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“Fine, but I really can carry it. It’s just my hands that are cut, not my back.” She glanced down at them as she wriggled out of the pack. “Ugh, splinters are the worst, aren’t they?” Mercury let the pack drop to the ground. “Sorry, if I hand it to you that really will hurt me.”
Saying nothing, Stella bent to pick up the backpack. She lifted it about a foot from the ground before letting it drop back. “You said it was light.”
“It is.”
“No, Mercury Elizabeth Rhodes. That thing weighs at least fifty pounds.”
“Oh my Goddess, Stella. That’s insane.”
“No, what’s insane is that you’re carrying it around like it’s nothing, and you just did a straight arm pull-up with that fucking thing on your back right before you jumped, flat-footed, from the middle of that bridge onto the bank a good ten feet away like goddamn Wonder Woman!” With a trembling hand Stella brushed strands of her wild hair from her face. “You have super strength.”
“I do not.” Mercury hooked one of the backpack straps through her arm and with a single movement, slung it up to her shoulders.
Stella’s brows lifted into her hair. “I could barely pick that thing up.”
Mercury stared at her friend as her heartbeat calmed. She looked behind Stella to the skeletal remains of the footbridge that clung to the opposite bank. Then she met Stella’s gaze again. “I did a dead-arm pull-up. I seriously pulled my body weight up like it was nothing.”
Stella nodded. “With a fifty-pound backpack. Then you jumped. Jumped! And went flying a bunch of feet—don’t know how many because I was flat out running to try to save you while you did it—to the other fucking side of the river.”
Mercury felt nauseous and dizzy. “What’s happening to me?”
Stella touched her friend’s shoulder. “You’re still you. Remember that. We all have to remember that. But you have changed.”
“The green fog,” Mercury whispered. “I got a second dose.”
Stella nodded. “Yeah, but you were already strong before that. I watched you leap down the bank to save the kids. You were fast. And I noticed it again when you lifted Gemma onto the bank. She’s gotta be a hundred and twenty-ish pounds. You grabbed her under her elbow and hefted her up like she weighed nothing. The only reason she fell back was because she slipped.”
Mercury stopped and turned to face Stella. “Tell me the truth and don’t fucking sugarcoat it. These new abilities—are they a good or a bad thing?”
Stella paused and tilted her head to the side in what was becoming her familiar listening pose. “Good and bad. That’s all I get right now.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“If it helps, I don’t feel any danger warnings about you—or Gemma,” Stella added.
Mercury wiped her sweaty forehead with a shaky hand. “Gemma! Does she have super strength too?”
Stella snorted. “Not hardly. Imani had to help her get Ford back to the truck. Speaking of, come on. We really do have to get out of here.”
The two women walked in silence for a little way before Mercury cleared her throat. “Um, did everyone see what happened?”
“Yep. When that first board broke, it sounded like a gunshot,” said Stella.
“Even the guy?”
“Absolutely.” Stella glanced at her. “Unless you’re prepared to leave him by the side of the road with a concussion, we’re going to have to take him with us, which means we’re going to have to trust him.”
“And is he trustworthy?”
“Acorn, if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t have stopped here. Nor would I have given him the conditions for traveling with us. Like I told the kids. There are no bad men in the area.” She paused and added. “I think I was compelled to stop because we were destined to meet him. And the green fog redo was important too.”
“Okay, so I’ll trust him. Feels kinda weird, though. Men have been awful since this thing happened.”
“Oh, Mercury, don’t blame it on the apocalypse. You haven’t trusted men for many years.” Stella wrapped her arm through Mercury’s. “Not that I disagree with you. I just like to play with them more often than you do.”
Mercury arched one brow up. “Stella Carver, are you going to play with him?”
Stella bumped her shoulder and waggled her eyebrows at her best friend. “No, I’m not.”
