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hield. Dust and concrete bits fly everywhere. It’s Max. My brother is only a few feet away! I run toward him but he steps in front of my path, pressing one hand to my chest and holding the other one in front of him. “Touch my sister and I’ll kill you.”
Nyx stops dead in his tracks. The power bouncing between Max and his best friend grows strong enough to repel anyone who tries to step in front of them.
“She’s a murderer,” Nyx says. His thin frame is just as tall as Max, but with only half the width. I wouldn’t bet on him in a fight between the two. “Turn her in.”
With Max’s fingertips still pressed to my chest, I feel his response in his power before he says anything. “We do not negotiate with villains. Your job is to detain these assholes. Leave my sister to me.”
It’s not an ideal reply, but I’ll take it. Nyx slinks away, knocking two villains to the ground as easily as if they were mannequins. Max gives me a guarded look over.
“I didn’t murder anyone—I’ve been set up.”
“Then where have you been?” Our conversation is rushed; all the things we want to say to each other bury under the vital questions we have time for amidst the war going on around us.
“With Evan at Research.”
He cocks an eyebrow as if this is the last answer he’d expect from me. “I looked everywhere for you,” he says. “I thought you had switched sides. I thought she was hiding you.”
I shrug. “You didn’t look there.”
Someone calls for Max from across the room. He pushes me into a crevice in the wall between two massive decorative columns. “Stay here,” he orders, before jumping back into the fray, disappearing inside a tumbleweed of fighters.
I stay put for exactly half of a second and then I give into my natural instincts and join the fight.
Like a hoard of zombies in a Halloween horror film, the villains keep coming. I punch and kick and slash my way through them, keeping the wall at my back so there are no surprise attacks. Desperation to find my brother again overwhelms me, but I can’t take my eyes off my attackers for even a second to look for him, or I’d be overtaken.
My breathing grows ragged, almost to the point of panting, by the time the Heroes outnumber the villains. I have a clear view of Max, Nyx, Hugo Havoc, and a few others now. They form a circle around the open center of the Atrium, engaged in a battle with only one villain per Hero. Their numbers are down. Ours remain strong.
Unlike on the Xbox, my enemies’ bodies don’t blink a few times and then disappear when I knock them unconscious. Six crumbled villains lay motionless at my feet, a pile of black Kevlar bent in unnatural positions.
I allow myself to catch a breath. Not two seconds pass before I hear the clicking of a Retriever hook coming from above. I look up to see yet another villain hiding in the ceiling arches. The clicking hook releases from her hand and slams into my chest. I gasp, expecting pain, but the hook bounces off my new breastplate, hits the floor with a zap, and falls over on its side. The villain gawks at me and I give her a smirk. Nice job, idiot.
She hits the floor a second later, her black suit fitting unflatteringly tight around her pudgy form. Blue eyes peer at me from behind her facemask. The discarded Retriever hook lies between us. We both get the same idea at the same time.
But I’m faster.
I swoop up the hook in the second it takes her to bend toward it, arms outstretched as if trying to find something in the dark. Her coordination and speed are so inefficient she doesn’t deserve to call herself a villain. I wrap my hand around her neck. On the plus side, at least she won’t miss her power once it’s ripped from her body. It’s not as if she used it well in the first place.
My right hand pulls back, hook positioned with the pointy ends facing her, and I give her a sardonic smile as I prepare to ram the hook straight into her flabby abdomen.
Two things happen before I get the chance to hook her.
A supersonic boom fills the air, ear-shattering in its low bass volume, vibrating the floor, the walls, and my own skin as if I were encased inside a large speaker. Everything goes black. My heart beats three times. The woman’s body sags beneath my grip on her neck.
The booming sound happens again and the lights appear as quickly as they had extinguished. I’m eye to eye with a now-unconscious villain in my grip. The woman’s eyes roll to the back of her head. The retriever hook falls from my hand as I watch in horror as blood gushes out from her eye sockets, spilling over her eye mask. I release her neck and she slumps to the floor. Dead.
A horrified shriek fills the air and I turn to see Crimson, her hands cupped over her mouth as she stands over a dead villain lying in a pool of blood. All the villains have suffered this fate, leaving only a dozen Heroes and myself to witness their sudden demise.
The raspy voice of a hundred-year-old chain smoker comes out of the silence. “Come on child, you don’t need to scream.” The examiner’s glass podium descends from the ceiling, stopping just higher than I would be able to jump if I had a good running start. I suck in a deep breath and turn to face Pepper’s murderer.
“Aurora.” I grit my teeth and look at the woman who has made everyone’s life hell. She laughs and it echoes off the walls, a cackle that chills me to the core. Max’s scent surprises me. It’s the same fresh body wash smell as always; fighting has no effect on him. He takes my side and grabs my arm protectively.
“What do you want with her?” he asks. “And where is my father?”
Aurora brushes her hands over her skintight leather dress, smoothing out the wrinkles. “You’re an inquisitive giant. Look at all those muscles,” she coos. “What are they feeding Heroes these days?”
Max starts to reply and she holds up a finger. “You know what, I don’t care. That’s enough talking from all of you. I’m only here for one person.”
I step forward. She’s right. She’s only here for me and I would like very much to find out why and without hurting anyone else I care about. “There she is,” Aurora says with a smile. “Maci, dear. Come stand with me.”
