Jade.

He didn't see her but John came to the gate, pulling the lock from the inside and sliding the numbers into position.

It didn't work.

Archer walked over there.

John said, "Pre-pulse, Lewis."

His eyes met John's. "Haven't met a lock that I couldn't romance, John."

"Right," John said, stepping aside for Archer.

"Is Jade okay?" I asked John through the metal holes in the fence.

He nodded. "Yes... but I think there is some residual," he waved his hand back and forth, "influence to contend with."

Jonesy grinned. "People who were more affected are going to be crazier than shit for the duration, Hart."

John rolled his eyes. "So helpful Jonesy."

"Yeah, I know, right?" He winked at me.

Effing marvelous.

I wouldn't feel calm until Jade and I could talk like normal people. Well, normal for having AFTD and Empath abilities. But maybe we could save future generations from having the great experience we'd had, courtesy of the Graysheets. We weren't meant to have this yet. It had been a forced leap into our evolutionary future that humanity wasn't prepared for.

But right now what mattered was getting to Jade, seeing how she was doing.

What Brett had planned.

Then there was Howie.

Complications, complications. The story of my life.

Archer caressed the lock and it broke open like spoiled fruit.

I passed through and my eyes went straight to Jade, her hair hanging in limp strands, dark circles underneath her green eyes, filthy clothes.

She was the sweetest sight.

I stopped myself from running to her and scooping her up into some dramatic embrace like I wanted to. It wasn't pretty but I managed. Actually, love was a mess. Why did everyone want it? The mystery of life.

As I got nearer, I saw her stare at me as I came and a flutter of uncertainty welled inside my consciousness. But my step never faltered. All I saw was Jade.

It was simple, I loved her.

*

Jade

Caleb came and she could feel his emotional signature before he touched her.

He didn't need to, she was tuned into it intimately. You didn't have to touch someone you'd been through that much with. Someone you knew that well.

At least she didn't.

She felt a tingle in her body as she watched Caleb, his perfect, muscular body, full of lithe grace approach her even as his face hardened when he caught sight of Brett standing behind her. He made her tremble, her need for him was so great.

Caleb was her sinful addiction.

She was dependent on him. He made her feel safe in a world that had been torn into shreds all around her.

That's why she'd have to let him go.

CHAPTER 23

I saw it on her face and didn't want to believe it.

It was such a sure feeling of denial that I embraced it like a drowning victim.

Jade came forward and took both my hands in hers. I knew she was saying goodbye and it didn't even matter if it was the enhancer still surging through her bloodstream, or the connection to Brett. If I had to lose Jade... I didn't know if I could face it.

Survive it.

Instead, I wrapped her small body against mine and pressed her against me. When I knew she wanted the space I released her just enough to search her face. There was love there, yes.

But there was resolution too. She had worked something out in her mind and I hated whatever it was.

Brett looked at me over her head and I knew somehow he was the cause of it.

"It isn't Brett," Jade said in a flat voice.

"How do ya know, Jade?" I asked her, gripping those small shoulders, staring into eyes that were determined, dark.

"I've figured out what I want out of life. I don't want to be protected anymore. I don't want to have to be."

I shook my head, dismissing it. "Do you love me?"

Tears welled in Jade's eyes, she was killing me. She nodded and said softly, "You know I do."

"Then let us be together!" I said, my voice rising.

"It's the drug, Jade," John said. "It's going to skewer all your logic..." he spread his tapered fingers on either side of his body. "You won't feel normal for a whole revolution."

"What?" Jade asked, turning to him.

John shrugged. "It'll be twenty-four to forty-eight hours before you can figure anything out as you normally would."

Sophie snorted. "Well, I feel pretty weird still."

"That seems normal to me," Tiff muttered to herself.

Even though we all heard.

Sophie narrowed her eyes on Tiff.

My attention refocused on Jade but she shook her head again. "I love you... but I don't want this life. The zombies, the violence... all of it. I'm tired, Caleb. I just want a normal life like every other teenage girl."

Her eyes begged me to understand. I just couldn't wrap my mind around her logic. We weren't normal. This was the new normal. Paranormals were never going to have a normal existence. It was having an existence of any kind that was the goal.

I knew that.

I looked around at my friends and saw a lot of them getting it too.

My eyes shifted back to Jade's as I heard the first chopper in the air.

The Graysheets had arrived, and with it... all semblance of normal and all the other things Jade had been talking about floated away on the wind like decaying leaves.

One idea at a time, lost to the storm of the Graysheets.

*

Jade and I stood uncomfortably close, so close as to touch... but... not.

Brett stood on the other side of her and I was so shell-shocked by her breaking up with me that I couldn't even rouse interest in the Arch Enemies touching down.

They used pulse choppers so they were utterly silent. Only the movement of the air they dispersed let me know they were here. And their ominous presence, suits and all.

The first of them departed the chopper before the blades stopped their rotation.

My stomach fell as I saw who stepped out first.

The Zondorae brothers.

Parker blanched, he couldn't contain his expression as Clyde, picking up on my surprise and unease came to stand beside me, flanking my position.

"I must ask: did we not leave these delinquents in the world of spheres?" Clyde asked.

"Yeah."

"Why then are they here?"

I didn't know.

I could tell Parker didn't.

Then Jonesy said, "Didn't we leave these asswipes behind on purpose?" He looked at Randi. "You didn't like... do some kind of overlap and drag these two trolls by accident. 'Cuz, there aren't enough bridges for these guys here. Nope!" He threw up his hands. "All our bridges in this world are full up!"

He folded his arms and glared at the brothers.

"You can't beat us, Caleb Hart," Joe said.

I wasn't thinking about winning right then, but handing him his ass sounded about right.

I moved before I knew that I had.

Gary tsk-tsked me. "No, Hart. For somebody that is so smart, you think with the primitive side of your brain too much."

"I didn't bring them," Randi said softly, as if to convince herself.

Gary looked at Randi and Alex pressed her in against his body protectively. "No, not by plan. But the echo of your power was enough for us to caboose a ride on your tailwind."

Randi paled, thinking that somehow, she was responsible for the Frankenstein Scientists reentry into our world.

Effing fantastic.

The brothers looked at Parker and smirked. "We know that you helped him, that you allowed sensitive and classified genetic information into the hands of teenagers. There will be a reckoning for you. As of now, we do not have clearance to end you, but there will be a new protocol of control, Cadaver-Manipulator."

"I'm not going anywhere with you. You don't rank higher than me. You boys have done the bidding of our superiors. You have nothing new to offer. Me?" Parker jabbed a thumb into his athletic chest. "I can still raise people to manipulate for the good old U.S. of A."

"Not from where we're going to keep you, Parker," Joe Zondorae said, raising his gun to point it at Parker's chest.

They were gonna load him up with the juice.

Parker's power washed over and through me like a wave of death and I folded underneath the call.

The rats came from every corner of the dump, their eyes feral and red in the low light of late afternoon.

Shit that was swift.

Then Zondorae pulled the trigger, impaling Jeffrey Parker in the chest. The short dart waved like an obscene flag out of one of his pecs.

"Caleb!" he shouted to me, throwing me the undead lasso.

Let's see if I could catch it.

I did but the damnedest thing happened. Four suits went for Jade just as I was getting the hang of someone else's undead leash.

As Parker lost the battle with consciousness, the four Graysheets laid hands on my girl.

Who wasn't my girl any longer.

But that didn't matter, my heart wasn't a pulse switch.

That light inside me still burned for Jade like the torch it was.

An eternal flame.

*

Jade's scream pierced the air and I stopped thinking, it was that fast. I didn't even decide, I dropped the supernatural rope that Parker had launched at me to wield, seamlessly picking up my other role.

Defender.

I watched the rats scurry, thinking they were off the hook for good, no undead tether to hold them to the open, their nocturnal habitat unnaturally illuminated by a human who had called them after their last meal was long past.

I threw my own command at them, picking up the signature they put out. I let that shift of undead energy shove out of me in a great, surging pulse and the rats stopped in their tracks, whiskers twitching.

Then the suits started shooting my rats, blowing them to bits, where the trembling globs of dead flesh trembled, still trying to move and honor my command.

Which hadn't been complicated. I was controlling death and probation be damned. I'd reached the end of my patience, my girl was in danger, Parker was unconscious, these dickheads had fucked with the fam.

I was doing a Carrie on them.

The rats moved forward in a wave of slick and coiled bodies of fleshy and hairy resistance. A wave of bodies slithered through the grass and attached themselves to the ankles of the Graysheets.

They blew them away. One dipshit blew off his own foot in his panic to nail the rat.

"Nice!" Jonesy fist-pumped, thrilled by Mr. Footless.

Blood pumped out of his foot for my dead rats to feast on as the Graysheets began to haul Jade toward the chopper, Brett moving in.

"Stand down, pal," I said from somewhere outside my body.

Brett looked at me curiously as I called every rat within a one mile radius.

I was pleased when not just rats came. Of course, some of the rats were the size of small cats.

"Okay... goddamn... get that girl and let's get out of here!" Gary said, panic seeping in as he saw the Rodent Contingent.

I swept the net of power further just as one of the suits pressed the cold barrel of an M-5 against the tender skin of Jade's temple. Her eyes were so wide all I could see were the whites.

I speared the power of the dead at him, his gun... his arm.

Five of the rats nearest him sprung, mouths wide, tiny teeth like razors in their mouths.

Stupidly, he tried to use the gun like a fly swatter.

But these weren't flies, they were instruments of death, wielded by my deadly accuracy and fueled by my fear of possible harm to Jade.

Two landed simultaneously on his gun hand, and reflexively he depressed the trigger as Brett came into range of grabbing Jade.

He should have stayed back like I'd said.

A spray of bullets, their noise unmasked, plugged Brett in the chest and he went flying backward as if pulled by an invisible hand. As his body flung backward Jade slumped in a dead faint and my eyes met Joe Zondorae.

The suits that weren't buried underneath my rats dragged Parker into the chopper. The blades began to rotate again, the remainder trained their guns on my friends, even the ones that tried to go to Brett.

Who almost certainly lay dying. Bleeding out on the ground of the dump.

Unnoticed.

The suit dropped Jade on the ground where she smacked her head.

I actually growled at that and two rats ran to his pant leg, latching on with zeal. He howled, trying to shake them off, finally blowing them away.

His aim was better than that of his lame friend. His feet stayed attached to his legs.

I watched as the brothers stole Parker, Clyde following their progress as two of the suits finally caught a clue and got the flaming guns. Those would do some real harm to my rats. I allowed my flock of dead rodents to retreat.

It was a stalemate.

I just wanted Jade over here and safe. My eyes flicked to Brett and I saw his breathing coming in ragged gasps. If I was normal, I wouldn't have known for sure what his prognosis was.