Sato ran, though he fell down with every fourth or fifth lunging leap forward.
The others did the same, stumbling and bumbling about like they’d just been granted the gifts of legs and were trying to figure out how to make them work. Rutger was having the hardest time of it. Sato swore he actually saw Rutger
roll
forward like a ball a few times.
Mothball stayed by her friend’s side, helping him along as best she could. Tollaseat and Windasill worked together, pushing and pulling and balancing each other. Sato was on his own. He kept his head down and ran.
The earthquake continued to rage, shaking the entire world and everything on it. Crashes and clangs and breaking glass sounded like small explosions. The air reeked of sulfur and gas and burning wood. Screams came from every direction, from young and old, male and female.
And even though neither Sato nor anyone else knew where they were running to, there didn’t seem to be any choice. You ran from terror, and that was that.
A booming crackle sounded to his left, splitting the air just as he caught a flash of bright light on the edge of his vision. He snapped his head around, but it was too late. The light was gone. It had been like a bolt of lightning.
Another one exploded in front of him. He barely had time to register the jagged line of brilliant white before he closed his eyes, hoping he wasn’t blinded for life. Electric thunder rocked the air and shook the ground. Sato fell on his face and rolled three times, feeling rocks bruise and batter his body.
Another lightning strike, somewhere to his right. Another one way behind him. Each one was an explosion of light and energy and sound.
He got to his hands and knees, searching the area for his friends. He caught sight of Mothball sprawled across Rutger, scrambling to get up. No sign of her parents.
Sato stood up, lurching back and forth as the land continued to shake and tremble violently. Lightning was striking everywhere, long, crooked bolts of white fire hitting the ground in quick flashes instantaneously with the world-crushing sound. He held his hands up to his ears, wondering if he’d ever be able to see
or
hear again.
A brief pause in the lightning storm was as sudden as it was welcome. Sato squinted against the bright blurs of afterimages obscuring his vision as he headed toward Mothball. He had taken a few steps before he realized something very strange. The screams had stopped. So had the yelling and crying.
In disbelief, he scanned the area, shocked that he couldn’t see anyone. Nobody. Nowhere. Only Mothball and Rutger. Where had everyone else gone?
He cupped his hands around his mouth to yell something to Mothball. “What’s—”
A massive bolt of lightning shot from the sky, landing exactly on top of his two friends.
Sato threw his arm up to block the light, then looked as soon as it was gone. Barely able to see, he ran desperately toward the spot.
But even with his burned-out vision, he could tell Mothball and Rutger weren’t there. They were gone. Completely gone.
Not even charred remains or blackened, smoking skeletons were left behind. And, oddly enough, the grass wasn’t burning or even disturbed as far as he could tell. It was as if his two friends had just disappeared.
Maybe they’ve been winked away,
he thought with an unexpected rise of jubilation. Maybe someone had saved them at the last second. In his present state of shock and panic, the idea didn’t seem so far-fetched. Anything was possible, right?
As if in answer to his question, the world around him suddenly turned white, a blanketing sea of complete and utter brilliance that engulfed his body even as the air singed with burning heat.
Sato felt his body erupt in flames.
~
Lisa’s only thought was to find Kayla and keep her safe.
The house shook and rattled around her, the echoes of wood groaning and cracking, glass breaking, and the terrible ladies screaming. Darkness pressed in, and the air filled with a choking dust. Something smelled burnt.
Lisa crawled forward on her knees, fighting to keep her balance. She didn’t understand why Kayla wasn’t crying or yelling for her. They’d been standing close together when the earthquake began, but lost each other in the first chaotic seconds.
“Kayla!” she shouted. “Kayla!”
No one answered, but Lisa heard a distinct whimper to her left, a miracle considering the sounds of destruction surrounding them. She shuffled in that direction and bumped into the small body of her sister, who was curled up into a ball, shaking with sobs.
“Kayla,” Lisa whispered. “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay. Come on. We need to get out of the house.”
“No, no, no,” Kayla murmured.
Scared the house might collapse on them at any second, Lisa put her arms around Kayla’s body and lifted, grunting with the effort. She staggered to the right, running into a table, then to the left, hitting a wall. Squeezing Kayla tightly to her body, she moved forward, taking heavy and careful steps so as not to fall down. The light was dim, but she could see a hallway leading to the front door, which was open and hanging crookedly on one hinge. The whole house jumped as if it had grown legs.
“Let’s get out of here!” she yelled as she decided to go for broke and sprinted for the door.
With a wobbly run, she made it to the opening and stumbled outside, falling into a clump of bushes. Tiny, sharp branches scratched her as she squeezed her arms even tighter around Kayla, trying to protect her. She kicked with her legs and used her elbows to maneuver their way out of the bushes and onto the front lawn.
The sounds of things breaking inside the house had been replaced with horrible, world-shattering cracks of thunder. Constant flashes of light illuminated their surroundings. Lisa saw people running, more people falling. The air smelled like burning plastic and tasted like . . . electricity. That was the only word she could think of.
Then, forty feet away, a bolt of lightning arrowed down from the sky and exploded around a woman in a bulb of pure incandescence. Lisa squeezed her eyes shut, though it was too late. When she opened them, she was completely blind, seeing only blurs of white in front of her.
Not knowing what else to do, she hugged Kayla and smoothed her hair, crushed by how the little girl’s body shook with sobs and terror. How could this be happening?
What
was happening?
The air around them exploded with heat and electricity. Pain ripped through Lisa’s body, and her arms suddenly closed on empty air.
Kayla was gone.
~
Tick didn’t know what he’d done.
He felt as though a chunk of his insides had somehow been squeezed through his skin and catapulted toward the black tree, engulfed by the pure darkness.
He fell from the chair, gasping for breath. His link to Chi’karda had vanished, replaced by a cold emptiness.
“Tick!” Sofia shouted, jumping out of her chair to kneel next to him. “Are you okay?”
Tick rolled over onto his back, looking up at her. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
Paul stood and reached down to grab Tick’s arm, then heaved him to his feet. “What happened?”
Tick shook his head. He couldn’t have answered even if he felt like talking. He had no idea what had happened and began to worry that he’d done something really stupid.
“Take your seats,” Master George snapped in a tight whisper. “She’s coming.”
Tick quickly sat down, as did Paul and Sofia. Sure enough, Mistress Jane was almost to them, marching with determined steps, her red mask showing an anger that made Tick’s heart want to stop.
“What did you do?” she screamed into Tick’s face. “What did you put in the Blade?”
Tick leaned back in his chair and looked up at her, embarrassed and terrified. “I don’t know,” was all he could get out.
Jane’s chest heaved up and down beneath her robe. “You . . . don’t . . . know?”
Tick shook his head, dread exploding within him. What had he done? What had he been
thinking?
She was going to kill his family. He knew it. She was going to kill them!
“I felt a surge of Chi’karda slice into the Blade,” Jane said, her breath still quick. “It had to come from you. What did you do? If I have to repeat the question again, your youngest sister will be killed. Then the other one. Speak.”
Tick fought the panic thrusting up his throat, threatening to choke him. He had to have lost his mind. How could he have been so stupid to try something when he didn’t even know how to control it or what he was doing?
“What did—” Jane began.
“Wait!” Tick shouted. “I . . . I just . . . I tried to use my Chi’karda. I don’t know what I was thinking. . . . I’m sure it didn’t do anything!”
“What did you expect?” Master George said, coming to Tick’s defense. “You tell us you’re about to kill billions of people, and you expect the boy will sit there quietly? He has something you don’t, Jane. Morals!”
Jane’s head slowly swiveled around until her eyes paused on Master George. “Enough talk. Frazier!”
The man was at her side before the ring of her shout had faded away. “Yes, Mistress?”
Jane returned her gaze to Tick, the features of her mask melting into a void of expression. “Order the Ladies of Blood and Sorrow to kill the younger girl. Now.”
“No!” Tick screamed, vaulting to his feet as Frazier walked away. He felt like an arrow had just sliced through his chest, tearing a jagged rip across his heart.
Jane’s hand shot out from her robe, her palm flat and facing Tick. A thump of solid air slammed into his body, throwing him into the air. He flipped backward and landed on the ground behind the row of chairs. Jolts of pain made him shudder as he turned his head to look back toward Jane.
“Stop it!” Sofia yelled. She stood up as well, her hands clenched into fists at her side. She rocked back and forth on her feet as if contemplating whether or not to attack Jane. “How can you be such an evil—”
Jane’s hand flicked toward Sofia and sent her body shooting through the air to ram into one of the screens that currently showed a burning building. Sofia and the screen crashed to the ground with a clatter of clanging metal rods and ripping cloth.
Tick pushed himself off the ground, groaning from soreness. Anger lit his insides like liquid flame, and he knew his Chi’karda was welling up again, threatening to explode out of him. Kayla. All he could think about was Kayla. What could he do . . .
Movement by the chairs grabbed his attention. Paul had been sitting still, obviously waiting for the right moment. Just as Jane turned away from Sofia, Paul leaped from his chair and tackled Jane. He grabbed her around the waist and pushed her to the ground, falling on top of her. They’d barely landed when Paul suddenly shot straight up into the air, hovering ten feet above Jane. Then his body flew away until he slammed into another screen, with the same result as Sofia’s unwanted flight.
Jane got to her feet, brushed the dust and dirt from her robe, then looked at Master George. “You want to try something, George? Here, let me go ahead and save you the trouble.”
She pushed her hand toward the old man. He flew up and backward over the chairs, landing on his stomach just a few feet from Tick. He didn’t move, lying flat with his arms and legs twisted at awkward angles, his face on a rock. There was blood.
Tick couldn’t take it anymore. This woman was evil. She was too evil.
He got to his feet, staggering a little until he caught his balance. Then he held up a hand and pointed a finger at Jane.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice straining from the internal effort of holding back the Chi’karda burning within him. “If you kill my sister—”
“What?” Jane snapped, taking a step forward. “What, Atticus? What will you do?”
“Then I won’t care what happens anymore,” Tick said. “If you kill Kayla, I won’t care about anything. I’ll build up this Chi’karda until it’s a million times stronger than it was back at Chu’s mountain. I’ll build and build, and then I’ll let it all out. I’ll throw it all at you.”
Jane shook her head. “So selfish, so . . .
weak.
You can still save your other sister and your parents. And you can help me achieve great things in the Realities, if you’d just grow up and see things with a bigger perspective.”
Tick hated her. Oh, how he hated her. “Don’t say another word to me! Tell him not to kill my sister. Now!”
“No.”
She said it so simply, so nonchalantly. But Tick couldn’t back down—he had to reverse the threat here. The power burned and boiled inside his chest. “I’ll count to three. Stop Frazier, or I’ll throw it all at you. Every ounce of it. Even if it kills me.”
“No,” she said again.
The Chi’karda was starting to overpower him. He felt his hands begin to shake. He quickly stepped forward and gripped the back of a chair to steady himself. “One,” he said as calmly as he could.
Jane did nothing, just kept staring at him with a blank expression on her mask.
“Two,” Tick said. Fear filled him. He didn’t know if he had the courage to go through with his threat.
“Three,” Jane said for him.
Tick’s fingers tightened on the chair. He looked down to see that they’d actually sunk into the metal, warping it. He had to do this. He had to—
“Mistress Jane!” a man’s voice yelled.
Tick’s head snapped up to see Frazier run frantically around the computer tables, heading straight for them.
“Mistress!” the man shouted again. “Something’s wrong!” He pulled up, panting with deep breaths.
“Speak!” Jane yelled back at him.
Frazier held his hands up to his ears as if his head were about to explode. His eyes were lit with panic. “They’re all gone—all of them. Everything’s gone crazy with the earthquakes and lightning . . . but there’s no doubt. I can’t find them anywhere. None of them!”
“What are you saying?” Jane insisted.
Frazier turned to look at Tick. “His sisters. His parents. They’ve all disappeared.”
~