We’ve made it to downtown where, from what I gather, the bulk of the mayhem is concentrated. As we head south, the entire length of Westlake Avenue looks deserted: an odd sight. We pass The Westin hotel with its two cylindrical towers and cross under the inert-looking monorail. Signs for parking, rental car places, pharmacies, and other businesses shine in all their rainbow neon glory. In the quiet, I can almost hear their electric hum. Aydan’s hands grip the wheel in a way that would make any Driver’s Ed teacher proud. He’s leaning forward, staring fixedly at the road, the way old people do.
“What next?” he asks.
I look away from him, stare back at the laptop. It’s mounted on a swivel on the center console. He said it’s detachable, that he rigged it a while back as a custom navigation system.
“There’s no activity on this road as far as the traffic cameras are concerned,” I say.
My hands are sweating. I wipe them on my pants. “I have a bad feeling.”
“Shut up,” he says—not meanly, though, but in a you-read-my-mind kind of way which makes me even more worried. Maybe James is right and these bad feelings are truly premonitions.
We pass a few intersections, ignoring their traffic lights. They continue to function, shining red-yellow-green against the night sky, as if nothing has happened and the hustle and bustle of the city is the same as it was yesterday. I imagine ghost cars waiting for pedestrians to cross, then speeding up when it’s their turn to go. In my mind, I picture Seattle vibrant and active, and try to ignore the terrifying idea that the city I love is lost forever.
A west-bound breeze blows with enough force to make the stoplights sway and creak on their wires. Aydan drives, ignoring all rules as if they never existed, but the tension in his shoulders gives him away. They tighten every time he runs a red light. This sudden lawlessness unnerves him as much as it unnerves me.
“Crap!” he exclaims, startled.
My heart jumps. I look up and follow his gaze. A tall man in a long, black coat is walking up to the edge of the sidewalk a few yards ahead.
“He just came out of there.” Aydan points at a three-story, brick building with a copper-plated awning over its large glass door.
The man is alone. No other sign of life around him. As we drive past him, my head buzzes. Aydan looks straight ahead, but I make eye contact. The man stares at me, unsmiling, then taps the side of his nose with a forefinger. He watches us as we move away. I crane my neck and stare backward until I lose sight of him.
I face the front with a sigh of relief. Aydan and I exchange a look.
“Assholes,” he says.
“We should turn coming up. Let me double check.” With a few clicks on the touchpad, I open the feed for the nearest cameras. Grainy black and white images show me our route. “Three streets ahead take a left. It still looks clear, as far as I can tell.”
We’re still a few miles from IgNiTe’s headquarters, and every single one feels like a thousand.
Aydan taps his turning signal, then snorts. “A turning signal, ha! ’Bout as useful as a two-digit password.”
He smiles a crooked grin I’ve never seen before. His lower lip trembles, revealing his nerves. What a geeky comment. Still, I smile, because he’s right. Short passwords are absolutely useless.
Aydan turns the corner, craning his neck even more. My eyes do a quick sweep of the street. It’s empty. I exhale with relief. Tapping on the keyboard, I see what other cameras are available.
“A few more minutes and we’ll be there,” I say. “I really—”
The car comes to a sudden stop with a screech of breaks.
I jerk forward and have to brace a hand against the dashboard. “What the hell?!”
I blink, wishing I didn’t have to see what made Aydan stop, but what choice do I have? I look up. Three shapes stand in the middle of the road, about forty yards away. They all wear long coats and stand legs apart, like gunslingers in a ghost town.
Cursing, Aydan whips his head back and puts the car in reverse. Before he has time to press on the gas, though, a large, red truck rounds the corner and blocks our way.
“Shit!” Aydan shifts gears again. “There’s a gun in the glove compartment, but maybe we won’t need it. Maybe they’ll let us pass if we tell them we’re in the Whitehouse faction.”
“Don’t count on it,” I say. “Run them over.”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me.”
“I think—”
But before he finishes the sentence, there’s a loud crack and the driver side window explodes into a million pieces. A pair of thick hands wrap around his neck and yank him out of the car as if he were made out of virtual bits.
“NO!” I try to grab one of his legs, but he’s gone too fast. I stare for an instant, open-mouthed and unsure of what to do, then my reflexes kick into gear and I’m moving, hands opening the glove box and gripping the weapon.
I throw the door open and jump outside. Holding the gun above the car’s roof, I aim it at Aydan’s attacker, the Jetta between us.
“Let go of him, you asshole!” I order, my voice firm, like I mean it when, in truth, I’m shaking inside. “What the hell’s the matter with you? We’re on the same team,” I bluff. They stare at me with mocking expressions, don’t even bother to pull any weapons out.
Condescending bastards. I only hope I have the chance to teach them a little respect.
Aydan struggles, clawing at the massive arm around his neck.
“Are we?” the guy asks in a deep voice that seems to rumble like the engine in an old car.
Two more guys join him, then a third one—the same one we saw a few blocks away and seems to have been driving the truck that blocked our way. All four of them are in their early thirties and look perfectly normal—no claws, no fangs, no scaly skin—just normal as far as steroid-ridden, meatheads is concerned. They defer to the one choking Aydan; he’s their leader, I suppose.
“If we’re on the same team, why didn’t you lovely kids get the memo then?” He tightens his grip around Aydan’s neck and sniffs his hair, nostrils opening wide at the inhale.
I curse inwardly, wishing I knew what he was talking about, but the best I can do is keep on bluffing. “Who gives a crap about memos?” I sneer, focusing my aim, wondering if I could hit the guy without hurting Aydan.
“You should,” he says. “Who are you with?”
“Wait, I think I know her,” one of the other meatheads says.
My eyes flick in his direction. Have I ever seen him before? Mind racing, I try to process the possibility. His leathery face does look familiar, but I can’t place him.
“Yeah!” he exclaims, then leans into the guy holding Aydan and whispers something in his ear.
The leader’s eyes go wide. “Is that right?”
A knowing expression registers on Aydan’s face. He’s heard whatever the man said. “Marci run!” he screams and renews his struggle to get free. “Run,” he growls when he realizes I’m not going anywhere.
What does he think? That I’m going to abandon him—not when there are four perfectly killable Eklyptors in front me—one of which I’m growing more and more certain I’ve seen somewhere, if I could only remember …
“We should bring them in, then.” The leader licks his lips as if he just found a captain’s booty. A satisfied smile twists his big mouth for an instant, then it’s gone.
“Stanton, Jack. Get her!” he orders.
Stanton, the meathead who recognized me, and one of the others move forward on bent legs, ready to pounce. I take a step back, aim the gun from one to the other. I open my mouth to threaten them again, but what is the point?
So instead, I brace myself and pull the trigger. The shot echoes down the empty street. The recoil hits me like a mule and I lose my focus for a moment. Disoriented, I blink and look for my next target, except my first one’s still upright, wincing a bit, but certainly not out of commission as he should be.
“That wasn’t nice,” Stanton says.
A hole in his trench coat marks the spot where my bullet hit him. Wrinkling his bulbous nose, he presses a huge hand to his shoulder and rubs. Something about the deep grooves on his face triggers my memory, and I remember where I’ve seen him before. It was at Elliot Whitehouse’s party, in that room while Xave knelt on the floor, facing scrutiny after I freaked and gave us away.
The burning hatred in my gut flares, igniting every fiber, every atom in my body. I prepare to shoot again, but, this time, Stanton and Jack charge, the former running in front of the Jetta, the latter behind it. They move fast. I aim right, shoot. Stanton ducks just in time. The bullet misses. The guy to my left rounds the back of the car. I move backward trying to get a better angle. I shoot again—this time in the other direction. The bullet strikes Jack’s thigh. It barely slows him down, even as he limps. I shoot two more times, hit him once, but he’s still coming, head down, charging, growling like a beast.
Under the pressure and panic something clicks inside of me, sending my instincts into warp speed. Suddenly, I’m part of Aydan’s car. A door with metal parts and a latch. I fling myself open. Jack’s face disfigures in surprise, eyebrows up, mouth a shocked “O”. He’s going too fast to stop and slams against the door. He hits the ground with a heavy thud. He’s a felled tree, a massive waste of space.
I whirl to shoot at Stanton, gun tracing a semicircle around me, but it’s too late. He’s on me, grabs my wrist and twists it. In a blur, he sidesteps, gets behind me and pushes me stomach first onto the hood of the Jetta. I scream as he bends my wrist to the breaking point. My fingers go numb. The gun drops to the ground. The world undulates before my eyes.
“You little bitch,” Stanton says, a hand on the back of my neck, bending me over, forcing my face down until it hits the still-warm hood.
“Let her go, you bastard,” Aydan yells.
I strain to look in his direction. He kicks and squirms from side to side, teeth bare, hands trying to yank the arm that has him in a headlock. His face looks red, disfigured with the worst kind of anger and impotence I’ve ever seen. A vein pops up on his temple as his captor applies more pressure to the headlock, determined to strangle him.
I want to tell him to stop, to give up, or he’ll end up dead, but going down without a fight isn’t an option. Not really. So I writhe, kick harder and try to harness my pain to jump-start my skill, but my head’s swimming. The pressure around my neck is cutting blood flow to my brain and I can hardly breathe.
“Stop or I’ll truly bash your head in.” Stanton leans his weight into me, increasing the pressure on my neck, compressing my cheekbone into the hood until it dents inwardly. Pain radiates through my skull, then it stops as he lifts me and whispers in my ear. “No use in fighting. You’re coming with me. Whitehouse will be pleased.” And with that, he slams my head against the car so hard that white sparks flash in front of my eyes, practically blinding me.
My body wilts, knees folding in on themselves. Eyes rolling toward the back of my head, I fight to stay awake. Stanton catches me, then my feet leave the floor and I’m tossed over his shoulder. The world rolls over. Up is down. My head swings. My arms dangle.
“MARCI, MARCI!” a hysterical voice screaming my name.
I blink at the blur the world has become. There are flashes, patches of darkness, wavering surfaces. I blink again, reaching for the slippery thread of my consciousness. I grab hold of it, take a deep breath to secure my grip. Aydan’s still struggling, lost in a mad rage that will be his undoing.
“I’ll bring her in,” Stanton announces.
“NO.” Aydan cries out, then reaches backward, slapping his hands over his attacker’s ears. “NO,” he yells again.
Suddenly, sparks fly out of his mouth, and I think I’m losing it, slipping out of awareness and into dreams. A blue-white flash flickers on his chest, then explodes outward, crackling down his legs and up his arms. An electric hum fills the air. Stanton swears, fear riding his voice. A pang of nausea rocks my stomach. My head pounds and I can’t understand what is happening.
Then there’s a blinding flash, and I think it’s coming from Aydan’s hands, but it can’t be. His attacker’s head lights up like an electric bulb. The man’s hair stands on end. He jerks and jerks, the whites of his eyes flashing in a Christmas tree display.
Aydan’s hands glow brighter and brighter. Veins of energy run from his chest up his arms and into his fingers, white rivers flowing against gravity, driving into the Eklyptor’s head an unrelenting electroshock.
My head pounds. I vomit and my sick runs down Stanton’s pants. The thread of my consciousness slips from my grasp. The world bounces up and down as I move away from Aydan. He’s fighting the other Eklyptors, shooting electricity in all directions, screaming my name. I reach a hand out, but he’s getting smaller. And he glows and glows and it’s beautiful. Light everywhere, running over the blacktop, surging, oscillating, sizzling through the air.
The world rolls over again. Up is up as it should be. I’m thrown to the ground like a disposable thing. No, not the ground. It’s too soft to be the ground. My eyes roll from side to side, fighting the heaviness, the sickness. Something slams shut. A door? I’m … I’m in a car.
“Aydan,” I croak.
My head swims and my eyes blur like I’m in a pool, sinking, drowning, going under … under … under …