The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (32 page)

“
Sixth floor,” he said. “A
little farther.”

“
Nice work,” said Corva.
“Faster than going level by level.” She pushed the button for the
sixth floor and the doors closed silently.

“
Sometimes Marius has good
ideas,” he said.

The elevator ascended smoothly. Colton
tried to keep his anger fresh in his mind—his rage toward Bernam
for what he allowed to happen to his mother—but felt it wane in the
presence of fear. Marius and Corva both looked so sure of
themselves—so confident. Colton was sure he would feel a lot more
so if only he could access part of his ability.

He tried again, reaching out with his
mind into the space around him.

Nothing.

Colton didn’t stand a chance against
Bernam nor anyone else that had even the slightest bit of
power.

He was opening his mouth to tell the
others that he should wait downstairs or go and help Haven and
Dormer when the elevator stopped and the doors slid open amidst a
hail of gunfire.

Marius shoved Corva to the side of the
elevator as bullets sparked off the metal walls. She hit Colton and
pulled him with her to the small area of safety at the front of the
elevator next to the open door.

A bullet shot clean through Marius’s
chest and he made a small noise, as if someone had just pinched him
a little too hard. Another bullet hit his right leg and he dropped
to the floor of the elevator.

Corva reached out and pulled him to
the side as more bullets thunked into the back of the
elevator.

“
No…” she said. She moved
her shaking hands over his body, afraid to touch his
wounds.

“
I’ll take him,” said
Colton.

Corva gently leaned Marius against
Colton’s shoulder. He was breathing slowly and his eyes were
closed. Blood soaked through his shirt and spread from a dark hole
below his collarbone.

She stood up and hugged the wall.
Bullets continued to spray into the elevator.

“
What are you doing?”
shouted Colton.

Corva didn’t answer. She clenched her
fists and stepped out into the open doorway.

The bullets stopped for a fraction of
a second, as if the gunmen were surprised that one of their targets
had so easily presented herself. Corva took a step forward and the
gunfire resumed.

Colton risked peeking out of the
doorway and saw orange light flooding the room—Corva must have
saved some energy from Marius. It quickly faded and the sound of
the gunfire grew louder.

Colton knew he had to do
something.

He leaned Marius against the side of
the elevator and hit the button for it to descend to the parking
structure. Hopefully somebody would find him before it was too
late.

Colton stepped out of the elevator as
the doors closed and ran for cover.

The sixth floor was a single, open
room with no windows. Dim lights lined the ceiling, casting a dull,
bluish glow on the polished black floor. Tall structural pillars
were spaced out evenly from wall to wall, and Colton dove behind
one as bullets sank into the floor at his feet.

Corva was standing behind another
pillar, pressing hard on a fresh gunshot wound in her left
shoulder. Colton looked around the side of his pillar and saw three
gunmen crouching near a huge machine on the far side of the room.
Each of the men wore the same heavy armor and carried the same
black automatic rifles as the guards Colton had seen on the second
floor.

The machine was attached to the floor
and the ceiling. Bulbous tubes connected to blocky metal
containers, all of which led to a small, raised platform in the
middle of the machine.

Standing on the platform, suspended in
mid-air by massive restraints that engulfed his hands and feet, was
Reece. He was either dead or unconscious, hanging lifelessly from
his bindings. A pulse of light flowed over the tubes in the machine
and fed down through the restraints. The light coursed over Reece’s
skin and for a brief moment his eyes opened and he screamed. His
body went rigid as the light passed over his legs and dissipated
into the platform below his feet.

A quick burst of gunfire sprayed
against the other side of Colton’s pillar and he pulled his head
back.

After that, silence.

Someone started clapping, slowly and
steadily.

“
Well done,” said a
voice.

It was Bernam.

Reece screamed again and Colton looked
at the machine. Blue light slowly brightened within his ribcage and
grew strong enough to outline the bones in his chest. Colton saw a
dark, pulsing spot in Reece’s ribcage—his heart.

The light was pulled out from his
torso, down his arms and legs, and into the restraints that bound
him. The machine hummed loudly as lights flashed across every tube
and metal container.

Bernam stood next to the machine,
surrounded by the three guards. He admired it with the glossy eyes
of a man who was watching his child use a fork to eat food for the
first time. He clasped his hands in front of his mouth and
smiled.

Shelly stood next to one of the nearby
pillars. She looked frightened when she glanced over her shoulder
at Alistair, who was standing in the shadows next to the machine.
His face was shrouded in darkness, but Colton could tell that he
was staring directly at him.

“
Well done indeed,” said
Bernam. He smoothed down the front of his slim, black suit and
turned to face the elevator. “You can come out now. I won’t hurt
you.”

Corva shook her head when Colton
looked over.

“
Okay, fine,” said Bernam,
sounding bored. “I
will
hurt you. No reason to lie about it.” He waved at
the guards. “Go and get them.” He turned his back and approached
the machine.

The guards fanned out and moved
quickly across the room, the barrels of their rifles trained on the
pillars near the elevator.

One guard hugged the wall on either
side of the room and the third walked right down the middle,
sweeping his gun barrel back and forth around each pillar he
passed.

The one walking toward Corva stepped
around her pillar just as she shoved the heel of her palm into his
throat. He coughed out all of his air and dropped his rifle,
stumbling backward as he choked to take a breath. She moved forward
to finish him off.

The guard in the middle raised his
gun.

“
Look out!” shouted
Colton.

Corva turned around just as the guard
fired two rounds. The first bullet hit the pillar next to Corva’s
arm and tore off a chunk of material that went flying up into the
air. The second bullet hit her in the shoulder and spun her down to
the ground. The guard she hit in the throat stood over her and
smacked her across the cheek with the back of his hand.

“
Alive, if you please,”
Bernam called loudly from across the room.

Colton stepped out from behind his
pillar just as the last guard approached. The guard had let his
rifle hang around its strap and instead held up his fists in a
defensive stance. Brass knuckles glinted over the fingers of his
dark gloves.

Colton kicked out, aiming for the
guard’s knee, but a brass-knuckled fist shot down and knocked the
leg aside. The guard took a step back, waiting. Colton lunged
again—sloppy, he could feel it—and the guard deftly moved to the
side as Colton’s momentum carried him forward.

The guard grabbed Colton’s
outstretched arm and punched him twice in the side of his ribcage.
He kicked the back of Colton’s knees to send him to the ground,
then grabbed him by the hair and dragged him toward the machine.
Colton tried to twist the guard’s wrist as he slid across the floor
but the man was too strong.

The guard pulled Colton to his feet by
his hair and shoved him forward, then pushed him down to his
knees.

The other two guards dragged Corva’s
body next to Colton and dropped her on the ground.

Bernam looked down at her for a long
moment.

“
I said
alive
.”

“
She’s still breathing,”
said one of the guards.

Bernam’s gaze moved to Colton. He
frowned.

“
I thought you would be
dead by now,” he said. “You must be remarkably strong to survive so
long without your ability.” Realization dawned on his face and he
smiled. “Unless someone else gave you
theirs
.” He stood looking down at
Colton. “Pity it takes so long to get used to a transfusion, or
else you may have been able to help your friends.”

He walked over to Corva and used the
tip of his shoe to tilt her face to the side.

“
Pretty,” he said. “Am I
to understand that she has actually found her counterpart?” He
looked over at Alistair, who nodded. “The Russian,
correct?”

Colton clenched his teeth and looked
over at Reece, who still hung suspended from the
machine.

“
Oh!” said Bernam,
following Colton’s gaze. “I almost forgot. Alistair, help him down,
would you?”

Alistair stepped up to the platform
and unstrapped the heavy bindings. Reece slumped down to the ground
and groaned softly as Alistair dragged him to the floor.

Shelly ran over and knelt next to
Reece, resting his head in her lap. She looked at Colton
helplessly.

“
Some friend,” said Bernam
thoughtfully. “It took hardly any convincing to betray you, Colton.
Ask him about it if he ever wakes up. He still hates your guts.
Jealousy is an ugly, ugly thing. I tried to warn you.”

“
What did you do to him?”
asked Colton.

“
I did what I always do
with fools,” said Bernam. “I let him take the risk so that I can
take the reward. You were supposed to transport the Phoenix energy
back to the machine, and I daresay you would have been able to do
it without any of the long-term effects from which your friend
Reece here will suffer. Yet you denied your ability and chose
instead to side with the weak. That reminds me—did you get a chance
to say hello to your dear mother during your time with the
outcasts?”

Colton lunged forward but the guard
standing behind him cracked him in the skull with the butt of his
rifle. Colton fell to the floor on his stomach, his jaw bouncing
off the hard tile. He sat up and spat blood at Bernam’s
feet.

“
Why did you take her away
from me? Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?”

Bernam laughed. “The mouse does not
ask the lion ‘why’—he either runs away or he is eaten. Stupid boy,”
he said. “I’d like to kill you right now, but I need some guinea
pigs on which to test my new abilities. Still, there’s no reason to
deny others a little enjoyment. Shelly?”

He turned to Shelly and beckoned her
forward.

40

S
he rested Reece’s head on the floor and stood up, wiping her
palms nervously on the pockets of her jeans.

“
Come now, girl,” said
Bernam. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Shelly looked at Colton,
then at Bernam, and shook her head,
no
.

Bernam sighed. “Young love,” he said.
“You just can’t compete with it. Alistair…”

Alistair pushed Shelly to the floor
next to Corva. Her hands slipped in a small pool of blood by
Corva’s shoulder and she pushed herself back into one of the
guards, who kicked her forward and pressed the barrel of his rifle
to the back of her head.

“
You—you promised,” she
said.

“
I did, promise, yes,”
said Bernam. “And you believed me. You think I would let anyone
else have this power? The strength of both a Source and a Conduit,
without the need to rely on another to achieve it! Let it be a
lesson to you, young lady. You can’t rely on anyone but yourself in
this world.”

Bernam unbuttoned his suit jacket and
slid it off, draping it neatly over a chrome rail next to the
machine. He walked up onto the platform and turned back to face
Colton. He smiled as he reached up and grabbed the outsides of the
hanging restraints.

Alistair opened a small control panel
on the side of the machine and flipped three small
switches.

At first, nothing happened. Bernam
stood with his eyes closed, waiting. A moment later, his body
jerked forward as if he been kicked in the back.

Alistair stepped back from the machine
as it pulled black energy out of Bernam’s body. Thin wisps of black
smoke slithered out of his chest and spiraled up his arms and down
his legs, into the platform. The machine chugged harder as the
black matter moved across the tubes and disappeared into the metal
boxes.

“
What’s happening to him?”
shouted Colton over the noise.

Alistair ignored him and watched
Bernam intently. When the last of the black energy had been pulled
from Bernam’s body, he sank down onto the small platform and
breathed out heavily.