“You don’t have the—”

But Jack had tossed Diana aside and was running straight at Drake.

Drake managed to lash him once with his whip hand, but only once. Jack hit him like a linebacker. Drake went flying across the room, flying like he’d stepped out in front of a bus.

Drake landed hard, but rolled to his feet. He lashed again. There was a loud crack, and a tear appeared in Jack’s shirt.

Jack never slowed down but went straight for Drake. But then, suddenly, he couldn’t move. He motored his legs, but could not advance.

Caine with one raised hand held him with an irresistible force.

“Let me go, Caine,” Jack yelled.

“He’s yanking your chain, you idiot,” Caine yelled. The temptation to let Jack kill Drake was strong. It would solve a major problem—sooner or later Drake was going to challenge Caine. But for now, Drake was still necessary in a battle.

Drake slashed at Jack with his whip, but the whip stopped in midair, hitting an invisible barrier.

“Both of you knock it off,” Caine yelled.

“You touch me, I’ll kill you!” Drake shrieked at Jack.

“I said shut up, both of you!” Caine bellowed. He pushed both palms out, one aimed at Jack, the other at Drake. Both boys went flying backward. Jack landed hard on his back. Drake, lighter and without Jack’s superhuman strength, hit the wall and crumpled at its base.

Caine caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw the backs of the two hostages as they bolted from the room.

Caine twisted to aim for them, but they were out of his line of sight. He heard footsteps pelting away. “Get them!” he yelled.

But Drake was slow getting up and Jack would be no help. Drake’s two thugs stood stock still, paralyzed. Caine realized that they were loyal to Drake, awaiting his orders and not Caine’s.

He spun, raised his hands, lifted both the punks off the floor, and hurled them bodily down the hallway after the hostages.

“Bring them back!” Caine bellowed.

“Look out!” Diana cried.

Gunfire erupted. Insanely loud. Caine heard bullets fly past his ear like buzzing dragonflies.

Brittney!

Not dead. Just playing dead and slowly, slowly working her way toward a gun she must have known was stashed under the counter.

She was still in a heap on the floor, unable to stand, unable even to sit up, lying on her side firing.

Caine leaped aside as bullets flew.

He slammed heavily into the table, rebounded, and fell to his knees. He brought his palms up, but the barrel of the gun moved faster.

But faster still, was Drake’s whip hand. It snapped and wrapped around Brittney’s wrist. The gun fired, but the bullets hit wall and ceiling.

Caine, enraged, aimed his full power at the girl. She skidded across the floor and hit the wall, so quickly that Drake was still attached and was drawn along with her.

Caine jumped to his feet, holding his focus on Brittney, raised her from the ground, suspended in midair.

“You piece of—” Brittney said, and then she was a bullet herself, rocketing through the air.

She flew through the hole Sam had burned earlier.

That had not been Caine’s intention. The girl was lucky.

Or someone was looking out for her.

Outside, standing faithful guard, Dekka heard the eruption of gunfire from the control room.

She leaped toward the wall just as something flew through the burned-out hole. It landed with the unmistakable sound of a human body hitting the ground.

Dekka stared, too stunned to react.

Then, off to her right, gunfire from inside the turbine building. Bright yellow flashes outlined the doorway.

She broke her trance and ran toward the door. Edilio’s soldiers jumped up off the ground and fell in behind her.

“Orc! Orc!” Dekka shouted.

She heard rather than saw the monster stir. He’d been asleep in the back of the SUV. The springs squeaked as he clambered out.

Two of Caine’s gunmen appeared as shadows in the doorway. Their guns aimed at the fleeing forms.

Gunfire and one of the shapes fell without even crying out. Collapsed onto his face and did not move. The other ran, ran, ran.

“I got him! I got him!” someone cried, more terror than pride in his voice.

“Taylor!” Dekka yelled. “Distract them!”

“Bouncing!” Taylor yelled back and disappeared.

“Oh, my God, I think I killed him,” the voice moaned.

Dekka raised her hands and both gunmen floated up off the ground. One smacked the top of the doorway. The other slid back inside, out of Dekka’s reach. The firing stopped. The running hostage collapsed, gasping, behind a vehicle.

One second Taylor was running beside Dekka.

A split second later she was staggering, still half running, across the control room of the power plant.

“You stupid psycho!” Caine screamed at Drake.

Drake had gone bone white, all but his cold gray eyes. “I just saved your life!”

“You were being an idiot! You pushed Jack just to watch him squirm,” Caine yelled. “And look what happened. I’m busy keeping you two apart and look what happened, you stupid thug!”

“Hey!” Diana yelled.

It took Taylor a moment to recognize her. Her head was practically shaved.

“Hey!” Diana yelled again, pointing at Taylor. “We have company!”

Caine whirled and swung his deadly hands up, but Taylor bounced across the room to appear in a far corner, behind him.