“Wait!” I said loudly, holding up my hand in plea.

According to our briefing this woman most likely understood English.

“Please, we’re not here to hurt you! We’re from the United Nations! We know you’re on the run from your government. We’re here to take you to a safe place where you’ll be protected!”

The woman remained rooted to the spot, frozen still. For a moment the image of her body seemed to flicker in the air. The other passengers continued to call out at us. The ticket man continued to shout.

“How do I know that I can trust you?” she said at last over the din in precise English with a thick Middle Eastern accent.

I racked my brain for what to say, trying to remember the briefing. The ticket man was right in my face now, waving his arms and getting red in the cheeks, but I pushed him gently to one side and spoke over him. “We know your name is Amina Amari. We know you’re on the run from the Iranian government. We know you have powers.” That wasn’t enough, I could see from the terror still in her eyes. I needed something more. Come on, Weakling! “You can trust us because we’re not going to force you to come with us. But if you want to be safe, Miss, I strongly recommend that you do come with us.”

I didn’t know where the words had come from but there they were. My training must be paying off. I could tell they had hit home because her brown eyes relaxed a little and Mute said {Nice one, Weakling!} in my mind.

But then the woman frowned again and the fear in her eyes returned as she looked past me. I saw something reflected in them—a glimmer of metal.

“Get down!” I yelled. I shoved Mute to the floor behind me with one hand and turned as bullet fire sprayed into the car, flashes and bangs filling the doorway by which we had come in.

Bullets bounced off my chest, my arms, my head. I shut my eyes on instinct, feeling them thud into me and then fall to the ground like insects bouncing off my body.

The gunfire stopped.

I swayed a little where I stood. It’s never fun being shot at.

I opened my eyes. In front of me, just inside the door, were four men. They were dressed in a variety of clothing—a traditional flowing ‘thobe’ garment in white and red, two grey business suits, and one in shorts and a white T-shirt. But they all wore black balaclavas on their heads and pointed AK-47s in my direction. Their eyebrows compressed in puzzlement. This seemed all too familiar.

Terrible screams filled my ears as my hearing came back. Some of the passengers had been hit. The ticket man was lying face down on the floor, a pool of deep red seeping out from under his abdomen.

Oh my God. I had never seen anyone be shot before.

This was all going wrong. “Mute, how did you miss these people?” was the first thing I thought to say.

{I’m sorry!} whimpered Mute in my mind. He was kneeling on the ground with his hands over his head. {I was looking for fear and superpowers, not guns and murderousness!}

But there wasn’t time to be scared or to blame people now. Innocents were dying. Fury rose in my chest.

{What’s going on down there, boys?!} came Abram’s voice, urgent and concerned.

I barely heard Mute explain to him what was going on because at that moment I charged the gunmen. I ran full tilt at them.

“MURDERERS!” I shouted, seeing red, forgetting all of my training in a moment. I put my arms up in front of me on reflex to make myself seem big and scary.

As I ran towards them the masked men open-fired on me again, unloading more bullets at my chest. I hardly registered them.

The nearest man kept on shooting at me right up until I reached him and he was firing at point blank. His eyes doubled in size as I grabbed his gun, wrenched it from his hands and smashed him in the face with it. He hit the floor hard. Gunshots were still going off. The next nearest gunman stepped to one side and carried on shooting, switching to aiming at my head. Blam blam blam! It was like somebody was jabbing the side of my forehead over and over with their finger. I was lucky he didn’t hit me in the eyes. I roared with irritation and stepped towards him, backhanding him across the head with the first man’s gun. This one slammed into the train window, leaving a spider-web of cracks in it, then sank to the ground.

The gunfire stopped again. I span on my heel. Where had the other two gunmen gone?

Shit, I thought as the red tint to my vision slowly subsided and the rest of the world came back.

The gunman in the shorts and T-shirt was standing facing me with one arm in a hold around Mute’s neck and the other pressing a gun to his temple. Mute clutched the man’s arm with two hands, his face white as a sheet of paper as he shivered speechless with terror. The other remaining gunman, one of the ones in a business suit, stood next to him, pointing his own weapon at me. A number of bodies were strewn around the floor, limbs poking out from underneath seats. The floor was covered in splashes of blood. The passengers who were still alive were unable to restrain their sobs and wails as they stood in a ring around the walls of the car, their backs and the flats of their hands pressed up against it, looking on in horror and crying.

{Weakling, status report!} shouted Abram’s voice in my mind. Mute was still managing to maintain the link. I guessed now it was his only hope of survival.

{The gunmen have taken Mute hostage!} I thought as loudly as I could, staring at them. {I took out two but there are still two left!}

{Where is the target?} demanded Abram. {Can you still identify the target?}

{Never mind the target sir, they’ve got Mute!}

{Never mind Mute, get the target!} Abram was livid inside my mind. This was all so surreal. {That’s an order, soldier! Can you see the target?}

“Rrr,” I growled. Why did he care so much about the ‘target’ when Mute was in trouble? Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to look left and right at the passengers still in the car, trying to pick out the woman with the burqa again. There were still four women standing in burqas, but I couldn’t tell if any of them was our target. Everyone seemed to have rearranged themselves.

“Which one of you is the lady I was just talking with?” I asked.

I didn’t get a reply, only more sobs and shivers.

{Negative, sir,} I made myself say over the link. {I’ve lost her.}

The gunman holding Mute continued to stare me down. “Shut up!” he said to me. He too had a foreign accent, but it didn’t sound Middle Eastern, more Eastern European. No time to dwell on that now. “Put your hands behind your head! You move one muscle and I will shoot this one!”

I put my hands behind my head like he asked. I wasn’t worried about the other man’s gun trained at my head; I was worried about his gun which was trained at Mute’s.

{Weakling, the priority is the target!} commanded Abram in my mind. {Find the target! Mute can take care of himself!}

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

{Are you sure, sir?} I thought back, eyes fixed on Mute’s ghost-white face. {He looks pretty distressed…}

{Locate the target, Weakling! That is an order!}

“Good,” said the gunman with Mute, apparently thinking that I was complying with him by not doing anything. “Now, you show us: Which one is the woman you have been sent here to collect?”

They knew about our mission! How did they know about our mission? My eyes flicked around the car again, snatching glimpses of the cowering, whimpering passengers, since both Abram and the gunman were asking me to do the same thing now. I really couldn’t spot her anywhere.

{Mute, is the target still in here?}

{I-I-I’m not sure!} Even inside my head Mute’s voice was squeaky and tremulous. {It’s h-h-hard to concentrate right now! I can’t sense her thoughts but that doesn’t mean she’s not here!}

“I don’t know where she is!” I said out loud. “We lost her when you bastards came in here and started shooting at everyone!”

“I am not believing you,” said the gunman with a sneer. “You tell us which one she is or your friend here dies.”

I looked at Mute. His eyes were glassy. {Gonzalo, please!} he said in my mind. {This guy is prepared to shoot me, he’s not bluffing! I don’t know if I can get out of this! I’ve never stopped a bullet before! My TK isn’t strong enough yet!}

I didn’t waste any time asking how he’d found out my real name. {Can’t you just TK yourself out of his reach?}

{I don’t know! I’m bleeding from my leg and his grip is really tight! And I’m...I’m scared, Gonzalo! I’ve only ever dealt with criminals with knives before, never guns! I don’t want to die! Help me, please!}

I looked at Mute’s leg. Shit, he really was bleeding from a wound in his thigh. What should I do? If I make a dash for it he’ll shoot Mute before I get to him. Think, Weakling, think! Ok, shooting Mute will only be their last resort; if they shoot him they have nothing to threaten me with...

Just then the second gunman made an exasperated sound and walked up to one of the women standing near us at the edge of the car who was wearing a burqa, lifting his gun to her head. The woman and a few people around her screamed.

The second gunman shouted something and the screams subsided, replaced again by barely stifled sobs. He looked at me. “Is it this one? Is it this one you are searching for?” This guy did sound Middle-Eastern.

The woman looked at me too and I studied her eyes, trying to focus long enough over the sound of my own pounding heartbeat in my head. This woman had blue eyes. But the eyes of the woman I had spoken with had been brown.

“No, that’s not her,” I breathed with relief.

Blam! Blood and other things I couldn’t name splattered the window of the train as the gunman shot the woman in the head at point blank range. A small hole appeared in the window too and the roar of the air rushing past outside the train grew louder.

“NO!” I shouted over the screams and made to run at the second gunman, but the first one shouted “Stop!” and jammed his gun harder into the side of Mute’s head, thrusting him out towards me with his other arm in warning.

I stopped myself. He shot her! The bastard shot her! “Ok, ok!” I said. “Don’t shoot any more people! I’ll tell you which one she is!”

{Weakling, get to the target!} Abram was back in my mind. {Find her now!}

I wished Abram would get out of my head. This was a disaster. My first live mission and it was a complete disaster. A disaster and a horrible nightmare. People were dying. And my friend was in trouble. I wasn’t ready for this. I needed to get out of this situation. I needed to do something.

My mind raced. Desperate to avoid any more deaths, I chose the lady in a burqa who was farthest away in the car, standing by herself right at the back. I pointed past the first gunman and Mute, right at her. “That one,” I said, trying to inject a note of helplessness into my voice. It wasn’t too difficult. “I think it’s her. Could you bring her closer so I can check to be sure?”

The two gunmen had a quick, angry conversation in what sounded like Russian. The one with Mute gestured with a tilt of his head. The second gunman narrowed his eyes at me, but then he started walking slowly towards the back of the car, towards the woman, his gun still pointed at me as he went.

I’d bought us a bit of time.

{Well done, Weakling,} said Abram in my mind. {Now just focus on retrieving the target. Mute will be just fine.}

I looked at my teammate, locked in the grip of the terrorist. He really didn’t look fine. And they really were prepared to shoot people at point blank. I ground my teeth.

{Mute, can you shut Abram out of the link?} I thought.

{What?} thought back Mute. {Why?}

{Trust me! Just do it!}

{Excuse me?!} came Abram’s voice. {What did you just say? How dare you, Gonzalo! Don’t you even thi—} His voice cut off. Mute must have disconnected him.

{Thanks,} I said in my mind. My mind calculated, working at double speed. {Ok, Mute, here’s my plan. You can’t use your TK to stop a bullet, but you can use it to nudge your gunman’s hand away from your head, right?}

{I don’t know!} Mute’s voice was hysterical. {Maybe?! He’s pretty strong and he’s pressing the gun really quite hard against my head! You know my TK doesn’t work very well on things that aren’t me! I’m scared and I don’t know if I can concentrate enough right now!}

{Mute,} I thought as calmly as I could, {can you do it or not? Your life depends on this.} Where was this confidence coming from?

By now the second gunman had reached the lady in the burqa I had chosen at the back of the car. He shouted something and, trembling, the lady stepped forward a few paces. The gunman took his place behind her, pointing his gun at her back. He said something else and the pair of them began to walk slowly back down the length of the car, towards me.

{Quick, Mute! What’s your answer?}

{Alright, alright! I can do it! I should be able to move his hand a bit if I put all of my effort into it! But it’ll only work for a moment until he realises what’s happening and pushes back against me!}

{A moment. That’s all I need.}

{What are you going to do?!}

The second gunman and the woman had passed the first and Mute by now. The woman was about five paces in front of me and gunman number two was standing behind her, the barrel of his weapon pointed at the back of her head.

{Don’t worry about me. Push his hand away on ‘three’. Ready? One…}

“Is this her?” said the gunman holding Mute. “You tell me now or we will shoot her too!”

I squinted, trying to feign curiosity. “Could you come just a little closer?” I said out loud. “I need to see the colour of her eyes.”

{Two…}

{Gonzalo, I’m not sure about this! I don’t know if I can move this guy’s hand!}

The second gunman grunted and prodded the gun barrel into the lady’s back. As she took another step forward, I had just enough time before I thought the next number to notice the colour of her eyes: brown, with a hint of silver.

{Three!}

I sprang off my feet full tilt towards the woman in front of me, aiming to tackle her to safety on the floor. As I did so, the air around her shimmered like heat from an exhaust on a hot day and the woman disappeared from view. Gunfire sounded. I fell flat on my face.

I jumped up again quick as I could. The second gunman clutched his chest and looked down in confusion at where it had been punctured, then collapsed to the floor.

Behind Mute the first gunman’s eyebrows were scrunched up in puzzlement at his outstretched hand which had just shot his colleague. But then he shoved Mute to the floor and pointed his gun at his head again, about to shoot...

I had misjudged the manoeuvre. I wasn’t going to make it in time to save him.

Something hit the gunman hard in the face and his shot went wide, missing Mute’s head and going into the floor of the train.

The woman in the burqa had reappeared behind him.

Wasting no time, I charged forwards and made it to the man before he could get off another shot, driving my knuckles into the side of his face. It felt good. He rebounded from the blow then kept going and fell to the floor.

I kept going too. I leapt on top of the man and knelt on his arms with his chest underneath me. I hit him in the face again and again, right, left, right, left, only holding back enough not to turn his skull to pulp so that I could keep hitting him. Hot fury filled my lungs.

I shouted a word with each new blow. “I’ll! Teach! You! To! Threaten! My! Friend! And! Kill! Innocent! People! You! Filthy! Low! Life! Bullying! Piece! Of!—”

“STOP!” someone yelled.

For the third time that day I came to my senses. This time everyone in the car was stunned silent. All I could hear was the noise of the air streaming past outside and through the hole in the window.

It was the woman in the burqa who had yelled at me to stop. “Please,” she said in her accented English, “you have done enough. He is unconscious.”

I looked at her eyes behind her veil. Her pupils had fully dilated, big and black with terror. Or was that horror?

I looked down at the man. His face was a mess of blood, but I had just about left it intact. What had come over me?

The train’s horn sounded over the rush of air coming through the hole in the window. It must be arriving at a station. Who knew what would await us there if we hung around?

{Come on, Weakling, quick, let’s get out of here!} said Mute in my mind. He had got to his feet, shaking.

I got up too. “Will you come with us?” I said to the woman in the burqa.

She hesitated a moment, glanced at the gunmen on the floor. “Yes, I will come,” she said eventually. “Hold on to me; I will take us away from here.” She held out her hands for us to grab on to.

Mute took one of her hands.

I looked round at the passengers. Their stunned silence had broken now. Some of them were sitting rocking back and forth or with their heads in their hands. Some were wailing loud and high, cradling the heads of their loved ones and moaning with grief. Some, now that the gunmen had been incapacitated, ran from the car and out of the door. I wanted to say something to them to comfort them, to reassure them, to apologise to them, but I had no idea what to say to them. There was nothing I could say. I looked away from them.

I took hold of the other hand of the woman—our ‘target’—with Mute. Her palm was small and moist. As the creak of the train’s brakes began to sound, the air around us shimmered and my stomach lurched sideways.

Then all at once we were in the dust of the desert, stumbling and rolling down a rocky incline as we arrived with a bumpy landing somewhere that was nowhere near the train.