Super: Origins
Page 43
“If you think that's going to save you—” he began, but his words changed to a groan as Casey hit him so hard on his left cheek that his head spun around and a spray of blood hit the wall. A moment later, his body hit the catwalk with a loud thud after which Casey nudged him with her toe, getting no response. Turning her back on him a moment later, Casey quickly stripped off her clothes and then dressed in her new ones. The last one to stuff her jumpsuit and boots in the backpack, Casey hurried back up the ladder they'd come down earlier.
Riss and Lex waited in silence, staring alternately at the ceiling and at George until hearing a tearing, crashing sound overhead. A few moments later, Casey came sliding back down the ladder, nudged George with her foot again while shaking her head, then Lex and Casey followed Riss farther into the sewers. After they'd moved well beyond where they'd started, Lex glanced back at Casey.
“Did the thing with the building go OK?” she half-whispered to Casey.
The blonde nodded. “Yeah. Our old clothes are up there under a bunch of rubble; I pulled a support pillar down on top of them.”
“What about George?”
“Nobody listening would have heard us, so they can't be sure if he's lying or not. By the time they might get interested in pursuing us, we should be far away. Idiot apparently had a glass jaw,” said Casey, smiling and straightening up.
Lex smiled in return. “Well, for you, anyway.”
“Let's keep going,” Riss suggested, indicating the way with a jerk of her head.
The three of them walked as rapidly as possible alongside the rain sewer, Lex eventually trailing behind. The pain in her head had ratcheted up in intensity, and her stomach had started to roll and grind as well. She willed herself to keep putting one foot in front of another and follow her friends, trying to swallow the pain back down.
Reaching the exit they planned to try, Riss went up first and fed a small fiber optic camera through the manhole cover to check the street. She came back down, nodding that it seemed deserted and Casey went up to remove the cover.
Riss went up first. Her route would take her in the far entrance to the train station, and Casey waited five minutes before following. Casey had agreed to go in the front, and Lex was to wait another five minutes before following to go in the nearest side entrance. After a couple of minutes, however, Lex blinked, realizing her vision had started to have blank patches, and she couldn't tell exactly how much time had passed, since she'd forgotten to mark Casey's departure. Cursing under her breath, she threw her glow stick into the sewer water and climbed up the ladder. Putting one of the gloves on that Victor had made for her, she dragged the manhole cover closed and then looked around at the dumpster further down the alley and the clot of plastic shopping bags tangled around a signpost before walking the half block to Union Station.
Seeing the large clock as she came into the main hall, Lex felt relieved that it read a bit after 5 a.m., which meant she'd more or less kept to the timeline. Unfortunately, although she kept blinking and blinking, her vision remained fragmented, the pain in her head now tooth-grindingly strong. The overhead lights appeared blinding, and she dropped her gaze to look at the linoleum instead.
Not long, Lex told herself, not long now. All I need to do is to get on the train, and then I can rest. She looked up at the signboard, noting the train they'd agreed to take, the first one west, left in an hour for St. Louis. An hour, just an hour, she told herself feverishly, heading for her locker.
Lex realized as she entered the locker row that someone else stood at the other end, and as she raised her head a little, she almost looked straight at Casey before she recognized her friend, then looked away as if bored. As Lex went to unlock her locker, though, something happened. The pain spiked through her head, feeling like an ice pick had pierced straight through her skull, and she barely bit back a cry as the locker door swung open and she grabbed the backpack inside. She saw through a foggy haze as Casey turned to look at her, and Lex tried to smile reassuringly, but instead fell to her knees and immediately vomited. Nothing much came out but water and half-dissolved pills, and she didn't feel better afterwards as usual but so much worse as the pain kept growing into something that would surely drown her.
A moment later, Lex felt herself being raised up, and something about the way the person held her made her realize it was Casey.
“Leave me,” Lex said, but she realized her voice was a barely intelligible mumble before she choked altogether at another wave of pain. “I don't think I'm going to make it.”
Casey seemed to understand her anyway. “No, I'm not leaving you,” the blonde said, and to Lex's surprise, she sounded perfectly calm.
Lex's brain spun as she tried to hold onto consciousness for one more minute. “Call the Chens. Don't know why, but I put Mr. Chen's number into my new phone.”
Then the whole world seemed to flee from Lex as the pain pushed her under so far she couldn't open her eyes, and everything seemed to shrink to a single, white-hot point of screaming sensation.
- End of Book 1 -
For anyone who can't stand to wait to find out what happens for cliffhangers, please feel free to check out the next several chapters of the story on the serial website: http://superwebnovel.livejournal.com/314.html
If you've read this book in full, you can pick up cleanly with the chapters listed under Book 2 (chapter 21, etc.).
If you prefer to read on your mobile device, I recommend downloading the Wattpad app and searching on my story number to find this story there: 9430224. Like the serial website, you should be able to pick up where this book leaves off by beginning with chapter 21.
I also created a playlist for this book, with some of the songs I listened to that inspired each chapter. Please check it out at: http://palladian23.livejournal.com/1821.html
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: First Interview
Chapter 2: Second Interview
Chapter 3: Preliminaries
Chapter 4: Decision
Chapter 5: Beginnings
Chapter 6: Examinations
Chapter 7: Misunderstandings
Chapter 8: Endings
Chapter 9: Rectification
Chapter 10: Moving
Chapter 11: Developments
Chapter 12: Mysteries and Meetings
Chapter 13: Deeper
Chapter 14: Execution
Chapter 15: Confrontation and Aftermath
Chapter 16: Closer
Chapter 17: Celebrations
Chapter 18: Breaking
Chapter 19: Plot, Counterplot
Chapter 20: Escape