White Hot

A tall woman strode into the hallway, her face lined with age. She held herself ramrod straight, her silver hair carefully styled, her dark brown eyes challenging anyone in her way. Two bodyguards followed her, dressed in suits, both square jawed with identical short haircuts and identical expression.

Augustine stood up. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Tremaine. To what do I owe the honor?”

She stared at him, her eyes measuring him with the deadly precision of a raptor sighting her prey. Icy claws gripped my spine. This is it.

Victoria Tremaine turned without a single word and walked back the way she’d come.

I wore a Scorpion bulletproof vest, a helmet, an urban assault outfit, and boots. Rogan’s people offered me a light machine gun but I stuck with my Baby Desert Eagle. It made me feel better.

We’d gone to ground in the Texas scrub on the edge of the perimeter fence bordering Olivia Charles’ fortress. Ahead a lone guard sat in a booth.

I felt like a turtle. How in the world had my mother and grandmother worn this gear for years?

Next to me Arabella, wearing the same outfit I did, pursed her lips together and took a selfie. Ugh.

“Do you remember the exit route?” I asked.

She nodded. “We go north, quick sprint, five miles over the brush, to Rogan’s helicopter. I got it. Stop worrying.”

A limo slid down the road and stopped before the gate.

“Are you sure this will work?” Cornelius asked.

“Yes,” I told him.

Cornelius worried me. He’d brought no animals and no weapons that I could see. His face was calm, his eyes distant. Something odd was taking place in his head.

“It’s just that your sister is so shy,” he murmured. “I’ve been at your house for a week and she barely spoke to me.”

The limo’s window rolled down. I couldn’t see into it from this angle, but I knew who was inside. Melosa in the driver’s seat, ready to snap her aegis shield up at a moment’s notice; my sister in the passenger seat; and Rivera in the back, armed to the teeth.

The guard said something.

Come on, Catalina. You can do it.

The gate swung open. The guard left his booth and stood next to the car.

“Okay.” I got up to my feet.

A few yards down, Rogan stepped out from behind a tree. If things went wrong, he planned to level the booth and the guard with it. I brushed the twigs from me and trotted to the limo. Around me Rogan’s strike team—six people he’d handpicked—fell into place. Cornelius shrugged his shoulders next to me.

Rogan joined us. We jogged to the limo, where the guard waited. He saw us and winked. His face shifted and Augustine’s familiar perfection took his place. “You brought children, Rogan? This is a new low for you.”

“What are you doing here?” Rogan asked.

“I wouldn’t miss this. What—and let you have all the glory and information to yourself?” Augustine pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Shall we?”

The limo moved ahead. We followed it.

A second checkpoint loomed ahead.

“Is it a real soldier this time?” I asked.

“Yes.”

The limo stopped, the window rolled down, and I felt magic shift in the distance, a mere splash of it, like a raindrop in the night. The soldier left his booth and walked next to the limo. We rolled on up the road to the guardhouse at the doorstep of the fortress. They saw us. Weapons snapped up.

The soldier waved at the guards. The limo stopped again. The guards put away their weapons and joined the second soldier.

“What is your sister, exactly?” Augustine asked.

“You’ll see.” There was no name for it. No talent like this had ever been recorded. But it wasn’t something you would ever forget. “Just don’t look at her directly once she starts.”

The soldiers unlocked the massive front doors, then one of them wandered over to the side of the limo and opened the door. Catalina stepped out. The soldier waited behind her, his face relaxed, attentive like a bellhop at a luxury hotel. Melosa got out of the car. Her eyes were wide like two saucers.

Catalina turned and waved at us. I sped up, trying to close the distance. An older man in a grey uniform with a bearing of a soldier smiled at us.

“Are you her friends?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s so nice. Come on, I’ll show you inside. It’s lunchtime.”

Catalina squared her shoulders and stepped into the fortress. Two sentries rose from their seats. The older soldier waved at them. “Come with me.”

We walked through the narrow hallway, turned right, turned left. My mouth tasted like a copper penny. I should’ve never let her do this. Ahead an open door revealed a large cafeteria.

The strike team around me put in their earplugs and halted. We’d gone over this maneuver during the planning stage. If they walked into that mess hall, we’d have no strike team left. Rogan, Cornelius, Arabella, Augustine, and I followed Catalina in. I’d told them it was a bad idea. They’d decided they would do it anyway.

At least sixty people sat at the tables, eating. Everyone stopped and looked at us.

My sister smiled. “Hi!”

“Hi?” a woman said from the nearest table. “Who are you?”

“I’m just a kid.”

Every pair of eyes watched her.

“I go to Cedar High. You wouldn’t believe what happened to me in algebra class yesterday.”

Rogan looked at me.

“Watch,” I mouthed.

“I was sitting at my desk and Dace Collins just broke up with his girlfriend.”

Sixty people in the room and not a single one was eating. They held completely still.

“He did it right in front of the whole class. She cried. It was so uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do.”

The room fell silent.

“Dace Collins is an asshole,” a man on the left said.

“Yeah, what the hell?” a young guy on the right said. “What kind of a little punk does a thing like that?”

“You don’t worry, sweetie,” the first woman said. “Don’t stress out about it. He isn’t worth it.”

“How dare he put you in that position? You shouldn’t have to feel embarrassed for him and his girlfriend,” another woman said. “Do you want us to go and get him for you? Because we’ll go right now.”

The older soldier nodded at the crowd. “Jake and Marsha, go get a vehicle out of the motor pool, find this Dace, and bring him here. We’ll have us a little talk and teach him how to treat a lady.”

“No, no, that’s okay,” Catalina said. Getting Dace Collins would’ve been a tall order, since he was a character on Liars, the latest teen soap opera. “Would you like to hear the rest of the story instead?”

“Yes,” several voices said at one. “Yes, please.”

They moved toward her, forming a tight semicircle.

“That’s close enough,” she said.

They didn’t want to stop, but they obeyed.

“I really want to tell you the rest of the story, but can we get the rest of the people here? They might want to hear what happened.”

The older soldier spoke into his radio. “All personnel report to mess hall immediately. I repeat, all personnel, report to mess hall immediately.” He looked at Catalina, his face and smile soft. “They will be here right away.”

“Oh good. Please sit down.”

They sat on the floor as one, devotion shining on their faces. Next to me Cornelius tried to bend his knees. I grabbed his arm and hauled him upright.

“My friend is going to make a hole in that wall right there.” Catalina pointed to the far wall. “So we have more light.”

“That’s a great idea.”

“Yes, more light never hurts.”

I nudged Rogan. He raised his hand. A gap sliced through the far wall, cleaving a twenty-five-foot hole in the reinforced concrete.

“Bigger,” I murmured. Arabella would need a fast exit.

The gap grew to forty feet.

“Bigger.”

The wall exploded.

“Thank you!” Catalina said.

“You’re so nice,” one of the soldiers told Rogan. “I’m glad she has nice friends like you.”