“WHERE?” PRIYA SNAPPED TO ATTENTION, leveling some sort of rifle against her shoulder.
I shook my head, grabbing Cage’s arms and half climbing him to drag myself to my feet. “I don’t know. Close.”
“Can you access its powers?” Mia growled.
My head swam. “I can’t even think right now,” I whispered, struggling to keep the room in focus. Karoch’s power was so strong, so compelling, it was all I could do to keep from falling into it and vanishing.
“Kenzie!” Matt’s voice had taken an aggressive tone, sharp enough to jolt me at least partially back to myself. “If you can’t use Karoch’s power, we’re all going to die here.” A startled silence met his words, and he glared from one of us to another. “Well? I assume we’re still going through with this whether we can escape or not. Or was all that talk of sacrifice and cost contingent on us getting away with our own lives?”
Rune drew herself taller, eyes flashing, as if the very notion of self-sacrifice solidified her resolve. “No,” she said. “We’re going through with it either way.”
“Yeah, great,” said Hallam. “But Kenzie, it’d be really nice if we didn’t have to die here, you know?”
I laughed in spite of myself, my teeth chattering, my limbs shaking. Cage still had a grip on me, as if he could physically keep me centered, and actually it was helping, the physicality of the connection locking me in place. I closed my eyes, tightening my hands on Cage’s arms and focusing all of my attention on that point of contact, my anchor to the real world. With the rest of my mind, I reached out, searching for the aliens.
Searching for Karoch.
I didn’t have to look hard. It hit me with the force of a meteor, its sheer presence a massive overwhelming collection of rage and aggression and sheer, malevolent hunger. “Oh, God,” I whispered, my shoulders hunching as I slumped against Cage’s arms.
“Kenzie.” Imani crouched beside me and laid her hand on my back. Healing energy flowed from her and, even though there was nothing physically wrong with me, it seemed to help, stabilizing me, connecting me. “You’re not with them. You’re here with us. Everything’s okay.”
“We’ve got you,” Reed added as he joined his energy to Imani’s.
Kneeling there in the triangle of Reed, Cage, and Imani, I found myself strengthening. Something in my core pulled tight and I managed to straighten. The massive weight of Karoch’s presence settled physically against my shoulders. It was on the edge of my mind, threatening to overwhelm me. Wanting to overwhelm me, I realized with a sudden burst of determination. These creatures had taken my family. They’d devoured my friends. They’d killed and sliced their way through everything I held dear. They were not going to get my mind—not without a fight.
I drew myself to my feet, filling my lungs with a painful, shaky breath. Having done so once, I found it easier to do it again. “I’m okay,” I said.
Cage tilted his head, examining me. “Are you sure? Your eyes don’t seem right.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. What was wrong with my eyes? “I’m sure,” I said, putting aside the latent fear Cage’s words had awakened inside me. Thanks, Cage. “I’m going to see if I can forge a connection to Karoch and draw on its power.”
I didn’t wait for a response. Instead I closed my eyes and turned inward.
Karoch swirled around me, the alien mind enveloping my consciousness like a cloud. I kept my breathing steady. The image of my mother was foremost in my mind, for whatever reason. I fixed my attention on her and all of the bewildering, infuriating, contradictory emotions she awoke. I made myself imagine, in vivid detail, the body of my friend Rita Hernandez, coated in alien goo, her eyes blank and white and empty. Imani, clutching her sister’s limp body. Tyler, hoisted in the air above a screaming alien. My father, if anything shocked to have his life cut off so quickly. And Alexei.
Those were my people. Karoch had no hold over me.
I latched on to Karoch, feeling its shock as I surged into it with my own consciousness, leaving the hive mind far behind. Any allure it had once offered became repulsion. I wanted nothing to do with these creatures.
I wanted them dead. I’d have ejected every last one of them into space myself.
And I wanted Karoch’s power.
I visualized my friends’ abilities in colors. Karoch’s powers were colored too, but they were a swirling, muddy mess, like staring into a swamp. Brief glimmers of reflected color surged to the surface, instantly swallowed by eddies of darkness and sludge. Somewhere in this mess was the power to shift between dimensions, and the only way to find it was to plunge inside.
I didn’t hesitate. Not anymore. I dove in, letting the repulsive sludge wash over me. It hit me as if I’d leaped into a swamp. There was no physical Kenzie left, not anymore. There was just me, one central being immersed in a cold, slimy clutter of foul-smelling mush.
I opened my eyes. The sludge burned, but I let it flood over me. Somewhere, Karoch roared in fury, but I tuned it out. I opened my mouth and swallowed the rank mess. I let it course through me, filling me.
Power exploded beneath my skin. It slithered through my stomach, pierced my lungs. It was agony and terror and something else, something much more frightening because it was so compelling: the ultimate edge of strength. If I opened myself a tiny bit more, let the hive mind weave its way through me, I could be part of this. I wouldn’t merely have the power to move between dimensions. I would have all the powers, all of Karoch’s abilities. I would be fast and strong and smart, and no one—nothing—would touch me or the people I loved again.
Except I wouldn’t have the people I loved, would I? Because I wouldn’t be me.
I would be Karoch.
I threw my head back against the rush of power and forced it into a steady stream, raising my hands to the slime. I pressed my arm to the right, carving a path for myself. As the sludge cleared, I felt power sliding away from me, leaving an almost physical ache in my chest. But there was a clearing, too, a return of my earlier strength and resolve.
I pressed with my left hand, clearing more of the gunk. What remained separated into more distinct colors, less repulsive, more seductive.
And in their midst, it appeared: a shimmering mix of black and green with dots of gold that, for whatever reason, brought Liam vividly to mind. I saw him as if he were standing in front of me, his ridiculous pirate outfit billowing around him, his quirky grin mocking me. “Hey, Kenzie,” he said.
I blinked. It really was him. We were suddenly standing in the hidden space on Obsidian where he’d stored his stash. “Hey, Liam,” I said softly. “You’re not actually here, are you?”
He shrugged. “How should I know? Maybe we’re all part of these creatures. Maybe once you destroy it, you’ll destroy the last bits of us.”
Well, that sounded like him, at least. “Would you really want to live on like this?” I pressed. “As part of Karoch?”
“I wouldn’t, as a matter of fact. But if you’re going to do something, you’d better do it fast.”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled slightly, that sardonic, self-serving smile I remembered so well. I hadn’t understood Liam when I met him. I didn’t understand him now. But I did understand what drove him: the all-encompassing fear of the aliens that made him abandon his family to their clutches and leap across dimensions in search of safety. “Did you know?” I asked. “That you moved through dimensions?”
“I don’t think so. I think I legitimately believed I was moving through space.”
“Even when you heard them talking about Earth, talking about Mars?”
“We called our planet Wreithe. I probably noted the similarities, but … I guess I wasn’t ready to accept the truth.”
“Probably?”
“I’m not here, remember?”
“Then what’s going on?”
“Your mind’s conjuring someone who has experience with jumping dimensions. It was me or Karoch, I guess. I was probably the right choice.”
“So you’re a fancy hallucination.” I laughed. “And I’m chatting with you.”
“Right. Which means I can’t give you any information you don’t already have.” He smiled and stepped forward, extending his hand. “Except this.”
I blinked. There was nothing in his hand. “Except what?”
“Look closer.”
I did, and there it was: a shimmering stone of gold, black, and green swirling in his hand. “Take it,” he said. “Take it and make things right. Make up for my cowardice. Make up for the deaths of your friends and family. Make up for everything, Kenzie. I’m counting on you.”
I swallowed. I didn’t care if he wasn’t real. “Liam, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you died, and that you had to face those things again after all. I wish we’d met differently.”
“Who knows?” Liam gave a rueful smile. “Maybe some version of us will someday.” He gestured lazily. “If you hurry.”
I grabbed his hand.
The power slammed through me with violent force, utterly unlike any other ability I’d absorbed in the past. It filled every crevice, seeming to burn my blood, to thrum in time with my heartbeat. My entire body vibrated with it. I’d used Liam’s power before. It hadn’t been like this.
Because this wasn’t from Liam.
It was from Karoch.
At the thought of the name, a cacophony descended on me: screams and shouts and gunfire and crashing and howling and screaming. My eyes flew open.
“She’s awake!” Imani screamed.
“Thank God.” Jasper appeared above me, terror etched in the lines of his face. “Kenzie, tell me you’ve got something.”
I leveraged myself onto my elbow. Somehow I’d wound up lying on the floor behind a rack of missiles. There was no disorientation, though. I went from whatever I’d just been through to full wakefulness in a heartbeat, Karoch’s power—Liam’s power—thrumming through me. “Oh yes,” I said softly. “I’ve got something. I can get us out of here. We just need to draw the aliens in and make sure Karoch follows.”
Jasper snorted. “Yeah, somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” He met my gaze and shook his head. “Kenzie, have you looked around ?”
I stared at him as the sounds around me solidified into the noise of combat. I pivoted, scrambling to the edge of the row and peering out.
A battle raged around me. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of alien creatures leaping around the room and my friends scattered, using the missiles as cover, firing at the creatures. In one corner Rune stood stock-still, pressed between a row of missiles and a computer console, with aliens slithering around her. They clearly knew she was nearby, but they couldn’t find her, not with the weapons sheltering her. Cage was on top of the weapons working his way toward her, but a creature leaped into his path and they faced off, balancing on the rack.
And then a roar split the air—something more inhuman, more horrifying, than anything we’d heard so far. The ceiling had been torn to shreds, presumably from the alien incursion. Now the wall shattered with the force of tons of dirt behind it, sand and clay and muck spilling into the room alongside brick and mortar and stone.
And behind it all, Karoch, its bulk shouldering into the room, here to devour at last.