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“She’s telling the truth,” I mutter, taking a step backward. “This is a dead end.”
Crimson’s BEEPR lights up with a call from my brother. She answers it privately, holding the device to her ear. “Yeah? No. No. Okay. Yeah it didn’t lead to anything. Okay, will do.” She thanks the teenager for her time and turns to leave, ignoring my super offended look of annoyance about her secret call with Max.
When we’re back in the KAPOW, I cross my arms and lift my eyebrows as high as it takes for her to laugh. “It’s nothing, Mace. I promise.”
“If it’s nothing than why can’t you tell me?”
Lights blur past the tiny KAPOW window as we zoom across the nation in our underground tunnels. Crimson’s super-blonde hair seems to glow in the dim lighting. “You’re my best friend,” she says.
I roll my eyes. “Those are just words. They aren’t the words I want to hear. What’s going on with Max? Why did he call you and not me?”
“Well…” her voice gets higher as she speaks. “He’s under the impression that you’re going to get mad at him if you know where he is instead of where you want him to be, so, he’s just kind of...avoiding you?”
“WHAT?” I bolt out of my seat, realizing a little too late that there’s nowhere to go in this pod but right back into the seat cushion. “He’s supposed to be investigating the depowering machine. That’s where he should be. That’s where he better be.”
Crimson stares at her silvery nail polish and gnaws on her bottom lip. “He found some leads about Li Gou that places him in Japan. So Max felt it would be…” she chooses her words carefully, “...more pertinent to look for a missing Super than to pursue the depowering machine. At least for now. He’s still going to do it, Maci, I swear.”
My eyes focus straight ahead at the stainless steel wall panel in front of me, arms crossed so tightly over my chest that my circulation starts to get tingly. Crimson’s power fills with empathy and pity and that only makes my rage grow stronger. “Max promised me he would look into the machine. He said I couldn’t do it because of the stupid villains. He promised.”
“He hasn’t broken his promise.” Crimson’s voice is sharp like she’s speaking to a child. “We protect the humans but we also protect our own. His lead was stronger than the depowering machine lead, you have to understand that.”
“Really? His lead?” As pissed off as I am, I direct my glare at the wall instead of at my best friend. I love her too much to be a jerk to her. “Was it as good as the so-called lead you and I just followed?”
“I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at him. He’s doing what he thinks is best.”
“He doesn’t know what’s best,” I snap, dipping my chin to look at the floor. I’m pouting. I know. I just don’t care.
Her cool fingers touch my bare arm. She’s only two years older than I am but in this moment, she feels a lot older than eighteen. Her power feels wise, caring. Mine is erratic and hungry. “Maci, Heroes have to think with a clear head and make tough decisions when necessary. We don’t follow our hearts, we follow logic. I know you’re mad but please try to see it from his point of view. Not everyone can just rush off making irrational decisions because they feel like it.”
This time when I bolt up, I have somewhere to go. My hand palms the MOD screen and I shout the word STOP. We lurch to a halt in the middle of nowhere, so deep in the underground tunnels that the overhead lights are just a scatter of dusty bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
Crimson’s eyes go wide but she doesn’t say anything. “Thanks for the pep talk,” I say as I yank open the KAPOW pod’s door. “I really wish I could stay and chat longer, but I just made an irrational decision and I need to go take care of that.”
I jump out and take off running before the door has time to snap closed again. Crimson doesn’t follow after me, but I knew she wouldn’t.
Because that wouldn’t be logical.
A sick feeling of nostalgia creeps over me. The medical ward looks almost the same as it did a few weeks ago, all white and clean and sterile and awful. Supers heal instantly. Supers never come to the medical ward unless something very bad has happened. Yet I’ve been here three times, each time worse than the last.
Nurse Martha isn’t behind the front desk like I’d expected. It’s another woman I’ve never seen before. Much younger, with thin wiry hair and by the smell of it, freshly painted nails. She barely glances up from the MOD screen on her desk when I walk in. I give her a quick nod, an Official Hero Business nod, and she returns it then goes back to work.
Memory takes me through the empty halls, turning left and right and then left two more times. My heartbeat speeds up as I near the room with solid glass walls that I first saw on my sixteenth birthday. A deep breath calms me only a little bit; behind those walls lies the one creation that ripped out all of my dad’s power and almost took all of mine. It is a life-ruiner when it falls into the wrong hands.
Aurora’s hands were the worst.
The taste of copper floods over my tongue. I swallow blood. Then release my jaw so it stops gnawing a freaking hole through my lip. Get it together, Maci. You’re a Hero. Stop being nervous.
I mistake the open air for very clean glass at first. I stop in the middle of the hallway, feeling for the first time in a long time, absolutely nothing. Where a wall of glass used to be is now just empty open space. The big room in front of me that used to hold the massive machine that resembled a CAT scanner is now just a room. The floor is carpeted and clean. It’s as if the machine I’m looking for never existed.
But if that were the case, my right arm wouldn’t be a num
b worthless piece of flesh and bone.
Back at the front desk, the nurse doesn’t acknowledge me until I clear my throat. “You work here?” I ask. She looks up and nods. “Well act like it.”
“We don’t have any patients today,” she says, straightening her spine when she notices the black and white Hero suit I’m wearing. “Um, are you..?” The distinct smell of fear empties out of her pores and although I shouldn’t be so smugly satisfied, I am. I smile. “I’m Hero Maci Might.”
“I’msosorry.” Her words rush out all at once as she jumps from her chair, smoothing her hair down at the sides. “My name is Casey. What can I do for you? Do you need someone?”
