Superhero Syndrome

by Caryn Larrinaga

  They were in there.

  They were hurting.

  And I was going to do something about it.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

  Reed’s mouth twitched, and then he pulled his mask back down over his face. “We’re doing it your way, McBray. We’re going to smash our way in.”

  We crept around the building, and I struggled to move a fraction as stealthily as Reed. His footfalls made no sound at all, but my sneakers crunched on everything from stray pebbles to bits of garbage. I cringed with every step, convinced I was giving away the game. But nobody burst out from any of the warehouse exits, and when we reached the far corner Reed stopped and looked at me.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

  I touched the aluminum siding of the warehouse again. As I tugged on the thread of cold inside both of my arms, calling the metal into me, I stopped. Could I punch through this metal sheet with hands made of the same material? Or would I need something stronger?

  “What’s wrong?” Reed whispered.

  “I need something tougher than this wall to be sure I can break through it.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t have my toolbox handy. You’ll need to improvise.”

  Scanning the wall in front of us, I noticed discolored little circles at regular intervals along the edge of the siding. Nails, I realized. Whatever they were made of, it was strong enough to puncture the aluminum and hold it tight to the building’s frame. I rested the tips of my forefingers on two of the nails and pulled the material into myself. An instant later, my fists had hardened into little round sledgehammers.

  I smiled, remembering the way I’d destroyed my kitchen table, and started throwing punches. I’ll admit; it felt pretty damn good. Ever get so pissed, you just want to break something? This was cathartic. Therapeutic, even. With each punch, I felt my grin grow a little bit wider.

  The warehouse wall didn’t last long.

  When the dust cleared, I could see straight into the building. A familiar face stared back at me.

  “Angie!” I sidestepped through the narrow doorway I’d created and ran across the room to her.

  She was on her hands and knees inside a metal cage about the size of a dog kennel. Her normally sleek curls were matted with dirt, and her clothing was torn. Her fingers poked out through the black metal grid that made up her prison. I shoved my mask up with one hand so it was more like a beanie, revealing my face.

  “Tess!” Her voice was hoarse and strained.

  “I’m here.” I let my skin return to normal, covered her hand with one of my own and forced a smile. “You’re going to be okay.”

  As Reed stepped into the room behind me, I swept my head side to side, taking in the rest of the space. We stood in the corner of a room so large my entire childhood home could’ve easily fit inside. Half-walls blocked this part of the warehouse from the rest. Above us, a rickety catwalk ran the length of the building, disappearing out of sight over the partial walls, and the wind from outside whistled through a crack in one of the boarded-up windows near the ceiling.

  Angie’s cage was in the middle of a long line of a dozen identical cells, half of them filled. The anguished faces of several of the missing girls stared out at me, their eyes wide. I looked for Bethany but didn’t see her, and my heart thumped to a standstill. Then I realized the empty cells weren’t all actually empty; their occupants had just crumpled to the ground. Bethany’s blonde head rested on the floor of her cage.

  “Oh, my God!” I rushed to her cage and tried to fit a hand through the grid to touch her, but the metal bars were too close together. I pressed an ear against the cage near her face and heard low, ragged breathing. “Quick! She needs help!”

  Reed hurried over, knelt down, and stared at her. “She looks severely dehydrated. We need to get her out of here.”

  “Okay—how?”

  “We have to find a key. Fast. I don’t know how much time we have before somebody figures out we’re here.”

  A high, falsetto laugh tinkled from the catwalk above us. “Oh, little fox. We already have.”

  My head snapped back, and I stared in horror at the man standing above us. His gray hair made him look middle-aged, but he was as lean as Reed and was dressed in a sleek black suit and tie. He leaned on the catwalk’s railing, his face stretched into a wide smile that seemed to show every tooth in his mouth. He reminded me of a shark.

  “You know,” he said in a sing-song voice, “I was starting to think you’d never come.”

  Run! my instincts screamed, and I was just about to obey them when I heard a gunshot. The sound hadn’t even finished tearing through my eardrums before the pain hit. My left leg collapsed under me, and I shrieked in agony. My scream was echoed by the girls in the cages. My foot was on fire, and the pain radiated all the way up through my hips. I glanced down at my sneaker and saw a small black hole, which was rapidly filling with blood. My vision fuzzed just as it had at the meteor shower.

  I was passing out.

  “Tess!” Reed’s voice rang out through the clouds. “Stay with me! You’re okay!”

  The blackness lightened into a dull gray, and then my vision cleared enough to see his face across the room.

  “Breathe. In, out. Breathe.”

  I grabbed onto his words, catching my breath. The gray fog lifted a little with each inhale, and then I could see clearly once more.

  And what I saw sent me into hyperventilation all over again.

  Ian Nyx stood beside The Fox, holding a small black pistol against Reed’s masked temple. He was dressed exactly the same as he’d been at Bilgewater—in a tight-fitting button-down shirt with the Belladonna logo embroidered on it. One eye was swollen closed, and both were ringed in angry black bruises. His nose was bandaged, and he sported a long row of stitches down his right cheek. I felt a twinge of satisfaction. I’d changed his face forever.

  Reed’s hands were high in the air, but his voice was calm. His eyes were fixed on mine. “You’re okay,” he repeated. “You’re strong. Hang in there.”

  “Yeah, hang in there, little brat,” Ian said. “The foot was just the beginning. I want you wide awake for what I’m going to do to you next.”

  “Easy, Ian,” the black-suited man called. He climbed down a narrow ladder that hung from the catwalk, skipping the last few rungs and landing lightly on the concrete floor. “First things first.”

  “Fine.” Ian pushed the gun into Reed’s skull, making him tilt his head sharply away from it. “First things first, says the man. And what the man wants, he gets.”

  “That’s right. And who’s the man, Ian?”

  Ian’s one good eye narrowed. “You are, Jared.”

  “Well, well. Turns out you can listen, after all.” Jared glanced down at me and tsked. “So this is the one you let get away.”

  “She’s more dangerous than she looks.”

  “No doubt. But this is no way to treat a guest. Stand up, my dear.”

  He offered me his hand. I looked past him at Reed, who gave me a tiny nod. The meaning was clear. Do what they say, or we’re both dead.

  I reached up with both hands and allowed Jared to help me to my feet. A wave of dizziness slammed into me as soon as I stupidly tried to put pressure on my left foot, and I tipped to the side. He clucked like an old Southern woman and straightened me up again. I sucked in air and lifted my injured foot off the ground, relying on my right leg to hold all my weight. I wished I’d bothered to take more than two yoga classes so I could’ve gotten crazy good at the Tree Pose.

  Jared leaned in so his face was right next to mine, then inhaled deeply through his nose. “Ahh. That’s the scent I’ve been looking for. You’re going to make me a very rich man.”

  A shudder ran through my body. Had he just smelled me? I guess it shouldn’t have been surprised a human trafficker would do something so creepy.

  “What a pair the two of you are,” he said. “Do you have any idea the trouble we’ve had tr
ying to track you two down? And now here you are! It’s like a miracle.”

  He leaned away from me and smiled, the way your hairstylist might smile after getting your haircut just right. I winced, trying to keep my balance.

  “So tell me… Were you two doing it on purpose?” he asked.

  “Doing what?”

  He waved a hand. “Diluting the water, so to speak. Using the old ‘I’m Spartacus’ trick to make everyone smell like you.”

  I glanced past him at Reed, who lifted his shoulders in a shrug and shook his head. Ian pushed the gun harder against his head and sneered.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told Jared.

  “Ha!” The sudden spike in Jared’s volume made me stumble backward, and he straightened me up again. “I knew it. Ian said it was on purpose, but then, he’s an idiot. I was sure you couldn’t control it, but I had no way to test my theory. I can’t smell my own scent, you see.”

  My head was starting to feel cloudy, and my foot was throbbing. But the tangled threads that’d been twisting around in my brain since that morning in Helena’s office were starting to braid together into a shape that made sense.

  “You have powers?”

  He tapped the end of nose lightly with one finger. “Oh, I see that crinkle. Don’t like having something in common with me, hmm? Well, too bad. I had to suffer through that goddamn syndrome just like you, and this gift is my reward. It’s come in pretty handy, too. Do you have any idea how much someone with powers can go for on the black market? A million, easy.” He huffed out through his nose. “Which is why it was so frustrating to keep sensing you two, snatching up girls who smelled like you, only to find out they were just carrying some kind of phantom scent.”

  Reed made a strangled sound. I knew exactly what he was thinking, because the same thought was stabbing into my own heart: It was my fault.

  Everyone Reed treated must’ve picked up a trace of whatever it was that Jared Nyx could sense. And if they crossed his path… they were targeted. Angie and Bethany were the only two people I spent a lot of time with, and I’d rubbed off on them. I’d been right; they’d been taken because they were close to me.

  “But you’re here now, and time is money, so…” Jared turned sharply on his heel and strode toward Reed. He pulled a gun from his jacket, rested the muzzle in the center of Reed’s forehead and jerked his head in my direction. “See to her.”

  Ian let his gun arm fall to his side and took his brother’s place in front of me.

  Jared dusted off his jacket sleeve with his free hand. “Now, I’m a gentleman, understand? I hate to let a lady see me when I’m angry. Move.”

  Reed hesitated, and Jared cocked his head to one side.

  “I’m afraid I’m not expressing myself quite clearly enough. Let me try again.” Jared’s voice suddenly deepened into a low growl. “Move your ass or your little piece gets it.”

  “Don’t do it!” I started to move toward him, and Ian snapped his gun up into my face. He mimicked his brother’s tsking sound.

  “Did he tell you to move?” he whispered. “I don’t think so.”

  I stared helplessly as Jared marched Reed toward an empty cage.

  “Get in,” he said.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Ian,” Jared called.

  While I was still watching Jared and Reed, Ian landed a kick straight into my stomach that sent me reeling backward.

  “Tess!” Reed shouted again.

  A metal door slammed to my left, and I raised my head to see Ian’s fist coming toward my face. I raised my hands to block it, but he punched right through my defenses and connected squarely with my nose. Bone crunched and searing pain spiked through to the back of my skull. As I sagged there, fighting for breath, he shoved me into an empty cage at the end of the row and slammed the door shut on top of me. The space was cramped, and I had to hunker on my hands and knees like an animal.

  “Watch them,” Jared told his brother. “I’ll be in my office.”

  He climbed back up the stairs to the catwalk and disappeared over the wall. I turned my head, trying to see where Reed had ended up, and caught a glimpse of his dark mask a few cages down from me.

  “There,” Ian snarled, gripping the bars of my cage from the outside. “Consider that a little bit of payback.”

  It took me a few minutes to catch my breath and formulate a response through the waves of pain that were tearing through my head. “You deserve every bruise,” I finally spat back at him. “You’re a monster.”

  “Sweetheart, you don’t even know what I am. I’m the most powerful man in Weyland.”

  My foot ached, my heart was pounding, and the small part of my brain that wasn’t reminding me how much my nose hurt was split between worrying about my sister and worrying about my friends. So I fell back on old faithful: being a smartass.

  “Funny,” I said. “Looked to me like your brother holds that title.”

  He snorted. “I might not have his little gift, but I’m twice the man he is.”

  I closed my eyes, unable to keep looking at his sneering face. Despite the pain in my nose and foot, I still retained a firm grasp on the obvious. Reed, Bethany, Angie, and I were all now locked in cages. The details of anything close to a plan eluded me, but I knew step one of getting us all out of here was getting back into fighting condition. If I could heal scrapes and bruises… could I heal a gunshot wound?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Ian had apparently lost interest in me and was strolling up and down the row of cages with one hand in his pocket, leering at the girls inside and occasionally kicking at the metal grids that covered them. I took advantage of his inattention and focused on the way my sock felt around my left foot. I could feel the fibers against my flesh and found the frigid undercurrent that now seemed to run through my entire body. With one little mental tug, the skin of my foot became knit cotton.

  At once, the burning sensation ceased. But the aching pain was still there. I tested the foot, pressing it against the back of my cage, and nearly yelped. The outside was healed, but the inside was still damaged. I twisted my neck to look back at my foot, trying to picture what was going on beneath my shoe. I wanted to pull it off and poke at my wound, but I’d have to contort myself to accomplish that in this low little cage. As distracted as Ian was by the captive women in front of him, I knew he’d notice me doing anything other than sitting still.

  So I was left with my own imagination. If my skin was healed, I wasn’t bleeding anymore. I slotted that fact into a little “Plus” column in my mind. On the downside, the bullet was probably inside me now. I didn’t see it on the floor where I’d been standing, and it had to be somewhere. What was it doing to my body? Wreaking havoc on my little foot bones and my muscle tissue?

  I shuddered. I didn’t even like the thought of getting my ears pierced, and now I had a little metal bullet inside me. Maybe forever, unless I wanted to cut my foot open again and fish it out.

  Shaking my head, I dismissed the thought. Right now, I needed to figure out a way to heal my foot all the way through. I wondered if it was possible to suck that cold feeling deeper into my body. Could I heal my own bones? Reconnect severed blood vessels?

  Or… would my body stop working? When my skin turned to steel, it was just as solid as the metal object I pulled from. I couldn’t flex my fingers or bend my knees when I’d transformed. So if I pulled that power any deeper into myself… would my blood turn into strands of cotton? Would my veins carry the change back to my heart?

  I swallowed. That was a chance I couldn’t afford to take. I was no use to anyone if I was dead.

  “Shame.” Ian stopped in front of Angie’s cage and clucked his tongue. “Lotta good talent here. I wish I could keep you around, but business is business, you know?”

  Angie’s voice was defiant. “What are you going to do with us?”

  “It’s been done, sweetheart. You’ll stay in your fish box until your b
uyers come for you. You’ve been sold. Normies to the regular traders, carriers to the breeders. And this one”—he stopped mid-step and spun around to face me again—“will go to auction.”

  I stared at him in shock. I’d never heard someone talk so casually about selling human beings like used cars, and half of what he said didn’t make any sense to me. “What’s a carrier?” I asked.

  “People like the blonde back there. Ones who got the sniffles at the solstice but didn’t get the full-blown ride.”

  He’s talking about Bethany, I realized. “How do you know she got sick?”

  He shrugged. “Jared can smell it, same as he can smell your powers.”

  “So she carries the virus?”

  “Virus?” Ian laughed. “We all carry the virus now, idiot. It’s like the cold. It’ll always be around.”

  “What, then?” If something was wrong with Bethany, I needed to know, even more than I needed to know what was going on with my own body.

  Ian leaned in close to my bars and flashed his teeth. “She’s got the gene. That little babymaker just turned into a moneymaker. And you know what the best part is? She’s already preggers. She sold for four times what we got for the others.”

  My right hand shot out, and I grabbed at the metal grid that separated us, trying to rip my cage apart. I wanted to rip him apart, too. He danced backward, laughing, and brandished his gun.

  “Nice try, little girl. But I can’t let something like that slide. Why don’t we make that hand match your foot?”

  “Leave her alone!” shouted Angie from down the row.

  “Oh, you’ve got something to add to this, huh?” Ian stomped off down the line to her cage. “I’ve always loved curly hair. Maybe it’s time I took you for a test drive.”

  Through the rows of metal bars and the filthy, matted heads of the girls between us, I saw him unlock Angie’s cage and pull her up out of it by her hair. He dragged her across the floor to the door and yanked her out of the room.

  From the other side of the wall, she screamed. The sound was like a siren in my head. It blocked out all thought, and suddenly there was only action. I was blinded by a single, driving desire.