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All of the Garde were occupied with other Harvesters. Einar sighed. He reached into his attaché, pulled out his blaster and fired a concentrated burst of energy. Kopano ducked as the red-tinged beam sizzled by his head and right into the Harvester’s face.
Einar’s weapon was far from nonlethal; the Harvester fell dead, his face a charred mess. The blaster was Mogadorian in origin, a little collector’s item from the invasion. Einar relished any chance he got to use it.
“Who are—?” Kopano started to ask, his fists up.
“I’m your only friend,” Einar said, getting closer. He reached out to Kopano with his Legacy and filled the boy with feelings of affection and trust.
“Right!” Kopano said. “Yes! Good to see you!”
“All these people want to hurt us. All of them,” Einar said. “Hurt them before they can hurt us.”
Anger. Einar made it flow through Kopano. It was a simple chemical reaction—lower the serotonin, pump up the adrenaline. Especially easy with males, actually. Kopano’s eyes widened, his lips curled into a feral snarl, his fists clenched impossibly tight.
With a roar, Kopano whipped around and clotheslined the nearest Harvester. While that man gasped for breath in the dirt, Kopano lunged at a Caleb and punched the clone so hard that its head spun 180 degrees before it disappeared.
“Good boy,” Einar said.
Emotional manipulation. It wasn’t the flashiest Legacy, but it had its uses.
Kopano plowed through another pair of clones, then pummeled a fleeing Harvester. Everyone in the battle—Garde and Harvester—was now paying all their attention to the Nigerian.
Well, not everyone.
Einar took a moment too long admiring his handiwork. Something thudded at his feet. A glowing rock.
“Shit,” he said.
He felt a yank on the back of his jacket and let his body go limp. Just as Ran’s bomb exploded at his feet, Einar flew backwards on a telekinetic tether. He landed in the road, scraping his elbows. He’d been pulled backwards by Rabiya, who was hiding behind the tire of the broken-down station wagon they’d used as a roadblock. An unconscious Harvester was slumped next to her.
Einar cringed, fingering a tear in his jacket.
“I’m all dirty,” he complained.
“Yes. But you aren’t blown to pieces, so there’s that,” Rabiya scolded.
The two of them flinched as a motorcycle flew overhead, the bike obviously propelled by telekinesis and glowing with Ran’s kinetic energy. It fell right in the midst of the Harvesters riding in circles around the fight and exploded, knocking a few of them off their bikes and driving others to retreat.
“This is going poorly,” Rabiya observed. “We should have waited. It would’ve been easier to take her with the Peacekeepers than with these other Garde.”
“Hindsight,” Einar replied with a dismissive wave. “Besides, we don’t know if she was planning to return to the Academy. They could have been running away.”
Einar peeked out from behind the car. By the van, Kopano’s berserk rampage was slowing down a bit. Normally, it took a few minutes for Einar’s control to wear off, but the attack from Ran must have shaken his Legacy. He concentrated on Kopano and amped up his adrenaline, his rage, then smiled when the Nigerian smashed the heads of two Harvesters together with renewed ferocity.
“Kopano! Hey! What are you doing?”
That must be Caleb. The real Caleb. He stood in front of the larger boy, trying to calm him down. He couldn’t have known what Einar had done to Kopano’s mind, how it would take time for him to come down from the manipulations.
Kopano grabbed Caleb by the front of his shirt and flung him back-first into the windshield of the van. The glass crunched and spiderwebbed as Caleb bounced off it, tumbled over the hood and landed on the back of his head in the road. A moment later, the clones crowding the battlefield blinked out of existence.
“We make our move now,” Einar told Rabiya. “Get our exit ready.”
“Hurry, please,” Rabiya said. She extended her hands. A blue glow started to emanate from her palms.
Einar slipped out from behind the car, blaster pointed ahead of him. With the clones gone, he could see Taylor leaning over one of her friends. Who was that? He couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter. She was unconscious or dead. Probably dead, based on the dark red scars that covered her face and neck. One of the damned Harvesters must have burned her up. Taylor was focused on pouring healing energy into her, but from Einar’s perspective the effort seemed wasted.
As Einar scuttled towards Taylor, Nigel strode into the road and started to scream.
The decibel level was like nothing Einar had ever experienced. He doubled over and vomited, his head spinning. It felt like his eyes would bulge out of his head. The Harvesters who had remained standing during Kopano’s assault now fell over, writhing and clutching their ears.
So did Kopano. In fact, he took the brunt of Nigel’s scream. The attack seemed designed to bring him down.
Hand shaking, Einar managed to lift his blaster just high enough to shoot Nigel in the leg. The searing pain surprised him and cut off his scream. Nigel fell to his knees, but immediately started to get back up. Einar grabbed a rock with his telekinesis and flung it at Nigel’s head. The blow wasn’t enough to kill him, but it made certain that he wouldn’t cause any more sonic disruptions for at least a few minutes.
Einar felt a tugging sensation across his knuckles. A second later, his blaster was ripped out of his hand. He glanced to his right and saw Ran Takeda. Unlike the Harvesters, she was still on her feet. Einar glanced around for Rabiya but didn’t see her. She must have gone down when Nigel screamed. Einar struggled to his knees and watched as Ran stalked towards him.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A bullet grazed Ran’s shoulder. She dove for cover behind the van as Reverend Jimbo stepped onto the scene, his six-shooter blazing. He came with a small contingent of Harvesters. They seemed more concerned with gathering their injured than with pressing the fight against the Garde.
Thanks to the reverend’s distraction, Einar was able to scramble to his feet. The way to Taylor was clear. She’d been affected by the scream, too, and was wiping her eyes, trying to gather herself so she could go back to unsuccessfully healing her dead friend.
Einar pulled a tranquilizer gun from his attaché and shot Taylor in the neck. She slumped over.
“Finally,” Einar muttered.
Einar raised a hand, hoisting Taylor up with his telekinesis. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ran poke her head out from behind the van. He fired a dart in her direction, unsure whether it found its mark.
“Rabiya! Are you ready?” Einar yelled as he turned. He couldn’t be sure she heard him. The ringing in his own ears was thunderous.
The girl was back on her feet at least. Her headscarves were a mess, blood dampening one side of them. She must have fallen and hit her head on the station wagon’s bumper.
Rabiya extended her hands and focused. A stream of cobalt-blue energy flowed from her palms and struck the pavement. Slowly, the energy coalesced into a craggy pyramid of stone.
Loralite. Rabiya could produce the stuff at will. Now, all they had to do was envision the stone tucked away in Einar’s backyard, touch the Loralite and they’d be out of this mess.
“Deceivers!” Reverend Jimbo shouted. Einar could hear his booming voice even through the intense ringing. “We have been infiltrated by the abominations!”
The reverend had seen Rabiya using her Legacy. He’d likely also surmised that Einar was the one floating Taylor through the air.
The reverend pointed his revolver at Einar. Quickly, Einar yanked Taylor to him so that he was carrying the girl over her shoulder.
The reverend squeezed off a shot. Einar brushed it aside with his telekinesis.
He started to fire again.
Einar gripped the man’s arm with his telekinesis and twisted. The arm snapped at the elbow. Jimbo screamed. He still manag
ed to pull the trigger.
But the gun was aimed under his own chin.
The leader of the Harvesters collapsed, his head blown apart. His men recoiled in terror.
Einar couldn’t deny the satisfaction he felt at that.
He reached the stone just as Rabiya finished creating it. “Can we please get out of here?” she asked. She held out her hand to Einar. “Your place, right?”
The detached wheel of a motorcycle flung with telekinetic force struck Rabiya in the stomach. She doubled over and fell backwards. Einar glanced over his shoulder, saw Ran charging an object, saw Caleb stirring on the roadside, saw Nigel struggling back to his feet.
He looked down at Rabiya, catching her breath, now too far away from the stone. He started to reach out with his telekinesis.
A glowing rock floated in his direction.
One of the last Harvesters dove on top of Rabiya. He grabbed her and smashed her face into the pavement.
It was all happening too fast.
“I am sorry,” Einar said to Rabiya, although he was sure she couldn’t hear him. He touched the Loralite stone and, with Taylor, teleported himself to safety.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ISABELA SILVA
BIG BOX—STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA
ISABELA AWOKE SLOWLY, GROGGILY, LIKE SLIDING out from a pleasant dream. Her muscles were stiff, her back sore. It felt like she’d been sleeping for a long time. Where was she? In bed at the Academy? Back home? She smelled breakfast. Her mother must be cooking. She yawned luxuriously.
Someone gently shook her shoulders.
“Isabela. Isabela.” Ran’s voice. “Wake up, now. It is time to go.”
