The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (12 page)

Bernam sighed.

“
But,” he continued,
“things are never that easy, are they? It would be too convenient
if
any
Source
could pair with
any
Conduit. Not only does the Conduit have to have the proper
capacity for storage and redistribution, but there seems to be
another factor at work whose machinations I have as of yet been
unable to pinpoint.”

“
What is
that
supposed to
mean?”

“
In short, Mr. Ross, it
appears as if each Source has only
one
specific Conduit with which they
can pair. A second half which, for all intents and purposes, they
were destined to be with. These two individuals are always less
than one year apart in age. Beyond that, it could be
anyone.”

“
And you haven’t found
yours yet?” asked Colton.

Bernam stared at him coldly. “We
deviate too far from our discussion, Mr. Ross. As I was going to
say, there are those who would rather cut us into little pieces to
try and figure out what makes us tick than help us make our own way
in this vast and lonely world. I want to undo all the years of pain
that our kind has endured, Colton. I want to make it safe for
people like you and I to live in peace.”

“
No offense,” said Colton,
“but I was doing just fine until you guys found me.”

“
Ah, but how long would it
have lasted, I wonder? All it takes is one little mistake before
someone sees you and the walls come crashing down. Trust me—no one
can hide forever.”

“
But what happens if I’m
never matched with the right Source?”

Bernam held up his hands in mock
defeat. “Then you will suffer the same fate as many of those who
came before you,” he said. “Without true Unity, you will be stuck
as you are now, relegated to a life of mediocre ability, never
fully reaching your true potential.” He flashed a thin smile. “No
offense, of course. Still—there is another path. You can let me to
teach you how to better yourself.”

Colton crossed his arms and sat back
in his seat. “That’s a lot to think about. To be honest, it sounds
crazy.”

“
Indeed it is.”

“
You say there are others
like us?”

“
Correct.”

“
And another group is out
there, hunting them down and killing them.”

“
Through experiments of a
most vicious nature.”

Colton looked through the window and
into the distance. The sun was just rising above the clouds. With
half his heart he wished he were back in Pennsylvania as a boy nine
years ago, before his mother left and his father became a man that
no one would miss if he passed away. Life had seemed less like a
chore and more like an adventure.

With the other half of his heart he
grasped at the future, and at the possibility of finding new
meaning on a new path; a beacon in the darkness.

Colton looked at Bernam. “What’s the
next step?”

Bernam smiled and clapped his hands
together. “Excellent! A choice you will not regret.” He leaned over
in his chair to look through the window and down at the ground
several miles below. “The next step is a little test of your
abilities. Time is of the essence.” He stood and walked toward the
front of the plane. “Please, follow me.”

Colton looked out the window but saw
only clouds. He stood and walked toward the cockpit.

Bernam knocked on the sliding
partition and Alistair appeared almost instantly.

“
It’s time,” said
Bernam.

Alistair nodded and beckoned for
Colton.

“
Good luck,” said Bernam,
and patted Colton on the back before going to the other side of the
partition and sliding it shut behind him.

“
Why do I need luck?”
asked Colton, looking around warily.

“
You know what kinetic
energy is?” asked Alistair. He started unscrewing four silver bolts
on the corners of a plastic panel in the middle of the airplane
door.

“
Uh…it’s moving energy?
The energy something has when it’s moving.”

“
Exactly,” said Alistair.
“And here I was thinking the American education system was bunk.”
He pulled off the plastic panel to reveal a red handle. “I want you
to imagine a small battery falling toward the ground.”

“
Okay…”

“
Now imagine that, as the
battery drops, the kinetic energy increases. The battery charges
itself with the energy that builds up during the fall.”

Colton nodded.

“
So, if the battery hits
the ground fully charged, what happens?” Alistair casually rested
his hand on a handhold next to the door and gripped it
tightly.

“
It splats, just like
anything else.”

“
Precisely. Only, the more
charge the battery has stored within itself at the point of
impact—the longer it has been falling—the bigger the splat. But
what would happen if, somehow, at the last second before impact,
the battery could discharge all of its kinetic energy, thereby
completely negating its momentum?”

Colton frowned. “I guess it would
cancel out the fall and the battery would land safely on the
ground.”

“
Excellent!” said
Alistair. “I want you to think really hard about that in the next
few minutes.”

“
Why?” asked
Colton.

“
Because you’re the
battery.”

Alistair turned the handle on the door
and flung it open. Wind ripped into the cabin and the jet shuddered
violently. Colton was thrown off-balance and managed to get both
feet back on the floor just as Alistair placed his hand firmly in
the middle of Colton’s back and shoved him out of the
plane.

He tumbled through the air, spinning
rapidly as he dropped toward the Earth. His vision was a
lightning-fast slide show—plane getting smaller, ground getting
closer, plane getting smaller, ground getting closer.

The wind tore at his clothes, whipping
his shirt up over his face every time he flipped in the
air.

Colton closed his eyes and
screamed.

17

H
aven’s head swam with dizziness and pain, and she had a hard
time focusing on her surroundings. She dedicated all of her energy
on putting one foot in front of the other as Marius led the way out
of the facility.

He rushed her through a door and into
a tall stairwell. He climbed the steps two at a time, carrying
Haven most of the way and counting the doors they passed along the
way.

“…
three…four…five! Here it
is.”

He let Haven rest against the wall
while he peered through the small rectangular window in the door.
Haven leaned over to look and saw a receptionist’s area beyond,
with several men and women seated behind a long desk next to a big
glass door which led to the outside world.

“
Oh!” said Marius. “I
forgot, I’m so sorry.”

He reached behind her head with both
hands and touched the face covering. There was a small flash of
orange light and the straps loosened. He pulled it away gently and
threw it aside.

“
Thank you,” whispered
Haven.

Marius smiled. “Thank me if we get out
in one piece.”

He held up a finger to be quiet and
cocked his head. Footsteps pounded up the hallway from below.
Marius ran to the railing and looked down the stairwell.

“
They move quickly. Many
more than I was hoping.”

He walked back to the door and kicked
it open. A woman on the other side screamed and jumped up from her
chair. All of the receptionists reached for the nearest phone as
Marius strolled into the room supporting Haven.

“
Just making withdrawal!”
he said, laughing.

He lifted Haven off the ground and ran
to the door. The receptionists were shouting for them to stop, but
Marius pushed open the large glass door and ran out into the bright
sunlight.

“
Almost there,” he told
her. “Almost safe.”

A black four-door car with darkly
tinted windows screeched to a halt in the parking lot in front of
the building. Marius hurried over to it and set Haven in the back
seat after the door popped open from the inside. He quickly shut
her door and climbed into the passenger seat, shouting, “Go go
go!”

The driver—a short woman with
shock-white hair—slammed down on the gas pedal and peeled out of
the parking lot.

Haven managed to sit up and look out
through the back window. Only a small concrete dome with a single
glass door and several windows sat in the middle of a vast
desert—the entire complex must have been underground. A paved
parking lot surrounded the dome but was mostly empty except for a
few large, black pickup trucks with modified bodies and large
tires. As Haven watched, the glass door opened and a group of men
wielding large guns ran outside. They split up and got into two of
the black trucks. Their tires kicked up dirt and gravel as they
sped out of the parking lot and followed after the
sedan.

“
Well,” said Marius as he
looked back, “I guess they wanted to keep you after
all.”

Haven closed her eyes as a heavy wave
of nausea passed through her body. She felt as if she were in an
elevator that was dropping too quickly.

She took a deep breath and sat up in
the back seat of the car to try and focus on what was happening
around her.

Marius stood up in the passenger seat
and faced backward, the top half of his body sticking out through
the open sunroof of the car. He had some kind of machine gun and
fired short bursts at the two trucks. Haven looked back and saw
that all of the bullets were hitting the road near the tires of the
pursuing vehicles, but none made contact with the spinning
wheels.

Marius uttered foreign curses under
his breath and tossed the gun into the back seat next to Haven. He
dropped down into his seat, scowling.

“
Time for big gun,” he
said.

The white-haired woman behind the
wheel nodded and pushed a button on the side of her seat. She slid
back as far as she could go, then turned on the car’s cruise
control. Marius reached over and held the wheel as the woman nimbly
climbed over the center console and into the passenger’s seat.
Marius grinned when she sat in his lap.

“
Don’t get any ideas,” she
said playfully.

“
Ha!” said Marius. He
clumsily made his way into the driver’s seat and sat down. “By the
way,” he shouted into the back seat, “this is Corva.”

Haven brushed the hair out of her eyes
and tried to smile, but all she could manage was a weak little
smirk.

Corva stood up through the sunroof and
straddled the center console, one foot in the middle of each
seat.

“
Careful!” said Marius as
he looked down between his legs at the shiny black boot digging
into the seat. “This real leather!”

Corva stuck her right arm down into
the car impatiently and waved in front of Marius’s face. He grabbed
her forearm just above the wrist and she held onto his arm
tightly.

A pale orange glow wavered across
Marius’s skin. It grew intensely until it became a sheath of flame
that covered his entire body. Some of the flames licked out like
snapping whips before being pulled back into his body. Haven
reached toward him and felt heat, but nothing around him was
melting. He looked at her in the rearview mirror and his eyes burst
into orange flame. The fire moved quickly up to his hair and soon
that, too, was ablaze, dancing wildly against the inside roof of
the car. The cloth, the seat—everything touched by the flames
remained unburned.

The orange flame danced up Marius’s
arm and onto Corva’s skin. It flowed upward, spiraling around her
arm and engulfing her torso. Haven looked up through the sunroof as
Corva raised her other arm and held up a flat palm toward the
pursuing trucks.

The orange flames that flowed from
Marius traveled even faster over to Corva and pooled in a bright
sphere around the hand of her outstretched arm. The light
intensified and looked to Haven like a miniature version of the
sun. It grew until it was the size of a basketball.

Corva glanced down to smile at Marius.
He looked up at her with a goofy grin on his face, steering the car
with one hand while he held firmly onto her arm with the
other.

One of the trucks had almost caught up
and was getting close enough to tap their bumper. Corva closed one
eye and formed her hand into the shape of a gun.

“
Pi
chow
,” she said, and pulled her
thumb-trigger. A brilliant stream of orange plasma shot out of the
sphere of light surrounding her hand and hit the closest truck. It
smacked into the windshield and shattered it instantly. Glass
shards burst inward, raining down on the truck’s occupants like a
hailstorm of tiny knives.

Flames continued to dance up Marius’s
arm and flow across Corva’s skin to her outstretched hand. The
flames melted into the ball of light and turned into a beam of
energy that shot toward the nearest truck.