He wouldn’t let Kim down. He was damned if he’d let her down.

Psychic attacks came next: nameless dreads and anxiety attacks, illogical aversions and paranoias that jerked through his head like razor wire. The thought of going on became impossible, intolerable, unthinkable. But JC did it anyway. He snarled into the face of the attacks, shouldering aside his fears through sheer stubborn will-power. He didn’t look back for Happy and Melody. He knew they’d still be there.

And that was when Natasha Chang and Erik Grossman launched their attack from ambush. At the last moment, Happy sensed somebody’s presence and yelled a warning, and that was enough to save JC and his team. One word of warning, and their training kicked in. They all threw themselves in different directions, as a fusillade of bullets ripped through the air where they’d been. Puffs of pulverised stone and plaster flew on the air as bullets punched long lines of ragged holes across the corridor walls, and the occasional ricochet screamed through the still air. But not one bullet hit its intended target. JC and Happy and Melody had gone to ground, tucked away in convenient hiding-places. Natasha and Erik were forced to leave their own hiding-places in search of targets. Natasha stalked down the empty corridor, gun held out professionally before her, while Erik scurried along behind, clutching his gun with both podgy hands.

Happy hit them both with a telepathic blast, his chemically enhanced brain shouldering Natasha’s defences aside long enough to undermine her thoughts and disrupt Erik’s. Both Project agents yelled aloud as their guns seemed to become blisteringly hot, and instinctively they threw their weapons away. The guns were still in mid air when JC and Melody and Happy erupted out of their hiding-places and threw themselves at Natasha and Erik.

Natasha realised immediately what had happened, pulled her mental shields back into place, and hit Happy with a telepathic onslaught that stopped him dead in his tracks. The two most powerful minds went head to head, while their bodies stood perfectly still, staring unblinkingly into each other’s eyes. Natasha had intended to go after JC, as the most powerful member of the Institute team, and because she ached to test herself against him; but Happy had proved himself the biggest immediate threat, so she had to kill him first. Happy caught that thought and laughed breathlessly at her.

Erik drew his Aboriginal pointing bone and stabbed it at Melody as she ran towards him. She changed direction immediately, and the tiles on the walls behind her cracked and exploded one after the other as the bone’s influence moved in an arc across them. Erik raked the pointing bone back and forth increasingly wildly, spitting out a series of baby swear-words, but Melody jumped and spun and ducked with unexpected acrobatic grace, always one step ahead of him.