“Stand down, soldier,” she ordered, flinging her powerful will at him fueled again with the strength of terror.
He took three large steps back just in time to avoid being shoved aside by Meg. Nothing was stopping her from getting to her brother.
“He’s trapped,” Sloan screamed over the roar of the blaze hot enough to singe hair. The girl looked young and terrified as she sobbed into her hands. Meg was having none of it.
“Get Alik or Creed! Move!” she shouted at Sloan and threw herself into the front seat of the SUV blazing hot and deadly.
“Evan! Wake up and help me,” she screamed into his face as she struggled to detach the seat belt. The burning interior of the SUV was producing an amazing amount of smoke, thick and black. Meg was coughing already. “Come on little brother, we have to get you out of here! Work with me!” Evan was out cold. She yanked on his body with all her might, but she was only able to get him to slouch her way. His right leg was pinned between the seat and the crushed door.
“ALIK!” she screamed.
“I’m here,” he yelled from behind her. He was out of breath and sweating, cut and bruised, but huge.
“His leg, it’s pinned against the door. He’s burning!” Meg grimaced at the fire as it began licking Evan’s left hand.
“Not for long,” Alik yanked his sister from the charring SUV and threw himself inside. Meg watched him brace himself against the steering wheel and driver’s headrest before kicking the door away from Evan repeatedly. The impact was so intense, by the third kick the steering wheel ripped off in his hand and the headrest was yanked out of the seat. Meg could have sworn she even saw the semi on the other side of the door shudder under his foot.
“I think I got it,” Alik hollered through the smoke and flames. He leaned down and carefully pulled his brother’s leg free, grabbed him under the arms and hauled him from the burning SUV, flames licking his arms hungrily.
Meg ran with Alik as he carried their little brother away from the fire. They ran toward the hospital’s campus and laid him down in the manicured green grass. Sloan was right on their heels.
“You stay with him,” Alik ordered Sloan. “We’ve got to help finish this before the cops get in the way.”
Without a word exchanged, brother and sister ran back into the melee. Creed, Cole and Farrow were surrounded by a dozen soldiers, all of whom were wearing SWAT team gear. Looking around, Meg realized while she and Alik were busy getting Evan out of the SUV, their attackers had set up a perimeter redirecting traffic and pushing witnesses back just enough for the battle to proceed, but near enough so the three dozen smart phones held high could record every second of the confrontation.
Chapter 24 And the World Looked On
“He’s made this public, Alik,” Meg trembled with rage as she sprinted beside Alik. She looked back over her shoulder cringing at what she sensed she would find. Soldiers were surrounding Sloan and Evan. “NO!” She screamed torn between helping her brothers. They were attacked from all corners.
“You go back to Ev. I got this,” Alik snarled, glowing, violet eyes locked on the targets ahead. His whole body shuddered and pulsed as it grew even taller and wider. His black shirt was tearing at the seams. His baggie-fit jeans were filled out with muscle. The veins in his arms, neck and forehead were swollen and stood out against his taut skin.
“Go kick some ass, brother,” she called over her shoulder as she spun back to sprint toward the four SWAT metasoldiers pointing tasers directly at Sloan.
Evan was moaning in agony at his charred skin. Meg could feel even the grass against his back felt like shards of glass ripping into his burns. The breeze hurt. Everything hurt and he was trying his damnedest not to scream from the pain.
Meg’s empath energies cringed in anguish for him. Instinctively, she was sending powerful bursts of soothing emotions directly into her little brother as she ran.
Sloan was useless as a soldier, but she had a heart of gold. She used her body as a shield protecting Evan as much as her one-hundred pound frame could from the attackers. Her courage wasn’t lost on Meg.
“Turn and fight!” she commanded from behind them.
The closest soldier turned first. Meg jumped and slid toward him on her left hip, dodging the two metal probes darting from his taser gun and swiped his legs out from under him. Still on her back she lifted her right leg and hammered down hard on his belly, knocking the wind out of him and rendering him useless for at least thirty seconds.
Plenty of time, she thought as two more aimed and fired and her. She leaped to her feet and did a standing backflip onto the hood of the car parked in the wrong place at the wrong time.