Hunted (25 page)

CHAPTER 39

I’m lying on the rough carpet in Mrs. Vespa’s office, choking on my own blood. My cheek burns. Daniel is so much stronger than me now.

Alex and Rachel crouch over me, their eyes frightened.

Alex grips my shoulder.

I turn over on my side and cough up blood.
“Why did
you do that? I wasn’t finished!”
I send to Alex.

“You were killing yourself!” Alex shoves his hand in front of my face. “Look! That’s your blood!” I taste the saltiness of my blood, feel the burning of my open flesh. I know he’s right, but I can’t let Daniel and Ilene kill people.

Sirens wail in the distance, calling their distress. The chaos is worsening.

Something feels empty, out of place. I lift my head, ignoring the rush of pain.
“Where’s Becca?”

“She must have left when we were focused on you! Do you want me to—”

“No. There’s no time.”
I sit up, my muscles shaking.

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I won’t look at Alex. I can’t. I’m too angry at him, and too ashamed of myself.

“You were having convulsions,” Rachel says. “Your nose was bleeding, and gashes started appearing on your skin. Alex did the right thing, stopping you.”

“Thank you,” I mutter.

But he pulled me out before I could stop Daniel. And now Daniel’s going to kill all those Normals. Thousands of them. Maybe even millions.

Sirens wail louder, one after another.

I struggle to draw a breath. Darkness is closing around me, pulling at me.

I can’t keep fighting Daniel this way—I’ll lose. My ribs ache like they were kicked in, my skin is laced with blood, and I’m so exhausted, I can barely speak. I want to put my head on Alex’s chest and cry. But that would be admitting defeat. So what that it didn’t work to push light against dark. I just have to find another way.

“Alex—could I borrow your bracelets? The copper
ones?”

Alex yanks them off and hands them to me without taking his gaze off me.

I slide the bracelets on my wrist, praying they give me enough of a shield from Daniel. I sit up straighter, keeping the pain out of my face.

“What are you doing?” Alex says.

“I’m going back in.”

“You can’t be serious! You’ll kill yourself. I won’t let you.”

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The darkness is swirling around us like a thick fog; I’m surprised they can’t see it.
“Just hold on to me and don’t let
go, not for anything,”
I send.
“I have to finish this.”
Alex’s warm hand wraps around my clenched one.

Rachel grips my other hand. I close my eyes and fall into the darkness. It breathes around me, pushes my lungs up and down, tries to rip through my mind. I don’t resist; I just follow it.

I let go until I am up out of my body and back into the blackness. It covers everything like a writhing carpet of snakes.

Daniel laughs.
“I knew you couldn’t let them die.”
He’s drawn Normals into a deep slumber, their bodies comatose, just human-shaped bumps under the carpet of black. Millions of them, right across the whole city, and spreading fast. They are in the sleep before death, the rest-ful period of no-longer conscious. I send some of my energy to them, let them absorb it, even though I know he’ll only feed off it.

I am so weary it’s hard to focus.

“You can do it,”
Alex thinks at me.

I feel his warmth all around me, his presence buffering Daniel’s, bringing me calm.

I turn to Daniel.
“I thought you wanted them to know
what it’s like to be us—to be hated and hunted. If you kill
them, how can they?”

“Oh, I’ll keep a few around. But the rest—they don’t
deserve their little lives. They don’t do anything to earn
them. Not like we do. If you want to save a few, you know
how.”

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No. I can’t.
I won’t.

I think of Alex, of Rachel, of Mrs. Vespa and Netta, and all the people whose lives have touched mine; all the people who care, and I falter. If I fail, I’ll lose them all.

I bow my head. What can I do to change his mind?

I think of a time when Daniel and I were laughing together, before all this started, and I send it to him.

Daniel relaxes his grip just for a moment. I dive deeper into his mind, pulling my copper armor tight around me.

I flip back through his memories as fast as I can, looking for the right one—his enjoyment at controlling people, his delight at lying to Ilene and shielding it from her, his pleasure at making a female officer think she wanted him.

I’m getting closer.

There—I’ve found it. This one has power. I release the memory into Daniel’s mind.

He’s eight years old, tied to a chair in a darkened room, cold, joints aching, peed himself hours ago. And still the man in the uniform slaps his face.

“You can do better, Daniel. I know you can. Now make this soldier do something he doesn’t want to do. Then we’ll let you go.”

I turn to him, feel him follow me into his mind.
“Did
they let you go, Daniel? Did they show you mercy? The way
you’re showing people now?”

“Get out of my head—or I swear to god I’ll kill you.”
The walls of his mind pulse. The darkness grows heavier. I struggle to move, or to even breathe, as I flip through the years. I can feel him gathering energy around me, draining people ever faster.

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Cheryl Rainfield

I hesitate over one of Daniel’s memories. It is sealed—

even from himself—but I can feel the pain seeping through.

I break the seal and let the pain, the scarred memory, flow over me.

“Daniel.” Ilene smiles down at him, strokes his soft cheek. “You’re special, you know that? And one day you’re going to win us the war. Don’t you worry about those pigeons now.”

Daniel screams, the walls of his mind vibrating.
“Turn
it off! I don’t want to see it!”
The dark strands knock against my armor, cracking it, but I keep his memory flowing.

Daniel tries to keep his eyes on Ilene, on the love and praise she’s giving him—he wants it so bad—but those pigeons are lying there so still, blood staining their beaks.

Their hearts burst because he tried to make them do something they wouldn’t—or couldn’t—do.

The trooper sitting in the corner watching them yawns.

A dim pounding, shouting sound rises above the memory. I turn toward it. Mr. Temple and Becca are outside Mrs.

Vespa’s office, Becca gesturing wildly. The copper I’m wearing is burning into my flesh.

“Open the door this instant!”

“I’m sorry, you can’t go in there,” Mrs. Vespa says, pushing her firm body in front of Mr. Temple.

Mr. Temple shoves her aside and pounds harder, making the door shake, but he already looks years older.

Rachel stares wide-eyed at the door from the other side.

“Mom!”
I send desperately.
“Mom! I need you!”
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I can’t tell if she can even hear me.
“Mom!”
I scream, using all the strength of my mind.

The door shudders harder and a small gap appears between the frame and the door. Rachel drags boxes of books to the door, barricading it.

“Mr. Temple, that’s my private office. I really have to ask you to leave,” Mrs. Vespa says firmly.
“Caitlyn—just
do what you have to do. I’ll keep him out,”
she thinks at me.

Behind me, Daniel’s still gathering people’s energy, trying to rebuild his strength. The fragment of memory hit him hard.

I turn back to his memory, let it flow over us again. . . .

Ilene turns his face back to hers. “You and I are going to rule the world. Put all these Normals in their place. I know you’ve got the ability, the same as I do. And you’ve got the hunger. But you don’t have control yet. You must practice.”

Daniel wipes his face with his sleeve. “My dad—” His voice breaks. “My dad always told me we should never use our power against anyone weaker.”

“Your dad was a dreamer. He wouldn’t look at reality.

And look what they did to him.”

“But you—!”

The trooper in the corner stirs, gripping his rifle tighter.

“It’s okay, Arnold,” Ilene says, without turning around.

“I’ve got this under control.”

The trooper shrugs and yawns wider.

Ilene sets another cage of pigeons down in front of Daniel. “You need to focus. Practice. Get it right this time.” 333

Cheryl Rainfield

Daniel cries out again, the black strands piercing my skin.

I shudder with pain so strong it almost kicks me out of Daniel’s mind. But I won’t let it. I picture Mom, the love in her eyes.
“Hold on, baby. I’m coming.”
And I keep unfolding Daniel’s memory.

Ilene opens the cage and grabs the flapping pigeon.

“No, don’t make me!”

“You have to learn some control, or you’re of no use to me. Or to the government. Now make this pigeon dance.”

“NO!” Daniel screams, all of his fear and anger going into the word like a giant fist.

Ilene ducks. Behind her, the trooper jerks, then sags back against his chair, pale and still, blood trickling from his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—don’t hurt me!” Daniel cries.

“Hurt you? Daniel, I’m proud of you. Look at the power you already wield!” She shakes the dead trooper.

Daniel recoils.

Daniel is crying now, along with his child self, and as he cries, the darkness inside him stretches and thins, the strands around me withering and pulling back. I draw my copper armor all around me again and the black strands hiss as they burn.

“It wasn’t your fault,”
I say.
“You didn’t know what
would happen. You didn’t understand.”

“I didn’t mean to kill him,”
he cries.

“I know you didn’t. But I think Ilene did. I think she
wanted it to happen, and knew it probably would if she got
you upset enough.”

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Daniel sinks, weeping, to his knees.

Rachel’s cries slice through me. I stare down at my body and at the room.

The door is splintering as troopers pound it with their boots. Mr. Temple’s urging them on like a madman.

And then a deep tranquility blankets everything, quieting the voices, slowing people’s minds.

I know that mind-voice immediately, even though I haven’t heard it in years. I know the way she can soothe people without saying a word.

Mom! She’s here—and her abilities are back.

I’d cry if I had the energy.

By stopping the troopers, she’s giving me more time.

But even with that, I still don’t know if I can defeat Daniel.

He is so powerful, and he’s got the power of many Paras linked up with him.

I’m only one Para trying to stop them. One Para with a strong talent, but still only one Para, drawing on the weak but willing energy of two Normals. Daniel’s trained for years already. How can I even hope to surpass his power?

Despair and exhaustion weaken me.

“You’ll win because you have to,”
Mom’s calm mind-voice says.
“You’ll win because it’s right. And you’re not
the only Para you can draw on. You have me.”
As she sends this, I feel her bright energy meet mine, feel it coursing through my body like harnessed lightning, all of her fierce determination building up my own.
“Daniel
may be my son and your brother, but he’s lost his humanity. What he’s trying to do is evil. And we cannot allow him
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Cheryl Rainfield

to win. So get in there and fight—just this one last time. You
can do this, Caitlyn. You’re stronger than you know.”
Energy sizzles through me—hers and mine joined together, with Alex’s and Rachel’s woven in.

I take a deep breath and turn back to Daniel, to his dark strands that are still sucking the energy from people.

“You will not do this!”
I shout, my mind-voice ringing out like a thunderclap, shaking the earth around us and making the air vibrate.

Daniel’s dark strands shudder, becoming almost trans-parent, like gray ephemeral ribbons. His gaze locks on mine, his eyes so cold they make my bones hurt.
“You’re
not going to win,”
he says, his mind-voice mocking. The gray strands strengthen.
“You and your insignificant little
group of Normals.”

“It’s not just me and my Normal friends anymore,”
I say, gathering Mom’s energy and my own up through my center.

Daniel’s eyes widen.
“Mom?”
he mouths, looking almost like a vulnerable little boy—which he might resemble if it weren’t for his dark threads still grasping, trying to devour everyone’s life force.

I hold the energy inside me, bright and hot as the sun, and I hurl it at him, my mind-voice a command, stronger than any force of nature.
“You will stop this killing! You will
stop! NOW!”

Daniel freezes, his face draining to a pale twilight, the threads shrinking, becoming filmy cobwebs.

I tear at them with both hands, pouring in not just my energy, but my experiences, my soul. Love and pain, joy 336

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and sadness, compassion and fear all swirl together, pushing at the darkness. The strands fall away. The energy drain splutters, then stops. Paras and Normals alike disconnect from Daniel’s grasp. Daniel’s grief weighs him down so heavily, he doesn’t seem to notice.

Throughout the city people sit up, blinking their eyes and shaking their heads to clear them. I pour my energy into them all, reversing the drain.

“It’s all right,”
I tell them.
“It’s all right now.”
And then darkness takes me.

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