The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (31 page)

Dormer nodded. “Good,” he said. “I’ll
go first this time.”

He strode to the facility entrance and
walked inside. A woman wearing nurse’s scrubs cowered behind a
desk, her face lit with the soft green glow of a computer
monitor.

“
Excuse me,” said Dormer.
“I’m here to visit my brother.”

The woman opened her mouth
to speak but Dormer moved in quickly and squeezed her forehead.
There was a slight concussive
whumph
sound and the woman’s eyes
rolled up into the back of her head as she collapsed to the
ground.

“
Is she dead?” asked
Haven.

“
No, but she should be,”
said Dormer. “Everyone here knows what they are doing—the harm they
have caused. There are no selfless members of the medical
profession in this building. These people don’t help anyone but
themselves.”

He moved quickly past the unconscious
woman and down a long hallway that led away from the receptionist’s
area. The ceiling lights dimmed considerably as Dormer passed below
them, then glowed to full brightness in his wake.

Haven checked the side rooms of the
hallway. All of them were empty—examination rooms with shiny new
monitoring equipment on rolling tables that rested next to
reclining leather exam chairs. The whole place smelled like
lemons.

Dormer held up a warning finger and
pressed it to his lips, then nodded toward the end of the
hallway.

Haven stepped forward as quietly as
she could and stood next to him, peeking around his arm.

A large room was lined with metal
tables. On each table lay a patient—some were very young, others
extremely old. Thick plastic tubes ran into the unconscious
patients’ arms and legs. The tubes were attached to clear bags of
white liquid that fed slow drips into their pale bodies.

Haven started forward but Dormer
pulled her back. She was about to argue with him when she heard
laughter from the room.

One of the twins with short, spiky
blond hair walked into view and clapped his hands happily. He spoke
to someone out of sight as he pulled himself up and sat down on a
long table that was lined with all sorts of medical instruments,
from scalpels to bone saws. He picked up a malicious-looking silver
tool and admired it with an impressed grin.

The other twin walked over and picked
up a bone saw. He twirled it in the air and red flame danced over
its chrome blade. The first twin laughed and grabbed up the flame,
then blew it out of his open palm and into the air as if he were
blowing away dust. Then he walked over to the nearest patient and
rattled the bed violently, screaming into the patient’s face as the
table screeched across the floor. He shrugged and walked back to
his brother.

“
Well,” said Dormer. “I’ve
seen all I need to see.” He turned to Haven. “Get ready to act,
because I’ll likely be finished after this one.”

He cleared his throat and stepped out
of the hallway.

The twins laughed when they saw him
and clapped their hands.

“
Dane,” said Dormer,
nodding to the Source twin. “Lee,” he said to the other.

“
What are you doing here?”
said Dane. The arrogance in his tone was unmistakable. “You gotta
be the dumbest person alive.”

“
Are you alone?” said Lee.
He hopped down off the table and peered down the
hallway.

Haven ducked farther from
view.

“
Of course I am,” said
Dormer. “I’m here for my brother.”

“
Oh yeah,” said Dane. “I
heard about him. Pretty high up there on the scale, according to
Bernam.”

“
Stronger than me,” said
Dormer.

“
Not anymore,” said Lee.
He stood next to Dane. “Bernam drained him just enough to keep him
from dying. Pathetic to watch, really.”

“
Disgusting,” said Dane.
His face scrunched up as if he smelled a foul odor.

Haven was growing impatient. Her skin
burned with heat and sweat dripped down her back. She shook with
anger as she thought about the red flames licking up the sides of
her home—of her parents lying in bed together as they
died.

She was about to step out of the
hallway when all of the lights in the room dimmed to
half-brightness and Dormer spoke again.

“
Enough.”

The twins backed up warily. Dane’s
eyes glowed with red flame and he quickly put his hand on Lee’s
shoulder.

“
Don’t even try it, old
man!” he shouted.

“
Oh,” said Dormer, “I
think I will.”

38

A
ll of the lights went completely dark just as Lee raised his
fists and a thick beam of red energy cut the air. Dormer held his
arms out to the side and the beam hit him in the center of his
chest. The energy swirled around him but he was untouched by the
fire. Black smoke flowed out of his hands and mixed with the red
flames. The smoke swirled quickly through the energy, consuming it
and drawing it into Dormer’s body. His eyes flooded with black
shadow; tiny sparks of red glowed like burning embers in his
pupils.

The beam of energy from the twins died
and they breathed out in unison, exhausted.

The last of the red flames spiraled
around Dormer like a tornado and quickly disappeared into his
chest. His entire body seemed to vibrate so quickly that his
silhouette became a blur. He raised his arm toward Dane and opened
his fist.

“
No…” Lee
whispered.

Black and red energy burst from
Dormer’s palm—a giant tube of swirling, crackling plasma that
melted everything around it in a five-foot radius.

Lee dove out of the path but Dane
stood there with his mouth open as the tunnel of chaotic energy
consumed him from head to toe. He didn’t have time to
scream.

The energy faded and Dormer collapsed
to the ground. All that remained of Dane were two black, charred
marks where his feet had been.

Haven ran into the room and helped
Dormer sit up.

A few feet away, Lee stared at the
empty spot where his brother had been, his shock turning into
rage.

He shook with anger and his face
twisted into a scream as he ran at Dormer. Haven held up her hand
and blue fire exploded from her palm. The bubble burst against
Lee’s chest and sent him crashing backward into the table full of
medical instruments. He lay on the ground, unconscious, a smoking
hole in his shirt over a ring of sizzling flesh.

Dormer’s outburst had burned a tunnel
straight across the room. A cylinder ringed with melted plastic and
burnt wood extended down the hallway that continued away from the
entrance.

“
Are you okay?” asked
Haven.

A thin sheen of sweat covered Dormer’s
body. His eyes rolled in their sockets as he tried to
focus.

“
I’ll be—I’ll be fine,” he
said weakly. “Need to lie down. You go on.”

Haven helped him down to the floor.
She wondered how much more powerful he could be if he ever found
his Source. Looking at the melted walls of the hallway, Haven found
it hard to believe that he was capable of doing even more damage.
She grabbed a pillow from a nearby table and placed it under his
head.

“
Thank you,” he
whispered.

“
How do I wake them up?”
asked Haven.

Dormer tried to lift his arms but
barely moved. “The white tubes,” he said. “Pull the
tubes.”

Haven nodded and stood. She walked
quickly around the room, pulling out all of the intravenous feeds
that were running into the patients’ arms and legs. When she
finished, she went back to Dormer.

“
I’m going to find our
brothers,” she said.

Dormer nodded weakly. “Don’t be
alarmed,” he said, “but mine can be a royal pain.”

Haven smiled. “Why am I not
surprised?”

She rested her palm on his forehead
and he closed his eyes.

All of the rooms that lined the burnt
hallway were empty. Haven jogged down the corridor, looking ahead
to a set of large, steel doors that blocked her path. She pushed
against them but they were firmly locked. A small black panel on
the wall blinked with red numbers. Haven put her palm to the panel
and melted it with blue plasma, but the doors did not
open.

She had just turned to try and find
another way deeper into the complex when the doors swung open with
a pneumatic hiss and a security guard in a black uniform stepped
through the doorway. He was just finishing a yawn when he saw
Haven.

He stopped, looked behind him, then
back at her.

“
Hi,” said
Haven.

“
Umm, hello?” said the
guard.

He reacted too slowly. Haven grabbed
both sides of his head as he reached for a pistol holstered to his
belt. Blue light sparked from her fingertips and scorched black
lines over his face. His hair stood up on end as if he had been
struck by lightning and he fell to the floor.

Haven kicked him to make sure he was
unconscious. She ran past him, through the doorway, and immediately
stopped.

The large room before her was empty
except for a tall metal chair in the center. Strapped to the chair,
every inch of his skin lined with small plastic tubes that fed down
into the floor, was Noah. His head had been shaved and his scalp
was punctured with a hundred thin wires that led into the floor at
the base of the chair.

The walls of the rooms were lined with
giant monitors, each displaying a different piece of information.
Noah’s vital signs were on one, his brain functions on
another—multicolored wire-thin lines traced paths on a scale,
recording every impulse in his brain.

Haven ran to him and looked down at
his small, frail body. He wore light blue scrubs; his hands and
bare feet were filthy. She pulled aside a loose flap of fabric over
his chest and recoiled in horror. Her eyes filled with tears when
she saw the fresh, jagged scar that ran from the base of Noah’s
throat down to the bottom of his ribcage.

He shifted in the chair and groaned
softly.

“
I’m going to get you out
of here,” whispered Haven.

Her hands shook as she gently pulled
the tubes from his skin. Small drops of blood beaded up from the
tiny holes.

“
I’m sorry, Noah,” she
sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

She pulled out the last of the tubes
and lifted him from the chair. He moaned as she held him in her
arms like she used to when he was a toddler, allowing his head to
rest on her shoulder and draping his arms around her
neck.

Haven hurried across the room and down
the hallway.

Dormer was still lying in the spot
where she left him. His eyes were open and he was staring at the
ceiling.

He smiled when he saw Noah. “You found
him.”

Haven looked around the room. All of
the patients were still unconscious in their beds.

“
Why aren’t they awake?”
she asked. The sudden urge to get out after she found Noah was
growing too strong to ignore.

“
It will take time,” said
Dormer.

“
I didn’t see anyone
else,” said Haven. “I’m sorry.”

Dormer smiled again. “He’s here. I can
feel it. Leave him with me,” he said, gesturing to Noah. “You go
and help the others. They will need it.”

“
I can’t lose him again,”
she said, hugging Noah close.

“
You won’t. I
promise.”

Dormer pushed himself to his feet and
stood up straight. Haven reluctantly passed Noah into his
arms.

“
Better hurry,” said
Dormer. “I think the black sports car would be a good
choice.”

Haven rubbed her hand over Noah’s
shaved scalp and shuddered when she felt the tiny bumps left behind
by the wires that had dug into his skin.

The ball of light that had been slowly
shrinking inside of her since she found Noah found new life and
grew stronger. She allowed it to fill her body and her mind as she
turned and ran down the hallway, toward the facility
entrance.

39

C
olton stood up slowly in the elevator.

Corva leaned against the wall as the
last of the orange light faded from her skin. The air in the
hallway was thick with smoke. Lights flickered in the ceiling and
from the open doorways on either side of the hall. The security
guards had been pushed back into the rooms from the initial blast;
their black-booted feet stuck out into the hallway.

“
A little overkill,” said
Corva, “but effective.”

Someone down the hall
coughed.

Marius frowned. “Missed one,” he
said.

He walked out of the elevator and into
the dark cloud of smoke. It parted for him and curled around behind
his back as he disappeared down the hall.

A moment later, Colton heard him
speaking. A voice answered him, then coughed. Marius said something
in Russian and there was a crack of knuckles against bone, followed
by a heavy thud. Marius appeared out of the smoke in front of the
elevator, brushing off the sleeves of his thick jacket.