Josh
Hannah looked away, biting her lip. Then she shook her head.
He swore again.
“When I get back, you’re telling me everything, you understand? Everything.”
She nodded, looking very unhappy and still not saying a word.
“Until then, you stay with the damn car!” He turned and charged back down the street toward the wreckage of what used to be a temporary stage. The big banner with the Shift First logo on it went up in flames as he approached, the flimsy material practically exploding it burned so quickly. Elsewhere the flames worked slower at the heavy curtain material and the wood of the floor.
What remained of the floor at least. As Josh vaulted himself up onto the stage from the side, he looked around. Right in front of him he saw the huge blast hole in the middle of the stage. In his mind’s eye, he could picture Chad, standing there, microphone in hand as he spoke to the crowd, telling them about the way shifters were treated around the world, about how they were seen as less than humans.
There was nothing remaining of that spot now. The bomb had been placed perfectly. Chad had to be dead. No human could survive that. Hell, even he would have been hurt badly by that, if not killed. Hannah for some reason was convinced that he wouldn’t have been killed by the blast. It wasn’t trauma or denial at his death either. Josh had seen that in people before, and knew what it looked like from his vantage point. No, what Hannah had exhibited was a confidence that spoke to something else.
I’m being kept in the dark, and now it’s going to come back to haunt me.
He pushed his way through the heat to the center of the blast, ignoring the pain as best he could. Hair and skin would regrow quickly; he had nothing to fear from this. He peered down into the hole that had been ripped in the stage, resting his near foot on the jagged pieces of wood that stuck up from around the perimeter, ignoring the flames engulfing it.
There was no body immediately visible, but that didn’t surprise him. If Chad wasn’t immediately disintegrated by the explosion, he would have been flung clear. Josh moved toward the front of the stage in case Chad had been thrown that way. As he did the lights went dark, the power finally having been cut to the area.
The entire park was now shaded in darkness, lit only by the dancing lights of the flames as they moved ever higher into the sky. His shifter eyesight allowed him to see well enough, however. Through the wall of flames at the front of the stage, he caught a glimpse of a swift shape disappearing into the night.
It had to be Chad! Everywhere else, people cried and held each other. Several people lay on the ground with gashes on their faces and arms, but he didn’t see a single dead body. The force of the blow had been directed up, for which he was extremely thankful.
Josh moved to follow the shape, but as he did, a thick metal bar swung down from out of sight and slammed into his side, flinging him ten feet toward the back of the stage and through rising flames.
“Ow,” he said, angry that the stage had decided to start collapsing on him.
Shaking it off, he climbed to his feet. He looked around to see if anything else was coming down when he realized that the entire metal structure still seemed fairly stable. The blaze was eating everything else up, but it hadn’t yet gotten hot enough for the metal to begin to melt.
Then his eyes picked out something on the far side of the stage where the pole had come from. There! In the corner two men were standing with their hands covered in black soot, looking directly at him.
Josh’s eyes widened, then narrowed quickly as things fell into place.
The stage isn’t failing yet. They hit me!
Why the hell would they do that? His eyes went wide as he realized they were wearing tactical gear. Josh was used to seeing people attack him while wearing gear that looked very similar to what the two men were outfitted in. Similar, but definitely not the same. Which could only mean one thing.
“That’s not Agency getup,” he said to himself, climbing to his feet and shaking himself off. Nor are explosions part of their repertoire. These guys are new, and they don’t give a shit. Not good.
The Agency didn’t use explosions, because it caused more damage to bystanders than the local authorities could theoretically ignore. Although it was common knowledge police and government forces had been bought off or ordered to remain neutral in the fight in King City, when normal citizens were hurt by something like what had just happened, they couldn’t ignore it. The Agency preferred to operate in the shadows as much as the Underground did. Not so with the newcomers.
The rules had changed.
Well, time for them to realize their mistake. He leapt to his feet and walked to the men, keeping the gash in the floor between them. The newcomers eyed him speculatively, but they didn’t move. Using his superhuman abilities, when he closed to within two steps of the hole, he suddenly accelerated and hurled himself over the opening, landing half a dozen feet from the other men. They must have already decided to depart, because the two men were disappearing before he even cleared the hole.
Josh made to chase after them, but something stopped him. If this was a new group, he had no idea who or what they were. Which meant only one thing.
Hannah was in danger.
He turned and leapt back over the hole and off the stage as his bear went berserk inside, charging back down the road toward where he had left her, hoping that for once, she had obeyed his command to stay with the damn car so that he could find her.
In the distance sirens began to sound from all directions. This was a big event, and in minutes would be swarming with police and firefighters, and likely a horde of EMTs. That was not somewhere he wished to be stuck. The game had changed, and his team needed to be alerted because of that. Josh hadn’t seen any of them since, but they all had their priorities.
Thankfully she was still there, and unharmed. The other Sentinels were now clustered around her as well.
“Everyone okay?” he asked, looking around at the drawn faces.
There were nods all around and he sighed in relief.
“We have a problem. New guys in town,” he said, then turned to Hannah. “You owe me an explanation,” he said angrily. “Right now.”
She looked unhappy. The others perked up, looking around in confusion.
“Right now, Hannah. Who the hell was that?” he raged, pointing back at the stage as flames leapt into the sky, the entire place now ablaze. “Those are not my enemies. That is not the Agency. They don’t work like that, and the men who attacked me are not Agents. What the hell have you brought to King City?” he asked. “We don’t need anything more!”
The beautiful woman crumpled under his verbal tirade. Josh knew he didn’t mean it as angrily as it came out, but right then, he didn’t have any patience left for lies and misdirection. He needed the truth if he was going to do his job properly.
“It’s a government agency,” she said. “I think.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Explain.”
“I can’t,” she said with a nervous squeak.
“Why the hell not?”
“It’s not my place to tell you outright,” she said. “Besides—” she stopped speaking.
“Besides what?” he pressed.
“Besides, I’m afraid of what you’ll do if I told you,” she said after a long hesitation.