Phantom Universe (36 page)

That lifts eyebrows.

They both burst into laughter. “Yeah, but the face he was making, all blowfish-like as he fumed . . . I couldn’t help it! I’d make that same face if I had chewed on—”

“
That’s enough,” says Gage, cutting off Rob and hopping behind the wheel. His door begins to slide shut while the passenger side opens, Cameron practically diving in.

“
Drive!” shouts Cameron. “Emma and Zoe are at the gate. Hunter and Ethan have sent the other Leaguers to the corner where Summer’s supposed to be in a few minutes according to Kevin. I guess you planted that little lie?”

Gage nods and gives the car commands. It starts up and speeds toward the gate without him moving a muscle.

“
Wait!” screams Jaden, causing the car to shutter in confusion. “Where’s Landon?”

“
He was held up by Dr. Frankfurt,” answers Avery regretfully, his eyes casting downward. Gage is arguing with the car’s computer to get it to move again. Rob and Jaden finally soak in the atmosphere in the vehicle and can see the pain etched into every line, every single inch of skin on Summer’s face.

“
We can’t leave without him!” insists Jaden, her dark eyes capturing Summer’s with a horror-struck expression.

“
We don’t have time,” argues Cameron as the vehicle speeds forward again.

Summer looks at Jaden pleadingly, hoping she’ll push the issue for her, but she doesn’t. No one in the back will even make eye contact with her. She yanks free from Lucy’s loose hold and crawls toward the front, reaching her hand forward to write on Gage’s palm.

“
Summer . . .” he trails off, his voice weak. He offers his hand with a tiny sigh that he tries to withhold.

“
Please,” she writes over and over across his skin.

“
If I have to pick between you or him, it’s going to be you,” admits Gage quietly, his eyes on the road. “Always you.” The last part is barely audible.

“
I’d pick him,” she writes. “Not me.”

Cameron and Gage glance at each other, though neither of them speak. He slows at the gate, and all the doors slide open automatically. Before anyone can reach out for Summer, she’s flying out the door and running down the asphalt toward the Edward Complex. Shouts erupt behind her, but suddenly she sees Landon sprinting toward her, and she can’t help but pick up her pace and run to him. Several Leaguers are racing behind him, trying to use their high-tech devices to subdue him, but he avoids them.

“
Ducky, go!” he cries. “I’m right behind you!”

She slows and pivots around, only to run into Gage’s hard chest. His arms automatically wrap around her, their hearts beating wilding against each other, right before he scoops her up and dashes toward the Outlander. Is she really that slow he needs to carry her? Honestly? She doesn’t mind because it means she can be just that much closer to him. What has this man done to her? They’re running from Leaguers with weapons, and she’s swooning over being close to Gage?

Zoe and Emma are talking quickly with Cameron and everyone else in the back, handing them something. Landon swiftly catches up just as Gage is practically tossing her into the back, not as gentle as before. There’s an urgency now that wasn’t there only minutes before. Jaden immediately hugs Summer over Rob’s lap and reaches for Landon’s hand as he squeezes in beside Lucy who practically breaks into tears when she sees him, hugging on to him desperately.

“
Put this on, Summer. You too, Landon.” Zoe tosses a headband to Summer and an earpiece to Landon. Everyone else is already sporting headbands or earpieces except Cameron and Gage. The Leaguers are catching up with them, and Gage shouts a command at the vehicle, the doors sliding shut.

Summer runs a hand through her hair and tucks the headband behind her ears, holding the silky black strands at bay. She’s still not used to the dark color, and sometimes it causes her to jump when it falls in her face. Immediately after she lets go of the headband, a ringing starts in her ears, and she can’t focus on anything as her head begins to ache horribly. People are talking around her, but she doesn’t understand anyone. She can feel the movement of the car under her, the anxiety as thick as honey in the air, but she can’t pay attention.

“
I think something’s wrong with Summer,” she finally hears someone say. This is followed by many people calling her name and gentle hands holding her face, checking her forehead for fever, and then catching her as she falls forward when her body goes limp. The world swirls around her like a kaleidoscope’s vortex of images, vomiting out measured patterns and colors. Spinning . . . spinning . . . spinning . . . There’s a screech of tires. She sees Landon’s dark eyes beneath his blonde eyebrows and then . . .

It all goes black.

Only those who will risk going too far can

possibly find out how far one can go.

T.S. Eliot

PART THREE

THE IMPOSSIBLE

CHAPTER
43: MAGNETIC

16 years old

There’s a throbbing behind Summer’s eyes that pulses as if it’s filling her brain with too much blood. It quickly goes away when all the events of fleeing the Outlander camp come back to her like a gigantic wave crashing over her head. Her sapphire eyes pop open to reveal Gage; her head’s in his lap, and he’s absentmindedly stroking her hair. “It’s been ten minutes,” he’s saying to someone, “and we need to find a place to stop for the night. The Leaguers aren’t far behind, and we need to hide.” Summer stretches, and Gage’s emerald eyes snap down to her, wild with distress.

“
Is she awake?” asks Landon softly.

Gage nods. “Flower?” he whispers and lightly brushes hair from her face. “Are you okay? What hurts?” His palm’s already there and waiting.

“
I’m fine,” she writes slowly. “What happened?”

“
The headband—it’s magnetic and destroys the neural implant’s ability to transmit your location. Zoe didn’t know it’d have that kind of reaction. No one’s ever had that kind of reaction, actually.” Gage sighs. “I was afraid to remove it, though, in case it affected your implant only temporarily. First, I checked you over to see if the Leaguers had injected you with anything while they were shooting at Landon. But when I didn’t find anything, and you didn’t wake up, I had to remove the headband.”

Summer automatically reaches up to touch her ear where the implant is, and Gage places his hand over hers. “Cameron, where are we?” he asks quickly, worried now, as Summer sits up and sees the world fly by the front window in a crimson and orange blur with streaks of silver from other cars and buildings.

“
Not far enough. The news is blaring about the blonde Outlander that’s broken free with a band of friends,” she informs. “No mention of help from any Leaguers—which means Ethan was able to turn the cameras off for us.”

“
That’s good news,” says Gage, relieved. “Are they all still meeting us in the Midwest Providence tomorrow?”

“
Yes, Hunter’s father owns a house in the middle of nowhere in Illinois that’s a few hundred years old. He promises no cameras and says he’ll take a hovercraft there tonight to check the place over first.”

“
What about
your
neural implants?” Jaden asks warily. “Don’t you think it’s silly for the ones who broke us free not to have that taken care of?”

“
Doctor Rose manually removed our GPS tracking devices two days ago,” says Cameron with a smile as she leans over the front seat. “She took a liking to Summer when she was in the hospital.”

Avery suddenly starts to shout wildly with his hands waving around frantically, diving in and out of his red hair. Soon Lucy’s joining him, stabbing her finger at the window. Funnily enough, Summer looks for a spider. “Turn around!” Avery finally yells to Cameron. “You’re going to wreck us!”

“
What?” Cameron swivels around and checks all the gauges that glow neon blue and green on the glass. “What are you seeing that I’m not?” Her voice grows panicky, her hands flailing.

Gage bursts into laughter as Summer looks between everyone in confusion. “Nothing’s wrong, Cameron! They just aren’t used to seeing a car on autopilot, that’s all.”

“
Autopilot?” Lucy’s voice squeaks.

“
That’s not what I mean!” Avery practically screams. And then they all see what he’s freaking out over. Black cars with flashing lights are stopped up ahead, and more fly past in droves.

“
Blimey,” says Rob dryly. “I knew it was too easy.”

“
Seatbelts,” commands Gage. Straps automatically wrap around everyone in the back of the car, and for a moment, Summer freaks out over being tied down. “This car has Hover Mode, Cameron,” he continues as calmly as any veteran Leaguer going into battle. “Use it.”

“
We aren’t in a fly zone!” she argues.

Everyone in the back’s eerily silent.

“
Okay. Then I guess we’ll have to stop, and let them check the vehicle,” says Gage evenly.

“
Hold on!” instructs Cameron as her fingers quickly move across the glass before them.

Traffic’s bottlenecking as they move closer and closer to the roadblock. Horns blare indignantly as they speed up toward the mass of cars. Summer’s heart races at their impending collision, but then their car rises into the air and scrapes the top of the first car with a jerk and grating noise, barely missing the second.

“
Hell yes!” whoops Cameron.

Summer’s practically crushed Gage’s poor hand and quickly releases pressure when she realizes this. Everyone else is speechless for several seconds as they move higher into the air, though the cars are still only thirty to forty feet below them. Sirens ring out deafeningly as they pass over the roadblock.

“
Bloody brilliant!” cheers Rob with a crooked grin at Jaden.

Several police cars rise into the air and take chase—the problem is that Summer can’t see out of the vehicle except from the front. This only makes her heart jump wildly and sweat bead up on her forehead. Gage can see the alarm in her wide eyes and squeezes her hand reassuringly.

“
Things are about to get really interesting,” says Cameron as if this is something she’s done a million times. Perhaps they train for things like this—or have done it before.

The car hovers over the speeding traffic on the freeway, the sirens loud next to, and behind, them. Cameron’s fingers speedily move across the glass while she mumbles commands that Summer can’t make out. The car drops down in the middle of the moving cars, sparks fly at the contact, and Summer’s stomach jumps into her throat as the back end slams to the ground with a bounce. She feels like she’s been put in a blender. The car begins to speed up, weaving in and out of traffic with grace and surprising ease, moving only to within inches of other vehicles. There are two police cars ahead of them, but Cameron keeps away from them effortlessly. It’s as if she’s done this a million times before and can predict their every reaction.

They suddenly slide sideways into another car as a police cruiser slams into their side. Summer wants to close her eyes, but she can’t manage it—they seem to be stitched open. The seatbelt bites into her shoulder, and her head jerks from side-to-side. They flip over another car, and instead of landing on its roof and crushing everyone, Cameron has their car hovering in the air upside down. Summer’s black hair hangs in loose, damp tangles above—or is it below?—her head, just like Lucy’s and Jaden’s. Everyone looks as if they’ve been electrocuted, and if it weren’t for their situation, Summer would probably laugh. Lucy and Summer share an “I’m scared to death I might pass out at any second” look, while Jaden and Rob grin like idiots, enjoying this more than they should be. Landon’s eyes are huge, brown orbs—he’s thunderstruck.

The car spins around until they’re flipped back over, and Summer secretly hopes she didn’t just soil her panties. Cameron shouts, “HALT!” And the car’s back end pivots around so violently they’re suddenly facing the opposite direction. Several cop cars fly by, and the ones physically on the road screech to a halt as they cause several cars to maneuver around them, many of them wrecking. Then Cameron yells, “FLEE ALL COPS!”