“Big Dispus, actually,” the little sack of shit said, his grin remaining even when he morphed out of his sister’s body and took the shape of a random boy Nero didn’t recognize through the haze of red ire clouding his vision. “My sister’s fighting to save this town, like you should be.”
“Oh yeah?” Grabbing a fistful of Dispus’s pale gray hair, Nero tilted his head up and spat in his face. “And what are you doing?”
The shapeshifter cringed at the saliva slipping down his cheek. “I was going to go help Eliana—Mensen, you know. She ran into the Physicals Building to see if anyone survived.”
“She went in there?” he questioned, jerking his chin toward the flaming, crumbling building. “Why the hell would you let her go in there?”
“I-I didn’t. She ran off before anyone could stop her, and Tray told me to go after her since he’s busy fighting off Wackos—”
“Is that why you looked like him?”
“Well—no. I was practicing my Tray Stark look, but then the Wackos broke in and I forgot to change—”
“Your Affinity is useless,” Nero snapped, thrusting his head back with enough force that he crumpled onto the walkway. “Let a real man handle this.”
“I don’t see any real men around here!” Dispus called after him as he stalked toward the Physicals Building. For the first time, maybe ever, Nero blatantly ignored a provocative taunt. Normally he would have taken it as an excuse to give a beating, but knowing Little Mensen was within this inferno canceled out his bloodlust.
After passing through the glass doors, which were still intact, Nero discovered the left half of the building remained untouched. The gymnasium was in pristine condition, and from this angle he spotted a few students huddled on the bleachers, crying to themselves. Wimps.
The right half had not been so fortunate. Walking down the hall toward the nurse’s office was like walking through hell. Massive chunks of concrete had caved in from the upper floors, and desks and chairs from the classrooms had rained down from above. Most of the furniture was aflame, and with some of the walls undamaged, the accumulation of smoke was so thick that Nero wished he wore a shirt he could use to shield his airways.
Suppressing a gag, he shoved slabs of concrete aside like pieces of paper and wondered how Little Mensen had managed to get past all this wreckage. She was tiny, he supposed—tiny enough to squeeze between the gaps he could only fit an arm through. How far had she gotten? Was it possible she was already dead, suffocated by the smoke his gigantic lungs could barely handle?
Then he heard a cough—a girlish cough.
Heaving aside the half-charred door to the nurse’s office, he was greeted with the devastation of a collapsed room. The two white beds that injured students—mostly Nero’s victims—would lie on to wait for the nurse’s healing touch had been crushed by the ceiling, as had the desk. When he carefully rounded it, he balked as a strange sensation of grief overcame him. A man lay dead beneath the rubble: Jason Pane.
His bruise-purple eyes stared flatly upward, devoid of their typical nurturing quality. With the dust and ash draped over his sallow skin and orange scrubs, he looked like an old statue that had been neglected for years.
Nero had never really liked the nurse. The man always healed his victims when the purpose of his viciousness was to inflict long-lasting suffering. Pane had helped his allies on numerous occasions, though, as well as himself, and it was odd to think someone with an Affinity for healing could have died with such ease. The blow must have killed him too instantaneously for healing.
Another cough drew him away from the nurse’s corpse. Turning toward the opposite corner of the room, Nero’s eyes fixated on the girl crouching beside a mound of concrete. Her hair, strewn chaotically over her back, glowed an iridescent shade of blue in the light of the fire. With the smoke hazing his vision, he almost didn’t notice her clothes were singed in various places while her left leg oozed a slow stream of blood from beneath her jeans.
When Nero took one step toward her, she hastily rotated, revealing that she covered her mouth with the fabric of her cardigan—and that a person lay on the ground beside her.
His face was doused in perspiration and contorted with hysteria, his freckles vibrating so quickly they were almost invisible. Debris coated his entire body, but only his right leg was pinned underneath the concrete, hindering him from escape. A long-brewing sense of malice spread a grin across Nero’s lips.
“Nero,” Little Mensen breathed, and his chest instinctively puffed at the sound of his name. Sweat and tears had mixed on her ashy face, masking her fair skin, but the raw terror was clear in her eyes. “H-he’s stuck. I tried to lift the concrete but I-I’m not strong enough.”
The reverence with which she regarded him welled his pride. Crossing his arms over his chest, Nero said, “Only a few have been graced with the strength to save lives—but this one’s isn’t worth the effort.”
“Please!” the little worm moaned, shifting and then emitting a piercing cry. After all the years of being pummeled, Nero thought this kid would have been immune to pain, but he still hadn’t toughened up. His softness would be his demise.
“Nero,” Little Mensen repeated quietly, her voice cracking this time. She gazed up at him with dejection now, as if she’d expected him to act this way but still felt the need to try. The look thawed his resolve—but he couldn’t show it. He had to maintain an aura of stubbornness. “Please, Nero—he’s your brother.”
That hardened him again, and when he scowled down at her, he didn’t have to fake it. “He’s no brother of mine. If he deserves to live, why doesn’t he teleport himself out of there? All he’s ever been good at is disappearing like a weakling.”
“I-I can’t!” he groaned through hyperventilating breaths. “I tried—and I can’t focus—the pain—agh!”
Little Mensen rushed back toward him to stroke his forehead soothingly, to push his unkempt orange hair to the side. Nero rolled his eyes. Always so dramatic, this runt. Just seeing how much compassion this girl had for him made Nero loathe her.
At the same time, he’d never been drawn to others’ capacity for sympathy the way he was with Eliana. Usually he saw emotion as a weakness, but for her it was a strength, a weapon she wielded with consequence. Even if she couldn’t read the explicit thoughts running through his mind because of his impressive mental shields, she knew exactly how she had to act in order to reach him. She knew he liked to have dominance over his own decisions; she knew he basked in the satisfaction of others being at his mercy. Perhaps she really was distraught over his stepbrother’s predicament, but she played it to her advantage.
Even though he recognized her shrewd ploy, he succumbed to it. Little Mensen wouldn’t be nearly as useful as Adara Stromer, but he did smirk a little at the prospect of Eliana being indebted to him.
“Do you have my portrait ready?” Nero questioned in his deepest voice.
“Your—your what?”
“My portrait—the one I ordered you to draw. It’s my birthday, Little Mensen. Your deadline has come.”
“I-I—yes.” With a sniffle, she nodded. “It’s in my dorm—”
“Excellent. I expect it in my hands as soon as this battle business is finished.”
Her shock at his nonchalance was evident, but she couldn’t manage to utter a word. All she did was scramble out of the way as he marched toward them. Nero towered above his stepbrother, the bane of his existence. How effortless it would have been to crush his skull with the heel of his shoe. There were worse fates than death, though, and at Nero’s hand, Hartman would suffer them.
Without any gentleness, he lifted the concrete slab, inducing a sob from the little twat. Nero snorted when the kid tried to move on his own and failed, prompting Eliana to rush over and haul him out with what little physical strength she possessed.
“You’d better not make me regret this,” Nero growled, dropping the concrete carelessly. Dust wafted with the smoke, causing the primaries to hac
k dramatically as they slumped onto a clean patch of the room. “Just because you didn’t die today doesn’t mean you won’t die tomorrow.”
“Th-thank you,” Hartman stammered with a wince of gratitude. Nero didn’t deign to give him a grunt of acknowledgement.
“We need to get you to safety.” Little Mensen pushed to her feet. “I can try to help you limp out of—”
“Shut up,” Nero snarled, stalking past her to scoop up his incompetent stepbrother. Hartman looked arguably more terrified in Nero’s arms than he had under that deadly slab. “Just so everyone in Periculand knows how much of a baby you are.”
“I-I-I am a baby,” Hartman agreed, nodding vigorously. “Very—big—baby.”
Humorous relief flashed across Eliana’s features, and Nero felt inclined to smile with her, but he swiftly stifled the desire.
“Any other pathetic people that need saving?” he asked gruffly.
“There was, um, a girl.” Hartman glanced somberly toward the heap of debris he’d been pinned under. “I was trying to teleport her out of here when the building blew. She died almost instantly…and so did Dr. Pain.”
Eliana pressed her lips together in silent mourning, but none of them had much to say. It was fortunate, really, that the Wackos hadn’t extinguished the entire town yet. The calamity should have felt tragic, but to Nero it didn’t. The whole event would have been avoided if he hadn’t been jailed, if he’d been there to ward off the Wackos upon their arrival.
As they trekked out of the Physicals Building, Hartman in his grasp and Eliana at his heels, Nero smiled vindictively at how much he would rub this whole catastrophe in the Rosses faces—and how glorious it would feel to squish their skulls into their brains.
37
Physical Limitations
Ackerly felt like he was in one of those cheesy horror films when the protagonist dramatically loses his glasses and then fumbles around for them until the monster sneaks up on him and kills him. Except he had somehow managed to stumble all the way into the center of town half-blind without being attacked.
Currently, he was ransacking Louie’s Lenses, searching for a pair of glasses that could improve his sight so he didn’t have to hide from the battle in blindness. He would never forgive himself if he didn’t fight. The blame for this invasion could be attributed to him more than anyone else. If he had listened to Tray, perhaps they would have thwarted Ashna long before she led the Wackos here.
Muffled booms had quaked through Periculand for the past twenty minutes, probably. Ackerly didn’t have a watch, nor could he have read the time even if he did have one. He guessed based on the amount of time it usually took to trek from campus to town, along with the thirty seconds he gave his eyes to adjust to each pair of glasses he tried on. None had been particularly helpful, and his eyes burned from the strain of looking through so many different lenses.
The franticness should have distracted him from all that had been unveiled within the past few hours, but it only added to his agitation over the circumstances. Floretta, his favorite teacher and essentially his idol, had been a terrorist, and despite her claims of deflection, she was still adamant about helping Ashna, another Wacko—the leader’s sister.
It was difficult for him to think about Ashna without wanting to crack every pair of glasses in this shop and hurl the remnants at the wall of contact lenses—or ditch his quest and curl up in a corner and be sad.
Mostly, he wished to talk to her. He’d been ignorant about her—perhaps he’d always been ignorant about a lot of things—but even though his physical vision had been distorted by the loss of his glasses, his intellectual eyes had been cleared. Skepticism had replaced his gullibility. All the open doors in his heart had been slammed shut. He should have never trusted Ashna, and now he would never trust anyone at all.
Wallowing in his emotional anguish would have to wait. The vibrations shaking the earth indicated the Wackos had succeeded in infiltrating the town. He’d never learned explicitly what Danny’s Affinity was, but based on the type of destruction he’d alluded to in his voicemail, coupled with the email Ackerly had come across a few months ago regarding a Wacko with a nuclear Affinity, he could safely assume Danny’s Affinity was of an explosive nature. His plants wouldn’t be able to combat that, but…he had to try to help his friends in any way possible.
He’d finally found a somewhat effective pair of glasses when movement suddenly flashed through the dimly lit shop. Spinning around, he discovered a person had appeared, and he didn’t need full functionality of his vision to distinguish who it was.
Her hair was as colorful as the array of contact lenses spread across the wall at her back. The breaths that flowed from her mouth were ragged, as if she’d recently ran, but Ackerly hadn’t heard the front door open. It was almost as if she’d…teleported. He decided right then that he wouldn’t be surprised if she had.
“A-Ackerly?” For the first time, Ashna seemed genuinely flustered—but she was a good actress. Ackerly didn’t need to see her mask of deception to know she would use her charm to entice him. “What are you… Is this… We’re still in Periculand, right?”
She really had teleported, then. Just another one of the infinite secrets she’d withheld from him.
“Ackerly,” she repeated, weaving through the displays of glasses to approach him. He noticed her pause a few times, likely to avoid the frames he’d littered on the floor. Once she stood a foot before him, she grabbed his hand. “You need to help me—”
Ripping his hand from her grasp, he met her eyes, those two hazy splotches of color. “I’m not helping you, Ashna. You’re…a weed.”
He’d tried to say the words with enough aggression to affect her, but she remained where she stood, unfazed. From what he could tell, she’d pressed her lips together, as if trying to summon patience. “We don’t have time for this discussion now, but I swear we will talk about—”
“I don’t want to talk about it. You are a weed.”
“Any plant can be a weed. It’s just a matter of perception.”
She was right, but he couldn’t say that. Instead, he said what had swirled through his mind throughout the past twenty minutes. “I saw you as a rainbow rose…and you are. Pretty on the outside but fake. All you’ve ever done is lie to me.”
“You act like we’ve known each other for years!”
“I know, but I just—I feel like—You’re the only girl—” He cut himself off, staring down at his shaky hands. “I’ve never really…liked a girl before. Unless you count Poison Ivy, but she’s a comic book character… I just thought we might make a good match eventually. I thought you were actually interested in me—but you were using me, and I still don’t even know why.”
With his improper glasses and the tears burning in his eyes, it was hard to know exactly how she’d reacted to his confession. Her tone was gentler, though, and he had to fight not to be soothed by her words.
“I’ve hated lying to you, Ackerly—hated using you—but it’s been necessary. I needed you and your connections to complete my goal. I thought I would have more time to explain it all to you, but I messed up. Horribly.”
Ackerly bit the inside of his lip, eyebrows set in defiance. “You triggered your tracking device, didn’t you? You’re the reason the Wackos are here.”
“It was unintentional, but yes, it’s my fault,” she admitted with a sigh. “Because of my alcohol Affinity, I can’t get drunk for very long, but being so small, the few minutes after I’ve had a drink can really disorientate my rational thinking. The reason I didn’t step in and fight Nero initially—when he threatened you and Lavisa challenged him—was because I knew I couldn’t use my strength Affinity. But after the alcohol, in the midst of the brawl, I didn’t care that my strength would reactivate the device. Once Nero threw me across the room, I managed to turn it off—that was why I couldn’t defend you; I was trying really hard to concentrate on deactivating it. I wasn’t quick enough, and now Danny’s—”
&nb
sp; “Your brother,” Ackerly injected, startling her. “I know he’s your brother. That’s why I know you’re working for them. You…made up that whole story about your brother—about how he had a strength Affinity, how he died—”
“He is dead—dead to me. He’s not the same brother I once knew. Working for the Wackos killed that part of him. I don’t consider him to be the same person, even. I never would have hurt the old Danny, but this Danny… I want to end him, Ackerly. He’s hurting people—he always hurts people—and now I feel like it’s all my fault. I want to fix this, but I can’t do it alone. I told you about my Affinities, and that was true. Can you have faith in me now when I say I want to save this town—this country?”
Ackerly was inclined to believe this was a trap, but…the way Danny had talked about her in that message didn’t make it seem like they were allies…and if the Wackos were here and she still hadn’t admitted to being one, what else could she possibly have planned? What could she do to make this situation worse than it already was?
“I…want a very specific description of your plan,” he finally said, even though he heard Tray’s voice in his head telling him not to. “I’m not putting my faith in you anymore, but…I will put my faith in your plan if it’ll help Periculand.”
Even through his slightly obscured vision, he saw the ripple of disappointment in her expression. But then she composed herself, inhaling deeply before saying, “Fine, I’ll explain what you need to know, but we don’t have time for you to be shocked or angry. Every second—”
A deafening bang tore through the air, far too loud to have come all the way from campus. Danny must have been in town, exploding shops…like the one they were in.
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