Powerless

by Tera Lynn Childs

  We listen to the keyboard clicks.

  “I need you to get to the freight elevator at the end of the west hall.”

  I take off at a run. The guys follow close behind. Tonight it pays to know this building like the back of my hand.

  “Freeze,” Jeremy shouts. “There are guards around that corner. Hold on, I’ll set off a sensor in the lobby, so they should be…”

  I plaster myself to the wall as his words trail off. Our harsh breathing is masked by the blaring alarm as we wait for Jeremy’s next instructions.

  “Okay, they’re in the stairwell. Go.”

  It seems like an eternity before we reach the freight elevator. The door is easily three times as large as a normal elevator door, built to fit even the largest scientific equipment.

  “We’re here,” I pant. “Should I press the—”

  “No,” Jeremy interrupts. “Don’t. I’m locking the elevator on the floor above you.”

  Now what? If he didn’t want us to take the elevator, then why are we—

  “Okay, the car is locked. The doors are carbon-reinforced steel. Nitro, can you burn through them?”

  “Can I?” Nitro’s face twists into a look of maniacal glee. A bright green ball of energy, no bigger than a cupcake, floats between his outstretched palms.

  “Stand back,” he says.

  I watch as he slowly runs the ball over the surface of the door in what looks like the supervillain version of Tai Chi.

  Then he stands back and admires his work.

  Which, as far as I can tell, is nothing more than a big scorch mark.

  Nitro tilts his head at Dante. “Would you?”

  With a flick of his fingers, Dante sends a gust of wind at the doors. The area inside Nitro’s scorch mark sails into the elevator shaft, leaving a door-sized opening in the carbon steel.

  “Nice,” I tell him with a grin. “Now what, Jer?”

  “Now,” he replies, “you climb.”

  Draven steps up to the opening and waves me forward. “Ladies first.”

  He says it casually, but there’s gravity to his words. Under the guise of chivalry, he’s making sure I get out first. There’s no time to argue about gender politics right now, and besides, going first means I get to lead the way. And fend off trouble, if there is any. I step through the opening and pull myself up the service ladder that runs up the side wall.

  “How far?” I ask.

  “All the way,” Jeremy says. “There is an exhaust vent that opens onto the roof. The building locks down from the bottom up, so I can still disable that alarm.”

  “Great,” I say as I start to climb.

  “But you need to hurry,” he replies. “They’ve almost got sub-level two completely locked. You need to get up and out before they get to the top floor.”

  There is no more talking as the four of us climb as fast as we can. Now I really wish I had argued gender politics with Draven. I’m the slowest of the bunch and I’m holding them back. If they get caught because of me, I’ll never forgive myself.

  The thought of being responsible for us being captured—for them being tortured like Deacon—paralyzes me with fear. But I can’t let it. Instead, I use it to motivate me to push my body as hard as I possibly can.

  We are exhausted by the time we reach the top floor. My arms and legs are shaking and even Draven looks a little worse for wear.

  “We’re here,” I gasp.

  “The vent is above you,” Jeremy explains. “In the center of the shaft.”

  I look up. The elevator shaft is at least twenty feet across, which means the vent is ten feet out in the open. The elevator car is now four stories below us. That’s not the kind of fall that someone can survive.

  “Can you call up the car, Jer?” I ask. “Then we could stand on the roof to get to the vent.”

  “Can’t,” he says. “It’s locked on sub-level one.”

  “I’ve got this,” Dante says.

  A powerful wind fills the shaft. I have to struggle to hold on to the ladder.

  My apprehension must show. He smiles. “Trust me.”

  There’s a lot of trust going around tonight.

  I bite my lips, close my eyes, and exhale. It’s easier to let go of the ladder than I thought. I just relax my fingers and then…I’m floating.

  I feel myself moving away from the wall. Forcing my eyes open, I look up—not down, never down. The vent is right above me. I reach for the grate, but it’s screwed to the frame.

  “I can’t,” I say. “It’s—”

  “Move her,” Nitro says.

  The wind shifts, and I float to the other side of the shaft. Nitro shoots a series of flaming red, bullet-sized balls. The grate falls with a clang on the elevator car below.

  Before I can say a word, Dante shifts his wind again and I float through the opening into the night, then drop in a squat when the wind leaves me.

  Nitro flies through a moment later.

  When Draven doesn’t immediately follow, I peer into the elevator shaft. He and Dante are at a stand-off.

  “Now is not the time, dude,” Dante says.

  Draven’s entire body is rigid. Tense…with fear.

  Right. When Rebel suspended us in the air in my kitchen, he’d looked nervous. Now he looks downright freaked out. It’s weird, considering he’s always been so fearless about everything else.

  Everyone has a weakness and I’m not letting him give in to his, not when we’re so close to freedom.

  “Hey, Draven,” I shout, intent on distracting him.

  He looks up, his eyes wild.

  “You’re not chickening out now, are you? I mean, even Jeremy could do this.”

  “Hey!” Jeremy exclaims. “I heard that. And maybe you’ve forgotten since it’s been a while, but there’s a lot I can do, Kenna.” His voice is rife with innuendo and Draven growls. He actually growls. Which works for me. This jealousy is exactly what I’m trying to play up right now. If nothing else, it will distract him.

  “Shut it, geek boy,” Draven snaps.

  Dante waves his hand and Draven slowly starts to rise. He’s seething at the taunts so he doesn’t notice until he’s two feet away.

  I reach out and grab him before he can look down.

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Seconds later, Dante flies through the vent.

  “You need to get to the south edge of the roof,” Jeremy tells us. “From there you can—oh shit.”

  “Oh shit, what?” Dante demands.

  “Guards,” Jeremy barks. “They’ll be on you in seconds.”

  We run full speed to the south end of the roof. From there we can see the van parked on the access road that runs behind the campus.

  “How do we get down?” I ask.

  Dante holds up his hands. “I can take care of—”

  “Freeze!” We turn to face the trio of guards who have appeared less than a football field away. In addition to whatever superpowers they’re packing, they have their weapons drawn. Real guns with real bullets.

  Dante turns his wind on them. Faced with the force of a hurricane-strength gale, the guards struggle to remain upright. Advancing is out of the question.

  “Reb, babe,” Dante shouts to be heard above the howl of wind, “I can’t hold off the guards and get everyone on the ground at the same time.”

  “I’ve never lifted something from this far away.” She sounds scared.

  “You can do it, Rebel,” I insist. “You just have to focus.”

  “Shit.” I can hear her take a deep breath. “Yeah, okay. I’ll do my best.”

  “Take Kenna first,” Draven orders.

  “No,” I say. “That’s crazy. It’s way more dangerous for you guys to get caught. I’ve seen what they do to villains.”

>   Draven is firm. “Too bad. You’re going—”

  “Take the guys first,” I tell Rebel. “Don’t let them get captured.”

  “Out of the quest—”

  Before Draven can finish his pointless, chauvinistic argument, he’s flying up and over the edge of the roof and soaring across the field toward the van. I let out a sigh of relief as I watch Rebel set him down gently as soon as he’s cleared the property line.

  “Nitro,” she says, “you’re next.”

  He doesn’t protest as Rebel lifts him.

  “Dante—” I begin.

  “No way!” he shouts. “I have to be last. I have to hold off the guards.”

  “There’s time,” I insist. “Give them one last shove and then go. Rebel will get me before they recover.”

  “Kenna,” her voice wavers and she sounds tired. “That’s not a lot of time.”

  “Forget it,” Dante replies. “Babe, take us together in three, two, one.”

  Before I have time to react, Dante sends one last blast of wind at the guards, then runs at me. He leans down, like he’s going to tackle me, but instead lifts me onto his shoulder without losing his momentum. He pushes off from the roof with a leap.

  We are going to fall. We are falling.

  Then Dante throws some wind behind us and I feel the pull of Rebel’s telekinesis. We shoot across the field, reaching the others in half the time it took Draven and Nitro.

  When we land, I want to collapse with relief, but there’s no time. SHPD vehicle sirens blare. Rebel climbs into the driver’s seat while Jeremy shouts for us all to get inside. The door shuts behind me, and the van tires spin out.

  We’re racing away for our lives.

  Chapter 19

  Rebel drives like a highly trained wheelman. She burns rubber on the straightaways and takes the corners like she’s on rails, pushing the limits of the coefficient of friction. Which is impressive, considering we’re in a minivan.

  We weave and squeal down residential streets before we finally lose the SHPD. I’m trying to process everything that happened inside the lab—everything we saw. Body bags. Corrupt guards. Dead villains. The heroes aren’t just experimenting on them anymore, aren’t just imprisoning them. They’re killing them.

  And if the seven we saw were just “the last of them,” then who knows how many others they’d killed?

  I fight the urge to throw up. But if Rebel takes even one more corner the way she’s taken the last few, I might not be able to hold it in.

  Then there’s the confirmation that my mom wasn’t at the lab. Which means she could be…pretty much anywhere else on the planet.

  On top of everything, I have another thought weighing on my mind. Gingerly, I press my fingers against my arm through the thin sleeve of my tee. I wince when I connect with what feels like a burn.

  I’ve burned myself before on the stove. That’s not unusual. But I haven’t been near any ordinary heat sources tonight. The only thing that might have burned my arm is Nitro’s fireballs. Which can only mean one thing: my immunity is wearing off.

  If I’d been paying attention, I would have seen the signs. Rebel levitating me in my kitchen. Dante using his wind power to lift me to the roof vent. Not to mention Rebel’s telekinesis carrying me off that roof. If my immunity were intact, none of them would have been able to touch me.

  My stress level ratchets up about twelve notches. My immunity is the only thing that protects me against the superpowers in my everyday world. How am I supposed to stay safe without it? Other ordinaries don’t even know that superheroes exist, but in my life I can’t exactly avoid them.

  I’ve grown so used to hiding my immunity. What am I going to do now that I actually have to protect myself from the powers?

  “Damn it.” Draven snaps out of the fog first. “I screwed up. I should have wiped their minds.”

  “You didn’t have time, dude,” Dante insists.

  Nitro shakes his head. “Not a chance.”

  “They knew we were villains.” Draven pounds a fist against the van door. “There will be retribution. We need to warn Uncle Anton.”

  Dante digs out his phone, punches an access code, and dials. “Come on, come on.” He listens impatiently and, when the call presumably goes to voice mail, pounds the screen so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. Then he starts texting.

  “Where should we go?” Rebel asks. “I can’t drive around forever.”

  No one has an answer for her. Dante is trying to reach his dad, and Draven and Nitro are sending out a series of text messages to warn their fellow villains that the superheroes will be looking for payback. Jeremy is typing furiously on his laptop, searching for…I don’t know what. And I can’t stop thinking about my vanishing immunity.

  How can I save my mom when I don’t even know if I can save myself?

  Rebel turns onto another street and guns it, steering the van up a steep mountain road. I lurch against Draven’s side, wincing when my arm smacks into his. I can’t believe how much it hurts. It’s been so long since I suffered a super-related injury that I forgot what they feel like.

  Trying to hide the pain, I regain my balance and put some distance between us. He turns and frowns at me, his gaze darting to my arm.

  Suddenly, Rebel slams to a stop. She’s driven us to a small mountain park that overlooks the city. It’s a beautiful view of the twinkling lights of Boulder and the vast dark of the plains beyond. It’s way more peaceful than the reality of what is happening down there behind closed superhero doors.

  “We need to regroup,” she says, cutting the engine. “No one should be looking for us up here.”

  Rebel flings open her door, jumps down, and starts pacing off some of her nervous energy. Nitro and Dante pile out too. Jeremy takes one look at Draven’s scowl, and then he’s struggling to climb down on his injured ankle.

  “Hey, a little help,” he calls out, and Nitro gives him a hand. They hobble toward the low stone fence at the edge of the overlook.

  If he can hobble, then it probably isn’t broken. That’s one good thing.

  I start to follow everyone out—the crisp mountain air will be good for clearing our heads—but Draven puts out a hand to stop me.

  “Can we—can we talk for a sec?”

  I nod. “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  I frown. What does he have to be sorry for?

  “I didn’t mean to scare you back at the lab,” he continues. “I just—when they mentioned the tattoos, I thought it was Deacon in that bag. I lost it.”

  “Totally understandable.” Knowing how much he loves his cousin I’m surprised he was able to pull back at all.

  “No, I mean I really lost it.” He lowers his gaze. “I lost control of my power. I never lose control of my power.”

  “So…that thing you did,” I venture. “You did that with your psy ability?”

  He hesitates. “No.”

  “No?” I echo. “Then what—oh. Oh.”

  If his memory-wipe ability didn’t take down those guards, that means he has a second power.

  Second powers are extremely rare in the super world. Extremely rare. In fact, only children with both a hero and a villain parent are gifted with double powers.

  The implications shake me deep inside.

  One of Draven’s parents is a hero.

  Oh my God.

  “So one of your—”

  “Yes.” He cuts me off. “My mom was a villain.”

  Which tells me two things I didn’t know. First, that his mom is dead. I place a sympathetic hand on his knee. No matter how long it’s been, it’s never easy to lose a parent. I would know.

  The second thing it tells me is that Draven’s dad is—or was—a hero.

  Stunned is a ridiculous understatement.

 
; I have a million questions, but I can’t ask him. Not when he’s looking at me like that. Not when he whispers, “No one knows. Only Dante, Deacon, and Uncle Anton.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “I know it scared you, and I needed to explain. I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

  The silence stretches as I process his revelations. Not just his second power and his mixed parentage, but the fact that it bothers him to think I’m afraid of him. And how much courage it must take for him to trust me with a secret almost no one else knows.

  “I would never hurt you, Kenna, even if I could.” He stops then and glances away, his hands fisting and unfisting by his sides. I start to answer, but then his gaze returns and my breath catches at the intensity in his icy blue eyes. “I only want to protect you.”

  “You don’t scare me.” The words are out before I even know I’m going to say them.

  I meant to reassure him with the words, but if possible, he only grows more tense. What did I say wrong? “I…” I want to fix this, but I don’t know how. Don’t know what to say. I have a brief mental debate and decide to confess a secret of my own. At this point, it’s only fair. “My immunity is wearing off.”

  He scowls. “What do you mean wearing off ?”

  I lift up my sleeve and show him the burn on my arm. It’s the first time that I’m getting a look at it myself. It looks as bad as it feels. A patch of skin from above my elbow to halfway to my shoulder is bright red and covered with a web of tiny blisters.

  “Nitro,” I say with an awkward laugh. “Besides, how do you think Rebel and Dante were able to use their powers on me? If I still had immunity—”

  “I thought you could choose to be immune. Like, if you wanted someone to use their powers on you it would be fine, and otherwise you had immunity. Or like, maybe you could block powers at will or something.”

  “No. That’s not how it works. Either I’m immune to everything, or I’m immune to nothing.

  “But immunity is your power.” He looks from the tender burn on my arm to my face. His eyes are soft and sweet and sorry. “How can it wear off?”

  I have to tell him everything. It’s only fair after all he’s shared with me. Still, it had been nice to have someone think that I had an actual power for a while.