The plane evens out as the emergency lights come on, casting the compartment in a ghoulish green glow. Jude looks at me, and I scramble to my feet, ignoring the twinges of pain.
“I don’t know. What’s happening?”
“We boarded the plane and left Reaper and the other long-term Assets to take care of the Siphons. Everything was under control.” Jude heads to the door.
I pull the rest of the tape and gauze away from my face and hands so I can follow him. There are still visible marks where the glass sliced me up, but they’ll be invisible sooner than later, thanks to the GRH-18. Which I’m now glad we decided to keep taking.
Jude’s got the door cracked and is peering into the hallway. I come up behind him as another loud boom drives a shudder through the aircraft. The floor vibrates under the soles of my feet and my fingers curl on instinct, wrinkling Jude’s shirt. “What is that?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go find the others.”
The hallway is short—the plane is quite a few steps above a commercial jet, I’d guess, but it’s still a plane—and we make it to the main cabin in a dozen steps. The others are there, standing with their faces pressed against the windows. They clutch the slick walls in fruitless efforts to keep their footing as another blast rocks the plane. This time, with the windows in my line of sight, the accompanying fireball burns the backs of my eyes.
“What’s happening? Who’s out there?” My question is breathless, as though the burst of flame sucked all the oxygen out of me, too.
Mole turns my direction, shuffling over as fast as he can on unsteady legs, and wraps his hands around my forearms. “The Siphons.”
“What? How?”
“We don’t know. They must be borrowing a flying ability from someone.”
Jude goes white. “The third Older, the one who was with Becca and Tate, he can fly.”
“Pan?” Pollyanna’s eyes go wide. “He didn’t tell us.”
“The Assets must not have been able to hold the ground,” Goose mutters. I can tell he’s wishing that his nickname was given for more than just speed and that he could fly like a goose, too.
The fireball comes again, thrown with more force this time, and more alarms begin a deafening shriek. The plane’s nose dips toward the ground and my knees hit the carpet. “Where’s Dane?”
“With the pilots,” Haint answers, her voice raw, like terror wraps rough hands around her throat. “Oh sweet Jesus, we’re going to die.”
I want to reassure them, but Madeline’s warning that the future can change stuffs my mouth with cotton.
Dane bursts out of the cockpit, and even though he’s got on the same calm, trust me face he wears most of the time, there’s bad news. I can see it in the way he swallows and how he won’t meet my eyes. “The pilots are helpless. You guys need to do something.”
“What?” Athena demands. “What can we do trapped inside this giant speeding bullet?”
“This plane is going down. Both engines are on fire and they can’t put it out.”
The words tickle, dig their way past my clothes and rub against my skin, spinning faster until the friction sounds like shouting. Ringing in my head louder than the alarms.
We’re still flying over dry land and the plane is going to crash. With us on it.
“Parachutes?” Jude asks, looking as stricken as I feel.
Dane shakes his head. “Not enough for everyone. Five, I think.”
Another boom and another flash of light interrupt the brainstorming, and the sound of our collective ragged breath is almost louder than the racket the Siphons are churning up outside. Once they’re sure the plane is going to crash, will they leave us alone? At least then we can focus on surviving without having to worry about evading them on the way down.
“Inventory. Can any of you come up with a single way to use your mutation to get us safely off this plane?”
I shake my head, but everyone already knows my answer. Athena’s hearing isn’t going to do any good, either.
The plane shudders, the grinding of gears setting my teeth on edge. It nudges into a sharper decline as I feel the pilots trying to slow it down. We all grab on to seat backs to keep from tumbling around the cabin.
Goose can probably get himself out. Mole’s fire…nothing comes to mind. Pollyanna’s worthless in this situation. Haint, too. Being invisible isn’t going to save her from splattering like the rest of us. And Jude can only do what we can do.
I curse us for not asking Madeline about sharing abilities when she showed up in Charleston.
“I can do it,” Geoff says, quiet but sure. “I can lift the plane. Set it down.”
“Are you sure?” Dane asks.
“It’s a lot of weight,” Goose shouts over the racket, catching Geoff’s gaze. He’s saying what we’re all thinking—Geoff’s still new at this. He’s never tried lifting anything like a plane, something that weighs tons and is hurtling toward the ground.
Now’s not the time to tiptoe around Geoff’s feelings, but the truth is, I’m not sure what options we have.
“I can help him.” Jude’s jaw sets in a determined line. “I can use his power and we can do it together.”
“When you…borrow our powers, it doesn’t lessen the original Cavy’s strength?” There are so many questions. That’s just the first one that comes to mind.
“No. Not as far as I can tell.” Jude glances at Dane. “He’d probably be able to tell you more.”
Dane shakes his head, ignoring the accusatory edge in Jude’s statement. “No. As far as we know the Siphon copies your abilities. They don’t steal them, not in the traditional sense of the word.”
“You guys didn’t feel your power lessen before when they were using them against us at the airfield, right?” Mole waits for confirmation and one by one, everyone adds their agreement. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get as many of us off this plane as we can before we try this, because we do have five parachutes and we shouldn’t risk more than we have to, not to mention having less of us onboard will make it easier for Geoff and Jude.” He waits, but no one interjects. “Okay. The pilots and Dane, you take three of the parachutes because you don’t have any other options. I’ll take a fourth and Gypsy can come with me. Jude will take the other and bring along Pollyanna.”
Jude’s eyebrows pull together, then pop toward his hairline as he figures out Mole’s reasoning. “We can use them like hot air balloons! Use your heat and the air outside to drift down faster and make sure we land safely.”
Mole nods, his muscles tight. “Goose, if you think you can get to the ground so fast that it will somehow negate the distance, try it. That leaves Athena and Haint on the plane.”
“I’m not leaving without my brother,” Goose insists through gritted teeth.
Mole hesitates, but only for a second. “It’s your call if you want to stay aboard, since you’re not responsible for anyone else. But there might be trouble on the ground, and Jude’s going to be busy helping Geoff with the plane. That only leaves me and Pollyanna to defend us, because the pilots and Dane probably won’t wind up near us with those parachutes.”
The plane dives steeper, the whine of the engines making it impossible to talk or hear. Mole shouts something, maybe a go or do it, and then Dane reaches back into the cockpit and comes out with the parachutes. Mole takes one and unfurls it, then does the same to a second and hands it to Jude.
Dane and Athena grab on to the emergency exit, but it doesn’t come loose until Goose goes to help. The plane becomes a wind tunnel, and we hold on for fear of getting swept along the aisle, banging our heads, or worse. My stomach roils from the bumpy, sharp descent and it occurs to me that we’re out of time for planning. We’ll be lucky if we can get Jude on the ground before he needs to help Geoff set the plane down.
“We’ve got to go!” I scream at Mole over the sound. Maybe I didn’t see any of us dying today, but now’s not the time to rest on my laurels.
He nods, then shouts toward Jude. “This is going to be more like a skydive. Use the hot air to billow the parachute at the last minute.”
I don’t want to think about what happens if either of them miscalculates the elusive last minute, but trusting Mole is second nature. The look on Pollyanna’s face, a swirl of horror, fear, and doubt, reminds me she doesn’t feel the same way about Jude.
“We don’t have a choice, Polly,” I tell her. “It’s this or potentially crash.”
“I think I’d rather trust Geoff,” is what I think she says, but if so, it doesn’t stop her from securing her arms around Jude’s neck, her feet locked around his waist, as he folds up the parachute, the pack tight on his back. Right before he jumps, our eyes lock. Then he’s gone.
I mold my body to Mole’s, even in this moment thankful that we’re fully clothed, no skin touching skin. After seeing Pollyanna’s and Goose’s deaths, I know I can handle it if I do happen to see something I shouldn’t, but I don’t want to. I take one last look at my friends, refusing to entertain the idea that I’ll never see them again, and then we’re falling.
It’s so loud I almost think I’ve gone deaf. The air rips at my clothes, yanks on my limbs in an attempt to disconnect me from Mole. The world stops moving, and even though I know we’re falling, it doesn’t feel like it. Mole’s left arm squeezes my ribs so hard they might crack, but I wouldn’t complain even if I could breathe.
The time that passes feels like forever and a split second at the same time. Then Mole lets go of the parachute. It stops us, but then he uses his mutation to heat the air more, then less, so that we move swiftly toward the ground. I can see Jude and Polly below us now, moving expertly as though Jude’s been using heated air to fly himself around town for years. They land on the ground moments before my feet hit the earth, then my knees. A perfect landing in a large clearing outside a giant forest. Or maybe the clearing is in the forest. It’s impossible to tell from here.
I stay there, bent over with my arms up to my elbows in snow, pants soaking through and thinking, Holy lord, I am alive. Seeing my survival to old age in a vision and surviving that drop are two very different things, and this one feels way better.
I might have stayed that way much longer, thanking the heavens and convincing myself it all worked out, if a group of three people hadn’t walked out of the tree line and thrown a massive ball of fire right toward us.
Mole’s hands find my chest and he pushes as hard as he can, throwing us far enough apart that the flames only skim the bottoms of my feet. He scrambles up, tossing fireballs of his own the direction of the threat. The three dodge them easily as Pollyanna gets up and untangles herself from Jude.
“Track the plane!” Mole shouts toward Jude. “You have to help Geoff.”
Jude hesitates, looking from me to Pollyanna to Mole, then to the half a dozen assholes intent on killing perfect strangers instead of finding our common ground. There’s nothing I can do to help Polly and Mole. I’ll probably be more of a burden—especially if the empath gets to me again—but if I go, it’s two against three.
“Go,” I tell Jude. “I’m staying.”
There’s fire everywhere but nothing for it to latch on to since we’re surrounded by acres of pure, white snow. I wonder where we are, figuring somewhere over central Europe, not that it matters. Pollyanna’s determined face turns grim as she focuses, and one of the people advancing slows down as though they’re confused.
Then Polly walks toward them. Slow, dazed, definitely not herself. Not protecting herself.
“Pollyanna, stop!”
She pauses at my shriek but not for long. Without a second thought, I leap toward her, digging my fingers into the hem of her jacket, and we both tumble facefirst into the snow. One of the Siphons goes up in flames, howling and beating at his hands and arms, and Mole rushes in our direction but not quite toward us.
“Over here!” I yell again as Pollyanna struggles to get away from me, still under the control of the Siphon borrowing her power.
Mole corrects, following the sound of my voice instead of veering to the left, but then his legs explode with fire.
“Drop!” I shout.
He listens to me, rolling around in the snow until the flames are extinguished. The delay gives one of the two remaining Siphons leverage and he darts forward, snagging Pollyanna by the hair and yanking her out of my hands.
The third—I think the one controlling Polly a moment before—lands a punch across my face before I know she’s there. A cracking sound flies through my ears. I see stars, and black clouds, and have the strangest sensation of sliding across the snow before I realize they’re dragging me.
The world fades in and out, and no matter how my brain screams at my limbs to struggle, they feel like someone poured lead into my bones.
Through a haze, I see the plane is almost down. It’s floating, hovering like something out of a science fiction novel, about ten feet off the ground. Jude’s underneath it, his face bright red and sweat pouring out of him like rainwater in a downspout, but it’s working.
Something heavy lands on my feet and jerks, pulling my shoulder out of the socket. I scream, but it sounds very far away, and then the pressure releases. I tumble the other direction, smacking into a warm body that smells so familiar—like herbs from a beloved garden—and in Mole’s arms, I float away.
“Shit. Shit, y’all, what are we going to do?” It’s Goose’s voice that brings me back to reality. To life.
The sun hurts my eyes but the panic surrounding me, infecting me, snaps me awake faster than my throbbing head would like. I ignore it, along with the woozy wobble in my knees, and follow their gazes.
Our plane is on the ground. We’re alive.
The relief I feel doesn’t mesh with Goose’s exclamation or the horror on Mole’s face.
Then I hear the helicopters. Three of them, hovering higher in the sky, cameras pointed toward the spectacle we’re creating. There are noises behind me that turn out to be a handful of normal people with cameras and phones, all pointed in our direction.
“How much did they see?” I whisper, my lips almost too numb to form words.
Mole whirls, exhaling a breath. His eyes are red-rimmed and his hands shake. “You’re okay.”
I nod and repeat my question.
“I think it’s fair to say they saw at least a little bit of everything,” he tells me, his expression grim.
Sweet Fancy Moses, this is bad.
I look around, waiting for more Siphons to come at us, but there’s no one there. No one but us. “Where are they? The defectives?”
“They left,” Mole says, still looking ill. “I don’t think they’re any more keen on the notoriety than we are.”
“And I don’t think we should call them defectives,” Goose mutters. “They seem plenty effective to me.”
“We can vote on it later,” I say, watching Haint and Athena run off the smoking plane and over to us.
Goose embraces his brother, breaking down now that the danger of crashing has passed. Emotion smothers me, too, and when Geoff disembarks and we’re all together, it drops me back to my knees in the snow.
Jude eyes the cameras. “How are we going to get out of here?’’
Like an answer to a prayer none of us would have thought to utter, a fourth helicopter bursts from the forest, barely skimming the tree line. It sets down beside us and Dane’s hair, black and glossy, gleams in the early-evening sunset. He beckons us forward, and as we scramble aboard, I see Agent Warren and Agent Bishop strapped in, piloting the craft.
It isn’t until they’ve lifted off—all of us secured behind doors so that the cameras can’t get any more free shots—that I realize someone’s missing. My blood turns to ice in my veins. “Where’s Polly?”
“They took her.” Mole’s hands clench tighter, until semicircles of blood bead up on his palms.
“They? The Siphons?” I look around wildly and realize this is the first Geoff, Athena, and Haint are hearing of this, too. “We have to go back. We can’t leave her!”
“They’re already gone, Gypsy. Don’t you think we already thought of that? That we tried while you were passed out?” Mole’s vague accusation hits me with the force of a punch.
It was me. He saved me when he could have saved her because I’m defenseless. I’m like the pet they all feel responsible for, the one that if they lost, they’d all bear the guilt, and now Pollyanna’s gone.
“We can’t leave her,” I say again, my voice small and shrinking, like grapes left out in the sun.
“We don’t have a choice,” Dane says. It’s a command, not just a fact.
As long as we includes the CIA, it’s apparent none of us do. Not anymore.