The Cloak Society (20 page)

“Mother . . . ,” Alex said, trying to speak rationally. “If you leave us here, we will die.”

Shade stared deeply into his eyes. Her face was oddly blank.

“Do you remember what I said you would become if you decided that Cloak was not for you?” she asked.

Alex kept his mouth shut. He knew full well the word she was looking for.
A liability.

“That's what you are, Alexander.” she said. “I'm sorry, but you won't be coming back with us. Good-bye, my son.”

“Mother!” he yelled.

But she didn't care. She turned and nodded to Phantom, who let herself fall into the Gloom. Shade was right behind her, walking into that cold, dark place without reluctance, without turning for a last look at those she was leaving behind. As soon as she was inside, the portal collapsed in on itself and disappeared.

The Cloak Society was gone.

The remaining Betas and Junior Rangers huddled together near the center of the room. The building continued to shake, each tremble increasing in strength. At any moment, the three stories above them would come tumbling down, burying the young heroes and villains.

Alex attempted to erect a force field around them, but with every falling chunk, the barriers were smashed. Amp and Mallory did their best to knock debris from the air, but they could only hold the rhythm up for so long, before everything caved in on itself. Kirbie tried desperately to turn into her bird form, to whisk some of them away, but she was too frightened to focus and was still injured from the blow to the back of the head and the rebound of Amp's sonic blast.

“What do we do?” Kyle asked frantically.

“Gage,” Alex said, “you don't have any brilliant ideas, do you?”

“I am afraid not, my friend,” Gage replied. “It seems that this may be the end of us.”

Misty was crying. Alex felt helpless—the same sense of powerlessness he'd had earlier in the night, strapped to a chair, watching Kirbie struggle on the other side of the glass.

“Misty,” he shouted, rushing over to her. “You have to help us.”

“What?” she asked, wiping her face with her sleeve. “What do you mean?”

“You have to use your powers to transport us out of here.”

Misty looked terrified, backing away from him.

“I—I can't do that,” she said. “I'm not that strong.”

“Misty, you can,” Alex said. “You did it with Gage at the base and again just a few minutes ago without hardly thinking about it. Here, take my hand.”

He reached out and placed his right hand in hers, finding one of Kirbie's with his left. He nodded to Gage and Mallory, and they followed suit. Mallory reached out to Amp, who looked confused, but let his fingers interlace with hers. Kirbie grabbed on to her brother.

“We are
not
going to die here,” Alex said to all of them, staring at Misty.

Misty's eyes were brimming with tears. She said nothing, but shook her head ferociously. All around them, the building continued to fall apart.

“Misty,” Alex said. “You are our only hope now.”

“You can do this,” Gage said. “I have faith in you.”

“We all do,” Mallory said, but her eyes, wide and scared, were on Alex.

Misty took a deep breath and closed her eyes. But nothing happened. The group just stayed there, clutching one another, waiting for the end.

“Come on. Please,” Alex said. “You have to try. Misty . . .”

Suddenly Misty opened her eyes. Wide. Determined.

“My name is the Mist,” she said as her face started to break apart.

There was a loud crack above them, and Alex looked up to see what looked like the entire thirteenth floor falling down on them. He tried to throw up a shield, but the debris broke straight through. He squeezed Kirbie's hand.

And then, everything went black.

17
Sterling City at Dawn

Alex gasped, struggling to catch his breath as his eyes fluttered open. The air was damp, thick in his lungs. Tall grass pricked at the back of his neck. Above him, he could see the deep blue of the sky and the last faint glow of stars. Blurry figures were crouched over him, and he fought to make them out as he rubbed his eyes.

“He's awake!” he heard a girl's voice yell to his right. His head was spinning. Finally he could see that the two people huddled beside him were Gage and Kirbie. He sat up, letting his vision drift around the blue world. In the distance he could see a highway, but it looked like it was miles away. Kirbie and Gage were talking to him, their hands patting his back and arms, but he wasn't registering their words. He was trying to figure out where he was, and how he had gotten there.

“Slowly now,” he could make out Gage saying. “You've been through a lot.”

Then his eyes fell on her, the unmoving girl in a cradle of grass and wildflowers that were too overgrown and intricately woven to have been natural. Misty. Her eyes were closed, her skin whiter than usual. Kyle was bent over her, his nose and cheeks red and eyes puffy.

“No, no, no, no,” Alex whispered, stumbling as fast as he could to his feet, half crawling to get to her. “Not Misty. No, please.”

“Whoa, hold on,” Kirbie said, pulling his right arm over her shoulder to steady him. “It's okay. She's fine. She's just sleeping.”

“You're sure?” he asked.

“It's not my specialty,” Gage said. “But from my limited medical knowledge, she appears to be suffering from acute exhaustion. I suspect that physically she will be fine once her body recovers from what must have been a tremendous expenditure of energy.”

“What do you mean? What happened? Where are we?” Alex asked.

“Look for yourself,” Kirbie said, stepping away from him and pointing over his shoulder.

Alex turned to the east. On the horizon, Sterling City sat quiet, awaiting the breaking of dawn. In the dimness of the still-waking morning, he could just make out a brooding cloud rising from near the city's center. Justice Tower had fallen.

“We appear to be situated approximately ten miles northwest of the Sterling City border,” Gage said.

“You're kidding me,” Alex said quietly. “Misty brought us all the way out here?”

“Yeah,” Kirbie said. “She must have kept going and going until she couldn't take it anymore. When we were all put back together, we were here. Both of you were unconscious. Kyle's been looking after Misty.”

“Mallory?” Alex asked, looking around.

“She's here too,” Kirbie said, pointing to a figure sitting alone, far away from everyone else, half-eclipsed by the tall grass. “It's okay. We're okay.”

“We should be safe here for the time being,” Gage said. “We're far enough away from base that Phantom should not be able to detect any of you who are marked. But I highly suggest that we seek cover as soon as Misty is able to travel.”

“Yeah, of course,” Alex said. “Just give me a minute to think and we'll—”

His words were cut short by a body ramming into his own, tackling him from behind. His attacker rolled him over on the ground, landing a punch on the side of his face. It was Amp. Alex could see fury in his eyes, mingling with tears.

“You did this!” Amp yelled. “Look at the skyline. Do you see it? That dust rising over the city. That's everything we believed in turned into a pile of rubble. It's the security of this entire country, all gone because of you.”

“Amp,” Kirbie yelled, pulling her teammate off Alex and to his feet. “Stop it! What are you doing?”

“He knew,” Amp said, shaking off Kirbie's hands. “He knew this was going to happen, and he did nothing to stop it. He got you kidnapped, Kirbie. And now they're gone. Lone Star, Lux, and Photon are gone.”

“Amp, listen,” she said. “Alex helped us. He . . . he was trying to warn us. If you want to blame someone, blame me. It's my head that they got into. I'm the one who—”

“No, Kirbie,” Alex said, wobbling to his feet. “He's right. This was my fault. I should have done more.”

“Are we going to stand here and listen to this?” Amp asked Kirbie. “They are
supervillains
. We should take them out now, and then go to the police and start getting all this sorted out.”

“And then what?” Alex broke in. “You're going to take on Cloak by yourself? You have no idea what they're capable of. Lone Star was the only one they were afraid of, and look what happened to him.”

“STOP IT!” Kyle yelled. He jumped to his feet. “Stop screaming. Stop fighting. I can't listen to this. They're gone. What are we supposed to do? The Rangers are
dead
. They were all we had, and now they're dead.”

“That's not entirely accurate,” Gage said flatly. “It is true that they're no longer on this plane of existence, but they are not dead. They're simply lost in the Gloom.”

“The what?” Kyle asked. His eyes quivered with hope.

“It's a place that exists outside this world,” Gage said, trying his best to be precise but comprehensible. “It's the place through which Phantom travels.”

“So we can go get them?” Kyle asked, his voice nearing a frenzied tone. “We can bring them back?”

“Traveling into the Gloom is complicated,” Gage said. “And finding them within it . . . I would not know how to—”

“Yes,” Alex interrupted. “We can bring them back. We'll figure out a way.”

He wasn't sure if this was even possible, but he meant every word. If saving the Rangers from that horrible place would atone for what had happened, then that's what he would do.

“Of course,” Gage said, surrendering to Alex's gusto. “I'll figure something out.”

The five of them stood around in silence for a while. None of them looked at one another, their eyes falling on the underbrush and dirt at their feet. Eventually Kirbie walked toward Misty, stopping to whisper to Alex along the way.

“Go talk to her. She's hardly said a word since we got here.”

She nodded toward Mallory, who hadn't moved from the grass. Alex walked over to her slowly. With every step the air around him grew cooler. By the time he stood beside her, he was shivering, thankful for his coat. The dew on the grass was crystallized, the brittle blades snapping as he sat. Mallory stared into the horizon, at Sterling City. Her cheeks were marked with trails of frost falling from each eye.

“Hey,” Alex said.

“Hey,” Mallory replied.

He let a few moments pass before he spoke again. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I'll be fine,” she said, wiping the flaking tears away from her cheek. “So that's it then. I guess we don't have a home anymore.”

Alex nodded. She was right. They were on their own.

“Thank you for stopping Titan,” he said. “You saved us back there.”

“You're welcome,” she said. “He had it coming anyway.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Yeah, he did.”

“We did the right thing, didn't we?” she asked. “Everything you said back there . . . you believe it's true?”

“I think so,” Alex said. “I mean, yes. We saved a lot of people. I know that's not what we were raised to do, but it seems like it would fall in the category of being right.”

“And what you said about my memory?”

“My mother did something to it,” Alex said. “I don't know what, exactly. But I know that she's the reason you don't remember anything.”

“And my parents?”

Alex didn't say anything, but nodded. Mallory didn't speak again for a while, processing this information.

“They'll figure out that we survived,” she said. “They'll come looking for us.”

“We have some time before then. We should be safe for now,” Alex said. “Come on, let's go back with everyone else.”

A few yards away, Kyle and Gage were on their knees beside Misty, watching her sleep. Amp paced back and forth in a tight line, Kirbie watching from nearby.

“Gage, we broke the Umbra Gun, right?” Alex asked. “The bomb is gone?”

“Thanks to Mallory, it should be irreparable,” Gage said. “All they have now is the containment cell—Phantom's stored power. It is possible that they could have another commissioned, but frankly, they would be hard-pressed to find someone who can build one. Even if they did, it would take some time to design another prototype. Months, maybe years.”

“We should go to the authorities,” Amp said.

“Cloak will be watching the police reports,” Gage said. “They're hacked into the entire computer system of the Sterling City government. If any of us go to the police for help, they will know, and they will take us.”

“Well, that's just great,” Amp said. “So we're stranded out here in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

“Actually, my pockets are stuffed with cash,” Alex said, patting his coat. “That's a start.”

“That's not all,” Gage said, reaching into the pocket of his lab coat. He pulled out a sparkling teardrop—the Excelsior diamond. “I thought this might come in handy.”

“Gage,” Alex said. “You're a genius! Don't let that thing out of your sight.”

“We're all alone,” Kyle muttered, his eyes starting to water.

“That's not true,” Alex said. “We have each other. And we'll get the Rangers back. In the meantime, someone has to be there when Cloak makes their next move.”

“You're asking us to team up with our enemies,” Amp said. “With the bad guys.”

“Good and bad don't really matter anymore,” Alex said. “It's not about being a hero or a villain. It's about protecting each other and the people of Sterling City, who have no idea what's coming. We can do that. We know Cloak. We can stop them when they make their next move.”

“Okay,” Amp said, after a pause. “Let's give this a try.”

“What now?” Mallory asked.

“We wait for Misty to wake up,” Alex said. “After that, we head for the highway. We need to get out of Sterling City for a while.”

He turned and stared at the city's skyline, his eyes unable to move away from the plume of dirt and dust rising from the north side of Victory Park, where the dome of Justice Tower once stood proudly, glowing.

“Everything is going to be all right,” Alex said.

“I believe you,” Kirbie said.

The city would just be waking to discover that its guardians were gone. There would be lamenting in the streets, public vigils, anger, confusion. People would panic. But Sterling City wouldn't fall to the Cloak Society. Alex would make sure of that.

The first beams of morning light shot over the distant rooftops. In Alex's eyes, they shone a radiant gold, before the world again faded back to blue.