Two

by LeighAnn Kopans

  She smiles a tired smile, and I go into the guy’s side. There’s an a long, open closet that holds black pants made out of a stretchy material and white shirts with a black-lettered logo on the back: “Property of United States Social Welfare Hub.” The material is weird — strong and slick-feeling but still light. I walk all the way to the end to find the longest pants and shirts and then take a minute to use one of the washcloths I find in the bathroom to wipe down a little bit. My skin may not have blown off when we flew, but where it was exposed to the air, it’s brown with dirt and a bit wind chapped. I drag a wet finger over my teeth, too, tasting my breath. It could be worse. I use some hand soap to scrub at my hair and give my entire head a quick, cold rinse in the sink.

  I peel my sweatshirt off, but when I hold it up to the light, I can practically see through it. Same with my pants — one hard tug on them would rip them to shreds. So I toss them in the waste bin and step into the Hub regulation stuff. The fabric feels weird against my body, cool and light.

  When I cross the hall, Merrin’s perched on the edge of one of the beds. My legs can’t carry me back to her fast enough.

  I sit down beside her, picking up her hand and twining her fingers with mine. It’s as natural as breathing. She sighs and puts her head on my shoulder, but it only lasts for a second before she pulls away.

  ”Sorry,” she says. “I’m getting your shirt wet. I had to wash my hair. It smelled like smoke.”

  “Stop.” I pull her back to me and kiss the top of her head. Air puffs out of her nose, and I know she’s smiling. It makes me smile, too.

  I gesture to our high-tech clothes. “What do you think about all this?”

  “It’s unreal,” she murmurs as she runs her hand over her Hub regulation outfit. Her pants cling to the tops of her legs and flare out a little at the knees, as opposed to hanging straight down like min. In them, the curve of her hip is so obvious. “What do you think they can do?”

  “The clothes?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Oh. Uh…I hadn’t really thought about it, I guess.”

  She laughs, her blue eyes crinkling. “Really?”

  I don’t answer and ignore the twist in my stomach. Of course she’s thought of what the clothes can do or what they can help us do, and I haven’t. That’s us; she always wants to be more extraordinary, and I’m always content for us to be ourselves.

  We sit there for long minutes, breathing in and out. Even though we’re together, something feels hollow. Words are everywhere, but none of them want to be said.

  When Merrin speaks, her voice is tentative and thin. “Are you scared?”

  I don’t know how she wants me to answer, so I just tell her the truth. “Yes.”

  “About the Biotech Hub looking for us?”

  “Yes.” My heart speeds up, no matter how emphatically I tell it to stay calm. “No. Mostly not because we’re together.” I muster a brief smile, which she returns.

  “Because we can leave whenever we want. They can’t catch us.”

  I nod. “But I am worried about what it means that they sent a universal comm. I want to know how hard Biotech is looking for us and where and what methods they’re using. I want to know what they would do to us if they got us back.”

  She squeezes my hand. “We’re not going to let what happened back there happen ever again.”

  With the quiet strength in her voice, her words make perfect sense, and I believe her. No matter how broken the world feels, when we decide on a common goal, all the pieces start to click back into place around us, like one of those old-school puzzles my mom used to make us play with on summer nights. Whenever we opened a new box, it seemed impossible that they’d all fit into one picture. But they always did if we worked long and hard enough.

  Merrin’s body feels heavier against mine than it did just a second ago. She yawns. “God, I could sleep for a year.”

  “Here,” I say, and I lay back on the bed, pulling her with me. I know that there’s a guys’ room and a girls’ room, and the rules are that we sleep separately. I know that Hub officials could come in any second. I know we have no idea what’s going on here or in the world, and I know that hundreds — maybe thousands — of people across the country are hunting us right this second.

  And I know that this feels like absolutely the right thing to do. The only place I want to be.

  I’ve always followed the Hub’s rules, every single minute of my life, blindly accepting that they wanted what was best for me. But if I can make my own decisions about leaving home and if I’m important enough for the Biotech Hub to put a universal alert out on, then I’m making my own rules. Starting with taking a nap with my girlfriend.

  Her body tucks right into mine, like a missing part I just had to grow tall enough and patient enough for before finding. I pull my glasses off and press my cheek to her temple. Her skin is warm and soft against mine and, amazingly, makes this whole screwed-up situation kind of okay. We don’t say a lot, and I guess we never have. After a few minutes, her head goes heavy on my chest, and I bury my face in her hair, breathing in deep.

  Damn, I love this girl.

  FOUR

  I drift back into consciousness when someone clears their throat, and my eyes snap open. A tall girl with caramel skin and dark, wavy hair streaked with bright red stands over the rickety bed, holding a tray. My arm has snaked around Merrin’s waist, and my fingers are resting just underneath her shirt at her waistband. I quickly yank my hand away. Merrin sits bolt upright and lets out a little squeak, trying to smooth her hair, which has dried in a cowlick from sleeping against my shoulder.

  “They told me you would want something to eat,” the girl says, pulling a little folding table up next to the bed and putting the tray down like she didn’t just wake up two kids sleeping together in the girls’ communal room.

  I look over at Merrin, and her pale face is blushing bright pink.

  “It’s no big deal,” the girl says, smirking at her. “Everyone knows you’re together.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Yeah, we don’t get many new arrivals, so we all watched you walking in on the feed.”

  What the hell kind of loose security do they have here that anyone can catch a glimpse of the feed? That same anxiety from before, when we saw the primitive handscan panels, itches along the back of my neck.

  She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter as long as you’re not gross about it. We have some little kids here.” She holds up a sandwich. “Lunch?”

  We must have been out for a few solid hours if it’s lunchtime already.

  Merrin takes the roll and says, “Thanks. So…really? Little ones?”

  “They can come when they’re eleven. Kind of like Hogwarts.”

  She’s brought a tray full of food; soon I’m shoveling it in as fast as I can swallow, and Merrin’s doing the same. The girl watches us, looking impressed. When we finally slow down, she sticks out a hand toward Merrin, who shakes it, and then me.

  “I’m Hayley. This is my sixth year here,” she says, still with a watchful look.

  Merrin’s eyes get the same sparkle they always do when she’s talking about Supers or even thinking about them. The one I saw right after the first time we flew. “Sorry, I know it’s rude, but…what can you do?”

  Hayley’s lips twist up at the corners a little bit. “Well, they call me Haylstorm.”

  Merrin gasps. “No way.”

  “Yeah, I can make it rain. Or snow. Or hail. One day, I’m gonna whip up a hurricane. Maybe.” She smiles widely now, her teeth showing. “But, really, it’s just moving water around. When I was a kid, I could do crazy shit like walk on water.”

  My gaze snaps to Merrin, and her expression twitches once before she clears her throat. “Really?”

  Merrin’s twin brothers can walk on water, and she loves those guys just as much as I love my sisters. We know the boys are safe — we saw Merrin’s mom and dad taking them away from the Biotech Hub — but I know she’s stil
l thinking about them. Guilt starts to press on my chest. I feel responsible for them, for making the Hub look cool. After the experiments Fisk tried to do on them, it’s probably their worst nightmare now.

  Hayley shrugs. “It’s all about manipulating the H2O. When I was a baby, my parents noticed I could splash it without touching it. I was making water fountains out of standing pools by the time I was five. I could almost always collect it, but it’s only been in the last couple years that I can control its temperature. This year, I’m gonna figure out how to mess with the atoms in each molecule.”

  There’s a charge in Hayley’s voice that sounds the same way Merrin’s determined-face looks. She seems one hundred percent confident that soon she’ll have all the power she ever dreamed of.

  Food forgotten, Merrin asks, “So you’ve been able to improve? Like, practice, and make your ability stronger?”

  “Yeah.” Hayley smiles, and I swear she stands up even taller. “They said I’d never get much stronger by practicing, but I wouldn’t quit. I’m the oldest of eight kids in my family, so being phenomenal at something was my only ticket out of being a professional babysitter for the last six years. Besides, I get way more Super action here than I ever would at any stupid academic school, and I figure I might as well use it.”

  “That’s amazing.”The awe is still apparent on Merrin’s face. “So you want to work at the Social Welfare Hub when you graduate?”

  Hayley shrugs. “Not especially. They just want me to run around the world making it rain for poor peoples’ crops. Which is cool, but I’m already bored, you know?”

  Merrin nods. “Yeah, I know.”

  Merrin does know. I think Merrin was born bored. I try to hold back a smile so she doesn’t think I’m laughing at her, but it’s true. She was probably trying to improve her One before I even gave mine a single thought.

  “So what do you want to do with your Super?” I ask. I can’t think of what controlling water would be very useful for aside from Social Welfare.

  “I don’t know,” Hayley says. “But it’s like I know I was meant to do something different with it. Something more. Something new.”

  Merrin is slack-jawed. “I know exactly how you feel.”

  Hayley gives her a slight smile. “Anyway, they can’t do much more for me here. All they have is a tiny, little testing arena and very limited goals. Now at Clandestine Services? They really push kids — make them practice, grow, be better. That’s what I hear anyway. I’m hoping to get a transfer there, but it’s so damn difficult because all their work is top secret.”

  “So the Hubs really don’t talk to each other?” I ask.

  “They tell us it’s in everyone’s best interests — protects the business and the Supers’ independence and our livelihood. Which is fine if you like the Hub you grew up at.”

  “And that Hub didn’t try to kill you,” I mumble, swiping a napkin across my mouth.

  “Hmm?”

  “Nothing,” Merrin says, shooting me a glare.

  The resulting awkward silence only lasts a few seconds before Hayley strikes up a conversation with Merrin. They chat about the high-tech Hub clothes and Supers and the possibilities for what Hayley could do if she could really fly.

  But my mind can’t rest that easily — it wanders to other things. My mom and dad. My car. Rosie’s homemade pizza. The ridiculous holoteachers back at our school. Basketball. Even my stupid guitar I only ever half-liked to play. Open cornfields, dirt roads, and sunsets. Normalcy.

  I want a life like that, except away from the Hubs. Maybe a quiet, peaceful job where who I am depends on what I contribute and not my genes. I want the Super that Merrin and I share to be used for what we want to use it for, not for what other people want to do with it. I want the first time we figured out we could fly together to last forever.

  The problem is that, every time I imagine that life where I’m perfectly happy, Merrin’s there, too. Even though I know Hub life is what she’s always wanted, what she still wants. I want someplace safe — for all of us — and I don’t know if I’ll ever find that at a Hub. I can’t stop the prickling of my skin or the sense of unease I get from President Eisenhardt. What if she’s like every other Hub official I’ve ever met? What if they’re hiding a secret like the Biotech Hub was?

  Hayley and Merrin are talking about the powers they’ve always wished they had, and something Hayley says jolts me out of my worries about this Hub by another, much bigger, terror.

  “I mean, it is possible to have too many powers, I guess. That can get ridiculous. You wouldn’t even know what to do with yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” Merrin laughs. “No such thing as too many powers.”

  “Well, like that news story from this morning, about those two girls’ genes not being able to handle all their powers. They don’t know how to control them, and their bodies are overloaded. Their DNA can’t accommodate all the mutations or something, so they’re basically unraveling from the inside out.” She shudders.

  No. No, no, no. It can’t be them.

  But I know it is.

  “They have so many abilities that they’re all going haywire. The news people say they either can’t control their own Supers or don’t want to.”

  I knew it was coming. Knew it. My heart drops into my stomach and twists around. She could be talking about anyone, theoretically, but something about the look on her face and the tone of her voice and the fear in my heart tells me what I already know.

  “Yeah. They’re my sisters.” The words come out of my mouth and hang in the air, and the girls stop and stare at me. I wish I could take them back, and it would somehow mean that they’re no longer true.

  “Mierda,” she says.

  Merrin grabs one of my hands in both of hers. “Elias, you don’t know for sure it’s them. It could be — ”

  My head snaps up to Hayley, desperation squeezing my chest. “A couple of college-aged girls?”

  She nods, swallowing. “Not much older than us.”

  Poor girl thought she was just making conversation, and here she is, freaking me out. I keep my voice steady as I ask, “Are they bald? Thin?”

  She holds my gaze, nods slowly. “Yeah. They… Just from the news, I didn’t see much. They were…teleporting?”

  I nod again, trying to get my thoughts together. “Where was it? What happened?”

  “The report said they’d stolen some stuff, and they finally got media attention because they were shaking buildings up. Damaging property. The one shop they busted into — or teleported into, I guess — it didn’t look good. But…uh…they looked worse.”

  I yank my hand away from Merrin’s and run it through my hair.

  She looks hurt for half a second, then turns to Hayley. “Did the news say anything else? Are they alive?”

  But Hayley can’t stop staring at me. “They’re your sisters? What the hell went on at that Hub?”

  “Did they say anything else?” Merrin practically snarls the question. I smile just a little at how badly she wants the answer, too—– at how glad I am that she’s on my side.

  “Just…uh, yeah. There was a Supers expert on the show who was saying they were showing signs of instability. And it sounded…they sounded suspicious. They interviewed someone who was saying shit about Supers in general. It’s a Normal news station, so the regular shit they always say. You know.”

  “No…” I say. My chest burns with the realization that growing up at the Biotech Hub not only meant being poked and prodded with needles and run through tests for so much of my life, but also not being too aware of the greater world around me. We never went on vacation, never watched the news in my house. Just read the Superior newspaper on our tablets. “What do they say?”

  “You really don’t know, do you?” Hayley says, shaking her head. “It’s gotten worse since I was a kid, that’s for sure. The Normals say that if we don’t even understand all our abilities, we may not be safe. That maybe we should be registered or instit
utionalized or drugged. So when Supers act up like your sisters are doing, it makes those alarmists all jumpy.”

  “It’s not like they’re doing it on purpose,” Merrin says quietly.

  “Dammit,” I say. “So this thing with my sisters is already national news.”

  “Yeah,” Hayley says, suddenly looking very uncomfortable. Her eyes are full of pity.

  I try to keep to a rational train of thought. Possible action steps run through my head, but all of them are impossible since we have no money, no transportation, no real home base even. All I know is I need to find my sisters. Make sure they’re all right. Get them to somewhere safe that can help them if that even exists.

  The unsettling feeling I get from this place doesn’t help my anxiousness at all. I can’t explain it, but something about the Social Welfare Hub just doesn’t feel like it can be permanent. Not for us.

  The look on my face must be horrible because Hayley says, “I’ve gotta get back to…uh…things. Dinner’s in a couple hours. Are you guys gonna be okay here?”

  I sink back to sitting, not bothering to answer.

  But Merrin nods and says, “Yeah, he’ll be fine.”

  Hayley’s eyes flash to my face, but I look past her. All I can see is Nora and Lia in my imagination, suffering. Desperation makes me clench my fists. I need to find a way to make it better, to save them. Especially after my parents let all this happen to us — the experimentation, the testing, the childhood spent as lab rats — the only thing the three of us have left is each other. And out of the three of us, I’m the only one who’s strong and stable right now.

  Merrin sits next to me and smoothes her palm over my back, running down its length and back up again. It should comfort me, but instead, it sets me on edge. I need a few seconds to think, to organize my thoughts.

  Her words burst out in a rush. “I know you’re worried about them. I know. And I know we have to do everything we can to help them.”

  “Then we should get out of here, shouldn’t we? I mean, it’s been less than a day since we left the Hub, and look how badly they’re doing.” The pressure in my throat makes my voice raspy, breathless. Thinking about Nora and Lia sick or confused or in pain or — fear shivers down my shoulders — hunted… It’s too much for me to handle. They’re my sisters. They taught me how to ride a bike, the importance of putting on deodorant, and how to talk to girls.