Lights start flashing around the room as my friends utilize their Speaking powers and begin screaming out commands. Cami’s and Riley’s words are quickly destroyed by Kael, while Ward and Arryn protect us all from both Kael’s and Jeremiah’s orders. It’s four against two, but even though we have the numbers, the odds aren’t in our favor. Not against a Creator and a Destroyer.

I try to help, try to imagine something, anything, but it’s impossible to concentrate, impossible to focus while adrenaline is flooding my veins, while I watch my friends fighting for their lives.

It’s impossible to focus as I see Ward land an uppercut to Kael’s jaw only to have the punch returned with equal rage.

It’s impossible to focus as I see Jeremiah slam his elbow into Cami’s nose, her blood spraying everywhere as she crumples to the floor.

It’s impossible to focus as I see Riley’s legs kicked out from under him before he goes crashing to the ground beside her, his head smacking the tiles hard enough that he doesn’t get back up.

It’s impossible to focus as I see Smith run into the room and slam into Jeremiah, who flings him like a rag doll into the wall, leaving him dazed and struggling to return to his feet.

It’s impossible to focus as I see Arryn trying to master an ability she’s never used before, her face pale and eyes filled with dread as she stares at her boyfriend’s—my brother’s— unmoving body.

It’s impossible to focus as I see everything that is happening before me.

And my focus only becomes even more impossible when half a dozen masked, camouflaged Speakers pour into the lab, adding to the mayhem.

Lights flash as they yell their own Spoken commands, but their arrival only means Jeremiah has new targets—targets that Ward and Arryn are stretched too thin to protect. Jeremiah manages to yell something that neither of my friends stop in time, and suddenly, half of the new Speakers turn on each other, unable to resist his order to begin attacking members of their own team.

It’s complete and utter pandemonium. And I’m just standing in the center of it all, doing nothing, as the people I care about try desperately to take down the two most dangerous Speakers in the world.

But … I don’t know how to help.