Warren, Sasha, Eden, and Pablo rushed toward the Jeep. Warren was already reaching for the driver's door when Pablo's hand closed around his wrist.

  "Keys," Pablo said.

  "What? No. It's my ride. I drive!" Warren scowled.

  "Keys, Warren."

  "Dude, you drive like a grandma on her way to church to see her grandma." Warren gestured emphatically. "We're in a hurry here!"

  "Exactly." Pablo held out his hand, palm up. "Which is why you're going to give me the keys."

  "That doesn't even—"

  "I can feel every car on the road. I can stabilize the chassis through turns that would flip us otherwise. I can nudge other vehicles out of our way without them even realizing what happened." Pablo's voice was calm but unyielding. "Give me the keys."

  “He’s right, War,” Eden said, letting just a hint of impatient exasperation break through her otherwise placid demeanor.

  Warren had already opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. His jaw worked for a moment before he slapped the keys into Pablo's palm with more force than necessary.

  "Fine. But if we get passed by an actual grandma, I'm never letting you live it down."

  "Everyone buckle up." Pablo climbed behind the wheel while answering an incoming call from Delta.

  Delta spoke over the speaker in his cell. “I’ve accessed the local dispatch systems for Napa PD, the Sheriff, and CHP. Your route is clear of any units.”

  Warren settled into the passenger seat with a huff while Sasha and Eden piled into the back. The Jeep’s engine rumbled to life and as Pablo pulled the gear select into Drive and put the vehicle into motion. The tires briefly spun as Pablo pulled out of the Quester’s driveway and south onto the Silverado Trail then mashed the gas pedal to the floorboard. The old Jeep’s body rattled as the speedometer ascended past the 55 MPH speed limit.

  Nearing 70 MPH, they raced up on a semi-truck hauling a trailer of freshly harvested grapes labored along well below the speed limit. In the back seat Eden stifled an alarmed yelp and Warren reached up to grab his Oh Shit handle as Pablo continued to accelerate, crossed the double yellow line, and zipped around the truck like it was standing still.

  “We’re not going to be much help if we wreck on our way there,” Warren said with a relieved sigh.

  “I’m not planning on wrecking,” Pablo replied, his tone hard as steel thanks to Iron Mind.

  “Most people don’t plan on wrecking,” Sasha said.

  “Paladin of Metal here, remember? I’ve got this.”

  Continuing south, they continued to pass traffic, often in defiance of oncoming traffic and any reasonable definition of safe driving. However, throughout every hair raising maneuver, Pablo’s knuckles never so much as paled and his expression remained placidly focused. Twice, he reached out and nudged another car's steering column a few degrees—just enough to move them out of the way without causing an accident. He fed a steady stream of his aetheric power through the Jeep's chassis, stabilizing it through high-speed turns that would have sent a normal driver spinning off the road.

  Things only got trickier as they sprinted into the northern limits of Napa itself. It was still early morning, especially for a Saturday, but that didn’t mean the roads were empty. With his Metal Sense every car around him became a constellation of engine blocks, brake rotors, and steel frames in his mind. Car horns blared at him from startled drivers as he gunned it through a red light, zipping through a gap between cars traveling perpendicular to him with mere inches to spare.

  As they neared the apartment complex, Delta had just finished updating them on Zoe's situation—and Sam's condition—in the apartment. Ahead of them the red glow of emergency lights strobed against the looming walls of the apartment complex in the early morning light. Delta had highlighted the unit's window in his vision: third floor, corner unit, the glass visibly shattered from Zoe’s arrival on the scene.

  "Hold on." Pablo yanked the wheel hard to the right and departed the road entirely.

  “Oh—!” Warren began to shout.

  The Jeep bounced over the curb, jolted across the sidewalk, and carved through a grassy patch between the complex and the road. With a flawless image of the parking lot layout in his mind—every car, every gap, every obstacle, and unflinching precision, Pablo threaded the Jeep through a disjointed series of empty parking spaces and brought them skidding to a stop at the base of Sam's building. The maneuver had put them on the opposite side of the structure from where the first responders were arriving.

  "—Shit!" Warren's voice was thick with stunned amazement. "That. Was. Awesome!"

  “Alright, everyone listen up.” Pablo killed the engine, but left the keys in the ignition as he turned to face his team. Eden was pale as a sheet and Sasha’s eyes were wide as saucers after his latest stunt. "If you’re visibly using powers, try to stay in the shadows or armor up. We've got to start worrying about secret identities. Let's try to keep property damage to a minimum. We don't need more questions swirling around, but we need additional victims even less."

  Delta's voice crackled from Pablo's phone speaker. "I'm already looping all surveillance in the area, but Emergency Services will likely have dash and possibly body cameras that I can't remotely access."

  “And Delta can’t do anything to help us with good old Mark-1 human eyeballs,” Pablo amended.

  "Do we have a plan?" Eden asked after gulping in a deep breath.

  “Why start now?” Warren chuckled. If anything, surviving Pablo’s demonstration of driving had left the young man hyped up.

  “Top level objective, we need to get Sam out of here and back to Delta if we can.” As he spoke, the four of them clamoured out of the Jeep. “It doesn’t sound like he’s in control of himself. Try not to do him any lasting harm, but we can’t let him escape or hurt anyone else.”

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  “We saw how fast he healed back in the dungeon.” Sasha nodded. “Where do you want us?”

  While Delta had been reporting the situation on the ground, next steps had been clicking into place in the back of Pablo’s mind. His first impulse was to hurl himself at the monster that Sam had become—to put himself between Sam and anyone he might hurt, but especially his friends. With an effort, Pablo squashed that desire. He wished he could be everywhere all at once, to guide and protect his friends, but that wasn't part of his powerset. Pablo drew in a deep breath and marshalled his conflicting desires.

  Protect the team by putting everyone where they'll do the most good and trusting them, he told himself.

  “Sasha, back up Zoe in the apartment. Eden, call up some fog for cover, then check on Sam's neighbor, Kate. Delta said she was injured during Zoe's entrance. I'll delay emergency services as long as possible."

  "What about me?" Warren asked.

  "Watch our rear and if my delay doesn’t work, make a distraction."

  "A distraction?" Warren visibly smothered a grin.

  "They're firefighters." Pablo shrugged. "I'm sure you can manage something."

  “Across the Stars Unyielding. Shields Against the Void Beyond,” Sasha hurriedly intoned, almost under her breath to summon her armor. The heavy orange and bronze plates appeared around her in a brief flash of light.

  “Any questions?”

  After a round of head shakes in the negative, Pablo said, “Let’s do this.”

  Sasha used her enhanced leg servos of her armor to leap up to the shattered third-story bedroom window. As Eden raced off to check on Kate, she activated Fog. A second later a thick bank of white mist rolled around the building, swallowing the parking lot in cottony obscurity. Fading into the mist, Warren moved off to a vantage point where he could keep an eye on Sam's bedroom window and the emergency services around the corner at the entrance to the complex, using his thermal vision to track heat signatures through the fog.

  With his team in motion, Pablo turned and jogged off toward the complex's entrance. He had to force himself not to move at superhuman speed. Fortunately, the shorts and t-shirt he'd thrown on when rushing off to the Quester estate that morning looked athletic enough that he could have reasonably been out for a jog, so long as no one noticed he wasn't all that sweaty.

  Sam's apartment complex was U-shaped, with a gated courtyard on the interior leading to the open-air entrances to each unit. At the open end of the U-shape, where the EMS vehicles were unloading, a wrought-iron fence blocked off the courtyard. Next to a squat-detached leasing office, a gate provided access to the courtyard.

  Pablo reached the gate just ahead of the approaching firefighters, who moved with hurried, purposeful strides. Behind them, the EMTs were still unloading their gurney from the ambulance. Pablo arranged his expression into that of a concerned and mildly curious neighbor—someone who'd been out for a morning job and came back to discover an unfolding emergency. He hoped the little bumps the Nexus had given his Presence stat would make him convincing.

  He made a show of punching in an access code on the little keypad next to the gate. He didn't have a code of any sort, of course, so he just pressed four random keys. The keypad beeped and he tried to open the gate. It rattled against the lock, refusing to budge. As he rattled the locked gate, he mentally latched onto the metal locking mechanism with his affinity and willed it to remain motionless.

  "Damn it," Pablo grumbled, loud enough for the firefighters as they came up right behind him—three of them, two men and a woman, all in full turnout gear. "This thing is always acting up."

  "Sir, we need access to the building," the lead firefighter said, her tone crisply professional. "There's been a 911 call."

  "Yeah, I'm trying." Pablo released the gate and jabbed at the buttons with exaggerated frustration. Then he rattled the gate again.

  "Please step aside, sir."

  Pablo obliged, raising his hands in a gesture of exasperated surrender. The firefighters made several attempts themselves, punching in what was probably the building's emergency override code. As a twinge in his mind, Pablo felt the gate lock try to cycle open, the little electric motor strained but the mechanism was no match for his elemental affinity.

  "What the hell?" One of the firefighters yanked on the gate. It didn't budge.

  "Must be busted," Pablo offered. "Old building, you know? I've had to call maintenance about this thing twice this month."

  The lead firefighter keyed her radio. "Dispatch, we've got an access issue at the Vineyard Courtyard complex. Gate's not responding to the emergency code. Requesting building management contact."

  "Copy that, Unit 7. Stand by."

  ***

  The fog Eden had called responded to her will eagerly, rolling across the parking lot and climbing the walls of the apartment building like ivy. She fed a continuous trickle of power into it, maintaining the bank while she moved through its concealing embrace toward the parked car where Delta had tracked Kate.

  She found the woman huddled against the rear wheel of the car, about twenty feet from the building itself. She was shaking, her arms wrapped around herself, and even from a distance Eden could see the blood. Eden dropped to her knees beside her.

  "Hey, hey—you're okay. I'm here to help."

  Kate flinched away, her eyes snapping open and wild with terror. Through her new Empathy power, Eden could feel the waves of terror and confusion rolling off her. The woman's emotional state was a raw wound, jagged and bright in Eden's new sense.

  "There's something—in the apartment—Sam, he—" She cut off with a strangled sob.

  "I know. My friends are—it’ll be okay. I’ve got you." Eden kept her voice low and soothing. "Right now, I need to check your injuries. Can you let me see?"

  Kate's arms unclenched slowly. Eden sucked in a breath at what she saw. Dozens of lacerations covered Kate's arms, shoulders, and face—shards of the bedroom window that Zoe had crashed through. Most were superficial, but one deep gash on her left forearm pulsed with arterial blood, bright red and far too fast.

  That one could kill her in minutes.

  "I gotta put pressure on this, and it…might feel strange," Eden said, reaching for Kate's arm. "Just trust me."

  She pressed her hand to the wound, under the pretense of applying pressure, and activated Lay on Hands. The warm glow of healing light suffused her palm, Kate's eyes went wide as the flesh knitted together beneath Eden's hand—muscle fiber reconnecting, blood vessels sealing, skin smoothing over like it had never been cut. The glow faded, and where there had been a life-threatening injury, there was now only a faint pink scar.

  "What—" Kate stared at her arm. "How did you—"

  "You're going to be okay. Not as bad as I thought." Eden pulled back, surveying the rest of Kate's injuries. The remaining cuts were painful but not dangerous. She made a quick decision to leave the rest. An entirely miraculous recovery would raise too many questions. "The EMTs are going to take care of you. You tripped and fell, cut yourself on some broken glass. That's all you need to tell them."

  "But Sam—"

  "Sam is being taken care of." Eden met Kate's eyes, pouring every ounce of calm reassurance she could muster into her voice. "He's very sick. The important thing right now is that you're safe."

  Kate's emotional state shifted—still frightened, still confused, but the ragged edge of panic was smoothing out. Eden could feel her latching onto the calm reassurance like a lifeline.

  "911? An ambulance?" Kate said slowly. "They're coming?"

  "They're right around front. They're going to take you to the hospital, get you checked out properly." Eden squeezed her arm gently. "You did good, Kate. You called for help. You tried to check on your neighbor. That was brave."

  A distant crash echoed from above—something heavy hitting something solid. Eden's head snapped up toward Sam's window. Through the fog, she couldn't see anything. Kate made a startled little yelp. Eden turned her focus back to Kate.

  “How about I help you around to the front?”

  “Y-yeah. Yes, please.” Kate nodded.

  “Come on.” Seizing hold of an arm, Eden helped Kate to her feet. “Let’s get you to that ambulance.”

  With Kate’s arm slung over her shoulders, she helped the woman hobble away from the still evolving disaster. The fog swirled around her, thick enough that she was invisible more than ten feet away.