Looking up, I saw the breeders on the horizon , running fast. Like a group of leopards, they galloped over rocky surfaces and tree pods. Weighed-down Humvees would never outrun those powerful beings. Not when they could drop acid rain and God knows what else on us. We needed to stand our ground and fight.
Nox didn’t have time to deeply bury the explosives, so they sat half in and out of the dirt, but it was better than nothing.
“Perimeter set to blow!” Nox shouted, and made his way back to the plasma brick camp that had been set up. I slipped inside and Chandler turned them on, creating a dome of protection around our small group of ten, including Dawn, who barely fit inside.
“Will this hold them?” Chandler asked me.
I swallowed hard, remembering how that one breeder had slammed her body against the shield when I’d been stuck in a cave.
“No.” There was no way it would hold against this many.
She seemed to accept that.
“How can we help you regain your ability to open the portal? If you could, we could get behind them and drive them through and into our world. If what you say is true, they would all burn up.”
“It is true!” Ronnie snapped.
Chandler looked down for a moment in a submissive gesture. “I’m sorry, but I’m trained to only believe what I can see.”
I could respect that. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s a mental gift. They are all overpowering me, keeping me from opening it. There is nothing that physically can be done.”
We were sitting ducks and they were almost to us.
Something crossed Chandler’s face. “But if we can take down their numbers, their control over your power lessens?”
Technically yes, but that sounded like it would take a lot of casualties. Master Aki had said the same thing, that if I culled their numbers I might be able to collapse their world.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t be without loss,” I told her.
“Triggering explosives in 5… 4…” Nox cut through our chatter, and I snapped up to see the first line of breeders coming up on his planted devices.
Chandler spoke over Nox’s countdown: “I have a mission to find out if these things can be killed as you say. If that means we risk our lives to complete our mission, then so be it.”
Her men nodded their agreement.
“One,” Nox said and I instinctively covered my ears. A crashing explosion blasted outward, enough to make our plasma protection wobble, but it held. Nox knew how much was just enough and wouldn’t go overkill and risk knocking out our dome. At least a dozen breeders went flying in a mixture of black blood and guts. But the worrisome thing was that the explosion did little to deter the rest of them. They barely flinched at seeing their sisters ripped into pieces. They simply crouched for a moment, and when the bombs went off they resumed their running. Seconds later, they were on us.
The sound of multiple bodies smacking up against the shield was horrifying… but it held. For now.
Maxine swam into view. “Alright, darlin’, it’s now or never. You need to meditate or do whatever it is Master Aki has taught you and open that portal back up. I wanna make me some breeder piles of ash.”
She was right. Fighting with a gun or even my katana wasn’t what was needed anymore. I was better off fighting with my mind and learning to control my gift better.
I nodded and plopped down right where I was, getting into lotus position and closing my eyes.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
‘We will kill Kit Steele,’ the breeders’ voice intruded.
Focus on breathing.
In.
Out.
As the breeders smashed into the walls beyond the plasma dome, they also smashed against the walls of my mind. I sort of felt like I was going insane, like this must be what it was like to lose your mind.
Things were happening around me: voices shouting, movement, Dawn’s feathers brushing my leg. I shut it all out.
Breathe.
I am at peace. It was only in the stillness that I could access my true power, only in that place where I wasn’t thinking or doing much of anything that I could really feel what I was capable of. And when I felt the surge of power rush through me, it was terrifying and also thrilling.
I had a scary amount of untapped power lying just beneath the edges of my consciousness.
Open, I thought, and tore into the edges of our worlds like a pit bull attacking an intruder. I mentally clawed at the steel barrier the breeders had set up, and when I felt it push back at me, I pushed back harder.
“Plasma shield is going down. Prepare for physical contact!” Brisk shouted.
Fuck.
Focus.
I needed to open the portal back up so my friends could escape.
Dawn’s voice intruded my thoughts: ‘Ride Dawn.’ I felt her head scoop underneath my arm. Without opening my eyes, I felt my way to slide onto her body.
I was fighting a mental fight like never before. For every push I gave, they pushed back ten times harder. There was a pop, which I assumed was the plasma barrier crashing, and then Dawn and I were airborne. I felt the wind in my hair and I knew my friends were exposed.
Shots rang out and a surge of power rushed through me. It was… the breeders. I had linked with their mind. It’s like I was one of them now, no longer fighting against them but with them. They had an untapped power that they shared, that they got from a collective consciousness. And they didn’t realize I was a part of it… yet.
With a battle cry, I tore open a hole into our world and snapped my eyes open.
“It’s open! Move out!” Chandler cried, seeing what I’d done.
That’s when the breeders clamped down on me. It was like someone had taken my brain, cut it from my head, and placed it in a nut crusher.
Everything hurt. And the
