The Invincibles (Book 1): Trapped: A girl. A monster. A hero.

by Brittany Oldroyd

I’m glaring and fuming and storming off. Stepping into my bedroom, slamming the door, watching the pictures on the wall tremble. I pull out my phone, fingers on the keys with so much force I wonder if they will break.

  You little snitch.

  Immediate response. He was waiting for me to text him.

  Look, I’m sorry, Kate. But you weren’t talking to me and I was worried. I didn’t know what to do.

  Anger. Illogical frustration.

  So that gives you the right to be a tattle-tale?

  He’s angry too.

  You’re just mad because you’re in trouble.

  Of course I’m mad.

  DUH, Alec. It’s your fault. Some best friend you are! I’ve ALWAYS had your back. Why can’t you, just this once, have mine?

  He doesn’t answer. Seconds and minutes fade away and he doesn’t answer. I stare at my phone, determined to wait him out. I will not go to bed until this conversation is finished. Thirty minutes. I still wait. Forty-five. I wonder if he’ll ever respond or if it’s too much of a coward.

  It’s been almost an hour when my phone starts buzzing.

  “What?” I snap.

  “Why are you being so difficult?” he asks, frustrated, upset, angry.

  “Because of you, I’m grounded. And I’m not allowed to dance for the rest of the school year!”

  “I didn’t know she’d forbid you from dancing.”

  “But you knew she’d ground me?”

  “Yeah, I did,” he says, still angry, still frustrated, still upset with my attitude. “But you needed to be grounded, Kate. You’re reckless. It’s going to get you more than grounded someday.”

  “You planned this.”

  Alec isn’t saying anything. I’m shaking my head. I wish he could see me, I wish he was afraid of me.

  “I can’t believe you! How could you? You’re supposed to be my best friend! Best friends do not betray each other!”

  “Betray?” he snorts. “Stop being melodramatic.”

  “I’m always melodramatic,” I snap.

  “Best friends are supposed to watch out for each other. I hoped that maybe you’d see when I have your best interests in mind. But I guess your pride is more important than our friendship.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me anymore.”

  I don’t say goodbye and neither does he. I slam the phone down, ending the call, finishing my oldest friendship.

  Sitting down on my bed, running my fingers through my hair, I cross my arms.

  He’s wrong. I’m not caring for my pride. I’m not being difficult. He is. He’s the problem, not me.

  I need some way to calm down, escape, release my anger. I dial another number.

  He answers with a voice like melted caramel. “Hello?”

  “Still want to meet me in Lincoln Park?”

  There’s a smile in his words. “Of course.”

  “See you soon.”

  I hang up and slide my phone into my pocket and walk over to the window. I’m lucky to live on the first story of our house, lucky to be able to sneak out. I slide open the window and drop to the other side.

  No thoughts, no logic, no plans. I just walk away.

  Zandra

  “The Electricity Whip, designed by Dr. Samuel Pelletier, takes an electric current and snaps it against the object the whip strikes. It has been deemed too short distance a weapon for any real use as a weapon.”

  -Glass Tech Notes, “Failed Inventions”

  Nine

  Power.

  The whip sparks against steel and an electric current scatters through the room. Blue light sparks like lightning, the strike accompanied by thunder.

  Strength.

  Some kind of energy weapon, coated in steel, entwined with electricity. I knew the moment I found it that it would be the only thing that could bring me freedom.

  Not yet.

  I look at him, curious, interested, wondering. He grins like a child discovering a new toy, ecstatic, delighted, amused.

  Glass Tech weaponry?

  He mouths the words slowly, annunciating every word syllable letter. He raises an eyebrow, the question burning in his gaze.

  I nod. “I found it down here, in a storage room.”

  Pain.

  He cringes, letting his hands clench the bars of his cage so hard tight intensely. His eyes are closed and his lips are agony.

  I step back.

  He’s different than the others. A higher level of control than the first ones, a lower level of humanity than the ones after him.

  The reason for his silence. A way to control the madness within him. Every time he speaks, he loses it. Every time he yells, he becomes a monster. Silence is his only protection.

  Why did you take it? he asks to distract the attention from his insanity.

  My eyes are like stone. Glance around. Left, right. Just to be sure it’s safe. “I’m going to kill him with it,” I say, voice low and cold and empty.

  He’s shaking his head and his eyes are tired and his mouth is sad.

  Defiance pulls me closer to his cage. “What?”

  I don’t understand him. Before me, everyone was angry and feral and maniacal with their pain. But they changed that, they took away the agony. They took away animalistic lunacy. But there is still agony in his eyes, as if every word he mouths, every way he glances, every breath in his lungs is

  excruciating.

  And then there are moments like these, when he doesn’t look angry, doesn’t look crazy. He just looks sad, like everything wrong with this world, with our world, is his fault.

  You’re too young to hate the world so much, Zandra.

  “I’m fifteen.”

  Technically you’re two, he points out. He created you just two years ago. That’s really young.

  “You try being nothing but an experiment. Poked and prodded for months on end. You’d be just as angry.”

  Zane raises his eyebrows. Almost smiles.

  Because he is an experiment too. Because they made him unstable. Because he’s been treated like an animal for half my life. I have never known another world but Zane gave up that world the moment they captured him.

  “Why aren’t you more like me then?” I ask. “Why aren’t you so angry?” I shake my head at the look he gives me. “You’re only angry because you’re unstable. But you don’t hate the world. Why not?”

  He rocks back on his heels, thinking wondering deciding. Because after a lifetime of hate, there’s nothing left for me to despise. I have unleashed decades of hate on the world in a short couple of years and I have nothing left to hate.

  I open my mouth but now I’m cursing. Because I hear footsteps and I’m not supposed to be down here and I’ve been forbidden to ever speak to the man in the cage.

  Zane points to the ceiling.

  I nod and a gust of wind pushes me up and suddenly I’m sitting on the steel rafters high above Zane’s cage. A single man rushes into the room, scrambling through rows of cages, searching for something, hunting for answers.

  Dr. Pelletier looks more nervous than I’ve ever seen him. I finger my whip anxiously. If he’s nervous, his boss is angry. And that is a dangerous position for all of us.

  Pelletier leaves again, carrying stacks of papers in his arms like a mother carrying her child. It’s one in the same for him.

  I wait until the door closes again before gliding back to the ground, touching steel floors gently. “That can’t be good,” I whisper to Zane, staring at the closed door.

  He shakes his head. You know what this means.

  I wish I didn’t.

  But I do.

  “He’s found the next Project.”

  Kate

  “I don’t know who I am anymore. Brave? Afraid? I’m not sure I even know the difference anymore.”

  -Kate McCallister’s journal

  Ten

  He’s leaning against a tree. Our tree. A great big oak with bare branches t
hat reach for the sky. Winter has stolen the leaves but our tree stands tall, always reaching past the clouds, reaching for the sky, reaching for the stars.

  I want to run to him. I want to sink into his arms. I want to forget to day. No more tattling friends or bullies calling me a psycho or annoying teachers or frustrated mothers. I want to disappear.

  But I shouldn’t and I can’t and I don’t know how.

  I’m within reach now and Dalton is pulling me close and I’m laying my head on his chest.

  “Hey.”

  My voice is like my mother’s. Quiet and gentle and this isn’t me, this can’t be me, this is wrong.

  “Hi.”

  He holds me like a porcelain doll. I can feel the muscles in his arms move and he lifts me into a hug but he’s so gentle, so careful, so afraid of breaking the oddly quiet creature in his grasp. He has only ever known a strong and impulsive and angry Kate. He has never seen me this way, never seen me broken or soft or terrified. He doesn’t know what to do with me.

  His chin on my head and I’m crumpling, falling, sinking into him.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, voice hushed, heart still, embrace too careful.

  “Not really.”

  He waits for more but I have nothing more to give. I don’t understand myself and I hate today and I just want to give it away.

  I can feel him now. His fingers are on my chin and I’m looking up at him and he’s so intense that I can feel nothing but the power of his presence. I can see nothing but those dark eyes. I can hear nothing but the sound of his breath.

  He kisses me.

  My arms are around his neck, my fingers are in his hair, his arms are around my waist. He’s holding me so close I can’t tell the difference between his heart and mine. The space between us is, was, always will be a lie.

  He’s pulling back and his lips are parting and suddenly he’s hugging me again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I frown. I don’t know, don’t understand, don’t remember why I’m upset. But then the memory of today crashes through my skull and I’m pulling myself to his chest, to his heartbeat.

  “I’m grounded,” I say. “My mother isn’t very happy with me.”

  “For punching someone in the face?”

  I’m pulling away, stepping back, slipping into the cold. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Gossip spreads fast.”

  I shake my head and he’s holding his arms out and I’m sinking back into him. “I’m also in trouble for not going to the principal’s office.” A pause in my lips, in my lungs, in my words. “And for ditching.”

  He’s chuckling and kissing my hair and running his fingers up my spine. “Rebel.”

  “Always.”

  “How did your mom even know about all that stuff anyway? Did the school call her?”

  “No.” I’m a cold winter storm. “Alec told her.”

  Dalton stops. Thinks about it. “He ratted you out?”

  “He said it was because he was worried about me. As if. I’m grounded. She’s not letting me dance until I graduate.”

  “Harsh.”

  He pauses, wrapping my hair around his finger absentmindedly, losing words to thoughts. “But I don’t see how anyone is going to keep you from dancing. How is she supposed to know if you’re following the rules if she’s working all the time?”

  “And you said I was the rebel.”

  A quiet laugh, low and soft. “So, we’re both a little defiant of authority.” He grabs my hand, squeezes it gently. “You’re just a little more vocal than I am.”

  “I’m a little more vocal than everyone.” I stop. Think. “Speaking of vocal, I yelled at Alec over the phone. I wasn’t very nice.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Give it a few days. Alec isn’t really one to stay mad.”

  I sigh. “I might not be ready to forgive him.”

  “Oh?”

  “He wanted to get me grounded.”

  Dalton shifts back, frowns, looks at me. “Why?”

  “Something about my recklessness getting me in trouble someday.”

  He kisses me. “Then I’ll get in trouble too.”

  I smile and now there’s silence. Several minutes pass between us and he kisses my cheek. “We should both get home or we’ll freeze.”

  I’m nodding. Chicago in January is not the time for late nights in the park. I kiss him one more time. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Bright and early for the Glass Tech field trip,” he promises.

  I wrinkle my nose at the reminder, at the thought of visiting Glass Tech tomorrow, the thought of being in the same room as Alec, the thought of being in the same building as my mother. A shake of my head and I’m turning to go.

  Dalton snatches my wrist, spins me back for one more kiss. “Hurry home, babe. It’s a long walk.”

  “Not that long.”

  He starts walking across the park and I head back the way I’ve come. Jog down the dark streets, watch the alleys. I never forgot the attack from the day. If there is to be another one, I want, I will, I have to see him coming.

  My vigilance fails to do anything for me.

  A hand slipped around my waist, another on my lips, and I’m pulled into an alley, screaming, squirming.

  Useless.

  Screams are unheard, blocked by the fingers over my lips. When I buck, the hold around my waist is tight and I’m coughing and wheezing and gasping. His hold shoves the air from my lungs and I can’t breathe.

  I’m running out of options and panic is taking over and my body is screaming for me to be still. I slam my foot down on his, driving my heel into his foot.

  He doesn’t let go. Pushes me into the wall.

  My face scrapes against bricks and I groan and my skin burns. He drops me. I slide to the ground. My face stinging.

  He grabs me again and he shoves me back against the wall and I just want him to leave me alone. I throw a punch but he grabs my wrist, pushing it back into the bricks. I grit my teeth. Swallow my pain.

  His hand is back over my mouth and I’m glaring at him and he’s smirking. “You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t you?”

  I’m moving forward and he’s shoving me back again and the brick wall is being pushed into my spine.

  “No, no, no,” he’s laughing. “You don’t want to do that.”

  I glare, shoving my knee forward where I know it will hurt. He groans and suddenly he’s on his knees, leaning over, bowing, falling. I have my chance.

  I’m running again and I don’t stop until I know I’m safe in my room and the window is shut and the door is locked.

  I pull the covers over my head.

  Will that make the fear go away? Will that make me brave again?

  I wish I knew.

  All I can think is terror. And I hate it. I hate being afraid. I hate being a coward.

  I close my eyes, bite on a sob, curl in on myself. I don’t know why he’s attacking me. I don’t know what would happen if escape failed to rescue me from his hands. I don’t know what will happen if meet again.

  All I have is this one truth: I am in danger, I am afraid, and I’m not sure my own house will be safe anymore.

  Tatyana

  “Tatyana Galerkin, a model visiting Chicago, went missing six months ago. She has been assumed dead and her family in Russia will be informed of the mysterious tragedy.”

  -Newspaper article, “Russian Model Assumed Dead”

  Eleven

  My face is a stranger.

  A year since I last saw it, a year since I saw Chicago, a year since I saw anything. But I have not forgotten myself in that time. I know what I’m supposed to look like.

  Soft waves of caramel running down my back, tousled with perfection. Skin flawless, not a single scar from my childhood. A tall and thin body, the figure of the model I know I am, was, can no longer be.

  This is not the person I see in the mirror. In my reflection, all I can see are scales.

  Fingers trem
bling, I touch my cheek. Rough skin, sharp when I run my fingers in the wrong direction, hard when I tap my nail against it. It envelops every inch of my body, a dark gold coating of snake scales.

  I look away from the mirror, covering scaly lips with scaly hands. “Blin,” I say under my breath, falling into Russian, falling into normalcy.

  Normalcy is gone, destroyed, incinerated by the transformation.

  “I’m hideous,” I say in English, slipping into everything that is strange and soft.

  He steps across the room, long limbs carrying him so quickly he almost passes me. “No, you’re not, Tatyana. You could never be anything but beautiful.”

  I snort. Because a snake skin is not beautiful, not like this, not worn on my skin. This is not beautiful or normal or human.

  “Ridiculous, Jay,” I say, beginning to struggle with a language I still don’t understand. “Nothing is more ugly than a freak of nature.”

  “That something they preached at the modeling agency?”

  I glance at him, avoid answering. I don’t want to talk about modeling. I don’t want to think about my old life, I don’t want to give it up. I will not think of it.

  Look at him.

  I study the man beside me, an American called Jayden Riggs. He looks very tired. Dark eyes accented by thick circles, dirty clothes due to a lack of showering, lips tense with worry.

  I don’t blame him. I am the same.

  Watching him, looking at him, studying him, I remember. I remember what led us here and what led me to this skin and what led him into fear.

  They open his cage and suddenly he is winking at me and I am not sure what it is I’m feeling. He has never spoken a word to me. Why is he winking? Some kind of American code? Why is he even looking at me?

  A glance at the tall, broad-shouldered man standing behind me. He looks confused.

  A howl slice through the air like the strike my father once delivered on those dark drunken nights. The sounds fill the room and suddenly there is a snarling wolf charging the soldiers, throwing them to the ground, and now there is the mute, holding the keys. He unlocks the cage but I can already hear more voices coming.

  I shoot him a panicked look. Because it’s too late, because we will never make it, because it is over before it began.