Or did I?
I shook my head, standing up straight.
Connor’s arrow vanished. He quickly slung his bow over his shoulder and pulled out a pair of cuffs from his belt.
“We need to secure him—” he began.
The man began to move to his feet but didn’t get far. Apparently being frozen in time for months left you unsteady.
That and the fact that Alan kicked him in the face the second he started to move. He collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
“Was that necessary?” Connor turned to him with a scowl.
“Your sense of compassion is clearly misplaced,” Alan replied. “Don’t you recognize him?”
I blinked, recognition finally dawning on me. This was one of the guards from the video. The one that had hit Mark’s knee with a hammer.
“We can’t lower ourselves to their level,” Connor said, reaching down and fastening the set of cuffs behind the guy’s back.
“Easy for you to say,” Alan replied, disdain clear on his face. “I am not confident in my ability to overpower the man if he were to get to his feet. It was a precautionary measure.”
“Well, you leave that shit to me from now on. It will be easier to get this guy to talk if you don’t break his teeth.”
“I suppose you have similarly high-minded interrogation techniques?”
Connor let out a chuckle. “I forget that you were half asleep for our Silver Shot and Golden Strike powers explanation chat. Lilah has the ability to enter people’s minds, you know? And when people are unconscious—”
“They’re more susceptible,” I said, surprised to find my voice slightly ragged. I paused to clear my throat before speaking again. “But Lilah’s not here.”
“Not a problem.” Connor tapped the side of his head. “We do share a psychic connection, after all.”
15
Dawn
I raced across the room, past the half-scorched, overturned tables. Past Chloe, laughing, Joker-like, on the floor. By the time I reached the entrance of Pod Two, Bixby was already there, moving away the smaller pieces of rubble as fast as she could.
“Dammit.” She caught sight of me. “Why are you just standing there? Help me.”
I nodded, falling to my knees. Bixby reached for a boulder bigger than a basketball, much too heavy to move on her own. I grabbed the other side, willing myself to be strong like Golden Strike. To be powerful. To—
“Stop! Stop!”
At the sound of Karen’s voice, I faltered. And Bixby—well, she did a lot more than just that. She spun around, murder in her eyes.
“What the fuck, Karen? Casey is in there. Not to mention your Mark. I know that you’re perfectly okay letting people die, but—”
“The fact that I am not okay letting people die is why you need to stop.”
“Every time you move one of those rocks, the ones above them shift,” Diego said from behind Karen. “Move that rock and you risk burying them alive.”
Bixby went pale.
And on the other side of the rubble, I heard a man let out a muffled scream. I jerked automatically but it hadn’t been Mark. It was—
“Casey!” Bixby hollered. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna get you out of there. We’re—”
But her words had no effect. Instead, Casey hollered again. I heard a dull thud from the other side.
On this side, more people were beginning to gather, including Gerry. He held his notebook in his hands, subconsciously running his fingers over the pages. I backed up a step, so I was standing next to him.
“Who’s Casey?” I asked.
“Part of Pod Three,” Gerry replied, jaw tight. “He and Bixby have…a relationship.”
I don’t know how Sam puts up with that. Karen’s words came back to me.
“He sounds like he’s having a nervous breakdown in there,” Karen in the present said.
“Not that I’d blame him,” Diego said, surveying the rocks. “How the hell are we going to get them out of there?”
I looked over the rubble, at the broken slabs of rocks, and felt my heart sink. It would make the most sense to more-or-less start on the top, and work our way down, but it didn’t take long for the size of the rocks to approach “too big to carry” mode, especially given how many people we could fit in what remained of that narrow hallway. From behind me, I could hear Chloe giggle, and I wondered how long she had been planning this. It appeared that she needed to set up those explosions in advance, and the one inside of Pod Two had been much larger than anything in the Big Room.
I paused, catching sight of something right at floor level, a gap that had been revealed thanks to the smaller rocks Bixby had removed. I crouched, ducking my head down even farther. There was a pretty sizable gap between the larger rocks. It led down several feet, and on the other side I caught sight of something flesh-colored. Casey’s hand? Mark’s? I swallowed, eyeballing the space. For most people, it would have been more than just a little cramped; it would have been an impossibility, but I had always been so small, so scrawny. Perhaps…
I sat up straight, removing my jacket and throwing it aside.
“What are you doing, Dawn?” Karen asked.
“There’s a gap right there,” I said.
“What?” Bixby asked.
“It’s narrow,” I continued. “But I bet I could—”
“Dawn. No,” Karen said firmly. “That’s insane. You heard Diego. The rocks are shifting. If you jostle something under there—”
“It’s the only option,” I said. “Those boulders are too big to pick up unless one of us here is a lot stronger than they look.”
I looked around at the crowd that had formed around me. Everyone dropped their gaze. Some even looked like they were crying.
“The Black Hats aren’t going to help us,” I said, looking to Gerry. “You said it yourself—we’re disposable to them. This is the only thing we can do, and I’m the smallest and lightest person here.”
“But maybe not small or light enough!” Karen exclaimed.
“I can see someone on the other side,” I said. “Maybe it’s Casey or… Mark.” I swallowed away the lump forming in my throat. “At the least, I can help calm them down, convince Casey to stop struggling. Give us more time to figure out a plan. At the most, maybe I can figure a way out.” I shook my head. “Before, on my first night here, I was powerless while people around me were dying.” I nodded at Diego. “Yesterday, when they took Diego away, I was powerless to stop the Black Hats. But this is something I can do. Someone I can help. Don’t take that away from me, Karen.”
Her mouth gaped open wide, at a loss for words. I watched as she shook her head back and forth.
And then almost jumped out of my skin as Diego dropped to his knees beside me.
“Diego, no,” Karen said. “Even Dawn said, she’s the only one small enough to fit through the gap.”
“Which is why I’m not going to try,” he said, and nodded at me. “I’ll do my best to brace the rocks on the outside, keep your exit from disappearing.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling my shoulders relax in relief.
“Wait!”
I blinked, looking to the speaker—Justin—who had been silent for this entire exchange. He ran toward the lunch tables, reached down to pick something up, and then scrambled back to us. Was that…a plastic cup?
He was panting by the time he got back, too much given the short distance. He lifted the plastic cup and stared at it. His face went red in concentration, and something amazing happened. The cup started to glow.
“Here,” he said, handing me the cup. “It’s going to be dark under there. Maybe some light will help.”
“That’s a great idea!” I accepted the strangely beautiful piece of thin plastic.
“This is insane,” Karen said, then fell to her knees on the other side of me. “But if you’re insisting on doing this, I’m gonna help you in any way I can.”
She leaned forward, ready to brace the rocks as
well.
“Thank you, Karen,” I said.
And then, before she could change her mind, I lowered myself to my stomach.
The floors, the same smooth rock that most of this place was made of, was cool beneath me. I pushed myself forward, the gap wide enough for me to get in without touching the walls. My real problem was going to be height. The ceiling immediately sloped down. It was only an inch, but it was an important one. I hissed as the granite cut into my back. I felt a dampness there that I tried not to think too hard about. Instead, I lingered over the fact that I had been smart to take my jacket off, because it might have gotten caught and triggered another cave-in. But at least the denim would have provided me with more protection than a t-shirt.
As I inched forward, I pushed the cup ahead of me. The light illuminated every corner, every crevasse, drawing attention to just how little room I had. Far less than I had predicted. I could barely fit. I felt a shot of fear when I realized how difficult backing out would be, with no good place to turn around.
Calm down, I thought. Be strong like Golden Strike. Keep an eye on what’s important.
And what was important was that hand. Which, now that I drew close, I could see was attached to a person.
The tunnel I was traveling through expanded and veered right, giving me a good view of Casey.
Unfortunately, that was about the only convenient thing the rocks had done for him.
I could barely see him, as Casey’s right side and lower body were completely pinned beneath the heavy granite slabs. His body was twisted on his side, one arm pinned beneath him, blood staining his fair hair. I could see his mouth, panting in short, shallow breaths, and one blue eye, terrified and wide. At the sight of me, he let out a yelp, and for one terrifying moment, I felt the rocks above me start to shift.
“Hey, Casey,” I said, pushing the cup forward. “Here.”
He looked down at the light then up toward me. His eyes were wild, uncomprehending. He began to thrash again.
“Stop, stop!” I said.
And by some miracle he did, his eyes darting back and forth between the cup and me.
“We’re gonna figure out how to get you out of here,” I said, “The tunnel I just came in, it’s small, but I bet we could find a way to make you fit, okay?”
He blinked twice, but quieted down, although I couldn’t say if it was because he was calming down or merely in shock.
“What about you, Mark?” I said, trying—and failing—to keep the tremor out of my voice.
For a second there was no response. And then…
“I’m here,” came a reply from close by.
I blinked. He must be right next to Casey. Was it better to have them both in one place? Regardless, I had to figure out a way to examine those rocks. Maybe Casey wasn’t as pinned as—
Chloe’s high laughter carried down the hallway, followed by another explosion. This one incredibly close.
And the rocks above us shifted and fell, crushing Justin’s plastic cup. Plunging us into darkness.
For the first seconds, I felt nothing. The shock was too much for me. Maybe I even blacked out. All I knew was when I came to, the side my face was pressed against the cool granite floor.
As was every other inch of me.
I became all too aware of the pressure of the rocks above, piled on top of me. My breath started to quicken, as Casey’s had, the act of inhaling and exhaling suddenly a chore. Dimly, in the back of my mind, I wondered if it was because of an injury. Maybe broken ribs, a punctured lung, pulverized bones, pushing me farther and farther into the ground from the massive weight above. This was far worse than anything I had ever experienced. Far worse than the press of bodies in a party, far worse than being trapped in a cage. No, now I was truly trapped, and the only thing that kept me from shaking, kept me from screaming, was the fact that I couldn’t move.
I was going to die. Not of old age. Not even in some sort of “testing” situation weeks from now. But here, pressed to the floor, surrounded by dark, the weight of the world paralyzing me. I could already feel myself begin to pass out again, slip away. Dawn Takahashi, dead at nineteen, before she had graduated college or had even picked a stupid major.
Leaving Casey and Mark to be buried alive, a small voice in the back of my mind whispered.
No.
I couldn’t let them down. This was supposed to be the one thing I could do. The people I could save. Be a hero just like Golden Strike. Be bold just like Silver Shot. They wouldn’t let something like this hold them down. They would find a solution, and I could too. Impossible? I would defy the impossible, move these rocks, and find my stupid ex and this poor guy who seemed to mean so much to Bixby.
There was no other option.
Strength surged through my limbs, crackling through me like electricity, both a relief and a pain. Then, suddenly, I could move. The pile of rocks that lay on top of me was still heavy but shifting it wasn’t impossible. More like the boxes I used to store my comic books. A thought sprang to my mind—of mothers picking up cars off their kids, the power of adrenaline—and I accepted it without a second thought. I had bigger things to worry about, after all.
I emerged from the hallway seconds later, Casey on one arm and Mark on the other, barely knowing how I got there. The light of the Big Room hit my face, and my adrenaline-fueled strength started to fade from my limbs. I tripped forward, and Casey and Mark slipped from either side of me. I watched as Bixby caught Casey, guiding him to the ground. Mark hit the floor, his eyes meeting mine. His face was twisted in pain, but his body was…strangely untouched. His clothing was a mess, though. I could see the places where the sharp rocks had torn holes, but not a single scrap of blood could be found.
Casey, on the other hand…
I swallowed as I caught sight of his mangled mess of an arm, the one that had been completely pinned beneath the rock. The injury was so stark that it outshone the rest the various cuts and bruises. I shook my head. If only I had gotten to them sooner, if only…
“Dawn?” I heard Karen say from beside me, crouched by Mark. “That is you, right?”
I blinked, confused, and then gave myself a closer look.
My hands were no longer bare but encased in black gloves, my jeans and t-shirt exchanged for a pair of bright red pants and a black sleeveless top. My normally black hair was now an unnatural shade of red. A black cape pooled around my kneeling body. I reached up to my face to find a mask over my eyes, identical to the one that Golden Strike wore.
What had happened to me in there?
Just as the realization hit me, the rest of the strength was yanked from my limbs and I fell to the ground, lightheaded once again. As my vision began to blur, I caught sight of them, the three Black Hats now just paces away from us, seemingly moving in slow motion. I could just make out Karen jumping to her feet, shielding my body with hers, the word “no!” on her lips. But the men didn’t approach me. Instead, they turned toward Bixby and Casey, one pulling a weapon from his waist that didn’t look at all like the tasers they normally carried.
A gunshot filled the air as I blacked out completely.
I really hoped this passing-out thing wasn’t going to become a habit.
I opened my eyes to discover that I was back in bed, albeit on the bottom bunk this time. The lights were on, but the rumble in my stomach reminded me of the times that I had spent too long studying and had accidentally missed a meal. How long had I been out?
“I can see that you’re up,” a familiar voice said with a tone of disappointment that was unfortunately becoming equally familiar.
I turned my head to see Mark leaning against the doorway to the room, his arms crossed in front of his chest, a scowl on his face.
“Were you…waiting for me?” I asked, unable to mask the hope in my voice.
“Karen asked me to keep an eye on you. Didn’t know what to make of you passing out like that, I guess.” He let out a bitter chuckle. “Said if you died thanks to saving my
ass, she would kick me out of the pod and make sure the others didn’t accept me. I guess that goes to show what a good job I’ve done making friends.”
“Saving you,” I repeated, then frowned. “Does that mean Casey—”
“Shot in the head.” He paused to sigh. “Bixby thinks it was due to his injuries. The type of medical attention that would be required just to work on that arm alone? We’re a little too disposable for that. They took out Chloe too. I guess an insane girl who blows up the house is a little more than they bargained for.”
“That’s awful! Bixby must be devastated. I mean the two of them were—”
“Just close friends, although everyone assumed more. Apparently, Casey’s power was soothing people’s emotions. If you spent time around him while he was sleeping, it had a calming effect. A nice way to control nightmares. Bixby took advantage of that whenever she could.”
“Oh…that’s still sad, though.”
“Is it?”
“I…of course!”
“Thanks for letting me know, because I didn’t quite pick up on that.”
I felt my face crease in confusion. “Um…are you being sarcastic?”
“That’s the problem, I’m not. I mean, people died. That’s sad even if you only have known them for a week. I should be upset, terrified. They were shot right in front of my face, after all. Only…I’m not.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, moving up to a sitting position. “Mark, the injections—”
“It’s like they locked pieces of me away,” he finished, then shook his head. “And I think they were the good parts.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Empathy, happiness.” He paused. “Right now, I look at you and I can tell that the news of Casey’s death makes you upset. But what do I care about being comforting? Same as when I first saw you after coming out of that night of testing. I could tell you were concerned about me, relieved to see me alive. And all I could feel in return was resentment. Like, maybe I should have left you on the side of that road. Then I wouldn’t be here.”
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