I stared at her a sec, processing her logic. If she got caught, I’d be back at square one, negotiating with Alling, but this time in a burning building. “Yeah, okay. Together then.”
Keeping my steps light and silent, I half-tiptoed, half-jogged like some kind of cartoon thief toward the nearest whirring, blinking block of servers. Blue light illuminated the individual rack spaces. Massive tubes of cooling liquid snaked through the racks.
I glanced back at Mom to make sure she was with me.
“Freezing,” she said.
I looked around me. Yeah, I guessed it should be, although I wasn’t cold. I hadn’t even noticed the temp when I’d come in with Alling. Was that a moth thing? Or did I run hotter now too?
“It won’t be cold for long,” I told her.
I had blasted shit lots of times by now, but really only once on purpose at the mall. I put out my hand palm up and imagined a purple fireball rushing out of it. I flexed every muscle, gritted my teeth, bugged my eyeballs, andpushed.
Nothing.
“Someone’s coming,” Mom whispered, fast.
My heart boomed. Urgency fuzzed out the rest of the room.
I knew this moment well from gaming: it was do or die time.
I concentrated on the feeling of the restraints on my wrists and the band around my head, like those straps were the only things holding me together…called upon my EldWitch powers…
And with awhoosh! wooom! krackow!of purple energy, the monster server bank went from tall and tidy to having a big, messy hole in its belly that crackled with purple sparks. In another instant, yellow flames appeared, just beginning to lick at its innards.
Slayed it like a fucking dragon!
And God, I wanted more, and since we needed a bigger fire anyway…
I turned toward the next bank, raised my arm, andwhoosh! wooom! kracKOW!my purple powers slammed the next server racks so hard that they toppled—crash!—and hit the server racks behind them.Bigger crash!
Alarms blared and lights flashed yellow-red, yellow-red.
Like a gleeful five-year-old, I whipped toward Mom to point out what I did—“Look at me, Mom!”—only to find her lunging at Carlo 2.0 as he aimed his gun at me. With the ugly black hole of the muzzle still locked on me, he kicked at her like a dog. Before I could summon my purple power, she stabbed him.
The scissors sank deep into his thigh, and he yelped. Leg buckling, arms flailing, he dropped to one knee.
He attempted to aim at me again, but Mom swatted at his arm and his shot—pow!—went wild.
She got all in his face. “Stop struggling! You’re going to bleed out!”
Like him, I glanced down at his thigh, and also like him, found his blood spurting up rhythmically. Squirt, squirt, squirt. Red, like runny ketchup from the top of a squeeze bottle.
Mom pushed him back on his ass and put her hand on his groin. “Press here, hard, with both hands until help comes,” she said in her commanding nurse voice, “and you might not die.”
His gaze went terrorized, but he did as she told him. The spurts eased to a very slow ooze.
My badass mom put her scissors back in the waistband of her pants.
And yeah, I’d stood there like a total idiot through the whole thing. But I shook off my surprise in time to brag, “That’s my mom, motherfucker.”
She opened her eyes wide at me.
Yeah, I knew. Language.
But she said, “Let’s go!”
Oh. Right. Stairs. Freedom…then a hamburger or two because I was so fucking hungry.
