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“Maci!” Nova interjects. “We can’t wait!”
“Yes we can,” I say. “If they don’t want to do it, they don’t have to. We can get help.”
I move to George and Mara and they both tell me no as well. After watching Corey, I can’t say I blame them. “Are you okay with staying here so we can go get help?” I ask them. Corey, still huddled on the floor, points toward the woman on the floor.
I try to say something reassuring. “I left more retriever hooks back in the hallway. I can get them and hook her two more times. She won’t be going anywhere, I promise.”
“Or we could just take her with us,” Nova says.
“Do that,” Nyx coughs out. “Take her.”
“See?” Nova says. “Nyx agrees.”
Anger rushes into me and I direct all of it toward my sister. “Shut up!” Her eyes go wide as if she’s actually offended about what I just said. So I say it again. “Just shut up, Nova. You don’t get to make the calls around here. You are not a Hero. If it wasn’t for me, you would be dead. You’re nothing.” Her jaw hardens but she doesn’t look away. “I am the Hero. Nyx is incapable of doing his job right now and everyone else is a normal Super. I make the calls around here. I am in charge. So Shut. The. Hell. Up.”
The sound of someone clapping is eerily out of place in this manmade cave. I glance from Nyx to the rest of the Supers but they remain stark still. The clapping comes from behind me.
His power fills the whole room. I turn around. A man stands in the doorway, blocking the only exit. He’s tall and lean, tan with angular features. Pitch black hair cropped short. Some kind of insignia tattoo decorates his neck.
“That was quite a speech.” His voice is a slow drawl, reverberating off the walls. “It’s a shame that you rescued your sister only to end up regretting your decision.”
Nova’s voice is a whisper. “Felix.”
The slow clapping stops. “Good to see you again, sweetheart.”
I turn to Nova, if only to see her expression. Her face is a blank canvas. She stares straight at Felix.
And then her eyes go wide.
I turn back around just in time to see the blur of something flying toward us. My stomach clenches in pain and Nova and I slam backward into the wall. Something very much like a railroad spike juts out of my side, pinning me to the wall. But it isn’t just a sharpened piece of steel.
It hurts way more than that.
“Let me go, you friggen piece of scum!” Nova’s yelling continues. She calls him every G-rated name in the book and I almost laugh at her. She’s definitely the good twin. “You will never get away with this!” she screams. I sneak a sideways glance and see tears roll down her cheeks.
Felix is a sleek figure in the hazy room. All black slender pants and long sleeved jacket that I know isn’t leather no matter how much it looks like it. I soften my face until I am unaffected. I do not snarl or wince or let tears pour of out my eyes. There’s a magnetic stake in my side, no doubt piercing straight through my spleen, but I mind-over-matter it. My vision blurs all around the villain standing across the room. All I see is him.
All I feel is anger.
All the power in my body concentrates itself around the burning pain in my side. I feel it drain from my head and my toes and from one hand. It pulls toward the pain, being beckoned by the foreign magnet. I bite down on my tongue to prevent my teeth from shattering.
We won’t get out of this without a plan and I can’t think of a plan with all of this pain stealing every ounce of my attention.
Felix steps forward, casting an uninterested glance toward the two rescued Supers and the other harnessed ones. He approaches his ally, who lies unconscious on the floor. A swift kick sends her body across the floor and out of the way. He walks closer to Nova and her fear increases tenfold. She holds her chin up, even when he steps just inches away from her.
He is silent for an uncomfortable amount of time. If Nova would get a grip on her emotions, even for a minute, then I would have enough silence to work out a plan. My hand habitually slides
over to my wrist, only to remember too late that my BEEPR does not work. I glance toward Nyx but it’s too smoky for me to see him lying on the floor.
Nova’s emotions are frantic--anger, betrayal, fear. I roll my head to the right. “Shut up, Nova. Seriously. Please.”
Felix pulls his attention away from my sister to look at me. But it’s only for a second, then he turns back to her. He’s inches away from her now. His hand reaches up and touches her hair. “I can’t count the times I told Aurora that raising you was a bad idea,” he says, sliding his fingers through her hair. “We should have used you as bait the moment we got you. Central was weakened after out attack. Your father was heartbroken. He made a lot of mistakes in the weeks that followed. Depowered many Supers, some of which had done no wrong. He must have thought he was doing something good, but really all he did was give us more allies.”
“No one cares,” Nova spats. Felix shrugs. “No, I don’t suppose you would. But I care. I care about why you’re here and what you’re doing, mingling with the Heroes as if you belong with them.”
“She’s my family,” Nova says.
Felix laughs. “She does not talk to you like you are family.”
