He looks up at his father. He says nothing.
“What did you do with her?” Anderson says softly, and spits blood on the ground. He wipes his lips with the same cloth he’s using to contain the open wound on his neck. The whole scene is disgusting.
Warner continues to say nothing.
I don’t think any of us know where he hid her. J seems to have disappeared, I realize.
Seconds pass in a silence so intense we all begin to worry about the fate of our standstill. I see a few of the supreme soldiers lift their guns in Warner’s direction, and not a second later a single lightning bolt fractures the sky above us.
Brendan.
I glance at him, then at Castle, but Anderson once again lifts his arm to stall his soldiers. Once again, they stand down.
“I will only ask you one more time,” Anderson says to his son, his voice trembling as it grows louder. “What did you do with her?”
Still, Warner stares impassively.
He’s spattered in unknown blood, holding a machine gun like it might be a briefcase, and staring at his father like he might be staring at the ceiling. Anderson can’t control his temper the way Warner can—and it’s obvious to everyone that this is a battle of wills he’s going to lose.
Anderson already looks half out of his mind.
His hair is matted and sticking up in places. Blood is congealing on his face, his eyes shot through with red. He looks so deranged—so unlike himself—that I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen next.
And then he lunges for Warner.
He’s like a belligerent drunk, wild and angry, unhinged in a way I’ve never seen before. His swings are wild but strong, unsteady but studied. He reminds me, in a sudden, frightening flash of understanding, of the father Adam so often described to me. A violent drunk fueled by rage.
Except that Anderson doesn’t appear to be drunk at the moment. No. This is pure, unadulterated anger.
Anderson seems to have lost his mind.
He doesn’t just want to shoot Warner. He doesn’t want someone else to shoot Warner. He wants to beat him to a pulp. He wants physical satisfaction. He wants to break bones and rupture organs with his own hands. Anderson wants the pleasure of knowing that he and he alone was able to destroy his own son.
But Warner isn’t giving him that satisfaction.
He meets Anderson blow for blow in fluid, precise movements, ducking and sidestepping and twisting and defending. He never misses a beat.
It’s almost like he can read Anderson’s mind.
I’m not the only one who’s stunned. I’ve never seen Warner move like this, and I almost can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. I feel a sudden, unbidden surge of respect for him as I watch him block attack after attack. I keep waiting for him to knock the dude out, but Warner makes no effort to hit Anderson; he only defends. And only when I see the increasing fury on Anderson’s face do I realize that Warner is doing this on purpose.
He’s not fighting back because he knows it’s what Anderson wants. The cool, emotionless expression on Warner’s face is driving Anderson insane. And the more he fails to rattle his son, the more enraged Anderson gets. Blood still trickles, slowly, from the half-healed wound on his neck when he cries out, angrily, and pulls free a gun from inside his jacket pocket.
“Enough,” he shouts. “That is enough.”
Warner takes a careful step back.
“Give me the girl, Aaron. Give me the girl and I will spare the rest of these idiots. I only want the girl.”
Warner is an immovable object.
“Fine,” Anderson says angrily. “Seize him.”
Six supreme guards begin advancing on Warner, and he doesn’t so much as flinch. I exchange glances with Winston and it’s enough; I throw my invisibility over Winston just as he throws his arms out, his ability to stretch his limbs knocking three of them to the ground. In the same moment, Haider pulls a machete from somewhere inside the bloodied chain mail he’s wearing under his coat, and tosses it to Warner, who drops the machine gun and catches the blade by the hilt without even looking.
A fucking machete.
Castle is on his knees, arms toward the sky as he breaks off more pieces of the half-devastated building, but this time Anderson’s men don’t give him the chance. I run forward, too late to help as Castle is knocked out from behind, and still I throw myself into the fight, battling for ownership of the soldier’s gun with skills I developed as a teenager: a single, solid punch to the nose. A clean uppercut. A hard kick to the chest. A good old-fashioned strangulation.