That was her, too.
Kelsie let out a wail of pain, and her knees gave way. Around her, the others reeled back, caught in the feedback loop.
They all felt it with perfect clarity – what is was to be her, a Swarm. Every ounce of the darkness inside her was laid bare.
This wasn’t fair. She’d worked so hard, fighting Quinton Wallace. Battling this thing. Hanging on to who and what she really was.
Hanging on to…
‘Zara,’ she said.
More clarity – she wasn’t alone in this. She had someone to hold on to, which Quinton Wallace had never had.
Even if Chizara didn’t need her in the same way, that was okay.
Kelsie became herself again. Around her, the feedback loop settled.
‘Did I pass your test?’ she asked quietly.
‘It wasn’t a test. It was a reminder.’
‘Of what? That I’m evil inside?’
‘Not evil.’ Oliver looked away. ‘I’ve also done bad things, Kelsie. My power is just like Ren’s. I’ve stolen recognition and understanding. But I fight it all the time. If we’re going to face an ego like Piper’s, you have to be ready for that struggle.’
Kelsie nodded. ‘I’ve got someone to fight for.’
‘So you’re coming with us?’ Flicker asked Oliver.
‘Yes.’ He looked at Kelsie. ‘Between us, maybe we can make her see.’
THIS WAS A HUNDRED TIMES WORSE THAN PRISON.
During those weeks in Dungeness, there were always slivers of contact. Nate’s guards, his fellow inmates, even the janitorial staff formed brief, uncertain alliances. Wisps of Curve that he could latch onto to feed his thirsty power.
But there was nothing here.
Nate touched the walls. Some kind of mesh was set into the plaster. It didn’t look like much more than a chicken-wire fence, but it somehow blocked the tendrils of his ability. Left him starving and alone.
In prison he’d always wondered if the feds would go full Guantanamo on him and use waterboarding, beatings, electric shocks. The only thing that had kept that fear from overwhelming him was the hope that they would put too many people in the room, and he would win somehow. In Nate’s dark fantasies, the pain only made him stronger.
But this absence, this hunger, was torture of another order.
He would pay any price to stop it.
How long had he been here? Hours? Days? The room had robbed him of time as well. All he felt was himself withering, made less than. What if his power turned inward until, like Thibault, he erased himself?
Finally the door opened.
As the seal of mesh broke, the crowd outside came flooding in. Nate’s power leaped out hungrily.
A Zero-aged white guy, over six feet tall, stood smiling in the doorway. He wore an outlandish Mardi Gras costume – a tailored suit covered in tiny mirrors. He looked like a person-shaped disco ball.
‘I’m Troy,’ he said.
One of Piper’s triumvirate of powers. Did he know what Nate had let happen to Davey, his fellow Coin?
‘You’re the one who pulled off that Super Bowl stunt.’ Nate kept his voice steady. ‘Pretty impressive.’
‘You bet.’ Troy was all smiles. ‘Five hundred thousand people, all with tickets that looked legit! Had a little help from Nexus, though.’
‘Of course,’ Nate said. Projecting a power across that big a crowd would require help from the machine. ‘So messing up the Super Bowl was just a test run?’
That made Troy laugh. ‘It was diddly-squat compared to what comes next. Come on, Piper wants to see you. It’s almost party time!’
On the main floor of the power plant, the parade float was ready to go.
The engine had been closed up. The KREWE DE NEW WORLD ORDER sign was hung straight. A taller chair – a throne, really – was mounted behind the seats for the three powers.
Troy left Nate’s side to jump aboard, inspecting the satellite dish full of plastic Mardi Gras beads.
‘Not the best quality.’ He picked up a string of the beads. ‘But I’ll get it done.’
The beads changed in his hand, became gems of breathtaking beauty.
‘Glad you could join us, Nataniel,’ came Piper’s voice from the float. She was in a recessed seat beneath the satellite dish, half hidden behind bunting, fiddling with a panel of buttons and switches.
‘It’s better than that cell,’ Nate said.
Piper looked up from the controls. ‘You don’t have to go back, you know.’
Nate felt a surge of hope – but he knew what she was asking, and what the answer had to be. He changed the subject.
‘Let me guess.’ He gestured at the highest seat on the float. ‘The throne is for you.’
‘No, it’s for a friend. Someone pretty enough to focus every eye on Nexus. You met him in the graveyard.’
‘You mean Beau,’ Nate said – the Zero with the beauty power, who Flicker had run into yesterday.
‘It’s probably overkill,’ Piper said. ‘The whole crowd’s gonna want to jump his bones. I have to restrain myself sometimes.’
Nate stared at her.
Piper smiled. ‘Too much information? We should get to the question at hand.’
‘We should,’ said Nate firmly.
Piper stood up on the float, put two fingers between her lips and blew a short, sharp whistle. Every gaze in the place swung to her, and she suddenly shone with attention.
‘It’s time to make your choice, Nataniel,’ she said. ‘Do you want to watch the new world order come in? Or go back to your cell?’
The words spilled from him. ‘I can’t go back in there.’
‘That’s not what I asked,’ Piper said. ‘What I need to know is, will you help me wrangle the crowds today? Will you obey me?’
Nate swallowed his answer. He wanted more than anything to say yes. He couldn’t face the dread silence of that room again.
‘Are you going to betray me?’ Piper asked.
He tried to open his mouth, ready to promise anything, to convince her of his good faith. But no sound came.
Piper laughed, hooking a thumb over her shoulder.
Then Nate saw her back in the shadows, Verity. She was in costume, draped in long black judge’s robes, held between two guards. She looked exhausted but unharmed.
‘Tell the truth,’ Piper said. ‘Are you on my side?’
There was no fighting Verity’s power.
‘I don’t know,’ Nate said.
‘Then think about it harder,’ she commanded.
Nate looked around at the dozen Zeroes in the room, all of them staring back at him. Expectant, hopeful for the future, even though they knew the world was terrified of them and would crush anything it feared.
Phan wanted to throw them all in prison, or make them his agents. Headlines screamed murder every time they flexed their powers. The guards at Dungeness had threatened him under their breath – threatened his whole kind with extinction – as they led Nate, hooded and manacled, from wing to wing.
And when he looked up at Piper, at the corona of adulation that surrounded her, he felt something better than hopelessness. She was the focus not only of attention, but of trust.
Of love, even.
And when Nate thought about the sheer scale of what she wanted to pull off today, he too was stirred.
The truth finally pushed up through him, coiling past his will, seizing the muscles in his throat and mouth and forcing out the words.
‘Yes, I’m on your side,’ he said. ‘Let’s burn their world down.’
She didn’t even look surprised.
‘WE’RE STOPPING?’ OLIVER ASKED FROM THE BACKSEAT.
‘This’ll only take a second,’ Flicker said as the car came to a halt. ‘We need to make sure our friend’s okay.’
‘He got knocked on the head pretty bad,’ Kelsie added from the driver’s seat.
‘Piper hit him?’ Oliver asked.
‘Yeah, sort of,’ Flicker said. She wo
uldn’t have had the brilliant idea of crashing the car if Piper hadn’t sent her Maker in pursuit.
When Kelsie brought the car to a halt, Flicker opened the passenger door and headed across the Barrows’ lawn. The grass was soft beneath her feet, changing to the concrete of the path leading around to the kitchen.
Kelsie’s footsteps fell lightly behind her. ‘Do you see him yet?’
Flicker shook her head. There were no eyes inside the house. Hopefully Ethan was asleep.
But when her palm closed around the handle of the outside kitchen door, Flicker froze. It felt too loose, wobbly in her hand.
Her fingers traced the wood around the knob – no scratches. The door hadn’t been jimmied, but something had forced its mechanism.
The front doors of the safe houses had all felt the same way – once Chizara had unlocked them with her power.
Flicker went into Kelsie’s vision. She was looking at the neighbor’s house, where a light was on in the window.
‘Kelsie.’ Flicker kept her voice a whisper. ‘I think someone broke in.’
Kelsie’s eyes swept back, peering through the kitchen window. ‘Are they still in there?’
‘If anyone’s inside, they’re unconscious.’
Or dead.
Flicker pushed the door open, strode across the kitchen to the stairs. After four days, the Barrows’ home had grown familiar in the aching way that their borrowed houses always did – her body settled into the space just before they had to move on, leaving another ghost house in her memory.
‘Everything’s like we left it,’ Kelsie said. ‘No sign of a struggle.’
‘Ethan?’ Flicker called up the stairs. Then repeated herself, louder.
No answer. No vision coming slowly awake.
Kelsie pushed ahead of her. ‘Come on.’
A minute later they had searched the whole house. Every room, the closets, even under the beds.
They didn’t find any dead bodies, at least. Just pills scattered across the bathroom floor and another wobbly handle on one of the bedroom doors. And, lying on the carpet behind it, Ethan’s phone.
‘They got him,’ Flicker said. ‘Piper knew about this place. We never should have left him here!’
Kelsie’s hand took her shoulder. ‘We had no choice. In a hospital, the feds would’ve gotten him.’
‘Then we should have found another safe house. Or a hotel. Anyplace that Piper didn’t know about!’ Flicker pulled herself together. ‘We should get back to Oliver, in case she left one of her goons behind.’
Flicker turned and ran down the stairs, her palm hot with friction against the bannister. Kelsie followed at a run, passing her and reaching the kitchen first, where she skidded to a halt.
Flicker slowed, put her vision in Kelsie’s eyes again.
A silhouette loomed at the kitchen door, framed by the blood-red light of dawn.
‘I’ve a mind to call the police!’ the figure said sharply.
Flicker sighed with relief. It was only Mrs. Lavoir from next door.
‘Pranks all night,’ the woman went on. ‘And now you two come stumbling home at sunrise! Well, I’ll have you know that I’ve left a message for Mr. Barrow!’
Flicker frowned – Thibault had changed the number at Mrs. Lavoir’s the last time they’d switched burners. Which meant she’d really called…Ethan.
‘How were the Barrows?’ Flicker asked. ‘Are they okay?’
‘Well, we didn’t talk directly.’ Mrs. Lavoir’s voice softened a little. ‘It was a bit strange, I suppose. The young man who answered seemed very flighty. But if there are any more disturbances, I’ll be calling right—’
‘You won’t see us again,’ Flicker interrupted. ‘We’re leaving now. For good.’
She went to the door and pushed it open, heard Mrs. Lavoir stepping backward in surprise.
‘And if you see anyone around, you should call the police,’ she added. ‘Actually, make that the FBI.’
‘Excuse me, young lady?’
‘Trust me. Just ask for Agent Phan,’ Flicker said. If Mrs. Lavoir was determined to cause trouble, the least she could do was inconvenience Piper’s crew.
The Zeroes were done with this house. Another safe place that was no longer safe.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Flicker said to Kelsie, and headed across the lawn.
The parades would be starting soon. They had to intercept Piper and subject her to Oliver’s power. They had to make her see that her plan was too dangerous. They had to—
Just before she reached the car, Ethan’s phone jangled in her pocket.
Damn. Was this a ransom demand? Or Mrs. Lavoir calling the Barrows to report more strange behavior?
Flicker came to a halt, muffling her answer with her hand. ‘Mm-hm?’
‘Hey, Sugar Bear!’ came a voice. ‘You still sleeping? It’s the big day!’
‘Uh…’ Flicker said. The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
‘We’re all headed to the parade route early. To make sure we get good seats!’ A laugh. ‘Everyone’s dressing up. I’m a penguin! Weird-hunters are totally into cosplay, turns out.’
Weird-hunters. It clicked into place.
‘Sonia Sonic?’ Flicker asked.
It was Sonia’s turn to be confused. ‘Um, yes? Who is this?’
‘Flicker. How did you get this…Did you just call Ethan Sugar Bear?’
‘Oops.’ A pause, then a sigh. ‘Let’s start over. Why do you have Ethan’s phone? Is he okay?’
‘No. Someone grabbed him.’
‘The feds?’ Sonia cried. ‘Or Piper? That evil cow! I’ll strangle her!’
Flicker frowned. ‘Wait. You know about Piper?
‘Ethan said she kidnapped Verity. And now she’s got him, too? She is so dead.’
‘Ri-ight,’ said Flicker. ‘So you know everything.’
If Ethan ever managed to get rescued, she was going to have a long talk with him about boundaries.
‘Can I help find him?’ Sonia pleaded. ‘I’m really good at investigating stuff. Just yesterday me and Ethan were looking for—’
‘No, you can’t help!’ Flicker cried, heading toward the car again. ‘But you should know – something bad’s going down today. You guys have to get out of town.’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘Do I sound like I’m kidding? Tell everyone at your convention to get as far as they can from New Orleans.’
Sonia gave a dry laugh. ‘Like that’ll work. “Hey, weird-hunters! You should split town because something weird is going to happen.” They’re all going to the parades today, hoping there’ll be some serious crowd psychosis!’
Flicker hesitated, her hand on the passenger-side door handle.
‘So they’ll be at the parades, no matter what you tell them?’
‘Definitely.’
Maybe it was Oliver’s presence a few feet away, with just enough neighbors around to nudge clarity into play. Or maybe it was Flicker’s certainty that she needed to play every card she could or Piper was going to win this game. But whatever the reason was, Flicker saw perfectly what she had to do.
‘Okay, new plan,’ she said. ‘Tell as many weird-hunters as you can that you’re in touch with the Cambria Five, and that something huge is happening today.’
Sonia’s voice went low. ‘Okay, then what?’
‘Tell them to go to the parades,’ Flicker said. ‘And to look for a float called Krewe de New World Order…’
CHIZARA WOKE GASPING.
Her head was muzzy, the air thick with the smell of sweat. And there was something wrong with the world itself – a huge suffocating silence hanging over her.
It took a moment to remember. Power shielding in all directions, packing her brain with cotton balls and wax.
That awful feeling of powerlessness. Of silence.
She hadn’t meant to pass out, but being hit with the black-box blast and glitched in the same night had been too much.
She sat up. Something had changed…
Thibault and Ethan were still here in the cage, both fast asleep.
But Verity was gone.
‘Guys?’ Chizara said. Her voice came out cracked and dry. A few bottles of water had been left by the door, and she reached for one. The skin of her palm scraped dry against the plastic top. She drank long and hard.
How long had they been in here? Was it morning yet?
Had the end of the world already happened?
If something went wrong with Piper’s plan, they could be trapped in here forever. Deep in this abandoned building, with no one on the outside aware this room existed.
Chizara nudged Thibault.
He stirred, looked around. ‘Where’s…’
‘Verity’s gone,’ Chizara said. ‘They took her while we slept.’
That woke him up. He drew in a sharp breath at the pain of pulling himself straighter. He had a purpling bruise on his side, like a horse had kicked him.
‘That means they’ve started,’ he said. ‘She’s part of the plan. They’re going to project her power.’
Chizara nodded. ‘Yeah, you said. But I still don’t get how everyone telling the truth messes up the world.’
‘Verity’s only part of it,’ Thibault said, then poked Ethan with his toe. ‘Wake up, Scam.’
‘Help!’ Ethan cried out, then sputtered awake. He looked frantically in all directions. ‘Oh, right. They already got me.’
‘Yeah, they did.’ Thibault leaned closer, gently turned Ethan’s head to look at the wound. ‘How is it?’
‘Hurts,’ Ethan said with a wince. ‘But at least I can see straight now. I don’t think I’m going to die. Where are my shoes?’
Thibault pointed at the corner. ‘You took them off last night, despite our protests.’
‘Who the hell sleeps with shoes on?’ Ethan argued.
Chizara ignored them, scanning the mesh of the ceiling, walls, and floor, enough hexagons to exhaust her eyes. ‘We need to get out of here. This seems like a bad place to ride out an apocalypse.’
‘But your power’s blocked,’ Ethan said. ‘Are we supposed to break the door down?’