need for clarity of mind, the harnessing of intention. Never mind that I’d never managed to break down even one of her glass walls. I swallowed hard. “You stay on the line, okay? I might need you to-”
“Talk you through it?” he finished, when I couldn’t. I nodded, realized he couldn’t see it, and made an affirmative noise. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t want to die alone.
The sound of feet pounding across asphalt kept me from getting too self-reflective. I whipped out my conduit, fired an arrow through the open doorway, heard a halting scuttle, and fired a second shot just to buy myself a little more time. Turning back, I spoke into the phone. “Hold on.”
Intention, inshmention-I just leaped. I expected the up-swing to be just fine, and was already bracing for the fall when I slammed facefirst against a barrier a good thirty feet in the air. The blow knocked me back another ten, and as I dropped, my legs ricocheted off a second wall, flinging me backward so I landed on my spine. I came to a stop against yet another wall, and scuttled away from it as its jarring power combined with the previous two. I felt like an electrified pinball.
The commotion, of course, brought Joaquin sprinting inside.
“Ah. The maze,” he said, looking at the three panels my graceless flight had lit up. He didn’t sound surprised or impressed. That couldn’t be good. I kept my eyes on him-once they could focus again-and as he sauntered to the right his mouth moved like he was counting, and he paced in steady, measured steps.
No, I thought again, that couldn’t be good at all.
I closed my eyes, and cursed, because I suddenly knew exactly what the Tulpa was doing.
Those words alone should’ve told me he wasn’t just going to give me a head start and let me waltz away with the cure for the virus. Nope, every time I touched one of these walls my power and energy were sucked back into the maze. Back, I thought, into the Tulpa. No wonder he hadn’t killed me. My power would’ve reverted to my mother, just like Stryker’s had reverted to Tekla. Our lineage was matriarchal…but this way he could claim it for himself.
Ian, meanwhile, had begun screaming again at the sight of Joaquin, words pouring over one another as tears and sweat rolled down his face. I tried to shush him, to let him know he was only fueling Joaquin’s ego with his fear, but he was too panicked to listen. Not that I blamed him.
Joaquin finished his pacing and halted with his hands on his hips, regarding Ian sourly. “What a pussy.”
I shot him a look of pure hatred as I gained my feet, steady despite wobbly knees, and checked my phone long enough to determine my connection with Hunter had gone dead when I hit the electrified barriers. “Well, what do you expect when you kidnap him, beat his face to shit, and tie him up?” I said, tossing the phone to the ground.
“But I didn’t beat him at all, did I, Ian?” He blew Ian a kiss. The crying escalated. “No, I was real sweet to your boyfriend. In fact, after he decoded your computer for me, we had ourselves a real nice party. Didn’t we, honey?”
Ian whimpered again, and this time I made out what he said.
“You rancid bastard.”
Joaquin smiled my way. “A couple more minutes and I’ll let you say that to my face.”
And he stepped forward, counting again. I didn’t need a wall to light up to know he’d entered the maze. Panic must have shown on my face because Joaquin’s eyes remained fixated on me as he counted off five paces, before pivoting left as he spoke again. “He always starts on the right.”
And he face-planted into a stinging sheet of balled energy. I’d have laughed as his eyes rolled into his skull, except my own had probably resembled slot reels only seconds before. The energy pulled from Joaquin into the maze zipped like a current through the rest of the walls, and I followed it with my head as it crackled past me, realizing I could track it to move another few feet either way without getting zapped. Question was, which way was forward and which way was back?
“Ian. Hey, Ian!” I snapped my fingers, and when that brought no alertness to his vacant stare, clapped my hands as hard as I could. “Ian, you have to help me here. I need you to count for me. Count the number of steps I take, and remember the directions I turn. You can do that, right?”
He cocked his head to the left, but the glassy look was slowly returning to his eyes.
“Ian?” I yelled, which had him blinking again.
“I-I don’t know.”
My gut tightened. I couldn’t do this alone. “I need your help if you want me to get you out of here. I’m going to be too dazed from hitting walls I can’t see. I won’t remember the path to the center of the maze, and I sure won’t remember how many steps I took along each corridor. I need you to focus for me, okay?”
His brows knit together and his eyes welled up as his head jerked. No. I sighed. “I can’t.”
“You can, Ian. Just concentrate on the numbers.” But I was losing him. I could practically feel the icy fear rending him immobile, freezing his thoughts, causing him to anticipate death. “Look, what’s math, anyway, but one mental pathway leading to another? Follow the path, and you get to the answer, right?” He nodded, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, well,
And before he thought I was giving him a choice, I paced to my right, keeping my steps as uniform as possible. I hit my next wall only three paces away, and this time controlled my direction as I was repelled away from it. An ache started in my jaw, an old filling I’d forgotten was there until now. I pressed my tongue to it, hissing through my teeth when I burned the top of it. I knew I was going about this all wrong-there was another way around this maze, something I was supposed to remember or know how to do-but I couldn’t jump as the walls obviously arched all the way to the ceiling, and I didn’t know how to anticipate what I couldn’t see.
My only comfort was in the electric snaps, followed by curses, coming from Joaquin’s direction. So I stood, found the spot I’d been in right before my last point of impact, waited until Ian returned my nod, then stepped toward him, sighing with relief when I didn’t fry. From the corner of my eye, I caught Joaquin watching.
“Guess the Tulpa changed things up a bit on you,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt as I inched forward. Jaw clenched, Joaquin mirrored the movement from his position. “What’d you do to piss him off? Must have been pretty severe to have him turn on you this way.”
“He hasn’t turned on me,” he snapped, and stepped right into a wall.
I followed the crackle of electrical current as it arched past me, gained another three steps, and waited until Joaquin was sitting up. I shot him a smile as I rounded a corner. “You were saying?”
Next thing, I was staring up at the ceiling, Joaquin’s laughter echoing in my ears. “Guess blood isn’t any thicker than water, is it?”
I raised myself to my elbows, grunting. “Well, I won’t take it personally.”
“He’s your father,” Joaquin said, clearing another foot.
“He’s a stranger,” I replied, standing.
“You mean a stranger like…” He gained two more feet. “Your daughter?”
I bounced off another wall, and this time momentarily lost consciousness. I awoke to find him yards closer, and whipped myself up despite the ache coursing through my marrow. It wasn’t just physical pain, though; there was something akin to the rush of adrenaline pouring over me, but instead of receding on a wave that left me jumpy and alert, it left me feeling sluggish and unwilling to rise from the floor. Given time, and enough direct contact with these walls, I knew I’d be unable to rise at all. But not yet. I had enough determination left to stand this time, but I wondered how much energy I’d already transferred to the Tulpa, and what new powers it would afford him. It’d be nice if I could live long enough to ask.
Nicer still to pummel the sly smile snaking over Joaquin’s cruel, sneering face.
“Oh yes, I know all about little Ashlyn, thanks to Ian over there.” He shot Ian a wink and a kiss, and the mortal’s concentration faltered. I clapped my hands to gain his attention again. Joaquin seemed content to wait. When my eyes returned to his, he smiled innocently. “She lives in the southwest part of town. She has wavy brown hair that curls into ringlets when it’s wet. She likes riding her bike and is quite the competitive swimmer.”
My hands balled into fists, and I gritted my teeth to keep my eyes from stinging. I hadn’t known any of that. And this man shouldn’t be the one telling me. “You stay away from her,” I said, my voice thick and too low. He heard anyway.
“You mean like you?” he said pointedly. “No, I could never just abandon my own child.”
