The Color of Courage

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  Maybe something electronic. I’d never seen a device like the one that held Adam, so it was possible CASE had other strange technology that could be doing this.

  I didn’t have time to figure it out, though. This was happening now, and I had only seconds before, I suspected, Evan either turned on me or joined the catfight going on down below.

  I dug deeper, grimacing when I remembered what he’d thought of my earlier invasion. I didn’t find that deep-seated grief this time, though. I didn’t get that far. I passed through the outer ring of negativity to . . . nothing. I could sense his real emotions lurking underneath, but it was like pushing through jungle and finding miles of open space on the other side.

  Then it hit me. This was induced. Like I induced emotions. It didn’t manifest the same, so it wasn’t as obvious. But there was another empath here, there had to be. Someone who was manipulating emotions to make us turn on each other.

  I had to stop it. I tried the bubble again, but even Evan’s aura was too strong already. I couldn’t get through. I tried tendrils like I’d used on the drummer. They penetrated Evan’s hatred, but then turned red and black at the ends, rising up the tendrils back toward me. I released them and they were absorbed into Evan again. The same thing happened no matter what shape I made.

  Despair threatened my taupe center. I had to keep it clear of true emotion if I was to succeed at this. I took a deep breath and envisioned a calm bomb going off inside me. I raced down the stairs toward Kirby and Summer and slammed between them, forcing the concussion of my calm into their auras, hoping the sudden nature of it would have more effect than the slow intrusion I’d tried before.

  My friends fell back, hitting the ground hard. I stood between them and looked from one to the other. Summer’s hatred had faded, replaced by pain and sorrow. She rolled on the ground, moaning and holding her head. Kirby, however, seemed normal. I looked harder, but doubt and confusion were her dominant emotions, and they came from inside her, not from a bubble outside.

  “What the hell?” She put one hand against her chest. “What the hell was that?”

  “It’s—”

  Evan came barreling down the stairs and knocked me sideways before I got the words out. Like when I’d similarly slammed into Kirby and Summer, I was uninjured when I hit the ground. But I was stunned enough to be unable to blow into Evan’s false emotion. He slammed my head against the ground, again and again. The flexi-shield made it feel like I was banging my head against a soap bubble, but the blur of cement and trees and blue sky in my vision still disoriented me, and it was impossible to react.

  I rolled and tipped him off, a move I shouldn’t have been able to make. When I’d gotten to my feet, though, I saw that I’d had help. Police officers had hold of Evan and were cuffing his hands behind his back. I started to protest, then realized if they took him away, he’d be out of range of the other empath and the effects would wear off. Distance had to be a factor. That would explain why it didn’t happen until we’d hit the steps.

  I looked up into the dark opening of the memorial. He had to be in there. Where Summer had been, before she got nasty with me and foolishly attacked the CASE captors.

  Kirby was okay now. I’d take her with me to confront him and hope he couldn’t get to her again. She’d let me infuse her with defensive emotion first, I was sure.

  But she was gone. I turned in a full circle. Evan was being hauled away toward a squad car, near a police van that I could see contained the chained CASE members they must have rounded up during our infighting. Summer lay at my feet, writhing less, but still moaning. But I could see Kirby nowhere.

  “Tom!” I spotted my sparring partner conferring with an officer and rushed over to him. He offered a grim smile.

  “Sorry our first effort together is something like this,” he said. “Wasn’t that guy at the gym with us a few weeks ago?”

  I blew that off. “Did you see where Kirby went?”

  “Yeah, that way.” He chin-thrust in the direction of our original location. “She was walking off with Hurley. He said he needed her help with those three fake HQers who stole your suits.”

  Shit. I ran in that direction, but I knew it was too late. Kirby had to know Hurley was part of CASE. If he’d freed the three who’d captured Adam, she was in trouble. I didn’t yet know what kind, and decided I couldn’t follow. I had to get to the empath, and the only ally I really had right now was Summer.

  I went back to her side and helped her to her feet. The false hatred and pain had faded, but in their place were her own, just-as-painful emotions. She’d been raw already from grief and sorrow and anger, and now she’d been manipulated and maybe even tortured. I wasn’t sure she’d be up to the task.

  But if she was susceptible to him, maybe she’d be susceptible to me, too. I tried again to infuse her with calm, this time adding hope and relief, and she absorbed it like a sponge. She took a deep breath and held on to me.

  “God, I’m so sorry, Daley. What’s happening?”

  “An empath.” She whipped her head to look at me, and I ran my hand up and down her arm reassuringly. “Not me. Someone else has powers like mine, only he’s obviously been using them for a lot longer. At least for manipulating other people’s emotions.”

  “Longer?” She frowned at me. “You’ve been doing it?”

  I shook my head. “There’s no time for that.”

  “Who could it possibly be?”

  I didn’t need to think about it. I knew. “He’s in there.” I pointed. She looked up the steps. “Can you help me, or are you too—?”

  “Let’s go get him.” She started up the steps. “It’s got to be someone in law enforcement, right? Someone who works with us, so they knew what we knew and everything.”

  “No, it’s not that. I should have sensed it, at the restaurant that first day.” I stopped. Summer had paused, back on the central landing where she’d started fighting. Now, though, her face held a rapturous expression. Her aura boiled again, this time with ecstasy and lust and longing, the opposite of what she’d been feeling, and much, much more powerful.

  “Summer, you’d better go back.” I grabbed her and tried to pull her down, away from the point of influence. But she flashed her arms, knocking me away.

  “It’s so good,” she moaned, and ran up the steps faster than I’d ever seen her move, even when she flew out of the memorial in the throes of rage.

  “Summer!” I followed, feeling like in those dreams when you can’t get your muscles to work right. Everything seemed to slow down. I ground my teeth and pushed harder. I had to get to her. Protect her. Before Charles ruined her.

  I had no doubt our enemy was Charles Auberginois. I’d noticed how intently he looked at me and worried that I couldn’t read his emotions properly, that something was wrong with what I could see. But I hadn’t realized that Trace and Kirby and Summer’s identical emotions weren’t their own, and I’d ignored my own instincts because Adam had trusted him. Adam, whose emotions in the restaurant hadn’t changed. No wonder CASE had immobilized him. He wasn’t vulnerable like the others were. He wasn’t an empath, but had too much control over himself.

  Control he had developed because of me.

  “Summer!” I shouted again when I reached the line between light and shadow. It was hard to see in the dim interior after the bright light outside, and despite knowing how foolish it was, I ripped off my flexi-shield. My vision improved right away, and what I saw . . .

  Summer stood in the center of the room. She’d stripped off her flexi-shield and jacket and was taking off her boots and pants, while Charles stood at Lincoln’s feet and instructed her. I could see her aura surging with the pleasure he gave her every time she did what he told her to do.

  “Summer, stop!”

  But she was oblivious to me. I fought my panic and tried to
think what I could use to counter Charles’ influence. He ignored me when I ran up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her away from him. Her gaze was unfocused, her limbs, now unprotected by her suit, loose. She could barely stay on her feet.

  “Summer, listen to me. This is false. It’s not real.” But that wouldn’t work. It was real to her, no matter what I said. Desperate, I reached for the only thing I thought would work. Love. The love of sisters, of friends, the love that had her diving into the water to save me and Trace when the boat exploded. I didn’t even have to fake it, just drew it from my own well inside the taupe box, where I locked away all my own feelings when I was working. I pushed it between Summer’s core and the false ecstasy.

  Summer screamed and fell back, away from me. Her screams went higher and higher, more piercing, as she hit the floor. Her head bounced on the marble, and she went limp.

  No. Oh, God, no. I knelt beside her, slid my fingers as gently as possible under her head. She had no broken skin, and her skull was intact. But her eyes stared, unseeing, and her face still held the image of her scream. The fall hadn’t killed her, but something had.

  I had.

  Slow clapping penetrated the buzz in my ears. I turned to see Charles beaming at me.

  “Excellent! I could not have hoped for better. All superheroes neutralized or plunged into chaos. You were quite the challenge, Ms. Charm. Your HQ. Fascinating that you were so difficult to break up and tear down.”

  Because we cared. Because we loved and supported each other above anything else. That had been the reason for our success. Until now. Until we’d let someone else in, someone who’d taken over under the pretense of assistance, and I hadn’t recognized it when I should have.

  I’d failed in my one true ability, and that failure had doomed us all. I was no match for this man, who’d obviously honed his powers for much, much longer than I had. Who had goals more solid and motivations more compelling than I did.

  “Let’s do a head count, shall we?” He stepped down off the platform and glided forward, peering out into the bright afternoon while he ticked us off on our fingers. A detached part of me noticed that his French accent had disappeared.

  “Tarantino is fair indestructible, so he had to be contained, not so easy to do out here on federal property. It was a test of my newest technology, and a sweet success indeed. He’ll die, of course, if the beams are not disconnected properly. Then, Trace Kovalch.” He laughed, making all my muscles clench. “Wild goose chase. The robot he’s after has more endurance than he does. My loyal officer will soon have Kirby March taken care of. Her ability is interesting, but not all that powerful, is it? Then there are you two.” He looked down at us, suddenly menacing.

  I knelt next to my best friend and felt nothing.

  “Summer was the most fun. She was so susceptible to my suggestions, more than anyone else I’ve ever worked on. Raw emotion can do that, as you know. Shame she couldn’t handle it. I would have enjoyed playing with her for longer. You, however . . .” He tsked and shook his head. “You are the pièce de résistance, my dear. We would make an amazing team, would we not? I can teach you, and you will be the most powerful ex-superhero in the country.”

  My head lifted at that. It was ridiculous. I wasn’t powerful. I couldn’t do anything to save anyone. But I was numb, and couldn’t care or react when Charles walked to the edge of the chamber and opened his arms wide.

  “Watch.”

  I had no intention of doing so, until I heard screams and shouts. I couldn’t just sit here while he did whatever he was doing. I climbed to my feet and stumbled to the entryway, staring out onto the steps and surrounding sidewalk. All over, people were fighting. There were degrees of savagery, from basic fisticuffs to beatings with billy clubs and asps. I watched an officer stab another in the arm with a knife, and slowly I came alive again. I couldn’t allow this.

  Before I could stop it, though, I had to bring my ability back online. It had shut off as abruptly as Summer had been killed, and my usual mental lowering of my defenses did nothing. I had to close my eyes and concentrate hard before I could see the waves of hatred and fury Charles was sending out over the area.

  First, I tried to counter it. I brought up my own waves of calm and sent them out. I imagined them like a blanket, smothering Charles’ negative emotions. But as soon as they touched his, they evaporated.

  Charles laughed. “Does this mean no, you won’t join me?”

  I ignored him. If I couldn’t affect the emotions he was putting out, I had to address it at the source. I knew, since Charles was more skilled and powerful than me, that I had only one chance. I didn’t turn toward him or change my posture. He could surely see my emotive attempts so I continued them, ignoring his laughter as the results were the same. Inside I coiled a whip of positive emotion. When it was as solid as I could make it, I slowly uncurled it, then flashed it out sideways at Charles, trying to cut off his waves. It severed the connection, but immediately another eased out from him. I “cracked” the whip again, this time aiming for his emotional center. It hit, and pink and white sparks flew in my aural vision. But Charles just laughed again.

  The bombardment on the outside didn’t stop, but suddenly Charles turned on me.

  “You have such potential, my dear, but right now you are but a child. Let me show you what we’re truly capable of. What you could have with me, if you weren’t so foolish.” He hesitated, one eyebrow raised. “Change your mind?”

  “No.”

  “Very well.”

  I expected him to hit me with the same emotions he was using on the others, but he didn’t. I frantically tried to create a shield of calm to counter the anticipated storm, but he penetrated it easily. Not with emotions I could see, but something else, something I could feel, like a hand reaching inside me, digging deep, then turning into a fist and smashing open my box of personal emotions. They manifested in thoughts I’d locked away as symbols. The good ones were snatched by another invisible hand, the bad ones amplified somehow.

  You’re inadequate. How can you expect to be someone when this is all you can do, and you can’t even do it well? Look at what he’s doing to you. Your family will never be able to love you fully because of what you are. Adam tolerates you in HQ. He knows you’re the weakness of the group. He pities you, and doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. Why would you ever think he could care about you? That anyone could ever care about you?

  I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by the despair and loneliness and sorrow.

  “Yesssss,” Charles hissed, towering over me. “Your power is in your feelings, Daley. Let them out. Let them drive you. And then let me use them to crush you.”

  I screamed as pain lanced through me. It was physical, in my arms and legs and stomach, like blades shoved in and twisted. But I knew it wasn’t. I could see the aura of my own emotions winding around my body. Charles was using them as weapons, something I knew I could never do.

  It went on forever, the screams inside and out. I could do nothing against the torrent of emotion Charles sucked out of me and added to his bombardment of those outside.

  Eventually, he stopped. I lay on the floor, unable to focus my eyes or move my arms and legs. Charles crouched over me, smiling.

  “It’s over,” he whispered. And then he left.

  Chapter 20

  I don’t know how long I lay there before someone found me. I was vaguely aware of the chaos subsiding outside. Sirens came and went, came and went, as wounded were taken away in ambulances, and those who’d done the wounding in police cars. I’d have to explain. Find someone in charge, tell them what happened, so they could sort it out. People shouldn’t go to jail when it wasn’t their fault.

  But I couldn’t move. “It’s not over” echoed in my head, the mantra of every comic book, every movie, every portrayal of superheroes ever m
ade. Somehow, they always won. But this was real life, and we’d lost. Charles was gone. We had no team to go after him.

  “Daley.”

  I turned my head toward the familiar but completely out-of-place voice. The movement was like an on switch for my body, and I sat up. Spike rushed across the marble floor to me, and I had no reaction to seeing him. No relief or disbelief. Just a detached awareness that he shouldn’t be here.

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s over,” I said.

  “I know, babe.” He put his arms around me and helped me to my feet. “It’s all over.”

  He meant it to be reassuring. He didn’t get it. Charles had won. HQ had lost, and worse, we would never be the same again. He’d expand his destruction of us all over the world, until there were no more superheroes, ever.

  That thought was enough to galvanize me. Spike was a superhero. Thank God he’d never revealed it. But if he did so now, if he went into the service and saved someone’s life, they’d know. Charles would know, and he’d destroy him. And he wouldn’t be subtle about it anymore. He didn’t need to be.

  It couldn’t be over.

  I realized Spike was looking past me, his face stricken. I followed his gaze to where Summer lay, sprawled and empty. I should have had tears, then, but I was still barren. Charles had drained me completely, and quite possibly destroyed my ability in the process.

  “We need to get her out of here,” Spike said.

  “I know. But first—” I choked on the words. “First we need to save the others, and take down Charles.”

  He nodded. “Let me just get someone to take care of her.” I knelt by her side and held her hand while I waited.