Ten seconds later, Ernest was shouting at the top of his lungs. Panicked. Truly panicked. Mal ignored the whipping branches, pushing his way through the growth. It thinned, then opened up to a pebbly shore.
The surface of the lake was dark and still, reflecting the round disk of the full moon and a ripple of ghostly blue light.
Ernest had gathered that light up in his arms, and he was carrying it toward Mal. That was his initial, hysteria-fueled impression, at least.
Ernest moved slowly. Carefully. He had Maksim in his arms, bloodied and stripped to the waist. Mal didn’t need to inspect any closer, didn’t need to ask, to know that Maksim needed medical attention. It was written all over Ernest’s face, his nervous sweat shining in the light of Maksim’s rapidly fading glow.
“Is he— ?” Mal began, hesitant.
“Mostly with it, but he’s in rough shape,” Ernest said, quickly. “And he saw Zip.”
Never before had four words filled Mal with such relief and such dread.
Saw, past tense. How long had it been already?
“Didn’t even see it coming,” Maksim mumbled, blinking sluggishly. His voice was thick, his speech slurred. There was something wrong with his face. The left side was already swelling in ugly colors. He hiccupped, miserable. “She saw me, so she didn’t— she didn’t see ‘em. It got her, and it dragged her away, and— and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry— ”
“Dragged her? Dragged her where?” Mal repeated, doing his level best not to shake the injured boy. It would be counterproductive. “Who did this?”
“Breathe, Mal,” Ernest instructed, low and gentle. “He didn’t see what hit them, so we have to move fast. They have a head start, but not much of one. Soon as we’ve got Maks secure, we— ”
“Maks?” June shrieked, her loud voice unbelievable grating on Mal’s ears. “What happened? What the hell is going on?”
June was running, lagging considerably behind Jack and Rosario.
“’Nesto, what— Zip took off on us— ”
“And we heard her scream,” Jack added, almost speaking overtop her. They were both breathing heavily. “And— ”
“Shut up!” Mal yelled, shaking with adrenaline and frustration. “All of you, shut the hell up!”
“We know! We need to be able to hear!” Ernest said, kneeling and putting Maksim back down. June nearly tripped over them both in her haste to get to them. “Mal’s got sharp ears, guys! If Zip’s close, he’ll— ”
“SHUT UP!” Mal roared. Ernest did, teeth clacking as he quickly closed his mouth. Good. He needed his hearing, too. She had to be near. They couldn’t have gotten far. He waited, ears straining.
Mal heard the soft burble, but he didn’t piece it together until Ernest whispered a single word. His voice cracked on it.
“Lake!”
As they watched, another large, lonely air bubble roiled up from the depths of the water. It burst, spreading ripples that rapidly smoothed away.
Oh, no.
A speedster was next to impossible to match on land, but if someone— multiple people, even— had surprised her, then used that advantage to knock her out and throw her in the lake...
Sideshow had been used as bait. Glowing blue bait.
Mal wrestled off his sweatshirt, not about to risk entanglement in the fabric once it soaked through, and ran for the dock. He dove off into the glassy black lake, zeroing in on where he hope-thought-prayed he’d seen the bubbles.
It was cold. The frigid bite of the lake squeezed his lungs as soon as he went under. It had formed from glacial run-off, so it was like the sunlight never pierced more than a few meters of water. The shock wrung the air out of him, just as it must have done to Zipporah.
His burning lungs forced him to surface for air. He sucked in an automatic, desperate gasp, cycling through a few breaths to normalize himself before he inhaled deeply and dove for a second time.
And a third time. And a fourth. He lost count after that, mechanical in his desperation. He didn’t even notice that Jack had dove in after him until he grabbed Mal’s arm before he could go down again. His short nails dug into his skin.
“You’re no good to anyone if you get yourself half-drowned, too!” The older boy shouted, treading water. “I’m tappin’ you out and takin’ over!”
Mal couldn’t draw in enough air to argue with him. He’d sucked in water on his last trip up. He didn’t care that he was coughing, and he didn’t care that his muscles were seizing, but he would not allow himself to become detrimental to the search. It took two tries to pull himself up on the dock. He didn’t want to know how long he’d been looking.
Though lean, Jack was a strong swimmer. He stayed under for almost a minute at a time. He kept surfacing empty-handed, though.
Because it was so dark in the water. They went down over and over, but they were searching like blind men. It was inefficient. It wasn’t working.
He had to jump back in. He had to keep looking. He had to. Mal was reasonably sure that he could survive a drowning, so—
Suddenly, another head surfaced. This one had long, tangled hair. It was a girl— it was Ofelia— and she had her arms wrapped around someone, her webbed fingers spread.
The hydrokinetic poster surfaced powerfully, arching and tossing her head back to get her hair out of her face, and yelled, “I’ve got her! I’ve got her, but I don’t think she’s breathing!”
Mal immediately laid down flat on his stomach, reaching his arms off the side of the dock.
“Bring her to me!” He shouted, gesturing.
Ofelia had been right. His partner was not breathing. Zipporah’s lips and eyelids were bluish, her skin translucent and waxen.
She was heavy, her hair and clothes soaked through with stagnant lake water. Mal pulled her limp body onto the dock, kneeling on the slippery boards to check her for any signs of life.
He found none.
Her chest wasn’t moving. He could neither feel nor hear her heartbeat. For all intents and purposes, she was—
“How long was she under?”
Fingers snapped in his face, trying to get his attention.
“Hey! Moron! Focus up! How long was she underwater?”
Mal dragged his eyes away, forcing himself to breathe and regroup.
Zipporah’s roommate. Cindy. Concern pinched Cindy’s glossy pink mouth. He didn’t know when she and her partner, Ofelia, had gotten there, but they had come to help.
“I— I don’t know,” Mal said, feeling sick and helpless to admit it aloud. “I wasn’t here when she— but she— she’s— there’s no breathing. No pulse.”
She dropped to her knees at Zip’s other side, pressing two fingers to her throat and checking for herself. For once, Mal desperately prayed that he had been wrong.
But Cindy sat back up a few seconds later, rubbing her hands over her face and taking a couple quick breaths.
“Okay. Okay. Let’s just— let’s just keep our shit together, okay? Do you know how to do CPR?”
Artificial resuscitation. Of course. He should have thought of that, but he wasn’t thinking.
“Yes. I’m not currently certified, but— ”
“I don’t care. Look. I can get her oxygen, but you have to do the chest compressions. I’m not strong enough.”
Giving the girl a critical once-over, he was inclined to agree. She wore a heavy black sweatshirt and loose jeans, but her wrists were very thin. Training dummies didn’t accurately reflect the resistance of a real ribcage.
“If you get tired, I— ”
“I won’t.”
He would not allow Zipporah to die. She was the first friend that he had made that hadn’t been the offspring of his mother’s friends. He refused to have another partner leave him. Mal would do compressions until daybreak if that meant keeping her alive. That was not an exaggeration.
“Okay.” She positioned herself by Zipporah’s head, lifting her chin and clearing her airway.
“You need to pinch her n
ostrils before you give her— ” Mal started to say, but Cindy cut him off with a fierce glare.
“I know what I’m doing! She’s getting oxygen. Shut up and— !”
“Wait!” June yelled, waving her bloody hands over her head. She was kneeling beside Maksim on the bank. He had his fever-flushed cheek pillowed against her shoulder. The other side of his face was a swollen, ugly mess. “Before you start breaking ribs left and right, listen! We’ve got a defibrillator!”
“I’m a walking— ” Maks winced, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth. He lifted the arm not hugging his abdomen, his fingers sparking. “Dragging Defibrillator over here. I’m...I’m trained. I can do it.”
“CPR is not a magical act of science and sorcery,” June continued, loudly. “It’s what you do until real medical help arrives, and we have no ETA on said medical help. This might be the best chance she’s got.”
“You sure you’ve got the juice for that?” Jack asked Maksim, slicking his wet hair back. He’d started shivering. “No offense meant, pal, but you look about as lively as a blackout right now.”
“I know, I know,” Sideshow said, letting June help him to his feet. His face shone with sweat. “Kinda...shocky...”
“For once in your life, man, stow the puns,” June muttered at him. “What he’s trying to say is that he’s on an endorphin rush that he’s gotta use or lose. When the shock wears off, he’s going to really start feeling his broken arm and face, which means that he’ll be useless to us. So you need to make the call. ASAP stat.”
Cindy frowned at Mal, probably thinking exactly what he was. Factoring in the foot travel back to the drop site as well as the hour drive to this secluded part of the woods, there was no telling how long it would take them to return to the main part of campus, and the only speedster in the group was the one who needed— whose heart wasn’t—
“Do it!” Mal barked. “Just— just do what you must!”
Because he didn’t know what else to do.
ISSUE #6
After the third hit from the bat, Zip struck out. She wasn’t out long— she didn’t think so, at least, but concussions had a habit of bending time around. When she opened her eyes again, everything had shifted. She was on her back, and someone was dragging her toward the water by her ankles. Small rocks dug into her spine and shoulders with each jerk.
Zip tried to move, but she couldn’t. For once, she couldn’t even get her legs to twitch. She couldn’t do much more than gasp as she was pulled into the shallows of the lake. Icy water soaked through her clothes, adding weight to her numb limbs.
She was dragged in. She was dragged down. She sank.
Zip watched her last breath rise to the surface. The silvery flicker of bubbles took so long to disappear, she knew she had no chance of making it. She couldn’t bargain with the cold burn in her hungry lungs.
It was a slow thing, drowning. So slow.
She told herself that she was dreaming, because that was the easiest option. If she wasn’t dreaming, she was drowning. If she wasn’t dreaming, everything was real, and she was going to die. Even if she hadn’t been swallowing cold water, the realization that she was going to die would have made her insides shiver. She’d thought it before, but it felt serious, this time. It felt like the big one.
Zip didn’t want to believe that it was real, because she wasn’t sure how her mother would turn that kind of accident around into something heroic. It felt better to tell herself that it was only a bad, bad dream.
The hand wrapped around her ankle again. Zip kicked wildly, thrashing with all the strength she had left in her, but she was too heavy to pop back up like a cork, too weak to fight off the monster that’d pulled her under—
“Stop! Enough, Zipporah!”
People couldn’t yell underwater. Not even Mal.
Zip froze, opening her eyes. She recognized the room, and she recognized her partner’s voice, so all the fear and anxiety drifted back out of her. She was in the nurse’s cabin, and her Alpha was there, too.
So she was okay.
Mal was sitting in a chair near the foot of her bed. He rubbed the side of his face, frowning mightily at her.
“Did I kick you?”
He just mumble-grumbled, gingerly holding the right side of his face. It was swollen, but his powers would fix that right up.
“Sorry, boss,” Zip apologized, trying to push herself up to get a better look at him. Being Mal, he was skulking at the foot of the bed. His personal bubble left him close enough to be considered close, but far enough away to bolt.
She coughed, trying not to laugh at his chipmunk-round cheek. As soon as she breathed in, her entire ribcage caught fire. It felt like that, at least. Trying to sit up had been a mistake, because the coughing made her bones rattle.
“Stop. You’ve been injured,” Mal said, squeezing her ankle again through the covers. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to comfort her, or trying to pin her legs so she didn’t kick his face a second time. “You were attacked, Zipporah. You must be careful.”
“Ow,” Zip winced, her eyelashes fluttering.
“You just...you really must be more careful,” he repeated, letting her go and dropping his hand back down into his lap.
“There are some things that you just can’t plan for, y’know?” Zip eased herself back down, biting hard on her lower lip to keep from whimpering. “And I never saw this coming. At all.”
Mal leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and sighed into his hands. His hood flopped forward as his shoulders curled inward.
He looked more beat up than she felt. And she felt like she’d been through a mulcher a time or two.
“This is my fault. I’m afraid that I am neither a very good strategist, nor a very good boss. I am sorry.”
Mal was tough, but he had a worrying fragility to him. A stranger might assume that nothing got to the infamously prickly legacy poster, but she knew better. Mal’s armor had been dinged so many times, he was like a cracked windshield. If something hit him just right, he fell to pieces.
The helpless frustration twitching in his hands made her wish for a dustpan and some super glue and an instruction manual to show her what Mal Underwood had been like before bad luck had gotten its teeth in him.
“So we’ll just do better next time.”
“Next time?” Mal’s voice shot up, accusatory. “You nearly died. No; you did die. You were dead, and there was nothing that I could do!”
He was shouting at her, but he was yelling at himself. She could tell the difference.
Zip’s Alpha had a wallowing problem, and she didn’t know what to do about it. From what she knew of his life, he had plenty of reasons to feel awful. If he wanted to dwell on the bad things, she couldn’t deny him his feelings. It just seemed to her that he wasted a lot of time moping around like that, and it didn’t do anyone or anything any good. It didn’t make him feel better.
“But I’m okay,” Zip reminded him, nudging him with her foot. “We learned what we oughta work on, that’s all. Me, I’m gonna work on being harder to hit. What about you?”
“I need to learn how to keep a partner alive, apparently. It seems to be my great failing.”
Her partner just made her heart hurt, sometimes.
“So maybe you oughta work on saving people, instead of trying to beat ‘em,” Zip suggested, putting on her best and most helpful smile.
“Perhaps.”
“Don’t you worry, friend. I’ll be up and kicking in no time, just you wait and see,” she assured him, though she felt like one of June’s fire-beasts had managed to slip in through her cracked ribs and set up a weenie roast in her lungs. It hurt to breathe, and breathing was a non-negotiable part of life. Zip tried not to let it show. He needed her to tough it out. “Team Underwood and Chance might be down, but we sure as spit aren’t out. I’m not giving up. Pinky swear.”
Mal’s face screwed up funny, like he’d bit into something sour.
“You know what will
happen if you break your word.”
“I sure do,” she said, holding her crooked pinky out to him.
“And I intend to collect this time, should you break the pact,” Mal warned her, giving her finger a critical look.
He didn’t meet her in the middle, and Zip couldn’t lever herself into stretching out that far toward her feet. She tried wiggling her pinky enticingly, but he didn’t budge an inch.
“It’s not easy to be friends with a goldfish on legs, y’know? Sooner or later, people run out of patience. I can’t change my spots. I try, but I’m always gonna be a goldfish.” Stretching out as far as she could brought tears to her eyes. Mal wobbled around in her runny vision. “So if you pinky swear to stick with me, I’ll risk a finger to seal the deal. I’ve got a backup pinky, right? Anyhow, I intend to keep up my half of the deal.”
He stood so suddenly, he knocked over his chair. Mal was fast for a regular blue-band. He surprised Zip when he busted out his quickness, and since she was more than a little addled by whatever Nurse Bliss had given her for her pain, she squeaked when he moved.
Mal squeezed her tightly, and she was sure that he would have crushed her had her chest not been beaten and wrapped up. He didn’t say anything, every muscle in his body shaking and rigid as he tried to control himself. Zip wheezed, patting his back. It was hard to call it a hug when he was hanging onto her like he expected her to slip away if he let go.
But he did let go, eventually. He straightened, drawing back.
“I realize that I am difficult to work with,” he said, at length. “Like you, I try, but there is only so much that I’m in a position to change about myself. If you will continue to stand by me, I will do the same for you,” Mal held out his hand. “I swear it on my pinky.”
She wrapped her little finger around his, squeezing.
“Deal.”
“Zipporah...did you see your attacker?” He was never one to beat around the bush or waste time quizzing her on the obvious things, like if she was okay. “The more that you can tell me, the higher the likelihood that we’ll be able to bring them to justice.”
“I didn’t see anything.”
The Posterchildren: Origins Page 26