The Rift (12 page)

Pieter drove them back into town. They pulled
off the freeway and headed for Gloria’s house.

“
This where your family lives?”
Neil asked.

“
It’s where my foster parents are,”
Gloria said.

Vero was glad to finally have the rumor
confirmed. Neil seemed shocked. “Foster? Wait, your mom’s dead,
but… you didn’t tell us…”

“
It’s not something I go around
broadcasting.”

Neil sighed. His head hit the back of Vero’s
seat. “I’m sorry.”

“
It’s been eight years. I’m fine.”
Gloria shut the car door and walked toward the house. She didn’t
look back.

Pieter slapped his friend’s leg.
“Nice.”

Neil put his face in his hands. “Why’s this
always happen to me?”

“
Hey, look at that,” Pieter said as
a white minivan blew through a stop sign and turned down another
residential street.

“
I think I saw that car on the
freeway,” Neil said.

“
Was it following us?”

“
No. At least, not directly. It was
in another lane.”

Pieter drove up to the stop sign and turned
onto the same street.

“
You’re headed the wrong way,” Vero
said.

“
I want to see where that van went.
I don’t like that it followed us.”

The van could have taken about four different
side roads down the street in front of them.

Vero’s stomach rumbled. “No sign of it, yeah?
Come on. You’re just being paranoid.”

“
Paranoid people survive,” Neil
said.

Their car came up to a stop sign. Vero checked
the cross streets but didn’t see the van. “Look, it’s gone,” Vero
said. “We couldn’t find it now if we wanted. Besides, if somebody
was following us, they just lost our trail, too, right?”

“
I’ll text Gloria to at least let
her know,” Neil said. “Not much more we can do. I’m hungry,
too.”

After dropping Neil off at his place across
town, Pieter and Vero waited in the car.

“
Finally, alone,” Pieter said. “You
want to hang?”

Trust Pieter to have a date planned. Something
burned inside; this time, it wasn’t Diotein. “We still get to do
that? Jed might be lurking just around the corner…”

“
Well, he’ll have to wait,
yeah?”

“
Yeah.”

They drove toward downtown.

Vero pulled out her phone and powered it on.
She kept it off in the canyon, as having no reception seemed to
kill her battery. Twenty-six messages waited. Kristin had broken up
with her boyfriend, again, and needed comfort. Everyone’s replies
to the group text filled her inbox.

The phone vibrated in her hand. She expected
something else about the breakup, but it was Gloria.

Just one word: “Help.”

“
Look at this,” Vero
said.

“‘
Help?’” Pieter muttered. “What
could she need help for? She’s got a soul armor.”

Realization dawned on his face. Pieter flicked
his left blinker on and made a fast, illegal U-turn. “Call Neil,
fast,” he said, an edge of fear in his voice.

After a few rings, Neil’s voice greeted Vero.
“Welcome to the voyages of the starship Neil’s phone. Our mission,
to boldly record what no…”

“
Voicemail.”

“
Tell him to get to Gloria’s.
Now.”

As Pieter rushed through a past-yellow light,
Vero said into the phone, “Gloria texted us. We think she’s in
trouble. Get to her place!”

Vero grabbed their masks out of the backseat as
Pieter rolled through a stop sign. She put hers on and tossed the
other on her boyfriend’s lap. A few blocks later, they arrived and
found that white minivan in front of Gloria’s place, under the glow
of a street light, parked a chasm away from the curb. Vero’s
insides lurched. Had her desire for dinner just killed her friend?
Gloria’s front door stood wide open.

“
I’m an idiot,” Pieter said,
pulling his mask on. They leaped out of the car.

In the distance, a golden glow flew through the
air. She recognized the armor’s hue as Gloria’s. It soared away
from them, over a row of houses. Two lights followed
her.

They grabbed their weapons out of Pieter’s
trunk. “Go!” he shouted.

Vero leaped onto Gloria’s single-story roof.
About a block away, the three lights fell to the ground. Vero
jumped across a street, her legs and arms sluggish. Her very core
protested using Diotein again. She landed on another rooftop, and a
thud told her that Pieter had landed beside her.

Under a shaggy mulberry tree, Gloria lay in an
overgrown lawn with Dek on top of her, one hand on her neck and the
other holding his mace. She wore the bunny mask, wrinkled, as
though put it on in a hurry. Her staff lay just out of
reach.

“
How nice to see you again,” Jed
said to Gloria.

Pieter leaped off the roof toward Jed and
shouted, “Hey, ugly!”

Jed flipped around and swatted the sword away.
“Oh, two more? Looks like you couldn’t wait your turn.”

Pieter lunged. “And stab you? I’ve been dying
to for weeks now.”

Vero jumped down and aimed for Dek, who rolled
to his feet. Gloria grabbed her staff and hid behind
Vero.

Pieter parried a slash then sprang back to
stand next to the girls. “You followed us, didn’t you?”

“
Of course.”

“
How’d you find us?”

“
Wouldn’t you like to know that
little secret?”

Vero’s phone vibrated. She held her axe in one
hand and glanced at the screen. A message from Neil; she didn’t
risk checking it and hoped he’d arrived at Gloria’s
place.

“
Tonight, I bathe in your blood,”
Jed said.

“
Explaining why you smell as bad as
you look,” Pieter replied.

Gloria swung her staff down. The mulberry tree
uprooted itself and crashed onto the two Ruachians. Voices shouted
from somewhere inside the house.

“
Run!” Pieter yelled.

As they leaped onto the roof, Vero said,
“Neil’s here.”

“
Back to Gloria’s, then,” Pieter
said.

Vero jumped again, this time aiming for
Gloria’s. Beneath, she saw little flames flickering in an untended
barbeque. It gave her an idea.

“
Nice work with the tree, Glori,”
Vero said as they sailed through the air.

“
Hey, I may not be good hand to
hand, but don’t call me useless.”

“
Yeah, I mean, have you tasted the
burritos at Bueno Taco? This girl can cook,” Pieter
said.

They landed on Gloria’s driveway and saw Neil
standing next to his car, wearing his Batman mask and staring at
his phone.

“
Finally,” he said. “Where have you
been? What happened?”

“
Jed’s right behind us,” Pieter
said. “Get ready to fight.”

Neil waved them into the car. “No, it’s an
awful time to fight. We’ve been training all day. Into my
car!”

“
Do it,” Pieter agreed, taking
shotgun.

Vero and Gloria piled in back, and Neil took
off just as Jed and Dek landed behind them. The soldiers jumped
again, and Vero lost sight of them.

“
Disable your armors,” Neil said.
“We’ve already used a lot of strength today. We have to conserve
our energy. We either need to escape or make this a quick
fight.”

Vero released her armor; exhaustion washed over
her.

Neil slowed at an upcoming stop
sign.

“
Gun it!” Pieter yelled. “This
isn’t driver’s ed.”

Neil blew through the intersection, barely
missing a tiny electric car.

“
Get us to the closest gas
station,” Vero said.

“
I know. I have to pee, too,”
Pieter said. No one laughed.

“
Just do it,” Vero said.

“
Why?” Neil asked.

“
Remember me in the
campfire?”

Vero looked out the back window and saw Jed and
Dek land half a block behind them. Jed raised his sword and paused
for a moment. Vero felt some kind of energy building.

Vero turned back to Neil. “He’s about to do
something.”

“
Something? That’s real helpful,”
Neil said. The car swerved as they turned a corner.

Behind them, the asphalt splintered and
cracked. “He threw something along the ground,” she said, unsure
exactly what that had happened. When she turned back to look again,
the two Ruachians had vanished.

“
Almost there,” Neil said,
accelerating.

“
Good,” Vero said. She gripped her
axe.

The entire car shook as Dek landed on the hood.
He raised his mace and swung it into the front fender. It dug into
the guts of the engine with an ugly, screeching sound. The steady
rumble of the car stopped.

“
Out,” Pieter commanded.

Their armors lit up. The air shook like a huge
subwoofer, and windows shattered. Vero pushed her car door open and
launched herself onto the sidewalk. They stood under the
streetlights of a quiet neighborhood street next to a park. Dek
jumped back to Jed.

“
Just a couple blocks,” Pieter said
to Vero. “We’ll hold them, but get back here quick.”

Vero ran, her armor empowering her. A tall red
sign with the words
Trex Gas
towered over a well-lit parking
lot. At the sight of two cars filling up, she realized, really
realized, that she planned to start a fire. She stopped, breath
heavy and warm inside her mask.

The faint sound of clashing metal caught up to
her. They needed her. Needed her to do something—and fast. She
dashed into the lot.

“
I’m gonna blow up this gas
station,” Vero shouted uncertainly. “Get out of here.”

The man and woman fueling their cars stared at
her. “You drunk or something?” the guy asked.

“
No, quite sober,” Vero replied.
She chopped a nearby trashcan into two pieces; water from the
embedded squeegee bin spilled onto the ground. “Get outta
here!”

Vero grabbed the pump from the guy, who jumped
into his car and sped away. She turned to the lady.

“
Didn’t you hear me?”

The lady, middle aged and well dressed, gave a
concerned look. “Girl, I don’t know what’s going on, but if you’re
in some kind of crisis…”

Vero ripped the pump away and pointed her axe
at the woman. “Drive away!”

The compassion turned to fear, and the woman
jumped into her car and sped out of the parking lot. Vero dropped
her axe, held two gas nozzles high, and pressed the
handles.

Both gave empty clicks.

She glanced at the displays in the closest
pump. They should still be working from those customers. She tried
the triggers again and heard the same empty clicks.

All right, some kind of safety mechanism. But
she could beat it. She dropped one nozzle and pressed against the
rubber piece surrounding the spout of the other, just like if it
was pressed into a gas tank. That did it; it shot a stream, and the
stench of gasoline filled the air.

An attendant rushed out. “What are you
doing?”

“
Making a fire,” Vero replied.
“Better run.”

He glanced for the big red emergency shutoff
button.

She picked up her axe and charged toward him.
“Touch it and die!”

He glanced at the shutoff for just an instant
then ran. Vero returned to the pump and covered the area with
gas.

Now, how to light it? Diotein rested at her
feet. Duh. She picked it up and struck the octane
puddle.

A boom nearly knocked her deaf, and the
explosion propelled her backward, a blinding flash consuming her
vision. Glass shattered around her, and when she came to a stop,
she found herself inside the station building, wedged into a row of
shelves. She pushed herself to her feet, the world spinning and
lurching a bit as she did. Melted chocolate dripped from her body
as she stumbled out into the inferno near the pumps.

Inside the blaze, the world stopped spinning.
She spread out her arms and breathed deeply. In her ears, nothing
but the roar of fire. In her eyes, nothing but its towering flames.
In her sinews, nothing but its raw energy. She clutched
Diotein.

Vero jumped from the blaze with the ferocity of
a tiger and sailed over two blocks of houses, cold air flowing
around her. She looked down and noticed that the fight had moved.
Soul armor lights danced in the darkness of the park. She landed on
a nearby sidewalk and jumped again.

Gloria fought desperately to keep Jed at bay.
Pieter stood back with one bloody hand on his stomach, sword
clutched in his other. Neil lay on the ground beneath Dek, his
armor off, his weapon at his side. The wildian lifted his
mace.