But Warner is unmoved.
He says nothing. Betrays nothing. He only blinks as someone else’s blood drips down his face.
“Give me your word,” Warner finally says. “Your word that you will leave her alone forever. I want you to let her disappear. I want you to stop tracking her every move. I want you to forget she ever existed.” He pauses. “In exchange, you can have what’s left of my life.”
Nazeera gasps.
Haider takes a sudden, angry step forward and Stephan grabs his arm, somehow still strong enough to restrain Haider even as his own body bleeds out. “This is his choice,” Stephan gasps, wrapping his free arm around a tree for support. “Leave him.”
“This is a stupid choice,” Haider cries. “You can’t do this, habibi. Don’t be an idiot.”
But Warner doesn’t seem to hear anyone anymore. He stares only at Anderson, who seems genuinely distraught.
“I will stop fighting you,” Warner says. “I will do exactly as you ask. Whatever you want. Just let her live.”
Anderson is silent for so long it sends a chill through me. Then:
“No.”
Without warning, Anderson raises his arm and fires two shots. The first, at Nazeera, hitting her square in the chest. The second—
At me.
Several people scream. I stumble, then sway, before collapsing.
Shit.
“Find her,” Anderson says, his voice booming. “Burn the whole place to the ground if you have to.”
The pain is blinding.
It moves through me in waves, electric and searing. Someone is touching me, moving my body. I’m okay, I try to say. I’m okay. I’m okay. But the words don’t come. He’s hit me in my shoulder, I think. Just shy of my chest. I’m not sure. But Nazeera— Someone needs to get to Nazeera.
“I had a feeling you’d do something like this,” I hear Anderson say. “And I know you used one of these two”—I imagine him pointing to my prone body, to Nazeera’s—“in order to make it happen.”
Silence.
“Oh, I see,” Anderson says. “You thought you were clever. You thought I didn’t know you had any powers at all.” Anderson’s voice seems suddenly loud, too loud. He laughs. “You thought I didn’t know? As if you could hide something like that from me. I knew it the day I found you in her holding cell. You were sixteen. You think I didn’t have you tested after that? You think I haven’t known, all these years, what you yourself didn’t realize until six months ago?”
A fresh wave of fear washes over me.
Anderson seems too pleased and Warner’s gone quiet again, and I don’t know what any of that means for us. But just as I’m beginning to experience full-blown panic, I hear a familiar cry.
It’s a sound of such horrific agony I can’t help but try to see what’s happening, even as flashes of white blur my vision.
I catch a mottled glimpse:
Warner standing over Anderson’s body, his right hand clenched around the handle of the machete he’s buried in his father’s chest. He plants his right foot on his father’s gut, and, roughly, pulls out the blade.
Anderson’s moan is so animal, so pathetic I almost feel sorry for him. Warner wipes the blade on the grass, and tosses it back to Haider, who catches it easily by the hilt even as he stands there, stunned, staring at—me, I realize. Me and Nazeera. I’ve never seen him so unmasked. He seems paralyzed by fear.
“Watch him,” Warner shouts to someone. He examines a gun he stole from his father, and, satisfied, he’s off, running after the Supreme Guard. Shots ring out in the distance.
My vision begins to go spotty.
Sounds bleed together, shifting focus. For moments at a time all I hear is the sound of my own breathing, my heart beating. At least, I hope that’s the sound of my heart beating. Everything smells sharp, like rust and steel. I realize then, in a sudden, startling moment, that I can’t feel my fingers.
Finally I hear the muffled sounds of nearby movement, of hands on my body, trying to move me.
“Kenji?” Someone shakes me. “Kenji, can you hear me?” Winston.
I make a sound in my throat. My lips seem fused together.
“Kenji?” More shaking. “Are you okay?”
With great difficulty, I pry my lips apart, but my mouth makes no sound. Then, all at once: “Heyyyyybuddy.”
Weird.
“He’s conscious,” Winston says, “but disoriented. “We don’t have much time. I’ll carry these two. See if you can find a way to transport the others. Where are the girls?”