 
A serial killer is kidnapping teenagers across Long Island and leaving their mutilated bodies discarded in his wake. Meanwhile, in the small town of Mayfair Park, a group of high school seniors discovers that they have begun to develop incredible super human abilities. As the teens struggle to learn control of their new abilities mysterious strangers arrive in town and several of their friends go missing. Fearing that they have been targeted as the killers' next victims, the teens race to unravel the strange connection between their developing powers and the strangers hunting them. With the looming threat of the mysterious strangers hunting them, the friends' efforts lead to a series of incredible revelations that will forever change everything they once believed about the world and their place in it.

Fiction by Jon Gerrard

The Starcrown Chronicles

Book One: Shadowplay

The Starcrown Chronicles

Book Two: Scourge

The Tribe

With Dawn Mitchell

Non-Fiction by Jon Gerrard

Tae Kwon Do:

The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World's Most Popular Martial Art

With Yeon Hwan Park and Yeon Hee Park

Black Belt Tae Kwon Do:

The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World's Most Popular

Black Belt Martial Art

With Yeon Hwan Park

The Tribe

### Revised Edition

## Jon Gerrard

## and

## Dawn Mitchell

Jon Gerrard Books

The Tribe is a work of fiction.

All names, places, incidents, and characters are either the products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

Any government agency contacted regarding any of the persons or events described herein will deny any and all knowledge of any such person or persons, living or dead, the events or locations referred to in this story.

Copyright © 2016 by Jon Gerrard & Dawn Mitchell

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the authors.

The authors of this work would like to thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book.

We further appreciate your compliance with existing copyright laws by not scanning, distributing or reproducing in any manner any part of this book without permission. We enthusiastically endorse copyright as a means to support creativity and promote free speech within society.

Published in the United States by Jon Gerrard & Dawn Mitchell

Cover by Haydee Torres

ISBN-13:978-1533471390

ISBN-10: 1533471398

BISAC: Fiction/Science Fiction/Action & Adventure

This book is dedicated to:

Amanda

Danny

Dimitri

James

Magda

Manny

Matt

Paige

Reed

Shay

Tom

without whom this book would not be possible.

### Prologue

"You can't tell me what to do! I'm eighteen! I'm an adult!" Ethan Montgomery yelled as he slammed the front door to his house and stormed off into the warm, spring night. In a blind fury he swiped at his mother's rose bush as he made is way down the front walk, regretting it at once when he felt the sharp sting of a thorn slicing into his finger. He hated it when his parents treated him like he didn't have a brain. Why couldn't they see that he wasn't a little kid anymore, he thought as he examined his injured finger in the dim glow from the porch light.

He swore silently to himself as he saw blood welling thickly at the tip of his finger. It was starting to throb and he thought that maybe he should go back in to clean it and get a bandage. But he rejected that idea as soon as he thought it. He didn't want to give his mother the satisfaction of seeing him come back inside after his dramatic exit.

Instead, he stuck his finger into his mouth as he got to the end of the front walkway and sucked on the wounded digit. He hesitated on the sidewalk for a moment before turning and stalking off toward the end of the street. He didn't have a clear idea where he was going. All he knew was that he needed to get out of the house. He had heard his mother calling for him to come back, but he noticed that she didn't open the door to come after him either.

"Not like she really cares," he muttered to himself as he pulled his finger out of his mouth and shoved his hands into his pockets. As he headed into the gloom of the night he thought about how different things would be in a few months when he went off to college. Then he would have the total freedom to do what he wanted without anyone looking over his shoulder. He would be free.

Within a minute he reached the end of the block and turned left, away from the center of town. He still didn't have any place in particular as a destination. At that moment he just wanted to go for a really long walk. He thought that if he walked long enough his parents would eventually go to bed for the night and he could go back inside without another confrontation. They both worked in the city and were up before him in the morning. With any luck he wouldn't have to talk to them again before tomorrow night.

He walked aimlessly for a while, losing track of both the time and where he was going. He hoped that the walk would help him cool off but minutes later he was still so distracted replaying the argument in his head that he failed to notice the car that had been creeping silently down the street behind him.

The car had its lights off and in spite of it being a big sedan its engine ran very quietly. As Ethan reached the middle of an especially dark section of the street, the car following him stopped. Moments later the sound of a car door closing behind him registered in his ears. He almost ignored it but something was making the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He started to twist around to see where the noise had come from when he heard a muffled pop at the same instant that he felt something strike him under his left shoulder blade.

He exhaled sharply in surprise and found himself tumbling forward to the ground as his legs gave out. He hit the ground hard and lay there stunned, his mind whirling in confusion. Had he just been shot? He willed his body up but found that he couldn't move. That's when the panic gripped him. Although too weak to move he could feel the terror spreading across his body like a million tiny ants. But even the surge of fear induced adrenaline was not enough to keep him conscious and he felt himself beginning to slip away.

In spite of not being able to move he found that his hearing was still sharp. Or perhaps it was due to the fact that it was nearly silent on the street. Whatever the reason, he heard the tread of footsteps coming toward him as he lay there helpless on the ground. Then movement in his narrowing field of vision drew his attention. It took his brain several moments to realize that he was staring at a pair of black shoes that had stopped inches in front of his face. He tried to say something but his lips and tongue felt like thick rubber. In that moment all he wanted was to be back at home with his mom and dad. As the realization that he was going to die began to sink in he was filled with a profound sense of regret over the harsh words he had spoken to his parents. He would have given anything in that moment to be able to apologize for what he'd said. With a final effort he tried one last time to call for his mother but only a garbled whisper came out. Then the darkness closed in around him and he knew no more.

A week later, as they stood over his open grave, Ethan's parents unknowingly echoed their son's last conscious thoughts.

### Chapter One

Reed Braun sat in the back row of his Calculus 2 class and wished that he was anywhere else. Learning how to change the base of a logarithm wasn't going to help him in the real world. Besides it was a beautiful day—80 degrees and sunny. Sitting cooped up in school on a day like today was a waste as far as he was concerned.

Closing his eyes he leaned his head back and banged it lightly against the wall. Mrs. Barber had just announced that she was coming around to check their homework. Of course he didn't have it. He had been out late with Vanessa and by the time he got in he wasn't in the mood to focus on something his teacher probably wasn't going to bother collecting. This late in the year the teachers were as tired of school as the students. Most of them had stopped giving homework and even when they did they didn't bother to check it. The SATs, ACTs, and the Regents were all done with. Acceptance letters had been coming in for the past couple of months and most seniors already knew where they would be going in the fall. Everybody knew that these last few weeks were just a formality before they got their diplomas and moved on with their lives.

Apparently Mrs. Barber hadn't gotten the memo.

Maybe it was time for a bathroom break. Mrs. Barber wasn't that bad, as far as teachers went. In fact Reed actually kind of liked her, even though she was always riding him about his class work. She was always telling him that he had potential, that if he applied himself he could get A's in her class. As it was he was getting B's without putting in a whole lot of effort. And that was good enough. As long as he didn't actually flunk anything he didn't think his college future was in jeopardy.

But the thing he liked the most about Mrs. Barber was that she never turned him in when he took one of his extended bathroom breaks. He could be out of the room for most of the period and she wouldn't say anything. Of course the looks she gave him when he returned always made him feel guilty for taking advantage of her good nature. But not so guilty that he was willing to waste an entire period learning something that had no practical value in his life—especially when a gorgeous spring day was calling to him.

Reed looked out the window and watched a few clouds that were floating lazily across the brilliant afternoon sky. Oh yeah, this was definitely a day to—

The nudge on his arm dropped him back to Earth.

"Hey, Reed." It was Matt DeLuca. Reed fought down a feeling of annoyance. He didn't have anything against Matt, but at the moment he wasn't in the mood to talk to anybody. Actually, Reed didn't know a whole lot about Matt. Even though they had spent the entire semester sitting next to each other in the back of Mrs. Barber's class they hadn't said more than a few words to each other.

"What?" Reed said, hoping he didn't sound as annoyed as he was feeling.

For a moment, Matt seemed like he was going to pull back. Then, "There's going to be a bomb scare this period."

Reed pushed himself up in his seat. Now this was interesting. There had been a series of bomb threats over the past several weeks. Everyone knew it had to be one or more of the students behind the prank calls, but so far they hadn't been able to trace them back to anyone.

"How do you know?" Reed said.

Matt looked uncomfortable for a moment.

"I heard some kids talking by the lockers on the second floor. They're going to make the call in a couple of minutes. I thought you'd want to know because they're always blaming you for whatever happens around school. But I know you're not the one who's been making the calls and I figured you'd want to stay visible so they wouldn't try to blame this on you, too."

Reed felt his mood pop like a soap bubble. Matt was right. This was not the time to go missing. Unfortunately it meant that not only would he have to stay in class now, but he was going to be herded onto the football field with the rest of the sheep once the bomb scare was announced. He could feel the frustration building. The football field was behind the school and surrounded by fences on all sides. Climbing one of the fences was no problem, but he'd be spotted. Although he wouldn't be trapped in a boring class, he wouldn't be able to slip away by himself like he wanted to either. And right now he was in no mood to be stuck in the middle of a crowd of yakking airheads.

"It could be worse," Matt said, optimistically. "Hey, maybe Mr. Reynolds will let us go home early. After all it is seventh period. By the time the cops get here and finish searching the building we'll be well into eighth, and then it's the end of the day."

"Yeah, maybe," Reed admitted. That wouldn't be so bad. He might actually get to spend some extra time with Vanessa after all. She still needed a lot of work. He looked at Matt and managed a smile. "Thanks."

Matt returned the smile and sat back again.

Reed glanced at Matt's desk and saw that he hadn't taken out his homework either. Maybe they had more in common than Reed thought. In some way that he couldn't explain he had always felt comfortable around Matt. Even though they had never really spoken to each other before, he had always felt some kind of a connection with him. That was unusual for Reed. He didn't get along with most people. It's not that he had a lot of enemies or anything, he just didn't like a lot of people. People could be jerks and he always thought of himself as kind of a loner. He had a couple of good friends and that was enough.

As Mrs. Barber got up and started checking papers, Reed looked toward the front of the class. As usual the goodie-two-shoes were in the front row, sitting directly across from the teacher's desk. Seated front and center was Manny Trujillo. Manny was one of the senior class officers. Not the president or vice president, but treasurer, secretary, number one suck-up or something like that. Actually, that wasn't fair. He'd never done anything to Reed. They'd even been assigned to work as partners on a class project once and he'd been an okay guy. He didn't act all full of himself like most of the other popular kids. It just got to him the way Manny always had his hand up. A real teacher's pet.

Right next to Manny was Tom Gallo. Tom was the captain of the football team. He was also their star running back, which was weird because Tom wasn't a hulking brute like most of the other players. Reed was six-foot-two and Tom was several inches shorter than him. But whereas Reed was tall and lanky, Tom was compact and toned. And there was no denying his skill on the field. Reed had seen Tom bowl over players a lot bigger than him when it seemed like he was going to get creamed. Other than that he didn't know a lot about Tom either, except that like Manny he always sat up front and always seemed to know all the answers.

Actually, Reed usually knew the answers too, when he was paying attention. He just couldn't be bothered answering questions in class. He did okay on the tests and that was all that mattered. Had he been sitting closer to the front of the room however, Reed would have been surprised to see that one of the two darlings in Mrs. Barber's class didn't have his assignment today either.

Manny Trujillo held down a job outside of school as a part-time manager at the "Grillin' Chicken," a local chain restaurant. Last night one of his people hadn't shown up for the late shift and Manny had been forced to stay and close up. By the time he got home it was well after midnight and he was bone tired. Although he had dug out the assignment and started to work on it as soon as he got home, he had fallen asleep at his desk before he could even finish the first problem. He only woke up when his mother shook him awake the following morning. By then his alarm had been going off for half an hour. He had barely made it to school on time.

As Mrs. Barber stepped up to his desk, Manny dropped his head into his hand. The teacher continued past his seat without a word. Tom was sitting right next to him and did a double take. He couldn't believe it. Mrs. Barber always had something to say whenever a student showed up without an assignment. While she didn't try to embarrass you in front of the class the way some teachers did, she never let a missing assignment go without comment either. But he had watched her walk right past Manny's desk as if she hadn't even seen him.

Tom waited until she had moved down the row, then punched him in the shoulder.

"Ow," Manny said, as he looked over at Tom. "What was that for?"

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Mrs. Barber. She walked right past you without saying a thing about you not having your homework."

Manny glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. Barber was talking to someone in the back of the room.

"I guess she didn't notice," he said.

Tom frowned. "I don't think so, dude. Mrs. Barber doesn't miss a thing in her class."

"So what, you going to turn me in?"

"Of course not. I just don't get it."

Manny shrugged. "I guess I just got lucky. That's all."

Tom sat back and narrowed his eyes at him.

At that moment the PA came on. There was another bomb scare. Everyone started grabbing their stuff. Tom and Manny got up with the others and headed into the hall. At least this time it wasn't raining.

### Chapter Two

It turned out that Matt was right after all. It was more than an hour before the police finished searching the building and by then it was well into seventh period. Instead of making everyone go back to class, the principal announced that school was over for the rest of the day. They were all free to leave. The entire school cheered, the annoyance of being forced to stand around with nothing to do for an hour forgotten in the shared elation of an early dismissal.

While a lot of kids headed back into the school to get their backpacks and other stuff from their lockers, Reed headed toward the parking lot. He didn't have anything he needed in his locker and he was anxious to head home. A number of others must have had the same thought because several cars were already beginning to pull out of their spaces. As he walked toward his car Reed smiled as he caught sight of Paige Stone and a couple of her friends, Magdalena Wasilewski and Amanda Carpenter. He and Paige had been best friends since they met in kindergarten. He knew Magda and Amanda through Paige. They had all hung out together a few times, but Paige was his buddy. He thought of her as if she were his little sister, even though their birthdays were only a few months apart.

He adjusted his course to catch up with them. Then he saw that there was someone else with their group, and his smile faded. It was Jack Anderson, Paige's so-called boyfriend. Reed couldn't stand Jack, but he hadn't said anything to Paige. As long as Paige wanted to be with him Reed wouldn't make any waves. But Reed knew that it was only a matter of time before Jack did something to hurt her. Paige was one of those people who was very open and giving. She didn't like it when anyone around her was hurt or upset and just wanted everyone she knew to be happy. Of course that left her wide open to be taken advantage of by people like Jack. Jack Anderson only cared about one person in the entire world: Jack Anderson. His parents had a little money and they spoiled him by buying him just about anything he wanted. He was the first kid in town to get the newest smart phone when it came out and he always came to school dressed in the latest fashion. They had even bought him a new car as a gift for his eighteenth birthday.

As far as Reed was concerned Jack was so full of crap it was coming out of his ears. But he had somehow managed to convince Paige that he actually cared about her. Until he did something to her, Reed wouldn't interfere. But if he ever hurt her, the gloves would come off.

As Reed approached them he noticed the way they were all standing around talking. Even though he couldn't see her face, he could tell by the way Paige was standing that something was wrong. He started to pick up his pace when a voice called out to him.

"Reed, just a minute." It was the principal.

Reed stopped and turned in the direction of the voice. Getting out of here early had seemed too good to be true. He folded his arms and waited for Mr. Reynolds to catch up with him. He wouldn't ignore Mr. Reynolds, but he wasn't going to come on command like a trained dog either.

Mr. Reynolds was squinting at him as he walked over to him. Somehow Reed didn't think it had anything to do with the brightness of the afternoon.

"I think we need to have a little talk about your whereabouts an hour ago," Mr. Reynolds said as he stepped up to him. He looked Reed up and down as if he were searching for something.

"I didn't do anything, Mr. Reynolds," Reed said. "Honest, I was sitting in Mrs. Barber's class learning all about how to change the base of a logarithm. It was actually very interesting."

"Are you sure you weren't out on one of your ninety minute bathroom breaks?" Mr. Reynolds said as he reached to take him by the elbow. "Why don't we go back to my office and check out your story."

"It wasn't Reed, Mr. Reynolds," a voice said, surprising them both. Looking to his right Reed saw Tom Gallo standing next to them.

"Tom?" Mr. Reynolds said. "Are you vouching for him?"

Tom held Reed's eyes for a moment then turned to the principal. "It's like he said, Mr. Reynolds. Reed was in Mrs. Barber's class the whole time. I was there. He never left the room."

Mr. Reynolds hesitated then let go of Reed's arm. "If you're willing to vouch for him, then okay." He frowned at Reed for a moment, searching for something to say. "Stay out of trouble," he said finally, then turned and walked away. It wasn't any secret that Mr. Reynolds didn't like Reed—and if truth be told Reed had done some things in the past that probably justified his suspicions. But the principal wasn't a complete tool either. Reed hadn't done anything this time so he let the matter drop. Of course that didn't mean he wouldn't be keeping a close eye on him for the rest of the year.

Reed let out a long breath. "Geez! I'll be glad to get out of here." He looked at Tom and for a few moments was at a loss for words. Tom Gallo, Mr. Upright Citizen, had actually stuck up for him. This was a first.

"Thanks," Reed said.

Tom shrugged. "I couldn't just stand there and let you take the hit when I knew it wasn't you." An awkward silence hung between them for a few moments. "See you around," Tom said eventually, then turned and walked off.

High school can be a really weird place, Reed thought.

Most of the students had cleared the football field when Reed turned to head back toward Paige and her group. As he got close to them, Paige turned away from Jack suddenly and buried her face in Magda's shoulder. He could see her shoulder's heaving and heard her sobbing.

"What did you do?" Reed demanded.

"Hey, I never laid a finger on her," Jack said. He and Reed were about the same height, but Reed's broad shoulders and the look of rage etched on his face gave him a menacing appearance. In spite of that Jack refused to back down. There were still a lot of people around so he doubted that Reed would actually do anything. Besides, he had an image to uphold, so he couldn't back away.

"It's not my fault if she can't handle a little bad news," Jack said, holding his ground. A moment later an idea occurred to him and he looked at Magda. "So Magda, it looks like I've got some room in my car if you want a ride home."

"In your dreams," she shot back at him.

Jack snickered. "Sure. Another time, then. The offer's always open."

"Drop dead, Jack!"

Snickering to himself, Jack shot Reed a cocky look, then turned and strutted toward his car.

"Can you believe that guy?" Magda said. "What a jerk."

"Paige, are you okay?" Reed said. "What happened?"

"What happened," Amanda said, "is that he dumped her a week before prom. He said things weren't working out between them, but I know what the problem really is."

"Yeah. Me too," Reed said as he glared at Jack's retreating back.

Mayfair Park was a unique town on Long Island because it was so ethnically diverse. It was also a fairly small community and everyone pretty much knew everyone else. Around town the Andersons were known as closet bigots. Paige's family was black and it had always surprised Reed that Jack had even asked her out in the first place. But he had also seen the way Jack played his parents. In spite of all the expensive things they were always buying for him, Jack didn't have a very good relationship with his folks. He always seemed to be trying to find new ways to pick at them. Reed guessed that going out with a black girl was just another way to get under their skin. But now that prom was almost here he needed to find someone who would be more suitable to appear in pictures on his parent's mantle.

As Reed continued to glare after him, Jack beeped the alarm on his car, opened the door and climbed in. It was a bright yellow Camaro with black racing stripes. He'd asked for that car especially because it was just like the car in his favorite movie. It was his pride and joy.

The Camaro gave a throaty roar as Jack started the engine and began to back out. It was a five-speed and although he'd had the car for several months, he still had trouble using the clutch. The car shuddered slightly as he finished backing up and put the car into first, almost without grinding the gears. That was when the trouble started. A rattling sound came from the engine, which suddenly began to sputter as the entire car started to buck.

Reed continued to stare daggers at him all the while. Soon the car was making such a racket that everyone's attention was focused on it. After a moment a loud bang sounded from the engine. The car gave one last, violent shudder and went dead. A cloud billowed from underneath the hood. Jack threw open his door and stumbled out coughing as he waved smoke out of his eyes. He stared at his precious car in disbelief, then turned his tearing, red-rimmed eyes to Reed.

"What did you do to my car?" Jack roared.

"I didn't lay a finger on your car," Reed said. "It's not my fault if your car can't handle your bad driving."

A number of people were chuckling behind their hands at Jack's predicament. Even more were openly laughing.

"I know it was you," Jack insisted. "I'll get you for this, Reed!"

"Watch out that your mouth doesn't get your ass in a sling," Reed said quietly, the menace in his voice clear.

A low "Oooooo!" went through the crowd.

Jack glanced around at the students who were waiting to see if a fight was about to break out. He looked back at Reed and thought better about continuing the confrontation. Instead he gave him the finger, then spun on his heel and stormed off as he dug his phone out of his pocket.

Reed decided that it had turned out to be a pretty good day after all.

When Jack had moved far enough away that he wasn't likely to try anything stupid, Reed turned to Paige. Although her cheeks were wet with tears she was smiling now.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Paige nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. I guess what goes around does come around."

"I know Jack's usually your ride home," Reed said. "I can give you a lift if you need one."

"Thanks, but Magda and I have to finish an Economics project that's due tomorrow," Paige said. "She's going to drive us all back to her house."

"Okay. Just let me know if you need me to tune Jack up for you. I've got a crescent wrench that's just the right size."

Paige stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks, but that's not necessary. I don't want you to do anything that will get you in trouble." She knew that Reed had a temper. Even though she was pretty sure his offer was a joke she also knew he was quite capable of doing something to hurt Jack if she encouraged him. "Things have been kind of going downhill between us for a while anyway. I just didn't expect him to do something like this...so soon." She poked him in the chest with a finger. "You just leave him alone, okay? I'm fine."

Reed nodded. "Okay. But let me know if you change your mind."

Paige laughed as she wiped the wetness from her face and slapped him playfully in the chest. "Go home, Reed. I'll see you tomorrow."

Reed gave the girls a brief wave goodbye then both groups turned and headed off in different directions.

### Chapter Three

"What a jerk!" Magda yelled out the car window as she pulled out of the school parking lot. In her rearview mirror she saw Jack look up from his phone as she turned onto the main road. "Can you believe he actually tried to ask me out?"

"He's a butt," Amanda said. She was riding shotgun next to Magda and was twisted halfway around to talk to Paige in the back seat. "Don't let him upset you, Paige. You're better off without him."

Paige leaned forward, poking her head between their seats. "I know. I really appreciate you guys being there. It's just that I can't believe he's doing this right before prom."

She could see why Jack would like Magda. She was a pretty blonde with gorgeous hazel-green eyes. In fact, she and Amanda were both really pretty. Magda was beautifully curvy while Amanda was model slim with silky, auburn hair. Whenever the three of them were together Paige noticed how the boys always watched them. She didn't think she attracted that kind of attention when she was by herself. She'd been taking dance lessons ever since she could remember and had started running track in high school. While she was proud of her athletic physique, she couldn't help feeling that most guys were more attracted to her friends. Jack's reaction to Magda was proof. It just ticked her off that he would make a pass at her best friend while she was standing right there.

Paige could feel her face getting hot again. In spite of her best efforts, she couldn't stop the tears spilling from her eyes. Magda looked in the mirror at that moment and saw her crying.

"Hey," Magda said. She reached back and lightly squeezed Paige's hand that was resting on her seatback. "It's okay. He's not worth getting upset over."

Her words washed over Paige, enfolding her in a comforting embrace like a favorite blanket. Paige immediately felt herself starting to relax.

"Thanks," Paige sniffed, smiling at Magda's reflection. "I always feel better when you're around."

"Don't waste your time thinking about him," Magda said. "You don't need him. He's a pig."

Amanda scrunched up her nose and started making snorting noises. The three of them broke out laughing.

When Magda could tell that Paige was feeling better she placed both hands back on the steering wheel. Up ahead she saw that the light had changed to yellow. Although she could have hit the gas and made it through the intersection, she knew that one of those new traffic cameras had been put up at that corner and she stepped on the brake instead. They had just come to a stop when a small SUV pulled up next to them and honked. Magda recognized Tom Gallo's car. As usual, James Caruso, Danny Vidal, and Dimitri Apostolos were with him. Tom's cousin, James, had claimed the front seat leaving Danny and Dimitri to squeeze into the back where they were sitting with their knees half drawn up to their chests. Both of them were over six feet tall, with Dimitri topping out at six-five. They didn't call him Tree for nothing.

James had his window down and was leaning out of the car gesturing for the girls to lower theirs.

Magda waved and rolled down her window as Paige quickly wiped her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. She had recognized Tom's car, too.

"Hey, Mags," James called. "I think I left my phone at your house. Can I come over and get it?" Magda, Tom, James, Danny, and Dimitri all lived within a few blocks of each other and had been friends since they were little.

"Sure," Magda said. "We're going back to my house to work on our econ project."

"Yeah, I should probably get started on that, too," James said.

"You haven't even started it yet?"

James shrugged. "I still have time."

"You're an idiot," Magda said.

"But you love me," James said, grinning.

Magda rolled her eyes. A moment later the light changed and she pulled away. The boys followed. Had James been driving he would have tried to turn it into a race but Tom let the girls go first. They lived across town but it would only take them a few minutes to get there. Mayfair Park wasn't all that big.

A short time later Magda turned onto Woodfield Road and headed east, her usual route home from school. Woodfield was one of the main streets in town. It was a winding, tree-lined road that ran through the middle of some of the quieter residential areas. It was a little out of their way but it was faster than Mayfair Avenue because it only had one traffic light. Magda also liked it because it was such a peaceful drive. The road was small enough that a lot of the trees on either side grew up and over the top, making it feel like you were driving through a green tunnel.

As she maneuvered the little hatchback along the road, Magda looked in her mirror and saw Paige glancing through the rear windshield.

"Don't worry," Magda said, "You look fine."

Paige jerked around. "What... I don't know what you're talking about."

"Paige, it's me. I know what's up."

Paige dropped her eyes. "Do you think I'm being—"

"Absolutely not! Jack doesn't have anything to say about who you hang out with. You don't owe that jerk anything. Besides, you do know that Tom's not going out with Erika Koko, don't you?"

Paige's eyebrows arched at that news. "But she's been telling everybody they're a couple."

Magda sucked her teeth. "Erika's had a crush on Tom since sixth grade. He put up with her silliness for a while because their moms know each other, but ever since that thing with Robbie Coleman, Tom won't have anything to do with her."

Robbie Coleman was a little kid who was often the target of other kids at school. He had skipped two grades, making him the youngest, and smallest, kid in the senior class. While Robbie was a whiz at things like math and physics (he had won the science fair three years in a row) he was clumsy and rather geeky, and some of the meaner kids liked to pick on him. For some reason, Erika and her minion, Robin Ersatz, had decided it would be funny to bake some Ex-lax chocolate cupcakes and offer them to other students. Robbie had eaten three of them and ended up missing an entire week of school—but not before having a very unfortunate incident in the middle of world history.

"So why doesn't he tell her to stop spreading that rumor?" Paige said.

"You know how Tom is," Magda said. "As long as he feels that he's doing the right thing he doesn't care what anybody else thinks. He just doesn't want to do anything to mess up his mom's friendship with her mom."

"Yeah, but still—"

"LOOK OUT!" Amanda's shout reverberated inside the car.

The road up ahead took a slight curve to the right. A small dog had appeared out of nowhere as they started around the bend. Then everything seemed to happen at once. Magda slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel to the left. The dog froze for an instant, then turned and tried to scramble back to the curb. But it was limping badly and Magda knew it would not be able to get out of the way in time.

Just as they were about to run over the helpless animal, Amanda screamed and threw her arms up in front of her face. In that instant the dog seemed to leap high into the air, disappearing over the roof of their car. By this time the car was angling directly at a telephone pole on the other side of the street. Magda twisted the wheel back to the right. Now all three girls were screaming as the car tipped sickeningly to the left as it threatened to roll onto its side.

A moment later there was a loud crunch as the left side of the car slammed into the pole then continued on and plowed into a tree several yards away.

The boys were right behind them and had seen the whole thing. Tom stood on his brakes and was able to quickly bring his car to a stop. He threw open his door and sprinted across the street. He was already around Magda's car and at the driver's side door while the others were still piling out of his SUV. Inside he could see Magda slumped over the steering wheel. Beyond her in the passenger seat he saw Amanda stirring, and in the back seat he saw Paige checking herself over. But Magda wasn't moving.

Tom reached through the open window and shook her.

"Magda?"

Magda moaned softly.

Tom grabbed the handle but the door wouldn't budge. That was when he noticed that the driver's door had a huge dent in it from where the car had slammed into the telephone pole.

Tom felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. He grabbed the door by the open window frame and pulled. For a moment nothing happened. Tom gritted his teeth and pulled harder. A metallic groan came from the door. A moment later the entire door came off in his hands. Tom stumbled backward a step and looked at the door in his hands, dumbfounded. He looked around uncertainly for a second, then tossed the door aside. Reaching into the car he unhooked Magda's seatbelt and scooped her up in his arms.

By this time the others had arrived and were helping Amanda and Paige out from the other side of the car. They seemed a little shaken up but were otherwise unhurt.

"I'm okay," Magda said.

Startled, Tom looked down at her.

"Really," Magda insisted. "You can put me down."

Tom carefully lowered her to her feet.

"But you weren't moving," Tom said. "And you made that awful sound like you were hurt."

"Not hurt, upset. How am I going to explain this to my dad? He's going to kill me."

Tom looked up as the others came around to their side of the car.

"Are you guys alright?" Tom asked Magda's passengers. Although he had addressed the question to both girls, he was looking at Paige. She met his eyes, then looked away shyly.

"Wow!" James said as he looked at the damage to the car. He walked to the front where the car had finally been stopped by a tree. Thanks to Magda's braking the car had slowed down considerably by the time it struck the tree. Even so, there was a good-sized dent in the bumper and the driver's side headlight was smashed.

"Wow!" James said again as he completed a circuit of the car.

"It was a dog," Amanda said. "It just appeared in the middle of the street. Magda tried to miss it and..."

"We saw," Danny said. "That was some pretty cool driving, Magda."

"I still crashed," Magda said. She turned to examine her car. The side of the car was scraped up and the front bumper was pushed in on one side. The worst of the damage was the missing driver's door. She looked at Tom.

"Did you have to pull the whole door off?" she scolded him.

"It was already messed up from the crash!" Tom sputtered. "All I did was pull on it a little and it just came off. Besides, I thought you were hurt."

Magda's expression softened. She reached for Tom and gave him a hug. "I know. Thanks." After a moment she released him and turned back to the car. "My dad's still gonna kill me."

"Actually, it doesn't look all that bad," Paige said. "I bet Reed could fix it."

Magda perked up. "You really think so?"

"Sure. Let me call him."

As Paige took out her phone the others began finding places on the curb to sit down. A few cars were slowing down to pass by the accident scene and they could already hear a siren in the distance. One thing about living in a small town, news gets around fast.

Magda started suddenly, and began looking around the street.

"Where's the dog?" she said. "Did anybody see what happened to it? Did I hit it?"

"The dog went over your car," Danny said.

"Oh no," Magda said. She was starting to sound panicked. "You mean I hit it that hard?"

"I don't think so," Danny said. "It didn't look like you even touched it. It jumped over your car before you hit it."

"Yeah," James chimed in. "It flew out of the way like it was shot out of a cannon or something."

Magda looked confused. "But it was limping. It couldn't even run back to the sidewalk. There's no way it could have jumped out of the way."

"I don't know about that, but it went right over the top of your car like it was on steroids," Danny said.

Magda was still searching the road. "But where did it go?"

The others began looking around as well. They checked the sidewalks and front yards of the nearby houses but could find no trace of the dog.

"Hey guys," Dimitri said. They all turned to look at him. Dimitri was staring at something over their heads. He pointed up.

Thirty feet overhead they saw the dog perched precariously in the branches of a tree. The animal's eyes were wide with fear as it sat whining in the crook of a branch.

"What the...?" James said.

* * *

Reed pulled his car over and parked when he was a block away from the accident scene. A police car and a fire engine were stopped near Magda's red hatchback with their lights flashing and he could see an officer standing next to the car talking to everyone. There was an ambulance at the scene also, but it pulled away as he approached. Its lights were off and Reed could see through the back doors that the bed was empty. A movement overhead caused him to look up. He watched as one of the firefighters climbed down the rescue ladder carrying a very frightened looking dog under one arm. He had no idea what that was all about but was relieved to see that Paige and the others seemed to be alright.

As he approached Magda's car the police officer finished writing in his notepad and put it away.

"You were very lucky, Miss," the officer said to Magda.

"Are you going to give me a ticket?" she asked.

The officer gave her a half smile and shook his head. "No. It doesn't look like you were really speeding," he said, glancing at the short line of skid marks her car had left in the road. "But we're going to find out whose dog that is. They need to keep a better eye on it. Things could have been a lot worse."

Magda looked relieved as the police officer turned and walked back to his car.

"Reed's here," Paige said after the officer walked away.

The group looked over to see Reed standing in the street behind Magda's car. But his eyes weren't on them or even the car. For some reason he was staring at the road.

"What's he doing?" Tom asked.

"Looking at the ground," Danny answered.

Tom rolled his eyes as Danny grinned at him.

After a few moments Reed looked up from the street and made his way over to the group. He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans as he glanced at the scraped up side of the car. "The cop's right, you guys were pretty lucky. What happened?"

"A dog ran out into the street," Paige said.

"Actually, I was talking about the door," Reed said, nodding toward the car door lying on the ground nearby.

"It was stuck," Magda said. "I couldn't get out so Tom pulled it off."

Reed's eyebrows crawled up his forehead. He stepped over to the opening where the driver's door used to be, examined the frame briefly then moved to the discarded door and squatted down to look at it. Grabbing the edge of the door he stood and managed to wrestle it up so that he could get a better look at the hinges. Then he looked up at Tom.

"You just...pulled it off?"

"It got messed up in the crash," Tom said and shrugged.

Reed stared at him for a moment then let the door fall. It struck the ground with a solid thud.

"Do you think you can fix it?" Magda asked.

Reed ambled to the front of the car and glanced at the damage to the front bumper. "The body work's no problem. It's your brakes and suspension system that are the real trouble. That's why you crashed. Your ABS is out too and you're going to need shocks, struts and probably springs as well."

Magda frowned. "How do you know it needs all of that when you didn't even look under the car?"

Reed walked to the back of the car and pointed at the skid marks. The dark marks made parallel S-shaped lines across the road. "Your car's supposed to have anti-lock brakes. If they were working you wouldn't have left those solid skid marks. If you left any marks at all it should have been a series of dotted lines and you would have been able to stop a lot sooner. Also, see how one of the lines disappears where you turned? I'll bet it felt like you were about to flip over, didn't it. That's because your suspension system is so mushy that the inside wheels came off the road when you tried to make that last turn."

"I don't understand," Magda said. "My father just bought it last year. Could all that stuff have gotten broken that soon?"

Reed met her eyes. "No. It couldn't. That's what's so weird. I looked at your inspection sticker. You just had it renewed last month. Unless your mechanic's a complete idiot he should have noticed anything this bad." Reed wandered back to the front of the car and frowned.

"What's wrong?" Magda asked, fearing that he was going to tell her the damage was more severe that he first thought.

"This car comes with a driver's side airbag," Reed said.

"Yeah. My dad said he wanted us driving something safe."

"Okay," Reed said as he stepped back to the open door. "So why didn't it go off? There's more than enough damage to the front bumper to trigger it. If you'd been going much faster when you hit that tree you could have been really hurt."

Magda wrapped her arms around herself as a shiver ran up her spine. "Do you think there's anything else wrong with it?"

Reed shrugged. "I won't know until I take a look. But on a car this new you shouldn't have had these problems. Whatever it is, I can take care of it for you. It'll just take some time."

The police officer who had been taking Magda's statement came back over just then. "Here's your copy of the accident report, Miss. You'll need to give a copy of that to the insurance company when your parents file the claim. Do you need me to call a tow truck for you?"

"We won't need a truck, officer," Reed said. "My house isn't far from here. I can drive it over there myself."

The officer studied him for a moment. "Your family owns the riding stable down by the park, don't they."

Mayfair was bordered on the south by a state park. The park was a rambling tract of forested land that encompassed a pair of large lakes and several miles of bridle paths. Reed's family made a living giving riding lessons and running trail rides through the park.

"Yeah," Reed said. "I'm going to park it out back so I can work on it."

"Okay," the officer said after thinking it over. "Technically, I'm not supposed to let you drive it without a door. As long as you take it straight there I'll let you drive it yourself. But no side trips."

"I promise, officer. Thanks."

The police officer nodded and went back to his car. Reed got into Magda's car and turned the key, which was still in the ignition. It started easily. He spun the steering wheel experimentally in both directions and the tires turned with no trouble. Leaving the car running, he got out and dug in his pocket for his own keys.

"I'll drive Magda's car and you guys can follow in my car," he said, tossing his keys to Paige.

Paige glanced at the little plastic cow hanging from the keys in her hand then looked down the road to where Reed had parked. "You're driving the Cowstang? What happened to the Suburban?"

"The starter gave out," Reed said. "I need to scrounge up a new one when I have some time. But the Cowstang's running just fine. You still remember how to drive stick, don't you?"

Paige gave him a deadpan look in response, then motioned for the girls to follow her. She was one of the few people Reed knew, boy or girl, who could handle a stick shift. Her parents had given her their old, 5-speed Jeep when she got her license and she was one of the only people he trusted to drive his precious car.

The Cowstang had been Reed's very first car. Before he was even old enough to drive he had found what was left of a 1966 Mustang in a local salvage yard. The classic muscle car had been rusting in the yard forever and Reed eventually persuaded the yard owner to sell it to him for practically nothing. After working on it in every minute he could spare for more than a year, he had finally been able to get it running. The car's unusual name came from its unique color pattern. Since a mustang was a type of horse, Reed reasoned that his car should look like one. At that time his favorite horse at the stable had been a paint called Vanilla-fudge. Like all paints, Fudge had a distinctive pattern of large black and white patches. Reed did his best to duplicate the pattern on his car. Once he had it painted however he realized that it looked more like a cow than a horse. Undaunted, Reed mounted a small pair of horns on the hood of the car and the Cowstang was born.

As Paige and the girls started for the Cowstang, Reed enlisted Tom to help him with the broken door to Magda's car. Between the two of them they managed to haul the door over to the car and load it into the hatch. Once the door was secured, Tom told the guys to head back to his car. He would take them to his house then swing back to Reed's place to pick up the girls. He was about to start toward his car with them when he noticed Reed hesitate.

"What's wrong?" Tom asked.

Reed nodded in the direction of a nearby street. "That car."

Tom followed his gaze and saw a black sedan parked near the corner. "What about it?"

"It's a '95 Impala SS," Reed said. "You don't see a lot of those."

"Mmm," was Tom's only comment. He wasn't into cars the way Reed was. "So, how long do you think it's going to take to fix Magda's car?"

Reed shrugged. "A few weeks. I'll be able to spend more time on it once school is out."

"Mmm," Tom said again. "What do you think happened? How come all those things went wrong with her car?"

"I don't know. All those systems going bad at the same time like that shouldn't happen."

"But you can fix it."

Reed eyed him for a moment. "Yeah, I can fix it. What's the matter, don't you trust me?"

"Paige trusts you. I don't really know you."

"Yeah, well I've known Paige since kindergarten."

"And I've known Magda since before that."

The two stared at each other. Reed felt himself starting to get angry.

"Look," Reed said, "I'm not going to do anything to hurt your friend or her car. In fact, a job like this would cost at least five thousand if you took it to a regular shop. I'm going to do it for cost."

Tom studied him for a moment then extended his hand. Surprised by the gesture, Reed hesitated before he finally took the offered hand.

"Thanks," Tom said. "Paige always said you were good people."

"No problem," Reed managed.

Tom gave him a brief smile, nodded, and turned away. Reed watched him walk across the street before he climbed into Magda's car.

### Chapter Four

The next day saw a number of changes at school. Reed and Tom found themselves actually talking to each other in the hallway between classes. It wasn't much more than a quick greeting, but it was an acknowledgement of a connection between them.

Then at lunch, Tom and his friends joined Reed at his table. Normally, Reed sat with Paige and her friends, but today was Wednesday and their schedules didn't match. When that happened he usually ate by himself. While he looked forward to having lunch with his buddy Paige, he also enjoyed his solo lunches. He would spend time pouring over car magazines and planning the changes he wanted to make to the Suburban his parents had handed down to him. His parents needed a car that could handle the heavy hauling that was required at the stable and the Suburban had been just the thing. When they decided it was time to replace it, they had given it to Reed. Although nothing could replace the Cowstang in his heart, he was fascinated by the powerful SUV and planned to make several modifications to the car when he had the time.

Normally, Reed would have been annoyed to have his solitude invaded, but he found himself quickly warming to Tom and his crew. In no time they were all laughing and joking as if they had known each other their whole lives. He even found himself making plans with Dimitri to stage an after-hours foray into a junkyard he knew in the next town over. He still needed a new starter for his SUV. The place he had in mind had no security and bought cars mainly for their value as scrap. At this yard, the worth of a car was determined by the weight of its metal rather than the value of any functional parts. Reed didn't consider it actually stealing when he found something there he could use. Besides, he always left a broken piece behind in exchange so in his mind everything evened out.

Halfway through lunch, Manny Trujillo joined them. Amanda was Manny's girlfriend. She had told him about the accident and he had come over to thank Reed for showing up as quickly as he did. Even though Reed kept insisting that he had only arrived after the fact and hadn't actually done anything, Manny insisted that Reed had done a lot. It seemed that Amanda had been blaming herself for startling Magda. She thought that her scream was what had made Magda lose control of the car. Then Tom told him how Magda had confided in him that she had felt the accident was due to her own bad driving. Until Reed had explained how the car's defective systems had been the real cause of the crash, each of the girls had been sure that it was their fault.

Reed hadn't realized any of this. He sat there stunned to learn that the girls had actually been blaming themselves for something he had instantly recognized was purely a mechanical failure. He had been sitting with his mouth hanging open for several moments when Tom laughed good-naturedly and clapped him on the back. Soon the entire table joined in. Reed felt his face redden and couldn't stop himself from grinning sheepishly.

At first Reed didn't know what to make of his sudden acceptance by the others. He had always thought of them as moving in a completely different circle. It had never occurred to him that they might have anything in common. Then he realized that he had never really given them a chance before either. He had simply assumed that their worlds were exclusive of each other and left it at that. Now he was seeing that Tom, Manny, and the others were not so different from him after all. It was an idea that was going to take some getting used to.

When lunch was over, Reed walked to Mrs. Barber's class with Tom and Manny. This time the three of them sat together in the front row.

* * *

The rest of the week played itself out without incident. Tom and his crew, as Reed had started to think of them, continued to eat lunch with Reed every day. That made things a little crowded on Thursday when they were joined by Paige and Magda, but they managed to find room for everyone at the table. The only one missing was Amanda. She was a junior and had a different schedule so they never saw her at lunch.

When Friday afternoon rolled around, the big topic at school was the party that night. Robin Ersatz's parents were letting her host a beach party to kick off prom week. The Ersatzes knew somebody on the town council and they had arranged to rent a section of the beach for a private party. The entire senior class was invited. Since Paige's date had backed out on her, Reed volunteered to take her instead. Amanda was going with Manny of course, and Magda and Matt DeLuca were going as friends. Reed was constantly amazed at how many people Magda seemed to be friends with. There didn't seem to be anyone in the entire high school that she didn't know to some degree.

The only ones who weren't going were Tom and his crew. Robin Ersatz was best friends with Erika Koko. In fact, as Tom described her, Robin was Erika's stooge. Tom was well aware that Erika liked him and had been ignoring the fact that Tom was avoiding her. But as soon as she saw that he had started hanging out with Reed and Paige she had become totally obnoxious. The last thing Tom wanted was to be trapped with a vindictive Erika at a party being hosted by her best friend. Likewise, James, Danny, and Dimitri had opted not to go to Robin's party either. At the moment their plans centered around Danny's PlayStation.

That evening, Reed showed up at Paige's house promptly at seven. Magda was there also and Reed gave them both a ride to the beach in his car. Matt had texted Magda earlier and told her that he was going to be late. He would meet them at the party.

By the time they got there they had to park on the far side of the lot. The beach owned by Mayfair Park was one of a strip of private beaches off Lido Boulevard on the south shore. The town beach boasted a series of covered enclosures like giant, cement umbrellas. Most people called them the Mushrooms. Robin's parents had rented three mushrooms. The group could hear music blasting as soon as they got out of the car. The girls were excited and chatted constantly on the walk. When they stepped from the concrete sidewalk onto the wooden boardwalk that led to the trio of mushrooms, they could see a good-sized crowd milling around on the sand as well as under the giant mushrooms. It looked like it was turning out to be a pretty good party.

Magda and Paige waved and exchanged greetings with several people as they reached the entrance. A line of portable barricade fences had been set up surrounding the party area to help keep the party private and members of the prom committee were standing by the entrance checking tickets. Reed smiled and tried not to feel too uncomfortable. Then he reminded himself that he was arriving with two hot girls and he began to relax.

They were just stepping up to the entrance when Robin Ersatz appeared and stood in front of them.

"Hey, Robin," Magda said. "Great party!"

Robin cut her a nasty look then turned her attention to Paige. She looked her up and down then folded her arms.

"You can't come in," Robin said.

Paige was speechless. Others at the party who were close enough to hear what was going on turned to watch.

Magda's expression clouded over and she stepped up to Robin. "I thought the party was for the entire senior class." It was not a question.

Robin glanced at her. "You can come in, Magda. You too, Reed. But _she_ isn't allowed in."

"What's going on?" a voice said behind them.

Reed glanced back and saw that Manny and Amanda had arrived right after them.

"Robin says that Paige can't come in," Reed explained.

"She should just go home," Robin said. "Nobody wants her here."

Manny felt his ears going red. He stepped up beside Paige, outraged on her behalf. "This is a public beach, Robin, you can't order her off town property, I don't care who your parents know."

Robin gave him a nasty look then waved vaguely aside with one hand, "Fine. Then she can go sit over there for all I care. She just can't come in here. _My_ parents paid for the permit to use this space and I say she can't come in."

"Sure they did," Manny said, "and they paid for it using the twenty dollars each of us paid to go to your party." He held up his ticket and turned to the others. In moments they were all holding their tickets out to her. "Now let us in."

Robin's eyes roamed over all of them briefly then came to rest on Paige. She took Paige's ticket and tore it in half. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out a crumpled up bill, and threw it and the torn ticket on the ground at Paige's feet.

"We don't have your money and you don't have a ticket. Now go away."

Reed started to object but before he could say anything Paige grabbed him by the arm. "Let's just go," she said.

Reed looked at her and could see her eyes brimming with tears. He shot Robin a nasty look before he let Paige drag him away from the party.

Magda glared at Robin for a moment, too angry for words. Then she spun around and stormed away. Manny and Amanda had heard all they needed to know. They exchanged a silent look, turned and walked away as well.

"Hey, wait up, guys," Manny called as he and Amanda hurried to catch up with them.

Paige was fighting to keep back her tears and continued to pull Reed along after her. The group walked all the way back to Reed's car where Paige finally allowed herself to break down.

"That bitch," Paige muttered as she wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands.

"What was all that about?" Manny asked.

Magda glanced in the direction of the party. "I'll bet that was Erika's doing. Robin doesn't wipe her own ass unless Erika tells her to."

"But why didn't she want to let Paige in?" Reed asked.

Magda let out an exasperated breath. "Probably because of Tom," she said. "Paige is competition. Did you see the way she stared at our lunch table yesterday? I hear she's been going around school calling us the mini UN."

Manny frowned. "Why? Because we're all different ethnicities?" Manny was Puerto Rican and had occasionally been the target of racial prejudice. A couple of the girls at school had even stopped talking to Amanda when she and Manny started going out.

"But that's stupid," Reed said.

"You don't have a girlfriend, do you," Manny said.

Reed gave him a confused look.

Paige finished wiping her eyes and looked up. "You guys should go to the party. You paid for your tickets, too. I'll just go home."

"Stop it, Paige," Magda said. "You know that's not going to happen."

"That's right," Manny said. "If you're not going then the rest of us aren't going either."

"We're your friends" Magda said. "And you don't abandon your friends."

"No matter what," Amanda added.

They stood silently looking at each other for a few moments.

"So, what are we going to do?" Reed said.

"Tom, James, and Dimitri are over at Danny's playing video games," Manny said hopefully.

Amanda smiled as she took his hand and leaned her head on her boyfriend's shoulder. Manny had his own game system and she had spent many an evening watching him shoot alien soldiers or battling dragons with an enchanted sword.

Reed started to make a face, then shot Paige a quick glance. He wasn't a gamer but he didn't want to shoot down an idea that she might be interested in.

"Hey, Paige," Magda said, "isn't Shay coming home this weekend? Maybe she'd like to hang out." Paige's older sister was home from college for the weekend. Shay wanted to be a marine biologist and was studying marine science at a prestigious university on the island. Because so many of the students at her school were from the island, the campus was pretty dead most weekends and Shay came home just about every week.

Paige thought for a moment. "She said she was going to hang out with some of her friends."

Reed grinned and rubbed his palms together. "Oooh! College girls!"

Paige slapped his shoulder.

"Well, we need to do something," Reed said. "It'll be getting dark soon."

"Okay, I'll give Shay a call and see what she's doing," Paige said.

As Paige reached out to her sister, Magda texted Matt to tell him about their change in plans. A few minutes later Paige announced that Shay was out on the Hill with her friends and they were welcome to join them. The Hill was what some of the kids in town called a small rise in the woods by the water tower. Mayfair Park owned several acres of woods on the south end of town adjoining the state park. Part of that land was controlled by the town water authority. Thrusting through the trees and visible from just about every area of town was the Mayfair Park water tower. The property around the tower was separated from the residential areas by a fence, but that was mainly for show. There were a number of ways to get around it and many of the teens liked to use the woods as their own, private park. Some kids even made a game out of climbing the water tower itself, even though you could get in trouble with the police if you got caught. The immense structure reached more than a dozen stories in the air and was one of the tallest things around for miles. It was so tall that it had flashing lights on top to warn away low-flying aircraft. There was also a narrow walkway running around the tank giving anyone who was up there a sweeping view across the entire area.

"I've never been to the Hill," Manny said after Paige relayed the message.

"It's really pretty," Paige said. "And you'd be surprised how quiet it is. You only walk a little ways into the woods and you can't even see the houses any more. It's like you're in a totally different place."

"Sounds cool, but aren't those woods town property?" Manny asked.

Reed laughed. "It's not like there's cops or something patrolling the woods. I go through there all the time. There isn't even a fence on the park side. You can get there by just turning off the right horse trail."

"Okay, but what about Johnny Lynch?" Manny said. "He got arrested last year for being in those woods."

"Johnny Lynch is an idiot," Reed said. "He was breaking windows in one of the water authority buildings. As long as we're not doing anything stupid nobody's going to catch us. I told you, I go through there all the time. Of course, if you're scared..."

"Stop it, Reed," Paige said. She turned to Manny. "Look, Shay and I go there a lot. The Hill isn't near the water authority buildings. It's just a quiet place to hang out. Really."

Manny looked from Paige to Reed who was smiling at him. "Okay," Manny said, finally.

Reed's smile expanded into a wide grin. "Great!"

Paige could tell that her friend was a little too excited. He had something in mind. She was going to have to keep an eye on him. "What about Matt?" she asked Magda.

"He's not answering his texts," Magda said. "But I told him where we were going."

Paige was quiet for a moment, then said as casually as she could, "How about Tom and the guys. Do you think we should invite them?"

"Already done," Magda said. "They're going to meet us at the Hill. James knows how to get there."

"So, let's go," Reed said.

* * *

Whenever Paige and her sister went to the Hill they got there through a hole in the fence at the end of Willow Street. Someone had cut through the chain link years ago. The hole was behind a fat pine tree at the end of the block. It was so well hidden that even the people who owned the property didn't know it was there. For years nobody except some of the local kids knew about the hole. After that it was a quick walk through the woods to their private place. But Reed lived in a different part of town. From the time he was little he had been exploring the woods along the horse trails. He had discovered a number of ways to get to the town-owned property. Some of them were even wide enough to let a car through. That was the way he decided to bring them.

Reed led Manny's car down Eagle Avenue, the road that led to the park. Just before they got to the park entrance, he turned off the street onto a bridle path that paralleled the road before heading into the woods. It was too late in the evening for anyone to be horseback riding and he drove along the familiar path confidently. Once they were under the cover of the trees it suddenly got much darker. It was mid spring and the sun would not completely disappear for a while, but the dense tree cover blocked a lot of light. Reed was reluctant to announce their presence by turning on his headlights and instead he drove through the deepening dusk without them. After about a hundred yards he slowed and turned off the trail. Although there was no clearly defined path, Reed wove his way easily through the trees for a short distance before he came to a halt and shut off his engine. Manny pulled his car up beside him and stopped. It had been raining a lot over the past few days and Reed didn't want the cars to bog down in the soft ground. By this time their eyes had adjusted to the low light and when they stepped out of the cars it didn't seem quite so dark.

"Your hill's that way, isn't it?" Reed said to Paige as he pointed off to their right.

Paige looked around for a moment. She wasn't used to going this way and in the dim light she wasn't sure where she was. "I think so," she said eventually. "If that fallen tree is the one I think it is the hill should be over there." After looking around once more she started off slowly and the others followed. A minute later Paige began to recognize other landmarks and she increased her pace as her confidence grew. Soon, they were approaching the crest of a small rise. A thick stand of trees was clustered on the broad hilltop.

"I don't see anyone," Reed said.

At that moment they heard a car engine approaching. They looked around and saw a small SUV zigzagging quickly through the trees toward them. Moments later it skidded to a stop a few yards away. As soon as the engine shut off the doors opened. James popped out of the driver's seat wearing a big grin as Tom, Dimitri, and Danny climbed out of the other doors.

"We saw you pull off the road and we followed you," James announced with pride as he tossed the keys to Tom. "How come you guys left your cars so far away?"

"The ground is soft around here," Reed said. "I didn't want to risk getting stuck. I'm surprised you made it this far."

Tom looked at his cousin and punched him in the arm. "I told you we should have left the car back with theirs."

"Ow! Chill out, Tarzan. Your car has four-wheel drive. It got us in here. It'll get us out."

Tom continued to glare at him. "Yeah, well—"

In the stillness of the woods the teenagers heard a sudden rustling coming from the stand of trees at the top of the hill. They spun around as a group but couldn't see what had caused the sound.

"What's that?" Amanda said as she pointed at a cluster of bushes.

At first no one saw anything. Then two small, glowing objects appeared. In that instant they realized that what they were seeing was a pair of eyes staring at them, eyes that reflected the dim evening light.

"There's something in there!" Danny said, pointing at a dark shape huddled in the brush. Whatever it was, it was bigger than a dog. As they watched, the shape rose up from where it had been crouching, growing larger by the moment. It was much bigger than a dog.

"You guys make a lot of noise," a voice said. It was Paige's sister.

Shay stepped away from the bushes where they could see her clearly.

"You scared the crap out of me!" James said.

"Well, you scared my friends," Shay said. "So we're even."

"Yeah, we heard you were hanging out with some friends from school," James said as he started looking around. "You girls can come out now. We don't bite...much."

Shay looked confused. "I'm not with anyone from school."

"Paige said you were hanging out with your friends," James said, sounding disappointed.

"I am. But they're not from school. They live around here."

"Hey, Shay," Dimitri said as he stepped up to her. "How'd you do that thing with your eyes?" Like Shay, Dimitri was into animals. His family owned several cats and he had seen their eyes reflect light in the darkness the way hers had. "I never saw a person's eyes shine like that before."

Shay hesitated, glancing around at the others. "Yeah, about that—"

"Not to be rude or anything," James said, "but I thought we were here to meet your friends. Don't get me wrong. You have really pretty eyes and all, Shay, but," he held up a bottle. "I brought a little something to help us get the evening going."

"Let me guess," Danny said. "Fireball."

James' entire experience with drinking consisted of the one time his older brother let him try some of his drink. It had been just last month at his brother's college graduation party. Ever since then he had been telling his friends how amazing it had been. The concoction was something his brother had called a Dragon's Kiss and was made with the cinnamon flavored whiskey. In fact, the bottle James had brought with him was his brother's. He had borrowed it from his brother's room when he heard that they might be meeting some college girls and wanted to make himself seem older. What he hadn't told anyone was that the drink had made his sick as a dog and had spent most of the night throwing up.

James grinned at her. "So where are these friends of yours anyway?"

Shay ignored him and looked at the group for a moment. "Okay, I'll introduce you, but you have to stand still."

"What are they, shy or something?" James said.

"Just be quiet and don't make any sudden movements," Shay said.

Shay looked into the trees to her right. "It's okay, you can come out. They're my friends... No. I promise they won't."

A moment later they saw a shape step tentatively from behind the stand of trees. It was a doe. And staying cautiously at its mother's side was a young fawn. The animals paused and stared at the group of teens that was gaping at them. The mother glanced at Shay.

"I know," Shay said. "They do make a lot of noise, don't they? I heard them coming too... No, they're not going to use the moving den anymore." She looked down at the fawn who had started nuzzling her hand. "I don't know. I'll ask them." Shay looked at the others. "Bright-eyes wants to know if any of you has some food."

The friends looked at each other.

"Bright-eyes?" James said.

"Bright-eyes is the baby," Shay explained. "At least, that's what I call her. And this is her mother, Swift." Shay glanced down as the fawn nudged her hand again. "Yes, I did ask... Okay, okay. You'd think you hadn't eaten all day. Here." She took half an apple out of her pocket and held it while the fawn took bites out of it. The whole time the mother deer kept an eye on the group of strange teens. "Bright-eyes wants me to ask again if you brought any food."

"Sorry, we didn't bring anything," Paige answered for the group. Out of all of them, she was the least surprised by the turn of events.

The fawn dropped its head and gave the distinct impression of being disappointed.

"I've got this," James said, holding out his bottle.

The fawn's ears pricked up. It stepped over to him and tentatively sniffed at the bottle. After a moment it snorted and shook its head vigorously. Shay laughed.

"No, that's not for you," Shay said. "It's human food."

The fawn snorted one last time then began moving among the rest of the teens. It went from person to person sniffing at them and poking its nose into their pockets while the mother kept an eye on them. As her baby moved from one person to the next, the mother stepped toward them.

"Swift says she knows you, Reed," Shay said. "She says she remembers you being with the long-tails. That's what she calls horses."

"Are you actually, _talking_ to that deer?" Dimitri gasped.

The doe looked at him.

"Well, yes," Shay said. "It's kind of hard to explain but I can hear what animals are thinking when I..." Shay paused and stared at the doe. After a moment she laughed. "Swift says she likes your hair-that-grows-where-your-nose-should-be. I think she means your beard." Dimitri had recently cultivated a goatee that he was quite proud of.

"What about my nose?" Dimitri said defensively.

Shay looked at the doe for several moments, then laughed again. "Yes, she means your beard. Remember, their faces are different from ours. From the eyes down their face is all snout. Oh, and she says she didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"That's okay. Um, tell her I said thanks."

The doe stepped up to him and began sniffing his leg.

"She says you smell like the little-hunters," Shay said. "That's what she calls cats. There are a number of feral cats living in the woods around here. I told her you have several of them that live in your den with you."

"Can you talk to them, too? Or is it only deer?" Dimitri asked.

"I can talk to any animal," Shay said, "but cats are...well, _independent_ is the best word I can think of. They pretty much do whatever they want to do. Actually, there's a few of them not far from here but I don't think they'll come. They're hunting field mice at the moment. But, how do you feel about squirrels?"

Shay closed her eyes and tipped her head up slightly. At first nothing seemed to be happening. Then the group began to hear rustling in the trees overhead and through the leaves on the ground. Soon the small, furry animals began popping up all around them. In less than a minute there were dozens of them everywhere with more and more appearing every moment.

"That's amazing!" Magda said. A number of the squirrels were startled by the sound of her voice and began scurrying away.

"It's okay," Shay said to the fleeing animals. "They won't hurt you."

Her words seemed to reassure the squirrels. They turned back and started bounding toward the group of friends in waves. In moments the teens were surrounded by a sea of puffy-tailed rodents. As a group the squirrels sat up on their back legs and stared at them, their whiskers and tails twitching.

"Um, is it just me," Danny said, "or is this creeping out anybody else?"

The fawn lowered its head and started sniffing at the squirrels, but its mother nudged it back.

"Swift doesn't especially like squirrels," Shay said. "She says the little-climbers are always taking the best food and hiding it."

Unlike the others who were standing in a huddled group, Dimitri had squatted down and was cautiously reaching out to let the squirrels sniff his fingers.

"How do you make them do that?" Dimitri asked, as one of them jumped into his palm and scampered up his arm to perch on his shoulder.

"I can't _make_ them do anything," Shay said. "I can talk to them and ask them to do stuff, but they decide if they want to listen to me or not. Squirrels are naturally curious so they didn't take a lot of convincing. They usually keep their distance from people because they don't trust us, but the ones around here know me. I just told them that you were my friends so they decided to come and check you all out. I'll ask them to go away now."

Shay closed her eyes. The squirrels began to bound away and scamper up the trunks of the nearby trees. In a few moments they were all gone. Once the squirrels were gone the doe began nudging its baby away as well. Shay reached out and stroked its neck.

"I understand. I'll come back soon. I promise," she said to the doe.

The doe gave the teens one last glance then started off. The fawn followed. A moment later they began bounding away. Soon they had disappeared among the trees.

"They're going to look for something to eat," Shay explained. "We're not all that interesting since we don't have any food." When she looked back at her friends she saw them all staring at her. "What?"

"What do you mean, 'what'?" Danny said. "Shay, you can talk to animals! That's...that's..."

"Amazing!" Magda exclaimed. "How long did you know you could do that?"

"It started about the time I got to high school," Shay said. "It took me a while to get the hang of it."

"I didn't know there were any deer around here," Dimitri said. He was staring off in the direction the deer had disappeared in.

"Swift and Bright-eyes are some of the last ones," Shay said with a touch of sadness. "They've learned to stay away from people so I'm not surprised you never saw any."

"But, Shay," Amanda said, " _you can talk to animals!_ "

Shay looked around at the rest of the group and an odd expression crossed her face.

"But I'm not the only one who can do things, am I?"

The others shifted nervously and began glancing around at each other.

"Animals are the only things whose thoughts I can hear," Shay continued, "but I can also see this kind of aura that surrounds living things: animals, plants, even people. Most people have this kind of pale white glow around them. But you guys are different. Your auras have colors. That's how I know you're all different, too."

It was suddenly very quiet. The group of friends stood looking around at each other self consciously.

"Really?" Shay said. "Nobody's going to say anything?" Several of the others shifted nervously. Finally she turned to her sister. "Paige. Show them."

Magda looked at her friend. "You can talk to animals, too?"

"No. Paige has a different, uh, talent," Shay said. "Come on, Paige. Show them."

Paige took a few steps forward. "Okay, grab me." At first no one moved. "Come on, somebody try to grab me."

James shrugged and reached for her. Just before his hand came down on her shoulder she twisted away, leapt backwards and did a handspring out of reach. "You're a gymnast," he said.

Paige smiled. "Not exactly. Everybody, try and grab me. Twenty dollars says nobody can even touch me."

The friends exchanged looks and spread out to surround her. Once they were in position they lunged for her. Paige waited until they had almost reached her before she reacted. She became a blur in their midst, her movements almost too fast to follow with the naked eye. She twisted and dodged away from each of them, evading every attempt to grab her. At times she jumped and performed a complex maneuver in mid-air, always staying just out of their reach. In spite of their best efforts, none of them were able lay a finger on her. After nearly a minute of this she did a series of back handsprings and bounced high into the air. She grabbed a branch and swung herself up to it where she perched like a cat ready to pounce. The others stood staring up at her as Paige grinned down at them.

"How did you do that?" Magda asked.

"I'm not really sure," Paige admitted. "When I concentrate I just kind of know where everything is around me and I can keep away from—"

Without warning, Dimitri was suddenly right behind her. He hadn't climbed the tree but had somehow just appeared there with her. Paige started as he tapped her on the shoulder and she lost her balance. Dimitri gasped as she began to fall. He lunged for her but Paige pushed off the branch with her feet, launching herself into the air. She twisted around, did a back flip and landed in a ready crouch.

"How did _you_ do _that_?" Paige asked Dimitri.

"You mean..."

"...this?" Suddenly Dimitri was no longer on the branch. Following the sound of his voice they found that he had somehow appeared next to a tree several yards away. "Or..."

"...maybe this?" He had disappeared and reappeared beside another tree a few yards on their other side. He grinned and disappeared again, reappearing beside a different tree a dozen yards in the opposite direction. He repeated the feat several more times before finally reappearing in their midst.

"Now that's cool!" Manny said.

Dimitri smiled and bent over as he rested his hands on his thighs and took several deep breaths. "Kind of takes...a lot out of me," he said between puffed breaths. After a moment he started to catch his breath and was able to straighten up. "I think you owe me twenty bucks," he said, smiling at Paige.

"So _that's_ what happened to you!" Reed said. He looked around at the others. "The other night we were in a scrap yard looking for a starter for my car when one of the workers came back. The guy must have forgotten something in the office because there's never anybody there that late. Anyway, we were out in the open and had to get out of sight fast. I slid under this old clunker and had to crawl through a puddle of oily mud, but Dimitri just vanished. I couldn't figure out where you got to so fast."

Dimitri smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I just kind of jumped away by reflex."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Reed said. "For that matter, why didn't you take me with you? I ruined my clothes with all that oily crap I crawled through."

"I can't take anybody else with me," Dimitri said. "I can bring my clothes and maybe something small I'm carrying, but that's about it. What about you," he said to Reed. "Shay says each of us is special. What can you do?"

"I'm good with machines," Reed said.

"We know that," Paige said. "You've been taking things apart and rebuilding them since we were kids. But don't you have something _special_ you can do?"

"Yeah, but it's kind of hard to explain." Reed looked around briefly until his eyes fell on the SUV parked nearby. "Okay, watch." He stared at Tom's car. A moment later the engine roared to life. Its motor revved a few times then it began driving toward them. Tom felt for the keys in his pocket, amazed as he watched his car continue to drive itself. After it had gone perhaps ten yards it stopped suddenly. They could hear the sound of one of its wheels spinning without traction.

"Oops. Sorry," Reed said. "I think I got you stuck. Let me try something." He frowned in concentration and they heard something clink in the engine. The car resumed its forward motion for another few feet before it bogged down again. This time all four wheels spun uselessly.

"I don't think four wheel drive is going to be much help," Reed said. "I think it's really stuck."

Paige suddenly started laughing.

Tom looked angry. "I don't see what's so funny. How am I going to get my car out of here?"

Paige held up her hands. "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing about your car." She looked at Reed. "It was you, wasn't it? You made Jack's car break down the other day at school."

A pinched smile gradually appeared on Reed's features. "Maybe."

Magda started laughing then as she recalled Jack's reaction that day. A moment later Amanda joined in. All of the friends had heard the story about how Jack's precious car had broken down and soon they were all enjoying a good laugh, all except for Tom who was looking around at the others uncomfortably.

When the laughing finally died away, Tom frowned at his car. "What am I going to do about my car? My parents are going to be really pissed if I have to get towed out of here."

"We could try moving it ourselves," Reed said. He stared at Tom for several long seconds. "Then again maybe we don't need to. I bet you could probably lift it out of there all by yourself."

Tom frowned at him. "Very funny. That car has to weigh a couple thousand pounds."

"Actually, your car is closer to three thousand pounds, but I still bet you could lift it," Reed said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Tom said.

"I think you're a lot stronger than you think you are," Reed insisted.

Tom looked at his car. "But that's a car. No one can pick up a car."

"Dude," Magda said, "you pulled the door completely off my car."

Tom took a hesitant step away from the others. "I thought you were hurt. That was just adrenalin. Besides, the door was already messed up from hitting that tree."

Reed shook his head. "Uh-uh. I looked at the door, remember? There was nothing wrong with those hinges before you pulled it off. The pins were sheared clean through. Normal people don't do things like that."

Tom retreated another few steps. "Look, I'm not like the rest of you guys. I don't have any weird powers."

"I think you do," Shay said gently.

Tom snapped his head in her direction and raised a hand defensively. "Look, I'm just good at sports. That's all."

Shay extended an arm to keep the others back. She saw that he was beginning to pull away from them. "Tom, it's us. You've known us for years. We're your friends."

"Then how come none of you ever said anything about having special powers?" He demanded. He looked at Dimitri. "Especially you, Tree. We've been friends ever since I can remember. Why didn't you tell me?"

Dimitri looked confused. "I wanted to, but I couldn't figure out how to... I mean, I didn't know what to say..."

"Don't you see?" Shay said. "Look at how you're reacting. You've known us for years and that didn't stop you from getting all weirded out. None of us ever told anyone before because we didn't want people thinking we were freaks. I didn't even know about the rest of you until today. I only recently started seeing the difference in people's auras. You guys are the first people I've seen other than me and Paige who have colors to their auras. That's how I _know_ there's something special about you too."

Shay watched as the fear and confusion began to fade from his eyes. After a while Tom looked down at his hands as he flexed and opened his fingers.

"I don't feel like there's anything different about me."

Shay smiled as she watched him relax. "Well, take my word for it. You're different. And I think Reed's right. I think it has something to do with you physically, like Paige. Your colors are similar."

Tom looked at the car again.

"Give it a try," Reed said.

Tom looked around at the group then walked over to the car. When he reached the car his feet began to sink in the mud that had trapped it. Stepping up to the front of the car he squatted and gripped the bumper with both hands. He took a deep breath and heaved upward. He strained against the weight for a few seconds then gave up when it failed to budge.

"I told you," Tom said as he straightened up and turned around. "Nobody can pick up a car."

"I still think Reed's right," Shay said as she walked down the hill toward him. "I was watching you just now and your aura didn't change. Whenever one of the others used their ability their auras got brighter. But yours didn't. You were just using your muscles. Try using your _other_ strength."

"But I don't have any special powers," Tom insisted. "I'm just a good athlete."

Shay studied him again. "Well, there's something different about you," she said as she stepped over to him. "I can see it. Try picking up the car again, but this time try thinking about what it felt like when you pulled the door off Magda's car."

Tom let out a long breath then turned back to the car. He squatted down like before and gripped the bumper again.

"Relax," Shay said, resting a hand gently on his shoulder. "Picture yourself lifting the car in your mind."

Tom closed his eyes, tried to form the mental image Shay suggested, and lifted. After a moment the front wheels pulled free of the mud with a great sucking sound. Tom opened his eyes and looked down. "Holy crap!" he said.

He started backing up, pulling the car with him until he was clear of the mud and could set it down on solid ground. "Holy crap!" he said again.

"See," Reed said.

Tom hurried around to the back of the car and grabbed the rear bumper. This time he lifted it on his first try. Another series of shuffling steps to the side swung the rear wheels out of the mud and he set the back end of the car down. He wandered back over to the group as he stared down at his hands in disbelief.

"Okay, who's next?" Shay said.

Everyone looked around expectantly. Then, suddenly, all of their cell phones began ringing at once. As they each took out their phones they saw that the caller ID was for Danny. They looked over at Danny who smiled and waved at them. His own cell phone was nowhere in sight.

"I can do stuff with electronics," he said. "Actually, I'm best with computers. Since phones these days are mostly little computers..."

James swiped the face of his phone and brought it to his ear. "Hello?"

"There's nobody there," Danny said. "I didn't actually make a call. But I can do other things. Like I could get into the school computer and give you straight A's on your report card."

"You're on!" James said as he put his phone away.

"Hey! That's not right," Manny said. "Some of us work really hard to keep our grades up."

"Oh, relax, princess," James said. "I'm just kidding." Then he turned to Danny and added in a stage whisper, "We'll talk later."

But Danny wasn't looking at him. He was staring wide-eyed at something past James' shoulder. James turned and looked behind him. He nearly jumped out of his sneakers as he found himself confronted by a floating rock the size of his fist. The rock was hovering inches from his nose, supported by some invisible force. Then the rock made a sudden feint at his head and James ducked and scrambled away. Behind him he heard Amanda laugh.

"Sorry," she said. "I couldn't resist."

James recovered his composure and reached for the rock. When he closed his fingers around it and tried to bring it in close he found himself in a tug of war with an unseen opponent. He grabbed it with both hands and yanked as hard as he could. The force that had held the rock suspended in the air suddenly released it and James stumbled back a step. He turned the rock over in his hand briefly as he examined it, then looked at Amanda. She shrugged and hid a smile behind her hand.

"I think I'm the one who put that dog up in the tree," Amanda said, turning to Magda. "I'm sorry if I scared you. When it appeared in front of us I had to do something. I couldn't let it get run over so I tried to move it out of the way. I guess I panicked and must have thrown it harder than I meant to."

Beside her Manny was looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. She glanced at her boyfriend. "You don't think I'm some kind of freak, do you?"

Manny took her hand. "Of course not. Why would you even think that?"

"I should have let you lift my car out of the mud," Tom said as he looked down at his muck-coated sneakers.

Amanda shook her head. "Oh, no. I can't move anything that heavy, only something small."

James stepped up to them, bouncing the rock in his hand. "Okay, dude, it's your turn. What can you do?" he said to Manny.

Manny looked at James and a mischievous smile touched his lips. "Well, I can do this." His eyes took on a distant, unfocused look.

James suddenly stood ramrod straight and snapped his hands to his side as he stood at attention and began reciting something they had learned in school. "O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done. The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won. The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, while follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring." When he finished he placed a finger under his chin and performed an awkward curtsey.

He blinked then and came back to his senses as the rest of the group started laughing. He looked at his friends with a bemused expression. "What is it? What happened?"

"Ladies and gentlemen," Manny said with a flourish, "I give you Mr. Walt Whitman!"

James looked around, still confused as his friends now began applauding. "What? What did he do?"

"Nice curtsey, James," Danny said when he caught his breath.

"Nice _what_? What did you do to me?" James demanded as he stepped up to Manny.

"Relax, man," Manny said. "I just made you recite a poem."

"And curtsey!" Reed added between breaths.

James' face clouded over as another round of laughter went through the group. "That's not funny, man."

Manny got control of himself and placed a hand on James' shoulder. "Okay, truce. It's your turn, anyway. Why don't you show us what you can do?"

James thought for a moment, then glanced down at the rock that was still in his hand. "Okay, hold this," he said as he handed the rock to Manny.

Manny took the stone and watched it. "Are you going to make it float in the air?"

"Nope," James said. "Just keep holding it."

Several more seconds went by. "I don't get it, nothing's—Ow!"

Manny dropped the rock and began blowing on his palm. Steam curled up from the damp ground where the rock had fallen.

"I can make things hot," James said, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

Now it was Manny's turn to get angry. He checked his reddened palm then glared into James' eyes. "That's not funny."

"Really? I thought it was hilarious. It was at least as funny as you making me do stuff I couldn't control," James said.

"I didn't make you hurt yourself," Manny shot back. "You burned my hand! Besides, I already called truce."

"Well, now we're even," James said. "So _now_ we can call truce."

As the two of them glared at each other, Magda stepped up to them and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Calm down, guys," she said. Both of them immediately relaxed. When they were calm she removed her hands and stepped back. Both boys looked at her with slightly dreamy expressions on their faces.

"I can absorb emotions," Magda explained.

"Wow, Mags," James said as he reached toward her. "I feel a lot bet—"

"Don't touch me!" she snapped. James felt his hand suddenly shoved away by some unseen force.

"What was that?" James said.

Magda clenched her hands into fists. "Just leave me alone for a second," she said through her teeth. "It takes a minute for the feeling to go away." She took several deep breaths as she reached up and rubbed her temples. "I never tried absorbing feelings from two people at the same time before. It's a little...overwhelming."

"Do you want to sit down?" Tom asked.

"Yeah," Magda said. "I think that's a good idea." She looked around and found a spot at the foot of a tree. The others found places nearby and sat down as well.

For a while no one spoke as they each sat absorbed by their own thoughts. A lot had happened and they found themselves preoccupied by the recent events. Around them, the quiet in the woods deepened as night approached. A gentle breeze brought the scent of flowering plants and moist soil. As the light gradually faded a comfortable peace flowed between them, something which was almost tangible. It was as if they were all enfolded in the same soft, protective blanket. A feeling of warmth and security seeped into each of them. At that moment everything was right with the world.

Then James said, "Anybody want a drink?"

### Chapter Five

"This stuff's pretty good when you heat it up," James said as he offered his bottle around. When no one took him up on his offer he shrugged and placed it on the ground beside him. In truth, James was secretly glad that no one spoke up. Just thinking about how sick he had been before made his stomach clench. If there had been some of Shay's college girlfriends here he would have made the effort, but he could avoid a repeat of that experience and still save face.

"If we're looking for something to do," Reed said, "I've got an idea."

Paige sat up straighter and looked at him. She had sensed earlier that Reed had something in mind. But she knew her friend and she wondered what kind of reckless stunt he was planning.

Reed pointed up. "We could climb the tower."

The town water tower was only a few hundred yards away. Through the gaps in the trees they could see the looming disc of the immense tank overhead.

"Don't they have, like, security or something?" Manny asked.

"Not really," Reed said. "There's a little house near the base of the center pipe, but there's never anybody inside. There isn't even a fence on this side. We can just walk right up to it from here. About twenty feet up the pipe is a pull-down ladder. Once we reach that all we have to do is climb the stairs to the top."

"How come you know so much about it?" Tom asked.

"I climbed it once."

"I call BS," Danny said.

Reed shrugged.

"Did you really climb the tower?" Paige asked.

"I climbed it last year with Johnny Lynch."

"You were with Johnny Lynch?" Paige said.

"Yeah. But after we came down he started throwing rocks at the pump station. That's when I decided to leave."

"Johnny never was all that bright," Shay said. "I'm glad you were smart enough not to hang around when he started acting stupid. So, what's it like up there?"

"It's pretty cool, actually," Reed said. "The view is amazing. You can see the whole town."

"I'm in," James said as he jumped to his feet.

"Sure, why not," Tom agreed.

One by one the others added their votes and soon the entire group had agreed to go. Magda was feeling better by this time. She said that the anger had drained away and she was as interested as the others in seeing what it was like at the top of the tower.

This time Reed led the way. It wasn't difficult to figure which direction to go in. The tower was a pretty obvious landmark. They had been walking for a few minutes when they came to a brick building in a small clearing. As they drew near they could hear some kind of machinery working inside. Although the building itself looked old, the windows were covered with wire mesh that looked new. Reed told them it was the pump station.

Not too long after they passed the pump station the tree cover began to thin. Ahead of them stood the water tower. The giant tank was supported by ten steel legs. In the middle of the circle of steel girders was the wide center pipe. More than twenty feet up the side of the pipe was the pull-down ladder Reed had told them about. It connected to the staircase that spiraled around the pipe and led up to the tank. Beneath the ladder and off to one side was the booth Reed had also described to them. As he predicted, it was empty.

They stole up to the booth and huddled in the shadows beside it to look up at the staircase that was out of reach overhead.

"Okay, now what?" James whispered.

Reed was poking around behind the booth in the gap between the hut and the huge pipe.

"Last time there was a ladder back here," Reed said quietly.

"Well it's not here now," James pointed out.

"Thanks for the news flash," Reed whispered. "Anybody got any ideas?"

For several seconds they all simply stared at each other.

Then, "Heads up," a voice said above them. Dimitri had appeared on the platform at the base of the stairs and was trying to unlatch the ladder. "I think I can—"

The rest of his words were cut off by a sudden, ear-splitting squeal as the unlocked ladder began to rattle down its track toward the ground. The group of teens scattered as the metal ladder plummeted toward them. A moment later the ladder reached the ground and came to a sudden stop with a loud clang.

Tom stared at the extended ladder that had barely missed him then looked up at the platform. "Tree!"

"Sorry."

For the next several moments the group stood frozen as they waited to see if anyone had heard the racket.

"I think we're okay," Reed said quietly when there was no motion nearby for nearly a minute.

One by one the group started up the ladder. When they reached the base of the stairs they saw that they were already above the roofs of the houses in the area. The water tower was located in a wide clearing in the woods at the end of Birch Street. Although it was set fifty yards back from the fence that separated the town property from the rest of the neighborhood, they could clearly see all of the nearby houses for several blocks, which meant they could also be seen. Even thought it was closing in on full night, the group felt exposed where they were and they quickly started up the curving staircase.

When they had completed one full circuit around the pipe they found that they were now above the tops of the trees. As a group they paused to look across the scene. From their perspective it was as if they were looking out over the surface of a deep green sea, the undulating treetops like the crests of gently rolling waves.

"Everything looks so different," Magda said as they stared out at the unexpectedly hypnotic scene.

"Wait till you get to the top," Reed said. "All we can see from here is the trees, but when we get higher we'll be able to see down into the streets."

They continued up the staircase, winding their way around the big pipe several more times until they had reached the underside of the giant tank. In spite of the fact that they were out in the open, being so close to the immense belly of the tank gave them an uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia. To reach their goal of the railed walkway around the tank however, they had to make their way out along a narrow catwalk that jutted straight out from the pipe beyond the distant edge of the tank and then up one last steep set of stairs.

Although Reed had made the climb before, he found himself nearly balking at the journey out across the catwalk. With nothing between them and the ground over a hundred feet below, it took more than a little nerve to step out onto that narrow bridge of metal slats with only a four-foot-high railing on both sides.

But he had been the one to suggest the adventure so he ignored the tightness in his stomach and struck out across the catwalk as soon as he reached it. He kept his eyes on the end of the catwalk to avoid looking down and heard the rest of the group hesitate behind him at the top of the staircase.

"Don't look down," Reed called over his shoulder. "Just keep your eyes on the stairs at the end. We're almost there."

When he reached the end of the catwalk and turned around he saw that the rest of the group was still huddled on the landing.

"Really?" Reed said as he watched his friends peering down at the distant ground. "We came this far. It's only a short climb to the top. Don't you want to see the view?"

"We can see fine from here," Danny called from somewhere in the middle of the group.

"You're kidding me," Reed said.

There was some low murmuring and foot shuffling among the group before Tom finally stepped forward. Taking a firm grip on both handrails, he slowly started across the catwalk. Reed watched him come, following his tentative progress across the span. When Tom was halfway to him, Reed began stomping on the catwalk, causing it to vibrate underfoot. Tom immediately dropped into a crouch as he clamped onto the handrails.

"Quit it, Reed!"

"Don't be such a baby," Reed chided. "It's perfectly solid, see?" He started stomping on the catwalk again.

"Cut it out!" Tom said with an edge to his voice.

"Fine," Reed said. "I'll meet you all at the top." Reed started up the stairs and was gone from sight in a few seconds.

Tom took a moment to settle himself, then stood and slowly continued to the end of the catwalk.

"It's not so bad," Tom said to the others once he reached the far side. "Come on."

A moment later, Magda started across the catwalk. Tom waited until she was halfway across then started up the last flight of steps after Reed. One by one the others followed. Within a few minutes they were all standing on the walkway that encircled the tank. As Reed had promised, the view was breathtaking. All around them they could see the entire town of Mayfair Park spread out like a map at their feet. They were so high that the houses looked like toys. It was also eerily quiet. There was a mild breeze stirring the treetops, but they were too high to hear the rustling of the branches.

"I can see the high school!" Amanda said, pointing excitedly. "And there's the library and the pool!"

"There's the barn," Dimitri said, looking in the other direction.

"And I can see the carousel in the park," Paige said.

"Look how big the lake is," Shay observed. "It doesn't seem like it's that big from the ground."

As the group took in the view Tom edged over to Reed. "Good call, man," Tom said, holding his fist out for Reed. "I've got to admit, this is kind of cool."

"Thanks," Reed said as he returned the fist bump. The pair of them stood quietly looking out across the town for a time. After a while Reed said, "It's too bad Matt isn't here. I wonder what happened to him."

"That's right," Tom said. "He never did show up. Hey, Magda, did you ever hear back from Matt?"

Magda had been taking pictures with her phone. She swiped the screen and looked at it. "No. He never answered my texts."

"Doesn't Matt live around here somewhere?" Danny asked.

"Yeah," Manny said. He looked around, orienting himself. "My house is right over there. Matt lives across the tracks on the other side of Woodfield Road. So that should be his street over there. In fact, I think that's his house in that gap between the trees. The white one with the street light in front."

"Try calling him, Mags," Tom said. "If he's still home he can get over here in a couple of minutes. He's going to be really bummed if he misses this."

Magda tried his number and listened to it ring until the voice mail picked up. Shaking her head she hung up and tried the call one more time. "He's not answering," she said when she got Matt's voice mail a second time.

"Is this normal for him?" Reed asked.

"No," Magda said. "In fact he's usually pretty reliable. If he says he going to be somewhere he's there." She shrugged and put her phone away. "Something must have come up. He'll text me later when—" Magda paused as she noticed Reed staring intently into the distance. "What is it?" she asked. She could sense that something was disturbing him.

Reed pointed toward Matt's house. "It's that car again, the one that was near where you crashed."

Magda looked in the direction Reed was pointing. "What car?"

"The one on Matt's block," Reed said.

Tom squinted into the distance as well. "There's a lot of cars on that street. Which one are you talking about?"

"The black one right in front of his house. Look. It just pulled off. See it? It's heading up toward Mayfair Avenue."

"Are you sure it's the same car?" Tom said.

"It's got to be the same one," Reed insisted.

"Okay, you know cars but why does that mean it's the same car?" Tom said. "There's a lot of cars in the world."

"Yeah, but this one's a classic. In fact, when that model was fitted with the law enforcement package it was the number one choice for police departments all across the country. Even a lot of the federal agencies used them. Of course, that was twenty years ago. You just don't see a lot of them around anymore. If you're into cars they're real collectors' items. And I happen to know that no one in town owns one."

"Yeah, well that's really cool, and all," James said, "but we've got something more important to think about." Everyone turned and looked at him. "A name! We need to come up with a name for ourselves!"

"What are you talking about?" Tom said.

"We're superheroes! Think about it. We could be the Teen Titans!"

"I think that one's already taken," Danny said.

"Okay, what about the Justice League or... Oooh! I know! How about _the Avengers_!"

"Don't you have anything that's not straight out of a comic book?" Danny asked.

"Why don't you come up with something then?" James said.

"I don't think we need a name," Danny said. "We're just us. It's not like there's some super-villain out there that we have to take down."

"Yeah, but think about how we could make a difference," James said. "Nobody can do the things we can do."

"But what do you want us to do with our powers?" Danny said. "Patrol the streets? Go after muggers and carjackers? That's why we have police."

"But we can do things the police can't do," James said, pressing on. "We could handle the really big stuff."

"That's why we have the FBI," Danny said. Although he secretly enjoyed the idea of having super powers, he enjoyed teasing James even more.

"No, I mean the _really_ big stuff," James insisted.

"And that would be why we have the army," Danny countered.

"Oh come on!" James said, looking around at the rest of the group. "We could have a headquarters like a fortress of solitude, or a bat cave or something. You know, a place where we can hang out and discuss strategy and train for our upcoming battles against the forces of evil."

"You brought that bottle of fireball up here with you, didn't you," Danny said.

"Actually, Mr. Wizard, I didn't. For your information I left it...Oh man!" James hammered the railing with his fist as he stared down into the woods.

"Somehow I don't think the forces of evil have a whole lot to fear from us," Danny said.

"What's that?" James said. He was pointing to a section of the woods where he had noticed a small gap in the trees. "It looks like there's some buildings out in the middle of the woods." In the low light nothing more than vague shapes could be discerned in the shadows.

"Those are just some abandoned storage sheds," Reed explained. "I don't know if they're owned by the town or the park but they haven't been used in years."

"I bet one of them would make a great headquarters," James said.

"You know, now that I think about it, James has a point," Shay said.

"I do?"

"Yes. Well, not about us being superheroes, but about needing a place to train. We don't really know what we're capable of. For some reason we have these incredible powers and we don't really know what we can do with them. We need to find a place where no one can watch us so we can find out what our limits are." Shay looked down at the spot where the abandoned storage sheds were. "And that might be just the place."

"If we're not going to run around the streets fighting crime, what do we need to train for?" Manny said.

"For one thing, we need to know how to control our abilities so we don't hurt ourselves or someone else," Shay said. "Amanda was trying to save that dog when she threw it way up into the tree by accident. What if it hadn't landed on that branch? A fall from that height could have killed the poor thing. And Tom, you pulled the door completely off of Magda's car when you were trying to get them out. If you get really mad at someone and can't control your strength you could end up sending somebody to the hospital. And you, James, if you had made that rock much hotter you could have seriously burned Manny."

"But I wouldn't do that," James said. "I was only goofing around."

"I know you would never do something like that on purpose," Shay said, "but you might do it by accident. Do you have some kind of mental thermostat so you know exactly how hot you make something?"

"Well, no, but I can tell."

"Really? How?" Shay asked.

"I...well, I..."

"Dude, aren't you the one who wanted somewhere for us to train in the first place?" Manny reminded him.

"Exactly," James said. "That's why I think Shay is right. We need to check out those buildings to see if we can train there. We need to learn how to control our powers before we hurt ourselves or somebody else."

"Good thinking, James," Danny said.

"Why don't we go check it out right now?" James said.

"Actually, I was thinking that tomorrow might be better," Shay said. "The sun is almost gone. We don't know what we're going to find there and I'd rather not slice my leg open on some rusty piece of metal because I couldn't see where I was stepping."

"Tomorrow it is, then," Tom said.

"Let's make it early," Manny suggested. "I'm working the afternoon shift."

"How about seven? We can get an early start on the day," Tom said. When his suggestion drew groans from everyone he said, "Okay, nine o'clock then. Come on guys, we can do nine."

Anything before noon on a day when they didn't have to get up was too early as far as the teens were concerned, but eventually they all reluctantly agreed.

"Now that that's settled, how about we get down from here," Tom suggested. "It's getting dark."

Reed pointed to the stairs they had climbed to reach the walkway. They were so steep that it was almost like going down a ladder. And with no protective cage enclosing them, starting down those stairs would be like stepping off into nothing. Reed remembered the way the group reacted to the climb up and couldn't stop himself from smiling.

"So who's first?"

### Chapter Six

It was nearly ten thirty by the time the last of the group arrived at the end of Willow Street. Everyone had come empty-handed except for Tom who had a bulging backpack slung on one shoulder. When someone asked what it was for he simply said he'd brought some things he thought they might need.

Once they were all there they slipped behind the fat pine tree at the end of the block and carefully squeezed through the hole in the chain-link fence. They had agreed to walk to their destination because there was too much activity on the bridle paths at this time of day. Since Reed knew the area best he led the way again. They walked silently through the woods, their passage accompanied only by the sounds of the birds in the trees. After the revelations of the previous day, each of them was absorbed in their own private thoughts and no one wanted to disturb the reflective mood.

It wasn't long before they found themselves coming to an open area. If it hadn't been for Reed's intimate knowledge of the woods they could have easily missed the clearing. Six dilapidated buildings were clustered in the open space. The structures were sitting on a rectangular patch of old, cracked blacktop. In spite of the size of the clearing there wasn't much more light here than in the parts of the woods they had just walked through. Over the years the trees surrounding the clearing had grown, spreading their branches across much of the open space overhead to drink in the sunlight. The light that did filter through from above cast irregular splotches of brightness on the ground and buildings.

The group took in the scene as they stepped onto the crumbling edges of the blacktop. Four of the buildings were about the size of backyard sheds. These were too small for more than a few people to fit inside at once. The fifth was perhaps twice their size. But the last one was much larger. Four wide doorways that were large enough to admit a good-sized truck were on one side of the structure. Each of these had a roll-down metal door covering it and each door was secured with a rusted padlock.

Tom stepped up to a darkened window in the side of the building and cupped his hands to his face to peer inside. The inside of the building was too dark to reveal many details, but from what he could tell it appeared to be completely empty.

"These locks are in really poor shape," Shay observed. "I don't think anyone's been here in years."

Tom came around to the front and examined the locks. They were so badly rusted that he doubted they could be opened even if they had the keys.

"We're not getting in through here," Tom said.

"Why don't we just break the window?" James suggested.

"Because we're not going to cause any property damage," Tom answered.

"Oh, come on, look at this place!" James said. "These buildings were abandoned years ago. Nobody's going to care if a window gets broken."

"It doesn't matter," Tom said firmly. "We're not going to break any windows to get in."

"That's vandalism," Manny added. "They arrest people for that."

"Besides," Shay said, "a broken window could let animals and the weather in. The building won't do us any good if rain gets in and ruins everything. And you really don't want to surprise a family of raccoons if they get in and decide to turn it into their new home."

"Fine. No breaking windows," James grumbled. "So what's our next option?"

"Everybody spread out and look around," Tom said. "Maybe there's another way in."

A quick search of the building found only a single locked door on the side opposite the window. The back wall was completely blank.

"Well, this sucks," Manny said when they all gathered back in front of the building. He looked up at the structure. Although the building was clearly only a single story, it had a high ceiling and was almost as deep as it was wide. "It looks like a really good-sized space. This would make a great place to work out."

"Hey," James said, "why doesn't Tree just pop inside and let us in?"

Everybody turned to look at Dimitri, but he didn't seem very comfortable with that plan.

"What's wrong?" Tom said.

Dimitri cast a nervous glance at the building. "I never tried going through a solid wall before," he said.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Shay said, sensing his mood.

"Sure it is," James insisted. "What could happen?"

"I agree with James," Reed said. "He's only going a few feet. We've been all around the building and it's closed up tight. This is the only way for us to get in. It'll be easy."

"I don't know," Magda said. "I think maybe Shay is right. This doesn't feel like a good idea to me. We can find another way in."

"But we already looked," Danny pointed out. "Unless we're going to break that window there is no other way in."

"What about the roof?" Amanda suggested. "We didn't try that yet. Maybe there's a skylight or something."

"Tom already looked inside," James said. "If there was a skylight I think he would have seen it."

Tom shook his head. "He's right. I would have noticed if there was light coming through the roof. I didn't see anything like that."

"I don't think it's a good idea either," Paige said, siding with her sister. "We don't know what he'll run into in there."

"Come on, guys!" James said impatiently. "This place has been locked up for years. There's nothing in there."

Dimitri looked around at the group as he tried to decide.

"Come on, Tree," Reed said. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I'm not afraid," Dimitri said. "I...it's just that I've never done a blind jump before."

"Hey, I thought we came out here to learn about our limits," James said. "This seems like the perfect chance to test what you can do."

Tom frowned at his cousin then turned to his best friend. "You don't have to do this, Tree," Tom said.

Dimitri looked around at the others again until his gaze came to rest on Shay. She seemed to be watching him with genuine concern in her eyes. That was when he made up his mind.

"It's only a couple of feet," Dimitri said as he squared his shoulders.

As he was getting himself ready Shay stepped up to him. "Are you sure you want to try this? Maybe we should just keep looking for another way in."

Dimitri smiled and stood taller. "I'll be fine. Tom already said the place is empty. I'll just pop in on the other side of that door."

Shay stepped back as Dimitri focused on the building. He was facing one of the roll-down doors, staring at it as if he were trying to see right through the steel. He balled his hands into fists, crouched slightly, and disappeared.

An instant later there was a loud crash from the building. Everyone spun around to see Dimitri standing pressed against the door, rigid as a statue.

Dimitri stepped back with one foot, turned part way around and sat down awkwardly.

"Oh my god! Dimitri!" Shay yelled as she rushed over to him.

"Ow," he said as he grabbed his face with both hands.

"Well, that didn't work," James commented offhandedly.

Magda slapped his arm.

"What did I do?" James protested, but Magda ignored him.

Shay was kneeling beside Dimitri as he pressed his hands to his nose. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," Dimitri said. "I think I kind of pulled the jump at the last second. It's hard when I can't see where I'm going. I'll get it right next time."

Shay gave him a horrified look. "I really don't think you should try it again. We'll find another way in." She sat back on her heels and stared at the offending door. After a moment she looked up at Tom. "Why don't you just pull open one of those locks," she said.

"I told you I don't want to vandalize anything."

"And I agree with you," Shay said. "But think for a minute. Look at those locks. They're ruined. The only way anyone's going to get them off is to cut them off. If you can pull one of them open we can get in without having to break anything else and we can close the door when we leave so nothing can get inside."

Tom stared at the lock for a moment. "I don't know."

"Look, whoever owns this place is going to have to break those locks to get them off anyway," Shay said, "so we're not doing anything they won't have to do themselves."

Tom thought it over for a moment then stepped up to the door and took the lock in hand. He gripped the heavy padlock and pulled. A moment later there was a soft clink as the shackle broke and the lock pulled opened. Tom opened his fingers and stared at his handiwork. He was still surprised at what he was able to do.

James crowded in next to him. "Nice!" James said. He took the lock from his cousin's fingers and slipped it off the door. Squatting down James gripped the bottom of the roll-up door and tried to raise it. There was a loud squeal of metal as the door lifted a few inches and stopped.

"A little help would be appreciated," James called.

Tom bent down and grabbed the edge of the door with one hand. Between the two of them they raised the door enough for everyone to step through without having to stoop. Sunlight spilled into the opening, allowing them to see inside the doorway. Tom and James froze as the others came up behind them. Just inside the door was a large pile of twisted metal bars. They had no idea what they were for but a number of them had sharp ends that were poking upward at different angles. As he stared at those sharp edges, Tom felt a chill. If Dimitri had appeared in the middle of that mass of twisted metal...

"Wow," James said. "That could have been messy."

Dimitri reached past them and ran his finger across the tip of one of the metal pieces.

Shay came up beside him and placed a hand on his arm. "I'm glad you didn't—"

"Yeah. You and me both."

"Well, at least it's open now," James said as he edged around the pile and stepped into the building.

The others followed. Apart from the metal bars piled in front of that one door the rest of the space was empty. Judging from the oil stains on the floor, Reed guessed that the building had at one time been a garage. A workbench ran along the entire back wall of the building but whatever tools and equipment had once been there had been removed long ago. Loops of heavy chain hung from a rolling pulley machine that ran along an overhead track. Above that was a series of metal domed lights that hung by cables from naked steel beams.

"Do you think the lights work?" Amanda said as she looked around uneasily.

Reed pointed toward the far side of the building. "It looks like there's a switch by the door." He walked across the room and flipped the switch but nothing happened.

"There is an active power supply in here," Danny said as he looked around. "I can feel it." Danny raised his hand as if he were feeling something in the air that the others couldn't see, then started toward the back wall. At one end of the workbench there was a metal panel on the wall. He opened it and found a series of circuit breakers. A quick check showed that all of the breakers were in the on position, but the main switch at the top of the panel was off. He threw the main and the lights flickered and glowed on.

"They're not very bright," James said.

"They're like the gym lights at school," Reed said, looking up. "It probably takes a minute for them to come all the way on."

Even as they were talking, the lights slowly brightened. Soon they could see the entire inside of the building.

"Close the door," Tom said, gesturing to his cousin and Dimitri who were still standing beside the entrance. "We don't want to draw attention to the fact that we're in here."

As James and Dimitri forced the door down, Tom walked over to the window he had looked through earlier. Louvered metal shutters were attached to the frame. It took him a moment to find the pull chain that operated the shutters and close them.

Turning back around he watched as his friends started to explore the space. Dimitri and James bent down to examine the metal pieces piled by the doorway they had entered through while the girls huddled together in the center of the space talking quietly among themselves. Reed and Danny made their way toward the back of the building and began poking around the workbench along the rear wall. After a moment Tom wandered over to where Danny, Reed and Manny were examining the workbench.

"There are a lot of power outlets," Danny said. "I could set up some of my extra machines here." Danny was always collecting old computers and other electronic devices to tinker with. His room at home was overflowing with piles of assorted machines in different states of repair. "Wow, there's even an old land-line jack. There're no hot spots around here but if that jack's still connected I could access the Internet. Where's the junction box?"

As Danny continued poking around the bench Tom stepped over to Reed to see what he was doing.

"This place used to be a full-service repair shop," Reed said. He pulled open a draw beneath the workbench but found it empty. "Too bad they took everything with them." He turned around and pointed toward the overhead pulley. "See those chains? With that system they could lift an engine completely out of a car and move it to any place in here to work on it. I could really use a set-up like this."

Tom didn't share Reed's fascination with cars but he was happy to see his friend so excited. He gave him a clap on the shoulder and left him to finish exploring. Turning back to the middle of the room he saw the girls still standing there talking quietly among themselves.

"I think over by the window would be the best place," Amanda was saying as Tom walked over to them. "We could use the light. It's kind of creepy in here."

"What are you guys talking about?" Tom said.

"We're trying to figure out where we could put some chairs and maybe a table," Magda said. "If we're going to be spending any time in here we're going to want to have a place to sit down. Maybe even a little fridge to keep water and snacks in, too. We were thinking over by the window would be a good spot so we could get some daylight."

"We can't open the shutters," Tom said. "The whole idea is to keep people from knowing that we're using this place, remember? Besides, aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves? Everybody's acting like this is our personal clubhouse or something. We don't own this building. It's just supposed to be a convenient place for us to try out our powers."

"Might as well be comfortable, bro," James said as he and Dimitri wandered over to them.

"I can't believe I'm saying this—again—but I agree with James," Shay said.

"Wow, twice in two days," Danny said as he and Reed rejoined the group. "You're on a roll, James."

James raised his chin and put an arm around Shay's shoulders. "You're just jealous because Shay likes me better than you."

Shay looked down at James' hand then looked up at him and raised her eyebrows. A moment later James dropped his arm.

"Anyway," Shay said, "like I was saying, we're going to want a spot to take a break after we finish working out. This concrete floor isn't exactly comfortable. It's hard, dirty and cold and I for one don't want to ruin my clothes with grease."

"I get tired when I jump a lot," Dimitri added. "It'd be nice to have a place to sit down after a while."

"And if I'm going to practice my skill, I need to set up some of my equipment here," Danny said.

"That goes for me, too," Reed said. "I need machines to practice on."

Tom held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay. I give up. I know when I'm beat. But before we start picking out curtains let's make sure it's practical for us to even use this place." He looked at Manny who was returning from examining the door. "What do you think, Manny?"

"Well, we can lock the door from inside so no one can come in while we're here," Manny said. "The problem is going to be securing the place when we leave. We could just leave it unlocked so we can get back in again, but that means anyone else can get inside too. Since nobody's used this place in years that shouldn't be a problem, but I wouldn't suggest we leave anything really valuable in here."

"What if we could lock the door when we leave," Reed said.

"What do you mean?" Tom said.

"Simple. I can put a padlock on the door to keep people out."

"And who's going to hold the key?" James said.

"I'll make it a combination lock," Reed said. "That way any of us can get back in whenever we want."

"Assuming we can all remember the combination," Danny said, grinning at James.

"Hey, that only happened that one time because my lock got busted and the school had to change my combination," James said.

"Yeah, but wasn't it you who broke the lock in the first place trying to open it?" Danny teased.

"Can I help it if the school got a bunch of cheap lockers?"

"Anyway," Tom said, getting the conversation back on track, "unless somebody has a problem with Reed putting a padlock on the door we can try that and see how it works." He slipped the backpack off his shoulder and set it down. Unzipping the bag he pulled out a football.

"So what do you want to do?" James asked. "Pick teams and play football?"

"Actually, that's exactly what I thought we'd do," Tom said as he dug in the bag and pulled out a handful of bandanas and began passing them out. "Flag football, with a twist. The object is to get the ball to your team's goal. But unlike regular football, once play starts it doesn't end until someone scores." He paused and tucked one end his bandana into the back of his pants. "Okay, everybody put your tail on. If your flag gets pulled off you're out of the game."

"That's it?" James said.

"That's it," Tom said. "I figure we'll come up with more rules as we go."

"Really? You want us to play football?" James asked. "I thought we were going to work on our powers."

Tom rested his hands on his hips and looked around at his friends. "We are. Look, football is all about strategy. We're going to need to be creative to go up against people with the abilities we have. So you're allowed to use your powers during the game any way you can. Just try not to really hurt anybody. Now, who's going to be the captains?"

It took a few minutes for them to decide on the team captains. Eventually they settled on Shay because she was the oldest, and Tom because he had experience as a team captain. Next they chose their teams. Tom allowed Shay the first pick and they alternated their selections until everyone had been chosen. In the end it was Shay, Amanda, Paige, James and Reed against Tom, Dimitri, Manny, Magda and Danny.

They decided to start the game by placing the ball in the center of the room. Areas at each end of the room were designated as goal zones and they were ready to begin. Play would start when the alarm on Danny's phone went off.

Danny had just set his alarm for a ten-second countdown when Tom suddenly called time out.

"What's wrong?" Manny said.

Tom frowned at his cousin and walked over to him. "Turn around."

"Why?" James said, leaning away from him.

Tom folded his arms and gave him a stern look. "Turn around," he insisted.

Grumbling to himself James slowly turned his back to his cousin.

"You can't do that," Tom said pointing at the lumpy bulge in the seat of James' pants. James had stuffed his entire bandana down the back of his pants leaving just a tiny corner of the material sticking out.

"You only said I had to leave a little tail hanging out," James protested. "You never said how much."

"I guess we need to make our first rule then," Tom said. "You need to leave at least six inches of flag hanging out."

James grinned at him and pulled out more material. Tom grabbed the bandana and pulled out even more until there was a six-inch tail showing, then they each returned to their positions.

"Remember," Tom said, "you can only score if you still have a tail. Once your flag is pulled you're out and you have to get to the sidelines. If you have the ball when your tail is pulled you have to drop it right where you are. No passing to a teammate."

Danny reset his alarm and ten seconds later the game began. Two seconds after that the first round was over. Before anyone else could move, Dimitri had popped to the center of the room, grabbed the ball, disappeared, and reappeared at his team's goal.

"That's not fair!" James protested.

"Sure it is," Tom said. "The whole idea is to see how we can use our powers."

"But—" James began.

"Forget it James," Shay said. "It's one-zip. Everybody huddle up for a second." Shay's team gathered around her for a few moments. When they were finished talking they spread out and took up their ready positions again. Dimitri had returned the ball to the middle of the room and his team was ready to go.

"You guys ready to get beat again?" Danny taunted.

"Just start your timer," Shay shot back.

Ten seconds later Danny's timer buzzed. Like before, Dimitri was the first to the ball. He snatched it up and disappeared again.

"Now it's two-zip," Tom said when Dimitri appeared on the far side of the room.

Shannon smiled. "I don't think so." She pointed to Amanda who flashed Tom a broad grin and dangled a bandana from her fingers. "She took Dimitri's tail when he went for the ball."

Across the room Dimitri began feeling behind his back for his bandana, which was no longer there.

"The goal doesn't count and your man needs to drop the ball," Shay said.

Tom nodded to Dimitri. "She's right, Tree."

Shaking his head, Dimitri placed the ball at his feet and started toward the back of the room. As soon as he put the ball down, Tom, Manny, Magda and Danny made a sudden dash for the far side of the room. But Shay's team was ready. Shay, Paige, James, and Reed each moved to intercept one of the other team players, delaying them long enough for Amanda to act. While the others clashed in the middle of the room, Amanda reached out for the ball with her mind. Before anyone could get near it the ball rose high into the air and floated out of reach over their heads to the other side of the room.

"Now it's one-all," James announced.

Tom grinned. "Well played. Let's go again."

This time when the alarm sounded Amanda immediately sent the ball into the air at the same moment that Dimitri disappeared. But while her attention was focused on the ball, he had popped in behind her and removed her flag. Amanda was forced to let the ball drop which led to a mad scramble to recover it. The ball bounced closest to Tom who was just reaching to pick it up when Paige surprised everyone by diving across the space between them and scooping it up with one hand while she executed a one-armed handspring. She landed on her feet out of his reach and sprinted toward her team's goal to score.

The game went on for half an hour. During that time the lead continued to shift back and forth between the teams. One side would develop a winning strategy and pull ahead by a few points until the other team came up with a way to counter that strategy and close the gap. Play continued back and forth in that vein for the rest of the game with neither team being able to build up more than a few points lead before the other team caught up with them again. Over the course of the game however they did learn several things about each other.

If Dimitri was able to get his hands on the ball—with his tail intact—the game was over. But they could stop him from teleporting by grabbing onto him when he popped in to get the ball. He also became tired very quickly if he used his power too often, leaving him as slow and winded as if he had just run a marathon. Likewise, if Amanda could control the ball with her power she could easily score by making it float out of reach above their heads. But if someone else had possession of the ball she wasn't strong enough to pull it from their grasp unless they were holding it very lightly.

One of her team's favorite tactics for several rounds was for everyone to form a protective circle around Amanda while she manipulated the ball. By facing outward they could protect her and keep their own flags safe long enough for her to send the ball to their goal. But this tactic eventually revealed a flaw. Frustrated by the ease with which Amanda was able to keep the ball out of reach, Tom jumped after it one time and surprised himself and everyone else by leaping more than ten feet into the air to intercept the ball. Once he got his hands on the ball he was able to easily wrest it free from the invisible force holding it. And once he had the ball, Tom was a force to be reckoned with.

If Shay's team got the ball to Paige she was able to evade the other team and bounce and flip her way across the room to score without anyone coming close to her. They scored several times using this tactic until Tom's team eventually devised a defense against this strategy. They would interlock their arms and form a human wall, forcing her to go around them to one side. If they anchored one end of their line to a wall, they could force her to go around the other end. And since they knew where she would go, Dimitri was then able to pop in behind her to take her flag and relieve her of the ball.

Danny learned of a way he could use his ability to contribute to the group effort completely by accident. During one round he tried to stop the other team from scoring by reaching out with his ability and interrupting the power flow through the main breaker. His idea had been to plunge the building into sudden darkness. In his excitement however he formed such a strong connection with the energy flowing though the circuit box that he drew the power out of the box and across the room directly to him in the form of a web of lightning just as James was running past. While the current had little more effect on Danny other than causing him to tingle from head to toe, the raw power of the electricity blasted James right off his feet. He came to his senses moments later dazed and disoriented.

Manny was one person Shay's team soon learned that they had to take out of play as quickly as possible. No matter who they got the ball to, if Manny was still in the game he could hijack that person's will and make them do anything from handing off the ball to the other team to actually running it to the wrong goal. His biggest weakness was that he could not focus on more than one person at a time. While he was manipulating someone he was forced to concentrate on what he was doing to such an extent that he became completely unaware of his surroundings and was an easy target himself. It also became apparent that his concentration, and thereby his control over another person, could be interrupted by physically tackling him—something James relished doing whenever the opportunity presented itself, whether Manny was controlling someone or not.

After running himself ragged for several rounds by chasing after the ball and the members of the other team, Reed discovered that his talent could be brought into play as well. He realized that he could use his ability to move the overhead pulley machine. This gave his team what amounted to a mobile obstacle that he could quickly move to any part of the room. This forced everyone (except Dimitri) to dodge around the heavy loops of dangling chain or risk a painful collision.

For a long time it seemed that Magda's ability would not play a part in their game. Since she had only ever been able to use her power by physically touching someone, there seemed to be no way she could participate other than by running around and trying to snatch the flag of an opposing player. She accepted her role cheerfully enough and put her best effort into running after the others. The concept of giving up wasn't part of Magda's personality and she tussled with people on the opposing team whenever she could catch them. And more often than not she wound up taking their flag through sheer determination. Then, in one game where she was the only one on her team who had not been eliminated, she found herself facing an extremely over-confident James who enjoyed having Magda chase after him. He would tease her with the ball and spin out of reach every time she tried to get to him. After chasing after him for a couple of minutes she found herself quickly getting worn out. Although he clearly had her at a disadvantage, James continued to tease her with the ball when it would have been a simple matter for him to get past her to score.

As the others shouted jeers or cheers and called for James to end the round, Magda became frustrated and finally stopped chasing after him. She glared at him and found herself wishing that he would just stop it. In that moment James' expression drooped and he announced that he no longer felt like playing. He looked at the ball in his hands and let it fall from his fingers in disgust. At first Magda was as stunned as everyone else by James' behavior. Then she realized that she had somehow caused the change in his attitude. Before whatever she had done wore off, Magda decided to take advantage of the situation. She quickly snatched up the ball and hurried toward the goal, laughing while her teammates cheered from the sidelines. Moments later James snapped himself out of his apathetic daze, but it was too late.

After half an hour of play only Shay and James had not been able to find a way to use their powers. As captain, Shay had been responsible for helping to plan a number of effective strategies her team was able to use against the other team while James was able to use his natural athletic ability to help. Although Shay accepted the fact that her ability with animals would not help them here, James was frustrated by not being able to use his power. Then, when they were setting up for what Tom had announced would be the last round before they would take a break, an idea came to him. A big grin grew on his face as he considered his idea. He had come up with a foolproof way to win not only the next round, but any future round they played as well.

The ball was placed in the center of the room for the start of the final round while both teams retreated to their respective sides to plan strategy. Shay pulled her team together and suggested that they let Amanda control the ball again while the others formed a protective wall around her. This time however, to prevent Tom from leaping up and intercepting the ball, Reed would send the pulley after him. With Tom busy dodging the swinging loops of chain, Amanda would be free to send the ball to their goal. It was a good plan, as long as Reed could keep Tom busy. James agreed with the plan but kept his own idea to himself. If anything went wrong he would have something up his sleeve that would ensure their victory.

Once each side had formulated their plans, both teams assumed their positions. When the alarm rang Amanda immediately sent the ball up toward the ceiling while the rest of her team formed a protective wall around her. At the same instant Reed sent the pulley zooming across the room directly at Tom. But at the last moment Tom leapt to one side just as the rattling loops of chain reached him. An instant later he leaned in to grab a fist full of the metal links and hold on to the pulley. The pulley struggled to pull free of Tom's grip, but he just smiled at Reed and held tightly to the struggling chains. Meanwhile, Danny, Magda and Manny charged for the tightly packed group surrounding Amanda as Dimitri disappeared. An instant later Dimitri reappeared in mid-air and wrapped his arms around the ball. He had been using his power a lot during the last few rounds and he was too tired to teleport again, but it wasn't necessary. Keeping a firm grip on the ball, Dimitri let himself drop to the floor. Once he landed he started toward the far side of the room in a slow, loping jog. With Tom holding the pulley immobile and Shay's team clustered together around Amanda, all Dimitri needed to do was hold on to the ball and get it to their goal.

Dimitri had barely started toward his team's goal when James yelled out, "No!"

An instant later there was an explosion. Dimitri was hurtled backward from the power of the blast and ended up sitting in the middle of the floor looking dazed. The football was nowhere in sight. Tom called for time out and they all rushed to check on Dimitri who turned out to be more confused than hurt.

"What happened?" he asked as the others gathered around him.

"I don't know," Tom said as he reached down and gave him a hand up. "Where's the ball?"

"I have no idea," Dimitri said, rubbing a hand across his stomach. "One second I'm holding onto it, the next thing I know something kicked me in the gut and knocked me on my butt."

Once he saw that his friend was okay Tom started looking around for the ball. A moment later he found what appeared to be a shredded piece of his ball on the floor. He picked it up carefully and turned it over to examine it. It was strangely warm to the touch.

"Is that the ball?" Manny asked as he watched Tom study the ragged scrap he was holding.

"I think so, but I have no idea what happened to it."

Just then James started laughing hysterically.

"What did you do?" Tom said.

"I'm sorry," James said when he could finally catch his breath. "I didn't know that would happen."

"Can I see that?" Shay asked Tom. He handed her the scrap he had found.

"What did you do?" Tom repeated.

"I just wanted to keep you guys from controlling the ball," James said. "I figured if it was too hot for anyone to hold Amanda could float it to our goal and we would get the point."

"You flash heated the ball," Shay said, looking up from the scrap in her hand.

"Well, yeah," James said. "I figured Dimitri would drop it if it was too hot."

Shay shook her head. "But it was full of air."

"So?"

"Gas dynamics," Shay said. When she saw the confused looks she was getting from the others she explained. "When you flash heat a gas it expands—very fast! That's why explosives work. An explosion is really just rapidly expanding gases that put stress on a container until it ruptures. You heated the air inside the ball so much that it expanded too fast for the ball to contain and it exploded."

"Really?" James said, sounding pleased with himself.

Magda slapped his arm. "It's not funny James! Dimitri could have been really hurt."

It suddenly got very quiet.

"But I'm okay," Dimitri said, trying to break the tension.

"See, nothing happened," James said. "Anyway, it was an accident."

"Actually, it was kind of funny," Tom said. He looked up at Dimitri. "You should have seen the look on your face when you went flying."

Dimitri smiled and soon there were snatches of giggles coming from the others.

"Okay, so what have we learned?" Tom said.

"Not to play football with James," Danny said.

"Well, that and James can blow things up," Tom said. He looked at his cousin and his voice took on a serious tone. "You need to be really careful with that."

James saw the expression on his cousin's face and for once didn't have a snappy comeback. Instead he just nodded.

"And by the way," Tom said, "you owe me a new football. That was my Wilson official NFL ball."

"Oh, come on!" James said. It would cost more than a hundred dollars to replace that ball. He had no idea where he was going to get that kind of money.

"I'll tell Aunt Marian," Tom said. He knew that James was still in the dog house with his mom over another stunt he had pulled recently that wound up breaking one of their living room lamps. James grumbled but didn't object.

"Okay, I think we've gotten a pretty good idea of how we can combine our abilities and work together as a team," Tom said. "Now I think we should try to stretch ourselves individually. There's this drill I know where—"

"Um, before we start something else," Dimitri said, "do you mind if we take a little break first? I don't know about anybody else but I'm wiped." He looked around briefly, then picked a relatively clean place on the floor and sat down.

"Yeah, sorry," Tom said. "Take five, everybody."

One by one the rest of the group found places to sit. As the others claimed their own spots on the floor Tom retrieved his backpack from the workbench and began handing out bottles of water. When the last of the water had been handed out he plopped himself down beside the others.

"I see what you girls mean about needing a place to sit down," Tom said as he tried to find a comfortable position on the unyielding cement. "This floor is a little hard on the butt."

"You know," James said as he gestured with his hands toward a spot on the wall, "a big screen TV right there and some microwave popcorn and this place might not be so bad."

"I don't know about cable," Danny said, "but if I can hook us up to the Internet I know a bunch of sites I can stream videos from."

"Now you're talking," James said. "Hey, do you know any _good_ sites? You know the ones I mean."

Danny's face lit up. "There's this one site I know called—"

"Hey guys!" Manny said, nodding toward the girls.

"It's okay," Magda said. "We know what they're talking about."

James put on a hurt expression. "How could you say such a thing? I was asking Danny about religious sites." He placed a hand over his heart and looked up toward the heavens.

Magda let out a guffaw. "Yeah, right!"

"Anyway," Manny said turning to Tom, "you were going to tell us about this drill you wanted us to try. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, in wrestling, Coach Griffin used to have us do this thing called 'bull in the ring'," Tom said. "One person is in the middle and everyone else makes a circle around them. Then the coach calls someone and those two wrestle until one person gets taken down. Whoever wins gets to stay in the ring and someone else gets called."

"Don't you think this is a little hard to wrestle on?" Reed said, patting the floor beside him.

"And what about the girls," Manny said. "I don't think we should be wrestling against them."

"Let's not be too hasty," James said. "After all it is the twenty-first century. Equality between the sexes and all that." He looked pointedly at Magda and wiggled his eyebrows.

"You wish," Magda said. "Besides, I could tie you in a knot if I wanted to."

"Oooh, you know I like the rough stuff," James said.

"Actually, that's not exactly what I had in mind," Tom said. "I just figured we'd try to take the other person's flag."

James shrugged. "That works, too. It could still lead to a bit of wrestling around." He winked at Magda who sighed and shook her head.

Ignoring his cousin, Tom fished in his pocket and pulled out the ten-sided die he had borrowed from his dad's old _Dungeons & Dragons_ game.

"To make it fair we'll let the dice pick who goes next," Tom said.

They climbed to their feet and each of them was assigned a number. Next, Tom directed everyone to form a large circle. Once they were in place, Tom rolled the die. Paige's number came up first and she stepped into the center. The next roll brought up Tom's number. No one seemed to notice the close attention Amanda was paying to the roll of the die. As Tom stepped into the ring Amanda hid a half smile behind her hand.

"Ready?" Tom asked. Paige just smiled in response.

Tom stepped forward confidently. Paige continued to smile and circled to her right. Tom bent into a wrestling crouch and shuffled toward her with his hands outstretched. He was just reaching toward her when Paige dove aside and executed a shoulder roll out of reach. Tom spun around and lunged after her. He dropped to his knees and slid in to grab her legs to immobilize her but Paige leapt up, did a back flip, and landed directly behind him. She was just reaching for his flag when Tom spun around suddenly, sweeping his arm behind him to brush her hand away. As he reached for her again Paige twirled away, laughing.

Tom sprang back to his feet and they resumed circling. He noticed that Paige appeared to be flushed with excitement. Her eyes had started to take on an intense look he hadn't seen before. It was almost like the expression people got when Manny was controlling them, like she was off somewhere else, only different somehow. He also couldn't help noticing how cute she looked with her curls falling across her face, but pushed those thoughts down.

Focusing his attention on winning the match, he came at her again. But before he could grab her Paige cartwheeled out of the way. Again and again he lunged after her and each time she managed to evade him with a complex series of acrobatic moves.

Around them the others were cheering and shouting encouragement. Tom was so in the zone that he didn't pay any attention. Instead, he found himself studying Paige's movements as he tried to analyze what she was doing. So far she had been using a purely defensive strategy. He realized that she wouldn't let him approach any closer than four feet before she would move away. That gave him a range to work with. And although she had quick reflexes, she wasn't superhuman fast. He thought he might have a chance to trap her if he could back her into a corner, but they were inside a circle. He could force her to back away from him but when she decided to dodge away from him he had no way of knowing which direction she would go in. The only thing he knew for sure was that it would be the direction he was least able to guard.

Then it hit him. If he could force her to move in the direction he wanted her to go in he would have a chance to catch her. It was just like in the game when his team made themselves into a wall and forced her to go around them to one side. Although he couldn't teleport like Dimitri, he could be ready to lunge after her if he knew the direction she would move in.

Just like that a plan came to him. He forced himself not to smile as he closed the distance between them and lunged at her again. Just like before she danced away at the last moment. And just like before he followed after her and doggedly tried again. And again.

"Boooring!" Tom heard James shout behind him. "Come on Tom, just give up and admit that you got beat by a girl."

Tom ignored the taunting and continued to lunge after Paige. Again and again he grabbed for her, and each time she sprang out of reach at the last moment. It was when he had manipulated her into backing to within a few feet of the ring that he made his move. He feinted toward her with his right hand then threw himself to the left instead. Up to this point he had been careful to come after her only with his right hand, leading her to expect that this was his dominant side. What Paige didn't know was that he had trained himself to be equally good with both hands when he played sports and had used this on more than one occasion to fake out an opponent.

As soon as she sensed Tom coming at her Paige sprang to her right, throwing herself into a dive that would take her out of his reach. But the instant her feet left the floor she realized Tom's deception. Instead of coming straight at her as he had been doing, he had thrown himself to one side at the last moment, placing him directly in her path. Her sixth sense allowed her to realize that there was no way to avoid colliding with him. With her feet off the ground there was nothing she could do. Gravity and physics would take over from here.

In the next instant she found herself being wrapped in his arms. But while she could do nothing to avoid him grabbing her, she could still turn the situation to her advantage.

As soon as he grabbed her, Paige tucked her body into a tight ball and squirmed and twisted in his grip. To Tom it felt like he had grabbed hold of a wildcat. He tried to hold onto her while not squeezing her too tightly, all the time wondering if this had been such a good idea after all.

That little bit of leeway was all Paige needed. As they tumbled to the floor, she twisted just enough in his grip to bring her knees up between their bodies. Then, using the combined momentum of their fall, she pulled them into a backward roll and as soon as she sensed they were in the right position she kicked out with her feet. Using the strength of her legs she shoved him away from her. Tom lost his grip on her and went sailing through the air upside down directly at Magda and Amanda. Seeing Tom come flying in their direction, the girls threw themselves to the floor just in time for him to go soaring over them.

To Tom it seemed as if he was flying through the air for a long time. Then he sensed the floor rushing up toward him. From the corner of his eyes he saw that he was headed directly toward the pile of twisted metal bars. This realization dawned on him an instant before he crashed down.

Meanwhile, Paige completed her backward roll and sprang to her feet just as Tom landed in the pile of metal bars with a crash. She hadn't realized the direction she had thrown him in and once she saw where he had wound up she came back to her senses.

"TOM!" she screamed as she felt the blood drain from her face.

She sprinted toward where he lay sprawled amid the twisted metal bars. A moment later she came to a stop as she brought her fists to her mouth, horrified by what she saw.

Tom lay sprawled on his back, his teeth bared in a grimace. Beneath him a red puddle was slowly growing. And poking through his shirt was the pointed end of one of the metal bars which had gone completely through his stomach.

Seconds later the rest of the group joined her and for a moment they all stood frozen in shock. Manny was the first one to act.

"Help me!" he said to the others as he grabbed Tom by one arm. The other boys reached to help and a few moments later they had pulled him off of the bar that had impaled him.

"Stop!" Shay called out when she realized what they were doing. "You can't move him!"

The boys hesitated, holding Tom's limp form awkwardly between them.

"But we need to get him help," Manny said, sounding confused.

Shay placed a hand on Tom's chest to keep them from carrying him away. "No! We don't know how seriously he's been injured."

"We know he got stabbed through the gut by that metal pipe," James argued.

"I know he's your cousin," Shay said, trying to make her voice stay level and rational, "but we don't know what else is wrong with him. What if he hurt his spine? If we move him we could end up crippling him."

"But he could bleed to death if we don't do something," Dimitri said.

"That metal bar was actually helping to keep the wound closed," Shay explained. "Now that you pulled him off of it there's nothing to stop him from hemorrhaging."

Dimitri's eyes grew to the size of saucers. "We didn't know! We were trying to—"

"I know," Shay said. "You were just trying to help your friend. But right now you need to put him down and help me keep him immobilized until we can stop the bleeding."

Following Shay's instructions the boys lowered Tom to the floor. Looking into his face Shay saw that he was very pale and seemed to be unconscious. That was a bad sign. He had also begun to hyperventilate, his breaths coming in short, rapid puffs. She quickly pulled up his T-shirt, exposing the wound. It was difficult to see the puncture because of all the blood on his stomach. Shay reached back and yanked her bandana from her waistband.

"Give me your bandanas!" Shay said as she pressed the cloth to his stomach. "I need something to stop the bleeding."

In seconds their bandanas were thrust in her direction. Shay grabbed several more of the cloths and started wiping away the excess blood so she could see exactly where to apply pressure. A moment later she saw a small hole a few inches to the right of his belly button where blood was slowly oozing out. She hesitated for an instant as her brain told her that something was wrong. It took her a few moments to realize that the wound was smaller than it should be. It also wasn't bleeding nearly as much as it had been. Tossing aside the bandana she had been using, she took a clean one and wiped away more blood. Incredibly, the wound had stopped bleeding.

"Look!" Paige said.

As they all watched, the wound slowly closed itself. It took nearly a minute for the wound to fully heal but eventually there was only a faint, pink mark where the gaping hole had been. Shay brushed across the area again, wiping away the last of the blood and making certain that the wound had indeed healed.

"What the..." James said as he stared open mouthed at his cousin's belly.

"Help me roll him over," Shay said. With James' and Manny's help they managed to roll Tom onto his side. Grabbing several more bandanas Shay began cleaning blood from his back. Just as they had seen before the wound had begun to shrink. Moments later the hole in his back closed itself just like the one in his stomach had done. Shay looked up into the faces of the others standing around her and saw her own shocked expression mirrored there.

They rolled him gently to his back again and for several moments no one could think of anything to say. As they watched, Tom's breathing began to slow and deepen as color gradually returned to his face. A minute later his lids fluttered and he opened his eyes.

"What happened?" he asked weakly as his eyes focused on the scene around him.

"We thought you were going to die," Dimitri said.

Tom looked down at the hole in his blood soaked shirt and pressed a hand to his stomach.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Tom said, sounding surprised himself.

"That's because the hole in your stomach just closed up all by itself," Shay said. "I've never seen anything like it."

Tom pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was feeling much stronger now. "I feel fine. It's like it never happened."

Paige dropped to her knees and grabbed him in a fierce hug. "I'm so sorry! I never meant for you to get hurt! I didn't think about where I was throwing you! If I had known I never would have—"

"It's okay," Tom said, brushing her hair out of his face. "I know it was an accident. Anyway, everything turned out okay. I'm fine."

Paige let go of him and sat back. "But you could have died! I would never have forgiven myself if something had happened to you."

"Yeah, dude," James said. "That was incredible. How long have you been able to do that, anyway?"

"I don't know," Tom said, sounding genuinely confused himself. "I never got hurt before."

"What do you mean you never got hurt before?" Danny said. " _Everybody_ gets hurt sometimes."

Tom shook his head. "Not me. I guess I've just been lucky."

"You mean in all the years you've been playing football you never once got hurt?" Manny said. "No broken bones? No pulled muscles? No twisted ankles? _Nothing_?"

"No."

"How about getting sick?" Shay asked. "Did you ever get the flu? Ever had a headache?"

Tom shook his head again. "I never really thought about it before but I've never been sick either."

"That you know of," Shay said. "If you've always been able to heal like that it's likely that you could have injured yourself or been exposed to something and healed again before you realized it."

Tom shrugged. "I suppose."

James reached down and gave his cousin a hand up. "Well, I'm just glad you're okay. Your mom would have killed me if anything happened to you."

"It's nice to know you care," Tom said.

James grinned and shrugged.

"I don't know about anybody else," Manny said, "but I've had enough training for a while."

A murmur of agreement went through the others. Tom picked up his empty backpack and looped it over one shoulder as they headed toward the door.

"Anybody mind if we stop for something to eat?" Tom said. "I'm starving all of a sudden."

"You must have used up a lot of calories healing yourself like that," Shay said. "Your metabolism had to be working overtime."

"All I know is that I could really use a double cheeseburger," Tom said.

They collected the few possessions they had brought with them and headed for the exit. Reed held the door for the others and turned off the lights when everyone else had filed out, then closed the door behind them.

### Chapter Seven

"Excuse me, Mr. Harris, but I need to speak to Magda for a minute."

Mr. Reynolds was standing in the doorway to Magda's AP Government class. Although the principal had spoken to the teacher he was looking directly at her. Magda sensed a conflicting knot of emotions radiating from Mr. Reynolds, the clearest of which was worry.

Magda made herself stand up and move toward the door. In the hallway behind Mr. Reynolds were two people she didn't recognize, a man and a woman. She studied the strangers quickly as she stepped into the hall. The man was average height with a pleasant face and dark, close cropped hair. The woman was a pretty brunette with an olive complexion and dark, intelligent eyes that seemed to be assessing her. They were dressed in business clothes and she didn't think they were connected to the school. She sensed concern coming from them both, combined with a feeling of focused purpose. From the woman she also sensed...sympathy?

"This is Special Agent Peron from the FBI," Mr. Reynolds said, pointing to the woman, "and her partner, Special Agent Bale. They'd like to ask you a few questions."

Magda could sense that they were anxious to talk to her. Her first thought was that somehow they had found out about her and the others climbing the water tower over the weekend. But they wouldn't send the FBI for that. Would they?

"Am I in some kind of trouble?" she asked as she started feeling nervous.

Agent Peron smiled. "No, Miss Wasilewski. But we could use your help."

"I'm not sure what I—"

"If you don't mind, Miss Wasilewski, we'd rather not talk in the hall," Agent Peron said. "We'll explain everything in Principal Reynolds' office. It won't take very long." The FBI woman lifted her arm to gesture down the hall. As she did so her jacket opened and Magda glimpsed the grip of a handgun holstered at her waist. Magda suppressed a shudder.

Mr. Reynolds turned and led the way toward his office as the FBI agents flanked Magda on both sides. They seemed pleasant enough, Magda thought, but she couldn't help feeling her heart beginning to pound.

They reached the main office quickly and headed straight to the principal's private office as the secretary and school aides watched. Magda felt like she wanted to shrink down inside her clothes but she made herself walk calmly into the room. Mr. Reynolds closed the door behind them and started toward his desk.

"Actually, Principal Reynolds," Agent Bale said, "if you don't mind, we'd like to speak to Miss Wasilewski alone."

Mr. Reynolds continued to his desk without a pause and settled himself into his chair.

"Magda is a minor," Mr. Reynolds said calmly. "Without her parents present I think it would be best if I remained in the room." He looked at Magda and gave her a wink. Magda could have hugged him.

"It's okay, Steve," Agent Peron said. "I'm sure having a familiar face in the room will make Miss Wasilewski feel more at ease." She gestured toward a chair in front of the principal's desk. "Please sit down, Miss Wasilewski."

"My name is Magda," Magda said as she sat down.

"My name is Callie," Agent Peron said. "And this is Steve."

Agent Bale nodded.

"Hello," Magda said. "What can I do for you?" She was more curious now than nervous.

Agent Peron pulled up a chair and sat facing her. "We want to ask you about your friend, Matt DeLuca."

Magda felt her stomach drop away. With everything that had happened over the weekend she had forgotten to try and text him again.

"What's wrong? Did something happen to Matt?"

Agent Peron glanced at her partner then back to Magda. "Why do you think something might have happened to him, Magda?"

Magda looked at the two FBI agents for a moment before she answered. "He was supposed to meet us on Friday but he never showed up."

Agent Peron nodded. "His parents told us he left to meet you at a party, but he never came home. They haven't heard from him since then. Have you heard from him?"

"No. I tried texting him when we decided not to go to the party but he never texted me back." Magda felt her heart beginning to pound even harder at the news that Matt hadn't been home all weekend. Matt never went anywhere without letting his parents know.

"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?" Agent Bale asked. Magda twisted around to look at him.

"No. The last time we talked he was going to meet up with us at the party."

"Does he do that a lot?" Agent Bale asked. "Not show up when he says he's going to be somewhere."

"Never," Magda said.

"Magda, why did you and your friends decide not to go to the party?" Agent Peron asked.

"Robin was being a pain and didn't want to let Paige in," Magda said.

"Robin?"

"Robin Ersatz," Mr. Reynolds said. "Her parents were letting her throw a beach party to kick off prom week. The entire senior class was invited."

Magda looked at him in surprise.

"Of course I knew about the party," Mr. Reynolds said. "That's all most of the senior class has been talking about for the past month."

"So where did you and your friends go since Robin was being a pain?" Agent Peron asked.

"Paige's sister was home from college so we just hung out with her." Magda tried to sound casual as she answered, hoping they didn't ask her more specific questions.

Agent Peron was taking a few notes in a small pad. After a moment she looked up at Magda again. "So as far as you know, no one saw him that evening after he left his home for the party."

"As far as I know," Magda said.

"And you and your friends haven't heard from him since then."

"No, ma'am."

Frowning, Agent Peron flipped her notepad closed and put it away. She reached into a different pocket, took out a business card and handed it to her.

"Thanks for your help, Magda," Agent Peron said. "If you think of anything else or hear from Matt, please give me a call. That's my cell phone and I have it with me all the time." Even though the FBI woman was smiling at her Magda could sense the worry radiating from her. She glanced at the card in her hand. Above the phone number the card read:

SA Callie Peron

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Violent Crimes Squad

Magda felt a chill go through her when she read the last line.

"You can go back to class now, Magda." It took her a moment to realize that Mr. Reynolds was talking to her. She stood slowly and walked out of his office, her thoughts a swirling confusion. As she was closing the door to Mr. Reynolds' office she heard him speaking to the investigators.

"What do you think?" Mr. Reynolds said.

"It doesn't look good, sir," Agent Bale said.

"Is it the same person?" Mr. Reynolds asked. Magda didn't need to use her ability to hear the worry in his voice.

"It's the same pattern as the other abductions," Agent Peron said. "We won't know for certain until..."

"My god," Mr. Reynolds said.

At that moment Magda remembered the news stories that had been popping up over the past few months. High school kids were being kidnapped all across the island. There was no connection between any of the kids as far as anyone could tell. They were both boys and girls, all different ethnicities, and from different towns across the island. The only things they had in common were that they were all high school age and each of the missing teens had turned up dead. The cause of death was always the same—each of the victims had been killed by having a knife blade shoved into the base of their skulls. And once they were dead the killer had removed their eyes.

Up to now no one had disappeared in their town. If the killer had come to Mayfair Park...

Magda felt her stomach beginning to churn. She raced from the office and darted into the nearest girls' bathroom. She barely made it into a stall before she vomited up what was left of her breakfast.

* * *

At lunch Magda told her friends about her meeting in the principal's office and what she had overheard on her way out. Manny had told Amanda that Magda had something important to tell the group and she had cut her ethics class and was with them as well. When Magda finished her story they all sat around looking at each other for a long time, their lunches sitting untouched on the table. The thing they were all thinking hovered around them like a dense cloud, smothering both their appetite and mood.

"Do you think Matt is—" Danny started to ask.

"I don't know," Magda said, cutting him off quickly. She didn't like thinking about what might have happened to her friend. She took out the card the FBI woman had given her and twirled it slowly with her fingers. "I know they were worried. And they said his disappearance fit the pattern of the other kids who were kidnapped. But I don't know."

In spite of everything she had learned, some part deep down inside of her refused to accept that Matt was dead.

"What about the car?" Reed said.

"What car?" Magda asked.

Reed pointed to the card in Magda's hand. "You said the FBI woman wanted to know about anything unusual. Did you tell her about the black SS we saw in front of Matt's house?"

"I didn't think about that," Magda said. She knew about Reed's passion for cars and didn't want to hurt his feelings by dismissing him offhandedly, but she didn't really see where it had anything to do with Matt. "Anyway, it was just a car," she said finally.

"A car that nobody's ever seen around here before," Reed said. "And a car that was on the street in front of Matt's house at the same time that he went missing."

"When you say it like that it does sound kind of suspicious," Magda admitted. "But how do I tell them about the car without telling them what we were doing when we saw it?"

Reed chewed his lip for a moment. "Yeah, that could be a problem," Reed said.

Paige clamped a hand over her mouth as her eyes grew wide. "Oh my god! If it is the same guy... What he did to those other kids..." A chill ran up her spine.

"He just better not try to get any of us," James said. He paused and looked around at the others. "Maybe we should go out and look for him. We might be able to stop him before he can hurt Matt. Then we'd be heroes, _real_ heroes."

The friends looked around at each other. Some of the boys were starting to get an excited look in their eyes at the prospect of going after the killer.

"People are supposed to let the police handle things like this," Tom said slowly. He seemed to be battling against a part of himself as he spoke. "But I understand what James is saying. If the same sick-o who snatched those other kids also kidnapped Matt, well, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'd enjoy getting my hands on him." He balled his hands into fists and tapped his knuckles together, a fierce look in his eyes. "He wouldn't be snatching any more kids off the street, I can promise you that." Then he forced his fingers to unclench and lowered his hands to the table. "But we're not the police. And we're _not_ crime fighters."

"But we could do this," James insisted. "He wouldn't stand a chance against us. _No one_ would. Think about it. With what we can do we'd be able to take this threat off the streets once and for all!"

Tom studied his cousin for a moment. It was obvious that James' words were having an effect on him. In his mind he was already trying to come up with a plan for going after the kidnapper. But one thing was bothering him.

"We don't know where to start looking for him," Tom said. "This guy's been snatching kids from towns all over the island. Just because he _might_ be responsible for Matt disappearing doesn't mean that he's still around here anywhere. For all we know he could be holed up miles away from here. Even the police don't know where this guy is."

"As far as we know," James said. "It's not like they're sharing all their evidence with the news. Besides, it doesn't mean we can't do something ourselves. Matt was our friend."

"James!" Magda gasped.

"I mean, he _is_ our friend. You know what I mean."

It was quiet for several moments as they thought about what James was suggesting.

"Okay, let's say that we do go out looking for this guy," Tom said. "And let's say that by some miracle we actually do find him. What then?"

A hard look came into James' eye. "Then we—"

"We turn him over to the police," Manny said.

"After we pound the snot out of him," Danny added.

"That wouldn't make us any better than he is," Dimitri argued. "We should turn him over to the police and let the courts handle it."

"But what if he's hurt Matt? Or worse?" Paige said.

" _Then_ we beat the living crap out of him," James said, crossing his arms with a note of finality.

"So we should act like judge and jury?" Manny said. "Maybe we should just lynch him while we're at it."

"Why not?" James said defensively. "Whoever this guy is he's a real scumbag. We'd be doing society a favor."

"Really?" Tom said. "You could actually kill someone?" He knew his cousin and knew that he was mainly just blowing smoke.

"That'd be murder," Dimitri said. With his six-foot-five-inch height, long hair and beard, and tattooed left hand, Dimitri presented an intimidating presence to people who didn't know him. But inside he was a devout pacifist and the thought of intentionally hurting someone bothered him.

James looked around at his friends in disbelief. "What do you think this guy's been doing? Kids our age are being kidnapped right off the street and _murdered_! If we find the guy that's responsible I wouldn't have any problem with taking him out."

"James!" Tom hissed as he elbowed his cousin and nodded at his hand. Looking down James saw the plastic cup in his hand staring to smoke and sag. He dropped the deformed cup quickly and began blowing on his palm as his eyes darted around the cafeteria. No one seemed to have noticed.

"What about the rest of you?" James asked, wincing as he began picking bits of melted plastic out of his palm.

"I don't know if I could actually...you know...do that to anyone," Amanda said. "Maybe if we caught him in the act and needed to stop him from hurting someone. That'd be one thing. But I couldn't just kill somebody."

"I'm with Amanda on this one guys," Magda said. "I know he probably deserves it, but to actually do something to him is just wrong."

"I don't see what the problem is," Danny said. "It's no more than he deserves." For Danny, it was simple: bad people deserved to be punished.

"Maybe so," Manny said, "but are we the ones to make that decision?"

As the rest of the group debated, Paige found herself watching Reed. She could tell by the expression on his face that something was going on in his mind.

"You've been awfully quiet, Reed," Paige said to her friend when there was a brief lull.

Reed had been tracing designs in a ring of water on the table as the others talked. He stopped when he heard his name and looked up.

"To be honest, this whole discussion is a waste of time. We're not going to go looking for this guy."

"You seem pretty sure about that," Paige said. "How come?"

"Because it's too dangerous," Reed said matter-of-factly.

James laughed. "Are you kidding? If he tried to go up against the group of us we'd mop up the street with him."

"Exactly. That's why he wouldn't take on the group of us. Look, if it is the same guy, he's been kidnapping kids for months, and he's been doing it one at a time. The group of us would be too much for him to handle, even without our abilities. Besides that, Tom is right. We don't even know how to start looking for him. He could be anywhere. The only way to bring him out into the open would be for us to go around by ourselves, to make ourselves targets. But that would be pretty stupid. In spite of what James thinks, any one of us by ourselves can be taken down." James started to object but Reed cut him off. "If he came up behind you and hit you in the head you'd be out cold before you could do a thing, and you know it."

James grumbled under his breath but didn't argue the point. The mood in the others seemed to deflate after Reed finished talking. He was right. They each sank back in their chairs and stared at the table top.

"I will say one thing," Reed said. He paused, looked around at his friends and caught each of their eyes. "If we ever do come across this guy, I wouldn't have a problem with seeing that he never turned up again." There was a hard finality in his words that hung in the air around them. Without saying anything else he stood and picked up his tray.

### Chapter Eight

Dimitri had to work later than he planned to at the supermarket the next day. He had a part time job at the local Grocery Barn where he unloaded pallets and stocked shelves. Usually he worked after dinner for a couple of hours every night. This Tuesday however, one of his co-workers called in sick. That meant he had that much more to do before he could go home. So instead of being done by eight, tonight he ended up staying until ten-thirty. His paycheck for the week would be fatter, but at the moment that was little consolation when he would rather be relaxing in his room.

On top of everything else he was going to have to walk home. His car had broken down unexpectedly that evening. It had been running fine that afternoon but for some reason it wouldn't start for him after dinner. Reed said he would take a look at it for him tomorrow but that still left him with no ride home. His older sister had been able to give him a ride to the store, but she was at her job out in Suffolk County now and her shift wouldn't end until well after midnight. His younger sister didn't drive and his parents were out of town. They would be gone for a couple of days and had taken the other car with them. That left Dimitri with walking as his only choice.

After punching out, Dimitri turned off the lights in the storage room and headed for the main doors. He passed the store manager on his way out and nodded briefly. His boss grunted in return and went back to inspecting the shelves. He always checked behind Dimiti to be sure he had stocked the aisles correctly. As usual he couldn't find anything to complain about, however he did make a point of straightening a few cans just as Dimitri walked past. Dimitri pretended not to notice. Instead of thanking him for staying longer than usual to do the work of two people, the manager had been riding him all evening for taking too long. That was typical of the man and Dimitri had learned to ignore him a long time ago. The truth was that Dimitri was one of his best workers and he knew it.

The main doors slid open as he moved within range of the sensor and Dimitri stepped out into the night. Zipping his hoodie against the night chill, he started off. Normally he would have plugged his ear-buds into his phone and listened to music while he walked but tonight he wasn't in the mood. Matt hadn't shown up for school again today and Dimitri and his friends were really worried. He could only imagine what Matt's family was going through.

It was quiet as he made his way home. Most people were already in for the night and there were few cars on the streets. In many of the houses he passed he could see the telltale blue flicker of televisions. The rest were already dark as people turned in to be ready for the following morning.

Dimitri sighed and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. It had been a long day and he couldn't wait to get home. He trudged on for a while letting his mind wander. After several minutes he looked up. The section of Woodfield Road that he was walking along had remained largely unchanged for decades. Saplings which had been planted along the street in the 1950s had grown into mature trees, their branches stretching across the road in many places to create a dense canopy.

As he looked along the street something struck him as odd. Several streetlights were out up ahead. With all of the leaf cover blocking out the moonlight, the stretch of road he was coming into was very dark. He'd gone nearly halfway into the dark section when he saw someone step onto the sidewalk ahead of him. He could tell that it was a man, but that was all. In the darkness the person was only a silhouette. As soon as he saw him Dimitri felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something was wrong. He stopped and stared at the stranger who seemed to be watching him. Dimitri started to turn around but sensed someone coming up behind him. He hadn't passed anyone on the sidewalk and he had no idea where the second person had come from.

He glanced back and saw that a second man was indeed behind him. That man was holding one of his hands in an odd position and it suddenly struck Dimitri that he had something in his hand. A gun! Even though he couldn't actually see it in the dark he had no doubt that the man was armed.

Then the man in front of him started walking toward him.

"Demetrios Apostolos," the man said. The stranger's voice was soft but full of menace. "You will come with us."

"What do you want?" Dimitri demanded. He felt his pulse beginning to race.

"No questions. You will come with us or we'll shoot you."

There was no compromise in that voice. Dimitri had no doubt that the man would do exactly as he said. He started looking around desperately. The section of street they were in was so dark that he doubted anyone could see what was happening even if they were looking out their window. Dimitri's eyes darted around the street looking for—there! The house across the street was dark, its yard cloaked in shadow. As the men closed in on him Dimitri focused on that yard and disappeared.

He popped behind the thick trunk of a tree in the darkened yard. Crouching in the shadows he peered around the tree and watched as the men who had been stalking him charged the spot where he had been standing moments before. He couldn't hear them talking but he could tell by their frantic movements that his sudden disappearance had surprised them. As they began searching the area where they had last seen him, Dimitri decided it was time for him to leave.

Looking further down the road he picked another dark yard and popped from where he was to a new concealed place behind some low hedges. He continued jumping from yard to yard always keeping himself hidden until he had made it all the way home. By the time he reached his own yard he was panting with exhaustion but the strangers were nowhere in sight. As he crouched behind the shed in his backyard Dimitri looked up toward his bedroom window on the second floor. Although the window was open the light was off and he couldn't see inside. He thought about making a dash for the back door but didn't want to leave his hiding place and step out into the open. He would have to teleport. Although he was more tired than he could ever remember having felt before he thought he had enough strength left for one last jump.

For a moment he worried that he might not be able to make it. He would have to jump into a space he couldn't see. But the encounter with the strangers was making him freak out and he didn't want to risk moving in the open. He focused on the window as he knelt gulping air and trying to get some of his strength back. He took several deep breaths, readied himself, and disappeared.

He reappeared in the middle of his room, relieved that he had been able to form a clear picture of his destination so he knew exactly where he was going. Weariness overtook him then and he collapsed onto his bed, his limbs twitching with fatigue. He lay panting for a while as his heart hammered in his chest. He had made it. He was safe!

He lay on his bed for a long time while his strength gradually returned. As he replayed the incident in his mind he kept coming back to one thought.

The stranger had called him by name.

* * *

The following day the group met at the clubhouse after school. Over the past few days they had started moving things into the building to make it into a more friendly space. A number of mismatched, battered chairs were arranged around a rickety card table that had been set up by the shuttered window. Someone had found a dented mini fridge and someone else had brought in a scratched up microwave oven. In spite of their appearance both machines worked, although neither was being used at the moment since no one had brought anything to eat.

At the back of the building a large section of the workbench was strewn with assorted monitors and other pieces of computer equipment. Much to his mother's relief, Danny had cleared the old computers he had been working on out of his room. Most of the machines were little more than exposed circuitry racks without covers, but all of it worked and most of it had been enhanced and upgraded until it ran even better than it had originally.

"Isn't that from my dad's old computer?" Paige said, pointing at the old fashioned, boxy monitor Danny was working on.

"Yup," Danny said as he stepped back and checked his handiwork. They were setting up to Skype with Paige's sister at school. He had attached an old fashioned ball camera to the top of the monitor. On another screen next to that monitor he could see the image of himself that the camera was transmitting. He reached out and adjusted the camera slightly until he was satisfied that it was centered properly. Once that was done he started typing on a keyboard.

At lunch that day Dimitri had told them about the attempt to kidnap him. Everyone had been stunned by his story. Not only had two armed men tried to ambush him, they had somehow known exactly who he was. As soon as Paige had heard his story she texted Shay. She was worried about her sister being all alone more than an hour away at school. Shay sent back that she would be in classes all day but would be free in the afternoon. They had gathered at the clubhouse to update her on what was happening.

"Okay, everything's all set," Danny said. He hit the enter key and waited. It was only a few moments before Shay's image appeared on the screen. The group crowded around the monitor.

"Shay, thank goodness! Are you alright?" Paige asked.

"Of course I'm okay. What did you expect? Wait, are all of you there?"

"Yeah, we're at the clubhouse. Danny set up some of his computers for us."

"Cool. So what did you want to talk to me about?"

Paige quickly told her sister about the attempt to kidnap Dimitri. As she spoke she watched her sister's expression slowly change from curiosity to one of shock. When Paige finished talking Shay's eyes sought out Dimitri.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

Dimitri smiled self-consciously. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was gone before they even got close to me."

"You should go to the police," Shay said.

"I thought about it but I'm not sure how to explain how I got away from a couple of men with guns." He glanced at Magda. "But I'm not the only one with news. Magda got questioned by the FBI on Monday."

Shay's eyes went wide.

"They wanted to know about Matt," Magda said as she stepped to the front. She took a breath and launched into a brief recounting of her story.

"Wow, I go away for a couple of days and everything goes to pieces," Shay said, drawing a slight smile from Magda. An awkward silence hung in the air for the next few moments. When it became obvious that no one was going to broach the topic that was on everyone's mind, Shay decided on the direct approach.

"Do you think the serial killer got Matt?"

Magda winced, then said, "I don't know." In spite of her initial reaction Magda was actually relieved to be talking openly about what had been bothering her. "But the FBI agents were really worried. I'm scared, Shay."

"They haven't found his body," Shay pointed out.

"I know, but it's really scary not knowing."

"I understand," Shay said. Another awkward silence hung between them for several moments. Then Shay said, "Well, I have something to share with you guys, too. After everything that happened over the weekend I got to thinking: why us? How come we have these special abilities? I mean, if you think about it, none of us have anything in common. Before this weekend I thought it was only me and Paige, something to do with our family. But now I don't know. We're all from different backgrounds. It doesn't make any sense.

"Then I started thinking that maybe we aren't the only ones. Maybe we're just the only ones we know about. So in my spare time I started doing an Internet search. If there is anyone else like us out there I should be able to find _something_ online. But I couldn't find anything. There's all this crap about alien abductions and government conspiracies but nothing about people with powers like us."

"Maybe they're keeping quiet," Amanda said. "We're not exactly running around telling everybody that we have special powers. And most of us have known we were different for years."

"I thought about that, but that doesn't seem likely. I mean, with all the smart phones around nowadays, if there are more people like us out there, somebody should have gotten something on camera and posted it. People are recording all kinds of weird things and posting it on YouTube, but there's nothing about people with powers like we have."

"What if we are the only ones?" Magda said.

"Okay, let's say that's true," Shay said. "We're still stuck with the same question: why us? Out of everybody in the entire world, why are we the only ones with these powers? We're not related so there has to be some other factor we all share that we haven't thought about yet. The only thing I can think of is that we all live in the same town. Is there something here that's affected us? But if that's the connection, why are we the only ones? It doesn't make any sense. We need to focus on trying to figure out what that connection between us all is."

"There goes Ms. Scientist," Paige said, rolling her eyes.

"Can I help it if I happen to have a logical mind?" Shay snapped defensively. "At least I'm thinking."

"Oh, and I don't think things through, is that it?" Paige shot back.

"You should come home!" Dimitri blurted out before the two sisters got into it.

Shay paused and looked in his direction. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, Dimitri," she said.

Dimitri glanced around self consciously for a moment, as if he were surprised that anyone had heard him. He cleared his throat. "Well, it's just that I don't think it's safe for you to be out there by yourself. You should come home." As he spoke, Dimitri actually started blushing.

Shay's expression softened. "Oh, thank you, Dimitri. I appreciate you worrying about me but I've got finals this week. I'll be okay until the weekend."

Dimitri didn't seem convinced but nodded in response.

"In the meantime," Tom said, "the rest of us have decided not to go out alone. Something weird is going on. Until we know more about those two guys who tried to grab Tree, we're going around in pairs."

"That's probably a good idea," Shay said. "I'll make sure I'm always with other people, too. I think you're right about something funny going on. I wouldn't be surprised if those two men had something to do with Matt disappearing."

"Well _I_ still think we need to go out and find these guys," James said. "It was bad enough when it was just a lone whack-o, but now that it's two guys with guns we need to take the fight to them."

Tom turned to his cousin. "We've already been over this. We're not going around looking for these guys. Especially now that we know they're armed."

James narrowed his eyes. "You know, I don't remember anyone electing you the leader."

"What are you saying? Do you want to be in charge?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Well, that's not gonna happen. And we're not going around looking for those guys, either."

"Well we have to do _something_!" James complained as he began gesturing in the air. "We're not going to the police. We're not going out looking for these guys. As far as I can see all we are doing is sitting on our butts!" He pointed at Tom. "You might be fine with standing around doing nothing, but not me." James spun around and stormed toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Tom called after him.

"Home!" A moment later the door banged closed behind him.

"Don't you think we should go after him?" Amanda said.

"No. When he gets wound up like this it's best to just let him go," Tom said. "He's parked nearby and it's still light out. I'll call him later after he's had a chance to cool off."

"He may have a point," Shay said.

Tom looked at the monitor. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if these guys are the ones going around kidnapping kids maybe we should be taking a more active stance."

"We talked about that," Tom said. "The problem is we don't know anything about them. Tree didn't see their faces so we don't even know what they look like."

"True, but there is a lot we do know," Shay said. "First, we know they're working as a team and that they're strangers. Then there's that black car Reed saw. It might have something to do with them."

Tom thought about it and slowly nodded. "Yeah, you could be right. But don't you think it's dangerous for us to go looking for these guys?"

"I'm not saying you should go looking for them," Shay said, "but you guys might want to keep your eyes open for two strange men in a black car."

Tom nodded again. "Yeah. Good idea. We can do that." He turned to the rest of the group. "Let's keep an eye out for them—two strangers in a black car. If you can, take pictures of anyone who fits that description."

"And if we get the plate number," Danny said with an edge of excitement in his voice, "I can run a check through the DMV database."

"You can do that?" Shay said.

Danny grinned. "If it's on the Internet I can get into it."

"Okay then," Tom said, "we still need to make sure we have someone else with us whenever we go out but we're also going to be keeping our eyes open for these guys. With any luck we can spot them before they have a chance to grab anyone else."

* * *

James had calmed down by the time he reached his car. In the back of his mind he knew that going after a pair of armed men was foolish, but he was frustrated by not being able to do anything. Whoever they were they had threatened Dimitri. If it hadn't been for his ability to teleport, god knows what they would have done to him. That's what scared him the most, not knowing what they wanted.

James suppressed a shudder as he started his car and headed home. After he got there he'd call Tom and tell him that he was right. They shouldn't go looking for these guys. It was too dangerous. He shouldn't have blown up at his cousin like that but it bothered him that they weren't doing anything to protect themselves. There had to be something they could do. He hated this feeling of helplessness.

As he tried to come up with some plan of action James put his conscious mind on autopilot, following the route home through the familiar streets without really paying attention. He had just pulled away from a stop sign at one of the cross roads on Coolidge Street, when he caught a sudden movement from the corner of his eye. A car was racing right at him. He immediately twisted his wheel to the right and narrowly avoided being broadsided. He stomped on the brakes and managed to stop his car just before the front tires ran up onto the sidewalk.

Once his car had stopped he sat there stunned for a moment. The idiot had almost t-boned him. Throwing his door open, James jumped out to confront the careless driver. The other car had pulled up on the side of the road but he couldn't see who was inside because the windows were darkly tinted.

"Are you crazy?" he shouted at the idling car. "That's a stop sign, not a slow down if you feel like it sign!"

As he approached the car both front doors opened. Two men in dark suits got out and started toward him. As they approached they reached inside their jackets and pulled out pistols which they aimed at him.

For a split second his mind froze as he realized that he was being confronted by the very men he had been so anxious to go looking for. He felt a cold lump settle in the pit of his stomach as he looked down the barrels of their guns. The reality of the situation wasn't as exciting as he'd imagined it would be.

"James Caruso. You will come with us," the man closest to him said.

The sound of the man's voice snapped James out of his dazed state. They weren't going to take him without a fight. He concentrated on the man's gun. A moment later the stranger yelped and dropped his weapon as he began fanning his burned hand in the air. The second man hesitated briefly and glanced at his partner. Then James turned his attention to the man's feet. Suddenly the man stopped waving his hand and began howling. He started hopping frantically on one foot as smoke curled up from his other shoe. Giving someone a hot-foot was a new trick James had thought up after their football game. As the first man dropped to the ground and began madly clawing at his laces, James turned his attention to the other man.

James met the eyes of the second stranger who was glaring at him. Before he could focus on a target James heard a pop and saw a flash from the muzzle of the man's gun. At the same moment he felt something strike him in the stomach. A sudden weakness overcame him and he collapsed to his knees. Surprisingly it didn't hurt. In fact, a feeling of numbness was spreading through his entire middle. As his vision darkened and he felt himself falling onto his side, he wondered what his parents would do when the police found his body.

* * *

Paige opened the lift gate to the jeep and helped Magda load the groceries into the back of the car. After the meeting was over, she and Magda had decided to swing by Grocery Barn and pick up some things for the clubhouse. The boys had done a good job coming up with the microwave and mini-fridge, but it was up to the girls to see that they actually had something to eat. A case of bottled water, some microwave popcorn and a few packs of Hot Pockets would be a good start.

Once they had loaded the car they got in and headed back to the clubhouse. It was late enough in the afternoon that the service roads in the woods would be empty and they could drive right up to the clubhouse to unload the supplies.

They had only gone a few blocks when Paige began to notice that the steering was pulling to one side.

"Something's wrong," Paige said as she struggled with the wheel. "I need to stop."

Turning onto the first side street they came to she pulled the car over. They both got out and walked around the car to look for the problem. When they came to the front passenger side they saw that the tire was flat.

"Well, this sucks," Paige said. "There's a spare in back, but I've never had to change a tire before."

Magda shrugged. "I'll give you a hand. How hard can it be?"

They went to the back of the car and opened the lift-gate. The girls had to shift their purchases over to get at the spare which was mounted inside the rear cargo area. Paige pulled the cover off of the spare. The tire was tightly fastened to a bracket on one side of the cargo area.

"Well, there's the tire," Magda said, "but I don't see a jack."

"It's under the back seat," Paige said. "My dad showed me where everything was, just in case. We're going to need the wrench to loosen the nuts holding the spare to the bracket. Come on."

They moved to the back door and Paige was just reaching for the handle when a car pulled up behind them. The car glided up so quietly that they barely heard the sound of its motor. Only the sound of its tires crunching through loose gravel in the gutter told her of its approach. Paige was suddenly relieved. Some Good Samaritan had seen that they were having car trouble and pulled over to give them a hand. While Magda leaned inside to lift the back seat, Paige glanced up at the car behind them and froze. She didn't have Reed's eye for cars but the black sedan that had just pulled up behind them looked an awful lot like the car that had been on the street near Matt's house. As Paige felt her heartbeat shift into high gear Magda snapped her head in her direction.

"What's wrong?" Magda asked, sensing her rising fear.

"It's them," Paige whispered.

Magda's eyes grew wide. She slowly straightened and turned to look at the car. All four car doors opened and four men in dark suits stepped out of the car. They came toward the girls slowly.

"They're afraid...of _us_!" Magda said as she sensed the feelings emanating from the strangers. "Look out—"

As Magda shouted her warning Paige threw herself into a backward handspring. Before she was even consciously aware of what was happening her instincts took over. She sensed something zip past her and heard a ping as it ricocheted off the edge of the open car door. When she landed on her feet Paige paused and glanced at the men. From this angle she could see that the men in front had positioned themselves to conceal the two in back who had drawn pistols and were aiming in their direction.

"Magda, we need to—"

Before she could finish her sentence Paige saw Magda start to sag. She watched in horror as her friend collapsed bonelessly to the ground, sprawling face down in the gutter. Before she could fully process what was happening her reflexes took over once more. She dove aside as two more shots ricocheted off the sidewalk around her.

Then something inside her changed. It was like a switch had been thrown in her brain. All of her senses suddenly snapped into high resolution. Her sight, hearing, smell, touch, all of her senses were suddenly more acute than she had ever experienced before in her life. Time seemed to slow. The men leaned forward and seemed to be hurrying toward her, but it was like they were moving through gelatin. She watched as they each brought up their guns and aimed at her. Even as they fired at her Paige sprang toward the car, placing herself behind the open car door. Two of the shots bounced off the sidewalk while two others were stopped by the open door. In her heightened state of awareness Paige was surprised to realize that she could actually see the projectiles as small blurs speeding through the air toward her.

As her attackers shot at her again she leapt up and dove across the hood of the car. Three of the shots flashed past her while one ricocheted from the car's fender. A moment later she tumbled to the ground on the far side of the car. As she rolled to her feet she spun around and sprinted toward the back of the car—it was time to go on the offensive.

Just as she reached the back corner of the car she saw the first of her attackers coming into view. The first thing she saw was the pistol he was holding out in front of him. She moved by instinct, grabbing the man's hand and pulling him into a tight arc around her body. Before the man knew what was happening she slammed him face first into the side of the car. She heard the satisfying crunch of his nose breaking as he impacted the rear window. One down.

The second man had been more cautious. He kept himself away from the car as he lunged into the street so that when he emerged from behind the car he had a good angle on her. But as his finger tightened on the trigger Paige spun away. She felt a slight tug on her shirt as the shot tore through the space she had been occupying a moment earlier, then she was on him. With a swipe of her arm she pushed his gun hand down and out of the way as she brought her knee up into his groin. She was rewarded with a heavy grunt as he screwed his eyes closed and sank to the street. She left him on his knees retching up his most recent meal and dove toward the sidewalk. Using just her hearing she had tracked the two remaining men as they hurried to the far side of the car where they were crouching in what they probably thought was a safe position. She was going to show them they were wrong.

She rolled to her feet and started to lunge at them when she pulled herself up short. One of the men had pulled Magda's limp form into his lap and was holding a gun pressed to her temple. Paige had never seen a real gun before today, but she immediately realized that the weapon the man was now holding to her friend's head was different. The ones they had been shooting at her with had long barrels and narrow bodies, whereas the one he had now was shorter and heavier. It had the look of a killing tool.

"Stop where you are or I'll blow her brains all over the side of your car!"

Paige locked eyes with the man and saw that he meant it.

"You already shot her," Paige hissed.

"That was a tranquilizer. She's just sleeping. But this is a nine millimeter. You really don't want to see what it'll do to her head if you make me use it."

Paige focused on her friend and realized for the first time that Magda was in fact still breathing. Now that she knew Magda wasn't seriously hurt she felt the frenzied sensation begin to fade away. Looking up she saw that the last man had taken a position behind the open jeep door and was holding his gun trained on her.

Paige raised her hands. "What do you want?"

The man sitting with Magda slid himself out from under her and stood up as he trained his gun on her.

"Quite the little wildcat, aren't you?" he said as he stepped up to her.

Paige stood silently fuming as the man cautiously walked over to her. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a second gun, the one he said was a tranquilizer gun. Holding the nine millimeter aimed directly at her head he pressed the barrel of the other gun to her ribs.

"What do you want?" Paige demanded.

"Not us," the man said. We're just the hired help."

Before she could ask him what he meant she heard the muffled pop of the gun against her side. For an instant there was a sharp pain in her ribs, then a sensation of numbness began to spread through her body. Darkness quickly closed in around her as she saw the ground rushing up toward her.

### Chapter Nine

The next day at school, Tom rushed to the lunchroom as soon as his fifth period class let out. He ignored the food line and looked around for his friends. After a moment he saw Reed and Danny sitting at a table in the corner. He hurried over to them and threw himself down into a chair.

"James didn't go home last night!" he told them.

"Where did he go?" Danny asked.

"I don't know," Tom said, visibly agitated. "His mom called me this morning looking for him. He does that sometimes, stays to our house and forgets to tell his parents. He's got a key so he just crashes there whenever he doesn't feel like going home. That's what she figured he did last night."

"What did you tell her?" Reed asked.

"I told her that he spent the night in the spare room in our basement. That way it wouldn't be strange that my parents hadn't actually seen him."

"But he's not in your basement," Reed said.

"No. And his car's not in front of our house either. I have no idea what happened to him." Tom ran his fingers through his hair briefly and tried to calm down. "And that's not all. Nobody's seen Magda or Paige all day either."

"I can help with that," Danny said. "I was talking to my mom earlier and she said that both of them called out sick." Danny's mother worked in the main office.

Tom seemed to relax at that news. "Well that's something," he said, then paused, frowning as his mind raced. "Doesn't it seem a little weird that both of them would call out sick on the same day like that? We were with them yesterday after school and they both seemed fine. And with James missing..."

The three of them looked at each other. After a moment Reed pulled out his phone and started typing.

"I'll text Paige's mom and see if she knows anything," Reed said as his fingers slid madly across the small screen.

"Don't scare her," Tom warned. "If something's going on we don't want to upset her."

Reed smirked. "It's me. I know how to do subtle." A moment later he finished typing and set the phone down. "If she's not too busy I should hear back from her in a couple of minutes."

"Hey guys. What's up?" Dimitri set his tray down and joined them. Tom quickly filled him in on what was happening, then repeated everything again when Manny sat down a few moments later.

As soon as he finished his story for the second time Reed's phone chimed. He snatched it up and quickly scrolled through the message Paige's mother had texted to him. As he read it his face dropped.

"We've got a problem," Reed said. "Mrs. Stone said that Paige is spending a couple of nights at Magda's house so they can finish up the economics project they're working on."

Manny frowned. "I thought they already turned in their project."

"They did," Tom said.

"I don't get it," Danny said. "Why would Paige tell her mom she was at Magda's house then call out sick from school?"

"I don't think she did," Reed said. "Paige's mom said Paige texted her. They never actually spoke. Anybody could have sent that message."

"It's them," Danny said.

"We don't know that for certain," Manny said, trying to be optimistic.

"What other explanation is there?" Tom asked. He couldn't keep an edge of fear out of his voice.

For several long moments no one could think of anything to say. Then Reed turned to Manny. "Doesn't Amanda know Magda's parents?"

"Yeah, she does," Manny said. He pulled out his phone and started typing. "She's in class now but she'll have lunch next period. I'll let her know what's happening and ask her to text Magda's mom as soon as she can."

Tom was rubbing his hands together as he fought to contain his anxiety. "This isn't good. They've got all three of them."

"Hey, let's not borrow trouble," Manny said, as much to help Tom keep calm as to keep calm himself. "Let's wait until Amanda talks to Magda's mom. For all we know Paige did go to Magda's and they're just bagging school today."

"Do you really believe that?" Tom said.

"No," Manny admitted. "But let's not panic until we have a reason to panic."

"Fair enough," Tom said. "School will be over in a couple more periods. Let's all meet in the parking lot after last period and Amanda can tell us what she learned."

* * *

When school let out the group of friends met in the student lot. Amanda had reached out to Magda's mother during her lunch period and had gotten the same story Reed had gotten from Mrs. Stone, except that as far as Magda's mom knew, both girls were spending the next couple of nights at Paige's house.

"Is it time to panic yet?" Danny asked.

"We need to do something," Tom said immediately, his voice calm and sure. "I've been giving a lot of thought to this since lunch and we need to go looking for them."

"Yeah, but where do we start?" Manny said. "We don't have anything to go on."

"I was thinking about what Shay said yesterday," Tom began. Now that he had decided on a course of action, he surprised himself by realizing that his fear had largely been pushed aside. "Every time we said what we _didn't_ know, Shay pointed out what we _did_ know. That's how we have to go about this. We may not know what happened to James and the girls but we know where they were going. We'll start there."

He turned to Amanda. "You and Magda both have part time jobs at Tags. If I remember right, Magda was supposed to work last night. You and Manny check at the store to see if she ever showed up for her shift. That'll help us narrow down the time that she went missing. We also know that she and Paige were going to stop by Grocery Barn to pick up some things for the clubhouse. Dimitri and I will check that out to see if anyone remembers seeing them. That will tell us if they went missing right after we all left the clubhouse or if it happened later than that.

"That just leaves James," Tom said, turning to Danny and Reed. "We know James parked his car at the end of Willow Street yesterday when we went to the clubhouse. I parked right behind him and his car was gone when I came out of the woods a few minutes after he left. Since there are only so many ways he would go home from there it shouldn't take long for you guys to check out the streets between the woods and his house. Whatever happened to him had to have happened somewhere along that route. You guys search the streets and see if you can find some trace of what happened to him."

"What do you want us to look for?" Danny asked.

"His car," Tom said. "We know the car never made it back to his house or my house. I'll bet that if those guys did grab him, they left the car right where they grabbed him. If you find it you might also find some clue about what happened to him."

Tom glanced at Dimitri and saw a troubled look on his friend's face. "What's wrong?"

"What about Shay?" Dimitri said, concern clearly evident in his voice.

"Shay is fine for now," Tom said. He knew how Dimitri felt about Shay and silently berated himself for not realizing that he would be worried about her. "Reed texted her earlier," he went on, explaining. "She's got classes all day and a lab final this afternoon. We didn't tell her about her sister yet so she wouldn't worry. We can tell her what's going on after we know more."

Dimitri shook his head. "That's not what I mean. If these guys are coming after us then Shay is in danger, too." He looked directly in Tom's eyes, his expression set in a look of stubborn determination. "It's too dangerous for her to be out there by herself. I'm going to go get her."

Danny clapped him on the shoulder. "You mean _we're_ going to go get her."

Tom didn't even consider arguing with them. "Okay, new plan. You guys go get Shay from school. Reed and I can check out the supermarket then we'll search for James' car. Everybody keep in touch. We'll all meet up at the clubhouse later."

* * *

One of the cashiers at the Grocery Barn remembered seeing Paige and Magda the day before. She placed them there in the early evening, just after the time they left the clubhouse. After thanking the cashier Tom and Reed hurried out to the parking lot.

Now that they knew the girls had made it to the store, they decided to try and retrace the girls' steps. Since they had bought stuff for the clubhouse, their next step would have been to bring everything back there.

"We'll drive back toward the clubhouse and keep our eyes open for any sign of them," Tom said as he put the car in gear and headed out of the parking lot. He paused briefly at the lot entrance, then made a left onto Woodfield Road, heading them toward the park. He made himself drive slowly so they could check the nearby streets for any sign of their car. They had gone only a few blocks when Reed suddenly pointed down a side street.

"That's Paige's jeep!"

Tom made a quick turn into the street and pulled up behind the red Cherokee. Even before they stopped they could see the college sticker in the back window bearing the name of Paige's sister's school. The boys jumped out of Tom's car and hurried to examine the jeep.

"The groceries are still in the back," Tom said as he looked into the cargo area.

Reed noticed that the jeep was leaning to one side and walked toward the front to examine the flat. Squatting down he ran his fingers along the tire.

"Come take a look at this," Reed called.

Tom hurried to join him. "A flat. So we know why they pulled over." Tom paused and looked up and down the street. "But this doesn't make any sense. They could have called any one of us for a ride. Hell, they could have walked home from here."

"I think they were trying to change the tire," Reed said, looking up at Tom. "The spare in the back's been uncovered and the rear seat's been pulled up to get at the jack. But this is what I wanted you to take a look at." Reed pointed at a spot on the side of the tire.

Tom squatted down beside him and looked where Reed was pointing. The head of a screw was sticking out of the side of the tire.

"Okay," Tom said, not quite following what Reed was getting at. "So they picked up a screw. That's what gave them the flat."

"But it's in the sidewall," Reed explained. "If you run over something in the street it gets stuck in the tread, not in the sidewall. Someone put it there."

A hard look came into Tom's eyes. "You mean someone gave them a flat on purpose."

"Exactly. They probably did it when the girls were in the store. That way there would only be a slow leak at first. But once they started driving, the tire would go flat—"

"After they were away from the parking lot," Tom finished his thought.

"And any witnesses," Reed added.

Tom stood again and started looking around. Something glinting in the gutter drew his attention. As he bent down to pick it up the bottom dropped out of his stomach. It was Magda's necklace.

"I gave this to Magda for her sixteenth birthday," Tom said through a lump in his throat. Reed walked over to him and looked at the broken necklace in his hand.

Tom looked at Reed and saw his own worry mirrored there. "They took them, Reed. They got James and both of the girls." Tom curled his fingers around the small pendant with her name inscribed on it. "So help me," he said through clenched teeth, "when we find these guys, I'm going to—"

Tom heard the car pulling up behind him at the same moment that he noticed Reed look past his shoulder.

"I think you're going to get your wish," Reed said, his mouth suddenly dry.

Tom spun around in time to see the black sedan come to a stop behind his car. As all four doors opened and several dark suited men climbed out, Tom shook his fist at them.

"What did you do with my friends?" he demanded.

The men ignored him. They walked slowly toward the two boys and reached inside their jackets.

"Reed Braun and Thomas Gallo, you will come with us," one of the men said.

"You wish," Tom said. Tipping his head down, he started toward them, eyes glaring.

The men hesitated, then brought up their weapons. As soon as he saw the guns Reed dove behind the front of the Jeep. He was scrambling to tuck himself into a compact ball when Reed heard a pop come from the far side of the car. He cautiously crept to the edge of the car and peered around the fender. Tom had come to a stop and was holding one hand pressed to his stomach. The man directly in front of Tom stood holding his gun extended toward him.

"You shot me!" he said, sounding surprised. He stood swaying on his feet for a moment, then took one hesitant step, and then another toward the strangers. The men seemed amazed that he was still coming. As he advanced on them, another man took aim at him and fired. Reed felt his heart jump into his throat as Tom staggered from the impact of the shot, stopped, and dropped to one knee. He stayed there for a moment, breathing deeply and shaking his head to clear it. Then he looked up at the men and pushed himself back to his feet.

"Is that all you've got?" he snarled.

The men looked at each other and started backing away from him. Three of them took aim and fired at Tom again while the fourth man dove back into their car. This time Tom barely hesitated as the shots struck him.

He stormed up to the nearest man who threw down his tranquilizer pistol and was frantically reaching into his jacket for his back up weapon. Tom grabbed the man's wrist as he tried to draw his weapon and squeezed while the last two strangers fled around the back end of the car.

"What did you do with my friends?" Tom growled through clenched teeth. As he increased the pressure, the man let go of his gun and started screaming. After a moment the crack of breaking bones sounded in the street as he crushed the man's wrist. The man's screams rose in pitch as Tom continued to apply pressure, grinding the jagged ends of the broken bones together before the man finally passed out from the pain. Then a movement off to his right drew Tom's attention. The man who had jumped into the car was climbing out of the far side, only this time he was armed with a shotgun.

Tom placed one foot against the side of the black sedan and pushed. Tires squealed as the car slid sideways into the street, knocking back the man with the shotgun before he could bring the weapon to his shoulder.

"Reed," Tom called as he tossed aside the unconscious man whose wrist he had broken. "I could use a little help."

"You seem to be doing okay all by yourself," Reed's voice answered from the front of Paige's jeep.

" _Reed_!"

"I'm working on it! Just keep them busy for another minute."

Looking into the street Tom saw the man he had hit with the car crawling toward the shotgun which had gone flying out of his hands. Tom ran around the front of the car as the man grabbed the weapon tried to swing it toward him. Tom grabbed the barrel of the gun with one hand, keeping it pointed away from him. Then, taking the barrel in both hands, he bent the gun, folding it back on itself and making the weapon useless.

When he saw what Tom had done, the man dropped the shotgun, scrambled to his feet and darted away as quickly as he could. He drew his back-up weapon and joined his partners who were standing with their guns trained on Tom. The guns they were pointing at him now definitely did not look like the tranquilizer guns they had fired at him before.

"Reed, I could really use some help about now," Tom said as he faced the strangers.

"Just another couple of seconds," Reed answered.

For several moments both sides stood facing each other, locked in a stalemate. Tom knew he could cover the distance to the men in seconds but not before they were able to open fire on him. He wasn't sure how much injury his body could handle and wasn't anxious to find out. The men on the other hand had seen what Tom could do and were not certain that they could stop him even with their weapons.

"Hey Tom," Reed called suddenly. "Remember the football game back at the clubhouse?"

"What has that got to do with—"

"When I say jump I need you to... _JUMP_!"

A car suddenly appeared at the end of the block. It screamed around the corner, back end fishtailing, and sped directly at the three strangers who had arranged themselves in a tight line across the street. As soon as Tom saw the car appear he sprang into the air. Before the men could react, the car slammed into the strangers, scattering them like bowling pins and sped through the spot where Tom had been standing a moment earlier. With a loud crash it plowed into a nearby phone pole.

Tom's jump had arced him through the air and over the top of the black sedan, landing him on the sidewalk near the jeep. As soon as he touched down Tom looked back at the scene in the street. The men lay scattered across the street like broken dolls while a yellow Camaro with black racing stripes was smashed up against the base of a phone pole, its front end folded in like an accordion.

Reed stood up from behind Paige's jeep and stepped over to Tom.

"Isn't that—" Tom started to say as he pointed at the Camaro.

"Yup," Reed said with a satisfied smile. "Let _him_ explain it to his parents. But right now, we need to get out of here."

They climbed into Tom's SUV and sped away as a siren sounded in the distance.

* * *

Manny pulled his car into a parking spot in the little shopping center where Tags was located and shut off the engine. Tags was a local clothing store that specialized in teen fashions. It was popular with a lot of the local high school kids because of its affordable prices. As Manny and Amanda climbed out of the car they could see that there was already a small crowd of shoppers inside.

"I see Katie at the register," Amanda said as they walked toward the entrance. Katie was the store manager. "She'll know if Magda was here for her shift yesterday or not."

Manny paused and looked around the parking lot as he held the door for his girlfriend, making sure that no one was following them. When he didn't see anyone suspicious he let the door close and followed Amanda into the store.

"Hey, Katie," Amanda said as she stepped up beside the cashier counter. There were several customers on line and Katie was alone at the register.

"Hey, Amanda," Katie said without looking up from what she was doing. "I don't suppose you're interested in picking up a couple of extra hours?" Katie asked in an exasperated tone. "I'm all alone and I could really use another pair of hands," She was frowning as she tried to remove the security tag from a blouse but the button stubbornly refused to come loose.

"I'm sorry but I can't stay," Amanda said. "I was just wondering if you could tell me whether Magda worked her shift yesterday or not."

Sucking air through her teeth, Katie pulled the device she was trying to use away from the blouse and brought it close to her face to examine it. "As a matter fact she didn't. She didn't show up today, either, which is why I'm short-handed. When you see your friend, tell her that she'd better have a good reason for skipping out on me or she's going to be out of a job." Katie picked up a tiny screwdriver and started poking at the device.

"I'll tell her, but I'm sure she had a good reason," Amanda said as she shot Manny a concerned look. Now they knew that whatever had happened to Magda had taken place before she was supposed to start her shift yesterday.

"Normally I only let people slide one time," Katie said as she continued probing at the device in her hand, "but you and Magda are good workers so I'll listen to what she has to say before I give her the boot. Oh, blast!" Katie said in disgust as she tossed the device on the counter. She turned to Amanda. "Can you do me a favor please? I need the other sensormatic gun from the back room. This one's not working."

"Sure, Katie," Amanda said. She glanced at Manny. "I'll be back in a second."

"It's on the samples table by the back door," Katie called as Amanda disappeared through the curtained doorway behind the register. "I'm sorry about the delay, miss," Katie apologized to the customer. "Will that be cash or charge?"

As Katie rang up the customer's purchase Manny busied himself by looking at the racks of costume jewelry displayed by the register. After a couple of minutes went by Manny was starting to wonder what was taking Amanda so long when Katie let out an exasperated breath.

"Where is that girl?" Katie said aloud. "She should have been back in thirty seconds."

A feeling of panic suddenly gripped Manny. He dashed through the curtained doorway into the back room.

"Hey, you can't go in there!" Katie called after him.

As soon as he was through the curtain he stopped. The back room was a narrow cubby of a space with a long table against one wall piled high with an assortment of clothes. The sensormatic gun was sitting right out in the open on the table, but that wasn't what had caught Manny's attention. The back door to the store was standing open and the only sign that Amanda had ever been there was her cell phone laying on the floor.

### Chapter Ten

Dimitri, Danny, and Shay were driving west along the Southern State Parkway two and a half hours later as they made their way toward home. Shay had been surprised to see the boys come walking up to her on campus, but as soon as they explained what was happening she immediately agreed to go with them. Her sister was missing, nothing else mattered. All kinds of horrible images had been flashing through her mind as she sat in the back of Dimitri's car on the ride home. There was no doubt in her mind that it was their group the strangers were looking for, and she could only think that it had something to do with their abilities. But that still left her with more questions than answers.

When they were a few exits from their turnoff, Danny's phone rang. He spoke briefly to Tom who described the new developments that had occurred during the time they had been away. After agreeing to meet the others at the clubhouse Danny ended the call and stared at Shay as he tried to organize what he wanted to say.

"Dude, say something," Dimitri said as he glanced over and saw the shocked expression on his face. "You're scaring her."

In a halting voice Danny relayed what Tom had told him. They had found Paige's car abandoned on the side of the road only to be attacked by four mysterious strangers whom he and Reed had managed to fight off, but now Amanda was missing as well.

"They're hunting us," Shay said when Danny finished talking, "picking us off in ones and twos. But we still don't know who they are or what they want with us."

"I forgot to tell you," Danny said, suddenly remembering something Tom had said. "They got the plate number from the bad guys' car. As soon as we get to the clubhouse I'll run a DMV search and see what we can dig up on them."

Shay felt a spark of hope at that news.

"If we get an address for them maybe we can go get the others back," Shay said hopefully. Paige could be a pain in the neck, but she was still her little sister. Someone had kidnapped her and Shay was going to do everything in her power to get her back safely. As she was trying to come up with a plan to rescue her sister and the others, Shay felt the car slowing down.

"What's wrong?" Shay asked, leaning forward to look through the windshield.

"Traffic," Dimitri grumbled. The road ahead was a river of brake lights.

Shay looked around. They were only one exit away from their turnoff, but from the way the traffic was crawling it would probably take them another fifteen to twenty minutes to cover the distance.

"Get off here," Shay suggested. "We can take Peninsula Boulevard south and cut through the park."

"On it," Dimitri said. It took him a little while to force his way over to the exit lane through the lines of creeping cars, but soon they were curving around the exit ramp and heading for the back roads. As they took the ramp up to the overpass, Mayfair Lake came into view. In the distance they could see the top of their water tower rising above the trees. They were almost there.

Several other cars had followed their example and they found themselves leading a short caravan off the parkway. Soon they were cruising along the wide boulevard toward the back entrance to the park that bordered their town. A few miles later the park turnoff came into view. As Dimitri slowed to make the sharp right onto Eagle Avenue, Shay noticed that he was paying a lot of attention to his rearview mirror. Looking behind them she saw a car slowing down and following them into that turn. From this angle she couldn't see much more than the car's color: black.

"They've been following us for a while," Dimitri said quietly. "I first noticed them a couple of exits back on the parkway."

Danny twisted around to look at the car as well.

"Do you think it's them?" Danny asked with a slight quaver in his voice.

"I don't know," Dimitri said uncertainly. "It looks like it could be the same car, but I'm not sure."

As they watched the car, it pulled out to their left and started to pass them. It slowed as it came alongside and paced their car for a while. With its windows tinted they couldn't see who was inside. Suddenly, the black sedan jerked toward them. The sides of the two cars banged together and the teens felt themselves being forced off the road.

The color drained from Dimitri's face and he clutched at the steering wheel as he fought to keep the car under control. Unfortunately there was little room to maneuver on the narrow road and he could feel the back end of the car starting to slide away to the right as they drifted onto the loose dirt at the edge of the road. They were only a few feet away from the chain link fence that separated the road from the main body of the lake and he could see the support poles blurring past. If they drifted much further to the right they would end up crashing through the fence and diving into the lake.

Once again the strange car slammed into them, forcing them further off the pavement. Then, as they started around a bend in the road, the fence disappeared as they moved past the lake and came into a wooded area. A bridle path suddenly appeared to their right. Dimitri turned them into the path then stood on the brake pedal with both feet. The car's tires dug into the soil and they came quickly to a full stop. The black car shot past and a moment later they could hear the scream of its tires as it braked on the road.

Dimitri wasn't waiting for them to come back. He threw the car into reverse and stomped on the accelerator. The car vibrated violently but wouldn't move. He could hear one of the back wheels spinning impotently as it dug itself deeper into the dirt.

"Everybody out!" Shay yelled when she realized they wouldn't be going anywhere.

Dimitri and Shay were piling out of the car when the black sedan backed into view at the end of the bridle path. Danny was fumbling nervously with his seatbelt and was still sitting in the passenger seat when the black car came to a stop. The sedan's doors were thrown open and four strangers in dark suits quickly got out. The men immediately drew guns and aimed at the teens. As the strangers sighted on the kids it became clear that they weren't interested in talking.

Shay wanted to run but there was nowhere to go. She was just squeezing her eyes closed as she braced herself for the fatal shots she knew were coming when Dimitri suddenly appeared in front of her. He wrapped his arms around her, shielding her with his body just as she heard several pops. Dimitri shuddered as he was hit.

Shay immediately felt his arms go slack around her as he began to slump to the ground.

"No! Dimitri!" she cried as she desperately tried to hold him up. For an instant their eyes met. There was an anxious expression on his face until he saw that Shay hadn't been hurt. Then he smiled. A moment later his eyes closed and his head drooped as he collapsed.

In spite of her best efforts Shay found that she was not strong enough to prop him up. Rather than let him collapse into the dirt she held tightly to him and slid with him to the ground, breaking his fall as best she could. She ended up sitting on the ground with his limp form sprawled before her, his head cradled in her lap.

"You in the car, Daniel Vidal," one of the men called. "Step into the open with your hands over your head. Do it now. We will not tell you a second time."

Shay heard the passenger door open behind her and the sound of Danny's hesitant footsteps on the graveled path. As he slowly walked to where she was sitting in the dirt, Shay gently brushed the hair out of Dimitri's face. She was amazed that he had thrown himself in the line of fire to protect her. The sight of his slack features filled her with anguish.

A burning fury ignited in the pit of her stomach, and she looked up at the strangers from the tops of her eyes. Two of the men had taken up defensive positions on the far side of their car, using it as a protective shield while they kept their guns trained on the teens. Meanwhile, the two on the near side cautiously started toward them, their guns held in the classic two-handed police grip.

The fury inside Shay quickly grew into a raging inferno. They had done nothing to justify the way these men were treating them, running them down like rabid dogs. Had the strangers been close enough they might have noticed her pupils beginning to dilate, expanding until her irises were hair-thin rings encircling wide black pits.

In moments the whole area grew strangely quiet. The wind itself seemed to have died away. Then the sky darkened. A soft rustling sound began in the distance and gradually grew louder.

Danny paused when he reached the spot where his friends had collapsed in the dirt. As the sky continued to darken and the strange sound grew louder, he craned his neck and started looking around.

"What is that?" Danny wondered aloud.

Shay kept her attention focused on the approaching men who had begun casting surreptitious glances about them.

"Get down," Shay whispered to Danny through clenched teeth.

Danny looked down at her. "What?"

Reaching out with one hand, Shay grabbed a fistful of his pants leg and pulled him down beside them. "Stay right next to me and keep your head down."

The men who had been advancing on them suddenly stopped in their tracks. Holding their weapons defensively in front of them, both men started turning in slow circles as they scanned the treetops.

"What's going on?" Danny asked as the strange sound swelled in volume.

"Just keep your head down," Shay said. "They won't bother you if you're with me."

"Who won't bother me if—"

At that moment the men looked up and froze as their eyes went wide. After staring at something behind the teens for a moment, both men turned and sprinted back toward their car. In that instant a storm of wings rent the air around the teens as an immense flock of large, black birds tore past them and attacked the strangers.

As the birds dive-bombed the men, pecking and clawing at their exposed flesh, the strangers began beating the air around their heads with both hands as they fled from the vicious assault. The two who had stayed with the car pulled the doors open and dove inside only to be pursued by swarms of angry birds. Unfortunately, the confined space within the car made it even more difficult for the men to protect themselves from the slashing talons and beaks. Since they were unable to find safety inside the car, the men kicked open the doors and made a mad dash for the tree line across the street, crashing their way through the dense foliage as the birds followed in their wake.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the flock of birds was gone, although they could still hear the thunderous beating of hundreds of wings and the dwindling rustling of the men forcing their way through the underbrush.

"The crows say it's getting hard to chase them through the trees," Shay said suddenly. "They're getting bored and are going to stop attacking them soon." She slid Dimitri's limp form off her lap as gently as she could and stood up. "We have to leave before they come back."

"But the car's stuck," Danny said, glancing desperately at the rear wheel of Dimitri's car which had dug its way deeply into the dirt. "We don't have the time to get it out of there."

Shay pointed at the black car sitting at the mouth to the bridle path. The engine was still running.

"So we'll take their car." Bending down she took hold of one of Dimitri's arms. "Help me. I can't move him by myself."

Between the two of them they managed to half carry, half drag Dimitri to the waiting sedan. They quickly folded his lanky frame into the car's back seat then pulled open the front doors. Shay was about to get in when something on the ground nearby caught her attention. As Danny started to climb into the driver's seat Shay ran back into the bridle path.

"What are you doing?" Danny called anxiously after her as he stood with one foot inside the car.

Shay ran the last few feet to the object she had seen, bent and picked it up, then raced back to the car.

"What was all that about?" Danny asked as they both climbed into the car.

Shay held up the tranquilizer gun she had gone back for. "Don't you watch action movies? The bad guys always drop their weapons but the good guys never pick them up. Well, _I'm_ picking up their guns. The next time some of them come for us I'm going to have a surprise for them."

Danny reached for the gear lever and froze.

"Whoa!" Danny's eyes had locked onto a complex center console that had been added to the car's normal controls. Above that on some kind of swiveling tray was something that looked like a portable computer terminal.

Shay was surprised by the strange additions to the car's dashboard as well, but knew that they needed to get moving.

"We'll figure it out later," she said. "Right now we need to put as much distance between us and them as possible. Go!"

Danny pulled the lever into drive and stomped on the gas, pressing them back into their seats as the car tore off with a surprisingly abrupt acceleration.

* * *

"They should have been back by now," Tom said as he glanced at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.

"They might be stuck in traffic," Reed suggested as he looked up and sent the pulley back across the room with a wave of his finger.

"How can you just sit there?" Manny snapped as he halted his pacing and rounded on him. "We have no idea where the girls are and now Danny, Shay, and Dimitri could be missing too!"

Reed pushed himself up in his seat. He had been stretched out on an old bench-style car seat that was his contribution to their clubhouse furnishings. For an instant he felt anger flare up inside him at Manny's tone, but it quickly faded when he saw the frightened look on his friend's face. Manny and Amanda had only been dating each other for a few months but he really cared about her. The fact that she had been taken right under his nose was eating him up inside.

"I'm worried about them, too," Reed said quietly.

Manny's body seemed to deflate and he dropped down onto the seat next to him.

"I know," Manny said. "I'm just going out of my mind with worry. We need to do something."

"We can always go the police," Reed offered.

Manny snorted. "Yeah, right! Like anyone's going to believe that a bunch of strangers with guns are coming after us because we have super powers."

Reed glanced up and moved the pulley across the room again. "Oh, I'm sure we can come up with some way to convince them. But that's not the real problem."

Tom came over to where they were, turned a folding chair around and straddled it to sit facing them. "We could make them believe us," he agreed, "at least the part about us having powers, but then what's to stop the government from locking us up like a bunch of lab rats?"

While they were waiting for Danny, Dimitri, and Shay, Tom and the others had spent a lot of time talking about the mysterious strangers. They had decided that it could not be a coincidence that the strangers knew them by name and that their group seemed to be their target. They had even discussed going to the authorities, but had decided against that course when Reed, who had an instinctive distrust of authority, pointed out the possible consequences.

"Hey guys," Reed said as an unsettling idea occurred to him, "this might sound a little weird, but what if it's the government that's been coming after us."

"You're right, that is weird," Tom said.

"No, think about it. A bunch of uptight suits show up around town, driving black cars with tinted windows, and start pulling guns and demanding that we go with them. They somehow know each of us by name and the obvious connection between us is that we've all got these powers. Doesn't that sound like some kind of Men in Black stuff to you?"

Tom and Manny looked at him.

Before either of them could think of anything to say they heard a car horn blowing outside the clubhouse and a frantic banging on one of the roll-up doors.

"Hey guys, it's us! Open up!" they heard Danny's voice yelling for them.

The group of them sprang up and raced to the door and raised it. Danny was standing on the other side looking pale as a sheet. Right behind him they saw a black sedan with tinted windows.

"You led them here!" Manny accused him.

Before Danny could respond Reed raised both hands toward the sedan. The car immediately began backing away, tires squealing. Danny jumped at Reed and knocked his hands down.

"No! Shay and Dimitri are in the car! We took it from a bunch of them after they forced us off the road." He looked back over his shoulder, checking to see if anyone was around. "We need to get it inside before anyone sees it."

Danny led the others aside and motioned the car forward. The black car rolled into the building and stopped. Tom quickly pulled the door down and moved to the driver's side as Shay got out.

"We agreed never to drive here during the day," Tom scolded her as she hurried to the back car door. "Somebody could have seen you."

Shay pulled open the rear door and caught Dimitri's limp form as he started to tumble out.

"We didn't have a choice," she explained. "They shot Dimitri with some kind of tranquilizer gun and we had to get him out of there. His car was stuck so we took theirs instead. Oof! He's heavier than he looks. Help me get him to the couch."

Tom scooped up his friend's limp body and carried him to the seat where Reed had been sitting. Dimitri was so tall that his heels ended up resting on the floor when they laid him down. Once they had him on the couch Tom rolled him up onto his side.

"I felt something when I was carrying him," Tom explained as he ran his hands along Dimitri's back. A moment later he came up with a small object that looked like a high-tech dart. He turned it over in his hand briefly then handed it to Shay.

"It kind of looks like the tranquilizer darts they use on animals," She said as she examined it. Then she reached to her waistband and pulled out the gun she had picked up. She examined it for a few moments before she found the release button and pulled the ammunition clip free. Six darts identical to the one Tom had found were still loaded into the clip.

"They tried those on me, too," Tom said. "They pack quite a punch. It's like being smothered with a wet blanket."

A hard look entered Shay's eyes then as she imagined her sister being hit with one of those things and she slapped the clip back into the gun.

"Tell me everything you told Danny about Paige and Magda," Shay said.

Tom spent the next several minutes filling Shay in on everything that had happened when they went searching for the girls. He told her about Amanda's disappearance as well, plus everything he and the others had been talking about while they waited for them to return from Shay's school.

"Do you really think those guys might be government agents?" Shay asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "At first I thought Reed was just coming up with wild theories, but the more I think about it the less bizarre it seems."

Shay nodded. She had been thinking the same thing. Raising the tranquilizer gun she extended her arm and sighted along the top of the barrel.

"Whoever they are," Shay said in a hard voice, "when we find them we're not pulling any punches. We're getting my sister and all of our friends back."

"Hey guys!" Reed called out from across the room. They turned around to see him emerge from the black car with something in his hand and an anxious look on his face. He had been poking around under the dashboard. The thing in his hand was a short silver cylinder with some wires sticking out of one end.

"We've got a problem," Reed said as he held up the device. "I found this wired into the fuse panel."

"What is it?" Tom asked as he and Shay walked over to him.

Reed handed it to Tom. "I think it's a kind of transmitter that lets you track a car's location."

"Like a LoJack?" Tom asked.

"Exactly," Reed said. "It's disconnected now, but if anybody pinged this thing in the last few minutes they know exactly where we are."

"Don't worry, we're safe," Danny said from the back of the room. He turned around on the old bar stool he was sitting on to face them. He and Manny had been huddled before one of the computer monitors set up on the workbench.

"I sensed the tracker as soon as we got in the car so I sent an overload charge into it. Trust me, it doesn't work anymore." The others looked relieved. "But you guys should come see this," he said as he turned back toward the monitor screen.

Tom and the others moved to the back of the room and peered over his shoulders at the screen.

"I did a search on the plate numbers we got from the car of the guys who attacked Tom and Reed and the guys who attacked us," Danny explained.

"Wait," Tom said, sounding confused. "Are you telling me this is a different car?"

"It's got different plates," Danny said. He tapped a key and split the screen into two windows. Each window displayed the New York State DMV logo at the top. Beneath each logo a license plate number was displayed with the corresponding information on the car's registration. Although they were different numbers both screens showed the same registration address.

"Twelve thirty-four Lake Street, Oswego," Tom read.

"Oswego? That's way upstate, near the Canadian border" Shay said.

Danny nodded. "Yeah, only there is no such address," he said in a frustrated tone. "Lake Street is real, but there is no twelve thirty-four."

"Twelve thirty-four?" Shay said. "Oh, I get it—one, two, three, four. Real cute."

"Wait a minute," Tom said suddenly. "If they have two identical cars, there might be more. So we don't really know how many men they have looking for us," Tom said as the implications set in. "For all we know they could have a dozen cars out there, or more."

"Three," Danny said. He typed at the keyboard briefly and brought up a list of car VIN numbers. "At least that all of the cars registered to this address. They're all the same make, model and year." He resumed typing. "That's not all. A search for the property owner came up with this guy." The screen changed to show the picture of a very unremarkable looking man; soft oval face, weak chin, mousy brown hair, muddy brown eyes—the type of face you would overlook in a crowd. The name on the screen read, John Smith.

Tom studied the face. "That's not one of the guys who attacked us," he said after a moment.

"And he's not one of the guys who came after us either," Danny said. "Actually, I'd have been surprised if he was since he doesn't exist. At least, there's nothing I can find on him anywhere on the Internet. No social security number, no birth certificate, no bank records, he's never even filed taxes."

Tom frowned. "Reed's idea about these guys being with the government is starting to sound more and more likely."

"And if that's true," Manny said, "who do we go to for help?" He hammered the workbench with his fist. "We need to be able to find these guys but there's no way to trace them!"

"Actually, there might be," Danny said. He stood up and pointed at the car. "Reed, you said that the keyboard in their car reminded you of the remote terminals in a police cruiser. If what's in their car is the same kind of thing, I can use the car terminal to link to their database."

Danny started toward the sedan when Tom grabbed his arm. "Wait. Won't they be able to trace that back here to us?"

"They can try," Danny said, smiling, "but I've never had any trouble blocking an incoming tap.

Tom let go and Danny walked around to the driver's door and got in. The others pulled open the passenger door to watch. He placed one hand on the terminal and closed his eyes. After a moment his eyebrows shot up.

"Wow, they have some really heavy duty firewalls," he said. "It's going to take a little time to get around them."

"Another dead end," Manny grumbled.

"Not really," Danny said. "I was able to get this." He opened his eyes and looked at the terminal as the screen glowed on. They saw an overhead view of someplace on the Earth. The view was from too high an altitude for them to make out any details, but they could see the regular pattern of roads and clusters of small structures that looked like houses. In the upper left corner of the screen was a group of very large buildings.

"I think I know that place," Shay said, pointing to the group of large buildings. For a moment she struggled to place the image, then it dawned on her. "Wait a minute, isn't that the mall? It is! That's Roosevelt Field!"

Danny nodded. "I was able to track the origin of their signal to this area. It's not coming from the mall itself but from somewhere nearby." The image on the screen expanded as the magnification clicked through several different levels.

"And that's the Cradle of Aviation Museum," Manny said as the image grew. "They took us there in middle school."

"The place we're looking for is right around there," Danny said. The image was large enough now for them to make out individual cars and even people. The museum Manny had pointed out was near the bottom edge of the screen. Then the image clicked through one last level of magnification. All they saw now was a group of separate buildings, each of which took up an entire block. After a moment a blinking dot appeared on the center building.

"The signal traces back to this building," Danny said.

Tom was frowning at the image. "What are we looking at?"

"That's Mitchell Field," Shay answered as she studied the screen. "Years ago that entire area was owned by the government. Roosevelt Field, where the mall is, was an airport, and Mitchell Field was an Air Force base. Those look like some of the old hangars or maybe warehouses."

"I told you the government was behind it!" Reed said.

"But that was more than fifty years ago," Shay said, sounding a little unsure. "The government closed down everything and sold that land to developers sometime in the early sixties."

"Then how do you explain the signal coming from there?"

"I can't," Shay admitted. "But if that's where they're holding Paige and the others we'll find out what's going on." She studied the screen for several moments then turned to Danny. "I can't make out any details on the front of the building from this angle. Is there any way you can get a different shot of it so we know which one we're looking for?"

"I can do better than that," Danny said. A moment later the image changed to a map drawing of the area with street names and building addresses overlaid on the diagram. In typical, unimaginative government fashion, the streets and buildings were all designated by letters.

"According to the map, the signal is coming from...building G on Avenue N."

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Manny whispered as he and the others peered around the corner of an old warehouse that was one block away from their target.

They had found their way into the area with no trouble. There were no fences, guards or even any signs warning trespassers to keep out. They had simply turned off the main road that ran in front of museum row and found themselves in a secluded little enclave of private streets. Avenue N was several blocks into this secluded area but even so they had no trouble driving through the intervening streets to reach it.

The paving on the streets was cracked and pothole-strewn and the buildings were all stark, cinder-block structures that looked like they had been built decades before. Whatever they had originally been used for, most of the buildings seemed to have been converted to commercial use. Signs above the entrances of many buildings told that they were now manufacturing sites or warehouse facilities for the most part.

Their objective was a nondescript beige building with a glass entrance door on the left and a roll-up truck door in the center. Over the glass door was a faded sign that read: Global Importers. Apart from that there were no other doors or windows on the front of the building.

As the group of friends peered at their objective, Danny checked the paper in his hand, comparing the hard copy of the map he had printed against the street signs around them.

"That's definitely the place," Danny said quietly. He folded the paper and put it away. "Now what?"

Everyone pulled back around the corner and looked at Tom expectantly.

Tom folded his arms and thought for a moment. "First, we need to check out the building from all sides. We need to know if there are any other ways in or out and what type of security they have." He looked at Dimitri. "That's your job, Tree, if you think you're up to it."

Dimitri had woken up shortly before they left the clubhouse. At first he was barely lucid and for a while didn't seem to know where he was. The others had gone back and forth for quite some time about whether they should bring him or not, but in the end Shay had insisted that they could not leave him alone. They had already lost too many of their group. So they loaded him into the back of Reed's car and started off for the address they had gotten from the computer. Over the course of their ride Dimitri had slowly become more and more coherent. When they arrived his first steps out of the car had been a bit unsteady, but as the minutes passed he quickly recovered from his drugged state.

Dimitri nodded to Tom. "I'm fine."

As he turned to go, Shay grabbed his forearm. "Don't get too close," she warned. "Come right back at the first sign of trouble. And make sure no one sees you."

Dimitri smiled and covered her hand with his. "I'll be right back," he reassured her. He felt a surge of energy tingling through him knowing that she was concerned for him. After a moment he turned away, leaned around the corner, and vanished.

Although they peered around the corner and looked for him, the rest of them couldn't see him in the deepening evening shadows. A heavy silence grew around them as they waited. The businesses around them had closed for the day and everything was eerily quiet. At one point they saw a shadowy shape moving between a pair of buildings but it turned out to be nothing more than a stray dog.

The weight of the silence was beginning to wear on them when Dimitri suddenly popped back into their midst. He leaned against the back of the building as he gulped air and held up a finger for them to give him a second.

"Everything looks quiet," he puffed when he had caught his breath. "There are no doors anywhere else except in front. The only windows are some of those glass block things that you can't see through clearly. They're on both side walls but high up. The back wall is completely blank."

"Are there any cameras?" Reed asked.

Dimitri nodded. "One at each corner covering the front door and the truck bay. That's it."

Tom looked at Danny. "That's your department."

"Give me a second," Danny said and closed his eyes. A few moments later he opened his eyes and smiled. "Done."

Tom set his jaw and looked around the group. One by one they met his gaze and nodded.

After checking around the corner Tom stepped into the open and started toward their objective. The others fell in behind him. When they reached the building he glanced up at the security cameras.

"You're sure they aren't recording us?" Tom asked quietly.

"Absolutely," Danny assured him. "They're locked in a loop, playing back the same ten seconds of empty street."

"Good," Tom said as he turned to study the entrance. "What about the door? Any alarms?"

Danny stepped up to the door and passed his hand slowly along the frame.

"There's something near the top of the door," he said. "It's your basic trip switch...which is now out of action." He ran his hand around the door one more time. "That's it." He stepped back.

Tom looked at Reed. "You're up."

Reed traded places with Danny and stared at the door briefly. Then he reached out and placed his palm against the lock. After several moments there was a soft click as the tumblers aligned and the dead bolt drew back. He pushed the door and it opened smoothly on silent hinges. Reed started to go in, then thought better of it and gestured Tom in ahead of him.

"Age before beauty."

Tom ignored him, checked the nearby streets one last time, and went in. The others followed right behind him.

Inside they found themselves in a large warehouse. The area immediately inside the door was clear. A few yards back into the building three aisles separated by shelves piled with an assortment of boxes and crates ran to the far end of the building. To their right, just inside the roll-up door, was a pallet of metal drums. Hazard labels on the drums warned that the contents were flammable. Beyond the drums and parked in the shadows against the far right wall was a boxy truck. It was difficult to make out details in the low light but it appeared to be an ambulance. As soon as Reed saw it he hesitated.

"Isn't that the ambulance that showed up when Magda's car hit the tree?" he whispered. While the others waited by the door he crept over to the ambulance and tiptoed around it slowly. He peered through the windows and studied the markings on its sides. After he had made a complete circuit around the truck he went back to the group.

"That's the same truck," he said quietly when he rejoined his friends. "I'm positive."

"I'll bet they arranged that accident," Shay realized.

"That would explain why all those systems in Magda's car went out at the same time," Reed said. "They must have sabotaged it."

"They were probably hoping that one or more of them would get hurt in the crash," Shay added. "That way they could take them away in the ambulance without anyone realizing what was happening."

Tom's expression hardened. "If we had any doubts that this was the right place, that ambulance just erased them. Everybody spread out and look around. Our guys have got to be here somewhere."

The six friends separated into pairs and slowly headed deeper into the warehouse. Each team chose an aisle and crept through the dimly lit space making as little noise as possible. The rows of metal shelves were crowded with a variety of crates, boxes, and other assorted containers. But the further they explored into the building the less it looked like someplace where their friends were being held. Eventually they reached the back of the warehouse. As they stepped past the ends of the crowded shelves, they found themselves facing the back wall of the room. A wide gap separated the end of the rows of shelves from the back wall of the warehouse. Apart from an old forklift holding a large crate that was parked in the corner to their right, the space at the back of the warehouse was empty.

Several wide windows in the wall gave them a view into the rear section of the building where they could see a number of office cubicles. The starkly ordinary appearance of the place hit them like a slap in the face. None of them had had any idea what they would find inside the building but this was the last thing they expected. As a group they all stood there for several moments staring through the windows at the cubicles. Their friends were not here.

Eventually Tom called everyone together. He brought them to the left side of the building where the only door into the office area was located. It was a plain door with a small sign above it which simply read: Office. Set into the wall beside the door was a large mirror.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Tom whispered to Danny.

"This is definitely the building," Danny said.

"And nobody saw anything unusual on the way back here?" Tom asked the group. Everyone shook their heads.

"We should check out the office," Shay suggested. "Maybe we can find something that will help us figure out what's going on. Don't forget about that ambulance. Our guys may not be here but somehow this place is connected to what's going on."

"I agree," Tom said as he turned and reached for the door. He tried the handle and found the door unlocked. "Come on," he said as he cautiously pushed the door open. "We'll each take a cubicle and look for anything that can tell us what happened to our friends."

As they filed through the door they found themselves in a small, dimly lit alcove. On the far wall was a second door. In the middle of the wall to their right was another large mirror.

"What's up with the mirrors?" Reed wondered aloud.

As the last of their group entered the small area, Tom reached the second door. He started to reach for the handle when it suddenly dawned on him that there was no handle. The door was simply a solid sheet of metal. He tried pushing on it but it refused to open. The others crowded in behind him as he searched for some way to open the door.

"There's no way through," Tom said, shocked.

"Let's get out of here," Manny said as he looked around the small space. "I don't like this."

When he turned around he saw that the door they had entered through didn't have a handle either. He had been the last one to come into the room and hadn't realized that the door had shut behind him. They were trapped.

"What's going on?" Tom growled.

At that moment a light snapped on. What had appeared to be a mirror in the wall beside them was now revealed to be a window into a small room. A man in a security guard uniform was watching them across a desk console.

"What are you kids doing here?" the guard said in a hostile tone. "This is private property."

Tom stepped up to the one way mirror, his hands balled into fists. "Where are our friends!" he demanded. In a fit of anger he hammered the glass with a fist.

The guard smirked. "Save your strength, kid. That's armored glass."

Tom bared his teeth, uttered an almost animal growl and hammered the glass again with both fists. This time spider-web cracks appeared in the glass under his fists.

The guard's eyes goggled. A moment later he lunged for something below the window.

"Manny, stop him!" Tom yelled.

The guard froze in mid lunge, his arm extended toward a control he would never reach.

"Got him," Manny said.

"Can you make him let us out of here?" Tom asked.

Manny frowned. "I can't see the panel from this angle. Even if I could I don't know what each button does. I could end up making him push the alarm by mistake."

"Dimitri," Tom said, "can you get in there and figure out how to let us out? There has to be something on his panel to unlock these doors."

Dimitri glanced around at the walls of the trap room. "These are all solid walls. I can't go through a solid wall."

Danny and Reed looked at each other and hurried toward the inner door.

"I'll check to see if there's a tumbler lock I can open," Reed said.

"It's probably an electromagnet like on an ATM door," Danny said. "I'll try to cut the power."

As Reed and Danny began examining the doorway, Tom took a moment to glare at the immobilized guard, then spun around and gave the door a hard look. "I've had enough of this crap. Guys, _move_!"

Reed and Danny crowded out of the way when they saw the determined look in Tom's eyes. As soon as it was clear Tom strode up to the door, picked up his foot and gave it a solid kick. The entire room seemed to reverberate from the blow as the door flew open and smashed back against the wall. Tom stormed through the open doorway with Shay close on his heels. Now that the door was open Dimitri could act. In the blink of an eye he disappeared and reappeared inside the guard booth where he grabbed the security guard in a choke hold from the rear, freeing Manny to move.

As the guard struggled vainly against Dimitri's arm around his neck, Tom and Shay appeared in the doorway to the guard booth, both of them shooting daggers at the man with their eyes.

"Where is my sister?" Shay demanded.

The guard tried to reply but could only make choking sounds until Dimitri reduced the pressure on his throat.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the guard gasped. "I'm just the night watchman."

"Bull!" Tom yelled. He strode over to the guard, cocked back a fist and delivered a solid punch to the jaw that snapped his head around.

Manny came hurrying into the booth just in time to see Dimitri release the guard who collapsed to the floor.

"What the...?" Manny said as he stared at the unconscious guard. "Why'd you do that? We needed to question him to find out where they have our friends."

"He wasn't going to cooperate," Tom said through clenched teeth.

Manny grabbed Tom's shoulder and spun him around. "You don't know that! We might have been able to get him to talk. Now we have no way to find out what they did with Amanda and the others."

Tom glared at him for several moments while he clenched and unclenched his fists in a frustrated rage.

"We'll find them," Tom said finally.

"How?" Manny demanded.

"Guys!" Shay snapped, stepping between them. "This isn't helping. Let's start looking around to see what we can find out."

Tom and Manny held each other's gaze for a few moments then turned away.

The group spent the next several minutes searching through the office cubicles but couldn't find anything useful. There was nothing to indicate that the place was anything other than an import business. After they had spent more than fifteen frustrating minutes searching through the offices Tom called everyone together again.

"This doesn't make any sense," Tom said. "We know this place has something to do with our friends being kidnapped, but there's nothing here. We have to be overlooking something."

"Maybe we're looking at it the wrong way," Shay said, thoughtfully. "This is supposed to be an import warehouse, right? So what _did_ we find that is inconsistent with that?"

"There's that ambulance in front," Reed said.

"And that trap room with the armored, one way mirrors," Manny added. "Why would an import business even need a room like that?"

"Ever been in one of those check cashing stores in the city?" Danny said.

"But this isn't some check cashing store," Tom said. He turned and pointed at the window behind him that looked into the warehouse. "Those windows are armored glass, too. I checked them out when we were looking around. It's like this whole area was built to be some kind of fortress. But why? There's nothing here."

"So what are we missing?" Reed asked.

The group of them stood looking at each other.

"What else about this place is unusual?" Shay prompted.

Everyone stood silently thinking for several moments.

"There was the signal from their server that led us here," Danny said.

"Right," Shay said, looking around. "The only computers I saw were a few desktop PCs, but nothing that looked like a server. How about the rest of you?" None of the others had found anything that looked like a server either.

"Well, a server doesn't have to be all that big," Danny said thoughtfully. "If you don't need to store that much data, a desktop machine might be enough." Then something dawned on him. "But none of the computers in here are running! To be of any use a server has to be left on twenty-four seven."

"Then where is the computer that Danny traced here?" Shay asked.

"Hey, guys?" Dimitri called. He was frowning as he looked at the wall beside them. "If the guard booth is on the other side of this wall, and the little hall next to it leads down to the trap room, what's that?" he said pointing to a section of wall in the back corner of the office area. He wandered over to wall and placed his hands on his hips as he studied it. "There's a negative space here."

"A what?" Manny asked.

"A negative space," Dimitri repeated. "It means this wall shouldn't be here. There's something back there, a hidden room or something." Dimitri's father ran a construction business and he sometimes worked with his dad to make a little extra money. He was used to looking at the way a room was put together and visualizing the floor plans.

The rest of the group joined him. Now that he had pointed it out, the others could see that the entire back corner of the building had been closed off.

"There's a power source of some kind in there," Danny said as he passed his hands along the wall. "But it's not a computer."

"Spread out," Tom said with a note of hopeful excitement in his voice. "Let's try to find a door or something. They could be in there."

The group spread out and started running their hands along the wall as they searched for a way into the secret space.

"Here!" Manny called out a few moments later. A palm sized area of the wall pressed in when he pushed on it. The switch had been camouflaged by the patterned wallpaper that covered this part of the office. With a low hum, a door-sized panel sank several inches into the wall and slid aside. As the panel drew aside a light came on inside the concealed space revealing a small room.

"They're not here," Manny said, sounding disappointed. He looked cautiously into the room, then stepped inside. He turned around slowly, studying the walls of the empty room until his eyes fell on a panel beside the open door.

"This is an elevator!" Manny exclaimed.

The others stepped into the room with him. Sure enough, on the wall beside the door was what looked like an elevator control panel.

"Where do you think it goes?" Danny asked.

"One way to find out," Tom said as he reached for the only button. An electronic chime sounded when he pressed the button and the door closed. A moment later they felt the elevator start down.

"Everybody be ready for anything," Tom said. "We don't know what's going to happen when the door opens."

"Yeah, but are they going to be ready for _us_?" Manny said.

The group of friends smiled at each other as a sense of excitement began to spread through them. They could feel that they were about to get to the bottom of the mystery.

"What's that!" Shay gasped. She was pointing down at the floor of the elevator where jets of white smoke were swirling around their feet.

A moment later the teens began coughing as the dense cloud quickly rose around them. One by one the friends succumbed to the gas and dropped to the floor. In seconds only Tom was left conscious. He tried to fight the effects of the gas but with each breath he found himself slipping further and further away. As the darkness closed in around him his last thoughts were that he had failed his friends. They had trusted him to lead them and instead he had let them walk right into a trap.

### Chapter Eleven

Shay felt like she was being crushed. She wanted to sit up but there was a weight pressing on her chest, pinning her down. Her mouth was dry and tasted like she had been licking the sole of an old shoe. She also had a throbbing pain behind her eyes like the beginnings of a migraine. Then she remembered the secret elevator and the gas coming in. With an effort she managed to force her eyes open.

It took her a while to focus her vision. Eventually she found herself looking up at a strange ceiling. It was oddly curved and looked like it was made out of some kind of dark metal. The entire thing was covered with wavy ribs and reminded her of the corrugated iron roofs she had seen on some of the older storage sheds near their clubhouse. Light came from a series of large, circular fixtures running down the center of the room. She rolled her head slightly to one side and saw that the ceiling ran off into the distance. With no windows the place felt oppressive, giving her the impression of being inside some kind of tunnel. Her eyes were itching and she wanted to rub them but when she tried to lift her hand she found she couldn't move. She looked down at her body and saw that she was laying on what looked like some kind of futuristic dentist chair. A wide metal band was across her body and her wrists and ankles were restrained by padded manacles. Wires were attached to various points on her head, arms, legs and body. When she traced the wires she found that they led to a series of machines that surrounded her. With their flashing lights and digital readouts, the machines reminded her of the different kinds of bio monitors you would find in a hospital.

"I see that the last of our guests has finally joined us," an oddly familiar voice said.

Shay was still a little groggy from the effects of the gas and it took her a moment to locate the source of the voice. A grandfatherly looking man in a white lab coat walked over to her and smiled.

"Dr. Brooks?" Shay said when she recognized him. "Where am I? Is this some kind of hospital?"

"Don't talk to him Shay!" a voice nearby called out.

Shay immediately recognized Paige's voice. Hearing the sound of her sister's voice sent a surge of energy through her and Shay felt herself suddenly come fully awake. She looked in the direction of Paige's voice and saw her strapped into a padded couch right beside her. Craning her neck, she looked around and saw all of their friends strapped into similar chairs. Even Matt was with them. They were arranged in two rows, facing each other along opposite sides of the long room. Beside their couches each of the eleven teens were surrounded by their own collection of monitoring machines.

Dr. Brooks checked the readings on several of Shay's monitors then took out a penlight and lifted her eyelids one at a time to shine the harsh light into her eyes. Shay winced at the brightness and jerked her head away.

"Remarkable!" Brooks commented. "The retinal structure is completely unlike anything I have ever seen."

Shay blinked her eyes to try and clear away the blobs floating in her vision and glared up at him. "What's going on?" she demanded. "Where are we?"

"Don't trust him, Shay! He sent those men to kidnap us," Paige said. "He's even responsible for those other kids around the island who were murdered."

"Murder is such a harsh word," Dr. Brooks said.

"I don't know what else to call it when you kill someone for no reason!" Paige snapped.

"But there was a reason, my dear," Dr. Brooks said, amiably. "Those young people were sacrificed for the greater good—your good, specifically. You see, as dull and unimaginative as the police can be, they can also be extremely tenacious. The unexplained disappearance of eleven young people from the same town would have generated far too much unwanted attention. And it is just possible that they could manage to uncover information that would be harmful to my research. But if we were to supply the local authorities with a plausible explanation, say, a deranged serial killer, they would have no reason to look for an alternate explanation. My work is far too important to be interfered with by the bumbling efforts of the local constabulary."

Shay couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You mean you killed all of those kids, and cut out their eyes, just so you could hide the fact that you were going to kidnap us?"

Dr. Brooks smiled. "Ah, yes, the eyes—an effective bit of misdirection if I do say so myself. That simple act not only established continuity between each of the disappearances, it simultaneously suggested the profile of a psychopathic personality."

"You're the psychopath," Magda said. "You already murdered those poor kids. You didn't have to gouge out their eyes too."

For a moment Dr. Brooks appeared genuinely puzzled. "You seem to be under the impression that those young people were mistreated. The truth is that they were handled quite humanely, I assure you. Although it was necessary to terminate their lives they were not subjected to undue duress. Each subject was dispatched with a single incision at the base of the cranium, separating the cerebellum from the spinal cord. Death was instantaneous and painless. As for the eyes," Dr. Brooks continued, his voice taking on a note of disdain, "they were most certainly _not_ gouged out. In every instance the eyes were excised with the utmost surgical precision. After all, the subjects had no more need of them, while they were invaluable to my research."

All this talking about cutting out people's eyes was getting to Shay. "I don't understand. Why are you doing this? You're my doctor."

Dr. Brooks chuckled. "Actually, I'm doctor to all of you. I've been your doctor since you were infants. That's how I was able to have access to you—"

"So he could experiment on us," Reed said. "He's been using us like lab rats ever since we were born."

Dr. Brooks looked in Reed's direction. "Is that any way to describe the incredible gifts I have bestowed on you? Were it not for me none of you would possess the unique talents you now possess. Each of you has developed abilities far beyond what any normal human being is capable of. In a way, you might say that I am like a father to each of you."

" _My_ father doesn't tie me up and run experiments on me!" Magda said.

"Ah, my dear," Dr. Brooks said in a condescending tone, "the restraints are merely for your protection."

"Don't you mean they're for _your_ protection?" Tom said. "Why don't you let me out of this thing and we'll see how much protection I need."

Shay looked in his direction and saw that Tom's couch was different from the others. It was heavier, the restraining bar across his chest much thicker with his wrists and ankles secured by heavy metal shackles.

Dr. Brooks chuckled again. "All in good time, my boy, all in good time."

"What's going on?" Shay demanded again.

Dr. Brooks turned back toward her and smiled again. "You might call it a family reunion of sorts. Now that all of you have come into your abilities, I deemed the time appropriate for the next phase of the experiment to begin. An experiment, I am gratified to say, which has succeeded beyond even my expectations."

"Look," Shay growled through clenched teeth, "I'll say it one more time: _what the hell is going on?_ "

"There is no need to become upset, sweetheart," Dr. Brooks said.

Shay began thrashing against her restraints. "I'm not your sweetheart, and there's every reason for me to be upset!" Shay yelled. "You've got my sister and me and all our friends tied down in some god forsaken place and hooked up to a bunch of machines like some kind of crazy science experiments! _Let me go!_ "

As she fought against the restraints a figure she hadn't noticed before stepped away from the wall and walked to the middle of the room to take a protective stance beside Dr. Brooks. It was a severe-looking woman dressed in all black, which contrasted sharply with her chalky complexion. She had a long, angular face and wore an expression that made her look like she had just been sucking a lemon. She wore no makeup and her dark hair was pulled tightly back into a short pony tail. On her right hip she carried a pistol, which she calmly drew and aimed directly between Shay's eyes.

"I suggest you do what the doctor says, girl," the woman said, "or I might be forced to use this on you." Although she had spoken in a quiet voice there was no mistaking the menace behind her words.

Shay stopped thrashing around and looked at her. She saw that the weapon being pointed at her was not like the tranquilizer pistol she had taken from one of the men who had attacked her earlier. This gun would make a sizable hole in whoever it was fired at.

As Shay thought back to the attack, her mind flashed to Dimitri. He had been strangely quiet. Lifting her head she looked at the end of the row opposite her. Dimitri and James occupied the last two couches on that side. It took her a moment to realize that both of them had their eyes closed and were unnaturally still. She felt her heartbeat surge when she couldn't detect any movement of their chests.

"What did you do to Dimitri and James?" Shay demanded.

Dr. Brooks reached out with one hand and casually pushed down the arm of the woman standing beside him. "I don't think that will be necessary, my dear," he said. Then, to Shay, "Make no mistake. Ramona, my chief of security, is more than capable of handling any of you, should you become, shall we say, unduly agitated."

"I had a pet snake named Ramona, once," Reed commented. "She was a cold blooded bitch, too."

Ramona cut her eyes in his direction. "You'd better keep a civil tongue in your head, boy, before I cut it out."

Reed stared at her for a moment, then stuck his tongue out at her.

Dr. Brooks looked at Reed briefly. "You would do well to heed her advice. Ramona does not make idle threats. As for your friends," he said, gesturing toward James and Dimitri, "their particular talents are a bit...unpredictable. It has been necessary therefore to keep them in an electronically induced coma."

As Shay looked at them she noticed the high tech headbands each of them wore. "They are quite unharmed, I assure you. In fact it is very important to me that none of you is allowed to come to harm. It would ruin nearly two decades of research."

"We wouldn't want that now, would we," Danny said.

Shay understood why Dr. Brooks would want to keep James and Dimitri unconscious. Restraints were useless against Dimitri and even tied down James could still cause all kinds of trouble. Then it dawned on her that there were others in their group who could still act even though they were tied down. Manny in particular came to mind, but when she glanced in his direction he gave her a hard look and shook his head in a subtle but clear no. Then she remembered that he could only control one person at a time. He was wisely waiting for the right opportunity.

"As for the rest of you," Dr. Brooks continued, ignoring Danny's comment, "we will soon determine the specific natures of your abilities."

"Aren't you afraid that we'll use our powers against you even though you have us tied up?" Shay asked. He obviously didn't know that much about them or pretty much everyone in their group would be wearing one of those headbands.

Dr. Brooks smiled and raised his eyebrows. He turned in a slow circle and looked around at each of them. "Oh, I believe we have the situation in hand. You see, I've been observing you for quite some time now. While I may not be aware of the specifics of all of your abilities, I know enough. For example, aside from Demetrious and James, I know how dangerous your sister and Thomas could be if left unrestrained. And yes, I know about your little trick with birds. But, as you see, there are no birds here for you to influence. As for the rest of you, well, I imagine that were you able to do anything to affect your release you would have acted by now. Young people are so impulsive.

"As far as what you are in fact able to do, that is why all of you are here—for testing. For example," he said as walked to Matt and glanced at one of the monitors near his couch, "from outward appearances, it would seem that Matthew here possesses no extraordinary abilities. Yet his EEG readings reveal a number of highly unusual brainwave patterns. So I know that something interesting is going on inside that brain of yours, isn't there son?" Dr. Brooks pat him on the head as if he were a precocious toddler. Matt glared at him. After a moment Dr. Brooks laughed. "Thus far, Matthew has been reluctant to favor us with an example of his abilities. However, now that the rest of you have been brought to heel I will be able to allocate enough resources to persuade him to be more cooperative."

"How do you know he even has any powers?" Shay said. "For that matter, how do you know any of us have these powers you seem to think we have?"

Dr. Brooks looked at her and sighed. "I suppose some background on your condition is not totally unwarranted." He stepped back into the center of the room, folded his arms and adopted the tone of a college professor giving a lecture. "Before any of you were born, I worked for an obscure division within the Department of Defense. It was a research and development think tank comprised of the brightest scientific minds of the day. It was near the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and we were charged with the task of finding a way to enhance our nation's military personnel. You see, building superior armament can only advance our forces so far. But if we could find a way to enhance our fighting men themselves we could create an army that would be virtually unstoppable. Some believed that the way to accomplish this was through the merging of man and machine to create a form of cybernetic being. But I never believed such clumsy constructs were the answer. While you might create a soldier who could interface with a specific weapon or vehicle better than a normal human, in the long run they were ultimately limited. A truly superior soldier must be able to adapt to whatever situation he finds himself in. Therefore, I explored the avenue of genetic enhancements."

Tom snorted. "You mean you tried to turn people into supersoldiers."

Dr. Brooks looked at him. "Ignoring the comic book reference your term implies, yes. And were I you, I would not be so quick to dismiss my work, Thomas, especially considering the results my research has had with you." He held Tom's eyes for a moment, letting the implications sink in. "That research took years of work and billions of dollars, but eventually I succeeded in creating a compound that would enable a person to achieve their maximum potential: strength and reflexes rivaling those of world class athletes, senses sharpened to incredible acuteness, the ability to rapidly heal all but the most severe injuries, and minds capable of assimilating and processing information at unprecedented rates. We were at the dawn of a new age."

"So if you found a way to turn people into supersoldiers," Shay asked, "why did you need to experiment on a bunch of kids?"

Dr. Brooks frowned. "There were...unforeseen side effects. In terms you can understand, the formula caused the adult subjects to burn out. Their metabolisms were accelerated to such a rate that their systems could not keep pace. Tissue damage began to appear in the more delicate organs such as the eyes and the central nervous system. Over time the subjects' behavior grew erratic. Eventually the damage became so widespread that the subjects died from systemic organ failure. Autopsies revealed that adults are unable to adapt to the extensive physiological changes that needed to take place on the genetic level. The only logical alternative was to introduce the serum into immature subjects whose systems were still undergoing development. Unfortunately my superiors, or rather the incompetent dolts who had been placed in a position of authority to oversee my work, refused to authorize the use of infant test subjects. My funding was cut and my research terminated in order for the defense department to pursue another avenue."

"So they shut you down," Shay said. "The government wouldn't let you experiment on babies."

Dr. Brooks shrugged. "Throughout history brilliant thinkers have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. When it became apparent that they would not allow my research to advance to the next logical phase I decided that the time had come for me to leave government service.

"But I was still a medical doctor with impeccable credentials. It did not take long for me to secure a position as a pediatrician in a modest suburban practice. That was when my work began to show real results."

"You injected us with that formula of yours," Magda said quietly.

"Of course," Dr. Brooks said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "But I did not inject only you. I treated hundreds of test subjects. Whenever diligent parents brought their offspring to me for their childhood inoculations, I included my formula as well. It was the only way to test my hypothesis."

"You injected _hundreds_ of kids?" Magda gasped. "What happened to all the others...or maybe I don't want to know."

"Nothing sinister happened to them, my dear," Dr. Brooks told her, "at least, not to most of them. There were a small percentage of test subjects who developed adverse reactions to the formula and a few deaths were involved, but the vast majority of the subjects showed no negative effects whatsoever. Unfortunately, the majority of the test subjects also did not develop any enhanced abilities as a result of their exposure to the formula either. It seems that the same process responsible for the rapid growth in immature humans also works to cancel out the effects of my formula as it tries to rewrite their genetics. Apparently, only a small percentage of the general population has the proper DNA coding to accept the genetic re-sequencing." He gestured around at the group of them.

"Even though your abilities did not begin to manifest themselves until puberty, all of you tested positive for a unique enzyme at a very young age which indicated that your bodies had accepted the forced mutations. Once I identified you, it was a simple matter to follow your progress as you matured.

"And as each of you grew, I noticed something that I had not anticipated. Unlike in the mature subjects whose enhancements all followed the same pattern, each of you developed in different ways. Your individual DNA's influenced the manner in which your abilities manifested themselves, resulting in your unique abilities.

"Which brings us back to where we are now," he said as he looked at Shay once more. "I trust that has answered your questions, sweetheart."

Shay bared her teeth at him. "If you keep calling me sweetheart I'm going to cram my foot—"

Keep him talking, Shay. Just a little bit longer.

Shay stopped in mid-sentence as she heard the voice speaking to her. It seemed familiar somehow, but she was having trouble placing it. The strangest thing was that she thought she had only heard the voice in her head. But that was crazy.

She looked around at the rest of her friends but none of them looked like they had heard the voice. She had just about convinced herself that she had imagined it when the voice spoke to her again.

_No, Shay, don't stop!_ the voice pleaded. _Keep him talking. You need to keep him distracted for one more minute._

For some reason Shay decided to trust the voice. Why not? She didn't have anything to lose. Besides, she was curious to see what the voice had up its sleeve.

"So Doctor," Shay said as she tried to come up with some way to bait him. "How did it feel when the government dropped your research in favor of the cyborg people?"

"In point of fact, the government abandoned that line of research as well," Dr. Brooks said. Was that a note of smug satisfaction she heard in his voice?

"But you said the Defense Department shut you down to pursue a different line of research," Shay said.

"They did," Dr. Brooks admitted. "With all of the advancements being achieved in miniaturized electronic components and the rapidly evolving processing capabilities in computers, the powers that be decided instead to focus on developing long-range, remote-controlled, robotic attack machines."

"Long-range, remote-controlled...? You mean drones?" Shay asked.

"Yes," Dr. Brooks said, a note of distain in his voice. "Little more than video games piloted by over-aged adolescents in my opinion. Effective, I suppose, after a limited fashion, but the result of provincial thinking nonetheless. All they have done is to develop a new toy instead of improving the actual soldiers themselves."

While Dr. Brooks was speaking, Ramona suddenly glanced down as something pinged on the floor beside her. She bent down and picked up a small object. She stared at it for several moments, turning it curiously in her hand. Shay was looking at her and saw light glint from something metallic. The first thought that came to Shay's mind was that it looked like some kind of screw.

Ramona's features drew down into a frown, then she looked up. She and Dr. Brooks were standing directly beneath one of the light fixtures that were spaced along the room's ceiling. The fixtures were great metal rings nearly four feet in diameter surrounding thick glass domes which bulged downward. As Ramona stared up at the light above them a low creaking came from the fixture. An instant later the entire light fixture shuddered and dropped.

Ramona reacted with surprising speed, shoving Dr. Brooks out of the way just in time. She wasn't so lucky herself. The massive fixture came right down on top of her, slamming her to the floor with a loud crash as the dome shattered into thousands of pieces, spraying in all directions.

Dr. Brooks lay cowering on the floor for several moments with his hands clasped to his head. Eventually he pushed himself to his knees and looked at the scene behind him. His assistant was pinned face down on the floor beneath the heavy metal ring of the light fixture. Shattered glass was everywhere. A horrified look came over him as he stared at the scene, then he glanced around at the teens.

"What have you done?" he gasped.

Dr. Brooks pushed himself shakily to his feet, bits of glass cascading from his clothes. He began backing away from the teens, then turned and ran across the room.

"Stop him!" Matt called out.

An instant later Dr. Brooks stopped in his tracks. He straightened and turned around, his face a blank mask.

"Nice going, Manny," Matt said. "He was going for the alarm panel. If he'd reached it this room would have been swarmed by armed guards."

"Now all we have to do is find a way to get off these tables," Shay grumbled.

Tom started thrashing against his restraints. "I can't break free."

"Dr. Brooks's ID can open the restraints," Matt said. "It's the card clipped to the pocket of his lab coat. Just wave it over the sensor on the chest bar."

Under Manny's control, Dr. Brooks pulled his ID card loose and walked over to Tom's couch.

"I'm going to free you first, Tom," Manny said, as he lay with his eyes squinting in concentration. "That way you can cover us while I get everyone else free."

Dr. Brooks passed the card over the bar across Tom's chest. The heavy bar clicked open as the wrist and ankle restraints also released. As Dr. Brooks turned and moved to the next couch, Tom sat up and began pulling the sensor leads from his body. Manny had the doctor free Paige next, then continue down the line. When Paige's restraints unlocked, Tom moved to her and gave her a hand up.

"Did he hurt you?" Tom asked.

"No," she said. "The worst thing he did was take some blood."

Tom nodded and showed her his arm where a bandaid was taped to his inner elbow. "Me too. We're lucky that's all he got to do," he said, tearing the bandage away. The pinprick had healed almost immediately. The fact that Dr. Brooks had placed a bandaid over the puncture site showed that he did not know as much about the teens as he thought.

Shay was the next to be released. After Tom and Paige helped her remove the numerous sensor leads, she shared a hug with her sister and gave Tom's forearm a squeeze before hurrying over to Dimitri. She was relieved to find that he seemed to only be asleep. Once she had assured herself that he hadn't been injured, she took a moment to study the band around his head. It was a solid white ring with clusters of indicator lights pulsing with some unknown purpose. She couldn't find anything that looked like an off switch so she reached up and simply slipped it off of his head. Almost at once she saw that his breathing started to deepen. As his eyelids began to flutter she took his hand and held it in both of hers.

"Good morning, sunshine," she said affectionately as he regained consciousness.

Dimitri blinked a few times then turned to look at her. It took his eyes a few moments to focus. He smiled when he recognized her.

"Hi," he said groggily.

Manny had Dr. Brooks continue around the room, freeing each of the teens in turn until he came at last back to Manny. Amanda was standing guard next to his couch and she leaned away from the doctor as he waved the card over her boyfriend. She had been standing protectively over him ever since she had been freed because she knew that he was helpless as long as he was controlling the doctor.

As Dr. Brooks stepped away from Manny's couch Tom walked over to him. He had been busy helping James up. It had taken a little while for his cousin to come fully back to his senses after the headband had been removed but he was sitting up now and didn't appear any worse for wear.

"Is that everybody?" Tom asked.

"We're all loose," Manny said. Although his restraints had been released he was still laying on his padded couch as he maintained his control over Dr. Brooks.

"You can let him go now," Tom said as he grabbed the front of the doctor's lab coat in a fist.

A moment later, Dr. Brooks blinked and glanced around as his senses returned. Then his eyes widened as he realized he was standing face-to-face with Tom whose expression was anything but friendly.

Before he could say anything, Tom delivered a solid punch to the side of his head. The doctor went down like a sack of wet laundry.

"That felt good," Tom said. Then he turned and glanced around at the rest of the group. Everyone was on their feet now. As they came together, a movement in the periphery of his vision caused Tom to glance aside.

Ramona, was beginning to stir. Tom stepped over to her as she struggled to free herself. He lifted the heavy metal ring with one hand and grabbed her. He picked her up by the front of her uniform with one hand while he cocked back his other fist. For several moments he held himself poised to punch her, but couldn't bring himself to do it.

When he hadn't hit her after several moments, Ramona smirked at him. "What's the matter, boy? Can't hit a woman?"

"Not a problem for me," Paige said. Ramona snapped her head in the direction of Paige's voice just as Paige leapt into the air and twisted around to deliver a spinning kick to her face. Ramona cartwheeled through the air from the force of the blow and crashed to the floor where she lay still.

"That's for pointing a gun at my sister."

Magda walked over to Paige and gave her a high five. "Nice!"

Shay stepped over to where Ramona lay unconscious, knelt down and took the pistol from her holster. Standing up again she checked the weapon to be sure it was loaded and tucked it into the waistband of her jeans. They had taken the tranquilizer gun she had come in with, but she wasn't going to leave unarmed.

Danny looked down at Ramona then up at the hole in the ceiling where the light fixture had fallen from.

"That was pretty lucky," Danny said.

"That wasn't luck," Matt said, tipping his head toward Amanda.

" _You_ pulled that light down on top of her?" Manny asked his girlfriend.

Amanda smiled. "I just unscrewed the bolts holding it up. Gravity did the rest."

Manny laughed and hugged her. "I love you!"

"And you have excellent taste in women," Amanda said as she returned the embrace.

Tom said. "We can celebrate later. Right now we have to get out of here." He walked over to the room's only door and examined it. "I think I can get this open," he said as he reached for the doorframe, "but we don't know what's on the other side."

"The way out should be to the left," Matt said. "But don't force the door. That'll set off an alarm." He pointed to a small keypad beside the door. "We just need Dr. Brooks's ID card and passcode."

Tom looked around, took a few steps and bent down to pick up Dr. Brooks's card. "Here's his ID, but we don't know his—"

"4, 3, 7, 1, 5," Matt said.

The group turned and looked at him.

"And how exactly do you know that?" Tom asked.

Matt hesitated briefly. "That's my power," he said, with a self-conscious smile. "I can hear what people are thinking."

" _That's_ how you knew about the bomb threat!" Reed realized.

Matt nodded, slightly abashed. "Yeah." He looked at Amanda. "And that's how I knew what you were doing with the light. It's a good thing Shay kept him distracted long enough for you to finish with those screws."

"So it was you telling me to keep him talking," Shay said.

Matt frowned at her. "I didn't say anything to you."

"But I heard you, inside my head. You told me to keep him talking a little longer. I didn't know what you had in mind, but I figured: why not?"

"But it wasn't me," Matt insisted. "I mean, yeah I was _thinking_ about you keeping him talking, but I didn't talk to you. I can't. It doesn't work that way."

"Are you sure?" Shay pressed him. "I couldn't place the voice at first but now that I think about it, it did sound like you."

Matt looked confused. "I've never been able to talk to anybody before."

"But you can tell us the way out of here, right?" Amanda interrupted anxiously. "You can pull that out of somebody's head."

"Maybe," Matt said. "I mean, I can only hear people's thoughts when they're nearby and then only what they're thinking about at the time. I can't go searching through their memories."

"Guys, we can figure all that out on the fly," Tom said, getting them back on track. "Right now, let's start by getting out of this room. Now that we're not strapped down to those couches, I don't think they're going to find it so easy to keep us here." He took the card to the door and waved it over the keypad. An amber light blinked on.

"You said 4, 3, 7..."

"1, 5," Matt finished.

Tom typed in the code. The light on the pad changed to green and they heard a soft click from the door. He was just reaching for the door control when Shay glanced back into the room.

"We can't leave them like that," she said, indicating Dr. Brooks and Ramona. "If they wake up before we find our way out of here they'll sound the alarm."

Matt suddenly glanced at Danny, then started to laugh.

"You have a warped mind!" Matt said. "Come on. I'll give you a hand."

The two of them went back into the room and bent down to pick up Dr. Brooks's limp form as the others watched. Several minutes later they were finished.

"You guys are sick," Magda said, shaking her head as she studied their handiwork. But a huge grin had spread across her face.

They had stripped Dr. Brooks and Ramona down to their underwear then strapped them face-to-face into one of the restraint couches.

"You know," Reed said offhandedly, "I never pictured Dr. Brooks as a briefs guy. He always seemed more like the boxers type."

Manny grunted. "Yeah, and I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing _her_ in a thong."

Shaking his head, Tom turned back to the keypad and unlocked the door again. When he saw that everyone was arranged behind him he tapped the door control and the door slid open. There was no one in sight and the group cautiously exited the room.

### Chapter Twelve

The teens crept quietly out of the room where they had been held captive and found themselves in an empty corridor. The walls of the corridor bowed outward with doors set into recesses carved into the walls, further adding to the tunnel like feel of the base. The door they had come through was placed in the middle of the hallway, which ran for fifty yards in either direction before terminating in identical 'T' intersections.

Tom lowered himself to one knee and the others copied him, arranging themselves in a circle.

"Are you sure the way out is to the left?" Tom asked Matt quietly.

"No, I'm not," Matt admitted. "That's just the way everyone seemed to go when they left the room. And we need to be careful. They have a security force down here that's armed with more than tranquilizer guns."

The weight of the pistol in Shay's waistband attested to the truth of his words.

"Exactly where are we, anyway?" Amanda asked, glancing around nervously.

"From what I was able to get from different people's minds," Matt said, "I think this place was originally a bomb shelter for some military base that used to be here a long time ago. We're a couple hundred feet underground. The government rehabbed it and turned it over to Dr. Brooks to use for his original research. It's something called a black site. Officially, this place doesn't exist."

"I thought the government shut his project down before we were born?" Shay said.

"They did," Matt agreed. "But I overheard him one time thinking about somebody named Titus who helped him regain access to this place a few years ago. The government thinks it's still shut down."

"We can go into the history of this place another time," Tom said. "Right now we need to focus on finding a way out of here." He looked both ways down the hallway. "Reed and Dimitri, you two go to the right and check out that end of the hall. Just take a look around the corners and let us know what's down there. I'll go left with Matt and check out that end. The rest of you wait here until we figure out which way we're going to go."

As Reed and Dimitri headed one way, Tom and Matt moved in the other direction. As they neared the end of the corridor, Matt tapped Tom and motioned that he sensed someone ahead to the right. They crept the last few feet to the end of the corridor and cautiously peered around the corner. Several yards down the crossing passage there were two guards posted in front of a door on the other side of the hall. Both men were dressed in the same type of black uniform Ramona had worn and both were carrying nasty looking rifles. In the other direction the corridor was completely empty. After a few moments they drew back around the corner.

"Are you getting anything from them?" Tom whispered.

Matt shook his head. "Nothing useful. One guy is thinking about the dried-out chicken they had for dinner and the other one is wondering how long the heightened alert is going to last. Dr. Brooks must have put the base on alert when you guys showed up. But I'm not getting anything about a way out."

"I'd rather not try to get past these guys," Tom said. "Those guns look like some kind of assault rifles. Let's get back and see what Dimitri and Reed found."

Tom and Matt crept away from the corner and tiptoed back to the group by the door. When they saw that Dimitri and Reed were not with the others, Tom looked to the far end of the hallway but didn't see them there either.

"Where are they?" Tom whispered as he knelt down beside the others.

"They went around the corner," Manny said.

Tom frowned darkly. "I told them to just look around the corner, not to—"

At that moment Dimitri popped into their midst.

"Time to go!" he said, breathlessly.

"What—?" Tom began.

Before he could finish his sentence Reed appeared at the end of the hall running at full speed, a look of sheer panic on his face. An instant later a pair of Dobermans came tearing around the corner right on his heels. Both dogs had the sleekly powerful build that was typical of the breed, although one seemed unusually large. Even though their teeth were bared, the dogs were eerily silent as they pursued him. The only sound they made was the rhythmic clacking of their claws on the floor. Somehow, their silence was more intimidating than if they had been barking and growling. These were trained, killing animals.

Tom and the others sprang to their feet. Amazingly, no one turned to run even though the sight of the dogs charging at them gave most of the teens a weak feeling in their knees. Almost as if they could read each other's minds they understood that there was no time to run and nowhere for them to go if they did. Instead they each took up defensive positions and prepared to meet the fury of the attacking dogs.

Then, as the teens steeled themselves, Shay stepped forward and raised a hand toward the charging animals.

"Oh, please," Shay said in an annoyed tone.

The dogs seemed surprised by her presence. As Reed sprinted past her for the safety of the group, the dogs slowed to an easy lope. Shay knelt down and smiled at the dogs.

The Dobermans stopped within arm's reach and sat in front of her, tail stumps drumming against the floor. After a moment Shay began to pet the pair, receiving energetic licks in the face in return. This went on for half a minute before she finally stood and turned back to her friends.

"Zeus and Apollo, these are my friends," Shay said. The dogs stood and stared at the group of teens. "Guys, this is Zeus and Apollo. Come and let them smell you." After a moment's hesitation Paige came forward and lowered her hand toward the dogs. Each dog sniffed the back of her hand, their stumps wagging. At Shay's encouragement the others came forward one by one until the dogs had sampled the scent of each of the teens.

"I explained to Zeus and Apollo that we are not their enemies, unlike the mean people who keep them locked up down here," Shay said as she reached down and scratched behind the ears of one of the dogs. "You wouldn't believe what they do to these poor babies."

"Those are some pretty big babies," Danny noted.

"Yes, but they're just big loves, aren't you Zeusy?" she said as she bent and affectionately scratched the larger dog's head. Not to be left out, Apollo slipped his head beneath Shay's other hand to elicit some head scratching for himself as well.

"Can Zeus and Apollo help us get out of here?" Tom asked.

"I'll ask them."

Both dogs turned to stare at Shay for the next several moments. Then they began to bounce excitedly. After a while Shay straightened up.

"That's what I'd do if it were me," she said to the dogs.

The dogs looked at each other, then turned and bounded away, disappearing around the corner back the way they had come.

"What was all that about?" Tom asked.

"I convinced them that they didn't have to listen to their handlers since they treat them so badly. They're going to find them to, um, express their displeasure at the way they've been treated."

"I wouldn't want to be one of their handlers," Danny commented as he stared after the dogs.

"What about the way out?" Tom asked.

"Dogs don't think the same way we do," Shay explained. "I described the elevator that brought us down here. They know the 'magic cave', as they call it, and they know that's the way out of the base, but they couldn't tell me exactly how to get there. Apparently this base is pretty big. They both said the exit is near the 'outside-inside place', whatever that is. But they did tell me that the elevator is back that way." Shay pointed down the corridor toward the intersecting hall where Tom and Matt had seen the two guards.

"Of course it is," Tom said in a resigned tone. He thought for a moment, then glanced at Paige. "We're going to need a distraction."

A minute later Tom led the group toward the end of the hallway where the guards were posted. When they were in position Tom turned to Paige who had agreed to act as decoy for his plan. Her speed and agility made her the best suited for this role, but that didn't settle the fluttering in his stomach when he thought about her facing two armed guards.

"Be careful," Tom told her.

She smiled at him, then on an impulse leaned in and pecked him on the cheek.

"Be right back," she whispered in his ear.

Before he could react Paige walked around the corner. She strode briskly down the corridor until she had the attention of the guards. Then she stopped suddenly, brought her hands to her mouth and stared wide-eyed at the armed men as though surprised by them.

"What are you doing here?" one of them demanded.

Paige spun around and dashed back down the corridor. She ran past the corner where her friends were waiting and continued straight down the passage. Tom was pressed against the wall just around the corner as he listened to the sound of the approaching guard's running steps. As the guard reached the corner, Tom whipped a straight arm out to clothesline him. For the guard it was like running into a tree branch. The man's feet went out from under him and he flipped backward, striking his head on the floor. He was out cold before his feet came down.

Before the guard's body came to a stop, Manny was racing around the corner yelling wildly. Seeing his partner go flying combined with the unexpected, wild attack had caught the second guard by surprise. Before he could finish bringing his weapon up Manny tackled him, slamming him hard to his back and knocking the wind out of him. As he struggled to get his breath back Manny sat on his chest and punched him over and over in the face until he finally stopped moving.

A moment later, Tom came up behind him, dragging the first guard by one foot.

"Why didn't you use your power to hold him still," Tom asked.

Breathing heavily, Manny looked up at his friend and smiled. "Sometimes you just need to punch the crap out of something," he said, rubbing his sore knuckles.

Tom stared at him for a moment. "Okay."

The others caught up with them as Manny got back to his feet. Following Shay's earlier example, Danny and Reed each picked up one of the guards' rifles. Reed had fired his grandfather's shot gun a few times while Danny's entire experience with guns was limited to laser tag and paintball. But how hard could it be to aim and pull a trigger? Now, three of them were armed.

"We need to get these guys out of sight," Tom said. He glanced at the door the men had been posted in front of. A keypad like the one in the room where they had been held was on the wall beside the door. Pulling Dr. Brooks's card out of his pocket he held it up and gave Matt a questioning look.

Matt shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

Tom waved the card at the lock, typed in the access code and was rewarded by a green light on the panel.

Just then they heard the sound of a number of booted feet coming from the far end of the hallway. Manny bent down to grab the guard he had knocked out as Tom slapped the door switch. They dragged the bodies inside and the rest of their group hurried in after them just as they heard the guards turning into the corridor.

For several tense moments they crouched quietly behind the door, listening to the sound of approaching footfalls. They couldn't tell how many people there were but it could have been as many as a dozen or more. In moments they were right outside the door. The teens held their breaths, waiting anxiously to see if they were going to be discovered. Then, the footsteps receded as the guards continued past the room where they were hiding. The group breathed a collective sigh of relief. As the sound of the guards' boots faded away, Tom bent down and picked up one foot of each of the men they had knocked out.

"Let's see if we can find somewhere in here to hide these guys." He started to drag the unconscious men away from the door then stopped as he took his first good look at the room they had entered. Facing him was row after row of floor-to-ceiling electronic cabinets. None of the teens needed Danny's ability to know where they were.

"I think we found your servers," Tom said.

Danny was already moving into the room, his hands reaching out to both sides as he extended his consciousness into the ebb and flow of the electronic pathways. As Tom dragged the unconscious men down one of the side aisles, Danny moved deeper into the room.

"This is incredible!" Danny said.

"Can you pick up anything?" Tom asked.

"Oh yeah," Danny said, excitedly. "I'm running through their files right now."

"I thought you said it was going to take time to get through their firewalls," Shay said.

"That was when I was trying to connect through an outside line," Danny said as he turned in a slow circle, a dreamy expression on his face. "But now that I'm right here, in the same room, I can access... _everything_."

"Good," Tom said. "Then maybe you can find the blueprints for this place so we can figure out the way out of here."

"What? Oh, right. Just a second." Danny frowned in concentration. A moment later he looked toward the far end of the room. "There's an operator's station back there."

He led the way through the rows of server racks to the far side of the room and an isolated cabinet. Unlike the other racks, this one had a monitor screen above a flip down keyboard on one side. Ignoring the keyboard, Danny placed a hand on the cabinet and closed his eyes. After a few moments images began to appear on the screen. The images started flashing by faster and faster until they became a blur.

"There's a _lot_ of files in here," Danny said. "I just need a moment to find...wait a second." The images stopped. On the screen was a large O with an unusual dash in its center.

"That's the symbol for Theta in the Greek alphabet," Dimitri said.

"Yeah, well this file has a lot of biographical data in it—on us!" Danny said.

Tom ground his teeth in frustration. "We don't have time to read through this now." Like the others, he really wanted to know what information Dr. Brooks had on them, but their first priority had to be escape.

"Not to worry," Danny said. "I'm downloading a copy to my own server back in the clubhouse, and a couple of other files while I'm at it."

Tom twisted back and looked around the room. "We shouldn't stay here too long. Any luck with that map?"

A moment later the screen changed again, this time showing a wire-frame 3-D diagram of the underground facility they were in.

"Wow, this place is really big," Amanda said.

Danny explained, "It was designed to shelter all the people from the air force base that used to be here. The original plans had barracks and support facilities for more than two thousand soldiers. Just a second." A dot appeared on the image as he spoke. "Okay. That's where we are. And this," he said as a second dot appeared, "is where the elevator is."

"What's that?" Shay asked as she pointed to an unmarked space near the elevator. It was much larger than any other room in the facility.

"It's just listed as a training room," Danny said.

"Looks like there are a lot of hallways we need to pass through to get to the elevator," Tom commented as he studied the screen.

"We can cut off some of the distance if we go this way," Danny said. On the screen, a short passage between the room they were in and another room nearby was highlighted.

Tom traced the image on the screen with a finger to orient himself, then looked along the wall to their right. A two-foot square, louvered vent cover was on the wall at floor level.

"You're kidding me," Tom said. "Air vents? That's like something out of a bad movie."

Danny shrugged. "This is a server room, right? Computers generate a lot of heat so a room like this has to have a way to cool everything down or the circuits fry. The only way to move a large amount of air quickly is through big vents. That one is the cold air inflow."

Tom stepped over to the vent and knelt down. He could feel cold air coming out of it. He grabbed the edges of the vent cover and pulled. There was a short series of pops as the screws holding the cover in place sheared off, then the cover pulled free.

"It's going to be a tight squeeze," Tom observed as he looked inside the opening. He could only see a few feet into the vent before the inside was lost in shadow. "And we're not going to be able to see where we're going."

Danny and the others gathered behind him.

"According to the diagram it should be pretty easy," Danny said. "Go straight for twenty feet, then right for twelve feet then left for another thirty five feet."

Tom gestured to the vent. "After you."

Danny got on his hands and knees and squirmed into the opening. One by one the others followed until James and Tom were the only ones left. Neither of them had liked dark, tight spaces ever since the time when their homemade snow fort had collapsed on them as kids. James watched the last of their friends crawl into the vent then offered to let Tom go ahead of him, but his cousin shook his head.

"I need to pull the cover back in place behind us," Tom explained, "which means I'm going to have to crawl backwards until I can find a place to turn around. If you don't mind crawling backwards through there—"

"Never mind," James said. Cranking up his nerve, James got down on the floor and crawled into the vent. Tom followed a moment later, pulling the vent cover back into place behind him.

The trip through the vent did not take long. With Danny in the lead the group followed closely behind each other as they made their way through the cramped space. Halfway through the vents they passed an intersecting passage which blasted them with refrigerated air, but that was the only difficulty they encountered. The biggest challenge was getting the second vent cover off. If they had thought it through Tom might have gone first. As it was, Dimitri was right behind Danny. Once Danny had pushed the louvers of the vent cover fully open Dimitri teleported past him into the room. Between the two of them they managed to pry the cover loose.

As they crawled out of the vent the teens found themselves in a white-tiled room. There was a coldness about the place that had nothing to do with the actual temperature. Half a dozen steel tables were arranged in two rows down the length of the room. On the left wall there were a number of square, steel doors that looked like refrigerator doors. Along the other wall were a series of glass cabinets filled with an assortment of different-sized jars with disturbing-looking things floating in them.

All of the tables were empty, except for one. Stretched out on one of the middle tables was a body. The body was male and naked, apart from a narrow length of fabric draped modestly across its hips. From where they were against the back wall of the room they couldn't see his face. What they could see was that from throat to groin the body had been split open. The skin had been pulled back on both sides, held open by surgical clamps to allow access to the body cavity while the front of the rib cage had been cut away. Although they could not see inside the body they knew that all of the corpse's organs had been removed. They knew this because lined up beside the body were all of the internal organs, arranged in a neat line like the pieces of a grizzly jigsaw puzzle.

One by one, as soon as each of the teens saw the body, they froze. To leave the room they needed to go down the aisle between the tables, but no one wanted to get any closer to the corpse.

Tom was the first one to move.

"Come on guys, it's not like he's going to get up and come after us," Tom said as he started forward.

After a moment the others slowly followed. Although they didn't want to look, they couldn't help but stare at the lifeless corpse as they filed by. While most of them averted their eyes once they were past, Shay actually stopped to examine the body. She had done necropsies on different animals at school and something seemed wrong to her.

Even though she had never seen a human body dissected before, she recognized many similarities between the corpse's organs and those from the animals she had examined. One thing she noticed right away was how precisely the work was done. Each organ had been meticulously removed and arranged beside the body. It was as if each one represented a prize and needed to be treated respectfully.

Then she realized what was bothering her. All of the organs had a strange texture to them. Unlike the animal organs she had examined, the ones from this body were not smooth in appearance. For some reason each one had a kind of pebbly appearance, as if all of the cells had ruptured.

As she looked along the line of organs she glanced up toward the head and was surprised to see a pair of eyes in a small tray. Like the body organs, the eyes had been carefully removed and set out for display. They were blue and had an odd, cloudy appearance, as if they had developed cataracts. She supposed that could simply be what happened to eyes after someone died, although none of the animal eyes she had dissected had looked like that.

Then she glanced at the face and did a double take. The body was that of an Asian man. With the lids sunk back into the empty sockets she couldn't be sure that the eyes did indeed have the typical almond shape, but the hair, the shape of the mouth, nose and cheek bones all pointed to someone of Asian descent.

But she had never known anyone who was Asian to have blue eyes.

"Shay?"

Shay looked up to find Dimitri standing nearby. He had hung back to wait for her while the others continued to the door.

"Sorry," Shay said as she turned away from the table. "I found something strange."

Dimitri glanced at the body then back at her. "Can it wait?" he asked.

Shay saw the discomfort in his face.

"Sure, I just wanted..." She paused as something in one of the glass cabinets across the room caught her attention. She walked over to the cabinet and stared. Looking back at her were half a dozen pairs of eyeballs, each pair meticulously preserved in special containers.

"Shay," Dimitri said, uncomfortably. "We need to go."

Shay hesitated for a moment before turning away. "Alright." She took his arm and allowed him to lead her toward the rest of the group.

The others were waiting for them at the room door.

"Okay," Danny said when they rejoined the group. "According to the map we go right and then take the second left."

"I'll go first," Tom said. "Everybody stay close."

He tapped the door control and the door slid open.

Standing on the other side of the door facing them was an armed guard, his rifle leveled at Tom's midsection.

Everyone froze. Tom felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest. He had been able to heal himself from a single stab wound, but he doubted his system could handle multiple gunshots. And the weapon the guard was holding looked like an assault rifle.

The man glared at them for a moment, then opened his mouth to speak. In that instant a dark shape streaked into view, slamming into the man's body and bowling him over.

Without hesitating, Tom charged into the corridor followed closely by the rest of the group. They saw the guard laying unconscious on the floor a few yards away with one of the Dobermans sitting on his chest.

Shay pushed to the front of the group. "Apollo! Thank you, boy... Yes, you did real good."

The dog stood and walked over to Shay to receive an enthusiastic head scratching. After several moments the dog began bouncing excitedly then bounded off down the corridor in the direction they were headed.

"He says we're going the right way," Shay told the group. "He's going to run ahead and see if he can find more of the bad people."

"I'm glad they're on our side," Tom said as he stepped past her and picked up the guard's limp body.

Draping him over one shoulder, Tom carried the guard back into the room they had just come from. He started to simply dump him onto the nearest autopsy table, then thought of a better idea. He carried the guard to one of the morgue cabinets, pulled out the sliding tray and laid him down on it. That should give him quite a shock when he woke up, Tom thought as he slid the draw back into the cabinet and closed the door.

When Tom came back into the corridor his foot kicked the stock of the rifle the guard had been carrying. He bent down and picked it up, looked at it for a moment, then held it out to Dimitri.

Dimitri glanced at the gun and shook his head. He did not like weapons.

"Hell, I'll take it," Magda said, reaching for the gun. Taking the rifle from Tom she examined it quickly, dropped the ammunition clip to check the load, then slapped it back into place. Raising the rifle to her shoulder she sighted along the top of the weapon briefly to familiarize herself with the sights, then set the safety and cradled it easily in her arms.

Tom stared at her with his mouth hanging open. "Maybe I should let you go first."

Magda giggled and shook her head. "That's okay. You're doing fine," she told him. Her older brother was into guns and she had learned how to handle a weapon from him.

Tom started off and the others fell into line behind him. They moved cautiously through the corridors making as little noise as possible. Their luck held and they didn't run into any more guards. A few times Matt sensed people ahead of them but they always managed to find an empty room to hide in until the area was clear. It was nearly half an hour later before they stopped several yards short of the corner that led into the final corridor they needed to pass through. According to Danny, the elevator should be at the end of that hallway. But around the corner they could hear the sound of several voices. Moving silently, they crept back the way they had come.

"They know we've escaped," Matt whispered after the group had moved away from the corner. He told them that fifteen guards were stationed in the corridor specifically to prevent them from reaching the elevator. "They didn't sound a general alarm because they don't want us to know that they're looking for us. Apparently Dr. Brooks wants us alive."

Tom nodded as he considered the situation. There were more than a dozen armed men around that corner. Charging into the fire from all those assault rifles would normally be suicide, but Dr. Brooks wanted them alive. The guards would be reluctant to use deadly force against them, and that might give them an advantage—unless the guards were waiting for them with tranquilizer guns. Tom could shake off the effects of the tranquilizers, at least a few doses, but even if he managed to remain conscious and take out the guards he couldn't carry all ten of his friends.

He discussed his concerns with the others.

"There might be another way out," Danny said. "The diagram showed another elevator inside that big room Shay pointed to."

"You mean the training room?" Shay asked.

Danny nodded. "Yeah. At the far end of the room there's supposed to be an elevator up to an observation gallery. From there it looked like there was a way up to the surface. Because we were looking for the main elevator I didn't really study that way, so we'll have to figure it out when we get there."

"So how do we get into this training room?" Paige asked.

Danny looked back down the hall they had come through. "Back there on the right. That door should let us into the room."

The teens crept back along the passage until they reached the door Danny had indicated. Once again they found a use for Dr. Brooks's ID and passcode. But unlike the other doors they had accessed with the card, this one did not slide open. The door to the training room was nearly a foot thick and circular, like a bank vault. It hummed slowly open on motorized hinges. Through the door was a vast open space that was dimly lit by a few low-powered lights scattered across a ceiling several stories overhead. Sensing no movement inside, they cautiously entered the room.

It was quiet inside the great room, the distant walls barely visible in the shadows. It was larger than a professional football field and so spacious it felt almost like being outdoors. That was when Shay understood what the dogs had meant by the 'outside-inside place'. In the dim light they could make out few details on the far wall, but there seemed to be something that looked like a shadowed doorway directly opposite them. Danny said that was where the elevator should be. Other than that the room seemed to be nothing more than empty space.

As the door hummed quietly closed behind them, the teens started across the room. The floor was covered with some kind of tough, plastic padding which muffled the sound of their footsteps. They had just reached the center of the room when another detail on the far wall materialized out of the dimness. What had at first appeared to be nothing more than a dark smudge along the top of the wall was now revealed as a series of rectangular patches: windows.

Just then the lighting in the room came on, spotlighting them in the middle of that vast open space.

### Chapter Thirteen

"Impressive," Dr. Brooks's magnified voice boomed at them from speakers hidden within the room. "In spite of all the people I have searching for you, you managed to evade detection and make your way completely across the facility."

As Dr. Brooks spoke to them they felt vulnerable, exposed. They wanted to run but without a clear direction to go in the teens instinctively arranged themselves in a defensive circle. Shay, Danny, Reed, and Magda held their weapons at the ready while the others stood with their fists raised protectively. It was like they were back in the clubhouse again, practicing with their powers. Only this time the stakes were real.

"Ironically," Dr. Brooks continued conversationally, "this is the very room where I was planning to bring you to test your abilities. The room you so conveniently made your way into is a special training facility that we call the Arena. As you will soon discover, this room has been constructed with a number of surprises designed to test you under combat conditions. It was originally used to test the abilities of the first generation of Theta Troopers—the supersoldiers, as you so quaintly dubbed them, Thomas. They proved remarkably effective against the different scenarios we arranged for them here. Hopefully, you will do as well."

"Screw you!" James yelled.

Dr. Brooks laughed. "That's the spirit, son. Keep that attitude. You're going to need it."

The door that had locked behind them gave a deep, metallic clang as the locking bolts withdrew. A moment later the door began to swing slowly open.

"Although my original plan had been to test each of you individually," Dr. Brooks said as the group turned to face the slowly opening door, "I see no reason why the testing should not proceed with you as a group."

The door was now open wide enough for a person to step through. Magda dropped to one knee and pulled the rifle to her shoulder as she sighted at the door. Shay widened her stance and held the pistol out before her, using her free hand to steady her gun hand. Danny and Reed held the stocks of their weapons tucked into their sides, ready to spray the first thing through the door, while the rest of their group spread out to face whoever entered.

A few moments later they saw something move into the room. It was smaller than a person, low to the ground, and moved with a slightly jerky gait. They soon realized that it was one of the Dobermans. Then immediately behind the first dog they saw the second one enter the room. Shay was suddenly agitated at the appearance of the dogs.

"What did you do to them?" Shay yelled angrily. She could sense their distress.

The dogs weren't moving with the same graceful lope they had displayed before. Now their motions jerky and hesitant. Then, as a pair of guards appeared in the door behind the dogs, they could see the reason. Each of the men was holding one the dogs at the end of a lengthy animal control pole. The cable around each dog's neck prevented them from moving freely while the men were able to remain at a safe distance from the animals' teeth and claws. To protect them from the armed teens, the guards were wearing body armor. Once the men had come completely into the room, the door started to swing shut behind them, closing off any possibility of escape.

"For some reason, my men appear to have lost control of these animals," Dr. Brooks said. "Several guards have actually been attacked by the dogs, who have suddenly become quite vicious." The trainers loosened the cables and slipped the loops off the dogs' heads. Then they each reached to their side and pulled free a short baton, extending them with a quick flick of the wrist to nearly to two feet in length.

Now free of the poles, the dogs lowered their heads and faced the teens.

"My trainers feel that the dogs need to be reminded of their role within our organization. They are of the opinion that they will respond to live combat training, and so I have had them bring the dogs to you." The dogs continued to stare at the group of teens. "For myself, I have another theory about the reason for their sudden change in demeanor. We are about to test that theory. Regardless, I believe you will find them to be an adequate warm-up exercise. We will see how you fare against them before we continue with other tests."

Shay slowly lowered her pistol and took a step forward. She and the dogs stared at each other.

"Zeus, Apollo, _kill_!" one of the trainers commanded. The dogs did not move. When they failed to act after several moments, the trainer who had given the command stepped toward the dogs and struck the nearest one on the flank with his baton.

" _Kill_!" he repeated.

In a flash, both dogs spun around and leapt on the trainers, driving both men to the floor. The protective clothing that would shield them from gunfire proved to be of little use against the dogs' fangs. For several seconds the sounds of the men's screams echoed in the room along with the sound of tearing flesh. For a while the men tried to ward off the attack with their batons but the dogs quickly caught the batons in their jaws and yanked them out of their grasp. The fight soon ended with sickening gurgling noises when the dogs' teeth found their way to the soft throat tissues.

In less than half a minute the trainers' struggling ceased. Red puddles began to spread beneath them. As their bodies gave a few last twitches, each dog bent to retrieve something from the floor. Zeus picked up one of the animal control poles, balancing its length in his powerful jaws like an oversized fetch stick, and padded proudly over to Shay. Apollo brought her a smaller prize, something he could easily carry in his mouth. As both dogs sat in front of Shay, Zeus presented her with his prize while Apollo dropped his offering at her feet: a finger.

Shay hid her disgust as she bent to pet both dogs affectionately, carefully avoiding their bloody muzzles.

"Good boys," she said over and over. The dogs drummed their tail stumps against the floor. After a while she straightened and turned to face the far side of the room, looking up at the windows to the observation room. The lights in the room were on now and they could see Dr. Brooks standing there watching them. Over his shoulder they could see the unmistakable silhouette of his second in command, Ramona.

"Is that the best you've got?" Shay yelled.

It was several moments before Dr. Brooks spoke. "As I surmised, you have the ability to command creatures other than just birds," Dr. Brooks said. His tone gave no indication that he had the slightest concern for the two men who had been killed.

The rest of the group had just turned to face the observation room as well when Paige suddenly threw herself backward. She performed a back handspring and landed lightly on her feet in a guarded pose. The others looked at her.

"What was that for?" Manny said.

"Something almost hit me!" Paige said, looking around frantically.

Just then Tom grunted and grabbed his shoulder. He frowned as he saw something sticking out of his arm. Wincing, he pulled a small, serrated disk from his shoulder. It was about two inches in diameter and had buried itself halfway into the muscles of his shoulder. The others could see the glint of metal where the disk wasn't covered with blood.

"They're shooting at us!" Matt said suddenly. His head snapped around, "Danny, duck!"

Danny dropped into a low crouch just as something streaked through the space where he had been. This time they could hear the low buzzing of the disk's passage through the air as it sped past.

Matt wheeled around. "Reed!...Manny!" The boys threw themselves to the floor at Matt's warning. Manny escaped injury but Reed cried out and reached for his right cheek where he had received a shallow cut from a glancing blow.

"Amanda, can you help?" Tom asked.

Amanda raised her hands, looking all around. "Where is it coming from?"

Matt pointed at the wall to their right. They saw that a panel had opened halfway up the wall and a gun barrel was pointed at them. It was not round but appeared oval when viewed on end, with a narrow slit of an opening.

"They're controlling it from the observation room," Matt explained, then he called out, "Magda!...Shay!"

Amanda flicked her fingers and they could see brief flashes in the air as she deflected the flying blades. For the next minute Matt continued to call out the names of the intended targets and Amanda deflected the shots. Then Matt hesitated, a surprised look on his face. He turned to Amanda.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I can't hear them anymore," Matt said, his voice revealing his growing panic.

"So _that_ is your ability," Dr. Brooks's voice spoke to them. "You did well to keep it hidden from me, Matthew, but as you can see, it was ultimately a useless effort. As for you, Amanda, I am quite impressed with you as well."

"You haven't seen anything yet," Amanda said through clenched teeth. Stretching a hand out toward Tom she used her telekinetic power to take the small disk from his fingers. Then she whipped her arm and launched it directly at Dr. Brooks. She fired off the disk with so much force that even from a distance of more than fifty yards they heard the clink as it ricocheted from the window like a bullet.

"The glass is reinforced, sweetheart," Dr. Brooks said as he tapped the window with his finger. "And as to the reason for the sudden failure of your ability, Matthew, it is because I have erected a barrier against you. You see, our tests with the first generation of Theta Troopers revealed a weakness to electromagnetic fields. While most of the original test subjects developed only physical enhancements, a small number also displayed abilities similar to those developed by your group, although I will accede not as formidable. In time we discovered that those abilities failed in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields. This entire observation room is surrounded by a conductive mesh that has now been energized. Even the glass of the windows is impregnated with fine wires that allow us to send a current through it, making it quite impervious to your powers." He stopped speaking and gestured to someone beside him. They could see the heads of several technicians who were seated on either side of Dr. Brooks.

"I don't like this," Tom said when the silence had gone on for a while.

Manny was the one who noticed the motion of the gun barrel as it swung toward Amanda.

"Look out!" he yelled as he threw himself at her.

Searing pain knifed into his back as he tackled Amanda to the floor and he knew that he had been hit by one of the flying disks. In spite of the pain Manny pushed himself to his hands and knees, keeping his body between Amanda and the gun barrel.

Amanda gasped when she saw the look of pain on his face and guessed what had happened.

"I'm okay," Manny gasped. "Stay down."

"But you're hurt!" Amanda said.

Before Manny could protest Amanda wriggled out from beneath him and scrambled to place herself between Manny and the gun. There was a series of flashes from the gun as it resumed firing, the barrel moving rapidly from side to side as it switched its aim between targets. Without Matt being able to tell her who the gun was aiming at she could only guess where the disks would be. As the rest of the group dodged and weaved erratically in an effort to evade the projectiles, Amanda did her best to deflect every one that she could. Then, as she concentrated, she began to find it was getting easier to locate the blades as they sped through the air. Energy seemed to flow into her and she found that she could actually sense the dangerous projectiles despite their speed. Soon she was batting them aside with no trouble.

This went on for a while until the gun suddenly increased its rate of fire. Whereas before the gun had been firing off the disks one at a time, it now began loosing several at a time in short bursts.

"It's too fast!" Amanda said as she struggled to keep up. "I can't stop them all."

Around her the others were jumping about madly, trying to evade the dangerous hail being sprayed at them. Most of them were dodging erratically from side to side, trying to make it difficult for the gun operator to track them. Even the dogs where running in circles. Paige continued her acrobatic ballet, leaping into the air and contorting her body to evade the disks. Dimitri was teleporting rapidly from place to place, disappearing and reappearing in the blink of an eye. And all of them were quickly tiring.

Suddenly, Tom stopped moving. "Everybody, line up on me," he shouted as he turned his back to the gun.

Paige realized what he had in mind. "But Tom, you can't—"

"Do it!"

The group scrambled to line up behind him. As they assembled, Tom motioned them down into a squatting position to further reduce their profile. Following their example, the dogs crouched down at the end of the line as Shay communicated what they were doing. They huddled together, each of them pulling themselves close to the person in line ahead of them. As they got into position, Tom winced several times as a number of the flying blades buried themselves in his back.

"You can't protect all of us," Paige said as she looked up into his face. She was the first one in line and she saw him react every time he was hit. Tears began running down her cheeks as she watched his face contort with each hit.

"Oh, Tom..."

"Everybody stay close and come with me," Tom said. Hunching his shoulders Tom ducked his head and looked down at the floor behind him as he began shuffling backwards. He moved slowly so that the rest of the group could stay in line, making his way steadily toward Amanda and Manny.

"Amanda, if we all line up behind you will that make it easier for you to deflect those things?" Tom asked as he shuffled up behind her and Manny.

Amanda was on her knees with her hands raised defensively toward the gun.

"Maybe," she answered, her fingers flicking rapidly as she deflected the blades coming at her. "At least I'll know where the blades are going."

"She can't keep blocking forever!" Manny said from where he was huddled on the floor behind her.

"She won't have to," Tom said. "Reed, can you—"

Just then the sound from the gun changed. Every time the gun had fired before they could hear a muffled pop. Until now there had always been a detectable pause between shots, even after the firing rate increased. No more. In an instant the sound became a continuous, rapid fire stream. They had switched the gun to full auto.

Amanda felt her heart leap into her throat as she tried to deflect the stream of projectiles streaking toward her. She quickly found herself being overwhelmed and felt several of the flying blades starting to slip past her guard.

Then she heard a gasp. One of the blades had imbedded itself in Manny's shoulder. He grunted as his arm failed him and he collapsed onto his face.

Fear and anger exploded inside her. Somehow she tapped into a reserve of strength she had not known was there. Channeling the energy through her body she projected the power before her. Instead of trying to deflect each blade one at a time she somehow erected a barrier between herself and the gun. The stream of disks rebounded from the invisible shield, scattering like drops of rain against an umbrella.

"If you're going to do something," Amanda called over her shoulder, "do it now!"

"Reed," Tom called. "The gun, it's a kind of machine, right? Jam it!"

For a moment Reed couldn't believe that it had never occurred to him that he might be able to affect the gun. He reached out with his sense and felt for the gun mechanism. It was a lot simpler than he expected it to be. He studied it briefly then prepared to make a minute adjustment. He had to wait for just the right moment to—now!

Although Reed had little experience with guns, the technical term for what he did was called a stovepipe. If one of the rounds in a gun failed to eject properly, it created an obstruction in the barrel that prevented other rounds from being fired. This type of misfire could result in anything from the weapon simply jamming to an explosion.

In this case the teens heard a loud bang in the wall followed by a cloud of smoke billowing through the open panel as the gun abruptly stopped firing.

Amanda held her barrier in place for several more moments to be sure that the gun was in fact out of commission. When the shooting did not resume after a while she dropped the barrier and slumped forward onto her hands, exhausted. She stayed on all fours for several moments, allowing her strength to slowly return, then turned around to check on Manny. Manny had pushed himself up with his uninjured left arm and was reaching for her.

"Are you okay?" Manny asked as she turned to him. "I didn't know you could do that."

Amanda nodded. "Me either," she said. She ran her fingers gingerly along his shoulder where the flying blade had injured him. Manny had already removed the serrated disk, leaving an ugly wound in his shoulder that was still bleeding. Leaning forward, she looked down his back to where the second disk was still imbedded in his flesh. Blood welled up around the disk, seeping into the material of his shirt.

"I need to get that thing out of your back," she said.

Manny nodded.

Amanda gripped the exposed part of the disc with her fingers and looked at Manny.

"Do it," he said.

Amanda gritted her teeth and yanked the disk free. Manny grimaced but didn't cry out. Amanda slipped off one of her sneakers and tugged off her sock. Balling up the sock she pressed it to the wound in his back to staunch the bleeding.

As Amanda was tending to Manny, Tom sank to his knees.

"Can somebody please help me get these things out of my back," Tom said.

Paige sprang up and hurried around to examine him. More than a dozen of the serrated disks were imbedded in Tom's back and he had at least as many cuts on his sides and arms as a result of glancing hits. The entire back of his shirt was red with blood.

Paige clapped a hand over her mouth as she stood looking at his back, uncertain what she should do.

"I don't know what—"

"Just pull them out," Tom said.

Paige knelt down and hesitantly grabbed a disk.

"It actually doesn't hurt that much anymore," Tom said. "I think I'm already starting to heal. But I can feel them slicing into me every time I move. They need to come out."

Paige steeled herself and yanked the disk free. Tom spasmed slightly but that was all.

"One down," Paige said.

"Ninety-nine to go," Tom added.

As Paige reached for another disk, James, Danny, and Reed joined her.

"Hold still," James said as he grabbed one of the disks. He and the others began yanking the flying blades out of Tom's back as quickly as they could. Tom gave a low grunt each time one of the disks was pulled out but within half a minute the last of them had been removed. Paige lifted his shirt and stared at his back. The wounds had stopped bleeding and were already beginning to close.

Tom slowly pushed himself to his feet. Experimentally he arched his back and stretched his arms.

"Now I know what a pin cushion feels like."

"Nice little trick of yours, that instant healing thing," Manny said, wincing as Amanda helped him to his feet. "I wish you could teach it to me."

Tom took him by the other arm and helped him the rest of the way up.

"Sorry, trade secret," Tom said. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm okay," Manny said. He tried to straighten up and grunted. "Well, it hurts a little to lift my arm," he admitted.

"What about your back?"

"Sore, but I can manage."

Tom looked around at the rest of their group. "Is everybody else okay?" They all nodded. Aside from a few cuts from grazes they were alright. "Okay, guys, we need to find a way out of here before—"

As they started to come together they heard a low rumbling all around them. Sections of the floor were beginning to rise throughout the room.

"Now what," Danny said.

The rising sections of floor were all flat panels of varying widths. Some were as narrow as three feet while others were as wide as twelve feet across. There were dozens of them scattered throughout the room and there appeared to be no pattern to their placement. They stopped rising when they reached a height of four feet. One side of each panel was flat. The other side was marked by an X made of crossing metal struts that seemed to be to give the panels added strength. They were all oriented the same way, with the flat side toward the observation room.

A palpable sense of anxiety ran through the group as they stared around at the panels. At the same time the dogs began whimpering. They crowded close to Shay, their ears pulled flat to their heads as they cowered at her feet.

"Hey guys," Shay said. "This isn't good. The dogs are really spooked. They're so scared I can't make sense of their thoughts, but something bad is about to happen."

As a group the teens unconsciously pulled together into a cluster, drawing what comfort they could from each others' presence.

"An impressive display of teamwork," Dr. Brooks said. "Now we will see how you manage under different conditions."

While Dr. Brooks was talking to them, Reed was examining the panels. Most of them were dented and pitted and all of them were blackened over much of their surfaces. He rubbed at one of the blackened patches with his thumb and some of the black came off onto his finger. He rubbed it between his fingers and noted that it was like a fine dust. He detected a faint chemical odor that was somehow familiar.

Realization dawned on him and he looked up in time to see tall columns rising from the floor near the far end of the room.

"Down!" Reed yelled. "Everybody get behind one of those panels _now_!"

The urgency in his voice made everyone scatter and dive for cover. They had all just made it behind one of the panels when they heard a thunderous whooshing sound. The entire room was suddenly bathed in brilliant, orange light and they felt heat prickle their exposed skin as immense jets of flame flooded the space around them.

"What is wrong with this guy?" James yelled above the sound of the roaring fire.

Soon the flames stopped. No one moved.

"Is anybody hurt?" Tom called out.

When no one answered he risked peeking around the sides of his panel. As far as he could tell everyone seemed to be okay. He had taken cover behind one of the smaller panels with Paige. It was barely large enough to protect the two of them, and then only if they huddled closely together, which on second thought wasn't such a bad thing. Shay and Dimitri were crowded behind one of the large panels with the two dogs. Manny and Amanda had found their own panel, Reed, James, and Magda were together, and Matt and Danny had partnered up.

Tom had just finished accounting for everyone when he saw a flash from the flame towers. He pulled back just in time to avoid the next round of fire.

When the flaming ceased several moments later he heard Manny call out. "We need to do something."

"I'm open to suggestions," Tom shouted back.

A few moments later another burst of fire filled the room.

"Six seconds!" Shay yelled when the burst ended.

"What?" Tom called back.

"I've been timing the bursts. Each one lasts for six seconds," she said.

Just then another burst began.

When it stopped Shay continued, "And there's a gap of six seconds between bursts. Six seconds on, six off."

As the next burst began Tom thought about what they could do in six seconds.

"James, can you control the flames?" Tom called out.

"I don't know. I can try."

Another burst erupted just then. Tom counted off six seconds in his head and the flames stopped.

"No way!" James called out. "I can only heat things up. Once a fire starts it just goes wherever it wants to."

"What about you, Reed?" Tom shouted. "Is there something you can do?"

After the next burst ended Reed answered, "No. The flames are generated by gas lines. There's nothing mechanical for me to manipulate."

Tom's mind raced as the next round of flaming began. When it was over he glanced around the edge of their panel again, judging the distance to the large panel where Dimitri and Shay were hiding. He turned to Paige.

"After the next burst, I want you to run to the panel where Dimitri and your sister are," he said to her. "You should have enough time to make it."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

Flames erupted around them then, and Tom began mentally counting down the time until it would stop.

"I've got an idea," he told her. He paused, counted off the final seconds, then said, "Go!"

Paige rolled from behind their panel and scrambled to the panel with her sister. When he saw that she was safe, Tom ducked back behind his panel as the next burst began and counted down the time to the next break. As soon as he reached zero he grabbed the struts on his panel and lifted.

He had noticed that the panels were bolted in place. He planned to pull one free to use as a mobile shield. The bolts were thicker than he realized and at first nothing happened. Then, as he continued to strain, he felt the bolts begin to pull free. The next burst began just as the last bolt broke. Tom dropped the panel back in place barely in time and waited until the flames stopped. Then, keeping the panel between himself and the flame towers, he began making his way forward. He moved in short hops, stopping every time the towers erupted in another spray of fire, and moving in the brief calm moments between bursts until he had covered half the distance to the towers.

The rest of the group was a ways behind him now. Between bursts they peered around the edges of their panels to check on his progress. When he was perhaps twenty yards away from the nearest tower he stopped. Just to his right there was a small panel that he could reach the next time there was a lull. After making sure that he was properly lined up with his target he stopped and waited for the next burst of fire.

The instant the flames ceased he stood and hoisted the loose panel to one side. It was heavy and hard to manage and for a moment it threatened to pull him off balance. From somewhere deep inside he found a reservoir of strength that he tapped into. The metal panel seemed suddenly much lighter as he brought it back, took aim, and launched it like a Frisbee at the nearest tower. As soon as it left his hands he dove for the cover of the other panel nearby without waiting to see the results. An ear-splitting clang reverberated in the room followed by the sound of rending metal. Moments later they felt the floor vibrate beneath them as the tower toppled to the floor.

It had been Tom's plan to use the panel to take out one of the towers and create an open corridor they could escape through. Unfortunately, he hadn't anticipated what happened next. Now that its fuel line had been severed, instead of the tower being taken out of commission, a great column of fire was spewing straight up from the floor. The flaming column was so tall that it reached the top of the room more than three stories overhead where it mushroomed out across a large area of the ceiling. The heat was incredible. Meanwhile, the other towers continued to send out their blasts every six seconds.

At the next lull Tom left the safety of the panel he was crouching behind and began making his way back to his friends. He had to stop and take cover several times on his way back before he made it to a panel close to where the others were waiting.

"Let me guess," Danny shouted over the roar of the flaming column. "That's not what you meant to do."

"Not exactly," Tom admitted. "But it did give me another idea."

After the next blast ended Tom called to his cousin. "James, those towers must have fuel lines connecting them to a tank somewhere."

"Okay," James answered.

Another blast of fire.

"That fuel is flammable," Tom said.

"Okay," James said, unsure what Tom was getting at.

"Remember the football? You can flash heat the tank," Tom said.

After the next blast ended, James called back, "Okay. But where is it?"

"You can't, you know, just feel where it is?" Tom asked.

"No. I need to see it."

Tom cursed silently to himself during the next flame blast.

When the blast ended Tom heard Reed say, "I think I can trace the line. Give me a second."

Reaching out with his perception, Reed felt for the fuel line, following it back to a large storage tank some distance off to their left. Now that he had found the tank he had to come up with a way to convey that to James.

"It's to the left," Reed said.

"How far?" James asked, frustration apparent in his voice. He needed a more exact idea of what he was aiming at.

From where he was squatting next to James, Reed racked his brain as he tried to find a way to explain to him where the tank was. Then, for no reason that he could explain, he reached over and grabbed James by the wrist. While he held his wrist, Reed reached toward the toppled tower, stretching out with his perception for the fuel line.

There was no reason for him to suspect that he would be able to share his perception with another person. Nothing in his experience had ever suggested that it might work, but as he gripped James by the wrist he felt a connection forming between them.

James's eyes grew wide. "I can see it!" he said, gawking at Reed.

"Great," Reed said. "Now do something."

James closed his eyes in concentration as he traced the fuel line down and then left, a few snaking curves around and through a myriad of other pipes and cables, then straight until...

"Found it!" James said.

Extending his arm, he spread his fingers in the direction of the tank. It was further away than anything he had ever tried to affect with his power before. For a moment he hesitated. Could he reach that far? Then he pushed his doubts aside. He was going to do it. He had to.

Mentally collecting himself he focused on the tank and let go a blast of energy. The fuel tank was larger than anything he had ever tried to heat up before. He reached down deep and tapped into a well of energy within him and directed it toward his target. In his mind's eye he imagined his power to be like a stream of flaming liquid shooting from his fingertips. As he released the power he pictured the target beginning to glow, first red, then orange, then white hot...

The floor seemed to rise into the air then drop away beneath them accompanied by a deafening boom. The teens felt themselves being tossed around like ants in an earthquake. They actually felt the floor ripple under foot as the shockwave from the explosion shook the entire base. The lights flashed then failed altogether as the power went out. For a few seconds the column of fire was the only source of light in the room. But as the residual gas in the line bled away the flames quickly died, leaving them in pitch blackness.

For several seconds the room was silent except for some ominous creaking noises coming from different parts of the room. Then the lighting slowly came back up as the emergency generators kicked in. With the return of power they also heard a new sound—a clanging alarm.

"Sounds like a fire alarm," Manny said, as the group cautiously climbed to their feet.

"It probably is," Reed agreed. "That was a huge explosion. I wouldn't be surprised if it started a fire somewhere."

As the teens regrouped they cast furtive looks around the room.

"A _fire_?" Shay said. "Down here? Oh, it's time for us to leave."

None of them wanted to be trapped in this underground complex in the middle of a raging fire. They quickly came together and began looking for a way out. Danny nodded toward the doorway beneath the observation room windows. It seemed to be their best chance. The teens had just turned toward the doorway when Dr. Brooks' voice boomed at them.

"You will all stay exactly where you are! You have caused quite enough trouble!"

Behind them they heard the door to the Arena opening followed by the sound of many booted feet hurrying into the room. In moments they were surrounded by more than twenty guards, all of them armed, and all of them wearing hostile expressions. Slowly, the teens backed themselves into a tight group and raised their hands. The dogs stood defensively beside their new friends, heads lowered and teeth bared.

As he looked at the men pointing assault rifles at them, Matt's eyebrows crawled up his forehead. Leaning toward Magda he whispered, "They're afraid of us."

"I know. I can feel it," Magda said.

Tom overheard what they were saying and suddenly had an idea.

"Can you do what you did to James and Manny before?" Tom asked Magda quietly. "You know, suck their emotions away until they don't care about us anymore."

"I don't know," Magda said, nervously. Absorbing strong emotions always unsettled her. And there were so many of them. "I've never tried anything with so many people at once."

Tom glanced at the guards surrounding them. "You might be our only chance, Mags," he said.

Magda glanced at him. "You suck," she told him. Then, "Okay, I'll try."

Magda allowed herself to relax and stretched out with her senses, feeling for the web of emotions surrounding them. Each of the guards became a bright point in her mind, pulsing with ripples of emotion. She felt hostility, anger and fear radiating from them. This was not going to be fun. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and began drawing those feelings into herself.

It was like trying to swallow the ocean. She felt like she was suffocating, drowning in a sea of emotions. Somehow she made herself continue to draw their feelings into her, and slowly she felt them all letting go. It was as if all the color was leeching from their minds, leaving their thoughts in dull shades of gray, until it was like she was looking at a series of faded, black and white photographs.

The guards' expressions grew slack. Many of them looked down at the weapons in their hands and let them fall to the floor. Those who didn't drop their guns lowered them, letting them hang limply at their sides as they were assailed by an overwhelming sense of apathy.

As the guards relaxed their attention, Magda began to tremble. She clenched her hands tightly as she tried to contain the feelings that were threatening to overwhelm her. Her mind was filled far beyond capacity, bursting at the seams, and she knew that she couldn't contain it. She pulled her fists to her chest, trying to force the feeling down, willing it to go away. But she knew it was futile.

Then her control slipped.

Throwing her head back she emitted a wild scream. Magda felt the pent-up energy within her exploded outward. She and the rest of her group suddenly found themselves standing in the eye of a hurricane. Around them, a spherical shockwave of incredible force raced outward, battering aside anything in its path. The guards were picked up and hurled bodily away from the teens to slam into the distant walls. The protective panels surrounding them were bent outward from where they stood, flattened like blades of grass. And high on the front wall of the room, the observation room windows shattered, spraying the occupants with millions of tiny, jagged missiles. Then it was over.

For a while no one spoke. The loudest sound was Magda's panted breaths.

"Damn, Magda!" Paige said, looking around at the destruction.

Gradually, Magda's breathing slowed. Her eyes, which had been glazed over, slowly regained their focus. She blinked a few times then looked around at their group.

"Is everybody okay?" she asked dreamily.

The teens glanced at each other. Everyone was accounted for.

"Now's our chance," Tom said. "If we make a break for the elevator we might be able to get up to them before—"

Matt looked up at the observation room.

"They're getting up," Matt said. With the electrified window smashed he could hear their thoughts again. "The guards in the room with us are all out cold, but the people up in the booth were just stunned." His eyes suddenly went wide. "Oh my god! Dr. Brooks thinks we're too dangerous. He's telling his men to—"

Around the room they saw a number of wall panels open. Gun barrels emerged from the openings and pointed at them. But these were not like the gun that had launched the serrated disks. Each of these guns had six barrels.

Magda felt her breathing catch in her throat. She had seen guns like that before in a YouTube video her brother had shown her.

"Guys, those are mini-guns—modern Gatling guns. My brother told me about them. They can fire like four thousand rounds a minute. We'll be torn to pieces!"

Tom looked around, desperately searching for a way to protect them. The panels that had blocked the flamethrowers lay scattered around the room.

"Help me get some of those panels together!" he called to the others. But as he started to reach for a nearby panel Magda took his arm and shook her head.

"It won't work," she said. "The mini-guns will punch through those panels like paper."

"We need to do _something_ ," Tom said. Glancing up he saw each of the guns turning, subtly adjusting their aim. He couldn't be sure, but it almost seemed like—

"You're right," Matt said, answering his thoughts. "They're assigning guns to target each of us. No matter how fast we are the targeting computers will be able to follow our every move."

Computers!

The word echoed in each of the teens' minds, tingling like an electric charge. As a group they looked at Danny and he knew it was all up to him. He looked up at the observation room and reached for the targeting computers with his mind. He found them quickly, but there were several programs running at the same time, one for each gun. With at least two guns targeting each of them there were too many for him to handle in the scant seconds he had.

He started to panic, unsure what he could do. They were all going to die unless he could find a way to shut down those computers. Then he saw a brief spark flare near the edge of one window as the frayed ends of severed electrical wires briefly connected. In that moment he knew what to do.

He had only done what he was about to attempt once before, and that was by accident. Like the others, powerful electrical fields interfered with his powers, making it impossible for him to interface with electronic devices. But for what he was going to do he didn't need to connect with intricate circuit pathways.

He stretched both hands toward the observation room window. With his right hand he felt for the live cable he had seen sparking at the window edge, and drew the power toward him. With his left hand he concentrated on directing that power into the control consoles the technicians were manning. He was going to connect the consoles directly to the incoming feed lines. Without a step-down transformer to reduce the voltage, the components in the consoles would quickly be burned out. Danny wondered if the same thing would happen to him.

Then the gun barrels began to spin, quickly building up speed as they prepared to unleash their deadly barrage at the teens.

He was out of time. As soon as he sensed the live current Danny grabbed the voltage and channeled it through his body. Blue-white lightning arced across the space from the widow frame to Danny's right hand, through his body and out through his left hand. The others jumped back, raising their hands to shield their eyes from the brilliance. For several seconds Danny stood frozen in that pose. The smell of ozone filled the air.

Up in the observation room the control consoles blew out in brilliant pyrotechnic displays as lightning danced along the panels. Shrill screams echoed from the room as the technicians were caught in the grip of the arcing electricity. Several seconds later the lights went out in the observation room. At the same time the power arcing between Danny and the window was cut.

Danny stood motionless.

"Danny?" Tom asked tentatively. "You okay?"

Danny blinked then turned his head slowly and looked at him. A halo of frizzy hair floated around his head, crackling with static charge.

"That was _awesome_!" Danny said.

"I don't believe it," Matt said suddenly, snapping his head toward the observation booth.

The others followed his gaze and saw a lone head cautiously poke up from behind one of the consoles.

"It's Dr. Brooks," Matt said. "He's got a gun and he's planning to—"

Tom didn't need to hear any more. "Tree!"

Almost before the sound of Tom's voice had faded away Dimitri was gone.

An instant later he popped into existence directly behind Dr. Brooks. Dr. Brooks spun around and tried to bring the pistol up to aim at him but Dimitri batted his arm aside and grabbed him by the throat with both hands. He had reached his limit. Consumed by fury, Dimitri squeezed with all of his might and drove Dr. Brooks backward to the floor. Dr. Brooks's eyes bulged and he emitted gurgling sounds as Dimitri sat astride his body and banged his head repeatedly against the floor.

"We didn't do anything to you!" Dimitri raged. "Leave us alone! Why-can't-you-just-leave-us-alone?" He punctuated each of his words by slamming Dr. Brooks's head against the floor until he finally stopped moving.

When the doctor had been rendered unconscious Dimitri let go of him and stood up, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He was sweating and breathing heavily. A devout pacifist, Dimitri would never admit to anyone that he had actually enjoyed beating Dr. Brooks senseless. He had been half out of his mind with fury and couldn't have stopped himself even if he had wanted to. Besides, the man was just plain evil and needed to be stopped.

With Dr. Brooks neutralized Dimitri started to go to the window to signal his friends. Then he hesitated and turned back toward the doctor, staring down at his sprawled form. This man whom had known him since he was a baby, whom his parents had trusted to look after his medical needs since before he could remember, this _evil_ man had secretly conducted experiments on him and his friends and then tried to kill them. Anger flared up inside of him again as he thought about the depth of his betrayal. He drew back his foot and gave Dr. Brooks a parting kick in the ribs.

"Asshole!"

Turning to the window, Dimitri looked out into the Arena and was surprised to see his friends gone. He hurried over to the window, brushed bits of broken glass from the frame and leaned across the nearest smoking console. Poking his head out of the window, he looked down at the base of the wall. He saw the others jogging up to the doorway where the elevator would be, the dogs following right behind them. The larger dog, Zeus, padded along calmly behind the teens while the slightly smaller Apollo bounded around playfully, nipping at the ears of the other dog who ignored his younger partner with all the canine dignity he could muster.

One by one they disappeared into the doorway with the dogs bringing up the rear. For a long while there was no activity. Dimitri was thinking about teleporting down to join them when he saw Danny step out of the doorway and look up.

"Hey, Dimitri, the elevator controls don't work down here," Danny called up to him. "Can you send it down to us from where you are?"

"I don't know. Let me check."

Dimitri glanced behind him. It was the first time he had actually taken a close look at the room. The place was a mess. Bits of broken glass were everywhere and crunched under his feet when he moved. All of the control panels were charred and blackened and many had acrid wisps of smoke curling up from them. That was when he first noticed the smell. It was an unpleasant odor that seemed familiar but which he couldn't place. It reminded him of...a barbecue.

His eyes flashed to the three technicians who were draped across their consoles. They were ominously still. At his feet Dr. Brooks and Ramona lay sprawled on the floor. They had not been in direct contact with any of the consoles when Danny shorted them out. He knew that Dr. Brooks was still alive and a quick glance at the woman Ramona confirmed that she was still breathing as well.

Afraid of what he would find, but not wanting to abandon people who might be seriously injured, even though they had just tried to kill him and his friends, he approached the nearest man and tentatively reached for him. The man was pitched face down across the control console he had been operating. There was no reaction when Dimitri touched his shoulder, so he lifted the body, tipping him up so he could look into his face. The charred and blackened mess that used to be the man's face was all he needed to see to know that he was dead. Fighting down a growing feeling of nausea he let the body slump back onto the console, then turned to check on the others. All three were dead.

He turned away from the gruesome scene and moved quickly to the back wall. In the middle of the wall was an elevator door. He walked over to it and pressed the call button but it didn't light. Glancing up he saw that the indicator panel over the door was dark as well.

Dimitri walked back over to the window and looked down.

"The buttons don't work up here either," he called. "Nothing in here has any power. The place is a mess."

"Can you find the circuit breaker panel?" Danny asked. Then, "No, wait! If you bring everything back on line it might reactivate the guns. You need to find the breaker that controls the elevator and throw that one only."

"I don't know where to even start looking for a breaker panel, let alone which one controls the elevator."

Dimitri saw the others come out of the doorway and talk with Danny briefly.

"Danny thinks he could find the panel if he was up there," Tom called up to him. "Can you teleport him up there with you?"

In the blink of an eye Dimitri rejoined his friends in the Arena. He cast a doubtful look at Danny. "I've never been able to carry anything more than a few pounds with me," Dimitri said.

Shay stepped up to him and placed a hand on his arm. "Please," she said anxiously. "We really need to get out of here." Shay nodded toward the far end of the room.

Dimitri followed her gaze. The massive door in the opposite wall hung slightly askew on its hinges. Whether as a result of the gas tank explosion or Magda's blast they couldn't tell. But seeping in through the open door he could see thick ribbons of smoke curling up toward the ceiling where a growing haze was beginning to form. A flickering glow was visible through the narrow opening. The fire they had feared was apparently raging out of control. They couldn't leave the way they had come in. Their only chance was to get up to the observation room.

"I'll try," he said.

Dimitri took Danny's arm and looked up at the window opening two stories above. He could do this.

"Ready?" he asked Danny.

Danny nodded and gritted his teeth. He had no idea what teleporting would feel like.

Dimitri took several deep breaths, clenched his jaw, and flashed away.

For the barest fraction of an instant he felt an incredible yanking sensation in his shoulder. Then it was gone. He looked around and realized that he had made it safely back into the observation room.

"That wasn't so—" he began, turning to where he expected to see Danny. But Danny wasn't there beside him. Looking down he saw his fingers clenched around the sleeve of Danny's shirt, but Danny wasn't in it.

He thrust his head through the window frame. Danny was still down on the Arena floor with the rest of his friends—shirtless.

Danny placed his hands on his hips. "Can I have my shirt back?"

Dimitri dropped the shirt to him. "Sorry."

Down in the Arena, Danny was tugging his shirt back on while Reed looked up toward the observation room. "I think I can do something about the elevator. Wait for us up there."

Reed turned and hurried into the short passage. It was only a few paces from the Arena floor to the elevator doors. Clearing his mind, he closed his eyes and sent his consciousness up into the elevator shaft. He sensed the elevator at the top of the shaft, at the level of the observation room. Then he spent some time exploring the mechanism and realized he could indeed operate it. But when he tried to make it descend he found that it refused to move. He examined it more closely and realized that an emergency brake had engaged when the power cut out. He spent more time trying to open the brake but without power it wouldn't release. He decided that he would have to force it.

He probed the brake mechanism for a while until he found a way to make it to release. But he also realized that once he did, the brake would be out of service permanently. Now that he knew what to do Reed saw no reason to wait. He felt around for the pieces he needed to move, shoved the mechanism and felt the gears strip. Suddenly released, the elevator began to fall. Before it dropped more than a few feet Reed engaged the winch motor, halting the elevator's plunge. In moments the elevator was gently being lowered to their level. When it reached the bottom of the shaft Reed caused the doors to open.

"Going up," Reed said, motioning his friends into the car.

Once everyone, including the two dogs, was inside he moved to the rear of the car where he pressed his hand against one wall and closed his eyes. The doors closed and they felt the car begin to ascend. It didn't take long for them to reach the observation room level and once again the doors opened.

The teens stepped out of the elevator quickly, all except for Reed who remained against the back wall. Tom stopped after going a few steps into the observation room and turned back.

"You coming?" he asked Reed.

"Yeah, um, about that," Reed said. He spoke with his eyes closed as he maintained his concentration. "I can't move or I'll let go of the elevator."

Tom frowned. "And...?"

"If I let go, it'll drop to the bottom of the shaft," Reed said.

"But the elevator was up here before," Tom pointed out. "Doesn't it have a brake or something to hold it in place so people can get in and out?"

"It did," Reed explained, "but I had to strip the locking gears to get it down to us. There's no way to keep it up at this level."

"So how are you going to get out?" Tom asked.

"I'm not exactly sure."

"What's wrong?" Paige asked, coming up beside Tom.

"Reed can't leave the elevator," Tom said.

"What? Why not?"

"If he lets go of the elevator it'll drop," Tom said.

"And you knew this before you brought us up here?" Paige said to Reed. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I needed to get my friends out of that death trap room," Reed said defensively.

"But now you can't get out," Paige said, her tone softening.

"I can make the elevator lower me back to the Arena," Reed said.

"And how do you get up here with the rest of us?" Paige pressed him.

"I don't know. I guess I didn't exactly think that part through," Reed admitted. "But at least you guys are safe."

"Reed!" Paige said.

"Look," Reed said, "I'm going to have the elevator lower me back down to the bottom and we can figure it out from there."

"Wait a minute," Tom said. He had been studying the elevator doorway. "I might be able to hold it long enough for you to get out."

Even with his eyes closed, skepticism showed on Reed's face. "I know you're this monster strong guy and all, Tom, but this elevator is a heavy duty industrial model. It's got to weight over six thousand pounds. I don't think even you can hold it up."

Tom leaned into the car and looked up, studying its construction. "I won't have to hold it for long," he said as he reached up and placed one hand against the top of the door frame. Looking down he set his opposite foot firmly on the floor of the observation room just outside the elevator.

"And how are _you_ going to get out of there?" Paige asked Tom.

Tom reached his free hand out to her. "You'll pull me out."

Paige looked at him for a moment, then clasped his hand in both of hers and braced herself. "You're crazy."

Tom smiled at her, then turned to Reed. "You ready?"

"As ready as I ever will be," Reed said. "You?"

Tom adjusted his position, gave Paige one last glance and took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Go!" Reed said.

The elevator car tilted and creaked. Tom grimaced as he took the weight of the elevator, clenching his teeth with the effort, but he held the elevator in place. Reed snapped his eyes open, took a couple of running steps and dove through the open door. As soon as he was free, Paige squeezed Tom's hand.

"Now!" she said.

She yanked on Tom's arm with all of her strength, tugging him out of the doorway as he released the elevator car. It dropped immediately. Tom felt the rush of air as the top of the elevator's doorway streaked past, barely missing his shoulder.

Paige had pulled him so forcefully that she lost her balance and fell backward, pulling Tom down on top of her. A moment later they heard a loud crash from the open elevator shaft.

Tom lay sprawled on top of Paige, supporting himself on his forearms as he gazed into her eyes.

"Thanks," he said.

### Chapter Fourteen

"Whenever you two are ready," Reed said to Tom and Paige. He was sitting on the floor of the observation room a few feet from where they lay sprawled together, picking pieces of glass out of the front of his shirt.

Paige tried to sit up but Tom didn't move.

"I don't know if I can get up," Tom said. "I think I might have hurt my shoulder."

Paige said, "I'm going to hurt something else if you don't let me up from here."

Tom grinned at her, then slowly pushed himself up. Once he was standing he reached down and gave her a hand up.

"Your shoulder seems fine now," she observed.

"I heal fast," Tom said innocently.

Paige allowed herself a half smile then turned to Reed. Her oldest friend had been willing to sacrifice himself to get the rest of them to safety. Once he had climbed to his feet she threw her arms around him and hugged him fiercely.

"Thank you," she told him.

Reed laughed.

When Paige released him, Tom offered him his hand. "That was pretty gutsy," Tom said, as they shook hands.

"Not as gutsy as you holding up that elevator," Reed said.

"Okay, okay," James interrupted, stepping between them. "I declare this meeting of the mutual admiration society officially closed." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Now how about we get the hell out of here?"

Tom nodded. "Yeah, James is right. We need to move. Danny, you said there was a way up to the surface from here."

"Down this way," Danny said, pointing to the far end of the room.

As the others turned to follow Danny, James elbowed Dimitri. "Nice trick with the shirt, dude. How about next time we try it on Magda?"

James started to laugh when Magda strode over to him to give him a shot in the arm.

"Ow!"

Before he could respond, Paige turned and also punched him in the shoulder.

"Hey!"

From Dimitri's other side, Shay reached around and slugged him as well.

"Alright already! I was only joking. Geez!"

Just then, a small electronic component from one of the exploded panels rose into the air and sailed at James, striking him in the back of the head.

"Oh, come on!"

The girls exchanged looks with each other and giggled.

As they started through the observation room Tom looked around. When he noticed the bodies of the technicians he stopped. He looked at Dimitri and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Dimitri shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. Then Tom looked down at the sprawled forms of Dr. Brooks and Ramona.

"What about them?"

"They're alive," Dimitri said curtly.

Tom stood staring at them. He knew that Dr. Brooks would come after them again as soon as he regained consciousness. The doctor was obsessed with them. Even after they escaped from here he knew that Dr. Brooks would never stop trying to kidnap them. In his twisted mind he really seemed to believe that they were his property. The safest thing to do would be to kill them now. He could do it easily enough. A quick twist of their heads and it would all be over. Since they were already unconscious they wouldn't even feel it. He stood there for several long moments trying to decide what he should do.

"Let's just go," Tom said eventually. He wasn't a murderer. Yet, even as he made his decision, the thought came to him that he might come to regret his choice.

At the end of the room they found a surprisingly ordinary looking door in the back wall. Through a narrow window in the door they could see a stairwell with steps leading up. Dim, emergency lights prevented the stairs from being completely engulfed in darkness. Danny was just reaching for the handle when he noticed a small red light on the wall beside the door. At first he thought it was a ready light on one of the control panels. Then he remembered that the power was off in the booth. As he turned to look at the light he noticed that it was slowly moving across the wall.

His legs suddenly went out from under him as someone tackled him from behind. Just then Danny heard a shot ring out as a bullet ricocheted off the edge of the door frame right where his head had been barely a moment before. He looked down to see Matt clinging to his knees.

A moment later a volley of rapid-fire shots tore into the booth through the open window, causing the rest of their group to drop to the floor. While they all hunkered down on the floor of the observation room, Manny scrambled over to the window and peeked down into the Arena.

The door at the far end of the room had been pushed wide open and dozens of armed guards were swarming into the room. The smoke which had been billowing into the room from the corridor beyond had been reduced to a trickle and he could not see any signs of a fire. Somehow they had gotten the blaze under control. Several of the guards were holding assault rifles to their shoulders, sighting into the observation room window. He could see the telltale flash of laser sights as they swung their weapons back and forth while they looked for targets. The rest were hurrying toward the lower elevator doors.

Staying on his hands and knees, Manny crawled back to his friends and reported what he had seen. Over their heads a number of red dots slowly moved across the back wall of the observation room, paths crisscrossing as the snipers below searched for them.

"It won't take them long to realize that the elevator is out," Reed said. "Then they'll head for the main elevator and cut us off."

"We need to get out of here," Tom said, looking at Danny.

Danny was already reaching for the door handle. "I'm way ahead of you."

He yanked down the handle and pushed open the stairwell door. Shots rang out when the guards saw the door opening, but they could not hit the teens who were keeping low to the floor. As soon as they were out of the line of fire the teens jumped to their feet and fled up the stairwell.

They hurried up the stairs, following the switchbacks up several flights until they reached the top landing. Danny was in the lead. As he reached the door he realized that there was no handle on this side. Just like the alcove that led from the warehouse into the office area, they had blundered into another man-trap. As he dropped his forehead against the door panel in frustration the rest of the group crowded in behind him.

"What's wrong? Why are we stopping?" Magda asked.

"Dead end," Danny said, slapping the blank panel facing him.

"Let me through!" Tom called.

The others made space for him as Tom squeezed past. He examined the steel panel briefly, then motioned everyone else back. The others took several steps down the stairwell to give him room. Tom backed up a few paces then lunged at the door, slamming into the panel with his shoulder. To his surprise he rebounded from the door with no effect.

Regrouping, he stood back from the panel again and picked up his foot to drive a solid kick against it. The stairwell reverberated from the blow, but once again the panel resisted his efforts. He was not going to be able to break this door down.

He turned and looked at his friends. "Anybody?"

Reed stepped forward and pressed his hands to the door. After several moments he stepped back and looked at his friends in shock.

"I can't sense anything!"

"There's an electrical field around the door," Danny said, his eyes closed in concentration. "They rigged it so we can't use our powers."

For several moments they stood there looking at each other.

"We need to go back," Tom said eventually. "We're going to have to fight our way to the main elevator."

"We didn't do so well in that elevator on the way down, remember?" Amanda said.

"She's right," Manny said. "If we could have gotten to the elevator without them knowing where we were we might have been able to use it to get out, but they're ready for us now. That elevator's just a trap just waiting to be sprung."

Another brief silence hung around them. They were running out of options, and time.

"I might be able to screw up the gas delivery system," Reed said. "At least long enough for us to get to the surface. It shouldn't be that hard." He looked expectantly at the others.

"We don't have any other choice," Shay said. "I say we go for it."

One by one the others nodded.

James let out a breath. "Now all we need to do is get past all those guards—and their machine guns."

Tom set his mouth in a hard line. "Come on, guys. We're not just a bunch of kids. We have powers that scared the crap out of Dr. Brooks. That's why he wants us dead. He's afraid he can't control us. And you know what? He's right. He can't control us. And he should be afraid of us. Guards or no guards, we're getting out of this place, and God help anybody who tries to stop us."

Grim determination filled the teens. They were going to let those men know that they were a force to be reckoned with. Tom turned and had just started to lead the way down the stairs when Manny sensed something behind them.

"Hold up, guys," Manny said. Turning back to the sealed door he stretched out with his senses again. He could have sworn he felt...yes, it was still there. Although the door was opaque to his perception he found that he could still sense things around the door. Off to one side he felt a presence. It was at the edge of his perception but he still felt it.

"There's someone out there!" Manny exclaimed.

Manny felt a very tenuous connection with another person somewhere on the other side of the door. The person was to his right, out of line with the electrified door. Even so, the close proximity of the electromagnetic field was interfering with his senses. He squeezed his eyes closed in concentration, focusing on the presence he sensed. Slowly, the contact he felt came into focus and he had a sensation of déjà vu.

Then it hit him. It was the fake security guard from the warehouse. The man had regained consciousness and was patrolling the office space. That's what was on the other side of the sealed doorway. They had found a second entrance to the warehouse. They were almost free. Now if he could just make the man open the door from his side and let them out.

Even as he thought about it Manny realized that without being able to see into the room he would not be able to direct the guard. He had no idea where this second hidden door opened into the office and no way to orient the guard to do what he needed. Frustration welled up inside him. He mentally shoved at the guard, lashing out in anger—

* * *

—Manny blinked and looked around. He was no longer on the landing with the rest of his friends. Somehow he found himself transported into the fake office space of the warehouse. He spun around, searching for the guard he knew had to be there, but he didn't see anyone. He was alone.

That didn't make any sense. He knew the guard was there somewhere. He had sensed him just a moment before. Moving as quietly as possible he crept around the space, checking each of the cubicles. There was no one else there. Then, as he passed by one of the windows looking into the warehouse, he caught a glimpse of his reflection.

But it wasn't his reflection.

It took his stunned mind several seconds to process what he was seeing. Then it clicked and he recognized the face as that of the security guard. He even saw the bruise on his jaw where Tom had punched him. He leaned closer and saw the reflection move with him. Then he looked down at himself. He was dressed in the guard's uniform.

What the...?

He realized that he had somehow jumped his consciousness into the guard's body. But if he was here, did that mean the guard was in his body? And since he didn't understand how the transfer had happened in the first place, how was he going to get back into his own body? And if the guard was in his body, were Amanda and the others in danger? And if—

Stop it!

He could drive himself crazy worrying about the possibilities. He was here now, on the other side of the hidden door. What he had to do was figure out a way to help his friends. The question was, how? They had searched the office before and hadn't found another door. Then again, they hadn't known the elevator was there until Dimitri pointed out the negative space in the back corner of the office.

He looked around the office, studying the arrangement of the walls. The corner where the hidden elevator was located stood out to him now as an obvious inconsistency. He let his eye wander along the back wall to the other side of the building. He noticed that there was another negative space in that corner as well. It wasn't as big as the corner where the elevator was, but it was still a boxed off area that shouldn't be there. And it was big enough to conceal the stairwell landing his friends were trapped on.

He walked over to the corner and starting searching. One side of the boxed off section was just a plain wall. On the other side was a large, filing cabinet. He searched the blank wall, hoping to find another hidden switch like he had before, but didn't find anything. Next, he tried to move the filing cabinet, thinking the entrance might be hidden behind it, but the steel cabinet was too heavy to be moved. Instead, he opened the cabinet's doors, swinging them up to search through each of the racks. He went through each one carefully but again found nothing.

Was he looking in the right place?

He stood back and studied the wall again. This corner of the room definitely had a boxed off section like the other corner. There was something hidden back there. The problem was how to open it. If he had Danny's skill he could simply feel for the electrical field to know where the door was. If he had Reed's skill he could feel for the door mechanism. But he couldn't. His skill was...

"I'm an idiot," he berated himself. He didn't need Danny or Reed's powers. When he had sensed the guard before, he had also felt an opaque area that he couldn't sense through. It was the electromagnetic field set up around the door. All he had to do was search for that dead zone and he would know where the doorway was.

Closing his eyes, Manny stretched out with his sense and felt—nothing. His power was gone. In the guard's body he was without his ability to sense and control other people. Now he started to worry.

He forced himself not to panic. There had to be a way out of this. Then he remembered something Shay had said when they first entered the office. Before they found the hidden elevator, they thought the room was a dead end. Most of them wanted to give up but Shay had told them not to dwell on what they didn't know but to think about what they did know.

So what did he know?

He knew that the warehouse was only a cover for the underground complex. He also knew that the office area was a fortified bunker. He knew that there was an elevator into the complex hidden within a walled-off area in the far corner of the room. He knew that there was a second boxed-off space in this corner. That probably meant the door to the hidden stairwell was here. Since it wouldn't make sense for the door to be difficult to access, there had to be some simple way to get to it. People needed to be able to move into and out of the secret base without going through a complicated routine.

He stepped back several more paces and placed his hands on his hips as he studied the boxed off section again. One side was a blank wall. The other was covered by a filing cabinet. But he already knew that. So what was he missing? As his eyes trailed down the cabinet he noticed something odd—the cabinet didn't go all the way down to the floor. There was a tiny gap between the bottom of the cabinet and the floor. Office furniture did not defy gravity. That meant it was bolted to the wall. And that wasn't normal.

He moved to the cabinet and ran his hand along the back edge. Halfway down he felt something sticking out. It felt like a button. He pressed it, heard a soft click, and the filing cabinet swung silently out from the wall. Behind the cabinet was a recessed doorway, and beside the door was a keypad identical to the ones they had seen throughout the underground complex.

He stared at the keypad, wondering how he could open the door. Tom had the doctor's ID card but was on the other side of the door. But Dr. Brooks couldn't be the only one with an ID.

Manny glanced down and saw the guard's ID card clipped to his shirt pocket. He pulled the card loose. Could it be that simple?

He waved the card at the keypad and an amber light flashed on. He reached for the pad, trying to remember Dr. Brooks's passcode. Manny had a pretty good memory for numbers, but a lot had happened since Matt gave them the code. 4,3...was it 7,1,5 or 1,7,5? He thought for a moment then decided it was 7,1,5.

He typed in the code and was rewarded with a green light. He heard the soft thunk of thick dead bolts retracting and moments later the door began sliding open.

* * *

"Manny!" Amanda yelled.

Manny had been standing with his back to the group, facing the locked door at the top of the stairwell, when he suddenly collapsed. Amanda shouldered her way past the others and dropped to her knees at his side. Grabbing his arm she began shaking him and calling his name, but he lay there totally limp.

"What happened?" Shay asked as she knelt on his other side.

"I don't know. He just fell down. Is he...?"

Shay rolled him onto his back. He was still breathing.

"He's alive," Shay said. She checked his pulse then lifted an eyelid to study his pupil. His breathing was deep and regular, pulse strong, pupil reaction normal. "As far as I can tell he seems to be okay. He's just unconscious."

"But why? What happened to him?" Amanda asked.

Shay shook her head. "I don't know." She cast a questioning look at James who had been standing behind him when he collapsed.

"He was fine," James said. He glanced at the door. "He said there was someone on the other side of the door. Then he just fell out."

Amanda started looking around the landing suspiciously. "Did they shoot him with one of those tranquilizer darts?"

Shay ran her hands along his arms and body. "I can't find any darts."

"And I'm not sensing any kind of mechanism in the walls," Reed said.

"There's a camera up there," Danny said, pointing up in a corner where an unobtrusive lens was aimed down at the landing. None of them had noticed the camera until Danny pointed it out.

Of course there would be a camera here, Tom realized. That's how the guard would know to open the door to let people in and out. He should have realized it, but he hadn't been thinking. Then another thought struck him. They had discussed their plans in front of that thing.

"Can you kill it?" Tom asked.

A moment later there was a soft buzzing sound from the camera and a wisp of smoke curled up from the housing.

"Done," Danny said.

"Any other types of surveillance in here—another camera, microphones, anything?" Tom asked.

Danny waved his hand around slowly, then shook his head.

"I'm not sensing anything else."

"Then we should be okay for now." Tom folded his arms in thought for a moment. "We have to assume they know what we're planning," he said finally. "We were going to head back down to find a way around to the main elevator. I still think that's our best move."

"But that was before Manny passed out," Reed said. "If we have to carry him with us it's going to slow us down."

"We're not leaving him!" Amanda snapped.

"I didn't mean it like that," Reed said quickly. "Amanda, you know I would never suggest anything like that."

"I know," Amanda said in a subdued tone. She began stroking Manny's arm. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried."

"No one is leaving anybody behind," Tom said. "We're all in this together and we _don't_ abandon our friends—no matter what. But Reed does have a point. We're going to have to change our strategy. Not only did we lose Manny's ability, but at least one of us is going to have to be responsible for him."

"I'll look after him," Amanda immediately volunteered.

"Actually, I was thinking you should be near the front," Tom said. "If we run into trouble that shield of yours would come in handy. That would be the best way for you to protect Manny and the rest of us. I can carry Manny."

Amanda bit her lip. She didn't say anything but she wasn't sure that she could repeat what she had done to put up that shield. It was like it had happened all by itself. But as she thought about Manny and the others relying on her to protect them she realized that she would try. She had done it before so she could do it again.

Tom took a moment to study the others. "Matt, you should go first because you'll know if anyone is waiting for us and what they're planning. Amanda will be with you in case you need cover. James, you back them up. You can make things get hot for them before they get close."

James nodded, a grim expression on his face. For once, he didn't have a snappy comeback. He didn't care if he needed to set the whole place on fire. They were getting out of here and Dr. Brooks could burn in hell.

"The rest of us will follow," Tom continued. "Depending on the situation one or more of us can jump in as needed. Any questions?"

Everyone looked at him with determined expressions.

"Then let's go take the fight to these guys."

Tom was just bending down to hoist Manny onto his shoulder when they heard the door at the top of the landing beginning to open.

Amanda crouched protectively in front of Manny as the rest of the teens got themselves ready to face whatever came at them.

When the door opened wide enough a man stepped through. They all recognized him immediately as the fake security guard they had encountered in the warehouse. The man hesitated when he stepped onto the landing, staring at the group of teens.

"Am I glad to see you guys," the man said. He paused as his eyes fell on Manny's limp form.

"What happened?" the man exclaimed. He seemed genuinely worried to find one of them unconscious.

Everything happened at once. Amanda waved her hands and the man's belt unbuckled itself and his pants dropped to his ankles. This caught the guard by surprise and he stumbled backward. Even as he was tripping over his own pants, Tom leaped at the guard, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and driving him backward through the door, slamming him against one of the office partition walls. Behind him, the rest of the teens piled through the open door. Reed, Shay and Amanda were the last ones out. Between the three of them they were carrying Manny's body.

"What did you do to our friend?" Tom demanded and heaved him into the air by the front of his shirt.

"Geez, Tom, it's me!" the guard said, his eyes bulging.

Tom narrowed his eyes at the guard. "I don't know you, man. And if you know what's good for you you're going to tell me what you did to our friend." Holding him easily in the air with one hand, Tom drew back a fist and punched him in the gut.

The blow drove all of the air from the man's lungs and he alternated between gasping and coughing for the next minute as he struggled to breathe. When he was finally able to get enough air into his lungs to talk he turned his head to Amanda.

"Pigeon, it's me!"

Amanda stared at the man. "How do you know that name?"

"I gave it to you last year," the man said, his eyes pleading with her. "You remember, after that party at the Albright's when that bird flew over and pooped in your hair."

Amanda's mouth dropped open. "Manny's the only one who knows about that."

The man nodded. "That's what I've been trying to tell you guys. It's me."

Amanda looked down at Manny, then up at the stranger who claimed to be her boyfriend.

"But how—?"

"I don't know," the man said. "It happened when I tried to take control of the guard. One second I'm with you guys on that landing and the next thing I know I'm on the other side of the door."

Tom lowered him to his feet but kept hold of him with one hand. He squinted and stared hard into the man's eyes. "Manny?"

The guard patted his chest with both hands. "It's me. I'm in here." He waved the guard's ID badge which he had managed to hold onto. "I used the guard's ID to let you guys out."

Tom turned to Matt.

"It is Manny!" Matt said. "I don't know how, but those are his thoughts coming from the guard."

Tom released him. The man rubbed a hand across his abused stomach then bent down to pull up his pants.

"We can't stay here," the guard said as he fastened his belt. When he finished he looked up to see the others staring at him. "What?"

"Aren't you going to, you know, go back to your own body?" Tom asked him.

A worried look crossed the guard's face. It was a typical Manny expression. "I tried, but I can't. Something's wrong. I don't have my powers in this body."

James spoke up, "Look people, can we figure all this out later? Right now we need to make serious leaving behavior. Those guys with the machine guns are going to be showing up any second now and the last time we saw them they weren't exactly in the mood to talk."

Tom nodded and moved to pick up Manny's body.

"I'll do it," the guard said. "It's my body. I should carry it. I'm not good for much else like this anyway. Besides, you'll need to have your hands free if we have to fight." The guard bent down and took Manny by the wrist—

* * *

—Manny gasped and snapped his eyes open as he suddenly sat bolt upright. He was sitting on the floor of the warehouse office as the others stared down at him. He looked at his own hands, which he opened and closed experimentally, wiggling the fingers.

"I'm back!"

"What...?" It was the guard. A shocked expression was on his face as he stared at the group of teens.

"That's not me!" Manny said, pointing at the guard.

Before any of the teens could stop him, the guard made a desperate lunge toward the stairwell doorway. He slapped at the keypad beside the door, striking the red alarm button. A claxon immediately sounded as red lights began flashing around the room. The door at the top of the stairs slammed closed and the deadbolts thunked solidly back into place. At the front of the room steel shutters slid down to cover the trio of windows that looked into the warehouse and locked in place. The office had been transformed into a fortress.

Tom lunged after the guard, grabbed him and spun him around, holding him by the front of his uniform in an iron grip. Manny climbed to his feet and wrapped his good arm around Amanda who returned the hug enthusiastically.

The guard meanwhile was trying to pry Tom's hands loose—without success. Tom looked hard into the guard's eyes and cocked his fist back.

"Good night," Tom said.

The guard's eyes went wide as Tom's fist drove forward, knocking him cold for the second time.

Dropping the unconscious guard to the floor Tom turned and led the others through the office to the trap room. The inner door still hung askew on its broken hinges but the outer door was closed. Tom rushed at the door, leaping up to kick it with both feet. A loud boom reverberated in the room, but the door held. Tom rebounded from the door and fell hard on the floor.

"It must be reinforced like the stairwell door," Reed said.

"You think?" Tom said as he climbed back to his feet.

Reed brushed his fingers across the surface of the door. "Feels like solid steel. I'll bet they secured it with deadbolts along the edges. You'd need to drive a truck through this to open it." Reed frowned and closed his eyes in concentration. "And they put an electro-magnetic field around this door too so I can't manipulate it manually."

Tom punched the door in frustration. After thinking for a moment, he turned and led everyone back into the office area. There were no windows in either the side or back walls and the ones that looked into the warehouse were sealed.

"Can you do anything with those?" Tom asked Reed, pointing at the steel shutters.

Reed probed the windows with his senses, then shook his head. "No. They have an EM field around them too."

They were trapped. Tom looked around quickly and the beginnings of an idea started to take shape in his mind. He started to say something, then he remembered his mistake in the stairwell. He did not want the people that were coming after them to know what they were doing. Glancing up into the room's corners he saw several unobtrusive little cameras just like the one in the stairwell. They had been positioned to cover the entire office area. He realized that must have been how Dr. Brooks knew they were coming down in the elevator the first time. Well, screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice...

"Danny, I need you to shut down any surveillance equipment in this room."

"You got it," Danny said.

He closed his eyes as he sent his perception into every part of the room.

"Done," he said less than a minute later.

Tom called everyone together. "They're going to be coming for us soon. We can't get out so we need to set up a defensive position."

He paused and looked around at what they had to work with. The partitions were useless. The guards' machine guns would shoot right through them. Then his eyes fell on one of the desks. To give the pretend office the feel of a business struggling to make ends meet, they had furnished the space with outdated steel furniture, things you might pick up at a government surplus sale. It was utilitarian furniture, heavy and ugly, but it might be just what they needed.

He grabbed the nearest desk, pulled it toward the shuttered windows and flipped it onto its front with the desktop angled toward the elevator. He studied his handiwork briefly and nodded.

"The steel in the desk should protect us from gunfire," Tom said. "While I make the bunker larger, you guys barricade the doorways. Grab anything that isn't nailed down and pile it in front of the elevator and stairwell exits. We need to slow them down as much as possible."

The teens spread out and began dragging everything they could move into position in front of one of the hidden doorways. Chairs, partition walls, photocopy machines, desktop computers—everything they could find was being heaped into two piles. In minutes they had built two chest-high barricades that anyone coming through either entrance would be forced to climb over to get into the room.

While the others worked on the barricades, Tom dragged a second desk into position and flipped it over, facing this one toward the stairwell. He had created a V-shaped bunker they could shelter behind. They had to assume that the guards would eventually find a way to get into the observation room and make their way up by that stairwell as well. They had to be able to defend themselves from both directions. He didn't know if the steel in the desks was strong enough to stop a bullet but he hoped it might at least deflect them. In any case, it was the best he could do. Satisfied with the basic set up, he stacked two more desks on top if the first pair, raising the level of their defensive barrier.

In a short time the office had been completely transformed. Two piles of random furniture and equipment had grown in front of the secret entrances to the underground base. Facing the barricades on the other side of the room was a steel-walled defensive position from which the teens would stage their final stand.

Once everything was set the friends found places for themselves behind the bunker. Magda and Reed positioned themselves to sight at the elevator with their guns while Shay and Danny would cover the stairwell with theirs.

Then the waiting began. That was the worst part. They had no way of knowing when the guards would emerge from the hidden entrances, nor which entrance they would come through first. Maybe they would come through both doors at the same time. It was the not knowing that ate at them the most and each of them could feel their nerves beginning to fray. As they hunkered down behind the desks Shay turned and stared at the steel shutters on the wall behind them. Something she had noticed about the shutters had been bothering her.

"These shutters were designed to keep people out," Shay said suddenly.

"Yeah, and they're doing a pretty good job of keeping us in, too," Danny grumbled.

"No, look!" Shay was pointing at the bottom edge of the nearest steel shutter. After unrolling from their concealed storage compartments in the ceiling, the bottom ends of the shutters had been secured in place by a trio of thick clamps which had latched onto the shutters from the bottom of the window frames.

"All we need to do is release the clamps and we can raise the shutters," Shay said.

"But they set up an electromagnetic field around the windows," Reed pointed out. "I can't override the locking mechanism."

" _You_ can't do anything, but Tom's ability is different!"

Tom locked eyes with her for a moment then lunged for the shutter directly behind them. Three clamps had rotated into position from the bottom edge of the window frame. He grabbed the first one and pulled. For a while nothing happened. His hands started to shake as he strained, putting every ounce of his strength into the effort. Then they heard a metallic creak and the clamp started to bend back. Inch by inch Tom managed to bend the clamp out of the way until it was no longer holding the bottom edge of the steel shutter in place.

As soon as the first clamp was bent out of the way Tom attacked the second one. Sweat beaded his forehead as he fought with the second clamp until it too began to bend. When it had been bent enough to release the shutter he grabbed the last one. By this time the sweat was beginning to run in lines down his face and neck, but just like the first two, the last clamp eventually succumbed to his efforts and bent out of the way.

As soon as the final clamp was released, Tom grabbed the bottom of the shutter and heaved. Small, deadbolt pins had extended along the frame of the window to help lock the shutters in place, but these were sheared off as Tom forced the shutter up.

With the thick sheets of steel out of the way, the only thing stopping them now was the armored glass. Balling his hands into fists Tom hammered the window. After the first blow a crack appeared in the glass, but it resisted shattering.

Just then they heard a crash behind them accompanied by the staccato bray of automatic weapons firing. The guards were trying to force their way through the piled furniture. They were coming through both doors at the same time.

The teens with guns immediately started to fire back at the guards while the others dropped to the floor. Unfortunately for the guards, the narrow doorways to both the elevator and the stairwell acted as bottlenecks, forcing them to bunch together and hindering their progress. Magda, Reed, and Shay began shooting at the guards, forcing them to duck their heads whenever they tried to scale the barricades. Danny however was having trouble with his weapon.

"It won't shoot!" Danny said in a panic, pulling his trigger again and again with no effect.

Magda fired a short burst at the elevator door, then turned and reached for his gun.

"You need to take the safety off!" she said, flipping a switch on the side of the gun. She set his gun to semi-auto, limiting it to a single bullet being fired every time the trigger was pulled so he wouldn't waste all of his ammunition in a single burst.

Beside her, Reed was firing at a guard who was trying to scramble over the pile in front of the elevator. He was shooting at the man's legs but his shots were being deflected by the piled furniture.

"Don't try to be fancy!" Magda yelled. "Shoot for the center of the body."

"But they're wearing body armor," Reed said.

Sweeping her rifle back to her shoulder Magda loosed a three-round burst at the guard who had been Reed's target. She hit him in the center of his chest, throwing him backward into several men right behind him, knocking all of them down.

"Don't worry about getting through their body armor," Magda said. "Just hit them." Another three-round burst and another guard fell. "Even if you don't penetrate the vest, getting hit still hurts like hell." She fired again, knocking down yet another guard. "The rounds we're firing carry a hell of a punch. Just hit 'em. They'll go down."

The combination of the narrow doorways and the piled furniture was effectively preventing the guards from entering the room. Some of them were able to fire off a few shots, but these were all wild shots taken while they tried to scramble across an unstable pile of shifting furniture. So far their shots were coming nowhere near the teens. And before they could climb through the piles, the teens were able to drive them back while staying behind the protection of their steel bunker.

Although Danny had never fired an actual gun before, he got the hang of it pretty quickly. The hours he had spent playing first-person shooter games were paying off. As soon as he was accustomed to the kick of the gun he found that he was actually a fairly good shot. It was a good thing too, because Shay's pistol ran out of ammunition at that point and she was forced to take cover behind the barricade. She tucked herself into the smallest ball she could manage, hugging one dog with each arm.

Magda had just knocked another guard back with a short burst and switched her sights to the next man trying to climb over the pile when she pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

"I'm out!" she yelled, ducking down and dropping the now useless weapon.

Reed and Danny were the only ones with ammunition now and they would soon expend the last of their bullets. Unless something happened very soon they were going to be overrun.

Behind them Tom was still battering at the window. By this point it was covered with a huge spider web of cracks but the glass still stubbornly refused to break. He turned from the window, took in the scene in an instant, and made a decision.

"Everybody down!"

As the rest of the group dropped to the floor, Tom picked up one of the desks and swung it at the window with all of his strength. The heavy desk smashed through the glass and tumbled into the warehouse.

"Let's go!" Tom yelled.

As his friends began scrambling through the window frame, Tom picked up another desk and hurled it at the men coming from the elevator. Seeing the massive desk flying at them the guards dove back into the elevator car. Before the desk crashed down Tom picked up yet another one and tossed it toward the stairwell entrance with similar effect.

Even though Tom was dismantling their protective bunker, Reed and Danny held their ground, firing at the guards who were trying to get into the room to give their friends a few more seconds to escape. After throwing the third desk, Tom glanced behind him and saw that everyone else had made it through the window.

"Come on, guys. Let's go."

Danny and Reed lay down one last round of fire at their respective doorways, forcing the guards to keep their heads down, then dropped the empty guns and scrambled through the window.

### Chapter Fifteen

Tom dove through the window behind Danny and Reed, hit the floor and tucked into a shoulder roll. He knew he wasn't as graceful as Paige, but he was proud of the way he was able to roll quickly to his feet and begin sprinting away from the office in one smooth motion. Just ahead of him Reed and Danny were tearing into the center aisle between the towering metal shelves that filled most of the warehouse space. Further down the aisle he could see the shadowy forms of the rest of their group also madly dashing toward the front of the warehouse. All they needed to do now—

It was like getting hit in the back with a baseball bat. The forceful blow surprised him, throwing him off his stride and knocking his breath away. At the same time he saw a trio of small explosions erupt from his chest and he knew that he had been shot.

Tom stumbled as a wave of dizzying weakness swept over him. As the edges of his vision began to darken he felt himself falling and tried to raise his hands as he pitched toward his face. He landed hard, the side of his face striking the cement floor in spite of managing to get his hands up, and he momentarily lost consciousness from the impact.

When he came to his senses a moment later he found himself staring at the gray expanse of the warehouse floor, his cheek pressed to the cold, unyielding cement. He willed himself up but couldn't make his body move. His limbs were like lead weights. Then he felt a burning sensation beginning to build inside his body. It was like three white hot rods had been driven through his chest. The burning feeling quickly built to an excruciating level. A spasm of coughing shook him then and he saw himself spit red onto the floor. He was dying.

He was surprised to realize that he wasn't all that scared by what was about to happen to him. He just hoped the others could make it out safely.

Then he felt something grab his wrists. A moment later he was being dragged into the center aisle. He managed to look up and saw Reed and Danny dragging him by his arms, frantically trying to pull him away from the open window. His friends were trying to save him, even though he knew it was a useless gesture.

"Leave me," Tom rasped weakly, before a new fit of coughing wracked his body. If his friends had heard him they ignored him.

"They're coming through!" Danny said.

Reed let go of Tom's wrist with one hand and stretched his arm toward a back corner of the room. "I'll slow them down!"

After shooting Tom in the back, the guards chasing them had slung their rifles so they could climb through the open window. In their heavy boots and body armor, the guards were not as nimble as the younger teens, giving Reed the moments he needed to act.

As the first guard jumped down to the warehouse floor a boxy form lumbered toward him from a darkened corner of the room. A driverless forklift appeared out of the shadows and made directly for the guard who had climbed through the window. Although not especially fast, the forklift was massive and powerful. It knocked the guard down, rolling over and crushing his ankle when he didn't move out of the way quickly enough. As the guard howled in pain, the machine pivoted, raised its forks and drove directly at the wall. A large crate was cradled in the machine's forks. When the forklift slammed into the wall, it wedged the crate into the window opening, blocking it.

Angry shouts came from the other side of the window and there was a series of loud bangs as the rest of the guards who were blocked by the crate tried to shove the obstruction aside. But the combined mass of whatever was in the crate along with the forklift itself was far too much to be moved by mere human muscle.

Danny and Reed took that opportunity to haul Tom up and drape an arm around each of their shoulders. Moments later they were hurrying along the aisle carrying Tom between them.

"You need...to leave me," Tom said through clenched teeth. His complexion was chalky and his lips tinged with blue. Every movement was sending waves of fiery pain lancing through his body.

"We're a team," Reed answered him, puffing with exertion. "And we don't abandon our friends."

"No matter what," Danny added from his other side.

"You guys...are idiots," Tom said weakly.

"Since you're not in any condition to have a say in the matter I suggest you shut up and let us save you," Reed told him.

Tom had used up the last of his strength getting those final words out. He had given up even attempting to walk and his feet dragged limply behind him. He was so weak by now that he didn't even have the strength left to hold his head up and he let it loll forward. Although he feared for his friends' safety he was overwhelmed by the fact that they were risking themselves to save him. He just hoped their grand gesture didn't cost them their lives. Those were his final thoughts before the darkness took him and put a merciful end to his suffering.

Danny felt the change when Tom's body went completely limp. "Tom? _Tom!_ "

When Tom didn't answer Danny looked at Reed, seeing his own worry reflected in his friend's face.

"We need to hurry," Danny said as they increased their pace.

* * *

As soon as they heard the burst of machine gun fire behind them, the rest of the group scattered to find cover, crowding into any available space they could find on the shelves to either side. The lights were off in the warehouse and they used the deep shadows to hide themselves among the crates and boxes. Although the shelves were crowded they were surprised to find that many of the boxes and crates were empty, mere props to make the business look legitimate, and could be easily shoved aside to make room for them.

"We need to do something," Dimitri whispered aloud. "They'll be coming after us any second now.

"No," Matt's voice said out of the darkness, "Reed blocked the window, he..." Matt stopped so abruptly that no one said anything for several moments.

"What is it?" Paige asked. She was getting the feeling that something had gone terribly wrong.

Matt climbed down from the shelf he had jumped onto and stood staring down the aisle back the way they had come.

"It's Tom."

Paige appeared beside him in an instant, her heart in her throat. "What about Tom?"

Before Matt could answer they heard the sound of footfalls coming down the aisle. In moments the last three of their group appeared with them.

"They shot Tom," Danny said breathlessly when they reached the others.

Paige rushed to Tom but was unable to wake him. In the darkness she did not see the new injuries to his body but she felt the sticky wetness on the front of his shirt when she touched him and her blood ran cold.

She looked at Reed who met her worried gaze. "We need to get him out of here," Reed said. "I blocked the window but I don't know how long it'll hold. We really need to move."

"They're heading for the trap room," Matt said suddenly, gazing into the distance. "They're going to de-activate the lockdown so they can open the door."

"Not if I can help it," Danny said as he closed his eyes. He began searching for a way to access the central computer system. From his prior contact with the system he knew that it controlled the lockdown procedure. He also knew he was too far away from the mainframe system to access it directly like he had done when he was standing inside the server room, but there was still one chance.

He probed the office searching for the cable outlets the desktop computers had been plugged into, hoping that they were hard line connections to the system in the underground base. Yes! As he suspected, the office machines had been hardwired to the central network. Even though the PCs were disconnected, he was able to use the cables to send his consciousness down into the system until he encountered the mainframe's security protocols. With no time for finesse, he attacked the firewall. Thinking it was under attack by an infiltration program the system shut itself down.

"Done." He snapped his eyes open and glanced at the others. "I crashed the computer. It'll take three to five minutes for the system to re-boot but they won't be able to open the door until then."

"But the door had an EM field around it," Reed said, confused.

"It did, but I went after the mainframe," Danny said. "And the computer controls the lockdown." He adjusted Tom's arm across his shoulders and nodded to Reed. The two of them began moving toward the front of the building again.

The group moved quickly. They were perhaps halfway along the aisle when Matt suddenly stopped and turned back again.

"They found a spot in the window that they can wiggle through one at a time," Matt told the others. "They're coming through!"

Without warning, two dark shapes darted away from the group, dashing toward the back of the room. It was the dogs. Through their connection with Shay they had learned of the danger behind them and were going back to protect their newly adopted pack.

"No! Come back! The guns will hurt you!" Shay yelled after the dogs. She tried to go after them but Dimitri wrapped his arms around her and held her fast.

"Let me go! I need to stop them!" Shay yelled as she struggled against him.

"You can't help them," Dimitri told her as he held her tightly, refusing to release her. "Shay, stop! Please. It's too dangerous."

She heard genuine concern for her in his vice. After a moment she stopped fighting against him and pressed her cheek to his arm.

* * *

There was a narrow gap on one side of the window that the crate couldn't block. Ramona estimated that it was large enough for a man in body armor to fit through with a little squeezing. As soon as she made her calculation, Ramona began ordering the guards through. She had no idea how the teens had managed to shut down the computer system but she wasn't going to let that stop her. The foolish children thought they were close to escape. What they didn't know was that all of the exits from the building had been sealed when the lockdown was triggered. There was no way out. Her guards would corner them like the vermin they were and exterminate every last one of them, powers or no powers.

The first of her men had already made it through the window and the second was forcing his way through when she heard a commotion on the other side of the wall. There were several bursts of machine gun fire then nothing. Ramona pressed her face to the narrow crack below the crate but couldn't see anything in the darkened warehouse past the bulk of the forklift.

Then she saw motion in the corner of her eye. It took her a moment to recognize that it was one of her guards. He was on the floor scrambling backward as he tried to draw his back up side arm. His assault rifle was gone. Just as he freed the weapon she saw a low shape dart in and wrench the pistol from his grasp. The man howled and grabbed his injured hand. Then another shape lunged at him. It slammed into his chest and drove him out of her sight.

It was those damned dogs again! A sudden flurry of movement beside her caused her to look up. The guard who had been trying to squeeze through the window was now madly scrambling to push himself back. Ramona drew her own side arm and jammed the muzzle into his ribs beneath the protective vest. The man froze.

"Shoot the dogs." There was no compromise in her voice.

The guard twisted around until he could free his rifle. Tensing his stomach muscles he brought up his weapon and took aim. He lay halfway through the window, supporting his weight on his stomach even though the pressure on his gut was making it hard to breathe.

"What is taking you so long?" Ramona demanded when he hadn't fired after a while.

"I can't get a clear shot. One of the dogs is right on top of Gregory."

Ramona jabbed the muzzle of her pistol harder into his side.

"I said, shoot the dogs."

One of the dogs had pinned Gregory to the floor and was standing on his chest, its teeth bared. It was the big dog, Zeus. That one was vicious. The other one was moving in a patrol pattern, padding in a circle around the subdued man to keep him from trying to escape. It was a tactic the dogs had been trained to use. As long as the disarmed man made no aggressive movements the dogs should just keep him pinned there. But the dogs weren't taking commands any more. There was no telling what they would do.

Flicking off the safety, the guard took aim. "Sorry, Gregory," he said as he slipped his finger into the trigger guard and squeezed.

* * *

The teens had nearly reached the end of the aisle when there was another burst of machine gun fire from the back of warehouse. Before the echo of the last shots had died away, Shay gasped, her eyes snapping wide open. A moment later she collapsed to the floor where she lay clutching her head with both hands and writhing in agony. Choking sounds came from her as she spasmed on the floor.

"Oh my god! Shay!" Paige yelled as she reached for her sister.

Dimitri dropped to his knees beside her, checking her over quickly. "She's not shot. What's wrong with her?" Dimitri asked in a panic. He grabbed her shoulders and tried to keep her still but she continued to thrash about.

Matt looked down at her. An instant later he raised his hands as if trying to ward off an assault.

"She was in contact with Zeus when a guard shot him." Matt lowered his hands as he closed off his connection with Shay, but he was still shaken by what he had experienced. "She felt his death."

Shay stopped thrashing around at that point. Dimitri gently lifted her into a sitting position and cradled her head to his chest. Shay clutched him, whimpering. He tried shaking her gently but she was unresponsive.

Danny and Reed had been leading the group as they carried Tom's limp form between them. They paused at the commotion and turned back.

"Can you get her up?" Reed asked. "We're almost there."

Shay continued to be unresponsive so Dimitri simply picked her up. She squirmed weakly in his arms.

Beside him Magda was staring at her with concern etched on her face.

"Can't you do something?" Dimitri pleaded.

"I don't know," Magda said. She licked her lips nervously. She could sense intense waves of pain, fear and sorrow radiating from her. The last thing she wanted to do was open herself up to such overwhelming feelings, but she couldn't just let her friend suffer.

"I'll try."

She placed her hands on Shay's body, one on her head the other on her chest, and closed her eyes. Shay's expression gradually relaxed and Dimitri felt the tension leaving her.

Magda meanwhile had begun trembling. As Shay calmed, Magda felt herself being assailed by the powerful emotions she was absorbing. Taking her hands away she balled them into fists as she fought to suppress the rising tide of feelings building within her.

The group was so focused on what was happening to Shay that they hadn't noticed the shadowy figure moving stealthily toward them. After shooting Zeus, the next guard had finished pulling himself through the window and started down the aisle after them. He moved quickly with surprisingly little noise for a large man. Because of these mutants, he'd been forced to take out one of his own team members. Killing Gregory wasn't a problem, the guy was actually a bit of a tool, but it told him how important stopping these teen things was to the Doctor and Ramona. He was going to put an end to this now, before he was the one in the line of fire.

The guard slowed as he closed to within ten yards of the group. The targets were in a small cluster talking among themselves. Nice tight grouping, hemmed in on both sides. Perfect. He approached cautiously, stepping skillfully on the balls of his feet. The boots were heavy but the soles were pliable. If you knew how to move you could make hardly a sound.

He was in the act of bringing his assault rifle up to fire on the teens when Magda sensed his presence. She reacted from pure instinct, feeling his hostile intentions. Before he could bring his weapon to bear she unleashed her pent up emotions at him in a focused shockwave that blew him right off of his feet. The guard was hurled backward, flying all the way to the back wall of the warehouse where he impacted the forklift with a sickening crunch and slumped to the floor, motionless.

After blasting the guard away, Magda sagged, resting her hands on her thighs as she panted and tried to get her strength back.

"More are coming through the window!" Matt said.

Paige took a moment to look at her sister, and then Tom. The anguish she had been feeling suddenly vanished, swept aside as she understood what she had to do. She stroked Shay's hair, then stepped over to Tom and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Then she looked at Reed. Even in the darkness of the warehouse he could see the hard expression she wore.

"Get everyone out of here. I'll slow them down."

She started to turn away but James took her by the arm.

"You mean _we'll_ slow them down."

Paige saw the determination in his eyes and nodded. Together they started running toward the back of the warehouse.

Manny and Amanda looked at each other and a silent understanding passed between them. Manny turned to Matt who nodded his agreement.

"You guys get everyone else out," Manny said to Reed and the others. "We're going to help them."

"Wait a minute," Reed began. "If you guys are—"

"There's no time to argue this," Manny said firmly. "You and Danny need to get Tom out of here if he's going to have any chance." He turned to Dimitri and Magda. "And you two need to get Shay out. Some of us have to pull back to slow down the guards coming after us so the rest of you can get to the car. Matt will be with us. He'll know when you guys are ready and we'll meet you then."

"I don't like it," Reed said.

Danny looked at him. "I don't like it either, but it makes sense."

Reed flicked an angry glance at Danny then stared at Manny for a moment as he struggled between what he wanted to do and what he knew he needed to do. Finally he let out a sharp breath.

"If you guys get yourselves killed I'm never going to speak to you again," Reed grumbled.

Adjusting his grip on Tom, Reed looked at Danny and tipped his head toward the front of the building. "Let's go."

Manny, Amanda, and Matt watched the others move toward the exit for a moment then turned toward the back of the room. Manny and Matt started to follow Paige and James but Amanda grabbed both of them by the backs of their shirts.

"Not that way, this way," she said, pointing up toward the top of the nearest shelf.

### Chapter Sixteen

Paige and James were nearing the end of the aisle when they saw a guard squirming through the window. He dropped awkwardly to the floor and another guard poked his head into the opening and began wiggling his way through as well. For a moment Paige had a memory flash of a nature show she had seen recently where maggots were squirming one by one out of a dead animal's carcass.

Paige wasted no time. Sprinting past the end of the aisle she took a few last running steps and launched herself at the guard who was just picking himself up from the floor.

The guard heard her approaching and quickly tried to raise his weapon but Paige grabbed his rifle with both hands and twisted, wrenching it lose from his grip. At the same time she twisted her body around in midair and wrapped her legs around the head of the next man trying to squeeze through the window. She tightened her legs around the guard's head and arched her back, using her momentum to pull him through the window and slam him to the floor.

As he struggled to get his breath back, she spun on the first guard, reversed her grip on the rifle she had taken from him and swung like she was going for a home run. The stock of the gun connected with the side of his head with a solid smack, spinning him around.

Even as the first guard was toppling to the floor, Paige threw herself down at the guard she had pulled through the window. She drove down at him with her elbow, striking him below the bottom edge of his vest. The man emitted a satisfying grunt as she kicked out with her feet, flipping herself backward over his prone form to end up kneeling on his chest. Drawing back her arm she delivered a straight punch to his mouth.

His head bounced once on the floor and he lay still.

From her position beneath the window she took a second the scan the room. She saw the bullet-riddled bodies of Zeus and the guard he had cornered. The guard lay half concealed in shadow, sparing her a clear view of what was left of his face, while the dog's body lay several feet away where it had been blasted by the machine gun fire. Crouched on the floor beside Zeus' body she saw Apollo whining mournfully as he repeatedly nudged his partner in an attempt to wake him up. She didn't need Shay's power to feel the dog's anguish.

Suddenly Paige became aware of something moving in the window above her. She dove forward reflexively, springing from her hands to her feet, landing in a defensive crouch several yards away facing the window. Another guard was leaning through the window holding his rifle before him as he readied to shoot her. Paige was coiled to leap aside when the guard suddenly dropped his weapon and began fanning his hands in the air as he yelped in pain. Smoke curled up from the gun.

With her senses in a heightened state she heard a faint sound behind her. She spun, sensing the movement of air and the smell of gun oil, and whipped her arm up to deflect the barrel of a machine gun that was being swung in her direction.

Two more guards had already pulled themselves through the opening and had started down one of the side aisles before she and James arrived on the scene. As she held the gun barrel pointed away from her she kicked up, driving her heel under the first guard's chin. His head snapped back and he fell, bowling over the man behind him, taking both of them down in a tangle of limbs. Paige dropped the gun and leaped at them.

* * *

While Paige was busy with the two guards in the next aisle over, James turned his attention to the window. The guard whose rifle he had heated almost flew through the window as someone behind him shoved him the rest of the way into the warehouse. Then James saw the end of an assault rifle poke through the window and he dove aside. A series of bullets stitched their way across the floor behind him, barely missing him.

James landed heavily on his chest, madly scrambling out of the line of fire until he was shielded by the forklift. But while the shooter could not see him, James could not see the window either.

On the floor beyond the forklift the guard with the burned hands had managed to push himself up to his knees. James was trying to decide what to do about him when the guard looked up and locked eyes with him. Once he saw James crouching behind the forklift a look of rage settled on his features.

The guard pushed himself to his feet, scowled at James for a moment, then charged. James was so surprised that he couldn't react. In that brief moment of hesitation the guard was on him. Although the guard couldn't use his hands, James found himself immediately on the defensive, warding off the man's attack as he battled using his elbows and feet. An especially quick uppercut with his elbow knocked James to the floor. Shaking off the blow, James looked up to see the guard standing over him. As the man started to draw his foot back James kicked upward, striking him solidly in the groin. The guard's eyes crossed. He grabbed his injured crotch with both hands as he dropped to his knees and collapsed onto his side.

James scrambled to his feet and stood over the guard. Although curled into a fetal position and clenching his teeth in pain, the guard glared up at him. James knew that as soon as he recovered this guy was going to come after him. He gave it a moment's thought, then kicked the guard in the face as hard as he could. The guard flopped over onto his belly and lay still.

Just then something struck him in the back of his head. Stars exploded in his vision. He pitched forward, landed on his chest and managed to roll himself onto his back. Standing over him was another guard who must have come through the window while he was fighting the first man. The guard lowered the butt of his weapon, tucked his rifle into his shoulder, and took aim at James.

James was finding it hard to think. It was like his head was stuffed with cotton. He looked up, meeting the eyes of the guard standing over him as the man prepared to execute him. The guard smiled down at him, amused at the teen's defiance. He would wipe that look off of his face in a moment.

James' eyes flicked to the gun, focusing on the weapon as the man slid his finger into the trigger guard. There was a sizzling sound. An odd look came over the guard's face. A moment later the guard gave a loud scream as he dropped his weapon. The guard threw back his head and howled at the top of his lungs. A moment later he looked down at his ruined palms and suddenly stopped moving, an expression of anguish frozen on his face. It was like he had been turned into a mannequin.

James squirmed backward, putting some distance between himself and the guard as he shook his head to clear it. The guard remained frozen in place. Then, from somewhere in the shadows a piece of metal pipe flew at the guard, striking him in the face with a crunch and knocking him to the floor.

James' head was beginning to clear as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Just then another guard pulled himself through the window and dropped to the floor. The new guard scrambled to his knees and suddenly froze as well. James realized that it had to be Manny making the guards freeze. Before Manny could make the man do anything a burst of machine gun fire erupted from the window. Bullets sprayed in all directions as the guard in the window laid down covering fire. The tactic worked. The first guard blinked and came back to his senses as Manny released him. As the man in the window continued to spray bullets into the warehouse the first guard lunged for the forklift, grabbing for one of the control levers.

"Stop him, James! He's unblocking the window!" Matt's voice yelled from somewhere above him.

Still groggy from the blow to his head, James raised a hand and focused on the lever. The man snatched his hand away as the control lever suddenly became too hot to touch. Then, as James continued to heat the lever, the control rod began to sag and bend. Apparently it was made of a less resilient material than their guns. In moments it had melted into a formless lump on the console. The lever could no longer be used, but the damage was already done. The lever had controlled the forks. The guard's action had lowered the crate below the bottom edge of the window. Now there was nothing to prevent anyone from climbing through the open window.

* * *

Matt, Manny, and Amanda dropped to their hands and knees as they neared the end of the shelf. As they peered down from their perch they saw James lying on the floor as a guard stood over him getting ready to shoot him. Before they could act the man screamed and dropped his weapon. While he was still howling in pain from whatever James had done to him Manny reached out and took control of the guard, freezing him in his tracks.

"I've got the guard," Manny whispered to Amanda. "Can you take him out?"

Amanda looked around quickly. On a nearby shelf she saw lengths of metal pipe. They were heavy but she found a short one that she could manage. She used her power to pick up the pipe and sent it spinning at the guard. The pipe hit him squarely in the face, knocking him to the floor.

"Nice," Manny said, squeezing her hand.

"The window," Matt whispered from Manny's other side.

They looked down and saw another guard pull himself through the narrow opening and drop to the floor. Before he could get to his feet Manny took control of him, freezing him in place. Anamda was just reaching out with her senses for another object to hurl at him when Matt cried out.

"Look out!"

Machine gun fire exploded into the room. They didn't know if the guard had actually seen them or not but bullets began ricocheting around them. Manny released the guard and they pulled back into the shadows. As they hunkered down, Matt went rigid.

"Stop him James!" Matt yelled suddenly. "He's unblocking the window!"

The warning was all they could do for now. Until the shooting stopped they didn't dare poke their heads up. As the bullets continued to whine and ricochet around them the three friends huddled together on the metal shelf. Then Amanda screamed as a bullet pierced the shelf inches away from her head. That's when Manny decided to act.

Normally he needed to see the person he wanted to control, but he had learned earlier that it wasn't always necessary. Closing his eyes he reached out with his senses, searching for the guard who was shooting into the room. After his recent experience he knew that he had to be careful not to jump his consciousness completely into the other person, but he needed to stop the shooting before a stray bullet hit one of them. Stretching out with his senses he felt around in the room below. It only took him a few moments to locate the man he was searching for. Without being able to see him he could not direct his actions but he could freeze him. The machine gun fire stopped.

"Got him!" Manny said.

The group of them crept forward and peered down.

"Oh shit," Manny swore under his breath.

The guard he was controlling stood frozen in the window, but the crate that had been blocking the window was now out of the way and guards were beginning to come through the opening two and three at a time. Off to one side they could see James crouched behind the forklift. For the moment the guards didn't see him but it was only a matter of time before one of them looked in his direction.

Even as Manny was worrying about James' predicament, Amanda was acting. Items began flying off the shelves toward the guards, pelting them from every direction as they climbed through the window. There were so many of them that she didn't have the time to aim as carefully as she would have liked. She managed to hit some of them in the head, stunning them and even knocking a few down.

As Amanda harassed the guards, Manny added his skill to the battle, taking control of one guard after another, making them throw themselves into their comrades and knocking them both down. They worked as fast as they could and for a time they managed to hold their own against the guards. For all their efforts however they were not able to do much more than delay them. And more were continuing to pour into the room every moment.

That was when Paige appeared from the next aisle. She launched herself into the midst of the guards like a tornado and the bodies began to fly. There were so many of them now that they couldn't use their guns without shooting each other and Paige used this to her advantage. Staying in their midst she bounced from place to place, keeping herself surrounded by living human shields as she delivered punches and kicks with devastating results.

Then James joined the fray. From his hiding place behind the forklift he began heating the objects Amanda was hurling at the guards. Screams rang out as the guards began to be struck by red-hot objects, which often stuck to them for several seconds causing extensive burns. Soon the smell of charred flesh began to fill the air.

Looking down into the confusion below, Amanda selected a target and sent a heavy box slamming into the head of one guard, bowling him over. He hit the floor hard and didn't move. Amanda pumped her fist and muttered, "Yes!" under her breath. But in the time she had taken to deal with that one guard, three others had climbed through the window.

"There's too many of them," she said as she returned to hurling random objects at the guards, confusing them as they searched for their tormentor. "We need to block the window again."

A wide grin sprouted on Matt's face just then. "I think James has that covered."

Glancing down, the teens saw James still crouched behind the forklift, but now his attention was focused on the window. He had both arms raised toward the window and a look of intense concentration was on his face. A series of screams sounded from the window as several guards who had started to climb through at the same time threw themselves backward into the office. Tendrils of smoke started to curl upward from the window as the metal of the frame began to glow, dull red at first and gradually increasing to a bright, yellow-orange. Waves of heat shimmered in the air around the window and even from their position atop the shelves the three teens could feel the heat radiating from the metal frame. Then, with a whoosh, the crate held by the forklift burst into flame. Everyone on the floor of the warehouse backed away from the sudden blaze. Even James seemed surprised by the spontaneous conflagration.

Between the super-heated metal of the window frame and the burning wooden crate, no one would be coming through there for quite some time. The teens took advantage of the opportunity and pressed the fight with renewed spirit.

While Paige continued to battle like a whirling dervish in their midst, Amanda sent more objects slamming into the guards, this time aiming her shots carefully. Manny selected the largest guard he could see, an intimidating figure as tall as Dimitri whose body was thick with muscle, and sent him after the other guards. Under Manny's direction the massive figure batted aside anyone near him, pummeling them into unconsciousness. For his part James alternated between heating the objects Amanda was launching at the guards and targeting their machine guns. Soon most of the guards had been disarmed and were too preoccupied with their burns to put up much of a fight.

Without reinforcements constantly pouring through the window the teens were able to quickly get control of the situation. In a short time all of the guards had been dealt with.

As Paige delivered a spinning kick to the last of the guards and sent him cart-wheeling to the floor, the warehouse became quiet. The only sound was the crackling of the fire as the wooden crate burned fiercely away. Matt, Manny, and Amanda climbed down from the shelves to join Paige and James.

Paige was breathing heavily from her exertions and had a bruise on her left cheek but was otherwise fine. James however was having trouble staying on his feet. He stood swaying slightly and complained of a terrible weakness. When Manny moved to help him stand, he was shocked by how cold James' body felt.

"You're like ice!" Manny said.

James looked at him with drowsy eyes. "Jus' need a minute to res'," he slurred.

Matt glanced down the aisle toward the front of the building. "The others have made it to the door," he said. "But there's a problem. We need to catch up with them."

They started toward the front of the warehouse, Amanda leading the way. Behind her Manny and Matt helped to support James between them while Paige took up the rear, watching their backs.

When they reached the front of the building they saw the rest of their group huddled by the main door. A security shutter like the ones covering the office windows had lowered into place over the door. Tom lay stretched out on the floor nearby, not moving. At first glance Paige feared he was dead. Then she saw his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths. Although relieved that he was alive she was frightened by how tenuous his hold on life seemed to be. Beside him Dimitri sat next to Shay who was huddled against the base of the wall, her head resting on his shoulder. Shay glanced up at their arrival, met her sister's eyes, and they shared a brief smile. She looked better but didn't seem to be completely recovered yet. On Dimitri's other side Magda was perched on a small crate, her head bowed as she sat hunched over resting her forearms on her knees and looking drained.

Danny and Reed were the only ones on their feet. Reed stood facing the door, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Behind him Danny was shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot as he looked on helplessly. With the computer system off-line the EM field around the door was deactivated so they could use their powers, but without Tom's strength they were forced to release each of the deadbolts one by one. There were four deadbolts on either side of the security shutter and two along the bottom. Reed had just defeated two of the locks along one side and was starting on the third when the others arrived.

Matt and Manny eased James down to sit on the floor next to Magda while Paige knelt beside Tom and held his hand.

"How's it going?" Manny asked, stepping up beside Danny.

"Slow," Reed said over his shoulder. "Too slow. We need to get this open before..." He stopped suddenly, staring at the door in disbelief. "No."

"What's wrong?" Manny asked.

"An EM barrier just went up," Danny said, raising a palm toward the door. "The computer system must have finished rebooting."

"Crash it again," Manny said.

"I'll try," Danny said, sounding none too sure. He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration. After several moments he opened them again, shaking his head. "I was afraid of this," he said. "I can't get back in. The system restarted in secure mode. All contact with anything outside of the system core has been cut off."

Matt looked toward the back of the warehouse.

"We've got another problem," Matt said. "Now that the system is back up they're overriding the lockdown on the trap room door. They'll be through any minute."

"NO!" Reed yelled and kicked the sealed doorway.

"What do we do?" Amanda said.

"We fight," Manny said, his expression hard.

Paige brushed a few loose strands of hair out of Tom's face and stood up. "We fight," she said, echoing Manny.

Magda pushed herself to her feet, took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "We fight."

Beside her, James struggled to his feet as well. "We fight," he said, swaying slightly.

At that moment they were surprised to see a shadowy shape appear out of one of the aisles. Apollo padded slowly up to Shay, head hanging, and sat by her side. Shay draped her arm around the dog, stroking his head absently, and looked up at the others.

"We fight," Shay agreed.

They were a motley group. Apart from Tom who lay gravely wounded and unconscious on the floor, the rest of them were either wounded themselves or just plain exhausted. But in their eyes burned a fierce determination. Having made their decision the group seemed to draw strength from each other. As they came together all their aches, pains, fears and exhaustion seemed to melt away.

Just then Matt looked up.

"They're coming."

### Chapter Seventeen

As soon as the door to the trap room was unlocked the guards flooded into the warehouse, fanning out to surge into each aisle. There were three aisles in the warehouse and the men had been organized into three assault teams. The teams moved quickly, assault rifles tucked firmly into their shoulders as they sighted down the shadowed passages between the towering racks searching for targets they were determined to bring down. When they entered the warehouse they had come across the bodies of the other guards who had gone up against the teens and they were not taking any chances. Their orders were clear: if it moved, it died.

* * *

In the right-hand aisle, red dots from the guards' laser sights played along the floor and swept across the shelves as they checked for signs of their quarry. As they neared the middle of the aisle the team leader raised his fist, silently calling the group to a halt as he checked the area ahead. He had heard something.

Movement at the base of a shelf drew his attention. A plastic jug for a water cooler had been knocked from the shelf and lay on its side. Water gurgled from the open mouth of the bottle creating a gradually widening dark patch on the floor. He checked the area carefully but there was no other movement.

The leader opened his fist, holding his hand flat, and straightened his arm to point forward. His team resumed moving toward the front of the building.

"Shooting someone in the back isn't very sporting," a voice said quietly from somewhere above them.

The guards looked up. A shadowy form was sitting on the top shelf, partially concealed between a pair of large crates. Although they couldn't see him clearly he seemed to be holding one hand extended toward the front of the room while his other hand pointed down at them.

Before any of them could react Danny drew power from the very EM field that had been erected around the door to block their powers. Lightning leapt from the sealed door to his hand then shot from his other fingertips down at the guards who were standing in the puddle. Blue-white bolts of electricity danced along the guards' bodies. Their mouths dropped open in silent screams as they spasmed in the grip of the powerful current. The guards at the rear of the group sprang back and threw up their hands at the brilliance. A moment later the lightning ceased and the guards who had blundered into the puddle collapsed to the floor. Above them, the teen was gone.

* * *

In the aisle on the far side of the warehouse the guards were advancing at the same rate. The plan was to force the teens into the narrow space at the front of the building where they would be brought down in a crossfire. As they moved the guards focused on the aisle ahead, carefully watching for any sign of the mutant teens. They had just reached the midpoint of the aisle when objects suddenly began flying off the shelves ahead and pelting them. The guards began shooting blindly into the racks in an attempt to hit their unseen attackers.

With their attention focused on the front of the warehouse, none of the guards noticed the shadowy figure that suddenly appeared behind the last man in their group. Dimitri clapped a hand over the man's mouth as he wrapped an arm around his throat, squeezing with all of his strength to cut off the guard's breathing. Backpedaling quickly he drew the struggling guard away from the rest of the group. He continued to apply pressure until the man went limp, dropped the body, and disappeared. Reappearing behind the next guard he repeated his silent attack.

Just then, one of the guards at the front of the group suddenly went berserk. Reversing his hold on his rifle to use it like a club he started swinging at the men around him. He dropped three of his comrades before five others managed to tackle him to the ground. Once he had been restrained however a different guard went on a berserker rampage.

* * *

In the center aisle, the guards suddenly halted their advance as loud disturbances erupted simultaneously from the aisles on both sides of them. A moment later a man in the middle of their own group went flying. As a second, third and fourth man came under attack by some unseen enemy in their midst, the guards began frantically searching for the source of the savage assault. Instead of forcing the teens into a corner it suddenly seemed that it was the guards who had been maneuvered into a trap. As they searched for the source of the attacks, the men in the center of their formation saw a blurred silhouette moving within their ranks just before they came under attack themselves. Something that moved almost too fast for the human eye to follow was taking out their men one by one.

Paige had been crouching on a bottom shelf waiting for her chance to attack. She had pried the lid from a crate and had held it propped up beside her to conceal her presence. When the last of the guards had moved past her hiding place she made her move. Slipping into the aisle she sprang into their midst and began attacking the guards, hitting and moving on to the next man before they knew what was happening.

While Paige battled the guards, another attack came at them from a different direction. Moving silently on padded feet, Apollo darted in and out among the guards legs and began to yank their feet out from under them. As they fell to the floor the dog leapt on them, tearing their weapons from their hands, along with the occasional finger.

As the guards turned to see what was happening in their midst, Paige dove over one of the downed guards to go after the man leading the group. The two men on either side of the team leader swung their rifles in her direction as they caught sight of a something coming toward them. But before they could bring their weapons to bear she blocked the guns, keeping the muzzles pointed away from her as she delivered powerful kicks to knees, shins, and groins. Then, as the guards went down, she pulled the guns from their grasp and hurtled them toward the front of the aisle.

Crouched at the end of the aisle, Shay and Magda had hidden themselves around the corner of the shelves on either side. As the pair of rifles skittered to a stop within their reach, the girls looked at each other and grinned. While Paige kept the guards busy they each darted out and snatched up one of the rifles. They checked the weapons quickly. Each of the guns had high-capacity ammunition magazines, which carried nearly than twice the normal load, with a second magazine taped upside down to primary one to allow for a quick reload. As soon as they had assured themselves that the weapons were functional, they looked up, caught each other's eyes again, and nodded. They were in the perfect positions to set up a cross-fire of their own.

"Olly olly oxen free!" Magda shouted.

Within moments Paige appeared, bounding into view as she performed a backward flip in midair to land well past the end of the aisle. Right behind her Apollo appeared as well, racing away from the guards and skidding to a stop beside Shay. As soon as both of them were clear, Shay and Magda leaned around the edges of their respective shelves and started shooting.

* * *

The guards had been expecting to go up against unarmed opponents and they were unprepared when return fire came at them. Several of them went down in that first volley. Seeing the team leader and others in the front ranks go down, the rest of the guards began to panic. They were hemmed in on both sides by the towering shelves and now they were taking fire from the front of the warehouse. With nothing to use for cover, the guards dropped into low crouches and returned fire as they tried to shuffle backward.

At the rear of the group a few of the guards broke and ran toward the back of the building. The first of the men sprinting away from the firefight had just reached the end of the aisle when the bark of a shotgun erupted. The guard who had been leading the retreat was blown backward from the force of the blast. The shot had been aimed high, above the protective vest, and the guard's face disintegrated. The body flew across the aisle, smashed into the shelf, and flopped to the floor.

As the other guards who had been running toward the back of the building skidded to a stop, a figure stepped into view. Backlit by the flames from the burning crate she appeared as little more than a silhouette, but her outline and rigid bearing made Ramona immediately recognizable to her men. She stopped, ejected the spent cartridge from her weapon with a quick motion of the slide, and aimed at the face of the nearest man. A stray bullet ricocheted from the shelf beside her but Ramona didn't even flinch.

"Cowards will be shot," she said, her tone uncompromising.

The guard facing her glanced nervously over his shoulder then back at her.

"But ma'am—"

Ramona lowered the shotgun and fired, hitting the man squarely in the groin. The guard folded in half as he was driven backward by the force of the blast, winding up next to the crumpled body of the first man she had shot.

"You obviously have no need for those," she said. Before she could finish ratcheting her slide again, the remaining guards turned and fled back into the fray.

* * *

At the front of the warehouse Shay and Magda were still managing to keep the forces in the middle aisle pinned down. Matt was crouching behind Shay, his eyes closed in concentration while he listened to the thoughts of the guards as they tried to advance on their position.

"Now," he whispered.

Shay leaned around the edge of the shelf and fired off several bursts, forcing the guards to drop to the floor.

Nearby, Reed was crouching out of the line of fire as he stared intently at the roll down car door in the middle of the front wall. Shay unleashed a final burst into the aisle then ducked back around the corner as return fire peppered the edge of the shelf near her.

"Well?" Shay said to Reed.

"Vanessa's on her way."

Shay pressed her back against the shelf, taking several deep breaths to calm her nerves as she waited for Matt to signal her.

On the other side of the aisle Magda was waiting for Shay to open fire again. With Matt telling them when to shoot they had been able to fight the advancing guards to a standstill. Above her, their other secret weapon, James, lay stretched out on his stomach on one of the upper shelves as he peered through a gap between two boxes. Whenever he saw one of the guards start to raise up he would focus on his weapon, heating it until the guard screamed and dropped it. He was still weak from all of the energy he had poured into super heating the window frame and was having trouble generating enough energy to heat even a single gun. Every time he used his ability now he felt himself get lightheaded. But he was not going to sit on the sidelines while his friends risked their lives and he kept himself going through sheer force of will.

Across the aisle Matt tapped Shay's arm and she spun around the corner to fire down the aisle again. As she did so Danny climbed down from the top of the shelf behind her. He had been too exposed up there and had nearly gotten shot when the guards he hadn't zapped opened fire on his position. After seeing how he had taken out almost half of their number in one blow, the rest of the guards had halted their advance, giving Danny the opportunity to change his position.

Danny crawled to the edge of the shelf and peered carefully around the corner into the first row. The guards were cautiously advancing, but this time the men in front were concentrating on their footing while the ones in the rear kept aim at the top of the shelves where Danny had originally positioned himself. Danny watched them as they approached, noting how they avoided contact with the slowly spreading puddle. They obviously thought it was the water itself that had been booby-trapped. Although the water had helped to conduct the electrical charge he had sent at them, he didn't need it.

Danny watched the guards, waiting for them to get closer. He saw the leader hesitate when he realized that the puddle had spread across the entire width of the aisle. Then the guard looked at the shelf beside him. Stepping up onto the bottom level he began shuffling sideways along the shelf to keep his feet out of the water. If Danny had been safe sitting on top of the shelves, then climbing along the shelves should protect them from the electrical surge as well. The reasoning seemed sound. Unfortunately, it was wrong.

As the rest of the guards began lining up to follow him, Danny looked over his shoulder and whispered for Shay and the others to move away from the shelves. When they were clear, he grabbed one of the support legs with one hand and extended his free hand toward the door and its EM field. He waited, listening as the guards drew closer to the end of the aisle. When it sounded like the closest man was no more than a few yards away he sent his consciousness out to connect with the current feeding the EM barrier. Lightning leapt from the door to Danny's outstretched hand, passed through his body, and surged into the metal shelving. Down the aisle the guards who were climbing along the shelves froze as their muscles locked, holding them clamped in place. Once again the aisle was bathed in an eerie bluish light as lightning danced along the men clinging to the metal structure.

Only about half of the remaining guards had actually started climbing along the shelves when Danny sent the electrical charge into the metal structure. The others had thrown themselves back when the lightning flared to life around their comrades. Moments later, as the lightning disappeared, the men who had been scaling the shelves dropped senselessly to the floor alongside the others Danny had taken out earlier. The ones who were still standing backed away.

Danny released the shelf and sagged to his knees. Channeling that much power through his body had left him weak.

"Danny!" Shay called out when she saw him sag down.

Danny looked back, gave her a weak smile and a thumbs up to tell her that he was okay.

Just then Matt tapped her and whispered, "Now!"

Shay leaned around the edge of the shelf and opened up with another burst, forcing the guards who had tried to advance on their position to drop to the floor again.

* * *

In the aisle on the far side of the room, the guards there had been forced to subdue yet another of their men who had gone berserk. This latest one had taken down four members of their team before he had been subdued. Several others had been incapacitated by being struck in the head by flying objects. Altogether, they had been reduced to less than half of their original force.

The ones who were left formed themselves into a tight group, creating a defensive circle. By facing outward one of them was always able to see when some object was launched at them from one of the shelves. And by staying shoulder-to-shoulder with their teammates they were also better prepared to react if one of them succumbed to the mysterious force that seemed to be driving some of them mad. Once they had settled into this arrangement the attacks against them stopped. As long as they held this position it seemed that they were secure. But it also meant they were effectively immobilized.

* * *

"Something's wrong," Matt said to Shay.

Shay pressed herself close to the shelf and carefully peeked into the center aisle. The raging fire at the back of the warehouse was making it difficult for her to see much. One thing she could tell was that none of the guards were standing. The floor was a mass of dark shapes that blurred together. The guards who were still in the fight had stretched themselves out on the floor, using the bodies of their fallen comrades as shields, even though the girls had mainly been shooting over their heads to keep them down rather than actually trying to hit any of them.

Shay relaxed and concentrated. The sensation was like opening a third eye in her mind. Her ability to see the life force aura around living things was not something she used all of the time. When she had first started to develop the ability, before she had learned to control it, going out in public had been a real problem. The hazy glow surrounding people, animals, and even plants had been very disturbing until she finally understood what it was. Although she could ignore it in the daytime when the brightness made it less noticeable, going out at night had been a special challenge until she finally learned to consciously shut off the ability.

Now she used her ability to try and get a better idea of what the guards were doing. Unfortunately, all she saw when she looked into the aisle was a general glow coming from the bodies huddled on the floor. In a few places she saw only darkness. Those would be the guards who had been killed, their life forces extinguished. Normally something like that would upset her, but those men had been trying to kill them and by this point, her sympathy had been used up.

As she looked into the aisle Shay felt that something was wrong. It took her a while to realize that the guards had turned off their laser sights. The red dots that helped them zero in on their targets also allowed the girls to find them in the darkness. They were planning something.

"What's going on?" Shay asked Matt.

Matt was frowning in concentration. "Someone's taking charge. I can't...it's Ramona!"

Matt had been the first of their group to be kidnapped. During the first several days after he had been taken, he had seen numerous examples of how Dr. Brooks' second in command operated. If he had learned anything about her, he knew that she was ruthless. She ruled her people with an iron fist and did not accept excuses.

"What does that mean to us?" Shay asked. She had heard the note of uneasiness in his voice.

"They're going to rush us. Ramona's been watching and she knows only two of us have guns. She figures a few of the men in front might buy it but the rest will be able to overrun our position." He paused as if he were listening to something. "They're changing out their ammunition clips so each of them will be fully loaded when they charge. They'll come in shooting to force us to keep our heads down. Then..."

He didn't need to finish his thought. Shay could imagine for herself exactly what they would do. It would be savage and merciless. Something occurred to her and she hastily dropped her own clip to check how many bullets she had left. They had switched to the spare clips some time ago and even though they had tried to confine their fire to short bursts, she knew they had to be running low. It was difficult to see in the darkness but she could only count two bullets in the clip. Magda couldn't have much more.

"How many guards are left?" Shay asked.

"Around fifteen," Matt answered. "And there's about that many of them in each of the other aisles, too."

Shay felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. There was no way they could hold off close to fifty guards with only a handful bullets.

"Move," a voice said softly.

Shay sensed movement on the floor beside her and looked down. Tom had crawled up next to her and was reaching for the shelving. They had dragged him away from the door earlier, placing him behind the protection of the shelves as the guards came swarming into the warehouse. He had been unconscious at the time, certainly in no shape to be dragging himself across the floor.

Shay started to reach for him but he waved her off. She watched as he used the shelving to pull himself to his knees. Then he grabbed the bottom edge of the shelf, and heaved. At first nothing happened. Then, with a metallic creak, the entire shelf began to teeter.

Tom knew there were only seconds to act. The muscles in his back and shoulders were on fire but from somewhere deep inside he tapped into a hidden reserve of strength and continued to lift. As he concentrated on lifting the shelf, he felt the wounds in his chest open again and start to bleed. He ignored the pain, turning it off as he put every ounce of his strength into the task at hand.

As Tom strained to move the shelf Shay saw his life force aura beginning to glow more brightly. She had seen this before whenever one of them used their power. Then something happened that she had never seen before. Normal people had purely white auras, while people like them, people with powers, had different colored auras. But the colors were always uniform. This time, as Tom struggled to lift the shelf, many different colors began to pulse around the edges of Tom's aura.

Slowly, inexorably, the shelf continued to lean until gravity took over and did the rest. Boxes and crates began to slide from the top levels of the shelf, crashing to the floor and foreshadowing what was to come. With a moan of overstressed metal the shelf toppled into the aisle. The entire row didn't fall all at once, rather it moved like a wave crashing on a beach, starting at the front of the aisle and moving along its entire length as each shelf pulled the next connected section over.

Panicked shouting could be heard as the guards in the middle aisle sprang to their feet and began running toward the back of the warehouse. Few of them made it.

The sound from the toppling shelves was deafening. As many of the crates and boxes slammed to the floor they broke open, spraying their contents in all directions. Then several crates of screws hit the floor and exploded. Paige threw herself away from the flying shrapnel. She performed a backward somersault in the air and landed on all fours on top of the group of metal drums at the front of the warehouse.

"What are you doing?" Reed yelled to her. He was off to one side, staring wide eyed up at her.

"Saving my butt," she answered. "Didn't you just see—"

"Get out of there!" Reed yelled.

Hearing the panic in his voice, Paige's senses suddenly went hyper alert. Through the roll down door behind her she heard a racing engine approaching. Reflexively she launched herself into the air just as something crashed through the door. Although she did not have Tom's strength, her adrenalin-fueled leap took her high into the air as a black SUV burst through the wall. She landed on top of the SUV, flattening herself on the roof of the car and grabbing the edges of the roof rack in a spread-eagle to hold on for dear life. The momentum of the car caused it to slam into the drums just inside the door and spin out. As the car skidded around, its back end drifting through a hundred and eighty degree spin, the barrels were knocked aside like bowling pins. The teens scattered as several barrels bounced in their direction.

A number of the barrels had been damaged enough to leak, spilling volatile liquid across a wide area. The smell of diesel fuel filled the room. As a contingency measure the underground base was equipped with back-up diesel generators to supply power in case of an emergency. These barrels were part of the fuel supply for those generators.

As the Suburban skidded to a stop, having turned almost completely around to face the now open doorway, an eerie silence settled over the warehouse. Nearby, the teens heard the trickle of fuel spilling onto the floor. In the distance they started to hear low moaning as the guards who were conscious struggled to free themselves from the wreckage of the collapsed shelves.

After a moment, Paige relaxed her death grip on the car roof and rolled off the top of the Suburban, landing nimbly on her feet beside the idling vehicle to survey the situation. The fallen shelves completely blocked the center aisle. Movement at the back of the room caught her attention. A solitary figure was standing at the distant end of what had been the center aisle. Although the person was nothing more than a black silhouette against the flames of the burning crate, Paige knew immediately that it was Dr. Brooks's chief of security.

They stood regarding each other for several moments, then Ramona started barking orders. Paige could not hear what she was saying but the furious tone of her voice was more than clear. Soon other shadowy figures started to pick themselves up from the floor, encouraged by kicks from the enraged security chief.

"Time to go!" Paige said.

The rest of the teens began hurrying toward the Suburban. Reed raced to the driver's door and paused a moment to kiss his fingers and press them to the car's hood.

"Thanks, girl."

As Reed jumped in the others pulled open the other doors and piled in as well. Paige hurried to Tom who was holding one hand to his injured chest and limping slowly toward the car. She slipped his free arm around her shoulders and helped him walk.

When James reached the car, he paused to lean against the side of the big SUV with one hand as he gestured everyone else in ahead of him. Magda had just climbed in when a bullet pinged off the roof of the car near her head. James glanced back and saw the guards climbing onto the toppled shelves and stumbling across them in an effort to reach the teens before they could get away. Now and then one of the guards would pause and fire off a burst at them.

As James watched them come he felt rage flare up inside him. Really? Why couldn't these bastards just leave them alone?

He looked down as early morning light from the open doorway reflected off of something shimmering on the floor. The puddle of diesel fuel was slowly spreading into the warehouse. In that instant he knew how to stop them.

James reached out with his hand, pointing at the expanding puddle. He concentrated his efforts on a small spot, focusing all of his energy there. Suddenly a tiny flame burst into existence. For the barest instant there was only a tiny tongue of fire, like the light from a single candle, then with a loud _whoomp_ the fire spread across the floor, racing along the expanding puddle. Soon a roaring curtain of fire had blossomed between the teens and the guards.

As the flames grew in intensity James saw one of the figures on the other side of the fire waving his arms and shouting in a frantic attempt to get their attention. James was shocked to see that it was Dr. Brooks.

"Wait! Wait! Come back!" Dr. Brooks was shouting.

You've got to be kidding me, James thought. Then the intense heat from the spreading fire forced the doctor back and he was lost from sight.

"James! Get in the car!" a voice screamed frantically at him.

James looked over his shoulder. Shay was madly gesturing for him to get into the car.

"It's okay. They can't get to us," James said. The fire had completely partitioned off the front of the warehouse from the back area.

Shay shook her head, her eyes wide with fear as she jabbed a finger at something nearby.

"Remember the football?" Shay yelled.

James snapped his head around, looking where she was pointing. Several of the intact drums were sitting in flaming puddles of fuel.

James felt his heart leap into his throat. He dove into the back seat across the legs of everyone there.

"GO, GO, GO!" he yelled.

Reed stomped on the accelerator. Even though the Suburban was overloaded, the powerful SUV took off with a squeal of its tires. It fishtailed briefly until it found traction and then the car shot through the door and away from the building. Seconds later there was a deafening roar behind them as the warehouse literally came apart from the force of the explosion. A brilliant fireball grew, mushrooming into the air. The Suburban shuddered as the shockwave sent tremors through the ground. Moments later they turned a corner and were gone.

### Chapter Eighteen

Matt climbed out of the Suburban and glanced around to make sure no one was looking. The rear passenger window lowered and a hand reached out. He clasped palms with Manny.

"Good luck, man," Manny told him.

"Thanks."

Shay leaned across Manny and said, "Remember, keep it simple. You don't know anything except that you were held captive for several days."

Matt grinned. "I think I can handle that." If anyone could tell a convincing lie it was Matt. Having the ability to hear what people were thinking let him know the effect his words were having on the person he was talking to. If they weren't buying what he was saying he could adjust his story to make it whatever they wanted to hear.

"By the way," Matt said to Manny, "how's the shoulder?"

Manny rotated his arm and grinned. "Like new."

During their brief ride after escaping from the warehouse, Tom had used his ability to heal Manny's injuries. It had been Shay's idea. She remembered how Reed had been able to share his ability with James to help him find the gas tank that was feeding the flamethrowers in the Arena. She reasoned that Tom might be able to share his ability as well. While Reed maneuvered the SUV through the narrow streets, looking for a quiet place to park, Tom had grabbed Manny's arm and concentrated. They all watched as Manny's wounds slowly closed, tissues growing and weaving together. In the space of a few minutes the last traces of his injuries had faded completely.

With Manny's wounds healed, the only thing they had to explain was Matt's absence. James was going to tell his parents that he had spent the last couple of nights at Tom's house. Paige and Magda would spend the night at Amanda's then return to their own homes at the end of the day. The bad guys had already taken care of the girls' explanations by texting their parents that they were staying at each other's house for a few nights. Everyone else was going to sneak back into their homes and give a variation on the story: "Sorry I didn't call. I came in after you were in bed."

Some of them were probably going to catch attitude from their parents, but none of them expected to have a real problem. They were a good group of kids who stayed away from trouble. Their parents trusted them. And things had been changing for them at home. It was kind of weird but their parents had actually started giving them more freedom as the end of senior year approached. It was like they were finally taking the training wheels off.

While that cover story would work for everyone else, Matt had been missing for a week. The FBI was looking for him. That was going to take a bit more explaining. The group had been unanimous in their decision to keep quiet about what had really happened to them. None of them wanted to lie to their parents but they each felt very strongly that it was safest, at least for now, not to say anything to anyone. After a few minutes of brainstorming they had come up with a simple plan to explain what had happened to Matt: tell the truth, or at least as much of the truth as they could. Matt had been surprised and kidnapped in front of his house. He had been kept tied up for a number of days. This morning, he woke up to the smell of smoke. He managed to get free, found himself inside a warehouse, and got out shortly before the building exploded. He'd been wandering the area ever since.

It was a bizarre story, but essentially it was true. Of course he wasn't going to mention that the actual room he had been held prisoner in was two hundred feet underground. It was going to be up to the police to dig below the surface for those details, in this case literally.

Along with explaining Matt's absence, his story would also give law enforcement officials a reason to look carefully at the building and its owners. If they found the underground base, someone somewhere was going to have a lot of explaining to do. At the very least they wouldn't be able to use it to continue Dr. Brooks's experiments.

Matt looked up as they heard a new set of sirens racing through the street a block over. The first of the emergency vehicles had begun arriving soon after the original explosion with more following every few minutes. Judging from the thick column of smoke rising into the air there must be a huge fire burning at the site.

"You guys better get going," Matt said. "It'll be time to get up for school soon."

Everyone burst out laughing. For some reason that stupid little line was suddenly very funny. When they got their breaths back Matt stepped away from the Suburban and it pulled off. He stood watching the car drive away until it disappeared around a corner. When it was out of sight, Matt started walking in the direction of the fire.

The warehouse, or what was left of it, was several blocks away. As he approached the scene Matt saw a cluster of emergency vehicles including police cars, fire trucks and ambulances filling the street in front of the location. The firefighters already had two hoses pouring water onto the flames and another group was racing to set up a third line. So far their efforts were having little effect. Where the warehouse had once stood he could see nothing but flames and dense smoke.

In spite of the early hour a small group of onlookers had gathered to one side. The police hadn't set up yellow tape to keep people back but a couple of officers were standing with the onlookers half a block away. The heat and smoke were so intense that everyone was standing well back from the blaze.

Matt started to head toward the officers when another car arrived at the scene. A man and a woman got out. They were both wearing blue windbreakers with the letters FBI printed on their backs in big letters. The man went over to the police, flashed his ID and began talking with the officers. Although his jacket said FBI, his bearing and haircut reminded Matt more of the military. When he touched the man's mind he heard him churning over a series of standard questions that he needed to get answers to. Matt also kept hearing him repeat a word that he wasn't familiar with: _fubar_. While he didn't know what it meant exactly, he got the distinct impression that it wasn't something good.

As Matt continued to listen to the man's thoughts, he learned that the FBI agents had responded to the scene because of the report of an explosion. Although the man thought that the cause of this explosion would probably turn out to be nothing more than a faulty gas line, the agents had responded to the scene in case it turned out to be something more sinister.

While the male agent spoke to the police officers, his partner stood beside their car gazing into the fire with her hands on her hips. She had her back to Matt so all he could tell about her was that she was about his height and had light brown hair. When he focused his attention on her she turned slightly, allowing him a glimpse of her profile. She was cute. That was all he needed to make him decide that she was the person he wanted to talk to.

"Um, excuse me, ma'am," he said as he walked up to her.

The woman turned to look at him and he was surprised to see that she was older than he had first thought. She might even have been as old as thirty, but still pretty hot for her age.

She smiled at him. "Can I help you?"

"Um, I don't know. I mean, well, I need to call my parents. I've been gone for a long time and they don't know where I am." He paused and glanced around. "Actually, I don't know where I am either."

The woman stared at him for several moments, then recognition showed on her face.

"Wait a minute, you're that teenager who went missing last week. Matthew—"

"DeLuca," Matt said.

The woman looked him up and down, her professional eye sizing him up at a glance. His hair and clothes were disheveled, he hadn't bathed in a while, and the dark circles under his eyes spoke volumes, but it was definitely him. And he was alive!

As Matt listened to her thoughts he decided let himself seem even more tired than he was. She expected him to be in a weakened state.

He grabbed his head with one hand and swayed slightly. As he hoped, the woman immediately rushed up to him and slipped an arm around his waist. He suppressed a smile as she led him toward the nearest ambulance, enjoying the feeling of her arm around him.

"Steve!" she said, calling her partner.

A few moments later Matt was sitting on the rear bumper of the ambulance as the EMT took his vitals. While the medic worked on him, the two FBI agents had a lot of questions for him.

The woman's name was Callie Peron and her partner was Steve Bale. Matt recognized the names immediately. These were the same FBI agents Magda had told him about during one of the few private moments they had shared after she and Paige were captured. As Matt listened to her thoughts, he learned that Agent Peron was what they called the case agent. She was the one in charge of the serial killer case and was anxious to learn how he had managed to escape with his life. He realized that he couldn't have planned it better himself.

Matt told the story just like they had rehearsed. While he spoke he didn't register any reaction from either Agent Peron or her partner. They both simply took down the information in a detached, professional manner. As he was finishing his story, one of the police officers came over and pulled Agent Bale aside. While her partner spoke to the officer, Agent Peron looked over her notes.

As she reviewed what she'd written, Matt sensed that something was troubling her. She went back to the beginning of his story and started asking for details. Fortunately, the way they had crafted the story left few details for him to have to come up with. He told her that he never saw who kidnapped him (which was true), and that he had been blindfolded while he was being held prisoner so he never saw the man's face. His description of the warehouse was as accurate as he could be since there was no need to lie about that. As for the fire and explosion, he told her he had no idea.

After he had answered her questions, Matt waited as Agent Peron went over her notes for a third time. Everything fit but she was still troubled. The biggest question on her mind was: why? Why was he still alive? Serial killers did not change their methods. The other victims had all been killed within hours of being kidnapped, their eyes removed and their bodies dumped before a full day had passed. They should have found this poor kid on the side of a road several days ago. While she was happy that they would be able to give this boy's parents good news, she was at a loss to explain his situation. Was the person who kidnapped Matt the same person who had murdered those other kids? Everything about the abduction itself seemed to match. But unlike those other cases, Matt had been kept alive. Was his abduction unrelated to the others, or had something caused the killer to change his usual behavior? Then another thought occurred to her. There was something odd about the kid's manner—could he be lying about something?

Matt had to force himself not to react as he eavesdropped on her thoughts. She wasn't supposed to have any doubts about his story. What he had told her was the truth—more or less. And he needed her to believe him so that they would go over the burned out building with a fine-tooth comb.

As if she were reading his mind, Agent Peron's thoughts turned to the warehouse. Whatever had happened, she thought, they needed to take a good look at that building. This case was already bizarre enough. High school kids were being abducted right off the street, murdered and mutilated, and the bureau was no closer to solving it than when the abductions began. This was the first break they'd gotten since the killer had first struck. They needed to meticulously scour the scene to find any bit of evidence that might survive the fire. Sooner or later every criminal made a mistake and left some key bit of evidence behind. It was up to the investigating agents to find that evidence and recognize it for what it was.

Even though the serial murderer was technically Agent Peron's case, everyone in the office knew about it. The bureau had grown into the agency it was today due in large part to the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932, and kidnappings were still something that struck a nerve within the agency. Whether they were part of the violent crimes squad or not, everyone in the field office wanted to be in on the operation when they finally caught up with this sick-o.

Her thoughts shifted gear again, coming full circle back to Matt. The kid had to be tired, Agent Peron was thinking. A hot bath, a decent meal, and a good night's sleep: that's what she figured he needed. She put her note pad away. No need to keep pushing him now. She had the basic facts.

Matt broke contact then. He had learned what he wanted to know. He'd also learned over the years not to listen to other people's thoughts if he didn't need to. People had a right to privacy inside their own heads.

Now that Agent Peron had finished asking him questions, the EMT helped Matt all the way into the ambulance and stretched him out on the gurney. Although he wanted to go home, Agent Peron had already told him that they couldn't release him to his parent's until he had been cleared by the hospital. As the technician busied about attaching monitor leads to various points on his body he closed his eyes and relaxed. He hadn't realized how tired he was until that moment. Actually, the gurney was a lot more comfortable than he thought it would be. A quick nap might actually be a good idea...

He was asleep within moments.

* * *

Because the others had to be back in time for school, Reed dropped everyone else off first before bringing Shay home. At her request, Reed let her and Apollo out at the end of the cul-de-sac she lived on then zoomed away to get home before his own parents woke up.

Shay and Apollo walked the rest of the way to her house and crept into her yard. She had Apollo wait for her just inside the back gate while she scaled the backyard storage shed to reach her bedroom window. She had a plan to explain the dog and hopefully manipulate her parents into letting her keep him. But she was going to have to do a quick wardrobe change first.

After she managed to climb in through the window she quickly changed into running clothes before climbing back out again. Then she and Apollo walked around to the front door and she let them in, making a loud clatter as they did. Their house was a high ranch and as she and the dog climbed up to the main floor she could hear someone moving around in her parents' room. Moving quickly into the kitchen she took a mixing bowl from the cabinet, filled it with water and placed it on the floor for Apollo who immediately began to drink. She had just finished splashing water on her face to make it seem like she was sweating from her workout when her mother came around the corner dressed in her bathrobe.

"Who's your friend?" her mom asked without batting an eye. She knew her daughter was an animal lover so she took the presence of a strange dog in her kitchen in stride.

When she was six, Shay had brought home a dove with an injured wing which she had talked her mother into helping her nurse back to health through the winter. They still had the cage, although they had released the bird back into the wild the next spring. Following that there had been a series of "poor" animals Shay had brought home to care for, most of which only stayed for a few days. Her parents had drawn the line however when she wanted to take care of a "sick" raccoon that had wandered into their back yard one day. As far as her mom and dad were concerned the raccoon seemed more ornery than sick. Fortunately, it had wandered on by that afternoon when they left the gate open for it.

After that, her parents had taken the girls to a local rescue shelter and adopted a pair of young Labradors, one for each of them. They had named the dogs Calvin and Hobbes after their favorite comic strip and the dogs had lived with them for more than ten years before passing away, Calvin just last summer.

"Let me guess," her mom said, as she poured her morning mug of coffee. "He followed you home."

Shay put on her brightest smile. "As a matter of fact he did. Do you think we can keep him? He's a really good dog and really smart, too."

Her mom looked at the dog over the rim of her mug. Apollo had stopped drinking and now sat at Shay's side, watching. For a moment her mom got the feeling that the dog was sizing her up, although she didn't feel threatened.

"I don't know, honey," her mom said. "You're away at school for most of the year now and your sister's going to start college this fall, too. That means dad and I are going to wind up being the ones taking care of him." Part of the deal they had made to keep the Labradors was that each of the girls had to be responsible for their dog. "Why don't we see if the shelter will take him? He looks like a pretty young dog. I'm sure somebody will adopt him."

"Please, mom," Shay begged, "I don't think the shelter will take him because they'll say he's a 'vicious breed.' That just leaves animal control and they'll put him down after a week if no one takes him."

Her mom pursed her lips briefly.

"Talk to your father about it," her mom said as she glanced at the clock. "I need to leave for work soon."

Shay grinned and gave her mother a big hug. Dad was an even softer touch than mom.

"Just one thing," her mom added when Shay released her. "We have to make sure no one owns him. I don't suppose he has a collar."

"No." She'd taken it off of him when they stopped to let Matt out. "And I've never seen him around here before either. He doesn't belong to any of our neighbors."

"Hmm. Well, if dad says it's okay _and_ we can't find his owner _and_ he doesn't have any kind of horrible disease, I guess it will be alright. It was getting kind of quiet around here without the boys, anyway," she said. Truth be told, she kind of missed their old pets.

"Thanks, mom! He won't be a problem, I promise."

Shay looked down at Apollo and motioned him over. "Come say hello, boy."

Shay quickly telepathed to Apollo that her mom was the 'alpha female' of their pack and that she had accepted him. Taking her cue, Apollo walked over to her mom and started licking her hand.

"He does seem friendly," her mom said, petting his head. Now that he was closer she took a moment to look him over. "He seems pretty clean, but it looks like he's been in a bit of a scuffle recently."

You have no idea, Shay thought.

Her mom straightened and headed back down the hall, coffee in hand, to finish getting dressed.

"Since you're home today, take him to the vet and have him checked out," she called over her shoulder. "If the vet clears him I'll talk to your father about it tonight."

"Thanks mom! I love you!"

Her mom waved with her free hand as she reached her room. "Just make sure you keep him off my furniture."

* * *

Later that morning, Mrs. Barber was standing in front of her 9:20 Calculus 2 class staring in disbelief at the trio of boys sitting in the front row. All three of them were fast asleep. Manny had his head down on the desk-arm of his chair snoring quietly. Beside him, Tom's head was precariously perched in one hand, his lips distorted into a sneer by the pressure of his palm against his cheek. And next to him Reed sat slumped way down in his seat, his legs splayed out in front of him with his head hanging back and his mouth wide open.

She had turned back from the whiteboard a moment earlier to find the boys in this state. Snickering could be heard from some of the other students as she stood there trying to decide what to do. After a moment she stepped up to Manny and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Manny muttered something unintelligible and continued sleeping.

"I'll wake them up for you if you like, Mrs. Barber," one of the other students offered.

"That won't be necessary, Victor" she said. Victor fancied himself the class clown. She could just imagine how he would wake them. "I think, just this once, we'll let them sleep."

"Aw, come on, Mrs. B.," Victor complained. "You wouldn't let me get away with that."

Mrs. Barber looked at Victor and raised an eyebrow. "Start giving me grades like theirs and I'll cut you a little slack, too."

Victor sat back and frowned at the three sleeping figures.

Mrs. Barber gave the boys one last look. Prom was tonight and none of the students were especially focused today. She figured they must have been up late arranging something special for their dates. After a few moments she turned back to the board and went on with her lesson.

* * *

During that same period Magda had chorus and, like the boys, she was waging a losing battle to keep her eyes open.

"Magda, are you alright?"

It was Mr. Castle. He had been watching her for the past several minutes as she tried to keep up with the music. Magda lifted her face out of her hands and looked bleary-eyed at the teacher.

"Not really," Magda said. "May I go to the nurse?"

Mr. Castle frowned. Although he never had any problems with Magda, a lot of students had been finding reasons to ditch classes this week and he was reluctant to let anyone out of his room without a good reason.

"Are you sick?"

"Kind of," Magda said. "Actually, I have cramps and—"

"Never mind!" he said quickly, cutting her off. "Just go."

Magda pushed herself to her feet and left the room. When she got to the medical office, the nurse pointed her to the back room where there were a number of cots for students who weren't feeling well. Two of the cots were already taken, and she wasn't surprised to see Paige and Amanda stretched out fast asleep. She lay down on an empty cot and closed her eyes. In less than a minute she had joined her friends.

* * *

In Ms. Silver's English class, Danny and James were having a tough time keeping themselves awake as well. They were reading Shakespeare, which both of them found difficult enough to stay awake through on a normal day. The problem was that they didn't understand it. Ms. Silver insisted that they read it in the original Old English which most of the class had a hard time understanding. Usually, James and Danny would sit with Dimitri who for some reason actually understood the Old English and would explain it to them. Unfortunately, Dimitri wasn't in class with them today.

"But I saw his car in the lot," Danny whispered to James.

"So how come he's not in class?" James whispered back.

"I don't know," Danny said, and yawned.

"Is there something the two of you would like to share with the rest of the class?" Ms. Silver asked them.

"Sorry, Ms. Silver," James said, scooting himself upright in his seat.

"Well, Mr. Caruso," Ms. Silver said, "seeing as we are short one student today, why don't you take over the role of Edmund. We are beginning on the first page of act 5, scene 1."

The teacher had arranged the chairs in a circle for today's reading. They were finishing up _King Lear_ and had just started the final act. Each student had been assigned to read one of the characters. They would cover a page or two then spend some time discussing what they'd read. It was an agonizingly slow process.

As James thumbed through his dog-eared copy of the play, he mumbled to Danny, "I'm going to kill Dimitri when I catch him."

James would have been surprised to know that at that very moment Dimitri was less than two hundred yards away, asleep behind the wheel of his car in the student lot. Out of their entire group, Dimitri had been the first one to make it to school. He had been so early in fact that he had pulled into the parking lot almost twenty minutes before the first bell. Since he didn't want to go into the building alone, he decided to wait until one of the others showed up. Meanwhile, he reclined his seat to take a quick power-nap. He figured that all he needed was ten minutes of rest and he would be ready to go.

That was his last conscious thought before he closed his eyes and fell fast asleep.

* * *

"Well, that was a waste of a day," Manny said, stifling a yawn.

He and the rest of his friends were sitting on the narrow walkway that encircled the town water tower. After school they had all gone to Matt's house because they heard that he was home. Because he had been brought in by the FBI, the hospital had assigned a doctor to examine him right away and he had been cleared within an hour. His parents had been overjoyed when they received the phone call from Special Agent Peron telling them that Matt was alive and well. After picking him up from the hospital Matt's parents had brought him home where his mother cooked him a huge breakfast with of all his favorite foods. As he ate they plied him with question after question about what had happened to him before finally letting him go to his room to sleep for the next several hours. He had woken up just before school let out and had texted the group that he was home. By that time his parents were willing to let him spend some time with his friends.

The first thing the group did was show him the clubhouse. There they spent quite a bit of time catching each other up with what had happened to each of them during the past week. Eventually, as the sun started to get low in the sky, they decided on one final activity before going home to get ready for the prom. Matt had missed their adventure climbing the water tower and they decided to show him the view before they split up.

"It's really nice up here," Matt said. "I can even see my house."

After a while he looked down at the base of the tower. He could see the tiny, dark shape of Apollo as he patrolled around the tower's legs. Amanda had offered to lift him up to the walkway with them but Shay told her that Apollo asked to stay behind and guard them in case any bad people came. Protecting his pack was what he had been trained to do his whole life.

For the next several minutes everyone was quiet as they enjoyed the view and mulled over their own, private thoughts.

After they had been like that for a while, Magda said aloud, "Do you think he's really dead?" No one needed to ask who she was talking about.

"I hope so," Manny said.

"He has to be," James said. "I saw him near the front of the warehouse just before the explosion. He was right there where the barrels were."

"I hope it hurt," Danny said. "A lot."

Amanda looked at him. "Really? You'd really wish that on someone?"

"I have to go with Danny on this one," Paige said. "The man experimented on us as babies, kidnapped us, murdered innocent kids to cover his tracks, put us through those horrible trials in that sadistic training room, and then tried to have us killed. Oh yeah, I hope it hurt like hell."

"And if by some miracle he wasn't killed," Tom said, "I don't think he'll be coming after us again, not after the way we pounded the crap out of his security forces."

James grinned. "We were something, weren't we? See, I told you guys we were superheroes. We each have pretty cool powers, but when the group of us gets together look out! We're like a swarm of hornets. Hey, how about that for a name: _the Swarm_."

"Actually," Shay said, "insect colonies are composed of more or less identical workers. We're not like that. Each of us is unique. We're more like...a tribe."

" _The Tribe_ ," James said, testing how it sounded. "I like it."

"I'm just glad it's over," Dimitri said, giving Shay a sidelong glance. "Now we can enjoy our vacation."

Reed had been sitting slightly apart from the others staring out across the expanse of Mayfair Park Lake lost in thought when Dimitri's words brought him back to the present and he glanced over at his friends. He was still surprised by how close he had gotten to the rest of the group in such a short time. For most of his life he had been pretty much a loner, with Paige, Shay, and a few others he considered his only real friends. Now he found it difficult to imagine his life without the others in their group.

"Whatever happens," Reed said, "it's going to be an interesting summer."

About the authors

Jon Gerrard is the author of several previous books including: _Tae Kwon Do_ and _Blackbelt Tae Kwon Do_ , written with his friends the Park brothers who were involved with the selection and training of the U.S. Tae Kwon Do Olympic team. Jon's previous fiction works include: _Shadowplay_ and _Scourge_ , the first two books in the _Starcrown_ series _._ Mr. Gerrard holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from Princeton University and a master's degree in Education from Lehman College. He is currently working as a teacher in New York where he lives with his wife and two daughters. When he isn't writing or conducting martial arts classes from his home on Long Island, Jon enjoys skiing, scuba diving, and riding his motorcycle.

This is Dawn Mitchell's first novel. In 2014 she retired after twenty-seven years as a Federal Agent. Shortly thereafter, in the living room of her Long Island home, the concept for the novel _The Tribe_ was born. She holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of New Haven and a master's degree in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Dawn lives on Long Island with her husband and coauthor, Jon Gerrard, the couple's two daughters, and the several adopted rescue pets who have found their way into their home. The nine "nieces and nephews" whom she affectionately refers to collectively as 'The Tribe' are never far away.

The Tribe

by Jon Gerrard

and

Dawn Mitchell

Copyright © 2016 Jon Gerrard & Dawn Mitchell

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