Hero Reborn (Keepers of Justice, Book 3) (14 page)

The woman stares at us. “Are you sure it won’t hurt me?”

Well, we can’t know for sure, can we? But what else can we do? Kale nods. “You’ll be better in no time.”

The woman
looks at the vial and syringe. She shifts on the couch. Stares at the items again, shifts on the couch. After this goes on for a few more seconds, she says, “Okay.”

She
lifts her sleeve. X pumps the antidote into the syringe. He moves closer and is about to inject it into her arm, when we’re all thrown back a few feet and slam into the wall. The woman falls on the floor.

My left side stings. I slowly sit up, rubbing my lower back.

X scrambles to his feet. “What the hell?”

We help the woman up and onto the couch. “Sorry,” Kale says. “Don’t know what happened. Let’s try again.”

As X does it a second time, the same thing happens. We crash into the wall, except it’s stronger and I feel my body flatten out like a sheet of paper. We drop to the floor.

“I don’t understand.” X fists his left hand at his side. “Why won’t
it go?”

“That must be what my dad meant when he said the normies aren’t taking it.
It’s not them, X. They were telling the truth.”

X holds up the syringe. “The antidote must not work.”

The woman gasps, coughing up some more blood.

“We gotta get her some help,” I say.

Kale nods and calls 911 from her phone. We wait with her until the ambulance pulls up in front of the house. Once it does, Kale erases her memory of us, because it’s too dangerous to put all the KOJ at risk. Before the EMTs walk in, we slip out the back door.

“
This doesn’t make any sense,” Kale says as we run down the block, away from the house and the crowds of people.

“Why won’t they—?” I stop talking when we hear shouts.

X points his thumb toward the left. “Villains, preying on sick normies. We need to help.”

“Okay,” Kale says. “I’m going to take them down.”

I internally sigh in relief. After what happened in that woman’s house, I don’t think any of us want to deal with villains right now. Kale can knock them out in two seconds.

We dash in the direction X points to. Sure enough,
two guys and one girl roam around. One of the guys shoots fire from his nose. Another from his eyes and the girl from her palms. Normies flee, shouting frantically. A few bodies lie on the grass, charred. In addition to hurting the humans, the villains are destroying houses, cars, and trees.

Soldiers,
cops, and firefighters rush to the scene, some so sick they can barely stand straight. They try to shoot the villains down with their guns, but it doesn’t do any good. The villains just use their fire to deflect the bullets. No agents with powers are around. Firefighters use hoses, but the villains seem to be immune to the water.

The guys and I hide behind a wall and peek out. The
female villain hurls balls of fire at the military. Fire Nose Guy flares his nostrils. He’s going to spray the entire area and everyone around in flames. 

Kale
rubs his temples. One by one, the villains drop to the ground. The firefighters waste no time trying to put out the burning buildings.

The soldiers
and cops look around, but they don’t see us. They rush to another location, where many humans scurry from.

X jumps to his feet. “Follow them.”

When we get there, we see a woman who’s using her ability to melt everything in her path. When the military shoot bullets at her, they spit out of her stomach.

One of the soldiers curses, stepping back. Another moves forward, all confident.

“Kale,” X says. “Take her down before she kills those soldiers.”

“On it.”

As he does that, something creeps up on my side. A shadow. Heading toward us. It’s a guy dressed in costume. He’s got a wicked grin on his face as he lifts something over his head. A steel block. He aims at me. I want to move, but my limbs are locked in place. I look at Kale and X for help. Their backs face me.

“G-guys!”

They turn around and charge at him, tackling him to the ground.

The guy jumps up and holds out his fists. X is about to punch him, but Kale says,
“I’ve got this.”

A few seconds later, the guy slumps to the ground.

“I had him,” X says.

“It was safer to knock him out.”

X peers over to where the other woman was melting things. She’s out cold. “Let’s check for more villains, then we’ll get out of here.”

As we near the bookstore, I see something pacing in front of the door. It’s small and has red, spiky fur. It looks like...

“Furball!”

The cat lifts its head. Her eyes widen. Just looking into them, I know it’s her. I’ve dreamed about her eyes since forever. They’re green and big and so cute.

I rush over to her. Kale and X follow. “Are you sure it’s her? I can’t read her mind.”

“It’s her. I know it.”

She’s alive!

Furball meows. I wrap my arms around the tiny cat. She’s so soft and fuzzy. I want to squish her to my chest. I don’t, though. She wouldn’t like it.

She looks around like she’s scared someone or something will come
after her. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You’re safe here.”

She meows
again. Then she leaps out of my hold. Her body gets long, and hair, legs, and arms pop out. She’s human again. Just like in my dream last night, her eyes are ghost-like. Her face and arms are dirty and covered in mud. She looks like she hasn’t eaten in days.

She jumps into my arms, hugging me tight.
It’s exactly how it happened in my dream. I just stand there, my eyes probably bigger than the moon as she squishes herself against me. It’s real this time, so much realer than in my dream. I’m for sure going to pass out.

As quickly as
she hugged me, she frees herself just as fast. Her gaze drops to the ground.

“Are you okay?” Kale asks her.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she nods.

“You’re alive! You’re here!” That’s what comes out of my mouth. I’m lame
. Of course she’s here. We all can see that.

“How did you find this place?” Kale asks.

Her eyes go to me for a second, then back to Kale. “I had a dream. Stretch told me where he was staying. I came here.”

Kale gapes at me. Is he thinking what I’m thinking? That we had the same dream?
How could that be?

X is quiet, but
I can see his wheels spinning.

Furball looks at us, confused. “What?”

Don’t tell her
, I say to Kale through my mind.
Not until we figure this out
.

“We’re so glad you’re okay,” Kale says. I give her a huge smile. “Let’s get
inside,” he continues.

“
What’s…what’s in there?” she asks. “Is it safe?” She bites her lip as tears fill her eyes.

I reach for her hand. She stares at it, but doesn’t move. She won’t even look at me. My shoulders droop so low my knuckles almost sweep the floor. After all the crap we’ve been through, I still disgust her.

But she hugged me, so I don’t really understand…

“Yeah, we met up with the others,” Kale says. “We’ll explain more on the way
inside.”

She nods
slowly.

Something catches in my nose and I sneeze. Furball and the others jump back. Damn it. Sometimes I forget how allergic I am to her. “S-sorry.” I wipe my nose with my sleeve.

We walk toward the steel door. Inside the dark hallway, Kale tells her everything—how we found my parents’ house, how we fought villains to protect the humans. She smiles at that, but not to me. Sigh…

Kale talks about Samson finding us. “He’s been searching for everyone,” he says. “Just like we were. Only a handful of us weren’t taken.”

Furball hugs her arms again and her eyes light up with hope. “The triplets?”

Kale shakes his head. Her face falls.

We continue walking until we reach the last steel door. Furball takes it all in. “What’s this?”

“Where we’re living,” I explain.

Her eyebrows furrow.

I reach for her hand. “Just trust us, please.” She doesn’t take my hand.
Sigh again…

“
My parents and the others are inside,” Kale says. “They’re safe.”

Her eyes look skeptical. Kale focuses his gaze on her, probably talking telepathically or showing her images. It doesn’t take two seconds for her to leap toward the door.

As we did with the other doors, the three of us use all our might to heave it open. Samson’s standing on the other end. His face reads rage. Oh, crap.

“We found
Furball, Dad. She was outside the building.”

Samson moves closer to Furball and h
ugs her. “Kelly,” he says. “I’m glad you’re safe and well. You must be hungry. Tranquility will give you some dinner and show you to your room. After that, I’d like to have a few words with you.”

“Okay.”

Samson rubs her shoulder. “Welcome.”

“Thanks.” Her voice has a tremor
in it. Even though she’s safe, she must not feel like she is. I can’t imagine—and don’t want to think about—how difficult and scary it was for her to be all alone. She’s not a stray cat and doesn’t know how to survive on the streets. But she managed. She’s awesome. So brave and strong.

Samson’s in the middle of talking to us. Something about instructing us to drop
by his office later today. He has that look on his face. The one where we know we’re in serious trouble.

I don’t regret going out there and doing what we did. Yeah, the antidote didn’t work, but at least we tried. And we saved some normies from those villains, too.

Kale lowers his head. “Sorry, Dad.”

“I’ll see the three of you later.” He heads down the hall to his office. X’s gaze follows him.

All four of us stare at each other. Furball has a curious look on her face. “Why’s he mad at you?”

She still won’t look my way.

Kale shrugs. “Eh, was nothing, really.”

Someone’s going to need to update her on everything that’s happened. Not me, ‘cuz she can’t stand my guts.
I mean, she did jump into my arms, but maybe she was just relieved to see us.

She and I
have our eyes locked on each other for a few seconds before she pulls away. I shift from one foot to the other. If I stay in a position for too long, my body gets into all these different shapes. I don’t want that to happen in front of her.

“Kelly.” Tranquility walks over to Furball and hugs her. She murmurs how happy and relieved she is to see her. I watch Furball’s tense body relax, all Tranquility’s doing. “Let’s get you something to eat and settle you in.”
Tranquility leads her to the kitchen.

When they’re out of earshot, Kale turns to me. “What the heck was she talking about with all that dream stuff? How did you have the same dream?”

Maybe we’re meant to be together and that’s why we’re sharing dreams.

“X?” Kale asks.

He’s looking at something ahead.

“X?” I poke him in the shoulder.

He blinks.

“Whadya see?” I ask.

He looks around. “We can’t talk about it here. Let’s go to our room.”

Once we get t
here, we plop down on our beds.

X
gets up and paces around. “I think I might have an idea why the humans aren’t taking the antidote.” He paces harder, tapping his fist against the wall. “I think they’re controlled not to take it.”

“You think everyone’s being controlled,”
Kale mumbles.

“I’m serious this time. I think Vlayne’s controlling the humans not to take it.”

“No,” Kale says. “When we tried to give it, we flew back. Like there was a shield or something. Besides, Vlayne can’t control billions of people. No one’s
that
powerful.”

“Us being thrown doesn’t prove they’re not being controlled telepathically,” X says. “She could have a strong mental block that shoves anyone who gets close.”

“Okay,” Kale says. “Then how’s she controlling so many people?”

X stops pacing and sits down on his bed.
He presses his palm to his forehead.

Kale’s eyes widen. “I know how she’s doing it
.”

“How?” X and I ask together.

“What’s the one thing we can’t figure out? Something Vlayne did that even my parents can’t figure out?”

“Why
she released this virus,” I say.

He snaps
his fingers. “Exactly. We’ve got no clue why she’s not waiting until she has the cure. It’s because she
doesn’t
want to slowly kill the humans. She wants to kill them instantly, but she needs to make sure there’s no way for the normies to get the cure.”