Relentless (The Hero Agenda, #2) Read Online Free Page A

in the last few weeks.
    Almost.
    God knows if it wasn’t for meeting Draven, I’d wish it was all just a bad dream.
    “Kenna!”
    I feel Mom look up at Draven’s shout.
    Before I can turn my head too, she spins our bodies around so we change positions. The helmet flies from my grasp. I stand there, watching, helpless and trapped by her embrace, as a burst of plasma from one of the security guards shoots straight into my mother’s back.
    “Mom!” I scream as she collapses in my arms.
    Fear pulses through me, like a white-hot flame. I blink, and the next thing I know, the guard who shot my mom is flying across the room with a fireball to the chest.
    I turn to thank Nitro again, but he’s halfway across the stage, locked in a struggle with a member of the SHN news crew.
    The drone of chopper thunder drowns out the noise of wind and fire in the courtroom.
    “Your chariot has arrived.” Jeremy’s voice comes through my earbud. “Now boarding, all members of Team Get-the-Hell-out-of-Dodge.”
    I’m struggling under my mom’s weight. Trying to keep her upright. Begging her to say something. Anything.
    “Mom, we have to go,” I shout, shaking her. “Mom, Mommy. Mom!”
    “Come on.” Draven grabs my arm and starts to take my mother from me. “The others can’t hold them off much longer.”
    “Mom!” She’s still not answering. Still limp like a rag doll in our arms. Panic is a living, breathing storm inside me. She has to be okay. She has to be okay. She has to —
    “Riley!” Draven shouts, and in an instant, Riley is landing in front of me. He bends down and lifts my mom into his arms. I try to hold on, and though I know it’s irrational, I’m terrified that she won’t make it if I let her go for even a second.
    “I’ll get her to the chopper,” Riley promises me, his voice steady and reassuring. “I’ll protect her.”
    I trust him, I do. But still I can’t let go. “Mommy.”
    Draven pries me away, pulling me against him and pressing his lips to my temple. Then Riley is gone, flying my mom out the window and up into the waiting helicopter. The rest of us—me and Draven, Dante and Rebel, and Nitro—converge on the center of the table. Rebel has stopped fighting, and I can’t tell if she’s knocked out or if she’s simply given up.
    It’s not like her to give up. Then again, it’s not like her to try to kill the boy she loves either.
    Between Dante’s wind and Nitro’s fireballs, we’re keeping the heroes at bay. Barely. Draven is trying his best to knock the guards and the bad guys out, clearly not caring anymore if they find out about his biomanipulation power, but he is shaking beneath my palm. It’s clear that whatever Mr. Malone has done to him since he was captured at the bunker, it’s taken a toll. His powers are stretched to the raggedy edge.
    I wish I could do something more to help, but with all the electronics in the courtroom already wiped out, there’s nothing else my power can do.
    Still, I’m in charge of this mission, so I shout, “Move out!” over the roar of fire, wind, and chopper blades. “We have who we came for.”
    Dante nods, and as one, we back toward the wall of broken windows.
    As we step out onto the lawn beyond, Dante finally drops his wind, letting Nitro fill the entire opening with bright-white flames. No one who values their skin—literally—will be following us outside.
    But where Dante’s wind drops off, the chopper wind picks up.
    My clothes whip around my body, and my poorly secured wig goes flying into the flames.
    Good riddance.
    I turn to look up at the helicopter Jeremy has hovering directly above us. Two thick, black ropes hang down, ready for us to climb.
    “You go first,” I tell Draven.
    He’s the weakest at the moment. And he’s the one in the greatest danger.
    “Not in this lifetime,” he replies. He turns to his cousin. “You’re up, Dante.”
    Dante shifts Rebel’s weight against him. “I’m not sure if I