"Let's go, let's go, back to the bikes and take the trail down to the campsites," Deena said.

Harper leapt over tree roots and ran the way they'd come. Her footfalls crunched leaves and twigs as she stomped unsteadily down the incline.

The crack of a shot rang out as they ran, and the bark of a nearby tree splintered. "Oh G.o.d," Harper said.

"Keep moving, stay as close to the trees as you can." Deena was breathing heavy from the excitement and the exertion. Her head ached the moment that shot narrowly missed them, but it wasn't because she'd been hit by the bullet or anything else, it was like a compa.s.s in her head was pushing her to move in a different direction than she believed was wise. It was like the ache was moving her towards danger rather than away. Her limbs tingled and her head felt like water.

More shots filled the silence as they went. Deena watched Harper move on ahead, until she was behind some trees, and then Deena stopped following. She listened to the guidance her mind was giving her and moved in another direction.

Unfortunately, Harper chose a poor time to look around and tripped over some branches in her path. Her momentum carried her a few more feet in the air before dropping her on her face in the dirt. Deena heard the heavy footfalls of the men and watched her sister struggle to get up. Deena moved to conceal herself from the approaching danger, all the while following the pull in her head. She climbed the tree by bounding up it and grabbing a high branch to pull herself up. She'd never moved that quickly, that fluidly before and she had no idea she could climb a tree like that.

The men came around the tree from opposite sides. "That's enough," the tallest one said. They both immediately moved to Harper and towered over her. "Do you see the other one?"

Harper managed to scramble onto her b.u.t.t, though the killers weren't going to let her do much more. "Look, just let us..."

"Shut up." The tall one again. "Find her." The chubby one started back toward the car.

Deena heard the tall man say, "Sorry chick, nothing personal," just as she dropped out of the tree onto the fat guy. That one shouted then, a deep roar of pain as she punched him. She withdrew her hand to hit him again and found the skin on her right hand had turned black. She let go of the man and he stumbled, clutching at his neck. She had no idea how hard she'd hit him.

The man menacing Harper turned his head to see what was happening, so Deena pressed her advantage. She grabbed the fat man's coat and pulled him closer. There was a flurry of suggestions in her mind and Deena opened herself to all of it. She slashed at the man's face with her hands, sending blood flying off into the woods. They fell to the ground together and rolled in the leaves and twigs on the forest floor before stopping perfectly still and silent.

Deena could see Harper and her would-be a.s.sa.s.sin both lean forward, both puzzled and both expecting either Deena or her opponent to stand up. Deena stayed still as she watched the tall man approach slowly. He stepped toward the tangle of people and clothing. "Mitch?" he asked to no response. He moved forward a few more steps, leaving Harper behind.

Deena waited until she heard her sister scrambling to her feet and running away. It would be the smart thing for Harper to do in the situation. Go get help. Run away. She heard her sister cautiously take a few steps before turning to run.

Harper got exactly ten steps before the gunfire began.

26.

"We're looking for Deena and Harper Riordan," Garrett said. He showed Mr. Marsh his badge. Pel half-heartedly showed hers as well. She was looking around the room at all the tennis b.a.l.l.s scattered around on the floor.

Marsh shrugged. "Look. I'm sorry. I run a large business here. Those names don't ring a bell with me."

"Sisters? You don't remember employing sisters in your office?"

"I don't get out in the field much, I'm more management. What do these girls do for my company?"

Garrett shrugged his shoulders. "We hear they kill people for your company."

"Heavens," Marsh said, almost laughing. "That's absurd."

"Is it?"

"Of course."

"What does Datura Industries do, then? If you don't mind us asking," Pel said.

"We have a number of divisions. We have an all-inclusive shipping and transportation wing, a construction arm, several Internet ventures. We're thrilled to see our research and development business is blossoming. I can't imagine listing them all for you."

Garrett turned and looked out at the gorgeous view Marsh had. He could see all the way up Figueroa and into the city. It was most likely a very expensive way to see L.A. "All completely legal and above-board, I'm sure."

"I'm sure," Marsh echoed. "I'd be happy to have my a.s.sistant, Stanley Yuko, give you a brochure or something detailing the vast Datura Industries empire. Stanley would be glad to put you in touch with our human resources department. They can tell you whether those girls you mentioned work for me."

"Deena and Harper Riordan," Pel said.

"Whatever." Marsh began to roll a ball around with his palm on his desk.

Garrett turned back. "Are we boring you?"

"I have to get back to work here. The 'vast empire' isn't going to run itself, you know."

Garrett winced at Marsh's huge fake smile. The overly white teeth seemed unnatural. "Take a look at these for me and we'll get out of your way." He pulled pictures from his jacket pocket of the sisters and put them in front of the man.

After just a second, Marsh pushed them back across his desk. "Sorry. I honestly have nothing to do with human resource decisions."

Garrett was fl.u.s.tered. He knew at least one of the girls was here. Stanley had told Rivers exactly where to find Harper, but they hadn't been able to get a warrant. At least that's what Rivers had told them. Garrett was only to ask questions, not explore the building and look for either of the girls. The hope was that Marsh wouldn't be stupid enough to kill the girl with the authorities sniffing around him. The fear was that the visit might spur him on to take her out of the building and have her killed somewhere else.

Of course, the wild card in any plan was what the other sister, Deena, would do. If the girl was as powerful and unpredictable as they said, there was no telling what she would do, and maybe that would keep Harper alive a little longer. Maybe long enough to actually get a warrant.

"I'm surprised you don't know Deena. I heard she was a big part of your organization," Garrett said. "I heard she was a pretty important part of the team."

"I know all the most powerful people here. I think I'd remember her."

Garrett nodded to Pel and they walked towards the door. "I'm sure if she gets here, she'll remind you."

If Marsh was afraid of Deena, his face didn't show it. "Well. If that's all you have for me, and if you don't have a warrant, I'll have my security personnel escort you out. I'd hate for you to get lost on your way back to your vehicle." Marsh waved to two tall men in matching navy blazers with the Datura Industries logo on them who had suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"That's kind. I'd hate to get lost too. Freaks me out," Pel said. "I'm shaking just thinking about it." She looked completely unaffected to Garrett, but he was still getting used to his new partner.

Garrett gave Marsh a wink and left the room. "See you soon." Without a warrant, things would be difficult.

27.

Deena at 16 the first time around Deena did a mental check of her condition, she didn't feel anything too wrong, other than a couple of dings in her arm and thigh that would probably become bruises later, but she couldn't be sure how bad it was until she moved. The problem with that, she found, was that her right arm was trapped under the heavy body. The tall man had moved out of her field of vision, but she could hear crunching leaves nearby where the man was approaching.

She was thankful the trench coat was over her, to provide some cover, but she couldn't see anything or anyone around her. She slowly moved her left hand over to attempt to free her other arm, but it was blocked by an object attached to the man's belt. She felt around and discovered it felt like another gun. She carefully removed it from the holster. She oriented it correctly in her hand and let it rest there. She'd never fired a gun before, though it felt right in her hand. It felt like another part of her body a part that had been kept in check for far too long. It was quite a bit heavier than she'd expected, and the fact that this man had been carrying two of them amazed her. It would have been a lot of weight to carry. The fact that she couldn't move her right hand reminded her that the man was used to carrying a few extra pounds. She was right-handed, but the gun felt just fine in her left.

She pressed the gun against the coat and pointed it in the direction she thought the footsteps were coming from. She heard Harper begin running in the opposite direction.

The first shot tore a hole in the coat and Deena choked at the acrid smoke that was trapped under the coat with her. She waved the gun hand wildly, pushing the jacket away so she could see and fired another shot at the same time which went wild. She spotted the tall man on the other side of Mitch. He looked surprised, like he'd just turned to shoot Harper when he was interrupted. As he turned, Deena shot him twice and forced herself to stop in case she needed the ammunition later. The whole thing took seconds, and Deena shuddered as the tall man fell. She turned and placed her foot on the fat man's side for leverage to free her trapped arm. The nudges her mind gave her made it all so easy.

Her arm ached and throbbed as she pulled it loose-she guessed it was from lack of circulation. But the more she examined it; she discovered it looked just fine. The blemish had migrated to her wrist and it seemed to be the source of the pain.

She knew Harper was talking to her, but she couldn't tell what she was saying. There was a sudden buzz in Deena's mind that seemed to make the rest of her body vibrate as well. The buzz sounded like a whispering voice telling her to do something in a foreign language. Nearby, a twig cracked. She pointed the weapon toward the noise.

There stood the men from the car. The older man had his hands in his pants pockets, but the other two had guns pointed at Deena. "Look little girl," the man said. "You won't kill us. You did what you had to do in the heat of the moment with Alex and Mitch there, and I'm impressed. But it's over now. You're not going to look me in the eye and shoot. Not when you have to think about it."

The joke's on you, Deena thought. I can't think. I'm reacting; I'm listening to the buzz of whatever is building its nest in my head.

Near Deena's feet, the fat man started groaning and writhing on the ground. As he rolled over, she saw he was bleeding heavily and his hand moved to the wound trying to stem the tide. It was a losing battle, but he struggled to his feet and took a swing at Deena. She twitched, like a jolt of electricity had coursed through her. She blocked his arm, preventing him from hitting her and then punched him with her free hand. A shadow pa.s.sed over them and Deena looked for a bird flying in the trees, but found none. As she hit him again, a feeling like a dozen needles seized her arm. Her fist had not only turned black, but thin, jagged ridges were pushing their way up through her skin on each knuckle. She stepped back and screamed as the points pushed through.

She closed her eyes from the pain and lashed out at Mitch, hitting him again and again until he fell from her reach. Deena took deep, sucking breaths as she attempted to get a hold of herself. When she opened her eyes, she saw her hand was still black, but the strange protrusions had disappeared. Her knuckles weren't just black; they were crimson from all the punches she'd landed on Mitch. He was lying at her feet, his face an unrecognizable mess of slices and cuts.

"Impressive," the old man said. "That's something new."

Deena took a few breaths to a.n.a.lyze what had just happened. The now-constant rumble in her head told her it was perfectly natural. She struggled to argue with it because something about the fight seemed... less than natural. She kept the gun pointed down and decided that diplomacy of some kind might be good. The armed men kept coming out of the woodwork and who knew how many more were out there? "These two were pretty good at shooting an unarmed man in the back of the head, but they seemed to have a world of trouble with two small girls." She was just talking now; fully prepared to babble on and on until something felt right.

"f.u.c.k! Deena, what are you doing?" Deena had all but tuned Harper out since the buzzing had started and as it reached a crescendo, Deena noticed her sister was standing by the big tree; looking from Deena, to the two dead men, to the newest men with guns. The look on Harper's face was slowly dissolving from horror to something else.

The men hadn't lowered their guns as Deena had. "Seems like the bulk of the trouble came from just one of the young ladies," the old man said. "Be that as it may, I a.s.sure you that Rousch and Morgan here-" He nodded to the man next to him. "Can more than handle little girls."

"They can handle little girls? Hope you don't ever have any full-grown adults come after you. That could get messy." Deena's body was still humming with antic.i.p.ation of more violence. Antic.i.p.ation, rather than dread.

The man smiled and shook his head. "You have a mouth that could get you in trouble. But from the look on your sister's face, she's used to it. Are you a troublemaker, young lady?"

She tapped the pistol against her leg involuntarily. It was as natural as someone else drumming their fingers on a desk when they were bored with a phone call or a business meeting. "So where does all this leave us? We gonna shoot it out? Or is there a middle ground here somewhere?"

The man's weak smile turned genuine. Deena could see he was amused by the tough-talking girl with the shaky hands. "Middle ground? What sort of middle ground?"

"You seem to be short a few goons. Maybe you want to upgrade to someone who can do some real damage." Deena felt a certain satisfaction at the look of shock on her sister's face. They had no prospects other than going home and that wasn't an option. Neither of them had been in contact with their foster parents and they hadn't heard any news on what sort of fate awaited them, but with Mike dead, it couldn't be good.

Harper moved only enough to sit herself down fully under the tree, the crisp crackle of the leaves the only sound. While her eyes still brimmed with tears, it appeared the rest of her had shut down. It was similar to the look she'd shown when Deena had first convinced her to leave after Mike's death.

28.

Deena watched as Avi slid to the floor, his eyes staring blankly upward. Ramirez turned with his blade dripping blood and smiled at Deena. He'd seen she was still conscious and he began to advance.

The black ooze that was coming out of her gunshot wound had stopped flowing, and as she watched, it seemed to pull itself back in. The pain turned to numbness flanked by a tingling sensation. It was becoming easier to breathe with every inhalation. Her right arm still seemed heavy, and a glance told her it had turned completely black.

She looked over at the men next to her. The one who'd shot her, the one with a bullet in him, was hanging on. He was leaning on his elbow with his gun still in his hand. The man that she'd fought with and almost beaten was catching his breath and looking from her face to the rapidly closing wound on her belly.

With the wall of the train car to help her, Deena pushed her way to her feet, letting her body make some final adjustments. She reached deep within herself and thought of the words and images she'd used to control the Energy when she was doing work for Marsh. The images of power and the images of strings and ribbons. She thought of the words 'Sharp' and 'Cut'. She pictured a boiling pot bubbling over. Her body, the energy within, felt sluggish, but it was responding.

She let go of the wall as the man with the gun fired. He was five feet away, but she reached for him anyway, commanding the darkness within her to grab him. Long strips of blackness pulled themselves from her arm and wrapped around him. She pulled the man off the ground and slammed him against the wall, breaking the windows and sending spider web lines of cracks in the gla.s.s around him. His terrified cry was cut off after a second. Deena could feel the power building in her quickly, faster than she'd ever experienced it.

She heard a shot from the other end of the car; the man next to Ramirez had pulled his weapon and was shooting at her. She could feel the bullets. .h.i.t her and exit the other side, but it didn't hurt, it was more of an annoyance. She looked down at the wounds in her body, where the bullets had entered, and saw the holes closing up with black liquid. Deena pulled the first man's limp body from the windows and threw it at the other end of the car, hitting the newest gunman and pinning him to the floor beneath what was left of his cohort. Ramirez managed to dodge and hide himself between the rows.

Behind Deena, Limb reached out and grabbed her right leg. She looked down at the man as he wrapped both hands around her knee. She thought of thorns and suddenly, thin, black spikes popped out of her jeans, forcing themselves through Limb's palms and fingers. As he shouted in pain, she extended the points further, until they pierced his face and further into his head. She withdrew the thorns and Limb's body fell to the floor.

"So I guess you didn't forget who you are after all," Ramirez said. He was still advancing on her with his knife, though more slowly. "I thought it was awfully easy for us to beat you."

No words came to Deena's mind, she just lashed out. She swung her hand in front of her and a whip's length of darkness issued from her left hand. She swung it in front of her and it sliced along the windows, leaving a cut in the gla.s.s and filling the air with a smell like burning wire.

"I've seen your tricks before. I'm not impressed."

Deena swung her arm again and the black line sliced the tops off the row of seats in front of Ramirez. It had sliced through the metal frames with ease.

Ramirez's face didn't register the fear that Deena knew he had to be feeling. Even she was surprised by what she could do. When she'd given him that scar on his face years ago, she'd been unfamiliar with her powers and still learning. But now she was more practiced, more deadly.

Deena reached out with both hands and grabbed Ramirez with the half a dozen tentacles that reached from her of their own volition and threw him into a row of seats behind her. She ran to Avi and dropped to her knees, scooping him up with her dark arms. Her body strength was amazingly increased and she lifted him with little effort. She stared down at him. "Avi? Avi? Talk to me." The darkness receded from her hand as she put her fingers to his neck to feel for a pulse. She couldn't find one. "d.a.m.n it." She felt his chest for movement, but all she found there was blood. "No." She wouldn't cry. Her body wouldn't let her. Instead, it covered up her hand in darkness again. She turned to see the man who'd been trapped by the body she threw. He was staring at her in shock. Not moving, his eyes wide.

As she advanced on him, he began shaking his head.

"Let's go, b.i.t.c.h," Ramirez had gotten himself out of the seats and was again standing in the aisle. A b.l.o.o.d.y cut had formed on his chin from his impact. He had his knife in his hand. Deena turned to face him and offhandedly a long jagged tendril shot out from her back and stabbed Ramirez's other goon. She heard a gurgle and then nothing.

"This is how it's going to be? Just us?"

When Deena spoke, her voice was almost a sigh. "There won't be two for long."

Ramirez began running at her and she did nothing to stop him or slow his progress. He was there in just four steps and she brought her arm up to block his slashing knife hand. She wrapped a tendril around that hand and tied it to her own and soon the blackness was reaching out from all over her body to grab his and bond it to hers. Their faces were just inches apart when she closed her eyes and thought of a buzz saw that would reach out to cut Ramirez to bits.

There was a screech that echoed in Deena's ears and a thud that shook the whole train car. When Deena opened her eyes, she was flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling of the car. She could see open air through a wide slice in the car above her. There were lines on either side of it where ragged swaths were also cut. She could hear the whistle of air coming in as the train continued on. Deena stood and found a wide cut had been gouged in the car below her. There was blood on the floor, but no sign of Ramirez. She walked toward Avi again, and noticed there were broad slices in the sides of the car as well. Apparently, whatever she'd done, whatever her power had done, had nearly cut the car in half. She got within a few feet of Avi and the car lurched. She heard the high-pitched squeal of metal on metal as someone applied the brakes to stop the train.

Deena put her hands on Avi's chest and kissed his forehead. She knew her powers still worked and that she was more or less in charge of them. She stared at Avi and considered how she would use those powers to get revenge for Avi and freedom for Harper. She'd done a lot of messy jobs for Marsh, but fighting her way through whatever he threw at her would likely top them all.

She looked at her torn clothing and saw that the Shadow Energy had withdrawn. The wound where she'd been shot was completely gone. It was healed over without a scar or a scratch. Expending that kind of power should have torn her apart. It should have regressed her back into diapers, but she felt fine. No, not fine. Just not like she was slipping back into the abyss of darkness she'd lived in for too long.

29.