Leo Green found himself backing away from DeGarmo's cell. It was like a miniature hurricane had formed inside the room, with the young woman as its eye. A heavy wind circled around, sending chairs and bedsheets tumbling across the floor. The Labrador huddled in a corner of its cage, clearly terrified.

This time DeGarmo's transformation didn't stop with her eyes. Her skin turned a sallow grayish-yellow and her hair stuck out in all directions like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket. She looked taller too, until Green noticed she was floating several inches off the ground. Black lines appeared on her arms and it took him a moment to realize they were the outlines of veins. Her lips split open in places, dark fluids dripping down and then getting whipped away by the wind.

Still, it was her eyes that were the worst. Glazed in bluish white until the pupils disappeared.

The eyes of a corpse.

Next to him, John Carrera gasped. So did one of the guards, despite being briefed on what might happen.

"Hold your ground, men. She's not a danger to us." Green hoped he was right. Who the h.e.l.l knew what she might do?

"General, are you getting all this?" he said into the Bluetooth phone he wore.

"It's G.o.dd.a.m.n spectacular!" came the reply.

"Enjoy while you can," someone said, and Green turned to see Carrera staring right at him, wearing a very smug expression.

Something about the man's smile made Green look back at DeGarmo's cell.

She was floating within a raging storm cloud, red and yellow flashes of lightning exploding all around her.

And she had moved past the dog.

"s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t!"

"Green? What's the matter?"

"I think we have a code red, sir!" DeGarmo glided closer to the door, her black, oozing lips almost a perfect duplicate of Carrera's knowing smile.

General Moore shouted something in his ear, but Green didn't hear the words over his own bellowed orders.

"Shoot him!" He pointed at Carrera. "Shoot that motherf.u.c.ker right now!"

The guard hesitated for a split second before pulling the trigger, an almost imperceptible delay, but one that allowed Carrera to jerk his body back and out of the grasp of the two men. The gun went off and two screams sounded simultaneously. Carrera fell to his knees, clutching his midsection. Next to him the second guard, a man named Kellogg, collapsed to the floor as well, blood already staining his uniform and pooling on the cold tiles thanks to the the bullet that had pa.s.sed right through Carrera Green's hand was still moving toward his own weapon when a new sound drowned out Moore's frantic shouts and the echo of the gunshot. It was a sound he'd never heard before, a deep, booming crack! reminiscent of river ice shattering on a warm day, only amplified a hundred times.

He knew what it was even before he looked.

The two-inch bulletproof Plastiglas-guaranteed to withstand a direct hit with a mortar-was spiderwebbed with cracks that radiated outward from a center point.

Right where the undead thing that was Leah DeGarmo had her hand.

"Oh s.h.i.t." Forgetting about Carrera, General Moore and protocol, Green turned to run away. One of the remaining guards called out a warning but it was lost in a thunderous explosion. An invisible hand slapped Green in the back and then picked him up and tossed him down the hallway. Ragged pieces of Plastiglas ricocheted off the walls and floor around him.

He landed without warning, his right shoulder hitting first. There was a moment of blinding agony and the branch-snapping sound of bones breaking, and then he was tumbling over, unable to see or hear, his entire world nothing but bright light and hammer blows of pain. He finally came to a stop fifteen feet from the cell, sprawled on his left side. Despite the multicolored spots obscuring his vision, he made out a dark shape taking up most of the hallway. He tried to focus but the effort just made things more blurry.

Through the ringing in his ears, he heard someone scream.

Chapter Six.

The moment Leah opened herself to her Power, she knew she was going to break out of her cell.

What she hadn't expected was that it would be so easy.

She'd simply placed her hands on the wall and concentrated on the lightning surrounding her, guiding it, channeling it, focusing it all on one point.

The resulting explosion had startled her so badly she'd actually faltered for a moment, felt her feet brush the ground. Then she was floating again, moving out of the cell. John lay on the ground, his stomach stained with blood, but something in her sensed he was still alive so she shifted her attention to the other men. The ones with the guns.

The ones who wanted to hurt her and John.

There was no need to aim, no need to chase them. Thinking it brought her Power into action. First the two guards next to John, the one who'd fired the pistol and the one who lay dying on the floor. She imagined her energy grasping them and siphoning off their life force, replenishing the energy she'd spent breaking out of her cell.

As fast as her thoughts appeared, so they became real. Dark tendrils with openings at the end like elephant trunks snaked out and wrapped themselves around the two men. The open ends closed over their faces and Leah felt the energy rushing into her, reveled in the ecstasy of it the same way she would delight in gulping down a cold drink on a sweltering day. She wrung them out, squeezing every last drop of life from them until they were as dry and dead as cactus husks in a desert. Then she let them go and turned her attention to the other two guards who were halfway down the hall and running at full speed.

It made no difference.

She laughed as they froze in midstep and collapsed, their bodies shriveling into human raisins, their skin shrinking, becoming so tight their bones shattered and their organs appeared as visible bulges beneath their clothes.

That left only Captain Green.

His body lay awkwardly atop shattered chunks from the wall of her cell. Blood dripped from his arm where a jagged piece of bone protruded halfway between his elbow and wrist.

Compound fracture of the ulna, the veterinarian part of her mind diagnosed. He's in shock from the pain and losing blood too fast. Definitely severed at least one artery.

He tried to raise his head but the effort was too much and it thumped back onto the floor.

His life is draining away.

In that instant, a memory came to her: the battered and broken dog Del McCormick had brought into her clinic. Like Green, it had a compound fracture. And also like Green, it had been dying.

Like a fire doused with water, the fury inside her sputtered out.

I'm not a killer. Just because I have the ability doesn't mean I should use it. I never did before.

The Power to Kill had always been there, an aspect of the Cure. There'd never been a desire in her to pa.s.s pain or illness on to people, even people who some might think deserved it. She'd never once thought about becoming a vigilante, doling out secret death. In fact, she'd hated that part of her Power, the part which required her to pa.s.s on what she took in.

Leah sensed as much as saw the storm clouds around her fade away, taking with them the gale-force winds. Her feet touched the floor, letting her know she was no longer levitating. She imagined that if she looked in a mirror just then, her skin and eyes would no longer resemble a corpse's.

She knelt down next to Green and placed her hand on his arm. There was the familiar electric shock as she Cured him. Then his arm was whole again and his breathing settling into a normal rhythm. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"What...what did you do?"

"Cured you," she said, standing up again. She moved over to where John lay on the floor and touched his stomach, aware that she could now control whether she Cured someone or pa.s.sed on an injury. This time the shock was greater, whether because she'd already Cured someone or because John's wound was more serious, she couldn't tell. Already her arm was beginning to ache and now her stomach joined in.

"Hey, there," John whispered, grasping her hand. "I told you."

"You were right," she said, her voice equally soft. She knew he was referring to their conversation the previous night. "But I don't want to be that person. I just want to be the old me again, not a monster."

"Too late."

Leah turned at the sound of Green's voice. He was standing again, his pistol aimed at her. She opened her mouth to say something but never had the chance.

He fired.

In the moments between his pulling the trigger and his death, Leo Green had time for several thoughts: This is my chance, before she changes again.

Her eyes! Jesus G.o.d, it's happening too fast!

Wait-she's not even- Why didn't the bullet-?

And the final thought, as a hole opened in his belly, its twin ruptured the flesh of his chest. the bones in his arm snapped and tore through his skin, and he screamed so loud the lining of his throat ripped: The two have become one.

Leah felt the bullet strike, a split second of pain like a hammer blow between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and then there was a more familiar sensation, the electric shock of Curing something.

Ten feet away, Green let out the most awful shriek she'd ever heard a man make. Blood exploded from his mouth, chest, belly and arm.

He fell to the floor and his death registered to her as a second jolt, only this time it was more like the energy kick of that first strong cup of coffee in the morning.

She looked down at herself. No storm clouds. No supernatural displays. No levitation.

Just her.

And yet she'd not only evoked the other side of her Curing Power, she'd also Killed. All at a distance.

What was happening to her?

Alarmed, she turned to John, who'd pushed himself to a sitting position against the wall.

His eyes went wide.

"Leah? Can you... Are you there?"

She nodded.

"It's me. I think. Why...?"

"Your eyes. The rest of you is...normal. But your eyes. It's like when you...change."

"No!" She had to see. She ran down the hall, ignoring John's shouts for her to wait. Past unmarked door after unmarked door until she came to one that stood partly open. Entering it, she saw a console with several computers and video screens, along with a lot of controls.

The screens all showed her cell and the hallway outside from various angles.

Putting her face close to one, she focused on her eyes.

And gasped.

They were the eyes of a corpse. Milky gray in the partially transparent reflection, but she knew they'd have a bluish tint when seen straight on. The cloudy haze extended over the pupils and iris, and then gave way to yellowing, bloodshot sclera.

She squeezed them shut and rubbed them, concentrating on their turning normal again. Maybe this was just her reaction to the danger Green had posed. Her adrenaline was too high. She took a deep breath and counted to twenty, trying to calm herself.

Opening her eyes again, Leah looked at herself once more.

"Oh G.o.d."

No change.

This can't be happening! Why won't they change back? I'm not that monster anymore!

A noise behind her, footsteps on tile. John. He must have followed her. She turned, wanting nothing more than for him to hold her, to tell her she hadn't mutated into some kind of freak.

A stranger in an army uniform stood there, an odd-looking gun in his hand. Before she could even think about reacting, he fired.

A bright halo of light exploded around her and the world suddenly spun in circles while thunder filled her head. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor, her ears ringing and her skin crawling with a tingling, burning sensation like she was covered in angry fire ants. She tried to move but her limbs wouldn't respond.

"They told me you were the perfect weapon, but I never realized how perfect," the man said, gesturing at her with the weird gun.

"Who...?" she tried to say, but all that came out was a slow exhale. Who did he mean? Who had told him? I have to find out.

Ignoring her attempts at forming words, he continued talking.

"We will find a way to turn you, even if it means torturing or killing everyone you hold dear and locking you in a G.o.dd.a.m.n impenetrable cave until your mind snaps."

As he spoke, his voice escalated in volume and his face grew red from the vehemence of his words. His terrible burn scars stood out in sharp contrast.

He has crazy eyes, Leah thought.

And then, without warning, he had a third eye, this one black and directly over his left one.

A trickle of blood leaked out of the black circle, and the man slowly collapsed and fell over.

Leah watched as a larger pool of blood formed beneath the other side of his head. A shadow appeared; she tried to turn her head but couldn't. She closed her eyes and waited for the unseen man to shoot her. Time pa.s.sed.

Someone was calling her name, over and over. The voice grew closer, and despite the buzzing in her ears, she recognized it as John's.

He appeared in the doorway just as she was able to get her mouth to move.

"John...help me." This time her words were audible.

"Leah! Are you hurt?" He hurried over to her.

"No." She shook her head. It was an effort to move, but each breath seemed to bring a little more strength. "Did you shoot him?"