King of Superheroes, page 19
I let out a disgruntled huff and pushed my focus even harder, and I locked eyes with her as she continued to duck and weave in the air. The moment I’d fixed my gaze onto hers, though, I could feel her.
I started to track her, and I could feel the pull, the eagerness of my Tempest ability when it realized the potential of what I could do. I could feel it pulling and pushing inside of my head, and as Rhiannon swooped a little lower above me, I tugged on that feeling as hard as I possibly could.
The brunette Tempest let out a surprised shriek, and she hurtled toward me at such a sudden speed that I couldn’t do anything other than hold my arms out.
I managed to catch her, or at the very least break her fall, and the two of us ended up entangled on the ground with the wind completely knocked out of us.
There was a brief moment of silence, and then both Rhiannon and I let out a huge peal of laughter that broke the spell for the rest of the compound. Rhiannon continued to laugh into my shoulder, and when I realized one of her legs was half wrapped around my torso, and both her hands were on my shoulders, a sudden heat surged through every nerve ending in my body.
I had to fight to keep my Conduit ability under control, and I realized it was very closely tied to desire.
That was a new one for the books.
I cleared my throat awkwardly and then scrambled to my feet so I could help Rhiannon to hers.
“Sorry about that,” I said with a wide grin. “Didn’t exactly intend on us ending up in that position.”
“What position were you aiming for?” Rhiannon asked with a breathless giggle, but then she clamped her lips closed before she could say anything else because she looked mildly to moderately horrified at her own flirting.
I was about to repay it in kind when I suddenly heard my name shouted from the other side of the hall.
“Mark!”
I spun around at the sound of my name and saw Dahlia standing beside the elevators with a steely look on her face. She waved me over with one curt flick of her wrist, and Rhiannon automatically fell in beside me as I crossed the training floor. Danny, Hannah, and Frank also all quickly made their way to us when they saw the black-haired, mind controlling Dreamer call me over.
“What is it, Dahlia?” I asked as I reached our mentor.
“Emergency,” she said in her usual monotone voice. “Mori himself asked for your team specifically.”
“He did?” Frank asked with a reverent expression.
“I haven’t heard from Mori since the Pillar Placing Ceremony,” I said. “I’ve wanted to talk to him about--”
“Mori is too busy to answer your every little whim,” Dahlia interrupted me with her lips pursed tight. “But he seemed to want you to attend this one in particular.”
“What’s the job?” I asked.
“Building on fire downtown.” Dahlia said. “He thought this team would be best suited for the job, considering your… Extensive list of abilities.”
“Let’s go,” I said with a purposeful nod. “We’re already suited up, so let’s see what Amanda’s creations can really do.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You said it was a building on fire?” I asked as we filtered into Dahlia’s blacked-out van and quickly buckled up.
“That’s right,” our mentor said flatly as she hit the gas. “Firefighters haven’t even reached the scene yet, but Mori was confident you’d be able to handle it.”
“We won’t let him down.” Frank’s voice was still reverent at the mention of the infamous old Dreamer that governed the Academy.
“I’d hope not,” Dahlia said with a sniff as she maneuvered the van through traffic. “Otherwise, it’s my head on the chopping block. You’d better remember to not let me down first.”
“Yes, ma’am…” Frank muttered and shot the rest of us a pointed look.
“I’ve never known the city to need saving so damn much,” Dahlia grumbled as she kept her eyes fixed on the roads. “Having to send first year fledglings on so many missions already… It’s like the world’s going to shit before our eyes, and no one knows why…”
The inside of the van fell into a subdued silence as we watched downtown Miami flash past the windows, with our mentor’s words at the forefront of our thoughts. Dahlia drove like she was an extra in the Fast & Furious movies, and she dodged and weaved through the heavy traffic until eventually we turned a corner and were met with a horrifying sight.
The building was at least six stories tall and almost completely lit up in flames from the fifth floor up. Fire raged on the upper levels, and the windows of the top two stories had already blown out so the flames could lick and crawl across the bricks and work their way even further skyward. The ground below was littered with smashed glass, and a plume of thick black smoke hung above the already crowded street like a rapidly gathering storm cloud.
I could see there was already a group of people huddled together in various states of undress on the other side of the street, and they were staring up at the grisly scene with various looks of horror and worry. I quickly turned to our mentor, and when Dahlia just gave us a silent nod, we immediately jumped out of the van and hurried over to the crowd to assess the situation.
“What happened?” I asked them as soon as I’d skidded to a halt in front of the small crowd of people.
“You tell me, superhero.” The man who answered me was gruff and obviously stressed, with thick folds of skin under his eyes and a smattering of dark gray stubble on his jawline. “I just woke up to alarm bells ringing and my wife screaming bloody murder.”
“We were lucky to get out of there alive, John,” a woman with thin blonde hair scolded him, and then she turned to me with an intense worry in her eyes. “But thank God you’re here! We managed to get out before the fire really took hold, but our neighbor, Mrs. Hackney… She’s elderly, and we just didn’t have time to check on her…”
“And she didn’t make it out with the rest of you?” Hannah asked quickly.
“We haven’t seen her,” the blonde woman admitted as she wrung her hands together fretfully. “Oh, please save her! She’s such a lovely woman.”
“We’ll find her,” I promised. “What floor does she live on?”
“The seventh, same as us,” the woman said. “Apartment number seven-five-five. Oh, please try and save her, please, God…”
“We’re going right now,” I said and put an assuring hand on her shoulder. “But are you okay?”
“Yes, yes…” The woman nodded her head, and her shoulders slumped.
I put it down to shock, because there were a couple people who had very obvious, very visceral injuries already. There was a small boy crying in pain and clutching his arm, where his skin had bubbled and blistered from being in close proximity to the flames, and there was a middle-aged woman with a face blackened by soot and a cough that was so intense it sounded like she was rearranging her insides.
“I’ll stay here and tend to the injured,” Danny said, and he turned to us with a look of determination on his face as he started to activate the various medical equipment Amanda had gifted him with his supersuit. “Go.”
“Holler if you need us,” I told him, and then the rest of my super team took off at a run toward the still burning building.
“Well,” Frank said through gritted teeth as we approached the inferno. “This is gonna be rough.”
“Can you stay here and control the spread?” I turned to my Conduit buddy as he steadied his feet and lowered his center of gravity the moment we got close enough to the burning apartment block.
“Yep,” Frank grunted, and I watched as he flexed his fingers so sparks shimmered around his hands, and he got to work in keeping control of the blaze. “I can stop it from spreading downward at least and form a barrier, I think… But the inside, that’s all you, Omega.”
“I’ll stay here,” Hannah decided, and she turned to me with a disappointed look on her face. “I wanna help, but I’d be more of a hindrance up there. Rhiannon can fly, you can control the fires, but I can’t do anything like that.”
“I’ll have you on comms,” I said and tapped my ear, where we each had an in-ear piece that allowed us to communicate together as part of our fancy new suits. “We’ll need you to tell us where that woman is once we move through the apartment block. Can you hear anyone else that might still be stuck?”
Hannah’s icy-blue eyes slid shut with a flutter of eyelashes as she concentrated her mind reading ability on the burning building. I watched as her eyes flickered beneath her delicate skin, but after a beat, her eyes shot open once more.
“I can only sense Mrs. Hackney’s mind,” the blonde Dreamer told me, and she buried her teeth into her bottom lip as she gazed up at me. “Please be safe.”
“We will,” Rhiannon said softly, despite the chaos at hand.
“I promise,” I said to the blonde Dreamer with a determined nod, and then I turned to Rhiannon. “Let’s do this.”
“Be safe.” Frank’s voice was already strained, but he managed a wide grin as he kept his hands elevated and focused on the fire’s location. “Go forth and prosper.”
I left Hannah and Frank in front of the lobby of the building, and I headed straight for the stairwell with Rhiannon by my side.
The elevator was absolutely out of the question, and even if it’d been working, I didn’t feel like putting my life in the trust of a metal box suspended above the ground by probably already burned out cables.
I could feel the immediate heat and the power of the fire that raged above us, but the stronger it was, the stronger my natural Conduit ability felt, so I wasn’t altogether concerned about keeping the two of us out of its white-hot path.
The building itself hadn’t fared quite as well, though.
The stairs that led up to each floor were made of metal, and they’d twisted and warped at the sudden onslaught of heat. They were still standing at the moment, though, and looked more or less climbable. I could feel how hot the metal was against the soles of my feet, even with my new supersuit, and as I turned back to make sure Rhiannon was okay, my face split into an already adrenaline fueled smile, because the brunette Tempest was hovering gently a few inches off the ground and following me like a specter.
“What?” she asked when she saw me looking.
“Nothing,” I said as I hurried up the stairs. “It’s just really cool.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She chuckled and hovered behind me as I scaled the stairs. “It’s just too hot for my feet right now.”
“Understandable,” I said with a grimace as we continued to scale the inside of the already burning building. “Okay, the blonde woman said this old lady lived on their floor, the seventh.”
“We’re on the fifth right now,” Rhiannon said, and she pointed to a large metal square nailed to the wall with the number five stamped on it in chipped black ink as we made it up the metal stairs.
“Ugh, two more to go then…” I grunted as I continued to half-run up the oppressively hot stairwell.
It turned out we didn’t really need the metal plated numbers nailed to the wall, though, because by the time we’d made it up to the seventh floor, it was obvious we were on the right level. As we rounded the corner to the last half-flight of metal stairs, we were met with an almost complete wall of fire.
It roiled and twisted as though it were some sentient, alive, and extremely pissed-off monster, and the two of us recoiled from the danger on instinct.
“Holy shit,” I breathed and quickly held my hands out against the heat.
I could sense the power coursing through my veins as though it were a part of my bloodstream, and though I felt incredibly strong with it, it was almost unnerving. As though my body couldn’t quite take in the immensity of it.
But Amanda’s new supersuit did its job, and the moment I curled my fingers to latch onto the flames, I let out a surprised breath that came out as more of an appreciative gasp.
The technology in my suit harnessed the furious power of the constantly raging inferno like putting a dog on a leash, and with a deft flick of my wrists, I managed to pull the flames apart like they were drapes covering a window, and Rhiannon and I suddenly had a way into the seventh floor.
“Nice,” Rhiannon commented and flashed a quick smile at me.
I could see the light sheen of sweat as it beaded against her pale skin, and her cheeks were flushed a deep shade of pink at the heat. It certainly wasn’t a comfortable environment to be in, and even I could feel how insanely hot it was inside the building.
We needed to make this rescue fast.
My body was far better equipped to deal with fire and heat, especially in my new supersuit, but I could feel the power that crackled and surged around me, so I focused on finding the old lady that was apparently still trapped inside. With the heat and the smoke, she was probably in pretty bad shape already, and I was keen on finding her as quickly as possible.
The heavy front doors to each apartment were mostly doing their job, so the actual fire itself was localized to the very end of the hallway that Rhiannon and I were currently standing in. But thick trails of black smoke had escaped the tops of each apartment door, and the cloudy fingers met on the ceiling of the hallway like a dirty blanket made of ash and carbon, and I knew the smoke was probably more lethal than the flames in the long term.
“Shit,” I breathed and then pushed a finger to my ear. “Hannah, do you copy?”
“Loud and clear,” I heard the blonde’s voice inside my head as our supersuit earpieces crackled and responded to my question.
“Can you hear anything from Mrs. Hackney?” I asked the mind-reading Dreamer. “Do you have any idea where she is?”
“I can pick up a sense of something, right at the end of the corridor,” Hannah said through gritted teeth, and I could tell she was using every bit of focus she possessed to track down the woman. “She must be unconscious, though, because I can’t pick up on any clear thoughts.”
“Shit,” I said again, and I turned to Rhiannon. “The woman outside said this lady lived in apartment number seven-five-five, and the numbers go from even on the left, to odd on the right.”
“Then she should be a couple doors down on the right.” Rhiannon gave a firm nod of understanding. “We’re at seven-four-seven right now. If we can just get to her, I can probably carry her out of here.”
“Well, we’ve gotta just get through this fire and find her first,” I grunted as I fought to keep the fire at bay inside my mind. “Stay on my tail, okay?”
Rhiannon didn’t answer with words, she just nodded once with her teeth buried into her bottom lip and beads of sweat still shimmering against her forehead and neck.
I lifted both of my hands up and focused on the uncontrollable-looking fire in front of me. I grunted against the sudden surge of power at my fingertips and felt my eyes slip closed as I concentrated while I tried to hone my mind onto the crackle of energy that the fire created.
I was grateful for Amanda’s supersuit, because the moment I focused my mind on the very real, very physical power that raged around me, the material of the suit seemed to react. The moment I tethered the power to my mind, it was as easy as turning a faucet on and off.
I yanked my eyes open and swept both of my hands quickly to the left, and I grinned in satisfaction as the wall of flames obediently crowded against the even numbered apartment doors.
“Whoa,” Rhiannon said. “That was cool.”
“I can’t hold it forever,” I said through gritted teeth. “C’mon, let’s move.”
I pushed through the apartment fire, but despite my new supersuit, the heat from the flames had me sweating just as much as Rhiannon. My skin became slick with it, my hair started to stick to my forehead, and my nose was full of the acrid stench of smoke.
We eventually made it down the corridor, all while I kept the flames at bay to the left-hand side, and finally we reached the door with a seven-five-five stamped onto it.
“I’m gonna need you to open the door,” I grunted to Rhiannon. “I need to focus on keeping this fire off us.”
Rhiannon just nodded and floated over to the apartment door.
“Wait,” I started as I realized something. “Be care--”
Before I could finish my warning, Rhiannon put her hand against the handle and ripped it away with a gasp.
“It’s too hot!” she groaned. “Oh, god, my hand…”
“I’m sorry,” I said through a clenched jaw. “Danny can heal you, I was trying to warn you.”
“It’s okay,” Rhiannon said breathlessly, and she held her wrist with her good hand. “Honestly, I’m fine, but I don’t think I can get that door open.”
“Okay, stand back.” I kept my mind focused on the wall of fire behind us as I stood in front of Mrs. Hackney’s front door. “I’m just gonna kick it down.”
I took a step back, planted my left foot, and then shoved my right foot against the apartment door with as much strength as I could muster. I hoped my super strength would kick in due to the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I let out a satisfied grunt as the door suddenly burst wide open.
The grunt turned into a gasp as we were met with another raging wall of fire, and I pulled Rhiannon toward me as I shot a hand up to keep the focus of the flames away from us. The Tempest fledgling still remained hovering a few inches off the ground, but she leaned against me in sudden fear as the fireball rolled above our heads.
“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” I panted. “I can move us through it, but I don’t know how long the structural integrity of this building is gonna hold up.”
“Oh, I didn’t even think of that,” Rhiannon gasped, and she let out a throaty cough. “Let’s find Mrs. Hackney, we need to get out of here as soon as possible.”
“Hannah?” I called out to the Dreamer in the lobby.
“I’m here,” she replied immediately into my ear piece. “What do you need?”
“We’re in the apartment,” I said and then let out a dry cough of my own. “Do you have any sense as to where Mrs. Hackney is?”
