Chapter 32
Once we arrived on the helipad I tried to gain my bearings.
The sun was rising in the west. The skies were painted in majestic shades of oranges, cotton candy pink, and pale yellow.
There was a slight warm breeze caressing my face, the promise of a beautiful spring day.
Yet I felt numb. I felt like I couldn’t enjoy the promise of a new day when I felt like I had lost a piece of my heart.
We had been stuck in the bunker for nearly twenty-four hours.
The concept of time hadn’t existed while we fought for our survival and capturing or extinguishing our enemies.
I couldn’t remember the last time I ate and could barely feel how uncomfortably full my breasts were from not nursing or pumping the entire time we were battling for our survival—for a better future for all the gifted.
The helipad was situated at the top of the mountain top, hundreds of feet above the main entrance.
It was a flat area that they maintained with only black and yellow metal guard rails running the perimeter of most of the area.
It was less for safety and more for a visual barrier to warn us away from the edges.
I vaguely registered that I was surrounded by my guys, Gavin, Jemmy, Mercedes, Bentley, Kurt, Alex, Kade, Race, Micah, Tyler, Victoria, Terrance, Rick, Marcel, Tamara, Ben, and Victoria.
Our presence was immediately noticed by Horatio’s people.
Only these people weren’t any of the ones we had invaded the base.
It was then I realized Horatio must have had people waiting for him on the outside and we were grossly outnumbered.
I could see the shock on their faces, not expecting our arrival. “Get them.” Horatio growled out.
It was then I realized Pops was passed out at his feet. A feeling like horror briefly stabbed through my grief and fury. I chose to embrace that emotion more than any fear I was experiencing considering how close to the edge he was to the mountain top.
His growled command was enough to set us all in motion. I immediately had to dodge a projectile that looked suspiciously like a sledgehammer. The others seemed to realize staying huddled in a group wasn’t the wisest course of action. Lincoln grabbed me by my bicep and pulled me to the left.
“I need to jump the rewinder; can you put a forcefield around me?” He pulled my gaze up to his.
I saw the same grief I was carrying reflected in his eyes.
I also knew he realized how close to the edge I was and I wasn’t referring to the mountain top.
He was attempting to give me a purpose beyond my grief and blind fury.
I took a deep shuddering breath realizing I could embrace the wrath without giving into it and becoming blind to everything else that mattered to me.
I nodded and placed a forcefield around him before turning back around.
I didn’t have time to watch him jump as the stones surrounding the edges began to pelt toward me.
I erected a forcefield around myself just in time and turned my gaze toward the person attempting to hurl rocks at me.
I noticed a female that rivaled Remy and Terrance in both height and size.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if she was a body builder in her free time.
She was sneering at me when she realized her stones were merely bouncing off my shield.
“You’re aiming at the wrong people. We’re on your side. You’re surrounded by the enemy. You need to take them out!” I didn’t even bother speaking to her silently as her compelled her.
I spoke the words aloud and then decided to prey on her emotions as well.
I realized the moment I brushed up against her emotions that she may be physically strong but gifted-wise, she wasn’t.
She was a five at best and I determined she would be easy to push over the edge, figuratively and maybe literally.
I focused on the doubts emanating off of her and fed on them but to our advantage.
I replaced the hatred she had towards us and made her suspicious of the ones surrounding her.
I could also “feel” the insecurities she had and exploited that as well.
I made her believe that they thought she was weak and planned to discard her the moment she wasn’t useful toward them anymore.
Soon she had thousands of stones hovering off the ground and in the blink of the eye she was hurling them toward a small group of five of her people.
They were so busy focusing on their attacks against Troy, Kurt, Marcel, Tamara, and Rick they hadn’t realized the Hurler had turned against them.
Three of the five of them were so stunned that their attacks against my people had ceased.
The fourth person was a big dude and, in his attempts, to dodge the stones he stumbled into them.
I took the opportunity to imagine the absence of the barrier that separated them from the edge and the fall to their deaths.
One, two, and three attempted to grab the rail but were met with thin air.
The momentum of the big dude was enough to cause them to topple over the edge.
The big dude looked horrified by his actions.
He stood on the edge as if he believed he could jump and rescue them.
I decided to exploit the need and helped him along the way.
“Jump. You can save them!” I compelled him.
Sane Blake—the Blake that wasn’t hurting—would have found a way to eliminate the threats without sending them to their deaths, but that Blake wasn’t here.
That Blake was still on the cold concrete floor—stories below where I stood—willing one of her best friends back to life.
This Blake believed a majority of these people chose the path they were on.
They had helped or had been complacent to the evil that festered in Horatio’s community.
They didn’t need to protect Horatio or attempt to hurt or kill us.
They had made their choices and now they needed to be faced with the consequences of their decisions.
I turned my head attempting to discover who was next on my list. I saw a bear the size of a small compact car running up the slight incline from the woods a hundred or so yards away from us.
For a second I was concerned until I realized its trajectory was heading toward Horatio’s minions.
It was then I had a feeling I knew who was behind that fun little illusion.
I turned to see Jaxson had his attention divided by the bear and a murder of crows that was attempting to distract a woman aiming for the sky.
It was then I realized the woman was aiming for Race and Jaxson had Race’s back.
Race was armed with smoke bombs as he dropped them on the enemy below.
The woman had noticed his presence and was struggling to spit at him.
Only, it wasn’t normal spit that flew from her mouth.
First off, the trajectory of her body fluids had a reach of at least twenty feet.
Secondly, it wasn’t the right color. Even from where I stood, I saw it was a weird fluorescent green color and as it connected with one of the crows, I surmised how deadly it was.
The feathers seemed to just melt off the crow before it fell from the sky like a lead balloon.
Race and Jaxson seemed to have it handled and I looked around to see if anyone would need my assistance or if there was another attacker that was successful in their attempts to harm us.
Drake was across the way from me with a forcefield protecting Jemmy and Noah.
Noah was clearly on standby, but Jemmy’s attention was off in the distance.
I couldn’t help but smile when I realized Jemmy was ensuring that the helicopter would never reach the mountain top.
I saw it go up and down like a yo-yo. Then it whipped to the left than right as if it was the rope in a battle of tug of war.
Normally, I would feel sympathy for the pilot, but somehow, I suspected his or her hands weren’t clean in the least. We had shown too much grace toward Horatio’s lackeys and maybe that’s why he kept gaining followers.
Maybe it was time for swift retribution to send a message to any of the survivors after yesterdays and today’s battles.
A blur of movement in my peripheral caught my attention, and I whipped my head around to determine what caught my attention. All I saw was Gavin with his back to the cliff face and stairs heading down to the bunker. He was successfully fending off two attackers, and I wondered what I had seen.
Between Gavin and his attackers was Tamara.
Tamara was fighting with a female that had turned her skin into glass shards.
I watched tiny shards dislodged from her skin and soaring through the air toward Tamara.
Tamara wasn’t having it and before the glass could reach her, she sent a wind tunnel her way.
Within seconds glass girl was caught up in the cyclone and although her mouth was open her screams didn’t reach my ears.
In the blink of an eye Tamara’s wind tunnel discarded glass girl off the side of the mountain.
Tamara called the wind back to her fingertips but unfortunately pieces of glass were flying everywhere.
Piece of glass fell from the tunnel and for a split second I saw a man appear on the wall of the cliff.
I determined he was the movement I had seen earlier.
Some of the glass debris had embedded in his skin causing him to lose his camouflage.
I surmised then that his target was Gavin.