Chapter 39
Ezra
The cauterized skin on my arm screams in agony. Underneath the scorching Utah sun, the pain is unbearably worse. Tears fight to pour out of my eyes while I resist the urge to press on the wound.
“Mafu! Call in for backup!” screams Ambrosia.
She swipes both arms in opposite, horizontal movements, telekinetically tossing several men aside.
Conin reaches for me and hoists me from the ground.
We’re moving fast, considering. Pustules mark my crimson skin, capturing my attention to the point I almost forget where we are and what’s happening around me.
It swelters and cries, pleading for reprieve.
Thax never inflicted anything like this. Tears sting and encompass my vision.
“Atlas, get them out of here. We’ll handle it,” Ambrosia says as she redirects the trajectory of a blitz.
Mafu, a large, yet slender, Polynesian man with buzzed hair, arrives, determination in his eyes.
He extends an arm to his left. A long, thin plate of metal soars, then hovers before him.
He crafts a makeshift shield and places it before the soldiers sprinting at us in droves.
“Now!”
Fire soars into the sky in a plume of waves, a brutal reminder of the pain in my forearm, which surges with every movement.
My uncompromised hand is gripped tightly by Conin’s as Atlas leads us up a hill and back into town.
The heavy weight of our backpacks, Conin’s injured ankle, and my burns impede our progress, though stopping is a matter of life or death.
Is returning to town the smart thing to do? Won’t that put other’s lives at risk? My life isn’t worth it any more than the citizens of Eureka, but Conin’s determination says otherwise, and Atlas leads us ahead with no clear trajectory. This is spiraling out of control.
I’m much more aware of the charred layer of skin as we sprint for our lives.
There’s a crackle of lightning in the distance.
The night we fled Mara Barclay overtakes my vision in a brief flash.
Terror courses in my veins, pumping blood to every corner and crevice of this tattered body, fueling me with adrenaline.
My throat burns with deep, labored breaths.
Gotta keep going. The subconscious will to survive from a masochist. The fucking irony.
Conin winces from the pain in his ankle.
I try to communicate he can lean into me with a nudge, but he’s determinedly pushing himself harder than ever.
Some of Barclay’s men have broken from the fray, pursuing us.
Atlas, Conin, and I navigate the backyard of someone’s home.
We turn abruptly left and almost splat into a brick wall.
We adjust our course and then proceed ahead as the harsh thuds of boots sounds from dangerously close by.
The soldiers trail toward us, but Atlas redirects us down an alleyway.
Ahead is Main Street. That won’t do us any favors.
We’re putting so many at risk, but it’s too late—the soldiers behind have found us and continue with a vengeance.
Our trio spills onto the road just in time for Levi Finch to surprise attack from above.
He ascends into the air with blasts of flame, then rains down the raging inferno upon us.
The three of us scatter and I lose contact with Conin.
I can’t see him, but Atlas is at the corner of my eye.
He vanishes, then rematerializes on top of Levi’s shoulders, wrapping both arms tight around the man’s throat.
I cry, “Atlas!” just in the nick of time. A blaze builds in the whites of Levi’s eyes. Atlas pops from existence as the mercenary hurdles himself into the air again.
This is one of Conin’s favorite superhero movies come to life—a fucking nightmare. And I’m at the center of it all.
One moment Levi is suspended midair, the next he’s being tugged down by Atlas in one fell swoop.
Levi crashes through the glass of a storefront.
Barclay’s men file onto the road with barrels raised, while duplicate white vans charge in.
Angelics spill outwards from the inside, adorned with the texturized, signature white suits.
Atlas pops and reappears before Conin and I, the lines of his face determined.
He’s solid, fierce, as if he was always meant to fight, meant to be one of them: the Angelics.
Seeing him like this is jarring compared to the image he gave off in the bunker.
His resolve makes it hard to believe he had no idea what he was doing after his grandfather’s passing.
Screams emanate from the small market. Bruised and battered, Levi stands and peers out the jagged window with shards of glass sticking at odd angles along his skin.
He brushes them off as inconsequential. Blood drools down his forearms, his palms. Atlas tugs Conin and me aside as Matt erects a water barrier between us and the vindictive mercenary.
Eureka citizens hide behind shelves, attempting to escape through the mess of battle.
All I feel is the scathing burn and the wrongfulness of innocents dying because we came here in search of safety.
My body shifts into the disguise from the motel.
Let’s see if this works.
I’m being dragged once again. We dodge flying bullets and soldiers eager to get their gloved hands on us.
Angelics with a wide range of abilities fend off the soldiers as if they’re swatting flies.
Mara and Levi, skilled and overpowered from obvious years of training, make our efforts difficult.
Crackled lightning intersperses in the air followed by a loud, threatening detonation reverberating off Eureka’s mountainous walls.
Angelics overpower and apprehend Barclay soldiers while the rest interlock in battle.
“No!” screams a woman. Mara, unmasked, throws herself up the alleyway, tiny wires of electricity branching out of her fingers.
She stumbles, then fires, and a burst of lightning barely grazes the tips of our hair.
The smell of ozone permeates my nostrils.
It chars a hole into a wall. We’re running, running, running, and she’s pursuing, but before Atlas thinks it better to teleport and stop her, Mara freezes.
She’s flung into Ambrosia’s clutches, though she retaliates with a swift kick to the Angelic’s ankle.
“Go! We’ll find you when we’ve handled this,” Ambrosia yells. Her last words are knocked out of her mouth when she clatters to the asphalt.
Mara’s about to slice through the impenetrable-looking armor when she’s enclosed in a body of water.
I watch her drown, the horror on her face, preserved in the bubble—the realization she can’t do anything if she wishes not to zap herself into oblivion.
Tommy drowning Callum at Emery’s party comes back to me.
Conin and Atlas don’t stop. We’re suddenly inside a car garage, a repair shop in various stages of work, abandoned and now isolated.
I’m on the concrete floor, back pressed against a brick wall, while Atlas and Conin traverse the claustrophobic space to barricade the doors with whatever they can find.
Now that I’m not moving or caught in the adrenaline of our threatening predicament, the burn on my skin swelters ferociously.
It’s cold one minute, then brutally hot the next.
I suck in my teeth. My lips press into a tight line.
I inhale deeply and then exhale, drawing my breath out as if this exercise will help me.
What occurs instead is that familiar, numbing sensation.
It returns with a debilitating vengeance.
Conin abruptly shoves a tool cart in front of the back door we came in. The numbness disassociates my thoughts as they spread out into the cosmos. Lost in space, in my increasing worries, they wash over and pull me down until I suffocate.