Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (122 page)

“No.” Sasha stepped back, closing ranks with her group. “Don’t ask again.”

“So what now?” Tate asked. “We can’t just walk out of here. What if Uncle thinks we’ve made a truce with these people? He might think we’re working with them, or that we talked.” His hands crackled again. Kid was spoiling for a fight.

“We’ll deal if that happens.”

“Sash—”

“No, Tate. Let’s go.”

The gymnasium doors burst open, startling everyone in the room. We turned as a group, and the air sparked with energy as instinct brought our powers to the forefront. Two uniformed police officers walked in, firearms drawn, balanced across their flashlights. They stared at us openmouthed, probably trying to understand exactly what they were seeing.

“Nobody move,” Cop One said.

“Officer—” Teresa started to speak, to move forward, and she froze when Cop Two aimed right at her.

“Nobody move, he said,” Cop Two said. “We got an anonymous report about two dead bodies at this location.” He looked down and his eyes widened.

Uncle.
Uncle had to be the one who made the anonymous call. He’d set us all up.

Cop One tucked his flashlight under his arm, then reached for his radio.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the tall boy who’d flown down with Wings. His hands sparkled with blue light.

Cop One paused, then squeezed the radio control. “Central, this is—”

The boy flung his right hand at Cop One. A haze of blue energy, like a baby firework, zoomed across the gym and slammed into Cop One’s radio with amazing precision. Cop One squawked in surprise and squeezed the trigger. Safety off.

My left forearm burned. Something forced me down onto my knees.

Chaos erupted around me. The kids went for the cops. We swooped in to protect the human officers. Guess what happened next.

The fight we were trying so hard to avoid.

Wings swooshed up toward the ceiling, and a big purple orb from Teresa dropped him fast. He hit the floor with a thud that made his friends shout. The cops got off two more shots before a spinning whirlwind knocked them both around like human bowling pins. The whirlwind stopped briefly, revealing Sasha as the source.

Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me closer to the pile of wreckage from the roof. Took me a second to figure out it was Gage. He ripped off part of his shirt and tied it around my forearm.

“Fuck!” I yelped as white fire raced down my arm. Then I looked at my arm and saw the blood. “I got shot?”

“Yeah, you did,” Gage replied. “Stay put.”

Panther-Marco growled from the other side of the wreckage covering us from the fight. Something exploded. An unfamiliar male voice screamed in pain and anger.

“Try not to hurt them!” Teresa shouted.

Yeah, good luck with that.

I didn’t hear Sasha issuing similar orders.

Speaking of whom, Sasha’s whirlwind spun high into the air above us, swirling the dust and debris. Three of Teresa’s orbs missed, smashing chunks out of the gym walls. More air turned, and then Ethan sailed through the air. He slammed bodily into the whirlwind. Ethan and Sasha both hit the far gym wall, then tumbled to the ground. A blue firework hit him in the back, and Ethan screamed.

I tried to watch the fight, but pain kept blurring my vision. Nowhere near as horrific as those burns had been, but bad. I’d lost my Coltson, too, on the floor about ten feet away. Gage moved off to join the fight, and I felt, as usual, useless to my team. Deadweight.

Ignoring Gage’s order to stay put, I scooted toward my gun.

Something streaked across my line of sight that shocked me into stopping. One of the kids had shrunk down to a perfectly proportioned twelve-inch-tall version of himself, and he ran like a very large rat through the fray, unnoticed. He raced between Teresa’s legs, then suddenly grew into a massive, twelve-foot-tall version of himself. The size shift knocked Teresa backward onto her ass. She blasted him with an orb that hit right in his gut—where her head had been a moment ago—and he crashed backward with a thud that shook the floor.

The other girl from their group was down, too far away for me to see where she was hurt, but her stomach was definitely bleeding. Had she been shot by one of those stray bullets? Tate crouched near her, protective. Guarding.

Teresa was trying to tell everyone to stop, even while coordinating us in a defensive way. I admired her determination, but it was a losing battle. The kids were on the offense in a major way.

Firework Boy sent a couple of his blue babies right at Teresa, who threw up a haze of orb energy that worked as a force field. They bounced off and one hit the Incredible Growing Boy. The other firework slammed into Sebastian, which knocked him into Gage, and the pair went tumbling against a pile of debris.

My hand closed around the grip of my Coltson.

Wings was back on his feet, creeping toward Teresa from her blind side. She was concentrating on Firework Boy, who was doing an excellent job of distracting her by tossing twist after twist of blue at her shield. Panther-Marco leapt from the pile of debris and crashed into Wings with a snarl.

Gage climbed out of the debris without Sebastian, only to be knocked down again by Sasha as she whirled past him.

I couldn’t use my left arm to steady my aim so I did my best. Sasha moved fast, almost too fast to track her, and she was erratic as hell. But she was hurting my friends, and she seemed to be in charge of the Junior Meta Squad, so taking her out felt like a good plan. Ethan hit the air again, and then he and Sasha created a blast of wind that knocked Teresa and Firework Boy flat.

The Incredible Growing Boy had shrunk again, and I couldn’t see him. Marco seemed to have Wings well in paw, holding him by the neck with his powerful cat jaws.

Ethan swooped low to the floor. The Incredible Growing Boy shot up in size fast enough to grab Ethan by the throat. I aimed at IGB’s arm and squeezed the trigger. Blood spouted from his wrist. He screamed and dropped Ethan.

The shot caught everyone’s attention, including Sasha’s. Her whirlwind spun at me. I changed my aim. Sasha yelped and hit the gym floor in a heap. Behind her, Teresa was on her knees, hands out in our direction.

Nice shot, T.

“Retreat, now!” Teresa shouted.

Ethan and Gage dragged Sebastian out of the pile of rubble. Teresa helped me up, and we ran together, with Marco by our side. Retreating felt wrong, and we ducked a few more blue fireworks on the way out. The Junior Meta Squad didn’t chase us, though, once we were through the gym doors and heading for the outside of the building.

The police car was still parked next to our two Sports, but the cops were nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t seen them inside during or at the end of the fight, either. Probably hiding in the janitor’s closet, the wimps.

The thought made me giggle, which earned me a concerned look from Teresa. She stuffed me into the backseat of one of the Sports, next to Sebastian. He had a wide cut on his collarbone and a large knot on his temple. My arm was bleeding all over the place—another ruined uniform.

Marco shifted back to a man and drove our Sport, putting Teresa, Gage and Ethan in the other vehicle. None of us talked on the race back to Governors Island. We were under orders to report directly to the infirmary. I wasn’t about to argue. Every movement sent stabbing pains up and down my arm, and I was having a hard time not bursting into tears from the agony. I’d been stretched, burned, and beaten, but this was my first bullet wound.

God, my life sucks sometimes.

It felt like half the people at HQ were waiting when the puddle-jumper landed, including Dr. Kinsey and Jessica Lam. They hustled me and Sebastian off to the infirmary, while Teresa and Gage tried to explain to Aaron, Alexia, and a dozen others what was going on without really telling them anything.

The bullet had gone clean through my arm without hitting bone, which meant I got stitches, antibiotics, and a nice, thick bandage. And another scar for my personal collection. Not that this one would be very visible through the preexisting burn scars. After Dr. Kinsey left my cubicle, I stared at my arm while I waited for the painkillers to kick in. The best part of my long-sleeved uniform was that it hid those scars, but Kinsey had cut off the entire left sleeve before stitching me up. I couldn’t hide the scars from myself or anyone else.

The curtain around my cubicle parted and Thatcher appeared. He stared at me with wide, concerned eyes, his mouth open in shock. “I was with Landon, I just heard,” he said, a little breathless.

I blinked at him, curious why he was fuzzy around the edges. “You should be with him.”

“Jessica said you were shot.” He sounded like saying the words physically pained him. It was . . . sweet.

“I was shot.” I pointed at my bandage with my good arm. “See?”

He came inside the curtain and stopped in front of the table I sat on. He wasn’t as fuzzy close up.

“I’m fuzzy?” he asked.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“You did.”

“I got the good drugs.”

“Ah. Are you in a lot of pain?”

“Not like before. Everything’s a little floaty right now.”

“I’m sorry you were hurt, Renee.”

“Isn’t your fault. The Junior Meta Squad got feisty when the cops showed up.”

“Junior Meta Squad?”

“Long story. Those kids have pretty cool powers, by the way. One of them got shot, too. Fucking cops.”

“A police officer shot you?” His expression went dark, fierce, and protective in a way that made my heart flutter.

“By accident. I think.” The details were getting hard to recall. “How’s Sebastian?”

“I overheard Dr. Kinsey mention a concussion.”

“Bummer.”

He cupped my chin in the palm of his hand, a sweet gesture that sent warmth flooding through my insides. He looked at me with such tenderness that I nearly kissed him right then and there, just to see what it was like. “I wish I’d been there to protect you,” he said softly.

“You probably couldn’t have. It was a wild shot.”

“Not from the bullet.” He sighed. “Well, yes, from the bullet, but from all of it. The entire fight. It sounds ridiculous, I know, when we aren’t even friends.”

“We’re friends.” He’d brought me a sandwich, twice. We had pleasant conversations. How could he not think we were friends?

“I thought I was just a Bane you had to babysit until the job was done.”

He was really challenging me on this when my brain was mushy with painkillers?

“Sorry,” he said.

“I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” He shifted a little closer, until he seemed to consume my entire world with his size and sheer presence. “You’ve gotten under my skin, Renee. I don’t even know how that happened.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t even know what I was apologizing for, only that he looked so sad that it felt like the right thing to say.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything for a woman that I’m being selfish.”

He feels something for me. Oh, shit.

As much as I wanted to be scared, I couldn’t get there. All I felt through the funny fog of drugs was happy. Happy that someone saw me again.

The curtain jangled, and Thatcher pulled back. The loss of his warm touch made me flinch. Teresa stepped inside the cubicle. She gave Thatcher a curious look, then fixed her purple gaze on me.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Floaty,” I replied. “How’d we do?”

“Sebastian has a slight concussion, bruised ribs, and needs some stitches on his chest. Everyone else has bumps and bruises.”

“How about you?”

She shrugged. “Like I said, bumps and bruises.”

“Bullshit, they pointed a gun at you.”

Her eyes narrowed briefly. “I’m fine.” She didn’t react well to guns, not since she was shot back in June. And she was getting really good at hiding her emotions from the rest of us. She didn’t want us to see her upset.

“You’re not fine.”

“I’m fine for now, okay? I have to deal with the Jersey police before I can deal with myself.”

“Have they already called?” Thatcher asked.

“Several times.” Teresa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Explaining this without throwing Landon and Bethany under the bus won’t be easy, but we’ll manage. I don’t want to turn those other kids against us any more than they already are.”

“Angry teenagers with grudges are scary,” I said.

Hey, it sounded profound in my head.

“And they’re unpredictable,” Teresa said. “If Uncle hadn’t called the police in and forced a fight, we might have been able to reason with them, maybe even bring them in with us.” Some of her veneer cracked, and her genuine anguish at failing to get those kids on our side flashed through.

“What can I do, T?” I asked automatically.

She smoothed my hair back from my forehead in a motherly gesture. “Go upstairs and rest. Please?”

“Okay.”

“Make sure she does?” she said to Thatcher.

He nodded. “Certainly.”

Teresa left the cubicle. Thatcher cleared my leaving with Dr. Kinsey, then led me out of the infirmary. The world wasn’t quite solid or on an even keel, so I ended up leaning pretty heavily on Thatcher as we went upstairs.

It didn’t really occur to me that he was in my room until he was helping me unzip my bloody uniform. The gentle attention felt nice. He got the sleeve off my right arm, then slipped out of the room with a promise to be right back. I yanked the skintight material off and left it in a heap on the floor. The tank top and shorts I usually slept in did shit to hide the worst of my scars, but I didn’t care. My arm was throbbing by the time I sat back down on the bed.

Thatcher returned with two damp washcloths, which he used to wipe my face and neck free of dirt and blood. I let him, unable to fight or protest that I could do it myself, because I couldn’t. I didn’t mind letting him help me. I watched his eyes as he cleaned me up, curious. Not once did I see shock or disgust—only concern. And something else, something I couldn’t define.

Something that, if I did define it, would scare the shit out of me.