Powered (27 page)

I throw myself onto his chest, digging my heels into the base of the machine. My arms hook under Dad’s shoulders and I pull him toward me. Powerful magnets and Super technology are no match for my muscles and lack of proper nutrition. His two-hundred-pound body would be no trouble to move under normal circumstances. But now, my teeth grind together as I throw all of my strength into trying to release him from the magnetic pull of the bright white circle that’s now encompassing his knees. My ankles lose circulation from how hard I push against the machine. Red fills my vision as capillary vessels in my eyes burst but I blink them away and pull harder.

It doesn’t work. He only moves closer into the machine, losing more of his powered veins as each torturous second unfolds. His eyes are closed, his mouth stretched open but with no sound coming out. With no strength left, I sag onto Dad’s chest as I gasp for breath.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I cry as I try once more to pull on him, but my arms are limp. I’m all pulled out.

As I lay on Dad’s chest, his bloodshot eyes look right at me as tears streak down his cheeks and shudders of pain zap into him like mosquitoes hitting a bug zapper. His chin lowers onto my head in a comforting gesture that I know isn’t an involuntary jerk. My heart shatters into a thousand pieces. Even though my dad is being depowered, he’s trying to comfort me.

Blinking away tears mixed with blood, I see Evan take the poker-chip device from Aurora’s fingers, probably breaking them in the process. He presses a button without hesitating. Either he’s an electronic super genius, or he had a hand in building this device. I’ll choose to believe the first one for now. A crackle of energy shoots through the room and the frozen Heroes return to life once more.

The chaos turns into louder chaos as everyone springs into action. At the same moment, a line of Retrievers enter from the double doors, hooks at the ready, faces in war mode. God, these guys are good. They don’t let their feelings get in the way; they don’t break down and cry like I do.

The weight of my faults hits me as I realize that all the things I did when pretending to be a Hero were only what I thought Heroes should do. Being a Hero is much more than kicking ass and taking names. It’s being strong when everyone else is weak. It’s knowing when to act and when to remain still. It’s being the kind of person that will instantly remove all fear from the civilians in the room, just by showing up.

That kind of relief falls over me now. The Heroes are here, the Retrievers are ready—Aurora will not make it out of this the victor. Everything is going to be just fine.

The machine reaches Dad’s thighs. Well, almost everything. His power veins are twice the size now, leaving gaping wounds an inch thick as they rip from his body. My stomach churns at either the sight of it or the overwhelming smell of iron and blood. I can’t stay here much longer. I will have to let him go. I’ll have to meet him on the other side, when he is a human.

My left hand pulls Dad’s head toward me as I hover over him. “Dad, look at me. Don’t focus on the pain, focus on me.” My words are intense and all strung together and tinged with panic, but he appears to understand them anyhow. Our eyes meet and I keep talking, hoping that even a second of distraction will take away some of his pain. “I love you, Dad. I’m sorry I screwed things up, I’m sorry I foiled the undercover plan and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and just go home when you told me to. I never meant for anything bad to happen—I, I truly thought I had things under control. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry. Don’t look down! Don’t look! Just don’t think about it.”

My voice cracks as I talk faster, trying to stop him from lifting his head to look at the machine’s progress. He’s almost violent as he jerks his head harder toward the machine, as if he wants me to look at it too. “Stop looking at it!” I yell, pushing his head back down. “Close your eyes! Think of something else, Dad, please!”

His eyes look from me to the machine, from me to the machine. Panic and pain must have consumed him, despite how calm he stayed for the first part of the depowering. My sobs are uncontrollable now. Dad’s face, twisted in agony, relentlessly staring at the machine, will forever burn into my memory. You can’t unsee something so disturbing.

Warmth hits the fingertips on my right hand. The moment I notice the unexpected heat, it turns from warm to scalding hot, lifting my fingers right off Dad’s chest.

Now I know why he was freaking out.

My fingertips split open and I watch in open-mouthed horror as tiny slivers of silver escape from my fingers and suck into the machine. My fingernails—painted purple with silver sparkles—twist and deform until they lift right off their nail beds as my skin bursts open to free my power.

My left hand draws blood as it digs into Dad’s shoulder. My thoughts spin in a million horrific directions, none of them ending with me getting out of this. The panic under my skin hurts more than the flesh in my hand. Shock fills me and for a moment I feel no pain at all. Just disbelief—and then agony.

I am being depowered, I am being depowered, this can’t be happening this must be a dream, oh god please let it be a dream, I’m going insane I’m totally insane, it hurts so bad, why won’t it just stop hurting. I’d rather die, just let me die!

Guilt digs into me as I realize that how I felt when Dad was being depowered is nothing compared to how I feel now that I’m the one under the machine. My knees give out from struggling against the pain, and soon I am lying limp, half on the gurney with Dad and half sinking to the floor. Thrashing with pain as the machine moves up to my wrist, and then my forearm, and then my elbow.

This is it. I’m doomed. This is happening. This isn’t a nightmare or possibility; this is reality. My eyes squeeze shut as I try to block out the pain, or maybe I’ve blacked out. I have no idea what I’m doing with my body; all I know is that I hurt. I will not be the one who saves the day.

I will never be a Hero now.

Why is that the only coherent thought to enter my mind?

A scream pierces the air, but it isn’t mine. I haven’t screamed at all, because allowing myself to scream would mean I’d never stop. The intensity of that scream pulls me out of my pain coma just enough to remember that although my arm is ripping to shreds, my neck is still perfectly capable of looking around.

Aurora struggles against the wall, held in place by a hand wrapped around her neck. Nova’s hand. “You don’t want to do this,” Aurora says, cutoff halfway by Nova tightening her grip.

“My whole life was a lie,” Nova says. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now.”

“Because you are to kill
her
,” Aurora’s voice drips with disdain. “They won’t allow both of you to live. She must die.”

Nova flips her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “I don’t believe you.”

My teeth rip into my bottom lip, spilling blood in my mouth. The machine moves past my elbow and soon it’ll engulf my shoulder and then my face. The reality of the situation is right here smacking me in the face, and yet I still have this tiny flicker of hope buried somewhere deep in my subconscious that maybe I will be okay. That hope, that tiny flicker of possibility in the face of absolute hopelessness is the very reason I am not a Hero.

I won’t be okay. I am not okay.

Dad falls unconscious, either from the pain or blood loss. I’ll join him soon. Hell, I almost welcome it. Stars flicker across my vision as I try to focus in on what’s happening to Aurora. Two Retrievers approach her and Nova from each side, both looking to Max for direction. My brother motions to them and says something I can’t hear. Evan holds out a hand as if to stop them, shaking his head at whatever Max orders. Retrievers take no action against Nova, whose fingers are now drawing blood from Aurora’s neck.

Max shoves Evan out of the way. Evan shoves back.

Shouts come from both of them as other Heroes step in to mediate the argument. Crimson seems to side with Evan, which only pisses off Max even more. For one minuscule fraction of a second, I almost forget about the pain in my arm, until the machine rips a big ass vein straight from the inside of my elbow, hyperextending my arm in the process.

I cry out in pain as my legs give out underneath me.

Nova’s voice is the last thing I hear before everything goes black.

“I’m going to regret this.”

My tailbone sends shards of pain up my spine as I fall straight on my ass, rolling on my right side to compress my severed arm under my shirt. So much pain—white hot pain and icy wetness spilling against my chest.
Just let me die, why can’t I die?

Evan drops to his knees beside me, yanking off his shirt in one quick motion. He pulls me over, exposing my arm to the air and my teeth grind until they crack in half, sending more pain into my supersaturated nerve endings.

I want to cry and scream but I don’t think I’m doing anything. Am I breathing? I can’t tell.

“It’s just your arm. You’re going to be okay.” His eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, and in that tiny bit of time, I feel better. Then the agony slams into me full force again. “Try to hold still, I need to wrap it to stop the bleeding.” He rips his shirt and wraps it around my arm, starting at my armpit and spiraling down, pulling the shreds of flesh tightly back into place. The pain eases a miniscule bit, but I’ll take whatever I can get. My tongue scrapes across gritty sand—bits of my teeth chipping off.

Crimson orders Retrievers to bring medical help. Hours go by in a few seconds. Power buzzes through my chest in erratic spasms, unlimited sources of energy with nowhere to go. My thoughts are a scattered deck of cards. Why isn’t my arm healing? I’ve never felt pain this long—it should heal. I regrew my own damn skull! Grow arm, grow!

Evan ties the shirt over my fingers, leaving my right arm as a blood-soaked mummy. His hand touches my cheek. “Stop hyperventilating. Breathe slowly. Your arm has been depowered, so it will heal the way humans heal.”

My eyes go wide. Large drops of saline that I refuse to call tears roll out of my eyes and down my cheeks as I take in the new information Evan dropped on me. My arm has been depowered. It will not heal instantly.
Depowered
.

“Maci. Come back to me.” My cheek stings as Evan slaps me again. My eyes snap open and I throw him a glare.

“Stop hitting me,” I grumble. I go to sit up and Evan helps me. I want to push his arm away, but, I need the help.
Just like a human.

I recoil at the sight of blood under me. “You’ve lost a lot,” Evan says. “But your body will produce more. Stop giving me that face … No Maci, don’t!”

Evan lurches out of the way just in time to avoid being hit with the contents of my last meal. As embarrassingly awful and horrible as puking in public is, it makes me feel better. I push up on my knees with my good hand and then take a deep breath and stand.

“What happened?” I ask, my mouth tasting like rotten acidic spaghetti. “I thought I was a goner.”

He glances beside us, where my twin sits with her back pressed against the wall, knees pulled up to her chest. Her eyes dart around the room in quick, frightened movements. No one pays attention to her.

“You’re alive,” he says. “That’s all that matters.”

Hugo Havoc kneels by my dad, his shirt also removed and wrapped around Dad’s chest and neck. He’s giving orders to the Heroes around him, demanding an immediate lift of lockdown for important personnel. He says Dad needs a medical KAPOW pod stat.

He never looks at me even though I am only a few feet away. He doesn’t summon medical help for me, even though I clearly need it.

Evan says all these things I’m thinking to Hugo, only to be met with a rude glare and a warning never to speak to an elder that way again. It isn’t until Max takes Evan’s side and demands that Hugo order a medic pod for me too, that he listens.

Aurora’s frail body convulses with the continuous zaps of electricity holding her in place on the floor. With Evan distracted, and everyone else tending to my dad, I take small steps in her direction. I don’t have a plan, but I’m sure I’ll think of one.

The silver four-button remote control of death stares up at me from the floor where Aurora dropped it during Evan’s juice assault. I pick it up. My thumb runs across the button. I can end this now. After all she’s put me through—after all she’s done in the last sixteen years. I can end it.

Though her body quivers uncontrollably, Aurora manages to form her lips into a snarl when I look at her. “How does your arm feel?” she hisses, sounding like an emphysemic old man.

“A whole lot better than what you’re about to feel.” With a tight grip on the device, I take a knee next to Aurora. She looks different up close. Fine wrinkles crease in her eyes and lips. Her hair is thin and lifeless. She must be way over a hundred years old. I kind of feel sorry for her.

Which is why I’ll kill her quickly.

“Maci, no!” Max’s yell echoes throughout the Atrium, startling me out of my murderous trance. I drop the device without realizing it and Max swoops it up, crushing it into the wall. Broken bits of plastic and metal fall from his hands as he brushes them off on his suit. “It is not our place to hand out punishments to villains. We will turn her in and the elders will decide.”