no more than thirteen, as he stepped onto the trail, standing between us and the rest of Haven. With his skin and shirt, Owen was as white as a ghost. An easy target.

I kicked at the ground, trying to slow our progress. Ahead, a handful of other soldiers in black were struggling with their own bundles of squirming, writhing weight. The kids kicked and clawed, and the men laughed. They laughed at us.

Why is no one using their abilities?

I reached for that silver thread in my mind again, but there was nothing, nothing, nothing. I couldn’t feel my attacker’s electronics any more than I could his heartbeat.

They can’t, I realized. They must have all had that same block put on their minds as I did.

It could have been a sound that none of us could detect, or some unknown toxin mixed into the fog that closed off that part of our minds. It could have been a million things causing it, but the result was the same for all of us. For the first time in a decade, there was nothing inside me to call on. I had no power.

They’ve taken this from us, too, that rebellious voice whispered.

No. Even without our abilities, none of us were helpless. I shifted my weight sharply, hoping to startle the man into loosening his grip on me. Reaching back, I drew my broken nails against the hand gripping the back of my neck. But instead of finding skin, I scratched against thick, rough fabric.

He shifted his hand down, driving his fingers deeper into my neck. I twisted and strained, gasping to try to fill my lungs. Black exploded into my vision again. The pressure eased as my body went slack, but not enough to pull away.

“There’s another one.” The man’s voice was rough and deep with amusement, but I couldn’t tell who he was referencing, me or Owen.

Smoke curled in my nose, sharp and distinct. My gaze shot to the house, sure that the men had decided to torch it, to truly destroy every good thing.

Then fire raged at my back. Heat baked through my damp clothing in waves, stroking at my skin without burning it.

The man screamed, dropping me into the dark. As my vision cleared, I saw the flame at the center of his chest grow, then climb up over his head in a burning, golden wave.

The numbness hadn’t affected all of us. Owen—Owen still had his power.

It was all I needed to see. I rolled away, stomach heaving at the stench of roasting flesh. Soon, it wasn’t just one scream tearing through the air. I flipped over and pushed myself up onto my knees.

The men caught fire one by one, howling like the pack of wolves they were as it overcame them. I had the wild, fleeting thought that, from a distance, scattered in an arc on the trail, they looked like birthday candles.

The flames burned so bright, with such devastating intensity, the men only had mere seconds to scream before their lungs were singed.

As soon as the kids pulled themselves free, they ran for the house. It looked like all of them were unharmed beyond the roughing up the men had given them.

The kids gave a wide berth to the boy who still stood at the center of the trail, his gaze dispassionate as the figures that once had been men twisted into monstrous charred shapes on the ground. Wind carried the fire from their remains to the house, fanning them out over the siding and porch.

“Owen!” I called, jumping to my feet.

The boy turned his gaze on me.

This is why, that same dark voice whispered. Why it had been so easy to accept those controls Cruz and the others had put in place for us. Why that doubting part of me had been able to nod, to repeat their reasons for putting legal constraints on us. Why people would always be afraid, and why it had felt like we had to accept whatever small shred of freedom we’d been given.

No one should have power like this.

No one should be punished for using that power to protect themselves and others.

This was terrifying.

This was necessary.

My stomach rioted as I took another step closer to him. He’s a kid. He’s just a kid.

He had control. He didn’t need to be controlled.

“Owen,” I said, softer. “That’s enough….”

The rising flames from the house illuminated his face in a warm glow.

Then a flicker of awareness. Sudden fear, like that of a young child, pooled in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” I told him, holding out a hand. “You’re all right—”

Haven’s screen door slammed open and shut.

We both spun, but Owen was faster. Two men jumped down from the porch, guns drawn, and got no more than a step toward us before the first one went up in a horrifying whoosh of flame.

Blinded by fire and smoke, the first man ran, stumbling, back toward the house, collapsing onto one of the porch’s wooden posts.

I couldn’t move. My vision went dark at the edges, and I wasn’t seeing the soldier, I was seeing Mel. I was seeing the Defenders, the reporters, the bystanders torn apart by the explosion.

Stop it, stop it, stop it—I shook my head, feeling like I was about to vomit. Within seconds, the flames had snaked up in the dark wood and spilled across the porch. The second man shot Owen a terrified look, freezing in place.

The boy only stared back. His forehead wrinkled, first in obvious confusion, then in outright alarm. He clutched at his head, letting out a soft moan of pain.

No. It had him, too.

The girl stepped out from behind the trees again as if materializing from the night sky. Her hands were in her oversize jacket’s pockets, her gaze focused on Owen’s hunched form. Her lips twisted in a cruel mockery of a smile.

Her?

As quickly as she’d appeared, she was gone again, fading back into the fog and darkness. It couldn’t be a coincidence—the band of pressure tightened on my mind. Somehow, she was…the girl was doing this to us. But if Owen hadn’t been immediately affected, it meant she had to target each Psi individually for her numbing grip to work.

Seeing an opportunity, the second soldier on the porch raised his gun.

“No!” I dove forward, throwing my arms around Owen to try to shield his small body.

A shot rang out.

A heavy body slumped to the ground, all clattering equipment and rustling fabric. When I didn’t feel the bite of a bullet, I pulled back, hands flying over Owen, inspecting him, feeling for the wound, for blood.

“Okay,” he mumbled, the words shaking with the rest of him. “I’m okay.”

A cry sounded. One of the soldiers, a woman, charged at us from where she’d been combing the woods, her equipment rattling. She got no more than a few steps before her body suddenly lurched up into the air with the impact of a bullet, slamming into a nearby tree.

Owen and I turned just as Roman burst through the swirl of smoke and ash, taking aim at one of the soldiers fleeing with a kid on his back. His eyes narrowed as he adjusted his arms, then fired—piercing the soldier in that slice of exposed skin on his neck, between the girl’s torso and the man’s bulletproof vest.

“See? It’s not always the worst thing to arrive late to a party,” Priyanka called over to him, covered by a different tree. There was a slight edge to the words as she added, “Never underestimate the power of a dramatic surprise entrance. You okay, Zu?”

They didn’t run.

Snapping out of my shock, I dragged Owen behind the nearest tree, trying to cover him as much as I could with my body.

“Zu?” she called again.

“Okay!” I shouted back, my voice raw from the smoke and the staggering relief that arrived both unexpected and uncontained.

They’re trying to help.

They should have run—but somehow, they’d known something was coming, and they’d tried to warn us. They’d rushed into the fray to help all these kids.

The two teens who had been guarding them burst out of the trees, rushing past me. Each had a sobbing kid clinging to their back.

“Owen,” I said, leaning down to look him in the eye. His skin was feverish to the touch. “You need to go with them, all right?”

“I can help,” he said quietly.

The heavy smoke fell over us like a curtain. Even when I breathed through my mouth, I could taste it coating my tongue.

And Owen…He flinched at every gasp or soft cry as the kids who’d been guarding the hole crossed paths with the charred remains of the soldiers.

“You already did,” I promised. “The only way you can help now is to go with them to safety.”

One of the guards held out her hand to Owen, urging him forward. He pulled away from me, but instead of taking the girl’s hand, he raised his arms.

“What are you doing?” I asked him. “Owen!”

The flames narrowed and rose like mountains where they covered the house, invincible, gorging themselves on the pure air and wood frame. But then Owen smashed his hands together with a single loud clap, and, all at once, they were smothered.

With one last reluctant look at me, he ran after the others.

A second too late to warn them, I remembered the girl, how I’d told her where to go to find the Haven kids who had already evacuated.

Thanks for letting me know.

That had been before the fire. She, or one of the soldiers, would have had time to go after them. To hurt them.

I spotted Roman as he ducked behind a tree, taking a moment to reload his gun.

Stopping only long enough to pick up the pistol that had fallen from the female soldier’s hand, I soared toward him like an arrow. Bullets thundered through the air as I ran.

Roman spun toward me, a wild look of relief on his face as I slammed into the trunk, dropping down beside him. One hand reached out, cupping the back of my head to draw me closer. He had to shout to be heard over the gunfire. “Are you all right? Tell me they didn’t hurt you—”

No—no time for that—

“They know how to find the kids,” I gasped out. “They’re going to go after them!”

His body went rigid. “Like hell they are. Priya!”

Priyanka was all color and motion, backlit by the lingering patches of fire in the trees. She ran for us, dropping to slide on her hip and leg across the last few feet of mud. Wincing, she said, “Okay, don’t let me do that again. Looks awesome, feels terrible—”

Roman cut her off. “There’s some kind of crawl space or escape route out of the house.” He glanced at me, confirming. I nodded. “They found out where it is. Can you take care of it while we finish here?”

Her expression turned grave. “Yeah. Where is it?”

“Under the dryer in the laundry room,” I said. “There might still be a few kids trapped upstairs in the attic. Call out for Jacob when you get inside and let him know we’ve got everyone.”

She nodded, tossing her long hair back over her shoulder. “I’m going to remind you that heroes frequently die, but the morally mediocre people almost always live to see another day. Don’t do anything that’s going to piss me off.”

And with that, Priyanka bolted for the house, leaving us to cover her as one of the remaining soldiers opened fire from somewhere in the forest. The screen door snapped shut behind her, then fell completely off its frame. A section of the porch collapsed with a sigh of cracking wood, burying the bodies there.

I reached out, gripping Roman’s arm to reclaim his attention. “You should have run. What are you even doing here?”

Streaks of soot covered Roman’s face, and his dark hair had fallen into his eyes, but it was impossible to miss their startling shade of blue. It burned in the darkness, pulling me in a bit closer.

There was a quiet catch in his throat, as if he’d skipped a breath. Then his dark lashes lowered, and he allowed himself a ghost of a smile. “We would have come sooner, except that noise—you took care of it, didn’t you? The second I pulled myself back up off the ground, I thought, There’s going to be nothing left for us to do but watch as you sweep up the rest of them.”

I straightened at the words, only to realize there had been nothing mocking in them. His genuine tone and that slight, almost amazed curve of his lips made me brace a hand against the ground, unsteady.

“I’m the reason they’re here,” I whispered back as he turned back to the forest, adjusting his grip on the weapon. “This is my fault. That stupid phone—”

He reached over, gripping my shoulder. “It’s not your fault. If anything, it’s mine. I should have thought of it. I know better. I know how people like this work. You were the one who did everything right in this situation.”

“I should have known, too,” I said, shaking my head.

In the panic after the power went out, I hadn’t even thought to wonder how they’d anticipated the attack. But now that Roman was here, in front of me, as calm and steady as always, I reclaimed some small bit of center. Of clarity. “How did you and Priyanka know we’d plugged it in?”

He risked a glance at me. “We heard the helicopters in the distance. We’d been so careful on the drive not to be followed or seen, so it was the only explanation either of us could come up with.”

There was another faint scream in the distance—a girl’s. We both whirled toward it.

“What do you want to do?” Roman asked.

“Split up,” I said, starting to rise. “You go left, I go right, and we meet back up at the lake. Is that where the helicopters landed?”

He shook his head. “There wasn’t room to land. They dropped them. That gives us some time while they wait for transport.”

I nodded, breathing in the smoky air. My eyes held that image of him rising from the ground, so solid and unafraid.

“You should have left,” I said again. Thank you for not leaving.

“Come together,” he said, “leave together.”

Before I could respond, Roman’s expression shifted again. The searing look of determination became what could only be pain.

Not pain. Agony.

Roman’s breath exploded out of him as it hit. One hand shot out, feeling through the air for something to grip—something to use for balance. It landed on my outstretched arm, and I had to fight to keep him from collapsing back onto the ground.

He shook his head, sweat beading on his face with the force of the cry he was holding in.

“Roman!” I said.

This wasn’t like the migraine before; that had been as simple as something unplugging his consciousness. Now his body locked, jerking as if the pain had its hands on his throat and was slowly strangling him.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded, checking his pulse, gripping his face in my hands to keep him from pounding his skull against the rocks. “What’s happening? Roman!”

“Kids…get…kids…” he gasped out. “Go!”

I let him fall against me, sliding my hands beneath his shirt, feeling along the hard lines of his back and shoulders for a bullet wound or shrapnel or anything to explain why his gaze had gone so unfocused. His fingers tightened on my forearm, pressing hard enough to bruise. A warning.

“You know I don’t like having to do this.”

The girl. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. “You make this so hard. I don’t know how else to get through to you.”

I looked between her and Roman. His lips were moving, struggling to get the words out. She wasn’t just locking his mind, it looked like she was attacking it.

Roman cried out, his legs thrashing on the ground as she took another step forward.

“I’m trying to help you. I should kill you myself for what you did. I’m supposed to, you know. Kill you. Some days, I even think I might want to.” Her voice was low, seething. It was only then, with the clarity of the hate in those words, that I realized the gunfire had stopped. “I don’t know what happened to you, Roman, but you need help. It’s not too late. Come with me, and I’ll make sure you’re safe. I’ll protect you.”

I stood up, gun in hand. A cold fury gripped me, steadying my aim. “Whatever you’re doing to him—to all of us—stop.”

That dead-eyed smile was like a single fingernail running down my spine. “No.”

I licked the sweat off my top lip. My finger tightened on the trigger. “Then give me one reason not to kill you.”

“Because,” Roman said weakly from behind me. “She’s my sister.”