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Before I could reach for the abandoned firearm, the sound of another automatic weapon being loaded rang out. A helmeted goon hopped from the helicopter and circled to my right.

The older Lambert did nothing as he watched my hand retreat from its deadly objective. He wasn’t the type of man who’d shiver at the sight of a small girl holding a gun. Calvin and his entourage remained safe as long as his powerful underling hovered nearby to shield them.

“That’s not a good idea, my dear,” he said. “I’d advise you to leave it be. Let us talk like civilized people. For now.”

Brannon groaned. “Do what he says.”

He tried to apply pressure to his wound, but it wasn’t enough to stop the steady gush of blood soaking his pant leg and the floor.

I wished the bullet hit me instead. That would’ve given me the opportunity to evaluate the damage I’d take from a hail of gunfire if I launched an assault.

The evil gray-haired man triumphed. For the time being, we were at his mercy.

“Please,” said Brannon.

His green eyes pleaded with me to do what he asked. Just this once.

“I’ll be okay.” His look hardened as it moved from me to Calvin. “What do you want? Leave her alone.”

“To chat. With Miss Roads. As I said.”

“I have nothing to say to you!” I shouted.

Undeterred, he continued as jovially as though I’d complimented the clean lines of his tailored jacket.

“Then you may listen to what I have to say. You’re very important, Holly. May I call you that?” He didn’t wait for my reply. “It’s crucial that you know how much. If you could bear with me for a few moments, I will explain.”

The choices he left me with stalled my free will. I held my ground as he grinned and took a deep breath to begin.

Brannon told me before that he didn’t believe supervillains liked to give grand speeches. As soon as Calvin Lambert puffed his chest, I knew our enemy was cut from a different cloth.

His dark presence oozed like ink to blot out the bright sun as his one-man show commenced. “You see, I am the leader of a humble organization of likeminded individuals operating deep within the Department of Defense—hiding in plain sight amongst those we seek to dismantle. We call ourselves Titan, the same as those great beings who created the gods of Olympus to rule the heedless masses. And we want what’s best for humanity.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Brannon muttered, his face growing white.

“You should save your strength, agent,” said Calvin. “Your comments aren’t needed.”

“You’re in charge right now. We get it,” I said. “Just get to the point.”

Our adversary frowned when he realized his careful words went unappreciated.

I glanced back at Kyle—who listened with rapturous awe. His mouth hung open even wider than before.

His father let out an agitated huff.

“Very well. If you insist upon a quick and tasteless elucidation, then so be it. You’ll learn all you need to in due course. Suffice it to say that we are amassing an army across the globe. It is a monumental task, but one undertaken with love and the utmost care to ensure the longevity of the human race. Mortals with no special talents allotted by birth—or magnified by science—can no longer be allowed to govern themselves. They will continue on the path of destruction they’ve chosen, proliferating endless wars in a dance of deaths dealt in fear and retribution, until a mitigating body seizes power. Titan is that force for good. For years, we have endeavored to collect and enhance superhuman soldiers to help us realize our goal. We aim to restore peace on Earth.”

“To sum it up,” I said bitterly, “you want to take over the world.”

Calvin’s thin lips gave way to another sly smile. A bemused expression crawled across his wrinkled features, like a child trying to conceal the brilliant placement of a mean April Fool’s Day joke.

“I suppose you might see it that way,” he said. “Although that is putting it rather crassly.”

A new voice joined us when a strangled question sprang from Kyle’s dry throat.

“Dad, is this true? I always thought you just worked for the government!”

“Every word,” he reassured him, “and now that you’ve proven yourself worthy of being brought into the fold, I have no more need for deceit.”

His straightforward answer proved too brief and inexact to satisfy Kyle, who couldn’t make sense of it all.

“I don’t understand. Why not tell me earlier, instead of showing up like this? I expected you to come alone—you know—to help me explain what happened with Hugo and John. This is way too much to handle!”

“Slow down,” said Calvin in a stern attempt to calm his floundering son. “I can hardly take you seriously in those ridiculous pantaloons.”

Kyle’s eyes started watering. I didn’t feel sorry for him.

He betrayed us all, accident or not. The weight of the solemn promise I’d made him earlier tipped the scales away from my growing urge to lunge for and dismember him.

The way Brannon stared at Kyle—with his left hand inching toward his gun again—told me he felt the same call for blood.

The boy sniffled. “All I wanted was someone on my side. Someone with the authority to convince the others not to kill me or kick me out of N.E.R.D., even though I messed up. That’s why I asked you to be here.”

I leaned down and squeezed Brannon’s shoulder hard enough to make him reconsider acting on the impulse mentioned.

“You really didn’t know anything?” I asked, prepared to confront him with a few questions of my own. “About any of this?”

Kyle shook his head. He swallowed a cough to shed the confession he’d harbored in his bony chest for nearly four days. Calvin nodded at Katarina. Her sharp nudge made him continue.

“It’s like I told you. I only ran the experiment because I wanted to make Dad proud of me. For once in my whole life! And to show Doctor Baba our serum really works.”

A string of muffled curses from the helicopter crumpled his face as he looked away from his mentor.

“I’ll admit it, okay? I shot too high, but I really thought I was ready. I’d been testing on rats and things for months before I found two jocks on a forum about weightlifting. I asked them to volunteer. I didn’t make anyone do anything.”

I remembered what Hugo said. “You offered to make them stronger. That was irresistible.”

“No one was supposed to get hurt. You’ve got to believe me. I told them all the risks involved. They even signed a waiver. But when Wednesday rolled around and I went to meet them at UC Berkeley—I was so nervous. I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I strapped them in for the transfusion and left, just for a minute, thinking I’d have time to go to the deli before they woke up. All I wanted was a sandwich. It should have been fine!”

“But it wasn’t,” I said. “They escaped. I know that part.”

Although we were no longer touching, I sensed Brannon had shifted. To make sure his condition hadn’t worsened, I listened for changes in the rise and fall of his shaky breaths.

Kyle kept babbling. “I saw you fighting with them on my way home. When you stabbed John and he popped, I panicked. I wasn’t sure if you’d finish Hugo off. Maybe he’d rage out and get you. Not that I wanted that to happen. That would’ve been terrible. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had to cover my tracks. To make sure none of it got back to me.”

I exploded. “You selfish little prick!”

“I’m sorry!” said Kyle.

His apology meant nothing.

“I really, really am. I didn’t know what to do! I just took off and ran back to the lab. I figured if I made it look like a break-in—like someone else took our stuff—then no one could blame me. If Hugo didn’t blow up before stabilization set in, then I could call Dad and he could send a team to find him. That’s what I thought. I was too afraid to tell Doctor Baba what happened. And I figured he’d shoot me if I did!”

He pointed at Brannon as Doctor Laura shouted more unsavory things at him from behind her gag.

“I had to make it look like I got hurt,” he said after another dismal glance at her. “To make my story more believable. It all made sense at the time, but then I hit my head way too hard and I got stuck in the lab. That’s when everything spiraled out of control. There was no way for me to ask for help. I was being watched. I couldn’t get a message out until last night.”

I hung onto my will not to murder again by the thinnest thread.

“What about me?” I asked. “When it comes to tying up loose ends, it sure seems like you forgot a pretty big one.”

Kyle paused until I forced the issue.

“Just tell me!”

He glanced at his guardian and considered retreating behind her before he spoke. Her lithe, narrow form offered all the cover of a sapling.

He shook his head. “It was impossible. I never dreamed you’d be infected, too. I still don’t know how it worked. Maybe it’s destiny. Fate. Magic. Or maybe you just got lucky. Whatever happened, I wasn’t expecting you to show back up at the lab. I didn’t really think about you. Not until then. If you went to the police about what you saw—if you made it past Hugo—I knew they wouldn’t pay attention. You know, because of the way you dress. That was my only consideration. If he didn’t kill you. Which was more likely, and probably the cleanest outcome. At least for me.”

He didn’t say it like he wanted me dead, but his callous remark set off the ticking time bomb of Brannon’s temper. Up until that point, he’d listen with silent purpose, using stealth to disarm those around us while he shuffled to retrieve his lost gun. He grabbed it with a furious cry and twirled, woozy, to take his shot.

Kyle’s bodyguard manifested another shiny blockade. Her lightning fast reflexes beat Brannon’s poorly telegraphed attempt at retribution.

The rebound of his third bullet missed him, but it stung as it grazed the top of my left shoulder.

“See what I mean?” Kyle cried, his suspicions confirmed. “I told you so!”

Rather than stay by her charge’s side, Katarina advanced. The boom of Brannon’s gun echoed through the warped atmosphere of the rooftop as her mask alighted. She slung the wall of sound forward and delivered a blow that stunned him. This gave her the opportunity to rip the firearm from his trembling hand as he caught his breath.

“No more.”

Her speaking voice wasn’t human. The sound of its unsettling pitch—like sheet metal torn from the side of a barn during a tornado—made the soldier aiming his riffle at me flinch.

His misstep came at the best possible moment.

Before she pulled the trigger, I rushed forward without a second thought. I shoved Brannon out of the way. The bullet meant for him tore through the shredded panels of my jumperskirt and petticoat. My indestructible hip bone stopped it as I spun around to clock her.

Vengeful demons possessed my fists as they flew by themselves, pushing her away from the man beneath us. I didn’t want to trample him as we fought. She threw up sonic barriers as I punched with all my might. They buckled beneath my blows until one made contact and glanced off the side of her sinister prosthetic.

Industrial grade plastic and titanium shattered. The flesh I exposed—hidden eternally from the bright light of day—appeared withered and rotten. Once struck, she unloaded the remaining rounds inside her weapon into my chest.

The fresh holes in my bodice and flesh didn’t stop me.

Blood burst out and hung in the air, glowing like neon pieces of sky on the periphery of my vision before it splattered the floor.

She shrieked with uncontained volume—unleashing a sound even more terrible than the first words she’d uttered. The ground beneath us quivered again and knocked me to my knees.

I wanted to rip her apart, but Katarina redirected her last attack to hold me in place like a contortionist stuffed in a box. I tried to free myself as she doubled in half, heaving. Her strained breaths came in spurts like the cruel gasps of an iron lung.

A familiar grunt of intense pain pulled me away from her. I struggled to turn so I could see Brannon moan in agony as Calvin ground the sole of one shiny loafer into his bullet wound.

“Girls, that’s enough,” he called. “It’s splendid to see, Holly, how well your new body functions. You’ve surpassed my wildest dreams, but I’m afraid all this unnecessary gunplay is drawing too much attention to our cause. Come. It’s time to leave.”

I grappled with my invisible restraints. “What are you talking about? I’ll never go with you, you evil bastard.”

Calvin motioned for his armed employee to join him and sighed as though I’d given him the answer he expected. A spark of glee twinkled behind the frown he wore for show.

“Believe me when I say I didn’t want to behave so crudely, but now I suppose I must. I could threaten you, of course, but that won’t get us anywhere. No, it’s become quite clear that you value Agent Brannon’s life far more than your own. Which is why you will come with me. Willingly, I might add. Without a fight.”

He turned to the man with the biggest gun between us to punctuate his implications.

A wolfish grin spread across his face. “If you don’t, I won’t hesitate to dispose of him. Miss—”

“Holly, don’t do it!” Brannon shouted. “You can’t. You’re more important than me. Just run and don’t look—”

Another scream tore from him when Calvin stomped down on his broken hand.

“Holly!”

“I suppose we have a deal?” asked Titan’s vicious leader.

Brannon begged me again to say no with a sorrowful gaze glazed with frustration and anger. But his tearful request—meant to appeal to my most basic instinct for self-preservation—went unheeded. My bloody baptism on Wednesday night changed me into something more than selfish. I wasn’t the same.

I wasn’t human.

Not anymore.

Katarina yanked me back to my feet and led me to the helicopter, away from Brannon and the choice he couldn’t fathom. The one that made him thrash and cry out in protest.

Calvin swept toward us with a satisfied grin as I slid in next to Doctor Laura. With no more tears left to cry, she scooted close to grab my hand. When she squeezed it, I finally recognized the inexplicable emotion that prevented me from acting in my own best interest.

I’d only known my new friends—my new family—for three days, but those hours knit us together in a tapestry the universe itself couldn’t unravel. I loved them.

Hard and deep.

Plain and simple.

The whir of propellers blew my beret off Kyle’s head as he climbed into the last row of seats, his father pointing the way. He didn’t look me—or Doctor Laura—in the eyes.

Katarina, breathing with all the dulcet grace of a diesel engine, delivered me a malicious glance when she entered. Calvin slithered into the front next to the pilot—a boulder of a man dressed like the rest of his fearsome thugs.

A cold collar clicked into place around my neck. Someone behind me said the device would detonate if I attempted to remove it, or tried to injure my captors.

The lackey who kept the aim of his merciless weapon locked on his target returned last. He snaked his arm around a bar and leaned out the open door.

I unshouldered Usakumya’s straps and held him as we watched Brannon crawl after us along the cracked cement. Even my fear of heights couldn’t keep me from looking down. We lifted higher and higher into the air.

First five feet, ten, and then twenty.

Did they have Hugo in custody, too? Did they even want him with me on the hook? I didn’t know what Titan planned to do with us in their push for world domination. The possibilities were too awful to focus on.

To sooth myself, I reached down to the bottom of the upended Pandora’s box in my mind—the same one that’d unleashed a hoard of wretched emotions—to pull out a glimmer of hope.

What’d happened to Nuñez?

My question got its answer when the last N.E.R.D. standing burst through the stairwell door with his laptop bag hanging from his shoulder. His pocket knife, an extension of his tight fist, glinted in the sun.

The sight of him—covered from head to toe in bright red blood as I’d once been in blue—rendered me inconsolable.

Until I looked harder and realized that none of it was his.

He moved with frightening agility to his best friend’s side and righted him. Brannon’s eyes locked on mine as he used what little strength he kept in reserve to shout into the sky.

“Holly, don’t panic. I’m coming for you!”

A silent exchange occurred between them before Nuñez pointed his gun at the helicopter. Brannon leaned against him for support, unable to do much else, as he fired at the craft whisking us away.

As if guided by the unseen hands of some supreme being, the bullet sailed through the air and smacked straight into the connecting joint of a spinning blade. When we lurched, I found myself rejoicing. I remembered my interaction in Old Red with the friends trying to help me.

If we crashed, I’d survive.

With a little luck, I’d pull Doctor Laura from the fiery wreckage. In my fantasy, we’d run far from Titan’s clutches and regroup with the two men on the roof to mount an offensive against the forces of evil.

This wish, however, got ripped from me with my fuzzy companion when the last vestige of my old life ejected from the airborne vehicle as it tilted up and flew way.

“Bye-bye, Holly,” said Usakumya in a singsong voice, falling to Earth in slow motion. “Good luck.”

For the first time, I saw his lips move. I was hallucinating from stress. He waved to me as I did the same—though I wasn’t ready or willing to say farewell.

Goodbye, Chi Ho. Goodbye, brand. Goodbye, Brannon, and what maybe could have been.

As the sickening refrain repeated itself in my head like a haunted chorus, I knew my future would be anything but kawaii.