The Color of Courage (23 page)

“Summer!” I followed, feeling like in those dreams when you can’t get your muscles to work right. Everything seemed to slow down. I ground my teeth and pushed harder. I had to get to her. Protect her. Before Charles ruined her.

I had no doubt our enemy was Charles Auberginois. I’d noticed how intently he looked at me and worried that I couldn’t read his emotions properly, that something was wrong with what I could see. But I hadn’t realized that Trace and Kirby and Summer’s identical emotions weren’t their own, and I’d ignored my own instincts because Adam had trusted him. Adam, whose emotions in the restaurant hadn’t changed. No wonder CASE had immobilized him. He wasn’t vulnerable like the others were. He wasn’t an empath, but had too much control over himself.

Control he had developed because of me.

“Summer!” I shouted again when I reached the line between light and shadow. It was hard to see in the dim interior after the bright light outside, and despite knowing how foolish it was, I ripped off my flexi-shield. My vision improved right away, and what I saw . . .

Summer stood in the center of the room. She’d stripped off her flexi-shield and jacket and was taking off her boots and pants, while Charles stood at Lincoln’s feet and instructed her. I could see her aura surging with the pleasure he gave her every time she did what he told her to do.

“Summer, stop!”

But she was oblivious to me. I fought my panic and tried to think what I could use to counter Charles’ influence. He ignored me when I ran up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her away from him. Her gaze was unfocused, her limbs, now unprotected by her suit, loose. She could barely stay on her feet.

“Summer, listen to me. This is false. It’s not real.” But that wouldn’t work. It was real to her, no matter what I said. Desperate, I reached for the only thing I thought would work. Love. The love of sisters, of friends, the love that had her diving into the water to save me and Trace when the boat exploded. I didn’t even have to fake it, just drew it from my own well inside the taupe box, where I locked away all my own feelings when I was working. I pushed it between Summer’s core and the false ecstasy.

Summer screamed and fell back, away from me. Her screams went higher and higher, more piercing, as she hit the floor. Her head bounced on the marble, and she went limp.

No. Oh, God, no.
I knelt beside her, slid my fingers as gently as possible under her head. She had no broken skin, and her skull was intact. But her eyes stared, unseeing, and her face still held the image of her scream. The fall hadn’t killed her, but something had.

I had.

Slow clapping penetrated the buzz in my ears. I turned to see Charles beaming at me.

“Excellent! I could not have hoped for better. All superheroes neutralized or plunged into chaos. You were quite the challenge, Ms. Charm. Your HQ. Fascinating that you were so difficult to break up and tear down.”

Because we cared. Because we loved and supported each other above anything else. That had been the reason for our success. Until now. Until we’d let someone else in, someone who’d taken over under the pretense of assistance, and I hadn’t recognized it when I should have.

I’d failed in my one true ability, and that failure had doomed us all. I was no match for this man, who’d obviously honed his powers for much, much longer than I had. Who had goals more solid and motivations more compelling than I did.

“Let’s do a head count, shall we?” He stepped down off the platform and glided forward, peering out into the bright afternoon while he ticked us off on our fingers. A detached part of me noticed that his French accent had disappeared.

“Tarantino is fair indestructible, so he had to be contained, not so easy to do out here on federal property. It was a test of my newest technology, and a sweet success indeed. He’ll die, of course, if the beams are not disconnected properly. Then, Trace Kovalch.” He laughed, making all my muscles clench. “Wild goose chase. The robot he’s after has more endurance than he does. My loyal officer will soon have Kirby March taken care of. Her ability is interesting, but not all that powerful, is it? Then there are you two.” He looked down at us, suddenly menacing.

I knelt next to my best friend and felt nothing.

“Summer was the most fun. She was so susceptible to my suggestions, more than anyone else I’ve ever worked on. Raw emotion can do that, as you know. Shame she couldn’t handle it. I would have enjoyed playing with her for longer. You, however . . .” He tsked and shook his head. “You are the
pièce de résistance
, my dear. We would make an amazing team, would we not? I can teach you, and you will be the most powerful ex-superhero in the country.”

My head lifted at that. It was ridiculous. I wasn’t powerful. I couldn’t do anything to save anyone. But I was numb, and couldn’t care or react when Charles walked to the edge of the chamber and opened his arms wide.

“Watch.”

I had no intention of doing so, until I heard screams and shouts. I couldn’t just sit here while he did whatever he was doing. I climbed to my feet and stumbled to the entryway, staring out onto the steps and surrounding sidewalk. All over, people were fighting. There were degrees of savagery, from basic fisticuffs to beatings with billy clubs and asps. I watched an officer stab another in the arm with a knife, and slowly I came alive again. I couldn’t allow this.

Before I could stop it, though, I had to bring my ability back online. It had shut off as abruptly as Summer had been killed, and my usual mental lowering of my defenses did nothing. I had to close my eyes and concentrate hard before I could see the waves of hatred and fury Charles was sending out over the area.

First, I tried to counter it. I brought up my own waves of calm and sent them out. I imagined them like a blanket, smothering Charles’ negative emotions. But as soon as they touched his, they evaporated.

Charles laughed. “Does this mean no, you won’t join me?”

I ignored him. If I couldn’t affect the emotions he was putting out, I had to address it at the source. I knew, since Charles was more skilled and powerful than me, that I had only one chance. I didn’t turn toward him or change my posture. He could surely see my emotive attempts so I continued them, ignoring his laughter as the results were the same. Inside I coiled a whip of positive emotion. When it was as solid as I could make it, I slowly uncurled it, then flashed it out sideways at Charles, trying to cut off his waves. It severed the connection, but immediately another eased out from him. I “cracked” the whip again, this time aiming for his emotional center. It hit, and pink and white sparks flew in my aural vision. But Charles just laughed again.

The bombardment on the outside didn’t stop, but suddenly Charles turned on me.

“You have such potential, my dear, but right now you are but a child. Let me show you what we’re truly capable of. What you could have with me, if you weren’t so foolish.” He hesitated, one eyebrow raised. “Change your mind?”

“No.”

“Very well.”

I expected him to hit me with the same emotions he was using on the others, but he didn’t. I frantically tried to create a shield of calm to counter the anticipated storm, but he penetrated it easily. Not with emotions I could see, but something else, something I could feel, like a hand reaching inside me, digging deep, then turning into a fist and smashing open my box of personal emotions. They manifested in thoughts I’d locked away as symbols. The good ones were snatched by another invisible hand, the bad ones amplified somehow.

You’re inadequate. How can you expect to be someone when this is all you can do, and you can’t even do it well? Look at what he’s doing to you. Your family will never be able to love you fully because of what you are. Adam tolerates you in HQ. He knows you’re the weakness of the group. He pities you, and doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. Why would you ever think he could care about you? That anyone could ever care about you?

I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by the despair and loneliness and sorrow.

“Yesssss,” Charles hissed, towering over me. “Your power is in your feelings, Daley. Let them out. Let them drive you. And then let me use them to crush you.”

I screamed as pain lanced through me. It was physical, in my arms and legs and stomach, like blades shoved in and twisted. But I knew it wasn’t. I could see the aura of my own emotions winding around my body. Charles was using them as weapons, something I knew I could never do.

It went on forever, the screams inside and out. I could do nothing against the torrent of emotion Charles sucked out of me and added to his bombardment of those outside.

Eventually, he stopped. I lay on the floor, unable to focus my eyes or move my arms and legs. Charles crouched over me, smiling.

“It’s over,” he whispered. And then he left.

Chapter 20

I don’t know how long I lay there before someone found me. I was vaguely aware of the chaos subsiding outside. Sirens came and went, came and went, as wounded were taken away in ambulances, and those who’d done the wounding in police cars. I’d have to explain. Find someone in charge, tell them what happened, so they could sort it out. People shouldn’t go to jail when it wasn’t their fault.

But I couldn’t move. “It’s not over” echoed in my head, the mantra of every comic book, every movie, every portrayal of superheroes ever made. Somehow, they always won. But this was real life, and we’d lost. Charles was gone. We had no team to go after him.

“Daley.”

I turned my head toward the familiar but completely out-of-place voice. The movement was like an on switch for my body, and I sat up. Spike rushed across the marble floor to me, and I had no reaction to seeing him. No relief or disbelief. Just a detached awareness that he shouldn’t be here.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s over,” I said.

“I know, babe.” He put his arms around me and helped me to my feet. “It’s all over.”

He meant it to be reassuring. He didn’t get it. Charles had won. HQ had lost, and worse, we would never be the same again. He’d expand his destruction of us all over the world, until there were no more superheroes, ever.

That
thought was enough to galvanize me. Spike was a superhero. Thank God he’d never revealed it. But if he did so now, if he went into the service and saved someone’s life, they’d know. Charles would know, and he’d destroy him. And he wouldn’t be subtle about it anymore. He didn’t need to be.

It couldn’t be over.

I realized Spike was looking past me, his face stricken. I followed his gaze to where Summer lay, sprawled and empty. I should have had tears, then, but I was still barren. Charles had drained me completely, and quite possibly destroyed my ability in the process.

“We need to get her out of here,” Spike said.

“I know. But first—” I choked on the words. “First we need to save the others, and take down Charles.”

He nodded. “Let me just get someone to take care of her.” I knelt by her side and held her hand while I waited.

A minute later, Tom followed Spike back into the chamber. He crouched next to me and checked for Summer’s pulse. Of course he didn’t find one, and he enfolded me into his arms in what should have been our shared grief. I couldn’t feel his any more than I could feel mine.

“I’ll take care of her,” Tom told me. “You go do what you have to do.”

I rose to my feet and thanked him, then took Spike around the outside of the building to where Adam was still encased in the stasis beams. I didn’t know why Charles hadn’t taken him with him, but figured he couldn’t move the beams by himself any more than we could, and he couldn’t risk Adam getting free.

“What are you doing here?” I finally thought to ask my brother as we strode across the lawn.

Spike pointed overhead. I noticed news helicopters for the first time.

“Mom must be freaking.”

“That’s why I’m here.” He looked grim. “She saw the fight on the front steps and called me, swearing she was watching you get killed right before her eyes. I couldn’t get here fast enough.”

“You’re here now.” We stopped outside the triangle. “Can you—”

He didn’t let me finish, just stepped in front of one of the beams before I could tell him it was going to fry him. But just like with the stun gun, the beam went sideways, fizzling out at the edges of an oval as tall and wide as Spike’s body. Adam collapsed to the ground behind Spike and rolled. I wanted to go to him but the other two beams were now extending further than we could see.

“I’m free,” Adam croaked, and Spike moved away.

When the three beams met in the middle of the triangle, they seemed to backflash into the machines, which exploded simultaneously. I held up my gloved hands against the blinding light and flying bits. A moment later, the clearing was dim again, and Spike helped Adam to his feet.

I walked over and stood in front of Adam, unsure what to say. How could I tell him about Summer?

It turned out I didn’t have to. He wrapped his hands around my shoulders and looked down at me. I didn’t need my powers to see his pain and compassion. It briefly crossed my mind that my loss might be a good thing. I’d be normal, and this could never happen again.

“I heard it all.” Adam’s fingers tightened and should have hurt, but I couldn’t feel that, either. “I heard everything.”

“Do you know where the others are?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. Trace is out of range. Kirby got lured away, and I think she’s locked in somewhere. I lost Evan after he got arrested. And Summer . . .”

“Tom’s taking care of her.” I dreaded telling Evan. He’d lost so much in so short a time. I’d betrayed him, and I’d killed his sister.

Oh, God
.

Adam held me while I heaved. How I could go from empty to full so quickly? All the emotions I knew I should have been feeling slammed into me. I let them spill over each other while my body tried to purge itself. A moment ago I’d accepted the numb emptiness as preferable to anything else. But as much as this hurt, ripping at my heart and leaving me bleeding, I was glad it had come back.

I sorted through the turmoil, picked the emotion that would serve me best—anger—and made it dominant. It would be temporary. All the others would have to have their due. But this one would subvert them for now and allow me to make Charles’ words true.

It would be over, but not on his terms. On ours.

“We need to get Kirby first,” I told Adam. “We’re going to need her on the computer to track down Auberginois. He thinks this is all he needs to do to shred us? He’s an egomaniacal idiot. Hopefully we can find Trace and he won’t have been torn apart by that robot.”

“Charles was targeting our strengths and trying to make them weaknesses.” Adam toed one of the shattered boxes. “This beam couldn’t penetrate my skin to harm me, but it could hold me. Trace’s endurance won’t last forever. I expect the robot was built to run indefinitely, not to fight.”

“I hope you’re right.” I turned to Spike. “Thank you for finding me. Helping me get Adam out. But Mom will kill me if I drag you into this.”

“I’m not leaving.” He looked grim and suddenly much older than eighteen. “You need me.” He folded his arms and glowered at me, ready to argue. But I wasn’t planning to do that.

“All right, just so you make sure Mom knows I tried to send you away. Let’s go get Kirby.”

We went back to the bar where our equipment was. I held my breath as we climbed the stairs, hoping it was still there. Technically, it was Charles’ equipment. He’d paid for it, no matter what he’d done afterward. So he could have taken it away.

But he hadn’t. I let out a long breath and went to the main computer as Spike whistled his appreciation and started prowling the room. The computer booted up, and I launched the tracking program. Our new suits had chips in the jackets and pants. I was sure Charles had been keeping tabs on us through them. He’d probably messed with the coms, too.

“If we’d left someone back here, or if this was on a laptop, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Adam lamented.

“We couldn’t spare anyone,” I reminded him. “And Charles probably didn’t give us a laptop on purpose.”

“What’s its range?” Spike asked from across the room, where he was examining an extra glove. “This is sweet stuff.”

“I don’t know, but if it’s satellite-directed, it should be pretty far.” I watched the map redraw itself several times, then rest. On the left, our names were listed, each next to a different colored dot. The screen prompted me to select the bodies I wanted to track. I clicked the boxes next to Kirby, Trace, and Evan. A few seconds later green, red, and blue dots appeared on the map, which had redrawn to show several states. Evan was in DC, which we knew—he was likely in a holding cell. Kirby was in Maryland, just over the border from the city, and Trace was far south, in Virginia. And still moving.

“Why doesn’t he just stop?” Spike asked, leaning over my chair.

“No idea.” I scribbled coordinates on a pad and handed it to Adam. “I’m sure Charles set him up somehow. Maybe he got hooked to the robot or something.”

“Is he wearing a cell phone?”

We’d had the coms, so the phones hadn’t really been necessary. I grabbed the desk phone and dialed Trace anyway, but it went right to voice mail.

“Trace, it’s Daley. Everything is fucked up, you’ve got to come back. Forget about the . . . guy you’re chasing. We need you. We’re going after Kirby, so call my cell.”

“That program give you distance?” Adam asked, looking at a flat map and marking the coordinates I’d given him.

I hit a few keys. “Yeah, she’s about ten miles from us.”

“And Trace?”

“About thirty.”

Adam straightened. “He’d better get a ride back. Hope he’s got cash. Let’s go.” He grabbed a gear bag and headed out the door.

“Wait.” I looked around the room, hoping we had another suit. “Spike’s unprotected.”

“I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do! You can still get sliced with a knife, or injected by a needle or pressure syringe, or strangled.”

He held up his hand. “All right, all right.”

“I’ll give you mine in the car,” Adam said. “It won’t fit perfectly, but it will do the job. Daley, you drive.” He tossed me the keys, and we headed out.

A short time later, we parked on the street in a warehouse district, looking around.

“The coordinates weren’t specific enough,” Adam said.

Ya think
? I kept it to myself, wishing again for a laptop so we could pinpoint the signal. She could be in one of four buildings, all large warehouse style. It was the middle of the afternoon, so they’d be full of people, and no doubt had excellent security, as well.

“You’ll have to find her, Dale.” Adam’s voice was soft, understanding, but I could hear the undercurrent of steel. Like I had no choice.

I didn’t, but not the way he wanted. “I can’t see, Adam.”

“You have to.”

“It’s gone! He sucked it all out of me, and my powers are gone. Not that they did any good in the first place,” I muttered, sinking into my seat, trying to hold on to my anger and disgruntlement and not think about Summer, lying on the marble with her eyes wide open.

“He can’t have taken it, Daley, it’s a part of you. You just need to turn it on.”

So easy for him to say, Mr. Indestructible. My pulse fluttered at the base of my throat, which closed around the air I tried to draw in. My vision blackened around the edges. I couldn’t see anything, and we’d lose another team member because of it.

The driver’s door opened, and Adam turned me to face him.

“Look at me, Daley.” He said it loudly, hard, brooking no argument.

I could barely see his face. I locked on to his eyes, my breathing labored now, something pushing my chest in so I couldn’t fill my lungs.

“Daley, you’re having a panic attack. You’re fine. You can breathe fine. Close your mouth, and breathe deeply through your nose. Come on, sweetie, you can do it.” He put his hand over my mouth so I had no choice. His scent was sharp and tangy, and I automatically drew it in.

“Good. You’re getting it. Again.” He started to move his hand away.

I grabbed it and held his palm to my face, closing my eyes and concentrating only on the way he smelled. The blackness receded, leaving the golden-red of closed eyelids facing sunshine. Another breath, and the flutter in my throat calmed. I let his hand fall and inhaled through my mouth, opened my eyes, and nodded. “Thanks.”

He let me hold on to his hand, resting against my leg, as I studied the buildings around us. I could feel Spike’s hand on my back, silent support, and I felt foolish for letting myself fall apart.

I tried Adam first. Putting up and taking down blocks to people’s emotions had been second nature to me before. I’d think about it, and it would happen. Now it was hard work. I concentrated, feeling sweat pop on my forehead. Adam stared into my eyes, and I shook free, exasperated.

“That’s not going to work. I can’t get tuned in if there’s no one to tune into.” Maybe casting a wide net would be easier than one-on-one. I stepped into the street and stood, eyes closed again, trying to ease the auras back into my empathic vision. I didn’t concentrate too hard, forcing myself to let the colors seep into sight, not zeroing in on them until I was fully functional again. I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t gone.

Three of the buildings contained a large number of people. Some were stationary, spaced in rows, and I assumed they sat in cubicles. Others moved in straight lines and sharp corners, pausing occasionally, or clustered in groups. Those were probably warehouse areas. Though the mix of emotions was broad, I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

The fourth building, however, did not match the patterns of the other three. There were a few clusters of people, and the range of emotions was low—in other words, most of the people in there were feeling the same things. In one corner, I counted four people.

Including Kirby.

I had never recognized a person by aura before. Normally, I knew who they were before I saw the aura, or I didn’t know them at all. I couldn’t tell what made hers different from all the others. She had more fear, true, but that didn’t make it her. Rather, the blend manifested itself in a unique way that I recognized. I’d have been elated at my discovery if I wasn’t still beaten down by all the other, less positive things that had happened today.

“She’s in there.” I pointed to the building and opened my eyes.

The three of us studied what appeared to be a normal office/warehouse building.