But the girl standing before me now was little more than a frightened child. This Kenly wasn’t the monster I remembered from the Hamilton. This was the lost girl from my visions.
And just like that, the guilt I’d felt when viewing her swept through me once again. I was the sole reason she was here. I told her to run. I told her to go somewhere no one knew her. And she had. That was when the Poachers found Kenly. My fault. It was all my fault.
Beneath my wildly warring emotions lay a single truth: I didn’t entirely trust Kenly Baker. She might look like a nervous kid at the moment, but would that suddenly change? Would she abruptly morph back in to the bloodthirsty zombie from the Hamilton? Did she have some sort of trigger? If so, could it be remotely detonated?
The thought instantly made ice form in my veins. Ernest. Ernest Tate’s brain had also been rewired, only to a much greater extent than Kenly’s. And he had that tattoo, the symbol from TOXIC’s research facility. What did that mean?
Doesn’t matter right now, I chastised myself, fighting to ignore the sudden flurry of endless questions.
Talia asked me to find Kenly. I promised I would. That was the only thing I needed to worry about—keeping my promise to Talia. No matter what, I would make sure the girl made it to safety.
“Come on, Kenly!” I shouted, trying to convey a calmness in my voice while still being heard over the roar around us. “Let’s get you out of here!”
I beckoned her forward.
As if her feet were stuck to the grass, she remained motionless.
Glancing over her shoulder, I caught sight of the mayhem overtaking the lawn. If Kenly didn’t get her ass in gear immediately, we’d both be dead. Miles and my hovercraft were back in the air, raining fire on the Poachers. Our only chance was to reach the transport hovers that were waiting on the other side of the line of limos. I told Kenly as much, hoping that would spark a reaction. Still, she just stared.
Trying a different tactic, I reminded her that I wasn’t here alone.
“Penny, Brand, and that other guy are clearing a path for us through the fighting. We need to go!”
Hopefully the names of her rescuers would put the girl at ease, enough to come with me. If she didn’t move on her own soon, I was going to force her. But that was a last resort. Kenly’s brain had been manipulated enough already, she didn’t need me to go messing with her head.
“What about Talia?” Kenly finally shouted back. “We have to go back for her. She’s with that Angus guy and they are really outnumbered.”
“Not anymore,” I said in my most soothing voice. “She’s got plenty of backup. Our strike teams are here, with more on the way. Talia asked me to make sure you get to the hovers.” I turned to James, hoping he could see that standing here like morons was idiotic. “You, too, man. Come on, we’ve got to move!”
After several more seconds of internal debate, Kenly finally nodded. Without waiting for additional confirmation, I took off for the line of vehicles. Together, Kenly and James ran to join me.
“Talia says you can’t use your Talents, is that true?” I asked as we sprinted towards safety.
My heart went out to Kenly the instant Talia relayed that particular message to everyone. Love her or hate her, being stripped of power was the worst possible punishment a Talent could endure. I knew this from personal experience. When he wasn’t pumping me full of the Creation drug, Director McDonough gave me a suppressant to make sure I couldn’t use mine. It was agony, worse than losing a limb. My body had physically ached with the intense pressure of keeping it all within me.
It was James who answered me.
“Yeah. They injected us with a suppressant.”
Those bastards really were cruel.
“Here, take these,” I said, slowing my stride just enough to hand James the assault rifle in my hands.
From behind my back, I pulled a handgun and gave it to Kenly. She looked startled, amazed even, that I’d allow her to have a weapon. Truthfully, I’d surprised myself with the impromptu offering, as well. But from peeking into her mind, I was certain she wouldn’t shoot me. At least, not just yet. She needed me to survive, to escape, and she knew it.
“Thanks, mate,” James said, nodding in acknowledgement.
Grabbing two throwing knives from my belt, I picked up the pace once more and prayed my charges could keep up. Naturally, my prayers went unanswered. Kenly let out a sudden scream from behind me. I turned just in time to see her somersaulting across the lawn.
Seriously? She was just as clumsy as Talia.
James was kneeling by her side, gently probing the back of Kenly’s head for damage.
“Is she okay?” I called, anxiously surveying the area for incoming threats.
“She’s alright!” James yelled back.
“Kenly, do you think you can run for just a little bit longer?” I asked, already envisioning having to carry her the rest of the way. Though she wasn’t a miniature person like Talia, she was skinny, at least. I’d be able to do it if necessary.
“Yeah!” Kenly called. “I’ve got this.”
“Great.” One crisis averted. “I’m thinking it’s probably best if we don’t go for the hoverplane.”
The area surrounding the transport hovers was rampant with the Poachers’ guards, keen to cut off our exit. No way was I taking Kenly the Clumsy through there.
“All those guards are still over with the vehicles,” I pointed out. “There’s absolutely no reason for us to grapple with them.” A hundred yards ahead, I spotted a lone UNITED helicopter. “Just head for that.”
Gesturing towards the craft with one hand, I flipped my comm unit back on with the other. When it crackled back to life, I radioed the pilot to warn him we were headed his way and needed to beat a hasty retreat.
“Affirmative,” came the man’s one word reply.
“Let’s go!” I called, beseeching them to get moving.
James had Kenly back on her feet, and they began running again when I did. We were close enough to feel the wind from the choppers’ blades when Kenly suddenly stopped again. I swore and doubled back. Talia owed me big time for this.
“Kenly, what’s wrong?” James asked her, yelling to be heard about the smack of the propellers.
Studying Kenly to identify the problem, I realized that her gaze wasn’t on me, James, or our rescue vehicle. Turning back to the madness behind us, I followed Kenly’s line of sight. A small girl, the tiny one from my vision, was tearing across the lawn like an itty-bitty missile with limbs. Her gun was raised and pointed directly at James. I started towards him, intending to push him out of harm’s way. But Kenly was closer. She stepped between James and the bullet. In that instant my respect for her increased ten-fold.
Luck must have been on our side, because the bullet never came. The girl was out of ammunition. I nearly laughed with relief. At last, something was going our way.
I reached for Kenly, planning to drag her the short distance to the chopper. Naturally, instead of running from the rabid-looking threat, she rushed forward to meet the girl head-on.
Watching a girl fight is never as awesome as it sounds in theory.
Although, watching Talia exchange blows was a sight to behold. She made it look like art, an intricately choreographed dance that was captivating for her audience.
Kenly and her opponent were not nearly so graceful. There was a lot of hair-pulling and poorly timed punches. For several moments, I just gaped at the absurd spectacle in front of me. I was impressed by Kenly’s ability to hold her own, she’d obviously learned something from Talia. Still, the fight was dirty and ugly.
Since time was of the essence, I started towards the duo to break them apart. James was right there beside me. Unfortunately, we’d both been stunned immobile for too long. The tiny poacher produced a dagger, seemingly out of her ass, and plunged it into Kenly’s calf without hesitation. Kenly howled.
This was getting out of hand. Enough was enough.
“Kenly, duck!
” I shouted, my own knife ready to find a home in the poacher’s throat.
That was when I saw Talia standing on the immense lawn, fifty yards away. Her tranq gun was already raised, finger on the trigger. She fired. The dart landed dead center in the poacher’s forehead. Damn, my girlfriend had great aim. Or exceptional luck. Probably the latter. For all the time she spent at the firing range, Talia only hit the broadside of a barn every two out of ten rounds.
James held Kenly in his arms, blood streaming from her leg, and was carrying her like a child to our getaway chopper. He had the both of them on the helicopter in no time. I met Talia’s gaze and she nodded for me to go with them. I hesitated, desperately wanting her to come with us. Though exhaustion hung around her like a cloud, the fierce determination in her eyes told me not to argue. Sending her a burst of love and strength, I nodded and jumped through the open doors. An instant later, we were airborne.
I sagged onto the bench-style seat as the helicopter rose higher and higher. Across from me, James had Kenly’s head cradled in his lap. She writhed and moaned in pain.
James looked up at me.
“Do you have something to give her? For the pain?”
Even if I carried painkillers around in my pocket—which I definitely did not—they would take too long to kick in. Kenly needed that dagger out of her leg. There was no telling what, if anything, the blade had been laced with. And I wasn’t going to wait around to find out. With the way she was simultaneously shivering and sweating, I wasn’t sure we could put it off until we reached Walburton Manor. I sighed deeply, and then went over to kneel beside them.
“Look at me, Kenly,” I ordered.
Her head snapped in my direction, her gaze unfocused.
“What are you doing, mate?” James asked uneasily.
Kenly started giggling. Great, she was going into shock.
“Just helping her relax,” I told James, my focus never leaving Kenly.
I’d seen Talia do this a number of time. I myself had only ever done it once, for Talia. Then, I’d absorbed her pain, breathed it into my body to numb hers. I did the same for Kenly, sending her a heavy dose of manipulation to ease her into unconsciousness. That way, once she was out, there wouldn’t be any pain to siphon.
Interestingly, Kenly’s mind was exceedingly active, which made it extremely hard to put her under. Seriously, millions of thought bubbles burst one after another, giving me way too much insight into the inner workings of a teenage girl’s brain. At one point, I got the truly disturbing impression of James’s soft lips on mine. That was when I upped the manipulation, not overly concerned with the overload of power frying her brain any longer. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure there was a Talent alive with enough power to fry a brain like Kenly’s.
“How does she function with so much nonsense constantly running through her head?” I grumbled the rhetorical question.
To Kenly, I sent, “Turn off the inner monologue and go to sleep.”
Mercifully, she obeyed.
“Whoa,” I groaned, sitting back on my heels. “Her brain is broken or something. That shit is not normal.”
“What did you do to her?” James asked, his tone a mix of anger and suspicion.
“Nothing, I just manipulated her,” I said.
“That’s not right, mate. That can really mess up her mind, you know. Turn it to complete rubbish.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Luckily, it didn’t. And now I can get that dagger out and patch her up without her feeling all of that pain.”
“There’s a med kit under the seat!” the pilot called helpfully.
“Now he tells me,” I mumbled.
From there, I made quick work of removing the dagger and bandaging Kenly’s leg. As I worked, I reached out to Talia, checking to see if her mind was open. It was. To my immense relief, she was already on a hoverplane headed for Walburton Manor. Even though I wanted to, I didn’t try to talk to her. She was deep in thought, a small part of her worried about facing Victoria. But there was something else even more troublesome bothering her.
It just isn’t possible, kept floating through her mind. I had no clue what she was thinking about. After using so much energy to knock out Kenly, delving deeper into Talia’s head would be too wearing. We both needed to have a modicum of energy left for the angry barrage we’d undoubtedly face the moment we got back to the safe house. I’d see Talia soon, I’d just ask her about it then.
As we were began our descent to Walburton Manor, my communicator buzzed. Again.
Dreading what I’d see, I glanced at the screen, unsure whether I wanted the message to be from my new lurker or Victoria. After I read the text, anonymous messages from bat-shit-crazy stalkers would’ve been preferable to the irate councilwoman. Because Victoria was beyond pissed. Off-her-rocker, foaming-at-the-mouth, head-ready-to-explode, pissed.
*Agents Lyons, Kelley, and Kraft, report to the conference room of Walburton Manor. IMMEDIATELY. The council is waiting.*
The comm wasn’t too bad, in and of itself—she’d refrained from profanity, after all. The all caps, though, spoke volumes. Even more ominous were those last four words: The council is waiting. And not in the ‘hey, let’s have a friendly chat’ sense. Including the other night, I’d only faced the entire UNITED council a few times. They were an imposing bunch, and only convened as a group when something serious was happening.
Given both the magnitude and sensitivity of this mission, it made sense that certain members of the council would want to be debriefed about the actual events on Andrew’s Rock. But the entire council?
Shit.
My only hope was that between Talia’s innate ability to weasel her way out of sticky situations, Frederick’s diplomacy and bargaining skills, and Victoria’s love for me, we might be able to walk away from this with only a stiff reprimand.
And hell was just a tropical location with throngs of bikini-clad Talia clones, eager to serve me fruity drinks.
“REALLY? IS THE foot tapping necessary? It’s worse than water torture,” I groaned.
Chaz, the incessant foot-tapper, paused to spare me the briefest of glances, and then resumed his annoying habit.
“Block him out, Tals. He’s just trying to get under your skin,” Erik sent.
“Well, it’s working.”
Frederick, Erik, and I were crammed together on a red lacquered bench outside the conference room in Walburton Manor, awaiting our turn with the council. Babysitters-turned-prison-guards, Chaz and Viktor were stationed at either end of the hallway, both men fully-armed and hyper-alert. Their rigid postures and twitchy trigger fingers suggested they were anticipating an escape attempt at any moment. The steel cuffs dangling from Chaz’s belt taunted me with the promise that, soon, they’d be encircling my wrists like shiny new bracelets.
“Stop, Tals. You don’t know what’s going to happen in there. They might just want to talk to us. You know, hear our side of the story. And once they do, they’ll understand why you did what you did.”
Erik placed a comforting hand on my denim-clad thigh and squeezed.
Disregarding Victoria’s mandate to report directly to the conference room, I had gone upstairs and traded the torn and stained teal gown for faded jeans and a sky blue t-shirt. Comfort was key when being berated by a mob of angry councilmembers, after all.
The detour also provided an excuse for my tardiness, should Victoria ask. When, in reality, the main reason I was late had little to do with my wardrobe.
“That’s assuming the council is up for listening to our side of the story,” I sent back. “I’m not so sure they will be. Not after they’re done with Catherine, anyway.”
In my absence, the council decided to first interrogate Catherine Canary alone about the events that had taken place at Andrew’s Rock. This didn’t bode well in my opinion—Catherine had not agreed with my actions at the time, and it was unlikely she changed her tune in the interim. Odds were that she was sealing my fate with the council while I twiddled my thu
mbs on a hard, wooden bench with the Chinese symbols for hope and destiny mocking me from beneath my butt.
To make matters worse—if that was even possible—Catherine was present when Kenly made a beautiful speech about hunting down the Poachers and when I, subsequently, promised not to stop her. For a strictly-by-the-book agent like Catherine that promise was tantamount to treason. The Created were supposed to be contained, not caught, armed, and rereleased into the world to wreak more havoc. In providing Kenly and her friends—James, Riley, Willa, and Honora—with weapons, clothing, food, and all the globes left in Frederick’s wallet, I’d done just that. This act of defiance was the real reason I was late to my reprimand party.
Thankfully Catherine left before I handed Kenly the provisions she and the others would need for their upcoming mission.
I knew the risk I was taking for my former mentee. But Kenly deserved revenge. She deserved the opportunity to look her tormentors in the eye and show them that they had not won, that she was not beaten. She deserved vengeance for herself and every other Talent who’d been harmed by the Poachers’ black market trade. Otherwise, Kenly would never fully recover from her ordeal at Andrew’s Rock.
My only regret about letting Kenly go was that I could not join her.
Well, that, and the fact Erik was not happy about the arrangement. It was a point of contention between us. He thought the risk was too great. That Kenly was too unstable to be trusted on her own. My argument—that we were Created, and doing just fine without constant supervision—was met with an exasperated eye roll.
“We are under constant supervision, Tals,” he’d said. “Or did the tracking devices in our communicators fool you? Or maybe you bought Victoria’s story about relocating us to Eden for our own protection. Oh, wait, I know what it is—the routine medical checkups to gauge our sanity. Those really indicate a lack of supervision.”
Because we were both under a great deal of stress and our collective emotions were more colorful than a double rainbow, I’d ignored Erik’s sarcasm and didn’t take the bait. I was too exhausted to bicker over something that was already done. I’d also left him out of the loop when Kenly and I made her getaway plans. Although, that was more for the sake of plausible deniability on his part, than worry he might object further. When the other agents realized that Kenly and her friends were missing, I wanted Erik to honestly be able to say he knew nothing about it.