"I didn't know Kyle well, but I had him in many of my classes. He was a good guy, an innocent, like you. This man blew his head off from behind." Lucy jammed the gun deeper into his back.
"That's not justice. That's murder."
Her voice carried through the crowd, escalating with each word. "We have to act now, to stand our ground and say 'No more' to this tyranny, 'No more' to abuse and murder. We have to break free from the artificial bonds this school has enslaved us in. Who's with me?"
Silence hung in the air like a dying balloon. Not a single student stirred from their spots or raised their voice in protest.
A guard in the crowd raised his gun and walked toward Lucy. "Drop your weapon, or I'll be forced to fire. Don't make this worse than it already is."
Lucy shook her head, pressing her gun against Mr. Black's skull.
The guard took aim....
And his gun floated up into the air.
Darren stood behind him, arms extended and rage etched on his face. "Kyle was my best friend, and you bastards killed him."
He raised his arms, and the guard rose up into the air. Then with a flick of his hands, Darren slammed the guard into a tree. The man fell to the ground, limp.
The silence that had paralyzed everyone present broke. All around, students attacked the guards with their own brands of para-power. One soldier cried and crumbled to the ground, another turned to ice, and another became permanently entangled in a tree root.
The guards who could get away shot into the crowd without regard to where their bullets landed.
Lucy had to get everyone off the school grounds.
She tightened her grip on her prisoner. "Let's go, Mr. Black. We're going to open up the main gate and celebrate a new kind of Independence Day today."
Chapter 53 – Sam
'How do you know he's dying?' Drake paced in front of me.
"I felt the death in him when he touched me. We don't have much time. Can you break the door down?"
'Yes, but what then? I'm pretty sure this whole building is heavily guarded.'
I slumped into the couch. The recent revelations of my and Drake's births left my head spinning. The Seeker was my brother? And Drake's brother? I pictured our family tree and imagined my branch hovering dangerously close to Drake's.
"This family thing—it's a bit creepy, right? It's not just me?"
Drake sat next to me and held me in his arms. I rested my head on his shoulder and for a moment allowed myself to get lost in his warmth and comfort.
'No, not just you. This is definitely off the charts. But, good news, we aren't actually related. So, there's that.'
"Yeah, I guess. Of course, we are related to the Seeker. That's bad enough. And— Oh crap! My father is the evil mastermind behind this whole organization. Isn't that what the Seeker implied? Daddy Dearest is behind all this? Oh my God, Drake, does this make me evil?"
'You, my love, could never be evil. It's a choice, not a birthright. You are who you choose to be.'
Those words sounded good, in theory, but in reality I was a designer test tube baby, made from God-knew-what bits and pieces. Those parts could have been custom-made, Grade-A evil, and I'd never know until it was too late.
"Drake, I don't know how long we have before he clamps down on our power. I wish I knew what to do to fix all of this."
He sat up and held my eyes with his. 'I have an idea, but I'm not sure you'll like it.'
"What?"
'Mary. We mind-jack her and use her to escort us out as though the Seeker had ordered it. We find Luke and Lucy and help them with their get-out-of-jail-alive plan.'
"You're right. I don't like it."
'Can you think of anything else? Anything we can do to save your friends, and not die in the process?'
Unfortunately, I couldn't. I thought about what the professor and Father Patrick had both said about morality. Could mind control be just a tool, to be used for good or evil? And if Mary was already under the control of the Seeker, couldn't this actually benefit her in the long run?
"Okay, we can try it, but carefully. We don't know what damage he's already done to her."
With the mind link already in place, we scanned for Mary. I knew her signature and found her easily—she was just outside our room.
I expected a wall to block us out, but she had something else going on inside her mind. Rather than a shield to keep others out, what I felt was more like an energy source attached to her mind, growing into it.
It meant the difference between a demolition and brain surgery. It also meant a seriously high risk to her and us.
'We have to at least try, Sam. We have no other way out.'
"I'll see if I can pry the other energy off her mind without damaging her, but if it looks too dangerous, we're pulling out."
Tendrils of power brushed against mine. Rather than bash my way in as I normally would, I surrounded each tendril with my own power and ever so gently brushed it aside.