I flipped across the ground, digging my hands and feet into it to bring myself to a stop. Selena grabbed one of the poles from the fence that she’d just hit me through. It was a few inches in diameter and a few feet tall.
I jumped from my spot on the ground and dove at her. My fist stretched out before me, aiming for her torso. She took a step to the side, and swung upwards with her pole, slamming into my chest.
This threw me off, and caused me to spiral down to the ground face first. I turned around on my back, ready to block whatever punch Selena was about to throw at me next.
She didn’t punch me. Instead, I flipped over just in time to see her bringing the fence post down and straight through my chest. I wanted to scream in shock and from the split second of pain before my body took to repairing itself. That was a bit difficult to do, given the fact that a five foot pole was going through me, driving me into the ground. My body seared with pain as I couldn’t fully heal myself around the pole.
“Stay down Kane!” Selena shouted, both hands still holding on to the pole. “I don’t want to keep fighting you!”
I didn’t want to keep fighting her either, but my body had other plans. I reached up with my leg and kicked her foot to the side, causing her to lose her balance and fall. Before she even hit the ground, I was already pulling the pole out from my chest. The holes in my chest and back healed themselves as I stood, holding the pole over my head, driving it down towards Selena.
A searing bolt of electricity hit my back as I felt my powers retreat. The fence post grew impossibly heavy in my hands as I dropped it to the ground. I fell down, the electricity running through me.
Another shot hit me. My body seized, going into intense convulsions. I looked up and saw Doug approaching me with Eximus blaster raised.
Then, a blast of pain to my head as Selena punched me, knocking me out cold.
11
RECOVERY
When I woke up, my eyes weren’t glowing, and my whole body felt groggy.
“He’s moving,” I heard Eddie say, followed by the scrambling of bodies as they jumped up and got ready.
I opened my eyes, and saw the barrel of an Eximus blaster looking back at me. Doug held it tight against his shoulder, finger on the trigger, his eyes wide and fearful.
I heard a buzzing close to my ear. I looked to my right and saw Drew standing by the edge of my bed, Eximus energy dancing from his fingertips.
“I think I have a lot of explaining to do,” I said as I sat up in my bed. Everybody tensed up, and the barrel of the blaster moved an inch closer. “I also think I’m going to need a little space first.” I looked between Doug and Drew, who both turned to look at Selena who stood at the foot of the bed.
She waved them away. “Start talking, Kane,” she said, her voice stern.
I sat up fully and sighed. The morning sun’s rays reached inside the room from the window on the wall across from me. I looked on either side of the room noting the holes in the left and right walls. “Boy we really did a number on this place,” I said with a smirk.
“It’s not funny, Kane. Something is seriously wrong,” Selena said, not having any of my shit.
I nodded. “Right, I know that.” I cleared my throat. “Well, for starters, that wasn’t really me attacking you.”
“Are you sure?” Drew asked. He pointed at the bruise on his face, and lifted up his shirt to show the ones on his back and chest. “Because it sure as hell felt like you.” His voice slowly rose. He was not happy with me, but neither was I.
“I swear to you, it wasn’t. I think the whole eyes glowing white kinda gave that away,” I said, gesturing at my face. I made them glow. “What color are they?”
“They’re blue,” Selena said without hesitating. Her posture relaxed just a smidge.
“See?” I said. “I wasn’t in control of my own body. I was trying to stop myself, but it wasn’t obeying me.”
“But why would it do that?” Drew asked.
“I’m not sure, but it might not have been the most strange thing that happened to me last night,” I said. I explained to them my experience with Athena, telling them how she knew where Samantha was, but I first had to pay the debt I owed her for Doug before she’d help me with anything new. I told them about how she was then drug away by some mysterious force, and about the man with the eyes that glowed green who started attacking.
“So you’re saying that this green guy is the one who took control of you?” Doug asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but he sure didn’t seem like the nicest guy around.”
“You don’t think it could’ve been Athena?” Selena asked.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so at all. If she was, it wouldn’t make sense. Why would she use a ton of energy contacting me, suffer an attack from whoever that guy was, and then take control of me to attack you guys? It doesn’t make sense.”
Selena stepped from the foot of the bed and walked closer to me. “Kane, we don’t understand anything that’s going on. You said the guy’s eyes were glowing green, but yours were glowing white. You know what else glows white?” she asked, pausing for a second for effect. “The asthenés plásma. Where she apparently lives or something? Point is, we don’t know enough. I don’t think we should just go around trusting everything she says.”
“She has a point,” Eddie piped up from the back of the room. He had a screw driver in one hand and a cylindrical device with all sorts of wires and cords sticking from it. “We know who has the asthenés plásma right now, and that’s Atlas. Who’s to say he’s not manipulating it somehow to do what you want?”
I shook my head. “Athena isn’t just going to bend to his will. She probably hasn’t even talked to him. We had the plasma for over a week and she didn’t even make contact with us until the last second we needed her.”
“Yeah, but we also didn’t have that amulet that you saw Atlas wearing,” Drew said.
I felt a slight chill run down my spine. That amulet that Atlas wore meant something. Even though I only saw it for a split second, I felt a fresh, rejuvenating increase in my power. It also apparently negated the effects of the asthenés plásma, given the fact that once he knew for sure Raven had it, he came down and took it.
“That has to mean something,” Selena said.
“No, it doesn’t!” I snapped. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I needed to keep my cool and stay on their good side. “Look, you don’t know Athena. She saved Doug’s life.” I pointed at him. He stood there with the Eximus blaster slung over his shoulder, eyes looking down at the ground as he was reminded of the fact that he was once lifeless. “He was dead, and she brought him back. If she had evil goals and wanted to destroy us—or whatever it is you’re insinuating—you’re wrong. If you talked to her for even a moment you’d know that.”
Selena’s fists were clenched at her side, and I could tell she wanted to argue. She stopped herself, however. I was right, she’d never talked to Athena. Her accusations had nothing to go on.
“If I were to bet on whoever was responsible, I’d say it was the only person who attacked me right before it all happened, and that’s the man with the green eyes,” I said.
“Okay, Kane, so what are you saying our next step is?” Doug asked.
I thought about it for a moment and then stepped out of bed. I looked at Selena who was watching me with suspicious eyes. “Athena said that when we are asked, we would go to London to help our friends.” I turned to look at Doug. “So keep an eye out for any communication from them. If we do this, we find out where Samantha is.” I looked back at Selena, whose eyes never left me. “And that’s all that matters.”
****
I hammered the final board over the hole in Drew’s room from where Selena threw me into the front yard the first time. My super speed came in handy, seeing as how I was able to get the hole boarded up in only a few seconds.
“You’re pretty good at that stuff,” Drew said from behind me.
&n
bsp; I turned and saw him standing in the doorway. “Which part, making them or fixing them?”
Drew smiled and shook his head. “I meant fixing them, but I have to admit, you’re pretty good at making them too.”
I tossed the hammer onto his bed and shrugged. “I try my best.”
Drew walked in the room, grabbing a notebook from the nightstand next to his bed. “Well, next time try doing it with someone else. Got a slight concussion,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.
I felt sick to my stomach. I thought I was going to throw up right there all over Drew’s bedroom floor. I couldn’t believe I’d done something like that to one of my oldest friends. “Should you be standing? You need to go lay down,” I said.
Drew nodded. “Yeah, I’m using Selena’s bed right now.” He waved the notebook in his hand. “Just wanted to come grab this.”
“Okay, cool,” I said, trying to buy myself time to figure out how I was going to say what I needed to. “Look, Drew, I’m really sorry. I mean, I can’t apologize to you enough. You know that wasn’t me, right?”
Drew waited a beat before responding, his eyes examining the floor below him. He nodded his head. “Yeah, don’t worry, Kane. I know.” He smirked and looked up at me.
“Thanks, man. I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you,” I said.
Drew laughed. It was a hearty, loud laugh. I wasn’t quite sure what was so funny. “Oh, don’t you worry buddy, I’ll figure something suitable out. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he said with a smirk on his face and a mischievous look in his eye.
I shook my head and scoffed. “Great, now I owe two people something.”
Drew shrugged as he turned to walk out the door. “Gotta stop putting yourself in these situations, Kane!” he said as he slapped his hand on the wall above the door frame.
I stood in Drew’s room alone, the feeling of guilt still strong within me, yet not quite as bad as it was before. I picked up the hammer from Drew’s bed, and walked out of the room. Just had to fix the hole where the front door used to be, then it was time to try and repair some friendships.
12
AMENDS
“Alright, gotta admit, that was pretty cool to watch,” Doug said from his spot on the couch.
I smiled as I looked at my handiwork. I’d just boarded up the front door in five seconds flat. It was now closed off to the outside world, with only a teeny bit of light seeping through the small cracks between each plank of wood. “Not gonna lie, it felt pretty cool,” I said as I turned to him.
“Does this mean we’re going to have to take the back door whenever we want to go outside now?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said as I sat down on the couch next to him.
“Oh,” he said as he turned back to his computer. “That’s not fun.”
I looked on the other side of Doug, and sitting next to him was his Eximus rifle, the barrel sticking off the edge of the couch. It looked really futuristic, like something you’d see on a sci-fi tv show. I felt nervous looking at it, knowing it was something both made and used to kill Supers all over the US. “Where’d you get that thing?” I asked as casually as possible. “Didn’t know we kept one around.”
Doug eyed the blaster next to him, and tensed up. It was obviously a conversation he didn’t want to have. “Well, I’ve had it for a while, actually.” He picked it up, and my heart skipped a beat. He pressed a button in the middle of the gun, and its metal form clicked and folded in half. It was now much smaller, and much more portable. “I kept it in my backpack.”
“How come?” I asked.
Doug hesitated. “To be honest, Kane, Samantha gave it to me…just in case.”
“Just in case what? We were attacked?” I asked, wanting to get the full answer out of him. Assumptions were popping up in my head, but I wanted to know the truth.
“In case we were attacked. By any Supers.” His eyes glanced at me and then darted away.
“Samantha was worried I would attack you guys?” I asked, confused and hurt.
“I don’t know, she just gave it to me and said that I needed to be ready to use it whenever I needed to, against whoever I needed to. She just wanted me to be safe, Kane.” He turned to look at me. “I don’t think she meant you specifically—I doubt she did. But she made it clear to me that I shouldn’t be afraid to, if I needed to.” His eye turned to the hole I boarded up where the front door used to be, and then behind him where the still gaping hole lead from my room to the living room. “It’s a good thing too, because last night, I needed to.”
I sighed, the guilt and nausea piling up inside me. I couldn’t believe I’d done all of this. “You’re right, I’m glad you had the courage to use it,” I said. “What do you think about going to London?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.
“I think it’ll be a good idea. We could use the change of scenery.”
“You aren’t worried about Samantha?” I asked.
“Of course I am,” Doug said. “But I’m also worried about what Athena will do if you make her mad by not going. She knows where Samantha is, she could punish her if we don’t do what she says.”
I hadn’t thought about that. “You’ve got a point, although I don’t think she’d do that. Athena’s not like that. She’s never not been helpful.”
“So you’re saying she’s a good person?” Doug asked.
“I don’t even know if she is a person. I think she is, but there’s a lot we don’t know. I think the more we talk and work with her though, the more we’ll find out. About her, about Supers, about everything.” I paused for a moment, thinking about what I was about to say next. Whether or not I actually believed it. I decided I did. “I think she might be the key.”
“The key to what?”
I shrugged and looked away, thinking. “Everything?” I said with a chuckle. “She obviously knows a lot about Supers. She’s incredibly powerful. I think she might know how we can defeat Atlas, restore humanity; she might even know where our powers come from.”
“And you think she’d tell us?” Doug asked.
“I don’t know, but she sure as hell would be more inclined to if we were on her good side.”
“Well then,” Doug said, nodding his head. “I think we’re making the right call by going to England. “If it’ll help us in all those ways and help us find Samantha and rescue her, we’d be dumb not to.”
I gave Doug a pat on the shoulder. “I think you’re right,” I said with a smile. I stood from the couch. “Where’s Eddie?” I asked. “I need to apologize to him for…you know…almost choking him to death.”
Doug pointed to the backyard. “He’s out there in the shed. Tinkering with something, of course.”
I nodded my head. “Thanks man. Keep me updated if you hear something from London.”
“Roger that.”
****
I stepped into the two-car garage that Eddie turned into his own work shed. The smell of gasoline flooded my nostrils, joined by the scent of something burning. There were shelves of tools, supplies, and failed experiments stacked on all the walls. A large workbench sat in the middle of the room, a pile of various pieces of equipment and pieces of metal piled high. “Hey, Eddie!” I shouted.
Eddie’s sweaty head poked out from the side of a pile of scrap. He smiled when he saw me, his sixteen-year-old face beaming with the joy of doing something that he loved. “Hi, Kane,” he said.
I walked over to him. Whenever I got close I could see the bruises around his neck caused by my own hands, and I once again thought I was going to lose it all over the garage floor. “What’re you working on?” I asked as I stepped around his workbench to stand next to him.
“I’m working on these little pod things,” he said, pointing at one of the silver cylindrical objects he was working on while he sat in my room, waiting for me to come to.
“What for?” I asked.
“I’m trying to store my electricity in them, that way I can make a bunch of…electri
city grenades, I guess you could call them.” He picked one up and tossed it around in his hand. I grew nervous at how nonchalantly he was handling something that had the word “grenade” in them, even if the electricity wasn’t going to have any effect on me.
“Those could come in handy,” I said.
Eddie nodded. “Yeah, I’m trying to figure out a way to attack people that’s a bit more predictable. Just shooting electricity is unpredictable, the current might go somewhere I don’t intend. But these things?” he said, holding the cylinder up to the light. “Where ever these things hit—poof, the target is fried.” He set it back down on the table, his presentation over. “I just need to work on my aim.”
I chuckled, although I felt weird about laughing at something that was really pretty dark. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out soon.” I cleared my throat, and scratched the back of my head. “What I came out here for, Eddie, is that I really wanted to say that I’m sorry about…” I wasn’t sure how to say it, so I just gestured to my own neck.
“Oh, you mean grabbing me by the throat, pulling me through a wall, and slowly choking me to death?” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, that. I’m sorry about…that.” I didn’t know why I couldn’t just come out and say it. I guessed it was because if I did, it’d make me so sick I’d throw up everywhere.
“Well, I can’t say I trust you completely. What you did hurt in a lot of ways. But I forgive you, Kane. I know you’d do—and have done—anything to protect us,” Eddie said, his eyes not looking away from mine.
The way he was being genuine touched me, and I was happy to have his forgiveness. “I totally understand. Thanks for forgiving me.”
“No problem,” Eddie said with a smile. He turned back to working on his electricity grenades.
“You should get out of this shed more often. You’re always tinkering with things, we’d love to have you hang out with us more,” I said.
Eddie stopped and looked up me. He nodded his head. “I think I’ll try and do that.” He smiled, and I smiled back.
The Secret of the Supers (The First Superhero Book 4) Page 5