Revolution

- 15 -

He stutters for a moment, the baseball bat slack in his hand. "Okay. Okay, yeah, okay, I can do that."

"Good." I slide past him and turn the corner towards the stairs leading to the basement.

"Paige?"

I spin to face him. "Yeah?"

He gives me a tense nod. "Be safe."

"Don't worry about me. They're about to kick in your front door if your mom doesn't answer it."

He blinks with a small smirk. "Alright."

And with that, I sprint down the last few stairs and towards the dusty room off to the side where I had seen those big square machines, but more importantly, the window. I clamber awkwardly onto one of the cubes and test the glass. It has a small latch that I flip open easily. I hold my breath, reaching outside with my ability, feeling for bioelectrical signals. I've learned to sort through the small ones and look just for humans, and there's two right outside, likely guarding the window two stories above me in case anyone jumped out. That would be ridiculous. I'm not an amateur.

I place my hands on the cool brick wall and squint as I slip into their heads one at a time. There's a little bit of resistance, but that's normal. They didn't send their bigshot guards; they sent all the weak ones that I didn't kill. Yet.

I open their eyes and silence their thoughts, forcing complete surrender. Using their vision, I survey the scene. There's another pair of guards pressed against either side of the back doors, rifles drawn. They shouldn't be ready to use lethal force if they didn't know I was here, but it also makes hand-to-hand combat more difficult. I bite my own lip, thinking. I can't kill these guards, not with the others right there. I also can't shoot, because that will draw everyone to the back, and I can't take control of that many people at once.

Somebody screams from inside the building, and I realize they're inside. I have to act fast.

I hold tight to the minds of the guards and open my own eyes wider, trying to see through the triple vision. Slowly, cautiously, I crawl out, twisting my hair into my shirt so as not to catch it on the bush just outside. I bite my tongue to avoid hissing as I roll over one of the more painful wounds on my side. The bush rustles, and I freeze, but I'm out.

I have one of the guards casually glance over to the pair by the door. They haven't moved, but also aren't looking in my direction. Good. I clench my fists, feeling the bandages stretched across my skin, feeling my ability sitting somewhere deep within me, waiting to be unleashed like hellfire. I take a breath and swear that Brandon's family is not going to die tonight.

I choose a guard from my pair to be my victim. I shut my own eyes and watch his as he pats his partner on the shoulder and strolls over to the other two by the door, gun in holster and hands swinging casually at his sides.

The pair of guards look up at the intrusion, looking slightly annoyed, or slightly suspicious, or somewhere in between. My guard cocks his head with as much of a charming smile as I can muster. "The irony of ghosts is that at one point, they might have never been alive at all."

It's completely unhinged, and I take their moment of confusion as an opportunity to strike. A few quick knife strokes and they're collapsing back against the house without so much as a sound. I cut the delicate cords of the killer guard's mind and he too falls to the ground, leaving only the one man behind the house. My face cracks into a feral, bloodthirsty grin.

I launch out of the bushes, rolling to standing next to the frozen guard. With fire burning behind my eyes, I pluck his rifle from his gloved fingers. He draws another pistol as I settle the stock against my shoulder, testing its weight and the alignment of the sights. The other guard turns in the opposite direction, leveling his own gun stiffly in case anyone rounded the corner. I sigh and roll my neck. "This is gonna be fun," I murmur quietly to myself. "Don't let an innocent family die, try not to put too many bullet holes in their house, and engage in a gunfight alone against a dozen other highly trained guards. What could possibly go wrong?"