Six Months Ago

I didn't know what I was thinking, coming out here. Flashing lights, deafening music, and bodies pushing against one another weren't my idea of a relaxing night. But Janie had us all convinced we needed this. Discovering Pablo and his prediction ability changed everything for us. We didn't have to rely on Janie and Willow to twist and carve our path for us anymore, usually at the expense of whatever poor human was in our way. We could get what we needed—food, shelter, clothes, cold hard cash—by having Pablo read lotto numbers. Enough to keep us comfortable without causing any suspicion.

Janie wasn't convinced we should settle for comfortable. She and the others had lived eighteen years sequestered in an underground facility where her every thought and whim was monitored and controlled by the people who'd owned her. They'd seen the same faces all their lives, eaten the same food, and yearned for the world they glimpsed on television. This Halloween bash was a representation of all of the parties they'd missed out on.

We all wore costumes. I'd gone with a caped witch's outfit with a black mask, although I'd switched out the skimpy leather shorts with black jeans. I wished I'd replaced the tight lacy blouse, too; I'd had a biker with hips that wouldn't quit hit on me in the last ten minutes since Marcus disappeared outside with Adam and Pablo—drunk frat boys picking fights drew Marcus like a moth to a fire—and a thick-shouldered Jason Voorhees had been staring at me from behind his mask while he leaned on the alcohol-teeming bar.

I turned my back on him again. Everyone I'd come with was having a blast, and I was acting like a complete loser as always. Hard to believe that holding a gun to my stepfather's head and commanding Jonathan Blaine to hand me the keys to his vehicles was easier than losing myself in a gyrating crowd of young party-goers, but no one ever said my life made any sense.

I caught sight of Janie on the other side of the room, standing in a circle of enamored people. My gut clenched with foreboding. I didn't like it when she got this way, drunk on power and willing to exploit people's emotions. The burning loathing she'd had for me had simmered to tolerance in the past couple of months, and it'd allowed me to see past her self-absorbed flair to the insecure girl who was afraid of being forgotten. It'd also allowed me to be worried for her. She could get hurt if she pushed the wrong person too far.

"A girl like you shouldn't be alone," said a voice close to my ear.

I whipped around to face the guy in the Jason mask and took a step back at his closeness. He was taller up close. He leaned down to continue, "Your boyfriend is an idiot for leaving you by yourself."

"I don't need anyone to watch over me," I responded curtly, searching for a way out in case I needed it. My skin prickled at his proximity. The bodies crowding us made it harder to move back again, so I tensed my muscles, ready to punch him in the nose and take off if he made a move. No sane guy would stand around in a serial killer's costume and stare at people.

It was hard to tell where he was looking with the mask on, but based on the way his head inclined downward, it was safe to say his line of vision was somewhere around my chest. "Why don't we find a quiet corner and get to know each other better?"

Creep. "I don't think so."

I turned to leave, but he grabbed my wrist and held me in place. "How about one dance?"

"No,' I hissed, trying to wrench my hand away but his grip was tight and I could smell the alcohol emanating from the symmetrical holes where his mouth would be. The music washed over me in violent strokes that fueled my rising fear. I couldn't see Janie anymore. Marcus and Adam were probably still outside and Willow—well, she'd disappeared without a word when we'd first arrived. Probably off doing more secretive things as always.

I was completely on my own here. Unstable, emotional me, surrounded by noise and chaos and assaulted by this pathetic excuse for a man. I didn't want to cause a scene and call attention to myself. Maybe his behavior was completely normal in a place like this, and I was the strange one. I was the one out of place, pretending to fit in when everyone could see the truth seared on my forehead: that I was a fraud, a freak. A monster.

Control. The word darted through my head, taunting me with the impossible. Control. What did I know about control?

"What's wrong with you?" the stranger said, his tone vicious and taunting. "I think you need a drink in you. You'll feel a lot better once you're—"

"I said let me go!"

The words erupted with a forcefulness I'd never felt before. A breath I didn't know I was holding until it left my aching lungs. The stark satisfaction of saying those words mingled with surprise when the man dropped my arm in a rush. I didn't give him time to change his mind. I whirled around and dove into the crowd.



The pressure in my head is blinding. I fly down the long flight of stairs as fast as I can, flanked on all sides by my entourage of Blanks. Holding them within my grasp is like trying to keep a fifty-pound bar suspended over my head; sooner or later, my arms will get tired and it'll crash right down on my head. But failure isn't an option, and the thought of losing Marcus makes me tap deeper into my reservoir of hidden strength, channeling it all into the effort it takes to maintain control over the hordes of mind-dead humans around me.

We make it downstairs and burst through glass doors that open up to the rest of the park. Up ahead, the shadowman is standing deeper in the woods. Between us are about a dozen Blanks, who immediately stop what they're doing and turn to face us.

Blanks don't attack Blanks, I chant in my head as they approach us.

The one closest to me throws a knife that sticks in the chest of one of my buddies.

Dammit. Of course these Blanks would attack us. They're under someone's control and that someone wants Marcus and me dead.

Losing a Blank takes off some of the weight pressing on my brain. I immediately reach out and tear through the rope of control that has the knife-thrower in the Ancient's grasp, bringing her over to my side. That was easy. The Ancient's hold over these people isn't as powerful as I thought. Is it because he's spreading himself too thin by enslaving the whole park? Or maybe he didn't think someone else would ever undo his plans like this.

At seeing their comrade taken by the enemy, the enemy Blanks attack at once. "Stay and fight," I tell most of my Blanks as I back away from the fray. I don't have to give the command verbally, but it helps my panic somehow, to be able to convey with words exactly what's at stake. Months ago, I would've been eaten up at the thought of using human beings as shields, but not anymore. The only thing worse than a dead human is a blank one.

The two Blanks carrying Marcus race after me. We make it about twenty yards when gunfire tears through the noise of screaming park-goers.

"Stop!"

I stumble to a stop and swivel around to face Alec. He's dressed like the four men with him: black uniforms and dark boots, and the memory of the men who chased us and killed so many of us back in the compound floods my head. The soldiers are shooting at the Blanks, all of them. Every time one of them goes down, the pressure in my head dies down until I'm left with two Blanks and Marcus at my side, facing Alec.

Alec Blaine. A gun in his hand and anger in his eyes.

Just like when we left him behind at the compound.

I back away and flinch when he lifts his gun and shoots one of the two remaining Blanks. The Blank drops Marcus's legs as he falls. The weight above my head is no more than a book now. I miss its comforting heaviness. It reminded me that I had power. I look at one of the soldiers with him and reach out to take ahold of his free will, but it's like I'm trying to break down a concrete wall with a wooden spoon. My power is useless against a normal human.

There is a question on Alec's face when he looks from me to the Blank, and then down to Marcus. He doesn't ask anything. Instead he issues a command like he did before, like he's used to giving orders. He's so much like his father now.

"Tell the Blank to drop Marcus."

Alec must see my defiance because he whips his gun in the Blank's direction and shoots. Marcus falls limply half on top of the Blank and doesn't move. The bloodstain on his shirt glistens red, spreading to his underarm now.

Shit, shit, shit.

How do I save him now? We've had so many close calls in the past eight months, but I've never felt so helpless. I've never had to watch Marcus bleed to death before.

"Take it easy," Alec says as he takes a step. The hardness has left his voice. "You don't have to run from me. Come on, April. It's me you're talking to. We're still fighting on the same side. Give me a chance to prove that to you."

"Like hell we are," I snap at him. He killed my stepfather. He works for Jonathan Blaine. And he expects me to trust him now?

Alec stops and draws in a breath that's almost audible through the screams in the distance. "Marcus is going to be dead at this rate. You want to gamble with his life?"

"Do you expect me to believe you'll save him?"

"Yes."

"Liar. You hate Marcus. And the last time you hated someone enough, you shot him right in the head." He broke his altruistic nature by doing so. He defied the fundamental desire in him to help and protect, the desire that his very power was born from. I wish I could do the same, that I could be free of my conditioned nature, but not in such a morbid way.

"I didn't kill Sam because I hated him."

I close my eyes. "Bullshit."

"Sam was the wrong choice, April. He always was, but I didn't see him for what he was until it was almost too late. A sick man who used us for his own games. That's all he ever cared about. Playing us like some chess pieces, not giving a shit how it hurt us or the world. By killing Sam, I chose to protect all of us from him. I chose humanity."

I'm sick with revelation. Alec never defied his nature. He simply channeled it in a different direction. "The ends justify the means to you?" I ask him. "You'd kill someone because you've convinced yourself it's the right thing to do? I liked you better when I thought you were an angry boy who felt betrayed by his mentor."

He stares down his nose at me. "It doesn't matter what I am. There's a war coming. It's bigger and worse than anything you could've imagined. And you, April—you and the rest of these Mods running around are a fucking liability."

Enough said.

Alec and his men don't see the Blanks arriving on the scene until it's too late. They'd been trickling into range of my power throughout Alec's arrogant speech and I'd held them in place just out of sight, let their numbers build until there were at least seven or eight of them. It's a wonder I manage a conversation with him; my vision is strained and I can barely move through the enormous weight pressing into my limbs.

As the Blanks rush toward us, I peel two of the Blanks from the herd to carry Marcus and let the rest loose on our enemy. I stumble into the woods after the shadowman and use tree limbs and tree trunks to keep myself from falling. Hard to keep my body in motion when I'm also in control of at least a handful of other brains, but I don't have any choice. I'd crawl to get to where I need to be if I have to. Something in me knows it's the only way to save Marcus.

The entrance to the crystal cave is a man-sized hole in the ground. As soon as he reaches it, the shadowman turns around to look at me and I see that it's not a man but a woman. A young woman. It's hard to make out features but there's something about the way she's standing, shoulders back and her body poised straight, that seems so graceful. Completely still in a way that a human body isn't supposed to be.

Hermes?

Before I can reach her, she points to the hole and then fades like vapor. With a quick glance into the hole to make sure it's not a far drop, I jump inside and command the two Blanks to lower Marcus into the hole. He hangs limply in their arms. I'm too chickenshit to check to see if he's alive. I can't. I need to believe my insane plan will save him.

It's at least a quarter of a mile walk to the green crystals. We fumble along in the dark. I hold my arm out to feel the rough cave walls on either side of me. As we get closer to the center, thin veins of the crystal begin to appear in the walls and grow thicker until the crystal light illuminates everything we see.

The cavernous room at the end of the tunnel is almost blinding with the light. Just like the other cave, there are people imbedded into the crystal opposite from us. Their eyes wide-open, staring blankly and there's something so wrong about this situation that I'm prickled by a deep sense of danger. Get out of here, says the voice that always cautions self-preservation. You shouldn't be here. This isn't a place for a human being.

My throat is bone-dry. I step closer to the crystal wall and hold out my hand, feel the thrum of alien energy so close to my skin. It wants to pull me into it, I know. It craves me. I've been inside it before, and I've made it out somehow. But that means nothing. I don't know what I've encountered inside it. Worse, I don't know how to find my way out again.

I turn to the Blanks behind me.

Take him inside, I say to them.

The crystals warp my view of Marcus on the other side. The Blanks release him and turn to face me, their eyes going wide and unseeing. Two more statues for the cave. I take a deep breath and push my hand against the wall. It's not solid like I imagined; it feels like touching a wall made of standing water, so cold that it sucks all warmth from my body as I pass through it.

I don't feel contact with the ground when I fall face-forward. My brain disconnects. I'm coursing down every synapse between neurons before I explode outward and become hundreds and thousands and millions of sparks that latch onto billions of other lights. Energies. I see through millions of eyes. I feel millions of feet moving, millions of voices converging, millions of thoughts of today and yesterday and tomorrow, and millions of fragile hearts beating. Fueling the existence of humans who don't understand how vulnerable and exposed they really are.

They're all right there. At my fingertips.

I'm pushed out of this state so violently that pain splits my head. I scream and writhe on the ground as I ride out the anguish, so disjointed from reality that I can't remember how to be human. I'm a mess of limbs and sensations again.

It takes forever before I come back to myself. I'm lying on the ground next to Marcus. My hand was fisted around his jacket, keeping us anchored to one another in case I lose track of him—or myself. There's something about his face. My breath catches.

The bruises on his face are gone. He's moaning and mumbling something.

"Marcus!"

I roll toward him with a groan and fumble a hand across his torso, seeking out the gunshot wound underneath his bloody shirt. It's completely healed. I knew it. I don't remember my experiences being a Blank within the crystals, but some inherent part of me knew the crystals had healing powers. That's why some days I was so banged up I couldn't move and then I was completely recovered literally the next day. It added to my disjointedness, made me question the passage of time because of course the logical part of me couldn't accept it.

"What happened?" His eyes move rapidly. "Where am I? What's going on?"

I cradle his face in my hand and notice how hard he's trembling. "You're safe. Marcus, you're safe now."

"I was shot."

"Yes."

"Something is wrong."

He grips his head and closes his eyes. There's more fear in his voice than I've heard in all of the time I've known him. Before I can try to ease his mind, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone moves toward us and stops just feet away.

The Ancient.

He's at least six and a half feet, but so thin he's almost a skeleton. His translucent skin and silver eyes reflect the green glow surrounding us and the countless Blanks lined up behind him as far as the eye can see. There's nothing in his expression to indicate how he feels toward me, but I'm overcome by a sense of insignificancy. A rodent cowering in the dark, unwilling to stand before a being greater than it that holds no regard for its life.

"W-who are you?" I ask. My voice is loud and echoey in this strange void. No answer. I'm relieved in some ways. I don't think words from this creature would do anything to soothe the tremor of fear in my bones.

Beside me, Marcus is speechless. The Ancient's long fingers twitch at his side before he lifts them toward the ceiling. Line by line, the Blanks begin to come alive, angling their bodies and moving in synchronization toward us. There's at least thousands of Blanks in this place, and they all become active with one goal in mind: finishing us off.