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better gaming chairs, but I get the feeling Max wants to be closer to the door just in case Dad comes home earlier than expected. We haven’t talked about Dad yet. I think we’ve all just decided he’s better off as the gigantic invisible elephant in the room right now.
I take a sip from my bottle of orange Gatorade and sit on the floor between the boys.
“So …” Max says in an extraordinarily casual way as he taps away on the game controller. “We have a sister.”
A lump forms in the pit of my stomach. My mouth goes dry and I reach for my drink. I stare straight at the television. “Not for much longer.”
Max pauses the game. “What does that mean?”
My hands twist together, powered fingers intermingling with bandaged numb ones. “The examiners told me she ran away,” I begin, but Max interrupts me with, “She did. She scared off the Retrievers pretty quickly. I saw her standing against the wall when they finally took you off in a medic pod and when I looked for her again, she was gone. But it’s not like she had a MOD on her, so no one knows where she is.”
“They’ve sent trackers to find her,” I say.
Max’s eyebrows draw together as he looks at Evan. “Do you know anything else?”
Evan shakes his head. “I’ve told you all I know.”
“And what is that?” I ask.
Evan massages his left wrist. “I was interrogated after Aurora died. They asked me a million questions about your twin. I guess they thought I might have been connected with Felix and would know something. But I didn’t, of course.”
“Wait,” I hold out a hand. “Aurora’s dead?” Guess I shouldn’t be surprised after all. They’re going to kill my twin too.
Evan nods. “Nova snapped her neck. Right after she saved you.”
Stars fill my vision and all I’m doing is sitting here. I find myself straining to inhale, my power so high-strung it feels like it’ll burst out of my chest. “Nova did what?”
“She killed her. I know we’re against murder and all, but—” Evan tugs at his eyebrow and glances at Max. “It was kind of awesome.”
“Not that.” The words are sluggish as they leave my mouth. “The other thing.”
“She saved you? You don’t remember?”
I rock back on my knees, my fingers digging into my thighs. “I remember being depowered and thinking my life was over, and then I remember waking up in the medical ward. What do you mean she saved me? She was trying to kill me.”
Max shifts awkwardly in his seat. His power feels tense, hurt and angry all at the same time. Evan looks me in the eyes and takes my bad hand. “Nova pulled you out. She saved you.”
I toss the words around my mind, trying to make sense of them. “I don’t understand.”
“Join the club,” Max mutters.
Evan shrugs. “When you got sucked into the depowering machine, Max and I tried pulling you out but we couldn’t. Then she shoved past us, grabbed your shoulders, said she was going to regret doing it, and just pulled you out of the machine like it was no effort at all. That’s when I wrapped my shirt around your arm and you almost killed Aurora.”
“I remember that part,” I interject. Flashes of holding a metal sign over her neck come back me.
Evan continues, “You left Aurora and Max and I were at your side. Then we all kind of forgot about Nova as we were tending to you. I looked back just in time to see her snap Aurora’s neck.”
“Nova pulled me out,” I say, more to myself. “She saved me.”
He sucks in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “She was stronger than Max and I combined.”
I shake my head, disbelief clouding my thoughts. “That’s not possible.”
“I think it’s because she’s your twin. If your power is doubled, then so is hers.” Evan keeps talking, using words over my realm of understanding, but I don’t hear any of it. The whole room blurs into nothingness. Breathing becomes harder. My mind is in a fog, too thick with emotions to make sense of anything around me. Nova saved me. She was sent to kill me and instead she saved me.
Max grabs my arm and shakes me back to reality. “Maci, say something.”
I shake my head as the room returns to normal and my vision clears. Max looks horrified as I shrug his hand off me and stand. “I’m going to find her.”
