The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (30 page)

She inched to the rear of the truck
and waited until she heard the security guards reloading. With a
quick push, she was up and running, sprinting across the open
ground of the parking structure toward a cluster of cars a hundred
yards away.

A couple of the guards had finished
reloading and tracked her movement with gunfire. The bullets tore
small chunks of asphalt out of the ground near her feet as she ran.
One of the guards drew a bead on her head and took his time as he
aimed. He pulled the trigger and the bullet hit a wall of air next
to Corva’s head. It stopped an inch from her temple and fell
harmlessly to the ground.

Marius turned to Colton. “You stay
down.”

Colton nodded. He had been trying to
summon an iota of his former ability by concentrating on the lights
in the ceiling high above, willing his body to absorb some of their
faint energy, but it was useless. He felt cold inside, and every
time he thought he would be able to do something, the power shifted
within him and lurched just out of reach.

With all of the guards’ attention on
Corva, Marius carefully and quietly moved to the front of the
truck, and then off into the nearby shadows.

Colton watched as if the whole event
was playing in slow motion.

One of the guards breathed out slowly
and tightened his grip on his rifle. His shoulders dropped
ever-so-slightly as he closed one eye to aim down the barrel of his
gun. Corva’s feet pounded the ground like dull, heavy
drumbeats.

With a fluid
click-BOOM
, the guard
pulled the trigger and a round erupted from the chamber. The bullet
hit Corva in the shoulder and stuck halfway into her skin. She
glanced down at it in surprise and ran faster—she was losing her
ability to completely stop the bullets.

The other guards stood up and opened
fire.

Colton saw several more rounds stop in
mid-air a fraction of an inch away from Corva’s skin. She was
nearly to the first car—and to safety—when one of the bullets
clipped the back of her right leg and sent her spinning. A thin
line of blood twirled through the air behind her.

She hit the ground hard and kept on
rolling, coming to a stop next to a green car between her and the
guards. They continued shooting until one side of the car was
almost completely black from bullet holes. Shattered glass tinkled
lightly to the ground as they ejected magazines and
reloaded.

“
Comrades!
” shouted Marius from the
shadows behind the guards.

They turned quickly, searching the
darkness for the new threat. Marius stepped into the light, his
rifle raised.

He winked and said, “Hello,” then
opened fire.

He swept the barrel of his gun over
the guards and half of them collapsed to the ground.

“
Armor piercing!” shouted
Marius over the noise. “Who knew?!”

With the guards distracted, Colton
crouched low to the ground and ran over to Corva. She sat against
the side of the green car, tightly gripping a bleeding wound on her
right thigh. Her dark pants were soaked with blood.

“
How is it?” asked
Colton.

“
Missed the artery,” said
Corva. She gasped quickly as she tried to turn and look at Marius.
“How’s he doing?”

“
He’s fine,” said
Colton.

The room was briefly illuminated by a
brilliant orange burst and one of the guards screamed. Marius
laughed loudly.

“
Sounds like it,” said
Corva.

“
Can’t you fix it?” asked
Colton.

Corva shook her head. Her white hair
was messy and some of it was streaked with blood. “Dormer’s the
healer. Besides, there’s nothing to draw from.”

“
Use me,” said
Colton.

“
Don’t be
ridiculous.”

“
Don’t be stupid. You
can’t wait down here while Marius and I go in alone.”

She grit her teeth and groaned as she
sat up straighter. Colton took her hand and pressed it between both
of his.

“
Do it.”

She hesitated a moment longer, then
closed her eyes.

Like thin strands of long rope being
pulled from his skin, Colton felt what little warmth he had flow
through the tips of his fingers. The bullet hole in Corva’s thigh
sealed over with fresh skin, leaving behind a raw, ragged—but
closed—patch of flesh.

“
You did it,” he
said.

She let go of his hand and her body
relaxed completely. She stuck her finger through the hole in her
pants and gently touched the wound.

“
Not as good as Dormer,
but it will get me there.” She looked into Colton’s eyes. “Thank
you.”

Marius coughed loudly and appeared
around the side of the car. “What are you two doing?” he said.
“Secret meetings while Marius is taking care of all the
problems?”

Corva smiled. “How did you
do?”

Marius bent down and helped her to her
feet.

“
Look around,” he said.
“Marius made speed bumps.”

The ground was littered with the
bodies of the security guards. Marius smiled with pride.

“
Let’s get moving,” said
Corva.

Marius wrapped his arm around her for
support and helped her limp to the wall next to the
elevator.

“
Check the guards,” she
said. “There will be a badge or an access card.”

Colton knelt next to the nearest
security guard and unclipped a black plastic card from one of his
vest pockets. He waved it in front of the panel next to the
elevator and the doors slid open silently.

“
Which floor is the
machine on?” asked Corva. She hopped into the elevator and studied
the metal panel lined with buttons next to the door.

“
I don’t know,” said
Colton as he stood next to her. “First floor is offices, the gym is
on five, training on nine—”

“
Right,” interrupted
Corva. She reached out and pressed the button for the second floor.
“We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up.”

“
This is usually my plan,”
said Marius. “Especially with peanut butter and ice
cream.”

“
Stop, man,” said Colton.
“I haven’t had anything to eat all day.”

“
We find you something,”
said Marius. “After we find Marius something.”

“
You two knock it off,”
said Corva. “Focus.”

As the elevator doors slid shut,
Colton closed his eyes and tried once again to capture anything he
could from the world around him—but he failed. He would be useless
if the others needed to rely on him for help.

“
Corva,” he said. “I don’t
know if I can—”

“
You’ll be fine,” she
interrupted. She fixed him with a calm, confident stare. “Trust
me.”

Colton nodded and took a deep
breath.

The elevator slowed to a stop and the
doors opened. A long hallway extended away from the elevator, each
side lined with open doors. In every doorway stood a security
guard, fully dressed in thick Kevlar body armor. Each guard carried
a heavy rifle and had it trained on the elevator.

“
Oh, goody,” said Marius.
“More toys.” He reached out for Corva. “Take Marius’ hand, my love.
And cover your eyes.”

She grabbed his hand
tightly.

Colton closed his eyes as the world
around him turned to orange flame. He crouched in the back of the
elevator as the light grew so bright through his closed eyelids
that it was like staring directly into the sun.

The elevator shook on its cable and
the entire building seemed to quake. The sound of gunfire quickly
faded into the background as a steady roar of churning energy
filled the air.

Colton covered his face with his arms
and waited.

37

H
aven rode in silence as Dormer sped down the dark
tunnel.

The black sedan’s headlights cast two
bright circles of white light on the concrete walls. Every few
hundred feet, they passed a hand-painted sign with a number—some
kind of distance marker that started at ten and steadily counted
down.

When they passed a sign with the
number one on it, Dormer slowed the car and stopped. He turned in
his seat to face Haven.

“
Tell me the truth. How
much control do you have over your abilities?”

Haven shifted in her seat
uncomfortably.

“
Look,” said Dormer. “It’s
okay. You’re young and this is all new to you. I get that. It’s
just better for me to know before we walk in there and I rely on
you for something that you can’t do.”

“
I can’t project it more
than a few feet,” Haven conceded. “Or focus it to a beam, or
whatever.” She looked away.

“
Don’t be ashamed,” said
Dormer. “
Never
be
ashamed of your talents.”

“
But the others are so
much stronger.”

“
Don’t compare yourself to
them. You are different, and that is not a bad thing. We all have
our strengths, Haven. Do you understand me?”

She looked at him and nodded
slightly.

“
Good,” he said. “We’ll
play to those strengths, but we have to be smart about it. Do you
know how to drive?”

“
What?”

“
Can you
drive?”

“
Yeah, but I’m not very
good.”

“
That’s fine, you can go
slow. Take the car and go on ahead. If there are any guards, I
don’t think they’ll realize who you are until you walk right up to
them. Light them up if you can, then find some cover.”

“
What about
you?”

“
I’ll be right behind
you,” said Dormer.

He shifted the car into park, got out
of the car, and walked down the tunnel toward the medical facility.
Haven climbed over the center console and sat in the driver’s seat.
She shifted the car into gear and rolled slowly behind
him.

He motioned for her to go on ahead, so
she pressed down on the accelerator and the rumble of the engine
grew louder as she drove past him.

A short while later, the tunnel ended
in a small, cavernous space that had been cut out of solid rock.
Lights bolted to the jagged ceiling dimly lit the area. The glowing
fluorescent lights inside the entrance to the medical center shone
through glass windows off to one side of the parking lot. A few
cars were parked in front of the entrance next to an ambulance with
the words “Bozeman Regional Hospital” printed on the
side.

Clever
, thought Haven.
A perfect way to
transport abductees without being noticed.

On either side of the main door, two
uniformed security guards stood up from their chairs and warily
gripped their rifles as Haven pulled the sedan to a stop in one of
the empty parking spaces.

She got out of the car and wiped her
sweaty palms on her jeans as she walked toward the guards. She
looked behind her at the entrance to the tunnel but could not see
Dormer.

“
Identify yourself,” said
one of the guards. He stepped forward and raised his rifle a little
higher. He wasn’t fully aiming at Haven yet, but she bet he could
snap it up and pull the trigger faster than she could run for
cover.

She swallowed nervously.

“
Bernam said that he’s all
done with the boy—the patient. He wants to see him
personally.”

The guards exchanged a
glance.

“
We weren’t told about any
transfer,” said one of the guards. He reached up to touch an
earpiece. He opened his mouth to speak and all of the lights on the
ceiling dimmed and went out.

The guards snapped up their rifles and
spun in place, searching the room.

“
It’s okay,” said Haven.
She stepped forward and grabbed the closest guard by the shoulders.
Blue light flooded her eyes. “You can take a break.”

Blue energy erupted from her hands and
burst like a bubble of lava. The guard screamed and slammed
backward into his partner. Both men tumbled across the parking lot
like ragdolls until they crashed into the far wall and slumped to
the ground, unconscious.

The lights in the ceiling slowly
flickered back on. Dormer stepped out of the shadows and walked
over to Haven.

“
Not bad,” he
said.

“
It was sloppy,” she
admitted.

“
It did the job. Did you
use it all up?”

Haven shook her head. “There’s still
some left.”

She didn’t know why she hesitated to
tell him the truth—that it felt like she had barely scratched the
surface of the energy that was welling up inside of her. She wasn’t
sure if it was sorrow from missing her parents or anger at the fact
that Bernam had taken her little brother, but the blue sphere of
molten energy that she pictured in her mind’s eye was growing
larger with each passing moment. It was getting so strong that it
felt as if it would burn her up from the inside if she didn’t
release it soon.