“Your little friend here didn’t waste any time selling you guys out, not even seconds. You weren’t even worth that much to him either. For two known thieves, it surprised even us how quickly he tossed you two aside.” Robert put his hand around Julio’s shoulders. He still wouldn’t look up from the ground.
“Explain yourself. Now.” Lizzy was beyond furious. Her voice was barely more than a furious tremble. I knew all about looks that could kill from Heather, but tones that could kill? Lizzy was right up there.
“Allow me.” Francine pulled the dagger away from her hostage’s throat. She shoved the girl against the wall and walked toward us, leaving her freed victim to crawl and scramble away. “Simply put, money talks. It always has, and it always will. Centuries after McLeod fixes this planet, money will still be the only true ruler. To him, you two weren’t even worth the salary of the person who bags your groceries.”
“You gave away our plan—sold us out—for a few thousand dollars?” Lizzy asked, ready to beat the tar out of the guy. “You have everything you possibly need with us! I can’t believe I trusted you, you fucking bastard.”
“Figure it out already!” Julio screamed back, looking up for the first time. A strange determination and fire mixed with the pain etched on his face. “We’re not beating McLeod, you idiot. He wiped an entire city off the map with no effort. Ethan got lucky just to scratch him, and he’s going to march his corpse around the country to show a scratch doesn’t even matter. You can’t provide me safety. At least...at least I can do something now.”
“Do what? How much did you get from this? Maybe fifty thousand dollars? That’ll last you three years at most, and you’ll be living in poverty with that.” Lizzy took a deep breath. “I can’t believe I trusted you. You were one of my friends. We were friends and you traded that for fucking pennies!”
“I’m sorry.” Julio sighed. He sounded like he genuinely meant it on top of being defeated. “I have to take care of myself, and you guys can’t do that.”
“And so you just sell us out!? Even if you were going to be a coward and turn your back on us, why did you do this to us and all these people?” Lizzy huffed. “You couldn’t have just letft us with a middle finger back home?”
“Because Julio here recognizes the winning side.” Robert put his right arm around Julio and pulled him to his side. He looked down at him with a smile. “See, it isn’t just about leaving you behind. It’s about showing us that he can bring us what we want. We don’t want you to be around, so he brought you to us to be taken care of. You two are more than a little dense, aren’t you?”
That was when I took my shot. I quickly fired off a sphere from my finger, aiming at Robert’s left shoulder, not necessarily trying to kill him, but certainly not wanting to hurt Julio. My shot was slightly off the mark, only brushing his shoulder. I held my breath for a beat, letting it out when I saw my attack was still just enough. He stumbled and fell on his back, the glass knives he had above the entire room starting to shake.
“Shit!” I yelled, throwing a horizontal barrier between the glass and the people beneath it. They all harmlessly fell on my barrier, some shattering into dozens of pieces, giving me the opportunity I needed to help the people there. I waved frantically at the crowd. “Get out of here! Go, now!”
They didn’t need much persuading. They all started to make their escapes, careful to avoid Francine and us, which was a smart call. For the chaos in front of them, and likely drugs and alcohol in their systems, the evacuation started fairly well. The screaming and yelling were both kept to a minimum, there were a few fire exits out of the building, and no one had initiated a stampede that got innocent people trampled.
“No!” Francine screamed, reaching for a girl trying to get away
Lizzy charged Francine and tackled her to the ground, but she vanished the moment she touched the cold floor. Lizzy had to shield herself from the crowd of people trying to escape. I lost sight of her and could only hope she was okay in the mess of bodies, but I had to focus on Robert, who was getting back on his feet.
I summoned my armor over my body, put a shield in my left hand, and a sword in my right hand. With all the people running about, I couldn’t have my weapons flying around everywhere. To keep them as safe as possible, I wanted to keep everything as controlled as possible.
And that’s when the fight was nearly over before it even began.
I gasped and stumbled, falling on my backside, grabbing at the back of my leg through my armor as searing pain shot up my leg. Frantically, I tried to reach for the back of my right ankle that had just been slashed open through my armor. The next bursts of pain came almost too fast for me to process. There was a long slash up my left arm over my burn scar, my right thigh got stabbed, and I was cut along the left part of my torso just under my armpit. Only when there was a flash right in front of my eyes did I realize I needed to destroy the armor and sword. I managed to break everything down before a strike could fatally pierce something I desperately needed more than an arm or a leg.
There was blood all over my pants and dripping off my fingertips. Even though I didn’t feel myself getting stabbed where any immediate vital organs were, I gave my chest and stomach a quick pat down. I also checked my neck for any slashes, not that it would have done me much good if I had been cut there. Satisfied that I hadn’t had my throat slashed or my organs pierced, I struggled to my feet, stumbling back against a wall. It felt like the back of my right foot had been hastily dunked into some molten lava. Needing a surprising amount of effort, I took my phone out of my pocket and threw it as far as I could manage through the pain.
Francine popped out of a glass dagger that sat on the ground, the one she held in her hand dripping with my blood. “Wow, so you’re not as thick as you look. Quick reactions and thinking there. Poor boy, if only you decided to join the winning side like your friend here.”
I tried to ignore her. I needed to keep her, Robert, and Julio in my vision at all times while the evacuation was still going somewhat well. Julio looked like he was going to be sick, so I wasn’t sure if he would attack me. If he was, there would be some hesitation. I could work with that. The other two criminals meant business and I wasn’t going to get mercy from them. There was a burning anger in Robert’s eyes, and I was positive he was ready to stick me with every piece of glass in the building.
“Ethan, oh my God.” Lizzy ran up to me and put her hand on my shoulder. “What happened?”
“She can hide in my Shimmer.” I tried to stand up on both feet, pushing my back against the wall as support. Gingerly, I kept my right foot off the ground and didn’t place any weight on it. My ankle was not going to have any of that. “Not just glass. By the way, make sure your phone isn’t in your pocket.”
“Any still, inanimate reflective object is my plaything. You idiots seriously thought it was just glass?” Francine looked at Julio who nodded to confirm what we thought was the extent of her Anomaly. “I could have carved this kid up with his power. Did you even stop to think about what you were getting into? Your intel—or lack of it—could have had you bleeding out on the floor like an animal.”
“This is what I’m talking about!” Julio screamed. He sounded more like a frightened kid than a dastardly traitor. “You nearly get run over by a bunch of random people while this guy, who can do things got carved up like lunch meat. You can’t protect yourself or him, let alone protect me.”
Lizzy bit her lip and didn’t say anything. The grip she had on my shoulder tightened. With the armor aspect of my power neutralized, I needed her to be able to focus. If she was going to doubt herself, it couldn’t be when we were on the ropes. Doubt and hesitation were going to get us both killed.
“You’re fine, keep your head on,” I whispered to her, patting her on the back. “Think of something or look for an opening. I’ll give you one.” I pictured myself looking and sounding cool when I said it, hoping my voice wasn’t squeaking and breaking from the pain I was in. If it hadn’t been for the adrenaline helping me out, I would have been curled up on the floor crying like a baby.
Lizzy nodded and stepped away from me. Again, I felt myself praying she’d be safe out of my sight. I reminded myself that she had managed to get away from the fleeing crowd just fine. I had to trust her and her judgment as a leader. Julio still looked on the fence, but I was confident I could keep the Andersons under control, even without access to my armor powers.
“How’s your shoulder doing?” I asked Robert, trying to goad him into action. “I barely put any power in it, you know. I have to admit, it was nice watching your little ballerina twirl before you ate shit. It’s a good thing you were on stage for that. I’ll tell you what, you can have a few minutes to shatter any security cameras. Can’t do much about the footage already there, but hey, you can stop more of your humiliation from being recorded.”
He waved his hand, spawning a new, deadly array of glass daggers that were pointed right at me. Like in my battle with Heather, the taunting and agitation seemed to work. That was great for Lizzy, and a little less great for me without my armor. Without being able to summon my armor, my defense options were limited. I thought about putting another massive barrier up in front of me. I nearly did it before deciding it was only going to prolong my issue, and it was going to give Francine more area to move around in. Given that I was mostly running on adrenaline and some mediocre trash-talk, I didn’t trust one of my barriers to hold up very well either.
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So, when he started to fling daggers at me in irregular intervals, I called back to my training with Alex at the hockey rink. Each dagger was met by a small barrier that I immediately destroyed when it blocked the attack. Shattered glass fell around me, a faint glitter sparkling in the dim light. With care and precision, I kept pace with Robert's daggers as they tested the limit of my Anomaly. I misplaced my barrier for one incoming dagger, and it planted itself right next to my head, missing by a couple of inches at best.
The instant it embedded itself in the wall behind me, Francine disappeared. I didn’t have long to come up with a plan, and if my Achilles tendon really was cut like I guessed it was, running was physically not an option available to me. Not even half a second before Francine’s dagger slashed at where I was, I created a barrier and used it to propel myself to the side. I heard the dagger pass right by my head before I tumbled to the ground in a mess, small fragments of glass finding a new home in my body, dirt and other shards joining them in my already existing injuries. Fresh blood slowly seeped out of the new wounds, mixing with the filthy floor.
Francine’s entire body materialized from the dagger, and she charged my prone body. To my dismay, she didn’t seem to have many problems maneuvering in her fancy dress and shoes, putting me in another spot where I had to think fast before I ended up filleted. I had maybe a few seconds before she was on me with limited defensive options available, forcing my brain to work overtime to come up with anything that might work.
I knew it was a risk with her own powers, but I created a sword a few feet in front of me and slashed vaguely in the direction of her leg. With how much pain I was in, it was hard enough to even conjure up a sword, let alone properly aim it. If it wasn’t for Lizzy, the evacuating concert attendees trying to escape, and even Julio, I would have just tried to take her out with a sword or other weapon as big as I could manage to create.
She nearly avoided it entirely, with the tip of the sword just able to connect, severing part of her dress and slicing right through her tights. Before she could hide in my own weapon, I destroyed it while she tripped and fell to the ground. Despite trying to will my body to cooperate, I still couldn’t get back on my own two feet or even one good leg. My arm was in a bad way, possibly just as bad as my sorry ankle. I couldn’t put any weight on it without pain racing through my entire body.
“Fran!” Robert jumped off the stage and ran to his wife. Kneeling next to her, he put a hand against the cut. When he stared at the blood—a minuscule amount compared to what was freely running out of my open wounds—on his palm, he glared at me with hatred I could nearly feel. Without hesitation, he stabbed a glass dagger I couldn’t see through my hand. “I’ll kill you for that. McLeod and what he wants can go to hell.”
I gritted my teeth through the fresh pain, darkness trying to creep in around the edge of my vision. I wasn’t going to show any sign of weakness if I could avoid it, even though I was terrified when a new array of daggers was but a few feet away from skewering me. Francine checked her leg wound but was otherwise unbothered by what was going to happen. I created a new sword and swung it at Robert, the slash being predictable and slow, letting him avoid it without much effort. My vision was starting to get fuzzy from the strain, pain, and blood loss.
He grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my head toward him. “I’m going to show you what happens to people who touch my wife. Understand?”
I think I tried to spit at him, though I couldn’t be entirely sure. Everything was a bit of a blur for a bit. The only things I processed with any certainty were a loud crunch and a scream. I was pretty sure the crunch wasn’t from my body. If it was, my body had gone to a point where it couldn’t feel any new pain or injuries, which couldn’t have been good. I felt like I was on the verge of passing out.
There was a much gentler hand on the side of my face. “I...h-hold on...I’ll get you out of here in just a s-second.”
My vision started to clear up enough that I could see what was going on. Lizzy was holding a wooden baseball bat that was covered in blood and bits of hair, her hands trembling. Robert was on his back, unmoving, with a puddle of blood expanding under him. Francine was cradling her still husband’s head, grief-filled sobs shaking her body. I hadn’t even heard her scream for him. Maybe I had blacked out for just a few seconds.
“You worthless bitch, I’ll kill you!” Francine whipped around and picked up a glass dagger from the ground. Her face was contorted and red with rage, and tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She lunged at Lizzy, who still looked to be in a state of shock, ready to shove the knife into my friend’s chest. I tried to make my body move, and the useless thing just wouldn’t listen to what my brain was screaming for it to do.
There was a flash of white and the sound of Francine’s glass breaking. Between Lizzy and Francine was a thick antler barrier extending all the way back to Julio. From my position on the floor, I could only see Lizzy fully, who seemed to snap out of her shocked state, at least temporarily. I only saw Francine’s lower half from under the antler.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them.” Julio’s voice shook, no doubt horrified by everything that was happening. “You promised me you wouldn’t!”
If that was the case, it would have been nice for him to have stepped in or pointed that out when Francine first successfully sliced one of us up.
“But I didn’t promise anything about hurting you,” Francine growled. I couldn’t see exactly what happened from my position. All I knew for sure was that the antler was gone and that Julio wasn’t on the stage anymore. In the dagger Francine held was a scared and confused Julio. “That’s right. I can put anyone in the glass too, but they can’t move around it like I can. Do you want to see what happens when it breaks?”
“Don’t!” I yelled, I think matched by Lizzy, and tried to charge Francine. That time, I was able to force my body off the ground, sending waves of scorching agony through every inch of me, my limbs uncoordinated and uncooperative.
And I wasn’t nearly fast enough.
Before either of us could touch her, she dropped the glass dagger on the ground, where it broke in two. For good measure, she stomped her foot down on it, destroying and turning it into hundreds of glittering pieces. Julio didn’t come back out.
“What did you do!? Bring him back!” Lizzy was screaming.
She got to Francine long before I did. She swung her bat, striking Francine in the belly. She fell over, clutching her midsection, coughing and gasping. Lizzy wasn’t done with her. Two violent swings, one to each arm, and they hung limply from Francine’s body. She jabbed the tip of the bat against the side of her head, not as hard as the hit on her husband had been, but hard enough to knock the woman out.
I thought she was done with Francine then. Instead, my friend slowly lifted the bat above her head, prepared to smash the woman’s head like a pumpkin. I wrapped my good arm around her waist and tried to pull her back, nearly tripping over my own failing body. “Lizzy, you’ll kill her! You have to stop! At least, shit, I don’t know, think about it before you do it!”
Lizzy broke free from my weak grip and struck me in the eye with the knob of the bat in her struggle. I fell back on the ground, clutching the right side of my face, trying to prepare myself to create a barrier to stop Lizzy from braining the woman completely.
Instead, the bat clattered to the ground. Through my good eye, Lizzy looked at me, shocked. She looked down at the bat, at her hands, and then back at me. She rushed over to me and started to reach for my face, stopping a few inches before her skin touched mine. She must have been afraid she was going to do more damage if she touched me.
“I...I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. I thought it was someone else. I wasn’t...my head...I don’t know. I didn’t mean to hit you.” Lizzy’s bottom lip quivered before she started crying.
“Lizzy, it’s okay. I know you weren’t trying to hit me.” She had looked like she was in a strange trance, somewhere between the reality we shared and somewhere farther away than Clamor. I doubt she had even heard me or registered what I said.
“She killed him. And I killed her husband.” Her voice was thick with emotion. Slowly and gently, she put a hand on the side of my face, like she wasn’t sure if I was real. The look of anguish on her face just about broke my heart. “But you’re here, right? Are you okay? I’m not...I’m not just imagining you here?”
I took her shaking hand and squeezed it with my own, making sure I used the one not coated in blood. “I’m in pretty bad shape, but yes, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, promise.”
That was when it all broke down for her. Her steady crying became agonized sobs. She put her face against my shoulder, and I made no attempts to stop her. I rubbed her back as gently as I could while she let it all out. Beyond her cries, the room was completely silent, which was eerie.
She definitely needed more time to collect herself, but after around thirty seconds, she pulled her head back and wiped her eyes. “We...we need to leave. Yeah, we need to get out of here. We’ll call your sister and get everything here straightened out.”
“How?” I asked. I took a glance at Francine and sighed. If she was going to wake up and use my power against me, then I was in little shape to stop it. Still, I had to get to a point where I could stand. With a bit of a struggle, I was able to get myself back on two feet using some Shimmer creations. “And what do we do with them?”
“I have duct tape. We’re taking her with us. We’ll have to leave Robert here.” Lizzy grabbed my phone from where I threw it and put it back in my pocket for me, making sure the screen was facing away from my body. Despite my worry about Francine being able to stab me using my phone’s camera, I didn’t protest. “For Julio, I don’t know what we can do. He’s just...gone, isn’t he?”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. It was hitting me that I failed to protect another person. People saw me on TV and thought I was some sort of hero. Amy looked at me like I’d saved the entire world singlehandedly. I couldn’t even keep a kid safe after he saved us. An entire life ahead of him and it was just stomped out like a tiny little fire.
“It would have been so much worse without you.” She sniffled and gave me as gentle a hug as she could manage. “Thank you. You’re the bravest guy I’ve ever met. I’m sorry you got cut up so badly. Maybe Julio was right to think I couldn’t keep anyone safe.”
“Don’t say that. Robert was going to kill me before you stepped in.” I leaned against a cube that I made, using it to support my body. “Didn’t you have to park somewhere else?”
The smallest hint of a sad grin tugged at the side of her mouth. “No. I parked in staff parking, which is just below the building, with a tunnel that lets out a few blocks down the road. If you lie with enough confidence, people will let you in just about anywhere.”
Unable to help her myself, I simply watched while she got to work taping Francine’s hands behind her back, having some trouble with the loose, broken arms on the woman. She threw some around her mouth, eyes, and ankles. It took some effort, but Lizzy was able to hoist the woman over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“If you can’t walk, just wait here. I’ll put her in the car and be back for you.” Without looking back, she made her way toward the staff area.
Not ready to leave my friend alone with Francine, I forced myself to follow, using my Anomaly, the walls, and anything else I could for support.