Chapter 20. Chapter 21. Chapter 22. Chapter 23. Chapter 24. Chapter 25. Chapter 26. Chapter 27.
The bell announcing 1st period buzzed and quickly melded with the sound of a hundred different conversations crashing into and on top of each other.
Luke high-fived his friends Jay and Justin on their way into Mr. Josef’s English class.
“Okay, settle down, everyone, please settle down,” Mr. Josef said as he ushered students into his classroom.
“I hope everyone had a fun weekend,” Mr. Josef said as students slowly found their way to their desks. “Well, fun time is over now. We have state testing in a few weeks…” the room erupted in groans and a few ill-advised curse words.
“As I was saying,” Josef continued. “We're going to start our concept reviews today. When I tell you to start, I need you to break into groups of four.
“There are review packets at each table. The first student to get to a table group needs to grab the packets and hand them out to each student in the group.”
Luke joined a table group with Jay,
Justin, and another student whose name he couldn’t remember. Luke did his best to participate in the group activity, but he kept losing focus.
When is the attack going to happen? He thought to himself. Where are they going to attack?
Who’s attacking us? Does Blake require our help? He seemed like he can handle anything that comes his way. Did he ask me to help? He came to see Gus, not me, after all.
“Luke,” Jay asked. “ Does this look like a run-on sentence to you? Luke? Hey, man, I’m talking to you. Are you okay?” Jay asked.
“Huh?” Luke said absentmindedly. He pulled his eyes away from the large picture window on the left side of the classroom and focused on Jay.
“I asked if you were okay,” Jay said, pushing his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. “Are you? You’ve been crazy busy ever since we got on the bus this morning. What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, Jay,” Luke said. “No, I’m okay, I promise, I just didn’t get much sleep las-“
FOOM
The room shook, rattling the picture window and knocking several books off of Mr. Josef’s sizable bookshelf.
The class got out of their seats immediately. Some kids wanted to know what was going on, others checked on their friends to make sure they were okay. Several students pulled out their phones to see if there were any breaking news alerts to explain what was happening.
Some students class ran to the picture window, pressing up against it and trying to see if they could see some hint of what caused the noise.
Luke stood to his feet. He saw Jay, Justin, and the other kid trying to squeeze in and look out the picture window.
Girls in the class cried or argued with each other about what was going on.
Some boys made inappropriate jokes about bombs at the school or everyone dying. A stern look from Mr. Josef shut that down, but the class remained loud and chaotic.
Mr. Josef had his phone pressed to his ear, calling the office to see if anyone could tell him what was going on, or at least tell him what he should do for his class.
No one paid any attention to Luke. Seizing the opportunity, Luke pictured the main parking lot in front of Calvin Middle School and vanished.
Luke appeared in the parking lot in between a dingy red classic Chevrolet truck and a white Tesla Model 3.
Luke took a breath and got his bearings. He looked right and left for any obvious accidents or unusual events.
It didn’t take long.
All of a sudden, an unusual glare caught his as he turned to his left. Texas is notorious for its low elevation, so he could see a long way without difficulty.
In the middle distance, flames and smoke distorted and surrounded the area where the refinery should be.
Luke could just make out fires blazing all over the refinery grounds. This was going to get a lot worse in a hurry if someone didn’t do something.
Luke dug furiously in his pocket. For one panicked moment, he thought he left without his Key-Comm. Thankfully, his hand closed on it a second later.
Luke took a quick moment to remember Blake’s code name, then he mashed his finger on the red button in the center of the comm.
The comm let out a piercing shriek and then Luke heard crackling like a radio tuned to dead air.
With his finger still on the button, Luke put the comm to his mouth and yelled
“Kestrel! Are you there? This is Cross.”
The comm crackled and then Blake’s voice came on the speaker.
“Kestrel, here. What do you have for me, Cross?”
“There was some sort of explosion at the refinery. Fires everywhere. I’m going there now.”
“Understood,” Kestrel replied. “I can see the flames already. I’ll be there in seconds. Don’t engage anyone until I get there, okay?”
“Understood, Kestrel. On my way.”
Blake broke the connection. Air rushed past his face at an increasing rate of speed as he baked right towards the refinery.
Luke pulled the domino mask out of his pocket, fitted it on his face, and disappeared.
Ms. Marques told her students to stay at their desks and keep as quiet as possible while they waited for more information from the school office.
Learning was out of the question, but she would settle for silence after all the confusing yelling, crosstalk, and confusion when they first heard the sound.
The sixth-grade math class was at the extreme south end of Calvin Middle. Double doors leading to employee parking were just a few feet away from the classroom door.
Darryl leaned over the back of his seat towards Morris and mouthed, “What the heck is going on?”
Morris shrugged dramatically and mouthed the words “No idea, but it's something big for sure. Do you think this is the attack Blake told us about?”
Now it was Darryl's turn to shrug.
Suddenly, the devices in their backpacks made sharp pinging noises.
They dug the comms out of their backpacks.
The comms had a text screen on the underside of each device. Both comms had the same message in thick, block letters.
“ATTACK AT BLACKWAY REFINERY IN PROGRESS. FIND A WAY HERE NOW. — KESTREL.”
Darryl and Morris looked at each other in surprise and shock.
The refinery provided over half of the jobs on the north side of Blackway.
On any given day or time, several hundred people could be found working at different locations in the facility.
Darryl's mother was a shift supervisor at the refinery, and Morris' Uncle Martin was the head of security.
Everyone in Blackway either knew someone who worked at the Refinery or worked there themselves.
“Darryl, we've got to get out of here, NOW,” Morris said. “We need some kind of diversion.”
“Okay, on it,” Darryl said. His eyes briefly flashed black and then returned to normal. One of Darryl's living shadows slipped away from his body. It pressed flat against the ground and quickly rolled itself into the shape of a black ink pen.
Darryl coughed and kicked at the shadow with his right leg. The shadow rolled across the room and stopped by the front door of the class. It flattened again and slipped underneath the door.
A few seconds passed. Nothing happened. Morris was about to say something to Darryl when the school fire alarm went off, filling the room and the hall with deafening chimes.
“Okay, students,“ Ms. Marques said in a slightly raised voice. I need everyone to get out of their seats and form a line now.”
Darryl tapped Morris on the shoulder and motioned toward the classroom door. They didn’t have time to be subtle. As the class sluggishly rose from their desks, Darryl and Morris ran across the classroom, pushed the classroom door open, and ran out into the hall.
They ran from the classroom to the double doors, shoved them open, and ran out of the building.
The air smelled of sulfur and smoke, and police and fire sirens wailed all around them.
They pulled the domino masks out of their backpacks and quickly pulled them over their faces.
Darryl and Morris took half a second to look at each other with their masks on. They exchanged tight smiles. They ran around the back corner of the building towards the front parking lot.
The blazing wreck of the refinery could just be seen in the middle distance; flames licked over every visible surface. They knew they had very little time.
“M, can you find a way over there?” Darryl asked, raising his voice slightly to be heard over all the other noises.
“I’ll GET HIM THERE,” Isch rumbled.
Morris nodded at Darryl and gave him a thumbs up.
“See you there, Bastion!” Darryl yelled. Black, shadowy wings erupted from his shoulders and spread wide on either side of him.
Darryl beat the wings against the air, rose off the ground, and disappeared from view, flying as fast as his shadow wings could go toward the fires and smoke.
“See you, there, Dusk,” Morris said to himself.
“GO LIMP, KID.” Isch roared. “NO TIME TO EXPLAIN.”
Without warning, an enormous red hand grabbed Morris by the waist and pulled him close.
“What are you- AAAAAAAAHHHH!!” Morris screamed as he left the ground.
A massive red shape leaped into the air, flying hundreds of feet before landing and jumping again, getting closer to the refinery with each leap.
The creature held a small boy in its fist.