abnormals underground 01 - one to five, page 65
Magenta light formed around Xavier's hands as he rose to a crouch.
"Not yet," I said. "They might see that."
The light died but the air remained hot. He was struggling to hold his magic back until the right moment.
Ten...eleven...the twelfth van turned out of the drive and drove away.
"Now," Xavier said, letting his magic come to life.
Purple light exploded around his hands as the thirteenth and final van pulled out of the drive and went to turn.
The van stopped. Xavier's magic had been spotted. He threw the charge with good accuracy. It sailed, fizzling and spitting, towards the van's driver side window, where it broke glass and no doubt stunned the person inside. I saw a guy slump against the steering wheel. The driver was out. The van remained stopped.
But the other figure inside was reaching for a radio on the dash. We had no time to waste or we were going to have company.
I bolted towards the van as fast as I could, reaching it in under two seconds. I circled around it and raised my sword, bashing the passenger window in.
It shattered. A woman screamed and dropped her radio. I jumped and grabbed onto the edge of the window, cutting my palm on the glass, but I ignored the pain and reached inside, seizing a clump of her hair. Behind her, the driver lifted his head, stunned. She stopped screaming and instead reached down for something on her belt. I smelled a taser. Nope. That was not going to happen.
My stomach roared.
She smelled like a steak dinner.
"I'm not going to kill you!" I shouted, even though rage burned through me. These people had taken some of my friends to a horrible fate.
The male driver groaned as I pulled the woman closer. I dropped my sword to the road. Xavier was running up behind me, ready to strike again.
All this happened within two seconds.
Xavier ran around the van and pulled at the drivers' side door. I couldn't mess around anymore. I had to do what I had to do before I became a danger to Xavier again. If this agent had a trace of Bathory's blood, so be it.
I bit.
She screamed, this time in pain. I couldn't apologize.
Bathory would have probably torn her head off after she was done.
I was dimly aware that Xavier was throwing another charge at the driver side door as I fed and clung to the side of the van, filling myself with renewed energy and strength. I let the woman go, who groaned and reached for her neck. She was still bleeding a bit, but she'd be okay. I figured she'd have a headache later and might have to sleep this off.
The drivers' side door opened.
The worst was happening. The driver had a taser aimed at Xavier's face, who backed towards the trees. His finger depressed the trigger. My battle partner was about to land in a world of major hurt.
I jumped into the van, lunged across the still-groaning woman, and grabbed the male driver's head. With my growing strength I wrapped my hand in his hair and hit his head against the steering wheel. His skull made a boink sound as it contacted and I was afraid I'd given him a fatal injury at first, but there was no crack.
The man was out cold and breathing. I might have given him a concussion. Ahead, taillights continued to get further away. That wouldn't last long.
I unlocked the van door for Xavier and retreated, undoing the woman's seat belt and dragging her out onto the road. She wasn't in any fighting shape. The woman staggered and I saw her name tag on the front of her black uniform. Sanders. I'd keep that in mind.
"Please don't kill me," she begged, holding onto her neck. A bit more blood seeped out from between her fingers, but the flow was stopping as the wound clotted. The steak smell was still strong, but no longer tempting. I'd be good for another night if I didn't waste too much energy running or healing.
"I won't," I said, pulling the taser off her belt after figuring out how the holster worked. I held up the weapon. "I will tase you if don't cooperate. Trust me, I don't like to kill. And by the way, you work for a guy who's friends with someone who just took out twelve of your agents." I found her keys and opened the back door of the van. "Are you missing anybody?"
The woman wasn't listening. She turned away like she was scared of facing me. I was used to that.
"Listen to her," Xavier said, running around the van. "The man's still out. I don't know how hurt he is but I disarmed him." Xavier held up a taser and a real pistol. "We need to get them in the back."
"That's what I'm doing."
The woman cried out. She was in pain and a surge of guilt rose up inside of me. She was sure a wimp for being in the ATC. Most of them were tougher than this.
I took a pistol off the woman as well, finding it strapped right above her ankle. I had forgotten about that. She smelled like weak adrenaline now. "I'm dizzy," she said.
"Then get into the back of the van and lie down," I said. "We'll get you some water." I pointed the taser at her and she climbed in. The prison area had a faint doggy smell and a wood smoke smell. At least one werewolf and one Mage had ridden in it not too long ago.
The woman climbed in and flopped down to the floor, putting her feet up one of the benches. She was pale and looked sick. Blood loss would do that to anybody. We closed the door and Xavier and I had to drag the unconscious man from the van and into the back to lie next to the woman. We tossed him on the floor. There was no time to waste.
The radio inside crackled. "Where are you at, Sanders?"
"Time to go," I said.
Xavier and I closed the doors on the two agents. Of course, the doors locked from the outside, making it impossible for them to get out on their own. I knew there was bulletproof, reinforced glass between the prison area and us--there had to be--and I wondered why the ATC hadn't had the smarts to make their regular windows the same way.
I retrieved my sword, finding it fifty feet behind the van. Someone asked Sanders where she was again in a crackling radio voice. They asked her to please answer. Then it was my job to climb into the drivers' seat, now that I had the most experience driving. Our next step was to go to Mack and see if he could glamour us to look like the two agents. It was the best case scenario. He might not even be able to do it or he might even refuse. If that happened, we would have to find a way to make the two agents we had get us into the bunker. That was Plan B and I didn't like that one.
I closed the door. More glass rained down. "Can you make that look not broken?" I asked Xavier as he put on his seat belt next to me.
“I'll try,” Xavier said. “Like I said, I've only ever tried to glamour weapons.”
I found the gearshift. I was thrown off all over again by the van. It handled differently than the car. Driving the van took a little more practice. By now, the other vans had vanished. We weren't going to follow them, anyway.
"Sanders! Ernest! Answer me!" The man on the radio was getting more desperate.
I took the radio and smashed it against the dashboard, breaking it. Then I spotted a GPS on the dash, complete with a glowing map, and I smashed that against the dash, too, Doing that while trying to drive almost sent us into the ditch. Xavier yelled at me to watch what I was doing and reminded me to turn the headlights off. I fumbled around and found how to do it. It worked and my gray night vision returned. I was glad it was back. It was clearer than my color vision and showed a lot more detail. I was meant to see in the dark, after all.
"They know something's wrong," Xavier said. "I bet we just vanished off their GPS."
"Good," I said, even though that was both good and bad. We had to hurry. I thought of turning around and driving further into the country, but the ATC would expect that. The dirt road didn't go anywhere--only into open farms and eventually a dead end. We had no choice but to drive back towards the city. Mack was waiting there.
So far, no one was coming back for us. Xavier had his eyes closed, trying to focus as he muttered some magical words that only the Mages knew.
The windows stayed broken.
"I don't think this is going to work," Xavier said.
"Then we're going to have to drive to the junkyard and hope Mack can replace the windows," I said. "The ATC isn't going to let us in if they think something's wrong."
"He might be able to," Xavier said. "We might have been better off making the two agents drive."
"We can't now," I said. "Sanders is ready to pass out."
Xavier checked behind us. "She's still lying down," he said. "She's conscious. The man's sitting down next to her. They're scared. I hope Aunt Primrose is all right."
"That's the first time you ever said that."
"Well, she might hate me but I do," Xavier said. "We've got to free her."
I knew where Xavier was going. He wanted to restore his honor and he wanted to do that by killing Thoreau again. I knew what it was like to go through life reviled by your own family. The fact had brought Xavier and I closer together, at least at first.
At least he had a chance to do it. I was jealous. I had no chance. I might be a monster forever.
I found the subdivision again and drove back towards what I thought was the city. We passed the house with the party and a couple of guys were standing outside where the car had been. One was on the phone. So far, we hadn't run into the ATC coming back after us. They had to be close. When I paid attention, I heard the motors of their vans only a few streets away, heading back towards the dirt road we had come from. They were going back to check.
I was willing to bet they'd do more than that, too.
"We're past them," I said a minute later.
"We need to go," Xavier said. "We have to leave this area. I'm sure the entire ATC knows there's a missing van by now."
I heard police sirens in the distance. Yep. "I think you're right," I said. I listened. Even this late at night there was plenty of traffic in the distance. We would have to blend in somehow. It was our only chance other than hiding.
I hit the gas and turned, again and again, getting lost in the subdivision but taking us further from the other vans. We passed the bus stop we had used earlier. I hit a curb twice and knocked over a trash can. I felt like a fresh drivers ed student trying to dodge cones. This must be what it was like. My condition didn't give me any special driving abilities. Trish was good at driving, but I knew now that was due to experience.
"Where are we going?" Xavier asked.
"I don't know," I said.
The sirens grew louder and I found a sign that pointed to the expressway. I hoped we weren't in for a police chase. Xavier and I would never get out of that. It looked like this wasn't going to be so easy after all. If they caught us, we would be taking a ride into whatever trap Thoreau had set up and not on our own terms.
I found the ramp and realized what I was going to do. The sirens grew yet louder--there were a lot of them--and Xavier flinched like he could hear them as well. They must be ready to get off the expressway. We had to be on. I hit the gas and got onto the ramp. Up the hill, traffic zoomed down the expressway at speeds I hadn't even dared yet.
"Alyssa," Xavier breathed.
I gulped. "Just so you know, we're probably going to die."
It was scary, but I mashed the accelerator and watched the speedometer go up to forty, then fifty, then sixty...did people seriously drive at seventy?
I reached that seventy mark and Xavier grabbed onto the armrest. I was glad for his vote of confidence. All the color drained from his face and I messed with the handle that must be the turn signal. I hadn't even used it yet. Finally I got it to click, but in the wrong direction. I tried to switch it back but wound up turning on the windshield wipers instead.
I caught a glimpse of a whole trail of police cruisers getting off the expressway on the other side of the road. We had barely dodged them. At least something was going in my favor. But now I was driving along the three lanes of the freeway and a semi was coming up behind us. I held my breath.
"Screw this," I muttered, and looked behind me to see if I had a space. Someone got over to give me room and I swung the van over, almost into the middle lane instead of the right one. Someone honked and Xavier swore. I righted the van and managed to stay in my own lane. I also realized I had slowed down to sixty and the semi changed lanes to go around us, but we were alive. I hadn't splattered our guts all over the freeway yet.
The police sirens began to fade. We had left the old subdivision in time to avoid them. If we hadn't taken this ramp, we might never have gotten out.
"Alyssa. That was good for your first time driving," Xavier said.
"Thanks," I said. "At least I learned how to work the right turn signal."
"That's a start," Xavier said. "But you might want to turn on your headlights."
My color vision had come back. I thought for a second and then turned the headlights on. I realized what a dangerous thing I'd done. We had escaped detection by the police by getting on with the headlights off, but Normals probably couldn't spot other vehicles too well in the dark without them on. I had to remember that.
So I kept them on.
"You can speed up," Xavier said.
"Are you sure?"
"The speed limit says it's seventy."
"So you're going to be my backseat driver," I said.
"Hey. I'm helpful, right?"
A man passed us in a sports car with the top down. He stared at my busted window and lingered in the next lane for a bit. I tried not to stare back but I let my gaze go to the guy for a second. He was an older man who was clearly having a midlife crisis and the look on his face was suspicious.
"We can't stay on the freeway long," I said as the guy sped ahead and got in front of us. He might call the authorities on us. A teen girl driving an ATC van with broken windows wasn't a normal sight.
"I agree," Xavier said. "I think we have six miles before the exit that will take us to Mack's. Stay here in the right lane. I'll tell you when to get off."
I hadn't lived in metro Cumberland for long so Xavier had to be my guide. I trusted his judgment. I kept driving, doing sixty and letting people pass us because I was too scared to go any faster. I never wanted to drive again. I barely tapped the gas pedal, afraid it would send me into the back of the semi that was now in front of us. Downtown Cumberland got larger, complete with the side of the ATC headquarters.
The truck posed another problem. The semi blocked out the view of the helicopter at first.
I heard the blades a second before it came into view, swinging a searchlight. I swore. The helicopter was maybe a couple of miles to our right, flying over the dark neighborhoods where they thought we must be, and the searchlight swung back and forth in search of a van with busted windows. I knew that one call from someone on the expressway would get that helicopter over here in a hurry. We could never outrun it.
The helicopter was an ATC one. I could see the letters on the side. I couldn't tell if it had guns. If it did, they were hidden so the public wouldn't freak out. The ATC had to keep a good image, after all.
"That's not good," Xavier said.
"Keep an eye on it," I said as traffic slowed. We were getting closer to downtown and even at almost midnight, there was a bit of gridlock. It wasn't what we needed.
I hit the brake too hard and came to a stop well behind the semi, then got going again. There was another on ramp and people were slowing to let some other cars join the traffic. Once all this calmed down, I swore, we would have to move out of the city.
"Come on," Xavier said right before we got going again.
I wanted to pass the semi. This driving thing was getting a little better and I had more control, but there were too many cars in the other lane zooming past and no one would let us over. People were so rude on the freeway.
"Um..." Xavier said.
"I know that that means," I said, terror exploding in my chest. "Someone called us in and the helicopter's on its way."
"You might say that," Xavier said.
I thought of the guy in the sports car, who had just exited the freeway. He must have gone and placed his call and got off the road to do so. How courteous. I looked over and saw that the helicopter's angle had changed. Its headlights faced us. The guy must have given the authorities our mile marker and the way we were headed. The helicopter would cut us off if we kept going this way.
And we had just passed the last exit. I couldn't go any faster than fifty now. The sign hanging off a bridge told me that we had another mile to the next one and traffic was already slowing down ahead--big time--for a construction zone. An arrow pointed to the right and orange barrels blocked off the left lane. They were tearing out the median, which was all smooth dirt with a port-a-potty at the end of it. All the workers had gone home for the night, leaving dead equipment.
I had a crazy idea.
"We have to change direction," I said.
I didn't bother with the turn signals or being polite. Traffic was slowing. We were about to be stuck. I swung into the next lane, and then the next as people honked. I struck an orange barrel, which toppled into the median.
"I can't believe this," Xavier said.
The helicopter grew louder. Its searchlight swung like some alien beam. It would reach the freeway ahead in seconds. Once it found us, we were done. We would never outrun it.
I turned onto the dirt.
The van bounced and even though the bulletproof glass, I heard the woman screaming.
I had to keep the four of us alive.
I hit the gas and we drove through and out of the median, making a U-turn and heading back the way we'd come. If we were lucky, people would think we were answering a call. A lot of ATC vans were out lately. They were emergency vehicles and allowed to use those turnaround things in the middle of the freeway, right?
I hit the gas and merged on off the shoulder. The horrible road noise under us grated on my nerves. Xavier gripped his armrest again. Someone else honked but I mashed the accelerator faster...faster...I couldn't give anyone time to see our busted windows and place another call. The searchlight of the helicopter touched the freeway about a half mile behind us, expecting to find us there. It drifted away, going in the direction we would have been driving in.
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