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But that isn’t what made me throw up.
Nova bursts into tears and runs toward the line of harnesses in the shape of chairs. A dozen of them line the far wall, each one looking like an antique electric chair with a modern twist. The woman had been messing with a computer screen since the moment we walked in the room, but now, as Nova attempts to run past her, she throws out her arm and knocks my sister to the ground. Whatever is in that leather jacket is more powerful than Nova’s natural super human strength.
My back presses against the wall behind me. I am stuck and I am defenseless and I have no idea what to do.
“Nyx,” Nova cries out, scrambling back up to her feet but not daring to go any closer.
Nyx, or a Super who looks like a starved version of my Hero friend, lops his head from one side to the other. His eyelids flutter open. Seeing Nova makes his body convulse in a desperate act of fervor but he’s stuck. Nyx, and the four other kidnapped Supers are stuck.
I squint in the haze, staying close to the wall and as unnoticeable as possible while the woman works on the computer screen. Five of the chairs against the wall contain bodies. Unlike what I thought I had seen when I first walked in the room, the bodies aren’t dead.
Nyx, George, Corey, Li, Mara. Strapped into chairs by their ankles, calves, thighs, arms and wrists. A metallic spider web of machinery clings to their chests, tubes trailing out of it leads to the main machine in the center of the room. Dozens of canisters like the one I found in the basement of the human’s drug bottling house line up on the other side of the room.
These aren’t torture devices.
They’re power taps.
With live donors.
“We have to do something,” Nova says, suddenly right in front of me. Tears pour down her eyes and her power is all frazzled and panicky. “We have to save him.”
“I know,” I whisper through clenched teeth. I can’t tell her that I have no idea what to do. I could stall. I could try to juice up and take down the woman at the computer but what if she’s more powerful than my juice? That’s not a risk I can take.
Nova’s lips press to my ear. In the faintest whisper she breathes the words, “We can take her down. I’ll pull off the jacket, you hook her.”
I glance behind my sister but the woman hasn’t heard us. She frowns at the computer screen, an older model human device with an apple image on the back of it. She types something else, looking expectantly at the screen but by the look on her face, she hasn’t gotten the results she wanted. I shake my head. “Too risky,” I whisper back.
But it’s too late. Nova runs across the room, grabbing the keyboard off the makeshift desk. She swings it like a baseball bat directly at the woman’s neck. It shatters to pieces but not before dazing the woman long enough for Nova to wrap around behind her, grabbing the jacket by the collar. She yanks it backward, simultaneously kicking the woman in the back, dropping her forward to her knees. The jacket comes off in Nova’s hands.
If I didn’t hate my sister so much I would love her.
I scale the room, grab my spare set of hooks from my boots and shove them so far into the woman’s rib cage that my fingers get covered in blood. Her eyes roll back in her head and she goes limp; a common side effect of being hooked twice. She isn’t dead, but she won’t be going anywhere for a while.
“That was ridiculously lucky,” I say to absolutely no one because Nova isn’t near me anymore. She drops to Nyx’s side, her hands hovering over him, too afraid to touch him.
“Don’t,” I say, dropping down to Nyx’s other side. “Can you hear me?” I ask him. His eyes roll slowly from Nova to me, taking a few moments to focus. His skin is pale, minus the dark circles under his chocolate, bloodshot eyes. I repeat the question. He nods. Nova bursts into tears again.
Since Nyx is alive for now, I leave him and check on all of the other harnessed Supers. They’re all able to look at me and nod in the affirmative when I ask them simple questions.
“Are you Mara Moone?”
Nod.
“Are you Li Gou?”
Nod.
“George Goodfellow?”
A nod and a tear.
“Corey?”
He doesn’t nod. Instead he grips the armrests of his chair until his knuckles turn white. His voice is hoarse and barely audible, but he speaks. I think that’s the point he’s trying to make. “I’m Corey. Thank you...for...saving us.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I haven’t saved him. I’m not sure I can save myself. But Hero Rule number three states that Heroes never give up. So I smile and fake like I know what I’m doing. Hopefully I’ll be right.
The hooked woman still lies unconscious on the ground. I’ve been checking up on her every few minutes so that I can be first on the scene when she begins to come to. After searching the room, the machines and the horrendous power-siphoning chairs, Nova and I found a knife in the woman’s fake leather jacket. We cut through the power-restraining braces that held each Super’s arms and legs to the chair.
