The Enlightened (Mind Dimensions #3)(36)

Chapter 13





“Stop,” I manage to say, proving my jaw isn’t broken. “I just want to talk.”

As I speak, I block a full-fledged roundhouse kick with my elbow. Caleb aimed the kick at my head. Had it landed, it would’ve knocked me out. Instead, as my arm meets his foot, I hear a cracking-like thud. The pain from my jaw suddenly feels like child’s play. My jaw might be fine, but my elbow is definitively broken.

“No offense, kid, but this time, I will kill you,” he says, and I’m forced to block a hit to my chest with that same broken elbow. The pain makes me see stars. Still, I get a good punch in, my right hand connecting with his ear.

“Nice one,” he says. “So you did learn something.” He goes to strike me with his right elbow, but I duck under the attack. “Like I was trying to say, it’s not personal,” he continues. “It’s just that when you’re Inert, you’ll be much easier to catch.” He follows those words up with a double-feint move—or I hope it was something that clever, because he lands a punch to my midsection, and while I’m distracted by the lack of air in my lungs, pushes me back, tripping me as I stumble.

I fall to the ground, and on my way down, I think how this is probably the way my frozen self felt when I pushed him into the cart. I must look just as ridiculous. Then I land and can’t reflect on how I look or anything else. The impact manages to squeeze even more air out of me. My body feels cold. I must be going into shock. From about a foot away, Caleb approaches me. Why is this taking so f*cking long? I wonder.

Caleb raises his foot, and my mind does that thing again, the thing it did when I was fighting Sam in the Quiet on the bridge. It feels a lot like when I’m about to phase into the Quiet. The ‘I’m dying so my life is about to flash before my eyes’ kind of feeling. Only I’m already in the Quiet. Through the pain, a still-rational part of my brain tries to encourage the feeling, to channel it. My hope is to phase in—to reach what I dubbed Level 2 of the Quiet. I remember how horrible the pain was when Caleb kicked me earlier today. I even try breathing faster, inspired by the technique Hillary taught me.

The kick connects with my ribs, and all I get is debilitating pain that becomes my only point of focus. I open my eyes and see Caleb’s leg raised for another kick, this one aimed for my head. At least the pain will be over when I die, even though I’ll wake up Inert. Instead of feeling the pain of impact, I hear a gunshot.

I open my eyes again. I didn’t realize I closed them. Caleb’s face is the epitome of surprise. He’s holding his chest, blood seeping from between his fingers.

Then a second shot fires.

Caleb’s head explodes. His lifeless body falls to the ground, not far from mine.

Some bits and pieces of him splatter onto my clothes. I even feel something on my face. I’m in too much pain and shock to feel disgust, or to even gloat. I just lie there, willing myself to get up but failing miserably.

“Come on, honey,” Mira says as she grabs me gently under the armpits. I’m in too much pain to wonder whether my ears are deceiving me. Surely Mira didn’t just use a term of endearment with me? “Grab his feet,” she says more gruffly. Must be talking to Eugene. “Careful, you graceless dimwit.”

They drag me somewhere, and in a haze, I recall where.

“Why the f*ck did you wait?” Mira says to Eugene. “Why didn’t you shoot him immediately?”

“He was too close to Darren,” Eugene says. “I didn’t have a clean shot. Why didn’t you shoot?

“Same f*cking reason, but unlike you, my angle really was shitty,” she says. “This is the last time I listen to that stupid little Pusher bitch. How many of her plans need to end in f*cking disaster before I learn?”

“Darren is alive, and Caleb is dead. Hillary’s plan wasn’t so bad,” Eugene objects.

“If we hadn’t hid, we could’ve killed Caleb quicker,” she says.

“Using Darren as a distraction was smart. If Caleb had seen us, with guns, he would’ve been rolling about like a maniac, the way Sam did, remember? And that didn’t go so well.”

“Whatever,” she says and stops. “Roll up his jeans and help me put Darren’s hand on his leg.”

We brought my frozen self here so I could phase out quickly. I’m grateful to Hillary for thinking of this precaution. If they’d had to carry me through the whole airport, I think I might’ve died on the way. As my hand touches the hairy leg of my other self, we phase out.

Oh, the bliss of not having broken ribs, elbows, and other parts. As the noise of the airport returns, I relish not being in pain. Even the discomfort of my full bladder is a welcome contrast to the debilitating agony I experienced in the Quiet.

So the first part of the plan worked. Caleb is Inert. He’s still very dangerous, but he can’t see the next part coming by using the Quiet. The next part of the plan is where my friends and my aunt slow him down, the corollary to which being that it will slow the monks down, too.

My part is next, and it’ll be tricky. I have to deal with the monks approaching me, starting with the Master, who’s closest. I also need to do this as quickly as I can.

I watch as the Master closes the distance between us. The monk behind him is on his burner phone. Crap. Everyone will know where I am. I need to deal with the Master even more quickly if I’m to have a chance at getting out of this.