Children of Evolution (The Gateway Series Book 2) (32 page)

Michael started to firm the barrier between them, to pull back like he always did, but he stopped. He’d been helpless for so long, formless for so long, the urge to do something physical was too powerful to resist. He could help her. He could protect his sister, if she’d let him.

Cole got in her face again, pushing harder this time. When he poked her in the head and then the stomach, Michael knew his chance to talk Nikki into letting him help was gone. She was about to lose control. Once she did that, she wouldn’t listen to anything.

"What's your gut saying, girl?" Cole rumbled.

To punch you in the face,
Nikki thought.
 

No,
Michael snapped, knowing he was engaging in a pointless battle.
That's what he wants, Nik. He's trying to rattle you.

Nikki didn’t respond, to Cole or to Michael. She just growled.

Don't, Nik,
Michael pleaded, willing her to listen to him and restrain herself.
Hold your ground. Keep your head and look for his weakness.
 

Michael could feel the adrenaline making Nikki’s muscles quiver, the anger pumping through her like liquid fire. But she didn’t attack. She held her ground, just like he asked. He wondered at her control, indulging in a wave of gratitude he knew she’d feel.

Then her fear spiked, and Michael relaxed the barrier between them instinctively. In a flash he understood what was causing her shock. She wanted to move. She was telling herself to move, but her body wasn’t responding. When Michael realized why, the shock doubled.

How are you doing that?
she thought.

I'm not.

Tell me another one.

Not on purpose, Nikki,
he sent back.
I feel…stronger.
He didn’t know how else to explain what he felt happening, not without frustrating her further. A glimmer of hope started, but it was short lived.

Cole’s fist slammed into Nikki’s stomach, knocking her off her feet.
 

Michael couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t stand by, not if he could do something.

Nikki, I can help, if you'll let me,
he said, his voice surprisingly calm despite the anxiety building around what he was about to do.

Yeah. Bang-up job so far,
she thought, looking up to stare Cole down.
No offense, but I'd like to survive this.

I don’t mean like this, Nik
, Michael said.
I mean—
He stopped himself. How could he explain what he was thinking? How could he ask her to give up control?
 

Her sharp inhale, shuddering at the pain from the blow, gave him all the answer he needed.

You trust me, right?
he sent. He wasn’t really looking for an answer. He knew how Nikki felt about him. They were inseparable. Always would be.

Nikki,
he said, feeling the nervousness in his voice.
Forgive me for this
.

Then he dropped the wall completely and took control.

* * *

Michael stood and shifted Nikki’s body into a defensive posture, surprised at how natural it felt to be in control, and disturbed at how easy it was to take it.

Cole narrowed his eyes, adding even more crags to his creased face, and studied them in silence. Michael had the uneasy feeling Cole could tell something had changed with Nikki, as improbable as that was. More likely, he was just reacting to the cautious stance Michael had Nikki assume. Either way, Cole looked less than impressed. He shook his head with a grimace before he nodded to Coop and Padre. "Take her."

They closed in, and Michael responded, moving Nikki to intercept. He focused on the fight in front of him, purposely ignoring what he felt from Nikki. He couldn't deal with her reaction to what he’d done—not now.

Padre struck first, as expected.

Michael stepped into him and turned Padre's halfhearted strike aside, locking up his arm and sending him reeling toward Cole. He saw the surprise light Padre’s eyes, but he didn’t pause to enjoy it. He spun to meet Coop's punch and rotated with it, driving Nikki's hip into Coop's thigh and sending him rolling over her shoulder with a surprised shout.

He immediately dropped and rolled to the side, sensing Cole's charge, but using Nikki’s body wasn’t like using his own. Her upper body was weaker—he’d felt as much when he’d turned Padre aside. So he’d compensated when he dealt with Coop. But her legs were a different story. He pushed harder than normal when he came out of his roll, and Nikki’s legs and hips responded with an unexpected burst of power. She stumbled off balance, and Cole pounced.

Cole should have caught them. He moved with surprising grace, and his speed… But Nikki’s reflexes, coupled with Michael’s skill, were up to the task. Michael twisted outside Cole’s reach, pushing off the man's solid frame to gain a step of distance and put Nikki just outside striking distance of all three men.
 

A wave of satisfaction pulsed through Nikki’s body, a wave that would have spawned a cutting taunt had she been in control. As it was, Michael barely suppressed the laugh and couldn’t stop the smile as he rushed Padre.
 

Michael slipped into the flow of the fight, adjusting to Nikki’s body quickly. Even though they’d been as close to identical in size and strength as brother and sister could be, there were differences that required some adjustments. Some movements were awkward, weaker, but a surprising number of twists and strikes were even faster and easier in Nikki’s body. For the first time, Michael truly understood what Nikki meant when she said she was made to fight. The more aggressive and powerful the maneuver, the more natural it felt.

The two of them together—Michael’s mind and Nikki’s body—quickly turned the tide of the sparring session. Coop grew more frustrated with each failed attack, audibly so when Michael swept his legs and sent him crashing to the mat.
 

Padre, on the other hand, seemed to grow happier with Nikki’s apparent spike in skill and confidence. His attacks became harder and harder to counter and his subtle smile more evident.

Cole all but withdrew from the fight. He eased back toward the edge of the mat, seemingly content to let Coop and Padre struggle alone. In a way, Michael was a little disappointed. More than a little. He felt a worm of unease wriggle through Nikki’s stomach. It was Cole’s taunting and abuse that had pushed Michael to take control. He wanted a chance to put the man in his place.

He pushed that thought down as soon as it formed. It clearly wasn’t his own. Wishing for a fight wasn’t his way. It was Nikki’s. Only she would be disappointed to miss a chance to fight a mountain of a man like Cole.

Instead of tapering off, however, the unease grew into a tremor Michael had to focus to ignore as he barely turned aside two rapid strikes from Padre and sent Coop to the mat again. He firmed the wall between Nikki and him, even though he knew it wouldn't help.
 

Focus on the fight
, he told himself, blocking out the rising anxiety he didn't understand.

Padre jumped over Coop and drove Michael back with strike after strike, his smile open now and his eyes practically laughing. Nikki's quick forearms turned every blow aside, until the last. Padre overextended, just slightly, on his fifth strike, and Michael took advantage. He lunged in, drove Nikki's hip into Padre's and pulled through the punch. Padre toppled over Nikki's leg, rolling to the mat for the first time.
 

Cheers broke out from Ace and even Coop, who was up on his knees watching. "About time," Coop crowed. "Sucks, don't it?"

Padre rolled back to his feet with a laugh and gave Nikki a nod over his shoulder, acknowledging his defeat. Michael's rush of satisfaction pushed the anxiety back, holding its ground for the moment.

You're really here this time, aren't you?

Michael answered with a quick laugh as he circled away from Cole. He needn't have bothered. The big man was slowly pacing along the edge of the mat, staring at Nikki with narrowed eyes, but he was making no move to attack.
 

Nik, of course I…
Michael's response faltered.

The anxiety boiled up into Nikki's chest, no longer just hers alone. Michael knew that voice. He'd never forget that voice. But it wasn't Nikki's.

Coop hopped to his feet and charged. Michael saw him coming—he couldn't miss the attack, thanks to Coop's bellowed war cry—but he barely forced Nikki's body into motion in time to avoid it.
 

"Satisfied?" Elias asked.

Michael was too busy fending off Padre to look over, but he could hear the satisfaction in Elias's voice.

"Not even close."

Cole's rumbling response came from too close behind Nikki. Michael dropped into a forward roll, sensing a heavy swipe miss Nikki by a hair.

"Stop hiding, girl," Cole snapped. "Let it out."

Michael rolled Nikki to her feet, sweeping her gaze toward Cole. But when it crossed the doorway, it stopped dead.
 

Kate stood there, staring at Nikki. Staring at Michael.

It's really you,
Kate's voice said in Nikki's head, not questioning at all.
 

I'm not crazy
.
You're really here.
She blinked, her trembling lips turning toward the smile he'd wanted to see for too long, and the tears rolled from her eyes.
 

Michael's control crumbled. His awareness of Nikki surged. In the midst of the flood of thought and emotion breaking around him, he saw that what he'd been feeling from her had nothing to do with the fight—it had to do with him. Losing control of her body had increased her terror tenfold.

He released his hold, leaving Nikki in control again, but shaken and vulnerable. Then he watched, helpless, as Cole chose that moment to attack.

"I said let it out!" Cole roared, launching himself across the mat in a sickeningly fast leap.

"Michael!" Kate screamed.

Cole's fist slammed into Nikki's chest, sending her flying.

Nikki

Nikki lay on the mat, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands pressed to her head like they were the only things holding it together, but it wasn't pain she was fighting.
 

Voices battled around her, competing to be heard. Voices from outside and inside her overcrowded head.

Outside, Elias and Cole were trading shouts as Coop added his raised voice to the fray. Nearby, Gideon and Sam added to the general hubbub with more measured and controlled arguments.

Inside, Nikki had finally gone full-on wacko. Michael was falling over himself to apologize for trapping her in her own body, while Kate was chattering at both of them about how not crazy she was.

No matter how hard Nikki tried, she couldn't make any of the voices stop.

"Enough! Stop it!" Her shout was for all of them—the voices outside her head driving her crazy, and the two inside proving she was already there. "All of you. SHUT UP!"

Michael heeded the warning. He fell silent and pulled away from her. She felt a barrier go up between them, weak though it was, as Michael focused on keeping his distance. As she climbed to her feet, almost everyone else fell silent as well.

Cole did not. Instead, he called down the thunder.
 

"Attack her again," he growled at Sam and Coop, earning looks from everyone. "You want us to stop?" he said to Nikki, voice booming. "Then make us."
 

Nikki was only too happy to comply. She charged with a roar.
 

She rushed Sam, who fell back immediately, going on the defensive and looking like he was done with the fight. Fine with her—he wasn't her real target.
 

She launched herself to the side at the last second, turned in the air, and crashed into Coop. Her shoulder caught him on the chin, causing more surprise than damage but giving her all the opening she needed. She didn’t use it, however. He wasn't her real target either.
 

Nikki pushed off Coop and into the onrushing Cole and laid into him with everything she had. She didn't try anything fancy. She didn't try to remember a single technique she'd learned over the past week. She didn't pay attention to her training, or to her doubt, or even to the images Michael was trying desperately to hold back. She listened only to the fury.

She let go.
 

She struck with fists, elbows, knees, feet—each strike adding a trickle to the current of oblivion beckoning to her, each blow pushing her farther from her painful reality.
 

Letting go meant casting aside concern for her own safety and that of her enemies, which is what her sparring partners became, what they had to become. To let go she couldn't hold on to her feelings about the people she was fighting. She couldn't measure attack speed and pull punches. She had to forget they were instructors, friends, or even people at all. They became faceless enemies.

Wherever she sensed an opening, she smashed it with whatever was closest—and not just on Cole. She raged from target to target, one enemy to the next, wherever the flow of battle took her. She didn't think—she acted.
 

She punched, catching someone on the chin. Another enemy reared up as the first fell away, and she spun under his attack, driving her elbow into his ribs.
 

She rode the current of sweet adrenaline rushing through her, a weak stream compared to the raging river of power she used to know, but still deep enough and strong enough to sweep away all thought, leaving raw instinct in its place. With the pulse of battle lust thundering in her heart, she wasn't broken anymore. She wasn't even herself anymore. She was an unstoppable force. She was a war machine doing what she was made to do.

She rolled under a heavy blow, kicking out, then ducked another strike. Catching the enemy's arm, she pulled him off balance, smashing her knee up into his falling chest.

Somewhere deep inside, a part of her quailed at what she was doing, pleading for her to stop. But the voice was barely a whisper next to the thundering beat of her own heart. She was beyond hearing. She kept fighting, focusing her rage on the biggest of her enemies, the one who kept coming back for more. The one who just wouldn't stay down.