Powerless (Bird of Stone Book 3) Read online

  “A shot at Nick?”

  “No,” Campbell replies mockingly, yanking open the backdoor. “A shot at the gold medal in pole vault.”

  “Why is he outside in the open like this?” I ask Brody, ignoring Campbell.

  “This is where he went into this trance thing. I didn’t know if we should move him. I thought it might stop the rain. And when the rain stops, they’re comin’ for us.”

  “Nick,” I whisper to him.

  He doesn’t hear me. He can’t. He’s too far inside the stone and I immediately flash back to the bone ship when he went so far under we couldn’t get him out. I had to go inside the void looking for him.

  I’d really love it if I never had to do that again.

  “Let’s get inside. All of us.” I lift Nick’s arm, throwing it over my shoulders. It falls heavy over me, pushing me down. “A little help?” I grunt at Brody.

  “Do you want help or do you want cover?”

  “Both?”

  Brody turns his head sideways, his eyes on the truck but his mouth shouting at the house. “Beck! Help!”

  Marcus appears in the doorway. He’s pale and sweating, still sick as a dog but stronger than I’ll ever be. When he sees me struggling with Nick, he’s quick to rush into the rain to help me. He takes Nick around the waist, slinging him over his shoulder and darting back into the house. I run in after him, Brody backing in behind me.

  Marcus gently lays Nick down on the couch. I follow in his blood-soaked footprints as Brody slams the door shut, throwing the bolts.

  He grunts, unhappy. “Still raining.”

  “I know,” I snap anxiously. “He’s not back yet. Give it a second.”

  “We don’t got a lot of those to spare.”

  “Well, I can’t Slip him like this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it will destroy him,” Liam answers.

  I start, spinning on my toes to find him behind me. He looks surreal standing in our simple little house. Like a Hugo Boss wearing ghost. He’s the only one of us not covered in blood rain, and somehow that makes him the weirdo right now.

  I gape at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “No time,” Brody interrupts. He uses the butt of his rifle to break out the kitchen window, quickly turning it to rest the barrel on the open sill. “Wake up Nick. We gotta go.”

  In the back of the house feet stomp wildly, the sounds of Marcus and Campbell gathering our gear.

  “If there’s anything in here you can’t live without,” Campbell shouts to us all, “grab it now because we’re not coming back!”

  I grab Nick’s hand. I kneel next to him as I slide my palm against his, trying hard to ignore the feeling of the rain between us. It’s so warm. So thick. So insanely disturbing I feel like crying. But I keep my calm and I tell myself to wipe the disgust out of my eyes because when he comes back to me, I don’t want him thinking that feeling is for him. I don’t ever want him to think I’m afraid of him.

  “Nick!” I call loudly. “It’s time to come back! Come out of it!”

  Marcus appears in my peripheral. He has four large, overstuffed bags on his shoulders. Two of them are mine and Nick’s. The other two are his and Brody’s. Our bug-out-bags that we keep by our beds for exactly this reason.

  Campbell is hot on his heels, a bag on his shoulder and a gun in his hand. He quickly takes up position on the other side of the living room, looking out the window to the south. He’s watching the second truck. “What’s our status, Mills?”

  His voice is calm. Clipped. He’s using my real name, not a nickname. His switch has been flipped. He’s gone full PJ.

  We’re officially at war again.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know what to do. Bringing him inside isn’t working. He’s still out there with the rain.”

  “Go in and get him,” Liam tells me. “The same way you did on the ship.”

  “He was basically dead when I did that. He’s not nearly that far gone.”

  “Well, he obviously can’t hear you.”

  “Nick!” I scream at his face.

  Nothing.

  “As I said,” Liam mumbles.

  I shake my head, looking around the room helplessly. “What do I do?”

  “You could never scream like that around me again,” Brody suggests softly. He puts his palm against his ear, rubbing it roughly.

  I wince apologetically. “Sorry.”

  “I told you what to do,” Liam pushes. “And it didn’t involve screaming like a feral cat.”

  “He was dead,” I repeat angrily. “I found him in the bottom of the deepest part of his mind where he’d sunk like a stone. He won’t be there this time. He’ll be somewhere else, in some corner where he thought up freaking blood rain. I don’t know where that is and I don’t want to know.”

  “I can take the others. I’ll get them to safety while you sort Nick.”

  I look at him sharply, my mistrust rising high in my throat. “Where would you take them?”

  “Anywhere you say.”

  “Take us where you took your people,” Brody tells him.

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “Is that what we want?” I ask Brody emphatically. “Where is that? What people? What are we talking about?”

  “I’ve got movement!” Campbell shouts from the window.

  I grimace, gripping Nick’s hand tightly.

  What do I do? What do I do? I chant over and over again, waiting for Nick to answer me. For his voice to ring clear as a bell through my brain, telling me the answer in that obnoxiously sure tone of his. With all the certainty I’ve never had.

  “Alex.”

  I look at Liam warily. “Where will you take them?”

  “To the island.”

  “Which island? And don’t say Russia.”

  “Russia.”

  “You shit.”

  Liam grins faintly, his handsome face in shadow and doubt. He’s so many things right then. A friend. An ally. An unknown. An enemy. I really don’t know what to do with him, but if he can help us, I need to try to trust him. It’s what Nick would do. And if it backfires, if he betrays us, Nick and I will come at him with the full force of our powers. And that is something Liam Evans does not want.

  Campbell fires a shot behind me. Glass breaks as the room explodes in sound and chaos. I flinch, falling over Nick protectively, closing my eyes tight. More shots are fired. Inside and outside.

  “Nick, you gotta come out,” I whisper fervently to Nick. “I need you to come out. Please. Please. Please.”

  Another shot. Another window explodes into the house.

  “Screw this,” Campbell grunts.

  He strides across the room, broken glass crunching under his boots. He shoves me aside to yank Nick into a sitting position. With his free hand, he backhands Nick across the face with a loud crack! Blood flies from Nick’s face and hair as his head snaps sharply to the side.

  “Campbell!” I scream, grabbing at his shoulders, ready to tear him apart.

  Nick’s eyes pop open, stopping me cold. He blinks hard once. Twice. A short breath stumbles from his chest.

  Campbell pulls him closer so we can both see his eyes clearly. “You good, man?”

  Nick nods slowly. His cheek is pink, quickly turning red. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

  “The rain is letting up,” Brody announces.

  Campbell nods. “He’s back.”

  “So are they. They’re getting out of the trucks. They’re coming.”

  Campbell releases Nick, touching his shoulder with surprising gentleness considering he just slapped him across the face. He shakes him once before returning to the window.

  I take Nick’s hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Nick inhales, slow and deep. He takes my question seriously, doing a quick inventory of his body. His brain. His eyes are sharp, assessing the room in a flash.

  It’s all the confirmation I need that he’s okay.

&
nbsp; “I’m good,” he promises. He stands quickly, smoothly pulling me up with him. “What’s our status?”

  “Surrounded,” Campbell tells him. “It’s time to go.”

  “They’re closing in!” Brody shouts from the kitchen.

  Marcus straps our bags around his body before hurrying to my side. He’s carrying hundreds of pounds of gear and he’s not even breaking a sweat. It’s impressive and so weird to see from such a small guy, but that’s the magic of Marcus. I take his hand, pulling him in close to me.

  Brody and Campbell dart from their windows into the living room with us. We’re defenseless now. We need to hurry.

  “I’ll ride with Liam,” Brody says briskly.

  “Me too,” Campbell agrees.

  I hesitate, even though we don’t have time. There’s never any time. It’s kind of liberating, in a way. It makes it hard to see your mistakes coming if you never had the time to think them through.

  I meet Liam’s eyes over Nick’s shoulder. He’s holding hands with Brody and Campbell, just three grown dudes hanging out hand-in-hand. It’d be funny if we weren’t in danger of being taken prisoner in the next couple minutes. Still, I worry as I look at him. As I put my faith in Liam. He’s burned me so many times before. How many more chances will I give him? How much faith can I have before I’m forced to face the facts – he’s my enemy.

  I don’t want him to be. I want him to be the friend I found in the clinic. I want him to be more than his dad was. More than I worry he is. He’ll never be a hero, but I hope so deeply that he’s not a villain.

  “The island,” I remind him, pleading for him to promise. For him to be the Downton Abby awesome and honorable that I need him to be right now.

  He nods once, his face blank. “The island. I’ll take them to the parking lot just outside the mouth of the tunnel.”

  “You’re not gonna screw me on this. Not today, okay?”

  He smiles as he Slips away.

  I glower as I Slip out after him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MAX

  We land in the parking lot, just like Liam told Alex we would. The ride was smoother than anything Alex has ever done, even on a good day when she’s not trying to make me lose my lunch. He’s been doing it a lot longer. He has a lot more practice. He’s also missing something. I don’t have the rush in my blood that I get from Slipping with Alex. It’s like the difference between a rollercoaster and a monorail. One is quick and efficient, the other is a thrill. A jolt to your system that makes you feel afraid and alive at the same time.

  It’s raining when we materialize. Luckily, it’s nothing like the rain we left in England; warm like bathwater and thick as oil. This is refreshing. It’s cold and misting, sliding in sideways on a blustering wind that whips around the mountain. The parking lot is blacktop with no markings, shining like glass under the sheen of rain. In the center is a large crack. A break in a black mirror, like something fell from the sky. Something big. Something heavy.

  Something made of stone.

  I’ve heard about the bird. Even with everything I’ve seen Carver do, it’s hard to picture it. I’d kill to see it. To touch it. But it’s long gone, probably removed at the same time they sealed up the tunnel I can see outlined in the mountainside. They were probably worried Nick’s dragon would come back to life and raid their village. It’s a legit fear. Nick’s bird is most likely in a lab somewhere being tested for radiation or alien DNA. They’ll try to make sense of it, but if they asked I could save them the trouble. There is no rhyme or reason to this mess. Carver and Alex, Brody and Beck, Wolverine and Deadpool – they’re all science gone sideways. They’re the product of bad reasoning. Of people who are too smart standing around asking each other if they can, not if they should.

  “Wow,” Brody whispers in amazement. He’s turning slowly, scanning our surroundings. “This is different than the Texas clinic.”

  Liam looks with him, taking it in slow like it’s the first time. “Yes. We made some upgrades.”

  “You made a prison, buddy. No gettin’ around that.”

  The parking lot is surrounded by a massive wall topped with razor wire, butting up against the mountainside. A thick iron gate leads out down a road that winds out of view almost immediately, probably making the circular drive up the mountain from a boat dock on the shore or a landing strip on a straight stretch of asphalt. I can’t see much of the rest of the island. I have no idea how big it is, but I’m guessing small. Private.

  There are a few gray buildings sitting squat in the corner of the parking lot. Nondescript but intact. Tall, barren trees shoot into the sky, blocking my view, but I catch glimpses of gray ocean in the distance. Gray storm clouds overhead. Gray stone standing proudly at our back. It’s a monochromatic canvas, the only color the blood rinsing slowly off my body, off Brody, running in thin rivers across the blacktop. The whole place has an oppressive feel to it. A heaviness that I’m not used to and I can’t shake off.

  I’m not a fan.

  Light shimmers to my left. It looks like heat rising off the pavement in waves. Like a desert mirage. Slowly, Alex, Nick, and Beck take shape. The rain distorts around them, unable to touch them in the in-between, half-in and half-out of existence. I can feel the electricity in the air as they come in for a landing and I think that is what Liam is missing. The energy. The zap that comes from Alex, like you put your finger in a socket and you’re sorry you did it, but it was also kinda hype.

  When Beck lets go of Alex, I nod to him, offering to take my bag. He hoists it off his shoulder, handing it to me like it weighs nothing.

  “Thanks, big man,” I grunt as I toss the strap over my shoulder.

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  “How was the ride?”

  He looks at me wearily, his eyes pained. He’s paler than before, even with the blood rain caked on his skin. “It was okay.”

  “You need to puke?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have to lie to me. You need to toss your cookies, you go ahead and toss ‘em. Riding with SB is rough when you’ve got full health. I’d never do it with the flu.”

  He nods slowly. Swallows hard. “Can you hold these for me?”

  I shake my head at the bags he’s offering me. “I absolutely cannot, no. Drop ‘em on the ground. Puke your guts out. You’ll feel better.”

  Beck drops the bags in the rain before making a quick dash toward the wall. He stops with his hand against it, retching loudly.

  Alex takes a step toward him. Her face is pinched with concern. “Is he okay?”

  “Nope. You killed him.”

  “If I could kill people by Slipping them, you wouldn’t still be here.”

  “Zing.”

  “Shut up.” She looks over my shoulder, taking another step toward Beck. “I should go check on him.”

  I step sideways to block her. “He’s a grown man. He can sort himself out.”

  “He’s in pain.”

  “He literally has a stomach ache. Give a guy his pride, SB. Leave him alone.”

  “He’s right,” Nick agrees. He touches her arm, pulling her around to put her back to Beck, his own face a little tight but his stomach kept carefully in check. “He’ll be fine.”

  “So, when do we get the Grand Tour?” I call to Liam. “I wanna book a seaweed wrap at the spa and if your room service menu doesn’t have lobster tail, I will light you up on Yelp.”

  Liam gives me that look; the same look Alex likes to give me. The long-suffering look. The do-we-really-need-him look.

  I love that look, because, yeah, they do need me. Whether they like it or not.

  “Follow me,” he tells us all. “I’ll take you to the lavatory where you can freshen up. I’d rather you didn’t meet my patients covered in gore. It will upset some of them.”

  “Like Naomi?” Alex asks gently.

  Liam nods, his eyes grim. “Yes. Especially Naomi.”

  Alex’s face softens at the mention of the girl’s
name, and it’s funny because my spine stiffens. We’ve all seen what Naomi can do. We all know what it feels like to be close to her, but the difference between Alex and I is that I don’t have that confusing little chemical called Caring. I can look at the girl for what she is; dangerous. I don’t see the pretty packaging that looks all sad and broken, the wrapper that makes Alex and Liam melt inside at the sight of her. She is some seriously hard candy, and I’m not about to forget that.

  Liam leads us across the broken blacktop toward one of the gray buildings in the corner. Beck trudges slowly behind us, miserable but empty. It’s the best he can hope for right now.

  “Where’d they take the bird?” Nick asks curiously, his eyes tracing the cracked outline under our feet. Whatever the bird looked like, it was big. And heavy. It didn’t just crack the pavement when it came down. It left an indent where water is pooling like a little lake in its center.

  “It was demolished on site,” Liam answers, sounding like a bored tour guide. “Pieces were taken to different facilities. Separate laboratories. I don’t know where all of them are, to be honest.”

  “Do you know where any of the pieces are?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Liam stops suddenly, turning to look Nick in the eyes. It’s a surprisingly gangster power-move coming from this mild-mannered scientist. It kicks my respect for him up a notch. “I care because I’m concerned what you’d do with it if you found it. Would you raise it again? Recreate it into something new? Push your limits even farther, perhaps creating a creature even you cannot control? Because if that’s your intent, I will never tell you where it is. Never.”

  Nick levels him in his gaze, his tone perfectly unaffected. “So, you do know where they are, then?”

  Liam sneers at him slightly before turning his back to him.

  “You have some of it here, don’t you?”

  Liam stumbles slightly. One foot falls slower than the other, throwing off his gait. He recovers quickly, leading us on.

  He doesn’t answer Nick.

  “How many people are here?” Alex asks him. “Besides you and Naomi.”