Chasing Power (Hidden Talents) (39 page)

“I’m not going to break my promise to you, god damn it.  I’m staying with you and that’s that.  Now you can let me sit and watch you struggle for the next thirty minutes or so, or you can give me your hand and we can get out of here now!”

Sam craned her neck upwards, “I can’t.”

“Sam, I am so sick of your goddamned inability to accept any—”

“Because I’ve been shot, dork!”

“Oh.”  Lane looked at her again, saw the blood, and cleared his throat.  “Right.  One sec.”

Taking a break, Sam leaned against the seat.

“Hey, Sam!”  Al’s head and torso popped into view, “Lane’s puking right now.  Give us a second.” 

Harry appeared, “Hi.  I’m the one who figured it all out.  I just want that on the record right now before anyone else tries to take credit.”

“Nice, um, thanks.”

Finally, Lane climbed back into view, breathing shallowly.  With help from Harry and Al, he was lowered into the car.  Careless of stepping on Harris, he lifted her by her armpits, pulling her up and onto her feet.  From there, she was helped up out of the SUV by Harry and Al.  Quickly, Al removed Sam’s cuffs.  The collar, unfortunately, he couldn’t fix.

“It’s magnetic or something,” Al said, “I can’t do magnets.”  Sam nodded glumly and slid down off the car, into Harry’s arms.

Tess stood nearby, anxiously jiggling a set of keys.  When she saw Harry helping Sam down from the SUV, she let out a squeal and rushed forward.  “Sam!” Tess crowed, “You’re alive!”

“Don’t you dare hug me,” Sam said, backing up against the car.  Tess stalled in her tracks, arms dropping to her sides.  Her thwarted attention found a new target when Lane appeared, “Lane!” Tess said, “You saved her.”

Rolling her eyes, Sam looked around.  They stood in the middle of a six-lane road that ran alongside a rocky shoreline, each direction separated by a divider—the cause of the turnover.  Several cars, some with minor damage, parked on the side of the road, and drivers milled around, most of them on their cell phones.  Many people stared at them with open curiosity.  A few moved aside as a woman pushed past them.  Renée’s previously immaculate blouse now had smears of oil on it in addition to Sam’s blood; her jeans were ripped and torn.  She looked like she’d been rolling around on the asphalt, yet, amazingly, showed no sign of injury.  Sam remembered the bullet, and wondered if Renée had passed through the SUV the same way the bullet had passed through Renée’s body.  Cool.

Harry spotted Renée the same time Sam did.  Shouting a warning, Sam felt the hairs on her neck raise as Harry prepared to call down a bolt of lightning. 

“No, Harry, don’t!”

The lightning bolt danced away from Renée, narrowly avoiding hitting her.  Renée looked at the bolt, impressed.  Sam let out the breath she’d been holding.  “She’s not evil.  At least, not in this case.  The Corp isn’t trying to kill me.”

Lane slid down from the SUV, “We know that N.T.U. sent Hal, Sam, but that doesn’t clear the Corp.  If they aren’t behind all these attacks, who is?”

“Stone.  He’s staging a hostile takeover.”  But how did N.T.U. figure in?  “And I think he’s got some alliance going with N.T.U., too.  I bet they’re the ones funding his little coup.”

“That’s a big jump,” Lane said, “Do you have evidence?”

“Oh, yeah, I had a chance to go through the files while I was at N.T.U.  No, I don’t have hard evidence!  I put two and two together.  How else did Stone’s men always know where to find me?  How did they know when the trade-off took place?  You were calling to check in with N.T.U. all the time.  N.T.U. told them where we were.”

“That’s ridiculous!”  Tess said, “N.T.U. would never team up with someone like that.  Never!”

“Oh, grow up, Tess!”  Sam said, “The whole world isn’t as shallow as you are, you know.”

 “I,” Tess said, her voice a growl, “am not shallow.  As a matter of fact—” 

“Tess!”  Harry yelled.

A bolt materialized out of thin air, slashing down towards her.  For a second, Tess was illuminated in blue-white light.  Then the light disappeared, leaving Tess standing there shaking like a leaf.

“Harry!”  Al gasped.  

“It wasn’t me!”  Harry said, “I barely stopped it!”

Then who—?  Spinning around, Sam stopped as she faced north.  Oh god.  Stone had caught up.  But this time, he wasn’t alone.  A whole array of men and women in suits stood behind him in formation.  The fact that most of them weren’t openly carrying weapons only made them more frightening.

“RUN!”  Sam screamed, and pointed towards the other side of the freeway.  Lane, Al, and Harry didn’t hesitate to start running, but Tess stayed still, stunned.  Al had to grab her arm to pull her away.They leapt over the barrier, dodging oncoming cars and more lightning bolts as they crossed the road and encountered—a concrete retaining wall extending at least twenty yards in either direction.  They were sitting ducks.

“Al,” Sam said, “Stall the cars!”  Closing his eyes, Al crouched and placed his hands on the ground.  Within a second, several cars had slowed or skidded to a stop.

“Now hide!”  Sam said, “Split up!”

The group peeled off in separate directions to crouch behind the different stalled cars, ignoring the questions of confused drivers.  Renée hid in the car to the left of Sam’s, Lane somewhere to the right of her.  Harry, Al, and Tess ran in the opposite direction.  Sam didn’t see where they hid, but she could guess what Harry was working at, lightning danced out and around them, the air feeling hot and charged as the electricity continued to narrowly miss each of them.

Sam didn’t hope that their evasive maneuvers had somehow confused or misled Stone.  What she prayed was that Stone would ignore her friends and come after her instead.  Maybe if he had what he wanted he’d leave them alone.

For once, she was right. After climbing over the divider Stone made a beeline for the Civic Sam hid behind.

A sense of déjà vu came over her. 
Haven’t I been cornered by you before?
she thought.  Only the last time he didn’t have twenty other Talents arrayed behind him.  She turned to Renée.  “Get the collar off me, now!” she hissed.

Renée shook her head, “I’m waiting for back-up!  He can’t hurt me.  And I have strict orders to keep you contained.”

“You can’t keep me contained forever, Renée.  All you can do is piss me off badly enough that I come after you instead.”

Renée reached into her pocket.  Sam felt the collar deactivate.  Reaching over, Renee used a small hand-held key to unclip the collar.  It fell off, and Sam shoved it into her waistband.  She held out her hand.  Renée looked at her blankly.

“I want the remote, too!  And the key.  Give it to me, or I leave you defenseless,” Sam hissed.  Looking like she knew she’d be regretting this, Renée tossed her the remote.  

 Collarless, now Sam could once more sense the ebb and flow of energy around her.  She took a deep breath, a little frightened to realize how much she had missed that sixth sense.

And she realized something else.  

The energy flow was wrong again; it was moving unnaturally, with that off feeling it had had when she’d seen...

Of course.  The final piece clicked into place.  Her father.  All of that talk about deals and economics.  He’d gone and taken the better deal.  He’d been toying with her the whole time.  No wonder Stone was so keen on killing her—he didn’t want competition for his ace in the whole, her father.  Either that, or her death was a condition of her father’s agreement.  Not a pleasant thought, but an issue she’d have to deal with later.  But Stone was only ten feet away from finding her hiding place.  He had to be dealt with now.  Sam counted down his steps.  Five, four, three, two—

“Hey, Stone!”  A voice called out, “Looking for someone?”

Lane stepped out from behind a station wagon, “You want her, you’re going to have to go through me first.”

Stone smiled.

No.  Oh no no no.

In less than a tenth of a second, Lane was lifting, spiraling a hundred feet up and into the air, like falling in reverse.  And then he was falling for real, plunging back towards the earth and, thanks to Sam, he had absolutely no TK with which to protect himself.

Chapter
34

Screaming, Sam catapulted herself over the hood of the car.  Two steps took her towards Lane, and she was reaching out, trying to push every ounce of power back into him, praying it would give him the ability to cushion his fall.  She didn’t reach him in time.  He landed on the hood of the station wagon with a sickening smack.

“Lane,” Sam gasped as she reached him, “Please be OK.” 

He was still, totally still.

And then he took in a great big breath.

“God that hurts,” Lane grunted.  Turning his head, he blinked at Sam, “Why are you out here?  Hide, damnit!”

“Ah, predictable,” a voice said over their shoulders, “Mutual martyrdom leads to disaster yet again.”  Stone stood a few feet away.  His blonde ponytail blew softly in the wind, making him look like some sort of Euro-trash terrorist.  He held his hands out placatingly.

“You’re outnumbered, Miss Gibson.  Now would be the time to surrender.  I might consider letting your friends live.”

The world felt deadly calm and still, but inside Sam roiled.  He was right.  That’s what got her.  These people came around screwing with her life, with her family, with her friends, and they succeeded.  Continuously.  How much had she suffered for someone else’s greed?  How screwed over was her life because of these people?

Forget them.  She was done with this whole schtick, every part of it.  In this world it was clear—he who has the most power wins.

This time, she was going to win.

Steeling herself, Samantha reached deep and took control.

The world stopped.

But this time, Samantha was there as it happened.

Samantha made it happen.

Different than everything she had experienced, this was above.  Beyond.  Samantha didn’t feel the power coursing through her; she was the power.  Bright, burning, and deep, she controlled the flow because she was the flow. She was energy.  She was a force of nature.

She turned her gaze towards the enemy. 

Stone reached for power, but Sam took it away as easily as a parent took a toy from a child.  He shrugged, laughing, “Oh yeah, what are you going to do?  You can’t use it.”

“I can’t,” Samantha snarled, “But he can.”  Reaching backwards, she grabbed Lane’s hand.

With her power fueling his telepathy, their minds met instantaneously.  In a second, Lane knew Samantha’s plan, what she wanted to do.  And for once, he didn’t argue.    

Renée’s power was almost a cheap parlor trick compared to what Sam and Lane could do right now.  Because with her power and his skill, what they could do is so much better.  After all, what was the rearrangement of a few paltry molecules?

Suddenly, a very different type of screaming filled the air as Stone realized that he was sinking—right into the asphalt.  He yelled in protest, struggling to pull his legs free of the sticky mass of pavement.

“Your first mistake,” Sam growled, “was messing with my friends.  Your second was not making sure you were out of range when you did it.”

Stone schooled his face, stilled his features.  “Think you’re the only one who can do that?”

A force reached out, grabbed her power.  Her father.  Sam couldn’t see him, but she could sense him out there, trying to take back what she’d stolen. 

#

Lane didn’t have the slightest idea how this was working.  He did know it scared the hell out of him.  He’d never felt this much power in his life.  Voices crowded into his skull, thoughts he was picking up now that his abilities had been multiplied by a factor of 10, turning his empathy into full-scale telepathy and his telekinesis into some sort of monster.  And the awareness, the physical awareness of the world he felt right now.  It was stunning.  Sam felt it too.  He knew because she was in his mind, too.  But while the others were voices, she was a presence.  Physical, real.  The pain kept him from moving his own body, but he could sense every movement she made with hers, like he had after the Cherry Inn.  He thought her thoughts and saw through her own eyes.  It would be freaking him out if they weren’t busy, communicating, planning, acting.  Sam let go of his hand, but the connection remained.  It had always been there, Lane realized, he’d sensed it before.  But now it was stronger than ever—Samantha wasn’t fighting it anymore, she was allowing it to happen.  She was strengthening it.  She began to move forward.

One by one, Stone’s friends threw everything they had at her.  Projectiles, lightning bolts, and mental blasts mostly bounced harmlessly away from her.  Most of the time, the offender found his or her self on the receiving end of their weapon of choice.  But every now and then, something got through her shell.  She was too distracted, Lane could tell, to continue to block and if they continued chipping away at her defenses, she’d be wiped out soon.

“Dude, need help?”  Al’s head popped up by the side-view mirror.  A second later, Harry appeared next to him.

“Not me,” Lane panted, “You’ve got to help Sam.”