Swarm (21 page)

“I hear you. That's my power in a nutshell.”
That
was weird, hearing the voice talk about itself. “But with Davey it finally made sense, right?”

Ren wiped her cheeks with her fingers. “Yeah, I leveled up when I met him.”

“Leveled up.” Ethan nodded. “Like your power turning inside out.”

“He helped me figure it out.” Ren hugged herself, gazing up at the stars. “How to put the stuff I stole from everyone else—all the shimmers between them and the world around them, everything they know and love and understand—into
our
connection, Davey's and mine.”

“That must feel awesome,” the voice said.

“You have no idea,” Ren said softly, totally wrapped up in herself, no attention fraying off her anywhere. “
No one
gets to feel as close as we did. Not in all of human history.”

“Like one person in two bodies.”

“Best sex ever.” Her voice broke again.

“Amazing,” said the voice, with very un-Ethan-like wonder.

Thibault turned away. This was
not
cool, the voice playing the shrink, drawing Ren out in front of half a dozen strangers. But he was still listening.

Nate was motionless, his attention fixed on the two silhouetted against the paling sky.

“What I do, it only messes people up
while
I'm doing it,” Ren was saying. “Plus maybe an hour or so. But for Davey and
me, it
sticks
, you know? Doesn't fade like his money. But it's not like we could do it in secret.” Her voice cracked, and she buried her face in her hands again.

“It left a trail for that . . . predator,” Ethan said, and the word sent a chill through Thibault.

“We tried to keep safe,” Ren sobbed. “We should've stayed away from people—in a place like
this
!” She spread her hands around at the desert hills and pleaded, “But we
need
crowds, to be who we are!”

“Just like Quinton Wallace needs them to kill,” Ethan said.

“
Just
like that—Wait, how did you know his name?”

“We know a lot of things.” The voice was at its smooth best now, almost hypnotic. “We can protect you. You'll be safe with us.”

“Are you kidding?” Ren turned and sent a spike of hatred at Thibault. “One of you left Davey chained up like a sacrifice! And you've got a baby Swarm waiting to happen.”

“Kelsie isn't like that. She's only—” The voice's soothing murmur sputtered out, and Ethan yelped, “Wait. What?”

Ren stared over her shoulder at Kelsie, and the Zeroes' attention followed, glowing wires across the lightening air.

“Mob is a . . . a Swarm?” Ethan's real voice broke on the last word.

“She will be,” Ren said. “I felt her working the crowd in your stupid nightclub. Quinton used to pretend he was like that, the life of the party. The guy who loved parades. But he was just
waiting for a mean and hungry crowd to come along. . . .”

A sparkling line of attention came from over by the car. Kelsie was listening now.

“You won't have long now,” Ren whispered. “She's seen how fun it is to kill people with a crowd—especially people like us. Quinton says
we taste the best
.”

Kelsie looked so small there, her arms wrapped around her legs, her face streaked with tears. Thibault couldn't imagine her ever harming anyone.

“Kelsie's not dangerous,” Ethan said in his real voice. “That's . . . nuts.”

“When your power flips inside out, it happens all at once,” Ren said coldly. “You won't recognize her.”

“You don't know her!” Ethan cried, his face turning red and angry. “You don't know anything. She would
never
 . . .”

He sputtered to a halt, but his anger stayed, and Thibault saw him make the decision to use the voice. It broke past Ethan's squeaky outrage in merciless attack mode.

“You
should've
died with Davey. That's what you promised him, that you'd be there together at the end. But no, he died all alone, while you waltzed away! Cry all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that you left your man—your
husband—
to—oomph!”

Nate had punched Ethan in the stomach. The bright bar that had joined him to Ren blew to powder, and he crumpled to the ground.

“
You
morons made me break my promise!” Ren spat down at him. “If you'd stayed away, we could've kept running! But no, you had to
find out
shit, didn't you?” She was yelling at Nate now. “You had to follow us and
save
your poor little dolls from our evil plans!”

The world began to swim around Thibault. The stars above looked wrong—what was the point of them, how did they
fit
, what sense did their patterns make?

Damn it. There were seven of them gathered out here, enough to make a crowd.

Thibault scrabbled after the fraying meaning in Ren's rant.

“You had to come rolling out here in a big ball of Swarm bait! Nice work, superheroes! It's great that you guys are such a
team
, you know? I hope you stick together like freakin' glue until he tracks you down and tears you
all
apart, just like he did my
Davey 
!”

And with that name, all the stars went out, all the world went out, and Thibault didn't know who, what, or where he was for a long, dark time.

ETHAN'S THROAT WAS FULL OF
sand.

His mouth was full of sand too, and so was his nose. He coughed, snorted more sand, then coughed again. He was lying facedown in the desert scrub.

He rolled over, and the inside of his eyelids turned bright red. Full daylight, and it'd been just before dawn when he'd hit the ground.

Shoot, how long had he been lying there?

Glitch had really done a number on him. It was like his whole body had forgotten how to stand up.

If Swarm attacked them now—

Crap,
Swarm
! Ethan jerked upright, heart pounding.

“Kelsie?” he slurred.

The Zeroes lay in all directions, spread out as flat as pan
cakes on the red dirt. But there was no sign of Swarm. Not yet, anyhow. Apart from the whistle of wind, the place was eerily quiet.

Ethan half crawled, half dragged himself over to where Kelsie lay beside Chizara, her head on the other girl's knee. Kelsie's face was starting to turn rosy in the sun.

When Ethan checked her pulse, she murmured sleepily.

“Phew.” Ethan looked around.

Chizara was breathing evenly, like she was asleep. Flicker lay beside a large rock, her long hair and skirt fanned out around her. Nate had crumpled into a very un-Nate-like pose, one leg caught under him and one kicked out in front. Teebo lay alone, facing the sky with one arm across his chest.

“Anybody dead?” Ethan rasped. Then he spat sand at the ground beside him.

Damn. This was the third time this week he'd been glitched, but at least his voice was working. His real voice, the one he'd lost that first time outside the Office-O.

Speaking of Glitch, where
was
she?

And where was the Mercedes?

“Yo! Zeroes!”

Flicker stirred first, gathering herself together to sit up. “Scam, show me everyone.”

Ethan obligingly swept his gaze across the Zeroes, giving Flicker a panoramic view of their collapse.

“Shit,” Flicker said.

“You're welcome,” Ethan replied. His stomach still hurt from where Nate had punched him.

Why
had Nate punched him again?

Oh, right. He'd let the voice go to town when Glitch had called Kelsie a baby Swarm. Which was total crap, because Kelsie would never let a crowd turn a guy into mincemeat.

Ethan shuddered. He'd only caught a glimpse of the fountain before Nate had pulled him into retreat. There was nothing recognizably Davey left. Just bone and blood and mess. Lots of mess. And a lot of people covered with it.

“Give me a look at the mall,” Flicker said.

Ethan obediently turned until he could see the Desert Springs Mall in the distance. The parking lots were practically empty. Only a few abandoned cars, a half dozen fire engines with their lights flashing, and government-issue black SUVs, all the same. An ambulance was pulling away slowly, and a dozen news trucks with telescoping antennae stood corralled a mile away.

There was no swarm headed this way.

“Okay,” Flicker breathed.

Ethan pulled at his shirt, trying to release some of the sand from his collar.

The others were beginning to move. Slowly, like vampires at sunset.

“Where's Nate's car?” Flicker asked.

“Pretty sure Glitch took off with it.”

Ethan had almost gotten through to Glitch—or the voice had. There'd been a total connection over the whole love thing. But then she had started in on Kelsie and he'd let loose. Bad move, now that he thought about it, but no reason to punch a guy.

Flicker was next to Thibault, tracing a hand down his arm until he stirred. Kelsie and Chizara were awake now too, blearily leaning against each other. Which just left one more Zero.

Ethan crossed to where Nate lay. He wanted to kick the guy. He was supposed to lead them all into glory, not leave them knocked unconscious in some desert. He grabbed Nate's shoulder and started rocking him, watching his chin roll left and right.

Nate reached out to push Ethan aside.

“Scam?” he croaked.

“I think we're past code names,” Ethan said tiredly. “The mission is over. We lost.”

That got him. Nate sat up and looked around. “Is everyone okay?”

“Nobody dead,” Ethan replied, though when he got home, Jess was probably going to fix that oversight.

“Mierda.”
Nate clenched his jaw. “She left us here. Where Swarm could have taken us while we were unconscious.”

“Um, maybe.” Ethan cast a quick, fearful glance toward the mall.

“He wouldn't,” Kelsie said, her voice cold. Her eyes were
fixed on the mall. “There's no fun in eating unconscious people. There's no fear to feed on.”

The rest of the Zeroes went silent.

Ethan shivered. He totally could've done without knowing that. And he could've done without knowing that
Kelsie
knew. Like she'd been in Swarm's head somehow.

“Maybe we got far enough away,” Nate said, like he hadn't heard Kelsie. “Hard to lead an angry mob for miles across desert. Is anyone still glitched?”

“I'm fine,” Flicker said. “Not sure about Thibault, though.”

“The sky's still wrong,” Tee said, sounding like he had a hangover.

“Crash?” Nate called. Then he hesitated. “Mob?”

Kelsie was silent. She just kept staring down at the mall.

“We're fine,” Chizara said, for both of them. She reached out to brush Kelsie's hair from her face.

“We are
not
fine,” Ethan said. “We're in the direct path of a psycho. With no ride home!”

“Ethan, just shut up, okay?” Flicker sighed.

“Well, it's not like we can hitch a ride back to Cambria!” Ethan felt himself getting hysterical. “And my sister said she'd kill me if I did anything out of line, which I think applies to driving all night to attend a mob killing!”

“Stop it!” Nate cried, his expression pleading.

Ethan stared. He'd never seen anything like that expression on Nate. The guy almost looked afraid.

The others were eyeing Kelsie, who was still frozen to the spot.

Ethan waited for the moment when Nate—the reigning charisma champion—would grab hold of the Zeroes and focus them all on a new plan, dragging them away from thoughts of death and defeat. But Nate was quiet. The one time they could've really done with a leader, and he had nothing to say.

Ethan reached in to the voice for something to shake Nate out of his funk. If he could just get Glorious Leader back on track, the others would fall into line.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

For one blind moment he was scared his power had been glitched for good. But he could feel the voice sneaking away down his windpipe. Apparently it had decided Nate's funk was immune to mere words.

Or maybe Kelsie's sadness was too strong, and would keep them captive forever in a superpowered feedback loop of despair.

Both those options sounded pretty terrible.

It was Flicker who broke the spell. She got to her feet and said wearily, “Let's go home.”

“Good call, Flick,” Ethan said. “One question: How?”

She turned to him, looking more pissed than anything else. Her voice came out dangerously gentle. “I don't know, Scam. Got any ideas?”

In that moment Ethan really wanted Flicker to not hate
him. He wanted her to lead the Zeroes to safety. He wanted to go home. He wanted all that more than he'd ever wanted anything.