Destan's atraments itched as he paced back and forth by the stream. Every time his uncle's name crossed his mind, a red haze rolled in front of his eyes like a thundercloud ready to burst.

He still couldn't fathom how his uncle, his family, his own blood, could've betrayed him like that. But now, hours after Lys had chased him out of the forest once more, he'd realised it didn't matter.

All his life, his tribe had excluded him, treated him like dirt. This, with uncle Lys, it was the same. It was just an extension of what had already been happening his whole life.

But no more.

If there was one thing Lys had taught him, it was to stand on his own two feet and not depend on anyone else. That was exactly what he would do.

For a long time, Destan had contemplated leaving, just like they all wanted him to. He would walk away, never to look back. He would find somewhere else to stay and live out the rest of his days alone. But then he'd felt Julia's note in his pocket, warning him about the imminent Inops attack.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't just turn his back on the tribe. Destan was the only one who knew about the attack and therefore the only one who was able to stop it. If he turned his back on the tribe now, the only family he'd ever had would die. Aruna, Keara, his mum... He never even had a chance to say goodbye to them.

The tribe had turned its back on him, but that didn't mean he would do the same to them.

It was about time he took control of things. The time to let others handle everything was over.

With renewed energy, stemming purely from anger, Destan yanked his hood over his head and pushed his hands deep inside his pockets. He quickly checked that nobody was watching, then crossed the stream to enter Grimsby.

Dark clouds covered the sinking sun, as if the sky itself felt Destan's fury. Cracked streetlights, dented cars and chipped brick houses passed him by in a blur. All he could see was his target. He stayed in the shadows, like he always did, but as the rain poured down, he didn't come across a single soul. As if the Inops thought the war was paused while the weather was bad.

Destan's hoodie was soaked by the time he reached the community hall. The rain pattered down on him. It didn't bother him. His body trembled from the cold, but rage burned so brightly inside of him, that it snuffed out the chill.

The lights were on inside the community hall, casting shadows on the walls. A few people skittered about between the different rooms, and in the biggest one stood a long rectangular table with a boy with combed-back hair at its head.

Nero smirked at the men and women who sat with him, leaning back in his chair and looking awfully pleased with himself. He nodded and spoke to the Inops with confidence. A large, hunched man with glasses, who Destan recognised as the one who'd been arguing with his wife the first time he was here, asked a question and Nero pulled a hand through his hair as he considered the answer, his smile never wavering.

As he watched, the door of the room burst open and Nero jumped up. An angry-looking woman stepped inside, gesturing around her as she talked to him. Destan thought he recognised her from somewhere too, the chestnut hair in a bun, the short-sleeved blazer. Where had he seen her before?

Still, it was nice to see not everyone agreed with what Nero was doing. At least, Destan assumed that's what was going on.

Sick of watching the boy who had ruined everything he held dear in his life, Destan made his way around the building, to the room with the weapons. They were all still there, even more than before. The lights here were off, but the metal shone in what little light came from outside.

They were stacked more neatly this time, their boxes still in the corner. Someone had made the effort to put everything out on display on the tables, ready to be grabbed in a hurry, if needed.

Destan scowled. These were guns, designed to murder people. Stacking them nicely didn't make them any less savage.

Glancing around one last time, he set to work. The window, of course, was locked. But glass was easy to shatter. He just needed to make sure he was ready to run, if he was going to make so much noise. The rain had stopped now and he cleared the window with his sleeve to make it easier to see what he was doing.

Reaching through the window, he found the metal molecules and atoms. One after the other, he let the weapons float into the air and hover over to the boxes. The cardboard boxes filled up quickly, as metal clanged against metal.

But boxes full of metal were heavy, and five boxes even heavier. Destan struggled lifting them up, grimacing when he realised he'd have to carry them out of Grimsby while on the run from Inops.

Well, it's no use turning back now. It's not as if anyone else is going to stop this war, he thought bitterly.

Putting everything he had into his atraments, Destan pushed up the five boxes, groaning with the effort. Just as he levitated them over towards the window, the sound of footsteps made him whirl around. A short man with greying hair that was wet from the rain and stuck to the sides of his face, pointed a gun at him, clasped tightly in a trembling grip.

Destan slowly raised his hands in the air, his eyes flicking from side to side to try and find something that could help him.

"Don't move!" The man squeaked like a mouse. "Help!" he shouted towards the entrance of the building. "It's one of them! Help!"

Scrap.

Destan followed the man's gaze. The welcome-sign, held in place by a block of cement on the ground, swung gently in the wind. With another glance at the mousy man, who was still shouting for help, Destan turned his hand, reached out and lifted the sign up, struggling against gravity. As quick as he could, he swung it forward. The man's screams were cut short as the heavy cement hit him square in the chest, knocking the gun out of his hand. Within half a moment Destan had levitated the gun and swung it as far away as he possibly could.

The window shattered and one by one the boxes flew out into the open, in a neat little row. As soon as he had them all, Destan turned on his heel and jogged towards the forest, the only place he knew to be safe. He ran as fast as he could with the heavy boxes slowing him down. He'd figure out what to do with them from there, if he could just get out of Grimsby first. His sneakers slapped against the wet pavement.

He hadn't even rounded the corner when shouts and running footsteps followed him. A quick glance over his shoulder told him the Inops had heard the crash, or the screaming of their friend in need, and had spotted him. With the cardboard boxes levitating above his head, he had no chance to reach out to anything else, to defend himself.

And his pursuers were catching up quickly.

Making a quick decision, Destan dove into an alleyway and set the boxes down on the roof of the house above him. He turned to see three guys and a woman, all sporting weapons ranging from handguns to rifles, draw in close.

"Alicia!"

Behind him, a girl with her cherry-red lips curled up into a grin, aimed her weapon at him. He was trapped. "Yes, yes, I'm here," she said to the woman who'd screamed out her name. "I wouldn't want to miss this for the world."

Destan's heart pounded, as he wondered whether he'd just made the worst mistake of his life.

With lightning speed, he reached out to the metal and raised all four weapons of the people in front of him in the air as quick as he could. The woman and one man were startled enough to loosen their grip, causing Destan's power to be strong enough to rip the weapons out of their hands. The other two held on tightly, though. With as much force as he could muster, he swung the two guns handle-first against the men's skull, causing a deep thud to echo along the alleyway. But before they even hit the ground, a blinding pain stung the back of his head and the world disappeared.

***

Groaning, Destan woke up from the worst headache he'd ever felt. While trying to move his hand to his head, he found his arm too heavy. He shuddered, goosebumps pricking all over his skin as his still damp clothes clung to him. He blinked his eyes open and let them adjust to the light.

Destan found himself sitting in a rickety plastic chair, his hands tied behind his back, the cord cutting into his wrists. His legs, too, were bound to the chair legs with some kind of plastic rope. Opposite him stood two men, one young and one older, each with their gun trained on him.

Adrenaline surged through his veins as he recognised the diamond pattern on the wallpaper, the light laminate flooring. He tugged his arms, but it only made his wrists hurt more. This was the Inops community hall. Destan was trapped.

The older, less fidgety, man took one hand off his gun and knocked three times on the door behind him.

Destan tugged on the plastic ropes again, grunting, "Let me go!"

"Shut up!" the younger man snapped, tightening his hold on his weapon. The older one threw him a pointed look.

Behind his back, Destan spread out his hands, giving way to the power of his atraments.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a female voice behind him. "Unless you're impervious to bullets."

Destan turned his head to see a girl, barely a few years older than himself, cherry red lips grinning at him from the corner of his eye. She wore her black hair in a tight ponytail and a handgun loosely between her fingers. It was the same girl that had cornered him in the alleyway. The same girl that had knocked him out. Alicia.

"Let me go!"

"I don't think so."

Destan snapped his head to the front when Nero's voice flew in through the door opening. He smiled, but it looked more like a lion baring its teeth.

"Tell me, did your people send you here on a suicide mission or were you tired of life yourself?"

Destan gave a sharp tug at his restraints, making the younger man by the door flinch, which earned him another glare from his fellow guard. Alicia giggled behind him.

Nero wasn't impressed. "I know how your powers work, Destan. I know you need your hands to use them. Without them, you're just a weak little boy. Julia would be ashamed of you."

The mention of his sister made him stop struggling as his face paled. "Me? She'd be ashamed of me? You're the one who's always bullying her."

"Yes, well, fortunately for me, I don't care what that little brat thinks of me."

"If you don't care, then why are you doing all this? Why is it such a big deal that I'm her brother, so much so that you'd start a war over it?"

Nero laughed heartily, Alicia joining in as if on cue. "You think this is all about you? No! No, no, no. You were a fun target to practice on, easy to follow and gather information from. But you were never the only target."

His smirk disappeared to make way for an angry frown. "I want all of you dead. Every single one of you, for what you've done to us."

"What we've done to you?" Destan spat. "We have been struggling to survive for years because of your people! Our forest gets smaller because you keep building more houses. You have limited our sources of food and other materials in so many ways. And you –"

"Oh, poor you," said Nero. "What about all the stealing? All the attacks? All the killing?"

"We don't kill," Destan spat. "We have standards, obviously more so than you do, considering the traps you lay in our forest."

"Bullshit!" Nero screamed. "I know your kind kills; I have seen it. Your kind murdered my sister!"

Destan's jaw dropped. "Your... sister?" he asked, confused. "Julia?"

"No, you idiot! Julia was just a replacement. My parents tried to fill a hole by adopting her. But it failed, of course. Nothing will bring Helena back."

"Who's Helena?"

Nero took a step forward, towering over Destan and glaring down at him. "Helena was my sister. My real sister. She was only six when she died at the hands of one of your filthy kind."

The puzzle pieces finally fit together. Nero had lost his sister because of a triber. That's why he hated them so much. That's why he didn't love Julia like she was family. And apparently neither did her parents. They'd tried to feel better by adopting a new girl into the family, but Julia hadn't been able to fill the hole their first daughter had left.

But what about the tribe laws? No triber would've murdered a little girl...

"I told you, we don't murder people. If it was a triber, it must've been an accident."

"It wasn't!" Nero snapped. "I was there, I saw it happen. That man killed her! Those powers of yours, they make you evil. You feel invincible and you think that's why you can do whatever you want."

That man? He couldn't mean... So that's why he'd attacked Tamren that day!

Nero stepped back, crossing his arms. "We won't take it any longer. We will show you that you're not invincible. We will wipe you all out!"

"Hell yeah!" Alicia whooped.

"And you..." The smirk returned to Nero's face. "You will have the honour of being the first to die."