And the world was silent to Meg’s ears.
She gritted her teeth, working to control the immense power she wielded over those crumpled at her feet. A part of her wanted to stab these attackers with words that would stop their hearts, but she yanked herself back. That part of her wanted to watch their eyes roll back into their heads like her little brother’s had just moments before.
How dare they hurt my family! She screamed inside, feeling a surge of energy well up like a convulsion of acidic hatred.
Calm, Meg. Be calm and stay in control. These soldiers are just puppets. Arkdone is doing this. A small voice inside reminded.
Arkdone is a coward, she bellowed in her mind, projecting her thoughts directly at Arkdone, wherever he was.
Chapter 25 Restraint
She watched in a daze as Creed ran up to her, stepping over bodies of the fallen, grabbing her by the hand and forcing her to move.
“C’mon Meg. Let’s get the hell out of here,” he nearly swept her off her feet as he rushed her back toward Evan. Alik and Farrow were already running to him. Cole was behind the wheel of the very car she’d battled from, frantically looking for keys and coming up empty. The extended cab truck behind it was occupied by a dumb-struck local holding his cell phone up and out of his open window.
Meg knew exactly what she wanted. “Get out of the car,” she enunciated clearly, locking eyes with the stranger who continued recording. “Now!” she roared.
Her energies were fast depleting and as raw and powerful as her gifts were now—no one had a chance to tell her about her ability to siphon emotional energies from those she loved. And even if they had, she’d felt like an outsider—someone who wasn’t quite family to people too polite to say so.
Currently, she had no fewer than two dozen soldiers under her influence. This one more person in the truck was pulling her under. She felt a trickle of warm fluid tickle her upper lip, but ignored it. “Get out of the car now and step away.”
Feeling the full effects of her attentions, waning as they may be, was more than enough for the driver to reach for the door and clamor out of the truck.
“Keys,” she commanded, blood still dripping from her dainty nose. He reached out to hand her the keys when Cole grabbed them from him instead. “Trust me, dude. You don’t want to touch her right now…or ever.”
Alik and Farrow loaded Evan into the back row of seats and climbed into the bed themselves. Sloan threw all the weapons she collected in to the bed before she climbed into the back row with Evan. Meg climbed into the passenger seat next to Cole and ordered him to drive.
“What about my dad and Mr. Burns?” Cole asked suddenly worried.
“We’ll load them in the back,” Meg answered immediately. “No one is left behind.”
Cole made the truck peel out and turned back to where he last saw his dad and Burns sprawled on the ground. It took less than fifteen seconds for Alik and Creed to grab their still unconscious bodies. Neither had roused after first being struck by tasers within seconds of the start of the attack.
The wind ripped against the passengers trying to hunker down in the bed of the truck.
“Where are we going?” Cole asked, swiping blood from his cheek absently.
“We have to go back to the vet. That’s where I sent Danny. We need to get everyone in one safe place and it sure as hell isn’t going to be anywhere public. We were just out-ed by Arkdone to the world. Every eye that saw us knows we’re different.”
“The cameras! Shit, I hadn’t thought of that,” Cole blurted.
“Arkdone thought of it. He thought of everything. He just turned us into fugitives against authorities who never even knew we existed until twenty minutes ago.”
“Meg, what are we going to do? What about your mom?”
“I don’t know, yet. I need time to think!” Meg snapped.
“Hey, okay. It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.” Cole kept checking the rearview mirror, expecting any moment to see sirens chasing them. So far, there was nothing.
“You were amazing back there,” he offered softly, passing her a napkin he found lying in the center console to help blot her bloody nose. She accepted the napkin absently—still pumped up on the adrenaline and power of the battle. Cole risked a sideways glance at the still winded wild girl beside him. “Really, I don’t know how you did that mind-control stuff with every SWAT member all at once, but damn if you didn’t have them all obeying your every word.”
“I wanted to tell them they were paralyzed—”
“I thought you did.”