Modified Box Set

by Kat Stiles

  I smiled. “I guess I am.”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were in love.”

  “I’m happy. Which hasn’t happened in a long time.”

  A somber, resigned smile appeared. “Happy suits you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry about…well, everything. I should’ve trusted you more.”

  “It’s okay, I understand. If it were my daughter, I’d have been out of my mind.”

  He nodded. “Do you think we stand a chance?”

  “No.” I laughed. “But we still have to try. Maybe we can get Lukas on our side if we break him out.”

  This time Steve laughed. “Good luck with that. Lukas has issues.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  Steve took my hand in his. “I want to thank you for helping me. Even if it all goes to hell, I appreciate you—”

  Jay cleared his throat, and I realized he had exited his bedroom.

  Chapter 4

  Steve stood, looking entirely uncomfortable. “I was just thanking Kate for—”

  “It’s fine,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. He turned to me. “You can use my shower, if you want.”

  “Jay, you don’t understand,” I said, gently touching his arm. “It’s not like that—"

  He yanked his arm away from me. “I said it’s fine. Just go take a shower so we can get this over with.”

  “Why won’t you listen to me? I’m trying to tell you how I—”

  “I’m not an idiot. I may not be as seasoned as you in relationships, but I can see the writing on the wall.”

  The way he said that pissed me the fuck off. How dare he practically call me a slut? “You know what? Fine. You want to be a dick, be a dick.”

  I stormed off to his bedroom to take my shower, slamming the door behind me. I knew it was irrational; it was all just a stupid misunderstanding. Maybe if I gave him some time to cool down he’d be less of an asshole.

  “She’s positively glowing!” I heard Steve yell. “Because of you, you ass.”

  “I could see why you’d think that, but you don’t know what happened here last night. No offense, you have no clue what’s going on,” was Jay’s reply.

  “Well, I fucking do.” I smiled at the sound of Vi’s voice, and knew she’d set him straight.

  Still, I took the fastest shower in my life, eager to get back out there. As I toweled off my hair, I realized I forgot to bring my clothes. I wrapped myself in a towel, hoping to slip into my bedroom unnoticed. But something was off. It was quiet. Too quiet.

  I cracked open the door to Jay’s bedroom, to peer outside. Jay and Steve appeared to be unconscious on the floor. At least that’s what I had hoped, and not something worse. I couldn’t see Vi. Then I noticed a man standing in the far corner of the room. He held Vi by the throat.

  “Where is she?” he said.

  Vi snickered. “Fuck you.”

  His hand around her throat appeared to squeeze. Was that electricity coming from his hands? Her body jolted, then slumped forward.

  “You must be Vlad,” I said, coming out of the room. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I had to stop him from hurting Vi.

  “Kate. We finally meet.” He appeared exactly as you’d expect a Vlad would look – gritty and mean, his black hair slicked back, muscles peaking out of a mangled t-shirt, but the most badass feature had to be the huge scar across his face.

  He stomped towards me. I had no earthly clue what his power was, but fuck if I wanted to find out. I remembered knocking out Pickles with a suggestion. Would it work on a human? I had to try.

  I focused on him, projecting one simple thought into his head: sleep.

  And to my amazement, he collapsed on the floor.

  I rushed to Jay and tried to wake him up, shaking him at first and then slapping his face when there was no response.

  He bolted upright. “What happened?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.” I pointed to the strange man snoring on the floor. “Apparently this is Vlad.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”

  “Didn’t have the chance. Can you heal the others? I’ll get dressed.” I rose and headed toward the bedroom, when Jay stopped me.

  “Kate, listen, earlier I—”

  “We don’t have time, I don’t know how long Vlad will be out. We can talk about it later.”

  True, I was still a little pissed at Jay, but I suspected Derek wouldn’t stop with one guy. How long before he sends an army of minions to get me? And what powers will they have? I got lucky with Vlad, and I had a feeling my luck wouldn’t hold out forever.

  I did a quick change into the only outfit I had left—jeans and a half-shirt tee. I wore my most functional pair of shoes: an old pair of sneakers I could run in, if I needed to. When I returned to the living room, I found Jay had revived Vi and was healing her. I kneeled next to Steve and shook him by the shoulders.

  “Steve, wake up. We have to go.”

  “What the devil…” He seemed startled to see me. Then he took a moment to survey the room, until his eyes settled on Vlad. “Did Viola do that?”

  “Nope, I took him out,” I said, as I helped him sit upright. “Not sure for how long though, so we’d better get moving.”

  He looked at me with a newfound respect. “Maybe our chances against Derek aren’t so bad after all. Nice work.”

  “Thanks. Can you stand?”

  Steve slowly made it to his feet and stretched. “Still feel a little tingly. We’re lucky he didn’t give us a full blast of his power.”

  “You’ve seen him in action?” I knew this guy was bad news.

  “His electrical blasts can be fatal,” Steve said, emotionless. I had a feeling it was some kind of coping mechanism for him, to compartmentalize the evil deeds he and his colleagues committed for Derek, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the disparity between them and his conscience.

  “How’s Vi?” I asked Jay.

  “I’m okay now,” Vi answered. “I really hate that fucking guy.”

  She walked over to where Vlad lay passed out on the floor, and drew back her leg to kick him.

  “No!” I yelled. My heart skipped a beat when he stopped snoring and repositioned himself. I breathed a sigh of relief when the snoring resumed, and said in a much lower voice, “He’s sleeping, don’t wake him up!”

  “No fair! I never get to have any fun,” Vi whispered in a pouty tone.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to break people at the compound,” Steve said.

  “Speaking of which, shall we go?” I asked.

  “Will we be able to teleport with sleeping beauty here?” Vi asked.

  “Probably,” Steve said. “I think he has to be actively using his power to block teleportation. But I’m not sure, it could be an electrical field interfering with it.”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said. “Let’s hold hands, and Steve—think about Lillian.”

  We all joined hands, and then in a flash of light, we were at the compound, in some strange laboratory-like room with an adjacent hallway.

  We teleported super fast, and I didn’t feel the heat of Jay’s healing, to give us the boost to get in. “What the hell? I thought there was a dampening field here.”

  “The dampening field must be Vlad,” Jay deduced. “With him at the apartment, there’s nothing protecting this place.”

  “Good to know,” I said. “What about our powers?”

  I tried to probe Jay’s mind but read nothing. Vi attempted to lift a nearby large table filled with computers and gadgets, but it didn’t budge an inch. Steve shook his head.

  “So powers are being neutralized by something else,” I said, talking to myself more than anyone else in particular.

  “Derek may already know we’re here, so we haven’t got much time,” Steve said. “We’ve got to find Lillian.”

  I nodded. The room we were in was mostly tab
les and cabinets, so I headed down the hallway, followed by Jay and then the others.

  “Kate, we need to talk,” Jay said. “I didn’t mean to react so coldly before. It was a mistake, I’m—”

  I gasped at the sight of a series of cages, small cells with glass walls. The place they confined me was sheer luxury compared to these. “I can’t believe Derek would…he’s an animal…”

  The first two cells on the left and right were unoccupied, but the next two had prisoners. On the left was a voluptuous black female, lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling. On the right was Lukas. Our eyes met, and he started pounding the shit out of the glass.

  “You bitch! You did this to me! I know you did!”

  For all his pounding, the glass didn’t falter in the slightest.

  “It’s industrial strength, reinforced glass, you moron!” the woman on the left said. “How many times I gotta tell you it’s not gonna break?” She turned to look at Lukas, and her eyes grew big at seeing us.

  “Who are you guys?” the woman said. “Lord, any enemy of genius boy over there has got to be a friend of mine!” She had a sort of enthusiasm I didn’t expect to see from a prisoner, especially a prisoner of Derek. I got the feeling she was one of those rare types of people that was always able to make the best out of any situation.

  “My name is Kate, and this is Jay. We’re getting you out of here.”

  “Oooh, I knew today was going to be a good day!” the woman squealed. “I’m Zoe.”

  “She just stupid girl with mental power,” Lukas said to Zoe, with a dismissive wave. “She can’t help us.”

  “How are we going to get them out?” Jay asked me quietly.

  “I don’t know, but I’m not leaving them here.” I looked over at Lukas. “That’s right, dipshit, I’m busting you out, too.” He made a pfft sound and started doing pushups.

  I racked my brain to think of some way to use my power to get them out. But then I remembered my powers were neutralized here. Teleportation, however, was not.

  “Can you teleport out?” I asked the woman.

  “Honey, I haven’t been able to teleport since I got here.”

  “Can you try again, please? We were able to teleport in, which isn’t usually the case.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  She shrugged.

  “Must be the cells,” Jay said. “It was worth a try.”

  I looked at the lock, and noticed it was computerized. “There’s got to be a code, some way we can hack into their security system and open these cells.”

  Jay nodded and headed back the way we came. If anyone could get in, it was most definitely Jay.

  Steve walked farther ahead, and it wasn’t long before he shouted Lillian’s name.

  “Oh my baby, are you all right? Did he hurt you?” Steve pawed frantically at the glass, as if it were simply a sheet of plastic he could dig his way through.

  “Daddy?”

  I caught up to him, and watched as both he and Lillian rested their heads against the glass in the same spot.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner, love.” Steve’s voice wavered, and I was on the verge of tears myself. Lillian was a small girl, maybe 8 or 9, with the same blond hair as Steve. It broke my heart to see her imprisoned. Derek really is a monster, I thought. And that fucker is going down, if it’s the last thing I do.

  “You’ve come to rescue me?” There was a dangerous hope in her voice, an expectation that her father was her knight in shining armor. How the hell am I going to pull this off?

  I rejoined Jay, to see his progress. As far as I could tell, he was our only shot. He made it into the terminal, but he still had yet to figure out the system to deactivate the security. The software Derek used was made in house, so it wasn’t anything Jay had ever seen. Even the language was different from any he’d coded with.

  I patted his hand. “Keep on it, you’ll get it. I have faith in you.” I was about to leave and join the others again, when he grabbed hold of my hand.

  “You know you’re my entire world, right?” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I was afraid I’d lost you. I didn’t mean to be such an ass.”

  “I was just about to tell you, I—”

  “Kate, come here!” Vi called to me.

  Jay kissed the hand he held and released me.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I found Vi outside of the woman’s cell, just chatting it up with her as if they were having Sunday brunch.

  “Zoe here says that she’s a mediator by trade, one of the best in the world.”

  I arched an eyebrow at Vi. “Yes, that’s interesting and all, but—”

  “She gets people to a common understanding. It wouldn’t be a reach that her power would be—”

  “To neutralize other powers,” I finished. “If that’s true, Zoe, can you turn it off?”

  Her brow wrinkled. “I don’t think I ever tried. You know, it’s nice when people all just get along. This ability is a blessing, I’ve never been in a situation that wouldn’t benefit from it.”

  “Well, I’d say we’re in one now,” I said. “Steve might be able to freeze the glass if he had his power back.”

  “Or I could bust through it,” Vi offered, as she flexed her biceps and smiled.

  “She has strength,” I explained to Zoe, who looked downright delighted.

  “Boy I bet that comes in handy with pickle jars.” She giggled, and it was the cutest sound I ever heard.

  “You would not believe the things I—”

  I glared at Vi, in an attempt to stop her from chat mode again. She took the hint and shut up.

  “Steve’s power would be less dangerous I think. Are you ready?” I looked at Zoe, and she nodded.

  “I’ll try. Now you let me know, if you feel anything different.”

  It wasn’t immediate, getting my powers back. It was more of a gradual build up, the strange void leaving me like a headache dissipating.

  “I think it’s working,” I said. “Steve, try to freeze the glass.”

  He nodded and turned to Lillian. “Stand back, baby.” The girl backed into the far corner of the cell.

  Within seconds, the entire glass panel was iced over. Steve tapped on it, to try and shatter it, but it stayed intact.

  “Maybe we could use some muscle, after all,” I said. Vi smiled and practically skipped to Lillian’s cell.

  “Baby, grab the blanket and cover yourself with it,” Steve said. Once the girl was ready, Vi drew back her fist and slammed it into the glass. It shattered into a million tiny frozen pieces.

  “Damn, that was cold,” Vi said, shaking her fingers. Steve ran past her, into Lillian’s cell. He carefully pulled back the blanket.

  “I’m here,” he said, as he hugged her and lifted her up into his arms.

  “You’re really here?” she said, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve dreamt of this so many times.”

  Steve’s eyes watered. “I’m never letting them take you again.” He looked over at me and mouthed the words, ‘thank you.’

  “Holy shit, you did it!” Zoe cheered.

  Lukas’ slack jawed expression as Steve emerged with Lillian from the cell was somehow satisfying. That and his speechlessness was just perfect.

  Jay joined us. “I wasn’t able to get the cells open, but I did manage to deactivate some of their other…” He smiled as he observed Steve holding Lillian. “I guess you don’t need my help with the cells after all.”

  I explained about Zoe’s power, and how we were able to free Lillian.

  His eyes were drawn to Vi and her bleeding knuckles. The force of the strike, coupled with the icy surface of the glass must’ve injured her. He placed his hand on top of hers. She let out a happy sigh and thanked him.

  “Jay, can you heal Lillian next?” Steve asked. He was checking her arms and legs, looking for signs of abuse, I was sure.

  “I’m okay, Daddy
,” she said, in a tone that was beyond her years. I wonder how much the experience had aged her, how much of her childhood was cut short by an arrogant, selfish dickhead bent on controlling the world.

  Jay nodded and finished up with Vi. That warm, nurturing smile of his appeared. “Maybe try a kick next time?”

  She giggled. “Good idea.”

  Jay introduced himself to Lillian, and then explained his power and what he was going to do. I was struck by how thoughtful he was, how aware he was of her mental state and condition to even think of doing that. Men like this don’t exist, at least not in my world. And he actually wants to be with me? I wanted to run over to him and give him the biggest hug in the world; just snuggle under his neck and never let him go.

  He caught me staring and smiled at me. I smiled back, thinking that would have to do for now.

  Steve and Vi worked together again to release both Zoe and Lukas. Zoe hugged us, thanking us over and over. Lukas grunted, and from his expression, it seemed like a grunt of appreciation, odd as that was.

  “You’re welcome to join us,” I said to him. “If you’re willing to help.”

  He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Got nothing better to do, and Derek is dick.”

  Can’t argue that, I thought. I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted him, but I knew I couldn’t just leave him there. Without the power to teleport, he’d be caught again for sure.

  Lillian’s eyes seemed to cloud over—she looked past us, as if in her own world.

  “They’re coming,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”

  “What the hell?” I muttered, but then noticed her eyes were hazy like the rest of us. “She’s psychic?”

  “I don’t know,” Steve murmured, touching her face. “Lillian, is that your power? Can you see the future?”

  She nodded. “They’re coming to get us. We have to leave!”

  The urgency in her voice led me to believe she wasn’t just fucking with us, as children so like to do.

  I nodded. “You guys go ahead, I need to end this. With Derek.”

  Jay pulled me over to the side. “You have to come with us. Derek’s a maniac, and once he discovers his prisoners are gone…”

  “I can’t. I’m tired of this game. I refuse to live my life in constant fear.”