Free The Awakening by Michael Carroll Page A

of control.”

    In the storage room on the top floor of the complex, where the glasslike statue had once stood, the girl was lying on the ground, curled into a ball, shivering.
    She’d lain there for hours, unaware of anything other than the pain that coursed through her body.
    She didn’t know who she was. She didn’t know what had happened to her. Her thoughts were a blurred jumble of images and words, memories and feelings.
    Gradually, she became aware that one word was surfacing more frequently than any other.
    Alive.
    The pain finally began to subside. The girl pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around the dark room.
    She reached up to her face and removed the small black mask from her eyes.
    Renata Soliz spoke her first words in ten years: “I’m alive.”

11
    C OLIN WOKE WITH A START AND REALIZED that the copter had touched down on land; its engines were slowing down and he could hear vehicles approaching. At the back of the copter, the ramp was lowered and sunlight flooded in. The soldiers filed out, leaving their prisoners unsupervised for the first time.
    Colin looked at his parents and Danny. “What’s the plan?”
    “There is no plan, Colin,” his mother said. “We’re going to have to do what they want and hope they let us go.”
    “That’s crazy!”
    “There’s nothing else we can do,” his father said, looking at the handcuffs. “We don’t even know where we are.”
    Colin listened to the copilot talking to Façade. “We’re in Florida. I think we’re on a military base. They said something about trucks to take us to the airport…they’ve got a private jet waiting for us.”
    Warren said, “Colin, they don’t know about your hearing. That’s the only thing that might give us an advantage. Keep listening. We might find out something useful.”
    “Wait…you can hear them?” Danny said to Colin. “Seriously?”
    “Later,” Colin said.
    Warren glanced at his wife, then turned back to the boys. “We have to act as a team, OK? But sometimes…sometimes we have to act alone. Do you both understand that?”
    They nodded.
    “Good. If either of you sees an opportunity to escape, go for it. But only if you’re absolutely certain that you can make it.”

    Two large troop carriers were reversed up to the Chinook’s ramp. Colin’s parents were herded into one, the boys were put into the other.
    For the moment, Colin and Danny were alone. The heat in the truck was almost suffocating; the walls were too hot to touch and pencil-thin shafts of sunlight came through a series of tiny holes in the roof.
    “All right,” Colin said, speaking quickly. “We don’t have much time, so just trust me, OK? You ever wondered how your parents got to know mine? It’s because they used to work together. My dad was Titan and my mother was Energy.”
    Danny snorted. “On any other day, that might seem strange.”
    “When you and your dad—I mean, Façade—were coming over to my house last night, I could hear you. Façade doesn’t know I’ve got any powers, so we need to make sure he doesn’t find out.”
    “What else can you do?”
    “Not much. Not yet, anyway.” He examined his handcuffs. “Before we were caught, I broke through the tunnel door and I could see where we were going even though there was no real light. I should be able to get out of these.” He tensed his muscles, tried to concentrate, then strained against the cuffs.
    “If you keep that up, the only thing you’re going to break is your wrists,” Danny said.
    Colin relaxed his muscles. “My hearing keeps coming and going, so maybe my strength will come back. How about you?”
    “Nothing,” Danny said. “And even if my speed comes back, what good will it do me? I’ll never get through the cuffs.” He sighed. “I swear I’m going to make him pay for this. The first chance I get, I’m going to bash his skull in!”
    “Dan…”
    “I mean it, Colin! He pretended to be my father for eleven years ! I