A/N: I still haven't thought of a better title for this. I just threw that title up there thinking that I'd come up with a better one later... yeah, not so much. I hope this doesn't suck lol.
Cole made a mad dash for Shane's apartment. Yelling out the window? Yeah, not such a good idea... Reapers were all over the place now.
He just had to stick to his plan... his plan that he'd only just thought of ten minutes ago. He'd grab the girl, find a boat, and... that was as far as he'd gotten. How would he get them past the battleships? He'd hold off the military all by himself? Even in his head it sounded completely insane. But they couldn't stay in this city... He had to at least try to get the two of them out of here, and that was the only way he could think of.
Stampton Bridge was the only bridge out of town that wasn't a drawbridge, and therefore wasn't raised. But that bridge was a jungle of razor wire, machine gun nests, and armored guards. Trying to escape that way was just asking to get themselves ripped to shreds. No, sneaking out at night in a small boat was the only feasible way. He'd just have to pray that he could stay awake for the entire trip. There would be no source of electricity out on the water...
Cole knew he wouldn't make it for long with any power... He could feel the electricity pulsing through him along with his blood. It was such a familiar feeling now, like being tired and hungry, that it felt totally normal. Giving it up would be like holding his breath... But if he wanted to save his friend, he'd have to suck it up and hope he could do this.
Reapers crawled out of buildings, weapons drawn, hoping to fill him with lead. They no doubt wanted to get his blood flowing... but Cole wasn't about to give them the chance. It had rained the night before. Killing them was almost too easy... lightning arched from his body, leaping across puddles, taking out anything that happened to come near him.
Cole vaulted over a body, pushing down the urge to vomit. An image had flashed through his mind... Shane lying dead on the ground, her eyes glassy and lifeless.
That is NOT real! I can do this!
But even if they got back to the main land, what would they do? The police or the military or somebody would find them... chances of disappearing were very slim. But if they somehow did escape, then what? They'd have no place to go... Would his parents welcome home their fugitive son and the girl he had a crush on?
Good news Mom and Dad, I finally have something else to add to my resume! Cole MacGrath: high school graduate, bike courier, and part time terrorist and freak of nature! Talents include electrocuting myself, slaughtering the masses, and delivering bombs! You must be so proud!
Knights Bridge Road was just ahead. Cole stumbled as a bullet slammed into the back of his leg. He grimaced, turning to look at the monsters following him. These freaks obviously were not about to give up on their hopes of draining his blood and using it to make cocktails.
He dug into the power in his gut, letting it fill in all those empty holes inside him. Then he stretched out his arms and let it go. Lightning blasted from his palms, striking down those red coated figures. Weapons clattered to the ground.
Cole barely even looked at the bodies... he just kept running, his leg dragging. Surviving this city was not getting any easier... He grasped a lamp post, feeling power welling back up in his chest. He could feel his leg repairing itself, but bullets continued whizzing over his head within seconds of the wound closing. He could hear more Reapers howling nearby.
Cole wished he hadn't driven Sam away... She would help him, he knew she would... But he'd made her cry and pushed her away, and who knew if she would come back?
Pushing away the sadness in his heart, Cole kept running. He rounded a corner and ran straight into a wall of red coated figures. Where were they finding all these red coats? He could see them baring their black teeth...
Shoot me, you freaks! Try and drink my blood again, I fucking dare you!
More Reapers piled in behind him, cutting off his retreat. They all raised their guns at once as if they'd rehearsed it. Cole clenched his teeth. This was going to hurt. He took a deep breath, letting what energy he had left come to the surface. His skin crackled with dozens of tiny blue bolts. The puddle he was standing in was perfect...
You people aren't the only ones who have had the humanity ripped out of you... You aren't the only ones who are fucked up. You think I won't kill you? There's almost nothing I wouldn't do anymore.
As Cole dropped to the ground, he felt it... Power expanding in his chest, forcing its way up his throat, filling the inside of his mouth. As soon as his hands touched the wet pavement, it exploded out of him like it was glad to be free. Cole closed his eyes, but he still felt electricity sizzling under his tongue and between his teeth. Lightning leaped joyfully over the ground, slamming into the red figures, blasting them backward. Within seconds, Cole was the last man standing.
Dark clouds rolled in. Cold wind swept through the alley, rustling the Reapers' red coats. Cole sucked in a deep breath through his teeth. His mouth tasted charred, so much so that he was tempted to stick his face into a puddle to get rid of the taste. Cole moved forward shakily, stepping over bodies. He stared at a broken window across the street to avoid looking at the corpses at his feet. Of all the random thoughts to pop into his head at the moment, he wished the flower shop across the street was open. What better way to try and convince a girl to come with him on a suicide trip?
I brought you flowers... want to come get yourself killed with me? It'll be very romantic, at least until we meet our untimely end. Or perhaps our very timely end, since I should be dead a million times over by now.
Cole ran down Knights Bridge Road, tendrils of electricity trailing after him like the tail of a comet.
When he finally reached her apartment the side door was still locked, so he climbed the windowsills until he reached the seventh floor. Was this her window? It looked like it. The window was open a crack... Cole slipped his hand in, wiggling the window open farther.
Cole stuck his head inside.
"Shane!" he yelled. "Hello! Are you here?!"
Silence. The inside of the apartment was dark.
Cole wiggled his body inside. Barely. He stood in the dark living room, eyes glancing around the mostly empty space. The air inside tasted... stale.
"Shane?" Cole called uncertainly.
Still no answer. Cole paced the room anxiously after checking the bedroom. Where the hell would she be right now? It was like 7 in the morning...
"It's, um... it's me. It's Cole," he called out into the darkness, just in case she was there somewhere.
Why aren't you here?! I fight my way through Reapers and accidentally scare away one of my only friends... just to find out that you're not home?
The silence was almost eerie after the sound of gunfire. He was starting to feel uncomfortable. What should he do... wait for her to come home? If she came home at all...
Because the more he looked around the place, the more he began to suspect that... she was never here. The trash from where he'd been eating was still on the island. The bed looked like it had never been slept in. There was a layer of dust on the coffee table.
"Where are you?" Cole whispered. "I know I didn't imagine you."
Cole wandered back into Shane's bedroom and sat heavily on her bed. A set of pale blue scrubs was folded on top of her dresser. He sighed, little bits of electricity weaving through his fingers.
"Sam?" he said eventually, in case she was here. Of course, she didn't answer. "Sam if you're here, I'm sorry, okay? I need your help."
Nothing... Just perfect, he really was a giant asshole... He'd made her so upset that she was probably still off crying somewhere and he had no way to find her. Come to think of it, he had no way to find his flesh and blood friend either...
Cole put his hands down on the bed. Something hard was under the blankets. He dug his hands under the covers and pulled out... a diary.
Oh, great, he'd never been much for resisting temptation... Should he read Shane's diary? Well, maybe it would give him a clue about where she was. At least, that was the rationalization he used. He decided he'd just read the last few pages.
As it turned out, it wasn't so much a diary as it was a day planner. He should have figured. Who kept a diary anymore anyway?
Days were filled in with ordinary things like doctor's appointments, hair appointments, work hours, and stuff like that. A day in court? That was interesting... And an appointment at the college the day of the blast... That address was right in the middle of the blast crater.
Just like Sam, or whatever her name really is... Shane must have missed her appointment, otherwise she wouldn't still be alive.
Or maybe that wasn't it at all...
At that moment a horrible, high pitched scream split the air, echoing all over the city. Cole jumped, dropping Shane's planner on the floor. The scream continued for a full thirty seconds until it faded, leaving nothing but stunned silence in its wake.
What the hell was that?!
Cole picked up Shane's planner to put it back on the bed. But as he did so, he noticed something else written in the planner... something more recent. In fact, it was the only entry after weeks of blank pages.
Investigate Stampton Bridge.
Why would that girl risk her life trying to get across Stampton Bridge? Or even going near it? Those guards had orders to kill on sight...
His heart sank as a painful, unwelcome thought hit him. What if she was outside... and she was dead? What if she'd been gunned down by one of those armored guards? Or maybe those bandits had found her... or the Reapers... Shit! They could be holding her hostage right now! No, he couldn't wait around for her to come back, he had to go look for her. Why the hell hadn't he thought to get her phone number?!
Cole squeezed back out the window and climbed back down to the street. He ran down deserted streets, looking down alleys, searching any place he could think of that Reapers and bandits might be hiding with Shane.
Cole was so absorbed in his terror that he barely noticed the sky beginning to turn black in the middle of the day...
Travis was feeling irritated. Where the hell was that boy hiding? And he hadn't gotten even a hint of where the girl might be...
He'd loaded automatic injector syringes and darts for a dart gun with single doses of the sedative. He could either grab her and use a syringe, or shoot her from a distance with the dart gun. But that wouldn't help if he couldn't find the girl...
At least the aching in his chest had gone down. Most likely his ribs were just badly bruised. He kept looking, peering down alleys while also keeping an eye out for Reapers. Those nutjobs weren't exactly sane, and Travis didn't want to die before he was granted power...
Kessler's voice came oozing through his ear piece.
"Have you found her, Muller?"
"I haven't found so much as a hint of her or the boy... nothing! They must be hiding somewhere..." Travis hissed, peering down an alley. "Have you seen them on the monitors?"
"The men have reported no sightings. Need I remind you that if you don't find her, I'll have you... replaced?" the madman said in his ear.
"What are we even going to do with her if I find her and bring her in?!" Travis barked. "She can't be killed with those damn powers!"
"And what if she didn't have those powers, hm?"
"But taking them away... it's impossible. They're part of her genetic code now."
"Why don't you let me worry about what's impossible, Travis... Just know that once you find her and bring her in... She'll be removed from the picture."
Kessler hung up on his end. Travis frowned. So Kessler had found a way to reverse the process? If that were true, it would be an easy task to get rid of her once her powers were gone.
Travis glanced skyward. Dark clouds were moving in fast, and the temperature was dropping. The man could smell snow coming, which was just perfect... if he didn't find the girl soon, he'd be hunting for her in the snow, which was not exactly ideal. Not to mention he couldn't afford to take days to find her if the military was really planning on destroying this whole city in a week...
The man rounded a corner to find a trail of bodies. Now here was something... this slaughter was obviously the work of the boy. He followed the trail of red coated corpses down the street until he found a massive pile up of them. The boy's power was growing all right... Travis had counted over fifty bodies on this street alone.
But then the trail went cold on Knights Bridge Road. Where the hell had he gone? Perfect, just when he thought he had a good lead...
"Where are you, bitch!?" Travis snarled in frustration, kicking over a trash can.
He hadn't exactly been expecting an answer.
"I told you to stay away!"
Ah, there you are... If he had known it would be that easy to find her, he would have starting shouting hours ago. Except now he'd lost his element of surprise... but on the other hand, she had an obvious weakness that was very easy to use against her.
"Show yourself!" Travis demanded. "Give yourself up or I'll have no choice but to take you in by force."
"You aren't taking me anywhere, asshole!"
The cold wind whipped around him, pushing furiously at him. An old newspaper slapped him in the face. Other random objects started moving toward him, forcing Travis to move to avoid being pummeled by trash and debris.
"Surrender yourself now, or I swear we'll kill him!" Travis yelled straight ahead, fighting against the air.
"Leave Cole alone!" the wind demanded. "What did he ever do to you? What did either of us ever do to you?!"
"It's not so much what he did..." Travis hissed, eyes scanning the area for the girl. "It's what he's going to do."
The wind pushed harder, causing him to start sliding backwards down the street, slipping in bloody puddles and patches of slush.
"Shut up!" the girl demanded. "You don't know anything! We're leaving and you can't stop us!"
A powerful gust caught him in the chest, sending him flying backwards. She didn't seem like she was going to give up, even with his fake threat on Cole's life. Time to try a different tactic.
"I know more than you, bitch," Travis snarled, struggling to get back on his feet. "You may as well give up, because there's no way out! Your precious boyfriend may live through this if you surrender now... or he'll still be stuck here when the bombs start falling!"
The wind became erratic, like it was uncertain. Travis felt it pulling at him from all different directions.
"That's right. In a week, this place will be gone!" Travis yelled into the wind. "The military is going to blow this place sky high! We can get him out if you give yourself up!"
"Why should I believe you!?" the wind demanded. "Why..." She paused, choking on her words.
The wind died in an instant. The air was completely still. Travis grasped his dart gun.
A girl dressed in skinny jeans and a bloody army jacket materialized out of thin air, dropping onto the ground with a muffled thud. Her eyes were wide with shock. She took one look at him, then scrambled to her feet and started to run. She didn't get very far before a dart embedded itself in her neck.
"Oh..." she said faintly, her footsteps immediately becoming sluggish. Travis grinned, watching as the girl made a pathetic attempt to get away from him.
But she couldn't do it. She stumbled and fell face first on the sidewalk. Well, that had been easier than he'd thought. Her lack of control was the key to bringing her in.
He walked over to where she was lying on the asphalt, curled up on her side. Her spiky blonde hair was wet from the puddle she was in. She had smacked her jaw on the ground, it had been ripped open. Travis grasped her arm, lifting her up.
That was when her eyes snapped open and she started struggling... and screaming. The sound was so loud and horrible, Travis had to drop her to cover his ears. The girl lay writhing and howling on the ground as if she were in absolute agony. And the wailing continued, echoing off the sides of buildings, resonating across town. Travis could feel the scream vibrating inside his chest, louder than his own heartbeat.
Shit, what is this?!
A random piece of information popped into his head.
Sound... that's nothing but a vibration in the air that hits your ears... air molecules bumping into each other... a mechanical wave.
A mechanical wave pulsing through the air... Not good. It looked like her abilities were growing as well.
The girl's body began flickering as she continued to howl. She was still trying to get away. But first, Travis needed her to be quiet. He could hear windows starting to shatter. Glass rained down around them, crashing onto the concrete. He kept his hands clamped tightly over his ears. This sound physically hurt. Travis felt like his blood vessels were going to burst.
"Shut the fuck up!" Travis snarled, kicking her in the side. Her screaming faltered for a moment, but then continued. Desperate for the sound to stop, he raised his dart gun and fired another dose into her neck.
This didn't have the effect he'd been expecting.
The screaming stopped, yes, because the girl had finally succeeded in vanishing.
"Kessler," Travis immediately shouted into his ear piece. "Your sedative didn't work! She got away! What am I supposed to do now?"
"Travis Muller, you are on very thin ice..." Kessler hissed in his ear. "Do I really need to explain to you what you need to do now?"
"I'll get the others," Travis growled, irritated that the sedative was Kessler's idea, and it hadn't worked... "By the way, those two are planning on running."
"Hmph," Kessler snorted. "She'll run right back to him first... Hm, how are they planning to flee the city, I wonder? By boat, perhaps? They'd never make it. Have the others burn the docks. I want to see the flames from here, Muller."
"Done."
Kessler was silent for a moment.
"I suppose I'll need to get the girl myself, then. I think I need to send Mr. MacGrath a message... Do you think that obnoxious young man on the television would mind if I... borrowed... his station?"