Chapter 32: Crushed

Before the van had fully stopped moving, Jack, followed by the rest of the team, leapt out of the side door and hit the ground running. Jack charged for all he was worth, unwilling to let Andy get any farther or allow him to kill even more people. Melissa grabbed the back of Jack’s shirt while he was still mid-run, causing him to fall backwards.

“Jack, are you out of your mind?” Cars flew by on the other end of the intersection. The roar of their passing left a ringing sound in Jack’s ears. “Wait for the red-light. What good will it do if you go after them and get yourself killed by a car?”

It only took a few moments for the light to turn red and the passing cars to stop, but to Jack it felt like an eternity. People watched in fascination as the nineteen heavily armed recon officers ran across the intersection with Jack and the team, assault rifles cradled in their arms. One man stuck his head out of his car and shouted at them.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Is there something going on? Is there a terrorist attack or something?”

Other people stared wide-eyed and added their own voices. Jack followed Paro and the recon officers, ignoring the shouts from behind him. The fact that it was night only added to the suspense.

“Won’t they become suspicious?” Jack asked while he ran. They raced into the train terminal and through a crowd of terrified onlookers, most of who were probably wondering why a gigantic police force—what they probably assumed were SWAT officers—were storming their location.

“Of course,” Paro said, “but as long as we refrain from using any Psych abilities, anything that happens can be explained. People already know about the series of murders in Elms New Jersey, and if we succeed here—which we must—then they’ll also learn that the murderers were apprehended at a train station in Staten Island. Only a few people will ever know the full details.”

Jack followed Paro to the head of the stairs leading down to the tracks. It was a wide area with no roof, and the ceiling consisted of only rusty metallic beams with large windowless openings along the top, supported by old, dirty beams running from the ground up.

Paro spoke to the men behind him. “Recon teams, listen carefully. Secure the area, surround the complex, and evacuate all civilians. Don’t follow us down. My team will handle it from here.”

The officers saluted Paro then eighteen of them broke formation to evacuate the citizens in the terminal. There were no protests, or even questions from the people who were attempting to travel by train that night. Most had already left the moment they saw the recon officers rushing inside, and the few that didn’t were more than happy to walk, if not sprint away.

One recon officer remained behind, Rebecca, the one who’d shot the tires out the Lexus Andy had fled in. “Mr. Harris,” she said. “Be careful.” She turned and with haste rejoined her squad members.

Jack didn’t know what that was all about, but for some reason Melissa had a dangerous glint in her eyes upon witnessing it. Jack followed Paro down the steps and looked around the station for any sight of Andy and the other Psychs.

“They should be surrounded,” Sarah said. “They are in this room somewhere. I’m sure of it, yet … I can’t pinpoint their exact location. They’re probably hiding.”

Paro grinned. “They probably think they’ll sneak onboard a train, but little do they know none are coming—I’ve taken care of that. Michal, Kazou, keep your guard up. If their Kinetic tries to throw anything at us, you two need to either knock it out with Telekinesis, or beat it down with fists. Melissa and Jack, I want you two to stay close and keep your eyes peeled. If you see them, make sure to tell me. Let me go in first. And Melissa,” he added in a lowered voice. “If you see the eyes … you know what to do.”

A look of worry crossed her for a moment, replaced soon after with a bold determination. “I do,” she answered.

Jack had no idea what they were talking about, but at that moment he didn’t care. All he wanted was to put a stop to the murders and to find Andy.

Andy, why do I still feel like I did something terrible to you? And why can’t I remember?

Michael and Kazou spread out to both sides of the group, and Jack appreciated the well thought out formations Paro used. With one of them covering each side, they’d be able to protect the team regardless of where an attack came from.

Paro motioned for the rest of the team to follow, and together they crept along the station. There were benches on both sides, as well as stairs on both ends that led to and from the terminal. Jack was certain they’d arrived early enough, at least so that if Andy or the other Psychs tried to escape through either set of stairs, then the recon officers would’ve radioed it in. That meant they were in the station somewhere.

“Let’s check the other end of the tracks,” Sarah said. “They’re in here for sure, but where are they hiding?”

Melissa once again grabbed Jack’s shirt. “Now what, Melissa?” Jack grumbled. “I’m not even moving.”

“Yeah,” she said, “but in a second or two you and I both know that you’d try to run across those train tracks—and don’t even give me that look. Quit acting like you wouldn’t.”

They walked down the narrow path leading to the other end of the room and crossed over the ramp that allowed passage from one side of the tracks to the other. Jack looked around the room and realized that for a train station, there were quite a few places to hide.

The place was filthy and filled with discarded newspapers, plastic—and sometimes glass—cups and bottles everywhere, old wrinkled potato chip bags and discarded shoes. There were even half-eaten rotten sandwiches and other types of stuff that looked like at one time it might’ve been food.

They moved at a slow pace. Every few feet there was a ridge in the beams behind them, a place where a few people might’ve been able to hide in the dark of the night. They were careful to check each one, making sure it was empty. In the daytime, there’d have been no place for the three to hide, but at night, finding them was a daunting task.

“They must have broken all the lights,” Kazou said. “It shouldn’t be this dark in here. Sarah, are you positive they’re still in this area? We’ve checked everywhere. I think we should retrace our steps.”

She stomped her foot to the ground like a child and gave Kazou a defiant look. “I am!” she insisted. She turned around to face away and lowered her head in disappointment. Jack wondered why she had such a moody reaction.

Melissa whispered in his ear, “She’s very sensitive when it comes to people doubting her, Jack. Sarah is one of the weakest Telepaths in our organization. Actually, she’s one of the weakest Psychs altogether. It really, really, really upsets her. She always doubts and hates herself whenever she makes a mistake. She thinks she’s not good enough for us.”

Jack nodded. “Hey, Kazou,” he called out.

Kazou turned around and faced Jack. “Yes?”

“We better keep looking because if someone as good as Sarah is saying they’re still in here, well, I’d bet my own life that they’re just under our noses.”

It was hard to make out with her face turned away from them, combined with the darkness of the terminal, but Jack was sure he saw the left side of Sarah’s face raise into a smile. She even seemed to blush. Michael and Paro too, seemed to be wearing genuine smiles, and Michael even winked.

“Jack’s right, Kazou,” Michael said. “I trust Sarah with my life. If she says they’re here, then they are.”

Kazou only shrugged and moved with them along the narrow path while they continued their search. They reached the other end of the room, across the side of the tracks opposite from where they’d entered. The team peered around in confusion. Jack was getting desperate.

“We’ve checked everywhere,” Jack said. “I don’t get it. Where could they have gone?”

Sarah shifted uneasily on her feet. “Maybe I was wrong after all,” she said doubtfully. “I’m really not all that good.” She twirled her fingers and tried not to meet their eyes.

Paro put a hand on her shoulder. “Sarah,” he said. “I tell you this all the time, but you’re too hard on yourself. You’re one of the—”

“Are you crazy?” Jack yelled at her. “You’re amazing, Sarah. You brought us here. Without you we wouldn’t have even gotten this far. You’re totally cool, and I know I’m new to the team and all, but I don’t think there’s anyone else than you that I’d rather be on the same side as. Now tell us, because I know that you know. Are they still in here?”

Sarah scrambled forward and hugged Jack, kissing his forehead. “Thank you.” With a new strength in her eyes, she glanced down to the floor. “Yes. They are definitely here.” Her voice left no hint of doubt or question.

Paro gave Jack a pat on the back. “Just this once,” Paro whispered, “I’ll let you off the hook for interrupting me.”

Jack broke away from them. He walked forward towards the tip of the narrow pathway. It was a bit of a steep drop to the tracks below—not enough to cause damage but enough to make a person grunt in pain. He was careful not to fall off as he scanned the area. Something had been bothering him since they’d entered the terminal.

“Something wrong, Jack?” Paro asked.

“Nah, it’s nothing. I mean. It’s making me a little nervous, but you guys didn’t say anything about it so I’m sure it’s fine.”

Michael scratched his head and looked around, receiving blank stares from the rest of the team. “Does anyone know what he’s talking about? Jack, what’s making you nervous?”

“Well, the beams that are holding up that roof-thing. I mean, if you look closely they look like they’ve been crumbling and getting weaker, but you guys didn’t say anything, so I figured it must be normal.”

Michael and Sarah regarded each other in confusion, while Kazou, Paro and Melissa twitched as if struggling to remain calm. “Paro, please tell me Jack’s just seeing things.” Melissa begged.

Paro walked to the nearest support-beam, and ran a hand over it. Panic sprung up almost immediately on his face. It spread outward, and like a chain reaction, caused the rest of the team become panicked one by one, until even Kazou appeared dismayed.

“Damnit, Jack, why didn’t you say anything before?” Paro yelled. “Why did you wait until now?”

Jack, a little annoyed, frowned—he did not like when people shouted at him. He pointed a finger at Paro and gave a dirty look. “Well, you guys are supposed to be all like, amazing and stuff, right? I just thought that you or one of the other guys would say something if anything was wrong. What are the chances of someone like me noticing it and no one else?”

Paro closed his eyes and his voice dulled to a whisper. “Sarah, quit tracing them for a moment. Divert your attention to sensing Psych ability. Are there any Psychs currently drawing or using power?”

She blinked, and once again returned to look downward. She only remained in the position a moment, before whipping her head towards the team. Her face brightened with alarm.

“Yes! Manipulation, Telekinesis, and … and there’s more. It feels like it’s been going on for a while. Paro, oh, oh God! They’re going to rip this place down around us. They’re going to crush us!”

Michael and Kazou stood dazed. Melissa grabbed Jack’s arm for dear life, clinging to him. Jack felt his own rising terror, but he forced himself to remain calm. Paro seemed to be doing the same, and one at a time, the team went from frantic to a reluctant calm.

“We’re going to leave right now. If they’re going to bring this place down, they’ll only be killing themselves. We’ll be up there.” Paro pointed to the nearest staircase. “We’ll be waiting for them.”

Jack noticed movement in the corner of his eye. “Paro, look!”

On the side of the tracks they’d entered, three forms crawled out from beneath a bench. There was no doubt that what Jack was seeing were the forms of Andy, Ruin, and the maddened Requiem. Requiem was the first to her feet. She licked her lips and looked at them from across the tracks.

“Darling,” she spoke directly to Jack, “I’d leave if I were you.”

Ruin peered daggers at her, but he was quick to return to his normal, carefree visage. “We’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “Andy and I have been working up a little surprise for our good friends.”

Paro spat on the floor and looked apologetically at his team. “Damn,” he muttered. “How did we not look under the benches? I didn’t think three people could fit under a single bench.”

Andy focused his attention on Jack, with an intensity that felt like he was trying to burn a hole through his head with only his eyes.

“I wish I could stay to see you die, Jack.” There was still a great deal of fear and terror in the boy, apparent in his shaky voice.

“Andy,” Jack breathed. Before anyone—especially Melissa—could attempt to stop him, Jack drew on his disgusting, vile source of power. Once again, he poured it into his legs, and with all of his strength he leapt across the tracks, clearing fifty feet of air in a single leap. There was a loud bang as he landed on the other side. Now he stood only a few feet from the three Psychs. Andy backed up and ran behind Requiem, shivering and shaking.

“Jack!” Melissa cried.

“No, don’t!” Paro yelled—but not in time to stop Melissa from doing the same. Only a Reinforcer could make a jump from such a distance. She landed next to Jack with her usual smooth gracefulness.

There was a rumbling sound as the beams crumbled and shook. The roof-supported metallic rods rang with a deafening sound, painful to Jack’s ears.

Paro turned to Sarah and Michael. “There’s no time!” he shouted. “We need to go—now!”

“I don’t think so,” Ruin laughed. “Andy, weaken that for me, please. Thank you.” He made a gesture of chopping air, and the stairway behind Paro imploded, collapsing and barring their escape.

“We, on the other hand, really need to go,” Ruin said. Requiem and Andy followed him as he walked casually up the stairs just to the left of the narrow walkway where Jack and Melissa were huddled together. They didn’t even glance at the two on their way out—they walked so close that their clothing brushed against Jack’s.

Jack was torn, and he suspected that Melissa was too. Were they supposed to chase or stay and try and help their team?

“Paro, please,” Michael begged. “You and Kazou can make that jump. You can use Reinforcement. Grab Sarah and go. These roof-beams are going to collapse any second. Look, there’s no point in all of us dying, and I’m doing everything I can to hold them in place. I can’t stop for even a second. Just go!”

"You’re right,” Paro said. His voice lowered to a barely audible whisper. “There’s no point in all of us dying.” He turned to Melissa and shouted, “Catch!”

Michael and Sarah screamed in surprise as they were telekinetically flung at Melissa, soaring across the train-tracks. She braced herself and caught the two with a grunt then set them down beside Jack. A large, thick beam fell from above, crashing with a tremendous clang on top of the tracks with a force that would crush a car as easily as it would a person.

Kazou was mid-jump at the time and narrowly managed to survive being smashed by it. He cleared the object by an inch and came to land with a thud next to the four of them.

“Paro, hurry!” Sarah called. “Jump across, please, hurry.”

Paro looked as if he were about to jump but stopped and instead glanced upwards. All at once, the beams gave out, and fifty deadly pieces of metal began to fall, moments from ending the lives of all six of them. They would all be dead within seconds.

Jack felt a foreign presence wrap around his waist, and by the gasps from around him, he could tell that the rest of the team did too. He realized what was happening. He tried to shout, but it was too late. An invisible grip picked up Jack and his four team-members and then threw them back towards the stairs. Even as he hurled through the air, Jack could see Paro grunting and sweating with exertion.

He tried to run forward to help, but Melissa grabbed him and pulled him up the steps, while Michael dragged Sarah who was attempting the same. Kazou assisted where he could, and within a few seconds, the overwhelming sound hit them.

One after the other, they heard the terrible ringing-clash as beam after beam collided with the train-tracks. It was so loud that Jack had to drop to the floor and cover his ears, as the metal screeched at them.

“No!” Sarah cried. “Did … did Paro just die?”

When the sound quieted, Jack tried to run back down, but the crashed roof-beams completely sealed off the entrance. The sickening feeling of anger entered Jack, the one that he despised almost as much as the draw of power. He forced any thoughts of Paro out of his mind. Andy and his friends had done it yet again—they’d taken what they had no right to.

Jack marched up the stairs. He wasn’t going to let them get away. Melissa once again grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him back.

“No,” she said. “Don’t go after them. We need to call for help. We don’t even know where they went or where our recon officers are.”

“I can’t reach them on the radio,” Kazou said. He was showing little emotion, but a small amount of paranoia did creep into his voice.

Sarah fell to her knees and wept openly. Tears streaked down her face and splashed on the ground. “He couldn’t have survived that,” she cried. “Paro’s dead, Michael.”

Michael tried to comfort her, but he too grew red in the eyes. Jack had seen enough. He brushed off Melissa, and before she could respond he dashed up the stairs, back into the terminal. The three were still there, walking with a slow confidence and chatting with each other.

“Andy!” Jack thundered. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Andy turned around and almost fell to the floor in shock. “You’re alive?” he shouted. “But how?”

Jack gritted his teeth and drew again from that vile part of him, almost howling in discomfort as the cringe-worthy nausea overwhelmed his senses. He let the power enter him for a second longer than he knew he should, but Jack needed it now more than ever. He felt it rush in, a maddening, overwhelming stampede of pure energy. After a moment it began to hurt, and he realized he’d drawn enough. He tried to cut off the flow of power.

I can’t stop! he realized with a start.

Jack screamed, loud and pained, as Melissa, Sarah, Kazou and Michael rushed to join his side. “I can’t stop!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Can’t stop what? What is he talking about?” Sarah asked. Andy and the two twisted siblings watched in fascination instead of fleeing, observing Jack’s odd behavior.

Jack grabbed the sides of his head with his hands, and with every bit of willpower he possessed, he forced himself to close that door, that part of him overflowing with power. He stood back to his feet and eyed the three Psychs with a growing rage that burned even more than the draw of the power.

“Andy,” he growled. The boy shrieked as Jack spoke. “You and your friends aren’t leaving.”

Jack searched for that familiar trigger, the one that he knew better than all others. With a massive burst, Jack hurled his growing hate at the three of them. Ruin’s face changed instantly from relaxed to surprised.

“I don’t know if I can stop this!” Ruin called out. He gestured at the air. Jack could see what he was doing, in a way he hadn’t been able to before. Jack’s projection of energy was a whirling force of might, and with what Jack supposed was all the strength the other Telekinetic could muster, Ruin threw an equally powerful one back at him. The two forces rippled across air with a buzzing hiss as they traveled then collided together in the space halfway between Paro’s team and Andy’s.

There was a massive explosion, one even louder than the previous sound of collapsing beams. Every window in the terminal exploded and shattered. The sliding entrance-door was ripped from its hinges and flew through the air, before crashing into a wall behind them and breaking into pieces. Trash cans, litter, and even vending machines—all were ripped free from where they sat and were sent scattering in every direction. The noise was maddening. In the middle of the room, at the point where the two forces collided, the marble floor began to crack, and after a moment, it too ripped free and was sent reeling to every corner.

Michael and Kazou bolted in front of Jack, Sarah, and Melissa, and did their best to keep stray objects from knocking into them. Michael squeezed his fist and a sharpened piece of glass was sent in the opposite direction. Kazou charged forward—a vending machine only a moment from crashing into and killing Michael smashed against Kazou’s fist, falling harmlessly to the ground.

Melissa didn’t move. She held her palm to her mouth and gasped as the terminal became a scene of complete and utter destruction. When the noise had finally quieted and objects around the room finally ceased moving, no one said a word—they only looked upon the destruction with a quiet disbelief.

Even Ruin, the Telekinetic, seemed to be shaken up. He didn’t have that overconfident and carefree grin he enjoyed wearing. Instead, he was leaning over and panting. Somehow, by a means which Jack didn’t understand, he knew that what Ruin had used to counter his burst was the pinnacle of his ability, and now he was exhausted, struggling to regain his breath. Jack, on the other hand, didn’t feel tired at all. He still burned with anger towards the three Psychs.

“Brother, Darling,” Requiem said. “That Harris-boy just used a power greater than your own. Can this be possible?”

Ruin looked at her. His carefree, cheerful expression was gone in its entirety. Now, there was a grim ferocity and a madness that almost rivaled his sister’s.

“We need to kill these five and we need to kill them now!” Ruin exclaimed. “Andy!” He grabbed the boy’s shoulder. “Get over your fears or you’ll be forced to experience them again! I don’t know what the Harris-boy did to you, but after using that much energy, he can’t have much left to draw from. You want revenge? Then take it, damnit!”

Jack felt his arm brush against something and realized that Melissa had come to stand close to him. She stiffened and cleared her throat.

“Jack and I will handle Andy. Michael, you and Kazou need to take on those two.”

Jack felt pride well in his heart while he watched Melissa take charge. He knew she was just as devastated over Paro as the rest of the team, but she wasn’t letting that get to her, not when there was still something that needed to be dealt with in front of them.

Michael and Kazou picked Sarah up off the floor and nodded at Melissa, accepting her leadership.

“I reckon this has gone on for too long,” Michael said. “Jack, when all this is over with, I think I’m gonna ask you to teach me what you just did.”

Jack grinned. “I can’t, because when all this is over I need to get home and watch the new episode of Breaking Bad.”