’Til the World Ends (29 page)

Jag called ahead to let the base know we were coming. They’d have sent a helicopter to get us if one were available, but instead they were sending backup just in case something went awry with Nichol’s transport. Their main concern was getting Ian and me safely ensconced at Kinetic headquarters. They even said my dad was welcome to stay with me.

It was approaching daylight, so I didn’t expect to see many people on the street, but as we drove slowly through Lodgepole, I sensed their absence. No messengers peddled bikes over curbs and around the sharp corners of buildings, no one rushed home from work to beat the sun, no kids played kickball in the street. It was like a ghost town.

“Not many folks live here, huh?” Jag said as he drove us through the alley in back of the hospital.

“A lot of them have moved away.” I let myself remember my missing friends and neighbors, and wished there had been a way to keep in touch. I didn’t even know where most of them had ended up, or even if they were still alive. “The grass always looks greener somewhere else.”
Grass?
I laughed silently at the irony.

Jag grinned. “With only one randomly published newspaper, it’s natural for people to seek out other ways to get their news, or whatever else they’re looking for.”

“Speaking for myself, I drifted from town to town for a long time looking for answers,” Ian said.

“And it appears you found them. Right here.” Jag winked at me, and I feigned interest in the closed garage door of the ambulance bay. Not that it mattered, but was it that obvious how Ian and I felt about each other?

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Jag said. “I’ll bring Nichol out through the back. I’d rather not alert the public just in case he’s already turned. I don’t anticipate any trouble, but I like being prepared.”

He parked the black SUV alongside the chain-link fence opposite the garage bay. He looked at me, then at Ian. “Ready to go in?”

“The sooner we get this over with, the better,” Ian said, and followed Jag out of the car.

I got out and trotted to catch up with them but stopped with a sudden afterthought. “You go on ahead. I need to get something from the car first.”

“See you inside.” Ian gave me his lopsided smile, and I blushed. He knew how to push my buttons.

I rummaged through my backpack until I found the apple I’d saved from the lunch Nichol had inadvertently left for us. I wanted my dad to have it. The last time he’d seen me he’d thought I was possessed by a demon, and I might have to bribe him into leaving with me. An apple could do the trick.

I was just zipping up the pack when an explosion nearly burst my eardrums. I ducked down and saw pieces of concrete and wood fly by, some of it hitting the car and rocking it so hard it balanced briefly on two wheels. It fell back down with a jarring thud. Thank God the car was storm-proof and could repel just about anything. What the hell had just happened?

I lifted my head to peer out the window. The garage door had exploded off the bay, and flames engulfed the inside.

Chapter Fourteen

“Ian,” I gasped, the air clinging to my throat without making it down to my lungs. “Ian?” I leaped out of the car and hit the ground running, stopping before I reached the inferno that sucked all the oxygen from the air. Smoke billowed from the gaping hole left by the explosion.

I coughed and tried to get closer, squinting my eyes against the acrid fumes of burning car parts and tire rubber. Another explosion knocked me off my feet, and I rolled over backward to get clear of flying shrapnel. “Ian!” I screamed into the fire that gobbled my words like candy. “Ian!”

Staring into the flames, I tried to make out any figures inside, but no one could have survived such a conflagration. Fire filled every inch of space there was. The brilliant orange-and-yellow flares reminded me of the sun that hovered just above the horizon like a neon sign that announced: Ian is dead.

“No!” I screamed. “No, no, no, no!” I again tried to brave the flames but smelled burning hair and realized it was mine. Brushing away the sparks, I stumbled backward to get clear of the inferno.

I stood paralyzed, staring into the blaze. Just as we were about to mend the world and have a life together, I lost him. Ian was gone.

The flames shot higher, spreading up the sides of the building. I had to get inside and help people get out. I had to save my father!

I willed my feet to move, tears clogging my throat as my grief threatened to overtake me. I wouldn’t let it. I couldn’t. Ian would have never let his emotions get in the way of doing what had to be done. He was selfless, and that’s what I had to be.

My eyes filled and blurred my vision, but I could see well enough to run to the front of the building.

Inside, over a dozen people rushed up and down the halls, pushing wheelchairs filled with patients, some of them victims of Sun Fever. They wheeled past me as if they didn’t see me. Their obvious goal was to get outside and away from the fire. Smoke billowed up the stairwell leading from the basement and ambulance bay. I was certain fire would soon follow.

I flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time, as I raced to my father’s room. Heart pounding with adrenaline and pain, I found my father lying on his bed asleep. How the hell could anyone leave a sick man sleeping inside a burning building? I spotted a wheelchair out of the corner of my eye, but it already had someone in it. The uniform told me it was a nurse, but she was too still, her head drooped forward and her hands folded in her lap. I went to nudge her awake, to yell at her for neglecting my father, but when I grabbed her shoulder, her body collapsed limply to the side. Her head leaned in the same direction, and that’s when I saw the hypodermic syringe protruding from her neck.

The door to the room abruptly slammed shut, and someone behind me said, “I’m surprised you made it.”

Agent Sam Nichol stood in front of the closed door inside my father’s room and glared at me. He looked more ill than when I had seen him last. The rash had spread, and the top of his head appeared covered in purple paint. Bloodshot eyes glowered from shadowed sockets, and dried blood encrusted his lips. How was he able to even stand?

“The doc was supposed to keep you sedated.” My gaze flicked to my father and back to Nichol. “Did you cause the explosion?”

“One thing at a time.” He held a cell phone in one hand and a hypodermic syringe in the other. His voice was a graveled croak that I could barely understand. “I told your doc I was afraid of needles so he had a nurse give me pills.”

Pills he hadn’t swallowed. Never underestimate a dying man desperate for revenge. I made a move toward my father, but Nichol stepped in front of me and sat on my father’s bed. “So this is the inventor of our storm-chasing solar cars, eh?” Without a glance at my dad, he added, “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Daggot.”

My dad didn’t move or speak. “You better not have hurt him.”

“Nah.” Nichol jerked a look at the cell phone in his hand. “Your dad’s a sound sleeper. He didn’t even flinch when I helped Nurse Nightingale over there take a nap.”

Nichol was probably too weak to fight me off, but he’d positioned himself too close to my dad, and I was afraid of what he’d do with that syringe. I knew he’d use it if I tried to leave the room. I was stuck.

The madman studied me. “Someone’s been crying.”

Bastard
. I swiped furiously at my face.

“That explosion was meant for both of you, yet you survived and your boyfriend didn’t.” He grinned.

His image was distorted by the tears standing in my eyes. I gritted my teeth and said, “You can hardly walk. How did you make it down to the basement to set a bomb?”

“I get around pretty good when I ignore the pain. No one here expected a dying man with Sun Fever to wander, but I did.” He grimaced, and his eye twitched. “The Secret Service is trained well in all types of combat, including how to make explosives. A hospital is loaded with every ingredient I need to make a bomb powerful enough to blow half this town off the map. The bomb downstairs went off when the bay door opened. What I have here—” he held up the cell phone “—is a remote detonator that will explode a bomb set to blow this building sky-high.”

I panted, my shock and terror driving the breath from me. “And you along with it?” To hell, I hoped.

“Of course,” he said calmly. “I have nothing to live for but this moment. I’m already dead. Now you will be, too.”

I didn’t get how his sick mind worked. “Why?”

“Because you’re who the agency needs to fix the world. You
and
your boyfriend.” He chuckled. “Who’s dead now, thanks to me, but you’ll be joining him soon. I knew you’d come back for your old man.” He held up the cell phone to make his point, his thumb poised to press a button on the keypad. “Now you have the unique privilege of dying with me.”

I shook my head. “I’m not the only one you’d be killing. Everyone in the world will die.”

He smiled a rictus death grin. “I know. They’ll all die anyway because the two of you were a package deal. The agency’s plan won’t work now. It’s a lose-lose situation for us all.”

My mind buzzed with panic. Did I want to die? No, but if it had to happen, I’d rather die in the apocalypse than get blown up with Nichol. “Are you sure you’re dying?”

“Have you taken a good look at me lately?” He turned side to side, mocking a model’s pose. “I’m the picture of death.”

“How do you know you won’t recover?”

“From the fever?” He laughed. “No one does.”

“I did.”

“But you’re a...” His glare softened to a look of realization. “Kinetic.”

“You might be one, too.” Did I think so? The possibility was there, but I’d kill him before he had a chance to transform. I owed it to Ian. “You’ll never know if you blow yourself up.”

His frown crimped the map of squiggly rash lines that covered his forehead. He licked his bleeding lips and said softly, “And now that wonder boy is dead, I’ve blown my chance at life after a full recovery.”

The pun wasn’t funny, it was tragic. “You know what else you’ve blown?”

He narrowed his eyes at me.

I abruptly thought of Jag, the kind and thoughtful agent who had obviously been killed in the blast with Ian. I was so torn up over Ian’s death that it hadn’t registered until now. The lump in my throat grew as my grief compounded. I breathed in deep before telling Nichol, “You blew up your partner, too.”

“That’s not possible. Jag’s in Wyoming.” Nichol’s face contorted with rage, and he raised his voice a notch. “You brought him here with you?”

“He found Ian and me ten miles outside of town.” I secretly enjoyed how this news was getting to him, but I pretended to act concerned. Jag hadn’t deserved to die. “Jag was a good man trying to save the world. When we told him what had happened to you, he brought us here so that he could...”
Careful
, I told myself. I was poking at a madman’s soft gooey center—if he had one—and it might explode. “He came here to see you.”

“You’re lying,” Nichol said, his tone dangerously low. “Jag hated me.”

I tilted my head to one side, a lie poised on my tongue. I would tell Nichol what he wanted to hear. “He never hated you. He understood you and didn’t think you should die without knowing someone cared. But now he’s dead because you killed him.”

Something on the window behind Nichol drew my attention. It looked like shiny diamonds glued to the glass, but they were moving. Wait. Not diamonds, water. It was raining. How was that possible?

The hand holding the detonator started to shake.

“Jag would want you to recover,” I told Nichol, trying to appeal to his survival instinct. Tasting the words before I spoke them, they made my stomach roil with disgust. “It’s not too late. We can find another weather Kinetic. There’s still time to save the world—”

“There
is
no one else,” he growled. “Ian Matthews was the only one.” Nichol grabbed my wrist and yanked me to him, turning around so that we both faced the window. His chest pressed against my back, his arm surprisingly strong around my neck. With his other hand he held the detonator out to the side, too far for me to reach. “One of a kind. Both of you. And you’re mine now.”

I struggled to breathe through my constricted throat while I watched drops of rain slide down the windowpane. Nichol either hadn’t seen it or didn’t realize what it was, but I knew what it meant. A flash of joy lightened my heart. Rain could only come from one place. Ian. He was alive.

The stink of Nichol’s fever-ravaged body was almost more than I could bear. His face felt hot against my cheek. I closed my eyes, thinking about Ian. I sensed his nearness. He used his power to make the rain, and his strong emotions drew me to him. He feared for my life, and I felt his rage directed toward Nichol. I wanted to break away and run, but if I did, the agent would trigger the bomb and we’d all be dead.

“You’re crying again. I feel your tears on the side of my face,” he whispered against my ear, his scabbed lips scratching my skin. “Don’t be afraid. Death will come fast for us both. Like it did for your weatherman.”

“Demon! Let her go!”

The unexpected shout from my father startled Nichol, and he dropped the detonator, but he didn’t let go of me. He dragged me to the floor with him as he scrambled for his device, which skittered far under the bed.

Nichol made a loud “oomph” when my father landed on his back and encircled his neck with one bony arm that still had enough strength to hang on. “Leave my daughter alone, you freak!” He started punching the top of Nichol’s head, and the agent finally released me.

I gasped in the oxygen I’d been denied while in Nichol’s death grip. I remembered the syringe and checked the floor to see if he’d dropped that, as well. He hadn’t. Nichol gripped it in his fist and swung it backward, stabbing it into my father’s leg. My dad howled and rolled off onto the floor.

“Dad!” I rushed to where he’d landed against the wall. He clutched his leg with the syringe still embedded in his flesh. I yanked it free and held it like a weapon against Nichol if he came at me again. But he was still on his hands and knees, straining to reach under the bed for his detonator.

“I couldn’t let that demon possess you again.” My father’s breathing sounded labored, and he slurred his words. I realized then that he’d thought Nichol was responsible for making my eyes glow and smoke trail from my fingers. That’s how I’d looked the last time he’d seen me.

I started to tell him there was no demon, but before I could speak he slumped in my arms and went still.

My sense of loss was overpowering. I screamed and lurched to my feet, ready to spring at Nichol and tear his throat out, but I was cut short when the door suddenly banged open. Ian stalked in, his face hard with stone-cold rage. Nichol was still on all fours, half-hidden under the bed. Ian kicked him in the stomach so hard that the madman flipped over to land on his back.

Ian rushed to my side but turned to keep an eye on the agent. He glowered down at Nichol and yelled, “Get up!”

Nichol coughed a spray of blood. He grimaced and said, “You should be dead.”

“You wish.” Ian pointed the Stunner at Nichol’s chest, his eyes still glowing with power as the rain continued to fall in torrents that splattered the window. His strength was directly linked to his emotions, which were off the grid. Eyebrows angled severely down toward the bridge of his nose, it gave him a devilish look that took my breath away. His lips were pressed so tight together they were almost white. The fury in his eyes frightened me. He was like a man possessed.

“I’d kill you if I hadn’t promised Jag I’d take you in alive.” Ian heaved in a breath, his expanding chest smeared with black soot. His arms were covered by angry red scrapes, and an open gash on his shoulder leaked blood. The explosion hadn’t left him unscathed.

My voice cracked when I asked, “Jag didn’t make it?” Ian’s survival had me hopeful, but I knew the answer before asking. It was a miracle Ian hadn’t been killed along with him.

He risked a quick look at me and shook his head, mouthing the word
no
.

Nichol staggered to his feet, empty-handed, and had to hold on to the bed for balance. “Give me one reason to go with you.”

Ian hesitated. “Before Jag died, he said there was a chance you could get help at the base.”

The agent sneered. “The sons of bitches only want to take me down.”

Neither confirming nor denying it, Ian held the Stunner a bit higher, its electronic muzzle aimed at Nichol. “How does it feel to be on the other side of a gun? I own your ass now.” He motioned for Nichol to step in front of him. “Let’s go.”

The agent appeared to acquiesce by holding his wrists out, waiting for them to be tied. The sick man’s face was totally wiped of emotion, and I thought perhaps he’d actually given up this time. I should have known better. He rushed at me, his hands stretched out in front of him, fingers curled, as he screamed at the top of his lungs.