Chapter 33 #2
My gaze went to those tubes, those chambers, and I remembered what Dahlia had said.
Every six months, his power spiked. For six months, Joon would be submerged—until he was needed again.
Flames licked at my hands, my forearms. I wasn’t overheating; this was controlled chaos.
I wanted them to see my rage. I wanted to burn.
Jack clucked his tongue. “Oh yes, there it is. That fire. You’re quite good at destroying things, aren’t you, Cinder? Luckily, we were around when you decided to kill your partner.”
Joon’s lips moved before he started to speak. “… It wasn’t his fault.”
His voice didn’t sound sure anymore, and the green light had gone orange again. Jack’s gaze was soft, almost charming. He’d do great in the public eye—snakes always had the best camouflage.
“Enough,” Alex snapped, her eyes flaring. “I know men like you.”
Alex stepped up beside me, and my fire pulled away from her, assuring it wouldn’t touch her skin.
She glanced up at me from the corner of her eye with a mischievous smirk.
Her face said, watch me. Alex had always been good, and she had never been weak.
There was a reason why I was so anxious about the possibility of her becoming first class.
She IS first class.
“You like to manipulate, pulling everyone’s strings.” She walked to the side, rounding him.
Everybody turned toward her, on high alert, ready to guard against whatever she threw their way. Unfortunately for them, that’s exactly what she needed. Their faces, head on, their details. She kept talking, kept soaking it all in, buying herself time.
“You chase science like it’s a religion, and twist nature, because you want to play God,” she paused, tilting her head. “Am I wrong, Jack?”
He smiled back. “You’re a bright woman, Daydream. But I think you have an incorrect bias against us—why don’t we chat? We’ve come up with some marvelous technology, I’d love to show you some results. Imagine what you could do, if we raised your output a bit. I’ll show you the way.”
Joon glanced between them before locking eyes with me, his brows raised as if he were pleading. Before we’d gone in, we picked his brain as much as we could. His memories were hazy, and whatever they’d done to his chip made everything… scrambled.
“I can’t remember what ability he has,” Joon had said, clenching his head in his hands. “It’s lost, a blank space. But, no one ever says no to Jack. They’re too scared.”
“Don’t worry,” Alex held his hands. “We’ll be right there; we’ll take them down. All I need is a close look, and I’ve got him.”
Michael yelped, and Joon was tugging on his hair as he watched the pair stare each other down. Reed’s shields went up around us, a barrier for whatever would come our way. Alex let out a light laugh, one that made my skin buzz.
“No,” she hummed. “I think I’m all set, thanks. We can chat when you’re in a cell, if you’d like, though.”
“No one ever says no to Jack.”
Is that what Joon had said?
Or was it…
“No one can say no to Jack.”
It was a single word; it didn’t change the meaning.
But my stomach plummeted as he grinned, beaming with delight.
From Jack’s expression, I knew. It did change things—it changed the game entirely.
Abilities that dealt with the mind were difficult, and tedious.
Alex was lucky; all she had to do was look at someone to draw them in.
But others had triggers, conditions that needed to be met for their power to take effect.
I’d met an intelligence Hero once, and his ability could only unlock with certain scents. Ages, times, places, words. They didn’t know why, but it was a different form of backlash. Jack had to have conditions, too.
No one can say no.
“Wait,” Joon startled, dropping Michael to the floor. “Alex, wait, you can’t say n—”
“—Yes, Jack,” her voice was hollow.
She pivoted on her toes, facing us now. Alex cocked her head, that long ponytail swayed behind her, and her eyes looked… empty.
“Sweetheart,” I stepped forward, cautious. “Let’s end this. Let’s go home.”
Jack cleared his throat again before snapping his fingers. “Excellent plan, Cinder. I think we’ve all had quite a night. Daydream, darling, would you mind?”
Alex’s brows scrunched, and her horns started to glow, before her expression dropped again. “Yes, Jack.”
All hell broke loose.
The men behind Jack surged forward, and of course, every fucking one was a Variant. One in the back doubled in size, and then tripled, before letting out a yell that made my brain want to explode. Projectiles started flinging at us—needles, acid, swarms of fucking bees.
We have god damned insect Variants now? What the fuck is this?!
Reed shielded us, but the acid managed to slip through. It splashed onto my shoulder, eating away part of my suit and flesh as I howled.
“Shit!” Reed shouted, and another shield went up, this time a light, translucent green. “There are too many abilities, I can’t create something that deflects everything.”
I knocked out a Variant that had swiped at my throat with blades for hands, before stomping on him with my boot engulfed in flames. Something hit the side of my neck, and I was convinced I’d been shot, before a bee dropped to the ground. My body shook, trembling, as venom made its way in.
“Can’t be normal bees,” I snarled, turning up my heat, making my flames create a new kind of shield around me. “Just has to be super bees. Of course.”
Joon bounced next to me, his arm wrapped around the neck of another man who was going unconscious. “Just assume everything in here is genetically altered.”
When a fist was thrown my way, coated in a large, mechanical contraption, Joon leaped up and kicked it back down. The blow was so powerful that the body broke through the floor. I’d almost forgotten how strong he was, and breathed a sigh of relief that Glitch preferred speed.
“Or mechanically. Biologically. All of the ‘ly’ things, really,” he panted.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I snarled, before shooting out my flames beside him.
Joon reared back, panic on his face, but my fire didn’t touch him. It only ignited the giant behind him, who then crashed into a cluster of empty chambers. Purple liquid poured over the floor; slippery, slimy, disgusting.
“Ah, that’s expensive, I think,” Joon quipped as a meteor was launched at him.
“Heads!” Reed called as a barrage of flaming rock came toward us.
It wasn’t until we’d wasted our energy, dodging around like trainees on the first day, that one hit the floor beside me and disappeared entirely.
Damnit, Alex.
“Boo,” she cooed, stalking up to us, those hips swaying in tight leather. “I missed.”
Was it wrong to be attracted to the woman trying to kill us?
I gave her a shaky grin. “That wasn’t very nice, Sweetheart.”
What do I do? How do we stop it?
Mind control was something I didn’t know how to fix; usually, I just beat the person down until I could reach their handler and turn them to ash. But Alex? There was no chance, no way—
“Burn her,” Joon whispered, eyes wide.
I snapped my head toward him. “Are you fucking insane?”
“Yes!” Reed called from the back, busy swapping out shields, altering them to fit the next ability to come our way.
Alex stopped short, pressing her hands against the air. An impenetrable shield—the one that worked for everything except acid.
“Not to death,” Joon hissed. “Call it a love spark, or something.”
She walked around, prodding at the air, testing it. Reed threw up another shield that darkened around us—skewing her visibility. If she decided to pull us in, if she could remember that part of her ability, we were done for. Dead in the water.
“Daydream,” Jack’s voice filtered through the air, and my watch started to beep, an alert incoming. “Don’t play with the boys too much. We need to be going soon. We’ve overstayed our welcome in Nightmyre.”
No.
He was planning to take her. Not only to use her against us, but to steal her away, and do what he did to Joon. My heart raced, my breath came short, and a ringing sounded in my ears.
“Yes, Jack.”
“I’ll kill him,” I hissed through my teeth.
“It won’t work,” Joon’s voice was hoarse. “I can’t—damnit, I can’t remember everything. Jack is special. I don’t… I don’t think his ability fades if he dies. I don’t know, I’m not sure, but—”
I didn’t let him finish before Reed’s shield flickered, weakening, and I took my opportunity at a clear shot.
My fire blazed out, a column of wrath, headed straight for Jack.
Orange and yellow mixed with faint wisps of blue, a sign that burnout was coming.
But I didn’t care—he’d fucked with Alex’s head, turned her against me.
He didn’t deserve mercy.
It was almost funny how slowly he moved when he went to dodge, and how none of his minions went to defend him. Mind control wasn’t dissimilar to Alex’s daydreams, or Reed’s shields. A strong mind meant a fragile body. No exceptions.
Jack caught fire and turned to ash within seconds. I almost wanted it to last longer; it didn’t feel like justice, it didn’t taste sweet. It was anticlimactic, but I breathed a sigh of relief.
Cut off the head of the snake, and the rest of the body dies.
Except, it didn’t. After the initial shock, his underlings went back to business, as if he’d never mattered to begin with.
“Ah, shit,” I scowled, turning to Joon. “Are you sure he was in charge?”
He shrugged. “These guys are global—Jack is a big fish in the pond, but not the only one. I tried to tell you.”
“This is bullshit.”
Blue and black flashed in the corner of my eye, and all my fire died out as Alex appeared again. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pressed herself against me, and I pulled her closer on instinct.
“You good?” I breathed, the anxiety not subsiding yet.
Her eyes were still blank, and her implants started to glow again. A smile spread across her face, but it wasn’t her smile. It was something dead, devoid of emotion. My eyes got heavy, and my grip on her loosened.
Shit.