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“Dad!” My startled cry makes him jerk on the gurney, lifting his head to see me. His clothing is in shreds across his arms, chest, and legs where the ropes hold him in place. I know those aren’t ordinary ropes. They’ve singed straight through his shirt and jeans. Aurora holds out her hand. “Take one step toward him and he gets depowered.” The villain parks my father in front of the depowering machine and pulls a crank on the gurney, making it rise into a standing position. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed that machine until now.
“Excellent,” Aurora says. “Now everyone has a front row view.”
Several emotional grunts and gasps come from the Heroes who stand paralyzed behind me. I don’t make a sound. Only I can fix this now. Only I can save my dad and the entire Hero Brigade. I just need to figure out how.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. President,” Aurora says as her Death-impersonating villain takes her side. My mind flips into Hero mode. In two seconds I could scale the room, in ten seconds, I could overpower Aurora and knock out her stupid sidekick. In half a minute, I can rescue my dad.
“Oh, by the way,” she says, holding up her DNA-freezing device. From a closer view I see that it has four buttons in the center, not just one. Her thumb hovers over the second button. “Try anything and I’ll explode your friends’ brains just like I did to the others.”
I close my eyes and swallow my outrage. If there was ever a time to be calm, this is it.
Aurora steps around the fishbowl toward Hugo Havoc. She places her hand on his cheek before turning to look at me. I don’t move. I don’t really see a point in it. “Did you ever wonder why your father allowed you to be raised in the Super society, despite knowing that you could be evil?”
“He believed in me.” I try to keep my voice steady and unwavering. Dad is listening after all. “He knew I could be good if I was raised to be good.”
“How did he know that? Does he have some sort of superior-breeding genetics that would increase your likelihood of not being evil?”
“You know he doesn’t,” I say. “I was an experiment.”
Aurora’s eyebrows shoot to the top of her forehead. “An experiment!” She abandons her caress of Hugo’s cheek and turns to me. “President Might knows all about experiments. He participated in dozens. Do you know who he liked to use for his experiments?”
Dad’s arms pull at his restraints. A sizzling light zaps through the metal ropes and he falls still once again as the smell of burnt flesh wafts in my direction. I know where this she’s going with this. She’s trying to intimidate me.
And it’s working.
But I won’t let her know that.
I cross my hands over my chest. “Twins. He experimented on twins.”
Fire roars behind her eyes as she stands directly in front of me. “Twenty-one sets of twins were experimented on during your father’s first decade as president. Four of them survived. Our president knew that half of those children were good Supers and deserved a fulfilling life and yet he allowed every single one of them to be subjected to the torture veiled as experimenting in the name of the greater good.”
I stay strong. “That is not my fault.”
“Right again!” She slaps her hands together in front of her chest, a loud echo filling the silent room. “You know whose fault it is. I’m not alone in thinking that the president shouldn’t be allowed to spare his own child when he didn’t care about anyone else’s.”
“He was only trying to protect everyone else in the world.”
“He was being a selfish, hypocritical asshole!”
My hair blows across my face at the force of her hands flying through the air as she talks. I swallow as I prepare a tactic I’ve never used before—reasoning.
“I have no excuses for my father,” I begin, my voice sincere. “But killing him won’t make you happy.”
“Wrong.” She glances at her fingernails to prove just how bored she is with my reasoning. “Killing him would make me very happy. But I’m not going to kill him. I’m going to depower him.” She points to her eyes with both index fingers. “Eye for an eye, and all that.”
I glance from her to my dad, to the tiny yet fatal object still in her hand. “Let me assure you, Maci, darling—” she reaches for my hand and I pull away. “You will die tonight. But it is not because of the rules you broke, or the darkness of your hair, or even because I just don’t like you. Your death won’t be from anything you did. This is your father’s punishment.”
“Yeah?” I say, stretching out my hands and popping my fingers. “Bring it.”
Unaffected, she turns on her heel. “I’m not going to kill you just yet. I have a Hero Examination to grade.” Spinning on her heel, Aurora walks back into the fishbowl and places her hands on her hips. “Here is your exam: You proclaim that you are not the evil twin—now is your chance you prove it. You will fight my protégé.”
She motions toward the depowering machine to where the girl dressed as Death steps forward. “If you do not wish to kill her, you may be depowered with your father. But if you happen to have the gift of villainy and you choose to end her life, then I will set you free.”
“Mother!” The voice comes from the person next to my dad. “You never said I’d have to fight her. That was not part of the plan!” God, she sounds even younger than her small frame suggests. She’s too young to be a villain.
Aurora snorts. “Just because you are unaware of something, doesn’t mean it’s not part of the plan.”
Death’s shoulders straighten. She doesn’t make a good Death, not like the ones in horror films, but I’ll call her Death because that’s what she’s dressed like. Like a tiny version of the grim reaper who wanted to dress like a villain but robbed a Halloween store instead. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll fight her.” Her cloaked face turns in my direction.
