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  A single word crept into my mind.

  Taser.

  I'd never imagined one would take me down.

  The onslaught continued for seconds. Minutes. Hours. Xavier lay next to me, shaking, a spring sticking out from his back. He had joined me. We were doomed.

  The agony stopped and I lay there, helpless, as helpless as Xavier must have been back in the ruins. A faint zapping noise continued for a moment, then stopped as Xavier's tormentor decided we'd both had enough. The pad was still stuck to my arm and terror gripped me. My attacker could torture me again any second.

  "We will tase you again," a woman said from over me, "if you try to attack. Now, let's zip tie these two and take them in."

  Chapter Four

  The zip ties binding my wrists were uncomfortable, but nothing compared to the taser.

  The ATC had taken the pads off of us, tied our hands behind our backs and then led us into the office. Bystanders tried to creep closer to watch the scene, but angry shouts and yells from Jamal for them all to step back kept the growing crowd at bay. I even caught a phone held in the air by a tall man, filming us and our humiliation.

  The small ATC office was one long room with several steel doors that must lead to holding cells. It smelled like antiseptic. There was a heavy mahogany desk towards the front with a leather chair that reminded me of Beatrix's. She would fit in perfectly here if she wasn't a half-demon.

  The ATC people--I counted ten of them in all--ordered us to sit in some chairs on the other side of the big desk, facing the leather chair. After propping my sword against a cabinet and closing us all in the office, a woman nodded to Jamal. It was a signal for him to sit in the chair and face us with the most serious, you're-about-to-die expression I could imagine.

  "So you like to tase people now," I said, aware of how stupid that sounded when I had been ready to stab someone with that sword, someone who just might have burned from the inside out. Even my urges to hurt people were getting worse. I was getting reckless. Angry. Ready to lash out.

  "We do not like to tase anybody," Jamal said. "You were ready to fight. What did you expect us to do?"

  "You have a good point," I said. Jamal smelled like pancakes and bacon. My stomach rumbled so loud that I was sure he could hear it. Great. It was hard when Normals had a good breakfast. That blood usually smelled the best. "The thing is, we were just walking out of here and about to leave you alone."

  Jamal gave me the typical ATC spiel. "Haven't you ever wanted to be Normal?" he asked. "We can help you with that."

  "I'd love to be," I said, looking him right in those brown, merciless eyes. "The thing is, you guys don't actually help with that. I was doing a good job of looking Normal on my own--you know, not fighting anyone, not biting anyone--until you guys broke into my house with Thoreau. Why don't you guys pay attention to what the scientists are starting to say? It's not my fault I'm like this. It's not any Abnormal's fault they are the way they are."

  Outside, the crowd pressed in again, trying to peek in the office. This must be exploding on social media right now. Soon, everyone would know that the two of us were in here. I caught glimpses of more phones being held up and even a mini camcorder, probably brought along for a vacation. Airports were bound to be full of this stuff. This could be good or this could be bad.

  Jamal wasn't having any of it. "You chose your fate," he said, all convinced. Then he turned his gaze to Xavier. "You are still a mystery, but we have tests to figure you out. I don't expect you to talk, but we'll uncover what you are soon enough. At best, you are a Normal who sympathizes with these people who want to hurt us. At worst, you are some kind of Mage. Those eyes of yours are suspicious." He looked at me again. "You wear convincing colored contact lenses, I must say. If I were you, I wouldn't want to walk around with those reddish eyes. It would make it so much harder for you to disguise yourself as you look for prey. Though, with your tendency to break into places, you may not need them at all."

  Xavier and I had to get out of here. Our parents were waiting and no one would save them but us. I eyed the distance between us. Two feet, and both of us had our hands bound with stupid zip ties. We had to be touching to Transpose. Even if we broke free, they would tase us again, a thought that made pure terror pump through me. I had faced demons and dragons and werewolves ready to tear out my throat, but a taser gun was my downfall.

  "Whatever," I said. "Now what?" I pulled against the zip tie, but it remained in place. Thorne had once taught us how to break zip ties in class. You had to raise your hands over your head and bring them down quickly, but there was no doing that when my hands were behind my back unless I wanted to dislocate both shoulders. Even with my strength, I wasn't sure that I could do that part.

  "Treatment, of course," Jamal said while another one of the ATC goons breathed on my back. "You will find the treatment centers very comfortable. We treat Abnormals very humanely in this society. You are very lucky, considering what you have done. In the past, Abnormals were often burned or hanged. Torture was not uncommon."

  Xavier snorted. "Do you know what really happens in those treatment centers? Sir?"

  Jamal raised his eyebrows. "You've been in one?"

  "How many have you seen the inside of?" I asked, looking at the walls. For the first time, I realized there were pictures hanging everywhere, of nice brick buildings with the word ATC plastered across the front in red lettering. Other photos showed what looked like rooms with simple beds, bookshelves, and televisions. There was even a picture of several Abnormals in a cafeteria, eating together. A very hairy man who might be a werewolf had a salad and a pale woman with reddish eyes had been served a fruit smoothie. They were all smiling. On closer inspection, I realized that these weren't photos at all, but computer-made images. It was there in the lines, in the way the colors met up, but it wasn't something a Normal or any human would notice. These ATC people, like everyone else, had been tricked. Thoreau and his inner circle didn't want these normal goons to know the truth.

  Jamal shifted. "I have not been to the facilities personally, but I have heard good things about them."

  "How many Abnormals do you know personally," I asked, "who have gone into the centers and come back out as Normals? If you have a good track record, believe me, I'd love to give this whole thing a try."

  Jamal remained quiet. I didn't have to be an expert to know that the answer was zero.

  "Do you know what you're working for, man?" Xavier asked. "The ATC is pretty much run by Thoreau, who, by the way, was a demon. He collects Abnormals to make them work for him or he destroys them. He was wanting to take over the world. He makes everyone think he's a Normal mayor who wants to help with the problem that's supposed to be us. Did you know he was planning to enslave all Normals, too?"

  Jamal stood up as if someone had aimed the taser at his backside. "That is the most ridiculous story I've ever heard," he said. "Thoreau is not a demon. He's the best mayor Cumberland has ever had. Since he's come into office--"

  "Thoreau's dead," I blurted.

  Jamal stopped, went very quiet, and leveled a glare at me. "I've heard nothing about that," he said. "It would have been on the news. As far as I know, he's just left to go meet some international ATC people."

  "He went to go sacrifice some Normal people," I said. What was I doing? "Why don't you guys try calling him? See if he picks up? I'm sure you have his number on speed dial since you must donate to all his campaigns. Unless, of course, you're just a bunch of low-level guys who couldn't get a better job somewhere else."

  Jamal's face hardened. The others around us shifted. "Maybe we should give Thoreau a call," a woman said. "These two did get off a plane from overseas and the mayor did go in the direction their flights came from. If anything, it will calm our nerves. I'm about ninety percent sure they're just giving us a story."

  Xavier looked at me like I was crazy. I couldn't even mouth anything to him. I was stalling and angry and losing control of myself all over again. Maybe worrying
about the mayor would distract them and we could find an escape. Besides, Thoreau wouldn't pick up. He was too crispy for that and they had no proof we'd done anything. That would drag out their little investigation and keep us from going to the ATC building for a bit longer.

  "Maybe we should," Jamal said. "I'm sure our mayor is fine."

  Xavier stared at me again. "Would his phone even ring?" he whispered.

  I wasn't sure if Thoreau's phone had survived the explosion, which seemed to only destroy organic stuff like flesh. His suit had. If the phone had survived, I wondered who would pick up. I watched Jamal take out his own phone and scroll through a bunch of contacts. If anything, this would buy us some time before we got loaded into any ATC vans. I pulled against the binds again. My sword was sitting up against the file cabinet, begging me to use it. I shouldn't hurt these people, especially if they really thought they were helping us, but I wanted to. I might not have a choice if Xavier and I were going to avoid a fate worse than death. Someone else would head the ATC once they figured out Thoreau was gone. It might be Marissa. She wouldn't be any kinder to us.

  At last, Jamal lifted the phone to his ear. I could hear it ringing on the other end. It rang...and rang...while Xavier tensed in his chair. I did the same. A look of worry crept over Jamal's features.

  But then a voice answered on the other side, too muffled to make out.

  "Hey, sir," Jamal said in a very friendly voice. "This is Jamal S. from the Cumberland Airport ATC office. We have one Alyssa Choy and one unknown teenage male in our custody."

  He paused. The voice he got must have been a voicemail. But then Jamal nodded like he was having an actual conversation.

  "Yes. Alyssa Choy. You say the boy's name is probably Xavier?"

  I jumped in my chair and one of the ATC people drew closer to me. I could smell the metal of the taser. It was a warning. Don't move.

  Something was very, very not right here.

  The voice continued on the other end of the phone. Something about it sounded familiar. It was raspy, like dry leaves, but at the same time it was deep, like some ancient void.

  All of the color drained out of Xavier's face.

  "Yes, we can hold them here for your arrival if you'd like to see them personally," Jamal said. "Have a good flight, sir." He snapped his phone shut and glared at me. "Why did you tell such a horrible story?"

  "To have something to laugh about?" I asked, feeling very small and vulnerable.

  Jamal waved to his colleagues. "Place them both in separate cells," he ordered. "Thoreau just told me that the boy has teleporting abilities but I don't think he'll leave without the girl."

  Xavier and I exchanged a look of horror as the ATC folks yanked us to our feet.

  The rite.

  We hadn't just resurrected Leon.

  We had also accidentally brought Thoreau back.

  Chapter Five

  "What the hell?" I muttered to myself as the steel door of the holding cell closed behind me. Nothing but white walls and a tiled floor surrounded me.

  We had screwed up.

  The mayor of Cumberland was back.

  Something had been off with Thoreau's voice on the other end of the phone, but the sense that I was listening to some deep, dark void had been there. How had we messed this up? Sure, Thoreau's remains had been there for the rite, but the rite had required some of the dead person's fresh blood to be in the circle, too. None of Thoreau's had been in the circle. Just Xavier's, which had come from Leon.

  And if Thoreau was back, didn't that mean he could kill Leon and try to use his energy against the Underground all over again?

  Sheer panic swept through me. All it would take was killing Leon, hard as that would be. But then I shook my head and forced myself to think. The full Dark Council meeting wasn't for another three weeks and Thoreau needed all of the members there to do the extraction rite--or at least little pieces of them. I was gone, so no go there. The other members weren't supposed to make it for another two or three weeks. That bought time. And Thoreau was flying back here to get us right now. He couldn't have sent that wave of Leon's energy through the Underground.

  But he was still coming for us right now...

  I slumped against the wall of the plain white cell. "Oh, crap."

  It was quite possible that Thoreau, Allunna, and Leon were all coming to murder us right now.

  Now we potentially had three major enemies after us all over again. Four, if I counted Beatrix. Five, if we included the ATC. I supposed the ATC and Thoreau were pretty much the same thing, so maybe it was four. That wasn't so bad, right?

  I tilted my head back to rest against the wall. We were both so, so going to die.

  I couldn't tell Xavier my thoughts. Judging from what I had heard outside of the cell, they had led him all the way down to the end of the hall where he could await our doom in silence. Even through the steel door, I could make out faint voices talking about how dangerous we were, what I'd done to that librarian, and about the crowd that was still hanging around the office outside snapping pictures and getting on social media.

  I had to get out of this zip tie. I had gone through worse. It was infuriating to think of a strip of plastic keeping my wrists together. I had to have my arms free when they opened the steel door again. I wondered if I could summon some of Xavier's War Magic around my wrists, but that fire didn't burn anything that wasn't flesh. It could throw things back, but it couldn't burn them. Plastic was invulnerable to it. So much for that.

  It would have to be brute force, then. I could heal from whatever injury I got doing this. Over the last couple of weeks, I had gotten used to pain. It was a regular part of fighting and getting hurt. It wouldn't last very long with my healing.

  Standing, I lifted my arms up behind me and brought them back down against my back, transferring all my force to the zip tie. The tie just dug into my wrists and threatened to open them. What would Thorne do in this situation? He had demonstrated this escape technique with his arms in front of him, not behind. The physics had to be just right. I had to get my arms in front of me somehow.

  Could I step through them and bring them around?

  I wasn't a contortionist but I had to try. I reminded myself that I would heal from whatever happened. I kneeled, trying to pick up my leg and get it through my bound arms, but it was no use. My muscles screamed as I tried to stretch.

  "Oomph!"

  With a flash of magenta light, a body landed on top of me and we both went toppling to the floor.

  "Alyssa," Xavier breathed as the column of magenta fire closed behind him. He had Transposed from his cell to mine.

  We lay there in a heap, my leg halfway through my folded arms. Every muscle started to cramp and I desperately scrambled to get up. "How did you do that?" I asked.

  He got up, which was no easy task since his hands were still bound behind his back. "Easy. It was a short distance and I could picture the cell you were in perfectly. I figured it was a plain white square, like mine."

  "Lucky guess," I said. I was very, very relieved that he was here. I struggled to get up and Xavier was helpless to do anything but watch. "I take it your magic sucks against plastic." Even though he was still bound, I was happy to see him. At least we could wait out our fate together.

  Xavier nodded. "This is humiliating. I can knock down doors and drill holes through fences, but there's no way I can get this off. I can't really throw a charge at myself."

  "Well, there's two of us in here now," I said. "How drained are you from Transposing?" The air in the room was still hot from his entry. I had forgotten that happened when a War Mage Transposed to you. It reminded me of the first time he had come to my house to get me away from Thoreau's people.

  "Not very," Xavier said. "It was such a short distance it didn't need much energy at all. I'd Transpose out of here to get help, but I wouldn't have the strength to get back in and you'd be gone by time I was able to reach you again. We might be able to help each other with our ties.
After that, there's the matter of getting out of these cells. Guess what? I know this is a shocker, but the doors lock from the outside."

  "Of course," I said. "Then after the doors, we have all the guys out there." I eyed the door. It was steel. Thick. Even the tiny glass window towards the top of the door was thick, so much that the glass itself had a greenish tint. My strength might not be a match for that door. Neither would Xavier's War Magic. But we had to take this one step at a time.

  "Thoreau's flight should take forever," Xavier said. "Alyssa. Look at my arm." He turned sideways so I could see it.

  I did. He had managed to roll his sleeve up by rubbing it against his side. I paused over his crossed swords, even over the faint pair that betrayed that he'd been Bound to someone else before, before I realized it.

  Both of his victory marks were now missing, the marks that said he had killed two demons. Only bare skin remained.

  "See?" Xavier asked. "This means both Allunna and Thoreau are both alive again. He's back. We messed up. I expected Allunna to come back when we resurrected Leon, but the mayor? How?"

  "I think I know," I said. "We shouldn't have dragged Thoreau's body into the circle."

  "But he would have needed to have his fresh blood inside the circle!" We stood face to face now. Xavier was turning greenish like he was about to be sick.

  "He still smelled like sewage," I said. "The War Magic must have only burned the outside of him. Maybe there was fresh blood left inside of his body."

  Xavier sighed. "We left him lying there for a while," Xavier said, "before we even dragged him into the circle. Remember? We explored the tunnels first and then we dragged him in. The rite needed fresh blood."

  "Maybe demon blood stays good for longer than human blood," I said. "The portal worked with Beatrix's drying blood all over the sword, after all."

  "But that blood was only a minute old," Xavier said, turning away. His fists were clenched and his skin bulged against the zip ties. "This is really awesome!"