Just thinking his name carved another hole in my mangled gut.
The ground rose to meet me faster than expected, as I slid down the last ladder of the fire escape. I stumbled onto my knees, tearing my pants and leaving small marks of blood on the cement. I hobbled along through more than just a trace of blood smeared across the campus walkways.
I joined a swarm of students heading for the front gates. "Drake! Drake!"
Bodies pushed me forward, and I couldn't tell one person from another. No one looked familiar, and yet everyone looked the same. "Luke? Lucy?"
"Luce, where are you? I'm stuck and can't see anyone?"
'Sam, oh my God, we've been worried sick about you. Get to the gates. We're about to get out.'
I imagined a single file line as we all walked off campus and into the world. Leave it to Lucy to plan something far more dramatic.
The entire perimeter of the fence pulled itself out of the ground and flew into the forest. In another display of power, the brick wall beyond the metal fence crumbled to dust.
Teens of all ages screamed and cheered and ran from the school that had become worse than a prison.
But where were they going? Brad should've been here by now with backup. I needed to get to Lucy and Luke and help organize the students.
I locked on to Lucy's mental signature and pushed through the crowd, following her link.
We reunited just outside the old fence line. All around us fires burned, things exploded, and people laughed and cried.
I wrapped my arms around my best friend and added my tears to the mourning. "You're safe. I'm so glad you're safe."
"You too, Chica. Where's Drake? We've got to get out of here."
My sobs came harder.
"What did I say? What's wrong?"
"I lost Drake. I can't find him."
"What do you mean, you lost him? He's not a puppy. Can't you use your link?"
I gave her the Reader's Digest condensed version of what happened.
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, Sam."
Luke came up and wrapped his arms around both of us. "We'll find him, but first we need a what-do-we-do-next plan. We have that, right?"
"Yes. Let me see what I can find."
With my two best friends both hugging me, I reached out my mind and scanned our area. Something had shifted in me since the Seeker had kissed my forehead. Some space I hadn't known existed now opened up, but I didn't know what it meant, and I didn't have time to explore it.
A mass of consciousness lumbered toward us, and one familiar signature. Brad had brought the cavalry.
"We're going to be okay. Brad's coming with help. I need to try and connect to all the students and create some order."
Normally I would have needed Drake for this kind of power, but I didn't have him anymore, at least not in that way. Maybe not in any way.
I sat down to steady myself, and let Luke and Lucy guard me as I reached out to every mind around me. Not all were students and teachers. Many of the guards survived. I could feel their confusion and fear, like zookeepers whose animals had escaped—that's how most of them saw us.
The students were scattered everywhere, but most realized an escape from a secret facility in the middle of the forest needed more thought than just running. It didn't take as much power as I'd imagined to connect with everyone. I offered a gentle push for them all to listen and respond.
"I am Sam. I escaped once and have come back to help. Friends are coming with vehicles and supplies, but I need you all to come to me and stay calm and orderly while we sort it all out. Guards, look around. Your leader is dead. You've lost, and more of you will die if you don't walk away."
The fighting stopped, and they came. Not as zombies, but as free members of society, though society didn't even know they existed.
As if on cue, icy rain broke from the heavens. It poured down so hard, it subdued the fires and eventually put them out.
When Brad and his people arrived, Luke, Lucy and I had organized everyone into groups with team leaders and jobs. Some groups were assigned to clear buildings and retrieve the bodies of the dead and wounded. Other groups were responsible for gathering research material and secret information, using the codes and keys Higgins had given Lucy to access the safes.
So much loss of life. And who could say for sure where the lines of good and evil lay? No single person was all one or the other. So how did we decide which actions to place on the scale of good and evil?
I chose to look at how they'd spent their last moments of life.
***
The familiarity of Brad's embrace sent me into another round of tears. No one had seen Drake, and his body hadn't been found.
"We'll find him." Brad took off his jacket and draped it over my shivering shoulders. "In the meantime, there's someone I think you should meet."