The Fire In My Eyes (45 page)

I stood up and tried to put weight on my right leg. My knee twisted and I gasped for breath against the pain. I didn't look down. I didn't want to see what he had done to it. “Looks like we're even so far,” I said.

He looked at his right hand and shook it. Blood splattered on dead leaves. “Your mobility for my hand. No, I'd say it's in my favor.”

“You'd think so,” I said, and then threw a storm of small attacks at him, followed up with a focused attack. I wasn't too adept with projecting pinpoint energy and he knew it. However, he didn't know that I wasn't aiming for center mass, like he had taught me. He deflected the scattered shots, but my focused attack drilled through the stressed shield and bored a neat little hole through his left palm. He swore and pressed the hand against his chest. “That doesn't look too comfortable. Do you need to see a doctor?”

The ground shook under me. Reflexively, I tried to keep my balance, which put pressure on my right leg. The knee gave and I tumbled to the ground. Before I could move again, I felt tremendous pressure on my right wrist. Shade was standing on my wrist, grinding down with his boot. “Didn't I tell you not to mock me, Parker?” he asked, then stomped down with psionically accelerated power.

My wrist shattered. I screamed and he kicked me in the side, sending me rolling across the park, only stopping when my back slammed into a tree. I couldn't see, speak, or think. My broken wrist and knee had hit the ground over and over as I rolled, each impact driving more pain through my body. My power vanished. I couldn't concentrate while I was in that much pain, and if I couldn't call my power up to numb the pain, I didn't have a chance. I rolled to my left side and tried to force my power under my control. I heard footsteps approaching. My desperate attempts drove control even further away.

“How about this,” Shade said. He stood directly over me, his hands dripping blood on the ground next to my face. “You surrender and serve the Establishment for life. One step out of line and your friends and family die. But if you're a good boy, they'll live. How's that sound?”

“What's the catch?” I asked.

He shook his hands toward me. His blood splattered my face. “No catch. This is out of the goodness of my heart.”

“What heart?”

He kicked me in the stomach. Any progress I had made toward taking control of my power vanished as I wheezed for breath. “I'm running out of patience,” he said.

I rolled onto my back and forced myself to breathe. I could surrender and be a slave, but it would save everyone I cared about. If I continued to fight, he'd kill everyone. I knew he wasn't bluffing. But, even if I did surrender, he'd hold this like a knife to my throat. He could force me to do anything by threatening to kill my friends and my family. That was the sort of control that Star had been so worried about.

“Well?” he asked, prodding me with the toe of his boot.

“I'm thinking about it,” I said. “The way I see it, you're giving me the choice to surrender or die, right? I'm not a big fan of either.”

“And so what are you going to do?” He sounded almost amused.

I sat up. The short respite was enough. My power was a trickle, but now that I could numb the pain, I could concentrate again. My right hand was useless and I couldn't put any weight on my right leg, but I could use my power again. I had to keep him distracted a little longer to recover all of my focus. “Fight. I'll fight you, Shade. You keep telling me that I don't have control, that I won't do what needs to be done. But you know what? You're wrong.”

He grunted and watched me. What was going through his mind, I didn't know, but he wasn't attacking. “I did what had to be done to save Nikki, I did what had to be done to save Star, and I'll do whatever needs to be done to stop you. I'll burn every last bit of my power to stop you, and if you die, that's just too fucking bad.”

“Are you done yet?” he asked.

“No, I'm not done, you fucker. I won't be done until you kill me. Ripley won't be happy about that, will he? You don't give second chances. You don't give special treatment. I know you. You're doing this for him. He won't be happy about it when you kill me, will he? So bring it on. Let's get this over with.”

He kicked at me again, but I deflected it and grabbed his foot awkwardly in my left hand, then thrust him away with a telekinetic push. He stumbled backwards. “I'll take control of your will,” he snapped. “I'll force you to kill them. I'll make you watch. I'll make you suffer.”

“You'll have to kill me,” I repeated, lifting myself up to stand on my good leg. “I won't let you control me. I'd rather die. Come on, you monstrous bastard. Let's do this.”

He destroyed my shield with a telekinetic wave, a roaring torrent of power that left me cold and vulnerable. Instead of burning through me, he clasped his hands together and clubbed me. I felt my jaw break, my teeth splinter and chip. I tasted blood. All I could see was blood as I hit the ground again.

I felt telekinesis lift me to my feet, then push me until my back was up against a tree. Shade regarded me from a few feet away. “Alistair won't be happy, but he'll get over it,” he said. “It was a calculated risk from the beginning. It's not as if we don't have a backup plan in place. Your girlfriend. I won't make the same mistakes with her. She'll be a puppet. The rest of us will live. And you'll be dead and forgotten. See you in hell, Parker.”

He brought his hands together again and I felt his energy focusing, a deadly assault that would burn clean through me this time. No shield I could put together would block it. I couldn't move enough to dodge it. He was going to kill me where I stood.

Innate strength and talent. Second tier of power. Star's words tumbled through my mind. I had nothing to lose. I tapped my power, twisted the valve all the way open, and continued to twist. Psionic power surged through my mind, overwhelming my ability to control it. If Shade didn't kill me first, this sort of power overload would do the job for him.

There was a click somewhere in the back of my mind. The flow of power abruptly ceased. Had I gone too far? Shade's expression turned uglier, a victorious snarl. He thought I had failed, that I was helpless. For that fraction of a second, I was.

Everything stopped. The flow of power exploded in my mind, the tap bursting under pressure, the valve shooting into the air on a torrent of silver power. It flooded my body and I could see silver sparks snapping into the air. Were they coming from me? Or was I just seeing things before I died?

My Sight flashed. Everything faded. It was as if all the color had suddenly gone out of the world, and even the white lines of psionic connection between me and my surroundings were washed out and lifeless. Shade's eyes were barely glowing now. Instead of a vibrant green blaze, they were a dull matte green. Dead eyes.

Shade's telekinetic lance flashed out from his hands with peculiar slowness. My altered Sight let me track it, a dull green surge creeping along a white thread that connected the two of us. It felt like I had an eternity in which to decide what to do about it. I didn't know what I could do. I didn't know if I could create a shield with this silver power, nor did I know if I could use it to dodge or heal or even move.

The assault reached the halfway point between us. It was a deadly blow. He wasn't pulling this one. I was out of time. The best way to avoid an attack, as I had been taught over and over, was not to be there when it landed.

I twisted aside. Silver energy burned in my wake.

The energy roared a foot to the right of me, burning through my silver afterimage, striking the tree that had just been behind me. Burning splinters rained across the park. Shade collected his power and thrust at me again without pause. I moved again, letting it flash harmlessly through the air. My head throbbed, just like it had when I had begun my training. I was riding close to complete exhaustion, but right now, he couldn't touch me.

Energy flashed out from his hands and I stepped aside again, then reached for him. His shield flashed to life, but my touch pierced it without any resistance. It was as if it wasn't even there. When I touched his forehead, his power fizzled out. He didn't make a single move to resist me. “You son of a bitch,” he snarled. “It's too early. You can't be using it so soon. You don't understand. You don't know what's at stake, you don't understand anything!”

“I know one thing, Shade,” I said. His eyes narrowed. “I know I can't let a monster like you walk away from this.”

He grinned at me. There was no fear in his dark eyes. “Maybe you did learn something in the end. Fuck you, Parker!”

I had never performed a mindtwist before. With this silver manifestation, it was simple. I looped his psionic energy, forcing it to feed back into itself every time he tried to use it. I sealed his memories away, using his own power to drive them further into the depths of his own mind. I finished by tying his voluntary nervous system into the same mess, leaving him unable to move, a prisoner in his own body. I didn't consider it cruel. I considered it justice.

The silver power cascaded out of control and I pushed against it, trying to cut it off before I lost control. Control was impossible. Energy roared and I released it in a completely unstable mindflare, a desperate attempt to bleed off the excess before it killed me. Just as it had before, the flare blinded and deafened me. I crashed to the ground, the cold seeping into my body, my vision a field of pure white and my ears roaring with mindless noise. My wrist and my knee started to throb with each heartbeat. Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth and I could barely swallow. How long it would take for someone to arrive after the mindflare?

Not long. Someone tapped my forehead. Not hard, just enough to get my attention. “Kevin? Kevin, snap out of it! Kevin!” I blinked and the white was starting to fade. Whoever was speaking sounded like they were miles away. Familiar biokinesis soothed my pain, my eyes and my ears, and the next time I blinked I could see a blurred Absynthe kneeling over me. “Kevin?” she asked. “Can you hear me?”

“Hear you,” I rasped.

“What the hell happened here?” she asked. “Four agents twisted, plus Shade? That's no twist I've ever seen. What happened?”

I had happened. I wasn't about to admit that. I could barely talk through my injuries, but I made the attempt. “Rogue,” I said, and it wasn't quite a lie. “Blue. Hurt me. Did Shade. Me next. Flare. You came.”

She seized my good hand. “You'll be all right. We'll track down the bastard who did this to you and him. We'll get them.”

I smiled at her and closed my eyes.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was back in my own bed with someone shaking my shoulder. “Wake up, Kev. Time to go home.”

I sat up and immediately grabbed my right wrist. It was sore, but it worked. My knee was equally sore, but also functional. My head ached, a psionic hangover of the sort that I hadn't had since the beginning of the year. I was alive. I hadn’t expected that. I couldn't help but laugh.

“I'm glad you find this amusing.”

I looked up. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

He looked at his watch. “Picking you up. I told you I'd be here around noon. Let's get moving, Kev.”

I looked over at the clock. It was quarter of twelve. I had left the little party last night somewhere around ten, met Star, fought, nearly died, and ended up here about twelve hours later. Absynthe must have gone to great lengths to put me back together and spirit me back into my own bed. “Shit. Sorry, Dad, it was a long night.”

“Right.” He was still looking at his watch. “Look, if you're not ready yet, I'm going to go find a fast food place and grab some lunch. Want your usual?”

The thought of food fascinated and disgusted me. I didn't like eating so soon after waking up, but I felt physically weak. Last night had exhausted me, even more than the very first time I had trained. I had to choke something down. “Yeah, that'd be good. Double down on the burger though. I'm starving.”

Dad nodded and headed for the door. “Sure. Make sure you're ready to go by the time I get back.”

As soon as he was gone, I jumped up and headed for the bathroom. It was bare, sterile in a way I had never seen. Had Max and Drew left already? I hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to them. I took a fast shower and collected all of my own possessions to bring home.

The room itself was equally bare. Their sheets and pillows were gone, their desks neat and clean, Max's computer and Drew's television both gone. I hadn't woken up with all their moving? They must have made noise and it hadn't been enough to wake me up. I opened the closets. Their closets were empty. So was mine, except for a single change of clothes. My suitcases were on the floor, already partially packed. I didn't remember doing any packing.

I threw my clothes on and walked to my desk. My laptop was open and plugged into the wall, the last thing I really needed to pack. I pushed the lid closed with a click, just as the door opened. “I told you, Drew, he's always closing that thing when we walk in. Swear the guy's got a fetish.”

“It's a way of life,” Drew said. He grinned at me as they both walked in. “Finally woke up, man?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I thought you guys left already?”

“Not quite,” Max said. He looked around the room. “Dumbass here's been busy saying goodbye to Lisa for the last twenty minutes. Outside. In public. People were cheering as they drove by. I pretended not to know him.”

“Hey, it gave you some time to talk to Jess, right?” Drew asked. Max flushed and clutched at his ponytail. “Oh, was it more than talking?”

“No,” Max snapped. “You think you got everything?”

“I think so. Hey, Kev, you're coming back, right?” Drew asked.

“I assume so, why?” I asked.

“Drew thought you flunked out,” Max said.

“Bullshit,” Drew retorted. “I worry more about you failing out than Kev.”

I chuckled and unplugged my laptop. “Didn't flunk anything. Came close, but passed everything and I guess I kept the scholarship. So, I guess we'll all be back here in January? No room changes or anything?”