Swarm (20 page)

She grabbed Flicker's hand, trying to speak—

He can't win. They'll kill him.

But the fury had taken her again—her jaw was locked tight. She tried to tear herself out of the feedback loop, but anger and thirst and even bone-rattling lust pulled her back in. She wanted to be part of this murderous crowd. Nothing else mattered.

As the buzzing edge of the swarm reached Coin, the fountain erupted, water spraying in all directions. Chizara was nearby, a hundred spinning lights pulsing to life around her raised arms. Kelsie expected an answering spike in the swarm's energy—confusion, hesitation—but there was only that deep, wrathful desire roaring through her body.

“Move it, Stalker!” Coin shouted, his voice shrill as the core of the shivering crowd drew closer. “Get me out of here!”

“Hang on!” came Thibault's voice. As he breached the seething outer edge of the swarm, Kelsie lost sight of him, her awareness faltering.

“It's not working,” she managed to say through clenched teeth.

“I can't see shit,” Flicker muttered. “Their eyes are twitching all over the place.”

Kelsie glimpsed Glitch staggering as a passing man slammed her with his forearm, saw her go off balance as someone else shouldered her. Dozens of people were splashing through the fountain. Glitch was falling—

No, some guy had caught her and was holding her up. Anon, coming back into focus as he dragged her from the swarm. Chizara was beside them.

“Don't save
me
,” Glitch yelled. “Get
Davey
!”

“I can't get through!” Thibault shouted.

Flicker's voice carried above the din. “Nate, bail out!”

The main body of the swarm had reached the escalator. Nate had abandoned his Glorious Leader pose and was running upward and away. But the first grasping hands of the mass were just behind him. Ethan stood frozen at the top of the steps until Nate jerked him into a run.

Flicker called again, calm steel in her voice. “Crash! Escalator!”

Chizara turned and raised an arm, letting out a sharp, barked laugh just as Nate reached the upper floor. The tendril of the swarm that pursued him began to slip and tumble, falling back as the stairs reversed.

Flicker sank her fingernails into Kelsie's arm. “Mob! Come back to me. Can you control them? Can you do
anything
?”

Kelsie tried to find some other emotion to send into the
crowd, but she had nothing but hunger. She moved to get a better view of Coin, because she didn't want to miss a moment of his terror. She wasn't Kelsie anymore. She wasn't even the Mob she knew.

“No,” she said, half to Flicker, half to herself.

“Please!” came a long wail from Glitch. Anon had dragged her back to the hallway entrance. Chizara was right behind them—

But so was the livid border of the swarm. A woman took a passing swipe at Chizara—she ducked and kicked out, sending her attacker sprawling.

Thibault pointed down the hallway. “You guys run for that exit. I'll go back for Davey.”

“You won't make it,” Flicker said.

“In a crowd that big I'm—”

“Dead!” Flicker yelled, grabbing at his jacket. “Swarm
killed
the other Anonymous, remember?”

Thibault looked back at Davey. “But we can't just—”

“Too late,” Mob said, horrified and exultant.

The swarm had reached the fountain.

“Screw this,” she heard Crash say, and the mall plunged into darkness. The crowd was unswayed. In the eerie green light of the exit signs, they continued to shake in silent convulsions, their jittering eyes shining, the water glittering as it splashed up around them.

A pulse of energy went through the swarm, sweeping
Mob up into their vast greed. The pack seethed forward, setting upon Coin, feeding on his fear. They wanted to destroy him.

Someone pulled her, staggering, down the hallway, even as she felt every moment of the murder behind her—the clothes tearing from his body, then clumps of his hair, his skin. She felt sick and elated as bones bent and snapped. Dimly, she heard him screaming, and even that felt good. The swarm's energy slipped from gluttony to a gulping satisfaction. . . .

Then the screaming stopped, and Kelsie felt a moment of perfect, satiated bliss before she realized what the silence meant.

Coin was dead. Davey was dead.

There was a flutter of confusion from the mob. In his moment of ecstasy Swarm had lost control, long enough for the crowd to drift apart into individuals, to register what had happened. . . .

Kelsie felt their hunger turn to horror. The spike of revulsion hit her like a blow. Closer in, the Zeroes were a mess of shock and panic.

“Oh God,” Flicker groaned. Of course, she'd had a close-up view.

Kelsie tried to reach out and refocus the energy of the crowd, but whoever was at its center grabbed hold again. He
swallowed their terror and spat it back out, turning it into a fierce new appetite.

He wanted Kelsie next. She could feel it.

But not to kill her. Something worse.

“Run,” she croaked.

They crashed through the exit doors, into a diffuse predawn darkness. The air outside was cold and fresh, but sour bile rose in Kelsie's throat. She tumbled forward, dry-retching as she ran.

The swarm was right behind them, funneling into that narrow hallway. They were still furious.

Every mouthwatering ache of hunger, every shameless craving for the hunt—she felt it. She wanted to take refuge in the build and swirl of the swarm's feedback loop.

“This way,” Flicker said, her voice hoarse and shaky. They ran along a short access road, back toward the mall's main entrance. “Crash, can you start Nate's car?”

“Easy.” Chizara's voice was flat, grim, and absolutely under control.

Glitch was still sobbing. But she shoved Thibault away and ran on her own.

“Nate and Scam are at the south exit.” Flicker's phone was at her ear. “We can pick them up. Is that crowd still after us?”

Kelsie hesitated. The farther they got from the mall, the
more she could breathe. Slowly she felt herself detach from the bitter beauty of Swarm's domination.

Bloodlust still sang in her veins, but it wasn't the swarm. It was something inside her. It had always been inside her, and now it was awake.

“He's falling behind,” she panted. Maybe the blackout had thrown him off. Maybe he wasn't that fast. Maybe he was full. “But keep running.”

She didn't have to tell them twice.

“STOP THE CAR!” FLICKER ELBOWED
Thibault, hard. “Gonna throw up!”

Nate pulled over. Thibault flung open the door, and Flicker jumped out, stumbled away, and fell to her knees among the rocks and scrubby desert plants, heaving.

Thibault followed, kneeling beside her, holding back her hair. She heaved again onto the stone-strewn sand.

“It's okay.” His own voice was shaky. “Get it all out.”

He'd felt sick just glimpsing the attack on Davey, but Flicker had seen everything in close-up, through a hundred different eyes. The thought made Thibault want to puke himself.

Flicker looked up at him, breathing hard. The connection between them hung bright and steady on the night air.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No,” she said hoarsely, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I wish I could puke out my memories.”

“I know.” Thibault dropped his head, trying not to think of Davey's face, his blank panic as he rattled the handcuffs.

“How far are we from the mall?” Flicker said, leaning back on a rock.

“At least five miles. Too far for that crowd to follow on foot.”

Thibault hadn't known. How
could
he have known he was helping kill a Zero? His shins burned where Ren had kicked them.

She was in the backseat of the Mercedes, still sobbing and swearing. The others stood around the car, not a single strand of attention glowing among them. They had all disappeared inside their own heads.

Thibault swung his gaze up at the vast desert sky. The randomness, the separateness of the dimming stars, their complete lack of emotion, was a relief. No one could gather them up and turn them into a deadly swarm.

Flashing lights pulled Thibault's gaze down to the valley. The mall was lit up like a stage show. An ambulance wailed along the exit road, and all sorts of emergency vehicles clustered around the main doors, their lights pulsing nausea into Thibault's stomach.

There was no getting around it. He'd left a Zero out to die.

Flicker shifted on her rock, spat into the sand.

“I'll get you some water,” Thibault said. Glorious Leader
always brought bottles on training missions. Suddenly that seemed incredibly thoughtful—and also incredibly naïve.

“Thanks,” Flicker said.

Back at the car, Nate's face looked like an old man's. Ren's sobs were easing to gasps. Kelsie sat shivering on the ground, her head in her hands. She would have
felt
the crowd's murderous rage, not just seen it.

Beside her crouched Ethan, looking confused. He'd only glimpsed it from the top of the escalator. Lucky bastard.

Would the killer have gone on picking them off if they hadn't run? Or did one Zero last a long time, like a mouse in a snake's gullet?

Thibault brought Flicker the water. She rinsed and spat and rinsed again, while he kicked dirt and gravel on top of the vomit.

“I knew crowds could be scary,” she said. “But I never thought I'd see someone get
killed
by . . . oh, shit. Anon, incoming!”

Fists hit Thibault before he had time to turn around, nearly knocking him into the dirt-covered vomit. He ducked and caught sight of Ren's metal rings making arcs of starlight at him. He tried to slice away her awareness, but her hatred blazed too sharp and hot.

“
You
did this!” Her voice broke with tears as she thumped his chest. “You killed Davey!”

Chizara was suddenly there, grabbing Ren by the shoulders. But the girl spun around, flailing at Chizara's face. Flicker
jumped up and joined the struggle, and scuffed-up dust swirled in the predawn light.

“He couldn't even run!” Ren shouted raggedly. “We could've gotten away—”

“Enough!”

They all fell back from each other, because it was Nate speaking.

“Could have gotten away from
what
?” he said.

Ren laughed bitterly. “What? You didn't see him?”

“I saw the crowd change,” Nate said. “But who was doing it? There was no center, no focus.”

“That's how the guy works. He's in their
heads
.” She glared at Thibault, eyes brimming with starry tears. “We told
this
idiot everything you needed to know!”

Everyone's attention latched onto him, and Thibault took a step back.

“You dropped a bunch of hints! Then you threw me out of your car!”

“We told you to run, didn't we? We told you to stay away from other people with powers! And you
followed
us? And dragged along all your special friends, with their half-assed
talents
?” Ren spat the last word, but the fight had gone out of her. She shook off Chizara and Flicker and stumbled away among the rocks, taking everyone's attention with her.

She stopped at the sight of the glittering mall and reached out to it. “We were meant to die together, Davey!”

Kelsie let out a moan, and Thibault felt the group's pain sweep into his body. He barely stayed standing.

“Scam?” Nate said softly. “See if you can get her talking.”

Ethan looked up. He was still next to Kelsie by the car.

“Seriously,
now
?”

“We need to know what kind of threat we're facing.”

Ethan sighed, but he slowly crossed to Ren. He stood hunched and uncomfortable beside her as she wept.

A moment later he relaxed, the voice's confidence seeping into his frame. Thibault could hardly hear its murmur.

“I know how you feel.”

“
Bullshit
you do!” Ren pushed Ethan hard in the chest.

He staggered back but recovered, and the voice continued calmly, “My dad left us when I was seven. It sucked.”

Ethan looked up at the Zeroes, like he hadn't expected anything like that, anything so true, to come out of his mouth.

“You guys had a bond,” the voice went on, coaxing a faint thread of connection out of Ren. “Anyone could see that.”

Ren wept harder. Ethan was his awkward self for a few moments, squirming and throwing nervous attention threads back at Nate.

But then Ren wiped her eyes.

“My whole life . . . ,” she began brokenly. “My power was just a game, a trick I played on people, screwing with their heads. I used it to get out of trouble. Or to get other people
into
trouble.”