by Simon Archer
“But Judgment surely knows,” I pointed out. “He’s training them. Wouldn’t he encourage Brad to use his powers more honestly within the group?”
Kara shook her head. “Not if it was working for them. Who knows what goes on in Judgment’s head?”
“I don’t like this.” I frowned. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, maybe he doesn’t know, then.” Kara gestured helplessly. “Look, it doesn’t matter right now. The point is that Brad will probably be communicating silently for the group, coordinating their attacks. And that reminds me.”
She created four slim headsets with some devices in her pockets and passed one to each of us.
“So we can communicate,” she explained, putting on one herself.
I set mine on with a troubled furrow of my brow.
“I’ve never fought someone with mind control powers,” I said. “How does that even work?”
Kara shrugged. “Once you know about it, it’s easy to fight it off, at least as far as Brad’s concerned. I saw it back in the trials. He can’t manipulate a strong-willed person once they’re aware of it. He tried mindfucking another student after boasting about his abilities, and it nearly cost him a place at Valcav.”
Andie frowned and tsked disapprovingly. “Kara... you knew the entire year, and didn’t say anything?”
“I thought you all knew,” Kara muttered. “I thought everyone knew.” Her expression shifted into an apologetic twist of her lips. “Sorry, I would have said something sooner if it had come up. I mean, Matt has genuinely been a dick, I just think that it’s possible Brad’s been enhancing it to ridiculous proportions.”
“If that’s true, it could get him expelled,” I pointed out. “Using powers against other students outside of class is illegal. You should have said something.”
“I know, but I didn’t put it all together until today... about him using it against Matt, I mean,” she explained. “To mindfuck your friends takes a true slimeball, and... look, I just didn’t think he could be that bad. The problem is that it makes too much sense. Besides, I can’t prove he’s doing it, and he’d probably take the excuse to threaten me again, and... I’m really sorry, Nick.”
“Wait, what do you mean again?” Now I was angry, but not at her. The idea of him threatening Kara when I wasn’t around...
Kara’s shoulders rose with the tension.
“It’s not like that,” she sighed. “He just hits on me. Like before. When we’re alone, I mean. I think it’s because he knows that I know, you know? I can defend myself, but he hasn’t done anything. It’s all just... talk.”
“I’ll break his arm for real this time,” I muttered.
“Go ahead.” Kara nodded. “I won’t stop you. The point is, Brad’s your real target. He’s going to be pretty aggressive for the final, so he’ll probably try to mindfuck all of us on the get-go. Just be careful, okay?”
We each nodded in turn. I checked the clock overhead and cursed. “Two minutes left. Let’s hurry.”
We scrambled to set some traps. I made a good portion of them lethal and planned to drag both Matt and Jack through at least half of them. Still, we’d have to path it carefully so that Kristen and Brad wouldn’t be killed in the crossfire. They weren’t nearly as durable.
Not that I didn’t care about Brad’s continued survival at this point. The revelations about him spun around my head, and I recalled the fights with Matt earlier in the year from a different perspective. Brad hadn’t been at the movies, but it was possible they’d spoken just before the incident.
Matt had come in oddly aggressive with no real trigger to speak of, aside from what had happened on the beach. And I knew for a fact that Brad had spoken to Matt before our first match in rescue class weeks ago, after which Matt had been ridiculously angry with me for ‘fucking’ with his friends.
Some dark little part of me that I thought I’d left behind on the island sorely wished I’d done a lot more than just threaten to break Brad’s arm all that time ago.
Odd that he hadn’t used his ability to save himself back then... or maybe he had? I had let him go without serious injury. Was that me being nice, or did he do that himself?
I felt like I needed to shower, knowing that he’d been combing through my thoughts this whole year. How do you fight something like that? And for that matter, how long had he been manipulating the twins?
Matt had clearly been a dick before meeting Brad because, during the trials, he’d been very aggressive. Even Kristen had outright tried to kill me with those guns on the obstacle course, so maybe they’d both come to the school a bit angry.
But if they had, why was Kristen now more resistant to the notion? She didn’t seem nearly so angry with me anymore, and in fact, avoided Matt’s little temper tantrums altogether. There was clear tension between the siblings because Kristen disapproved of Matt’s continued vendetta, as well as the cronies he constantly walked around with.
The whole thing was a mess to follow in retrospect, so I left it aside and waited by the starting line for Matt’s crew to enter. Aylin floated above us, and Kara had gone invisible somewhere within the course. Andie waited beside me.
Testing the mic we each wore, I asked, “Can you guys hear me? Thirty seconds.”
“Yes, Starlight.”
“Yeah,” Kara confirmed. “I’m near the acid pit. I’ll play distraction.”
“I’m backing up Nick,” Andie chirped, both in my ear and to the right of me.
“Got it.”
The wall finally came back down, and Matt, Jack, Kristen, and Brad all greeted us from the other side. I planted my hands on my hips and ignored Matt’s sneer to look at Brad. He had such an anonymous face, the sort of man that one combed over in a crowd without a second glance. He hid well behind Matt’s big, proud personality, but now that I knew, I focused on him with a glare.
Confused, Matt twisted around to glance at Brad too. He’d probably been expected me to bring up some retort about our last several arguments.
“Problem, Nicholas?” Brad crossed his arms and lifted a brow at me.
It was meant to get a rise out of me because it was clear he was referencing the name I shared with my father. I didn’t take the bait. Instead, I continued to glare at him instead, my fists balled into fists at either side of me.
“Going to knock him on his ass,” I whispered into the mic. “Andie, take care of the others.”
I rolled through the twins and Jack and tackled Brad to the floor behind them. They didn’t even make it past the starting line. Matt shouted in protest, but Andie twisted her body around him and Jack like a rope and squeezed them together.
Instead of helping them, Kristen rolled her eyes in disgust and marched into the course. As she passed by all of us, Aylin retaliated from the skies and flew in to fight Kristen in a physical battle. Kristen wasn’t having it, and as she rolled out of the way, she ripped a large piece of metal off the wall, shaping it into armor that crunched into place around her body. It was only then that I noticed the entire course was built of metal. The floor underneath Aylin ripped upward and snatched her legs, pinning her in place as she shrieked in surprise.
Kristen was going to be a big problem.
“I’m helping Aylin,” Kara whispered in my ear. “I’m serious, take care of Brad.”
Right afterward, a powerful blast erupted out of thin air, courtesy of a cloaked Kara, and slammed straight into the armor-clad Kristen. The force flung her backward, but then metal came up out of the floor to stabilize her fall. It twisted and floated around her body when she was standing again, and she glared out at the course.
“Where are you, Kara?” Kristen called. “Fight fair and square!”
I heard Kara retaliate with another blast and decided to leave them to it. I punched Brad in the face, who scowled at up at me from where I had him pinned.
“The fuck is your beef, Inferno Boy?” he sneered.
“How long have you been messing with us?” I grow
led. “I know what you can do, Brad!”
“Oh.” He grinned wide and lifted a cool brow at me. He didn’t even seem remotely intimidated by the punch I’d dealt him, and that unnerved me. Was his cowardly personality before merely an act? “Do you really?”
There was no sparkly effect or a twiddle of his fingers. He simply glared at me and then I heard Matt roar in fury. He lashed out at Andie with his claws who cried out in surprise before letting him go. Matt was on top of me a second later, dragging me off Brad and trying to take a bite out of me. I managed to twist away from the bite, but he was relentless as he clawed at me, slicing a long jagged cut on my chest.
I cursed in pain and shoved him away with all my strength. Matt charged me again, but I kicked him in the chest, and he flopped onto his back.
Brad’s chuckle was slightly hysterical as he climbed back to his feet. His eyes were wide with madness.
“That’s a good little pup,” he said to Matt and clapped his hands together. “Rip him a new asshole for me.”
Matt seemed completely unaware of what was happening because he snarled in rage and scrambled after me. I fled back toward the course while Andie fought Jack, who was slinging bricks at her and ranting on about something involving bullies.
Brad, uncontested, planted his hands on his hips and looked proudly over the chaos.
I tried racing after him, but Matt snatched me by the collar and dragged my eyes back to his furious golden gaze. He was partially transformed, his fangs low, his claws extended.
“You’re a fucking monster!” he snarled.
“Me?” I avoided fighting back and tried to free myself from his grasp. “I haven’t even done anything.”
“I hate you!” He was so angry, spit flew out of his mouth.
I grimaced and wiped some of it away. “Brad’s mindfucking you,” I tried. “Concentrate. Fight it. You’re better than this, Matt.”
“Don’t fucking bring him into this!” He shook me, and my shirt tore in protest. I pulled back, letting it tear to shreds in his grasp. Free, I dodged Matt’s inevitable slash, vaulted into the wall, and flipped behind him. Matt, confused, spun around.
I held up my hands in surrender and shook my head at him.
“Matt, you need to stop,” I pleaded. “I’m tired of this! I don’t want to fight you anymore!”
“Your father killed my mother,” he shrieked. “I want to hurt you, to make him feel it! He needs to know what that’s like!”
“What that’s... I know what that’s like!” I felt outrage pour into me out of nowhere. Police tape over the kitchen door... my father’s trembling hands, blood crusted underneath his fingernails where he’d missed cleaning them... he said we were never going to suffer like that ever again, but I spent the next several years in the company of murderers who were proud to serve their new overlord.
“The whole reason he killed your mother was that I lost mine.” My anger swelled as I shouted at him, I couldn’t believe his arrogance. “Death follows me everywhere, Matt. I can’t even go to the fucking carnival with my girlfriend before another crisis shows up, ready to take away yet another person that I care about! It never fucking ends!”
“Boo-fucking-hoo,” Matt snarled.
The fury in me boiled over, but it was Aylin’s struggling voice in my ear that broke the spell before I could do something about it. “Starlight, concentrate! Brad is using you!”
I blinked and suddenly realized the anger for what it was. Startled, I faltered backward on my heel and shook my head. I felt like I’d just been drenched in ice water. Behind Matt, Brad was standing uncontested, looking at me with a cruel little smile.
I pointed at him. “He’s still using us, Matt. Stop letting him do it!”
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Matt snarled, “but I’m going to hurt you now.”
I sighed. It was useless. “Well, at least you decided to warn me this time,” I muttered. “How polite of you.”
I caught a quick glimpse of Kristen slowly climbing up the wall while fighting off Kara, Aylin, and... Andie?
I glanced to my left and saw Jack lying in a pile of bricks at one of the traps. He was slowly reforming himself, but I had some time until that happened.
I turned my attention back toward Matt right as he tackled me. His sharp fangs were inches from my throat, so I rolled us over, and then punched him hard enough in the face that he reeled and blinked dumbly at me.
“Your sister is doing all the work while you’re down here fucking off,” I muttered and gestured up at the wall. “Another disappointment.”
Matt blinked again and looked up at Kristen struggling against the girls. He was confused and pushed me aside with a shake of his head.
“No, I... no, the plan was to... what?”
“Matt.” I drew his attention back by ducking in front of his vision. I held his eyes. “Look at me. You’re being used. Do you understand? Brad is using you.”
“Brad?” Again, his expression turned to doubt before morphing into outrage. “Brad’s nothing! He’s just a—”
“He can mindfuck people,” I cut in. “He’s been in your head this whole year. You’ve got to stop letting him use you. Concentrate. You can feel it, can’t you?”
“Shut up, Nick,” he snarled. “I’m not interested in your lies!”
Just as I thought I was making progress, Matt was a snarling, rabid mess once again. I sighed and raced off, and he inevitably followed. I led him into a nasty buzz-saw trap, and Matt shrieked in pain when one of the saws cut deep into one of his arms. I hit the switch to release the saws and tsked at him.
“So again you’ve decided to fight me rather than listen to reason or help your sister. You really are a piece of work.”
Kara’s voice was strained in my ear. “Actually, Nick, it’s possible Brad’s hold on him is too strong. He’s had an entire year to build up the bond. The only way he’s getting out of this is if Kristen does something.”
“What? Why?”
“For one, it’s his sister, and for another, they’re twins. They power share, remember? They probably have some kind of subconscious psychic connection. She can kick him free.”
I stepped back as Matt charged me again only to meet another trap. This time, he was set on fire, and he shrieked in agony.
“Then why isn’t she down here?!” I asked.
“I will take care of it,” Aylin chirped.
I glanced over at the wall climb and saw Aylin dip from the rafters to grab Kristen and knock her off the tower. She caught her again a moment later and managed to fight off Kristen’s struggles before dropping her between Matt and me. A moment later, Andie and Kara had joined us, and we all surrounded the twins with varying levels of concern.
The flames had gone out, and Matt was already healing again. Only this time, when he tried to charge me blindly, Kristen pulled at his arm and held him back.
“Brother, what’s your issue?” Kristen was confused. The metal surrounding her body peeled away, and she looked from her brother to us, and back to Brad. “Why the fuck are you all looking at us like that?”
“Brad’s been mindfucking Matt all year,” I explained. “You need to stop it.”
“Brad...? No, Brad’s just—”
Suddenly, Matt twisted around and slashed at his sister, drawing blood. Kristen cried out in shock and immediately backpedaled. He was a beast beyond all reason now and tried to strike her again. She swerved out of the way with fluid ease and pinned him in place with the metal she’d been using as armor. He peeled it away a moment later, using her own abilities against her.
Claws extended in Kristen’s fingers, and she slashed back at her brother with a snarl. That’s when I noticed her earlier wound had healed. She was tapping into his powers now.
“What the fuck, Matt?” she snarled.
“It’s Brad,” I repeated. “You’ve got to get through to him!”
Brad was gone. He’d disappeared somewhere in the chaos. Next to me, A
ndie was glaring at Kara. They nearly struck each other before I pulled Andie’s fist back, and Aylin snatched Kara’s.
“Stop it,” I told the two of them. “It’s a trick, remember? Focus.”
They both blinked owlishly at me, and I gestured toward Aylin with pleading eyes. “For the love of God, keep them under control! I’m going to find Brad and kill him.”
Aylin shook her head. “Knocking him unconscious will do, Starlight.”
Kristen was still fighting Matt when I left them behind with the former trying to convince the latter to stop being ridiculous. It fell on deaf ears. I raced through the course, heading towards Adelaide’s still dangling cage. She was still distracted by her phone, utterly oblivious to the drama unfolding below her.
Brad was likely to go after the rescue with us distracted and claim victory for himself. I didn’t spot him on the climb, though.
A punch from Jack’s solid brick fist knocked the wind out of me, and I was sent flying across the floor. I tried to stand, but Jack’s hit did a lot of damage, and it was a struggle to get back on my feet.
“You’re dead meat!” He marched toward me with a furious furrow of his brick brows. “Imma kill you.”
I sighed as I managed to stand with a slight wobble. “Jack, I really don’t have time for this.”
“You’re dead,” he repeated.
Big, slow, and devastating, Jack lumbered toward me with one brick fist raised in the air. He swung at me, but I dodged it easily enough before backpedaling toward the acid pit. It smelled really caustic, and while the acid would probably seriously injure Matt, if not outright kill him, Jack would probably get a nice etching at best.
“Last warning.” I waggled my finger at him. “You really should listen to me.”
“I ain’t gonna listen to some stupid Gateon!”
“Your loss.” I shrugged. When Jack charged me like the idiot he was, I sidestepped him. He tripped into the acid and shattered into a big pile of bricks again. Even in the pool, I saw them gathering as he slowly repaired himself.