Burnout (The Invasion Chronicles Book 1) (11 page)

She and Ava sat in silence as picture after picture was shown—scenes of chaos, scenes of destruction, scenes of fear.  For nearly a week now there had been news reports of something strange happening in isolated places all over the world.  Cities cancelling flights and smaller countries in Europe and Asia closing their border stations.  Hospitals overwhelmed with victims of some kind of fast-onset wasting disease.  Rumors of military divisions being scaled to high alert; off-duty soldiers being called back to their bases with no explanation. 

This, though.  This was beyond belief. 

Can now confirm that it does not appear to be a biological pathogen

City-wide curfews in effect

Both the Eastern and Western League Alliances in Europe, Africa, and Asia confirming that there are cases in all member-nations

Invasion-era tech the likeliest suspect

No higher cognitive function left in victims

Authorities are urging citizens to evacuate major metropolitan areas in an orderly fashion

Lydia watched the news flash across the screen in numb disbelief.  In less than forty-eight hours, what had been containable incidents had escalated to a worldwide disaster.  The net channels were all jammed in a way that wasn’t supposed to be possible as people frantically tried to reach loved ones.  She hadn’t been able to raise her mother on the comm all day, and Ava was having no better luck with her parents or her older brother and sister.  She hadn’t even tried to get hold of her grandparents in Arizona, or her various aunts and uncles scattered across the country. 

Ava threw her own netglass down beside Lydia’s, the same cheerful blue screen informing her that no comm channels were available, and raked her hands back through her hair.  She turned wide, scared eyes on Lydia, her face paler than usual.  Lydia knew she looked no better.

“What’re we gonna do?” Ava whispered. 

They turned back to the screen, watching the chaos play out in real time—the highways were filling up, and some places were deploying the National Guard around hospitals and churches to try and form orderly evacuations.  No one had called for Columbus to evacuate, yet, but surely it was only a matter of time.

“We just wait for Grandpa,” she said with confidence she did not feel.  “As soon as he gets back with your mom and dad they’ll decide what to do.” 

She could not bring herself to think what would happen if Grandpa didn’t come back.  He had left over an hour ago, promising to bring Ava’s parents back to Meadowbrook and making them swear they wouldn’t open the door for anyone but him or Jim Perry.  Ava’s house wasn’t that far away, but
everyone
was trying to get out of the cities and those…those things.  They were everywhere. 

They sat in silence that seemed to press down on them, listening to newscasters trying to keep the panic out of their voices as they described what was happening outside.  As the second wave of images started up, Lydia plucked her netglass up again, running her thumb across the screen to call up the comm.  Ava did the same. 

“I’m gonna try Dani again,” she said.  Ava’s older sister and her husband lived in California, near Los Angeles.  Her older brother, Matt, was a journalism student at Otterbein University. 

Lydia squeezed the netglass, calling up Mom’s contact icon.  Jennifer St. John had been in Las Vegas the week before for a nursing convention, and Lydia and Grandpa had encouraged her to stay an extra few days to attend a high school friend’s bachelorette party.  They’d insisted.  Practically forbidden her from coming home until she’d had a real vacation.  As she moved to try and connect the comm, her netglass background faded to lavender, and a notification materialized in the center.  Lydia’s eyes widened.  It wasn’t a comm, just a text message…but it was from Mom’s ID.  The timestamp said it had been sent hours ago, only now making its way through the comm channels.

Her whole world narrowed to the netglass as she thumbed up the text screen, waited for the message to download.  Ava was muttering in the background, switching between English and Spanish as she rattled off a message to her netglass, to be delivered to Dani when—if—a channel became available.  Lydia held her breath, gripping the netglass so tightly that the rounded edges of the clear plastic tablet creaked.  When it did, she slumped back on the couch, a sudden roaring in her ears as her heart started to pound. 

I love you.  Be brave. 

The roaring intensified, her blood rushing in her ears, drowning out even Ava’s voice.  Lydia felt cold, then hot, then cold again.  She couldn’t look away from the scrolling text.

I love you.  Be brave.

She wanted to scream.  To rage.  To howl out denials until she could convince herself that the message
didn’t mean what she thought it meant.
 

I love you.  Be brave.

She wanted her mom.  She needed her mom right now more than she had ever needed anything in her life. The roar in her ears was growing, drowning out Ava’s scared pleas for her sister to call her, the commentary on the screen as another city ordered evacuations, the screams outside their door.

I love you.  Be brave.

The screams.  The screams?  Lydia blinked as darkness crept into the edges of her vision, blurring the living room.  The netglass, Ava, the newscast—it all faded away.  Lydia was still standing in the kitchen holding Zack’s hand, was still sitting on the couch holding the netglass…was running across the court clutching her blaster.  The Burnouts.  The Burnouts were
in
the court. 

The Burnouts were in the court, a writhing, frenzied mass of glowing white eyes and silver veins battering down the Royces’ front door.  People were screaming over the roar of gunfire, the whine of the blasters. 

Their defenses had failed.

People were dying.

People were
dead
.

They were all going to Burn if she couldn’t get to them, if she couldn’t get to Jill and Andrew’s house.  Someone was running behind her, heavy breathing tinged with panic, but the steps were too heavy to be Ava.  They had to go faster, they had to move!  The Burnouts were closing in from all sides—there were more streaming in through the broken barricade.  They had to…

Zack let go of her hand. 

Lydia cried out as the vision splintered, and she was once again just in the kitchen.  She swayed, blood rushing to her head, and then her hands flew to her mouth, as though to keep back a scream.  She stared at Caleb and Zack, her eyes so wide they had to be practically bugging out of her skull.  At the same time, Zack stumbled backwards, he knees nearly buckling as Caleb dived forward, wrapping one arm around his brother’s waist. 

“Z!” he said urgently, holding the other boy up.  A thin stream of blood trickled from Zack’s nose, and he was heaving like he’d just run a marathon.  Sweat glistened on his forehead. 

Before Lydia could say anything Ava was beside her, clutching at her hands and demanding to know if she was all right.  She leaned against her best friend for a moment, holding onto the edge of the island like her life depended on it while nausea roiled in her gut. 

“What—what was that?” she croaked out finally.  She grabbed a dishtowel still hanging on a series of hooks on her side of the island and passed it over to Zack, brushing it against his hand until he took it and dabbed it against his nose. 

Caleb’s mouth was a grim slash, his dark eyes bleak.  “You saw it?” 

“Saw what?” Ava snapped.  “What just happened?”

Lydia shook her head, visions of Meadowbrook Court overrun with Burnouts still flashing in her head.  Remembered fear pounded through her veins, the echoes of people screaming too loud to ignore, even though she knew they weren’t real.  She whirled on Ava, the thought that her best friend might be one of those people screaming in terror too much to bear. 

“He’s for real.  He showed me something—something from back in June.”  She stumbled over her explanation, not wanting to bring up the memory of the night Ava lost her parents.  But she needed Ava to understand.  “But then there was something else…something that hasn’t happened yet.  Av, there were Burnouts everywhere.”

Ava reeled back, her brow furrowing.  “What?  Wait, he
showed
you?  That’s not—that’s not how precogs work!”

“Pretty sure your friend’s not how telekinetics usually work either,” Caleb interrupted.  He stepped away from Zack, but kept a steadying hand on his brother’s back.  “Look, I’m sorry, I know you’re freaked out…but you saw it, right?  We’re running out of time.” 

Zack wadded the dishtowel up so that the bloody part was covered and tossed it down onto the island with a sniff. “I’ll explain everything.  I promise I’ll explain, but please believe me when I say we gotta get that group moving away from your wall.  It’s—there’s a way we all survive this.  But if those things’re still out front tomorrow morning, we’re dead.”

“Lydia,” Ava said urgently, grabbing her arm and pulling her around so that they were facing each other.  “Do you believe them?” she asked in Spanish.  “You’re sure it isn’t a trick?  What if he’s like your grandmother?”

Lydia swallowed, forcing herself to slow down and really consider what Ava was asking.  She still felt like the world had tilted slightly to one side with the revelation that Zack was a Psio. 

But beneath the confusion, beneath even the crushing, choking
loss
that she had lived with from the moment she read her mother’s final message on the netglass…there was fear.  She felt it like icy claws on the back of her neck, curdling in the pit of her stomach.  She remembered the feelings that had raced through her in the final moments of the vision Zack showed her.  The sense that people she cared about were going to Burn if she did not move fast enough.  That urgency roared through her now, accompanied by a certainty that seeped into her bones. 

I love you.  Be brave.

“I believe him,” she said, turning her gaze back to the Reeds.  “I’m sure.”

              Under other circumstances, the way Caleb and Zack almost collapsed in relief might have been comical.  Caleb bent forward, bracing his hands against the island and leaning down until his forehead almost touched the surface.  He let out a heavy sigh as Zack closed his eyes, pounding one fist into the opposite palm. 

              “Okay, all right then.  All right, we just might survive this.”  He grinned, and now that she knew what he could do, it looked even sharper to Lydia.  Stranger.  As if there were a hundred secrets hiding just behind that smile, a hundred shadows. 

              She wondered if he knew what had happened to the people
he
loved. 

              “We gotta move,” Caleb said, startling her out of the dark turn her thoughts had taken.  “You got any weapons here?” 

              “Wait, you want her to go with you
right now
?” Ava said in shock, her eyes darting between Lydia and Caleb.  “Whoa, hold on!  We have to tell the others!” 

“You’re not listenin’ to me, there’s no
time,
” Caleb ground out, clearly holding onto his patience by the tips of his fingers.  Now that there was the possibility of action, he was twitching, jumpy, as if he couldn’t wait to get going. 

“No,
you’re
not listening,” Ava snapped.  “Lydia says she believes you, fine, I believe you too.  But I’m still not hearing any details on an actual plan for the actually suicidal actions you wanna take.” 

“The plan is run like hell, get the truck, drive like hell, get back here,” Zack answered, irritation smoldering in the words like a live coal. 

“That’s not good enough.”  Ava shook her head, her braid flying. 

Lydia swallowed hard, the frenzied mass of Burnouts pounding at the Royce house flashing before her eyes again.  “How long do we have before that,” she broke off, unsure of how to describe it, “before what you showed me happens?”

              Zack tapped a finger against the countertop and shook his head.  “Not long,” he said quietly.  “Caleb was gonna try to lead them off no matter what you said.  It’s our only chance.”

              For the first time, Lydia saw real, raw fear flicker across his face, and she realized that no matter how well they managed to run together, Zack would be a liability on the kind of plan Caleb had.  He would have had to let his brother go alone.  She couldn’t imagine sending Ava out over the barricade by herself, with no backup but a gun. 

              “Well, that’s not the plan anymore,” she said, trying to sound reassuring.  Ava turned to her with a raised eyebrow.  Lydia met her friend’s gaze steadily, and an entire conversation passed between them, an argument in facial expressions that you could only have when you had been best friends for half your lives. 

              “Are you sure?” Ava asked after a moment.  “Really sure?”

              “You know I’m the safest person here,” Lydia replied.  “Nothing’s touching me unless I let it.  Isn’t it about time I used that to help
all
of us?”

              “I’m coming with you,” Ava said, grabbing her wrist.  Almost before she finished speaking, Lydia was shaking her head. 

              “No way, I need you to stay here and help Zack if anything goes wrong.” 

              Ava drew herself up to her full height, glaring down at Lydia the way she only did when she was
really
made.  “Are you
insane
?  I’m not letting you go out there by yourself!” 

              “Hey!” Caleb protested, and Ava waved him off with an irritated flap of one hand.

              “You know what I meant!  Lyds, you’re talking about going over the barricade.” 

              “Which is why I need you here.” 

              Ava glared at her a moment longer, and then her eyes narrowed into slits.  “You want me to be the one to tell Mike what you’re doing.” 

              Lydia held her gaze for all of two seconds.  “Yes.  I want you to be the one to tell Grandpa what I’m doing.” 

              Ava snorted, then surged forward and wrapped Lydia in a tight hug.  “He’s gonna kill you,” she whispered. “You better come back for him to do it.” 

              “I’ll be careful,” she whispered back.  “You know I can handle myself

              “I know.”  Ava sounded like she was trying to convince herself, but Lydia wasn’t going to call her on it.  When she stepped back, her friend’s face was set in a determined expression that Lydia knew as well as her own name.  “I’ll make sure Mike understands what’s going on—we’ll start gathering up the weapons and supplies, just in case.” 

              Neither of them could bring themselves to voice what “just in case” meant.  She pulled a hairband off her wrist and gathered her hair up into a ponytail with more care than was strictly necessary, to give herself a few moments to calm her racing heart.  “There’s a blaster in the living room,” she said finally.  “Av, would you run upstairs and grab me Grandpa’s holster?  No way I’m just sticking it down my pants if we’re gonna be running for our lives.” 

              Zack snorted, an abbreviated huff of laughter that had Caleb reaching over and smacking him upside the head without even looking.  “Sorry!” Zack protested.  “I’m sorry, it’s the stress!” 

              Lydia rolled her eyes.  “First time I hear you say ‘that’s what she said’ I’m kicking your ass.”

              “I’ll help,” Ava muttered.

              “I’ll hold him,” Caleb said, shooting a glare at his brother’s head.  Zack held up his hands in surrender. 

              Ava shook her head and turned around, heading out into the hallway that led to the stairs.  “I’ll get the holster.” 

              The three of them listened to Ava’s retreating footsteps as Zack scrubbed his hands over his face.  “Thanks,” he said after a moment.  “For believing us.” 

              “Like I’m gonna argue with you after
that
,” Lydia said with a shudder.  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

              “Huh?  Oh yeah—the…”  He gestured towards his nose. “It’s fine, not the worst I ever done to myself.  Backlash just sucks, you know?” 

              Lydia did, indeed, know how much backlash sucked.

It was a fact of life for any Psio—using your abilities had consequences.  For most, it just felt like you had the flu.  General fatigue, a headache, nausea and chills.  You slept it off, drank plenty of fluids, and sometimes it helped to eat something high in protein or sugar.  The more you used your ability, though, the worse the backlash got.  Nosebleeds, burst capillaries in the eyes, dizziness and fainting—these were warnings that Psio was pushing their powers to their limits.  And if those warnings were ignored?  Then a Psio risked doing themselves permanent injury.  There were records of people who had died pushing the limits of their powers in the first years after Invasion, collapsing to the ground with blood pouring out of their ears, eyes, and nose. 

Lydia had only pushed herself to the point it
hurt
a few times in her life (the last time had been the day that Ava found out she was a Psio as a matter of fact). 

She regarded Zack silently for a few heartbeats, a hundred questions bubbling up inside her.  She’d met other Psios, of course.  Friends of Grandma and Mom, people who formed a loose sort of community around each other.  Psios weren’t exactly stigmatized in society, but some people were…uncomfortable around them.  Uncomfortable enough that Lydia’s family had spent most of their lives trying to fly under the radar of anyone who might figure out the level of their abilities.

It had been years since she’d talked to a Psio who was her own age.  And she’d never met anyone outside of family whose ability was even a fraction as strong as hers.  Zack’s had to be, though.  Ava wasn’t wrong—what Zack had done really
wasn’t
how precogs worked.  It wasn’t even how telepaths like Grandma worked. 

There were a thousand things she wanted to say, to talk about, and no time for any of them.  As if sensing the turn her thoughts had taken, Zack tilted his head and stretched out his hand again.  Hesitating only slightly, Lydia took it.  There was no rush of images or feelings this time, just the solid warmth of his fingers tightening around hers. 

“We’ll talk later, okay?  When you get back…we have to talk when you get back,” he said.  Caleb was watching the two of them with an unreadable look, but a hint of a smile flickered in the corners of his mouth. 

“You sure we’ll get back?” Lydia meant it to be a joke.  Meant it to be flippant.  It came out sounding like a child asking for reassurance that the monsters under their bed weren’t real.

The deadly serious expression that settled on Zack’s face, crooked eyebrows drawn together in a frown, seemed wrong to Lydia, somehow.  He sucked on his teeth, lowering his head for a few heartbeats. 

“There’s a way we all survive what’s coming,” he said, and Lydia didn’t have to know him well to hear the careful, hedging tone to his words.  “I can’t tell you more than that.”  He let go of her hand, shaking his head.  “And I mean I literally can’t—I showed you everything I know.”

“Trust me, we’ve gone over it every way we could,” Caleb interjected. 

It wasn’t quite what Lydia wanted to hear, but it was better than nothing.  And if Zack was as powerful as she thought he was, it was about as good a guarantee as she would get.  She turned towards Caleb. 

“So do we have an actual plan?  Like with details and stuff?”

Caleb chuckled dryly.  “It’s kind of a work in progress.  He reached into the front pocket of the gray hoodie he was wearing and pulled out clear rod that resembled an elongated soda can with two copper-colored prongs sticking out of one end.  “The one dude with the glasses, Eric?  He hooked us up with a charge for the truck.  Not much juice left, but he swears it’ll get us at least twenty miles, even with the pedal to the floor.” 

“You told Mr. Grant what we’re doing?” she asked in surprise.  Caleb immediately snorted, rocking back on his heels. 

“Hell no!  We were gonna try and lift some gas out of a lawn mower or something.  But he said he wanted us to have it on us, just in case.” 

Just then, Ava returned to the kitchen, one of Grandpa’s leather belts dangling on her shoulder.  She was carrying the blaster Lydia preferred to use, holding it like it was something that could bite.  Lydia smiled fondly as she took both, checking to see that the blaster had a charge cartridge already loaded.  She set the gun down on the island and began winding the belt around her waist.  She had to wrap it twice to get it tightened all the way, and clipped the blaster holster on so it rested just against her hip.  Ava watched the process silently, wrapping and unwrapping the end of her braid from the end of one finger.

“You sure about this?” she asked one more time.  “We can still go talk to Mike.  Come up with a plan
together
.” 

Lydia slid the blaster into the holster.  “Hey.  Tell me you think they’re lying to us…I’ll go to Grandpa right now.”  She met her friend’s gaze steadily, pouring every ounce of sincerity into her expression that she could.  She meant it.  As much as her own instincts were screaming at her that this was the right thing to do—Ava was and always had been better at reading people.  If she thought there was even a hint of deception in the Reeds, Lydia would listen to her. 

Zack bristled, opening his mouth, but Caleb laid a quieting hand on his shoulder.  Ava stared at her a moment, before her eyes slid to the brothers. 

“No,” she said, her voice barely audible.  “No, I don’t think they’re lying to us.” 

“Then you know I’ve gotta do this.  I’m not letting what I saw happen here.” 

Ava took a deep breath and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug.  “Be
careful
,” she said. 

Lydia hugged her back even more tightly, the reality of what she was about to do setting in.  “I will.  Promise.” 

When she stepped back, Caleb was checking the charge cartridge on his own blaster.  He gave her a grave nod and tucked the gun into its holder on his belt.  “Hey, Ava,” he said hesitantly, drumming his fingers on the island once.  “You mind keeping an eye on Z for me?”

“Not six, dude,” Zack grumbled. 

“I know,” Caleb said with patience that only sounded a little exaggerated.  “Humor me, okay?  You said there was one option where her grandpa punches you.” 

“He punches
you
,” Zack countered, waving a dismissive hand.  “And I think we closed that option down.” 

“My grandpa punches one of you?” Lydia asked, quirking an eyebrow.  Zack shook his head. 

“Not anymore.  That only happened if—well, not anymore.” 

Lydia exchanged a look with Ava, but let it slide.  She wasn’t sure she wanted the details, if there were multiple ways that was she was about to do could go down.  Especially if the one Zack had shown her
wasn’t
the one where Grandpa was angry enough to punch someone a third of his age!

“We’ve got to go explain what’s going on to Mike anyway, Zack,” Ava said.  “If you want to hang out with me while we wait for them to get back, it’s cool.  Lydia and I have a bag of Hershey kisses stashed away.”