The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (39 page)

“
So you’re here for him,”
said Haven. “Why is
he
here?”

“
He’s here for you,” said
Bastian.

“
Why?”

He hesitated. “You probably don’t want
to know. Let’s just say it wouldn’t be fun if he caught you. But
you can help me since you’re here.”

Haven looked over at Bastian’s
partner. He was standing away from the wall, eyes fixed on the thin
man. “How?” she asked at last.

“
I’m looking for the
Dome.”

Blue flames danced in her eyes and her
cheeks flushed red. “How do you know about that?” she demanded.
Bastian held up his hands and leaned away.

“
Easy,” he said. “Easy
there. I meant nothing by it. My partner and I—his name’s Roku, by
the way—straight from Japan, doesn’t speak a lick of English.”
Bastian couldn’t stop himself from laughing and Haven had a hard
time staying angry. “Anyway,” continued Bastian, “we’re looking for
more people like us. Alistair’s building up his strength after his
little run-in with someone powerful enough to put him down for a
while and—”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
You didn’t hear about
that?”

“
I guess I’m a little out
of the loop,” she said.

“
We don’t know what
happened, but apparently Alistair battled with someone in western
Australia last month. They pretty much wrecked thirty miles of
coastline in the process. Supposedly it was a ‘gas leak’ from some
nonexistent sulfur mine but the people in charge will say anything
to stop a panic.”

“
Who was it?”

“
Like I said, no one
knows. But the way I heard it from my folks, it takes a Nova to
stop a Nova.”

Haven hung on that
word:
Nova
.
Hybrid. A person with the gift of both Source and Conduit—able to
create their own energy and expend it freely, without worry of
overloading their system. The need for a counterpart was
eliminated, meaning that—unlike normal Sources and Cons—a Nova did
not have to rely on another person to reach their full
potential.

Haven’s little brother, Noah, was such
a person, though still too young to utilize his ability.

She realized Bastian was staring at
her.

“
So, you know,” he said,
“if you could maybe show us to the Dome so we could get some
recruits, that would be great.”

“
Recruits?”

“
Och, weren’t you
listening? You zoned out on me. Roku and I are going after
Alistair. We’re going to take him down.”

“
But you’re not a
Nova.”

“
Thanks fer noticin’.
That’s why we need more help, right? I mean, Roku and I are tough
guys, in case I haven’t mentioned it already, but not tough enough
to handle Alistair on our own. He’s got his minions out in the
world while he’s healing, wreaking all kinds of havoc in society.
Mr. Skinny over there,” he said, wagging a finger at the thin man
two rows away, “is just one of a dozen people running around,
killing innocent bystanders and doing who-knows-what-else in
Alistair’s name.”

“
I can’t take you to the
Dome,” said Haven. “As long as no one knows where it is, it’s
safe.”

“
Aw, you can’t leave me
out in the cold like that,” said Bastian. “Why don’t you come with
us, then?”

“
With
you?
”

“
Do ye have to sound so
disgusted? Come with us. Help us put Alistair down for
good.”

Haven shook her head. “I
made a promise and I have to go back.
Alone
. I shouldn’t have left in the
first place.”

Bastian sighed heavily and looked at
her. “Alright,” he said in defeat. “I had to try. To our lonely
deaths we go, to lay our bones before the mighty
dragon.”

“
Is that from a
book?”

“
Just something I say
every time Roku and I go off to fight the bad guy.” He paused
thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll write a book someday. Well, nice to meet
ye.” He held out his hand and after a moment of hesitation, Haven
shook it.

Like a camera flash in a dark room,
images popped into her mind. Scenes of graphic violence in distant
lands, of people she had never before seen. Bastian firmly gripped
her hand and a burst of images played out like some hyperspeed
slide show. One man was recognizable through every evil image—the
thin man seated in the airport two rows away.

Bastian released her hand and waited.
Haven felt sick to her stomach. Her skin was pale and a thin sheen
of sweat coated her body. She swallowed and her throat felt like it
was coated with sandpaper.

“
What was that?” she
whispered.

“
I’m sorry,” said Bastian,
his voice genuine. “I piggybacked some of Roku’s memories when we
touched. He’s a Conduit, see, and he’s figured how to send out
basic images. He gave me some to hold on to in case you needed
convincing. Pretty neat, right? Memories are energy, after all.
Electrical impulses in the brain. I’m glad it worked—never really
tried it before.”

Haven looked at the thin man. Over the
intercom, an attendant announced that her plane was boarding. It
took great effort to decide to go back to Montana instead of
staying for a while longer to fight the thin man and find Alistair,
but she had to keep her promise and she didn’t want innocent people
in the airport to die on her account. “What are you going to do to
him?” she asked.

“
Stop him from hurting
anyone else, any way we can.”

“
Here?”

“
No. When he leaves the
terminal. Too many people around. Too much of a mess for Helix to
clean up.”

“
Who’s Helix?”

“
You
are
out of the loop, aren’t you?
It’s not a
who
,
it’s a
what
.
Helix Scientific is a watchdog organization disguised as a research
think-tank. They keep an eye on people like us and clean up our
messes to keep the news away from the public. They say it’s to keep
us safe, ay, but there’s no way to really know. Roku and I used to
work for them, but we quit. That doesn’t matter now. You have a
plane to catch. Don’t worry, though. Mr. Skinny will have to deal
with us before he tries for you.”

“
Why protect me if I won’t
help you? You don’t even know me.”

“
All I have to know is
that you’re good,” he said, then pointed to the thin man, “and he’s
bad. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Not for me,
anyway.”

Haven stood and shouldered her
backpack. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Too many people are depending on
me.”

Bastian’s smile was as genuine as his
first. “You stay out of trouble, Haven Kincaid.”

She walked toward the plane, only
barely pausing in mid-stride when she realized he had used her full
name, and that she had never given it to him during the
conversation. Just before the attendant took her ticket and she
stepped onto the gangway leading to the plane, Haven looked
back.

Bastian and Roku were both on their
feet, walking in a slow circle around the seated thin man. He
carefully folded his newspaper and set it aside, then took off his
glasses and put them in his pocket. He stood and walked toward an
exit on the other side of the terminal.

Someone bumped into Haven from behind
and apologized. When Haven looked back again, Bastian, Roku, and
the thin man were gone.

She waited in the long line on the
gangway to board the plane. They always seemed to get everyone in
line to wait standing up instead of staying comfortably in their
seats until they could just walk on the plane. When she finally got
on board, Haven took a right and headed away from First Class and
into Coach, or “Regular Business Class” as the airline marketing
gurus invented. The carefully-chosen phrase didn’t make her feel
any more special when she had to sit in the middle seat between two
bulky men who took up every inch of both armrests. Fortunately she
didn’t take up much room herself, so Haven crossed her arms and
settled back into her seat for the three hour flight to
Montana.

The plane pushed back from the jetway
and rolled out to the runway. The engines whined to full power and
Haven was pressed back into her seat as the plane accelerated. It
was just barely possible for her to look over the man’s huge belly
next to her to see the ground drop away. The plane banked to the
right and, at the last second, just before the runway disappeared,
she saw the thin man standing alone on the tarmac.

He was looking right at
her.

Haven’s breath caught in her throat
and she shrank back into her seat. She closed her eyes and tried to
convince herself that she hadn’t seen him, but it was not her
imagination. Every passing moment beat slower as she looked around
the cabin. Children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, infants—there
were so many people on board.

The engine on her side of the plane
stuttered once and slowed down, then spun back to full power. The
passengers stopped talking and looked out the windows. The other
engine whined as it lost power and the plane dipped to the left.
People screamed as their loose belongings tumbled to that side of
the plane. One woman who was walking to the bathroom fell across an
aisle full of old men, who held her up while the plane continued
its slow sideways roll.

The overhead speakers crackled to
life. “Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking.”
His voice was more calm than it had a right to be. “Uh, we’re
having some slight technical problems up here in the cockpit and if
you’ll just bear with us, hopefully we can—

His voice cut out when the second
engine died.

7

T
here was a moment of brief silence as the plane hung in the
air, both engines dead. The lights in the cabin blinked out and
everyone screamed.

The plane groaned as it glided through
the air without power. It rolled to the right and Haven saw the
ground rapidly approaching. They crossed over other runways as they
drifted closer to the ground, picking up speed as they
fell.

Then they were back over solid tarmac
as the tip of the right wing hit the ground. Haven saw it like it
was happening in slow motion: the wing grinding into the tarmac
inch by inch as the plane got closer to the ground. Then the tarmac
vanished and a green blur of grass filled the tiny window. The
right wing snapped off and the body of the plane hit the
ground.

Haven’s screams were drowned out by a
chorus of screeches just loud enough to fight the horrendous groan
of metal as the plane buckled. The nose dug deep into the ground as
the body turned sideways and the plane started to roll. The left
wing swung up over the plane and smashed down into the ground,
snapping like a twig. The plane rolled over the wing and across the
grass, like a long tube pushed down a steep hill. Oxygen masks
popped down from the ceiling and slapped around wildly. Haven’s
seat belt was tight or else she would have been tumbling around the
cabin with a dozen other people. The overhead compartments popped
open and luggage slammed around the cabin like rocks in a
dryer.

The body of the plane hit a large
embankment and rolled up onto it—and stopped. There was a
collective sigh of relief from the passengers who weren’t
unconscious, and then another round of hopeless screams when the
plane rolled slowly back down the embankment and came to a
stop.

Haven unbuckled her seat belt with
shaking hands. The two men on either side of her were unconscious.
She tried to shake them awake but they were out cold.

The plane had finally come to a rest
on its left side. Haven had to put her feet down toward the other
aisle as she lowered herself over the man next to her and out of
her seat. She held onto the armrests as she found her footing. A
few aisles in front of her, a group of people were working to open
the emergency exit overhead. The door popped inward and a woman in
a torn business suit pushed it to the side.

One by one, survivors exited the
plane. Haven waited until it was her turn to leave. Two men and the
woman in the torn business suit stood around the doorway, helping
people up onto the side of the plane. Haven looked around—there
were no flight attendants in sight. The cockpit door was sealed
tight.

The two men by the emergency exit gave
Haven a boost out. She stood on the plane and looked back at the
trail of destruction left in its wake. For about a half-mile back
toward the airport, a deep scar had been gouged into the ground.
The first part of the scar was cut into the tarmac and was littered
with wreckage from one of the broken wings. Then the scar turned
into a ragged trench carved deep in the soil once the body of the
plane hit the grass. Smoke billowed from the broken engines in the
distance.

A large yellow ramp had inflated from
the emergency exit and connected with the ground next to the plane.
Haven slid down and rolled off next to the other passengers. She
brushed off her hands and tried to see if there was anything she
could do to help. Most of the passengers stumbled a few feet away
from the plane and sat heavily on the ground. Clothes were torn,
skin was cut. Parents comforted children and children clung to
their parents. Sirens wailed in the distance.