Chapter 392: No, You Didn’t
I closed my fingers around the green core.
It softened immediately, its hard surface melting into my palm until the power trapped inside rushed through my skin.
The first bit of energy was stronger than I expected.
It flooded up my arm and spread through my chest, hot and sharp enough to steal my breath from my lungs. My senses dropped through the warehouse floor at the same time, following the thin roots hidden inside the cracks beneath the concrete.
For several seconds, the power stayed with me.
Then the plants reached for it.
Not the distant trees surrounding the mansion. Not the vines covering my walls or the roots buried beneath my garden.
These plants were here. They had always been here.
They were the weeds growing along the loading docks lifted their leaves, the grass that pushed between broken sections of pavement. Even the thin roots hidden beneath the foundation reacted, tightening around old pipes and concrete supports as though they had suddenly become aware of the building above them.
Not one of them belonged to me.
But they still demanded my power.
The realization had barely formed before the first gunshot echoed from somewhere below.
A second shot quickly followed it. Then there were several more.
The market alarms began screaming, causing my concentration to brake as the energy travelling through the roots jerked violently in several directions.
The core I was using had already disappeared into my palm, but the transfer had not finished. Power snapped back through my body hard enough to drive my shoulder into the couch.
The chair wedged beneath the door handle rattled, then a heavy impact struck the warehouse from outside.
The floor trembled beneath my boots, but the walls remained standing. Nothing collapsed which I counted as a good thing, but there were several thin cracks that raced across the concrete near the door, and weeds immediately pushed through them.
I stared down as the small green shoots curled around my shoes, like a pet begging for more treats. "Well," I muttered, looking down at the ’poor’ thing. "That seemed unnecessarily violent."
Shouting filled the hallway, and, at first, I assumed it was Yuche or one of the others coming to check on me. Then a man yelled for someone to cover the stairs, and another voice answered that the Dragon Head’s people were still below.
Neither voice belonged to anyone I liked.... or even anyone that I knew.
I stood, ignoring the protest from my ankle, and looked around the room, making sure that I hadn’t taken anything else out of my space that I needed to put back. Luckily for me, my paranoia paid off and there wasn’t so much as the hint of a stone.
The chair that I had jammed under the door handle to keep the guys out scraped across the floor as someone tested the door from the hallway.
"It’s locked," a man announced like he was surprised that doors could even do that.
"No shit," grumbled someone else in reply.
"Break it," came a third voice. Wow, they were really having a party out there.
I looked toward the connecting door leading to the examination room. No one had entered from that side yet. Either Lingyun and the healer had been pulled into whatever was happening below, or someone had blocked the corridor between us.
The man outside hit the door again and the chair shifted several centimeters.
I placed my palm against the concrete wall and let my senses sink into the plants surrounding the warehouse. The strange connection opened faster this time. Roots stirred beneath the hallway, thin and eager, and still swollen with the power they had stolen from me.
They weren’t mine, but apparently, that wasn’t an issue anymore.
Metal groaned as something struck the lock and yet another voice came through the door. "Don’t kill her. They said Jian Yuche brought a woman."
The first man laughed. "Think he’ll trade the market for her?"
I looked at the door.
That explained several things, but none of them improved my mood.
The lock bent inward and the chair legs scraped across the floor as the door opened another inch.
I sent one thought into the roots beneath the hallway just like I would with my baby vine. This was completely different from how I normally controlled my powers, but I guess these men were signing up to be guinea pigs so I might as well take advantage of their stupidity.
"Hold them," I said. My voice was soft, but I could feel the power in my words. Huh, that was new, too.
The concrete outside cracked as the plants raced to do my bidding.
A man screamed in response and the pressure against the door disappeared so suddenly that the chair toppled onto its side. Something heavy struck the floor beyond it, followed by swearing and the wet sound of someone trying to pull free from a root wrapped around his ankle.
"What the fuck is that?" demanded the same genius who noticed that the door was locked in the first place.
"I don’t know! But fuck whatever it is! Cut it!"
I moved the chair out of my way and unlocked the door. The men outside were still looking down when I opened it like whatever we beneath their feet was much more of a threat than ’Jian Yuche’s woman’.
There were five of them, but I couldn’t figure out which one was which.
One lay on his back with a root twisted around his leg. It had already broken through his boot and buried itself beneath the skin above his ankle. Two others were trying to cut him free, while the remaining men covered the corridor with their guns.
It was clear, though, that none of them expected me to open the door.
I reached out and caught the nearest man by the front of his jacket.
He had enough time to look surprised before I pulled him into the room and drove his face into the edge of the table.
Bone cracked as his weapon hit the floor.
The second man raised his gun, but a root burst through the narrow seam beside the wall and wrapped around his wrist. He fired into the ceiling as the plant jerked his arm sideways.
I grabbed the fallen gun and shot him through the throat.
Blood sprayed across the concrete.
The man trapped on the floor finally cut through the root around his leg. He rolled onto one knee, but the severed end immediately split into three thinner strands and climbed beneath his pant leg.
He began screaming again.
Huh. The plants were learning and evolving... was it because they took the power that was meant to be mine? Did that change them fundamentally?
That was either very useful or deeply concerning.
I stepped into the hallway, just in time for the fourth attacker to fire.
The bullet struck the wall beside my head, spraying concrete dust across my cheek. I pushed my power through the floor before he could correct his aim.
The concrete beneath him rose just enough to throw off his balance. When he stumbled, a root wrapped around the back of his knee and pulled.
His leg bent in the wrong direction, he fell hard, and I shot him before he finished screaming.
The last man backed toward the stairs.
He wore a radio clipped to his vest, and someone on the other end was demanding an update over the sound of gunfire and alarms.
The man grabbed it.
"We found her," he shouted. "We found the Dragon Head’s woman."
I moved before he released the button.
A root caught his wrist, but instead of pulling him down, it drove his arm against the wall hard enough to break it. The radio dropped from his hand.
I caught it before it reached the floor.
The man stared at me, his face paling as more roots curled from the cracks around his boots.
I lifted the radio to my mouth.
"No, you didn’t."
Then I shot him in the face.