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He was cut off by a high-pitched whistle.
A missile. Its smoky tail leaving a trail that led back to the cable car.
Nigel knew his mom had posted someone up there. Someone with a bloody rocket.
They all stopped to watch the impending destruction.
It wasn’t heading for their battlefield, though.
The rocket made a fiery red-and-orange blossom when it struck Sydal’s saucer. The silver disk teetered, wobbled back and forth, black smoke snaking up from its engine. Then, with a burst of crimson light from the thrusters, a second explosion split the craft in two, the glittering chunks crashing down into the Alps.
“We . . . ,” Einar breathed. “We are going to be blamed for this.”
Nigel turned to look at his mother in horror. This was her plan.
She had arranged to make this deal with Sydal—a powerful man, a public figure, a supposed ally of Earth Garde.
And at the same time, she’d been dropping breadcrumbs for Einar, luring him here.
She had engineered this whole confrontation to kill Sydal. But why?
What had she said before?
There were fortunes to be made through chaos.
Bea wasn’t on the ground anymore. She wasn’t cowering. In fact, while all the others had been distracted by the missile strike, she had drawn a small pistol from inside her coat.
The pistol she used to shoot Einar in the throat.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE BATTLE OF ENGELBERG
ENGELBERG, SWITZERLAND
NIGEL COULDN’T EXPLAIN WHY HE DID IT. HE hated Einar. The bastard had dredged up some of the worst memories of his life, used them to make Nigel feel weak and helpless, nearly killed him.
But Nigel’s family had been making him feel weak and helpless all his life.
As Bea pulled the trigger a second time, Nigel used his telekinesis to rip her gun away.
Einar groped at his throat, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Blood poured in a fountain down his shirtfront. He opened his mouth to speak and a bubble of dark crimson came out.
He clamped a hand over the wound and fell down.
“Am I . . . ?” he managed to say. “Am I dying?”
Even at this distance, Isabela could feel the heat rolling off the wreckage of Sydal’s spacecraft. One of those Blackstone mercenaries must have shot it down. What kind of game was Nigel’s mother playing?
She didn’t have time to think about that. Melanie was wailing at the sight of the explosion, Daniela was trying to console her and Caleb was breathing laboriously through his smashed face.
But that wasn’t what drew Isabela’s attention.
Although still suspended by Daniela’s rocky protrusion, Five had shaken off the effects of Melanie’s vicious blow to his head. His breathing now came in quick rasps that reminded Isabela of a bull penned up before release. As she watched, a bit of froth fell from his lips.
Five dangled directly above the contents of Sydal’s briefcase.
“This . . . ,” Five spoke through his teeth. “This is what they’re selling? This? THIS?”
In a blur of motion, Five pulled himself up and bashed his way free of Daniela’s stone bond. Floating now, he let out a roar and plummeted straight down at Daniela. She barely had time to turn around before Five was on her, hitting her in the sternum with both fists. He slammed her to the ground with enough force that Isabela heard the girl’s ribs break.
“Daniela!” Melanie shouted. There were tears on her cheeks, but she still managed to lunge at Five.
Five took to the air, floating over Melanie’s outstretched arms. As she stumbled past, he spun and slammed his knees into her back, running her towards Daniela’s wall of stone. Melanie had time to scream before Five slammed her head first into the rock and she went limp.
Breathing raggedly, Five floated above them all. He grabbed the vials of black goop that had set him off—Isabela noticed how the empty obsidian color matched the splotches of dead skin on Five’s body. The vials spun around him, under his control. He glared down at Isabela, fire in his single eye.
“This stuff is evil,” he snarled. “Pure evil.”
“Okay,” Isabela replied, holding up both hands. “Now relax.”
“They should die for this,” Five replied. Isabela followed his eye—it was wide enough that she could see the white—as Five scanned the field and located Nigel’s mom. “Starting with her.”
Before Isabela could try to talk him down, Five flew towards the others.
After Nigel ripped his mother’s gun away, Duanphen acted quickly while Nigel was still trying to figure out what to do. She charged Bea and struck her under the chin with a flying knee. The older woman screamed and fell onto her back. Nigel noticed Duanphen wince when she landed—one of her legs was injured.
Instinctively, Nigel grabbed Duanphen around the waist and tried to drag her away from Bea. She shucked him off, though, grabbing his wrist and twisting until he flipped onto the ground. She let a brief jolt flow into him, then released him.
“You still defend this woman?” Duanphen asked. “Even after you’ve seen what she’s capable of?”
“She’s—she’s my mom, for shit’s sake,” Nigel said. “Just stop fighting and I promise she’ll pay for—”
“She will pay now,” Duanphen replied.
Of course, Nigel had a feeling that Duanphen wasn’t going to just stand down. That’s why he focused on the sound of flames crackling behind her from where Sydal’s ship had gone down. He amplified the noise so it sounded like a wall of fire was rushing towards her back. Duanphen flinched and turned, and that’s when Nigel kicked her in her bad knee.
Before she could recover, Nigel grabbed a nearby stone with his telekinesis and smacked Duanphen across the face. He stood up, rubbing his wrist where she’d twisted it.
“Now, let’s take a deep breath and—”
Five swooped down and grabbed Nigel by the throat. His grip was literally iron, his fingers digging into the side of Nigel’s neck. Five lifted him up, floating them above the scene. Nigel couldn’t get a breath in to scream.
Five saw Einar then. He was still clutching his throat, clinging to life, but there was an impossible amount of blood pouring over his fingers.
“He wouldn’t want me to kill you,” Five said to Nigel, his voice shaky with rage. “But you are a traitor to your own kind. Working with the Foundation. You deserve this.”
His grip tightened. Nigel couldn’t get a word out. He saw spots.
And then, a chunk of blue stone the size of a refriger
ator struck Five. The impact sent him cartwheeling through the air and knocked Nigel free. He hit the ground next to the mysterious mass of Loralite, hacking and gasping for breath.
The stone had come from the direction of the road. Only telekinesis could propel something that large that fast. He squinted in that direction and was able to make out a few vague shapes and another glint of azure light. Who had saved him?
And could they please do it again?
Nigel rolled over and saw that Five had righted himself in the air and now loomed over him. Instead of pressing the attack, he stared confusedly at the Loralite.
In a flash of light, two figures burst forth from the stone. Nigel’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of them.
Ran and Kopano.
They put themselves between Nigel and Five, Ran’s fists glowing with stored energy.
“You stay the hell away from him,” Ran snarled.
By that time, the Blackstone mercenaries that Taylor had taken out were beginning to stir. With all their weapons broken and dismantled and many of them hurt, there was no way they were going back into the fray. Not with so many Garde running around. They intended to beat a hasty retreat.
Until Karen Walker pointed her gun at them.
“All you bastards back on your bellies,” she said. “No one moves until this is sorted out.”
The mercenaries could have rushed Walker, maybe taken her, but some of them noted the teenager wearing a hijab at Walker’s side. No way that she wasn’t another Garde. They did as Walker said.
Not worth it.
From their vantage point near the edge of the clearing, Walker and Rabiya had a clear view of the carnage. Bodies both dead and injured, discarded weapons of human and alien origin, a broken-down Skimmer, a random wall of stone, a burning spaceship—and just a few Garde left standing.
“Shouldn’t we help them?” Rabiya asked.
“I know that guy out there,” Walker replied. “That’s Number Five. If Ran and Kopano can’t stop him, our best chance is to just hope he doesn’t notice us.”
Kopano recognized the monstrous one-eyed guy with steel-plated skin as Number Five. How many times had he watched that video of Five battling Professor Nine in New York City? It was literally the coolest thing Kopano had ever seen.
