“Sir,” Duanphen said, balling her fists. “You’re acting strange.”
“Nonsense,” the executive replied. He swiped his key card and pushed open the door to his suite.
Immediately, Duanphen could sense something wrong. The air was warm and sticky, not meticulously temperature-controlled like the executive preferred. And where was that breeze coming from?
The executive stopped suddenly and pinched the bridge of his nose. He shook his head as if he were coming out of a dream.
“Dawn, what— Did our boys just rob me? Or—what came over me?”
The answer stood right in the middle of his suite.
The young man was slender, his brown hair combed from the side into a meticulously gelled swoop. He wore expensive clothes—gray slacks, a black vest, a white dress shirt. Duanphen thought he looked almost like a magician; appropriate, as he’d somehow slipped in past the executive’s security. The broken glass from the balcony window probably explained that . . . although how had he managed to climb all the way up here?
The executive was frozen. “You.”
“Not easy, putting you in a generous mood while making those Blackstone morons go all frat boy,” Einar said. There were dark circles around his eyes and he was out of breath, like he’d just greatly exerted himself. He held up a finger. “Give me a minute, will you?”
Duanphen didn’t hesitate. Clearly, this Einar boy was a threat. Maybe even the reason for the executive’s added security. She charged towards him, the executive’s metal briefcase held over her head as a weapon.
Wumpf! She didn’t see it coming. A second intruder slammed into Duanphen’s side, trucked her clean off her feet and sent her crashing through a coffee table. A burly and hunched figure in a dingy gray sweat suit, the hood pulled up.
Einar sat down in a plush armchair and stretched out his legs. He smiled at the executive. “You aren’t the only one with a bodyguard. Shall we see how this plays out?”
Duanphen snapped back to her feet, facing down the looming figure in the sweat suit. He was big, but she’d fought bigger. She triggered her Legacy. A field of electricity crackled across Duanphen’s body. One Taser-like blow from her packed enough voltage to put down an ox.
She had longer reach than the brute in the sweat suit and threw a series of quick strikes at his face—a jab followed by a vicious swing of the briefcase. He bobbed backwards on his heels, keeping his distance as Duanphen’s lightning-charged punches crackled right in front of his nose. Duanphen was merely testing him though, gauging her range.
“Ha!” She unleashed a vicious arcing roundhouse kick. The sweat suit barely managed to get his forearm raised in a haphazard block.
Duanphen screamed and flopped to the ground, her shin bent at an impossible angle. She’d broken her leg on her attacker’s forearm. It was like hitting a brick wall.
The pain caused her to lose control of her Legacy. The sweat suit was on her fast. He grabbed Duanphen around the neck and lifted her off the ground with ease, his fist cocked back.
“Stop!” Einar yelled. “Don’t kill her! You weren’t even supposed to break her!”
As ordered, the sweat suit dropped Duanphen. She writhed on the floor, whimpering, body curled around her broken leg.
Einar looked at the executive. “Him, on the other hand . . .”
Duanphen saw it happen. The executive managed, at last, to turn and run. But it was too late. Sweat suit grabbed him by the back of his neck, lifted him up and then—crack—down, slamming the executive spine-first over his knee like a dead branch.
There was a moment that Duanphen knew from her many losing fights, that sensation right before a knockout, when all the pain was erased by welcoming blackness. The pain in her leg was shrieking and intense. Too much to bear. She let herself slip . . .
And then she was being not so gently slapped awake. How long was she out? Seconds? Minutes? She was still in the hotel room, the breeze from the broken window somehow chilling her despite the humidity. With every slight shift of her body, new shards of pain broke free in her shattered leg. Duanphen wanted to retreat from the agony, but she sensed that if she passed out again she might never wake up.
Einar crouched over her. He stopped slapping her once her eyes focused.
“Hello again,” he said. He held up the executive’s tablet. “How do I access this?”
Shakily, she pointed at the executive’s body. “Fingerprint.”
Duanphen felt a sticky heat beneath her, warm and spreading. Was that . . . ?
“Yes, I know fingerprint. We already took care of that.” Einar held up the executive’s severed hand.
Duanphen gagged. She was lying in a puddle of blood swiftly spreading from the executive’s body. In a moment of panic, she checked her own wrists, was relieved to find them intact. They’d simply ripped open the briefcase with telekinesis.
Behind Einar, the sweat suit wiped his gore-stained hands on a bedsheet. There was something wrong with his skin. Duanphen squinted, but Einar snapped his fingers in her face.
“Do you know the code?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Only he did.”
Einar frowned. “Well. Got a bit overzealous, didn’t we?” He stood up. “So here is the situation, Duanphen. Did I say that right?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“We’re like you. Garde. I’m sure you noticed how your coworkers suddenly started behaving strangely out in the hallway. That was me. I can control emotions.” Duanphen flinched as Einar reached out, but all he did was touch her gently on the nose. “But I’m not doing that to you, dear.”
“Wh-why?”
“My new policy is that I don’t use my Legacy against our own kind unless absolutely necessary. I don’t kill them either. Good news for you, yes? But you still have a choice to make. Option one: you deliver a message for me. Tell the Foundation I know who they are and that I’m coming for them. We leave you here, the guards will likely be back soon, they take you to a hospital, fix your leg, and then you find out what the Foundation does to assets who fail at their jobs.”
Duanphen glanced at the executive’s mangled body. This failure was not something the Foundation would forgive. “Option two?”
“Option two,” Einar continued, “is you come with me. Help me out with what I’m doing.”
Duanphen already knew which option she would choose, but she still had to ask.
“What . . . what are you doing?”
“Simple. I’m remaking the world.”
Chapter Two
NIGEL BARNABY
UNDERGROUND
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
“WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IS GET A PROPER SLOUCH on,” Nigel said, demonstrating as he scrunched down in his metal folding chair. “Like your balls are too big for your trousers.”
Opposite him, Taylor Cook raised an eyebrow. “Not your most relatable advice, Nigel.”
“Ah, don’t get all hung up on the equipment, love,” Nigel replied. “It’s more a state of mind.”
Taylor tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear and then did her best to copy Nigel’s disaffected posture, one arm slung over the back of her chair, legs spread out obnoxiously.