Liberation

Chapter 30

Adam's point of view:

(Occurring at the same time as the events of the previous chapter)
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My head spins with a tornado of thoughts, so dizzying that I might fall over.

I want to turn around and save Peter, but I also want to get everyone to the safety of this underground bunker that Cassia promised us. I want to find Julia, but we don't have the slightest clue where to look.

"Stop," I tell everyone, needing to catch my breath before I collapse from exhaustion. I haunch over and take deep breaths, trying to collect myself.

"Julia and Peter are still out there," Cassia says in despair. "We just...left them out there at Henley's mercy."

"We'll come back for them. They'll be alright," Susan says, trying to lift our spirits.

But even Susan and her joyous power can't ease my conscious. I know what Henley is going to do to Peter, and I let her take him.

Now, he'll never be the same.

"We need to keep going," I tell everyone, choosing to keep what I know hidden from them...for now at least.

"Leaving so soon? Why not stick around a while?" A foreign, oddly raspy voice speaks.

I turn my head, only to find myself face to face with Will, Henley's brother.

I stagger back, startled by his closeness and how quietly he snuck up on us. "Take a stance," I warn my friends, preparing for a fight.

But instead, Will just throws his head back and laughs like I've said the funniest thing. "Foolish children. Mine is the power of destruction, the ability to demolish or remove anything I desire. And the last time I checked, Henley said none of you were fighters," he says.

"And the last time I checked, you were a drunken idiot," Susan snaps, staring at him with a look that could kill. Kyle puts a hand on her shoulder to pull her back, whispering in her ear, "Don't."

"You'll do well to listen to your boyfriend," Will says to Susan, provoking an angry grunt from her.

He steps forward, slowly and maliciously grinning with every step. In a way, I suppose, he can be creepier than his sister.

"My order is to kill you all, to wipe out anyone who gets in our way. My sister would have gotten to Julia and Peter by now. All that's left is you four," he says.

Will reels back his hand in an attempt to release some kind of unspeakable destruction, a demolishment that will ensure our demise.

But all of the sudden, the sky splits open with lightning and thunder, the noise so loud that it shakes the ground.

Will releases his power at the same moment, but the abrupt storm throws off his aim as he explodes an old empty building beside us.

Rain begins to fly down from the sky, pelting us with a force like tiny bullets. Wind blows from the south, so strong that it brings up memories from when Julia had a tantrum in my office what seems like a lifetime ago.

"What is this?!" Will shouts over the storm, trying to shade his eyes from the stinging rain.

"That would be Julia," Kyle says hopefully.

But then I remember the more important matter at hand, the safety of that bunker.

"Let's go!" I yell over the wind howling in my ears, ushering everybody forward.

But before I can get everyone even ten feet away, two structures collapse into the street, scattering bricks and glass shards in every direction.

"No one's going anywhere!" Will shouts at us, a small cut on his arm from the fallen debris.