The Sway (17 page)

“Stand up,” he said in an eerily calm voice.

It was the guy from the elevator, the one flirting with me. He released my foot and gripped my arm, so much so that I would have a bruise. My ankle toppled over the side of my heel, making me stumble. He still had his gun aimed at me.

“What is she to you? You don't need her. She can't even do anything,” Harrison said as he slowly inched forward.

My captor pointed the gun at Harrison's head.

“We both know that's a lie, mate. It's not personal, love. I'm just following orders,” he said.

A pop reverberated through the room, and Harrison was struggling to wrestle the gun away from my captor. Enough of a distraction that he lost his grip on my arm in breaking his hold. I stepped back toward the balcony. It was the only scenario at this point. A shot rang out, and a piece of the ceiling from the hotel crumbled around Harrison. Another shot went off, and I watched in horror as Harrison's white shirt was soaked up in crimson blood.

The guy turned toward me. “I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to. You are fantastic to look at.” He backed me up to the railing. “No hard feelings, eh?”

His British accent made his words sound harsh. He moved to my feet; I hadn't been anticipating that. I had been wrong. The situation didn't turn in my benefit for the first time.

I gripped the railing with both hands as he held the gun against my forehead.

“Your choice, love. Shot in the head or fall to your death.”

My throat had dried out, and I didn't have the words to answer in retort. I saw Harrison slowly stand behind the man as he held a finger to his lips. He motioned for me to let go.

So I did.

T
he cool night
air rushed past my skin. My dress fluttered against the pressure of my fall. Another gun shot rang out into the quiet night air. But it wasn't quiet at all. Horns were honking. People on the street were yelling. Were these going to be my last thoughts? I frantically looked around for a solution to my fall, thinking of my parents, of James, of Cole. God, Cole was going to be so pissed at me. If I would have let him come up to the room with me…

A pop sounded right in front of my face. I thought for sure the crack would come from my back snapping against the concrete.

“Julia, this worked once. Ready to try again?”

Blood was dripping from the corners of Harrison's mouth, and his white shirt collar stood out in comparison to the stark crimson staining his shirt.

“Harrison?”

I was being squeezed through a sponge. My body was liquid and everything around me swirled in varying colors of lights and sounds. My lungs didn't allow for me to drink up any oxygen. I was moving too fast to take any breaths. Harrison was saying something. Asking something. I was supposed to respond but I didn't have the energy

“Julia.” Cole yelled in a voice that I hadn't heard, for it echoed only fear.

“Harrison, what happened?” Cole asked.

It was like I was floating above my body, experiencing the scene from the perspective of the crystal chandelier in the ballroom. The ballroom? How had I gotten to the ballroom?

“Holy hell.” I sat straight up, and the room spun two-hundred and seventy-two million times its normal pace by my rough estimate. “Harrison?”

I crawled in the direction of his body. His ears had blood leaking out of the sides. Cole was holding his hand against a wound to Harrison's stomach.

Harrison scanned me with his eyes. I couldn't believe he was even conscious; he had to have lost too much blood. Hank rushed into the room. He kneeled by Harrison's head and gently stroked his hair, like this was his own child. Energy cracked throughout the room. Natalia zipped in next to me and started checking me over.

“I'm fine.” I swatted her hands off of me.

Harrison's form started to flicker, one resounding pop noisy in the silent ballroom. The only trace left of Harrison was the blood on the tile floor. My face was wet. Sloppy, ugly tears streamed off my false lashes.

“Oh, god.” I wiped my hand across my face, only to have it come back with a mix of blood and black-smudged makeup.

“You're bleeding,” Cole said quietly.

I shook my head slowly. “No. This is Harrison's blood.”

The words felt heavy coming out of my mouth, like cotton balls had been stuffed into my cheeks. My tongue was weighed down and had magically grown to press against the roof of my mouth.

“Love you,” I tried to say to Cole. The bright lights of the ballroom faded into a glorious blackness.

Heavy breathing and a warm, strong chest hugged me tightly. “Can't breathe,” I whispered out.

“Baby. Julia!” Cole leaned back with tears running down his cheeks.

“Shh. I'm here. I think I just short-circuited or something.” I laughed, trying to make Cole worry less. I realized we were moving and glanced up to see the sconces in the hall and Hank holding open the door to their suite. Some sort of form was zipping around the room making a neat pile of clothes into luggage. Damn, that girl was fast.

“Julia, are you well enough to travel?” Hank asked from somewhere in my near vicinity. I started wiggling myself out of Cole's arms and he sighed but gently placed me on my feet, while still keeping an arm around me.

“I'm okay. I think my brain was in overload mode. Where's Harrison? Did he…? Have you found him?” I asked awkwardly, not knowing how to phrase the question in the appropriate way. I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. A rush of calm tranquility pulsed over my senses, allowing me to have clarity for the first time since leaving New York. I turned to Cole and placed my hand on his cheek. He leaned into it and then turned to kiss my palm.

“I will always take care of you,” he whispered in my hair.

“You two might want to change. Preferably into something dark, and Julia, you need to tuck your hair away. We are going to have to dye it on our way to Africa,” Hank said as he popped the buttons open on his dress shirt. Natalia was zipping around the room but paused for one point three seconds to hand me a small backpack. Cole was holding an identical one.

“The assassin. We've been made,” I stumbled out.

“We know, dear. That's why we're going. You can change in the bathroom.” Hank motioned toward the massive bedroom of the suite. Cole followed behind me. How easily I forgot that Hank could read my every thought.

“Cole, stay behind a moment, please.” Hank's voice was calm and clear and thick like the ice of a frozen lake in a Russian winter.

I shuffled to the bathroom, still trying to gather my bearings, then turned back to the Thomas men.

“You never told me if Harrison was okay,” I said quietly, in a voice so unlike my own that I didn't recognize it.

Hank met my eyes. Pain and grief laced through his expression, and he slowly shook his head.

“I don't know. We don't have any information on him yet. We don't know where he transported to.”

Hank said the words slowly, addressing me like a child. I turned over my shoulder and walked mindlessly to the bathroom, closing the door and locking it. Hank didn't say if I had time for a shower, but after a quick glance in the mirror, I knew I had to get one in.

I managed a scalding hot shower in under three minutes. My skin was red and raw from scrubbing off Harrison's blood.

“Julia, time to go,” Hank yelled from the other room.

I twisted my wet hair into a knot at the base of my head and pulled a black beanie down over my ears, then put in colored contacts and a pair of square-framed glasses without a prescription. I left my tarnished sequin dress on the floor, wishing it could have seen a happier ending.

Quade was standing next to Cole and Hank. Both Thomas men were looking at him with serious intent. He had his eyes closed and was flipping his fingers in various directions, sometimes like he was turning a tuning knob.

“What's—?” I got shushed before the rest of my sentence even got out. I held my hands up and walked to stand with the group staring at Quade, who could also have been doing some form of interpretive dance.

“Nothing. I'm not getting any signals from the compound,” Quade finally said.

Hank's shoulders dropped. Worry lines etched into his forehead. He was making a decision, one he didn't like.

“We're going to have to wait until we are finished here to find Harrison. It's our only option. We can't risk the world for one. Harrison wouldn't want that.”

Quade nodded and swallowed audibly.

“All right, then. Let's load up,” Hank said with a clap of his hands.

Hank said that like it would be easy. Like we could just zip out of here past whoever had just tried to kill me.

“Hank.” I took a deep breath. “Is it crazy to think that the people who tried to kill me tonight are the same people that caused the car accident in New York?”

He glanced toward Cole and Quade nodded once. “We have reason to believe that they are from the same group, yes.”

I lifted my head and met Hank's eyes. “What aren't you telling me? Why are they trying to kill me?”

He looked at the ground and shifted from his left foot to his right foot. He brought his hands together and gripped them tightly in a clasp, parts of his hands turning white from his grip.

“Your ability,” Cole said quietly.

“What about my ability?”

“You know how we can accelerate abilities to make them more?” Hank asked with a wave of his hand.

I nodded back at him, signaling him to go on.

“Well, when we ran your blood panel, we found out what would happen if we accelerated your ability,” Hank said as he finally released his hands so they returned to their rightful fleshy color.

“What am I?” I asked, staring holes into Hank.

“It's not so much what you are, but what you can do. I first thought to test you for it after you and Harrison transported together in the Bahamas.”

I could tell his mind was wandering. I snapped my fingers in front of his face.

“Right, Julia, you can not only calculate situations but in addition, when necessary, you can absorb or borrow abilities to also serve in your benefit.”

I backed myself up until the backs of my legs hit a chair and I slammed down, putting my head in my hands. If I wasn't already freakish enough to be a government agent before I was legally an adult, I was also a human situation calculator. Add to that the fact that when I magnified to my fullest potential, I could do whatever the hell I needed to, so long as I was the beneficiary of the outcome.

I saw Hank's shoes through my fingers.

“That's an accurate assessment,” he said.

Stupid asshat mind readers
, I yelled in my head.

“Although you aren't a freak. You're beyond powerful. I've never in my experience met a Transcendent who manifested abilities at both a Level One and Level Two. I guess you might need your own category, possibly a Level Three.”

“Great, because I love needing my own category, not fitting into any normal boxes. No cheerleading uniform or homecoming queen for me. Nope. I get to be a Level Five certified Transcendent freak of nature. Wohoo,” I replied sardonically.

“I said three, Julia, not five.”

I stuck out my tongue at him.

Cole's shoes appeared next to his dad's. His fingers drifted along my shoulder and tickled along my neck. “Homecoming queens are boring and predictable. You're smart, funny, and special. I'd take you over the cheerleader any day.”

I peeked up from my hands and quirked my lips to the side. He held his hand out to me. We linked fingers and he pulled me up.

“Put on your big girl boots, Caldwell. You're due for some ability-enhancing shots, and we have to cancel the launch codes in the next twenty-four hours. Just another day for a Level Three freak,” he said through the boy-next-door smile that I adored.

“I hate shots,” I grumbled out. “But if the shots are for the greater good of all humanity, I guess I will just have to suck it up.”

“That's the spirit,” Hank said halfheartedly.

“We have a window. Hank, you and I need to go now through the main lobby with Cole. Natalia, you wait two minutes, then you get yourself and Julia down the housekeeping stairs. Yes?”

Quade rattled off instructions quickly. Everyone nodded toward him in unison. Cole swooped down and kissed me slow and soft, until Hank cleared his throat.

“Now, Cole,” Hank said.

Cole pursed his lips and winked at me.

“See you soon, baby,” he said while picking up a leather duffle.

“Soon,” I said.

A
frica was
colder than I had imagined it would be. I'd pictured scorching deserts and sand dunes and huge dust storms. It was cold, though. Okay, it wasn't that cold, and way warmer than anywhere else I had been.

“Why am I so cold?” I asked through chattering teeth.

“That would be the transcendent accelerator,” Quade replied while swiping at some imaginary screen. “Feels like freaking ice in your veins.”

I looked out into the darkness as Cole tugged me into his side. Our car lights were the limit of lights on the bumpy dirt road we traveled down. It was the kind of dark a New Yorker would never know. Hell, even a girl from small-town Utah would never know this one. The darkness was deafening; it invaded all of my senses. I was jumpy, and butterflies with spikes on their wings tried to fight their way up my throat.

“We're almost there,” Hank yelled from the front passenger seat. “Julia, I need you to try and borrow Quade's ability.”

“Why? He does fine on his own.”

Hank turned around.

“Let me rephrase. If you don't have Quade's ability coupled with your own, there is no way we are going to be able to get into this facility to stop the launch codes,” he spat out.

I sat up a little straighter and looked at him.

“We're a team, Hank. We each have a part to play. Just because I can absorb powers doesn't mean I should I need Quade's. I need to be able to focus. If I get overloaded, I will shut down. Like I did when Harrison—” I choked over his name. We still hadn't heard from him. “When Harrison and I transported,” I finished quietly.

I knew I was right; I could feel it in my bones. If I took on too much, I would have a fried circuit board.

Hank rolled his eyes at me, acting like an ass-hat. I thought the words at Hank, hoping he would know how dumb he was being.

“Julia, understand if we need you to perform and you screw up, it could be the end for a majority of humanity. That will be on your shoulders.”

My jaw popped open and Cole leaned forward.

“How dare you put this all on Julia? We are all going to try and help and do our best. But if, heaven forbid, we don't pull this off, that will not be Julia's fault. It will be Letum's for deciding that they wanted to change the damn world. It will be on you, for playing into their plans for far too long,” Cole replied coolly.

“Guys,” Quade said loudly. “We're here.”

We crested a hill and through the darkness made out green lights that dotted various points on the ground.

“Natalia, stop the car,” I said quickly. She hit the brakes in haste, causing me to grip the ‘oh shit' handle on the ceiling. I didn't know why we needed to stop, but I knew if we didn't, we wouldn't even have a chance of getting into the facility.

“Nice.” Quade turned invisible knobs and swiped across invisible screens. The human transmitter picker upper was beyond weird but an insanely effective ability.

“There is a weight limit. We would have set off the alarms,” he said with a laugh, like something about his statement was funny.

“Natalia, can you carry Quade with you?” Hank asked.

She shrugged and blew a pink bubble from her gum. “Sure,” she said through chomping on her bubbles.

Hank took a breath. “Julia, can you bring Cole with you?”

“Assuming that this ice juice has made me certified Level Five freak status, then I can't see why not,” I said through a fake smile.

“That's the spirit,” Hank said sarcastically. “All right, you all need to drop you shields. Be vigilant. Be—” he took a shaky breath, “—hell, you guys know. Good luck. Come back in one piece. You are all like my own kids,” he said, staring at Cole. “God speed.”

“Thanks, Hanky,” Natalia spat out with an overwhelming Russian accent.

Quade nodded in Hank's direction and gripped his shoulder before opening the car door and joining Natalia outside. I crawled out from the backseat and smiled briefly at Hank.
I can do this. I've got your boy
, I thought at him. His eyes glassed over with unshed tears. Cole leaned forward and hugged his dad. After a moment, Hank leaned back and gripped the back of Cole's neck.

“I love you. I'll see you soon. You make me proud, Cole. Every day, you make me proud.”

Cole nodded and slid out of the car.

My brain buzzed as I dropped my heavily armored mind shields.
Everyone open for business?
Hank's voice rang out in my head. By the looks on the team's collective faces, we were all connected via Hank.

Natalia reached for my hand. “You ready?”

I nodded, unsure of what to expect. She gripped my hand and an electric current zinged through my entire body, like I was being lit up brighter than the Vegas strip. It felt like my blood pumped faster; I could see movement around me, mosquitoes silently zipping through the night.

“Whoa!”

She released my hands. “I know,” came her heavily accented voice.

“Let's do this,” I said, allowing intuition and Transcendent mojo to take over my senses. I held out my hand for Cole and we linked fingers.

“On three,” Natalia said “One, two, three.”

I was flying. I had to be.

“Holy shit,” I whispered out, or maybe I yelled? My voice threw differently traveling at the speed of sound. The world swirled into a rainbow of darkness around me, but I still had a keen awareness of every obstacle our route held. We got to the first set of scattered neon green lights. Natalia slowed, coming to a stop directly in front of the fourth light, which, apparently, wasn't a dot, but rather a light bulb the size of a football.

Quade squatted down and did the weird thing with his hands. I wondered how many people in his life had told him he was crazy before Hank recruited him.

He was institutionalized
, Hank's voice said softly in my head.

Right, walls down
.

His parents threw him in his first facility at the age of six after two years of intense therapy. They diagnosed him with multiple personality disorder. I found him when he was ten,
Hank said.

Is this line closed?

Of course.

The familiar buzz emitted in my brain.

How's it going, Quade?
Hank asked.

“Almost.” He flipped his wrist over and grunted under his breath. “Got it,” he said with the flick of his wrist.

An eight-inch metal panel slid open from the ground, revealing a ladder that led into straight darkness.

“Bottom's up,” I said, holding onto Cole as I started to descend the ladder at lightning speed. I could vaguely hear Natalia laughing behind me. I wish I had a flashlight.

We reached a concrete floor and when my feet hit, my bones jarred from the impact.

When one can't see the bottom of said ladder, an unexpected landing kills one's joints
. I heard a laugh from deep in my brain.
Hi, Hank.

“What now?” I asked as Natalia and Quade crumbled to the hard ground. Quade stood up and brushed himself off and began feeling along the concrete walls.

“Here we are,” he said, before a dull green light lit up the little hole we were in.

This part is crucial. Getting from here to the launch room undetected is imperative
, Hank buzzed.

Everything is critical. The whole freaking world depends on us not to screw up. Stop stressing the importance and let us do this
, I thought toward Hank.

“Tell us what you really think,” Natalia said with a laugh.

“Oops, that was for Hank.” I shrugged. “Mind reading must rub off on me easy.”

Can you all hear me?
Hank buzzed. Everyone nodded.

Yep, we all can,
I thought out.

“I don't know if I like two people in my head,” Quade said while furrowing his bushy brows in my direction.

I apologize,
I thought at him and plastered a goofy grin on my face.

You need to move twenty feet down the hall. Wait thirty seconds and then take your second left. From there, you will have forty-five seconds to get to the fourth door on the right. Quade will get you past security. Once inside the launch room, you will have sixty seconds to relay the codes we got in Prague. Quade, for the one code we missed, do your best to jam the system and override. Hopefully, we can bypass. We have to try. If you encounter a guard, Cole will emotionally blind them. Ready? In three, two, one.
Hank said.

We had to try. Because, you know, the world and all. The door buzzed and we moved through the hall at lightning pace, beating the internal timer I had going by a good fifteen seconds. The next forty-five seconds proved the longest of my entire life. It had to have lasted as long as the countdown to Christmas seen through the eyes of a child.

We moved down the hall and made the left, in time to come face-to-face with a guard the color of a pomegranate.
What the hell?
Cole reached for the guy's head, and moments later, he was curled in a ball on the floor, shaking back and forth My eyes went wide. Pushing emotions was way more badass than I had first thought. I nodded at Cole and mouthed “nice.” He shook his head but quirked a smile my way.

We zipped through the remainder of the hall and stopped in front of the fourth door. Quade reached into his pocket and took out a plastic container. “What—”

Shhhhhh
, Hank buzzed in my head.

Quade took out a white ball that had blood on it.

“Retina scan verified,” sang out the robot woman's voice.

I shivered involuntarily.
Sick
.

“Desperate times,” Natalia said nodding to the needles she held in each hand while the door buzzed open for us.

There were two guards inside the launch room. By the time they had reached for their guns, Natalia had already jammed a needle into their necks.

They took a nap. Quade secured the door and then turned to me. “Ready to come to my world?”

I gulped and nodded. “Why the hell not?”

We gripped forearms.

When I opened my eyes, it was like having thirty browsers open on a computer. My ears started buzzing with varying frequencies of radio waves. My shoulders quaked as the information started to overload my brain.

Cole was instantly behind me, rubbing my shoulders as he pushed a calm relief through my body. He was the yin to my overactive yang. I took an audible breath and focused on the shimmering screens in front of me. I started pushing at them until I found a password to get into one of the four launch computers. Quade was already sitting at the first station.

I started at the opposite end of the room. I swiped my fingers against the screen that showed the feed of the keyboard I was at. I mimicked the person's keystroke timing, so I wouldn't disrupt the finite system. It dinged.
Success
, I thought while fist-pumping the air.

“You have to let it happen,” a woman's voice echoed throughout the small room.

Oh, shit. That voice was not a voice of someone on this team. I glanced around the room.

The last code entry station was now armed and counting down. A siren blared and a soft smoke started to fill the room.

“Mom?” Cole said. “Jules, I swear that was my mom's voice.”

I threw up my walls so Hank couldn't see my thoughts. Was she here? I felt pressure against my neck and started choking and coughing. Cole ran over to me and swiped at the air.

I could see the shimmer of a figure dancing behind Cole.

“The world needs this. It will be a better world for you, Cole,” she said.

Julia, find her. Bring her home,
Hank yelled in my head.
Get my wife for me,
he pleaded.

My eyes scanned the room. I caught sight of the faint shimmer near the back corner housing a huge computer server. I tapped into my Natalia-speedy power and flew to her, gripping her arms. I heard Quade frantically tapping on the keyboard as it was counting down from ten.

“Mom?” Cole asked, stunned.

“Cole, I need you. Right now. I need you to look at me,” I said, speaking in a slow, monotone pattern. I turned over my shoulder to him, and he glanced in my direction once before quickly staring back at his mom. “Eyes on me, baby.”

He looked back at me.

I forced my way into Cole's head. I'm not sure how or why, but I did.
You need to incapacitate her, Cole. You have to do this. It's the only way.

The look on his face darkened. He took two slow, calculated steps toward his mom and held his arms open.

“I've missed you, honey,” she said, leaning toward Cole. He reached for her and a tear slipped down his cheek.

“I've missed you, too,” he said as he touched her face.

She crumbled to the ground.

“Launch series activated,” blared the deceivingly friendly voice from the computer.

“Quade!”

“I think I can still cancel it. Give me a minute.”

“We don't have a minute!” I yelled frantically.

We may need the government to intercept the missiles, Hank. Your wife activated a set of launch strikes.

“Out of my way, human computer.” Natalia's Russian accent got thicker in times of stress, or so it seemed. She clicked off two of the blinking sites from the screen. Deactivated. She had cleared off the names of Russia and Johannesburg. There was only one lit up in solid red—Singapore.

“Acquiring target. Estimated death toll, approximately three point four million,” the polite computer sang out, like it wasn't announcing the end of human lives.

Quade let out a four-letter expletive. The one I still hadn't said, to this day. If I ever would say it, now would've been a good time.

“Yeah, that,” I said.

Natalia barked out a laugh. This
so
wasn't a laughing matter, though.

Natalia and Quade put a hand to their heads as a buzz snaked up my spine.

The president has ordered an airstrike on the missile headed for Singapore
, Hank thought out.