“And with this situation?” she wondered.
“I don’t even know what to call this . I just knew she was calling, and it’s not like it affected anything. You had your phone on you already, so you would have answered right away. And I would have come no matter what.”
“Thank you, by the way,” she whispered. “For coming with me.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “Trust me, I’m more than happy to break…err…never mind.”
Shit, I shouldn’t have said that. Even if I didn’t finish that statement – that I was happy to break up Heidi’s date – I certainly said enough to communicate what I meant.
Lexi was staring straight ahead, her hands tight on the steering wheel.
“I would have come no matter what,” I quickly added. “After everything that’s happened? Yeah, I would have come no matter what, especially with something weird and unexpected like this. And I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that both you and your sister stay safe. And if anything serious happens to you, I’ll switch bodies with you if needed to keep you alive, so prepare yourself for that.”
She looked at me in alarm. “B-But what if you die? I…Sam, I don’t want to be in your body forever.”
“I get it,” I agreed. “Trust me, I definitely get it. But Lily’s body wasn’t breathing for like ten hours or something, and yet I kept it alive. Your sister definitely helped, since she was emaciated and all, but now that we know Lily ended up with my regeneration superpower, I’m pretty confident I was the reason why her body remained alive. Because I was in it.”
Lexi gulped audibly.
“But I wouldn’t do that to you unless you were seriously dying, okay?” I sighed. “I’m just trying to say, that I care about you too.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, sounding sincere.
“Of course.”
We were both silent for a few minutes.
“But between me and my sister, who is your pick?” she blurted out.
I looked at her in shock. “Lexi…”
Shit.
I tried to continue. “I…I can’t choose. I mean, I shouldn’t choose either way. I shouldn’t even be thinking about that.”
“But I’m at least tied with her, right?”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
Dammit, I was just going to be honest.
“Yeah, Lexi. You’re absolutely tied.”
Much to my complete and total shock, she relaxed some, taking a deep breath.
“That doesn’t bother you?” I asked seriously.
She looked at me in surprise. “That I’m tied with my attractive, perfect, virgin younger sister? No, not at all. Especially since I’m ‘used goods’ and all.”
I immediately turned toward her in my seat, nearly enraged that she would even insinuate that. “Lexi,” I snapped in a harsher tone than I intended. “You are not used goods.”
She jerked so violently from my outburst that I barely managed to grab the wheel in time, avoiding the car going off the road. Granted, had she swerved much further at this speed, her Ferrari would have taken over anyway to avoid an accident.
“Autopilot,” I commanded, knowing her Ferrari would accept it.
Lexi let go of the steering wheel entirely as the car took over, and I reached over to snag her hands in mine. “Lexi,” I said more gently this time. “You are not used goods.”
She was trembling. She didn’t let go of my hands, instead holding on tighter, but she was shaking now.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
She was quiet for a few long minutes.
“You’re wrong,” she finally blurted out after the lengthy silence.
“Wrong?” I repeated. “Lexi, you’re not damaged goods, or used goods, or whatever. You’re not. I don’t care about your past. That’s never even been a factor in the whole ‘you versus your sister’ thing you brought up.”
She sobbed then, ducking her head more. “S-Sam, I can’t have sex anymore. I’m terrified of it. I can’t even stick a tampon down there without having a panic attack and hyperventilating.”
My eyes widened in surprise. Immediately, I recalled Freya violently jerking away from my arm after being exposed to Lexi’s memories.
Shit.
Without thinking, I reached over and wrapped her up in my arms, pulling her firmly against my chest and holding her tightly.
“I don’t care,” I whispered, my heart feeling like it was literally bleeding for her. “Your value isn’t based on something like that. Lexi, you’re just as important to me as your ‘virgin’ sister.” I scoffed, my tone becoming more lighthearted. “And honestly, your offer to ‘take care of me’ in your office on Wednesday was just as hard to resist as it was when Heidi almost became Eden’s mother.”
“Really?” she sobbed.
“I mean, please don’t put me in that position again, because Freya and Lily will be pissed if we do that kind of thing. But yeah, really. Shit Lexi, if Nick hadn’t interrupted us…”
She looked up at me then, reaching up to wipe her purple tear-filled eyes. “That makes me really happy,” she said with a sniffle.
I returned the smile, the two of us holding each other’s gazes for a long few minutes.
Lexi then focused out the window, only to switch gears completely, instantly sobering up. “Shit, I think we passed it.”
We hadn’t put in an address for the car to follow, so it was just driving. Although, all Lexi had to do was just tell the car to set the destination as her sister’s GPS signal.
Thankfully, we were only a stop past the theater.
Pulling into the parking lot, we spotted Heidi’s white Corvette – the same car Lexi tried giving to Lily as a present almost a year ago after everything that happened. However, she wasn’t near it, instead sitting on the hood of her date’s vehicle, a big grin on her face.
Dammit.
I mean, I should be glad she was happy, but I really wasn’t. Not when that happiness was coming from some young douchebag who was probably perfect for her, and I just didn’t want to admit it.
Dammit.
We parked closer to Heidi, rather than her car, with Lexi double checking herself in the mirror, to make sure it wasn’t too obvious she’d been crying, before we both climbed out to get her. It appeared that one of the other movies must have just finished up, because a crowd of people began pouring out of the theater at the same time, leisurely heading to their vehicles.
Heidi’s lavender eyes widened in shock, looking mortified as she laid eyes on me, like she wasn’t expecting me to come. And now that I thought about it, Lexi never did say anyone was coming with her. She might have said ‘we’ once, but Heidi could have easily missed that.
Needless to say, after the initial shock, she then looked straight down, visibly appearing ashamed as if she and I were a couple and I’d just caught her cheating on me.
Shit, I had no idea how to interpret that expression. Why did she look so guilty ? Because she was having a good time with someone else? Or for some other reason?
“Hey, how’s it going?” I said in a pleasant tone, trying to put on an appropriate façade. “You guys have fun? Aside from the car problems,” I added, amusement in my tone.
Her date responded well to my introduction, at least. “Hey, nice to meet you both. And yeah, it was fun.” He paused, looking at Lexi. “I assume you’re the sister, so then you must be her boyfriend?” He asked questioningly.
Lovely, a question I didn’t know how to answer. I mean, the answer was obviously no, and yet it didn’t seem so simple as that.
I cleared my throat, trying to ignore Heidi’s alarmed expression. “Oh, no. Just a friend. I’m Sam, by the way,” I said, reaching out my hand to shake his.
“Liam,” he replied pleasantly. “Wow, you have some crazy eyes there,” he added. “What kind of superpower you got going on to cause that?”
I laughed. “I can see in the dark,” I lied, thoug
h technically it was true due to my second-sight. Just misleading, since I could do much more than that.
“Really ?” he asked skeptically, almost seeming disappointed. “Cool eyes like that, and that’s it?”
“Yeah, kind of lame,” I admitted, only to shrug. “And I guess you could say I have slightly above-average strength.”
He laughed, a really easy-going sound. “Me too, actually.”
Heidi was looking at me now like I was crazy. I couldn’t even imagine what was going through her head based on her expression. Did she want me to be jealous? I mean, I was, so maybe I should be selfish and make that clear later on.
Liam then turned his attention to Lexi, holding out his hand toward her. “And I don’t think your sister mentioned your name.”
The person in question smiled. “Lexi,” she said simply, reaching out to shake.
Instantly , everything changed.
Just like that, the world flipped upside down.
Suddenly, Lexi had a thin metal rod, as skinny as an arrow, stabbing directly through her hand and into her right thigh, a confused expression crossing her face as she looked down like she wasn’t even sure what she was staring at.
Liam’s grin widened, his tone coming out slowly, even as pinpricks of gray metal began forming all over his visible skin.
“Compliments, of the Sheriff .”
SHIT!
As fast as lightning, all nineteen of my astral limbs erupted out of my body, nine swarming around each woman, while one sliced straight through the guy’s neck, just as hundreds of metal arrows exploded from his body in every direction.
I was instantly a pincushion, blinded in my left eye by a rod getting stopped by the back of my skull.
The man’s head hit the ground, before anyone screamed.
Ignoring my own wounds, I quickly tried to take stock of the situation, still barely comprehending what had just happened.
It was all so fast.
Barely two seconds had passed.
Heidi was frozen solid, but completely unharmed, unable to shift her gaze from the guy’s head lying on the ground. And then it hit her, her words coming out slowly at first. “Oh god. Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god.” Her hands shot up to her head, her eyes wide in panic. “No, no, no, no, n– ”
She abruptly heaved forward and began vomiting all over the ground.
Lexi was also mostly unharmed, minus the initial rod still in her thigh, her hand forcefully connected to a severed arm – cut from nine of my astral limbs trying to protect Lexi and physically separate her from the guy.
She was more collected than Heidi, or possibly just still in shock.
And then there was everyone else. Windshields broken, people skewered, blood everywhere. Anyone within a twenty-foot radius was either dead or actively dying, while those further away were a mix of injuries.
Shit!
Beginning to use some of my astral limbs to yank out the thin metal rods, I suddenly wondered for the first time why I couldn’t use my astral body in a similar way that I used my limbs…
And then, suddenly, with a little bit of focus, I flexed a metaphorical muscle I’d never really used before, shoving out all the rods at once.
Seriously? Are you shitting me?!
If I could do that, then did that mean I could have stopped them from stabbing me in the first place?
Shit, I didn’t know, but what I was confident of was two things – I needed to see my evaluation right now, if not yesterday , and I also needed to make an emergency phone call.
Grabbing for my phone, I realized it was a goner. The chip was probably fine, but the phone itself had been impaled.
With my body all healed now, I got down on my knees to focus on Lexi, as well as so I could get her phone once I made sure she was alright.
“Are you okay?” I said urgently, trying to ignore the screaming all around us. Shit, I was pretty sure the rods reached as far as the theater, shooting straight through the windows and impaling a few unlucky people inside.
She nodded, shaking violently, her lips looking blue. She was still holding onto the severed arm, her hand propped up by the rod in her leg.
“I’m going to try to cut this,” I said, carefully wrapping astral limbs around the metal shaft and making sure it was secure before slicing through. I didn’t want to pull it out completely, because I had no idea if it might have punctured a major artery and I didn’t want to risk her bleeding out on me. Better to leave it in to slow the bleeding.
She still winced, with a loud hiss of pain, but it let her begin pulling herself together now that she only had a couple of inches of metal in her.
“Oh God, Sam,” she said in disbelief, staring at the body before her, before focusing on her sister’s trembling form, as Heidi continued to dry heave on her hands and knees.
I reached for Lexi’s phone, so I could call my new boss, the person who would help us take care of this.
Jackie answered after two rings. “Hello Lexi,” she said pleasantly. “How–”
“Jackie, it’s Sam,” I said firmly. “We need your help.”
Instantly, her tone was intense, and I was sure she could hear the screaming. “Sam, what happened?”
“Another attack. At a theater. Lexi and Heidi are both safe, but there are a lot of casualties. Can you track Lexi’s GPS?”
There was a lengthy pause. “Okay, Sam, I’ve got our people on the way, and I notified EMS too.”
“Good. Lexi will probably need medical attention as well, but there are a ton of people who are seriously injured.”
“I know Sam. I can hear them.” She paused. “Okay, Sam,” she continued. “I need you to take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”
I did as she asked, looking up to see a woman stepping out of the theater, wearing a winter coat. “Heidi went out for a date, and her car broke down, and Lexi and I went to pick her up, and the guy she was on a date with attacked us. Attacked everyone.”
“Wait Sam. Back up. Her date attacked you?”
“Yes.”
“And her car broke down. Was she with him the whole time?”
“Yes, she said–”
My words cut off as realization crossed my expression.
This wasn’t over.
This guy wasn’t the one who messed with Heidi’s car.
I looked up again when I saw the woman, who I’d noticed just a moment before, begin readjusting her winter coat.
Her winter coat.
It was warm outside! It was warm outside!
I could barely hear my own words as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, a wave of fire approaching me even before it happened.
“Bomb. Jackie, it’s a bomb.”
And I wasn’t confident Lexi and Heidi would survive. I wasn’t confident in my ability to protect them. And even if I could protect them from the blast, could I completely shield them from the heat? Or would the inside of my tentacles, wrapped around them, become like an oven? Never mind an explosion of this magnitude! This was going to wipe out a half-mile radius…and we were ground zero!
Suddenly, the only option available to me presented itself.
My instincts took over.
And deep down, my body knew that the only way to stop this explosion…
Was to swallow it up with my own bigger explosion…
A tiny blue spark ignited inside of me.
I didn’t even budge an inch as an azure light began radiating out of my body, before a brilliant flash detonated like a nuclear bomb, all sound vanishing from the world around me as the universe disappeared from my eyes.
White energy clashed with orange fire, the two forces spinning like a cyclone as the white swirled to swallow up the orange, until there was nothing more.
My vision cleared, the previous theater and parking lot around me replaced with a desolate wasteland.
The theater, was gone.
The cars, were gone.
Just like that, everything, within a tent
h-of-a-mile radius was just…gone…
10: Decisive Signs
Winter Fowler
April 13, 2735 – 5 Minutes Ago – Evening
Winter stared at the setting sun from her penthouse hotel room, wearing only her bra and underwear in order to let her thick white-and-black fur dry out after taking a relaxing shower. A much-needed shower, to help her take a short break from all the stress that was tensing her wiry powerful muscles.
In the last few days, Winter spent a lot of time talking with her deceptively young-looking aunt, debating what she really wanted to do. And thankfully, her aunt was patient with her, staying three long days, even though she desperately wanted to go home to her husband.
But even now, Winter was still hesitant.
Because there was supposed to be a sign.
At least, that’s what the man she affectionately considered to be her second dad seemed to suggest. The man who was also her aunt’s husband – Jacob Knight.
Of course, there was no biological relation, and her true father barely even spoke to her dad, averaging about once every hundred years. And yet, she felt that her aunt’s husband was more of a real dad than anyone else had been.
Plus, he was stable. Grounded.
Alternatively, her biological father was just not, in so many ways. Supposedly, there had been a time, long ago, when things were different, but for all of Winter’s life that had been the case.
However, her adoptive dad, Jake, was not without his faults either – or rather, annoyances.
Like, why couldn’t he just tell her what she was supposed to do?
Why did he have to be so allusive all the time?
Couldn’t he just tell her plainly?
Instead, he gave her some bullshit prophecy nonsense that made no sense at all.
‘When you see a tower of orange devoured by an unyielding cyclone of Winter, the path which you must take will present itself.’
What in the hell did that even mean?
A bunch of bullshit was all it was.
And of course, she wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he’d included her name, to represent multiple things. But that just made it even more ambiguous, since winter might mean cold, snowy, death, destruction, decay, harsh, calm, peaceful, silence, pure, or even just white.
The Powerful Pride of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 4) Page 14
