What the hell happened to us?
“That doesn't sound strange,” Blake commented. “I mean, outside of why we’re here and all.”
“This is where it becomes unusual. As a complete coincidence, the decision to jumpstart your hearts was made at nearly the same moment, again, by two different doctors in two different rooms. One of those doctors was me. Nurses charged the defibrillators simultaneously, and by random happenstance the other doctor and I called the same countdown. When the defibrillators fired, a bright blast of energy exploded between the two of you.”
Quinn and Blake looked at each other, and then looked back at the doctor.
She used her hands to gesture explosion and tapped her chest. “You each discharged a bright white light from the center of your torso when the paddles tried to restart your heart. From my perspective, it traveled through the wall separating you. We don't know what it was or why it happened, but it did not happen the second time, when we finally managed to restart your hearts at slightly different moments.”
“So, why does my throat hurt?” Quinn asked. His brain struggled to process what sounded like a scene from a science fiction medical thriller.
“We had to intubate you to help you breathe. We can’t explain why, but you both had a hard time breathing. That shouldn’t have been the case in two sixteen-year-old boys. Incidentally, the tubes came out this morning. That’s why your voices sound a little scratchy, and your throats might be a little sore. You were hooked up to life support.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Blake exclaimed.
“I wish I was.”
“So where are my parents?” Quinn asked.
“Both sets of parents are in town, but they’re not allowed to see you yet. You’ve been isolated for study.”
“Why?” the boys asked simultaneously.
“Well, the exploding white light for starters. Then, strange things happened while you were unconscious. Quinn, things around you moved on their own. Blake, the temperature on your side of the room inexplicably fluctuated between cold and hot.”
“We reached out to the Wilhelm Reich Museum to see if anything odd was going on…”
“The what?” Blake asked, looking at Quinn.
“I’ve never heard of that either,” Quinn commented.
“It’s a home that’s been converted to a museum. It’s also home to the Orgone Energy Institute. The campground you were staying at is about a mile east of the museum.”
Quinn became suspicious of the story. “Why would you reach out to a museum?”
“Well, they uh…”
“Thank you, Doctor Madison, that will be enough,” a man in a black suit standing in the doorway said.
That must be the creepy Blake mentioned.
Dr. Madison turned her head and nodded at the man. Then she smiled at Blake and Quinn. “Just rest up and cooperate, and we’ll have you out of here in no time.” She winked and stepped back.
Cooperate?
Nadia nodded her head. She walked around the bed and set Quinn’s call button within reach of his hand. “You can press this if you need anything, okay Mister Quinn?”
“I need my dads,” Quinn said, glaring at the nurse and the doctor.
“Very soon, I promise,” Nadia responded. Then, she winked at him and followed the doctor out of the room.
The man in the suit stepped into their room and shut the door behind him. He pulled a chair from the side of the room, set it between their beds, unbuttoned his jacket, and sat down.
Quinn studied his face. It was youthful, but firm—full of responsibility and stress. The man’s medium-length, black hair was parted from the left and styled with a shiny hair gel. Although the man had shaved, Quinn could see the stubble of a mustache, soul patch, and chin strap beard. His face structure had sharp features like a male model and Quinn felt oddly smitten with the handsome man, even though his instincts warned him to be cautious.
“Gentlemen, it’s good to see you…awake.”
“Who are you?” Blake asked.
“My name is Victor Kraze. I represent a concerned group of individuals who are interested in what happened to you this weekend.”
“Are you responsible for keeping our parents away from us?”
“Yes, I am,” he said flatly, nodding.
“Why? Do they know we’re awake?”
“When Dr. Madison called us, it became critical to place you in isolated observation. Your situation is…unique. And yes, your parents have been informed of your progress. They know you’ve regained consciousness. Quinn, your dads were obviously already here in Rangeley. Blake, your parents arrived on Monday, I believe.”
“They didn’t even come up on Sunday when this happened?” Blake asked softly. Quinn sensed his friend’s disappointment with his parent’s apathy.
“I’m not sure your parents could have made the trip, Blake,” Victor said.
“Right,” Blake said softly.
Quinn sighed. Blake’s parents were alcoholics and they were probably half-in-the-bag when they got the call. “Do they know we’re tied up like prisoners or crazy people?” he asked.
Victor slightly tilted his head to the left. “I’m not at liberty to say right now. How about we make a deal? You give me something I want, and I’ll give you something you want.”
Quinn and Blake looked at each other, confused.
“What do you want?” Quinn asked. “This feels like a superhero cartoon where you play out to be the villain in disguise.”
Victor smirked. “Then, it's a good thing I don't have evil super powers”—he leaned forward—“or do I?” His face became serious again and he sat back. “Information. I want you to tell me everything you did this weekend, beginning with waking up on Friday morning.”
“That’s it?” Blake asked.
“That’s it.” Victor answered, smiling. “Pretty easy, right?”
“Who do you work for again?” Quinn asked, hoping to catch Victor off-guard.
The corner of Victor’s lip curled upward before he answered. “I represent a concerned group of individuals who are interested in what happened to you this past weekend at the campground and here at the hospital.”
Right.
Quinn, accepting defeat, looked at Blake and shrugged. The boys proceeded to tell Victor what he wanted to know.
2 | Junior Year at Portsmouth High
MY NAME IS QUINTON MCALESTER—known to the world as Blue Spekter—but my friends call me Quinn. I’m sixteen-years-old and I’m a superhero—and I love it!
Wait…
I know what you’re about to ask me. You want to know if I can fly, if I’m bulletproof, if I’m faster than a speeding bullet, if I can bend metal, or climb tall buildings. The truth is, I’m not like any one superhero you’ve read about in comics or seen in the movies. I’m something…different. I guess you could say I lucked out with my super powers, but I’m getting ahead of myself. (I actually can’t sling webbing around like Spidey, that would be really cool, though.)
I’m not the only one with super powers; my best friend, Blake Hargreaves, got his super powers the same way I did. (I’ll get there, I promise.) Unlike your friendly, neighborhood Spider-man, the Batman, or Wonder Woman, we don’t live in a big city like New York or Gotham. We live in boring old Portsmouth, New Hampshire where almost nothing happens except bad Nor’easters and night crimes—but don’t tell the locals I said it’s boring. In truth, it’s not. There’s a lot going on and the downtown traffic might make you think you're stuck on the Zakim Bridge in Boston, but it’s no big city.
My family isn’t very…normal…at least, what people around here think of as normal. See, I have two dads who are embarrassingly in love with each other. I know I should be grateful, but when you’re my age you don’t appreciate the PDA of your parents…at all.
I talked about my friends earlier; there’s Keegan, the boy I really like, but I don't think he knows I exist. Although Keegan isn’t in my circle of friend
s yet, I’m working on that…big time. My other friends include Loren Davis, one of my English literature buddies, and Ravone Timber, who has a major crush on Blake. I’m not really sure how we became friends because she’s so different from us but she’s part of our inner circle and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There are a few others, but for brevity, last but not least there’s Mr. St. Germain, my favorite science teacher. He’s stupidly smart and really into superhero stuff, like from the comic books. That’s why Blake and I trusted him to help us learn about our super powers because when things started happening, we couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on—let alone that we could control them.
Unfortunately, I have some enemies, too, and I don’t really know why. Darien James is the biggest jerk and the stereotypical school bully. He is the Flash Thompson to my Peter Parker. He doesn’t usually bug Blake, but he sure likes to pick on me. I think it’s because I’m gay, but I’m not out—at least, I wasn’t—when he started picking on me, so who knows what got his underwear in a twist.
So, while we don’t live in a big city, there’s enough going on to keep us busy…and by busy, I’m talking about school, track, homework, and work. Blake and I attend Portsmouth High School (go Clippers!) and we’re both on the track team. Our story starts at the beginning of our junior year. We both want to go to the same college after we graduate. I want to major in English, date cute boys, and then get an MFA in creative writing because I want to be a novelist. Blake doesn't have a specific dream or major yet, but he knows he wants to make a lot of money and be in charge of something big.
On nights and weekends, we both work as baristas at the local coffee shops; me at Breaking New Grounds, and Blake at Kaffee VonSolln. (Yeah, don’t ask me how to pronounce it either.) It’s fun because there’s a natural, unspoken rivalry between the two shops and our beloved residents and tourist fans are fiercely loyal to their brand of coffee, or kaffee as we like to mispronounce the word. Still, Blake and I don’t care. Our parents let us keep the cash we earn (although mine make me save half of it for college) and we have fun with our classmates at the Fox Run Mall or the Regal Movie Theaters.
In the summers when we’re not working, we hang around town at Prescott Park or drive into Maine to relax on the Ogunquit or York beaches. On weekends, we head north into New Hampshire or Maine to go camping with our friends or our families. Well, my family…Blake’s parents are mean to him and they treat him like crap. So, whenever he can, Blake likes to get out of the house and spend most of his time with me, my family, and a few of our close school friends. Speaking of camping, this is how my story gets started—on the weekend I went camping with my family and Blake up in Rangeley, Maine.
Shall we?
❖
Quinn
Quinn blinked his blue eyes in the morning light and yawned. He stretched and then rolled over, refusing to get up despite the bright sunlight shining in his eyes. It was probably seven o’clock, but he didn’t care. The fact that school started before Labor Day sucked, but the number of snow days in New Hampshire forced the school system to expand the school year on the front and back ends.
A knock at the door startled him. “Time to get up, son,” one of his dads said through the closed door. It was Aren, whom he called Daddio.
“Yup,” he called out, burying his head under the covers.
Ugh, he thought. Let’s get this morning thing over with.
He threw the covers off, rotated himself to a sitting position, and put his feet on the carpeted floor. His toes gripped the carpet as he stretched his hands and arms high above his head and then stood up. Then he slapped himself in the face a couple of times to wake up and fell forward to the floor and started cranking out pushups.
One…two…three…
At fifty, he flipped over and worked through one hundred crunches.
Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.
He collapsed to the floor, his breath momentarily sucked out of him as his abs burned good after his early morning workout.
“Quinn, you up?” his other dad, Tim—whom he called Dad—asked through the door.
“Yep!” he answered.
“Okay.”
Quinn pulled himself off the floor and flexed in the mirror over his dresser. His abs were on point and his chest had a nice pump to it. He chuckled when he saw how wild his long, wavy, dirty-blonde bed-head hair looked in the mirror. Then he quickly made his bed and grabbed his towel from behind his door and made his way to the bathroom across the hall.
When he had finished showering, he wrapped the towel around his waist and shaved. Around him, he heard the quiet sounds of his family’s morning routine.
Daddio was downstairs in the kitchen, probably whipping up some eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast. Dad was in the shower and probably already ran five miles. He would have to leave for the law firm first and he’d bring Quinn to school on the way. Daddio didn’t have to be in the office at the small publishing company he owned until eight-thirty, so he had time to get all the morning rituals done, like making breakfast and packing three lunches.
Quinn finished dressing and checked himself in the mirror, approving the cute outfit he had put together. He wore a short-sleeved, blue-and-white gingham button-down shirt paired with grey shorts and navy-blue canvas shoes. It was still hot out and he didn’t want to sweat a lot.
In a few minutes, Quinn and his dads sat around the table and wolfed down some over-peppered scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, a banana, and a glass of orange juice. Dad was wearing one of his usual business suits, and Daddio wore some plaid boxers and tank top.
“Sorry about that,” Daddio said. “The filter-thing on the pepper popped off and I tried to scoop out what I could.”
“Thermodynamics, babe.” Dad responded, smiling. Daddio grinned back at him.
Quinn rolled his eyes. His dads were fitness nuts and they found ways to incorporate vitamin and nutritional hacks into their cooking. Thermodynamics pills, or fat burning pills, were basically shots of different kinds of pepper. Dad believed adding more pepper to your food saved tons of unnecessary spending on potentially bogus supplements—if you could handle the added heat and flavor.
“You excited for this weekend, Quinn?” Daddio asked.
Quinn nodded.
“I know I am,” Dad commented. “Three days without the law firm emailing me will be glorious.”
“Right,” Quinn responded. “Unless you’re going to turn off your cell phone, you’re going to be on it.”
“I won’t, I swear. In fact, challenge accepted, Captain Needa,” Dad said, sitting up and smiling,
“Not quite,” Daddio quipped. Needa was the captain of the Star Destroyer Avenger in Star Wars. Darth Vader Force-choked him for losing and failing to capture the escaping Millennium Falcon. As an avid Star Wars fan, Daddio worked in Star Wars references whenever he could. When Dad did it, Quinn knew the stakes were high.
“I’ll give you my phone. You can turn it off for me,” Dad added.
“Don’t fail me,” Daddio answered in as deep a voice as he could muster. Then he mimicked Darth Vader’s breathing. Quinn laughed.
Dad rolled his eyes and smiled. “My nerds.”
“Oh, you love it, too, babe,” Daddio said.
Quinn chuckled as the three guys laughed and finished their breakfast.
❖
“You have practice after school, right?” Dad asked, pulling into the school parking lot.
“Yup.”
“All right, well, have a great day and may the Force be with you.”
Quinn chuckled and rolled his eyes. “You’re so weird.”
“You love it, Batman.”
“You’re out of control.”
Dad stopped the car and smiled at his son. “Give us a hug.”
Quinn leaned over and hugged his father. “See you tonight.”
“Yep. Don’t forget we have to finish packing for the weekend. Make sure Blake is ready to go in the m
orning, okay?”
“Will do, Dad,” Quinn said, getting out of the car. He grabbed his backpack from the back seat and shut the door, waving to his dad as he turned and walked toward the high-school’s beige-and-red-brick main building.
“Aww, did ya get dropped off by your daddy, little boy?” Darien James asked. A few of his cronies, including Kyle and Tony, his loyal followers, laughed around him.
Quinn glared at him but continued walking. “They’re my dads, not my daddies.”
“Oh, well, I’m so sorry. Did you hear that guys? They’re his dads, not his daddies,” Darien repeated with a sing-songy, derogatory tone.
“Just keep walking,” Blake said, catching up to him and grabbing Quinn’s arm before the situation escalated. “It’s only the third day of school and they’re not worth it.”
“Maybe not,” Quinn said, “but it would be great to punch his lights out one day.”
“And then you’d get suspended or worse,” Blake said, reminding him of the consequences of such an outburst.
“Yeah, that’s right, take your little boyfriend away, Blakeypoo,” Darien called after them through a fit of laughter.
Blake flipped him the bird, unbeknownst to Quinn.
“You rarely have to take that kind of crap from them,” Quinn said. “Besides, they don’t even know I’m gay.”
“But I do, and it bothers me that they think they can treat you like that. What do you think will happen when you come out? Are they magically going to go away or stop? They shouldn’t pick on you in the first place for any reason, let alone your sexuality.”
“I guess.”
“Besides, if one of us is gonna throw a punch, everyone expects me to do it. You, not so much.”
Quinn looked hard at his friend. “I’m not a wimp.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Blake said, slowing down. He turned to face Quinn. “You’re just, the good guy. I’m the bad guy. I’ve got more demons and skeletons in my closet and everyone knows it. It makes perfect sense for me to punch Darien’s lights out for you.”
“Maybe,” Quinn said. “But if I do it, maybe people will pay attention and think about why I did it. ‘What pushed the good kid to lose it and lash out on Darien?’ they’ll wonder.”
Accidental Awakening Page 2