Chapter Eleven:

War Room

Joan Grey

Every parent's worst nightmare: getting a call about your child. A bad call about your child. So, whatever worry I actually had in my system, by now, had increased as we entered the secret facility that our government had hid conveniently in a place that was completely off the grid, yet right under our noses (okay, so I didn't really know where I was. Sue me).

Cole glanced at me and his frown deepened. "I'm not exactly looking forward to this," he said.

"How d'you think I feel?" I replied with a whisper as we passed a few more men in suits. "I'm this close to killing someone."

"I'd like to see that," Alec muttered as he popped up out of absolutely nowhere (but it was obvious he'd been scoping the place out). "The U.S. sure has a lot of security systems trained on us right now. So much for good faith."

I remembered what Alec meant. A few men came to my door in the middle of the night, said something had happened at the school, and they needed me to come with them. First mention of Kayce and I was on board. And my worry only got larger as I saw Cole, Lucy, and Alec. All of us, Conduits. All of our children attending that school.

Not. Good.

We were led into a room with a large, circular table. All sorts of images were jumping off of it, but I recognized a lot of them. The Conduit Academy was the most prominent one.

Behind the table across from us was a tall, gruff man with a set frown on his face. I'd watched enough movies to know that the badges on his chest meant he was a General.

"Good morning," he greeted in a voice that practically commanded authority. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but things rarely work out that way."

Cole was the first to talk, probably because he knew I'd make a smart-ass remark. "Who're you, and why're we here? What's happened?"

"My name is General John Anderson." He inclined his head. "You're here because your children are in danger, as are the children of others."

"What kind of danger?" The ice on Lucy's arms flared up a bit, like they did whenever she was stressed or angry.

Anderson wasted no time, and was completely unfazed by Lucy. "There's been an attack on the school."

We stood there for a moment in shocked silence. The only sounds were the people in black suits running around, taking some calls, talking to each other.

"What?" I snapped finally. "That place was supposed to be safe! What the hell happened?"

"Calm down, Mrs. Grey—."

"Like hell I will! My kid's in danger! What the hell're you doing about it?"

Anderson narrowed his eyes. "Ma'am, we're doing the best we can, but at the moment, it's damn near impossible to do anything." Anderson pressed a button on the edge of the table. A 3D blueprint of the school popped up, followed by the entire campus. "The government designed it so no one would be able attack it from the outside."

"So how'd they get past?" Alec asked.

"They took the train," Anderson replied.

Cole leaned forward. "A student?"

"We got an emergency transmission from the artificial town within the campus borders. A second-year student is leading a group of extremists bent converting, or destroying, the next generation of Conduits. He's killed a few students already, with several wounded, and the faculty have been captured. My guess is that they're keeping the faculty alive just-in-case they need a bargaining chip to get them out, if things go wrong."

"Do we know who the second-year is? And what about the children not in his little 'group'?" Lucy asked, the ice in her arms dying down.

Anderson brought up a dossier. There was a boy about sixteen years old, with blonde hair and blue eyes in it. He looked like the typical American teenager, actually.

"His name's James Alexander, the illegitimate son of Jacob Young and half-brother of one of the other students there, Nicholas Atticus Young." Anderson returned to the image with the campus. "The children who managed to escape James Alexander made their way to the town. They can't escape the borders unless the train is there, and we currently can't run it. And before you ask if there are others, this is the only one. It was specially equipped." Anderson looked at us. "If we have any chance of helping those kids, they need to shut down the barrier around the school from the inside."

"Let me guess," I grumbled, "its smack in the middle of the campus, and Mr. Alexander's little group is standing guard?"

"Correct."

"Why did I totally see that coming…?" I placed my hands on the table. "Do we have a list of survivors?"

"The transmission was brief; there's no way of knowing unless they actually manage to shut the field down."

My shoulders slumped. Kayce… God, Kayce could be dead. Alec quickly came to my side and put a hand on my shoulder.

"We thought it best to inform you all before we reach out to the Human families," Anderson admitted. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can really do. I can post some of my people around the barrier to see if it ever comes down, but that's it."

Cole extended his hand. "Thank-you, General. Can we leave now?"

Anderson took his hand and shook it firmly. "Of course. I'll have my people escort you out."

A few minutes into the walk back, I could feel the insane, forboding cloud above us. Who knew what was going to happen?

What am I thinking? Kayce's alive! I know it! And she'll fight back! Just like Violet and Trish, and all of those other students! I clenched a fist. Until then… I have to wait.

Violet Chance

My hands were shaking as I watched the doctor examine Kayce again. She'd been out for a few days. Nicholas had told us what'd happened, but no one was entirely sure what the hell had been in that needle. Hell, I could barely believe that Jay was the one who attacked Trish! But… it made sense at the same time. He was too perfect, and I always caught him looking at Kayce.

"Heart rate has stabilized again," the doctor murmured. "Another dose of sedative is needed, just to be safe…"

And during the days that Kayce was out, she'd been screaming bloody murder. Once, and only once, she woke up. I was right beside her, so she grabbed my shirt collar and yanked me close to her. The look in her eyes was painful.

"Make it… stop…!" she muttered to me. "It… hurts…!"

And then, just like that, she was out of it again. I wondered if it'd been actual acid that Jay had injected into her, but that probably would've killed 'er outright.

"How's she doing?" Trish asked as she came up beside me.

I shook my head. "She almost died again. Her heart almost stopped, Trish…"

"I know." Trish wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Just hold on, okay? Kayce's like her mom in a lotta ways. She can pull through."

"I hope you're right. I can't take much more of this bullshit…" I shook my head. "God, everything's gone t' hell."

"I know," Trish repeated. "It's almost like our families're doomed to have bad things happen to 'em. Like we're simple pawns in a story." Trish made a sad attempt at a laugh. "Well, if so, I hate the writer."

But, she cheered me up. That was saying something. Mina was taking it upon herself to lead the refugee students, with Ellie close at hand. Any Hero or Sojourn with us didn't argue at all. Most of their teams had joined Jay, one of our first-year Paragons included: Hunter. Never really liked 'im, anyway.

"How's Kayce?" Nicholas's step was silent, as usual, and succeeded in making Trish and I jump about ten feet in the air. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare."

Trish caught her breath. "She's okay… Hopefully for a while now."

Nicholas nodded and stood beside us as we watched the doctor move around the room to the other more seriously wounded kids.

"The doctors took a sample of Kayce's blood," I told him. "They weren't able to find out what the hell Jay did to 'er."

Nicholas hung his head. "This is my fault…"

"What makes ya say that?" Trish asked.

"I should've been faster. I knew what he was gonna do, but… I didn't act. He caught me by as much surprise as he did anyone else."

"Why didn't you report him?" Trish snapped fiercely.

"No one would believe me if I did, so I decided to take 'im down myself. But… he got t' Kayce."

My hand tapped the railing of the window furiously. "Why Kayce? Of all the people…!"

"Kayce's a fear Conduit," Trish said. I looked at her, almost stunned. Kayce never talked to me about what kind of a Conduit she was. Now, I knew why. She was ashamed. "She hated it. I could see it. She didn't wanna be strong off of someone else's fear. That meant she was more of a villain than any kind of hero." Trish looked at me. "Jay saw an opportunity with Kayce. She could join him and use her power freely, because people would fear her. Plus, her bloodline's important. I mean, he attacked me, so he got me outta the way until I was conscious again."

"How's it important? Auntie Joan's just dad's sister-in-law, and your dad's friend."

"I once asked dad how Kayce was related to me," Trish admitted. "He only told me a half-truth. He said, until I got older, I'd have to wait for the full story." Trish looked back at Kayce. The doctor was putting a breathing mask on her. "Her grandfather's Kessler, that lunatic from, like, around twenty years ago."

I stared at Trish. "What. The. Hell?"

"I know, right?"

"That bastard had a kid?"

"Auntie Joan."

"Geezus," Nicholas muttered. "I'd hate to be researching that family tree."

"Kayce doesn't know, so try to keep quiet about it." Trish sighed and looked at Nicholas and I, who were looking at her like she just told us she'd grown four more arms. "Well, I guess we'd better go see Mina and—."

We all suddenly slammed against the wall. Painfully. Shattered glass showered us, but we all managed to cover our heads. Nicholas pushed whatever had been thrown through the window at us off of us.

"Oh, shit," he muttered.

"W-What?" I murmured in response.

I got to my feet (helped by Trish) and looked through the broken window. Kayce was standing, her hands balled into fists, her hair standing in almost every direction, and a strange blue aura surrounding her. Her eyes were the exact same blue, and they were glowing.

"That's not what a fear Conduit's supposed to do, is it?" I asked, pointing at her.

"Not at all," Trish said as Nicholas moved the gurney that Kayce'd thrown through the window out of the way (it was the one she'd previously been lying on). "Something tells me that this isn't gonna be good."

I couldn't agree more.

Kayce unclenched her fists and shoved a blast of the blue aura at us. All three of us got into cover to avoid it. Whatever the aura hit got some major damage done to it.

"What the hell's she doing?" I yelled. "This is a friggin' hospital!"

Trish looked over her cover. "Kayce! Stop it! What the hell're you doing?"

In response, Kayce tossed another blast at us.

"I don't think she can hear you!" Nicholas yelled to us. "What're we gonna do?"
"I've got a way to get through to 'er!" I leaped over my cover and dived to another one. Kayce missed me by inches. I continued in the pattern until I was practically in front of her. So, I slapped her, hard, across the face.

The blue around Kayce disappeared instantaneously, even the stuff in her eyes. Kayce fell on the floor, out cold.

"Damn," Trish muttered. "That was one hell of a slap!"

"How'd you know that'd work?" Nicholas asked.

"I didn't," I admitted, shrugging. "I improvised."

And my improvisation hurt my hand. A lot.

"What the hell was that?" Nicholas asked finally.

"Dunno," Trish said, "but I have a bad feeling that it's something t' do with our good friend James Alexander."