Evan opens a silver refrigerator door and grabs two Gatorades from a shelf that is all Gatorade, all lemon-lime flavor. He takes a seat across from me at the bar/faux aquarium and slides me a Gatorade. The fake water ripples as the bottle moves across the smooth surface.
I crack open the lid and take a sip. “Why are they all lemon lime?”
The intensity of his stare could border on rude. “That’s the best flavor.”
He drinks, and I drink again, and this goes on for a while. Him sitting there staring at me, drinking his best flavor of Gatorade and me returning the stare, drinking mine and thinking that orange is actually the best flavor of Gatorade. But now isn’t the time to bring that up.
Eventually the bottles are empty and the fish find them fascinating on the countertop, and I can’t keep up the staring thing any longer. I glance down at my hands. “So, what happens now?”
“Hell if I know.” Evan inhales a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “We haven’t been alive during any other lockdowns.” I don’t look up for his reply. Instead, I stare at the chips in my nail polish. My subconscious nags me in the back of my mind. Nail polish is the last thing that should concern me. But I want to think about nail polish. It’s easy to think about nail polish.
The nag grows stronger as I stare at my cuticles. The question on my mind blurts out of me, causing the room to echo with my sudden outburst of sound. “Why aren’t you asking more questions? Don’t you want to know more details?”
Evan’s elbows rest on the counter as he peels at the label on his bottle. His eyes fill with apprehension. With deliberate slowness, he says, “I’m not sure what to ask. Of course I want to know. But I’m not asking because I don’t want to see that look on your face again.”
“What look?”
He sweeps golden hair from his eyes, pushing it behind his ears. His attention focuses back on the plastic wrapper. “The look you had when you said Pepper was dead.”
He watches me in silence and for a moment I think I might tell him, in detail, everything that’s haunting me. But I can’t relive Pepper’s death. I can’t tell Evan that the murdering psychopath Aurora is looking for me.
I drop my forehead into my hands and wriggle my fingers through my hair. “I feel like I’m about to lose my mind.”
“That’s good news.” Evan’s hand touches my arm. Goosebumps prickle my skin. “If you only feel like it, then you haven’t lost your mind yet.”
“You’re not funny.”
He smiles. “I know what will take your mind off the lockdown.”
“A lobotomy?”
“That would take your mind off everything.” He crosses the room, motioning for me to follow. He pulls open the top drawer of a dresser near his bed and grabs for something with his back to me, and then swirls around with a flourish of his hand, revealing a silver box tied closed with a purple bow. “Your birthday present.”
I hold out my hand and he drops the box in my palm. “You didn’t have to buy me a present.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t get to give it to you at your party. And I didn’t buy it. I made it.”
“Oh?”
His crooked smile makes me smile. He’s right. My mind is officially off the topic of the lockdown. I untie the ribbon and lift the lid—but his hand is on top of mine with supernatural speed, holding it closed.
“I have a disclaimer.” He gnaws on his bottom lip as I stare at the black hair tie on his wrist. “Before you open it, you need to know that it’s totally not practical and actually, it kind of sucks.”
I lift an eyebrow. “You’re giving me a sucky present?”
“It is absolutely sucky, but it was my first invention.” The way he lingers on the word first makes me feel like he’s a part of an inside joke I don’t know about. “You remember, right?”
I shake my head.
“You don’t? Really? You have to remember.” He stumbles over his words, dragging a hand through his hair while shaking his head. With a shrug, he takes his hand off the box.
With the box free, I pull it to my chest. “Guess I only remember important things,” I say with a smirk, wrapping my fingers around the lid.
“You know, I’ve heard stories about your selfishness.” His words catch me off guard. I drop my gaze from the silver box and look at him, eyebrows raised. His eyes squint in a mock glare. “But this is the first I’ve seen of it.”
“I’m not selfish. Who told you that?”
He closes an invisible zipper on his mouth. “Doesn’t matter. I’m crushed though, truly.” He clenches his chest and I roll my eyes. “I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
I cross my arms, also in mock annoyance. At least, I think we’re just messing with each other. Friendly sarcasm and all that. “I can’t imagine why I’d bother remembering someone who quit Hero training.”
“Ouch.”
“Why did you quit?”
“That’s a story for another day.” He nudges the box. “Just open your stupid present.”
“With pleasure,” I say with exaggerated chivalry. I pull the lid off the box. Two silver rings rest on a pillow of foam. The metal bands are crudely hammered and polished. A glass disk rests in the center of each ring, etched with the King City crown logo. “I … er,” I say, slipping one of them on my index finger. “Thank you. Why are there two?”
“Let me explain.” He takes the other ring and slips it on his finger. “It’s a communication device. I can’t believe you don’t remember this. You made me promise to invent you something.”
“Seriously?” I don’t remember much of Evan except that he was the thin kid in Hero training who always had his nose in a book and typically ate lunch alone. I’m sure I talked to him at some point but I don’t exactly have a habit of asking nerdy guys to invent things for me.
He scratches the back of his neck. It’s not hard to see that he’s hiding disappointment. “My last day of Hero training. You said something to me, remember?”
I shake my head. “I was twelve. Why would I?”
His smile falters. “Never mind. Basically you called me a loser for dropping out of Hero training and said I better invent something to help the real Heroes do their job.”
I snort. “That was rude of me, I’m sorry.”
He ignores my apology, focusing on the ring on his index finger. “So this is the first thing I invented. It was supposed to be for Heroes, but it’s incredibly flawed and useless in the real world. Anyhow, I want you to have it. You inspired it.”
“So what does it do?” I twist my hand in front of my face, captivated by the shiny glass surface on my finger.
“You’re wearing it wrong, for starters.” He takes my hand and twists the ring upside down. “The diamond has to press against your skin.”
“This is a diamond?” I freak. A diamond that’s bigger than my thumbnail. He laughs. “Yeah. Diamonds are the only material that will transfer thought vibrations into our veins.”
I don’t exactly hear what he says because I can’t stop staring at the gorgeous rock on my finger. The facets reflect every light in the room. The King City crown beams with pride under the diamond, multiplying several times in the facets as I twist my finger around. “The first time a guy gives me jewelry, and it’s a freaking diamond,” I murmur. I glance up at Evan and find him staring at me with a weird look on his face. “Shouldn’t you be on one knee?”
His cheeks flush a glorious and embarrassing red. “Diamond is the only material that would work. And it’s only a ring because of happenstance and—besides—”
“Happenstance? What kind of nerd says words like happenstance?”
Evan lets out an exasperated sigh. “I can’t catch a break from you.”
“Sorry. Please go on. Tell me about this sucky invention of yours.”
“Like I said.” He takes my hand again and flips the ring around. “It’s a communication device between you and the person wearing the matching ring, which is me in this case. The diamond need
s to press against your skin like this.” He folds my fingers so that I’m making a fist. “It doesn’t have to be your palm. You could press the diamond to your chest or your arm or whatever. The palm is convenient for this demonstration.”
He flips his ring inward and wriggles his eyebrows. “You ready?”
I roll my eyes. “Ready.”
He closes his fingers. Hello there, Maci.
“What the shit?” I gasp, taking several steps back until I crash into a column. Evan gives me a coy smile. It’s a communication device. Try it.
“How are you doing this? You’re in my head.”
Evan sighs. Again, his lips don’t move but I hear his voice in my mind. I’m talking to you through my powers. Concentrate on the vibrations in your chest and tell me something.
“I—” I say, before snapping my mouth shut. I take a breath and close my eyes, focusing on the central power source just behind my ribcage. I can’t believe this is happening. Can you hear me?
He crosses his arms over his chest, a smug smile filling his gorgeous face. Loud and clear.
You invented a mind reader. This is insane, Evan. You’ll be famous.
“It’s not a mind reader,” he says aloud. “I can only hear what you choose to tell me. And I won’t be famous because I’m not making any more of them. They’re incredibly flawed.”
“How so?”
“The idea was to create a way for Heroes to communicate with each other during an attack, so that information can be transmitted without the villain hearing a word. However, there’s no way to make the rings exclusive to each other. If every Hero had a ring they would all hear everyone’s thoughts at once—it would quickly become a cluttered mess in everyone’s mind. So, anyhow …” He takes off his ring and holds it out to me. “I’m fulfilling my promise to invent you something. They’re the only two in the world, so whomever you give it to will always be just a thought away.”
I push his hand back. “Keep it. It’s your invention. You should keep the other half. We can be pen pals. Er, thought pals.”
He puts it back on his finger. Thank you.
I squeeze my fingers tightly around my ring. Best birthday present ever.
When I open my eyes, it doesn’t feel like I’m waking up in the morning. You can’t exactly wake up if you never went to sleep. The foreboding weight of fear and anxiety rests in my chest, having only slightly lightened during my hours of lying in Evan’s bed, listening to his steady breathing from the couch across the room.
The breathing is gone now and the couch is empty. I grab my MOD from the pillow next to me and switch it on, only to be met with the blank screen of a MOD still in lockdown. The only valuable information this worn-out piece of plastic can give me is the time. Five in the morning.
My body aches as I push myself up in Evan’s bed. It’s a weird sensation—dull throbbing pain coursing throughout my arms and legs every time I move. I’ve never felt pain longer than a few seconds after being injured. This injury just won’t go away. I touch my forehead and wince. So much for healing myself. A fleeting panic grips my mind as I wonder if my powers are somehow reduced after using so much of it to regrow my own skull.
What if I managed to grow bone but sacrificed my powers in the process? My heart races at the thought. That can’t be possible. I’ve never even heard of anything like that. The lady in the medical ward did say I was extraordinary. She seemed downright obsessed with my ability to heal myself. What if I did ruin my powers?
Life wouldn’t be worth living. You’d be worthless.
I shake my head to clear the thought. But because thoughts aren’t physical, they don’t go away. With an overwhelming panic I’ve never felt before, I leap out of bed, ignoring every pain shooting through my body. I close my eyes as the vibrating power beneath my rib cage roars to life at my internal command. Power flows through my arms and legs, reassuring me with its electrical pulsing warmth. I am a Super and I am not losing my power. I will not allow myself to think that way.
Evan’s voice catches me off guard. You won’t allow yourself to think what way?
Huh? Ugh, I forgot I was wearing the ring. Embarrassment consumes me. How long had he been listening? What did I think? I can’t remember.
I hear his voice again, a single sound formed into a word. Ha.
With a shudder, I flail my hand and let the ring fall to the bed. This would be the most embarrassing gift ever, but having Evan read my thoughts barely compares to the Surprise Beach Party Humiliation so generously given to me by my best friend and brother.
The mere thought of Crimson and Max sends a shriek of pain through my heart, and it’s not from the soreness in my muscles or the residual embarrassment I feel when thinking of that night. I have no idea if they are okay. I’ve already witnessed one murder, how many more have happened that I don’t know about? Lockdown is supposed to be a way to hunker down with your loved ones and wait out the danger. Instead it has me isolated and completely helpless. I wouldn’t be here if I had listened to Dad in the first place. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if he disowns me after this.
In an effort to take my mind off all the ways that I have completely and irrevocably screwed shit up, I give myself a tour of Evan’s bedroom. Last night Evan had tried to take my mind off things by playing every funny movie he owned. A few hours of Will Ferrell later, it had been all I could do to let him pull me by the hand into a darkened room and drop me on the bed. I hadn’t even crawled under the sheets.
The dimly lit room’s only source of light is the not-yet-risen sunlight coming from the narrow sweeping window at the top of the wall. It reminds me of windows in a basement of a human’s home—only a foot tall and so high up you can’t see out of it. This is somewhat odd, because every other floor has walls made of glass.
Every floor in the building is circular and from what I gather, Evan’s … er … apartment?—Living space?—takes up one half of this floor. He told me the other guy he works with lives on the other side, but he’s been on vacation for a while.
Evan’s massive kitchen with his high-tech gadgets of coolness take up about a third of the semi-circle, and a hallway full of artifacts and one Monet painting lead into his bedroom-slash-living area space. There’s a bed, king sized and ruffled from my sleeping on it, a couch that Evan slept on last night, and a bunch of boy-ish type things everywhere else.
His computer desk has three glass monitors and a dozen Star Wars toys. His television is bigger than I am tall and flanked on all four sides with movies and video games, and every possible video gaming system known to man. Plus two questionable-looking consoles that look homemade.
Is this what normal Supers my age do? Have kickass rooms with amazing stuff? My room at home has a bed, a TV that’s hardly ever watched, and well—stuff that’s been there since my childhood. Hero training consumed my entire school life and all of my free time. Yet here I am, aged sixteen and not a Hero. It was all for nothing.
After poking my head into the kitchen and the weird artifact hallway and not finding Evan, I retrieve the ring from the bed and try to clear my mind of every thought except for one. Where are you?
I’m outside. Walk through the bookshelf.
Come again?
Evan’s normally raspy voice is silky inside my head. Bookshelf. Walk through it. See you soon.
Glancing around, I notice the bookshelf for the first time. In the far corner of the room, diagonally across what would be the sharp corner of the pie slice that is Evan’s bedroom, it spans from floor to ceiling about five feet wide. Every bit of shelf space has a book shoved into it.
As pathetic as it may be, I suddenly feel very small and ignorant. Heroes don’t read books, and I’d grown up trying to be a Hero. Sure, I have a bookshelf at home too. It has all six editions of the Hero manual on it. Along with an assortment of Blu-rays with the shrink-wrap still on them, hair accessories, and random crap Crimson and I collected on that one vacation we took two years ago.
Evan�
�s bookshelf is stocked with comic books, books about comic books, an entire collection of Batman novels, and every single copy of the Hardy Boys. With a laugh, I reach for the large hardback book with the title this isn’t a secret passageway and pull.
Soundlessly, the massive bookshelf swings open, revealing a hallway that leads to a balcony. The cool early morning air brushes against my face as I take a tentative step onto the glass floor. Evan laughs. He’s standing with his elbows resting on the balcony’s railing, which is also glass, so from my view it appears like he’s floating in air with his body leaning toward the ocean.
I grip the railing. “What kind of freak would design a balcony like this?”
He swings a thumb toward his chest. “This one. Would you like some coffee?”
I decline with a wave of my hand. “You’re drinking coffee? At five in the morning? I thought maybe you were out here because you couldn’t sleep.” I lower my head, get scared of the empty air below me, and refocus my attention on my hands instead. “I’m sorry I took your bed last night. I bet it sucks sleeping on the couch.”
“I slept fine.” I watch him as he gazes out at the sun-tinted ocean. He inhales a long gust of air, closing his eyes as if relishing in the salty taste. When he exhales, I feel his power level weaken. “People waste the best part of the day sleeping. Look,” he says, pointing at the sun as it pokes over the horizon. I glance at it but then look back at Evan because the expression of pure joy on his face is more fascinating than a sunrise. He smiles as the sun reflects in his eyes. “Most people are asleep right now. So it’s like the sun is rising just for you and me.”
“Evan?” I ask.
He closes his eyes as a cool breeze washes over his face. “Hmm?”
“Why did you quit Hero training?”
His eyes fling open and steal a glance at me before he closes them again, this time pressing a hand to his forehead. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“No, you said that was a story for another time. Now is another time.” I press my shoulder to his, trying to be friendly and persuasive, not mean and demanding. He groans.
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