Priscilla the Great (3-Book Bundle includes study guide questions) (Priscilla the Great Omnibus)

by Sybil Nelson

  I saw myself standing on my front porch last November after escaping the Selliwood Institute when Kyle asked me to the River Day dance.

  Then I saw myself on our farm in Missouri having my first kiss on my thirteenth birthday. Once again, it was with Kyle.

  Why was it that all my memories involved Kyle? I mean, I was a genetically-enhanced superhero who defeated evil villains every time I turned around, yet all I could think of was my first boyfriend while I was being choked to death by my second boyfriend.

  For some reason, thinking about Kyle gave me a boost of energy. I really wanted to see him again one day even though he currently hated my guts because of, well, Marco. I focused that energy into my fingers and sent flames into both of Marco's ears. He released my neck and clutched the sides of his head.

  I ran away and hid again while gasping for air and rubbing my sore neck.

  "Uh, Priss, we got company,” Tai said.

  "What do you mean?” My voice was barely a whisper so she probably didn't hear me. Thankfully, she continued.

  "It's Ian. He's coming this way and, uh, I don't think he likes us very much anymore."

  "What's your point? He's never liked us!"

  "Uh, my point is he looks about as deadly as Marco right now. And he's leading the others right to us!"

  I shook my head in disbelief. There was no way I could defeat all of them by myself. How did I get into this? More importantly, how the heck was I gonna get out of it?

  Chapter 2: Marco's Metal Embrace

  This episode of the tragic comedy called my life started two weeks ago right after my mother tried to kill my father. Yeah, that's right. Kill. She had stabbed him in the chest in the middle of the night right before leaping out of the window and disappearing into darkness. After that, my brothers, father and I gathered and hid in the storm shelter.

  That’s how we ended up trapped and fearing for our lives.

  Someone was banging on the door trying to get in. My brother Josh steadied a rifle, ready to shoot whoever entered. Though my dad needed me to keep applying pressure to his stab wound, I left his side for a moment and stood next to Josh ready to blast the intruder with my fire power.

  In moments like these I hated having super hearing. I could hear every single little nerve racking noise. I heard Josh's sweaty finger slip off the trigger several times. I heard my dad's slow, painful breathing. I heard the twins' teeth chattering with fear. I tried to block everything out and focus on the battle Josh and I were about to fight. But it was hard to focus and tune out the sound of my own overactive heart.

  "Whoever comes through that door I'll handle," I whispered to Josh. "You hang back and protect Dad and the twins."

  Josh nodded and tightened his grip. He wasn't about to argue with me about that. I had way more combat training than him. Our mother had trained me herself. I had already gone on five successful missions.

  After one more loud crash, a metal figure tumbled through the door.

  "Marco!” I yelled running to him. He stood and wrapped me in his strong metallic arms. I had never been so happy to see his metal self in my life. I buried my face in his chest and inhaled. Whenever I hugged Marco in human form, he always smelled like lavender. Probably from the shampoo he used in his long dark hair. But when he converted to metal, his smell was about as inviting as a street lamp. In that moment I didn't care though. I just wanted him to hold me and tell me everything was gonna be alright.

  "I am so happy you are okay,” he said with his adorably cute accent before mumbling something in French. Then he kissed the side of my head. It was such a soft gentle kiss. I had to admit, I really liked it. But anything more than that wasn't possible for two reasons. First, just from that one little kiss, the side of my head turned to metal for ten minutes.

  And second, my mother was trying to kill us all. I think that took priority over any possible make-out sessions.

  Ryan flew into the hole that Marco had just created. Literally, he flew. That was his power. When no one else came through, Josh went outside to secure the perimeter. I was still locked in Marco's arms and running my fingers through his long black hair. Hmm, I wonder why his hair never turned to metal as well?

  "My mother tried to kill my father. Something is wrong with her." The words flowed out of my mouth uncontrollably fast.

  "I know. She came to the safe house too. She took Peter and Katya,” he said referring to Ryan's flying twin brother and our Russian mind eraser Katya who also happened to be Josh's girlfriend.

  "Oh, no." I pulled away and wiped the few tears that had escaped. Hopefully, no one else in the room noticed. Super heroes aren’t supposed to cry.

  "She dragged them right out of their beds and put some sort of device to their head,” Marco said. Their bodies went limp and then she boarded an aircraft with the Selliwood Institute logo. It was all caught on the surveillance camera."

  Selliwood. I knew he had to be behind this.

  "Why only Katya and Peter?"

  "Ryan and I weren't in our rooms. Neither one of us could sleep, so we were in the kitchen having a snack."

  "Where's Will Smith?” I asked. Will Smith was actually Specimen W. He was a large white man with a thick German accent, but due to an unholy obsession with the movie Men in Black, he preferred to be called Will Smith. He was the first specimen my mother ever rescued. He was like her little brother.

  "He went after her," Marco said.

  I stared into his green eyes for a moment and then Kyle's face flashed into my head. I realized I still had my arms around Marco's neck. I released him and quickly stepped away. What was I doing? My dad's bleeding to death, my mother's trying to kill people and all I can think of is the next time I'm gonna get to make out with the Tin Man. I have got to be the most horrible person in the world.

  I thought I noticed a tinge of hurt in Marco's eyes when I pulled away from him and went back to my father. This slipped away when my little brothers ran to him and tackled him with hugs. He picked them up and carried one in each arm.

  "We're clear,” Josh said, coming back into the storm shelter and clicking the safety on his gun. "How's Dad?” Josh leaned down next to him on the floor.

  "He passed out, but his pulse is strong,” I said. I leaned down and kissed my dad's cheek. I repeated his instructions over and over in my head. Keep airways open, apply pressure to the wound. Check pulse rate often. With degrees in Biochemistry and Engineering my dad wasn’t a doctor by any means, but he had enough medical knowledge to diagnose himself with a collapsed lung before he passed out. "What are we gonna do Josh? He needs a hospital."

  "He doesn't want one,” Josh said.

  "But he could die."

  Josh took a deep breath. A worry wrinkle creased his forehead. He wasn't ready for this type of responsibility. "Let's wait until Will Smith gets back. We'll see what he says."

  "And what if he doesn't come back? What if our mother kills him just like she tried to do to Dad? She could have already done it."

  "Don't say that Prissy. Mommy's not a killer. She's just sick,” Chester said.

  "Yeah, the bad guys made her sick,” Charlie added.

  "They are probably right, Priscilla,” Marco said, setting the boys down. "That's the only explanation for why she would suddenly snap like this."

  "But how?” I asked wiping sweat off my dad's smooth bald head with a towel. I hoped there was a good reason for why she would attack my father.

  "Maybe it has something to do with the machine from Selliwood. The one that stripped her powers,” Josh said.

  "But that was over five months ago. Why would it suddenly make her crazy now?"

  "I don't know, okay?” Josh said, clutching his head in frustration. "I don't know! Just because I'm psychic doesn't mean I have all the answers."

  "Josh, it's okay. Calm down. I just asked a question. We'll figure this out together." I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. "Let's get Dad back in the house."

  Marco carried my dad in
to the house, while Josh and I put the twins back to bed. It was hard trying to assure them that everything was going to be alright when we really weren't sure ourselves.

  "Does Mommy not love us anymore?” Chester asked.

  "Of course she does, Chessie,” I said. "You were right before, okay? She's just sick."

  "How are we going to make her better?” Charlie asked.

  Josh and I looked at each other. That was a good question.

  Chapter 3: The Hospital’s Hard Questions

  Josh and I took turns keeping an eye on Dad throughout the night. For two hours I sat at the edge of my dad's bed and watched him breathe. I changed his bandages and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. His breathing was slow and ragged. He only had one working lung. I wondered what that felt like. It had to be painful. Even though my dad was built like a professional wrestler, the whole lung thing had totally incapacitated him. Every once in a while he'd try to take a deep breath and wince. I hated seeing how much pain he was in. I so wanted to take him to get help, but I was trying to respect his wishes.

  Sometimes I wished he was a specimen as well. If he were a genetic experiment like my mother, he would heal much more quickly. I only had half of my mother's mutated genes and I still healed pretty quickly. Back in December when I saved my parents and the other Selliwood kids from the Institute, I had been shot in the shoulder. It hurt a little, but I was still able to keep going. And the wound healed completely in a couple of days.

  But my dad didn't have those genes. Instead, he was a normal human. He was a guard at the Selliwood Institute when my mother was a teenager there and that is how they met and fell in love.

  Time ticked on slowly after Josh switched places with me. I was exhausted, but part of me didn't want to sleep. I crawled into my bed, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw him lying on the floor of the storm shelter with blood pouring out of his chest. Then I'd jerk awake and rush to his side just to make sure he was still alive.

  "Priss, go back to sleep,” Josh whispered after the second time I did this. "It's not your turn for another forty-five minutes." He stood up from where he was sitting next to Dad and gave me a hug. "He's gonna be fine,” he said into my hair. "I'll come get you if anything happens." Then he sent me that calm feeling that always helped me relax. See, Josh was a psychic and a pretty powerful one at that. He was always able to send me a wave of energy to put me at ease just when I needed it.

  After that, I think I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow on my bed. Unfortunately, my sleep didn't last too long.

  "Priss, get up. We're going to the hospital,” Josh yelled into my room.

  I hopped out of bed and threw on my shoes and a jacket. I made it into the hallway just in time to see Josh struggling to hold Dad's body weight.

  I took my dad's limp body from Josh and easily carried his three-hundred pound frame through the house and out the front door with my super strength.

  "What happened?” I asked as Josh held open the door to his truck.

  "His pulse dropped. I think he's lost too much blood."

  "Why don't we call an ambulance?"

  "Because we live in the middle of nowhere. It would take too long for them to even find our house. I think this will be faster."

  "What about the twins?” I asked not wanting to leave them alone. They were only five and after the night we'd had, they might flip out if they woke up alone.

  Get your father some help. I will take care of the twins, a voice in my head said. It was Marco sending me a telepathic message. Normally, I would have started yelling at him to stop going in my head uninvited, but tonight I was just grateful for his help.

  ***

  When we got to the hospital, Josh wouldn't let me carry Dad in. It would be too hard to explain why a thirteen-year-old girl could carry a three hundred pound man with ease. Instead, Josh ran inside the Emergency Room doors and yelled for help. Two men came out of the building and loaded my dad on to one of those rolling bed thingies. That's when all the hard to explain questions started.

  "What happened to him?” a nurse asked once we were inside the Emergency Room.

  "He was stabbed,” Josh said.

  "Where?"

  "In the chest,” I said. "His left lung collapsed."

  The nurse looked at me. "How do you know that?"

  "I...um...He told me,” I said pointing to my dad like a three-year-old blaming an imaginary friend for breaking the TV.

  "Why wasn't he brought earlier? Where did this happen? Who did this?"

  "I...um...Help me out here, Josh.”

  “We…um,” he stuttered. Some help he was.

  They wheeled my dad into a room before we had time to answer. Josh and I followed and watched as they worked on him. Seconds later a doctor breezed into the room.

  "What have we got here?” she said.

  "Stabbing victim. Brought in by a couple kids. Pulse is low and he's lost a lot -. He's crashing!"

  "Get those kids out of here!"

  Someone pushed us out into the hallway. We ended up in the waiting room, huddled together on a couch both trying not to cry.

  "What are we going to do if he doesn't make it, Josh?"

  "Don't say that. He's gonna be fine." Josh wrapped his arm around me and hugged me.

  "But what if he isn't? What are we going to do? What if they ask us who did it? What are we going to say?"

  "I don't know. We'll figure something out."

  ***

  I didn't think it was possible, but somehow I fell asleep right there in the waiting room with my head on Josh's shoulder. What felt like seconds later, he was shaking me awake.

  "The doctor is coming,” Josh said. I blinked away the sleepiness and was finally able to take in my surroundings as I opened my eyes. We were in a regular old depressing hospital waiting room with the creepy fluorescent lighting and painfully boring white walls. It was daylight now, which meant we had to have been there for at least two hours.

  We both stood as the doctor approached us. "How's my dad?” Josh asked.

  She held out her hand and said, “I’m Dr. Warner, but everyone calls me Dr. Amy." Dr. Amy looked a lot less like a doctor and a lot more like she should be staying up on the phone all night talking about cute boys and how she's going to buy a new swimsuit with her babysitting money. In other words, she looked really young. But I wasn't going to hold that against her. I mean, I'm sure I probably looked too young to shoot fire out of my fingers. Wait. Is there ever a proper age for that?

  Josh shook her hand then repeated his question. "How's my dad?"

  "Why don't we have a seat and talk for a minute?” She spoke with a smile but I could see the worry hidden behind her eyes.

  "Oh my God. Is he okay? Is he dead?” I started to panic. I would never forgive myself if he was dead. If we had just taken him to the hospital as soon as it happened. Oh, it was all my fault. I should've convinced Josh to take him to the hospital as soon as it happened. If he was dead, it would be my fault.

  "No, he's not dead,” Dr. Amy said in a reassuring voice.

  Josh and I exhaled simultaneously and plopped down onto the couch. Dr. Amy pulled a chair directly in front of us and sat down as well.

  "He's stable. He survived an emergency procedure to seal the hole in his lung and he's already breathing on his own. Your father is a very strong man."

  "Can we see him?” I asked, standing up.

  Dr. Amy held up her hand indicating that I should sit back down. "Why don't we give him a few minutes to rest okay? I thought we could talk for a little bit. I'm rather concerned about the condition your father was in. I'm not only concerned for him, but for you. How did he end up getting stabbed? Who hurt him? Where is your mother?"

  Josh and I looked at each other. Neither of us responded.

  "Are you afraid of someone? Is someone trying to hurt you?"

  We still didn't answer.

  "Look, the police are on the way. They're going to be asking the same
questions I am. I just thought you might be more comfortable talking with me. I'm actually a pediatrician on my ER rotation. I'm used to dealing with kids."

  I rolled my eyes. She was not used to dealing with kids like us.

  "We appreciate your concern, but we'd really like to see our dad. Can we talk about this later?” Josh said.

  Dr. Amy sighed. "Okay, I'll show you to his room."

  We followed her down the hallway toward my dad's room. "I'll give you ten minutes with him,” she said, “but then I really need some information."