Base isn’t far from here, and our best option is to go on foot. But the minute we hit the open air, the group of us—myself, Castle, Winston, injured Brendan, Ian, and Alia—go invisible. Someone shouts a breathlessthanksin my direction, but I’m not the one doing this.
My fists clench.
Nazeera.
These last couple of days with her have been making my head spin. I never should’ve trusted her. First she hates me, then she hates me even more, and then, suddenly, she decides I’m not an asshole and wants to be my friend? I can’t believe I fell for it. I can’t believe I’m such an idiot. She’s been playing me this whole time. This girl just shows up out of nowhere, magically mimics my exact supernatural ability, and then—right when she pretends to be best friends with Juliette—we’re ambushed at the symposium and Juliette sort of murders six hundred people?
No way. I call bullshit.
No way this was all some big coincidence.
Juliette attended that symposium becauseNazeeraencouraged her to go. Nazeera convinced Juliette it was theright thing to do. And then five seconds before Brendan gets shot, Nazeera tells me to run? Tells me we have the same powers?
Bullshit.
I can’t believe I let myself be distracted by a pretty face. I should’ve trusted Warner when he told me she was hiding something.
Warner.
God. I don’t even know what happened to him.
The minute we get back to base our invisibility is lifted. I can’t know for sure if that means Nazeera went her own way, but we can’t slow down long enough to find out. Quickly, I project a new layer of invisibility over our team; I’ll have to keep it up just long enough to get us all to a safe space, and just being back on base isn’t assurance enough. The soldiers are going to ask questions, and right now I don’t have the answers they need.
They’re going to be pissed.
We make our way, as a group, to the fifteenth floor, to our home on base in Sector 45. Warner only just finished having this thing built for us. He cleared out this entire top floor for our new headquarters—we’d hardly even settled in—and things have already gone to shit. I can’t even allow myself to think about it now, not yet.
It makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Once we’re gathered in our largest common room, I do a head count. All original, remaining Omega Point members are present. Adam and James show up to find out whathappened, and Sonya and Sara stick around just long enough to gather intel before carting Brendan over to the medical wing. Winston disappears down the hall behind them.
Juliette and Warner never show.
Quickly, we share our own versions of what we saw. It doesn’t take long to confirm we all witnessed basically the same thing: blood, mayhem, murdered bodies, and then—a slightly less-bloody version of the same thing. No one seems as surprised by the twisted turn of events as I was, because, according to Ian, “Weird supernatural shit happens around here all the time, it’s not that weird,” but, more important:
No one saw what happened to Warner and Juliette.
No one but me.
For a few seconds, we all stare at each other. My heart pounds hard and heavy in my chest. I feel like I might be on fire, burning with indignation.
Denial.
Alia is the first to speak. “You don’t think they’re dead, do you?”
Ian says, “Probably.”
And I jump to my feet. “STOP. They’re not dead.”
“How can you be sure?” Adam says.
“I would know if they were dead.”
“What? How w—”
“I would just know, okay?” I cut him off. “I would know. And they’re not dead.” I take a deep, steadying breath. “We’re not going to freak out,” I say as calmly as possible. “There has to be a logical explanation. People don’t justdisappear, right?”
Everyone stares at me.
