Revenge of the ULTRAs (The Last Hero Book 4) (13 page)

A
dam watched
Kyle appear right outside Damon’s place, just as he’d planned.

He could see the panic on Kyle’s face. He could see just how worried he looked.

That made him smile. Because it meant that the plan must be coming together.

And there was nothing more wonderful than a plan coming together.

He looked over his shoulder at his followers standing behind him.

Then he turned back around and watched Kyle enter Damon’s home.

He took a deep breath.

It was almost time to make his move.

Then, the world would be his.

W
hen I got
to Damon’s, I knew right away that something was wrong.

I couldn’t explain the feeling I had, other than it was an overwhelming sense of foreboding. Like I just knew something wasn’t right. I’d had this feeling a hell of a lot in my life, but more so since I’d discovered my ULTRA abilities.

And when I’d had them since discovering my ULTRA abilities, they’d more often than not been totally right.

I stood outside his house and stared up through the windows. I couldn’t see any movement, but after what Ellicia had said to me on the phone, there was something wrong with Damon. Apparently he’d called her and didn’t sound too good, and that he needed my help immediately.

I wanted to press Ellicia for more information. I wanted to know more about Damon’s predicament, and exactly what I was heading into.

But I didn’t have time.

I walked up the steps and teleported my way through Damon’s door.

His lounge was empty. The rest of the house seemed quiet, too. I knew his parents were away, so that perhaps had something to do with it.

I looked around the lounge for a sign of him. Maybe he was hiding. Maybe he was hurt. God, I hoped not. I dreaded to think how I’d feel if he was hurt. I didn’t want to let someone else I cared about down.

I left the lounge and headed into the kitchen.

I’d worried about this day ever since my first confrontation with Nycto. I feared that the time might come when someone I cared about got caught in the crossfire. And they had already, numerous times. Mom. Orion. My sister, Cassie, who’d remarkably turned out to be alive all along.

I didn’t want to lose anyone else. Especially not my closest friend.

I searched the kitchen, but there was still no sign. I didn’t want to shout in case someone was in here, watching. The house just
felt
empty, though. I had something of an intuition about me since developing my powers. Usually, my snap verdict was often right—as much as I didn’t want to believe it a lot of the time.

But maybe this time, it was wrong.

Hopefully the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. Then it dawned on me that Ellicia hadn’t even told me Damon was at home at all. Maybe he was elsewhere. Maybe he’d been taken from his home, and someone was keeping him hostage.

I thought about teleporting over to Ellicia’s when I heard footsteps upstairs.

I looked up at the ceiling.

There was a definite creaking around.

And then, just as quickly as I’d heard it, the creaking stopped.

On one hand, at least I knew someone was in.

On the other… it could be anyone.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and activated my invisibility. Now was the time to take the stealthy route.

I crept up the stairs. Still I couldn’t see anyone. The creaking was still going on though.

And it was coming from Damon’s room.

My heart raced faster as I made my way to Damon’s bedroom door. A whole host of scenarios circled my mind. I didn’t know how I was going to find him in there. I didn’t know what sort of condition I was going to find him in.

I just hoped to God he was okay.

I steadied my breathing, then I opened the bedroom door.

When I looked inside Damon’s room, what I saw wasn’t exactly what I expected.

Damon was standing at the other side of his bedroom.

He looked pale. Thinner and more gaunt than I remembered.

But more than anything, he looked like he’d been crying.

“Damon?”

I stepped closer to him and heard voices outside. I saw lights in the streets. I heard movement downstairs.

I looked back. “We need to—”

“I’m sorry, Kyle. I’m so sorry.”

I looked back at Damon.

But this time, there was something different. Something very different.

Blood-red electricity sparked across his hands.

A
s much as
I wanted to, I couldn’t look my best friend in the eye. Not for long.

Because he had powers.

And by the looks of things, he was threatening to use them.

Against me.

Outside, all around, I could hear footsteps approaching. It didn’t take a genius to realize what those footsteps were. They were Adam’s followers. They were on their way to surround me. All of this—the way I’d been brought here on the understanding that Damon needed help—was a setup.

Adam had got to Damon. The bastard had got to my best friend.

“Damon, don’t—”

I saw Damon close his eyes, lift his hands, and fire in my direction.

I jumped out of the way of the electricity. It burned a hole in the back of Damon’s room. I could smell burning; taste it, too.

“Please, Damon,” I pleaded. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m sorry.”

He fired at me again. But once again, I jumped out of the way of the electricity. Damon might’ve had powers, but he didn’t have the same experience with them that I had. I knew I was stronger. I knew I could defeat him in a heartbeat, taking him down completely, if I wanted to.

But I didn’t want to. Of course I didn’t want to.

Damon was my best friend.

I dodged a few more of his attacks. As he fired at me, I heard the footsteps getting further up the stairs. I wanted to teleport away from here with Damon, but he wouldn’t let me get close. He was reckless. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to bring his whole house down.

“You need to stop this,” I shouted. “We need to talk. Not fight.”

“I’ve tried talking,” Damon said. I saw then that he was full-on crying. Clearly this wasn’t easy for him. “But you just don’t hear me, man. You don’t hear any of us. There’s no other way anymore.”

“There are other ways. Ways we can—”

Another blast of electricity flew at me.

I swung back.

This time, something was different.

I felt something smack into my chest. It hit me before I could do anything about it.

I fell to the floor, totally paralyzed, twitching and shaking. I struggled to breathe.

In the corner of my eye, I could see red electricity crackling all over my body. I knew right then that I’d been hit by Damon’s powers.

My best friend’s powers.

The taste of blood and sick filled my mouth. My head was banging, and I could barely hear a thing.

I tried to shift myself away from this place, but that biting electricity on my back just intensified.

I tried to create a wormhole, but it intensified even more.

Then I noticed there were lots of people in this room. Lots of people crowded into Damon’s house. ULTRAs. ULTRAs that, not so long ago, weren’t ULTRAs at all. They were people. People who felt betrayed and let down by the Resistance and me. People who had seen something in the words of Adam.

I was on my knees in front of my new leaders.

Damon was one of my new leaders.

My best friend.

I heard Damon’s sluggish footsteps walking towards me. I didn’t want to look up at him. I didn’t want to face him after this.

But I knew I had to.

I looked into his tired eyes as he stood above me, hands sparking red electricity. His bottom lip shook. His cheeks were stained with tears.

“Please,” I said. My voice was cracking now, too. “Damon, please. You’re my best friend.”

“That’s why I’m doing this. Don’t you see?”

I half-smiled and shook my head. “I get it. I get that—that you aren’t happy. With the way things are. But Adam. He… he’s using you, Damon. He’s using you to get to me. And now he’s got me. Unless you let me go. Please.”

I saw a glimmer of our old lifelong bond and understanding in Damon’s eyes. Just for a split second, I thought he was going to change his mind, and come around to my way of thinking.

Then he closed his eyes and sighed.

He lifted his hands.

“He’ll be here soon. Don’t… don’t make me do anything.”

Hearing Damon say those words was painful. Mortifying. I didn’t know what to think or how to feel. I couldn’t even feel betrayed.

Because I knew now that I’d done this. I’d formed this wedge between us.

I hadn’t listened to what people like Damon wanted. I had been reckless. I’d caused chaos, with good intentions, sure. But chaos nonetheless.

Something had to change.

And to Damon and the rest of Adam’s followers, Adam was that change.

“He’ll take your powers away,” I said. “The second he’s done with you. He’ll take your powers away.”

Damon wiped his eyes. He tilted his head. “Then—then I guess that’s fair.”

“You know I’m not just going to back down right now. Don’t you?”

Damon didn’t budge.

“And you know what that means you’re going to have to do. To your best friend.”

Damon’s cheeks flushed. He shook his head. “Don’t. Please. Don’t.”

I closed my eyes.

I focused all of my energy on teleporting myself away from here, no matter how much it hurt with the paralyzing electricity singeing at my skin.

I gritted my teeth.

Bit the sides of my mouth.

“Kyle, don’t—”

I heard a blast.

And as I crouched there, still trying to fight my way out of Damon’s house, I was convinced that it was Damon who’d fired. I was convinced that he’d shot that electricity at me, and soon I’d be writhing around on the floor, totally broken, totally weak.

When I opened my eyes, I saw something entirely different.

D
aniel Septer didn’t like
to admit it, but since he’d re-acquainted with his biological brother, he got a bad feeling whenever Kyle was in trouble.

He was in the middle of San Francisco when the latest sense of foreboding hit him square in the chest. He was watching the sun set at the side of the Orange County. It was a really nice, peaceful day. Of course, Daniel had to keep as low a profile as possible since Adam’s followers were hunting down every ULTRA they could get their eyes on. The people wanted that, too. They wanted to see the current wave of ULTRAs all lose their powers in the hope that Adam could hand them over to them.

It made Daniel feel a little sick. He had to take his proverbial hat off to Adam, of course. He’d really struck a nerve, and found a way to manipulate everyone into following him, for whatever end goal he had in mind.

But that was just the thing. There
was
an end goal for Adam. There was always an end goal where conquering the planet was concerned.

And dress it up however you like. Adam was conquering the planet right now. It might be subtle, it might not be as bold and untidy an approach as Saint took.

But he was brainwashing the world to his way of thinking.

And the world was buying into it at an alarming rate.

Damned people. There was a reason Daniel thought about wiping the earth of them not so long back.

But hey. Everyone matured.

He listened to the silence of San Francisco, the sun shining down on him, and he got that feeling in the middle of his chest. It always brought on a funny taste in his mouth too. Like chlorine. He guessed it was something of a flashback to his earliest memory—being held underwater by his biological father, Orion, and Saint beside him.

It was a memory he’d only recently discovered. But when he’d discovered it, and discovered his real identity, his whole life had changed.

Cassie was his sister. And Kyle was his brother.

For better or for worse, Daniel was forced to put his long term plans for world domination on hold for that.

But hey. Long term plans were still long term plans.

He closed his eyes and teleported in the direction the feeling took him.

He was in New York in a flash. The contrast to San Francisco was depressing. It was dark in New York and raining.

He was somewhere he recognized, though.

Staten Island.

The street where Damon, Kyle’s idiot best friend, lived.

Daniel tensed his fists when he elevated into the air and saw Damon and Kyle in Damon’s room.

Damon was standing over Kyle. His hands were covered in… damn, was that electricity? So Damon was an ULTRA now? Daniel should’ve known the big guy would get too greedy.

He saw Damon lift his hands and point them right at Kyle’s face. And in that momentary flash, Daniel felt a sense of defensiveness over his older brother. Not to say they were best friends—they weren’t. Their views on the world differed too much. They were just putting their differences aside for a few years of world peace. But neither of them was under any illusions about the truth.

One day, there would be war between them again.

It was just a matter of when.

But right now, it was important Kyle stayed alive.

Because Kyle was his brother. And Kyle was the ULTRAs’ best hope against Adam.

It was a pity Daniel couldn’t just leave humanity to destroy itself, and then realize the damage it’d done the hard way.

One day. One day.

Daniel flew in through Damon’s window and slammed into the back of him.

He knocked him aside. Left him rolling in a mass of electrical sparks.

He jumped to his feet and felt time slowing down.

He punched the ULTRA behind Kyle in the face.

Then, when the rest of the surrounding ULTRAs lifted their hands and went to blast Daniel in their many ways, he bounced their powers right back at them.

Others, he soaked up the powers into one big ball, then sent it flying into that crowd.

Soon, there were only four left.

Daniel held out a hand to Kyle. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

Kyle looked totally distraught. Distraught like Daniel had never seen him. He took a bit of pleasure in his temporary defeat, but mostly he felt sympathy for his older brother. Clearly, Damon’s betrayal had really hit him hard.

“Come on, man,” Daniel said, hearing more footsteps emerge up the stairs. “We don’t have much time.”

Kyle stretched out his shaky hand and planted it in Daniel’s.

He half-smiled at Daniel. And Daniel found himself half-smiling back at him.

“Thank you,” Kyle said. He sounded weak. Bereft of confidence. “Thank…”

Daniel drifted out of the conversation then.

He drifted, because he saw something in the corner of his eyes.

Red.

He turned around and saw Damon firing electricity towards Kyle.

The electricity was too close to do anything about.

And judging by how weak Kyle was, he wouldn’t survive any more of it.

Daniel did the only thing he could.

He did the only thing instinct forced him to do.

It wasn’t the comfortable option.

Hell, it might not’ve even been the right option.

But it sure felt right.

He closed his eyes and threw himself in front of Kyle.

The red electricity hurtled at his chest.

For a moment, as Kyle struggled to drag him out of the way, Daniel thought maybe something had happened. Maybe the electricity had failed. Or maybe Kyle had found a way to repel it.

He opened his eyes and he saw the electricity make contact with his chest.

Then, he fell to his knees, and felt all his energy drift away.