Only when he got there, the chair had flown through space undisturbed, the man somehow standing calmly to one side of it. Not even blinking as a chair missed him by a fraction of an inch.
Fine. Cooper slid into a fighting stance, light on his feet, knees bent, arms up to block. The trick to facing an opponent with a knife was knowing you were going to get cut, period, and maintaining an attack despite that. Act like prey and you became prey.
The assassin’s face was composed. He seemed barely awake. Cooper shifted his weight, watching the man, gauging his next move . . .
And getting no sense of it. Nothing. It was like the man in front of him had no plan, no intent. He was a void.
It didn’t matter. Cooper faked a jab, then put his weight behind a devastating hook to the man’s left kidney, followed it with an uppercut that caught his chin and snapped his head back, exposing the neck for an elbow strike that crushed the assassin’s trachea.
Only the man didn’t react to the fake, and when Cooper threw his hook, instead of flesh, he found himself punching the edge of the dagger, the thing held parallel to his knuckles so that the edge slid right between his second and third fingers and split his hand halfway to the wrist.
Oh.
Shit.
He took a half step back, his arms up to guard, only his right hand was a mess of gore, half of it sort of flopping, no pain yet, the edge of the knife too sharp, and shock setting in so that for a fraction of a second all he could do was stare at his hand, thinking, wow, how weird was that.
Still no expression on the man’s face, just the flicker of his eyes to one side as—
He’s immune to your gift. Exempt from it.
He can’t be. Everyone shows intention. Our bodies betray our minds. But somehow his doesn’t.
Which means that your gift won’t help you. This fight isn’t like any you’ve ever had.
And what’s he looking at?
Oh. No.
—Todd, somehow on his feet, ran at the man.
No!
It all slowed down then, not an effect of his gift but the by-product of a massive spike of adrenaline and terror, Cooper thinking faster than he could move, and harder than he could bear, trying through sheer force of will to make the universe not allow what was happening, his son yelling as he ran at the man who had hurt his dad. Ten years old and tall for his age but a boy, just a boy, skinny legs and skinny arms and good intentions but no business doing what he was doing, and Jesus oh Jesus no, don’t let this happen, Cooper trying to block Todd with one arm, an arm hurled with all his force, better to knock the kid back and take the breath out of him and maybe even bang him up than let him anywhere near this empty-eyed killing machine who even now was spinning with terrible force, arm up and elbow out, no no no not my son you bastard, me, take me but not my boy—
The assassin’s blow was square, the arm locked, the elbow conveying all the force of the move directly into Todd’s temple. His son’s head snapped too far sideways and his eyes went glassy.
Cooper screamed as he threw himself at the killer, ready to strip the skin from his body and tear the tissue from the bones as, moving like he had all the time in the world, the man continued his turn and buried the dagger in Cooper’s chest.
Slick cool plastic parted skin and muscle, slid between his ribs, and pierced his heart.
He knew he was dead then.
Tried to fight anyway even though he couldn’t move his arms, but it didn’t matter because the guy was already turning and walking away, his mission accomplished, his target assassinated.
Cooper fell down.
Natalie was suddenly there, her face filling his vision, black spots dancing, holes in her head, and she was yelling something, couldn’t hear, the blood coming fast and on the floor he landed beside Todd, his beautiful boy, the son he and Natalie had made, and it couldn’t be that his son was on the ground, that he wasn’t breathing, and this couldn’t be the last thing it couldn’t it can’t remember instead a whirl of green and your kids clinging to each arm as you spin them on the front lawn of the house you’d shared with Natalie all of them smiling and laughing and the world a whorl a whirl a beautiful world.
CHAPTER 29
It wasn’t that Ethan was tired, though he was. Exhausted, in fact, walking-dead tired—there were the zombies again—bleary-eyed and wasted, his arms leaden from holding Violet. Twelve pounds didn’t seem like much until it was sagging deadweight carried for miles.
And it wasn’t the pain, although there was plenty of that. His hips and back felt like hot steel rods had been inserted into them. His knee had swollen up. Worst were his bare feet. Before bed, Amy had taken off her socks with her shoes, and so once they’d left Jeremy’s, he’d peeled off his own and insisted she take them. Hours of walking through the darkness across fallow cornfields and state park land had cut his soles ragged, and he tracked blood with every step. It would have been easier on roads, but they were done with roads.
Still, it wasn’t any of that. What was killing him was the helplessness. He’d never felt so goddamn useless.
Violet had woken up an hour ago and had been crying ever since, piteous, confused howls of hunger, and he had nothing to feed her.
A man had pointed a shotgun at the people he loved, and he hadn’t been able to do anything about it. Even with a gun in his belt, he hadn’t been able to do anything. His belly still burned at the memory of that. He knew he had made the smart move, knew that what he was feeling was just leftover monkey stuff, but it didn’t matter.
He was supposed to protect his family, and instead they were wandering the countryside with nothing, no food, no shelter, no money. Not even much of a plan.
Dawn had broken on the three of them hiking a back road, fleeing a burning city. Refugees, simple as that. They must have crossed the quarantine line sometime during the night without even knowing it. They’d seen a helicopter a while back, at a distance, but it had passed without incident.
Not the most empowering feeling, though, to be huddling under a bush with his family, watching a helicopter circle.
Last night you swore you’d do anything to protect your family. And you meant it.
So take another step. And then another. And another.
He switched Violet to his other arm, took the steps, and then more after them.
“Hey,” Amy said.
Ethan had been staring at the ground so intently that he was almost surprised to see the rest of the world was still there when he looked up. “What?”
Amy pointed.
A couple of hundred yards away, at the edge of the field, stood a gas station. Cuyahoga Falls.
“We made it.”
They used the gas station restroom to clean up as much as they could. Washed the dirt off their hands and faces, the blood off his feet. Changed Violet, although with no diaper to put her in, the term felt hollow. They’d ended up wadding up about ten feet of toilet paper as a makeshift diaper.
While Amy used the bathroom, Ethan held his daughter, cooing to her as he paced the inside of the gas station. A minimart, just candy and soft drinks and the essentials.