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Back Containment
Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. TWENTY-NINE
  32. THIRTY
  33. THIRTY-ONE
  34. THIRTY-TWO
  35. THIRTY-THREE
  36. THIRTY-FOUR
  37. THIRTY-FIVE
  38. THIRTY-SIX
  39. THIRTY-SEVEN
  40. THIRTY-EIGHT
  41. THIRTY-NINE
  42. FORTY
  43. FORTY-ONE
  44. FORTY-TWO
  45. FORTY-THREE
  46. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  47. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  48. Copyright

I dropped my head to my hands and forced myself not to hyperventilate. Those people were dead. I couldn’t help them. But my father and, I hoped, my friends were still alive. If the aliens had killed those people, and I had to assume that was the case, even though I’d never seen them attack like that before, then they were cleaning house, and I didn’t have much time. And on the off chance that it wasn’t the aliens, I had even less. It put a time limit on the driving need to figure out what was going on and who was responsible.

Either way, I couldn’t keep sitting here.

I willed my legs to move. At last I managed to stagger to my knees. That seemed to give me some strength. Gripping the wall, I pulled myself to my feet and then, much more cautiously than before, I opened the door to engineering.

THIRTY-SEVEN

I PLASTERED MYSELF AGAINST THE wall and held as still and silent as possible. The room lacked windows. A solid wall ran the length of the corridor, so I couldn’t even peek inside. But when nothing screamed or lunged or attacked, I risked peering around the corner.

Engineering, thank God, was not the slaughterhouse I’d seen in the command center. Instead it was totally empty.

I ran through a list of my friends’ powers, but it seemed like they had to be close enough for me to use them, and I didn’t know where anyone was. I didn’t even know my own range. As a test, I stared at my own hand and willed it invisible. It remained stubbornly perceptible. I had opened doors without Liam around, though. Why? Because he’d been closer than I realized, or because something about his power specifically connected to me? I chewed on my lip as I considered that, but in the end, I dismissed the idea. For one, I didn’t see why Liam’s ability should be different from anyone else’s, which meant he’d probably been closer than I’d realized when I used his abilities before. Why, I didn’t know. I didn’t understand anything about the guy and wasn’t likely to start now.