Gunther-Hagen craned his neck to look at me. “You want me to stay and watch their expressions as the reactor detonates, is that it? I agree, it would be most entertaining to watch.”

I ground my teeth together and shot upward, flying high into the atmosphere and east over the ocean, until I was sure the kids would be safe.

“Now I’m the one who’ll be making threats.” I hooked one arm beneath his neck and gave a little yank. He coughed, his hands reaching for my arm. “So you’d better start talking.”

“Ask me anything you’d like, Maximum,” Gunther-Hagen said, evidently enjoying this. “I know once you hear my reasoning…”

“Don’t count on it. Now, how did you plan it?” I demanded. “And who helped you?”

If any of those scumbags were still alive, we’d deal with them as well.

Dr. Gunther-Hagen pressed his lips together into an ironic smile. “The fates aligned, you might say. I barely had to plan at all… Dr. Martinez did most of the work for me.”

I blinked hard at that. “I was with my mom the day of the explosion,” I snapped. “She was trying to protect everyone she could.”

“Oh, her work with me started much earlier than that. You’ll remember her involvement in Angel’s modification, I’m sure.”

My gaze faltered.

“Jeb knew about Angel’s gift, but it was Dr. Martinez who founded the Psychic Initiative,” Dr. G-H continued. “She said Angel was just a child—a powerful child who didn’t know how to manage her power. That capable, responsible adults needed to take over, so we could learn about the risks of the future.” His voice had a dark edge to it. Though I was the one gripping his throat, it felt like he was moving toward checkmate. “All I had to do was fund it.”

“My mom was just trying to save the planet!” I said defensively.

“Oh, I assure you, Maximum, so am I. We just had different ideas about how to go about it. Dr. Martinez wanted to alert the world powers about the asteroid and blow it out of the sky with nuclear missiles. But I persuaded her that we should handle things more privately.” The corners of his eyes wrinkled with amusement. “So as to prevent panic.”

“So instead you unleashed a deadly plague to kill ninety-nine percent of the world, let the asteroid destroy even more people, then nuked all the cities for good measure,” I said.

I remembered the pictures we’d scrolled through on the computer. The images of people sobbing, people praying, people running even when they had nowhere to go.

I didn’t know how he could live with himself. But then, he wouldn’t have to much longer.

88