Hero Reborn (Keepers of Justice, Book 3) (15 page)

X stands up. “So she’s using this virus, which affects all the humans
around the world, to control them not to accept the antidote.”

Kale nods.

Oh, man. That means no matter what we do, the humans will never take the cure.

Kale
says, “What do we do about it?”

“I overhead Samson, Cindy, and the Elites
talking in the conference room,” X tells us. “They’ve gathered people and are ready to attack the Blades.” He heads for the door. “We need to tell them what we figured out.”

Barging into a room full of Elites when they’re in middle of an important discussion isn’t a great idea. Samson’s eyes are hard. Cindy’s mouth is pressed shut.

“You need to leave, boys,”
he says.

I’m about to back toward the door when Kale says, “
It’s important.”

Samson sighs. He turns to Cindy. She tells everyone to leave the room.
Once they do, the guys and I sit in the chairs across from them.

“What is it?” Samson asks.

Kale opens his mouth, ready to tell them, but Samson beats him to it. “I’m disappointed in you. Stealing an antidote from the lab? Walking around New York injecting humans? What were the three of you thinking?”

His
face is red. The vein on his forehead pounds. Cindy doesn’t appear as pissed as him, but I see the tension in her eyes. She’s trying to remain composed.

“
We thought something was wrong,” Kale explains. “We thought someone was…um…”

“
Controlling you not to give the antidote to the humans.” X shrugs. “Guess we were wrong.”

“
But we know why the normies refuse the antidote,” Kale says. “It’s because Vlayne’s controlling them not to.”

“
We—”

“
That’s why she released this virus, Dad. Somehow it’s controlling them not to take it.”

“
We need to get to the non-infected humans and give them the cure,” X says. “Before the virus spreads to them.”

Samson
and Cindy are quiet as they stare at us.

“Dad? Mom? Did you hear us? I mean, I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it kinda does, you know? It’s so Vlayne’s type to do something like this.”

X gets to his feet. “We need to get the antidote to the virus-free humans.” He makes for the door.

“There are no more clean human
s,” Cindy says. X turns around.

“Huh?” I ask.

Cindy motions for X to take a seat. He doesn’t, just crosses his arms over his chest.

“We presumed
Vlayne is using the virus to control the humans to not take the cure,” she says. “After trying it on human after human with no success, we came up with that conclusion. Regina teleported us to countries that we knew weren’t infected yet. We offered them the antidote, but just like the others they wouldn’t accept it. Within seconds, those humans showed symptoms of the virus. We realized the humans were infected long before symptoms showed. This means Vlayne released the virus earlier than we thought. Humans who unknowingly carried the virus traveled all over the world, which caused the virus to spread from continent to continent.”

“But the video of me injecting that kid,” Kale says. “That only happened a few days ago.”

“Yes, but we assume the ShadowBlades altered the time and date on that video to make it appear as though the boy was infected much later than he had been.”

“But why would Vlayne do that?” I ask.

“In case we had the antidote,” X says. “She didn’t want to risk us giving it to the humans before she had a chance to infect them all.”

“Yes.”
Samson rubs his temples. “I should have expected this. I should have immunized the population as soon as I…”

Cindy takes his hand. “We couldn’t have known, Sam. The antidote was synthesized after she released the virus. Half the world was infected by then. We couldn’t have foreseen this.”

My left foot twitches, banging into the leg of the chair. I wrap my long fingers around my knee to calm it down. “So…no one’s left? Everyone’s infected?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Samson sounds like he’s got no energy left inside him.

Now my other foot shakes. “What do we do?”

“We go after the Blades,” X say
s. “We get Lindsay back and capture Vlayne and force her to take her hold off the humans.”

Samson raises his
index finger. “
You’re
not going anywhere.”

“Dad!
I want to free Lindsay.”

“No,” he snaps. “This is a mission for your mother, myself, the Elites
, and our agents.”

“That’s so unfair!”

“We almost lost you,” Cindy says in a soft tone. “We won’t lose you again.”

Kale huffs, sinking down in his chair. X
crosses his arms. Am I the only one who’s relieved by this news? Sure I want to do whatever it takes to help the normies, but we don’t have to go after Vlayne. Samson, Cindy, and the others can handle it. I don’t want to die a second time.

“
The three of you are dismissed.” Samson eyes us closely. “And I expect you to be well-behaved.”

“
When are you going?” Kale asks.

“
Not until tomorrow. We need to gather a few more agents.”

“
We can help.”

“Kale,” Cindy warns.

“But I can help knock the Blades out.”

“
End of discussion,” Samson says. “And I don’t want to hear another word of this. Is that understood?”

We
don’t answer.

“
Boys?”

“
Yeah, Dad,” Kale grumbles. “We got it.”

***

“We are so going on that mission.” Kale sits down on his bed.

“
What?” I say. “But your parents said—”

Kale shrugs. “
This was our mission to begin with. I saw the location in Scar’s head. So what if Vlayne planted it there? The point is that I was the one who found out about it. Why do my parents have to shut us out?”

X grunts from the floor where he’s sitting.

I twist my fingers around each other. “You can’t really blame them, though. I mean, look at it from their point of view. Can you blame them for wanting to protect us?”

Kale snorts. “We’re going on that mission.
I’m going to save Lindsay.”

I don’t think I can say anything to change their minds. I get why it’s important for us to go. I don’t want to sit here doing nothing. But
what if we die? “How?” I ask.

“We follow them,” X says. “I don’t care how many
agents they’re gathering. We need to be there, too.”

He’s right. The more people we have on our side, the better. In case something goes
wrong, we’ll be there to help.

“Samson and Cindy will be mad at us,” I tell them.

“Yeah,” Kale says. “But as future leader of the KOJ, it’s my duty to help take down the most wicked, powerful villain in the world.”

When he talks like that, it makes me nervous. A little excited, too. But mostly nervous.

Kale’s parents, Shifter, Regina, Stone, and their agents are in the conference room, discussing last-minute details. We’re in our room and Kale connects us through our minds so we can see what X sees. Regina is going to teleport all the Elites to Staten Island. And it’s up to me to make sure the guys and I get there. “Ready, Stretch?” X asks.

I inhale, then exhale. Try to calm my nerves.
I can do this. I flatten my hand so it fits under the door. I keep my gaze on the Elites to make sure they don’t see me. My arm is shaking as it makes its way down the hall.

My hand slips under the conference room door and I find my way to Regina. I’m going to have to be careful not to draw attention to myself. When I reach
her, I latch on to the back of her boot. She doesn’t seem to feel anything.

Kale and X grab my hands.

On Samson’s cue, Regina does her thing. Less than a second later, we pop into Staten Island. Right in front of what looks like an abandoned building.

I quickly let go of Regina’s boot
, and the guys and I duck behind a dumpster. I’m panting so hard I’m going to collapse.

Awesome
! Kale says.
We did it
.
You okay, Stretch
?

My
chest’s heaving so hard.
F—fine. Really fine.
Despite almost peeing myself, that felt kind of good. To help the guys and prove to myself that I
can
do something brave.

The Elites creep toward the building. Samson’s got his hands raised, ready to attack
. Cindy’s hand is on the side of her head, and Stone has his fists in front of his face.

At once, things leap out
of the shadows. They’re people dressed in red and orange uniforms and matching masks. Blades.

They waste no time attacking the Elites. Samson
smashes a few against the wall. They keep coming at him. Cindy tries to knock them down, but it looks like they’re resisting. Regina teleports to evade her Blade, but he seems to know each step she takes and shoots ice at her.

The
other heroes, Samson’s agents, try to battle them, too. The Blades are, like, nearly indestructible. And there are so many, shooting all kinds of things at them—fire, ice, spikes, lava. Some have super strength like Stone. Their martial arts kick ass.

“Let’s go!” X jumps into the fight.

“
What?!” I yelp.

“They’re getting sla
ughtered out there,” Kale says.

I watch the
action. He’s right. The Blades are owning our League mates. I don’t know if they’ll survive.

A Blade
slams Shifter against the wall, lifting him a few feet. I can’t see the Blade’s eyes well, but I bet they’re filled with murder.

I glance around for someone to help him. Kale’s behind a mailbox, narrowing his eyes at the enemy. X
fights the guy who can shoot spikes. I can’t let Shifter die.

Taking
in a deep breath, I stretch my leg and give the Blade a hard kick. He looks around and when he sees me, he drops Shifter and charges toward me. Oh, crap.

I
curl myself into a ball and roll under the dumpster. The Blade flips it over and glares down at me.

I’m shaking so hard
and feel sweat all over my body. I slowly get to my feet to meet the Blade’s eye. Laughing evilly, he raises his hand to punch me. I flee from his path, yelling at the top of my lungs. All I need to do is get him to run faster, then my plan should work.

He
chases me like a bull. I turn around, make my arms long, and wrap them around his feet. He trips and collides into a fence surrounding the building. The bars go through him.

Dude,
I killed him.

“Boys!”
Samson yells. I’m thrown against the wall of the building, not hard enough to hurt. I try to move, but I’m frozen in place. Like I’m glued to the wall. X and Kale are right beside me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

But he can’t yell at us for too long. A Blade comes
at him, and he drops us in order to attack.

The guys and I slide to the
ground. “Are we winning?” I ask, scanning around.

“No,” Kale says. “They’re too strong. But I’ve got an idea. You guys keep fighting. I’m going to find my mom.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

He
waves his hand and dashes to Cindy, who seems to be weakening as she tries to attack the villains’ minds. He crouches down near her and tells her something.

A Blade is running around one of Samson’s female
agents at a fast speed. Since he’s going so fast, she doesn’t know where to hit. I move closer and stretch my leg to trip the Blade. He slams to the ground, and the woman crushes her fist into the side of his head. I hear the sound of bones breaking.

“Hey,” she says. “Thanks for that.”

“N-no problem!”

I’m so pumped up I want to do it again. A female Blade march
es toward X, who’s backing away. Something is wrong with his left arm. It’s twisted. The female Blade’s got such huge muscles that would make any man run for the hills. She can snap X in half like a toothpick. I tiptoe behind her and wrap my arms around her nose and mouth.

She
thrashes, trying to push me off. I fly toward the building. But I don’t smash into the wall—someone catches me midair. Samson. He slowly lowers me to the ground with one hand as he presses a villain against the building with the other.