Darkening Chaos: Book Three of The Destroyer Trilogy (9 page)

“No,”
I say, recognizing the exact moment he’s talking about because I felt the same
way, “that was when Milo shot that Seeker in the head half a second after I
told him not to.” I shiver at the memory. “The look on his face …” I pull
myself against Lance again and will the memory out of my head forever.

After
a minute Lance pushes me back. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I
will be when I have Braden back,” I say.

“Yeah,
we need to talk about that. If he’s really out looking for you …”

“There’s
no
if
, Lance. He’s coming. I just don’t know when,” I say. My gaze turns
back to my house and worry starts to gnaw at me. “I can guess where he’ll come
for me, though. He’s going to show up here. Maybe we should get everyone to
leave. They might get hurt if they’re here when he finally comes after me.”

Lance
stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You might die if they aren’t here.
Everyone is staying. They’re all here to help you destroy the Guardians. That
won’t happen if you’re dead, so I’m willing to bet they won’t have a problem
facing Braden.”

“But
maybe I do,” I argue. “You know I don’t want to hurt Braden. If he shows up
here with everyone at the house, they’ll try to kill him. I can’t let that
happen.”

“Even
if he’s trying to kill you?” Lance asks.

I
can’t answer him. I believe in what I’m doing, but I don’t think I could ever
kill Braden. Even at the expense of my own life, I don’t think I can do it.
Whatever he tries to do to me, I know he doesn’t want to. I know he isn’t in
control of himself. How can I kill him knowing that?

“Libby,”
Lance says, making me look at him, “I know I said I’d help you find Braden, but
if it’s a choice between him and you, you know I’m going to choose you, right?
I won’t let him kill you.”

“You
have to let me try and stop him first,” I say.

He
frowns at the request, but nods. Lance isn’t the real problem, though, and not
even Dean, who worshipped Braden before he was taken. Dean will definitely
think twice before taking Braden’s life. Milo is the real issue. He won’t
hesitate. He’s probably looking for an excuse. I want to at least make him
leave the house, but he knows Braden is coming. It will take a miracle to make
him step away from me.

Maybe
I can think of something. I think I still have a little time. Braden is very
smart, and he knows my group of friends pretty well. He’ll know that after what
we just pulled, blood and tempers will be running high. I can’t see him
attacking when he knows everyone will be keyed up and ready for a fight. He’ll
wait until the adrenaline cools and everyone begins falling into either
planning or grieving.

“Libby,”
Lance asks suddenly, “why is there a very angry looking teenage girl standing
on the sidewalk behind you? She looks like she’s about to murder someone.”

I
turn around and blink in surprise when I realize he’s right. Hope is, in fact,
standing there, without any sign of the Xterra that carted off her parents a
few minutes ago. She stares at me, looking angry enough to stop a Sihir in its
tracks. I can’t even speak for a moment faced with the intensity of her fury. Her
blue eyes are electric, so much so that I almost expect her wispy blond hair to
crackle with angry static. Thank goodness my emotional blocks are up and
working well enough to counter at least some of her emotional firestorm. Being
hit with all that rage would have knocked me over.

“Hope?”
I ask experimentally. She stomps over to me but doesn’t say anything. I try
again. “Hope, what are you doing here? I thought you were going with your
parents. You should really get some rest and … uh, you’ve been through a lot
lately.”

“I’m
not leaving,” she snaps.

“Um,
okay.” I look back at Lance for some help, but he doesn’t seem to have anything
to offer. I’m not sure if anyone has claimed any of the guest bedrooms yet, but
if you want to …”

“I
don’t want to take a nap,” she says as she marches closer. “I want to get back
at the monsters who killed my grandpa. I want to help you. I
am
going to
help you.”

So
close to me, even my blocks are having a hard time buffering her anger. “Sure,
okay,” I say, “I won’t turn down help. Why don’t you come inside with me and
I’ll introduce you to everyone. We’re going to start planning our next move.”

Hope
simply nods and blows past me toward the house. I look over at Lance and shake
my head in surprise. He doesn’t look pleased.

“Milo
is bad enough to deal with sometimes, given how much he hates the Guardians.
She’s going to be a million times worse.”

“Well,
what was I supposed to do, tell her no? She’d run off and try to take them all
down on her own,” I say.

“She
still may. We’re going to have to watch her, closely,” Lance says.

No
kidding. Braden may have been right about what the Guardians would do to him if
they caught him, but apparently he was wrong about not having people jumping at
the chance to join me. It’s only one person, I guess, but I’m already wishing
he had been right about that one too.

Chapter
8

Haunted

“Look, everyone, I know
that after what happened this morning we’re all anxious to run back in and tear
the Guardians’ heads off,” I say, “but we can’t. The Albuquerque compound is
hopping with Guardians and Seekers right now, and you can bet the security at
every other compound is being beefed up at the moment, too. If we attack now,
we’re going to get slaughtered. The best thing to do for the time being is
start training the Ciphers and gathering intel. Mr. Walters warned us that
there’s more we’re going to face than we understand. We have to figure out the
clues he left us before we do anything else.”

“So
we’re just going to sit here and wait for the Guardians to come after us?” Hope
demands.

“No,”
Lance says. “We aren’t going to wait for anything. The Guardians here have been
hurt, yeah, but that doesn’t really help us. Now there are three times as many
Guardians running around Albuquerque. Even with the Ciphers, we’re still badly
outnumbered, and we’re spread all over the world. We have to train and organize
before we can do anything.”

Angry
and anxious, Hope is practically bouncing in her seat. She’s dying to run out
and kill something. The others in the room are slightly more reasonable. Daniel
and Hammond have just as much reason as Hope to want revenge, but they have
also spent decades learning to be patient. Milo is the next person to speak.

“What’s
to stop the Guardians from coming after us while we wait?”

“Nothing,
really,” I admit, “but I showed them today what I’m really capable of. It isn’t
something they’re going to forget. They may be murderous animals, but they’re
smart. They’re going to take a step back and try to figure out how to beat me.”

“Why
give them the chance?” Milo demands.

“Because
we need the time, and I think it’s worth the risk. Besides, sinking people into
floors isn’t all I can do. They won’t be able to plan for everything.”

That
brings a slight smile to Milo’s lips. He’s one of the few people who have seen
me work at my top level, but not even he has seen everything. And if I can just
survive until my eighteenth birthday, when my already potent talents will be
fully unlocked, nobody will be able to stop me. I turn seventeen in a few
weeks. I still need to make it to eighteen. One more year. I don’t know how I’m
ever going to make it that long.

The
thumping bass of Lance’s ringtone breaks the silence that has fallen. He snaps
it up to his ear without bothering to see who’s calling. I don’t know who he
thought it would be since all of the people still speaking to him—minus his
little brother who is at school—are all in this room. Regardless, he answers it
with his usual, “This is Lance. What do you got for me?”

No
one can hear the other end of the call. Lance’s face drains of color, catching
all of our attention. “What? Seriously?” Lances stutters. His jaw drops. “No,
she’s with me. Just a second, sir.”

Sir?
Lance doesn’t call anyone but his dad
sir
. I throw him a questioning
look, and he answers by handing me the phone with the speaker covered. “It’s
the president,” he hisses.

“The
president of what?”

“Of
the world.”

Everybody’s
mouths pop open at that. A slimy, creeping sensation crawls over my body. The President
of the world is the head Guardian, the absolute authority in every aspect of
pretty much everything. History books say that people like Presidents and Prime
Ministers used to be elected officials. That died away with the rise of the
Guardian’s power. President Howe is the darkest, evilest, most ruthless man in
the world. He never would have become president if he wasn’t. He’s also the one
who ordered the Guardians to leave me alone after my Inquest. At first, I
thought it was because he wanted me to suffer the public humiliation of having
everyone in my life turn on me. Mr. Walters and Braden both suggested it was to
make his victory over me as dramatic and fulfilling as possible. I have a
feeling there’s a lot more to it than that, but I never expected him to call
me. Keeping a steady hand as I take the phone from Lance isn’t possible without
a massive dose of Naturalism.

“Hello?”

“Libitina
Sparks?” he asks. His slithering voice pierces me and makes me shiver.

“Yes.”

“This
is President Howe. It has been a while since we last spoke.”

“Why
are you calling me?” I ask.

Silence.
He waits until I start to repeat my question then interrupts me. “I want to
offer you a truce.”

“I
thought we already had one of those.”

“Letting
you go back to school and remain free?” he laughs. “No, that wasn’t a truce,
not at all.”

“Then
what was it?”

“That
was … curiosity”

“What?
You’re not curious anymore?” I ask, not buying his reasons at all.

He
chuckles in a way that makes my stomach turn. “I’m more curios than ever, Miss
Sparks, but that is beside the point. It will have to wait. What I want to
discuss now is a truce between you and my men.”

“What?”
I demand. “Why?”

“I,
of course, already know of your escapade this morning and the loss of one of my
men,” he says calmly. “I also know about your stunt with the Ciphers, and a few
other memorable moments. You’ve given me plenty of reasons to end your life,
but the Cipher families attacking me at every turn have done wonders to keep me
from action. I was willing to let the Cipher families have their way for
personal reasons.”

“You
mean you did it to try and look all sweet and nice so the public will stop
hating you?”

“And
it worked beautifully. Public opinion of me has never been higher.”

“Too
bad it didn’t work on your brothers,” I say. “How many uprisings have you had
to put down in the last year? I know Pierro and Valdez weren’t as successful as
they’d hoped.” I relish the garbled grunt of surprise when I mentioned the
names I got from the Seeker in Canada. “And what
really
happened to
Lazaro after he sent his men to kill me?”

Howe
doesn’t answer. I can hear the creaking of his phone as his hand crushes it. I
hope I never have to look at Howe’s sickening face again, but it would be nice
to see him squirm right now.

“It
would seem I’m not the only one who’s curious,” Howe says.

“You’ve
heard about curiosity and cats, right?” It’s probably not the best idea to be a
smart mouth to the guy who wants to kill me, but I just can’t stand him.

“That
applies to you too, Libby.”

“Maybe.
I seem to be outside of those kinds of rules.”

“Perhaps,”
he says with irritation lacing each syllable. “Either way, I have decided that my
curiosity about what you can do is no longer worth the price. I’d rather not
lose any more of my forces before I can kill you legally.”

“The
legality of my death isn’t stopping you. You’ve already sent Sihirs after me. You
could send whoever you wanted to come and kill me at any second. Why would I
trust you to stay away from me now?”

“The
Sihir was not my doing.”

“How
loose is your hold on your men?” I demand.

I
can hear his fist slam down on something. The sound makes me jump, but what’s
even worse is that after he calms down he starts drumming his fingers in
frustration. The noise plays chopsticks on my already frayed nerves. President
or not, I’m about to hang up on him.

“I’m
no fool, Miss Sparks. I refuse to release information to the public about
anything you’ve done over the last year because the public response is too
unpredictable, but I know that may not last very long. If word gets out about
what you’ve done, not everyone will call for your death. Eighty-seven Ciphers
are dead after being abducted by Guardians. Compare that to one of my men dead.
I know where the public’s sympathies will lie.