Anomalies: Control
Chapter 11

This was bad. Way worse than he’d anticipated.

He’d wanted it to be a relatively quiet affair. Yes, the actuality of getting their friends out was planned to be quick and messy, but until then it should have been quiet. But this. Sirens were blaring from the building and police and fire trucks were starting to be heard around the corner, racing to the spot. People in neat suits and with confused and frightened looks were spilling out of the building, intermingled with the lower level employees who were trying to scan the crowds for their missing subjects.

It was pure chaos, and it was all his fault. He was trying to scan the immediate area for the Skye residents, the other escapees, and Rune. He didn’t have to look far for the latter, as she came running up from the side of an alleyway, and without really thinking about it, he pulled her to him, hugging her tightly. She tensed up and he let her pull away, knowing that she wasn’t really a casually touchy person, even though he really just wanted to tuck her under his arm and not let her out of his sight for a few days.

She lifted her hand palm side facing him, and he was momentarily distracted by the cuts from breaking the hand restraints. “Cole, I need you. I can get us out of here, but I need a charge up.”

He didn’t bother thinking about it, and grabbed her hand, letting her power buzz dangerously before pulling away, feeling that usual reluctance to pull away, though it was still worse with Rune’s power. Must be something about how it had a life of its own, like Tech said. She squeezed his hand as he pulled away. “Go replace Tech,” she insisted, and he nodded, turning to run in the direction he’d last seen Tech with Maggie and Banshee.

“Tech!” he called softly as he neared the Mechanical. The other man looked up as he came skidding to a stop next to him. “Rue needs you.”

Tech nodded and muttered something to Maggie and trotted after Cole back to where Rune had been, only to replace no Rune. “Wait, she was right here… she said she could get us out.”

Tech narrowed his eyes back at the building. “Did she ask for a charge?” He suddenly turned to look at the scrambling Anomalies around them. “Where’s the shifter?”

“What shifter? I don’t know. She did want a charge, though.”

Tech’s expression fell into a fearful look Cole had never actually seen before on him. “She’s going to bring it down,” he said softly, half to himself.

“What?”

“There was a shifter, one who works for the agency, that was out here who’s not anymore. Rue took the shifter to get herself back inside. She’s going to try to destroy the building. Her power, the more she uses the more it drains her. With your charge, she’ll be able to use enough to try to bring down the building. Even if she doesn’t succeed, if she uses too much with the extra boost, she’ll kill herself.”

“We have to go get her.” He made a move to rush for the building but Tech grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Cole, if you follow her you’re just going to go down with her.”

“I can’t just leave her in there, Tech.” Not after they went to so much trouble to get her back. The others had more than one person involved; some like Tracker just did because people like Kane and Banshee were involved. But as much as he tried to care about everyone, he’d been in it for Rune. Even if she went in knowing she wouldn’t come out, he refused to accept that.

“If you go in, you go in alone, do you hear me?”

He nodded and ran toward the building. He watched a man in a white lab coat come running out and shift back to a girl with shoulder length dark hair who immediately started talking to a blonde girl he’d seen in passing. He ran to them, and grabbed the dark haired girl’s arm. “Look, I’m really sorry I don’t know your name, but did you take another girl in there? The enchantress?” he asked desperately.

The dark haired girl nodded. “Yeah, I took her as far as the lower levels then she made me leave.”

The blonde seemed to sense his desperation, and leaned closer to the shifter. “Which levels, Amanda?” she asked the other girl, a hand on her arm.

“Near the training room.”

The blonde looked back up at Cole. “You’ll never get down there.”

“I have to try.”

Amanda nudged the blonde. “Talia, we have to get away from him. We’re going to be in trouble enough as it is.”

He reached out to stop the girls from leaving, a hand on Talia’s arm and one on Amanda’s. “Please. I can’t let her go down like this, not alone. Just tell me how to get there?”

Amanda pulled away, but Talia seemed to wilt in sympathy. “I know you’re the charger they want. If they replace you down there, they’ll arrest both of you and sort it out later.”

“I don’t care.”

She sighed, told him a route into the building and to the training room, and he squeezed her arm before turning back to the building, but she grabbed his hand before he’d taken more than a step. “Cole, I can help, I’m a shield. Let me come with you.” The shifter- Amanda- made a noise of disbelief and grabbed Talia’s arm tighter.

He wanted to ask how she knew his name, but there was no time. He shook off her hand, shaking his head. “No. I’m not putting more people at risk. Stay here, go with Amanda,” he nodded at the shifter, “and stay safe.” He didn’t know this girl, he wasn’t about to ask her to risk her life for him and for Rune. She opened her mouth to argue, but he was already running again.

He traced the paths Talia had told him and realized he was getting closer to Rune as the building started to tremble more and more the longer he ran. He saw a door ripped off its hinges and didn’t even slow, simply leapt over the twisted metal and into the room where Rune was standing, her arms stretched out to the floor, her face twisted in the kind of pain that usually came with heavy physical effort. “Rue!”

She turned toward him, startled, her face a mask of horror and anger. She turned away from him to look back up at the ceiling that was starting to snow little flakes of concrete down on them as it started to crumble under her power. He reached her and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her out of the room. It was just starting to cave. They had time to run; there was still a sliver of hope they’d get out.

“Get out you stupid shit!” she yelled over the rumbling, trying to pull from his grip.

“Not without you!”

“Dammit Cole!” She gave in and followed him toward the door, but they both froze as a particularly large chunk of ceiling broke and came crashing down not two feet from where their exit was. “I can stall it but you have to go!”

He felt a growl rip from his throat at the thought of leaving her to save his own ass. “The hero doesn’t suit you, Rue.”

Nope, that was definitely the trigger; she was definitely about to knock him unconscious and throw him forcibly from the room. But a third voice joined them and stalled her from attacking him.

“Cole!” Talia came running in toward them as more rubble started to fall, and on instinct, driven more by his ability than by any rational thought, he was already reaching for her hand. The girls were screaming, and judging by the rawness in his own throat, he was too, as the ceiling finally gave in entirely and fell on them in a chaotic sensory overload of resounding crashes, thick choking dust and sudden darkness. He tried to keep the two girls out of the worst of the rubble in a vain attempt to save them, feeling the rocks and choppy pieces of concrete coming down on them, smashing into bones and ripping into skin, making the screams worse.