"What? No, I thought you-"

"No. I have to Cure him. He knows things...help me over there."

A frown crossed John's face but he didn't hesitate or question her. He half lifted, half slid her to the dead soldier and then stood back as she placed a shaking hand on his cheek.

She wasn't prepared for the tremendous shock when her flesh touched his. The p.r.o.ne body spasmed and her hand flew back. A searing pain erupted in her face and scalp, worse even than the sharp bite of the bullet wound he'd suffered.

"Turn him on his back," she gasped, fighting not to cry from the scalding fire digging into her skin. She prayed she never experienced burns like his, not if this was even half of what it felt like.

John shifted the soldier whose head wound was healed and his face unmarked.

The man's eyes opened.

"Who do you work for?" she asked him. "Who told you about me?"

The man stared blankly at her. His mouth opened. A trickle of drool ran over his lip and down his neck.

"Uh-uh-uh..." He stopped and then smiled. At the same time, he let go a loud fart. His smile grew wider, but there was no humor in it. Only satisfied pleasure.

"Dammit!" Leah backed away. She wanted to slap the man, kick him, punch him until he spoke.

Except she knew he never would.

Chapter Seven.

Leah stared at the man she'd Cured and silently cursed the G.o.ds who'd given her an imperfect Power.

"What the h.e.l.l's wrong with him?" John asked.

It took her a moment to regain her composure before she could answer.

"His brain. I Cured the bullet wound, and everything else that was wrong with him. Brought him back from the G.o.dd.a.m.ned dead. But his brain...even though the cells were healed, they weren't the originals, the ones with his memories, his personality. He's alive, but he's..."

"A vegetable," John finished.

"Yeah. I guess repairing a brain isn't like repairing other organs, even for me."

She started to get to her knees, almost losing her balance in the process. John held out his hand to her but she pulled away.

"Don't touch me. I've still got his injuries inside me, and I don't know how long I can hold them in check."

"So give them back." John poked the man with his foot and the soldier stared at the spot for a second before returning his gaze to the ceiling. More drool had puddled on his neck and the floor beneath him.

"No." Lea pushed herself to her feet, using one of the consoles for support. "I won't kill an innocent man. And he's about as innocent as they come."

Keeping one hand on the countertop to steady herself, she placed her other hand against the center of the equipment, felt the muted hum of the electronics through her palm.

"Energy comes in many forms, but in the end it's all just energy." A professor had said that many years ago, during one of her college physics cla.s.ses.

Oh my G.o.d. Could it be that simple?

She let the death and pain flow out, the same as if she were pa.s.sing on a terminal illness to an already doomed animal.

Sparks exploded from the console and the video screens shattered. There was a series of m.u.f.fled pops! from the computer drives. At the same time, all the lights in the room and the hallway went dark.

Somewhere deeper in the building, alarms began to sound.

"d.a.m.n!" came John's voice from the darkness. "Did you do that?"

"I think so."

Leah felt inside herself. No trace of pain in her head, no acid fire on her skin. She'd done it! More than anything she'd learned about herself, more than any of the new Powers she had gained, this one ability was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to her.

"John, do you know what this means?" She reached for him in the dark, felt his doing the same. They clasped hands. "I pa.s.sed those wounds into the computer system. From now on, when I Cure an animal, I don't have to kill something else!"

"That's great," he said, and she could tell he meant it. But there was something else in his voice, an urgency. "Right now we have to get the h.e.l.l out of here."

She nodded and let him lead her out of the room, but her mind was still on the major transformation in her life. She'd always felt so guilty every time she killed something, even though the sacrifices were animals that were too old, too sick for her to Cure without raising suspicion. But she'd had to; there'd been no other options, not if she wanted to Cure at all.

For all those years she'd consoled herself by rationalizing it as the circle of life: animals lived and died, it was the natural order of things. She wasn't playing G.o.d by Curing her patients, she was merely making that circle of life last longer. The same thing doctors and people had been trying to do since the dawn of civilization.

And now? It was a question with as many possibilities as the branching corridors John was guiding them through, and filled with just as many dangers.

Her first thought was that she'd be able to Cure every animal that came to her, regardless of its diagnosis. Except that would quickly lead to complications. People wondering how their dying pets suddenly had completely recovered. Dogs and cats that were healthy and young well beyond the time they should have died from old age. Complications like that would bring more unwanted attention, which, in turn, would lead to situations just like the one she was in.

And you're not unstoppable, she reminded herself. Look at what that soldier did, paralyzed you with a single shot.

Of course, he hadn't used an ordinary weapon, The flash of light and strange sound told her the gun had to use some kind of laser or sonic disruption-or maybe a combination of both-to temporarily jumble a person's synapses. And who knew what other weapons the military might have developed? After all, it was what they did for a living.

John broke her train of thought by roughly pulling her into a doorway.

"Ssshhh." It came out as a whispered hiss.

Leah pressed her back against the door and listened for whatever he'd heard. Scattered red emergency lights set in the ceiling turned the hallway into a corridor to h.e.l.l, their dim glow ensuring a potential enemy could be dangerously close before you could see them.

Then, over the thump of her own pulse in her ears, she heard the sound of footsteps.

Someone was coming!

Leah let go of John's hand, prepared to defend herself-defend both of them-if she had to.

And then froze.

Because she had no idea what she would do or how she would do it. Would her Power still work at a distance? Did she have to Cure before she could Kill? Would her previous supernatural form manifest itself if needed?

In that moment, she realized her biggest weakness was her own mind. A simple hesitation was all an enemy would need to put her down the way that soldier had.

The footsteps slowly drew closer, each one adding to her inner quandary, until the men were so near she could hear their breathing.

Just then, the crackle of a handheld radio echoed in the dark.

"We've found the general! Medical a.s.sistance needed in video room A!"

"Let's go!" a voice said, so near and loud that Leah actually jumped and had to bite down a surprised cry. A second later, two men ran past the doorway in the direction John and Leah had just come from.

"This is our chance," John said, pulling her into the hall.

They followed the main corridor, ignoring side hallways, for what seemed a million miles to Leah. Each branch heightened her anxiety at getting caught again. The silence-except for their footsteps-made things worse. Why weren't there any alarms going off? She'd expected blaring sirens and packs of soldiers in the wake of her escape. Instead, she felt like they were being stalked by ninjas.

She was about to ask John if he had any idea of how they would get out when a dancing light appeared up ahead. John stopped and Leah's heart jitterbugged in her chest as she recognized it: the bouncing beam of a flashlight hitting the corridor walls.

"They're coming right at us," John whispered. "Quick, back this way." He turned and led her to a side hallway they'd just pa.s.sed. They moved deeper into the hall, past several doors, and waited for the soldiers to go by.

Leah tried not to breathe while they stood there, backs pressed against the wall. Seconds ticked by, turning into minutes. Afraid someone might sneak up behind them, she kept glancing back into the darkness. On the fourth or fifth time-she'd lost count, her brain ready to explode from tension-she noticed something was different.

There were lights. Still far away, but definitely there.

Oh s.h.i.t.

She tugged on John's sleeve, not wanting to speak for fear of the other men who had to be close to them by then and must have turned their lights off because the corridor was dark. She felt him turn in her direction and she pointed down the hall at the lights.

And realized how stupid that was, since he couldn't see her.

"Down there," she said in a whisper so soft she could barely hear it herself. "Lights."

John's body tensed under her hand and he leaned past her. Suddenly he grabbed her arm and started pulling her down the hall. Toward the lights.

Has he gone crazy? Leah tried to pull away but he just held her tighter and ran faster, practically dragging her as his fingers bruised her arm.

Then she saw it.

A door! An unlit red-and-white EMERGENCY EXIT sign sat high up near the ceiling. And the lights...they were shining through around the edges of the door.

John hit the door at full speed, ramming the metal bar with his hip. It flew open and in the same instant the world exploded in a silent detonation of light so bright Leah had to squeeze her eyes shut and cover them with her arms as she stumbled into John's back.

Despite not being able to see, she knew immediately that they were outside. Warm, fresh air enveloped her, wonderfully welcome after the stale, air-conditioned atmosphere of the building. The ground was hard under her feet, and she risked peering through squinted eyes to see where they were.

And if anyone was waiting to kill them.

Through tears that made everything look like she was seeing through someone else's gla.s.ses, she saw they'd ended up in a parking lot. Only a few scattered cars were present, at least directly in front of them.

"Head for the woods," John said, putting an arm around her waist. "It's our only chance."

Her eyes still half-closed because of the bright sun riding high overhead, Leah looked in the direction where John was now leading them.

Past the parking lot was a green, empty field that appeared larger than her entire neighborhood. And beyond that a fence. And then woods.

He wants to cross all that without being seen? We're as good as dead. They don't even have to chase us. Snipers will pick us off before we get halfway there.

Despite her fear, Leah ran alongside John, her head ducked and her shoulders tight, expecting a bullet to hit her at any moment. It didn't matter that she'd been shot before and suffered no injury; her brain still hadn't come to terms with being at least partially invulnerable.

Besides, that had happened before, when she'd been different. Now there was no telling how her body would react to a bullet tearing through her, shattering bone and ripping organs to shreds...

Stop it! She forced away the image of her death and concentrated on running faster.

The change from blacktop to gra.s.s happened sooner than she expected and filled her with equal parts hope that they would make it and certainty that they'd be gunned down any second. John must have felt something similar, because he put his head down and somehow increased his speed even more. Leah kept up with him, her habit of jogging on weekends making up for her shorter stride. Even so, she was already breathing heavily and had the first hints of muscle exhaustion starting up in her ribs and legs as lactic acids began collecting faster than her body could break them down.

At one point she glanced up and saw that they'd covered half the distance to the fence. Spurred on by the sight of it, she tried to quicken her pace even more. Instead, all that happened was she stumbled for a second before regaining her balance, and then had a cramp ignite in her calf.

"Shi-!" the curse got lost as she gasped for air, but it was enough to make John turn around.

"What?" His breathing was just as labored, his face flushed to the point where you couldn't see his eyebrows against his red, sweating skin.

"C-cramp," she said, her gait now more of a hop than a true run as she tried not to put weight on her protesting leg.

"Can't stop, we're almost there." He put his arm around her back to support her. Without waiting for an answer, he started running again.

Leah gritted her teeth and willed her legs to move. The first few steps were pure agony; each time her foot landed on the ground, fire raced up her calf and her leg buckled.

Then a miracle happened.

The pain disappeared, washed away by a cool, energizing wave that flowed through her, leaving her feeling like she could run another ten miles. At the same time, John stumbled and she had to support him. She glanced down and saw a faint green glow around his right calf.

In the next instant it disappeared, simultaneous with her experiencing a sudden loss of energy. Not to the point where she couldn't run, but enough to know she wasn't going to be sprinting for two miles, let alone ten.

What the h.e.l.l just happened? she wondered as John picked up the pace again.

It was almost as if...I shared my Power with John. Used his life force to Cure myself and then gave him back some of my energy, balanced it between us so neither of us would collapse.

All without even thinking about it.

More changes in her Powers? It was getting so she couldn't keep up with them.

Then there was no time to even think about what had happened as they reached the fence separating the field from the beckoning safety of the woods.

"Wait." John held out a trembling arm to stop her from moving forward. His breath came in huge, wheezing gasps. "Let me...test it...first."

Leah didn't even respond; she let him search for a stick while she bent over, her hands on her thighs, and tried to get enough air into her lungs to put out the fire in her chest.

John tossed a branch against the fence and it bounced off.