I turned to him. "You aren't coming with us?"
"Someone has to stay and try to stop this from within," he said, drawing me into his arms again. "I'll be there as soon as I can, but I have to do what I can here, first."
"You're going to kill people," I said, chewing the word in my mouth.
It was one thing to know what Nate did behind the scenes. It was another to hear him reference it in such a casual way. Yes, I'd accidentally killed people in the past; but we tried to avoid it. Nate had a license to do what was necessary, regardless of the situation. But, to the best of my knowledge, he only killed when he had to, too.
Nate kissed the top of my head. "I'm going to do whatever it takes to prevent the Alliance from falling apart."
I could nearly smell the blood on his hands.
Chapter 4
I gathered what I needed; mostly mementos that had been stored away when I'd been in prison, spare clothes, and my suit. Sure, I was pretty unstoppable as it was, but I needed to be at the top of my game. My suit made me pretty much bulletproof, fire resistance, and, most importantly, relatively resistant to electrical shocks.
Zaps were illegal. When Izzy had tossed Scribe, a man who had been able to make things happen with a little ink and a couple of pages, into an electrical substation it had scrambled his abilities. He no longer re-wrote reality how he saw it; he was stuck with powers of electrical manipulation.
The irony was that he was one of the ones who had helped to make Zaps illegal in the first place. Apparently, my sweet cousin Allison had been a Zap, too. She'd had the psychic powers that made her a golden girl in my parents' eyes, but the electrical manipulation hadn't been something I was aware of until recently.
Maybe the electricity had fried her brain and that was why we were where we were. Allison, alias Dreamweaver, was the root cause of all my problems since my return. She was the problem that had ruined Adam and she'd nearly gotten his sister killed. That wasn't particularly surprising. Isabella and Adam Reed were likely to never hear the end of it if their parents got wind of them being friendly, in one way or another, with a Clark like me.
The two families had been fighting for generations to be the top superhero family in the PTB Alliance. Our family trees were simply enormous, constantly breeding more and more superheroes to try to beat the other group out. That meant that we turned out a few powerless people every now and then.
And I had to admit, that would have been preferable to the absolute insanity I was going through now. Again, I was being chased from my home. Again, I was being thrown out on the street to fend for myself because the Alliance couldn't keep itself put together.
Or ours couldn't, anyway. With thousands of locations around the world, I supposed that there were probably some that weren't run by such a fuck up like Scribe.
Even as I thought it, I knew that someone else was in my head. I wrinkled my nose at the weird feeling of invasion. Like someone dripping water in your ear to wake you up at night, the sensation never quite went away. Maybe my parents were right.
Of course they were. Better than my parents, for certain. Aunt Linda and Uncle Robb? Never made their way out of the smalltime fights. You had all the power in the world, all the privilege, and what happens? Your powers Awaken when you're old and dried up, a cinder of a person with no real future left. The world just isn't the most rational place, but I do like seeing you suffer.
I sighed at Allison's telepathy and briefly wondered how many other Psychics had left behind such a mouthy imprint. Those with powers in my family had created a sort of telepathic network to speak through, but until now? I'd never heard anyone. I tried to think back at her. You were much less annoying when you were alive.
You know I have your boyfriend under my thumb?
I threw my stuff into the back of the stolen car and slid into the driver's side. I'd picked up Nishelle's keys on the way. The keyfob had the address written on it; a good thing since I'd never been there. You won't for much longer. When we figure out how to get rid of you, we're going to blast you to kingdom come. And then I'll have a nice, quiet life that doesn't involve any of this drama.
Sounds incredibly boring. I thought you Blitzers liked the spicy life. Didn't you crave to be a superhero like Mommy and Daddy, Cassie? Didn't you want to try to prove something with it?
I told myself it was better to ignore her. Adam was fast asleep in the back of the car and I just needed to get to the address on the keys. Once that happened, Nate would join us in short order. Everything would be fine.
You know I can just tell Scribe what you're doing right after you leave, right?
Scowling, I tapped the wires together and got the car to start. If you were going to do that, you wouldn't warn me about it first.
And that was the end of Allison's taunting. I'd taken a moment to switch license plates with Nate, making the car a little more inconspicuous. Still, there weren't many like it. I kept my lights off and used the street lights to navigate until we got out of Yarborough proper and into Renfield. Then I
