D. MacHale - Storm

It wasn’t the guy from the hangar. It was a second soldier, and he was only a few yards away from me, with his black weapon up and leveled at me.

I froze.

“Who the hell are you?” he called.

I had the brief thought that he had no idea that anybody else was in the base. Maybe the alarm hadn’t been sounded after all. I was just stupid enough to have been spotted.

“Uh…,” I stammered. “I wanted to see what was going on here.”

“Now you see,” he called back. “And now you’re dead.”

He tightened up, ready to fire. My brain locked. All I could do was brace myself for the end. I wondered how badly it would hurt.

There was a gunshot—but I wasn’t hit.

Can’t say the same for the soldier. He fell to the deck, dropping his weapon.

“Come on!” Tori shouted.

She and Kent had come running as soon as the shooting started.

Tori held her pistol.

“Come on !” Kent whisper-yelled.

I was still too stunned to think quickly. I turned their way, ready to run when—

“Stop right there!”

The soldier from the hangar had arrived, and he wasn’t waiting for an introduction. Tori lifted her pistol and fired, but he was too far away for her to be accurate.

The soldier didn’t have the same challenge. He stood only a few yards from me. Point-blank range. I had nowhere to go. No place to take cover.

He took aim at me.

It was all going to end right there.

The soldier fired…

…as someone jumped out in front of me.

Olivia.

“What?” I screamed in stunned wonder.

She took the lethal charge square in the chest and, with an anguished cry, fell to the ground.

Olivia had saved my life.

The soldier stood there as stunned as I was, but not for long. He raised the baton again…

…too late. Tori had closed the distance and unloaded her clip, firing wildly at the soldier. He turned to fire at her but was thrown back from the impact of more than one bullet.

I knelt down over Olivia and was yanked away forcefully… by Kent. As I fell back, he huddled down next to her and lifted her head into his lap.

“You’re okay,” he cried in panic. “We’ll get you back. They’ll fix you.”

There was no obvious wound or blood. Whatever weapons these guys used acted differently on living beings, much like their light weapons. Still, even without any obvious wound, it was clear that Olivia was hurt. Badly.

She looked up at Kent with surprisingly focused eyes and said, “It’s okay.”

Kent was in tears. He tried to lift her, but Olivia cried out in pain, so he eased her back to the tarmac.

“No, no, you are not going to die,” he wept. “I’m not going to let you die.”

Tori and I knelt over her, opposite Kent.

Olivia grasped Kent’s hand and squeezed weakly.

She looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry. For everything.”

“You saved my life,” I said, choking back my own tears. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I don’t know what to say to thank you.”

She smiled. For a brief moment I saw the beautiful, flirty girl in the red bikini that I had an instant crush on the moment she arrived on Pemberwick Island.

“Just say you’ll forgive me,” she said.

“I forgive you,” I said, though I wasn’t sure for what.

She gave me a weak smile and said, “You’re right, Tucker. I really am a good person.”

“Hang on, Olivia,” Kent cried. “We’ll carry you to—”

Olivia’s eyes closed.

“No… no…,” Kent cried.

He caressed her hair, willing her to come back.

Tori put a hand on Kent’s arm to quiet him.

He looked at Tori with an expression of stunned anguish like I had never seen before and hope I never will again.

Tori put a finger on Olivia’s neck to check her pulse. Those few seconds felt like a lifetime.

“She’s gone,” Tori whispered.

The girl in the red bikini, the girl I had spent my last normal summer with before fleeing together from untold dangers, was dead.

I was numb.

Kent wasn’t. I felt his rage growlike heat that pulsed from his body. He gently eased Olivia’s head to the ground, then lashed out and pushed me to the ground.

“You killed her,” he growled through gritted teeth. “You forced her to come here, and she died to save you.”

He wound up, ready to hit me, but Tori tackled him, knocking him to the ground.

“Stop!” she commanded.

Tori was strong. Maybe stronger than Kent. She wrestled with him and wrapped him up with a bear hug.

“I told her I’d protect her,” Kent wailed as he fought to get to me, “and he killed her.”

I jumped to my feet and pinned Kent to the ground. Between the two of us, he couldn’t move.

“Get a grip!” I commanded with a stern whisper. “Or we’re all dead! There have to be more soldiers around.”

“I’ll kill you,” he growled. “I swear I’ll kill you.”

Tori stuck her nose right in Kent’s face and spoke in an intense whisper. “If we don’t get out of here right now, we’ll all die.”

“I want to die,” he said, crying. “And I’m taking him with me.”

A loud horn sounded that echoed across the desert floor. Was it an alarm? Would more soldiers come running?

The huge hangar door began to open. The intermittent horn was an alert, like the beeping of a truck backing up.

Kent stopped struggling as we all focused on the event.

What was in that hangar? We should have run, but none of us made a move. We wanted to know.

Bright light blasted out from within, making me squint. I released Kent and shaded my eyes from the intense blast.

Kent didn’t run or attack me. He was as mesmerized by the sight as Tori and I were.

“There’s something in there,” I said. “Something big.”

The door continued to open, revealing what at first appeared to be a black shadow. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized the truth.

“Oh my God,” Tori said, breathless.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kent asked, stunned.

It was.

It was a black Retro plane.

A giant one.

It had to be ten times the size of the others. It was the exact same design, looking like a giant manta ray, but the tips of its curved wings stretched out so wide that I wasn’t sure if it would fit through the huge hangar door.

“That’s how they’re going to do it,” I said, my head swimming.

“Do what?” Tori asked.

“Wipe out Las Vegas,” I said. “It took three of those smaller planes working together to create the beams of light that destroyed buildings. That thing has got to have the power to do it alone.”

“And it won’t stop there,” Tori said, dazed.

“No,” I added. “Los Angeles.”

“So all this was for nothing?” she asked with more than a touch of desperation.

“No,” I replied. “We’re not done yet.”

I stood up and started running for the hangar.

It was my turn to get tackled.

Tori grabbed me from behind and, with incredible strength for someone so small, held me in place.

“No,” she barked. “It’s suicide.”

“So what?” I said. “We’re all going to die anyway.”

“What do you think you’re going to do?”

I held up the pack with the last two charges.

“It may not be enough to bring down something that big, but

they’ll definitely do some damage. Maybe enough to keep it from taking off.”

“No, not again. You’re not going alone!”

She was scared, and I didn’t blame her. Tori was tough. Heck, she’d just gunned down two soldiers. But when it came to losing someone close to her, she broke down.

“It’ll be okay,” I said softly, trying to sound as though I was in control enough to be making smart decisions. “I’ll set the charges and be right back.”