“Can you ask someone?” Casey says through clenched teeth. I know she hates every second that she’s stuck here with me, an impatient Hero. She doesn’t have to say it because I learned it in training: the last thing any Super wants to do is piss off a Hero. The guy shakes his head again. “I don’t know who to ask. I’m sorry.”
Time is freaking ticking away and I’m getting nowhere. “It’s fine, hang up.”
She does as she’s told and ends the call without saying goodbye. All my instincts are telling me to call Max and ask what to do, but I’m pissed off at him so my stubbornness will prevent me from doing that. No worries though, I get a better idea a second later. “Could you make another call for me?” I ask with my sweetest smile. Casey nods. “Call President Might, please.”
It’s best that I call him from the medical ward, that way he won’t answer the phone with Nova in view or accidentally say something he shouldn’t when I’m around other people. It’s better if he sees Casey calling instead of me. Unfortunately, Casey doesn’t command her MOD to dial my father-she sits at her desk, stone faced and pale.
“Call him,” I repeat.
“I-I can’t. He’s the president.”
“And I’m his daughter. Call him.”
Dad answers after several rings. I step in front of a very nervous Casey, relieving her of talking to my dad since she’s obviously terrified at the idea of it. He barely gets out a hello before I speak. “Dad, they moved the depowering machine and I need it and I need you to find out where it is.”
The look he gives me slaps me across the face. I am a total idiot. “I thought we decided you wouldn’t be the one to go searching for it.”
“I, uh, something came up with Max. He doesn’t have time for it.” Now I really really wish I hadn’t made this call in front of Casey.
Dad surprises me by smiling. “Wish I could help you, kiddo, but I’m not sure where it is. I know they moved it to a more secure location somewhere in Central. I have another meeting with the elders in a few minutes. I’ll find out, but it’ll take a while.”
My finger hovers over Casey’s MOD screen. “Thanks, Dad,” I say before ending the call.
“He seems really nice,” Casey says with stars in her eyes. My thoughts go to Nova, hiding out in our home in what is probably the biggest act of defiance against Central that’s ever happened. “Yeah he is,” I say. “You have no idea how nice he can be.”
Max hasn’t returned home by nightfall. I’ve been skimming his signal on my BEEPR all afternoon, waiting for his map dot to appear back at home and not where it’s been lately-hovering over Tokyo. Dad is still at his meeting and Nova isn’t in the living room when I get home. I assume she’s hanging out in the safe room which she’s kind of made her own room lately, so I don’t bother her. No matter what, she always slips into bed with me at night. I know it sounds weird, but I can’t begin to imagine the life she’s had and what she’s been through, so if my sixteen-year-old twin sister wants to sleep next to me at night, just to feel the comforting rhythm of someone breathing next to her, I’m okay with that.
But I’m not okay with being alone.
My heart aches for that one boy who makes me feel lighter than air. I know I should probably be focusing on my missing persons case or trying to find the depowering machine without Dad’s help, but my heart acts on its own accord by dialing up Evan.
He tells me he’ll be here in five minutes.
Even with Hero status, I’m still a loser. My cheeks turn red when I realize I’m actually tiptoeing through the house so Nova won’t hear me welcoming Evan inside. What kind of mature Hero is embarrassed to be seen with her boyfriend? This one.
I open the door, grab Evan’s arm and pull him across the living room, down the hall and to my bedroom without saying a word. He closes my bedroom door behind us, turning around and facing me with a big grin. He smells like saltwater and body wash. His hair is a little wavy in the back as if he’s recently been sleeping on it. A goofy grin pulls at my cheeks when his slips his arms around my waist and pull me close.
“You’re all scruffy,” I muse, sliding my fingers up the dark blond stubble on his face.
“I’ve been working so hard I haven’t had time to shave.”
“Whatcha working on?”
He doesn’t answer me right away. His lips drop to meet mine. I let myself get lost in kissing him. When he does answer, I’ve almost forgotten the question. “I’ve been trying to come up with fake research that looks believable. Something that looks like conclusive proof that there’s no connection between good and evil DNA.”
I nod. “Clever.” My fingers trace the silver chain around his neck. “Do you think you could get away with that?”
He steps toward my window wall and shakes his head as he looks out at the stars. “Do any of us think we’ll get away with this?”
My shoulders fall. I slink down, sitting on my bed across from him. “Look, Evan.” Pain shoots through me as I say the words and it’s worse than any pain I’ve felt while fighting the drugged up humans. “If it’s too hard dating me, or being around me, it’s okay. You can say it. We can cut ties or whatever.”
“Maci.”
I don’t even look up at him. But his hand touches my shoulder a moment later and I feel him sit next to me on the bed. “Look at me.” Reluctantly, I pull my eyes up to meet his. He takes my hands and places them into his lap, not letting go. “Dating you is hard work. You’re always busy. Your life is unpredictable. Sometimes we go an entire day only saying good morning or good night to each other.”
I hold up my hand. “Stop. I get it, okay? You don’t have to spell it out for me.”
He smiles, not even caring about my pain. “I do have to spell it out. And I wasn’t finished, so keep listening. Maci, I am crazy about you. I love every second I’m with you and when I’m not with you, I’m wishing I was.” He leans over and kisses my forehead. “You’re worth all of the hard work.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. My body melts into his and I wrap my arms around him as we fall back onto my bed. We watch the stars through my window until I’ve lost track of time. “How long can you stay?” I whisper.
His fingers filter through my hair, down my back. “As long as you want.”
Evan doesn’t flinch when someone opens a door in the hallway and two power levels walk out of Dad’s office. “Who the hell is that?” I whisper quiet enough for only Evan’s ears to hear. He shrugs. “Nova? Max?”
I shake my head. “Max isn’t home and neither is Dad.” His eyes go wide for a split second before he jumps off my bed, holding his arm in front of me, as if he’s protecting me. Me. A Hero.
I close my eyes and focus on the power approaching us from the two Supers in the hallway. One is definitely Nova. The other…I let out the breath I’d been holding. It isn’t a villain. But I’m still not sure who it is.
“Thanks for hanging out,” Nova says. “I’m sure you had other stuff to do.” I might be completely insane here, but it sounds like she’s more sweet and sincere than usual.
“It’s no problem. I’m here if you need me.”
Holy crap.
My eyes almost bulge out of my friggen skull. Evan’s mouth falls open and we stare silently at each other, wide eyed and open mouthed as if we’re two human kids who just saw a Hero for the first time, so freaking giddy and insane with the secret knowledge that we both share. I squeeze Evan’s hand and lean closer to my door so I can keep spying on my sister.
“Do you think the others would get mad?”
“No,” Nova says quickly, followed by, “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maci wants everyone to like me so they’ll believe that I’m not a villain.”
“We’ll get you through this. Anyone who spends five minutes with you will know that you’re not evil.”
There’s a pause and some shuffling movement through the hallway and into the living room. Oh my god, is he touching her? Are they hugging? The suspense makes me
want to burst open my door right now and ruin their private moment.
“You have my number,” he says. The front door slides open, muffling whatever it is that Nova says in reply. I hear her thank him and then he says, “I’m serious. Just call me if you need anything.”
The door closes. Nova’s power level is all happiness and elation and a little bit of embarrassment. I bounce on the balls of my feet, my hands covering my mouth to keep me from saying anything. Evan holds back laughter and keeps shaking his head like he can’t believe it any more than I can. When I hear her open the door to Dad’s office, I pull mine open and step into the hallway.
Nova startles and then quickly masks her surprised face with a smile.
“That’s weird,” I say as I head into the kitchen for a snack. Nova follows me, taking a deep breath to calm her pounding heart. “What’s weird?” Her voice is dry.
I shrug and grab a box of Pop Tarts.
“I don’t know,” I say with an impish smile. “It kind of smells like Nyx Nightly in here.”
After Evan went home because he refused to risk falling asleep in my bed where Dad would find us, I stayed up watching human reality television for hours waiting for Dad to come home. When he finally did return, I guess I had passed out on the couch because he managed to slip in without waking me up. When I do wake up, it’s with a painful neck from sleeping on the couch. Max scoops a bowl of dog food for Chewy and then makes himself breakfast in the kitchen. Breakfast for Max consists of a dozen fried eggs and half a loaf of bread toasted and buttered.
“Where’s the bacon?” I ask, padding into the kitchen. My face is crumpled with the texture of the couch pillows.
“We’re out,” he says. “I didn’t have time to go to the grocery store.”
“I noticed you haven’t had time to do much of anything.” My voice is one hundred percent snark and I one hundred percent don’t care.
“You’ll understand one day, Rookie.” He stabs a fork into his fried egg and shoves the entire thing into his mouth at once. “We save the world one problem at a time. Not all at once.”
“Is Dad awake?” I ask, choosing to ignore Max’s unsolicited advice. He shakes his head, consuming another egg. “He’s not here. Meeting.”
“How many frigging meetings does he have to go to?” I yank open the refrigerator door, grab the carton of milk and slam the door closed.
“A lot. They’re making him president again.”
This makes me look up from pouring my glass of milk. “Really? That’s amazing.”
Max shakes his head and plops onto the couch with his plate that’s piled high with a mountain of food. “Do you read any of your memos, Mace? Seriously. You’re in your own little world all the time.”
“I read the important ones,” I mutter, hoping he doesn’t ask any follow up questions. Truth is, the message center on my BEEPR has been largely untouched for days. I know I should keep up with current events in the Super community, especially if everyone has agreed to keep my depowered father as the president but I am a Hero now. I have important things to do. I help save human lives. Whenever news is important enough for me to know, it’ll come to me in the form of a Hero alarm.
“I went looking for the depowering machine,” I say, sitting next to my brother. “It isn’t there anymore.”
“I know. I looked, too.”
“Do you know where it went?”
“No, but that cute girl behind the counter? I think she likes me.”
I groan. “I hate you.”
He laughs. “What? I didn’t say I liked her! I was just making conversation.”
My fist soars through the space between us. I allow myself to prematurely feel the satisfaction of punching him in the arm, but before my fingers make contact, Max grabs my hand, stops it from hitting him and puts it back on my side of the couch. Jerk.
“Finish eating. We need to find the depowering machine and figure out who is stealing the power from it.”
“Chill out, okay? I investigated it already. They won’t tell me where it is because it’s been moved to a secure location.”
“So you’re just going to give up?” I’m yelling, and it wakes up Nova. I can tell because I feel her power awaken from down the hall. It’s still unsettling, trying to get used to being connected to her power and her emotions whenever we’re close to each other. It has to be a twin thing because I can’t feel this much of anyone else. I’ll research that later. Right now, Max has some answering to do.
He shrugs. “I haven’t given up. I’ve accepted that I won’t find the thing and now I’m waiting for Dad to get home because if anyone will have access to it, it’ll be the freaking president.” He takes a bite of toast and peels his eyes off the television to look at me. “So like I said...chill.”
Still wearing my pajamas from last night, I step outside and climb into our family KAPOW pod. The overhead light comes on when I close the door. A soft vibration from the pod means it’s just starting up for the day. “Good morning, Maci Might.”
“Destination depowering machine.” If this works, I’m a total genius.
The computer voice takes a moment to answer. “Destination undisclosed.”
“Go there anyway,” I say.
“Unable to complete task. Authorization insufficient.”
“You suck,” I mutter.
“Command unclear. Please try again.”
Defeated, I head to my room and change into my Hero suit, sans mask. I like wearing my suit when I’m not on a mission both because I look awesome in it and because it takes the guesswork out of finding something to wear for the day. I grab something to eat and ignore Max’s mumbles about my efforts being fruitless and how I should just wait for Dad. I flick the screen on my BEEPR.
“GPS coordinates to the depowering machine,” I say quietly, hoping Max is more focused on the television than me. He’s not, because he laughs. I roll my eyes and watch my BEEPR. It flashes red. Undisclosed destination.
Maybe it’s because I’m a probationary Hero. Smiling, I mosey over to my brother and sit delicately on the couch’s armrest. “Max,” I say sweetly, folding my hands in my lap like a lady. He gives me a sarcastic look but I keep up the charade anyway. You catch more flies with sugar and all that. “Could you please please please ask your BEEPR to locate it? Maybe it’ll work for you since you aren’t probationary.”
“Do you think I haven’t tried that already?” he asks.
“Did you?”
His shoulders fall. “No.”
I hover over him as he makes the same command to his BEEPR and I let out a curse when he’s met with the same response.
The doorbell rings and the house MOD screen shows Nyx Nightly standing just outside our door, holding a box of donuts. I let him inside and steal a few pastries before he makes it to the kitchen. He acts like the same old Nyx when he sees me, so I’m guessing he doesn’t know that I heard him with Nova last night.
He drops a holo-disk on the coffee table and it shoots out a wide display into the air. It’s the data we’ve been collecting about the missing Supers. I try to talk but he holds up a hand to stop me. “Last night I got this anonymous message and I haven’t been able to trace it anywhere.”
“What do you mean?” Max asks between bites of donut.
Nyx breathes and his energy is worried, nervous. Which is weird for a Hero. “It said they know I’ve been looking for the missing Supers and they might be able to help me. But they don’t want me to tell anyone. They said they’d only work with me.”
“Then why are you telling us?” The voice comes from the hallway. We all spin around and find Nova, dressed in a pair of my old cutoff jean shorts and an oversized King City T-shirt.
Nyx’s heartbeat races. “I tell Max everything,” he says. Max slides over and offers a seat on the couch to our sister. “We’re Heroes,” Max explains. “We don’t keep secrets. We’re completely transparent. We’ll lie to villains but not each other.”
She nods, lo
oking as if she doesn’t quite accept that way of thinking. Nyx continues. “So I replied and acted like I would comply with their request. I asked who they were and where I could find them.”
“And?” Max and I ask in unison. Nyx holds up his palms. “No reply yet.”
A feeling of alarm pulses through Nova’s body. The weird thing is, as I look around the room, I think I’m the only person who can sense it. “What?” I whisper to her. Unfortunately, everyone else hears my question and they all turn to look at us. Nova gnaws on her bottom lip. “Shouldn’t we tell someone? Like, maybe put some kind of protection around Nyx so nothing happens to him? He was basically threatened by someone we don’t know.”
Nyx laughs. “I’m not worried. I can take care of myself.”
Max throws an arm around Nova’s shoulders and pulls her in for a mighty Hero squeeze. “You’re so sweet and considerate, Sis.”
I choose this moment to butt in. “Do you know where I can find the depowering machine? They’ve hidden it. Our GPS won’t find it and neither does the KAPOW.”
His brows draw together as he thinks. “Did you ask your dad?”
“Not yet but I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“I don’t know,” Nyx says. “I’ve never needed to find it before. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
I feel Nova’s newfound energy the moment she speaks. “The machine is used to depower villains, right? So if you were to capture one right now, they’d be sent to be depowered, right?”
“Yeah,” Max says. “But we haven’t had a villain in a while.”
“If you had one, where would you take them? Can’t you just do that and find the machine?”
Max shrugs. “We don’t do anything. The Retrievers handle it.”
The energy in the room bursts to life as if a collective light bulb just turned on above everyone’s head. “Perfect!” Max beams.
“Why are you always coming up with the great ideas?” I snap. “You’re not even a Hero.” Nova’s smile falters. All of her happy energy melts away.
“Hey now,” Nyx says, holding up a donut. “Rude.”
Overpowered (Powered Trilogy #2) Page 12