Empowered: Traitor (The Empowered Series Book 2) Read online

  “Damn girl, you did it!” Keisha fist pumped in my direction. My hands were warm again.

  “Grab the pods,” I shouted. “Plug them into the cart.” I closed my eyes and reached my power down another cable bundle to a second cradle. My nerves felt like ice, and a killer headache hammered on my skull.

  I released the cables from the pods in the second cradle, and then bent over from the pain, squeezing my eyes shut. Reaching into the fluid was worse than trying to push an oak to grow a new branch. I let go. I couldn’t do another, and we were out of time.

  I staggered up and half ran, half fell to the second cradle. “Come on, get these.” I waved at Keisha, who stood by the cart while Simon finished plugging in the first batch. “We could have company any minute.”

  “How do you know that?” Coldie sneered at me. Definitely back to being her normal, bitchy self.

  If there’d been time I would have wiped that sneer off her face with my fist.

  I glanced at my wrist comm. It had been nearly ten minutes since I’d gotten the frantic order from Lucalla.

  “Because Lucalla’s team was getting their asses kicked just two miles up the road ten minutes ago. If it’s the Hero Council, they could be here any second.”

  My heart was racing. Come on, Simon.

  He finished, and began pushing the cart toward me. Keisha got beside him and helped push. They reached me, and I began frantically handing Simon pods.

  “You really are scared.” Coldie looked at me, shook her head in surprise.

  “Not scared, worried.” There was a difference.

  “Denial’s not just a river in Egypt,” Keisha said, trying to make me relax by cracking a dumb joke.

  I took a deep breath and kept handing Simon the pods as fast as he could plug them in.

  He finished. “All set.”

  “We’ve got room for more,” Coldie pointed out.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “But the Inner Circle wanted as many as we can retrieve, right?”

  “And this is what we can retrieve.” My heart pounded harder, and I took a breath to calm down. Damn it, I hated being cornered. I wasn’t dying down here, and none of the rest of my cell was either.

  “Simon, get the truck started. The rest of you, help me push this thing.”

  Simon sprinted to the truck, jumped in. The engine roared to life.

  I pushed the cart as hard as I could. My head still felt like it was about to split open, but I was just pushing muscles now, not my power, and it felt good to sweat my muscles for a change.

  We reached the back of the truck.

  Keisha lowered the tail lift. I grabbed the rear door handle and yanked up. We pushed the cart on to the lift. This was taking too long, but none of us had Empowered strength. Finally we got the freaking cart into the rear of truck, and secured it to wall straps.

  I scrambled out. Was that rotors I heard over the truck’s idling engine?

  Shit.

  “Let’s get into the cab,” I told the others. We piled into the truck’s cab, Keisha and Coldie squeezed between me and Simon. Simon started the truck off with a lurch that made us crash together.

  “Seat belts,” Simon said. “That would be a good idea.”

  I craned my neck to look up. No sign of a helicopter, but I still thought I heard the low droning swish of rotors nearby.

  I grabbed a hand hold. “No. We have to be ready to defend this thing, and getting out will be tough enough without having to get unbuckled first.”

  “Not my bloody fault then if you end up wearing that dashboard,” Simon muttered.

  He was worried if he swore like that.

  Keisha snickered. “Limey scared?”

  “Bloody right. I’ve seen what the Hero Council can do, too.”

  “We don’t know it’s the Hero Council,” I gritted through my teeth as Simon swerved onto the road.

  The truck roared down the access road, which curved past ordinary looking low palm trees.

  I pulled out my data pad and brought up a map. “There’s a check point up ahead. Three hundred yards.”

  At least we weren’t going back through nightmare village.

  The checkpoint had a railroad crossing-style gate. The gate was lowered. There was an honest-to-God guard shack, and two uniformed goons standing off to one side, pistols pointed at us. A bullet clanged off the hood; another smacked into the windshield but didn’t crack it. Bulletproof glass. The idiot guards should know what their own company trucks had, but I wasn’t going to complain.

  Simon floored it and the truck roared ahead. The guards jumped into tall grass. We crashed through the gate and hurtled down the road. More gunfire behind us. Bullets smacked the back of the truck. I guessed the guards would be in deep shit if their bosses found out they were shooting at a truck carrying their precious power pod egg things, but stupid does what it does, as Ruth used to say.

  Something black and sleek flew overhead. My breath caught in my throat. Crap and double crap.

  That was a skimmer, the kind the Hero Council used. I’d seen a skimmer like that five years ago, when the Hero Council brought the hammer down on the Renegades and killed my friends. But this skimmer was matte black, not deep blue, and there wasn’t a gold HC logo on the fuselage. Instead, there was a green circle with a stylized emerald in the middle of the circle.

  We drove underneath it, and the skimmer pivoted and followed us. The cockpit windows were polarized. The rain forest’s branches grew over the road here. I reached out to touch the trees with my power, but nothing. I leaned back against my seat. Detaching the battery pods had drained my own power. I shook my head. Dumb joke.

  “Corporate security.” Simon cranked the wheel hard right and the truck hurled onto a highway. Keisha slammed into me, and I banged into the door.

  I managed to crane my neck around to get a look in the side mirror. The skimmer swung into view behind us.

  My heart pounded harder.

  Weapon pods hung below each wing. One opened like a flower and a bizarre cannon jutted out, the muzzle a funnel. It fired and a blob of green-black something hurled past us and hit the highway a couple of hundred yards ahead. The blob suddenly grew up into a thick black-green bramble.

  I felt my power returning. I reached out with my power, tried to command the bramble, but my power couldn’t penetrate it. It was more artificial unlife.

  Simon slammed on the brakes, veering off the road just before we slammed into the unliving bramble. The truck roared into a dirt field, bouncing over the rough ground.

  “I hate being cornered,” Keisha yelled as we bounced.

  The dirt field we were on ended in a tangle of rain forest.

  Simon hit the brakes, and the truck fishtailed. There was a sharp, teeth-jarring crack. The truck came to a stop with the back end in the rain forest.

  “Must have broken an axle,” Simon said.

  I flung the door open and jumped down. My ankle turned on a rock. I stumbled, banging my knee hard.

  Keisha helped me up. I winced as pain shot up my leg.

  The skimmer touched down in the middle of the dirt field. The long side door slid open and men in black body armor and visored helmets jumped out, pointing big assault guns at us. Assault guns with grenade launchers slung underneath the barrels.

  Just like that weapons pod on the skimmer.

  “Get behind the truck!” I yelled. Simon and Coldie ran for cover while Keisha helped me hobble after them on my good leg.

  The skimmer lifted off, jets vertical, and circled to get behind us, over the tree tops. Keisha and I stopped. She gestured. There was a flash of steam and she flung spinning steel at the skimmer. The jet pod on the left side exploded. The skimmer dipped crazily, still over the dirt field.

  Another flash of steam and a crowbar streaked into the windscreen. The glass shattered. The pilot slumped forward, the bar sticking from his chest.

  An instant later the skimmer hurtled down, one engine still roaring. The ai
rcraft tilted, the left wing brushed the ground off to the right, just outside the wood.

  The armored men in the field hit the dirt.

  The skimmer’s surviving engine roared for a moment longer, then smoke poured out of it, and it cut out. The plane flipped over and crashed upside down. Black smoke poured out of the wreck.

  Keisha and I ducked back behind the truck. Simon had pulled up the back door, and he and Coldie had pushed the cart to the edge.

  There was a crump sound and the sound of tearing metal from the front of the truck. Grenades.

  We needed to get the hell away.

  I closed my eyes, reached into the ground with my power. The soil was filled with green life. I needed something that would grow fast. My nerves still jangled from pushing the fluid back in the warehouse, but tough shit.

  I sent spiky plants up from the soil, until they made a thick wall of green. Explosions from the far side and the new plants screamed in my mind. I hardened their skins. I’d seen these plants on the way here, touched them briefly. I couldn’t turn them into bamboo, but at least I could make it more of a pain in the ass to cut through them.

  I turned around in time to see Simon jump down from the truck, holding two full backpacks.

  “I put the pods in these packs,” he said. “We are just going to have to chance them dying, but my hunch is they will survive for a long while. Otherwise, what’s the point of having them for batteries?”

  He was guessing, but I wasn’t going to argue. It wasn’t like we could haul the cart around the rain forest. Next time Ashula could come down here and get the damn pods herself if the Inner Circle wanted them that badly.

  Simon pulled on one of the backpacks and handed the other to Keisha.

  Another explosion from the field. The plant hedge screamed, and chunks of it spattered the trees behind us.

  “Go!” I yelled at Simon and Keisha. I stumbled but kept going. My ankle already felt less painful.

  Keisha and Simon hesitated for a second, but my glare got them moving. They sprinted to a grove of palm trees a dozen yards away. But Coldie had stopped behind me, gesturing angrily. “Why are we running from these normals? I’ll freeze them.”

  I started to order her to run, then the hedge blew up. Armored goons poured through the gap. Coldie slashed upward with her hands, and a crackling wall of ice reared up.

  The guards fired at the ice.

  “Come on!” I waved at Coldie.

  She shook her head. Gestured with her arms to keep growing more ice. “Go!” She shouted.

  Stupid kid.

  “Not without you.” I wasn’t leaving her behind.

  Coldie stood her ground, regrowing the ice. Her neck muscles throbbed.

  A big armored guard threw something over the ice wall.

  “Grenade!” I yelled. The grenade landed beside Coldie and exploded. She crumpled, suddenly covered in blood.

  The ice wall cracked and fell into shards. Guards pumped bullets into her body.

  She was dead. Damn it, why hadn’t she listened?

  Simon and Keisha crouched in a palm grove twenty yards away from me. I hobbled to join them.

  “Go!” I ordered. “I’ll catch up.”

  Keisha grabbed my arm. “You’ll die like that fool,” she said, jerking her head at Coldie.

  The guards had fanned out again.

  “Surrender or you’ll die,” one of them called out in American-accented English.

  They’d kill us as soon as we surrendered, and no court in the world would convict them. The guards had probably only stopped firing because they didn’t want to risk the precious power pods getting damaged.

  I closed my eyes and sent vines writhing up from the ground around the guards, entangling their legs. I tightened the vines, as the guards fired wildly. The vines pulled them down.

  Keisha waved her hands. Hundreds of six-inch steel nails showered the guards, punching through their armor. They didn’t move after that. Keisha’s breath was ragged. She was exhausted. At least she could still walk. We retreated deeper into the grove.

  My ankle still hurt like hell as I stumbled after Simon and Keisha. We reached the shelter of a big, leafy tree. I leaned against the thick trunk, let myself listen to its deep murmuring. Just for a second. No time to rest, I just needed to steady myself.

  I pushed off from the tree, forced myself to put weight on the ankle. Pain shot up my leg. “Give me your medpack,” I said to Keisha. She unclipped the medpack from her belt, snapped it open. I reached for it.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  “You gotta go.”

  She ignored me, knelt beside me, pulled up my jumpsuit’s cuff, and wrapped my ankle.

  “Thanks.”

  She shook her head. “Better than you fumbling around trying to get it on yourself.”

  Time to be the boss. “Head back to the plane,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.” With luck, the medpack would work its magic pronto, and I could catch up. I looked at Simon. “You, too.”

  “You sure about this?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” Like hell, but I wanted them out of my hair, and safe.

  I could tell Simon thought I was full of shit, but he nodded.

  Keisha frowned. “No way, Mat. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Go.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No.”

  “I didn’t know you cared.” Maybe pissing her off would get her to go with Simon.

  She thumped me in the chest. “Hell yes, you ungrateful bitch.”

  Tears filled her eyes. Her jaw clenched. She was embarrassed and angry that she was embarrassed.

  I looked away. Time was running out. My guess was more goons would be here any moment. I thought I heard the sound of an approaching skimmer. Crap.

  I gave her a hard look. “Well, tough shit. This isn’t about caring, not now. This is about getting the job done.”

  Her mouth twisted in a snarl. “Fine, be an asshole.” She whipped around and stomped off into the forest, striding into a grove of low palm trees. Simon gave me a long, measuring look, then nodded slightly. I see what you did there, the nod said. Then he followed her, and they disappeared behind the palms.

  I leaned against the tree. At least now I could focus on the coming goon storm.

  The goons didn’t disappoint me.

  A second skimmer touched down in a clearing, a couple hundred yards away. The pilot must have seen what Keisha did to the first skimmer. Armored men charged from the skimmer. They spread out and dropped prone. We must have put some real worry into them.

  Two goons hauled big-ass cannons, slung in harnesses. The business ends of the cannons were wide funnels. I had a bad feeling about those odd-looking cannons.

  The cannons thumped and black-green blobs arced toward me, making loud squelching sounds when they hit the dirt near the tree line.

  The blobs expanded into ropey plant-things, like a kid playing with putty.

  I wasn’t sticking around to see what that became next.

  Something hissed loudly behind me, like a cross between a snake and an airbrake.

  Sure as hell didn’t want to find out what that was.

  I reached into the palm trees. I made them grow more fronds, and thicken their trunks until they were almost touching. My nerves screamed. Pain jackhammered into my skull. The world darkened.

  Something huge slammed into the palm hedge. Fronds snapped off. The palms screamed in my mind.

  I pulled myself up and staggered off through the forest, in the direction I thought Simon and Keisha had gone.

  A piercing whistle shrieked on the other side of the palm hedge.

  Explosions ripped the palm trees. Their screaming was like hot iron in my brain. I gasped. Bits of palm frond and chunks of tree trunk fell around me.

  A tall thing appeared out of the smoke and walked through the jagged hole in the shattered palm hedge. It looked like a monster Venus fly trap, with snaky legs. A half-dozen spiked lined jaws snapped, hunks of blo
ody flesh hanging loose.

  My stomach twisted.

  Coldie.

  A second monster Venus fly trap walked through the gap, blood dripping from its jaws.

  I swallowed bile.

  The killer plants came at me, snake-like, their many jaws bobbing as they flowed forward. No sign of the goons. They must kept back and been letting the demon un-plant things to do the killing.

  I commanded vines to grow up and entangle the monster Venus fly traps. A dozen bloody maws screamed and bit at the vines, then began to ooze smoking fluid that burned the vines.

  More vines twisted around the demon plant things. The air stank with a sour odor. My head swam.

  I back pedaled, but my ankle turned and I landed on my butt.

  I couldn’t think straight. These monster Venus fly traps were spewing something that messed with my head. How good were those monsters at tracking? Did they follow my scent?

  The jaws were cutting through the vines faster than I could grow new vines.

  I was trapped. Trapped like a rat. Maybe a drugged rat.

  I scooted back until I hit the bole of a big tree. Sucked in air, tried to clear my head. I pulled myself up, wobbled on my feet.

  Something moved in the tree branches above me. A masked female figure in a gray bodysuit, like an old timey costumed Empowered from the nineteen seventies, swung down from a branch, and landed next to me. She had high-heeled boots. Crazy costume.

  She was as tall as me, with thick hair as black as mine, short on the sides, high on top. Her eyes glittered behind a face mask. Her eyes were the same color as mine. Crazy thought to have at a time like this.

  “Who are you?” I asked. The world swayed. I pressed my hand against the tree trunk to brace myself. My head swam.

  She put a gray gloved finger to her lips.

  The armored goons fanned out behind the monster Venus fly traps.

  She turned and ran at the plants. The mouths snapped at her, but she was fast, almost speedster fast, and the spiked jaws only bit air.

  She sprinted on toward the guards. They opened up with automatic weapons, I grimaced, thinking she was toast. But they all missed her. She twisted and flipped behind a tree. The men fired wildly as she ran past again. One goon was hit by a stray bullet and dropped.