No Love for the Wicked (21 page)

“Now listen up and listen good.” Jon was seriously pissed. “We’ve lost precious minutes and have to move fast. Security has already recognized the cameras being off at the exit points.
Cordele scoped out two guards at the CEO suite, but expect more to come quickly. Theo, Shane, head out to your stations and be prepared for approaching security. Cord, secure the exit point. Everyone think they can
handle
that?”

Nods all around. “Good. Let’s go.”

We broke apart. The minute Theo’s arm slipped away, an emptiness washed over me that made me stumble. Our contact had made the energy inside me heat up, my control stronger than ever. Now that he was gone, Father’s icy energy was quick to take its place. Our touch had given my power the amp-up that Father had needed to pinpoint my location. Here. There. His power was all around me. It was all I felt now.

“Oh God,” I said and paused to catch my breath. He’d found me.

“What’s wrong?” Jon whispered urgently, Chang right at his hip.

“Nothing, I’m fine.” Father was still giving his speech, but he was wrapping it up quickly. We didn’t have time to spare. “Just keep going.” Jon took me at my word, and we ran down the hall to the CEO offices.

Father’s suite stretched the entire width of the building. Two sets of thick red-stained double doors stood about twenty feet apart, each leading to a different area of his office. At each set of doors, two guards stood at attention. Jon cursed under his breath. Cordele’s info on the number of guards had been wrong by half.

We were hidden behind a curved tile wall. Jon turned to me. I didn’t wait for his order. We were out of time. I reached out to the guards’ minds and instantly shut them down. Father had been drugging them, so it was easy. They fell to their knees, then planted their faces on the floor.

“Dude,” Chang said in awe.

We moved forward quickly, Jon scowling at me. “You were supposed to send them away. Distract them. Not knock them unconscious.”

“Whatever, just move.”

We hustled into Father’s office. I shut the door and locked it, but it didn’t matter. Father’s power pulsed all around me now, trying to probe into my brain, discover my identity. I closed my eyes, concentrated on breathing. He would come now. I would have to see him. The instinctual panic that Father brought out of me threatened to rise. I needed to get out of here. Now.

“Are you done yet?” I hissed to Chang.

His fingers flew over Father’s laptop as he bounced in his seat. Under his breath he murmured things like “Fricking beautiful,” “Masterpiece,” “Oh no you don’t,” and other nonsensical bullshit.

“He’s almost got it,” Jon said as Chang slid a small flash drive into the PC’s side.

That’s when I heard them. We’d taken too long. The montage slide show was over. Father’s speech was done. Security guards were racing up the stairs. Police had been called and were on their way. Leading the charge, more anxious than any of them to find out who had dared bring power into his world, was my father.

Let the cowering begin.

I didn’t tell Jon what I was doing. Didn’t inform the surveillance stations of what was headed our way. I just reacted. I knew the moment Father stepped from the elevator onto our floor. Where his power had been poking at me for the past several minutes, suddenly it slammed into me like a sledgehammer. I stumbled against the wall, my breath knocked out of me. Jon rushed over just as Chang jumped from Father’s desk. “Got it!”

I met Jon’s wide, frantic eyes. “Don’t speak,” I whispered. His brows scrunched low. He opened his mouth to argue, but I never gave him the chance. He vanished.

Chang stumbled over a chair with a curse. “What the—”

Don’t speak. Your voices will give you away.
I spoke directly into their minds. And not just Jon and Chang, but Shane, Theo, and Cordele as well. I’d turned us all invisible at the same time.
If you need to say something, think it and I’ll get it out to everyone.

What the hell’s going on, Magnolia?
Jon thought.
This isn’t part of the plan.

Outside the office door, guards’ shouts echoed. My father barked commands. Keys jingled against the locks.
Father pinpointed my power. They’re here.

Lots of silent curses on that one. I grabbed Jon’s and Chang’s arms and pulled them against the wall. It was easy to find them, since their thoughts were screaming at me.
Chang, shut up! You’re the one who thought it would be cool if everyone just turned invisible and broke in here. Don’t freak out now.
In the distance, someone started fighting. Cordele.
Guards are blocking our secondary exit. Cordele is keeping them back, but more keep coming.

Send Shane and Theo in to help her. We need that exit clear
, Jon ordered, completely unfazed. We’d been through this before, Jon and I. The door to Father’s office flew open and guards swarmed in, guns raised, scopes ready. These weren’t the security guys from the party downstairs. Dressed in all-black fatigues, these were like the guards on the estate: elite-trained and utterly loyal to Father. Their minds were sharp, focused, and emotionless. Buzzing from some kind of new drug that I didn’t recognize. They weren’t here to contain an intruder. They were here to kill.

Chang whined softly at my back, and I realized I’d shocked his arm where I held him tightly to the wall. My power was still as dampened as I could keep it, but energy was slipping out. Father was just too close now. I took Chang’s hand and fisted it in Jon’s shirt.
Stay with Jon.

Where are you going?
Jon’s mind whispered.

I’m still here. The last guard is about to come through the first set of doors. Father is right behind them. We should be able to slip past them through the second set of doors if we stick to the walls.

There was a break between guards, and I heard Jon think,
Go
. He and Chang hurried into the hallway. I kept close to Chang’s
back, my eyes on the floor. If I didn’t look around, maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to make it to the exit without actually seeing my father. That bloody place inside me boiled at his nearness. I fisted my hands as if I were fisting my entire body, trying desperately to hold in everything that wanted out. Guards were everywhere. In a linked line, Jon led us past all of them, hugging the wall as we raced toward the very rear emergency stairwell, where Cordele and the others had knocked unconscious the guards they’d been holding off.

Is Magnus following your power?
Jon asked.

Not yet, but he will. He knows the power source is here somewhere. He’s searching for it at the exits.

We rounded the last corner, and I could practically see where each of them stood. All three were as invisible as us, but their thoughts were so clear and so individualized, I could almost make out the expressions on each of their faces. Cordele stood by the door, propping it open with her back and listening for more approaching guards. She’d easily taken out the door’s alarm and handled the first wave of guards before Theo and Shane showed up to help. Theo and Shane stood on opposite sides of the hallway, each standing over two sleeping guards and wishing it was the other that they had just beaten into oblivion.

“We’re here,” I said quietly. Their sighs of relief were audible. As were the sudden shouts back at the surveillance stations. Since we were momentarily away from Father and the guards, this was the first chance I’d had to give our support team a heads-up on what I was doing. Thirteen and the others had heard only the guards’ and police’s points of view over their transmitters. The moment I spoke, there was a commotion of orders and demands and warnings in each of our ears.

“Everyone accounted for?” Jon asked, ignoring Thirteen’s demands for information.

“We’re all here,” I assured him.

“Then move out.”

The plan had been for only Jon and Chang to exit from here. The rest of us were supposed to redisperse back into the party downstairs, each leaving at a predetermined time to meet up with Thirteen at the rendezvous point a couple of miles away. Since that plan was totally shot, it looked like we’d all have to leave together now. Somehow I wasn’t convinced all six of us would fit in the small security vehicle waiting for Jon and Chang in the back delivery lot, but there were more immediate details to worry about. Like, oh, say, not dying in this hallway.

Everyone was still invisible, and the emergency exit door swung as Jon pushed Chang forward, sending him down first with Cordele. Shane went next; the sound of his footsteps rushing down the steel steps echoed through the hall. Theo and Jon waited for me. Drips of sweat trickled down my back. It was getting more and more difficult to keep up everyone’s invisible shields while holding back everything else inside me. If I could just get to the rendezvous point, I’d finally be able to let go.

Gunshots rang out. I hit the floor as bullets rained down the hallway, bouncing off the door and walls around us. Jon cried out. He was still invisible, but the hit threw him against the wall. A bloody mark suddenly appeared against the tile.

“Go! Go! Go!” Jon shouted. Theo grabbed my arm. Even invisible, he knew exactly where I was. But the moment he touched me, energy flared again, strong and intense. No way Father hadn’t felt that. Just as I thought it, Father’s energy slammed into me again. He’d found me, all right, and he was coming fast.

Guards poured into the hallway, firing their guns into what looked like an empty corridor. None of them moved forward, and no one questioned why Father had ordered them to shoot at nothing.

Another round of bullets buzzed past me. “Move!” Theo shouted, yanking hard on my arm.

I looked to where Jon’s thoughts still vibrated. He was on the ground, moving, keeping his wound from touching any other surfaces. I reached out with my free hand, not caring what part of him I grabbed on to, and started pulling. He grunted as I clung tightly to his hair. With an awkward heave, I threw him past where I crouched at the fire exit doorway and into the stairwell. His blood splattered on the floor, and I slipped, stumbling back into the hallway.

Momentum pulled my arm from Theo’s hold. I could feel him on the first steps as the door slowly started to shut. I’d barely used my power to keep it open when the entire door exploded.

Gunfire stopped as metal dust filled the hallway. I plastered myself to the wall and tried not to cough.
Theo?
I reached out with my thoughts.

He began coughing in a painful, choking gasp. His thoughts didn’t answer me, but they didn’t have to. He was hurt. That was all that mattered.

Everything inside me—that dark, bloody place, the golden connection with Theo—it all rose to the surface in a tidal wave, and I could feel the power’s eagerness to pour out of me. The hallway burned golden. The nurtured terror inside me dissolved as I turned to see my father, standing twenty yards away at the end of the hallway, a dozen guards crouched on the ground in front of him with weapons at the ready. Soot and smoke settled around us, but his black tuxedo remained spotless. He was brutally handsome, just like I remembered, with features reminiscent of some long-ago royal line.

My invisible cover was still in place, and a strange calm washed over me. I didn’t attack. I merely stopped holding back, and the swell of energy vibrating under my skin unfurled.

The guards were thrown backward, the wind knocked out of them from the force with which they hit the floor. Father stumbled back as well, but only for a moment. From surprise. Then he lashed out. The lights above me shattered. Guns in every scrambling guard’s hand unloaded in my direction, even though no one had pulled a trigger. Father couldn’t see me with his eyes, but he knew exactly where I was.

I guided the bullets past me easily and waited for them to change course, attack me from behind. But they simply landed on the floor behind me, pinging against the dusty tile. Was he holding back? Why? Father had never held back with me before—he’d always reveled in watching how the strength of his power deflated others.

Theo clanged against the metal railing in the stairwell. Without thought, I melted the guards’ guns in their hands, burning deep into their flesh while they shouted and cried. I watched Father. He didn’t even flinch. After a moment, with a wave of his hand, the guards went silent. They writhed and continued to cry out in agony, but their voices made no sound. Father narrowed his eyes in my direction, and I held my breath.

“You’ve succeeded in your mission, stranger.” Father’s voice was deep but icy. “I am intrigued.”

I held tight to my stance, bracing myself for the pain.

“Granted, your mercy in merely wounding my guards and not destroying them completely displays an emotional weakness I have no use for.” He lifted his hand, and, just like I’d done to Sharon back at the airport, squeezed his fingers into a fist. With a pop, all twelve guards collapsed. No more writhing in pain. Just dead.

He lowered his hand. With a tilt of his head, he considered where he felt my power. “I’ll agree to a conversation,” he said finally. “Small tasks could be assigned. Nothing too important,
of course. Your manipulation of atoms to veil your appearance could be useful, even though your insistence on continuing your concealment reflects an understandable cowardice that will have to be dealt with.”