The mob—twenty five in all—encircled Gordon Merrill, buzzing with angry voices. They'd backed him up to the wall at the gutted sheriff's station just as Rachel arrived with Natalie a few steps behind.
"He's lying! He's just going to kill you all anyway!" Gordon shouted.
"Says you," snapped Roger Quinton, the farmer. "You've been collaborating with the freaks since the town hall. Maybe even before that. Why should we believe a word you say?"
"I'm one of you! I don't have any magic! Why would I lie?"
"Look around you, man!" Roger gestured to the town, littered with glass and splintered metal. He pointed just behind Gordon, where the twisted and broken bars of the two cells had been shoved through the roof and protruded out like an ominous flag. "They did this to our town. The only way out of this is to deal with them all, and anyone who's trying to help them." He lowered his weapon. The sharp points of the metal pitchfork caught the sunset reflection for just a moment.
"Stop!" Rachel shouted, running forward as fast as she could. She tried to grab the pitchfork, throwing out her mind as far as she could reach, but her grip was feeble and useless. She may as well have been trying to hold back a mountain. Some of the crowd turned toward her, but Roger had already moved.
Gordon sank to the ground.
Rachel stopped, while the crowd roared and began to shift back around, still caught up in the heat of the moment. She could see every single face full of wrath and pain. These were people she'd talked to and worked with for a year. She'd never imagined any of them capable of murder, even like this. Gordon was gasping for breath and trying to struggle away, but Rachel couldn't do anything for him.
Natalie rode up next to her. "What do I do, Rachel?" she asked.
"You destroyed our town!" someone cried from the back.
"You killed the Reverend!"
"We're all going to die because of you!"
"Justice for Jenny!"
What was my plan, anyway? Rachel thought bitterly, while the crowd slowly advanced. None of them seemed brave enough to close the distance first with Natalie's wolf facing them down, but they'd soon be totally surrounded if Rachel didn't do something.
"Help us," she whispered.
"I can't," replied the ghost at her side, before vanishing into the wind.
No one was coming to help them. No one could help them, as far as Rachel knew.
"Start backing away. Don't take your eyes off them, but we don't want to hurt them." Rachel did the same as she spoke. She hoped they'd find a chance to break out and run for it—but if they showed any sign of weakness, the group would undoubtedly charge them. Even Natalie's age wouldn't likely deter them, given her deadly companions and her well-known status as an awakened. They'd already faced down almost exactly the same crowd before, and only a show of extreme force had been enough to deter them.
"What should I do?" Natalie asked again, panic in her voice. The crowd had almost surrounded them. They couldn't get away anymore.
"Lightning on the ground at their feet," Rachel ordered. Something to scare them away, she hoped. Remind them they're mortal.
Natalie took one hand off Gwen and thrust it at Roger Quinton, who happened to be almost directly in front of them. Purple-edged lightning blasted forth out of her palm with a loud whip-crack, nearly deafening everyone.
The bolt crackled forward in a low splintering path, but it didn't strike the ground immediately. Natalie had aimed too high. The electricity followed the path of least resistance through the air and onto the tips of Roger's pitchfork, which was pointed directly at Rachel.
The metal fork exploded. The wooden haft caught fire, while the superheated metal tips shot off in different directions like shrapnel. One skipped along the ground and punched a hole through Rachel's dress, just missing her leg as it flew into the distance. A few people fell to the ground, screaming in agony from the molten steel on their skin.
Natalie's hands flew to her mouth in horror. Roger dropped the burning remains of his weapon with a shout and leapt back in fear. The crowd was suddenly far less eager to approach. Rachel had to take command of the situation while she could.
"Get out of here, now," she shouted. "Go home!"
Wrong word, she realized immediately.
"Our homes are fucking gone!" Roger shouted back. He picked up the burning wood and threw it at Rachel, who just managed to dodge aside in time. The crowd jostled about, lifting weapons and moving forward heedless of the injured among them.
I'm so sorry. "Natalie, do it again."
"But they're—"
"Do it now!" Rachel cried, as Roger almost closed the distance between them.
Natalie threw out another desperate, powerful crackling bolt of electricity—directly at Roger.
The lightning connected with his skull. His eyes went wide for the split-second before the discharge rocketed around his body, travelling along the sweat on his skin. As it reached down to his arm, the lightning jumped across to the next person in line with noticeably less intensity, until it had travelled through four or five people and finally fizzled out on the ground.
They collapsed. Roger was clutching his heart and twitching slightly, his mouth open wide but without a voice. Rachel looked up again, hoping to finally see a retreating crowd and enough space to get away.
She only saw desperate, unbridled rage. The shouting doubled over as the mob called for death. Rachel didn't have any other option.
"Again, Natalie!" she shouted. Natalie threw another bolt of lightning, brilliant purple-edged sparks blinding Rachel as it struck another group.
The girl didn't need further prompting, throwing bolt after bolt in the heat of the moment. The mob kept coming as Natalie kept firing, the girl shouting out in exertion and fear with each burst of electricity. Rachel closed her eyes as the bolts became too bright for her, keeping close to Gwen and trusting Natalie to keep her safe.
The shouting died away. The whip-cracks of lightning stopped. The only sound was the gentle growl of Gwen and the heavy pained breathing of the girl seated atop her. Rachel reluctantly opened her eyes.
No one had survived. Several of them had huge burns across their skin. The scent of singed hair and flesh was thick in the air. The bodies were laid out in a circle around them. All twenty-five were totally, utterly still.
Not a single one had turned away or tried to run.
"Natalie?" Rachel asked tentatively.
"...Did I do okay?" she stammered. The girl looked like she might collapse again, but it wasn't the satisfied exhaustion of a job well done Rachel had seen the night before. Natalie looked like she'd seen a ghost. Her eyes were wide as dinner-plates, her mouth quivering. She looked like she might burst into tears.
"Yeah," Rachel said. She stood up straight and pulled Natalie into a hug, burying the girl's face in her shoulder. "You saved us."
"Why didn't they stop?"
"I think they thought they had nothing left to lose," said Rachel.
"I didn't want to hurt them. Why did they want to hurt us?" said Natalie, and Rachel could hear her starting to break down. As much as she wished she could let the girl work through it, they were still in the middle of a disaster.
She let Natalie go and faced her again. "Natalie, this is not your fault. We're trying to save everyone here. They attacked us."
"If we're saving everyone, why do they want to stop us?"
"Someone else lied to them about us. Natalie, I'm sorry, but I need you to stay with me, okay? We're not out of this yet."
"I saw him," Natalie said suddenly.
Rachel's heart, which had only finally started to calm down, broke into a fresh sprint. "Saw who?"
"My dad. He was out in the woods. He had a stick thing, and it was controlling the monsters." Natalie looked at Rachel with red, puffy eyes. "Why's my dad helping him?"
Rachel, for all her plans and preparations, had nothing to say to her. How do I tell a twelve year old her father's trying to kill all her friends? She'd had enough of lying, even to Natalie. "I don't know."
"Did you know he was?" Natalie asked, testing Rachel's resolve even further.
Rachel nodded very slowly. "I did."
Natalie's eyes widened even further, if that was possible. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want to hurt you. I'm sorry. I was hoping we might be able to get him back, but I don't know if that's possible anymore."
"You think my dad's evil?"
Rachel shook her head. "I don't know. But he's not safe to be around." Her voice shook as she continued. "You can't ever go near him again, Natalie."
"What?"
"I don't know what he might do. He sent those golems into the woods tonight, and you were there. He could have hurt you."
"But he's my dad!"
Rachel's eyes were welling up with tears. "I know. I'm so sorry, Natalie."
"What am I supposed to do?" Natalie asked desperately.
"We still have a town to save," said Rachel. "Will you help me?"
"You lied to me. You said you'd help me find my dad."
"I did. And we will someday. But right now people are hurt and we can help them," Rachel gestured around to the devastated town. "I can't do it without you, Natalie."
Natalie took a minute to think, pressing her face into the Gwen's fur. Muffled sobs emanated from the thick gray pelt. Rachel ran a hand along the wolf's back, grateful that Gwen seemed to consider her a friend as well. The wolf had moved to protect her while Natalie had fought off the mob, placing herself directly between Rachel and the oncomers. Rachel rubbed her affectionately, and she could have sworn Gwen shot her a grateful smile.
"...What do you need me to do?" Natalie asked finally, looking up.
"Can your new friend find someone for us?" Rachel asked, pointing at the hawk that had fluttered down to Gwen's shoulder after the fight. Natalie nodded. "We need to find Hailey and Jessica. Do you know who I'm talking about?"
"Yeah," Natalie replied. "They talked to me before the big meeting. They were nice to me. Hailey said she'd teach me how to fly someday." She held out her hand and the hawk fluttered over to land on her fingers. She spoke a few words to it that Rachel didn't understand. It took off and started flapping hard into the sky.
"How do you speak to them?" Rachel asked.
"I just do," Natalie replied, confused. "I call them and they understand me. They can talk too, they just don't use words." Natalie said another few incomprehensible words to Gwen, and she started walking away, with Rachel at her side. The young girl still looked like an emotional wreck. Rachel wished she could understand what was going through Natalie's head. There was so much she felt like she couldn't possibly relate to.
"Natalie, you just saved my life," Rachel said. "Thank you. You did good." Natalie didn't answer, but Rachel thought she looked a little less miserable. That was the best Rachel could hope for, under the circumstances. "You're really brave. I was so scared back there and you handled it better than I ever could."
"Dad told me that fear meant I knew something was wrong," she said quietly. "He said fear means I should probably be doing something about it and that hiding from it would only make it worse."
Rachel hesitated. "He might not be gone forever. I don't know what's going to happen. When this is all over, we might be able to talk to him." She took Natalie's hand to draw her attention, so Rachel could look her directly in the eyes. "Natalie, you have to promise me something though. You have to promise you'll never try to find him alone. I'll help you, and I'm sure Lily and Kendra will want to help too, but don't ever go after your dad on your own. We'll do it together. Okay?"
"Okay."
"You promise?"
Natalie nodded. "I promise." She looked back at Rachel fiercely. "Do you promise to take me with you when you go find him? No matter what?"
Rachel nodded back. "I promise. Thank you," she added. Rachel forced a weak smile, though her heart felt like ice. "Let's go find our friends."