Omega The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,89

ineffectually against me.

“No,” he said in a strained moan, “please...I don’t want to...not with you, not my soul...”

“Don’t worry,” I said, and let him go before punching him in the jaw so hard I heard it break. “I have standards, you know. And frankly, my psycho-mutant quota is filled for five lifetimes.” I let his limp body slip from my grasp. “Looks like you’ll live to be a moron for another day, Bjorn,” I said to his unconscious form. “Bad news for you, worse news for the rest of us.”

“Hey,” a voice came to me, waking me from the slight trance I seemed to be in, squatted as I was over Bjorn’s fallen form. It was Harding. “You said the building was gonna blow up, remember?”

“Yes. Right.” I hoisted Bjorn onto my shoulder. “Let’s go, people!” I shouted, rallying the half-dozen or so teenagers. They were huddled, frightened after the battle they’d just witnessed, their hushed voices bouncing off the walls. “Last one out gets to die in a horrible explosion.” I gestured to Joshua. “Pick up Kurt, will you?”

He raised an eyebrow at me, then looked at the fallen form of Hannegan, lying prostrate in the glass partition between the doors that led out of the dormitory. “He’s kind of a big guy.”

“What, you haven’t manifested yet?” I said, drawing an ire-filled look. “I just saved your life, remember?”

I caught subtlety from him, and saw that confidence again. “Maybe someday I’ll repay the favor,” he said as he made for Hannegan, stepping gingerly out of the broken glass hole that Hannegan’s body had made when Bjorn had thrown it out the window. We fled, Harding and I following the last of the kids out of the dormitory and reaching a safe distance of about a hundred yards away as the building burst into a ball of fire. The force of the explosion threw me off my feet, sending Bjorn to the ground and me ass over teakettle into a bed of leaves.

I looked up at the orange glow all around me, saw the chill of my breath fog the air, felt the pains in my body—shoulder, back, ribs. I could smell the acrid smoke of all the destruction wrought, could almost taste the stench in the air, the oily, chemical flame smell from the campus burning—my home. I tilted my head in time to watch the headquarters go up in a blast of flame and force, the biggest explosion of the night. I felt a quiver in the ground, and I wondered where Zack was, where Old Man Winter and Ariadne were—where M-Squad was.

“You okay?” Harding spoke from above me, still holding Kurt on his shoulders, hands anchored to Hannegan’s back and pants leg.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, forcing myself to sit up and clutching my shoulder to me. “You take Hannegan and the others and get to the woods. Get off campus. Do what I told Hannegan to do and find a way out of here.”

He stared back at me through the glasses, and he looked unbowed, cool. More than I felt, that was for sure. “Come with me.”

“Can’t do that,” I said, and I stood, feeling like a zombie coming back to life. I saw the others that were with us, the kids, saw them all recovering from the force of the explosion; it looked like almost every one of them had been knocked off their feet as well. “There’s only a few of you; get to safety. Get a headcount, move together, and I’ll be along in a little bit, once I finish searching for survivors.”

He watched me carefully. “Looking for your boyfriend?”

I sighed. “Among others.” I couldn’t see much motion through the smoke and shadows that now filled the once-peaceful, tree=lined campus. “Get ‘em out of here, Joshua. Keep them safe.”

He shrugged, no mean feat with Hannegan on his shoulders. “I’ll get ‘em out of here. But I’m going my own way once they’re clear. I’ve got things to do.”

I shook my head, in no mood to argue. “Fine. Whatever. Thanks for your help.”

“So long, Sienna,” he said, carrying Kurt on his shoulders and waving to the others as I watched them fall in behind him in a sort of procession, the flickering flames of our campus lighting their passage through the smoke and destruction—their passage through hell. “I’ll see you again.”

“Why do I not doubt that?” I asked as the last of them disappeared into the smoke being blown from the dormitory fire. I