Two

by LeighAnn Kopans

  Even though I’m finding that really hard to believe.

  As I’m headed toward her, though, a muffled scream comes from one of the torched-up, devastated corners of the arena. Leni sits tied to a chair, her feet tied together. When she sees me, she moans and looks sad and sorry and terrified all at the same time.

  Daniel’s six feet away, tied to a chair in the same position, looking defeated.

  Fisk’s men have already caught them. Again. God, this is like a bad déjà vu nightmare. They must have been waiting for them this time. Leave it to Fisk to learn from his mistakes.

  And then the devil himself appears between the chairs where Leni and Daniel are tied up.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “You’ll never learn, will you?” Fisk looks right at me and then bursts into so many copies of himself so quickly I can’t think straight. Probably because my head feels like it’s being divided into a million pieces.

  I wince and grunt. “Which one of you is actually Fisk? Or are you all just creepy-ass ghost Fisks?”

  “Seems like the only ones who could tell are your sisters, and they’re not doing too well, are they Mr. VanDyne? If you had stopped to listen to me for just a few moments, you would have known the only safe place for them was here. With us. After all the experiments they’d been through…”

  “All the experiments you put them through,” I snarl as an image rips through my mind. Back at Clandestine Services, Gallagher and Merrin’s mom watch as Vera double-checks that she has all the right components.

  Gallagher draws Vera’s hands to his waist and wraps his around her back. “I’ll be back soon.”

  Vera’s lip trembles, and a tear rolls down her cheek. “I can’t let you leave me here, Gallagher, I don’t… What if you don’t…”

  Gallagher grabs hold of her face and says, “Listen to me. You start on that reversal. Doctor Grey and I go back now, and I swear to you I will see you back here when all this is over. Understand?”

  She nods quickly, and he kisses her forehead. She pulls him down to her lips and kisses him hard. Then he looks into her eyes, reaches back for Merrin’s dad, who shuffles over to the two of them. Gallagher wraps one arm around Doctor Grey’s back, and they’re all gone.

  Four minutes and five seconds.

  I feel Gallagher teleport back into the hall behind me, right outside the arena’s door. He’s back and hopefully, given his spy training, waiting for the moment we need him most.

  I only wish transference worked for everyone , that I could send him my thoughts just as he could hear mine. I’d warn him, Stay out of here, man. It’s not good.

  Fisk’s sneering, nasal voice breaks my thoughts. “You ruin everything for everyone, don’t you Mr. VanDyne? Taking your sisters out of the only environment where they could survive. Forcing Merrin here to ruin her chances of becoming more than a One forever. Now Merrin’s abilities are completely gone, one of your sisters is out of control, and the other is being ripped apart by her abilities. All because you were too selfish to give up your power. All because you were too selfish to be a test subject here.”

  “I wanted the best for them. I wanted to keep them safe.” Three minutes and forty seconds.

  “Well, you failed. And now the place you shunned is the one place that Supers will even exist anymore. You’ll wish you joined us when you had the chance, Elias. But now, you’ll just get cured like the rest of them.”

  Merrin sinks to her knees inside the empty tank, now a holding cell. Her hands and forehead slide down against the glass wall and her shoulders sag forward.

  The line of Fisks stretches between Leni and Daniel, circling the whole arena. The main Fisk speaks up again. “You see, we tested the injectable formula on Merrin here. Now she’s just as useless as you were. The gas works much more quickly, but this injectable… It has so many uses. Tranquilizer guns, self-defense, prisoner punishment. In large doses, it starts negating more genes than just the mutated ones. All of them lose functionality. The government doesn’t know that our research led to this particular discovery, but it is, in fact, a quick, untraceable death. It’s almost a little…”

  “Poetic?

  I turn around, and Hayley’s got a crazy, sick smile on her face. “You trying to mess with little kids’ genes here? Well, I know something about grown men who mess with little kids. They’re cowards.” She spits in Fisk’s direction. “I guess they didn’t destroy all of your stupid biotech shit last time. If it’s because I wasn’t here to help them, I very sincerely apologize.”

  “No,” I say, my gaze darting between Merrin and Fisk. “It was because we thought that some people here still had a shred of decency.” I smile sadly. I may lose my power, but at least everyone else will be safe. Except Fisk. I’m ready to hurt him. “Guess what, Fisk. We figured out your plan. Found the components for creating the Cure scattered all over this place.”

  Fisk’s face freezes, the smile falling from his mouth. “I… There are no components. There’s the injectable and the vapor, which we’re about to release in…oh…” He checks his cuff. “Three-and-a-half minutes.”

  “Why the hell are you releasing the first cure to little kids? What the hell is wrong with you?” Leni half-shouts, half-sobs from her chair in the corner as she struggles against the ropes. I know her little brothers are on her mind.

  Fisk shrugs. “It’s simple. We know we do the most important things for Supers and Normals in this country, and we get far too few resources. In the meantime, the government is getting concerned about the proliferation of Supers in the general population. We cover up their shoddily conducted experiments with the Cure; they grant our Biotech Hub officials immunity. We become the only Supers around, and we get paid handsomely. Simple supply and demand, mixed with a little extortion.

  “We start with the littlest ones. Gentle, easy, in large part because their abilities haven’t fully manifested yet. Painless. The President of the United States feels good about it. Sees that there’s no suffering. As Merrin has proven to us just in the last couple of hours, we can also provide options for more…immediate results.”

  “There may be no suffering,” Hayley snarls, “but there is plenty of damage. Our Supers make up who we are. And the other Hubs don’t spend all their time dicking around in labs. They’re doing stuff. They’re helping people. Normals and Supers.”

  “And they’re getting too damn much money to do it. The only worthwhile research is in biotech. That’s where we will change the world. But don’t worry, we’ve spent years getting our dispersal system into every place where there is any concentration of Supers. It’ll be over soon enough.”

  He smiles down at Daniel, then pins me with his cold fish-eyes. “So I’ve got two half-fire kids, an air pusher, and a Normal in a tank. I’m going to have my guards put in with Miss Grey so we can hit you with the Cure at the same time as those California kids, and then I’ll clean up my Hub, collect my first check, and call it a day.”

  He looks smug and self-satisfied and I want nothing more than to kill him, but I take a deep breath and will myself to sound just mildly interested. “It all comes from one computer system, huh? The command to release it?”

  Fisk shakes his head and smiles condescendingly at me. “I’m not sure how you think you could destroy this system with your sad half-powers, boy, but no. There are servers upon servers in heavy lockdown in several locations in this building. And however you got the information about where the Cure prototypes and steps are, you’re not going to get that information about the servers. You’d have to destroy this whole damn building to do that.”

  “Well, just for shits and giggles, let’s start with this floor, huh?” Hayley takes one look at the other end of the arena, where the swimming pool is full of sparkly blue water and winks. A surge of energy runs through me from the soles of my feet through my torso and out through my arms. Hayley watches Fisk watching her. We both know he wants to see what she can do, and the guards that are stationed everywhere are waiting for
his command. Just like last time.

  Hayley looks straight in my eyes. When the water in the pool starts to bubble, get down. It’ll happen fast after that, but they’ll be shooting at me. Drag Leni and Daniel’s chairs together, let them burn out of those bonds. Then get inside that tank.

  She’s right. Those tanks are made for the testing arena, and they’re everything-proof. It may be Merrin’s prison, but we’ll have to put ourselves inside it to stay safe.

  My eyes flick to the back door, and she follows.

  Gallagher’s right outside, isn’t he?

  I do a tiny, quick nod.

  Then hopefully he’ll get to me and teleport me out before I get hit.

  My eyes widen.

  She rolls her eyes. Oh, please. You should know by now I live for this.

  A twitch and a jump in my own hand tell me Hayley’s doing something with hers. The water starts to bubble, and that’s when I do it, just like she asked. I dive toward Leni’s chair and slam it into Daniel’s so that their thighs touch.

  “Burn out!” I hiss. “Go for the tank.”

  In seconds, they’ve both gone up in flames and have broken free from their bonds. I glance at my cuff. One minute forty-five seconds. I make a dive for the cube. Merrin’s standing at the door now, waiting for anything to happen. Staring at us, tears streaming down her cheeks, looking like she’s going to throw up. Not looking like Merrin at all.

  When I look the other direction, back at the pool, all I see is a wave of water. The Fisks, who had been scrambling in our direction, see it at the same time I do, because they all call at once, “Fire! Get the girl!”

  I reach the door to the tank, wrenching it open with just enough time for Leni and Daniel to duck in and for me to shut the door. Merrin falls into me, her arms circling my waist and her cheek pressing into my chest. She’s perfect, absolutely perfect. Brave and sad and determined. And here. But my eyes are glued to Hayley, and everyone else’s are, too.

  The laser guns all shoot at the exact moment the wave crashes down on everyone — everyone, that is, except for us. Hayley has a swimming pool’s worth of water swirling and crashing around Fisk and his guards, who do their best to stay afloat while still shooting. The glowing red paths of laser gunshots arc through the water every which way.

  But nothing can touch the Haylstorm. She’s standing in a dome held up by one palm while her other hand swirls the water all around the room. The wall around her is so strong that the laser beams are bouncing off of it. But the more closely I look, the smaller the dome gets, the tighter the space around her, and the more her body trembles and her face twists.

  She’s not going to be able to keep this up for much longer.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Waves slosh around the arena’s command center, which displays the Cure release countdown. The clock ticks down to forty seconds to release, then thirty, then twenty, and finally stops at eighteen seconds. A hot breath of relief whooshes out of me. The water finally shorted the thing out. The machine screams that the gas release sequence has been aborted, but the soaked and sputtering Fisks only care about getting to Hayley. Only care about destroying her. Even though they’re only kinetic energy, and don’t have too much actual power, it’s still a damn scary sight.

  At that moment, the waves whip with surprising frenzy, so much so that we can’t see very much at all outside our own glass sanctuary.

  In fact, we can only see one thing: The dome surrounding Hayley’s figure finally crashes all around her, and she struggles to stay afloat while the red laser beams shoot off all around her. The water crashes against the walls of the tank. She’s still going. Her arms work in a cyclone motion; all I can see is her arms flailing widely.

  Then, all of a sudden, there are two dark figures in the water, one of whom has a black flak jacket and a clenched jaw as he struggles to wade through the churning waves.

  “It’s Gallagher!” Leni cries, clinging to Daniel, who clutches her upper arm with knuckles turning white.

  “I can’t believe it,” I hug Merrin tight to me with the other arm. “He made it. That bastard did it.”

  Then, just as quickly as Gallagher arrived, he’s gone. The lasers stream through the water at nothing.

  The waves lapping at the glass tank calm quickly. It’s no longer crystal blue; it’s tinged with pink, and then a darker red where a severed arm floats nearby.

  “Oh my God,” Leni gasps. “It’s Hayley’s arm! They got her.”

  Daniel turns around and vomits. I can barely look myself, and the girls’ expressions are grim.

  There’s been a high cost already, but we got the Cure. Vera and Merrin’s mom got all the components they needed. Merrin’s standing here, next to me, alive. If we could only get out…

  And then I look at the Fisks. There are still ten of them, wading through the water toward us. The one who was doing all the talking, the one who has a weird, creepy gleam to his eyes is the real Fisk. And he’s still alive.

  He still knows each and every step it took to create a formula to rob Supers of what the government never wanted to give them.

  I’m staring straight into the eyes of the Supers’ greatest enemy. We may be a freak science experiment gone wrong, but we are not test subjects.

  Not anymore.

  “Is Gallagher coming back?” Daniel asks in a weak voice.

  “Yeah. And he’d better get here soon because I have no idea when Clandestine Services is gonna blow this whole damn Hub to smithereens.”

  The eighteen seconds that were left on the countdown have come and gone, but we’re still here. My heart stops at the realization that we should have exploded by now — especially if CSH was going to bomb Biotech before that Cure release.

  So why didn’t we?

  “There’s gotta be some way we can toast Fisk’s ass for good this time before we go,” Leni says, a hard look in her eye, one I don’t think I’ve ever seen there before. “This can’t ever happen again.”

  Merrin’s mom stands at the door to the arena, watching the whole scene. Her mouth is drawn in tense amusement. “Good afternoon, Julian.”

  Fisk sneers. “Doctor Katherine Grey. How come I’m not surprised to see you here? I knew women were too weak to perform these experiments. The attachment to the children is too strong. You can’t help letting it cloud your judgment.”

  “You know, I really am glad to see so many of you survived. Because what happened last week? That was nothing. You’ll have to excuse my kid for not doing a thorough enough job destroying this hell hole. I’m here to help her out this time.”

  A smile cracks across Merrin’s face.

  “So where’s the mainframe, Fisk?” Doctor Grey’s voice is cold and so demanding I’d answer her myself if I knew.

  “It’s not on this level. You’ll never find it.”

  “It’s a shame really. All this good work. I’m glad that those of us who really cared about what we were doing had the wherewithal to take the information out with us. Still, CSH will do whatever it has to do to eliminate the Cure.”

  “CSH? You’re with those traitors?”

  “I think when I define traitor, I’m going to go with the definition of ‘the asshole who tried to get me to kill all my kids for an experiment.’ That sounds about right, don’t you think?”

  Gallagher pops into the cube, and we all jump. Fisk’s gaze darts to him. His eyes widen in a split-second as he realizes what Gallagher is about to do, and he lunges for the console, punching buttons to get the door to open.

  “Fire!” he screams at the dozen or so guards that are left. “Get as many of them as you can!”

  We stand in a huddle, all of us wincing with every shot that hits the glass wall, even though we know the tank is bulletproof.

  “Can you take all of us at once?” I ask Gallagher.

  “It’ll certainly be flexing my muscles.”

  We gather around him, wrapping our arms. I swear my fingers digging in under Merrin’s ribs will leave br
uises, but I don’t care. Suddenly my limbs feel like they’re on fire again, and I have to remind myself it’s not actually happening to me. I look up. Flames lick at Doctor Grey’s hands.

  “Flame on, Mom,” Merrin whispers.

  Merrin’s mom shoots through the arena at top speed, morbidly plunging through the flimsy half-matter bodies of Fisk’s dupes, setting the whole computer system on fire. Setting fire to everything.

  It’s slow this time, the melting-away feeling of teleportation. It was so much faster with only two, but I guess it’s exponential. I feel the tremor of Gallagher’s power as we start to fade, and the last thing I see is Fisk’s body trapped beneath a collapsed desk. He pushes ineffectually at it, his eyes wide and terrified, his expression one of anguish and surprise.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the image of Hayley’s severed arm settling in the half-inch of water that remains on the floor.

  And then a great boom reverberates through the whole room.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  When I blink again, we’re standing in the middle of the CSH arena, but I only have eyes for Merrin, standing right beside me. She wraps both arms around my waist, and I clutch her to me, certain I’m never going to let her go again. When her body presses up against mine, I feel all her pain, like a river flowing from her center into mine, and my heart twists and drops and hurts like hell.

  I’m nothing, I’m worthless, just a stupid Normal. He destroyed me.

  At that, I grip her upper arms and hold her out so I can look at her.

  “Stop that. Someone like him could never destroy you.”

  But we’re interrupted when Gallagher doubles over, coughs like his lungs are about to come up for a few horrible seconds. His legs give out, and he falls back. Hard.

  Two seconds later, Masters is standing over us, roaring in Gallagher’s face. “How could you be so damn reckless? Don’t you know the danger you were in? What the hell were you thinking? That mission was so far from authorized I can’t even begin to think of what consequences I could heap on you.”