Her light was rapidly fading.
From behind, Tan caught the girl in a chokehold. He brought his knife around with his other arm and placed its tip against the centre of her chest, which was now completely devoid of light. The girl grunted something indecipherable as she clawed at Tan. But deactivated, she was no match for him.
Roman watched in disbelief as her face slowly turned blue and her struggling got weaker. What the hell had happened? She had been deactivated… somehow. After a minute her arms went limp and her eyes closed. Tan released her and she collapsed.
There was a long silence. Tan gently prodded the girl’s body with his boot. “Well, she wasn’t overly friendly,” he muttered.
“I told you they were anti-social.” Roman flipped the Adrenalite onto her back. She was still breathing, faintly. Roman’s gaze moved to the steel needle sticking out of her right shoulder. It pulled out of her flesh cleanly.
Caleb knelt beside Roman. “That wasn’t from you?”
Roman shook his head.
Caleb took it from Roman, gave it a quick examination, then tossed it. “It must have been laced with defoxican,” he said. “The militia are more prepared than we thought.”
“How long have they had this?” Roman said, furious. “We’ve been the ones who’ve actually been out fighting the Adrenalites, and Juliette kept technology like this a secret from us?”
“Turns out she’s not the charming angel of trust and honesty that we believed she was,” Tan said.
“You’re damn right about that.” Roman slapped the Adrenalite across the cheek, then again. The third time, she opened her eyes. She stared at him, terrified, and began to crawl away. Roman pounced on her, using his legs to pin her arms against the ground. The girl hissed and cursed and spat at him.
Roman grabbed her by the hair and yanked. “Where’s Candle?”
“Go screw yourself!”
Roman held out his other hand to Tan, motioning for his knife. He didn’t like the idea of hurting a half-naked, beaten girl. But he needed information. Now. He pressed the edge of the knife against her wrist. “Don’t make me do this.”
A flash of fear showed through her defiant expression, but she kept her mouth shut.
Feeling nauseous, Roman pushed the blade through skin and tendons. It came to a grinding halt against her bone. She screamed. Roman pressed harder. “Where. The. Fuck. Is. Candle?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered. “I don’t fucking know. We all split up.”
“Then where’s Ashton Spencer?”
“If I tell you, you’ll kill me?”
“No.”
“Please. Do it.”
Roman blinked. “You want to die?”
She nodded, her breath coming in gulps. “I don’t want to be… taken.”
Roman thought back to Burrstone, taking his life rather than being captured. Was it Candle’s influence that made these Adrenalites want to be martyrs? Roman didn’t want to kill her, but he supposed he didn’t need her alive either. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.”
Roman glanced at the knife, still half buried in her wrist. He didn’t feel like he deserved thanking.
“Spencer’s in the control building,” the girl said. “In the middle of the station. You’ll know it when you see it.” She glanced at her bleeding wrist, then quickly shut her eyes. “Now do it, you bastard.”
Roman stabbed her in the heart. She died quickly, at least. He stood and wiped the knife on his trousers. “Let’s go,” he said, eager to get away from the corpse.
“We’re going after Spencer now?” Caleb asked. “Our target is Candle. Gavin won’t—”
“I know.” Roman strode further into the station, Caleb and Tan falling into step behind him. “But if we capture Spencer, then we have some sort of leverage over Candle when we find him.” Roman turned a corner, quickening his pace. “And, at the least, we’ll have someone who can identify Candle.”
Tan looked skeptical. “I don’t imagine he’ll feel like helping us.”
“I don’t give a damn what he feels like.” Roman handed Tan’s knife back to him. “And if we pull it off, then we can send Spencer back to Juliette after.”
“It’s a hell of a long shot,” Caleb said.
“You got any better ideas?”
Caleb didn’t respond.
“Yeah. Thought so.”
29
To Sparks, the station was a maze, but Candle moved through it like he knew each alley by heart. He bolted across the rooftops, not bothering to check if Sparks was following. Watching him, Sparks knew why so many Adrenalites would choose to follow a man like this.
On the ground below, a squad of a dozen militia stood in a cluster. Sparks was about to call out, but Candle was already in the air, dropping into the middle of them.
Sparks’ was a second behind him. He kicked a militia in the face as he came down, then crashed into another. He quickly jabbed his index and middle finger into the man’s eyes, bursting them, and leapt back to his feet.
The militia never stood a chance. Candle spun in a whirlwind of punches and kicks, and the militia crumbled before they even had a chance to react. Sparks bent low, grabbing the nearest militia by his leg. He lifted the man up, carrying him over himself and slamming him to the ground on his other side. Sparks felt the bones in the leg shatter.
Five heartbeats later, it was over. The militia lay scattered on the ground, dead. Sparks took a moment to appreciate their work. With him and Candle together, they were unstoppable. “That was fun,” he said breathlessly. “They didn’t even—”
“We’re not finished.” Candle was already running deeper into the station.
Not that great at conversation, is he? Sparks snatched a knife from a dead militia and followed.
The next three groups of militia couldn’t challenge them any more than the first. Soon Sparks’ entire body was covered in his blue light, his heart hammering a frenzied tempo that drove him on. Candle was damn good. Sparks was the faster fighter, but Candle used his size and strength to his advantage. No militia even got close to striking him.
Sparks wanted to fight Candle; that would be a proper challenge.
They stopped dead when they came across the body of an Adrenalite. He looked even younger than Sparks, and his mouth was stuck in a final grimace of pain. Three crossbow bolts protruded from his chest. Candle crouched beside the corpse.
“Who as he?” Sparks asked.
“His name was Wire,” Candle said, running his hand over the boy’s face and closing his eyelids. “But he wanted us to call him Max. He said he wanted a real name.”
“Was he a good fighter?”
“He was a good person.”
“Oh.” Sparks puzzled over that answer. Why should Candle care what kind of person anyone was? You couldn’t defeat the Ministries by being good. After a long minute Candle stood up again, he didn’t look at Sparks as he asked, “How do you feel about revenge?”
“I consider myself a fan.”
“Then let’s kill more of these fuckers.” Candle led the way onward.
Five dead militia later, they came across a pile of corpses scattered through an alleyway. Sparks curled up his nose at the stench of blood and vomit and shit. In the middle of the bodies, two Adrenalites — a man and a woman — lay beside each other, each bleeding from a dozen bullet wounds. Candle cursed.
The man had a steel spike sticking out of his thigh, just like the one that had hit Sparks. Was that what deactivated me? Is that what happened to this guy?
Sparks imagined the Adrenalite’s horror when he had been deactivated. The girl must have tried to protect him. And now they were both dead. Seeing them made Sparks realize the unpleasant truth: the militia had the advantage in numbers, and, despite Sparks and Candle’s best efforts, they were winning. How long before he and Candle got unlucky and were killed? If one of them got deactivated by one of those strange bolts, it could be all over.