Revenge of the ULTRAs (The Last Hero Book 4) (9 page)

“
S
o
. What now, genius?” Ember asked.

I looked ahead. All around, Adam’s followers surrounded us. Some of them had flames in their hands. Others, electricity. I could see the skin of one girl turning to a red brick-like texture.

“She stole my damned ability,” Stone said.

The girl smiled. “Not quite. I’m tougher.”

Stone tightened his fists. “Yeah we’ll see about that.”

I looked over at the women and men that were being forced to work in this place. They were lying flat on the floor. Some of them were praying. Others were just crying.

“We could make this nice and easy,” a voice opposite said.

I turned and saw a short ginger guy walking towards us. He had spikes sticking out of his palms. He wouldn’t be much to reckon with if he didn’t have those spikes.

“We could, could we?” I asked.

The guy smiled. “We’re all people here, after all,” he said. “I’m James. This is Billie. You know what we all have in common?”

“Go on.”

“You took someone away from us. Someone we care about.”

I sensed the mood shifting then. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but there was a distinct shift in the atmosphere. “Aren’t you gonna get on with it and take us back to Adam?”

James laughed. So too did a few of the others. “Oh, Kyle. We aren’t taking you back to Adam. We came here for you because you’re all ours. Because we want to deal with you ourselves.”

I realized what this was, then. These people had been given abilities, and they were betraying Adam already. “Not sure your leader’ll approve of that too much.”

“Let him disapprove,” Billie, the girl beside him, said. “What matters more to us is that you suffer for what you did. For what you put us through.”

They started to walk towards us then, surrounding us even more.

I put a hand back. Held it out. I had to teleport us away from here. Far away.

“Yeah. I get that might be important to you. But we’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.”

I went to teleport us away when I snapped back into the compound and fell to the floor.

I held my winded stomach. I looked up and saw Billie smiling as she got closer.

“What’s up?” she asked. “Can’t quite find your way outta here?”

I wiped my mouth and tried to teleport away again.

But once again, I just bounced right back into the compound.

This time, James was standing right in front of me.

He swung that spiked hand at my face.

I dodged it, rolling onto my side and shooting into the air. My flight was unbalanced and wobbly. I felt like I was learning to fly for the first time all over again, and I knew it had to be something to do with those powers Billie had used to disorient me.

I felt something smack into my side. I spun around and saw three of Adam’s followers floating opposite me, all of them with flames in their hands, all of them firing.

I swooped away from them and clumsily landed under them instead of above them. I dragged one of their legs down and threw them into the two beside them.

All around me, I saw the fighting unfolding now. I saw Stone cracking his fist into the metal exoskeleton of a girl, who stood her ground and punched right back. I saw Ember firing flames at a woman who just extinguished them with water right away. I saw Vortex’s eyes rolling back into her skull, only for her to be knocked to her side and distracted every time she tried.

I was about to fly down and help her when I felt something around my neck.

I looked down and saw some thick, rubber tentacles wrapped around my throat. They were slimy and crusty on the surface. I tried to break free of them, kicking and attempting to teleport, but still my teleportation was weak.

“Feel bad?” a deep voice whispered in my ear as the battle rallied on below. “Feel bad watching your little army collapse?”

I couldn’t accept that.

I couldn’t let everything get taken away.

I had to fight.

I squeezed my eyes together then I slammed my hands against that tentacle.

I froze it. I kept on going and going, even though the tentacle was getting harder around my neck in the process.

I kept on going until it was completely solid.

“Sorry for this,” I said.

Then I smashed the tentacle in pieces and hurtled towards Billie.

I knew I had to stop Billie. She was the one blocking my teleportation. She was down on the ground fighting off Ember and Vortex, as the rest of the Resistance tried to stave off enemies of their own.

I flew faster towards her, still a little wobbly.

Then I felt something pierce my stomach.

I looked down.

There was a spike right through my torso.

Blood dripped down from it.

I felt myself go weak and cold and I fell to the floor.

I landed on my back. I put my hands on my stomach. It was bleeding badly. I had to focus.

James stood over me, my blood dripping from one of the spikes on his palms. “Now we watch as your powers trickle away with your life,” he said. “Now we watch you get what you deserved for hurting us. For hurting our families.”

I poured all my energy into healing that wound on my stomach.

But James was lifting his spikes again.

He was pointing them at my legs.

I squeezed my eyes shut and put all my attention and a little more onto that wound.

Then I heard a thud.

I was half-expecting to open my eyes and see another two spikes through me.

Instead, I saw Ember crouching over James and holding him down.

And then I saw him fire three of those flames at Billie, knocking her down and loosening her grip on her power suppressing skills.

“Go!” Ember shouted. He was on the floor. He didn’t look like he was moving anytime soon.

I shook my head. “I can’t—”

The flares ignited on his hands. “You’re more powerful than all of us. You’re the one they’re after. Just… just get out of here!”

I didn’t want to get away.

I didn’t want to disappear.

I didn’t want another Roadrunner on my hands.

But before I had a chance to argue, I felt Stone grab hold of me and drag me away.

Ember was still inside.

He was totally surrounded.

A
fter reluctantly teleporting us away
, I felt myself being dragged higher into the sky and away from the Amazon rainforest by Stone and the rest of the Resistance.

I saw the compound below disappearing into the mass of trees. The humidity of the air dropped, and the breeze cooled me down right away. My stomach still wrecked from the goddamned
spike
I’d taken through it, but I was still here. I was still alive. I’d healed over, mostly.

But Ember…

“Teleport us outta here,” Stone said. Beside him, I saw Vortex and the rest of the Resistance members. “While you still can.”

I looked down at the Amazon rainforest below.

“Kyle? We need to get away before—”

“I can’t,” I said.

Stone groaned. “What do you mean you can’t?”

I pointed down. “Ember. We can’t leave him behind.”

“We had this debate when Roadrunner got stuck in this mess. We didn’t want to leave her, but we had to make that call in the end.”

“And I regret making that call,” I said.

I looked at Cassie. Looked right into her eyes.

“Ember is one of us. We can’t just give up on him. We can’t just leave him to… to whatever down there. We have to fight for him.”

Cassie opened her mouth to protest, like she always did.

Then she closed it. Nodded. “Kyle’s right.”

Vortex frowned. “What?”

“Yeah. What?” Stone echoed.

“Ember wouldn’t leave us behind.”

“You clearly don’t goddamned know him as well as I do, then.”

“We’ve made mistakes in the past,” I said. “We’ve—we’ve done things we aren’t proud of. But more than ever right now, I realize we need to hold onto who we really are. We’re the Resistance. And we need each other more than ever before.”

Vortex shook her head. “I hear you, Kyle. I really do hear you. But going down there isn’t keeping us together. It’s a suicide mission.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat and looked below. “Then so be it.”

I flew down toward the compound. I didn’t feel comfortable about doing it alone. But I didn’t want to be responsible for the loss of someone else.

All I saw these days was loss. I clearly had to change something.

“Wait.”

I felt a hand touch my arm. When I turned, I saw it was Cassie.

She smiled at me.

“You don’t have to come, sis.”

She punched me playfully. “Yes. Yes I do. You’re right. I know it’s reckless, but you’re right. We have to stay together. We have to
fight
together. And that starts now.”

I glanced above at Stone and Vortex, who kept on hovering there, totally still.

Then I looked back at Cassie. “Let’s go get Ember.”

I activated my invisibility and so too did Cassie.

We flew down towards the compound.

The further we got towards the compound, the more the need to speak with Cassie grew.

“What’s on your mind?”

Her voice startled me. I turned around. She was completely invisible, so I couldn’t see her. “How do you know something’s on my mind if you can’t even see me?”

“Wait, you
can’t
see me? Guess I’m more powerful than I thought.”

I bit my lip and didn’t say anything.

“Wait. That’s what’s on your mind, isn’t it?”

“I just don’t get why you don’t embrace your abilities more,” I said.

“Kyle, we’ve had this—”

“You’re strong. Just as strong as Daniel and me, maybe stronger. But you’re afraid. Afraid of teleporting. Afraid of using the powers like I do. Afraid of something going wrong.”

Cassie was silent for a few seconds. Then, “When you’ve been through what I’ve been through, a little caution’s natural, bro. Maybe I’ll get to where you are, in time. Or maybe I won’t. But I use just enough. To me, that’s all that matters. Now come on. Let’s go get Ember.”

As we approached, I was surprised how quiet it seemed to have got. The humidity hit me again, and I started sweating right away. But I couldn’t see anyone outside the compound. And through the smashed glass of the roof, I couldn’t see anyone inside either.

I landed right in the middle of it. I noticed the people being forced to work here were still here, crying. They looked more distressed than ever.

I looked around, being careful to stay totally invisible. “You see him?” I whispered, no idea of where Cassie was but safe in the knowledge that she was invisible too.

“There,” she said.

It took me a moment, but eventually I saw exactly where Cassie was looking.

Ember was lying flat on his back. He was trying to spark up his flames, but they were simmering out without as much as a puff.

“Ember,” I said.

I walked over to him.

“Go away,” he said.

I stopped. Frowned. “What?”

His pained face stared up into my eyes. He struggled to breathe. “Go… go away. Bomb. Bomb.”

I didn’t clock what Ember was on about, as Cassie dropped her invisibility and walked closer to us. “What’s he saying?”

Then I saw it.

I saw the little flashing light right underneath Ember.

I saw the wires.

My body tensed.

“We have to—!”

I didn’t finish speaking.

An explosion blasted from below Ember’s body.

I
smacked
my head against the side of the building, hard.

After that, for a short while, I wasn’t aware of anything.

Consciousness hit me in the form of a thick smell of smoke. I was choking. The smoke was totally jet black all around me. I could taste it in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t breathe.

I tried to move but my body felt totally broken. I couldn’t see my legs, but I was pretty sure they were snapped in two. I closed my eyes and tried to heal them, but I hadn’t felt this weak while in possession of my powers since… since… well, I wasn’t sure since when.

I looked around the smoke. I couldn’t hear anything for the ringing in my ears. All around me, I saw rubble.

Then my gut turned when I thought back to my last memory before that explosion.

I’d been with Cassie. We’d searched the place for Ember, but it’d seemed empty. The group of Adam’s followers was gone.

Then we’d found Ember.

Only there’d been a bomb right underneath him.

And before I could do anything to stop it exploding, it’d blown to pieces.

I attempted to heal myself again. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I snapped my legs back into place. The pain was so intense that I was screaming at the top of my voice.

When I’d finally done, still weak as hell, I leaned back against the broken wall and let the smoke fill my lungs.

“You’re not just gonna sit there, are you?”

I looked to my left.

Ember was right beside me.

“Ember?”

He half-smiled at me. His clothes were ripped and damaged. He was covered in cuts and bruises.

But he was alive. And he was all in one piece.

He held out a hand. “Come on. Let’s get you to your feet and let’s get out of here.”

I grabbed Ember’s hand and got back on my feet. Slowly but surely, the memories of what’d happened before the explosion—literally milliseconds before the explosion—flooded back.

I’d managed to drag Ember away.

I’d thrown him to the other side of the room.

Then I’d flown into Cassie and knocked her out of the way of the blast.

Then, the explosion had ripped through the compound.

Then…

“Cassie,” I said.

Ember turned around. “What?”

“Cassie. She was in here. She came here to help.”

“I don’t see her anywhere.”

“I’m not leaving her behind,” I shouted.

“Whoah. Okay. I didn’t suggest leaving her behind. But let’s just… let’s just take this one step at a time. Okay?”

I was about to start searching for Cassie when I saw a body on the ground in front of me.

It was the woman who’d been crying not long ago. She was lying on her back and staring up at me in total fear.

“Demon,” she said, in Spanish, panting for every breath. “Demon!”

My skin went cold as I looked around and realized exactly what’d happened. Exactly what I’d been drawn into, again.

I’d been set up.

The bomb had been put in there
not
because they thought it’d kill me, but because they knew it would make me look even more reckless and dangerous all over again.

And I’d fallen for it. Again.

I wasn’t sure how far back Adam’s plan stretched. Maybe the group who’d come for their own vengeance were all part of the setup after all. One thing was for sure. Adam was powerful. And he was screwing with me. Big-time.

I just prayed to God my sister wasn’t a victim of that screwing.

I looked around the broken rubble in hope that I’d find her. But everywhere I looked there was just no sign of her. I looked up through the smoke and saw the bright sky above. It seemed so far away. I wondered how Stone, Vortex, and the other Resistance members were getting on. I couldn’t blame them for not coming down here. They’d been the ones with the bad feeling about this whole thing, after all. They hadn’t fallen for the trap like I had.

“Kyle.”

I looked around and I saw Ember standing right at the back of the compound.

I walked towards him. I wasn’t sure where exactly he was looking at first.

Then I noticed he was looking outside.

I stood at the back of the compound and followed his gaze.

Outside, I saw loads of trees had fallen. Further in the distance, I saw a small village burning away, smoke rising from it. I heard crying. I knew this was what I’d done. This was what my recklessness had caused.

I’d been on the scene. That would get back to the media, somehow. They’d use it against me, that was for sure.

“This is bad,” Ember said.

His words echoed my thoughts exactly. But despite all the chaos around me, I just felt totally cold. I saw the life I could be living right now if I’d never discovered my powers. I’d be at home, probably playing video games with Damon and Avi. Sure, I wouldn’t have had the courage to approach Ellicia, and sure, I’d probably still be bullied and a weak little dude.

But I’d still have my mom.

I would be living a safe life without this kind of responsibility.

That said, if I wasn’t here, then who would’ve stopped Saint?

Who would’ve defeated him?

Who would’ve prevented him brainwashing the planet?

I was the one who’d stood against him. I was the one who’d defeated him, together with my family.

I was the one with the responsibility.

I turned around and headed back into the compound.

Then, I saw Cassie lying there in the rubble.

Totally still.