“YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO identify yourselves.” A man’s voice, sharp and crisp, cut through the haze. I twisted, trapped, panic surging in my chest, that same familiar terror of being caught in an alien net.
“Take it easy, Gideon,” someone replied in an accent that reminded me of my old friend Rita Hernandez. A lump surged in my throat. “They’re just kids.”
Whoever Gideon was, he didn’t seem to care if we were kids or not. He fumbled roughly at my belt, snatching away my dagger and holding it up to show whoever else was in the room. “Just kids, huh?” He kicked my ribs and I gasped, the air flying out of me in a whoosh. His foot smashed into the side of my face and stayed there, pinning me to the floor. I still couldn’t see my attacker, but I could see Cage, and his face was a mask of fury. There was no way to help me, though, bound as tightly as we were. “Who are you?” Gideon snarled. “Where did you come from, and why the hell are you sneaking into our house in the middle of the night?”
I’d told them this was a bad idea. I winced, catching my breath. “Let’s talk about that,” I suggested. “But I’d rather not do it on the floor with your foot crushing my skull.” I wasn’t kidding, either. Whoever this was, he was grinding the bones in my face hard enough to make speaking difficult, and it took a solid effort not to let panic slide into my voice.
A long moment stretched into eternity. Cage’s jaw twitched furiously across from me, and I worked to keep my muscles still, somehow instinctively knowing that any show of weakness, of fear, would work on my attacker like the smell of blood.
At last the pressure on my face eased, and Gideon retreated into the shadows. Slowly—extremely slowly, and not only because I didn’t want to provoke him—I eased myself to a sitting position. The world swam, and I blinked back spots. “Thanks,” I said, more sarcastically than I’d intended.
As my eyes adjusted, I realized two big floodlights were aimed right at us. Cage, Mia, and Matt sprawled on the floor, all of them watching me. I flexed my hands. These were regular run-of-the-mill handcuffs, not the fancy ones Legion once used to inhibit our powers. Mia could have vanished. Cage could have run. Matt could have done any number of things, apparently. But everyone stuck around. Because they weren’t sure about their surroundings? Out of worry for the rest of us? Or because we needed to know what was going on?
That last part, at least, was true. As the others cautiously leveraged themselves to sitting positions, I peered into the shadows. I still couldn’t make out anything of my attacker or his companion, but Matt had specifically mentioned two people. We should have listened more carefully, I supposed. “My name is Kenzie,” I said, my fear for the others making me brash. I needed to keep his attention on me. “Kenzie Cord. We’re sneaking into your house, as you call it, because someone broke into ours, stole a stash of supplies, and made their way back here. As for where we came from, well … that’s a longer story.”
“We have time.” The woman advanced into the light. She had sharp, angular features, a long black braid, and well-shaped arms I couldn’t have achieved even if I stuck to Omnistellar’s rigorous training regimen. She was wearing loose black pants, boots, and a T-shirt, and over her shoulder was slung a familiar backpack. “You in charge?”
I risked a peek at Cage, who arched an eyebrow, and I almost smiled in spite of myself. Who the hell was in charge at this point? “No,” I said. “None of us are in charge. Not really. We’re just a group of people thrown together and trying to survive.”
“Us too.” She lowered herself to her haunches. “I realize this wasn’t the kindest introduction, and I’m sorry. But we have to take care of our own.”
“So do we,” said Cage quietly. “Which is why if someone was stealing our supplies, we needed to know who.”
The woman sighed. “The other neighborhoods are tapped out. We didn’t—”
“Eden,” said the man sharply. “That’s enough.” He stepped into the light as well, revealing himself to be taller and thinner than I’d thought when he’d been grinding my face into the dirt. What there was of him was a solid line of muscle, though. He was exceedingly pale, even given the harsh lighting, and his shaggy brown hair hung in light eyes, eyes glinting in a way that unsettled something deep inside me. “This is an interrogation, not a cocktail party.”
Mia snorted loudly, and I winced. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet so far, and I’d hoped she’d stay that way. Somehow I didn’t think this guy was going to tolerate her usual bluster.
Sure enough, he spun on her, arching one of his eyebrows so high it vanished beneath his mess of hair. He didn’t say anything, though, only considered her for a moment, then nodded. “All right,” he said. “Eden, get Sarah and Emmett. First things first. You’re going to tell me your powers, and you’re going to tell me now. Lie to me, and I’ll shoot one of you in the foot. Do it again, and I’ll shoot one of you in the face.”
I recoiled. I didn’t get the sense he was joking. Eden shrugged and leveraged herself to her feet, retreating out of the way of any stray bullets.
“You’re bluffing,” Mia snapped. I closed my eyes, willing her silent. “How do we know you even have a gun?”
“Are you volunteering for the first bullet?”
“No,” said Cage quickly. He knew Mia as well as I did, and she couldn’t be trusted not to answer in the affirmative simply to see what would happen. “We’ll answer you, but answer me first. How do you know we have powers?”
For the first time Gideon seemed caught off guard. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “Of course you have powers. Everyone does. Now answer the question. Since you spoke up, you can go first.” He nodded in Cage’s direction.
Cage hesitated, glancing between us. Mia shook her head furiously, but Matt only shrugged. He hadn’t said a word so far, just watched with a frown.
I didn’t see a way out of this without telling Gideon something. He obviously knew we had abilities, and besides, I needed to learn more about him, about this place. We couldn’t hide in our apartment forever. “I can speak other languages,” I told him, figuring there was no harm letting him in on that much. “Pretty much anything. I hear it, and soon I understand it.”
He scrutinized me, frowning, his face a mask of introspection. “That’s true,” he said at last. “But there’s more to it. Tell me everything, girl. No lies of omission.”
My stomach shifted, but I forced myself to keep my expression blank. “I can read them, too, if that’s what you mean. I haven’t tried writing.”
Gideon sighed. “I told you what would happen if you lied to me,” he said, and I didn’t even see him draw a gun. There was a crack, and Mia screamed. I spun to find her doubled over on the ground, blood coursing from her foot. “You wanted to know if I was bluffing,” he told her, a wicked smile playing on his lips. “Well. Now you know. So.” He leveled the gun in my direction. “You want to try this again?”
“I copy powers!” I cried frantically. “My abilities started mutating lately. My original power was the language thing, but recently I can do whatever anyone else can as long as they’re somewhere nearby!”
Gideon smiled coldly. “Truth,” he said. He shifted the gun to Cage.
We exchanged glances. Gideon was a human lie detector. More fun new powers, courtesy of the aliens. Too bad this one worked against us.
“I’m fast,” Cage said succinctly. His face was blank, but clear rage simmered underneath. Cage had always been fiercely protective of his friends, especially the people he’d spent so long imprisoned alongside. The slight tremor in his hands warned me he was barely keeping himself from launching straight into Gideon, handcuffs and all.
“How fast?”
“Do you want a demonstration?”
“I’d recommend against it.” Gideon analyzed him and appeared to dislike what he saw. “Fine. You’re fast. What about Screaming Girl over there?”
Mia drew herself up, her face pale and pinched in pain, and spit a creative mix of insults in his direction.
Gideon sighed and leveled the gun at Cage.
“She turns invisible!” I shouted, my heart hammering so fast I almost doubled over with the need to stop it. “And she turns other people invisible!”
Gideon smiled. “Truth. Now. What about the big quiet fellow?”
Matt shrugged. “Originally, I sensed life,” he said. “Now apparently I can resurrect myself.”
He’d left out all of his cybernetically enhanced senses, and I held my breath. Would that register as a lie? And if it did, would Gideon give us a chance to explain how those weren’t really abilities, or would he just shoot someone?
He nodded slowly. “All right. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He glanced behind him as Eden jogged over. “Where are Sarah and Emmett?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I heard a gunshot and came running to see if everything was okay.” She took in the situation and frowned, her eyes faintly troubled.
“Next time, follow orders. But since you’re here now, we can handle them. Help the wounded one. Keep your hands on her, and if she disappears, shoot her. Also, shoot her if anyone else disappears—and that includes running off.”
“Yes, sir.” Eden slipped past me and caught Mia by the arm, pulling her to her feet. Mia snarled and snapped her teeth, and Eden recoiled, almost imperceptibly. “Get it together,” she said, so quietly I could barely hear her. “Or do you want him to kill someone?”
Mia hesitated, then sagged, her spirit seeming to vanish.
Gideon gestured to the rest of us with his gun. “You three, in front of me. You wanted to know who we were, where we lived? Well, you’re about to find out.”