Chapter Eight: We Burnt the Daylight

“Oftentimes winning can become an addiction, whether good or bad, to the point where you would rather lose it all before you lose at all.” ― Criss Jami,

We find a bar with an outdoor patio and snag two seats. Surrounded by people, I can’t stay sitting long or I’ll completely melt the metal chair. There are heat lamps around, a sidewalk to my back. I can see Dawson’s thick eye and lip makeup, and I honestly think she looks better without it. She keeps her head down and practically lies on the chair, clicking the sides of her boots together.

"Let’s make a deal. If everything we say at this table stays secret, then I promise to be completely truthful." I propose.

"Deal." She simply replies.

"You want to explain first?" I ask.

Her eyes flicker up to mine. "No." She answers strongly and stubbornly, more like the girl I saw earlier. "I’m trusting you with the only people I care about in this world. You first." I can’t argue with her logic.

"How active is your imagination?" I ask.

"Nonexistent." She answers sharply.

"Then you’re going to have a harder time believing me." I look over my shoulders and lean in, motioning for her to do the same. "You probably won’t believe me, but this is the truth." My voice is low and near silent. "I was sent by this nation’s government to protect California."

She leans back, one eyebrow raised. "I was expecting something more farfetched. I’m still going to need proof."

I nod, and she straightens up. "I’m more than human, and please don’t make a big deal out of it." She just rolls her eyes, obviously not believing me. I hold my right hand around my left, cupping it for only Dawson to see. I act as if I’m showing her something on a phone and act quickly. I snap my fingers, and flame ignites on my thumb like a lighter.

To sum up Dawson’s reaction in the fewest words: she makes a big deal out of it.

She swears loudly and throws herself backwards into the back of her chair, eyes and mouth wide open. She freaks out, clawing and dragging her heels against the chair to try and stand. Squirming around until her feet find the ground, she flings off the chair. She sends it skidding across the ground, everyone falling silent and turning to look. I drop the flame the second she opens her mouth.

I shoot her a look that tells her how good she is at keeping secrets. Fortunately, this is easy to recover from. "Oh, come on." I announce vociferously, "It’s just a spider." I pretend to squish it with my thumb. "There, see? I got it." She looks at me, and I give a little nod.

She exhales like she’s been holding her breath for a minute and picks up her chair. She pushes it over and slumps down in front of the table. "It was almost on my arm!" She uses that excuse as her alibi.

The people around us more or less go back to their business, leaving only a few annoyed glances. There aren’t really any young children, thank goodness.

"What the hell was that?" She whisper-shouts to me.

"That was fire. I told you." I answer.

"So, are you a superhero?" She asks.

"They call me a mutant." I say.

"What can you do?"

"Shoot fire, fly, sprint," I feel like a fool giving away all this information, so I only cover the things the terrorist group knows I can do. I say nothing about my lack of humanity, exhaustion and regeneration.

"Who are you protecting California from?" She asks.

"I’m not supposed to talk about any of this, you know. I think I’m only allowed to say that they’re bad people." I answer.

"Is that what you were doing in Davis?" I nod. "And that’s how you started the fire? Why your clothes are all ripped?" I continue to nod. "Why you don’t have to eat? Why your eyes keep changing colors?" It turns into one continuous, slow nod.  "So what do you need us for?"

I can’t be totally honest. I just can’t risk it. I can, however, be briefly honest. "At first, convenience." That’s a bluff, it was a necessity. "Then it was because I cared about you guys." Partially honest. I’ve grown a protective sense towards them. Although it’s not strong enough for me to abandon my duties.

She looks at me almost skeptically, squinting her eyes and wearing that same grimace I’m used to. "So what happened today? Mav said there was an explosion and you were killed." She says.

"I said I’m trying to protect California. A town came under attack, and I had to run to the next town before it came under attack. There was an explosion, I’m fine." I say. "I’m fine" is basically the way Kelli, Ty, Andrew and I respond to any bizarre, uncomfortable or painful situation. Once, to get Ty back for a prank, Kelli distracted him. I stood on the balcony, a metal cookie tray in my hands. I jumped off and smacked him over the head where I may have knocked him out. Don’t judge me. Point is, he started bleeding on the floor with serious head injuries. The second he woke up with tons of people staring down at him. The first thing he said? After a choice swear word to Kelli and me, he said, "I’m fine." He was healed within in the day, Kelli and I got in a ton of trouble. Personally, "I’m fine" means, "I’m hurt, but like hell I’m going to admit it. As far as the world and my reputation knows, I’m okay." Not this time. This time, I am truly all right. Those two words give me the greatest of internal conflict.
"What are you doing here?" She asks.

I can’t say that this is the next target. "One of my friends has a thing for the ocean." I say. Another one hates it because of the one who has a thing for it.

"Are they like you?" She asks.

"No." I answer. They aren’t made of fire like me. That’s close enough to the truth that I don’t feel bad when looking her right in the eyes. I pause, awaiting another question that doesn’t come. My turn to ask. "What about you? What’s your story?" I have to remind myself that she isn’t aware that I know her story. She’s going to me about her mom.

"You know how the rich b******s say that they don’t have to share because everyone should work hard like they did for money? How they completely ignore circumstance?" She asks. I nod. "I could have worked every single day for my whole life and still not have a chance. All because of where I was born and who birthed me. I was born to an alcoholic mother and a father who doesn’t exist to me in a poor county. Did I ever get any love? Nope. Any happy childhood memories? Not with that woman. She blew any of her money off on cigarettes and booze, so I’ve been hungry all my life.

"As we aged, the woman started getting meaner and madder. I’d always done something wrong. When I got piercings and tattoos, she only hated me more. I knew I had to leave her the first chance I got. I had nothing to stay for, no reason to stay in contact. I’m an only child and there’s no way I was going to college. So I planned to leave. K.B. insisted that she, Mav and Ardo come with. At first, everything was good. We could be who we were, do what we want and make our future into something other than worthless undergraduates.

"Our food and money ran out quickly. Suddenly, we were hungrier than before and had no gas. I got us into this mess; I can’t be the one to cut their lives short. I needed to make money, and I needed to be able to make it anywhere without needing any equipment." She looks down at herself, and oh my gosh, she’s actually tearing up. "I never wanted to be like this. I was just so desperate… I was starving and we were stuck in the middle of Idaho, the nights were cold, I had no other choice. I snuck out at night to do this," She leans her head down and tears start falling. Tears. Dawson’s actually crying. I’ve never seen anyone actually sob from sadness before, not this close. Her makeup smears, leaving large black semicircles underneath her eyes. "I’m a disgrace. I sold myself out for money. It would have been better in Montana working as a janitor." She holds her hands over her cheeks, fingers creating gates over her eyes. Covering her nose and mouth, her hands protect almost her entire face from the world. She picks her head up after a moment and moves her right hand to wipe tears quickly before locking the gate closed. In that quick moment, I see red, puffy eyes with all her makeup on her face and her mouth hanging slightly open in a frown.

She’s smaller than ever. A fraction of the once bitter girl with the tight grimace. I can’t imagine being in her position. Running away each night, new men, I’ve never even held hands with anyone. Would I be willing to do what she’s done, if I was her?

I don’t know if I could. I know it’s for the greater good and it benefits more people than it condemns, but there are things you can’t expect a person to do for others.

I don’t know how to react. I can’t put a hand on her shoulder, can’t relate to her on any level. I’ve taken more pain than she can ever comprehend. Yet that pain was physical. Her pain only exists in her head and heart, where I’ve never been touched.

Her sobbing slows, and she puts her hand down. There are long streaks of smeared darkness under her eyes and stripes where her hands spread it across her temples. Snot’s dripped down to her lips, bright red lipstick fading and some getting on her teeth. "My ship was sinking, and I sunk everyone else’s with me. If I were to die right now, would anyone even care?" I know it’s a rhetorical question and ignore all the sarcastic answers I would throw at Ty if he asked me, like no.

"K.B., Mav and Ardo would die without you. Both metaphorically and literally. They care about you as much as you love them. Would you rather yourself die or one of them?" I ask. Now I can understand her. I know that if it comes to it in war, I’ll bite the dust before the others. They prepared me to fight to the death for the others.

"Myself." She answers weakly.

"They feel the exact same way." I tell her. Ty and I have gotten into so many arguments over who would die first. Andrew and Kelli ended up joining in, leading to the invention of a game. Whoever lives the longest loses. "And because of the sacrifices you make each night, they would die if you died. They need you."

"That doesn’t make me feel better about the things I do." She says.

"I know. I’m just getting through the necessary clichés before I get to what’s important." I say. I lean in closer and lower my voice. It lowers to show my sincerity.  "We don’t live that long. But in times like this, it sure feels long. We’re away from the people we care about, doing things we don’t want to do." This is a topic I belong to. "We’ve become people we don’t want to be." What would I like to hear to feel better? When I realized I was a weapon, and nothing more? "And we can’t be the people we were before, even if we really want to be." I wonder if she realizes I’m not just saying "we" hypothetically or on a matter that’s vaguely related. I’m almost talking more to myself than her. "So what do we do?" To be honest, I don’t know. "The only thing we can do. We pick our heads up and move on. We can’t change the past."
"Not very inspirational." She says.

"I’m not to bullshit you with lame clichés about the past and the future and why the present is called the present. You’re not happy with your choice. All you can do is move on and forgive yourself. You can’t go back and choose again, you have to stick with it. That’s honestly all you can do." I say.

She loudly exhales. "I guess I just hoped you’d give me some other option."

"You could join the army." I suggest, straightening my back.

"Really?" She sounds more in disbelief than elation.

"I’m kidding." I tell her. "That’d be a terrible career choice. Taking orders? That doesn’t seem like you at all."

"Well, I’ve been doing a lot of that lately." Her eyes are low and dark, and I know what she means.

"What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do?" I ask.

"Put a price on myself and something I’ll never get back." She says.

"What would be the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do?" I ask.

"Hurt my friends." She says.

"The first thing doesn’t seem so bad now, huh? You don’t like what you’re doing, and I’m sorry. I can’t change that, maybe you can. Cut the road trip drama, get to Tijuana and find a job you can stomach. It’s an eight hour drive, make it, get a job, get back on track."  I say. "That’s the advice I have for you."

"What about you? What’s your plan for the future?" She asks.

I shrug. "I complete the missions I’m given." I say.

She scoffs, but doesn’t smile. "I would kill for your job."

"Think of yours like mine. Your objective is to transport three highly ranked civilians to Tijuana. To do so, you must get information from several mysterious agents. This act will require you to seduce them, which will seem daunting, yet it will pay off."

"Is that what they say to you?"

I laugh loudly and shortly. "You kidding? My missions are more like this: your objective is to protect millions of people and trillions of dollars in property and your identity. Doing so, you must repeatedly get shot, cut open and push your body to limits you shouldn’t recover from. If they launch missiles, sacrifice yourself to take them out. This act could of course require death, and death is better than failure."

"Pressure, huh?"

"You can train someone for years, but you can’t train them to work well under pressure."

She looks down, then up at me. She inhales as if to speak, then hesitates. This repeats at least twice before she says, "Can I tell you something really private?" She asks.

"This conversation hasn’t been ‘really private’?" I ask.

"Even more private than anything we’ve said tonight." She says.

"What I said is literally this country’s biggest secret. It doesn’t get ‘more private’." I tell her. What on earth could possibly be a bigger secret than the country using mutants as weapons?

She leans in close and looks over her shoulders. I start theorizing, wondering if she’s a guy, she’s lesbian, she’s working for another country in the third world war, she’s pregnant�" is that it? Is she?

"I want to marry Ardo." She says.

"Oh." I say, not bothering to mask the shock. It quickly turns into laughter. "I was thinking much worse."

"I’m serious." She says, no humor or life in her tone. I stop laughing, even stop smiling and look her in the eyes. "We probably aren’t going to live that long. We’ve dated for three years and I love him more than anyone else. If I’m going to marry anyone, I want it to be him."

I’ve become a therapist. "You’re a little young," Are my first thoughts. Like a decade under the national average marriage age.

"I know, I know. I just think it would help me get my priorities straight." She says.

"You should ask K.B. You can talk to me about an identity crisis or hating your job or making sacrifices. Not love." I say. Not life.

"Good idea." She says. "Should we get back?"

"You should. I have a job to do; you have a life to live." I say.

"I’m not going to lie. I think K.B. and Mav miss you. And they’re a little traumatized. They think you were blown up."

I don’t tell her that I did blow up. Several times. "It would be inconvenient if not pointless. We both have places to be. You’d have to stop by my location, and they’d wonder why I look so different." I say.

"We’ll stop quickly to see you. At least say goodbye. I’ll cover for you."

"What on earth could you possibly say to them?"

She shrugs. "I’ll think of something. Where are you going to be?" She asks.

I can lie my way through this. "I’m visiting a friend at the Boardwalk."

"Oh, yeah. We can take a detour there."

"You sure? They charge for parking."

"We’ll find a way. Let’s go before they make us pay for something. I’m broke."

"Me, too."

"Look at us. Young, hot and living the dream."

We stand, and she makes her way to the streets. I linger, trying to piece something together in my head. I have to say it before she leaves. I don’t care if I have to jeopardize my own position. "Dawson." I call. She stops and looks over her shoulder. I stroll over and stand on the edge of the sidewalk. She’s so small. She’s so weak and broken down. She has a strong heart I can’t let be hurt anymore. "You don’t have to do it anymore. I’ll find a way to get you whatever you need."

She gasps, and her eyes start watering.  "What?" Her hard voice cracks.

"I have a high position in the military. I’ll get you food, clothes, water, maybe gas. I can do that for you." There is no uncertainty in my voice.

Her bottom lip trembles, and she begins sobbing. She holds her right hand over her mouth and shuts her eyes. She chokes back snot, only to pour it all out in her weeps. "Thank you." She cries. "Thank you!" She reaches for me, and I step away.

"Sorry." I say softly. "You can’t hug me." Much quieter, I explain for her ears only, "I’ll burn you."

So she stands in front of me and cries all her makeup off. She thanks me over and over again, and it warms my heart to see her so happy. Someone like her, who grew up without laughter and love and adoration, deserves to be so elated that she cries.

"I’ll have what you need by tomorrow." I assure her. "Now go. Go back to the people that love you. They can’t ever put a price on you."

She nods, tears streaming down her face. "Thank you." She starts to walk away. "Thank you so much!"

I watch her leave, and a smile is deeply rooted in my face.

There is only one life I have improved in my entire existence. Not even significantly. This is the only life I have positively affected at all.

I won’t forget you, Dawson. God bless you.

We go our separate ways. I return to the hill next to the cliff, keeping vigil of the Boardwalk. This historic hunk of wood and heart attack inducing food could be destroyed by tomorrow, and I’ll have a bunch of old people mad at me.

When the sun rises, I’ll watch from the top of the ride that goes straight up and straight down, the highest point around.

As of right now, here is my agenda for tomorrow: say goodbye to a group of nomadic humans I’ve come to feel both protective and admittedly, kind of loving towards. Two, protect the Boardwalk from an impending attack from foreign terrorists. Three, find the final two locations in Los Angeles and hit the road.

For now, for the rest of today, I can relax. Get my thoughts and mental condition straightened up. I am a weapon, meant to be mindless and free of empathy. Am I? Partially. I know for sure I’m a monster. Maybe I was meant to be emotionless, maybe that would make it easier. Because I know I’m not.

I’m happy for Mav. I’m glad he’s finally making it to Tijuana, and the life they’ve been dreaming of can begin. But I’m feeling selfish, and I don’t want him to leave.

No, this isn’t happening. No, nope, no. Not happening.

I walk along the cliff, looking to the water. Gosh, I hate it. The darkness, the cold, the wetness, the sea life, it’s everything I hate. Although I have to admit: I like the sound of the waves. Although it doesn’t calm me like I think they’re supposed to, it just pleases my hearing. I don’t think I can tolerate more than a few hours of this. It’s the biggest source of water in the entire world… Yeesh.

I sit with my legs dangling over the edge of the cliff, left to the chaos locked inside my head and the fiery demon locked inside my body.

The first things that pop in my mind are the battle tomorrow and Mav.

What am I going to do when you leave forever? I ask him with my thoughts. I know you can’t hear me, but I like to think you can.

I take that back. If he could hear my thoughts, he’d have run away. I would, if I could. Thank God there was an anomaly when I was created, or Kelli could give me nightmares and access them. Basically, we found out Ty hates nudity, Andrew can’t stand oranges and Cody fears his teeth falling out. If that wasn’t sinister enough, Kelli can more or less learn everything about a person. She can control their bodies with her manipulation and get them to answer any question in this trance state. If it weren’t for the light that makes up my body, she could do the same to me. The scary part? Andrew’s just as persuasive as her. And I’m powerless against that. I swear, I’ve sold my soul to fighting animal abuse, fast food chains and conservatives.

I wonder what they’re doing right now. It’s either really dumb or really important, so the chances that I’m in their minds are slim.

I have something important to do. I can find the computer tonight, while no one’s here, and destroy it. At least that way, I don’t have to deal with missiles. I can find the final locations in Los Angeles and walk around tomorrow with ease.

From what I noticed earlier, there are too many employees, and all of them have access to some sort of machinery. All the people serving food or doing airbrush tattoos have computers they use to keep track of money. Those working the rides have an impressive array of buttons, knobs and switches. All could have remote access to the computer. Said computer could be almost anywhere. There are plenty of buildings, second stories just for show. The number of rooms might even contain three digits. Not to mention the huge buildings isolated from the rides and dedicated to games.

In the past, they haven’t thought to hide the computer in plain sight, and such a piece of technology would require a large, well supported and noticeable one. It would be easier if it wasn’t hidden in a maze of hidden rooms, and of course, I don’t get the easy way.

I have approximately ten hours to find a supercomputer. Ten hours, in perspective, isn’t very long. A menial percentage of all the hours I’ve ever lived. Take it out of perspective and tell a girl she has to search for ten hours with only her thoughts to keep her company, and it’s going to be a long ten hours.

I’m singing the stupid song about bottles of beer on the wall in every language I know going in alphabetical order. I’m at the thirty-first Italian bottle, second floor above a walk through haunted house with cheesy sets and even cheesier scares. The second story isn’t part of the house, it’s an empty space used simply to make the exterior look more intimidating and fearful. The position makes sense. It’s dark, fewer in attendance than other places and they have a "spooky sounds" soundtrack to play over their footsteps. It reminds me of the Anne Frank house. Well, take out the fact that instead of innocents hiding to save their lives, the guilty are hiding to end lives. That kind of makes a difference. Nonetheless, they’re hiding in plain sight, on a floor no one would think of.

The computer is turned off in darkness, and I can sacrifice melting the unmistakable power button. A blue screen greets me as it boots, sounds reminding me of electricity charging. Two white bars pop up, one marked for username and the other for password.

Of course. They’re not that stupid.

I’d have completely melted each key to a liquid before I could guess both of them correctly. The possibilities are literally endless, especially including the fact that it could be capitalized or contain a symbol.

I’ll have to find another way to learn the location of the next group. I’m destroying this thing. I punch straight through the screen, shattering the monitor immediately. I yank the keyboard from the desk, pulling the computer onto its back and ripping the cords apart. I force the keyboard down on my upward moving knee, splitting it in half. To be thorough and leave them no chance of repair, I press the palms of my hands into the screen until it’s a melted mess. I make sure the circuits are fried before feeling satisfied.

Now, just because this group loves to surprise me, I’m going to surprise them. I grab the remains of the computer and drag them into the haunted house through a thin panel. I make my way to the back of the haunted house and outer edge of the park, where dumpsters rest. There’s a lock to keep it shut, which takes about three percent of my strength to break. I hurl the computer in and close it, welding the dumpster shut. Try to blindside me now!

I kick the dumpster into the middle of the nearby train tracks before I walk away. I also climb on top of the haunted house and jump onto the dumpster, bending it into the shape of a bowtie. Okay, I’m done. That’s thorough enough. I need to save my energy for an impending fight. I walk away, resisting the urge to turn and kick the dumpster to the moon.

I make my way back to the cliff and sit down, waiting for the sun to rise.

The park opens at ten today. Workers are here up to an hour before, setting the theme park up. They look more tired than I ever have, and they’ve gotten more sleep last night than I’ve gotten in my whole life. Being unconscious doesn’t count, like comas don’t count as naps. I try to catch the face of each employee, marking anyone with the same nationality as the group. They could be American citizens and I could therefore be a horrible person, so I merely bookmark them. Possible threat.

The military arrives around fifteen minutes after the employees. I make my way to a young soldier-- no older than twenty-five-- unloading supplies from a truck. He looks naive and easy to push around. Skinny, under the average male height, short and neat hair, round face, he doesn’t look like a cutthroat kind of guy. "Hey." I announce as he puts a box on the ground. He turns around and, startled, jumps a little. "You know who I am?"

"Everyone in the military does." He says. "I just didn’t expect to see you right behind me."

"I need food, water, clothes and some blankets." I tell her.

"Why?" He asks, continuing to unload.

"For survivors." I curtly answer. "Do you have them?" He nods and reaches into his truck for a wooden box marked with a serial number I can register as food and water. He grabs another box for cloth products. "Anything fireproof I can carry them with?"

"Your clothes are fireproof, yeah?" He asks. I scoff and roll my eyes. Before I can respond, he holds up his left hand. "Relax. I’m taken." He flashes the golden ring on his hand, because I really cared about his relationship status. He turns around and searches through the truck, returning with a fire blanket.

I wrap it around the boxes and pick them up. I nod to the soldier, whose uniform bears the last name Quan. "Thank you, Mister Quan."

He chortles. "No one calls me that. I go by DeQuan."

"DeQuan?" I raise an eyebrow.

He specifies, "Derek Quan."

"Well, thank you, DeQuan. If you get busted for losing these, blame someone who isn’t me." I tell him, turning to walk away.

"I’ll blame Kayd’s fat a*s." He says.

I stop, the boxes almost falling out of my grip. I spin around. "Say that again." I order.

"I’ll say Kayd’s huge a*s sat on the boxes and they were sucked into his sphincter." He repeats loudly.

I let myself laugh. I let myself laugh until my sides hurt and I can’t breathe. He just opposed the man of the highest authority. He has more stones than I do. "I’m going to like you." I tell him.

"I would hope so. You’d be a good ally to have." He responds.

"It takes more than this stuff," I lift the blanket and boxes up. "And making fun of Kayd in secret to make an ally out of me." I taunt. If he said that to Kayd’s face, then it’d be different. Anyone who would openly insult the general of the army earns my favor.

"I could make Kayd s**t his pants." He suggests.

I chuckle. "Arrange that, and we’re allies." I turn and leave, a smile hanging on my face.

Humans aren’t as worthless as I thought.

When the park opens for business, they’ve upped the ante. Now there are innocents, most under the age of eighteen, about. They’re getting on roller coasters, where they’re locked in tightly and put in potentially life ending situations. The group’s going to have a captive audience. I walk up and down the boardwalk, careful to avoid contact with all people. I’ve been charging for over twelve hours, and I’m over six and a half feet tall. I tower over most everyone. For the most part, however, I fit in. Most girls are walking around with sunglasses and either bathing suits, cover-ups or light clothing. Some are even barefoot like me. I like to think I started a trend.

As I weave through the crowd, I hear whispers. People look at me and murmur to the person next to them. I catch a few words, a few bits and pieces from sentences. "Is that her?"

"Is that the champion?"

"Why is she here?"

"What’s going on?"

"What’s happening?"

I glide forward, eyes locked forward. The words bounce of me, never even entering my mind.

"Hey, hon!" I turn ninety degrees to my right, where the ever loud, ever eccentric K.B. comes pushing through the crowd. She has her arms open wide, strutting her large hips back and forth like swings, knocking into people around her. Her hips stretch out more than her shoulders. She’s the only person I’ve ever seen to fit that description. "Look at you! You’re taller than me!"

"Hey, K.B." I say like I’m talking to an older sister.

"You’re so pretty!" She practically yells, standing less than a foot away from me. "And hot!"

I rest my hands on my hips and chuckle. "Yeah, I get that a lot." I tell her.

"I don’t get it." Mav says, walking up from behind K.B. Although he’s shorter and I can see the pores and imperfect wrinkles on his skin, my heart still skips when I look at him. He looks at her and says, "It’s like you can smell people from a mile away." He turns to me, and suddenly, I’m smiling. I didn’t do that on purpose, I swear. "I don’t get you, either." I love his grin. For someone whose parents never got him braces, his teeth are remarkably straight. "Do things just explode around you?"

I shrug my shoulders. "Sometimes." I admit.

"This place is crazy." Dawson says, emerging with her arm around Ardo’s waist. He’s easily a foot taller than her, and he’s shorter than me. You bet I notice being the tallest for the first time in my life. "So many people."

"Is this what you had in mind when you decided to travel the California coast?" I ask, gesturing to the area around me.

"This place is rad!" K.B. announces to everyone within a five mile radius. "They deep fry cookies!"

Dawson cringes. "That’s disgusting." She says with a crinkled up nose.

"That’s awesome! Where else are we going to find that?" K.B. argues back.

"If we’re lucky, nowhere else." Dawson retorts under her breath. She points at the blanket-covered boxes with her chin. "What are those?"

"These are for you." I answer. "Like I promised." I hand them to Dawson and Ardo, and her bottom lip stops quivering. That’s as far as she lets it go.

"Thank you." She says.

"You’re welcome," I return with a soft smile. I can tell Mav’s staring at me. I can see it in the corner of my eyes. I keep my mouth shut, because I don’t trust that the butterflies in my stomach won’t come flying out. I turn to look at him, and he doesn’t turn away. He just smiles. "You count as an emergency. I have a lot of them around you." I say. He just chuckles and rolls his eyes.

K.B. nudges Dawson and points to the right with her eyes. Dawson nods and declares, "We’re going to check out the beach. We’ll be right back." They awkwardly scoot away, and I turn to Mav, his hands in his pockets. He winks at me, and I burst into laughter.

"Was that supposed to be sexy?" I ask.

"Of course not!" He says. "I know something about women."

"Then you know how we want you to pay for everything?" I tease.

"Don’t rub it in." He fires back, his grin wide and sincere.

"You want to go on a ride?" I ask.

"You have money?" He asks, sounding more shocked than if he was asking if I was actually a middle aged man.

"That hasn’t stopped me before." I say. "I have a plan."

He leans back cautiously, shooting me a suspicious glare. "It’s illegal, isn’t it?"

"Not totally illegal."

He shrugs. "Good enough."

We pick the ride with the easiest accessibility. There are carts that travel over the Boardwalk, allowing and slow, low-key experience. It’s also right next to a ladder. For normal humans, the ladder begins out of reach. For crazy people like myself, it’s within reach. "Okay, I’ll give you a boost." That way, I only touch his shoes. I put my back to the pole and lace my fingers together. He steps on my hands, and I pull him up, allowing him to reach the ladder. He starts climbing, and I follow behind.

We catch a green cart and slip behind the single metal bar working as a seat belt. We can see a majority of the park, which has security benefits. I turn to face the nineteen-year-old human male next to me, the first and probably last time I will do so. "You know I got to pick my last name?" I ask.

"No way." He says.

"Seriously. We got to pick our last names. We only had one rule: no obscenities."

"That’s so sick. I wish I could have picked my name."

"You don’t like your name, Mav?" I ask. He shoots me a look that asks if he even needs to explain himself. "Don't lie. I know you love it."

"So freaking sexy." He rolls his eyes.

"But what's your real name?"

"It's short for Maverick." The name glides along until the last syllable, where it ends sharply with the click of your tongue.

"Like the mavericks off the coast? The surfing waves?"

"Uh�" Maverick like the name you can give to dogs."

I wince, and he nods. That’s harsh, even by the low standards I hold the nomads’ parents to. "Parents loved you that much, huh?

"Well, they weren't exactly... great parents." He admits, his voice dropping lower and his eyes pinpointing on the people below us. I don’t hear the screaming of the people on the rides around us or the crashing of the waves on the beach. There’s him, and there’s me. Nothing else. He starts to form a word, then abruptly cuts off. "Never mind."

"You can tell me." I say. "I may not be able to relate, but I’ll listen." He gives me a quick glance, his eyebrows angled inward towards each other.

"You’ll keep it a secret?" He asks.

I hold up my right hand. "Promise."

He sighs, staring straight ahead for a while. "They never wanted me. I was an accident." He shakes his head, his typically suave, jovial tone gone. "They made sure I knew it. Every time they felt like it, they reminded me. ‘We didn’t want you then, we don’t want you now.’" My heart aches for him. Why would someone worth so much to me, of all people, be worthless to pathetic humans of low standards? What’s wrong with them? How can they not see everything he is? "‘We should have had you aborted. We should put you up for adoption.’ Every single day." Everyone at the compound always sang my praises. Mr. C. never gave me compliments, sure. He wasn’t necessarily cruel as he was using tough love and constructive criticism. I know he did what he did to make me stronger. "I heard that girls only say I hate you to guys they like, though." He tries to joke, but I can tell he doesn’t want me to joke back. He puts on a blatantly fake smile and doesn’t bother with the rest of his face.

Now, more than ever, I need to plan my words. I need to be careful and sensitive. Instead, words come tumbling out without a second of warning. "I was an accident, too." I look down at my hands. If I wasn’t an accident, I could hug him. I could have saved those people on the bridge. I could swim. I could sleep, eat and drink. I could touch people. "I, essentially, am the product of an accident."

"No way." He looks at me, eyebrows raised. I nod to confirm. "Someone like you?" I keep nodding. "You do realize you’re a freaking supermodel, right?

"I was still an accident. Seems to me that the most attractive people were accidents."

"Maybe I can be your emergency, and you can be my accident."

Some people give each other cutesy nicknames like "Bunny" or "Babe" or something like that. I get Accident. "It’s so romantic. I’d almost think that you like me."

"You know," He speaks slowly, "You’re the first person to actually have a crush on me."

I bolt to attention. Did he just say what I think he did? He’s testing me. He wants to know what my response will be. "You don’t know that." I snap back. I’m not really flustered or embarrassed, it’s more defensiveness. More worry. I don’t want it to be non-mutual. I’m supposed to be wanted. Not left wanting.

He starts laughing. "Yes, I do. It’s so obvious."

"What are you talking about?" He laughs even harder. "You have no idea how I feel. I’m a great liar."

"You are a great liar." He pauses to catch his breath. "You’re just bad at hiding things."

"Oh, quiet." I give up and slump back. He continues to laugh until it dies down, and we’re staring at each other.

"If it makes you feel better, Dawson’s bad at hiding it, too." The people with the darkest secrets are the worst at hiding emotions? Go figure.

"Whatever." He starts laughing at how lamely I speak, barely opening my lips. "I thought I was good at this."

"Hey, don’t feel bad. I can’t blame you. I am, of course, devilishly handsome."

"Yeah, devilish all right."

For a moment, we sit in silence, and the silence is enough. Enough to forget the chaos, violence and injustices going on, at least for this fragile, little moment.

"We’re just a pair of misfits, huh?" He asks.

"Yeah." The ride is coming to an end. "We are."

We walk back to where the three left us, content in silence. Our chins are high, our eyes are forward. Two odds who didn’t add up with the rest of the world, we are even with each other. I’m not a mutant freak with the Midas touch with fire in the place of gold; Mav is not an accident unwanted by the world. In my eyes, he never was.

We catch the sight of Dawson, K.B. and Ardo. They sit on a bench in the sun, Ardo using Dawson’s fedora to cover his face as he dozes. Dawson’s eyes glimmer in the sun, and she actually smiles a genuine smile.

I can’t just leave them forever. I can’t abandon these people. Not now, not after I’ve gotten close to them. I’ve finally found people I belong with. There won’t be anyone else in this entire world like Dawson, with her secret double life or K.B. with her tricks and wide hips. There’s Ardo, who somehow managed to crack Dawson’s stone heart. Mav is beyond words.

I could belong with them. I could be the liar with a snake’s sharp tongue. I can be a pyro with ever changing eyes. The thought that most holds me is the realization that there’s nothing to stop me from running away with them. I could flee to Mexico and never be found again. I could fake my death from the Pacific Ocean and let the military handle it.

What I would give to be morally all right with it. That is my only restraint. I have a mission to complete. Once I do, I’m finding these people, and I’m never leaving again.

"You’re not pregnant now, are you?" Dawson asks me. K.B. kicks Dawson in the shins underneath the table.

"You’re probably used to her, hon." K.B. says to me.

"Mav sure is used to her." Dawson mumbles, getting another kick in the other shin. K.B.’s aim is shockingly accurate, considering she can’t see.

It all changes so fast.

I catch the sound of a helicopter. I pause midstride, frozen in time. I look to the skies, several choppers approaching. The sounds of the Boardwalk die down, people stop moving and talking. The sides of the choppers are large and wide open, and I know what that means. "Clear the area!" I yell to the people around me. "Now!" People begin to scramble, and I turn to my nomads. "You have to get out of here!"

"What’s going on, hon?" K.B. asks.

"Find cover! Hurry!" I order.

Bullets rip through the air, piercing people as they scatter for cover behind food stands. Screams erupt from the crowd, one of them escaping through my lips. They’re cowards! Firing into unarmed civilians! They’re learning how to hurt me, and it’s working!

I have to get away from the nomads. I have to draw the group’s attention to me and me alone. I can’t let my nomads get hurt. I give them final advice. "Get onto the sand. Go underneath the Boardwalk. Go right until you can go to the parking lot. Get as far away as you can."

"What about you?" Mav asks as they crouch behind their table.

"I’ll be fine. I always am." I try to reassure him. He’s actually concerned. He has the same face he had on when he told me about his parents. "Hey." I’m going to try and cheer him up. If we do get separated forever, I want my last words to mean something. His blue eyes meet mine, solemn and dark. "You’re always wanted."

I position myself in the middle of the Boardwalk and try to steer people away. I can’t look back at my nomads. I can’t. No matter what I do.

The helicopters pass over my head, and I start sprinting after them. I go out of my way to spin counter clockwise and avoid facing my nomads. They shouldn’t have to see the monster I really am. I pick up the pace with each step until I have enough momentum to jump into the air. I press the balls of my feet into the wood, snapping the boards.

I launch myself at the back of the chopper, fireballs forming in each hand. I extend my right arm and lock onto the propeller, my fingers digging into and molding the metal. I curl my legs to pull the propeller off of the chopper and towards the ground with me. I curl backwards, going from my back facing the ground to the propeller piercing the cement, my arms straightened, putting me in a pose that resembles a handstand. The propeller digs into the cement, revealing wood underneath. It breaks the boards apart, and there’s a space between the sand and my location. The propellor continues through the thin air into the sand. I bring my legs down in front of my stomach, driving my bare feet onto the cement. I whip my head up, watching the helicopter crash on the sand. People at the beach and in the water are still working to find cover. I have to lead the battle away from them. Away from everyone.

To the skies.

Several helicopters are circling around. Oh, they’re making this too easy. I blast flames from my palms and soles of my feet, rocketing into the air. I head straight for the nose of the chopper, left hand still ablaze. I retract my left arm, dragging my whole body sideways in the process. I aim for the pilots, ready to take out another chopper.

To the side of the chopper, I can see the turret turning to face me. Bullets rip into my forehead, spinning me around. I black out, my sight regaining as my head passes under the landing gear.

I stick my arms up, my left fingers catching the landing gear. I keep my restraints on to lower my temperature. I fasten my hand around the bars, clinging to the bottom of a flying chopper. I look down at the ground far below. Falling right now would not be good. Also, I think my clothes would give way, which would be even worse.

Okay, I’ve got to come up with a plan. I’m hanging onto the landing gear, I have to keep this thing in the air.

All right. Got a plan. I jerk my legs forward and backward, swinging side to side. The fingers of my left hand scrape the metal, unable to grab it. I swing back one more time before my left hand clamps around the landing gear.

This is your captain speaking. I think as I force flames to blow from my feet. I push the force into directing the helicopter into the air, putting it in my control. I grunt, struggling with the difficulty. I press against the bottom of the chopper until my neck is bent sideways, cheek against the metal. I’ve just got to straighten my arms, and I succeed. I beat these cowards who murder innocent people. There’s going to be some turbulence.

My eyes shut so tightly my eyelids wrinkle, I clench my teeth, I hold in my breath and try to straighten my arms. The landing gear starts to bend or press into the body of the chopper. I scrunch my face and push the chopper into the air, disobeying the pilots. I increase the flames shooting out from my feet to lift this thing faster. I drive it up and away from the ground, focusing on the task rather than checking to see when’s good enough.

I bend my arms, bringing the chopper centimeters from my nose. I let myself rest and regain strength for a moment, then use it all to throw the chopper in the air. My feet lose power as I push it up, forcing me to drop a few feet. As soon as I can, I put the flames back to work in my feet. The chopper’s coming back towards me fast, and I have to act. I could act like the cocky, arrogant showoff I was in training, or I could conserve my energy for the battles ahead.

I really wish I could be a showoff.

Instead of dropping the restraints on the top half of my body, doing a backflip and kicking the helicopter in the process, I turn my back to the chopper. I got to wait for the right moment, I’ve got to have flawless timing. I peer over my shoulder and watch the helicopter’s decent. The longer it falls, the faster it falls before going into a constant speed… there we go. I hold my arms and legs out, launching myself back-first. I smash into the side of the chopper, completely altering its fall. I knock it towards the beach, both of us on a crash course for the water.

I pry my body from the chopper and use it as a Launchpad. It’ a win-win. I knock it into the water quicker and with ten times the strength, and I get the hell away from the water. I hear the loud splash of the water, sounding more like a smack. I head for the sand face-first until I hold my arms in front of my head to catch the fall. My hands press into the sand, the force blasting grains of sand showering all around me. The force continues to dig a divot before I finally stop. I flip around, my legs curling around my body to straighten up. I land elegantly on my feet, only slight damage to my clothing.  

I’m not done yet. Not even close. I jump onto the cement, sand flying behind me. I break the ground I land on, concrete chipping and wood chips splintering downward. I turn ninety degrees to my right, facing the majority of the boardwalk.

One of the choppers pulls close to me, causing winds of hurricane speeds that try to pluck me off the ground. They begin firing from the side of the helicopter, automatic guns pumping bullets into my body.

The restraints drop everywhere except my feet, the bullets go right through me. I put my arms together, fire growing between my fingers. What I’m growing is stronger and more devastating than a fireball. I hold it to my side to keep it from the sight of my enemies. The wind aids the flames, supplying enough oxygen for a fire beast twice my size. The fire grows, flames soaring around the power building, charging rapidly. The wind that once played with my hair is left dry as they grow even shorter than before, until I can’t feel them blowing.

I look around, scanning for signs of life in the blast range. Looks like I’m clear for annihilation. I pull my hands in front of my body, the fire large and mighty. The flames still seek to grow, and each time I allow it, a sting attaches to and tugs at my heart. It’s been enough time; it’s time to execute this thing.

I pull my right hand away, leaving my left with all this power. I start sprinting for the chopper, hovering seventy yards in front of me and fifty in the air. My steps are long and few, each one rising in strength. I pump both arms, my left heavier and slower than my legs and right arm. I do little to combat the imbalance this causes, swerving slightly from left to right. Within forty yards, I take a huge bound forward and plant my right foot deep into the planks until they crack. My next step is in the air, my left side significantly heftier than my right. A grappling hook is thrown onto the bottom edge of my heart and rips a chunk off, making my face distort in a cringe.

I pull my left arm behind me the way you throw a soccer ball, trying to keep my body facing the chopper. The fire storing in my left hand stretches out behind me like a whip, reaching up to fifteen yards in length. It reaches the climax of its height and locks, taking on the shape of a long blade.

I bring my right hand over my head and grasp the handle of the sword. I get within fifteen yards of the chopper, at point blank range, and I still have two things to do! I drop my restraints on and swing the sword up and through the sky. The restraints quickly cover my body, allowing me to get shot three times in the chest before getting out of range. The restraints take their sweet time to spread to my sword as it collides with the chopper, not fast enough. Panic races through my stomach as the flames pass through the top of the propeller blades, doing little to no damage. If I messed up on this attack, I’m screwed. I have to get this right! If I mess up, there’s no guarantee I’ll have enough power to finish the job! I’ll be unconscious, nearly human and they’ll be able to capture me! I could actually be taken prisoner, and they could destroy the whole country before I’m even conscious!  

Come on, restraints! I scream, bark and beg all at the same time. I thought speed was our specialty!

The helicopter moves forward, the blades headed straight for my face. I try dropping the restraints on my face, not quick enough to avoid half of my face being sliced clean through, cutting through the same level as the bridge of my nose. Pain screams in my head, fire racing up my neck to heal the wounds. I force the sword to continue through, praying to God it works before I get my head cut completely in two. Another blade rips the wound deeper, a gash nearly separating the top half of my head from the bottom. I clench my teeth, desperate to keep the scream of agony in my jaw. The restraints loosen in my head, two wounds too late.

The restraints snap on when the sword is in roughly the middle of the chopper, obliterating the bottom half of the chopper, the people inside and the landing gear. Hell yeah! It’s about time! The panic vanishes and I find myself smiling. I follow through, bringing the sword all the way down into the ground. The helicopter, dragged down by my sword, crashes on the sides of me in two halves. I pull the fire back into my skin, withdrawing the massive sword. It rushes back to me like an obedient dog, rushing to my core and wrapping extra flames around me, encircling me in a ring of fire. I crash into the sand, my head sealing up like sewing cloth together.

I pick myself up, letting out a little cheer of victory. Thank, God! I thought it was all over! If my head was cut in two, I wouldn’t die, but I’d lose consciousness until the top of my head regenerated, and all the fire would be put into that. I wouldn’t have made a bent in the chopper and I could have been captured or they could have dumped water on me. I don’t know if I’d lose my memories or if it would take a while to get back to my normal self. They said the risks were too high to figure out.

Okay, two choppers left.

I jump onto the Boardwalk into a sea of smoke. Another helicopter is turned to me, two turrets out. Two missiles are fired from roughly three hundred yards away, and I recognize them immediately. These aren’t here to hurt anyone except me.

Heat-seeking missiles.

These things have a huge blast radius, and they lock tightly on me. I can’t run up to the choppers and turn away at the last second. They have a grip on me I can never manage to shake, and I’d destroy half the Boardwalk. Unless I know everyone’s evacuated, I can’t risk that. Fortunately, I’ve practiced dealing with missiles. I turn and sprint, desperate to outwork the missiles. I pump my arms and take off down the wooden Boardwalk, igniting each plank I come into contact with. I look around, how can I get this thing away? I can hear them behind me, whizzing in my tracks like enlarged fireworks.

Okay, I’ve got a plan. I sprint to the ride that goes straight up and down, roughly one hundred and fifty feet tall, and take flight. I hurl myself in the air, flames blasting out of my palms and heels. I rocket up, spiraling around the tall pillar to try and lengthen the distance between the missiles and me. I stay close to the metal beams, sometimes slamming my shoulder through them. It’s going to get wider at the top, I’m going to have to fly more. My trajectory and guiding has to be flawless. If I fail, they missile will hit the ride or me, and the explosion will make the ride collapse, possibly on the Boardwalk and possibly on people. It’s too great of a risk for me to take. I can hear the missiles trailing close behind me and grunt, straining to get more energy and more strength and more speed. I have to beat these things.

I can’t look back. I keep my turns sharp and power consistent, fighting to get as far away from the Boardwalk as I can. I lean out to distance myself from the top, and the missiles gain on me. I reach the end of the tower. I still feel them on my toes. I’m practically helping them. By being in front, I’m breaking through the air’s density and clearing the way for those after me. And I can’t change that.

I shoot straight up in the air, teeth grit and ropes pulling my heart in different directions. The explosion should give me more power, but for now, I have to use all of it to get away. I throw everything I have into a final spurt of power that whips me higher.

Right into the clouds.

The second my forehead touches the water, the worst agony of my life stabs my brain. I can’t think anything other than how horribly it hurts. I hear sizzling and stop instantly. I start falling, a scream of agony ripping its way out my throat. I throw my hands over my forehead, feeling a divot that bathes in torturous pain. My muscles go limp yet still manage to tremble, pain overflowing every system I have. My eyes are wide open, I just want to fall into the earth’s core and die it hurts like hell just make it stop make it end shoot me make it go away I can’t. Take. It. Just. Kill. Me.

I can’t explain the pain. It’s like the water finds what is the most painful way of destroying your cells, exploits it tenfold, then wipes its unwiped a*s all over it.

Okay, maybe not that last one, but I don’t try to distract myself, the pain is unbearable and consumes me whole.

I plummet towards the ground, body in too much shock and pain to function. My back to the ground, arms out like a hug, legs like I’m on a horse. I’d rip out each finger and toenail, pull out every tooth, claw my own skin off, just make it stop. I could cry. I could cry. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelming and it doesn’t fade. Last time I felt this pain, I spent hours in our hospital recovering.

The missiles strike me, one in the neck and the other in the hip.

We burst into an explosion, encompassing half of the sky. It’s like being ripped apart, suddenly and painlessly expanded to the point of breaking. I lose feeling once all of my particles have been separated and are flying off in different directions. I know, that seems like a big deal and a horrible medical condition. And it would be, if it not for the magnet that pulls all the particles back together, including some of the particles of the explosion’s fiery aftermath.

I can feel my body being put together. First my heart, then all the inner good stuff, rib cage, pelvis, arms, bones, muscles, head and legs before the skin. Once that finally covers you, the locks of hair drop down like they’ve just been held up by a pin.

I fall to the ground, the pain of the water abandoned when the hurt particles were replaced. Thank God. That pain would have been the death of me. A paralyzing agony, I’d be useless and lying in the sand twitching.

I launch fire from my feet, restraints on my arms and legs. I flip onto my stomach with the help of the flames I trigger in my hands, rocketing towards the chopper. I lean downward, blasting fire to pick up as much speed as possible. In a burst of speed and the sound barrier, I collide with the propeller blades. I slow down immediately. The power’s too much for the chopper to withstand. I lock my arms around one of the blades, careful not to rip it off the chopper. I continue forward until I’m parallel to the chopper. I stop dead, the momentum dragging into the chopper. It swings like the line made by a compass.

I release, hurling the helicopter crashing into the cliff. I drop to the ground and watch the helicopter soar sideways through the air in a little arch. The earth and chopper burst, the explosion loud with a strong shockwave. Remainders of the ground and chopper collapse into the waves below after tumbling down. Some bits crash on the shore, digging deep into the wet sand. The helicopter parts that survived are miniscule and useless.

Trembling from either excitement or the staggering repetitions in my mind, I put my hands on my knees and pant.

Okay. That should be all the choppers. I don’t hear anymore.

I’m not done, though. Of course not. That’s too easy. That’s too convenient. I can hear trucks approaching, along with marching feet and dozens of heartbeats. Foot soldiers? Interesting choice.

Fire collects in my palms, growing and stretching to form two whips reaching fifteen feet. That’s my contingency plan. I’ve got another brilliant attack plan. A few months ago, Ty stole half of my clothes. I was beyond frustrated, madder at myself for letting him get away with it. I stomped my foot on the ground, and discovered a new ability.

For the moment, let’s just say that I got my clothes back and more.

The soldiers should be turning the corner in a few seconds. They’ll regret choosing to fight fire whilst surrounded by wood.

Row after row of armed soldiers appear from around the edges of buildings and behind food stands. They raise their guns at me, all loaded and ready to fire. I put my hands on my hips�" Ty says I always do when I have a plan that’s certain to work�" and feel the edges of my lips pulling up.

"Don’t move!" One barks at me.

My smile turns to a grin the way animals of prey reveal their fangs. I jokingly hold my hands in the air, letting them come closer. I wait patiently for them all to be within the blast radius, letting power in my right leg build. The final heartbeat enters the danger zone, and I drop my hands. I pull my right leg up and stomp into the cement with all the strength I can muster. The cement shatters and the boards snap as the shockwave ripples through the surrounding area, breaking carnival games, food carts and benches. I fall down below the wooden beams, catching a glimpse of my work. The soldiers are forced backwards; too preoccupied to see what really makes my move fatal. A ring of fire races through everything in its expanding path, growing each time it engulfs a something.

I land on my feet, whips still in hands. Above me, the wooden boards keep the boardwalk up. Below me, sand. To my left, a concrete wall. To my right, the beach. I also see the beams that support all the weight.

I stretch the whips out, straightening my arms out. I run underneath the boardwalk, the whips setting the beams ablaze as I pass them. Slicing them in two, I move quickly and I move accurately.

I hear the sounds of crackling wood behind me, and I don’t turn back. I hear the sounds of crashing, collapsing, destruction: snaps, cracks, bashes, followed by silence. I reach the end of the boardwalk and race out of underneath, retracting the whips back into my skin. I skid to a stop on the sand, waiting for the final crashes and booms to fade. I catch my breath, the pain in my chest returning with a vengeance. I can’t have much energy left. My hair’s shorter than Dawson’s, a smidge longer than Ty’s.

I only turn my head because I hear airplanes.

I hear the sounds of jets flying from my left towards me.

Are you serious? You’ve got to be kidding me! I haven’t fought jets since Sacramento, and that went horribly! If I get hit and flung to the ground again…

I, Amber Ashler, am going to crash into the waters of the Pacific Ocean and die a terrible, agonizing death on this very day.

There are only two jets. Thank God. I heard more than one, and I was estimating three or four. I figure I can snap the wings and guide the jets in the direction of the water. Frankly, I don’t care if Cody gets upset. You should be afraid of getting on Kelli’s bad side, not her inferior boyfriend.

The jets approach, the first one higher and faster the second one. The second one’s the one I’m worrying about. The higher one, if trying to damage, will have to either get lower or drop something a larger distance. That gives me more time to react, the second one could have more cargo, thus why it’s heavier.

Using the math Ty said we’d never use, I lean down into a squatting position, power storing in my legs. When I’m ready to jump, I’ll meet the jet midair. I lean down lower, hearing the planks snapping.

The first jet zooms by overhead, lightning fast and seemingly uninterested with me. I’ll have to hunt that down later. For now, my eyes are locked on the slower jet. I feel like a wolf finding the weaker, youngling of the pack of deer and isolating it from the others for the slaughter. It nears me, and in crystal clarity, I can see its slight descent.

I was right. They do have something to give me. The jet near overhead, I straighten up, the force exiting through my feet, smashing the planks and sending a shockwave zipping through the surrounding area. I extend my body, launching high into the air. The wind falls to the ground next to my ears, pitch increasing the higher I go.

I meet the jet on eye level for a moment. I then rise above and catch the vertical stabilizer, digging my fingers into the melting metal. I plant my feet in the horizontal stabilizers, make sure I’m soldered in tightly. I twist the vertical stabilizer to the side, ripping it from the body of the jet with complete ease. The plane trembles and starts wavering from side to side. I grab the thin fuselage; dig my feet out of the metal and pull.

I yank the tail of the jet off, falling to the ground as the jet rockets to its oblivion without me. But does it leave without one last kiss?

Of course not. They love me too much.

A missile is launched from the falling plane, turning around to chase after me. More heat seeking missiles! Joy. Exactly what I needed. My heart is in too much agony to function properly, sure, I can deal with a missile locked on destroying me. Yeah, that’ll be fun.

Fire blasts from my feet, catching my fall twenty yards from the ground. I rocket up into the sky and over the sand as I catch the sound of the jet exploding on the ground. I curl up, away from the earth, searching desperately for some way to dispose of the missile. These things can and will just chase me until they hit something. I don’t have enough power, my hair’s completely gone. Eventually, I’ll just fall to the ground.

I try to listen to see where it is behind me. I can’t hear over the sound of the wind and my panting�" I really am running on low power. My hearing’s not much better than a human’s�" all I can rely on is my vision. Even that is going. I can hardly see where I’m going; the world surrounding me looks smeared.

I don’t have any other options. I glance down to confirm that, yes, I’m over the sand. I whip my body around to face the missile, not a moment behind me.

I feel it piercing my stomach, a second of peace, silence and clarity of vision before the missile bursts.

I’m weaker than I thought. The missile rips apart at my torso, forcing me to blackout. I still register the ripping pain in my stomach and chest, my heart racing and seemingly dancing to the songs K.B., Ardo, Dawson and Mav like. I scream in my head, a long, throaty, scream with power coming from my chest. My senses are turned off, activated once again after my mind recovers. I feel myself falling, body limp and unmoving. I can see the last of the explosion passing into the air, the clouds rising higher in the atmosphere. I catch a glimpse of my lifeless arms flailing in the wind, as undulating as wet noodles. I try to move, I try to do something other than feel and focus on the pain. I command my legs to snap to life, demand that my arms move as I tell them to. Nothing happens. It’s like my mind’s been put into that of a ragdoll.

I know, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I will hit the ground soon. I know that it will hurt. I know it will cripple me. I know it will ruin me and destroy my body and it will nearly terminate my existence altogether.

I hit the ground hard, unconscious the second there’s impact on the back of my skull, spine and pelvis. My blackout is so immediate and spontaneous, I wonder if I passed out before even hitting the ground.

There’s darkness. No feeling. No thoughts. Just numb, empty darkness.

I hear a heartbeat. It’s not my own. It’s weaker and faster, beating like it’s inside a starved body. No, I don’t hear it. I don’t hear it the way you hear the voices of people or the clapping of hands. I feel it. Pounding in my chest, I’m panting desperately. I hear my rapid breathing. It’s empty and fast, supplying my body with no oxygen. I’m running.

I can feel my bare feet hitting a smooth, cool ground. My body is thin and bony, I can feel the bones in my feet smacking against the ground. The left leg is limping, forcing me to practically hop across the hall. My emaciated fingers are curled into tiny fists, so little that there are spaces between each. My knees are aching, my arms are stinging. My head is heavy, my lungs are heaving. The loose, baggy shirt hits my ribs as I run, nothing between the two. My hair bounces against my back, thick, tangled and frizzy.

I taste salty blood and bile in my dry mouth. The air feels rough to me, not comforting like it should be. I can smell piss and isopropyl alcohol resonating from both the surrounding area and my body.

I can hear alarms blaring. One second they’re loud, they fade to a quieter volume, and return to their loudness. I get brief flashes of vision through my left eye, barely remaining open as blood drips down the side of my face. The right one is swollen shut. I catch red sirens, white hallways, strands of dirty blonde hair and in front of me, getting nearer each time I blackout and return to vision, two French doors.

Two arms narrower than pencils reach to push the doors open. Veins bulge in the back of the gaunt hands, bones and tendons in each finger sticking out. Dried, flaking blood surrounds flimsy bandages. Green, blue, purple, red and pink bruises cover the arms. The right wrist is swollen, looking almost normal.

The palms touch the doors, and I cut to darkness.

Back to numb, empty darkness. No more feeling. No more hearing. No more sight, no more salty blood or rubbing alcohol. No more blood. No more starving body.

My vision fades in from the darkness. My ears pick up on too many sounds at once�" bullets, shouting, waves, explosions�" I can’t make sense of it. The world is blurry, everything has three copies. My hearing varies vastly, like someone’s turning the volume up high and dropping it down low.

I prop myself up on my elbows. I have to get up. I’m not done here yet. I scramble to my shaking legs, head reeling and spinning. I have to keep fighting. I have to win. I can’t be their champion if I just get blown up every two seconds.

I’m short. My legs are weak. My hair’s the length of a buzz cut, if that much. How human am I?

I start running for the boardwalk, to where more choppers are landing and trucks are parking. My feet sink in the sand, slowing me down.

But it shouldn’t be slowing me down this much.

I haven’t been sprinting long at all. Yet I’m starting to pant. My legs are heavier and slower and oh my gosh I’m practically a complete human.

Okay, I can work with this. The boardwalk is mostly made of wood. There’s plenty of fire. I’ll have to refuel�" a lot�" to complete this. I can’t let the flames die down or I’m screwed.

I sprint to the wooden buildings, fire still cracking and eating them up. I slam my hand against the wood, putting several splinters deep in my palms.

I watch the flames get sucked off of the wood, moving into my hand. I can feel it travelling to my chest, helping my heart. I feel the heat rushing through my body, repairing any cuts and adding height. That should be enough for now; however, I should look like I’m at my full power so they don’t know I have weaknesses.

I press my other hand against another board, extracting twice the fire. I can feel my hair growing back, and I don’t withdraw my hands until it reaches my biceps. I’m going to try to take as many out as possible now. I don’t know how long the flames will last, and I can’t let any of them figure out I need these.

I step back and look at the army I face. They’re regrouping on the concrete, away from the shattered remains of the wooden boardwalk. Fortunately, they’re pretty close together. I think I know what to do.

I bend my knees, power charging in my legs. I curl close to the ground and stand up suddenly, the force launching me into the air. I leave a trail of smoke shooting out behind me. I blast high over the earth, arching my back inward to curve towards the sidewalk. I curl upside down, staring at a flipped version of the world. I’m going to destroy so many civilian’s cars. There’s a parking lot nearby that’s full of cars.

Head facing the ground, flames engulf my fists. I twist myself sideways, pulling my left fist back. I tilt downwards, fist still retracted, to fall faster.

As I’m inches from the ground, I slam my fist into the ground. I bring my body to the ground, landing with my left shin on the ground, right leg bent like I’m proposing. A crater of cracked concrete forms around me, everything outside of that is broken apart and thrown into the air. The force rips through the cement like it’s weightless, blasting the soldiers off their feet. Trucks flip backwards or onto their sides and skid away from me, the choppers topple and their windows break.

I stand up, flames in my fists returning to my body. I’m not afraid of them.

A soldier somehow makes her way to her feet, despite the gushing wounds in her thighs. She starts laughing to herself, her eyes on the ground. It’s a trap. I warn myself. She’s trying to reel me in.

She picks her bloodied face up. "You can’t win." She spits at me, her accent thick, voice low. "Not against us. Not today." She bends her neck back to look at the sky. I’m not looking up. Not yet, at least. That’s an obvious trick.

I don’t have to look up. I can hear it.

Three jets, four helicopters, there’s a tank rolling up from my right. They have a larger arsenal here than I would have expected. I move my head slightly to the left at the ocean. There’s an aircraft carrier in the distance, two destroyers next to it. I move my gaze to the fire I have. There’s not enough for me to get everything.

I’m so screwed.

Some primitive attacking instinct inside me takes control. I hold both hands out, forming and firing fireballs at the trucks and soldiers still in sight. I hear a missile coming in from one of the jets, too close and too quick for me to react.

It hits the concrete, blasting it apart. I throw my arms in front of my face as the explosion destroys everything in its path. The ground beneath me is blown apart, launching me backwards. I can’t curl backwards or really move anything at all. The blast throws me onto my back, yanking the breath out of me. I skid across the concrete, bits and pieces flying over me.

I’m going to die today.

I struggle to get on my feet. Okay, ow. I should maybe have done that slower. My clothes are ripping, my back hurts like hell and I feel lightheaded. Spectacular. I allow myself five seconds to heal before getting back to work.

I hold out my left arm, fireball forming as I aim for one of the jets. I point for where it will be by the time the fireball reaches it. I try to shoot it, reluctance in my core to concede all the power. I feel like I have to cut strings attached to my heart and the fireball. I finally release, launching the three-foot ball of flames thousands of feet into the air.

It takes a few seconds to rush through the air, finally striking the wings of the jet. It begins descending, gliding out of the view over the ocean. That action alone takes up a large portion of energy, and I’m not even ten percent done.

I keep spinning in a circle, checking everything I have to do, trying to see if I can eliminate two things with one move. I attempt connecting my attacks, desperately searching for a way to save power, time and effort. I plug in two possible moves, like a kid trying to put the cube in the hole for the circle.

I list every swear word I’ve ever heard, repeating myself multiple times and getting more frustrated, more alarmed and more panicked with each word. My heart starts to race, and I seriously question my life choices leading up to this point, because they weren’t good.

Overhead, choppers start circling me like a shark. The wind from overhead bashes down on me, swirling a dust storm. I stand straight up in the wind storms, dirt hitting my eyes and burning.

I hold my wrists together, fire forming and covering my hands. I let the flames turn into a long whip, drawing out a pain in my chest. I swing it in circles, my feet in place as my torso spins and rotates. It keeps the choppers away, like I have a torch to fend the monsters of the dark away.

The flames start shrinking, dropping back into my hands. I’m so screwed, I’m so dead, I’m so going to fail. The last of the flames tuck into where my radial arteries are�" the place you take your pulse�" and start praying.

My heart starts racing, beating against my bones and increasing anxiety tenfold. My arms start shaking, I get short of breath. I’m actually going to lose. They’re going to beat me. I failed. I couldn’t complete a mission deemed too difficult for any other living being.

I can use this anxiety. It gets adrenalin pumping. It gives me energy to fight. Don’t think. Act. Listen to my basic instincts. Don’t listen to anything else.

I crouch closer to the ground for a moment, hearing and feeling the charging power. I suddenly straighten up, exhorting my power to launch myself into the air.

I snag onto the landing gear of a passing chopper, travelling north with it. I latch both hand around it, the metal already melting at my touch. I squeeze it tightly with my left hand and yank, ripping the top half of the gear off. I drop down, the bottom half drooping downward and leaving me pointed downward. I hold the top half of the gear tightly, pulling it back before thrusting it into the bottom of the chopper, piercing through layers of metal.

The chopper starts to go down, heading to fly just over the top of a building. I hold on, dropping as it passes over the building. I summersault the second I touch, straightening up to face the army before me.

The building is blasted apart, flinging me from the top. I hurdle over the remains of the boardwalk, slamming face first into the sand. I hear and feel cracking in my head, and a sharp, throbbing pain begins. It gets in my mouth and eyes, where it starts molding. Sand doesn’t burn when put to high temperatures, it forms a glass-like substance, slicing my head apart. I try to drop my restraints to get it out, immediately getting a spastic pump from my heart followed by pain. Okay, that’s not happening, I get it, heart. Thanks for the memo.

I pull my head out of the sand and blink my eyes free, looking over my shoulder in time to see a tank burst through the rubble of the building. Overhead, helicopters draw closer, seemingly aligning themselves over my head. I flip around, going from on my stomach to on my back, facing the world.

Up in the clouds, I hear something charging, like defibrillators. What is that? A jet? I try to peek through the clouds, the choppers blocking my way.

The battleship blasts a missile at me from a quarter of a mile away. I try to stand, completely and utterly failing. I don’t have the energy, and when I do, the aches and soreness keeps me down. I try rolling to the side, which is a slow and horrible mode of transportation.

The missile hits the cement behind me, bursting and erupting in a huge explosion like the one that tore apart the Golden Gate. The sound is thundering and loudens a hundred times in my ears, the flash of light immensely blinding. The cement shatters and shoots in all directions, the cloud growing instantly. It picks me up into the air and throws me over the sand, back facing the ground, tilted like a diagonal line. The entire front of my body is in agony that sinks down deeper than the surface. If I could, I would scream. My skin stings so horribly I wish I could rip it off me. I fall lower as the blast passes me, hurling me into the sand, mere feet from the water.

The back of my head hits first, the explosion still carrying the rest of my body. My neck touches down, my torso, arms and legs continuing to move. I hear a sickening mix between a snap and a crunch I know to be coming from my neck.

I black out, unable to feel. I just snapped my neck. Depending on how human I am, I could be paralyzed. I could be one hit from death.

I’m afraid to wake up. I know I’ll feel terrible agony. The kind of agony that rips at your very soul, the degree of pain that makes you willing to kill anyone to make it stop. It tears away any good you have in you.

And I know this agony. I know the effects it has on me and what it makes me do. I can hear myself screaming in the distant corner of my head, sobbing, panicking, hyperventilating and begging for death. I can see myself throwing my head back, mouth wide, eyes shut tight, fingers clenched deep into my palms. I know this agony.

My ears snap to life. My eyes are open, but blurry. I can’t feel yet. I can’t smell nor taste. I can’t move. I can see my body, lifeless in the wet sand. Steam is rising from me as I hear sizzling. I look to my arms and legs touching the sand. The skin is retracting, disappearing into a cloud of steam.

I can see a wave breaking in the background. It’s about four feet of death, heading straight for me. It starts to crash down, droplets flying and landing on my knees, each like what a bullet must feel like for humans. It shatters my legs, stinging and aching and screaming.

I try to scramble to me feet, pressing the palms of my hands into the wet sand to get my head up. The agony the water brings paralyzes me. I scream, but my lips don’t move and no sound comes out. I feel my own skin dissolving, nothing to stop my entire body from turning to steam forever. The pain takes over every nerve until it transmits nothing except unbearable, unbelievable, intolerable, tormenting anguish.

I see a flash. A smear of green and brown, diving in front of me. Through the blurriness, I can make out someone with an army uniform and shaggy brown hair, squatting on one knee. They hold their right hand straight out at the wave, their left hand clenched into a fist beside them. The wave hits something invisible and avoids us, like hitting a transparent umbrella.

It can’t be.

It isn’t.

They turn their head slightly, their eyes catching mine for the thinnest slice of a second. Gray eyes turn away from me to their right. He pushes the wave to the side, turning completely around to face me. He’s panting, he’s sweating, I bet his heart rate is through the roof. Except I can’t hear it. I’m practically a human. I’m as easy to break as a twig to him.

What the hell is Ty doing here?

He completely turns around to face me, a look on his face I’ve never seen before. His eyes are wide with fear, his mouth slightly ajar. He’s serious and concerned and he looks at me like I’ve been shot.

He crouches down to help me, extending his hand. And you know what?

I take it. He hoists me to my feet, pulling my arm around his shoulders. He’s at his normal height, which is typically only a few inches taller than me. Right now, he’s easily two feet taller. This is not a good day for me. He runs away from the water quickly, towards the havoc that was the boardwalk. Andrew and Kelli are fighting, both in uniform. When did they get here? Why are they here? They have to be careful, they’re going to get shot!

Ty stops when we reach sand dry as bones and my knees give way. I crumble to the ground, the pain from every cell touching the water acting as ropes to keep me down. I stick my right hand into the ground to keep from falling on my face, the left arm covers one half of my face as it distorts in agony. Ty drops down next to me, panicked and afraid. "Can you stand?" He asks.

It takes a moment for my mouth and brain to work together to say, "Yeah. I can." I insist. I take my left hand off my head and roll from on my knees to squatting on my toes. I’m weak. I’m frail. I look to the fire on the buildings. They’re out. I start swearing.

"What?" Ty asks. "What’s wrong? Nothing bad, right? You can regenerate, can’t you?"

"I will, but it’ll take a while to be back at my normal health."

"How long is a while?" He asks.

I shake my head. "No idea."

He takes a deep breath. "What can you do?"

I slowly straighten my feet, rising to my astounding height of five feet and six inches. My legs shake, my body lingering to lie down. Not an option. "Let’s find out." I try to walk, my legs stiff and tender. I clench my muscles, attempting to get the tenseness away. There’s still some fire in me. I’m not as weak as humans. I can still fight.

What’s the situation? I look over my shoulder at the water: Cody’s challenging the battleships. I whip my head back to face the land. Kelli’s working on the soldiers, Andrew fights against the tank. Every time a bullet is fired, they have to duck or block. The bullets can kill them. Ty can take out the jets, I can fight the choppers.

"I have an idea. Follow me." I tell Ty. I jog to the cement wall, easy to climb from the huge divot the missile left. I can hear him chuckling behind me as he jumps straight onto it.

"You’re so slow and short." He says. "And bald." He’s back.

"I’d like to see you get blown up and walk away looking like a model." I snap back, reaching the top.

"What’s the plan?"

"We divide and conquer. Cody’s got the sea, Andrew’s got the land, you get the sky. Kelli works wherever the people are. I’ll help wherever I can, defending whoever from bullets. Destroy whatever weapon they have. Without it, they’re just humans!"

"Is that what you did?" He asks, positioning himself to fly.

"No." I admit. "I just destroyed everything. It wasted too much energy."

He launches into the air, snapping into invisibility. My turn. The soldiers will target me, they hate me more than the others. I’ve killed their comrades, ruined their plans. They’ve got to be determined to kill me. I bet I have a bounty with some fabulous prize.

What can I use to my advantage? My team’s in good health. No blood, no broken bones. I dont look threatening and no one’s paying attention to me. I could surprise at least a few, then I could make a big spectacle to distract them.

Kelli’s surrounded by soldiers, shadows spewing out of her palms, eyes and mouth, keeping all them still and under her command. With a grunt a spasm, the shadows retract the soldiers collapse to the ground, necks broken. She doesn’t need help. Besides, I might ruin the trance by adding light. Andrew’s taking on a tank, which is going in his favor. He uppercuts the shaft, breaking it in two with a loud clank. Ty’s got the most on his plate. Two jets, four choppers. The clouds overhead darken and draw together, thunder booming. Kelli, Andrew and I all turn to watch the electricity charging. A light within the clouds goes from nonexistent to dim, to growing brighter each second. When it seems like the light could drive us all blind, a bolt of lightning shoots down, piercing a jet and puncturing the ground. The electricity passes through me, failing to faze me in the slightest. I’ll take my fight to the skies. How am I going to get up?

I look to my right and find an old wooden coaster, falling apart, but close to where a chopper circles. I can climb that and hijack the helicopter. If I’m hot enough to set it on fire, that’ll benefit me.

I sprint to the building that houses the entrance, running through the halls where lines of people once were. I reach the coaster tracks, the carts thrown off and sideways. I head for the tunnel they dive into once the ride starts, thanking the scientists for giving us all night vision. I bound along the tracks going horizontally, placed like train tracks. I work carefully to keep my balance, the rough pressure on the soles of my bare feet aching. I land each time with a jolt, sending shocks through my legs.

The track curves down, and I jump as far as I can. My right foot hits the tracks rather well, unlike my left foot. The front of my foot slams into the tracks, stinging like hell. I fall forward, my head smashes into the track as it curves upward. My muscles all go limp for a moment of empty headedness, followed by a sharp pain in my forehead. I barely manage to throw my arms around the edges of the tracks to catch myself, my body weak against the wood. I struggle to get back on my feet, my body sore and aching.

I climb up the tracks like a ladder, on all fours. I scurry up until the tracks are level, then I start running. I can take one step on each board, flinging myself from board to board. I could try to look up. If I keep my running even, I can look up. I see an end to the darkness ahead, where the tunnel ends. It’s not too far away, some of its light casting onto the inner tracks. I bring my head up for a moment, realize that if I start getting confident, I’ll get cocky and fail, and look down.

I race out of the tunnels, going slightly upward back into the world. I skid to a stop; there’s a long metal pole going through the middle of the track that takes the carts up. It looks slick and polished, and I imagine tripping on it. I look around for another option and find it. On the side of the tracks, there’re long boards painted red with little knocks on them leading to the top. I jump to my left and start racing up the board. The tracks ahead are torn, like a cat’s sliced through it. The metal, wood and any other materials are completely ripped in two with a sizable gap between. On the other side of the gap, the chopper circles. I just have to make it there, then I’ve got a helicopter of my own. I can take one out, draw all the attention to myself that I can manage. I just have to make the jump. I slow down, it’s in front of me. The space is nearly nine feet wide, and if that wasn’t difficult enough, the track is still going uphill. I’ll have to get three feet going vertically. I walk to the edge and look down. That’s a seventy foot drop. I don’t know what that’d do to me in this state. It could kill me. I turn to my team, fighting amongst bullets and missiles and weapons. That could kill them, and they don’t care. They’re not doing as well as they were earlier. Andrew’s struggling against the tank, digging his feet into the cement to stop it from moving forward. The lightning’s affected Kelli’s manipulation, and she’s using hand to hand combat to take out the soldiers. Ty’s trying to deal with the missiles a jet keeps launching. There are still battleships in the water.

They need me. I need to do this. I back up several feet, careful not to fall. My whole body’s shaking, my heart’s racing. I take a deep breath to try and calm down. I need to be professional, I need to be ready. If I don’t make the jump, there are plenty of boards I could grab onto. I just have to make it the majority of the way.

I get into a running stance, resting on the balls of my feet. I take deep breaths and start the countdown. Just like in training. I tell myself. We’ve done this a thousand times before. We know what to do. I bounce a little, probably in stress and hesitation. But now is not a time for anxiety. Now is a time to be spontaneous. Before I reach the end of my countdown, I’m sprinting. I pump my arms and whip my legs quickly, reaching the edge before I know it. I throw my left leg forward, pushing my right foot into the splintered edge of the wood. I grimace as I press my weight into the foot to propel off of it. I throw myself horizontally, stretching my arms as wide as I can. Time doesn’t slow down. Not at all. It’s not graceful, it’s not epic. It’s desperate, and it’s terrifying. I could compare it to flying, the way it makes my stomach feel. Although I think that’s the nervousness. The edge of the roller coaster gets closer, and my heart beats faster. I stretch my fingers to graze the fringe of the wood. I feel it scraping against my fingertips, and I try to lock my hands around it. My body begins falling, and my fingers can’t hold my weight. I watch in horror as the top of the coaster shoots upward and out of my vision. I inhale sharply, adrenalin running ramped in my system. I struggle to keep from flailing my arms and aim for the next lower bar of wood.

My palms hit the wood hard, thrusting the wood into the skin. I swing down, clenching the wood tightly. My body slams into the wooden bars, knocking the wind right out of me. My knees smack with more force than any other body part, and it feels like they’ve been shattered. I hang for a moment, my weight resting on my hands. I force my legs to cooperate and find ground on one of the wooden bars. I walk my legs closer to my torso before reaching my hands higher. I pull myself to the top, arms and legs sore as hell.o My knuckles are shaking, worn and stiff. I stand, overlooking the boardwalk. The chopper is heading for me. I have to act fast. I think of the songs K.B., Dawson, Ardo and Mav play to try and motivate me. My timing has to be flawless, or I’ll plummet to the ground with nothing to grab onto. I clench my hands into fist and release, stretching them. My eyes are locked on the chopper, my calculations finalizing. Okay. Got it. The helicopter turns next to me, and I jump.

This time, it’s much shorter. The chopper has the back open, and I snatch onto the roof. I curve into the helicopter, my legs locked straight to kick the soldier inside right out the other side. I plant my feet on the ground and bring myself inside, grabbing onto the seats of the pilot in front of me. I slither to the right of the pilot and punch him in the temples, knocking him off the chair. Totally unconscious, I yank his helmet off his head and place it on my own. I can hear orders being barked in the group’s native language, none of which are too surprising. I snag his seat and kick him to the back, probably out of the chopper.

I sincerely thought learning how to operate a helicopter was pointless. I’m going to have to applaud the scientists on their training regimen. I sharply steer the chopper right, towards another one. I scan the dashboard for the buttons I’m looking for and press them. Guns fire, bullets piercing the helicopter. The army demands what I’m doing, wondering if I’ve lost my mind. A lot of them are swearing. I numbly listen until the chopper is about to fall out of the air. Someone screams a curse at me, and I start chuckling. "That’s no way to talk to a woman." I respond, using their native tongue. I hear them gasping or yelling at me even more. "Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to blast all of your expensive military toys apart. Or you can take me out first. Your choice."

I fire the final shots into the chopper before it crashes into the sand. This is when it gets interesting. I steer my helicopter away from Kelli, Andrew and Ty. I fly over the sand, dragging  decent amount of the army with me. I continue to go forward, my body tensing as I cross from the sand to the water. If I get shot down, I’m not recovering. No chance. None.

I fly over the battleship and go down, skimming the top of the ship. The choppers fire at me, hitting the ship. They curse in exclamation, and I feel the need to taunt. "Whoops. My bad. Hold on, I’ll make it easier."  I say. I could crash the chopper into the battleship and jump off the helicopter at the last second. Or, I could just let myself get overtaken in the explosion. I don’t know if that would help me in this state.

Through the headset, I can hear Andrew’s voice. He’s shouting, struggling. I hear one of the soldiers shouting, "One went down! He’s bleeding!" They hit Andrew? Impossible. No, they can’t. Andrew can’t be shot. Not possible. Nope.

"The water one went down." Someone says. Cody, I can, sadly, believe. He should have been training instead of writing his own erotic romance novel!

I can hear Ty yelling, like he’s falling, followed by a loud thump. "Another one down!" Someone reports. What’d they do to him? Shoot him in the chest? He’s got to be alive. He has to. Ty is the guy who can fly, not the guy who can die. It’s just a coincidence that it rhymes!

A bullet is fired, and I hear Kelli scream. "Fourth one!" The soldier declares happily. Kelli starts hissing at him, making these squealing sounds as she tries to get away. Another shot is fired, and she yelps again. "This one’s feisty!" You can’t get Kelli down. She’s like a tiger. You hit her, she’ll hit you back eight times as hard. You insult her, she responds with a comeback ten times more clever and witty.

"Shoot her legs." Some older man orders.

"Like hell!" I shout back, rage squirting out of my ears. "Don’t touch them!" I can feel my heart starting to race, my chest heaving. I hear a gunshot, followed by Kelli’s muffled scream. My jaw drops, my eyes rip wide open.  Maybe the anger will help me. Maybe it will make me more powerful.

"Sir, they’re bleeding." Someone says.

"Leave them alone!" I yell, breathing faster than the propellers rotate.

"The girl’s bleeding profusely." Another adds. I start shaking, and the metal around me starts bending.

"All of them are." My heart is going faster than I’ve ever felt it, bashing against my ribs. I can feel the flames spreading, covering my body.

I turn the chopper around and head straight for the truck. I make sure the guns are ready to fire. I’m aiming for heads. I’m going for a body count.

I rocket towards the other choppers, mercilessly opening fire. The guns are automatic, creating an incessant symphony of gunfire. I can’t hear anything else. I fire furiously, moving from one chopper to the next.

"Soldiers, evacuate!" Someone orders.

A bullet rips through the glass shield in front of me, shattering and cracking my field of vision. The bullet pierces my right arm, lodging deep in my forearm. I yelp in pain, flinching and twisting at the foreign body entangled in me. It drops down to my side, stopping the gunfire. Immediately, other choppers swoop in to fire. A bullet ricochets off my helmet and tears another hole in the glass, opening up a thin slot for me to see. Several other either barely miss me, hit my helmet, and then�"

One hits just below my collarbone on the left side. The air leaves my chest in a sharp gasp, my body paralyzed for a moment in shock. The agony starts to make itself known, and spreads. It’s like there’s a gaping hole in my chest with razor blades around the edges. It feels heavy, pinning me to my seat. I don’t allow myself to look at it, although I start to. I pluck my head up, my breathing fast and hollow. I need to get back to shooting them or else I’ll get taken down.

I force my right hand back to the controls, teeth digging into my bottom lip.  I look through the hole of crooked lines and fire, eliminating the final chopper before me. I continue to fly forward, now over the sand. I lose my vision of the Boardwalk and fly blind. I aim the guns at the ground and push on the handle to go lower. My right arm aches, trying to get me to stop. I press forward, cutting my lip from biting so hard. The nose drops, pulling the chopper down. I veer up before the ground is too close and turn around to finish off the group.

I start firing at any choppers or tanks, my aim falling short. I curl my toes, biting deep into my lip. The handles underneath my hands start cracking and breaking.

I fix my aim. I shoot the back�"

Something hits the back of the chopper, taking out the tail. I can hear the explosion and feel the heat and force pushing us to the left, away from the chopper and out of the air. The chopper starts spinning, set on a crash course for the ground. There’s no way I can control this or milk any further use out of it. I move out of my seat, shaking and restricted by my injuries. The centrifugal force throws me against the edges, pressing me into the walls. I inch along, close to the door. The second I land, my knees have to give and I have to roll. I hurl myself out, flying headfirst through to the ground.

The chopper hits the ground yards away from me, followed by an explosion that pushes me to my right, spinning over so I fall back first. It crashes into one of the Boardwalk buildings, taking out the tank and any remaining soldiers. My lower back hits the concrete first, the force continuing. I roll backwards, doing a reverse summersault. The rest of my back hits the ground, even my skull smacks down. I whip around, pulling myself onto my knees. The only operating weapon they have now is a truck, which swerves to bail on the scene. I stagger to my feet, my back stinging and sore. I collapse several times before I can firmly stand.

I can still see the truck. The soldiers that shot my friends and left them bleeding. If there’s even a little bit of mutant fire still burning inside me, I have a chance. I start running, my right arm barely able to swing at my side. I pump my left arm, my legs weak and light.

I’ve got to find some way to get my power back. I’ll never catch up to them at a human’s pace.

I look over my shoulder. There’s a car heading my way. A small silver one with civilians inside and am unused bike rack on the top. In a crisis, the military can commandeer a vehicle to protect the citizens. I stop running and face the car.

They start honking. They’ll slow down if I don’t get out of the way. They won’t murder me in cold blood. I shuffle to the side of the road, making the jump that much harder. The car races by, and I take a few steps back. I know when to jump to make it. My timing doesn’t concern me. I’ve never done this anything less than my strongest state. For all I know, this is impossible.

That’s too bad. Because I’m already sprinting at the car. It continues to drive, rushing past me as I jump. I pick my feet up so I slide onto the hood. I smack against the car, which is louder than you’d think it would be. I snag onto the bike rack with my right arm, tearing it apart. I swing around the edge of the car, my feet pressed against the glass like a mountaineer. I grab onto the rack with my left arm and pull myself up, crouched low to the ground to remain balanced.

The car starts slowing, and I watch the truck with my team get further away. The car stops and a middle-aged man, probably a father, storms out. His face is bright red. "What the hell are you doing?" He shouts.

I point to the truck. "They hurt my friends! They shot them!" I yell desperately. The car’s metal begins melting as my fingers dig deep into the rack.

He looks to the truck, running red lights and receiving several honks in return. He gets back in the car and races after it, going quickly. He flies through stop signs and red lights, catching up slowly. I hold onto the bike rack as we sharply turn, the tires squealing and leaving skid marks. I can imagine my team, unconscious and injured in the back of the truck. I’m going to save them. I’m the leader, their lives go before mine.

The car gets close. The man rams into the back and I jump down to the hood. I spring onto the roof of the van, wrapping my arms around the edges. I swing my legs from behind me to in front of me. I inch close to the windshield, hanging tightly as the van speeds up and sharply turns. I pull back my right leg and jam my heel down into the glass, which just bounces off. I hit again, this time hearing the slightest crack. I kick again, hearing the glass splinter. I raise my foot and slam on the glass, shattering a hole. My foot goes through the glass, and I feel it hit someone. It pulls me off the roof of the car, forcing me to stand.

Someone puts a bullet through my foot. I withdraw immediately, scampering away from the windshield. There’s a hole going all the way through, exposing the flames inside, looking more like a human body than ever before. I ignore it and limp for the back of the van. I’m getting my team out of there.

I grab onto the back edge and drop my legs down, soles pressed against the doors. I can feel the tug tearing my right arm. There are no windows. I drop my right arm and grope for the handle. I find it and yank, scooting to the side to open it wide. I swing into the van, where I see them. The soldiers responsible for harming my friends. Shooting them. Fatally.

His eyes dart to my right, and I turn in time to block a punch from a guard. I hold my right forearm out and absorb his hit, hooking my left arm around. He ducks and jabs, forcing me to step to the side. I keep my fists balled and in front of my face, light on my feet. He tries to sweep my legs, and I jump. I flick my left leg out, catching his chest. I boot him out of the car, sending him into the concrete at high speeds.

I whip around, ready for the next fight. I stand sideways to the front of the van when a bullet enters between my bottom two right ribs, spinning me and pushing me backwards.  Pain erupts in my torso, wrapping around me like wings. I land on my right arm and tumble, smacking against my right arm time and time again. Each time I roll, more and more air is pulled from my lungs. I hit my chin, nose, head, shoulders and arms that limply slap into the concrete. I finally skid to stop in the middle of an intersection, my whole body in pain. I pry my head up to face the van, regaining command and driving away.

I have to get up. I try to pick myself up, everything feels tight and heavy. I try running, which I think is more like limping. I lock my eyes on the van and drag myself through the streets. I try pumping my arms. My left arm swings a little.

Something plows into me from my right, knocking me off my feet. I’m pushed up onto the hood and over the windshield. My hips hit hard and crack, my legs crunch. My chest smacks onto the edge, followed by several sickening snapping sounds. I fly over the top and fall to the ground, my legs bent in different directions. I can hardly breathe. My heart is skipping, not pumping, not pounding.

My neck is twisted to the side. I can see the van leave my vision, the bumper hanging on the ground with a tail of sparks. The doors are closed.

They might have killed my team. My team. The people I’ve grown up with, lived with, trained with, laughed with and loved. When I was appointed leader, Mr. C. told me my priorities were to protecting my team. It’s a simple task, and I failed.

I don’t have my team of military mutants. I don’t have my team of Bohemian nomads. I don’t have anyone.

It’s not the first time I’ve been alone.

I know I’ve been absolutely on my own before. I know I’ve failed a team of people relying on me before. I’m sure. This unbelievably overwhelming guilt is too familiar.