Pulse

had been smart enough to run.
    “Get your men and go!” Dylan shouted into his Tablet. He wasn’t going to have a bloodbath on his hands, even if it meant putting Faith in danger. In a burst of activity, nine Drifters, including Clooger, left the scene and scattered far and wide. If they’d have seen where the one fallen Drifter had landed, they also would have found Faith. She was at his side, holding up his head with one hand.
    “It’s okay; you’re fine,” she mumbled. But the man was struggling to catch every breath, blood flowing over his beard from a gash in his temple. “Don’t die on me. Don’t!” Faith yelled.
    The thought of having caused one more person to die was more than Faith could handle. She cried for help, but there was no one.
    “They say you’re the other one,” the man coughed, his voice turning to a papery whisper. “Two by two. That’s what they say.”
    Faith didn’t understand. “Just stay alive, please. Don’t die on me.”
    She reached for her Tablet, but it wasn’t there. Searching the sky for any sign of help turned up nothing. Not only had she failed to put an end to Clara Quinn, she’d gotten another Drifter in trouble and dragged Dylan into the mess she’d made.
    “Look at me,” the man said. Faith’s eyes were pooled with tears, but she did as she was told. The man had the kindest, gentlest eyes. Surrounded by all that long hair and the beard, they were the most striking thing to look at. He moved his hand to his heart and tapped it. “Your parents loved you,” he said. “It broke their hearts, leaving you behind.”
    “Don’t do this!” Faith said, but no amount of wishing was going to change the situation. The man’s breathing was getting shorter. Faith could barely hear the words he was saying. He took another gasp of breath, smiled, and said one more thing.
    “I’ll tell them you were worth it.”
    He closed his eyes, and he was gone.
    Faith hadn’t imagined that all this would happen when she went to confront Clara. She’d imagined a heroic fight to the death, just the two of them. But she’d been deadly wrong. How could things have turned so crazy so fast? She took a breath, wiped her eyes, tried to think.
    What can I do?
    What the hell can I possibly do?
    She touched the tattoo on her neck and wished she could feel the searing pain of the needle.
    And then, all at once, she knew the answer.
     
    Dylan stood alone against one of the outside walls of the school, watching. Clara and Wade Quinn both had second pulses, which made them more than just invincible. Together, they were an unstoppable two-person army. Dylan knew how strong their powers of perception were. If anyone inside the mall so much as moved a spoon three inches across a table with their mind, Wade and Clara might feel it. They’d rip the place apart until they found the source.
    Dylan knew better than anyone how high the stakes had become. He couldn’t save the States alone, and the States had to be protected at all cost. States and locations like them existed around the world for a reason: a fragile planet couldn’t sustain humanity without them. There was no going back to people spread out all over kingdom come. The infrastructure wasn’t there to sustain that kind of future. And there was another reason the States had to be protected. Ninety percent of humanity resided inside them. A fallen State meant untold millions of casualties. Dylan would need Meredith and the Drifters. But more than that, he would need Hawk and Faith, and both of them were in serious danger. If Clara and Wade discovered the encampment inside the mall, things would take a sharp turn for the worse. He’d be left to navigate the coming wrath all by himself. Not a happy prospect, and not a battle he could win. He had to keep Clara and Wade as far away from the deserted mall as possible, and the best way to do that was to lure them away with a pulse.
    He looked in the direction of the football field, then burst up in the air like he’d been shot from a gun. They sensed his presence immediately, taking chase behind him from two different corners of the Old Park Hill campus. He was pretty sure they already knew he had a second pulse, but they were about to discover just how powerful their new enemy was. Dylan lined himself up with the goalpost and stopped, hovering in the air as he turned his back on the field and faced the coming wrath of the Quinns. The field below was dark, so the vans couldn’t be