Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (33 page)

“I did it.” The absolute joy on her face made me smile back. “I didn’t just absorb the heat, I actually controlled it.”

“Excellent,” Marco said.

“How long have you guys been working on this?” I asked.

“About seven matches,” Dahlia said.

“You’re a fast learner.”

“How long did it take you to learn to control your powers?”

I thought back to Cliff and the parking lot in Bakersfield. “I kind of learned on the job. In some ways, I’m still learning to control it, so don’t rush yourself. One match is a lot different than a four-alarm fire.”

My reality check dimmed some of her excitement, but she recovered her poise quickly. “You’re right, and I will definitely keep practicing. Thanks for the tip.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Are you all right, Catalepsia?”

I hesitated. I might have shared my Gage-related stupidity with Marco if Dahlia hadn’t been in the room, but it was
too personal to talk about in front of a semi-stranger. “I’m just tired,” I said. “Keep at it, Dahlia. I’ll see you guys later.”

As I walked back out, I heard the unmistakable hiss of another match igniting.

I found Renee in one of the waiting rooms playing a board game with Caleb. They sat on the floor, surrounded by chair cushions, intent on something involving colorful plastic pieces and a pair of dice. I watched from an observation window. They were alone together, an odd pairing, and he seemed unbothered by her smoky blue skin. Her mouth was pinched, her eyes puffy. The cloud of effervescent energy that followed her everywhere was gone, and I ached for her pain.

I could only assume Psystorm was still being examined by Dr. Seward, hence the impromptu babysitter. They continued to play for several minutes, oblivious to my presence.

Caleb rolled the dice and squealed, delighted by the spaces he could advance his green playing piece. He grinned toothily at Renee, and then spotted me over her shoulder. He waved. Renee turned. She narrowed her eyes, and I braced for a verbal onslaught.

“You look awful,” she said.

Not quite what I was expecting. I slipped in through the half-open door and crouched between them. “I thought the dark circles under my eyes would complement the lavender hue of my forehead.”

She cocked her head, and I saw unexpected forgiveness. Grief, too, that would take much longer to erase. She had opened up to William, despite her fears. I hoped the loss didn’t shut her down again. She deserved happiness. We all
did. Even those of us who couldn’t stop pushing happiness away.

“Hi, Caleb,” I said, sitting next to the boy. “I see you met my friend Flex.”

“She’s teaching me to play a game,” he said proudly. “I never played this one before, but she said it was fun.”

“Is it fun?”

“It’s easy. Flex said she liked it when she was my age, so I said we could play. She’s sad, and games make me happy when I’m sad.”

I blinked. “Yes, she is sad, Caleb. How did you know?”

“I can tell.” He rolled the dice, moved his piece forward, and looked up at me with solemn eyes. He spoke so matter-of-factly I was almost frightened. No five-year-old talked like that. “Daddy says I’m special like him. I know when people are sad.”

“Could your mommy do that, too?”

He shook his head. “She used to turn into a cat. Now she’s sick, and she can’t do it anymore.”

Interesting. A Bane shapeshifter. I touched the boy’s hand. He stopped fiddling with the dice and looked up at me. “Do you know why your mommy is sick?”

He shrugged a thin shoulder.

“Were a lot of people sick?”

“Mostly grown-ups. Not everyone, though, because Daddy never got sick. Me, either.”

Something to add to my list of questions for the ATF. I hadn’t seen Grayson since yesterday. He was probably busy spinning our publicity from yesterday’s fire and our first,
aborted attempt at being proactive in addressing the public. Or ratting us out to Specter.

Ugh, I needed to get my rampant paranoia under control until I had proof stronger than a hunch. I asked Caleb, “How long has your mom been sick?”

“I don’t know.” He puckered his lips and blew air between them. A frustrated raspberry—the questioning would have to end soon, or he’d simply clam up. He reminded me of my own therapy sessions just after the War ended. I didn’t want to talk about it, and no one could make me.

“Two years, give or take,” Psystorm said.

Renee and I turned together, our collective attention snapping toward the door. He stood just inside the waiting room, Dr. Seward a few steps behind. Caleb leapt to his feet and bolted into his father’s arms. Only apart for a few minutes, yet they embraced as if it had been days.

“I think they started putting something in the drinking water,” Psystorm said as he shifted Caleb’s weight to his hip. How that skinny man kept the child—small or not—in his arms remained a mystery. “It started to taste odd, so I stopped drinking it for a while. Made Caleb stop, too. We had some bottled water stored away. A lot of people who didn’t have it bottled up started getting sick.”

“Sick how?” I asked.

“Stomach cramps and vomiting, mostly. No one died from it. Most of them got really lethargic, disinterested. Like they were drugged, and then when we got our powers back, they didn’t seem to care. Didn’t try to use them or practice, or even discuss a, uh, breakout.”

“Did you?” I asked, standing quickly. “Discuss a breakout?”

He stared, seeming quite surprised. “Wouldn’t you? None of us wanted to be there, Trance. We just hadn’t possessed the means to escape.”

“It’s been a week, Psystorm, why hasn’t anyone tried?”

“Lack of motivation, I suppose. We’d all be on the run, criminals worse than before, when all we are now is unwanted and forgotten. As much as I hated the island, I couldn’t drag Caleb into that kind of life and make him a fugitive.”

“Let’s hope the others share your reasoning skills.”

“They won’t lay down for you forever, Trance. Sooner or later, someone will try to get out. It only takes a tiny fissure to create a chasm.”

“I’ve considered that, believe me. I just can’t think about it right now. Not until Specter is neutralized. Once that’s done, I’d like to hear more from you about life on the island. Others you think have … not changed sides, exactly. Have stopped wanting to fight.”

He snickered. “Looking for new recruits?”

“No, just fewer enemies.” I gave him a pointed look. “I think you’ll agree we can all use fewer of those.”

“Indeed.”

Dr. Seward hung back by the door, trying to melt into the wall and out of the conversation. He had a chart in his hands.

“So what’s the verdict, Doctor?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “Aside from needing a good dose of vitamin supplements, father and son are both relatively healthy,” he replied. “Caleb is within the ninetieth percentile
in growth for his age group. I recommend a visit to a dentist in the near future, but all in all, he’s doing very well.”

“Hear that, kiddo?” Psystorm said. “Fit as a fiddle.”

“Strong as a horse,” Caleb said with a toothy grin.

“Do we have a room for them over in Housing?” Renee asked, standing next to me. The shadow of sadness that had enveloped her on the helipad lingered. Only time and patience—and maybe a distraction like Caleb—would chase it away.

“Not yet,” Dr. Seward said. “I’m certain we can appropriate one shortly. I think we’ve all had quite the active night and could use some rest.” The last phrase and a very pointed look were shot in my general direction.

“What time is it, anyway?” I asked. One useful thing my uniform did not hold was a watch.

Dr. Seward checked his wristwatch. “It’s quarter to eight.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes, Trance, it’s still morning.”

Apparently the short nap on the copter wasn’t quite enough to recharge my drained batteries. I focused on the time, but it took several tries to make proper sense of it. “Okay, then, two p.m., conference room. Until then, let’s get some rest.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Renee said. “I think—”

An alarm, similar to the ring of an old-fashioned telephone, chimed outside in the corridor. One long pull, one short, one long, over and over. Caleb slapped the palms of his hands over his ears and pressed his face into Psystorm’s chest.

“Is that a fire alarm?” Psystorm asked.

“No,” Seward said, eyes widening. “It’s the alarm in ICU.”

“Ethan,” I said, already running past Seward and toward the emergency stairwell.

I reached the ICU doors first. Two nurses stood outside, clutching each other and whispering. Ignoring them, I barreled through and nearly tripped over someone sitting in the middle of the short corridor between the station and the entrance to Ethan’s room.

“Marco?”

He blinked up, a weeping gash on his forehead. He clutched his bandaged left hand close to his chest and didn’t seem to see me at first. A cool breeze ruffled his unkempt hair. Fresh air.

“What happened?” I asked, squatting down.

Marco looked past me, toward the ICU cubicle. The swinging doors I’d entered through slammed open. Renee, Seward, and Gage skidded to a collective stop an instant before mowing us both down. Renee scooted around and looked inside.

“Where’d he go?” she asked.

“Tempest is gone?” Dr. Seward said.

“I came to check on him,” Marco said. He reached for me and squeezed my hand. “He was sleeping and began to thrash, as if in a nightmare. I shook him.
Dios
, he was terrified when he woke. He kept asking if his eyes were yellow, was Specter here, were we safe?”

He went silent. I rubbed the back of his hand, urging him to continue.

“I told him we were fine, no one was here. He did not
believe me and tried to get up. I held him down. He said we were not safe with him around, and then blasted me through the door. He was so sure Specter was coming after him next, Catalepsia.”

“How did Ethan get out?” Gage asked.

Renee jacked her thumb toward the ICU unit. “Drilled his way out with a wind driver, looks like. There’s a big-ass hole in the wall, folks.”

I stood and nearly fell in my haste. Sure enough, the wall just behind the bed was gone. Blasted as efficiently as a deep-core driller’s best work, cleanly through plaster, brick, and mortar to blue sky. Air rippled through my hair as I shivered.

“That’s impossible,” Seward said. “The man was twenty-four hours out of major surgery. He can’t even walk, let alone escape.”

“He doesn’t need to walk,” I said. “Just fly. Son of a bitch.”

“We shouldn’t have told him about William,” Renee said. “He was already scared of Specter and what he might do.”

“We couldn’t not tell him.” I slipped my arm around Renee’s waist, and her head lolled against my shoulder. “Ethan didn’t want to be here, so he found a way to leave.”

“He could kill himself out there,” Gage said. Any anger he’d withheld from me had been redirected into concern for his friend. “He isn’t strong enough to keep up his power for long, and if he can’t find a safe place to hide …”

No need to finish the thought. We all understood.

“We must find him,” Marco said.

“We will,” I said. “Right now.”

So much for a few hours of rest.

A
n odd silence had fallen over the HQ grounds as Gage, Renee, and I stepped out to begin searching for Ethan. We managed to cover six feet of sidewalk past the Medical Center’s doors before my Vox squealed, startling everyone. I pulled it off my belt.

Dahlia’s voice over the Vox.

“Dahlia, it’s Trance,” I replied. “What is it?”

“Dahlia, information.”

Renee snorted. Dahlia was young, terrified, and very green, but she was trying to be helpful.

she said.

Gage’s head snapped toward me. I met his gaze and saw surprise there. “Kind of matches?” he asked.

“So this Spence guy could be a rotting corpse, and the landlord wouldn’t know it,” I said.

“I was making a point, Dal. What’s this landlord’s name?”

“All right, thanks. Trance out.” I put the Vox away and turned toward the Base. “Field trip. And I want Psystorm on this.”

“What about Ethan?” Gage asked.

I flinched. I hated putting Ethan off. He was my friend, he was injured, and he was out there alone. Alone by choice. “Specter’s still our top priority,” I said, meeting everyone’s gaze in turn. They seemed to accept my statement. Foe over friend.

No matter how much it hurt.

The Blue Tower was a few miles away in old West Hollywood, overlooking a strip of sidewalk sporting names of celebrities past. The entire area had once been a glamorous place to live and work. Then too many earthquakes and quite a few Bane attacks had changed the landscape.

Since the War, drinking had become a favorite pastime in
many cities, and the most successful chains were, like Whiskey Jack’s, the ones that threw sex legally into the mix. We passed at least a dozen such places on the first four blocks of Hollywood Boulevard. Gage maneuvered the tinted-window Sport down the crowded early-morning streets, past a few crumbling theaters and boarded-up tourist shops.

Six blocks down from the last open bar, we found the Blue Tower, just off Stanley Avenue. A square building painted sky blue, it lived up to half of its name. It resembled a penitentiary more than a housing complex, with scattered windows and no balconies. I couldn’t imagine what it had been before it became low-rent housing for the city’s forgotten.