Chapter 24
Elijah moved through the dark streets like a ghost, his breathing technique pushing him forward, the warmth in his chest burning steady.
He followed the signs. A scuff mark on a wall. A gate left swinging. A garbage can knocked over, its contents scattered across the pavement. Mai had been running. Running hard. And someone had been following.
The footprints stopped at an alley between two buildings. Elijah slowed, his breathing still controlled, his Ki circulation still active. He had maybe thirty seconds left.
He stood at the mouth of the alley and looked down its length. The buildings on either side were warehouses or old factories, their windows boarded, their doors rusted shut. The alley ended at a wider street, and beyond that, he could see the glow of headlights.
He didn't know where to go.
The trail had gone cold. The marks on the ground disappeared into the darkness of the alley, and he couldn't tell which direction she had been taken. He stood there, his chest heaving, his hands empty at his sides, and for a moment he felt the weight of not knowing pressing down on him.
[You can find her.]
Alter Elijah's voice came from inside, calm and certain.
"I don't know where she is," Elijah said, his voice low.
[Yes you do.]
He closed his eyes. "I don't—"
[Stop talking, Feel.]
Elijah took a breath. The warmth in his chest was flickering, the seconds of his circulation burning away. He had maybe twenty left. But he didn't push. He let the breath fill him, let the warmth settle, and he reached out with something he didn't know he had.
Ki sense.
He had never done this before. He had read about it in The Eternal Ground breathing technique but never tried it.
But Alter Elijah was there, and Alter Elijah knew what Elijah could do even when Elijah didn't.
[They're there.]
Elijah opened his eyes. The alley stretched before him, dark and empty, but he could feel it now. A faint distant Three signatures, maybe fifty meters ahead, beyond the end of the alley. One of them was small, flickering, the Ki of someone terrified and barely conscious. The other two were larger, rougher, their energy dull and thick.
He moved.
The alley disappeared beneath his feet. The buildings blurred past him. He burst out onto the wider street and saw them.
A van was parked at the curb, its side door open, its engine running. A man was standing at the back of it, his body wide, his arms thick, his face hidden in shadow. He was holding something—someone. A girl with dark purple hair, her body limp, her arms hanging at her sides.
Mai.
The man threw her into the van like she weighed nothing. Her body landed on the floor of the cargo space with a sound that made Elijah's chest tighten. The man climbed in after her, his bulk filling the doorway.
The driver was already in his seat, his hands on the wheel, his foot on the gas. The van started to move.
Elijah had seconds. Maybe less. His Ki circulation was fading, the warmth in his chest flickering. His body was screaming at him to stop, to breathe, to let the technique drop before he collapsed. He had pushed too far. He was running on nothing.
[Push past your limits.]
"I can't—"
[Don't listen to your body. It doesn't know what you're capable of.]
The van was pulling away. The driver's window was dark, the glass tinted, the face inside just a shape. In a few seconds, they would be gone.
[Don't fear killing. If that was our mother in that van, if that was our sister, you wouldn't hesitate.]
Elijah's hand moved before his mind caught up. The gun was in his grip, the weight cold and solid, the metal pressing against his palm. He raised it.
[Move, Elijah.]
The van was twenty meters away. The driver hadn't seen him. Neither had the man in the back. They were focused on the road, on the escape, on whatever plan they had for the girl they'd taken.
But the driver's Ki sense flickered. Elijah felt it—a sudden spike of awareness, a man realizing something was wrong a second too late.
Elijah fired.
The shot cracked through the night, loud and sharp. The driver's head snapped to the side. The bullet had found him before his hand could turn the wheel, before his foot could hit the brake, before his mind could finish the thought that something was wrong.
The van swerved. The driver's body slumped against the window, his hands still on the wheel, his weight dragging the van to the left. The tires hit the curb. The van bounced, slammed into a parked car, and kept moving, its engine roaring as it plowed toward a small park at the end of the street.
Elijah ran.
The van crashed through a low iron fence, the metal screeching, sparks flying. It crossed the grass of the park, its headlights cutting through the dark, and then it hit a tree.
The front end crumpled. The windshield spiderwebbed. The engine died.
Elijah reached the van as the steam was still rising from the hood. The driver was slumped over the wheel, blood on the glass, not moving. The side door was still open, hanging on its hinges. Inside, the big man was sprawled against the wall of the cargo space, his head bleeding, his eyes closed.
And there, on the floor of the van, was Mai.
She was curled on her side, her hands bound in front of her, her mouth covered with tape. Her eyes were open. She was looking at him.
But before she could be happy the big Man opened his eyes and with a burst of power sent Elijah flying with a Kick.