Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (90 page)

The whirring was getting closer, but not from the direction I expected. I looked up, into the eastern sky. Sure enough, a black speck was moving toward us over the tops of empty buildings, now less than a block from the edge of the park. I had no idea of the regular schedule of the prison guards—maybe this was normal.

“That’s odd,” Mai Lynn said.

Maybe it wasn’t normal, after all.

The copter moved fast, too, faster than I’d ever seen one fly. It jerked a few times, as if not quite able to keep a straight line. Either the pilot couldn’t figure out where to go, or he sucked at flying.

“Andrew,” Jinx said, the word a command.

Everyone except Jinx and Thatcher huddled together and, in a flash of gray light, disappeared. That little boy took the concept of hiding in plain sight to a whole other level.

“I’m guessing helicopter inspections aren’t normal?” I asked.

“Once a week, always on Sunday,” Jinx replied. “But that’s not one of the prison copters.”

Alarm bells went off in my head.

Then something shrill went off in my pocket. The emergency signal on my walkie was screaming at me, as were the other walkies. A distant boom sounded in the east, and then something small streaked toward the approaching copter, leaving a tail of white smoke. The copter was over the park—

“Holy shit,” Keene said. “That’s an antiaircraft missile.”

“Run!” Jinx gave me a hard shove, then grabbed Thatcher’s arm and yanked. They bolted toward the empty place where their group had been.

I stumbled from the shove, right into Aaron, who kept me from falling over. In the sky, less than fifty yards from the castle, the missile met its mark. The rear of the copter exploded in a deafening concussion of force, sound, and fire. It fell, its carriage somehow still angled right at us.

“Ethan?” Aaron yelled.

“Go!” I said.

I threw everything I had at that falling copter, collecting the wind, trying to change the course of the approaching carnage. The copter seemed to fight me, to push straight for us. A barrage of ice hit the front of the copter—Keene. Helping. Trying to. I wasn’t doing much good, either.

We couldn’t stop it.

I pulled the wind around me and tried to rise, tried to get clear of the impact. Heat and fire flung me out of the way. And I flew.

Eleven

Wreckage

C
ough. Choke. Suck in air.

They were the only three things I could do, over and over, and I did them hard enough to make my entire body shake. Or maybe someone was shaking me. Everything felt upside-down and backwards. Not quite real.

The pain was real, though. My chest hurt like someone had punched me in the breastbone. And someone was definitely shaking me, because a familiar voice kept shouting in my ear and I couldn’t take enough of a breath to tell him to shut up. The yeller pushed me onto my side, which got me a mouthful of grass and dirt and caused more sputtering. Water spurted out of my mouth and my nose, which stung like a son of a bitch.

The new position did help me clear my lungs and my head. Breathing got easier. Awareness became less murky.

Why am I soaking wet?

I croaked out something, not in any actual language, but the person with me must have taken that as a good sign, because he stopped shaking me. He rolled me onto my back, and I blinked up into bright sunlight. Hands grabbed my face and held my head still.

“Ethan?” Aaron blocked the sunlight, and I finally focused on his face. Something was wrong with his face. “Ethan? You with me?”

“Huh?” I think that’s what I said. Everything was still pretty fuzzy.

Aaron exhaled hard. Was he worried? Relieved? He was definitely wet. Water dripped off his dark blond hair, down his nose—wait. Blond. He’d dropped Scott’s face. Not good. Among all the things I did
not
know right then, I
did
know that sitting around without Scott’s face was bad.

“Is it raining?” I asked. My throat hurt. Too much coughing.

“No, it isn’t raining. The explosion threw you into the pond.”

Explosion? Oh, right. The copter crashed.

I started testing extremities. My back and neck were sore, but nothing felt broken or bleeding.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Bumps and bruises. I’m fine. You weren’t breathing for a minute there, pal.”

“Oops.”

Aaron snorted. “Big fucking oops. Can you sit up?”

“Think so.”

Sitting up was harder than I expected. Aaron got behind me, and I was too damned dizzy to do anything except let him be a human crutch and prop me up. The elevation change gave me a horrifying view of the wreckage.

We were below the castle, surrounded by trees and bushes, but still close enough to feel the heat of the fire raging above us. Little remained of the stone structure. Enormous chunks had been blown away, some right into the pond, and everything left was burning. The heavy, choking odors of smoke and oil nearly sent me into another coughing fit.

“Oh my God,” I said. A new sound rose over the roar of the fire—someone was screaming. “The others? Mai Lynn? Shit!” I lurched away from Aaron and tried to stand. That turned out to be a bad idea, because I would have fallen down if Aaron hadn’t grabbed me around the waist and kept me on my feet.

“Hold on before you hurt yourself,” Aaron said.

“Have you seen anyone else?”

“No, I was too busy with you.”

I should thank him for that, but I couldn’t get the words out. Eleven other people had been at the castle with us, and none of them were accounted for. I twisted my neck to look him in the eye and saw my own fear reflected back at me from Aaron’s dark green eyes. “Help me?”

“Yeah, okay,” he said.

“Your face first.”

“My face?”

“You dropped Scott somewhere.”

He didn’t seem to understand. Then he furrowed his brow and Scott Torres melted over Aaron and hid him from sight, changing eyes, hair, and features. Keeping up the lie seemed a trivial thing right now, but it would matter later—I was aware enough to know that.

We stumbled through the brush and up an incline. The path to the castle was up ahead somewhere, and the wild growth around the pond made navigating difficult. I was also starting to feel my impact with the water in every joint and muscle. My chest still ached, probably from CPR. Soggy clothes weren’t helping. The only positive (besides being alive) was Aaron.

Actually, the only reason I was alive was because of Aaron.

I definitely need to thank him later.

We found Keene first. Upside-down in some bushes, his neck bent back nearly ninety degrees, I didn’t have to check his pulse to know he was dead.

“Mai Lynn?” I couldn’t get a lot of volume, so Aaron tried: “Mai Lynn! Hello?”

“Here!”

We shoved our way through underbrush, following her voice. She was sprawled at the bottom of the castle wall, half hidden beneath broken tree branches. Getting those out of the way revealed two long gashes on her face, several more on her arms, and a very broken left leg. Bone poked through torn flesh just below her knee, but her bloody jeans hid the worst of the wound. The heat from the fire above was overwhelming this close to the source.

“You’re wet,” she said in lieu of a greeting.

“I decided to go for a swim before starting search-and-rescue,” I said. “We need to get you away from here.”

“Use the walkie. Call for help.”

“Something tells me they noticed the explosion.”

“Call!”

I reached for my walkie. It wasn’t there. “Shit.”

“I lost mine, too,” Aaron said. He patted Mai Lynn down and found hers.

“Call it in,” I said to him. “Then get her away from the fire. I’ll look for others.”

“Ethan—”

“Do it.”

He wanted to argue, I saw it in his eyes. “Be careful.”

“You, too,” I said. “Take care of her.”

“She can take care of herself,” Mai Lynn snapped.

“Your broken leg says otherwise,” Aaron replied.

I pulled the wind around me and used it to rise above the castle wall. Right into a fucking furnace. The fire generated by the copter debris was being fed by its own fuel, creating heat unlike anything I’d felt since a factory fire we’d help douse two months ago. Black smoke filled the air and made it hard to breathe. Harder still to keep the contaminated smoke out of the air holding me afloat. I scanned the patio area.

Someone lay crumpled in the corner of the smaller pavilion, opposite the fire. I flew over, aware of the heat and fire quickly leaching moisture from my clothes and skin. He’d been part of Jinx’s group, just a face in the crowd. Soot and blood covered his chest and throat. A quick pulse-check confirmed what my eyes already knew—he was dead.

He definitely wasn’t the person screaming. I heard it again, somewhere to my left. Filthy wind carried me up and over the wall, to an area thick with trees and underbrush. A flash of copper caught my attention. Under a canopy of pine, I found Jinx, Thatcher, and Andrew. And my heart dropped to my feet.

Both men crouched over Andrew, who was on his back, pale as snow, with large splotches of red on his face, chest, and arms. Jinx was holding pressure on one of the wounds on his chest while Thatcher used his shirt to tourniquet his left arm.

“Is he alive?” I asked.

“For now,” Thatcher replied. “He needs a doctor.”

Hooray for Captain Obvious.
“Scott’s calling in our position,” I said instead. “Emergency rescue—”

“Will take too long,” Jinx said. He looked at me with liquid eyes and unconcealed fear. The fear of a father whose child was dying in his arms. “They caused this.”

“Who did?”

“Shooting down that copter was no accident.”

Of course it wasn’t an accident. The emergency signal our walkies received meant the copter had crossed prison lines without permission. I didn’t know why it had been headed for us or why the guard towers took as long as they did to shoot it down, but that didn’t matter. We could argue it later. Only Andrew mattered.

“Let me fly Andrew out of here,” I said. “I can get him to a doctor faster than waiting on the warden to send help.”

“The nearest hospital is miles from here,” Thatcher said.

“Where?”

“Hackensack, New Jersey.”

“How far?”

“Twenty miles, northwest.”

A long flight, but not out of the question. Still. “How do you know all that?”

“Because a lot of books and maps were left behind when this island was evacuated, and I haven’t forgotten how to read. Now, the observation tower should have emergency medical—” Thatcher began.

“No,” Jinx said. “I won’t trust the life of my son to those bastards. They’d sooner watch him die.”

“Then let me take him to Hackensack,” I said.

“We’ve never been separated. Not since he was born.” The heartbreak in his voice almost made me forget what the man was capable of—almost.

I also knew what he wasn’t asking. “I can’t take you with us. You’d slow me down and on top of that, the guards might shoot us for attempting to remove a convicted felon from the island.”

“You couldn’t stop me if I insisted.”

“You’re probably right, but don’t make things worse. Stay here. Let me save your son.”

Jinx held my gaze for what felt like forever, pleading that I hurry and promising vengeance if I failed. I couldn’t fail. I’d just found the brother I never knew I had, and I wasn’t going to let him die now. “Save him, then,” Jinx finally said.

They helped me gather Andrew in my arms, his chest tight to mine and one of my arms looped under his. The hold would be easier to maintain once we got in the air. His heart thumped weakly. He didn’t move, even when jostled.

“Scott’s just on the other side there,” I said to Thatcher, jerking my head at the castle. “Tell him to radio the observation tower so they know where I’m going and why.”

“Right,” he said and took off running.

After being thrown into a pond, knocked unconscious, and nearly drowned, flying a child twenty miles wasn’t the smartest move ever. But I had no choice except to draw the wind around us and shoot up into the sky. I summoned every reserve of energy I had left to propel us forward. I could not fail.

My brother’s life depended on it.

•   •   •

I must have fallen asleep in the waiting room, because I was once again being shaken awake by someone. I jerked upright and nearly toppled right out of the chair I’d appropriated only minutes after the doctors at Hackensack UMC whisked Andrew away and armed security guards demanded I stay put. No one would let me leave or use the phone, and sitting definitely had more appeal than standing.

Falling asleep hadn’t been in the plan.

Simon Hewitt occupied the chair next to me, the perfect picture of worry and impatience. “Are you injured?” he asked.

My head hurt, my chest still felt like a bowling ball was sitting on it, and most of my joints had stiffened up during my impromptu nap. “I’m fine, just got knocked around a bit,” I said. “Have you heard anything about Andrew?”

He shook his head. “Warden Hudson is asking for information on him right now.”

I looked past Simon, where an imposing black man in a navy blue suit was speaking with a nurse and using a lot of hand gestures. I’d met Warden Hudson exactly once, and once was more than enough. He had an intensity about him, more than just his physical bulk, that intimidated without even trying.

I also noted—with absolutely zero surprise—that uniformed prison guards had increased the population of the waiting room by four. “Any word from Manhattan? Other injuries?”

“Quite a few, but Andrew was the most serious. All of the other wounded are being treated back at the Warren by the prison’s medical staff.”

“On site?” I was no doctor, but even I knew Mai Lynn’s open fracture required more attention than a field-trained medic could give her. “Why?”

“The warden doesn’t want anyone entering or leaving the island until an investigation into the crash is complete.”

“Not even for medical attention?”

“Not even for that,” Warden Hudson said. He had a deep, grizzly voice that matched his exterior perfectly. “What the hell were you thinking, Swift, taking a prisoner off the island?”

I hauled ass to my feet and squared my shoulders. Hudson had a good eight inches on me, but I had anger on my side. “I was thinking, ‘hey, maybe I should try and save this dying kid’s life,’ that’s what I was thinking. I’d already seen two dead bodies, and I wasn’t about to allow a little boy to die. Besides, Andrew doesn’t have a collar, and you probably didn’t even know he existed until this happened, so he’s not technically one of your prisoners.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“I don’t think it is. If I broke your rules, Warden, I apologize, but at least now Andrew has a chance. He’d have been dead before your people got there.”

Hudson took a menacing step forward, eerily calm in his rage. “You’d better hope the doctor on record agrees with you, Swift, or you are in deep shit with me. You are a guest in my prison, and I’m pretty sure the last thing you want is to become a temporary resident.”

A cold wash of fear rippled down my spine. I’d been threatened with a lot of things in my twenty-eight years, but never incarceration. And Hudson wasn’t bluffing.

“What happened?” Hudson asked.

“Is there an update on Andrew’s condition?”

He narrowed his eyes. “What happened.”

Asshole.

“We’d made contact with the prisoners we were trying to locate,” I said, hoping to make this short and sweet, so he’d answer my damned question. “We met at Belvedere Castle in Central Park, and we were talking when I noticed the copter in the air. It looked like it was coming straight for us, but we didn’t panic until someone realized it wasn’t a prison copter. Your guys shot it down, but it was on a collision course with the castle. Keene and I tried to slow it down so the others could run. I got knocked into the pond.”

“Keene?” Simon said.

“Yeah, Peter Keene. He wanted to help.” Regret settled deep in my gut. “He was killed in the explosion.”

“And after that?” Hudson asked.

“We found Mai Lynn and used her walkie to call for help.”

“Who’s we?”

Oh, right. “My partner from Los Angeles, Scott Torres. He fished me out of the pond. He called on the walkie while I scouted for other survivors. I found Andrew with Thatcher and McTaggert. He was in bad shape, so I scooped him up and flew straight for the hospital.”