For the next ten minutes, I am forced to kneel in the rain listening to my supposed crimes. Apparently, as soon as I woke up from my coma, I informed the White Wolf where William, Monica, and I were going to be. They extracted this information through the torture of a captured Ratman. According to this testimony, I would also order people to be snatched who had wronged me. My parents, my sister-in-law. People who I had come across in the store that stared at me. They found a note in my tent on a piece of paper. The people on this note were found to be missing. Further proof. Apparently, I did this all for power, and the proof was that I a mere Shardholder, knocked Shawn, one chosen by a god, to the ground.

I tried to raise objections. How would I send a message to the White Wolf when I had just gotten out of a coma? How is information gathered through torture any good? Why would I even fight against the White Wolf’s armies if I had agreed with him to join the attack on Earth? Was the note even written in my handwriting? Had they even done that simple of a check? And I had just conquered a level 40 dive alone, and killed over 2000 Efrans by myself; of course, I would be stronger than a guy who had been only going into lower-level dives over the last two weeks.

Every time I opened my mouth, however. My brother would let loose an arrow into my shoulder, or Oak would try to test the indestructibility of my teeth with a solid punch to my jaw. After all of the accusations were laid out, Garcia asked a simple, mocking question.

“What? Don’t you have anything to say in your own defense?”

Was he behind this all? Why? I glare at him from my kneeling position and notice a familiar glimmering on his wrist beneath the shadow of his sleeve. Is that...

“I’ll kill you.” Is what I managed to sputter out as I piece it all together.

“See? He’s an animal. He threatened to kill me and my family if I didn’t do as he said!”

“Well done, Garcia.” I hear Ortega mutter as he grabs the megaphone out of Garcia’s slimy grasp.

“Lawrence Able, since you have nothing but threats to say in your own defense, I will assume these allegations are true. You will be sentenced to death, and that sentence will be carried out tonight. Take him to the river so these good people,” he motions to the houses around us and the people looking onto this farce of a trial, “So that no of these onlookers have to see him die.”

I glance at the other Chosen around me. Pain and panic paint Monica's face, and righteous indignation paint my brother's. Cold, hard wrath furrows Shawn's brows. Were they not going to step up? Were they just going to let this happen?

After that all of my items are pulled off of me; everything from my staff — the soldier who first grasped it dropped nearly immediately, his eyes wide open and his pupils dilated. They use the cloak they pulled off of me to pick it up, and placed both in the trunk of an SUV with my bag, my shirt and eyepatch, my necklace, my ring, and my Shard.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

A pair of cuffs is placed around my wrists, as I’m led to the same car at the very end of the cul-de-sac. As we pass by the group of people, the eyes of all the humans I had just pulled from perdition stare at me.

“What are you doing Mark? He saved my life.” It was Allie’s voice. “Save him!”

“He’s the reason that you were in there!” I glance back and see him embrace his wife.

“That’s bullshit and you know it!”

“It’s true, Allie. It’s true…”

I watch as a large caliber rifle is placed in the back of the car. I don’t know guns very well, but it looks big enough to take out a tank. For me, I presume. Two soldiers flank me as I’m sat in the middle seat of the vehicle. One soldier sits on either side of me as the car idles, and one sits in the front passenger seat. The driver leans against the door on the phone. Thanks to my increase in Perceptiveness, I catch his side of the conversation.

“Yeah. The Sage will be dealt with tonight. Tell the UK to proceed tomorrow evening. Yeah, yeah. We got your payment.”

The UK? The United Kingdom? No. That doesn’t make sense. I watch through the tinted windows as the Efrans are led away at gunpoint toward the compound. I catch a glimpse of Nyt in the back. UK…Underking? That has to be it. The driver climbs into the car, adjusts the mirror, and begins to drive toward the river. I glance back toward the others. William is comforting a distraught Monica and Shawn chats with Ortega and Janet.

If I was going to act, I have to act at the right time, or it would be for naught. Four regular humans as guards? They’re underestimating me. Perhaps they believed the items they had stripped me of, gave me my strength and power? Oh, how mistaken they were.

The car pulls away from the cul-de-sac. I know that the river is about a mile and a half away. Why would they need to take me all the way there? Two possibilities in my mind; they were going to shoot me in the back of the head with that rifle in the trunk and toss my body in the rain-swollen river, or they were going to shoot me in the back of the head and give my corpse to some inhuman creature working for Roki. I couldn’t allow either to be the case. I’m the only one who, at the moment, knows where Dylan is. I can’t afford to die just yet.

I look out the window, and when I begin to see the bright orange barricades at the end of the road, I act. I plant my feet solidly on the metal floor of the car and feel mana travel up through the rubber wheels, and into my feet.

Earthen Spike.

A large asphalt spike rips out of the ground and lifts the car off the ground as it slams into the bottom of the hood of the car, and punctures the engine block. Everyone falls backward, and once I feel my back pressed against the back windshield, I plant my feet on the ceiling of the car. The glass is bulletproof, however, and incredibly hard to push through. I take a deep breath. The soldiers beside me fiddle with their holsters, and the driver begins to call in what is happening.

“Oh you ruler of Olympus, lend thy power to my steps.”

Boom.

The ceiling buckles as I’m sent propelling through the bulletproof window. I roll off the trunk and onto the ground and quickly get to my feet. By then the soldiers were undoing their seat belts to chase after me. I pull the cuffs holding my arms in place and move to open the trunk. It's held in place pretty well, and apparently, my strength wasn’t high enough to tear it off. So I make another Earthen Spike to pry it open from beneath.

“Freeze!”

The soldiers who were seated beside me are finally out of the car. Both point their pistols at me as I begin to stuff the items in the trunk into my bag. The ammo of the large rifle was included among these items.

“If you shoot me, I will not hesitate to kill you,” I tell them.

The two soldiers glance at one another and lower their firearms. I sling the large rifle over my back and then cover it with my bag before turning to the soldiers. I can’t risk them just grabbing this and shooting at me as I run, and I know a surefire way to get rid of it.

“Now, one of you hand me your gun.” I reach out my hand. The two glance at one another again, as the one closest to me hands me his pistol.

I don’t know for certain if either of these two is, but I know for certain that the man driving the car is a traitor. No one on earth has ever called me, ‘The Sage,’ before. Wrath rears its head again as I approach the driver-side of the car and pull open the door. He was working with the enemy. He was one of those responsible for my mother and father’s death. My nephew or niece’s death. Perhaps I am possessed, I tell myself as I squeeze the trigger twice. The traitor’s body jolts at the first shot, then turns stiff and slumps to the side at the second. I run off toward the river; gunfire follows after me, but none of them are fast enough to follow after me as I head into the woods by the river.