Hit Squad (12 page)

‘I know we have to stop him,’ I said. ‘And I’ve just worked out how.’

My plan was straightforward – if crazily ambitious. Somehow Nico and I had to get into the lab and destroy the stocks of Medusix before Foster conned more kids into
joining his embryonic hit squad and then experimented on them.

‘We can use the oil that’s in there to cause an explosion. That’ll get rid of the Medusix
and
all the equipment.’

‘Foster and Jack are bound to have back-up stocks,’ Nico said.

Since I’d come up with my plan he hadn’t mentioned Ketty, but I could see the pain in his eyes and hear it in the reckless bitterness of his voice.

‘I don’t think they have stocks,’ I said. ‘And, before they can get everything they need to make the drug again, we’ll be able to get the police
involved.’

‘What about Dylan and Cal?’ Nico asked. ‘And Amy back in Australia? Don’t you think they’ll already have gone to the police?’ His voice cracked. ‘Man,
d’you think they’ll have called Ketty’s parents?’

‘I guess so.’ I took a deep breath, trying to keep my focus on the plan. ‘But even if the police know where we are, it’s still going to take time for them to reach us.
And Foster’s going to give Medusix to the new kids as soon as they’re here.’

Nico looked up. Misery was etched into his face. ‘Right,’ he said, his eyes hardening again. ‘So how do we get back to the lab?’

‘Easy, we go outside to give Bradley his psychic skills lesson – then you teleport me up to the lab and I set the oil barrels on fire.’

Nico stared at me. ‘How are you going to cause the explosion?’

I fished in my pocket for the lighter I’d stolen earlier. It was still there, tucked snugly beside the student’s wallet. ‘With this,’ I said. ‘And a bit of luck.
You’ll have to stay free from Medutox to teleport me out of the lab again afterwards.’

‘But there are bars on the lab window,’ Nico said. ‘I can’t get you past them.’

My heart sank. I hadn’t considered that. ‘Okay, then I’ll have to make my own way up there while you cause a distraction. I’ll find my own way out too.’

‘What’s happened to you, Ed, man?’ Nico said with a wondering shake of the head. For a second, he looked like his old self again. ‘You’ve gone all . . . all action
hero.’

‘No I haven’t,’ I said, feeling my cheeks reddening. ‘It’s just we have to stop Foster and Jack. It’ll be some kind of justice for Ketty.’

Nico’s face fell. I bit my lip, wishing I hadn’t mentioned her name.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘A distraction will work. All we need is our powers back.’

In the end it was hours before Jack reappeared, though a guard stepped inside the room at regular intervals to feed us and spray us with Medutox. There was no sign of Dylan and
Cal – I had no idea what had happened to them and, without my Medusa powers, no way of finding out.

When Jack finally returned, we told him we were ready to give Bradley some lessons in telepathy and telekinesis. Jack looked cautiously pleased and – as the sun set over the lake –
he brought Foster and Bradley to our room. They were accompanied by two guards I didn’t recognise.

I glanced at the five of them, feeling suddenly anxious. It was going to be hard enough to get up to the lab without being seen – but completely impossible to get away from all these
people without someone raising an alarm.

‘This won’t work,’ Nico said. He sounded convincingly hard-headed. Over the past few hours I’d watched him bury his pain over Ketty too deep to surface easily. ‘We
can’t stay inside. I need more space to do telekinesis.’

‘And having all these people watching doesn’t help either,’ I added.

‘The guards and I are staying,’ Foster said firmly. ‘But we can go outside where there’s more room and Jack can go and check on plans for accessing our new
kids.’

I glanced at Nico again. So they were already targeting a new batch of guinea pigs to experiment on. We had to move quickly. I turned to Bradley, determined to show a convincing level of
interest in his abilities.

‘So . . . er, what does the Medusix taste like?’ I asked him.

He blinked, clearly surprised I’d spoken directly to him. ‘Like rotten vegetables,’ he said with a grimace. ‘It’s disgusting. I have to take it every morning and
every eve—’

‘No need to explain everything,’ Foster said, cutting him off. ‘Let’s get on.’

We went downstairs. As we walked past the doorway where I’d last seen Ketty, I felt a terrible pang. How could this place . . . these people . . . still be here, and not her?

I followed Nico and Foster outside, to the front of the castle. It was dark outside now and almost exactly thirty minutes since we’d both been sprayed with Medutox. I tried to reach Nico
through remote telepathy. At first I thought it wasn’t working, but as I focused, I soared into his mind – familiar to me now. As usual, it was intense and forceful. But now a darkness
– the colour of his pain – touched everything like a shadow.

Shall I start?
I suggested telepathically.
I could do some basics with Bradley. Hopefully Foster will relax if it’s all going okay. Then you take over. Let me know when
you’re about to cause the distraction. Yes?

Fine.

I broke the connection. ‘Okay, Bradley,’ I said. ‘I’m going to mind-read you now; that should help you see how getting fully into someone’s mind works, rather than
just speaking without words, which you can already do.’

I glanced at Foster. He nodded his assent. I turned back to Bradley and met his gaze. With a
whoosh
, I was inside his head.

He sensed me straight away. I waited a moment, letting him get used to my presence. His mind was younger than he looked. Restless . . . enquiring . . . this boy was smart and unhappy. I probed a
little further, letting the rush of his feelings wash over me. Like most people being mind-read for the first time, his thoughts were jumping about.

How is this working? What can you see? How much further can you go?

I can go wherever I want
, I thought-spoke, probing a little deeper. Why was Bradley so unhappy? I caught the tail of his misery and rode it to a memory: saying goodbye to his father, Rick
. . . a blonde woman – I sensed she was his mother – in tears . . . yes, there was pain inside Bradley. He missed his father. He wanted to be with his mother. He was scared of his
uncle. Or was he just scared of being part of his uncle’s plans?

You know what Foster wants to do is crazy
, I thought-spoke.
And wrong.

It’s what I have to do
, Bradley thought-spoke back.
I thought you were going to teach me how to mind-read.

I hesitated. The last thing I wanted was to encourage Foster’s protégé to develop such a powerful skill. On the other hand, Bradley would be useful, if I could just get him
on our side.

Okay
, I thought-spoke.
I’m going to make my mind as open to you as I can. Just relax and try to catch a thought.

I sat back in Bradley’s mind, trying to keep my own thoughts under control. If I was honest, I was more than a little intrigued. How much would Bradley – whose abilities had been
given to him via a drug rather than through genetic inheritance – be able to achieve?

It took a moment before I felt his presence, pushing gently into my mind. As soon as I sensed him, I resisted. No way did I want this boy seeing into any of my thoughts and feelings. I pushed
him away – no problem, he was too weak to resist – and broke the connection.

Bradley gasped. He staggered backwards a little.

‘You okay, Brad?’ Foster’s voice was full of concern.

‘I’m fine,’ Bradley said, a wide smile spreading over his face. ‘That was amazing. Can we go again, Ed?’

I shook my head and glanced over at Foster. ‘Not too much too soon. He needs a chance to get used to what he can do. Otherwise it’ll be overwhelming.’

I was lying, of course. If I were Bradley I’d have wanted to practise going further . . . seeing how far I could penetrate into somebody’s mind. But I wanted to hand over the lesson
to Nico now . . . to find some way of fading into the background and getting away.

Foster looked at me shrewdly. I met his gaze, resisting the slight pull to dive into his mind that always came whenever I made eye contact with anyone.

‘Fine,’ Foster said. ‘Ed’s right, Brad. You don’t want to overdo it.’ He turned to Nico. ‘You’re on.’

As Nico drew himself up, Foster signalled to one of the guards who stepped forwards and sprayed me with Medutox.
No.
My heart skipped a beat. Now I was going to have to cause the
explosion without being able to contact Nico – or any of the other Medusa teens. I’d been hoping to have a moment to try Amy again – or Dylan. But now I’d have to wait.

Nico was looking right at Bradley. There was an intimidating intensity to his glare. ‘Show me what you can do,’ he demanded.

Bradley raised his hand. It was shaking slightly. He was obviously nervous performing in front of Nico. He pointed at a branch lying on the ground. It twitched, but didn’t rise into the
air as I’d seen the barrel of oil move earlier. It struck me that Medusix might confer a wider range of abilities than the Medusa gene, but not to the same level. I mean, okay, so Bradley
hadn’t had his powers for very long, but he didn’t seem very effective in his control of them.

‘I can’t do it,’ Bradley said.

Foster waved the guards back and moved closer to his nephew – a protective gesture. I smiled to myself. It was clever of Nico to make Bradley feel vulnerable, guessing correctly that this
would draw Foster in.

Nico began explaining some of the basic principles of telekinesis.

‘Let your mind be still,’ he said. ‘Relax your body. Focus, but don’t grasp at it. Don’t force what you’re doing.’

I took a step away from them. One of the guards clocked me straight away. He held up his hand. Sunlight glinted off the gun in his palm. I gulped. Nico was going to have to make his distraction
good to give me enough time to make it back into the castle.

I bit my lip, waiting. Nico was standing behind Bradley now, demonstrating a curving arm movement.

‘This is the best, most economical move to help you with lifting stuff,’ he said. ‘Of course it’s perfectly possible to do telekinesis without physically moving, but the
hand gestures help.’

Bradley nodded, then focused on the stick on the ground again.

Nico glanced up. Caught my eye. Even without my telepathy I knew what was coming. I braced myself.

With a roar, Nico jumped back, away from Bradley. He raised both hands, twisting them at the wrists. Foster, just a few metres away, flew up into the air. Nico swung him round, teleporting him
straight at the guard behind. With a smart crack, Foster’s legs made contact with the guard’s gun arm. The gun flew onto the grass. In an instant Nico teleported it up, driving it
through the air and against the second guard who staggered backwards, his gun also falling to the ground. A moment later all three men and both guns were in the air, whirling over the grass. With a
roar, Nico flung them all into the lake. He held out his hands, creating waves that crashed across the water. The whole scene was chaos . . . stones and branches flew up from the paving nearby . .
. It had only taken seconds.

Bradley ran to the side of the lake. ‘Stop it!’ he shouted.

Without looking round, Nico yelled out.

‘Ed, go!’

I didn’t need to be told twice. I turned and ran for the castle.

I glanced round as I reached the main castle door. All hell was breaking out behind me. The men in the lake were yelling at the tops of their voices as Nico kept creating waves
that crashed down on them. Beside him, Bradley was jumping up and down, emitting panicky shrieks. As I stood, watching, Broken Nose came racing round the corner. He didn’t notice me. All his
attention was on Nico and the furore at the lake. I sped indoors. Across the hall. Through the door. Up the stairs. Along the corridor.

I took a wrong turn and doubled back. Where was the door to the lab?

Around another corner and I saw it. I burst through the swing door and darted along the corridor. I reached the lab and skidded to a halt. I rattled the door handle. It was locked. For a
terrible second I felt overwhelmed with a sense of failure. I needed Nico to open this lock. He
always
sorted out locks. Without him, I was useless.