…was his father.

  “Why is he here?” Evan’s skin burned, vibrating with mental dread. The truth. He had condemned his father to imprisonment. Charlie Crain taking over Monolith, the news interviews, it was all to cover up his father being imprisoned. It had all been because of Evan.

  “His file says involvement with Afflicted terrorists,” Rowic’s digitized voice said.

  Evan had to rip off his lab coat so he could cool down as his control started to slip away with his thoughts. He wouldn’t let it; he wouldn’t be a victim here.

  He looked over the controls. “Rowic, how do we get him out?”

  Vihn protested, “Hold it, kid. We aren’t here for him.”

  “That’s crap!” Evan yelled. Sparks kicked up from the console. He stumbled back. “Our deal was that you help me, and I help you take down my father. But he’s right there. He’s a prisoner, he’s already been beaten. He’s not in charge anymore, maybe he never really was, don’t you get it? That’s my dad. Help me, help me.”

  “Sorry, ki-”

  “Vihn.” Rowic interjected. The comms went silent.

  Evan looked through the security cameras. Squads of soldiers led by purifiers scrambled through the facility, some descending in elevators. Time was running out.

  “Evan,” Blink called from the doorway.

  He went to her. A loader drone hovered above the catwalk.

  Rowic’s voice came back over the security monitor. “Your friend is on the fifteenth floor. But… sorry, we can’t take your dad, man. We’ll keep in contact with you over your commlinks now that I’m plugged into this sector’s security systems.”

  The computer lit up with a message. I’ll help you out, bro. But Vihn’s not going to like it. Sending the loader to grab your dad and bring him topside. Get your friend.

  “Thanks,” Evan said as he ran back to the elevators with Blink and Twitch.

  The loader drone pulled up into the air and made its way deeper into the wall of cages until it stopped at one that might have held his father, he couldn’t tell from the distance. The drone slid its flatbed underneath the cage, unlatched it with the aid of mechanical arms, then flew around the corner of the great cell blocks with the cage on its back.

  What was Evan supposed to feel? Was he supposed to be thankful? Mad? A part of him was relieved to know his father had been imprisoned, if only it might mean that he’d been on Evan’s side the whole time. The Governor could be the Blood Red Army’s greatest ally, or so Evan hoped.

  The team was back at the elevator, where it was clear they’d made a sizable mistake.

  “Oh, I’m some kind of idiot, aren’t I?” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Blink asked.

  Evan pointed to a digital number display above the elevator, that read fifteen. “The scientist set the elevator to continue on to floor fifteen.”

  “It’s fine, Luna is still probably on the lift.”

  “Unless someone down there found her.”

  Blink shrugged. “I’ll just teleport us, no problem.”

  “Blink…”

  “Come on, it’s a simple fix.”

  He looked down at her hands, specifically the gloved one that she slipped delicately behind her back.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You are freaky impressive, Blink. I can’t even find the words to describe how amazing I think you are. You’ve gotten us so far. But you have your limits. We all do. Don’t push yourself anymore today. You can’t help us if your drawback takes over.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Twitch nodded.

  She sighed. “Alright, maybe you guys have a point. We’ll do things the boring, long, and hard way.”

  “Thank you,” Evan said.

  Then numbers above a different elevator started ticking up.

  “Rowic, what’s in those lifts?” He asked.

  “One second.”

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  “Evan, you guys need to get out of there now.”

  Seven.

  Eight.

  Evan’s body quivered. “Why? What’s coming down those lifts?”

  Nine.

  “Purifier! Get the-!”

  Evan didn’t wait to hear more. There was no time to pick up the scientist and scan his eyes, they had to act. He yanked the twins with him through an emergency exit door.

  Ding!

  He didn’t dare turn back. His legs burned as he sprinted down a hallway, pushed through another door to a flight of stairs, and hopped down the first dozen or so steps. How he wished the stairwell had been enclosed, but no, the only thing to protect their descent was a thin guardrail that twisted along with the stairs. One false step could see him tumbling down into an endless fall. This was some super-villain stuff if he’d ever seen it. A temple of tankers, vats, and machines stretched out before him to form a vast laboratory.

  “Duck!” Rowic screamed over the comm.

  Evan stumbled as he struggled to comprehend the order. He dropped just as the wall above his heads exploded in a shower of dust and rubble. A chain gun chunked away from the stairs behind above, reducing the surrounding stairwell to confetti.

  The three rebels grabbed each other tight, trying to diminish themselves against the hail of bullets. Light flicked around them as Blink activated her powers, but Evan knew if she teleported now, she might not make it all the way out in one piece.

  He thrust his hands against the stairs. Their shape gave way and flattened into a slide by Evan’s will. His mind spun, and his tongue buzzed, but he pushed himself.

  “Go!” He shoved his friends, and the three of them slid down the smoothed-out metal. Evan maintained his focus, trying his best not to flip over from the sudden momentum. The stairs ahead of them continued to collapse into the slide formation moments before his feet could collide with them. The gunfire kicked up great heaves of granite and sparks all around them.

  Twitch summersaulted down the slide at a faster pace than Evan could use his powers. Evan dove after the twin, grabbing his heel and pulling him back just before he rolled off the side of the stairs. Evan lost his balance and fell off the side of the stairwell instead. Down he went, the flights of stairs zipping away above him. He saw it all for a moment. The purifier stood at the twelfth-floor doorway, a behemoth of metal, machine gun hanging from his wrist. His arm shuddered at the might of the weapon’s power. The display was a shower of grey fireworks.

  Two flights down were the twins clutching on to one another. One of Blink’s arms reached out for Evan, as if it could catch him now. It wouldn’t; it couldn’t. He was another three flights past where his friends were - free-falling past the eighteenth floor now. Past where Ken was supposed to be. Down, down, down to his death. It’d be all their deaths if he didn’t do something.

  He thrust his arms out. The winding stairs exploded before him, but still he fell. He sucked in his breath, and flung his arms out again, this time underneath him. Something down there in the abyss ruptured, but he couldn’t see. He couldn’t see anything as his vision blurred, as Blink flickered in light, he did too.

  They shrieked as their bodies skid through a door labeled Fifteen. Rolling, and rolling, three bodies colliding against walls and metal tables. Bare skin burning from sliding against concrete, until they bashed against some solid barrier.

  Evan pushed himself up drunkenly. “Blink…” He went to her. He had to see if she’d pushed herself too far.

  She sat up bewilderment in her eyes. “That was crazy.”

  “Huh?” Evan couldn’t see any evidence of Blink’s drawback, though her nose trickled with blood. He was positive that was her last jump before something permanent happened to her.

  As she stood and helped Twitch from his prostrated position, she said, “You flew. I was about to jump for you, but the air exploded underneath you and you shot back up to us. It reminded me of Nyla’s powers.”

  Evan tried to piece it together. Had he just launched himself like a rocket by blowing up the air? Had he just…

  He doubled over and heaved, then dropped to the floor next to his regurgitated mess, dizzily.

  “Are you guys alright?” Rowic asked.

  “Yoooo… are they… they dead, man?” Daniel’s voice came.

  Vihn spoke with an unusual degree of concern. “Evan? Blink? Twitch? What’s going on?”

  Evan couldn’t bring himself to speak, everything blurry before him.

  “We’re being chased by a purifier,” Blink answered. Both her and Twitch pulled Evan up, but he couldn’t feel his footing. “Evan saved us. He’s fading. Where do we go, guys?”

  Evan muttered, “We… have… to go.” That purifier would be on them at any moment. He wrapped an arm around each of the twins as they guided him. All the doors and walls and stairs and floor and ceiling and lights and signs and sounds blurred together. It was like walking in dream.

  Blink pushed against a door, but it didn’t budge. “It’s locked by eye and card scanners just like the elevators.”

  There was no time to hold back. Evan pressed his hand against the surface in front of him… hoping it was the same door she was standing in front of, because now he saw twenty where he swore there had only been one.

  His consciousness melted away with surface.

  They fell through.

  His mind fell.

  Bullets fell.

  Purifier

  Black

  Right

  Bullets

  Bullets

  Bullets

  Blood

  Left

  Door

  Blood

  Screams

  Blink!

  Bullets

  Door

  Twitch!

  Evan!

  Get inside.

  Black

  Black

  Black.