“Do it, Maci,” Nyx says again.
I dig my fingers under the center of the harness. It pulses with each motorized pull of power from Nyx’s body. I grip it tightly, take a deep breath and slide it out. Power drips out of the metal tendrils, splashing all over Nyx’s lap. He collapses forward, his chest heaving as if he can’t get enough air.
Nova grabs the harness with her gloved hand and aims the dripping power onto the eight bleeding holes in his chest. The power helps them heal. I can feel everyone else’s eyes on us as we watch Nyx carefully heal and slowly sit back up. A weak smile tugs at his lips.
“Do me next,” Corey calls out with his scratchy voice.
“How bad did that hurt?” I ask Nyx. He holds up ten fingers. I glance from Nyx back to Corey and the Super nods, waving me over with his hand. Removing that thing from Nyx was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it was no doubt easier because Nyx is a Hero. He’s prepared to die at any time. What if I had messed up? What if I mess up Corey? Or George or the others? I am so horribly unqualified to do this.
“Go on,” Nova urges. “Let’s get them out and then we can get out of here.
Leaving them here while we go back and try to trip the security system sounds like a better plan. But when I tell everyone this, they glare and groan and beg me not to leave them. Nova folds her arms over her chest and stares at me like I’m some sort of monster. “How dare you even suggest that? We have to rescue them.”
“I want to rescue them,” I hiss. “I don’t want them to get hurt because of me. I want to go back and get help and have the medics do this.”
Corey shakes his head furiously and the others join in. “We want out,” he says.
Nyx attempts to stand but he collapses back in the chair. I don’t even try to help him since Nova is all over him, cradling him and protecting him like he’s a baby bird with a broken wing.
I look at the door and then back. My Hero training seems like years ago. I know it’s protocol to request backup when you’re in a situation you can’t handle yourself. If Nova wasn’t here giving me that death glare for wanting to leave, I would have already left. I would have ran through the tunnel back out to the corridors and mashed on the password protected MOD screen until someone noticed. But Nova is here and now I’m suddenly the bad guy.
“Fine,” I say, relenting. I walk over to Corey, grab the harness and pull it from his body. His head rockets back and a defiant scream escapes his throat, raw and dry and terrifying. The bones in his fingers break as he grips the arms of his chair. As much as I want to let go, I don’t until all of the tendrils are out of his body.
He collapses forward just like Nyx had done, shuddering uncontrollably. Using Nova’s idea, I push him back and let the power in the harness drop onto his wounds to heal them faster. Corey’s painful cries don’t stop for several seconds. Finally, he brings a shaky hand to his chest, feeling through the holes in his The Walking Dead t-shirt. “It’s healed,” he says. His eyes meet mine. “Thank you,” he whispers, pushing himself out of the chair. He lands on the floor and curls into the fetal position on the stony surface. The faint power level in his body slowly ignites, burning like an ember beneath his skin. I don’t know how long it’ll take his body to create more power, but he’s going to be okay.
“Hurry and do the rest of them,” Nova says. “We have to get them out of here.”
“I don’t think they’re going to be walking any time soon,” I say. I move to the next chair and look at Li. His eyes are wide, watery and bloodshot. He shakes his head, staring at me like he’s trying to convey some mental message. I lean closer to him. “Are you ready to get unhooked?”
A single tear rolls down his cheek, stopping halfway down his face. There simply isn’t any more water in his body. He opens his mouth. “No.”
I pat his arm, trying to be reassuring. “The medics will have something to numb the pain, if you want to wait.”
“Maci!” Nova interjects. “We can’t wait!”
“Yes we can,” I say. “If they don’t want to do it, they don’t have to. We can get help.”
I move to George and Mara and they both tell me no as well. After watching Corey, I can’t say I blame them. “Are you okay with staying here so we can go get help?” I ask them. Corey, still huddled on the floor, points toward the woman on the floor.
I try to say something reassuring. “I left more retriever hooks back in the hallway. I can get them and hook her two more times. She won’t be going anywhere, I promise.”
“Or we could just take her with us,” Nova says.
“Do that,” Nyx coughs out. “Take her.”
“See?” Nova says. “Nyx agrees.”
Anger rushes into me and I direct all of it toward my sister. “Shut up!” Her eyes go wide as if she’s actually offended about what I just said. So I say it again. “Just shut up, Nova. You don’t get to make the calls around here. You are not a Hero. If it wasn’t for me, you would be dead. You’re nothing.” Her jaw hardens but she doesn’t look away. “I am the Hero. Nyx is incapable of doing his job right now and everyone else is a normal Super. I make the calls around here. I am in charge. So Shut. The. Hell. Up.”
The sound of someone clapping is eerily out of place in this manmade cave. I glance from Nyx to the rest of the Supers but they remain stark still. The clapping comes from behind me.
His power fills the whole room. I turn around. A man stands in the doorway, blocking the only exit. He’s tall and lean, tan with angular features. Pitch black hair cropped short. Some kind of insignia tattoo decorates his neck.
“That was quite a speech.” His voice is a slow drawl, reverberating off the walls. “It’s a shame that you rescued your sister only to end up regretting your decision.”
Nova’s voice is a whisper. “Felix.”
The slow clapping stops. “Good to see you again, sweetheart.”
I turn to Nova, if only to see her expression. Her face is a blank canvas. She stares straight at Felix.
And then her eyes go wide.
I turn back around just in time to see the blur of something flying toward us. My stomach clenches in pain and Nova and I slam backward into the wall. Something very much like a railroad spike juts out of my side, pinning me to the wall. But it isn’t just a sharpened piece of steel.
It hurts way more than that.
“Let me go, you friggen piece of scum!” Nova’s yelling continues. She calls him every G-rated name in the book and I almost laugh at her. She’s definitely the good twin. “You will never get away with this!” she screams. I sneak a sideways glance and see tears roll down her cheeks.
Felix is a sleek figure in the hazy room. All black slender pants and long sleeved jacket that I know isn’t leather no matter how much it looks like it. I soften my face until I am unaffected. I do not snarl or wince or let tears pour of out my eyes. There’s a magnetic stake in my side, no doubt piercing straight through my spleen, but I mind-over-matter it. My vision blurs all around the villain standing across the room. All I see is him.
All I feel is anger.
All the power in my body concentrates itself around the burning pain in my side. I feel it drain from my head and my toes and from one hand. It pulls toward the pain, being beckoned by the foreign magnet. I bite down on my tongue to prevent my teeth from shattering.
We won’t get out of this without a plan and I can’t think of a plan with all of this pain stealing every ounce of my attention.
Felix steps forward, casting an uninterested glance toward the two rescued Supers and the other harnessed ones. He approaches his ally, who lies unconscious on the floor. A swift kick sends her body across the floor and out of the way. He walks closer to Nova and her fear increases tenfold. She holds her chin up, even when he steps just inches away from her.
He is silent for an uncomfortable amount of time. If Nova would get a grip on her emotions, even for a minute, then I would have enough silence to work out a plan. My hand habitually slides
over to my wrist, only to remember too late that my BEEPR does not work. I glance toward Nyx but it’s too smoky for me to see him lying on the floor.
Nova’s emotions are frantic--anger, betrayal, fear. I roll my head to the right. “Shut up, Nova. Seriously. Please.”
Felix pulls his attention away from my sister to look at me. But it’s only for a second, then he turns back to her. He’s inches away from her now. His hand reaches up and touches her hair. “I can’t count the times I told Aurora that raising you was a bad idea,” he says, sliding his fingers through her hair. “We should have used you as bait the moment we got you. Central was weakened after out attack. Your father was heartbroken. He made a lot of mistakes in the weeks that followed. Depowered many Supers, some of which had done no wrong. He must have thought he was doing something good, but really all he did was give us more allies.”
“No one cares,” Nova spats. Felix shrugs. “No, I don’t suppose you would. But I care. I care about why you’re here and what you’re doing, mingling with the Heroes as if you belong with them.”
“She’s my family,” Nova says.
Felix laughs. “She does not talk to you like you are family.”
“It’s none of your damn business how I talk to her.” In this moment, when everything is completely hopeless and I’m losing a grasp on how to maintain hope, how to stay positive, I feel the anger boil inside of me like a ravage beast that must get out. Months of practicing composure, of hiding my emotions and holding back. It’s all worthless now. I can’t do any of it.
A strange thing happens when I embrace the anger.
The stake in my side...moves. Surprise washes over me and it stops-steadying itself in my side again. Did I really just move something with my anger?
No. That’s impossible.
But power can move things. Power, if concentrated enough by a strong enough Super, can move and not just the pulse of energy that knocks over humans. I close my eyes and then open them, glancing toward the harnessed victims. I watch their pain, feel the anger fill me up again. I hear Felix telling lies to Nova. Telling her she’ll never be loved, never be welcomed in our community.
“Look at your sister,” he says. “You disgust her.”
My jaw clenches and my body trembles as I embrace my anger, concentrating not on Felix or Nova, but on the stake. I want it to move again. I want it out. I want to prove that Felix cannot control me or overpower me. He cannot win.
Felix moves closer to me. “If you only knew your true potential as twins,” he says wistfully, tossing a hand in the air as if what he’s thinking is floating just beyond his reach. “How powerful the pair of you could be. It’s a shame,” he tisks. “You remind me of another set of twins I used to know. They hated each other for the longest time. Always jealous of the other one. Never learning to work together until it was too late. They never knew how powerful they could be.”
The sound of his stupid voice is enough to send me over the edge. The stake oozes out of my abdomen as my body expels the unwanted object. It drops to the ground with a metallic clink that echoes throughout the tiny room. I suck in deep breath of smoggy air, reveling in the pain of my skin healing back together where a wound bled just moments ago.
Felix charges toward me. I slam my fist into one of the syringes of Evan’s juice and then throw out my arms, sending him crashing into the noisy machine in the center of the room.
“Help!” Nova cries. I grab the stake in her chest and yank it out. She gasps in relief, closing her eyes.
And then another stake slams straight into her throat. I whirl around to find Felix on his hands and knees, smiling with a cruel satisfaction at landing his target. Nova gasps for air. Her throat wheezing, spewing blood and spit everywhere. I grab for the stake with my depowered hand but it’s buried too deeply into the wall behind it. I am not strong enough to pull it out, not without risking my own power. If I were to use my powered hand, the magnets would incapacitate me.
Nova’s eyes plead with me for help, and I squeeze her hand. “Hold tight,” I whisper. And then I turn back to Felix.
Aiming my palms toward him, I unleash the power of the juice, sending jolt after jolt of unnatural power into his body. His tall frame flops around, smacking into the walls like a ragdoll in the jaws of a rabid dog. But every time I send a wave of power into him, he still finds a way to scramble back onto his knees. He’s still trying to get up. To fight back.
Tenacity runs thick in the veins of a villain.
Incredulous, I inject the last vial on my arm, sending it straight into my veins for maximum effect. I step close enough to Felix to avoid his frantic grasp. Power unleashes from my palms again, send him catapulting backward, spine cracking against the jagged wall. He should be done for by now. He shouldn’t be getting back up. No one is that strong.
Nova’s emotions lift into a feeling of enlightenment. It almost feels like she’s trying to tell me something. I glance back at her and swallow back my revulsion of seeing her writhing in pain with a rod of metal through her neck. “The jacket,” she whispers.
She’s right. Again. The stupid skin tight pants and trendy sleek jacket--I can’t believe I hadn’t realized it sooner. Just like with his female ally, he’s wearing something that protects from my attacks. He’s scrambling to his knees again, trying to push up onto his feet. And I am all out of juice.
With no more options, I slip into a fight stance. Spit out a mouthful of blood. “Take off that jacket and fight me like a real villain.”
Felix pushes himself into a standing position, a feat I wasn’t able to do for an hour after being hit with the juice from Evan. He wipes sweat off his brow, looking down at himself. With a smile, he shrugs off his jacket and drops it to the floor. “You think you can beat me?” he says.
I crack my knuckles, roll my head around. No, I think. “Yes,” I say.
With a cocky laugh, Felix shrugs and takes one step forward. Nervous jolts of pain shoot through my body, pooling in the pit of my stomach. I suck in a deep breath, clench my fists and prepare for an attack.
A thin blackness shoots across the floor. Felix curses as he’s surrounded by a blur of movement that takes him to the ground. The blur slows to a stop and Nyx rises. He wipes off his hands with a sly smile.
Felix is hooked.
“Where did you get those?” I ask.
Nyx pants from exhaustion. His power hasn’t fully regenerated yet. His hands grab his thighs and he hunches over to catch his breath. “You said there were hooks in the hallway. I went and found them.”
Fifty kinds of relief wash over me. “I didn’t even hear you move.”
He smiles. “That was the plan.”
Nova sobs quietly from the wall, even though she’s smiling. Her emotions are a mixture of pride and relief. Nyx’s eyes widen in horror when he sees what’s happened to her. “Maci,” he calls out as he rushes to help my sister. “Grab his phone. Call for help.”
Felix lies rigid on the floor. Only his eyes move to look at me when I approach him. I kneel down, grabbing the rumpled jacket next to his head. “Why’d you do this?” I ask, knowing I won’t get an answer. “Why would you care about supplying humans with drugs?” I dig his phone out of the inside pocket and turn it on. Looking back at Felix, I shake my head. “That’s like the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Across the room, Nyx finds a way to wrap Nova’s stolen rubber glove around the spike and pull it out of her neck. She clutches onto him as he pulls her into his lap while her neck heals. The way he looks at my sister, with kind eyes and soothing movements, makes me both annoyed and protective.
Lately it seems like everything Nova does makes me feel that way.
I dial the emergency phone number for Central. Hugo Havoc answers.
“This is Hero Maci Might,” I say, clutching the phone to my ear as I look around the room. Everyone’s eyes are on me. “I have one hell of a situation to report.”
If there’s one way to describe the Hero Briga
de it is this: efficient. Within seconds of my calling for help, the sound of metal doors slamming open echo through the underground tunnels. They’re coming. And by the sound of it, they’re smashing any and everything in their way. With nothing left to do but wait, I scroll through Felix’s cell phone, a human device with the letters AT&T on the top of the screen. I find an icon called Messages but it’s empty. Felix is smart. He hasn’t left me a single clue on this phone. He probably has dozens of them. That’s what a good villain would do.
Nova’s neck heals and she and Nyx lean against the wall, both supporting each other’s weight. His power levels are nearly nonexistent, but he keeps a brave face on. Mara and Li and George brighten at the sound of our impending rescue. Corey is alive, but hasn’t moved from his place on the floor.
The air buzzes with the aura of at least a dozen Heroes. Blindingly bright light comes from the door. The room lights up in a haze. I blink and when I open my eyes, the silhouette of my brother stands in the doorway, massive and muscular. Max enters with a dozen of Central’s greatest Heroes. For the first time in hours, I breathe a sigh of relief. Everything will be okay now.
Heroes blur all around me as they get to work. Someone finds a way to turn off the power sucking machine. Medics arrive shortly after and tend to the kidnapped Supers. I turn away because I can’t bear watch another person get deharnessed.
Heroes Ernesto and Katia find me and ask to be briefed on the situation. I tell them about Felix first. About the kidnapped Supers who have been harnessed for their power which he sells to humans as a drug. I avoid the whole truth for as long as possible.
Which isn’t very long.
“How did you get down here in the first place?” Ernesto asks.
“Um,” I say. “Well it’s kind of a long story, but I was working on my mission to find the depowering machine. I suspected that whoever was selling power as a drug was getting it from the machine, not from kidnapping Supers.”
Overpowered (Powered Trilogy #2) Page 17
