The cool night air rushed past my skin. My dress fluttered against the pressure of my fall. Another gun shot rang out into the quiet night air. But it wasn’t quiet at all. Horns were honking. People on the street were yelling. Were these going to be my last thoughts? I frantically looked around for a solution to my fall, thinking of my parents, of James, of Cole. God, Cole was going to be so pissed at me. If I would have let him come up to the room with me…
A pop sounded right in front of my face. I thought for sure the crack would come from my back snapping against the concrete.
“Julia, this worked once. Ready to try again?”
Blood was dripping from the corners of Harrison’s mouth, and his white shirt collar stood out in comparison to the stark crimson staining his shirt.
“Harrison?”
I was being squeezed through a sponge. My body was liquid and everything around me swirled in varying colors of lights and sounds. My lungs didn’t allow for me to drink up any oxygen. I was moving too fast to take any breaths. Harrison was saying something. Asking something. I was supposed to respond but I didn’t have the energy
“Julia.” Cole yelled in a voice that I hadn’t heard, for it echoed only fear.
“Harrison, what happened?” Cole asked.
It was like I was floating above my body, experiencing the scene from the perspective of the crystal chandelier in the ballroom. The ballroom? How had I gotten to the ballroom?
“Holy hell.” I sat straight up, and the room spun two-hundred and seventy-two million times its normal pace by my rough estimate. “Harrison?”
I crawled in the direction of his body. His ears had blood leaking out of the sides. Cole was holding his hand against a wound to Harrison’s stomach.
Harrison scanned me with his eyes. I couldn’t believe he was even conscious; he had to have lost too much blood. Hank rushed into the room. He kneeled by Harrison’s head and gently stroked his hair, like this was his own child. Energy cracked throughout the room. Natalia zipped in next to me and started checking me over.
“I’m fine.” I swatted her hands off of me.
Harrison’s form started to flicker, one resounding pop noisy in the silent ballroom. The only trace left of Harrison was the blood on the tile floor. My face was wet. Sloppy, ugly tears streamed off my false lashes.
“Oh, god.” I wiped my hand across my face, only to have it come back with a mix of blood and black-smudged makeup.
“You’re bleeding,” Cole said quietly.
I shook my head slowly. “No. This is Harrison’s blood.”
The words felt heavy coming out of my mouth, like cotton balls had been stuffed into my cheeks. My tongue was weighed down and had magically grown to press against the roof of my mouth.
“Love you,” I tried to say to Cole. The bright lights of the ballroom faded into a glorious blackness.
Heavy breathing and a warm, strong chest hugged me tightly. “Can’t breathe,” I whispered out.
“Baby. Julia!” Cole leaned back with tears running down his cheeks.
“Shh. I’m here. I think I just short-circuited or something.” I laughed, trying to make Cole worry less. I realized we were moving and glanced up to see the sconces in the hall and Hank holding open the door to their suite. Some sort of form was zipping around the room making a neat pile of clothes into luggage. Damn, that girl was fast.
“Julia, are you well enough to travel?” Hank asked from somewhere in my near vicinity. I started wiggling myself out of Cole’s arms and he sighed but gently placed me on my feet, while still keeping an arm around me.
“I’m okay. I think my brain was in overload mode. Where’s Harrison? Did he…? Have you found him?” I asked awkwardly, not knowing how to phrase the question in the appropriate way. I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. A rush of calm tranquility pulsed over my senses, allowing me to have clarity for the first time since leaving New York. I turned to Cole and placed my hand on his cheek. He leaned into it and then turned to kiss my palm.
“I will always take care of you,” he whispered in my hair.
“You two might want to change. Preferably into something dark, and Julia, you need to tuck your hair away. We are going to have to dye it on our way to Africa,” Hank said as he popped the buttons open on his dress shirt. Natalia was zipping around the room but paused for one point three seconds to hand me a small backpack. Cole was holding an identical one.
“The assassin. We’ve been made,” I stumbled out.
“We know, dear. That’s why we’re going. You can change in the bathroom.” Hank motioned toward the massive bedroom of the suite. Cole followed behind me. How easily I forgot that Hank could read my every thought.
“Cole, stay behind a moment, please.” Hank’s voice was calm and clear and thick like the ice of a frozen lake in a Russian winter.
I shuffled to the bathroom, still trying to gather my bearings, then turned back to the Thomas men.
“You never told me if Harrison was okay,” I said quietly, in a voice so unlike my own that I didn’t recognize it.
Hank met my eyes. Pain and grief laced through his expression, and he slowly shook his head.
“I don’t know. We don’t have any information on him yet. We don’t know where he transported to.”
Hank said the words slowly, addressing me like a child. I turned over my shoulder and walked mindlessly to the bathroom, closing the door and locking it. Hank didn’t say if I had time for a shower, but after a quick glance in the mirror, I knew I had to get one in.
I managed a scalding hot shower in under three minutes. My skin was red and raw from scrubbing off Harrison’s blood.
“Julia, time to go,” Hank yelled from the other room.
I twisted my wet hair into a knot at the base of my head and pulled a black beanie down over my ears, then put in colored contacts and a pair of square-framed glasses without a prescription. I left my tarnished sequin dress on the floor, wishing it could have seen a happier ending.
Quade was standing next to Cole and Hank. Both Thomas men were looking at him with serious intent. He had his eyes closed and was flipping his fingers in various directions, sometimes like he was turning a tuning knob.
“What’s—?” I got shushed before the rest of my sentence even got out. I held my hands up and walked to stand with the group staring at Quade, who could also have been doing some form of interpretive dance.
“Nothing. I’m not getting any signals from the compound,” Quade finally said.
Hank’s shoulders dropped. Worry lines etched into his forehead. He was making a decision, one he didn’t like.
“We’re going to have to wait until we are finished here to find Harrison. It’s our only option. We can’t risk the world for one. Harrison wouldn’t want that.”
Quade nodded and swallowed audibly.
“All right, then. Let’s load up,” Hank said with a clap of his hands.
Hank said that like it would be easy. Like we could just zip out of here past whoever had just tried to kill me.
“Hank.” I took a deep breath. “Is it crazy to think that the people who tried to kill me tonight are the same people that caused the car accident in New York?”
He glanced toward Cole and Quade nodded once. “We have reason to believe that they are from the same group, yes.”
I lifted my head and met Hank’s eyes. “What aren’t you telling me? Why are they trying to kill me?”
He looked at the ground and shifted from his left foot to his right foot. He brought his hands together and gripped them tightly in a clasp, parts of his hands turning white from his grip.
“Your ability,” Cole said quietly.
“What about my ability?”
“You know how we can accelerate abilities to make them more?” Hank asked with a wave of his hand.
I nodded back at him, signaling him to go on.
“Well, when we ran your blood panel, we found out what would happen if we accelerated your ability,” Hank said as he finally released his hands so they returned to their rightful fleshy color.
“What am I?” I asked, staring holes into Hank.
“It's not so much what you are, but what you can do. I first thought to test you for it after you and Harrison transported together in the Bahamas.”
I could tell his mind was wandering. I snapped my fingers in front of his face.
“Right, Julia, you can not only calculate situations but in addition, when necessary, you can absorb or borrow abilities to also serve in your benefit.”
I backed myself up until the backs of my legs hit a chair and I slammed down, putting my head in my hands. If I wasn't already freakish enough to be a government agent before I was legally an adult, I was also a human situation calculator. Add to that the fact that when I magnified to my fullest potential, I could do whatever the hell I needed to, so long as I was the beneficiary of the outcome.
I saw Hank’s shoes through my fingers.
“That’s an accurate assessment,” he said.
Stupid asshat mind readers, I yelled in my head.
“Although you aren't a freak. You’re beyond powerful. I’ve never in my experience met a Transcendent who manifested abilities at both a Level One and Level Two. I guess you might need your own category, possibly a Level Three.”
“Great, because I love needing my own category, not fitting into any normal boxes. No cheerleading uniform or homecoming queen for me. Nope. I get to be a Level Five certified Transcendent freak of nature. Wohoo,” I replied sardonically.
“I said three, Julia, not five.”
I stuck out my tongue at him.
Cole's shoes appeared next to his dad's. His fingers drifted along my shoulder and tickled along my neck. “Homecoming queens are boring and predictable. You’re smart, funny, and special. I’d take you over the cheerleader any day.”
I peeked up from my hands and quirked my lips to the side. He held his hand out to me. We linked fingers and he pulled me up.
“Put on your big girl boots, Caldwell. You're due for some ability-enhancing shots, and we have to cancel the launch codes in the next twenty-four hours. Just another day for a Level Three freak,” he said through the boy-next-door smile that I adored.
“I hate shots,” I grumbled out. “But if the shots are for the greater good of all humanity, I guess I will just have to suck it up.”
“That's the spirit,” Hank said halfheartedly.
“We have a window. Hank, you and I need to go now through the main lobby with Cole. Natalia, you wait two minutes, then you get yourself and Julia down the housekeeping stairs. Yes?”
Quade rattled off instructions quickly. Everyone nodded toward him in unison. Cole swooped down and kissed me slow and soft, until Hank cleared his throat.
“Now, Cole,” Hank said.
Cole pursed his lips and winked at me.
“See you soon, baby,” he said while picking up a leather duffle.
“Soon,” I said.