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Quin stared in horror as I unraveled the vines around Lily and Lance. He stepped aside, giving Inese space to prepare blankets and hot water bottles. “What happened?” he asked, hovering over Jack. Lance trembled with exhaustion, but they would both be all right. Lily clung tight to his chest, nuzzling her head under Lance’s chin.
Revulsion rolled through me and I turned away.
A telepath. All it took was one telepath to change how we felt toward each other. I hated him. If he wasn’t already dead, I’d happily shoot his bones again. The flower charm prickled against my skin. Maybe I should’ve shot his bones again anyway, just to be sure.
“We’ll explain as we go,” Jack said, motioning to their feet. Dad closed his eyes, treating their white, splotchy skin. Frostbite. I yanked off my gloves and rubbed my cold hands together. At least I hadn’t been frozen. “Inese—get us out of here.”
“Gladly.” She had a black eye, while Quin had a bloody bandage over his shoulder. The afternoon hadn’t gone well for them, either, and it did nothing to soothe my expectation that the monster hadn’t been planting false memories in the same manner as Lady Winters.
I settled into the copilot seat and put on my glasses. Inese cloaked the jet. “Hang on, everyone. I’m going to see if we can stealth our way past the Legion Spore. In the meantime, can I get an explanation of what the hell happened?”
“We got attacked by some kind of spirit,” Dad said. “It played our emotions against each other. Jack and I were fighting—I can’t remember why, and when I saw Jenna, it was attacking her.”
“Did you see what happened to those two?” The lines of Inese’s head jerked back toward the jet’s cabin.
My throat tightened. I lowered my eyes, my shoulders tight. “They had unspoken feelings for each other, and the telepath enhanced those feelings.”
“What?” Quin quirked his head, puzzled.
I snorted. “Apparently they’ve been eyeing each other for a while now, and Lance has been trying to decide whether to stay with me or call it off so he could be with Lily. And, apparently, Lily thinks I’m a terrible girlfriend.” I crossed my arms.
“That’s impossible.” Quin shook his head, staring in the direction of his sister, and then back toward me, perplexed. “I would have known if she was interested in Lance.”
“Well, she did a pretty good job of hiding it from me, too,” I spat. “Just when I thought we were becoming friends.”
Maybe even more than friends.
Inese rubbed her temples. “You’re sure this wasn’t the spirit influencing your thoughts?”
The image of them entangled in the forest sprung into my mind with full force. “They seemed pretty cozy in those vines,” I muttered. But until Gwen had a chance to look at our thoughts, I doubted we’d know if what we were feeling was our own emotions or if they were twisted fragments the telepath had left behind.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Inese suggested. “It might give us a better idea of what happened.”
My heart sank, but I explained everything as best I could. When I got to the part about the monster forming from vine and bone, Quin nearly choked. “Hold on—Ivy Man? You ran into Ivy Man?”
I frowned. That name sounded familiar. I sat back in my seat, trying to recall where I’d heard his name—
Val.
Val mentioned him when she was trying to impress Tim and Lance. She had compared me to him and called him antisocial.
Dear Community—
I stared at the dashboard, numb. Val had warned me about him, and she’d actually been right. I rubbed my forehead, sick. He’d been so close to turning me against my own team.
Inese prodded my shoulder. “You okay?”
“What do you think?” I snapped.
She held up her hands and backed off. “Stupid question... sorry.”
I stared at my hands. Had Val known Ivy Man would be here? She couldn’t have, but if this was a trap—
Impossible. That monster wanted the Camaraderie dead. He wouldn’t have been working with them.
“The other mercenaries we were traveling with a while back said Ivy Man had been crushed during the raid on a temple,” Quin said. “We didn’t know much about what he was supposed to be retrieving, but it hadn’t ended well. No one had heard from him since, other than the rumors that he was haunting the jungle.”
“He did say something about being deceased and needing other spirits to help him.” I rubbed my arms. The jet felt too cold, as if the heater wasn’t working.
Jack cursed under his breath. “Time stones and spirits. If they aren’t defending the dang stones, they’re trying to steal ’em back. Go on, Jen. Tell us the rest of it.”
I grimaced. I didn’t want them knowing how close Ivy Man had me to joining his cause. But they would find out eventually, especially once I spoke with Gwen. I sighed and told them what I remembered. Hearing it again, it seemed less and less likely that Lily and Lance had intended to do anything behind my back, but how could I be sure? Neither of them were in condition to do any talking, though they now slept peacefully between warm, separate blankets.
“This is going to be fun to explain to Pops,” Inese muttered. “All right, I’ve circled several times, and—”
We are legion...
The Legion Spore appeared directly in front of our jet. Its voices were terrible, ricocheting in my skull with the force of a wind storm. The voices hated us, hated everything, and... and this vessel was massive, its hide a curling mass of unfinished muscle, purple veins bulging under its skin. Large eyes formed along its fleshy exterior. A glowing red light ringed each pupil, growing brighter until a deep red flash shot toward the jet.
Inese cursed, maneuvering us out of range from the first blast, but not the second. I grabbed the edge of my chair. Something crashed behind us. The streak of light seared the jet’s wings. The GNSS flickered.
As if the blinking wing on the diagnostic panel wasn’t any indication we’d taken damage, the jet swerved, careening toward the trees.
Inese didn’t stop cursing, but her curses were muted by the panicked shouts coming from the rest of the team. Another flash of crimson, searing light, and the Legion Spore was nearly on top of us. Its translucent tentacles stretched downward. I gripped the edge of my seat, calling on my speed power to keep from losing my lunch.
Inese dived, pushing buttons I hadn’t known existed. “Come on, girl. You can do this...”
A bolt of electricity shot from the fine hairs on the Legion’s Spore’s tentacles. Our invisibility flickered and the engines rattled. Inese joggled the joystick, trying to pull us up, but the engines failed. We crashed into a thick web of branches. I slammed against my seatbelt. The trees creaked, unable to hold the jet’s weight. With one final crunch, the jet slid into the trees with no hope of flying out using the first or second flight modes. Assuming the wings weren’t too badly damaged, our only option was using the horizontal rotors to escape the branches.
Inese wiggled the joystick, desperate, but the jet didn’t budge. She shoved the gearshift into park. Everyone’s outlines turned toward the Legion Spore, watching the vessel hovering above the treetops. Its upper fins shimmered and rippled. Then, where the glowing eyes had been before, metallic plates began overlapping its fleshy body, covering the membrane with armor and even enclosing the command windows at its front.
I stared at it, my fingers tight around the flower charm. I needed to know what the Legion Spore was doing—
Everything rushed against me like a tidal wave. Thoughts and algorithms and voices. Metal encased us, rippling across our skin. An explosion hit the shield. We felt pain, but no damage. Realign the power matrix. Focus on defense, prepare offense. We are—
“Think it will leave us alone?” Dad asked.
I blinked, startled as he struggled to make sure Lance and Lily were still fastened into their seats, though he couldn’t see what he was doing.
I shook my head. “It’s preparing for a battle.” Inese gave me a funny look, but I couldn’t help it if I could make educated guesses based on my memory attacks.
Or from my flower charm.
“Do we have weapons?” As long as I focused on the battle, I could avoid focusing on the details of the Legion Spore.
Inese frowned. “I’m not sure how good of a shot we have.”
“Get them online,” Jack said, eyeing the monstrosity. “And get us out of here.”
“On it.” Inese flipped open a panel she hadn’t shown me before.
Long tentacles dangled from the Legion Spore, brushing the tips of the trees. For a moment, I imagined the trees growing pointier and more spear-like. It was an unlikely chance. I put all my attention on the giant pine ahead of the Legion Spore. The tree felt distant, resistant to my touch. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I closed my eyes, shaking. The tree just needed a little encouragement to grow. Toward the sun, for life, for warmth. When I opened my eyes again, the tip had hardened.
Better than nothing.
I imagined the ivy racing to the tops of the trees, seeking out the tentacles and—
The ivy dissolved into nothing more than nutrients, traveling down my vines to my arms and dissolving them to bone. Cold pain racked my body as I stared at the skeleton of my hand. My scream caught in my throat, soundless as vines wrapped around the bone to reform muscle.
No—I couldn’t let that happen, I couldn’t—
The jet lurched as a missile erupted from its launch tube below us. I gagged, swallowing hard and taking a second look at the outline of my fingers.
My hand was fine.
“Come on...” Inese clenched her fists and traced the path of the missile until it exploded against the outer hull. The missile barely left a scorch mark, and I cringed at its semblance to the memory attack. She stared at the blackened metal. “Impossible,” she whispered.
Jack leaned forward in his seat. “Jenna, can you break us free?”
I swallowed hard, glancing through the window at the surrounding trees. “Maybe. If not, I might make it worse.”
“Go with the maybe.” Another laser seared the tree holding us. The branches groaned as the jet’s hull ground against the bark. “If either one of you want to do something, now would be the time to do it. Unless you prefer being toasted mincemeat?”
I cringed, putting my focus on the trees. The branches protested against the vehicle’s weight. Inese furiously tapped the touch screen. “We have nothing to penetrate its defenses.”
I stole a glance at the Legion Spore, the flower charm digging into my palm. What other secrets—
Wires connected to a metal band tight against my skull, my knees pressed against a steel grate below me. I wasn’t the only one. Our skin burned, a dull throb. We were connected, human and beast, by wire, to four giant, central tubes. No shielding was permitted, or we would fall apart—
A chill rushed through my spine and I tore my eyes from the monstrosity. It couldn’t be shielded, but that meant it couldn’t prevent us from portaling inside.
“Lance...” It was a horrible idea, but as Lance said, it was us or them. “Dad, can you wake Lance?”
Dad nodded and touched Lance’s shoulder. Lance groaned, unfocused.
“Lance—I need you to do something for me.” But would he even want to? I’d tried to kill him.
“Jenna?” His voice grated, hoarse. “I’m so sorry.”
“Lance,” I whispered, “on Inese’s mark, I need you to create one end of a portal directly in front of the jet, and another in the center of the Legion Spore. The fleshy part.” I gulped, sick to my stomach. “Can you do that?”
He blinked, disoriented. “Jen?”
“Please?” I swallowed hard. A hundred voices whispered in the back of my head, straining against constant pain. “Just put the portal a little further out from where the nose should be.”
Lance nodded weakly. “I’ll try.”
I turned back to Inese, ignoring the whispers. “Ready?”
She took a deep breath. “I hope this works. On my mark. Three—” She worried the inside of her cheek. “Two—” Lance raised his hand, and a swirling purple mass appeared in front of the jet. Inese made an adjustment on the console. “One—”
Inese flipped the switch. The missile blazed through the portal, vanishing at the same time that the portal failed. The whispering stopped, and the hair prickled on the back of my arms.
Lance dropped his head. “I’m sorry. I—”
A muted explosion rocked the jet, fire burning through the Legion Spore’s metal plating. I only had a moment to register the vessel falling onto the pointed tree, its air sac deflating, bits of the monster’s flesh fluttering through the air.
My mind reeled with pain. A hundred people and beasts cried in agony, screaming, lost...
Anger. Such a terrible, terrible anger seethed through us, victorious and pleased. We are legion... We calculated everything. Planned everything. We found what we needed to complete our work. Our work that would never be done. We would be reborn, free of this monstrous form.
We would activate Protocol Seven. Control the chaos... avenge our creation...
Reward those who gave us life—
I fell against my seat, paralyzed, helpless to watch as thousands of pieces of jumbled, burning, grotesque body parts more beastie than human rained over the forest. Blood and warped metal plates pelted the jet. And the screaming—
I was screaming.
My vision spun. I tumbled through the sky, my skin shredded and burnt. I clawed at my arms, wishing it would end, wishing I would be free of this miserable existence and the cages and the pain...
I was one, alone. But I had been part of something else, forced to be something else, part of something that I didn’t know and still wanted me back—
We are legion... We will live...
I stared through the invisible lines of my glasses, gasping, biting my tongue and tasting blood. Through the drifting pieces of membrane, something else formed, black and wispy, swirling together like the beginnings of a dark funnel cloud.
