Alien Proliferation

the air, landed with the staff point on the ground in the middle of the melee, and used the momentum to kick the head of the nearest bad guy. He went down, I stood on top of him and slammed the staff up and around. I aimed for heads—I didn’t want any of these people alive to do any more dirty work on the people I cared about.
    I heard screaming and saw the rest of the bad guys who were still standing holding their heads and crumbling to the ground. Glanced toward the Gower girls. They glared in concentration, and their expressions said they were as pissed as me. I counted bad guy noses. We were missing Cooper, Gaultier, the fake Al Dejahl, and Camilla. It figured.
    “Kitty, we can’t get the chains off!” Melanie was trying to get Jeff unbound, Emily was working on Chuckie, and Amy was with Christopher, but no one was effective.
    I looked at the three men. My men. All of them were my men. And they’d been tied up, beaten, tortured. Any one of them could have won a fair fight. But our enemies never fought fair.
    The anger came, and it was massive. I saw Jeff’s expression—his eyes were wide, and he looked afraid. Of me. I didn’t want him to feel anything like this; I didn’t want to hurt him . I wrapped my mind around his and held it in a safe place, where nothing could hurt him. Then I looked at the chains holding him.
    They flew off and slammed against the wall of the cell behind him.
    Cool.

 
    CHAPTER 59
     
    I CONCENTRATED. ALL THE CHAINS holding the guys flew off and away, to slam against the back wall. Double cool.
    Ran and caught Jeff as he was falling. Laid him gently on the ground. Raced around and caught all the other guys before they hit the ground, too. Everyone was in slow motion, I was moving so fast.
    They were all hurt, some worse than others, but all badly. I grabbed Christopher’s hand. “Show me everyone here we care about.” Christopher closed his eyes, and I could see everyone’s internal damages. I grabbed Tito’s hand in my free one. “Fix them. Closest to death first. Abby, Mimi, link to me.” Naomi put her hand on my head, she and Abigail held hands, then Abigail touched Chuckie.
    His lungs were punctured, and his other internal injuries were horrifying. I concentrated as information flowed from Christopher and Tito through me to the Gower girls. Chuckie’s head went back, and he shouted from pain—the repairs were hurting him. No anesthetic. I did the same for him as I had for Jeff, wrapped his mind in mine and kept it in a safe, loving place.
    It took a bit—or maybe not, I couldn’t tell how fast things were moving any more—but Chuckie’s injuries were repaired. I released his mind gently.
    We moved to Jeff next. For once I didn’t have to stab him in the heart, but only because we were restarting his hearts this way. His blocks were shot, so his mind was hurt as well as his body. Stayed calm while the repairs went on, just kept his mind wrapped in mine, soothed him, fixed his blocks and put them back up, while I caressed his mind and kept the pain and fear away from him.
    And so it went. Fix one, move to the next, protect him from pain, do the repairs, move on. Christopher and Tito had to be repaired before some of the others, but it was a tossup as to who could claim to be the least injured.
    After what seemed like hours, we were done. We got out of our weird Wonder Quintuplets link, and I looked for White. “Where’s Richard?”
    “He said he wasn’t hurt. He went after the ones who escaped.” Emily’s voice shook.
    “We need these bodies for anything, proof, burning in effigy, that sort of thing?”
    “No,” Chuckie said. Naomi was helping him stand up. “Disappeared without a trace would be easier.”
    “Poofies, enjoy your well-earned snackage.” The Poofs devoured. “Careful with Barbara, Poofies, she might give you indigestion.” Poofikins looked at me, purred, and crunched Barbara up. Loved my Poofs. Dead bodies were gone fast. Much Poof belching occurred, but I decided to ignore it and focus on the easy cleanup.
    Melanie was staring at me as though she’d never seen me before. “Kitty . . .”
    “Superpowers and Poofs rock. Going after Richard, he’s going to need me. Oh, by the way, Chuckie? You were, as always, right. We had a mole, but she was a double agent, which is why you were all still alive. Jeff and Christopher? For the last time, he’s the best and only friend we have in the C.I.A. Start treating him as such. James?