Zack is astonished by Blake's impressive display of destructive power, yet he knows he can't stay there admiring his guardian's work any longer. He slams his foot on the gas pedal and races the car down the street toward the expressway.
❖❖❖
The speedometer reads one hundred miles per hour as the Parker family speeds down Route Six toward Matamoras Bridge. Jim and Isabella hold tight to their seatbelts as their minds churn through the day's unexpected events; Olivia cries softly to herself. Her brother's revelation has left her utterly distraught. She realizes that her life has changed forever; she and her family will now be treated as fugitives.
As the car approaches the bridge, a sudden movement in the car's rearview mirror catches Zack's eye. Three SUVs, followed by a pair of sedans, are about a hundred yards behind and gaining fast. He looks up to the sky and sees the flicking blue lights of a drone flying practically on top of them. Seconds later, the SUVs are right on their tail; their headlights light up his car. One of the SUVs bulldozes their car off to the side of the bridge. In one big whoosh the car skids across the divider and smashes into the guardrails, causing the car alarm to shriek and the airbags to deploy. When they scrape to a stop, Zack and Jim lie shaken but unhurt, but Olivia can't move and Isabella's limp body lies right on top of hers.
"Olivia, we're going to be fine," Zack says. "I need you to force-field us."
Olivia tries to summon her powers, but her left arm is mangled and jammed between the twisted car frame and the seat. "I can't move. My arm is stuck."
Zack takes a deep breath and force-blasts his car door to get out. He hears two agents shout at him to drop to the ground and raise his hands. Zack pushes himself out of the car, and in mid-air force-blasts the first agent. The second agent points a gun at him with a frightened expression on his face and slowly moves back to check on his partner.
Zack ignores the threat and moves to the passenger side of the car. Using his superhuman strength, he pulls his unconscious mother and his bruised and battered sister from the wreckage. His father tries to squeeze himself out of the car through a window, but Zack tells him to remain inside for his own safety.
Zack sets his mother on the ground next to the car. Olivia, holding her injured left arm with her right hand, stands beside him. They slowly move away from the car with their hands raised. A pair of agents approach them with their guns drawn.
"Stop and put your hands behind your back!" an agent behind a SUV shouts. "No monkey business with those powers of yours!"
Zack looks at his sister and smiles. She smiles back. Sis, when I distract them, send the most forceful blast you can muster toward them and be ready to throw up a shield.
I'll be ready, Zack.
Zack slowly moves up in front of his sister to conceal her from the agents. He then puts his hands behind his back and lies down on the ground. Now! he mind-shouts, and Olivia sends a blast of energy in the agents' direction. Fireballs hit two SUVs, causing them to go up like Roman candles. Zack rolls over, rises to his knees, and sends a force blast of his own at their attackers.
The agents that have escaped injury send a barrage of bullets in Olivia and Zack's direction. Brother and sister take cover behind their wrecked car as Olivia throws up a protective force field. As bullets hit the outer shield, they start bouncing off in all directions. Subsequent bullets start getting caught in the shield's protective layer, signaling that the force field is losing strength. "I can't hold it up for much longer!" Olivia shouts.
The shield vanishes seconds later, and she collapses to her knees, exhausted, as the bullets caught in it moments earlier patter to the ground. One of the bullets makes it through to slam into her chest, and she crumples.
Zack sees three figures running down a mountain slope toward them. One of them is Blake; Wally and Eva follow close behind. Wally leaps forward and lands right in front of where Olivia lies on the ground, turns around, stares furiously at the UNSTF agents menacing their friends, then plunges forward to engage the enemy. The agents start firing at him in earnest; but despite taking bullet after bullet, Wally arrives at the swarm of agents cowering behind their vehicles and starts furiously swinging punches at them. Blake joins Wally, harnessing fire from the burning SUVs and turning himself into a human torch. He dashes into the pack of UNSTF agents, burning down everyone in his path.
Zack remains behind the wreckage of the family car, trying frantically to stop his sister from bleeding to death. Eva approaches from behind, touches Zack on the shoulder, and kneels next to him. Zack is taken aback. "Eva," he says gently, "I — you can't —"
Ignoring him, Eva focuses on Olivia, who is hemorrhaging her life onto the dusty pavement and having trouble breathing. Eva gently lifts Olivia's head and says, "This might sting, Odilia, but it will heal you." She then rubs her hands together and lays them on Olivia; the bleeding stops, and to Zack's amazement, the pool of blood starts retracting into his sister's body.
Meanwhile, Blake sees Wally drop to the ground, finally overcome. Just as he's about to rush to his friend, two stealthy, armored helicopters rise over the bridge, having approached covertly from below. Blake freezes for an instant;
