Powered (23 page)

Her voice is ice. “Any last words?”

The camera zooms in on Dad’s face. From where I’m standing, his bloodshot eyes appear to be looking right into mine. With a pained gasp of air, Dad says, “Do not turn yourself in, Maci.” The sound of his voice makes me shiver. Aurora whacks him, hard against the cheek, but Dad doesn’t flinch. He stares straight into the camera. “Stay wherever you are. Stay safe.”

“You want to die?” Aurora seethes, her lips very close to his ear. “Tell her to show herself or I will murder every member of Central.”

I reach into the air, wishing I could touch him, wishing I could be there to yank that stake out of him. “Remember what I told you,” he says cryptically, clenching his jaw for the next blow Aurora delivers to his face. “Do not come here. I know you aren’t a murderer. We do not negotiate with villains.” He blinks back tears before the screen goes black. I want to scream.

First me, then Crimson, then Dad. So much for Heroes never crying.
Remember what I told you
, he had said. The last time I spoke with Dad was in the medical ward when he warned me to go straight home and I begged him for the opportunity to help. I relive those last few moments with my Dad, the tired look in his eyes and the way he smelled like coffee. Coffee and justice, I used to say. He wanted me to go home and stay there and I had asked for a signal instead. That’s me—never giving up on the idea that I can help. I take another look at the screen as my heart seizes in my chest. He wasn’t blinking back tears just now.

He was
blinking
. Three times.

“I’m going.” I slap Evan’s hand out of my way. Turning on my heel, I look directly at the bridge of his nose. I may be strong enough to do this, but I’m not strong enough to lie into his eyes. “I do not want to hear a word you have to say. I’m going and you won’t stop me.”

He must know what’s best for him because he steps out of the way as I blow past him toward the other side of the room. “The KAPOW is down and we’re two thousand miles away from Central,” he mutters. “How are you going to get there?”

I grab my Hero suit. “I’ll run.”

He closes the space between us, stepping between me and the elevator. “I know I can’t stop you,” he says, sliding one hand behind my neck and the other around my waist. Warmth floods my body as he pulls me to him while that stupid one-dimple smile driving me crazy. I lean into his kiss. Goosebumps trail down my arm as he slides his hand down my body, kissing me with an intensity I’ve only ever imagined.

Evan presses me to the wall next to the elevator door. My arms wrap around his shoulders even though I’m still holding on to my Hero suit. I grip the fabric in my hand as my other hand flows through Evan’s hair, pulling him closer to me.

Our mouths part long enough for us to catch our breath. When I kiss him again, I run my tongue across his smiling lips. I wish we could stay like this forever. Evan leans to the side and the elevator door slides open. We must have bumped into it by mistake.

Evan reaches up and takes my hands, pulling them gently away from his shoulders.

“What are you—?” I ask, just as my Hero suit rips from my hands.

“You’ll thank me later,” Evan says as he ducks into the elevator with my suit clutched behind his back. The door snaps shut before I can dive in after him, leaving me glaring at him as his body lowers out of sight.

I jab at the elevator button until it finally rises back up to the top floor and lets me in. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to burn my suit or anything in an attempt to stop me from leaving, but I wish the elevator wasn’t so damned slow so I could find out for sure.

Evan’s on the third floor. The moment the glass elevator door opens, I sprint out and almost slam into him as he backs against a table. He holds out my Hero suit by the shoulders, wielding it like peace offering. “It’s like Pepper knew what I was going to do. He had your suit all ready for it.”

“Ready for what?” I snap, yanking my suit out of his hands.

Evan flicks the center of my suit with his middle finger. A metallic
ding
hums through the black fabric. “I can’t stop you from going. But I can make you better prepared.” He rubs his hands together. “I just wish I had some juice formulated for your DNA, and then I wouldn’t have to worry as much.”

“The breastplate,” I say, pressing my palm against the new addition to my suit. “Pepper told me about this.”

Evan nods. “You’ve got the real deal here. This breastplate is a poly-titanium blend imported from Romania. It was purified three thousand times. Pepper knew about them but he wasn’t allowed to use them. I can’t believe he equipped your suit for it. We got lucky, because no one wants to see my sewing skills.”

“What does it do?” I ask, peeking through the neck hole in the suit. The inside is fitted with a seamless pocket that looks as if it sealed around the breastplate the moment Evan had inserted it.

Evan’s fingers touch my sternum. Tingles of power pulse from his fingertips into my chest, filling me with warmth from my toes to my face. “Your chest is the most important part of your body,” he says. “It’s the nerve center of your power. Nothing will get through this breastplate. With this near your heart, there is no magnet strong enough to kill you.”

“You’re the best,” I say with a smile. “Now I can go.”

His lips press into a thin line but he doesn’t say anything. If only he could bottle that kind of self-restraint as one of his inventions. I’d buy a boatload of it. “Well?” I wag my suit at him. “Are you just going to stand there? Turn around.”

He turns toward the wall with an annoyed sigh and I exchange his borrowed clothes for my Hero suit. The second time wearing it feels just as amazing as the first. I only hope the outcome is different. I tug the hair tie out of my ponytail and let my hair flow around my shoulders, trying not to react too much to the black waves falling on my shoulders. My hair is a part of me, whether it’s the right color or not.

While I was getting dressed, Evan kept busy with something in the corner of the room. When he returns, he’s wearing a grin the size of Texas. My eyes narrow.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” I ask cautiously.

He shrugs and glances at his fingernails. “Oh come on,” I say, stepping closer to him. “You’re not fooling me with that stupid nonchalant look. What are you hiding?”

“You look hot,” he says, “That’s all.”

My heart flutters. “Somehow I don’t think that’s all.”

Evan holds his palm out, pressing his hand against my chest. “It’s not.” He holds up his other hand, twisting an empty syringe in the air. Oh shit, he knows I’m about to fight Aurora and yet he’s about to Juice me?

A cracking sound reverberates off my chest as the smallest vibration prickles at my skin underneath the breastplate. I stand firm, completely unaffected by the jolt of Evan’s juice, aimed point blank at my power source.

Pepper was right. I’m invincible.

“How far away will these rings work?” I ask, pulling my glove over the ring on my finger. We’re on the first floor of Research, standing awkwardly in the lobby next to the door.

“They’ll work anywhere.” Evan turns around, hands shoved in his pockets, glasses needing a slight shove back up his nose. “Be careful, Maci.”

“Will you wear yours?” I ask.

“Way ahead of you.” He holds up his hand, the silver ring shining on his ring finger. “So what’s the plan?”

“Well,” I pull on my other glove. “I’m going to find my impersonator and de-mask him. In public. That will clear my name. Then I’ll beat him up for good measure.” I bend my left foot backwards, grabbing it behind me with my hand to stretch out my hamstrings. “Then I’m going to find my dad and pull all that magnetic shit out of him.”

Evan’s arms fold across his chest as he watches me with a weird sort of fascination. I stand tall and rub my hands over my body, checking to ensure that I’m fully suited and ready for battle. “And then,” I say the words with deliberate slowness, “I’m going to find Aurora.”

He lifts an eyebrow.

I lift both of mine. “And I’m going to kill her.”

“Heroes don’t kill,” Evan says.

I shrug. “Well, you know—I’ll make her wish she was dead.

Evan doesn’t follow me off the island. The steady tap of my boots on the concrete floor of the KAPOW tunnel lulls me into such a rhythm that I kind of quit caring about Evan. Or at least I try to quit caring. But although the emotion on his face was only there for a microsecond before he regained his composure, I still saw it. So it still counts.

Fear.

Not the fear I feel in running, quite literally, into my enemy’s arms but the fear of
me
. It’s the look I’ve seen countless times on the faces of my peers, and their parents and random Super kids who see me for the first time.

That’s President Might’s daughter. I hear she’s the evil twin. Quick! Run away before she sees us!

I expect it from strangers. I didn’t expect it from Evan.

Guess I should have.

There are no intersecting tunnels for hours. Central is a spider web of tunnels, with the majority of all Supers living within the web in the Grand Canyon and underground. Supers have remote locations in England, Australia, and a retirement community in Hawaii. But Research is by far the most obscure location in our Super network. My leg muscles know that better than anyone.

I’m naked without my MOD. I don’t know how long I’ve been running or how many miles I’ve crossed. Also, there’s the small fact that I’ve only traveled to Evan’s once and I wasn’t in my right state of mind, so yeah—I have no idea where I’m going. I probably should have thought this out more. Asked Evan for a map.

I close my eyes as I run through the dimly lit tunnel. I breathe in and breathe out, rinse and repeat. Times a million. After a while my mind is clear and free from all distractions. I do not think about Aurora, Dad, or Evan. Topics that anger me will only hinder my body’s ability to run as efficiently as possible.

My suit breathes against my skin, holding my muscles tight in all the right places, allowing my arms to swing with the rhythm of my steps. Every stitch on the suit works in perfect harmony on the mission to get me to Central.

Turns out I don’t need a map. The first intersection I come across is the one I need. I take a right next to a line of parked KAPOW pods and jog past the stairway to SLAM. My Zen moment of jogging is interrupted as I remember meeting Evan here that day I tried to train without Max. His pod was parked right there. It was only a week ago but life was so much different back then.

The tunnels are eerily quiet as I slow from a run to a jog and then to a walk. My own footsteps echo off the walls in a constant reminder that every soul is in lockdown. I am all alone. That genius plan of action I had back at Evan’s? It has more holes than Swiss cheese.

I can’t just snap my fingers and find my impostor. Aurora will be hiding somewhere so the Heroes can’t find her. But I won’t need to find her if she finds me. She did request for me to turn myself in.

I stop in the middle of the tunnel. “I’m here,” I call out. “It’s Maci Might. Come get me.”