The Darkest Legacy (The Darkest Minds 4)

Red.

My eyes snapped open, and the memory of the last few hours crashed into me, taking the air out of my lungs.

Haven. The girl. The man in the black. The rifle.

Captured.

My hands…I tried to lift them, to claw at the tight pressure I felt at the back of my neck. The man, his radio buzzing just above my head, hauled me over stone and root and thorny brush. Everything below my waist felt like it had been carved from stone, but my upper body was air, so insubstantial that I wasn’t sure I was even fully there.

The dirt suddenly softened beneath me, evening out. Blood rushed into my limbs along with that painful, hot sand sensation as feeling returned to them. The man had me by the scruff of my neck with one hand, twisting my shirt’s collar until it choked me.

“Owen! Owen, don’t!”

The fog wound up through the night, swirling the shades of midnight. I squeezed my eyes shut again, trying to clear the dizziness. When I forced them open once more, I couldn’t see the house.

But I could see a kid, no more than thirteen, as he stepped onto the trail, standing between us and the rest of Haven. With his skin and shirt, Owen was as white as a ghost. An easy target.

I kicked at the ground, trying to slow our progress. Ahead, a handful of other soldiers in black were struggling with their own bundles of squirming, writhing weight. The kids kicked and clawed, and the men laughed. They laughed at us.

Why is no one using their abilities?

I reached for that silver thread in my mind again, but there was nothing, nothing, nothing. I couldn’t feel my attacker’s electronics any more than I could his heartbeat.

They can’t, I realized. They must have all had that same block put on their minds as I did.

It could have been a sound that none of us could detect, or some unknown toxin mixed into the fog that closed off that part of our minds. It could have been a million things causing it, but the result was the same for all of us. For the first time in a decade, there was nothing inside me to call on. I had no power.

They’ve taken this from us, too, that rebellious voice whispered.

No. Even without our abilities, none of us were helpless. I shifted my weight sharply, hoping to startle the man into loosening his grip on me. Reaching back, I drew my broken nails against the hand gripping the back of my neck. But instead of finding skin, I scratched against thick, rough fabric.

He shifted his hand down, driving his fingers deeper into my neck. I twisted and strained, gasping to try to fill my lungs. Black exploded into my vision again. The pressure eased as my body went slack, but not enough to pull away.

“There’s another one.” The man’s voice was rough and deep with amusement, but I couldn’t tell who he was referencing, me or Owen.

Smoke curled in my nose, sharp and distinct. My gaze shot to the house, sure that the men had decided to torch it, to truly destroy every good thing.

Then fire raged at my back. Heat baked through my damp clothing in waves, stroking at my skin without burning it.

The man screamed, dropping me into the dark. As my vision cleared, I saw the flame at the center of his chest grow, then climb up over his head in a burning, golden wave.

The numbness hadn’t affected all of us. Owen—Owen still had his power.

It was all I needed to see. I rolled away, stomach heaving at the stench of roasting flesh. Soon, it wasn’t just one scream tearing through the air. I flipped over and pushed myself up onto my knees.

The men caught fire one by one, howling like the pack of wolves they were as it overcame them. I had the wild, fleeting thought that, from a distance, scattered in an arc on the trail, they looked like birthday candles.

The flames burned so bright, with such devastating intensity, the men only had mere seconds to scream before their lungs were singed.

As soon as the kids pulled themselves free, they ran for the house. It looked like all of them were unharmed beyond the roughing up the men had given them.

The kids gave a wide berth to the boy who still stood at the center of the trail, his gaze dispassionate as the figures that once had been men twisted into monstrous charred shapes on the ground. Wind carried the fire from their remains to the house, fanning them out over the siding and porch.

“Owen!” I called, jumping to my feet.

The boy turned his gaze on me.

This is why, that same dark voice whispered. Why it had been so easy to accept those controls Cruz and the others had put in place for us. Why that doubting part of me had been able to nod, to repeat their reasons for putting legal constraints on us. Why people would always be afraid, and why it had felt like we had to accept whatever small shred of freedom we’d been given.

No one should have power like this.

No one should be punished for using that power to protect themselves and others.

This was terrifying.

This was necessary.

My stomach rioted as I took another step closer to him. He’s a kid. He’s just a kid.

He had control. He didn’t need to be controlled.

“Owen,” I said, softer. “That’s enough….”

The rising flames from the house illuminated his face in a warm glow.

Then a flicker of awareness. Sudden fear, like that of a young child, pooled in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” I told him, holding out a hand. “You’re all right—”

Haven’s screen door slammed open and shut.

We both spun, but Owen was faster. Two men jumped down from the porch, guns drawn, and got no more than a step toward us before the first one went up in a horrifying whoosh of flame.

Blinded by fire and smoke, the first man ran, stumbling, back toward the house, collapsing onto one of the porch’s wooden posts.

I couldn’t move. My vision went dark at the edges, and I wasn’t seeing the soldier, I was seeing Mel. I was seeing the Defenders, the reporters, the bystanders torn apart by the explosion.

Stop it, stop it, stop it—I shook my head, feeling like I was about to vomit. Within seconds, the flames had snaked up in the dark wood and spilled across the porch. The second man shot Owen a terrified

look, freezing in place.

The boy only stared back. His forehead wrinkled, first in obvious confusion, then in outright alarm. He clutched at his head, letting out a soft moan of pain.

No. It had him, too.

The girl stepped out from behind the trees again as if materializing from the night sky. Her hands were in her oversize jacket’s pockets, her gaze focused on Owen’s hunched form. Her lips twisted in a cruel mockery of a smile.

Her?

As quickly as she’d appeared, she was gone again, fading back into the fog and darkness. It couldn’t be a coincidence—the band of pressure tightened on my mind. Somehow, she was…the girl was doing this to us. But if Owen hadn’t been immediately affected, it meant she had to target each Psi individually for her numbing grip to work.

Seeing an opportunity, the second soldier on the porch raised his gun.

“No!” I dove forward, throwing my arms around Owen to try to shield his small body.

A shot rang out.

A heavy body slumped to the ground, all clattering equipment and rustling fabric. When I didn’t feel the bite of a bullet, I pulled back, hands flying over Owen, inspecting him, feeling for the wound, for blood.

“Okay,” he mumbled, the words shaking with the rest of him. “I’m okay.”

A cry sounded. One of the soldiers, a woman, charged at us from where she’d been combing the woods, her equipment rattling. She got no more than a few steps before her body suddenly lurched up into the air with the impact of a bullet, slamming into a nearby tree.

Owen and I turned just as Roman burst through the swirl of smoke and ash, taking aim at one of the soldiers fleeing with a kid on his back. His eyes narrowed as he adjusted his arms, then fired—piercing the soldier in that slice of exposed skin on his neck, between the girl’s torso and the man’s bulletproof vest.

“See? It’s not always the worst thing to arrive late to a party,” Priyanka called over to him, covered by a different tree. There was a slight edge to the words as she added, “Never underestimate the power of a dramatic surprise entrance. You okay, Zu?”

They didn’t run.

Snapping out of my shock, I dragged Owen behind the nearest tree, trying to cover him as much as I could with my body.