Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Ben ran through the trees, Sidney’s hand gripping his, the rest of their group crashing through the underbrush ahead of them.
The forest was dark and wet, a drizzly, fitful rain turning the ground into a treacherous slick of mud and fallen leaves, and all his attention was focused on not tripping over the roots and rocks that seemed determined to send him sprawling.
And then a sudden pressure slammed into his skull like a fist, driving him to his knees in the carpet of wet ferns and fallen needles.
Around him, all the others were going down, too.
Emily Thompson crumpled against a redwood trunk, her hands pressed to her temples, a sound escaping her lips that was more animal than human.
Priya Sharma’s uncle — Ben still didn’t know his name, a failure that suddenly seemed inexcusable, given everything the man had done for them — collapsed mid-stride, his face contorted in agony.
Even Rebecca, tough-as-nails Rebecca who’d probably been shot at more times than Ben had eaten breakfast, stumbled and caught herself against a boulder, her weapon hanging loose in her grip.
But the guardians were hit the worst of all.
Josie had fallen to her knees next to her mother, and the golden traces of whatever ward she’d been maintaining flickered and died like a candle snuffed out by a gale-force wind.
The Sharmas were down, their chanting silenced, the protective energy they’d been projecting snuffed out in an instant.
Priya clutched at the forest floor, her fingers digging into the mud as if she could anchor herself against the assault through sheer physical force.
Only Sidney remained standing…but barely.
She swayed on her feet, her face chalk-white, her scars flickering erratically as she fought to maintain some connection to the ley line through the assault.
Ben could see the effort it was costing her, the way every muscle in her body had gone rigid with strain.
“What — ” Even that single syllable took almost everything he had, his voice coming out as a harsh croak.
The pressure in his head was immense, a high-frequency vibration that seemed to bypass his ears and attack his brain directly.
He could feel it disrupting something deep inside his brain, scrambling the electromagnetic patterns that made thought possible.
“Electromagnetic disruptor.” Rebecca’s voice was strained, forced out through gritted teeth. “Military grade. They’re targeting the guardians’ ability to concentrate.”
Of course they were. Ben should have anticipated this — Gregory had Rosenthal’s research, her years of studying how dimensional abilities worked and how to neutralize them.
An electromagnetic weapon calibrated to interfere with the specific frequencies that guardians used to channel power would be exactly the kind of thing she might have developed for DAPI.
And now Gregory was using it against them.
The mercenaries were closing in. Ben could hear them moving through the forest behind them, their footsteps steady and purposeful, professionals who knew their prey was disabled and saw no need to rush. They had all the time in the world.
Sidney dropped to one knee beside him, her hand finding his.
The contact sent a jolt through his nervous system, their bioelectric fields trying to synchronize despite the interference.
Her eyes met his, and he saw the desperation in those crystalline depths, the knowledge that she couldn’t fight back, couldn’t do anything except kneel in the mud while their enemies closed in.
“Ben.” Her voice was a choked whisper. “I can’t — the frequency is blocking my connection to the ley line. I can’t reach the network.”
He understood. The electromagnetic weapon wasn’t just causing pain — it was specifically designed to sever the link between guardians and the dimensional energy they drew upon.
Without that connection, Sidney was just a woman with strange scars and a bloodline that meant nothing.
Without that connection, none of the guardians could fight back.
They couldn’t summon wards or project power or do any of the things that made them more than ordinary humans facing extraordinary circumstances.
But Ben wasn’t a guardian.
Of course. He wasn’t a guardian — he was a conduit.
His scars weren’t channels for dimensional energy; they were the result of dimensional energy passing through him, rewriting his bioelectric field in the process.
He didn’t draw power from the ley line the way Sidney did.
He resonated with it, amplified it, grounded it.
Grounded it.
The thought crystallized into certainty.
A ground wire didn’t generate electricity; instead, it provided a path for excess current to flow harmlessly into the earth.
What if he could do the same thing with the electromagnetic resonance?
What if, instead of letting it disperse through everyone around him, he could draw it into himself and channel it away?
“Sidney.” He gripped her hand tighter, felt the erratic pulse of her bioelectric field against his. “The resonance — I think I can absorb it.”
“What?” Her voice was barely audible through the pressure in his skull.
“My scars. They’re not like yours. They don’t channel energy. They conduct it. If I can tune into the electromagnetic frequency, draw it into myself instead of letting it disperse….”
“You’ll be taking the full force of the attack.” Her eyes widened with understanding and horror. “Ben, that could kill you.”
He shrugged. “Well, it’ll kill all of us if I don’t try.”
The mercenaries were closer now. Ben could see flashlight beams cutting through the trees, could hear voices calling positions and coordinates. They had maybe thirty seconds before the first of them came into view.
He didn’t give Sidney time to argue. Instead, he closed his eyes and reached for the resonance that was tearing through his skull.
The electromagnetic energy hit his nervous system with a force that made the phoenix fire seem gentle by comparison, a vibration so intense that every cell in his body seemed to resonate with it.
He felt his scars flare hot, felt the circuit-like patterns on his chest and arms light up as they absorbed the incoming signal.
The pain was extraordinary. Not sharp, not localized — just a vast, overwhelming wrongness that made it impossible to think, to breathe, to exist as anything other than a vessel for agony. He heard himself scream, felt his body convulse, but he held on. He had to hold on.
Around him, the pressure on the others began to ease.
He could sense it happening, could feel the electromagnetic distortion being drawn away from them and into himself like water flowing down a drain.
Emily straightened slightly, color returning to her face.
Priya’s uncle pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.
Even Rebecca seemed to recover some of her steadiness, her grip on her weapon tightening.
“Ben!” Sidney’s voice, distant and frantic. “Ben, stop — you’re burning yourself out — ”
He couldn’t stop. If he released the resonance now, it would slam back into the others with redoubled force. He was the lightning rod, the ground wire, the thing that stood between the weapon and its targets. All he could do was hold on and hope it was enough.
The scars on his chest were blazing now, silver-white light pouring through his shirt, bright enough to cast shadows in the pre-dawn darkness.
He could feel something changing deep inside him, the dimensional burns that had marked him since the phoenix incident deepening their hold on his biology.
This was more than pain — this was transformation, the kind of violent restructuring that either killed you or made you into something new.
Rebecca’s voice cut through the haze. “Contact! Twenty meters, northwest!”
Gunfire erupted — not the mercenaries’ weapons, but Rebecca’s, sharp controlled bursts that sent their pursuers diving for cover. Through the agony, Ben heard the distinctive pop of a flashbang, saw the strobe of light even past his closed eyelids.
“Move!” Rebecca was shouting. “Everyone who can walk, move now! Head for the ravine!”
Bodies pushed past him. Ben felt hands grabbing his arms, dragging him forward — Sidney on one side, someone else on the other, both of them hauling him through the forest while he struggled to maintain his grip on the electromagnetic resonance.
Every step was torture, every breath a battle, but he didn’t let go.
He couldn’t let go.
The forest blurred around him in a smear of darkness and muzzle flashes.
Rebecca was laying down suppression fire behind them, controlled bursts that kept the mercenaries pinned while the guardians fled.
Another flashbang went off, closer this time, and Ben heard someone cry out — one of the mercenaries, caught in the blast radius.
“Ravine’s ahead!” Finn’s voice, strained but steady. “Fifty meters!”
Ben forced his eyes open. Through the haze of pain, he could make out a dark gash in the forest floor ahead of them — the ravine that cut through this section of woods, fifteen feet deep with walls of exposed stone and a seasonal creek at the bottom.
In summer, it was barely a trickle. In November, after weeks of off and on rain, it would be running fast and cold.
They half-ran, half-fell down the slope, sliding on wet leaves and loose earth until they hit the creek bed with a splash that soaked Ben to the knees. The cold was a shock, but it was also clarifying, cutting through some of the fog that the electromagnetic weapon had wrapped around his brain.
“Keep moving!” Rebecca was at the rear now, her weapon up as she watched the rim of the ravine for pursuit. “The walls will block some of the electromagnetic resonance. Get as far downstream as you can.”