New Sight (23 page)

“I’m not leaving you!” Brady protested, placing a hand on Mark’s chest.

Lys’ss eyes traveled to Mark’s leg. The bone in his thigh stuck out of a gaping wound. Blood poured from it, creating a dark pool on the ground.

“Mark!” a new voice yelled.

Lys turned to see Ayden running toward them. His eyes were swirling gold, like a cat.

“What happened?” he asked. Then he noticed Lys. “You need to get back to the cabin right now! Brady, Kamau, take her—” He stopped, looking down at Brady. A dark glow had begun under Brady’s hands.

“What are you doing?” He asked. Brady didn’t respond.

“Hey,” Ayden said, pushing Lys to the side. “I said what are you doing?”

Kamau grabbed Ayden’s shoulder. “Wait.”

Brady moved one hand to Mark’s injured leg. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The dark glow increased before Brady said, “I can fix him.”

Chapter 27

“What do
you mean you can fix him?” Ayden asked, his golden eyes traveling to Mark’s wound.

“Someone come get ready to pull on his leg,” Brady said softly, sweat beading on his brow. No one moved. “Now!”

The urgency in his tone provoked a response. Lys backed away as Ayden and Kamau knelt on the ground. Kamau went to Mark’s shoulders and Ayden went to his leg.

“Set it. Do it fast.” Brady said in almost a whisper.

Kamau clamped down on Mark’s shoulders and upper body while Ayden took his leg. “One, two . . .”

Lys turned away. The crunch made her flinch, but Mark’s scream brought tears to her eyes. Pain lanced through the air, and Lys buried her face in her hands.

“Hold him! Just a little longer,” Brady said.

Mark groaned. Lys raised her head. The exposed bone had been replaced by a wound as big as her hand. Blood continued to pour out, but almost as she realized this, Lys watched as it first slowed and then stopped.

“How?” she said, stepping closer.

They all watched in fascination as the wound sealed up. Just like what Jodi did to Lys’s leg, only on a much larger scale. An angry, red welt replaced the wound. Another crunch, this one softer, sounded as the bones meshed back together—or so Lys imagined. Mark’s eyes fluttered open as Brady removed his hands.

Mark seemed confused. “What in the?” He looked down at his leg and then back up to Brady.

“You healed him,” Lys said, amazed.

Brady nodded. He sat back, swaying. “I could feel it. I could feel everything. And when I pulled him over here, I knew I could fix it.”

“Fix it?” Ayden demanded.

Brady nodded again. “But it’s not healed. At least, not all the way.”

“I’ve never heard of a chaos touch user being able to heal,” Mark said, his voice strained.

“Can you heal?” Lys asked.

“No.” Mark shook his head. “Like I said before, not even a paper cut.”

Ayden looked hard at Brady. “How did you know you could heal him?”

Brady’s pale face regarded the man. “I just knew I could. The bone is back together, but I don’t know how good I did on the rest of it.”

Lys flinched as a burning ember flew past her cheek, searing her flesh, reminding her that they were standing in the middle of a war zone.

“We need to get to the cabin,” Ayden said. He studied Brady with a guarded expression.

“We can carry him,” Brady insisted. He stumbled to his feet and took one of Mark’s arms.

“Why don’t you let us take him,” Ayden said, indicating to himself and Kamau. “You make sure Lys gets to the cabin in one piece. We’ll be right behind you.”

Brady didn’t look like he was going to be much help. He limped over to her as the other two lifted a groaning Mark to his feet.

“Come on,” she said, putting her shoulder under one of Brady’s arms. He didn’t resist as she started off toward the cabin.

All around them, people ran. Some fought back, but most were headed in the same direction as Lys. Small explosions filled the air with debris while the loud siren sounded again. Lys flinched, but the sound wasn’t as powerful as before—Kamau didn’t go to the ground.

She wound them through what remained of the tents and back toward the front door of the cabin, almost retracing her steps from earlier.
Probably less than thirty minutes earlier,
Lys thought to herself. How quickly things changed.

“Over here!” Inez’s voice cut through the noise.

“Hey!” Brady put on his winning smile. “What’s up?” He stumbled, only staying upright because of Lys.

Inez jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “They’ve got some people working on an escape route down at the garage. Mr. Mason said he wanted us there as soon as we found
you.”
The last word was addressed to Lys.

Lys swallowed. “Me?”

“You two best buds now?” Inez asked as she took Brady’s other arm.

“I thought you were leaving,” Lys shot back.

Inez shrugged. “I need to live through the next hour if I want to see Peter again.”

A group of people ran past them back toward the hill where Cody and his line had been. She hoped they were healers.

“Go to the garage!” Ayden said from behind them.

“We’re going,” Inez said. “What was that thing?”

“Someone called it a pulse. It disrupts magic, or so he said,” Lys said.

“You didn’t get hit by it?” Inez asked, wiping her face with a hand. She looked pale.

“Uh, not exactly,” Lys said. “Did you?”

“A little, but some of the sound users blocked most of it.”

They were almost to the end of the cabin. The ground rumbled beneath their feet. Lys hoped it was magic, and not the New. With Inez in the lead, they rounded the corner. Lys expected to find more fighting. Instead, a handful of the New had fifteen or twenty magic users surrounded.

The magic users were on their knees—a few lay unmoving on the ground. Lys tried to pull Inez back, but one of the New heard them and turned around.

“There he is. We were worried that you’d been caught in the crossfire,” a metallic voice said through the helmet.

Without visible eyes, Lys couldn’t tell who the member of the New was talking to. Not her, surely.

“Where is Mason?” the voice demanded.

“Like we’d tell you that,” Brady said with disdain.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” the man said. “Net them.”

Everyone scattered. Brady surged forward, trying to tackle the man in the black armor. Inez dove one way and Lys went the other, hitting the ground with a grunt and rolling to avoid the net she could hear coming through the air. She didn’t roll far enough.

The net landed on her torso and upper legs. It pinned one arm, leaving the other free. She tried to crawl forward, but found that she couldn’t move anything under the net. Rolling over didn’t work either. Her free hand grabbed a hold of the edge of the net to try to push it away. A wave of dark energy engulfed her. She couldn’t see.

Lys let go of the net and balled her fists together. Not the dark. She shook her head.

Blinking, Lys found that she
could
see, but not in the dark and not from other people’s eyes, like someone flipped the switch off her magic.

“Don’t struggle,” Kamau’s voice said. “It’ll only make it worse.”

Lys nodded. She lay face down with Kamau behind her. Without her magic she could only make out the boots of someone lying near her, maybe Mark. The flickering light from the fires didn’t penetrate this far around the cabin.

“Is this the one?” a metallic voice asked.

“Yes,” Kamau said.

“Good. Leave her until we get these others taken care of. She’s not going anywhere.”

“Kamau, what’s going on?” Lys craned her neck as far as she could. Did they mean her?

“Oh, don’t worry,” the metallic voice said as a dark figure crouched down near her head. “Kamau made us promise to take good care of you.”

“What?” Lys demanded. Her stomach constricted into a knot.

“He’s working for us.” He shook his head. “I told you not to trust Mr. Mason.”

“Doyle?” Lys asked. “What are you talking about? Why are you doing this?”

“We wanted to know Mason’s plan, and Kamau wants his sister back. Since we knew that Mason hoped you were something special, we sent Kamau in to keep an eye on you.”

To keep an eye on her? Lys turned her head, trying to find Kamau. She couldn’t see him. They sent him in to keep an eye on her? To discover Mr. Mason’s plan?

Images of the past few days flew through her mind. Kamau had always been right there, ready to help. All concerned eyes and soft touch—he’d been keeping an eye on her? But, he kissed her.

Had everything between them been a lie?

Anger flared through her, and she began to struggle, determined to get out of the net.

“Don’t bother,” Doyle said. “You’re not going anywhere.” Before he could go on, an invisible hand threw Doyle back. He hit the log wall of the cabin with a thud.

“Get Ayden! Burn that net off Lys!” Mr. Mason’s voice shouted.

Lys heard footsteps stomping around her.

“Don’t move,” someone said, “at all.”

Lys held her breath. She felt pressure from the net, closing in on her—constricting. For a second she thought it might cut through her as it got tighter and tighter, but suddenly the pressure disappeared. Cold enveloped Lys and she began to shiver.

“Up,” the voice ordered.

Lys got to her hands and knees. Shards of ice, leftovers of the net, fell to the ground with a tinkle. A pair of hands helped her to her feet.

“Get her to the garage,” Mr. Mason ordered. “I’ll be in the van.”

Darkness still surrounded her. For having not been able to see in the dark for her whole life, Lys was surprised at how much she missed it. She couldn’t even clearly see her rescuer.

“What’s going on?” she asked weakly.

“Mr. Mason is getting us out of here.”

“What about everyone else?”

“They’ll be behind us.” A pause. “Close your eyes for a second.”

Lys did so, and even through her eyelids she saw the flash of light that must have lit the entire mountain up. She hoped it blinded the New in their technology helmets.

“Okay, this way, we’re almost there,” her helper urged, dragging her forward.

Lys glanced back the way they had come. Someone started a fire close by, and she could see at least ten people trapped under nets, including Inez and Mark. Almost everyone else in the clearing was on the ground or just getting to their feet.

She pulled her arm free and turned back. She would not leave Brady and the others.

“What are you doing?” her helper demanded.

Lys ignored her, taking a few steps toward Mark.

A dark shape came out of nowhere and blocked her path. Lys stopped in her tracks. Even without her magic she could see Kamau’s broad shoulders.

“Lys,” he started, reaching for her.

Tears sprung to her eyes as she backed up. “You used me.” Used her to get to Mason, to get his plan.

Kamau shook his head. “Lys, you have to listen to me. Mason has my sister.”

Lys could hear the worry in his voice, but now she knew the concern had never been for her. Kamau was a cold, calculating predator, and she had been his prey. The feel of his lips on hers, of his arms around her started an ache inside that blossomed into fury.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted, slapping his hands away. “You lied to me!” She hardly recognized her own voice. “None if it meant anything!” Her hands shook, but this time hate flowed through her. The meaning and truth of her own words sunk in, and Lys knew that he had used her. All of the attention, sticking close to her all of the time and pretending to care about her; it was all part of a plan to betray her—to betray Mr. Mason and his ambition to save magic users.

“Lys,” he said, grabbing her wrist.

She jerked her hand, and when it didn’t come free, she stepped forward and stomped on his foot as hard as she could.

Kamau let go. Someone grabbed him from behind.

Her escort pulled her away. “Come on!”

She allowed herself to be dragged down the road to a waiting van.

Her escort shoved her through the door and into the nearest seat. “Ayden is right behind us,” she reported.

“Good,” Mr. Mason said from the driver’s seat. “Are the others prepared to help us get out?”

“They’re ready.”

Lys watched as her escort, whose name she didn’t even know, helped Ayden into the van and shut the door, staying outside.

The van had three benches in the back. With her and Ayden, most of the seats were taken. Ayden took the passenger side. The woman sitting next to Lys smiled, but it felt empty. Everything felt empty. Lys felt empty—betrayed and alone. She wanted to cry. But it didn’t seem like she had time for it.

Mr. Mason put the van into drive. “Hold on everyone.”

Chapter 28

“You’d better
put your seat belt on,” the woman next to Lys said.

Lys’s fingers fumbled with the pieces, trying to connect the metal end into the receiver. If she hadn’t performed the action thousands of times, she never would have been able to do it.

Four magic users jogged in front of the van. Lys thought they would all be touch users, but when the low hum began she changed her mind. She recognized that hum—Kamau had made the same noise in Las Vegas. Were all the people in front of them sound users?

Underneath the van, directly in front of the sound users, the earth lay still. However, a wave of trembling, jumping earth fanned out to the sides. Cracks formed around them, but never in the road. Lys heard a crackling sound and saw the side window across from her break, spider-webbing.

One of the figures waved as they scattered, and Mr. Mason stomped on the gas. The van jumped forward like those roller coasters that shot you from the platform. There must be a touch user or two behind them.

The small, winding, dirt road that they’d driven in on lay before them. Lys glanced out the back windows of the van and saw several members of the New running after them. She shifted her gaze out the front windshield. The dirt road ran straight for maybe twenty yards before making a turn so tight that if they tried it they would surely fly right off the mountain side. Could touch users fly?

Special effects had nothing on what she saw next. In front of them, just before the wheels rolled over it, the headlights illuminated a new road—dirt and gravel solidified into smooth rock before her eyes.

Mr. Mason didn’t take the corner. Instead, he drove forward, the road forming in front of him. The nose of the van angled forward, and they started down the mountain side.

The lap belt held Lys hanging with her back at least six inches away from the seat. Her feet and hands dangled free as the belt dug into her stomach.

In front of them, the road continued to form. The curious side of Lys wanted to know what was happening behind them, but she couldn’t look back. The van began to drift to the left, and the road went with it, keeping them from tumbling down the hill.

A loud thump hit the back of the van, pushing the front wheels off the formed road. The hood of the van dropped down, the axle hitting the rock with a squeal. A huge crater caved in the roof, forcing people to duck. Lys stifled a scream.

“Hold on,” someone said.

Sure,
Lys thought,
I’ll do that.

The van literally flew off the end of the road, scraping the entire undercarriage as it did so. Another loud thump sounded from the back. A barrage of voices filled the air.

“Hook us!”

“Get them off there!”

“Keep the door open!”

“Do it now!”

Those were the last words Lys heard, and at that particular moment, she decided that sitting near the front sucked. The bottom of the cliff grew steadily closer. They continued to fly away from the mountain side. The world slowed to a crawl, and Lys could see the ground coming, getting brighter in the headlights. Her heartbeat thump-thumped in her ears, the tang of mountain air and old leather seats filled her nostrils. The voices behind her started to sound like the teacher in
Charlie Brown
cartoons.

The van stopped.

If she thought the seat belt had hurt before, now it was an ax, chopping her at the waist, attempting to sever her in half. This time she couldn’t scream. As a matter of fact she couldn’t breathe at all. Time sped up again, and Lys struggled to inhale. People around her were hollering, but the blood pounding in her ears overpowered them. Darkness began to gather at the edges of her vision. The pressure on her abdomen did not ease. Lys couldn’t breathe. She clawed at the seat belt, trying to give herself some room. It was too tight; her fingers couldn’t get in there. They stopped working. Her vision fuzzed, went gray, and then started to tunnel.

Someone cut her loose. She fell forward, face planting into the back of the driver’s seat.

“Get out!” a voice said as someone pushed her out the door. The ground lay fifteen feet below, and Lys wondered how bad it would hurt to hit, but a woman caught her and set her gently on her feet.

The roar in her ears abated, but now she could hear another roar. A helicopter hovered overhead.

“Bring it down!” Mr. Mason ordered.

Lys looked up. The van dangled headlights first ten feet off the ground. An overhang of rock held the back of the van.

Above that a helicopter hovered, with members of the New hanging out each side. Nets flew at magic users, but a blast of wind buffeted them away. The helicopter bucked, and the pilot had to back off.

“Why don’t you come over here? In a second there will be a lot of falling debris,” Ayden said, taking her by the elbow.

Ayden wasn’t kidding. She watched in fascination as a couple of magic users started tossing giant chunks of the ground at the helicopter. A sound user climbed on top of the van and sang a note that vibrated everything down to her teeth. Within seconds, the helicopter fell to pieces around them.

A figure in black crashed into the cliff side, rolling down like a barrel.

Lys looked away. Bile rose from her stomach. People were dead. That guy would not be getting up and walking it off. Cody, along with who knows how many other magic users—all dead. The New killed people; Mr. Mason killed people. Lys didn’t know how she should feel about any of it.

Kamau’s face swam before her eyes, and Lys gritted her teeth together. He betrayed her! He betrayed them. If not for him, no one would have died today. If not for him, the New would never have found them.

A poking memory reminded Lys that if not for Kamau she might be dead or crazy already, but she thrust it out. He used her to get Mr. Mason’s plan. That thought brought enough anger to snap her out of it.

“Our ride will be here in two minutes,” someone reported.

“Is everyone okay?”

Then a voice Lys recognized. “Did we lose any neutrals?” Mr. Mason.

“No, we’re all here.” Ayden put a hand on Lys’s shoulder. “You still with us?”

Lys nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She still couldn’t breathe very well—it felt like she had a five gallon water cooler sitting on her chest. She wanted to sit down, but Ayden kept her upright.

“Anything broken?” Ayden asked.

Lys considered this. Her hands responded when she moved them, so did her legs and arms. The muscles in her neck throbbed, but nothing felt broken. She shook her head.

“Good.” Ayden glanced up at the van. “We should probably move.”

Behind her, Lys could hear crackling and the groaning of metal. She managed to turn her head—not a pleasant experience she decided at once—so she could see what Ayden was looking at.

The van dangled above them, windows smashed and wheels mostly gone.

“Come on,” Ayden said, taking her by the elbow. “It’s not going anywhere.” He paused. “Probably.”

Lys followed. She flinched as she tried to take a deep breath. The people from the van, including Mr. Mason, were all looking back up the hill.

“Are they coming after us?” Lys asked.

A few of the people laughed. Genni, who Lys had not noticed before, shook her head. “Not for a while.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lys saw lights. She turned her head and spotted a vehicle coming toward them.

“Uh,” she said.

“Not to worry, that’s our ride,” Mr. Mason said.

Lys decided she must be in shock. Everything felt surreal, like she was watching a home movie. Her body must be really beaten up, but Lys didn’t mind. She felt . . . good.

Wait. Lys narrowed her eyes and tried to think. What senses were there? Touch—she’d seen what that could do. Sight—she hadn’t been able to influence people’s emotions. Kamau did with sound, so it could be that. But what had Mark said? Taste dealt more with physical appetites and smell dealt with the emotional? She glanced at Ayden—a smell user.

The group gathered loosely. One girl stood apart from everyone. She was young, not very tall and extremely slender. Lys couldn’t see her face because she had a hijab wrapped around her head and pulled down to cover everything but her eyes. The girl never looked at anyone else. She kept away from the group, gazing back up the hill.

Gravel crunched as two off-roading SUVs pulled up. The drivers unrolled their windows and greeted Mr. Mason. Lys didn’t bother to listen, lost in her own thoughts.

Kamau. His face, his smile, his hands, his lips . . . could it all be a lie? Did he use her? Was he really working for the New? She’d seen the evidence with her own eyes. Heard it as they were talking. All for his sister? Did Mr. Mason have his sister? Did the New? Was she already dead?

Lys felt tears forming in her eyes. She brushed them away—no time for crying now. She followed the smaller girl’s gaze back up the hill. What happened to the others? Did Mr. Mason get them out?

“Come on,” Ayden said, squeezing her shoulder. “We’ll go in this one.”

“But what about everyone else?” she asked in a small voice.

“Don’t worry. They’ll be okay.”

Lys allowed Ayden to steer her to the second vehicle. A short man crawled in the very back while Lys, Ayden, and Genni took the middle seat.

They would be okay?
Lys thought with one last glance up the hill. No, Lys didn’t think so. And as the SUV started to move, the cliff side grew farther and farther away, and so did the chances of Lys ever seeing her friends again.

“How do you think they found us?” the driver asked. Lys could see his square jaw and his golden eyes in the rear-view mirror. Deep lines etched his cheeks, making him the oldest person Lys had seen with Mr. Mason.

“They must have followed someone,” the passenger said—a woman with long red hair and blue eyes.

“Inside job,” the guy from the back said.

Lys’s heart dropped into her stomach. Kamau—she couldn’t deny it.

“You saw?” Ayden asked, watching her.

Lys nodded.

“Saw what?” Genni asked.

“Kamau,” Lys said. “He’s with the New.”

“Who?” the driver asked.

“One of the kids that came in with Lys. They were with Mark at the hospital when the New caught them,” Ayden said.

The New
had
caught them. Could the whole thing have been a set up? Mark told them that the New usually killed magic users. Even he had been baffled that they were all still alive at the New’s headquarters. Did Kamau have something to do with that? Did he have everything to do with it?

“He was with you the whole time?” Genni asked.

“The whole time,” Lys said numbly. How could Kamau be a traitor? He’d helped them get away from the New. He’d saved her life. He’d kissed her. Was it all a lie? The question would not stop plaguing her, and even though she thought she knew the answers, Lys didn’t want to believe it.

“You think he led them to us?” Genni asked.

Ayden shrugged. “Probably. I mean, everyone else had been there for days. This group comes in and a few hours later we’re on the run again? Too convenient.”

Genni nodded. She leaned around Ayden to speak directly to Lys. “Did he say anything to make you think that he was with them?”

“No,” Lys shook her head. Kamau had said plenty of things, but nothing to indicate that he supported the New.

“You guys were all together right before the New attacked. What were you talking about?” Genni asked. She said the words kindly—it didn’t quite feel like an interrogation.

“I, uh . . .” she trailed off. Did everyone here know about Mr. Mason’s plan? He hadn’t indicated that she should go telling everyone about it.

“Did you tell him what you and Mason talked about?” Genni asked.

Lys nodded.

“Lys is a neutral. Mason asked her for help with the outlets,” Ayden said to the others.

So they did know.

Ayden looked hard at her. “Did you tell Kamau about that?”

She wanted to lie. No one would ever be able to prove otherwise, but she didn’t think that would be right.

She nodded. “I told Kamau about it.” Her purpose had been for him to him help make sense of it all. She wanted him to tell her that it was okay that she didn’t want to use her magic anymore. All she wanted was a friend—someone to talk to. “I told him everything Mr. Mason told me.” She looked up at Ayden. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

He waved a hand. “They’ve suspected what we’re up to for months. It won’t come as a big surprise.”

“But now they know for sure,” Genni pointed out.

“That’s probably why we’re headed for Utah.”

“What’s in Utah?” the woman in the passenger seat asked.

“The nearest outlet. Did you see it on the map?” Ayden asked Lys.

“We’re going there?” Lys asked.

“That’s the direction we’re headed. Mr. Mason’s orders. From what I understand, we’ve got a time limit,” the driver said.

Ayden pulled his hand up and pushed the light button on his watch. “What’s today?” he asked himself, bobbing his head up and down. “Yeah, if Mr. Mason wants to hit this window, we’ll have to do it by tomorrow night.”

“That’s a tight schedule,” Genni said. “We don’t even have supplies, and it’s a long hike.”

“I’m sure Mason’s got that taken care of,” Ayden said, lowering his arm. Lys noticed Genni’s hand reach out to take his before their arms disappeared between them.

Lys’s thoughts were immediately taken back to Kamau. He must have led the New to the hospital in the first place. And when he didn’t know much Kamau probably told them that Mr. Mason wanted Lys, but he didn’t know why. That had to be the only reason they got away from the New. Sure, Brady, Mark, and Kamau had been amazing, but seriously, the six of them against a dozen or more people in black body armor? Why hadn’t she seen it earlier?

Another part of her mind still protested. Kamau had been so kind to her. She liked him, and she thought he liked her. Why else would he do all those things? To find his sister? He would surely do almost anything to get her back. Did that make him bad?

Kamau
had
done horrible things to try to get his sister back. People were dead—he’d led them to Mr. Mason, and people like Cody were gone, forever. How many more people would die if they couldn’t beat the New?