Whisper (Whisper #1)(90)

“Cam, no, don’t do this,” I plead with her as I sidestep. The action keeps me from her clutches, but only because my legs fail and I crash back onto the floor. She looms over me, her eyes just as listless as when she held me down on the table. I can’t bear to see her like this. I know Keeda said we wouldn’t escape if we tried to help the others, but right now, I’m not so sure we’re going to escape. And after having witnessed Cami act as Vanik’s mindless pawn … I simply can’t leave her under Manning’s grip. Not if it’s in my power to do something about it.

I dredge up every scrap of focus within me as I concentrate on the Cami I know. As I think about her pancakes and her smiles and the friendship she extended without expecting anything in return, not even my words. I call to mind her humor, her affection, her compassion. I hold on to all that she is as I stare into her eyes and imagine a tether between her and Manning; a tether I visualize severing when I say, in a croaking voice, “Be free.”

Light shoots out of me and hits her in the chest. She gasps loudly and goes back on a foot, a hand flying up to her head as if she’s in pain.

“Cami?”

My voice is nothing but a whisper. But it’s filled with everything I feel — fear … uncertainty … hope.

And when Cami’s eyes meet mine again, they’re no longer listless — they’re filled with tears.

“What — Jane, what happened?” she breathes, looking around the lab at the skirmish playing out.

Except, I can see from her paling face that she already knows, already understands. Manning didn’t have the time to make her forget.

I rise on unsteady legs, but I don’t have a chance to comfort her before Keeda shouts at me from across the room.

“I could use some backup over here!” Her voice is brimming with attitude as she singlehandedly keeps the Speakers back. “Feel free to jump in whenever you want!”

I just used up everything left within me to free Cami.

But then I hear Keeda cry out when Crew lands an attack that grazes along her side, and it’s clear she won’t be able to keep defending against them all for much longer.

“We have to do something,” Cami urges. “We have to —”

“Jane!” Keeda calls, trying to dislodge the numerous arms now grasping at her.

I take a stumbling step forward with Cami right there beside me, and I realize that there’s only one thing I can do in my current state. Only one thing I’m capable of. Only one thing that can help.

I need to lose control.

The monster that was once within me — I need to let it loose.

So I Speak out a single word …

… and stop the world.

Just like with Abby and the bus up on Market Street, the moment I shout the word “STOP!” everything pauses. Speakers halt mid-word and mid-grasp. Manning is still bent over Vanik, but the scientist is awake and half raised as if he’s on his way up to his feet. This alarms me, but I have a more pressing concern: I’m simply too weak for my Spoken command to remain in effect. The outcome is inconsistent — and it’s not holding.

One second the world is paused, and the next it’s moving. Paused, moving, paused, moving. It’s like I’m watching everyone in the room perform a stilted robotic dance.

“Stop!” I try again, but I just don’t have the energy to keep everyone in place, which means my renewed order doesn’t work at all. Realizing this, I grit my teeth and leave Cami’s frozen side, staggering my way into the mess. What little strength I have left is used to pull Keeda’s unresisting body back out, extricating her from the tangle of limbs as I go.

She’s like a dead weight as I stumble-drag her across the room, and I only make it halfway to the door, a few feet away from Cami, when I just can’t hold on anymore and my command fails entirely.

“What —” Keeda sways into me, disoriented, and by some miracle we don’t go down.

“Move!” I tell her.

Fortunately, she reacts faster than I do. She yanks me close, slings my arm around her shoulders and forces me with her toward the door. Cami, quick on her feet, rushes to our side without hesitation, taking half my weight from Keeda.

“Feel free to do that again,” Cami tells me, the two of them struggling to hold me aloft.

“I agree,” Keeda gasps, her free hand pressed to the bleeding wound in her side.

“Can’t,” I pant out. “Nothing left.” I can’t even manage a full sentence.

We’re almost at the door, when the Exodus recruits notice the three of us making a run for it.

“After them!” I hear Vanik yell, confirming that he has regained consciousness. “Don’t let them get away!”

Manning repeats the order, his words powered enough to make the Speakers act instantly — and rabidly. Cami remains free of his grip, however — a small mercy.

I cry out when an invisible knife slashes into the flesh of my upper arm, lacerating partway from shoulder to elbow. Blood gushes out, but slowly — too slowly — because I have so little left in me to lose.

“Hold on!” Keeda tells me as we finally reach the door.

I have no choice but to do as she says, the two girls all but carrying me now. Red is dripping from my arm onto Cami’s back, but I don’t dare ask her to heal me, not right now, not when she needs to concentrate on our escape.