Then Dawn wrapped her tiny but terrifyingly strong hands around my neck.
And I felt the armor begin to break.
Dawn
“This isn’t healthy,” my mother said. “Staying in your room like this.”
I was surrounded by darkness. The summer sunlight crept through the edge of the blinds, trying to creep inside. But even those scraps of light failed to reach me, lying in bed, blankets pulled over my head.
I wasn’t there now. This wasn’t like Calypso’s memory in the asylum. Instead, I stood across the room, separate.
“I…may not be able to understand exactly what you’re going through right now,” my mother said. “But I-I miss your father too.”
Had my mother’s voice sounded that pained all those years ago? My mother, who was usually so perfectly composed. I didn’t remember it like that. At least, I didn’t think…
Miss him? What would be the point in that? He’s never coming back.
Past-me’s thought filled my mind.
I don’t feel anything. Just the numbness. The void. Nothingness. Just like him.
“I’ve…well, I know you didn’t like the last therapist we tried but I’ve found another one who specializes in families,” my mother continued. “I thought that maybe she could help us all.”
Help? Why would I want help? Why would I want to leave this house? This room. This bed. To deal with a world filled with so many people, sounds, feelings…
“I didn’t know what to do,” my mother’s voice came through clear as if she were standing right next to me.
In fact, it was because she was. I blinked, and we were back in the courtroom, her sitting on the bench, me standing where I had been before the memory had pulled me in.
“You were lost to me. Had always been so, in a way.” She continued, voice distant. “I’ve never been a…maternal force like my mother. I’ve always struggled to connect with others, after all. Even the people closest to me. But for two decades that was fine, because Ken was there to shoulder the load. I could help with homework, and he could take you out to ice cream when you were overwhelmed with school. And even though I’ve never believed in these things, I saw it as almost…a sign. That we were perfectly matched, filling in for each other’s faults. And then he died, leaving me half a person, half a parent. My children needed me, and there was nothing I could do.”
She shook her head.
“From the moment we first hold you, a mother is expected to fill everything a child needs, mind, body and soul.” She frowned. “At the time, even buried in my own grief, I could see that my children needed me in ways I was not providing. My son was a brick wall, my daughter depressed.”
Depressed? I wasn’t depressed. Sure, I went through a rough patch, but depressed sounded so…weighty. So clinical.
“The logical part of my mind was telling me to reach out, to find people to help, show me how to fill those gaps left behind, but something was holding me back. My children were practically adults. Shouldn’t I have figured this out by then? Did that make me a horrible mother?”
“What!”
My mouth hung open in shock. How could my mother feel this way? I had no idea that she went through this. I—
Of course, I had known. This was my head, after all. I just never put the pieces together. Of course my mother would feel this way. She was just like me. Struggling to connect with others, unable to reach out when she really needed help.
“It happened after your abduction as well.”
My mother turned to look at me, jerking me out of my thoughts.
“You agreed to see a therapist, but I could tell it wasn’t working. When you said you just wanted to get back to a normal life, I took it as a sign you were getting better, but there are times when I wonder. I know you’re keeping secrets from me, Dawn. I know you’ve been lying. I can see that you’ve changed.”
The sound of a door unlatching filled the air. I turned to its source. A set of double doors, made of fogged glass, had appeared in the front of the room where the judge had sat. A strangely familiar set of doors…
“No,” I said, my voice half a whisper.
Alex
I felt the armor, which had protected me from so much, close around my throat. My back screamed in pain. Above me, Dawn crouched, her teeth gritted in determination.
Holy shit, she wanted to kill me.
I reached to my right, grabbed the heaviest thing I could find (a telephone?), and bashed Dawn across the side of the head.
She collapsed to the ground and I rolled away. I could hear the rumble of footsteps as Jane led the drones down the nearby stairwell, but I couldn’t focus on that. Instead, I pushed myself to my feet, moving toward Dawn’s collapsed form. Had I hit her too hard? Had I hurt—
She kicked my legs out from under me, sending me on my backside again. I cursed, partially from pain but mostly because I knew the truth. If I got pinned again, it would be game over. The armor could only take so much. Fortunately, my opponent wasn’t thinking all that clearly. Instead of trying to hold me down, she reared back with a downward punch.
I spun out of the way and her fist, which had been aiming for my face, went straight through the floor. She wrenched it back out with a cry.
“Shit,” I murmured, then, grabbing onto the frustration generated by my own stupidity, stomped my right foot to the floor. A crack formed beneath it, snaking out toward the hole she had just created. I didn’t have enough rage to send the floor collapsing from beneath her, but the damage was enough to send her off balance.
“Dawn,” I said. “Listen to me. I know you’re in there.”
“In there,” she let out a chuckle. “But buried so far down.”
“Then who am I talking to?”
She darted to the right, circling around the fragile patch of floor. I watched her curl her hands into fists.
“Stupid Dawn. Buried behind walls. Crippled by her own fears.”
“What are you talking about? Dawn’s one of the most fearless people I know.”
Black and Blue let out a snort.
“And she thinks you’re so smart, and in a way, you are, but so easy to manipulate.”
Her body began to change, her hair going from dark blue to blond curls, her clothing shifting to an emerald green dress. Her eyes were equally green, I could see them from here, only they stared off into the distance as if she were having problems focusing.
“I remembered when you first came to me,” Calypso said. “So angry at the privileged, the wealthy. It was easy to play off that. Whenever you would stray, I would just redirect that anger back to the outside world.”
Jane’s words about Dawn’s powers came back to me. How she had to truly believe that she was someone to become them.
I had to snap her out of it.
“Dawn, this isn’t you,” I said. “It’s just Calypso’s memories. From the transference. You’re not really her.”
She frowned and looked down at her hands. She uncurled her fists.
“Not…” Her voice trailed off.
“That’s right,” I took a step toward her, conscious of the weak points in the floor. “You’re Dawn Takahashi. Hikari. Red and Black. Not Calypso.”
“Not Calypso,” she repeated, then nodded. “No, I need to be more.”
And with that her body changed again, but not to Dawn, but Black and Blue. Her lips formed into a snarl.
“I need to be more to take you down,” she spat out. “Traitor.”
Without another word, she launched herself at me, fists flying. I ducked and—when I couldn’t do that—blocked with my forearms, wincing as my armor crunched beneath her fists.
This wasn’t going how I expected. The last time I had faced down Dawn, I had been able to hold her off fine. Back then…
Back then she had been holding back. She hadn’t really wanted to hurt me, just stop me. Now, I was the one holding back. I didn’t want to hurt someone I cared about.
But Dawn…
I was in trouble.
Dawn
I turned away from the doors and toward the back of the courtroom, only to find that it was suddenly much shorter, the back wall now inches away from me, the large wooden doors gone. Leaving me with only one exit, that strange, familiar, set of doors.
“What’s the point of this,” I said. “I’m over what happened. I’m not—”
“Are you, Dawn?” I heard my mother say. “That doesn’t explain the nightmares.”
“Those were Calypso’s memories.” I shook my head. “The problems I had with my powers were due to the transference. There’s nothing wrong…”
“Nothing wrong?” I heard a mocking laugh to my right. “Then why not turn around.”
I jerked to my right to see Amity standing next to me, her lips spread into a Cheshire Cat-like grin.
“Come on, Dawnie,” she said. “Stop running away from your problems.”
“I’m not,” I protested. “I’m—”
And then the walls around me began to press inward, the courtroom disappearing as they moved, leaving me with nothing more than a white room. Like Calypso’s white room in the asylum. Those calming, white walls.
They didn’t look so calming right now.
Behind me, I heard the doors creak open.
Alex
I ducked as Black and Blue delivered a blow that probably would have been strong enough to snap my neck. Remembering Riley’s defense on the top of the tower, I reached for a shield, a piece of the broken cubicle wall. Black and Blue struck it once, twice, and it crumbled like paper. I threw it to the side, and she moved in closer, going for body blows. I blocked them, but each blow left behind a noticeable dent in my armor, the military-grade hardware crumbling just as fast as the cheap cubicle wall. Black and Blue swung again, and the right wrist guard flew off.
The next blow would result in shattered bone.
I shifted my body to protect my wrist, but this only let her in closer, delivering sharp blows across my middle, and damn, I could feel each one of them, the armor crushing around me. I backed up another step.
And then my feet went out from under me as I tripped over what? A chair? I smacked my head against the floor and saw stars.
I felt a weight on my chest and looked up to see Black and Blue on top of me again, her lips spread into a snarl, her fist pulled back in a blow that I knew would kill me.
“Dawn,” I choked out.
Dawn
I pressed my hands against the wall as it closed in on me, shoving me back to the open doors where the sound of sobbing—my sobbing? —began to fill the air.
“What’s wrong Dawn?” I could hear a voice, Sunshine’s voice, say.
“What’s wrong is you have me caught up in this stupid situation when god knows what’s going on with Alex—”
“Are you afraid?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not—”
“Then why won’t you turn around.”
“Because I shouldn’t be!”
My voice echoed around the tiny room as if it were a giant cavern.
“I shouldn’t be afraid,” I said, my voice half a sob. “I don’t remember any of it, right? Then why does it bother me so much?”
Sunshine remained silent.
“It must mean that something is wrong with me. Other people have been through worse. Other people can…” I shook my head. “But I am terrified, and I hate that about myself. It controls me. Makes me push away the people I care about.”
I slumped to my knees, forehead pressed against the wall.
“You asked me before, why I do this,” I said. “Started jumping around on rooftops in the first place, saving people. And it’s because doing so gives me something else to focus on. Yet the more and more I run away, the closer it seems to get to me. And the more…scared I get.”
Arms reached out to grasp mine. I looked up to see not a wall, but Sunshine, kneeling in front of me. She gripped my arms tightly.
“It’s okay to be scared.”
“But I don’t even remember—”
“That doesn’t change what happened to you.”
“But other people have been through much worse and—”
“We’re not talking about other people. We’re talking about you.”
With that, I burst into tears, burying my face in Sunshine’s shoulder.
And for what could have been seconds or hours, I cried.
“Sunshine,” I said, backing up with a sniff. “I think I need help.”
“Yeah,” she said with a pained smile.
“I don’t even know where to start,” I said with a sniff.
“You’ll figure something out. I know you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” She squeezed my hands. “But for now, it’s time to wake up, okay?”
Wake up?
I shook my head, remembering what I had last seen before going under. That face in the mirror.
“Oh, shit,” I said, raising a hand to my face. “I—”
“Probably should get back to that one.”
And then, she disappeared. I looked up to see that the walls had vanished, leaving me in a giant space of white. But I could still hear sobbing in the distance. But now that I was paying closer attention, that didn’t sound like…
I swallowed and moved to my feet. Sunshine said I came here for knowledge, right? Maybe it was time to start getting serious about that.
And, hands clenched tight, I spun toward the partially opened doors and…
I didn’t see myself.
Instead I saw a dark-haired girl in some large, elaborate, hospital bed, her arms strapped down by heavy metal restraints.
“Help me,” she said, her voice half muffled by sobs.
“Um, Dawn?” I heard Sunshine’s voice say. “Maybe you should not kill Alex.”
“Huh?”
And then, as if a giant hand had reached down and grabbed me, I was plucked from the white room.
Alex
I could see the moment the realization hit her. Her eyes went wide, her fist dropped, as if she couldn’t remember why she had raised it in the first place.
The fact that she changed back into regular, plains-clothes Dawn as she did so also helped.
“Shit,” she said. “Alex?”
“We’re back to normal?” I said with a blink.
“Yes, I think.”
“Thank God.” I closed my eyes and rested my head on the floor.
Dawn, on the other hand, was a little more freaked out.
“Holy crap. Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry. I—”
“It’s good! We’re good!” I said, raising my hands. “Of course, you being you makes this position a little awkward.”
And then Dawn, being wonderfully Dawn, went beet red. She jumped right off me, a movement that, under a very different set of circumstances, wouldn’t have made me feel so relieved.
“Help me up?” I said, reaching out an arm.
Dawn complied. Given that she didn’t have her super-strength, it was an awkward affair.
“Your armor,” she said, reaching out to touch one of the broken plates on my chest. She looked around the room. “Did I—”
“Didn’t hurt a soul,” I said. “Unless you count Kent’s office space.”
“Didn’t hurt…” Dawn shook her head. “Alex, I hurt you.”
“That’s what the armor’s for.” I forced a chuckle.
One of the chest pieces fell to the ground with a clang.
“Or, that’s what it was for,” I corrected.
“This is my fault,” she said. “If only I had been able to—”
“Hey,” I said. “I’m fine. Everyone in the building is fine. Jane got everyone out. The question is, are you fine?”
Dawn blinked.
“I’m not,” she said. “But…I think admitting that is a good thing.”
I frowned, but before I could reply, the sounds of sirens filled the air.
“Shit,” I said, “I am not in shape to deal with law enforcement right now.”
Dawn looked upward. “The roof.”
“Doesn’t come with an exit,” I replied. “The fire escape would just bring us down to the cops a different way.”
A small smile spread on her lips.
“Um…what if I told you there was another option?”
18
Dawn
The car ride back to Birchwood Realty was super awkward. Jane seemed a little…off, but mostly okay, although I noticed she was wearing her dark glasses again. This left Dana as our getaway driver, and he seemed to find the position super-stressful. His gaze constantly darted toward the mirrors, as if every turn hid a police car or news van, eager to link us to the chaos that just took place at Kent’s campaign headquarters.
That, combined with the stress of the morning, was probably why it took most of the trip before Alex brought up the fact that Marty Tong was being kept at Birchwood Realty.
I shoved open the door to what I now considered the “cellblock” section of Forger Headquarters, picturing Marty how Alex had described him, half-crazed in some dark room and…I didn’t understand how Forgers could just keep him locked up in that state. Especially when, only miles away, there were hospitals and doctors who had been helping drones for weeks now.
I froze as I drew close, surprised to find Marty not locked in a room, but outside of Calypso’s cell. I paused and took in a breath before I approached. He sat on the floor, his head resting on the door frame, hand pressed against the surface of the door. He didn’t even look up as I entered.
“Holy crap,” I whispered, turning around to where Alex stood. “This is so much worse than when we last saw him. Back then he was just upset, but now—”
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