The Ashes of My Soul, page 18
Shade paused again. I was going to lie about everything I possibly could to drive a wedge there. “Your knowledge of the project makes this a lot easier. I’m here to make a deal with you as well, Parker.”
“Is this deal going to involve you fucking off and leaving me alone?”
“Perhaps.” His response made me pause. “I expected you to be more concerned about the condition of your friends.”
“I expected you to be smart enough to realize their continued wellbeing was an implicit part of any agreement. I assume they’re hostages at the moment?”
“They are, and they will remain so until we come to a mutual agreement.”
“Interesting. Holding them hostage instead of murdering them to get to me?”
“That can be arranged if you’d prefer it.”
“I’d prefer you go straight to hell.”
“Starting with your fiancée.”
I cleared my throat and put a point in his column. “My what?”
He smiled, showing off his rows of perfectly white teeth. “Please, Parker. You can’t expect something of such importance to stay secret. Of course I know about it. I know you were cheating on Nicole with her. Amusing. A poor choice, in so many ways.”
“Jealous?” I asked. At this point, I wanted to stall for enough time to let Absynthe notice something was going on.
“Hardly. But I’m not here to discuss your taste in women, your trial, your decision to awaken your roommate, or your habit of casual murder. I want to discuss your willing participation in the aforementioned project.”
“Project Diaspora?” I asked. If he didn’t want to say the name, I would.
“Yes.” He gestured to the man behind him. The man fled downstairs.
“Does he know you’ll kill him later?” I raised my voice.
“I plan to modify his memory. Unlike you, I’m not a casual murderer.”
“I’m pretty sure Lisa would beg to differ.”
“Lisa?” he asked. I clenched my fists as his smile grew wider. “Oh, that girl.”
“Don’t piss me off any further, you motherfucker. Give the dead a little respect.”
“Just like you?”
“I’m not mocking any of them, am I?”
He snorted. “Your willing participation in the project.”
I shrugged. “I already agreed to participate. I’m surprised Alistair didn’t tell you. Maybe he’s keeping it secret from you?” I didn’t voice my suspicion that Shade did already know, and didn’t care.
“Participation on my terms,” he said. “You surrender and you do nothing except participate in the project. When the project is complete, you will be publicly executed. In exchange, your friends and family will be left unharmed.”
I sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s any room for negotiation here.”
He shrugged. “You could surrender yourself to Alistair’s custody instead. Or any mutually agreeable third party.”
“The last clause is the one I’m more concerned about.”
“Non-negotiable.”
“Why?” I asked. “I know you want me dead, but a public execution?”
“Consider it a public service.”
I shook my head. “I assume if I reject your proposal, you’ll execute the hostages and take me in anyways?”
“Correct.”
“How about you go fuck yourself?” I crossed my arms. “I already have an agreement with Alistair. What’s wrong with that? He’s not requiring me to stay in custody, which I assume is you being an asshole, and he’s letting me disappear after everything’s done instead of killing me, which I assume is you being a double asshole. You want me to do the same thing, but die at the end?”
He crossed his arms as well. “Are you assuming Alistair was telling the truth? The man does love to remove complications.”
“If he was going to do that, you wouldn’t need to show up here and try to strike your own deal.”
Shade chuckled. “Be that as it may, your death is irrelevant as far as Alistair is concerned. It is relevant to my aims.”
I sighed and uncrossed my arms, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Well, how about you let me enjoy my freedom before the project completes?”
“I don’t trust you.”
“That’s nice. I don’t trust you either.”
“Understand, Parker, I’m trying to appeal to your sense of decency.” I blinked. “Either way this goes, you’ll be in custody. You can choose to save your friends, or you can choose to let them suffer. There are fates worse than death, as you demonstrated to me.”
“Or you could not kill them, not kill me, and let everything play out Alistair’s way.”
“Not an option.”
I pointed over his shoulder. “Is that your guy coming up the stairs?”
Shade tilted his head. “Do you really think I would fall for such a childish distraction?”
“Yeah,” I said as I whipped my other hand forward. It was a simple distraction and a simpler attack. I threw my keys at his face and was rewarded with a crack as they slammed into his perfect teeth. Shade’s hands came up to his face and I ran down the corridor to Andreas’s room. Inside, I rushed straight to the back where we’d worked on the psionic disruptors. If I’d had more time, I’d have grabbed the one in his bedroom, but had to settle for two of the older prototypes.
It didn’t take psionic power to register Shade’s rage roaring down the hallway. “Parker! You little fuck!” I fumbled as I attached batteries to the devices. “Your bitch is going to pay for that!”
“I think your dental insurance is going to pay for that, actually,” I called over my shoulder.
He appeared in Andreas’s doorway. Blood streaked his lip where my keys had hit him. “If my people don’t hear from me every five minutes, they start torturing your friends.” He spat blood on the floor. “I’m the only one who gets to kill them, and I’ll make them beg for it.”
“Good,” I said. “Means I can get them healing and remove the trauma afterwards.”
Shade growled something vicious and pointed at me. Fat red and purple sparks spat from his finger. I crossed my fingers and flicked one of the devices on. My head immediately rang and I saw Shade take a sudden step back. His sparks stretched out and vanished in a shower of smaller sparks. I flicked the switch off and let loose with a psionic hammer blow. He deflected it with a shield, his reactions faster than mine. Before he could strike back, I flicked the disruptor on again and his attack didn’t even leave his mind.
“The fuck is this?” His voice dropped into a growl.
I gave him the finger and charged. He was still physically stronger, even after his coma. In a straight up fist fight, I’d lose. Fortunately, I was in control of the disruptor. As I rushed in and he started to swing at me, I flicked the disruptor on for a three count, then back off. In those three seconds, I stopped short and ducked in low, faster than he could react without his own powers. He caught on in the last second and managed to block my kick. I bounced back before he could follow up. “It’s called taking advantage of the environment!”
His eyes tracked toward the device I held in my left hand. I followed his gaze. “Oh, you want one?” I tossed it toward him and immediately followed it with another psionic assault. This time, I didn’t hold anything back and hit him with as many threads as I could at the same time. His shields came up, but they weren’t enough to deflect every thread. One lashed around his torso, slicing through the trench coat. Even with the distraction, he still caught the device. I stepped back and readied another heavy attack, ready to smash through his shaky shields.
“Cuts both ways, Parker!” He shouted as he flicked the switch.
Nothing happened. I’d pulled the battery jack free with one of my threads. Before he could realize it, my next thrust smashed his shield and threw him straight backwards into the wall opposite Andreas’ door. He hung there for a moment before dropping to his hands and knees. As I started to walk toward him, I got a sudden scream in my ear. “Kevin!” Star’s voice. The psionic connection broke before I could focus on it, but it had been a scream of pain or fear. I paused. Shade was dazed, but his shields were still strong enough to keep me from twisting him.
If I took a few more seconds to rip through his shields, I could kill him.
It made sense. He’d said his goons wouldn’t kill anyone. Whatever they did could be healed, the memories purged. It’d only take a few more seconds. Still, I hesitated.
His head came up and he gave me a bloody sneer. At least one tooth was broken. “Come on, Parker. You won’t get another chance like this.”
I shook my head. Something wasn’t right here. Even with my tricks, he’d gone down far too easily. “You’re holding back.”
“Am I?” He turned his head and spat again. “Come on, Parker. Killing me now is the only way to save your friends.”
I finally saw the link. A thin thread from his heart leading toward the hostages. He’d set up a dead man’s switch. If I killed him, his goons would know, and they’d have orders in that case. “Third option, asshole. Not going to let you be a martyr.”
His shields started to flare again, but I was already in motion, grabbing him by the collar. He struggled, but was still too dazed to be effective enough. I didn’t hit him, I simply threw him as hard as I could toward the far end of the hall. The throw had a touch of psionic boost, and I added a kinetic kick in the ass for good measure as he tumbled. He bounced off one wall, then the floor, and there was at least one audible crack of a bone breaking. I didn’t know if it was his arm, leg, back, or neck, but it didn’t matter. I had friends to rescue.
“Kevin!” I heard another scream and this time I was quick enough to trace it. Jess and Kaitlyn’s room. I sprinted down the hall away from Shade’s crumpled form and rushed the stairwell. Goons were waiting.
“Out of my way.” I wasn’t hiding my power in the slightest.
Neither of them seemed to care. “Gonna put you down, dog,” one of them snarled back.
I didn’t waste any more time. I lashed through his simple shields and ignited the man’s clothes. He jumped back with a startled curse and I held my focus on him. The curse turned to a howl of agony. His partner looked back and forth between us, unsure whether to try and break my concentration or defend his partner. The indecision cost him. I pushed up from below him and he fell backwards. A little more force pointed him toward the stairs down.
The immolated goon was still screaming, but he was neutralized as a threat. I rushed past and jumped on the outstretched arm of the one I’d thrown down the stairs, snapping at least two bones and putting him out of the fight. Jess’s room was on the ground floor of another wing. The shortest path was through the lobby. I threw my shields up to full force as I hit the ground floor. More goons would probably be waiting there.
I wasn’t wrong. A team of four was anticipating my arrival. All of them hit me simultaneously. One threw energy, another threw a table, one tried to trip me up with a psionic jolt, and the last one just rushed me. While my shields absorbed the first hits, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my last disruptor. When I flicked it on, my shields dropped at the same time the attacks fizzled. The table continued on its path, though. I had to jump back into the stairwell before it hit me. The guy rushing me winced as he entered the disruptor’s area, but it only made him pause for a second.
That pause was enough time for me to click the disruptor off and kick the table toward him. It tumbled upwards in defiance of physics and clipped him in the shoulder. He spun and dropped to the ground. The others were attacking again, but this time I hit them back. The table tosser found the next table he picked up was heavier than it looked, and growing heavier with each second. While he fumbled to find something else, I grabbed a vending machine and threw it at the unprepared energy tosser. Blood splattered from where it crushed him. While the table tosser was distracted, I flipped the heavy table up into his face.
The ease with which I was smashing my way through them made me pause. I wasn’t tapping into my second tier power and I hadn’t grown appreciably in power since the fight at the bookstore. Why was Shade throwing weaklings at me? “Look,” I said to the two functional members, the closer one holding his shoulder where the table had clipped him. “I’m not trying to kill you, but you should get out of my way before I lose my patience.”
“Try harder,” hissed the further away one. The closer one charged toward me again. I ducked back into the stairwell again. He came through lower than I had expected and my reflexive punch sailed over his head. He gave me an uppercut to the chest, not hard enough to break ribs, but it still hurt.
“I told you to get out of my way!” I growled, then grabbed him by his shoulders with a psionic grasp. He tried to break my grip, but I threw him straight up in the air. His flight stopped short as he hit the bottom of the stairwell, then fell back to the floor with a crunch. When I walked back out, the other one had disappeared. Maybe getting reinforcements? Maybe running away? I didn’t care. I headed for the room.
Two more goons stood in the hall outside their door. I didn’t bother with a challenge or preparation. I ran toward them faster than any Olympic sprinters and shoulder charged one of them. The breath surged out of her and her ribcage collapsed. Before she could finish bending over, I spun into an impossible roundhouse kick and my foot caught her under the ear. She dropped to the floor, head tilted at an impossible angle.
The other one was already manifesting defenses, but I didn’t have time to be neat or clean here. Every second I wasted out here was another second of torture for my friends. I grabbed a light fixture from the ceiling and shot it straight into his chest. His shields couldn’t cope and the impact drove the fixture partway through him. Blood sprayed out in a fan behind him.
I looked at the door, assuming it was locked, and yanked it off its hinges into the hallway, the thin wood splintering and cracking. “Holy shit!” I heard from inside.
Inside, three of Shade’s goons, including the one who’d fled from the lobby, were standing over three of my kneeling friends. Jess, Grace, and Max. The rest were crammed onto one of the beds. I started to reach for my pocket and the one who’d fled called out the alarm. “Hands out of your pockets! I see you reach in there, we’ll break their fucking necks!”
“Hurt them and I’ll end you,” I said, keeping my hands out in plain sight.
“Yeah, even you aren’t fast enough to save them all.” One of the guards smirked at me. “I see your power so much as twitch, someone gets hurt. If we have a fight in here, we’re not being careful. Get it?”
I made eye contact with everyone. Grace had a bruise on the side of her face, and Kaitlyn looked close to tears, but everyone looked to be unhurt otherwise. Star nodded a fraction of an inch when I looked at her. She looked a little disheveled with her hair down. “All right. What’s the deal, then? I’ll let you all go, you’ll let them all go?”
“Nope,” the runner said. “Waiting for Shade.”
“You’ll be waiting a while. I hurt him pretty badly.”
“Did you, Parker?” I sighed and glanced over my shoulder. Shade certainly looked like I’d given him a beating. His coat was torn where I’d slashed through it, his lip was still bleeding, and he was holding his left shoulder. The sunglasses were gone and his eyes were glowing a deep, deep green.
“Well, I’m not lying, am I? You look like you had a fight with a truck and lost.”
“Or a car?” He limped into the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Drew drawing his feet under him. I tried to shake my head at him. If he did a damn thing here, it’d turn into a brawl, and people wouldn’t make it out. Shade took another limping step forward and coughed. “You. Don’t even think about it.”
“You killed my girlfriend,” Drew said softly.
Shade spat on the floor. I could see the blood mixed with his saliva. “I’d apologize, but I don’t really give a fuck. You don’t matter and neither did she.”
“Drew,” I said. “Don’t.”
“Listen to him. Parker knows the deal.” Shade chuckled. “Do you know the deal? Any of you?” Silence filled the room, only broken by his raspy breathing. “I tried to make a deal with him. If he’d agreed, you’d all be walking free by now. But he didn’t. He decided it’d be fine if you got hurt. If you died.”
“You’re leaving important parts out,” I said.
“Fuck you, Kev,” Kait snapped. Heads turned to look at her. “Fuck you. What was so important to you that you’d let us all die?”
I glanced at Shade, but he only gave me a red-stained grin. I looked back to Kaitlyn. “He wanted me to surrender, do nothing, and then die.”
“You selfish son of a bitch. You don’t want to die, so you’re fine with letting us die?” She started to get to her feet, but one of the guards shifted attention to her. “How do you fucking sleep at night? Do you actually give a fuck about any of us?”
“I thought I’d have enough time to save you,” I said. “My trump card’s played. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t keep us alive, you son of a bitch.”
“It might,” Max said. “Maybe all Shade here wants is a heartfelt apology and we can all hug it out.”
Drew cleared his throat. “I’d never surrender to this thing. Not after what he’s done.”
“And Kev’s done worse,” Kaitlyn broke back in. “You don’t even know.”
“Pretty sure I know more than you do.”
Shade chuckled again. “None of you know anywhere as much as you think you do.”
“So enlighten us,” Star said. “Since you seem to know everything, Mr. Shady.”
I frowned and glanced her way again. Had they mixed the twins up? It didn’t make sense they were watching Grace and Max, but Jess instead of Star. Shade didn’t seem to notice anything out of place. “He’s never told anyone about the plan he’s part of, has he?”
