* * *
“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 aisl
e. 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