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It shot toward him.
But before it hit, the shadows on the ground burst up in front of Guardian, black and semitransparent as they joined together, creating a wall of darkness that towered above him.
The ball of electricity struck the shadow wall, causing it to shudder as the ball shattered, lines of blue shooting off andstriking the house, scorching the wood paneling, lines of black like smoldering veins etching up the front.
Guardian turned his head toward the street and saw Owen Burke, hand raised, face twisted in concentration and drenched in sweat, the blood from earlier now brown on his shirt. Behind him Burrito Jerry stood next to Gibby, Matilda sitting half on the sidewalk with her doors hanging open, engine idling.
“Get inside,” Owen told him through gritted teeth. “I can’t hold them for long.”
Guardian nodded and turned toward the house. He hit the steps, lenses on his helmet narrowing against the bright lights flashing through the window. He could hear his ragged breath echoing around him, and he was tired, so damn tired. He pushed through it, but barely, his exhaustion clinging to him, threatening to pull him back down. He’d never used so much of his telekinesis all at once, at least not since prom night.
The door was unlocked, and as he pushed it open, he heard a voice crooning, “It’ll be over soon. I’ve seen what’s inside your head. You want to give it to me. Everything is fine.”
He stepped into the house.
The kitchen entryway, off to his right.
The living room, off to his left, looking as if a bomb had gone off. The couch was upended, lying on its side. Dad’s armchair ripped apart, springs and wool poking through ragged tears. The bricks of the fireplace looked scorched, black soot thick and peeling. The television lay flat on the floor, surrounded by shards of glass.
And there, sitting on top of Seth Gray, holding him down, was his father, eyes blank, lips slack. His suit had been torn, a split down the middle of his back. Seth struggled feebly, frightened, pained sounds falling from his open mouth as little licks of fire crackled between his lips.
A woman sat on her knees above his head, hanging over him. She gripped the sides of Seth’s head to keep him from moving. Her gaping maw was a foot above Seth’s mouth, and she wasinhaling,as if trying to suck up the fire that came from Seth.
She was Jennifer Bell. Then the frame rate stuttered, and her face changed, features melting into someone older, hair lengthening and turning black. Tan fading, changing into pale, milky skin. The tip of her nose turned upward as her eyebrows thickened, her mouth wide open, thin lips pulled back against small teeth.
Patricia Burke.
“Get off of him,” Guardian snarled, and Patricia snapped her mouth closed, eyes narrowed as she lifted her head toward him.
And for a moment, didn’t she look scared?
Brief, sure, but he saw it.He saw it.
“Aaron,” she said, and it wasn’t her own voice that came out, but that of his mother. “Deal with him. He wants to hurt me. Don’t let him.”
Seth moaned, eyes rolling back in his head as her fingernails dimpled his cheeks.
Dad rose stiffly.
He turned toward his son.
Guardian lifted his hands to the sides of his helmet, pulling it off and letting it fall to the floor. “Dad,” Nick begged, taking a step toward him. “Please don’t do this. You’re in there. I know you are.”
Dad paused, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. It was only then that Nick saw the stun gun in his right hand, compact and black with bright-yellow accents. Two metal probes stuck out from the barrel, and Nick watched as his father raised the stun gun and pointed it at him. It wavered. Dad’s finger slid to the trigger.
Nick rushed toward him, reaching out and grabbing his wrists, the stun gun inches from his face. “Don’t do this,” he begged. “You and me. It’s always been you and me. She’s not real. Mom isgone.It’s not her. It never was. She wouldn’t do this to us. You know she wouldn’t.”
Seth moaned again, but Nick never looked away from Dad. The cloudiness in his eyes shifted, and Nick reached up, closing his hands around Dad’s wrist. “Dad,no.”
“Dad,yes,” his father said automatically, and then clarity returned to his eyes, expression stuttering, collapsing. He inhaled sharply, jaw tensing as he ground his teeth together. “Kid?” he said, voice hoarse.“Nicky?”
Nick nodded, hoping against hope. “Yes.Yes.It’s me. Dad, she’s controlling you. She’s been controlling you this entire time. All of us. None of it has been real.”
“Do it,” Patricia Burke snarled. “Shut him upnow.”
For a moment, Nick thought his father would do just that. In the back of his mind, he heard Trey whispering that this was some Shakespearean shit right here. But then Dad blinked rapidly, the cloudiness over his eyes disintegrating. He said, “Nicky, oh my god.Nicky,” and Nick was thrown back years and years, to the day in the spring where everything fell apart around them, leaving them sifting through the wreckage. They had come through the other side because they’d had each other to lean on, their grief shared as much as their strength.
Dad gasped, jerking his hand from Nick’s grasp, wrapping an arm around his son’s shoulders and spinning them both around toward Patricia Burke as she tried to suck up Seth’s fire. “I got you, kid,” Dad said, raising the stun gun once more and firing without hesitation.
