Trance. Part 35

"Of what would happen when the Warden failed and the powers came back. Fear of how twelve angry, mismatched young adults would handle six times their numbers in vengeful enemies. Fear that those lines of division the MHC created between Rangers and Banes would once again consume the world."

While his fears weren't unfounded, the logic wasn't there. "How did you find out about the Warden?"

"That's a long story."

"Summarize it."

He was stuck in that strange place between not wanting to justify his horrible actions, and wanting to finally tell someone and ease a hefty burden. I wasn't there to absolve him of his sins, but I wanted to know why, dammit.

"You were wrong, Trance," he finally said. "I was a Meta before all of this."

I couldn't have heard that right and stared at him, too stunned to say a word.

"Weren't expecting that, I see." His shoulders sagged a bit. "I had no idea. Not until we all lost our powers. Whatever mine were, they were so weak I never knew I had them until they were ripped away. The experience was exactly as you children described it."

"How could no one know?" I managed to ask.

"I don't honestly know the answer to that, and it's possible there are more like me, who never knew they were Metas. It's not as though being Meta is detectable in a blood test."

Good point. But still!

"My mother's family had no history of Meta powers, and I'd never known my own father. So I spent the next few years obsessed with finding him. With the country in so much turmoil, it was difficult to get the records I needed. My marriage suffered tremendously.

"I'd spent twenty years in service to the Rangers and MHC, and just when I thought I could retire and spend the rest of my life with my wife and our girls, I drew further away. And I was too scared to tell her why."

The heartbreak in his words dug deep. I had to fight against their impact, to keep my anger up. I couldn't feel sorry for him. It was a betrayal to my friends, both alive and dead. "Was your father a Meta?"

"Not just a Meta," he said. "He was a Bane."

"Holy s.h.i.+t."

"Indeed. His name was Shade. I'd already worked five years for the MHC when he was killed, and in researching Shade I made a connection no one ever had before-officially, at least. I discovered Shade had a son. I had a half brother."

Only one answer, horrifying as it was, made any kind of sense. "Specter."

"Tragically, yes." Even now, years after discovering the fact, he looked p.i.s.sed. "My inevitable inquiries at the prison came to the attention of Agent Garth Anders."

"McNally's partner?"

"Correct. Anders knew almost since the end of the War that Marcus Spence wasn't on the Island. The MHC found out too late and didn't want a public panic, or to admit to missing a Bane. Anders was a.s.signed to seek him out-off the record. When he found him, Spence had already had one stroke. Anders never considered a feeble, wheelchair-bound man to be a risk, so he didn't tell anyone he found Spence."

"Why did he tell you?"

"Well, at this point in the story, Anders had just been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. We'd worked together years before. He may have been clearing his conscience."

"Anders told you about the Warden?"

"Yes. He knew the Warden was a temporary fix. The technology would break down, or one of the Metas powering it would die. If that happened, then the fail-safe collars were the only thing that would protect us. I was inclined to agree. Our country was barely surviving the destruction of one Meta War. We'd never survive another.

"After Anders pa.s.sed, I went to see Spence. I needed to look my half brother in the eye and see the monster who'd murdered so many. But he wasn't Specter anymore. He was a wasted sh.e.l.l of a man, and part of me understood why Anders couldn't turn him in."

Just as I'd felt sorry for the broken old man I'd found at the Blue Tower. None of us was immune to pity, it seemed. "But why destroy the Warden?" I asked. "Why kill us?"

"Destroying the Warden was simply to help along the inevitable. I looked up you twelve, you know. You were all unsettled, disillusioned, unsuccessful in so many ways, and I believed you would never step up and be heroes. But killing you before you repowered would look suspicious and could be traced back to me."

The clinical way he spoke about our intended murders compounded my hatred of the man I'd once considered a friend. "So you ... what? Asked Spence to do it remotely after he got his Specter powers back?"

"I did. He agreed."

"But he didn't get them back."

"No. The night of the Fairview fire, Spence suffered a third stroke. It left him catatonic, and I received his powers instead. I didn't understand why until McNally postulated her family connection theory."

Disgust bubbled up. It had all been some big improvisation from a man caught between personal vengeance and doing what he thought was best for the world. "So you left your brother to rot in his own filth, while you stuck to your plan to slaughter us?"

"Spence was a murderer a hundred times over."

"Maybe, but no one deserves to die like that. You're just one big, fat f.u.c.king fraud, aren't you?"

He wilted just a little. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Would Annabelle have wanted this?" I asked, my voice quaking. "Would your wife and daughters still love you, knowing what you've done?" His daughters, who were potentially Meta, too-d.a.m.n.

"I don't know," he said. "Annabelle divorced me four years ago and took the girls to Europe. It's all for the best. I'm sorry, child."

He took aim at my head and squeezed the trigger.

Thirty-five.

Rescue I threw up a s.h.i.+eld, caught the backlash as the bullet ricocheted, and stumbled backward into the window's frame. Broken gla.s.s cut my lower back and I cried out. The s.h.i.+eld dropped. He fired again. I waited for the inevitable pain-for the bullet to tear through flesh and muscle and bone.

Nothing.

The fired bullet hovered in front of my eyes, six inches from striking distance. Just spun there like a freeze frame. I stared. Seward stared. A shadow moved by the door. I looked first.

Caleb stretched his little arm out and up, palm forward, like a child raising his hand in cla.s.s. Wherever he'd been left, he had obviously gotten out. Dust and grime coated his face and clothes. His lips were puckered into a tiny hole, almond eyes wide and angry. I had never seen such intense fury on the face of a child.

"You hurt my daddy," Caleb said. His voice was heartbreaking, even as the vengeful glint in his eyes froze my blood. He ignored me, even when I pulled away from the window and screeched in pain. He only had eyes for Seward.

Seward's eyebrows furrowed, then flattened. He looked at his hand-at the gun he held and could no longer manipulate. Confusion twisted his mouth into a grimace. Every muscle in his face went slack. A power struggle played out in the fifteen feet separating the two.

"Caleb," I said, taking a step forward, my torn and bleeding back on fire.

"He hurt you, too," the boy said. The gun in Seward's hand began to turn, twisting back on the man holding it. My heart pounded in my ears. I couldn't let the little boy kill. Seward wasn't allowed off that easily, and no way did a child deserve to carry such an awful thing around for the rest of his life.

"Caleb, make him drop the gun. Please."

Seward's hand stopped moving. Caleb looked at me. Tactical error. With Caleb's attention diverted, Seward gained the upper hand. His eyes sparked. Caleb winced, whimpered. He closed his eyes, his child's mind caught up in a nightmare of Specter's making. A silent war waged between the two telepaths, one with fifty years of life experience and one with five. A child versus a man, and I had no doubt Caleb would lose.

I just didn't expect him to lose so fast. The air in the room became crisp, keen, like lightning about to strike. Twin sets of yellow-orange eyes glared at me, one child-size and one adult. I lobbed an orb at Seward-how could I bring myself to fire on a child?-and Caleb blocked it. He sent the orb pinging into the wall near McNally's supine form. The orb struck and blasted a hole the size of a soccer ball through concrete and plaster.

Specter-Caleb spread his palm in my direction and then clenched his fingers. An invisible hand closed around my throat and squeezed tight. My lungs seized, desperate to draw in air. Black spots danced across my vision.

Was this how I died? Choked to death by a possessed five-year-old?

I was on my knees, but didn't remember falling. I tried to concentrate on summoning an orb. Purple sparked, unable to coalesce. Gage's voice was in my head, telling me over and over that he cared for me. That it was okay. I tried to say it back and couldn't. I was dying. If life after death existed, I hoped he would know me there.

Roaring filled my ears. A tiny pin of lavender p.r.i.c.ked the periphery of my mind. I latched on with all I had left, balled it up, and pushed. Power surged forward, along with the last of my strength.

The roar in my ears became a man's scream. The pressure on my throat ceased. Air rushed into my starving lungs, and I collapsed on the floor. A few seconds pa.s.sed before I mustered enough energy to push up with my left arm. I gasped, every joint aching. Caleb was huddled in the corner of the room nearest the mirror wall, arms around his knees, weeping. A big, black shape hulked over Seward's body. It took a moment to process the sight: Marco's panther form had Seward by the throat.

Time ticked by, each moment filled with my attempts to breathe and the quiet sound of Caleb's sobs, and then the cat released his prey. Blood dripped from his long teeth, matting the fur around his mouth. He looked at me, feline eyes reflecting the utter sorrow no real animal could ever hope to understand. He stood on three legs, limped sideways, and finally collapsed.

By the time I crawled to him, he had transformed back to Marco, lying on his side, broken fingers swollen to the size of D batteries, blood coating his mouth. He had a black eye, bruised jaw, and half a dozen minor sc.r.a.pes. But he was alive and staring at me.

"Almost did not make it," he panted. "Lo siento. So sorry."

I wanted to laugh. It turned into a choked sob. Tears filled my eyes, burning my sore and damaged throat. "You made it in perfect time, pal, now don't move."

I crawled onward. Seward blinked at the ceiling. A burn the size of a half-dollar smoked just above his heart. Blood oozed from four wide puncture wounds in his neck. He made no attempts to stop the bleeding, and neither did I. More blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, joining the puddle on the floor beneath his head. I didn't want to cry for him; the tears came anyway. Hot and sharp, they stung the corners of my eyes.

I touched his cheek. I had no words. There was nothing left to say.

Seward blinked once, and then the light faded from his eyes. His chest rose once more and stilled. No exhalation, no choking gasp. Angus Seward died quietly and unforgiven for so many sins.

I lurched away, crawling on one hand toward Gage. Openly crying. The skin on his wrist was cool. I sobbed harder when I found a pulse. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I pressed against the wound on his neck, but the blood flow had slowed on its own.

"Caleb," I said. "Please, sweetie, come here."

He did, finding some sort of strength in himself to ignore his fear.

"Can you do me a favor? I know you're scared, but it will help your daddy."

He nodded, solemn and teary-eyed.

"I need you to run outside as fast as you can, okay? Run toward the big copper gate. You'll see lots of people and fire trucks. There are good people in those fire trucks. You know that, right?"

He nodded again, though I doubted he did. He'd probably never seen an active fire truck while living on the island. It didn't matter. I explained about the emergency entry-a big red b.u.t.ton, to him-and how to use it. He repeated back what I'd said, and then took off at a dead run to let the cavalry inside.

Across the room, McNally stirred. I held onto Gage and cried. We hadn't come this far to lose anyone else. Not with our enemy, at last, defeated.

It was finally over.

And also just beginning.

Thirty-six.

Recovery.

It sounds so crazy that it has to be true," Agent McNally said, keeping her voice low so the bustling staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center didn't overhear.

I'd spent the last few hours alternately telling her Seward's story and receiving status reports on my people. I didn't much care that I was bleeding from a dozen places, had nearly been choked to death, and had probably rebroken my hand. My body was completely numb, pain receptors blown, and I wasn't allowing myself to be treated until everyone else had their turn.

Cedars-Sinai hadn't quite known what to do with the lot of us when four screaming ambulances tore into their emergency lane, but McNally had used her impressive vocabulary to bully the staff into clearing out a section of the ward for us, allowing us the privacy we needed.

Psystorm (whose real name, I learned, was Simon Hewitt) and Caleb were physically uninjured from the experience. The boy spent every waking moment in the ward crying in his father's arms. He'd watched his father be tied up and drugged, and then he was locked in a storage closet. Caleb's escape was a blessing. His nightmares would end one day, but for now they were very real.

Dahlia was up and moving. She'd been injected with drugs to keep her unconscious, and she only vaguely remembered having Specter poking around inside of her brain. Conversely, the doctors had shot Renee up with muscle relaxants. Her body had been stretched and twisted and left in impossible positions for too long, resulting in multiple muscle tears. They were too small to repair surgically; they required time and staying still, which Renee did not do naturally.

Marco spent two hours in surgery. Morphing and running on broken fingers had shattered several tiny bones that needed to be repaired before they could heal. His own concussion was minor, and the handful of burns he received during the Medical Center explosion would heal.

By the time I got the news on Marco, word had spread of our invasion of the hospital, spurring a secondary invasion of reporters and cameras. The security guards had their hands full corralling them all into the ambulance bay. They had a long wait; no one was talking to the press until I knew my people were okay.

As expected, Ethan had pulled some of his old st.i.tches. Once they decided his insides were all in the correct places, they fixed his external wounds and put him to bed. He'd remained stuck between the seats until rescue workers pulled him out. He came through the final fight without-as he'd feared-hurting any of his friends.

I watched the waiting room doors swing shut behind Ethan's surgeon. "So how much of this do we release to the public?" I asked McNally, rubbing my eyes. The only person still in the woods was Gage, but I didn't know how much longer I could keep myself upright.

"We can decide that later," she said. "For now, they only need to know that there was an accident, and that your team is recovering. The rest can wait."

"Good."

Another hazy hour pa.s.sed before Gage's surgeon finally came out, and I might have tackled him if I'd had the energy. I was impressed I managed to stand up.

"He was lucky," the doctor said. "The knife nicked his carotid artery without severing it. The wound was repaired, and he's received two transfusions to replace his blood loss. He also has three fractured ribs that will take several weeks to mend."

"So he's-will he be okay?" I asked.

"He's shown an impressive will to live. I do believe he'll make a full recovery."

My anxiety fled when the surgeon said that, and with my anxiety went every last ounce of energy. I pa.s.sed out in his arms.

Twelve hours later, I had a new cast on my right hand, eighteen st.i.tches in my back, a bandage on my chin, and a raging sore throat. Except for Renee, Gage, and Ethan, everyone else had been officially released, but they remained in the ward anyway. Although two buildings of HQ still stood, we hesitated to return. It felt haunted, incomplete. Stained. I'd wanted change, but not on this level. And not so quickly.

I spent my time in an uncomfortable chair next to Gage's bed. He had remained unconscious after the surgery for no physical reason his doctor could find. It could have been because of Specter's possession. I didn't know; I just wanted him to wake up. They say coma patients can hear you, so I talked as much as my sore throat would allow and sucked on ice chips in between.