Exposed (40 page)

The air rang, the only sound June was afraid she’d ever hear again in that moment. But then it was replaced with something much, much worse. A scream split her head nearly in two. A superhuman screech that made the assembled women clutch at their heads and clench their eyes shut. 

One of them screeched something about another Soviet attack. Mrs. Greg crawled under the drinks table.

June forced herself to stand. It had to be Veronica Clark, the girl who had the ability to shatter glass just with her voice. June’s blood ran cold. Veronica had seemed awfully aligned with Butch in the mine a few weeks back.

Something was happening. Something awful. 

June staggered forward. Ivan was meeting with the others right now to discuss what to do with Butch. And if Veronica was screaming like that ….

She had to get to them, help them. 

The terrible screech cut off with an even more horrible shriek, and Annette tried to stumble to her feet, dazed. The movement caught June’s attention and she wrenched her mother back down and shouted to be heard.

“Get these women inside. Stay there with Dad.”

“But the party!”

“Mom,” June shouted. She hauled Mrs. Greg out from under the table and pushed her toward the house. “The party’s over. Please.”

And that’s when a horribly stretched arm flopped over the fence and the ladies attending Annette Powell’s Fourth of July soiree started really screaming. 

Don’s arm—horribly stretched so it looked like fleshy taffy—hooked around the bottom of the fence and started dragging the whole thing down. But then bodies slammed against the wooden slats, someone howled in pain, and Ivan crashed through the fence. A vine had tight hold of Don’s stretched arm and flung the man directly on top of Annette’s gelatin molds. A gold-painted eagle went flying. 

Beyond the hole in the fence, down by the woods along the river, June’s heart stuttered to see Clayton and Teddy trying to fend off Kent Michaels, whose arms shone like brass in the setting sun. Clayton sent an energy ball straight for the man, but it ricocheted off his flesh and darted up into the air to explode in fireworks.

June jumped to her feet and raced to help Ivan. But Don’s limbs were there to stop her. A hand clamped around June’s throat, choking off her breath. June fought against him, scratching at his fingers, but he held tight and slammed her body to the ground. 

Ivan charged toward them, vines ripping out of the ground as he did and snapping around Don’s limbs. But the man’s grip was tight, and June’s vision was starting to go black. 

Scurrying her fingers across the grass, her hand closed around the wing of one of the heavy brass eagles. She raised it high over Don’s head. Annette got there first. She kicked dirt into Don’s face, and then stumbled backward when he rounded his snarling face to her.

But it was enough. His fingers loosened, and June scrambled backward away from him.

“Mom!” June coughed and rubbed at her tender throat. “Mom, get inside!” 

Annette was frozen, staring at the monster of a man lurching toward her.

Don staggered on his feet, the snarl turning feral. Annette backed up again, tripped over the trampled snapdragons and sea of tiny cocktail sausages at her feet. Don stalked closer to Annette. He grunted and his other arm popped from its socket and started stretching.

Two things happened at once. June roared and knocked Don over the head with the golden eagle and Ivan’s vine burst through the ground and wrapped him up tight as a mummy. 

Don’s eyes rolled in his head and he teetered on his feet for a second before landing on the rose bushes.

Ivan’s eyes were wild, and he stumbled forward with relief. He grabbed June and pulled her into a fierce hug. There was a nasty cut above his eyebrow and some sort of gray powder coated his hair and clothing. But he was here, and he was whole. 

“Will someone
please
tell me what’s happening?” Annette had a bit of snapdragon hanging from her hair, and dirt clung to her party dress.

Ivan and June herded Annette and the rest of the ladies straight into the house. From beyond the picture windows at the front, one of Clayton’s blue orbs went flying past. An explosion cracked like thunder a second later. Peter Powell was already inside trying to calm the women, and he looked up at their arrival. 

Annette collapsed into his arms, and he buried his face into her hair. 

“June, what am I seeing out there? It looks … it looks—”

“Like superpowers,” June finished for him. She grabbed Ivan’s hand and held it tight. “
Our
superpowers.”

Annette’s eyes darted from June’s face, to her fingers entwined with Ivan’s, and back. She sucked in a breath, but then closed her mouth again. And that was all the closure June knew she’d get in that moment. For now, at least.

She and Ivan slammed the door shut and sprinted into the fight.

Butch was waiting for them. 

He stood beside Kent, with his legs spread wide on the asphalt street. His arms were fisted at his side, and his eyes were locked on June.

June stumbled back, almost like Butch was a physical force pushing her over. But Ivan’s hand went tight around hers.

“We can fight him, June,” Ivan said beside her.

June nodded and, with Ivan her strength at her side, they walked toward Butch. 

“This is all your fault,” Butch called out.

Behind him, an energy ball whizzed past and exploded against a garage. The whole thing was decimated to dust.

“You had to tell others,” Butch shouted. “You stole what was mine.”

“That money was
never
yours,” June said, stalking closer.

“If you could have just kept your mouth shut,” Butch hissed. Kent paced behind him, swinging his metal arms. They glittered in the streetlights like scales.

“But no.” Butch spat the words, his chin ducked and his eyes near manic. “You couldn’t leave it alone. You had to ruin it.”

June drew up close to him, looked his dead in the eyes. “You’re just upset we know how to defeat you now, Butch. You have no power over me and never will.”

The edges of Butch’s mouth curled up, and in that split second June knew what was about to happen. She tried shouting for Ivan, tried running. 

Kent lunged for Ivan and knocked one of his metal fists into the side of Ivan’s head.

June screamed. Screamed for Ivan. Screamed in pain. 

The blast from Butch’s power was strong enough to knock her off her feet. She clutched at her head and staggered to her knees. But her mind remained her own. It was swimming in pain, but it was her own.

She glared at Butch through smarting eyes, but her gaze darted behind. Kent and Ivan squared off in a vicious fight. Ivan had hold of a sapling that was sprouting in a neighbor’s lawn, and under his power the tree expanded into a towering oak.

Kent charged at Ivan, but he was ready. One of the oak’s thick branches swung through the air and sent Kent sailing. The man’s body landed hard on the hood of a battered bar with a metallic
crunch
.

A fresh wave of pain made June clench her eyes, and when she finally looked up, Butch was a shadow blocking out the light from the streetlamp.

“You think you can defeat me? You think any of you have a chance against me? I am
in your head
, I am
in control
.”

“You’ll never control me,” June gasped. She pushed herself up on trembling arms. 

Ivan’s tree was trembling too. Kent rammed the trunk with his shoulder, and the roots groaned.

“Without Ivan at your side, you don’t have a chance,” Butch snarled. His large chest was heaving, each breath a gasp. Then he sucked in air, and the pain returned.

June heard a scream, either hers or Butch’s, she didn’t know. Her brain swelled out and out and out with each wave of pain until June felt sure she’d explode. Then everything imploded to a tiny pinprick. 

The world went silent and dark, save for her and Butch. She could feel him in there, rooting around. Picking her apart piece by piece.

But she was there too. She was there, and she knew how to fight back.

June bared down and steeled herself, her mind from Butch. She concentrated on every minute detail of Ivan’s face that first time he’d smiled. Pictured the way his cheeks creased and the soft skin around his beautiful blue eyes had crinkled just the tiniest bit. His teeth were white and just the slightest bit crooked, and his jaw was hard and square. His dark hair grew thick and almost wild, not tamed like the other boys in town, and a shadow of dark stubble shaded his jawline. Even then, the night they’d hidden under a tree from the rain, even then she’d felt this overwhelming urge to push her fingers through his hair and pull him close. 

How she wished she’d done it. How she wished she’d spent every second she could have with Ivan. Far away outside herself, she heard someone roar in pain. Was it him? Was he hurting? 

June shook away those fears. No. Ivan was her strength. She could keep Butch out, keep her mind her own, if only she concentrated on him, on Ivan. Her Ivan. On the man she loved more than she even thought possible.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you, Ivan.

And just like that, her mind was her own. She felt a release, like the first big breath after being under water for too long.

June blinked and looked up at stars. With a moan, she rolled over on the grass. Butch was struggling to his feet, blood streaming from his nose. He stumbled forward, staggering side to side as momentum tried to bring him crashing back to the ground. Then he shook his head and took off into the night.

June shook her head too, but the pain was gone. Absolutely gone. Her body quivered from the fight, but she felt … she felt
strong.

The limbs of Ivan’s oak were swinging madly, lashing out at anything it its path. They pummeled the car parked across the street and the asphalt road. And Kent. Kent most of all.

The man roared again in pain and held his metal arms up to his face to protect himself.

“Ivan!”

It took him a moment to drag his face away from the destruction. The branches of the oak stilled, and Kent collapsed into a heap.

“Let’s finish this with Butch.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Ivan

Up ahead, screams and the rumble of running feet shook the ground. Ivan and June pounded through the woods and burst free near the center of town. 

Chaos reigned in the town square. 

The band had scattered, and tables were overturned. All these townspeople, all of them gathered for the annual fireworks. In the gathering darkness, it was hard to tell who was innocent and who was enemy. Men rushed to protect women, fathers grabbed their children. And in the midst of it all, the Independents fought. 

Fought fiercely. 

“Jesus,” Ivan groaned. Devastation was everywhere. And fear, so much fear he could taste it like acid on his tongue.

Nearby, Will spun on his heel to try and teleport with Don struggling in his arms, but he only teleported to the middle of the fountain. It stood half-broken at the center of the near-decimated gardens, half the plants wilted and dead from Clayton’s energy balls.

Don shrieked, and his shoulders popped from their sockets and slammed outward. Will went soaring through the air and landed flat on his back, but Blanche was ready by the fountain. She splayed her fingers wide and lay them on top of the water. Ice crystals spread like wildfire across the water, froze the fountain solid all the way to the splash of water from the top. The stone cracked with the sudden freeze, and half the top of the fountain broke free and fell to the ground. 

Don was frozen up to his knees. He screamed and struggled, letting loose a string of curses, but he couldn’t break free.

There was a buffeting wind, and Ralph knocked Ivan out at the knees. They tumbled to a stop, Ralph pinning him down. The pockmarked boy snapped his small teeth at Ivan, held both hands to his throat as June screamed. But Ivan slammed one hand against the ground and pulled up a gnarled root covered in thorns. He whipped the thorny club through the air and it collided with Ralph’s side. 

The man howled and fell off Ivan, but he rolled to his feet and grabbed at the first person he saw: Samantha Miller trying to dart away from the fight. 

The woman struggled in Ralph’s grip, but he was stronger than he looked. Sam ground her heel into his foot, but Ralph only held on tighter until Sam’s eyes bugged and she yelped in fear. Ivan stalked closer, his hands up in mock surrender.

“Let her go, Ralph.”

Ralph giggled. “Make me.” He hauled her back using his super speed, farther away from Ivan.

Ivan’s jaw went tight, but he cast his eyes around for a way to help Sam. Then he saw June behind Ralph, her eyes wide. 

Moving slowly, he toed at the thorny club lying on the ground by his feet. He’d never directed his power using anything but his hands, but he had to try. He pressed his foot into the ground, felt the rumble of something writhe just under the grass. The tip of a vine burst through the dirt and curled around the handle of the club, and he knew just what to do.

“June!” Ivan shouted. “Catch!”

A vine exploded from the ground, whipping the club with it. It arced through the air and straight into June’s hands. She was ready. She gripped the club tight and wound up, then drove it right into Ralph’s back. He squealed and dropped Sam, and she sprinted away to safety.

And that’s when Ivan saw him. Running through the crowd of people, pushing people down, trampling others.

Butch.

“There!” Ivan spit the words, not letting his eyes leave Butch’s retreating back. The coward. He’d started this fight, but he was too afraid to finish it.

June rushed to Ivan’s side and looked at where he was pointing.

“Bastard,” June hissed. “Come on,” she said, already running toward Butch. “Follow my lead.”