I slunk downstairs past Rachel, who’d stepped into the manager’s apartment. Slipped outside to the street and got into the car--her car--and drove away. Because when Maddie called me, I came. Sure I felt guilty for leaving Rachel, but not enough to stop myself.

The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel led me to Hamilton Avenue, then I took a meandering tour of warehouses and light-industrial plants. Apparently Red Hook was on the river in Brooklyn, low to the ground and kind of funky--corrugated tin walls, warehouses with bars on the windows, and weed-ridden lots mixed with narrow brick apartment buildings.

I parked beside a chain link fence enclosing pallets of building materials and trotted across the street toward a sign that read AAA STEERAGE. The outline of faded letter O was barely visible under the ‘EE’ that had changed the name from AAA STORAGE.

When I reached for the door, I heard a whistle. Her whistle. I stopped and cocked my head, like a trained hound. I probably would’ve retrieved a duck for her.

I found Maddie standing inside the chain link fence, behind a shipping container, holding the side door open. I went through the gate and stopped five feet from her. She was wearing jeans and combat boots and an open lumberjack shirt over a white tank-top.

"Sorry about your head," she said.

Her short crimson-streaked hair brushed her eyebrows. A leather satchel fell from a strap around her shoulder. I remembered kissing her collarbone.

"Come inside," she said.

"Mozzies?" I asked. "How long have you--"

"C’mon." She gestured into the dark interior of the building. "We’ll talk."

I followed her into a wide corridor with a concrete floor and ceiling lights in wire baskets. Doorways opened every ten feet. One was filled with scorched designs on canvas, the next contained a heap of mannequins wrapped in a brilliant white gauze.

"Huh," I said.

Maddie closed the door behind us. "They’re art studios."

"I thought you worked at home."

"Mostly."

"How do you pay the rent?"

She glanced at me. "I’m a call girl."

"Oh."

"Jesus, Lark, I’m kidding. I used to pay the rent by the skin of my teeth, that’s how." She turned down a hallway covered in collages. "Now I've got another job."

"Working for PJ?"

"Not exactly."

"How long have you known him?"

"A few weeks." She stopped at my expression. "What?"

"You’ve been exposed to PJ for a few weeks. Do you have any idea what he’s capable of?"

"No, Lark," she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. "You know more than I do after one day in the city. Of course I know."

"If you’re around him too long, he takes control forever."

"Where’d you hear that?"

I shrugged. "And you’ve know him for weeks."

"The thing is--" She shot me a grin. "I’m resistant."

She stepped through a doorway, and I followed her into an ex-storage unit, empty but for a stack of boxes, a green vinyl couch, and a padlocked trunk.

"I’m still moving in," she told me, flopping onto the couch.

"You’re resistant?" I said.

"Sit down." She patted the cushion beside her. "You look tired."

"Yeah, this girl hit me with a wrench."

"I said sorry."

"Oh, that’s fine then." I sat next to her. "You’re resistant?"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She nodded. "Did you ever wonder how I can leave the Rock? I mean, how nobody else can leave except me?"

"Only every day."

"I guess I’m a little like Shandra. I don’t feel imprints the way she does, but they sort of feed me. They fuel me. I mean--on the Rock, twenty-six people, there’s no energy there, but in the city …" The impish grin returned. "Wow."

"Wow?"

"Eight million people. I came here, and suddenly I feel all that energy, I focus all that energy."

"Into mozzies."

Her grin grew into a smile. "I bring them to life, I--"

"They almost killed--" I stopped before saying ‘Rachel’. "--me."

"Two of them couldn’t hurt you, not with the orbs."

"How many do you have?"

"Enough."

"You control them?"

"Al ittle. Not really. They don’t mess with me, but they don’t listen to me either--at least not for long. Not yet. Sometimes they’re aggressive, sometimes just curious. I don’t know, I’m new to this. I transfer …something into them, some spark, and they live for a while then die." She absently stroked her satchel. "You can’t imagine the rush."

"What’s that got to do with you leaving the Rock?"

"You’re all stuck on the Rock because you need each other. Not me. The Rock isn't enough for me. You’re not enough for me."

"We've already had this conversation," I told her.

"I never lied to you," she said. "You're the one who had our futures planned, not me."

"Mm. When did this start, with the mozzies?"

"One day I’ll tell you the whole story," she said.

"You're right," I said. "Right now we need to focus on getting Dewitt."

"Why?"

"Why?" I stared at her. "Um, because they’re going to fucking kill him?"

"Don’t be an idiot. They’re going to turn his worthless little power into something useful."

"They’re bombing subways, Maddie, they're terrorists."

"They’re not terrorists, they’re guardians."

"Tell that to all the dead people."

She closed her eyes briefly, and the gesture reminded me of a thousand breathless moments. "Have you heard of Dr. Oppenheimer?" she asked.

"The guy who made the atomic bomb?"

"Yeah, he ended World War II."

"You’re reading history now?"

"I’m living history now," she said. "I’m working for Carson Boone, the Oppenheimer of the 21stCentury. What you don’t understand, Lark, is that there’s no such thing as good and evil, there’s only better and worse. You want the KKK to build the bomb first? The North Koreans?"

"What bomb?"

"Us. You and me." She put her hand on my arm. "People like us, actives, we're hitting critical mass. You think the governments of the world are going to leave us alone in our rec rooms and lobster boats?"

I thought about Rachel Kravitz, working for Homeland Security. "Maybe not, but--"

"The Chinese are going to catch theirs young, like they do for the Olympics. What if ISIS recruits a bad-ass active?"

"What, and uses them as a suicide bomber? Exactly like Boone did? We'll do what we always do--try to stop them."

"You want to bring a knife to a gunfight? These bombs ... a few people are going to get hurt. You’re right. That’s terrible. But you know what’s worse? Doing nothing. What if there’s a day coming, Lark, a day that ends everything? A terminal event? A doomsday?"

"Sure," I said. "The end is nigh."

"Would you kill ten people to save a thousand?"

I rubbed my face. "What?"

"That’s not a rhetorical question, Lark--not anymore." She watched me intently. "Would you kill ten people to save a thousand."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not a killer, Maddie."

"No," she said, almost sadly. "You're not."

"And I don’t have that right."

"But you have the right to let the thousand die? That’s what generals do all the time. They sacrifice the few to save the many."

"You’re a general now?"

"I’m a soldier. Boone is the general."

"Except he's not. He's some deluded ex-defense contractor who was doing human experiments until his own daughter took him down. He's nothing."

"Except a genius. A visionary. The CEO of the fifth largest defense contractor in the US--a man who’s been fighting low-intensity wars for decades. Why? So we can live our stupid little lives, making Miss Corene breakfast and drinking homebrewed beer. This isn’t a kid's game, Lark, where you don’t need to sacrifice and there’s a happy ending every time. You’re still looking for an excuse to do nothing--like you always have."

"That’s better than doing the wrong thing."

"It is doing the wrong thing. Look at you, Lark. You're a weapon."

"Oh, yeah? Who am I supposed to fight?"

"I don't know yet. Maybe some longshot who wakes up one morning with the power to turn the ozone layer into mustard gas."

"Fuck the ozone layer!" I felt my temper fraying, and took a breath. "How does killing people on a subway help you save the ozone layer?"

"That’s not something you need to know."

I nodded slowly. She didn’t know what she was saying; PJ had burrowed too deep into her mind. I couldn't talk her out of this. I needed to keep the conversation going, to learn what I could. "What about Dewitt?"

"We need him."

"You need a guy who can recite Much Ado About Nothing and 1980s car repair manual by heart?"

"We need him, that’s all. Most of these powers amount to nothing, people who can digest wood or hear radio waves without a receiver. Dewitt’s power seems like that, but it's not. It's bigger. We need him."

"So you gave you brother to PJ," I said, disgust bitter in my throat. "You handed Dewey to a psychopath."

Her jaw clenched. "I didn’t know he was going to run some insane kidnap exercise. And PJ's vital. He's key. He’s a dickwit, but he’s our dickwit. He belongs to Boone."

"Or you belong to him."

"I told you--I’m resistant."

"You're out of your mind," I snapped. "You’re not yourself, Maddie. This isn’t you. Shandra’s in the hospital--you don’t care. They kidnapped Dewitt--you don’t care. You’re working for a killer. Your friends are killing children."

Her gaze didn’t waver. "Killing ten to save a million." She stood. "C’mon, I need to show you something."

"Forget it. We need to--"

She walked away, and after a moment I followed down a hallway, surrounded by unfinished art. She stopped at the door to a freight elevator and pressed the button and the door opened immediately.

"Where are we going?" I asked, after we stepped inside.

She pressed 2. "You’ll see."

"Maddie, you know what PJ does. When he’s in your head, there’s no way to tell. Come back to the Rock, talk to Trish and--"

The doors opened, and a hallway stretched in both directions.

A foyer was in front of me, empty except for a soda machine and Dewitt, grinning at my expression.