The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (34 page)

Haven ran from one pillar to the next
and caught a quick glimpse of Alistair. His eyes glowed solid
white. Wavy, ghost-like strands of energy floated up from his body
like the tentacles of an upside-down jellyfish.

“
Your little brother was
the key,” he said. “Did you know that?”

Haven pictured Noah in the chair at
the medical center. She remembered the scar on his small
chest.

“
Very strong, your
brother,” continued Alistair. “At least he will be some day.
Normally Bernam couldn’t find anyone until they were at least your
age, but little Noah was different. If only Bernam could have
sensed you as well, we could’ve gotten two for one!”

He laughed and shot a beam of energy
through the pillar behind Haven. It crumbled to the floor as she
ran to the next one.

The ceiling above her head groaned and
cracked. A small piece of black tile fell to the floor and
shattered.

“
Ah, I see,” said
Alistair. “Very clever. It was Bernam’s stupid idea to leave these
floors open like this. I much prefer a smaller, cozier
place.”

Haven looked at the
machine.

Most of the metal boxes that fed the
tubes were similar—polished chrome with no decoration. There was
one piece of equipment in the back that was different. Small wires
ran out of the wall and connected to the outside of that particular
piece. It was a lot less polished than the rest of the machine—more
utilitarian in nature.

Haven made that her target and hoped
she could project her energy more than a few feet.

She forced herself to picture the blue
sphere of plasma in the vast field of nothing. She channeled the
energy to her core and down to her hands. Warmth flowed over her
entire body and silent blue flames skittered across her arms.
Floating in the air on either side of her were the tips of her
energy wings—they fanned out from her back and lit up the entire
room.

Haven stepped out from behind the
pillar and held up her hand toward the piece of machinery near the
wall. Blue plasma spiraled from her hand and smacked into the wall,
above her mark. She dropped her aim and hit the target, moving the
stream of energy over the machine until the blue light faded from
her vision and she breathed out, exhausted. Her energy wings slowly
receded into her back and disappeared.

The machine groaned and one of the
tubes burst, sending a steady stream of gas into the
air.

Alistair looked at Haven and whistled
in appreciation.

“
Now
that
was impressive,” he said. “You
don’t see wings like that every day.” He walked to the middle of
the room and inspected the machine thoughtfully. Then he shrugged.
“Well, you tried. Mind if I help?” Thick streams of white plasma
shot from his palms and melted a piece machinery next to the one
Haven had targeted. The tubes connecting that piece to the rest of
the machine exploded in a chain reaction that consumed half the
room. Fire licked up the walls and crawled across the ceiling.
“There we are,” said Alistair. “Can’t have just anybody popping in
to use it, now can we?” He walked forward slowly, with his hands
slightly raised to show that he meant no harm. “I don’t suppose
you’d be interested in joining me?” he asked. “I’m really going
places.”

The blue energy flared up around
her.

He cocked his head to the side and the
ghost-like tendrils floating up from his body shot across the room
and burrowed into Haven’s skin.

“
No,” he said. “I thought
not. Pity.”

The tendrils lifted her from the
ground and spun her in the air slowly. She screamed as the burning
strands moved over her skin.

Alistair walked in a wide circle
around her, tapping on his chin thoughtfully. More strands of
energy grew from his skin and extended toward Haven and burrowed
into her body.

“
You know,” he said, “I
might be able to
make
you obey me. There’s really no way to know my limits until I
test them. The brain is controlled by electrical impulses, after
all. That’s what makes it so easy to shut off. Who knows? Maybe
mind control isn’t so far-fetched. You can be my first test
subject.” He grinned. “What do you say?”

The piece of equipment at the back of
the machine squealed and split down the side. Blue and white light
flowed over the tubes and crackled against the outsides of the
metal boxes. One of the boxes exploded, sending jagged pieces of
thin metal in all directions.

The explosion rocked the entire
building and the tendrils of white energy coming out of Alistair
quickly pulled back into his skin. Haven smacked into the floor and
rolled behind a fallen pillar just as another box
exploded.

A piece of metal shaped like a saw
blade spun through the air and slammed into Alistair’s
chest.

He looked down at the protruding blade
in confusion and stumbled backward on his feet.

Haven ran for the big hole in the
wall, and for the sunlight beyond.

Alistair screamed.

His body was consumed in white energy.
It exploded outward like a series of pulsing underwater
detonations—spheres of burning light shot out from his core and
stopped, only to be overtaken by a larger, more powerful barrier of
white plasma.

The roof collapsed behind Haven as she
ran toward the wall. Chunks of concrete crashed all around her as
she passed crumbling pillars.

She felt the heat on her back—felt it
burning into her skin.

She looked behind her as she ran.
Alistair stood in front of the machine, arms outstretched, head
cast upward in a perpetual scream. His body was a black silhouette
in a piercing center of white light.

The machine exploded.

Fire blossomed out from the base of
the platform and swallowed Alistair’s body. Before he disappeared
into the flames, he lowered his head and looked directly at Haven,
his eyes burning pools of white light.

Haven reached the hole in the wall and
jumped.

The barrier of white plasma slammed
into her back and pushed her far out over the parking lot. She spun
head over heels, catching glimpses of the orange sky, the black
asphalt, and the collapsing building.

Soon all she saw was the desert
rushing up to her face.

At the last second, someone dove to
the ground beneath her.

It was Dormer.

She stopped falling an inch away from
his body and hung in the air. He moved to the side and she fell
lightly into his outstretched arms.

Dormer helped her up and dusted off
her shoulders. He smiled.

“
We were just coming up to
get you,” he said. “You made it.”

“
So did you.” She coughed
again. Her throat was bone dry—it felt like she could drink a
gallon of water.

An explosion of flame belched out of
the building through the hole in the sixth floor. The fire crawled
up toward the roof, shattering every window along its
path.

“
You found your brother?”
asked Haven.

Dormer nodded. “He’ll be fine after a
while. He’s with the other patients at the medical facility. Most
of them are still asleep.”

“
What will happen to
them?”

“
Hopefully Micah cleared
some space at The Dome. They can stay with us as long as they’d
like, but I expect most will want to get back to their lives. We
can talk more about that later. Right now someone wants to see
you.”

He led Haven to the parking lot, where
a group of people were gathered. Colton stood a few feet away,
watching the black building collapse on itself. He winced in pain
and touched the side of his ribcage. Marius and Corva sat on the
ground next to each other, smiling up at the setting sun. Their
wounds were healed over but dark bruises still covered much of
their arms and faces.

“
I’ll get them fixed up
properly back at the Grove,” said Dormer. “Ah, here we
are.”

Haven turned as her little brother
jumped into her arms.

“
Noah!” she said. She
closed her eyes and hugged him harder than she ever had
before.

He leaned back and kissed her on the
nose, then rested his head on her shoulder. Haven smiled as tears
rolled down her cheeks.

“
He’s strong,” said
Dormer. “But it will take a while to fully heal.”

“
Thank you,” whispered
Haven. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”

Dormer smiled and walked away. He
knelt down next to Marius and tried to inspect his healed wounds,
but Marius half-heartedly swatted him away.

Haven stood next to Colton as a big
piece of the roof collapsed down through the top few floors of the
building. It slipped over the wall and fell onto the parking lot
with a loud crunch. The ground shook as a huge explosion blew out
every remaining window, sending a million shards of glass spinning
into the air. Bright rays from the setting sun glinted off the
glass, turning it into a falling sheet of glimmering
light.

A bigger burst of orange flames
erupted through the hole in the sixth floor and consumed the top
half of the building.

“
What happened to your
friend?” asked Haven. She rubbed Noah’s back as the building
burned.

“
He’s gone,” said
Colton.

“
With the
girl?”

He nodded. “He never really had a
chance. He just…he just grabbed at the first thing that he thought
would make him special.”

“
We all do that in our own
way.”

Colton shook his head. “We
lost
so much
.”

Haven looked into his eyes and smiled.
“We’ll get it back.”

She kissed Noah’s forehead and turned
away from the building to join the others.

E
PILOGUE

N
ight fell on the desert, bringing with it a sudden chill that
cooled the hissing ruins of the black building. The structure had
completely collapsed into itself and sunk partially into the
ground. Smoke rose from a shallow crater lined with the protruding
edges of blackened steel crossbeams.

The parking lot surrounding the
building was charred all the way to its edges. The fire had burned
so hot that the sand near the asphalt turned to glass.

With a loud scrape of steel on steel,
one of the crossbeams jutting up from the ruins shifted to the
side. The chunk of roofing it had been supporting fell deeper into
the crater and cracked in half over a giant chrome sphere—one of
many from the training room that dotted the remains of the
building.

From a shadowed spot next to the base
of the shifting crossbeam, a burnt hand reached up toward the sky.
Cloth had melted into the skin of the arm and fused with crisp,
red-black flesh.

Alistair’s hand gripped the crossbeam
and he pulled himself up from the ruins.

He screamed to the night sky, his
breath fogging out in a slow cloud. He reached up to touch his
face—the skin over his cheeks felt like thin paper and sizzled
under his fingertips.

His hair was gone—his scalp peeled
away to reveal his blackened skull. He let out a small whimper as
he stood next to the fallen building and looked down at his charred
body.

Alistair’s whimper turned to quiet
sobbing as he nurtured the violent thoughts in his mind—he turned
them over and over again until they gave him strength. White light
flickered in the cracks of his burnt skin and his eyes glowed
brighter until they became two brilliant white stars in a sea of
night.

His sobbing made the slow turn to
insane laughter—it started as a weak cough, then became a
mischievous chuckle that shook his body with every sound, and at
last built to a deep, cackling rumble of laughter that echoed
across the desert.

Alistair moved away into the night to
become one more shadow in a world filled with darkness. His mind
was consumed by a single desire.

Revenge
.