The First Superhero Books 0-3 Box Set Page 20

  “Yeah, there’s no place like home."

  S&T, LLC

  I walked into apartment 2407 at the York Towers in downtown Indianapolis—home sweet home.

  “I’m home, Mom,” I called.

  Mom peeked out of the kitchen, which sat to the right of the front door. “How was school?”

  I set my backpack down on the couch and walked into the kitchen, where I got a glass of water. “Fine. Drew was cool, didn’t ask too many questions.”

  “And Macy?”

  I didn’t want to answer that question. “She’s good, I guess.”

  “You guess?” Mom stopped making her protein shake. “You mean you didn’t talk to her?”

  I shrugged as I placed my glass in the sink. “She’s dating Brian Turner, and we didn’t have any classes together, so not really. I flew home right after class was over.”

  “Oh, honey,” Mom said. She looked at me with pity in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. Really.”

  I heard a door close down the hall. I hadn’t been aware anyone else was home. I looked out the kitchen doorway and saw Dad come walking down the hallway and into the living area.

  “You’re home from work already?” I asked.

  “I took off early. Wanted to be here when you got home,” he said. He leaned up against the back of the couch, crossing his arms.

  I walked out and climbed up to sit on the bar that extended from the kitchen to the living area. I swung my feet back and forth beneath me.

  “How was school?” he asked.

  “Fine, I guess. Nothing special.”

  “Macy’s dating Brian Turner,” Mom said.

  “Zoe,” Dad said, giving her a look that simply said, ‘Really?’ “You okay with that?”

  “Yeah, it’s whatever, Dad,” I said. I really didn’t want to talk about it. “I didn’t even get the chance to talk to her, anyway.”

  “Not even a hello?”

  “Nope. I might see her tonight, though. I’m going to a party.”

  “On a Monday night?” Dad asked, surprised.

  “Well, it’s not really a party. Just hanging out and stuff.”

  “Well, make sure you’re not out too late. You don’t have homework, do you?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll get it done before I leave.”

  Dad nodded, satisfied with my answer. “Well, I’m gonna head up to the office and try to get some work done.” He grabbed his briefcase from the bar next to me.

  “Drop me off at the gym on your way, will ya?” Mom asked as she walked out of the kitchen, protein shake in hand.

  “Of course, sweetie,” Dad answered.

  The two of them walked to the front door. Before they left, Dad turned to me. “Make sure that homework’s done before you leave.”

  “I will, Dad,” I said as I got down from the bar.

  “Hey, keep your head up, Kane. Everything’ll be fine.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement. “Thanks, Dad.”

  He shut the door behind him, and I started working on my homework, getting ready for the party.

  USUALLY, THE FLIGHT from Indianapolis to Ebon didn’t take me very long at all. But this time, I was taking my time. Almost every time I flew, it was as fast as I could. Slowing down to soar was an incredible feeling. Something I wished I could do more often. I watched as the city lights passed beneath me, like veins leading toward the beating heart of Indianapolis. Cars passed by below, their drivers unaware of the superhuman Tempest flying above them.

  I was thankful for the cold winter air, as that meant I had an excuse to wear long-sleeved shirts and jackets. That meant I could wear my Tempest outfit under my clothes, which I found surprisingly comfortable. It kept me very warm.

  “Hey, there. Just checking in,” I heard Samantha say in my mind.

  “Howdy, pardner,” I said with a chuckle. The relaxation of flying had lifted my spirits a considerable amount.

  “Anything to report on the school front?”

  “Not what I had in mind for senior year, but it wasn’t a complete disaster.”

  “That’s good to hear. I was hoping to hear from you today, but I realized I never gave you my number. It was a slow day here at Tempest & Samantha, LLC, HQ.”

  “That’s a lot of acronyms.”

  “Yeah, it’s a work in progress.”

  I gave Samantha my number and felt my phone vibrate in my pocket as she sent me a text, giving me her number.

  “If you find yourself in a sticky situation, just send me something and I’ll be there in a flash.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said with a smile. It really was nice to think about. If I ever needed someone to talk to, I had the voice in my head—and I wasn’t crazy, which made it that much better.

  “Doug and I had a bit of a breakthrough today while we were going over our files on the Supers so far. It’s kinda embarrassing that we didn’t see it before. When can you come by Samantha & Tempest, LLC, HQ?”

  “What happened to Tempest & Samantha?”

  “Yeah, I decided that since I pay the rent, my name goes first.”

  “Fair enough. I’m on my way to hang out with my friends. I’ll be by later tonight. Sound good?” I said. Speaking of which, I saw the lights of Ebon twinkling in the distance.

  “Sounds good. I’ll be here waiting.”

  “Okay, well, I’m almost in Ebon. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Later,” Samantha said. With that, she left my mind.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at the time. I decided to pick up the pace a little bit.

  A few minutes later, I landed outside Zach’s house and walked inside.

  Weak Secrets

  I walked into Zach’s foyer, noting the bowl filled with people’s car keys. My stomach turned at the thought of drinking and flying. I would definitely be throwing up all over Indiana.

  Don’t drink and fly, kids.

  “Hey, man, good to see you,” Drew said when he saw me walk in.

  I gave him a fist bump. “Alright, tell me straight: is Macy here?”

  “Macy and her beau,” Drew said with an elbow prod.

  The lack of amusement on my face showed Drew that I wasn’t quite ready to be cracking jokes about the whole situation.

  “Yeah, she’s here,” Drew said.

  I sighed. “I should probably get this over with, right?”

  “I would. Treat it like a Band-Aid. Just rip it off, fast and hard.”

  “Good talk,” I said as I walked past Drew and into Zach’s living room.

  I was greeted by a chorus of hey’s, long time no see’s, and Where the hell have you been?’s I did my best to answer the questions as succinctly as possible, but my attention was elsewhere. Across the living room, alongside the fireplace, stood Macy. Her ginger hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and she was sipping from a cup in her hand. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, making no effort to speak to me. She was waiting for me to make the first move.

  Brian Turner, however, saw me, and let out a big smile. “Kane Andrews!” he shouted. He walked over to me and gave me a fist bump. “It’s good to see you, bro!”

  I thought back to what had happened the last time Brian and I talked at a party. He’d thanked me for saving his life by calling an ambulance when he was lying broken in an alley. He had no memory that I was the one who had put him there in the first place. I was the one who’d changed Brian from being a big bully to the apparent teddy bear he was today. The Buddha of Ebon High. I could almost feel the salt being poured onto my wounds. It was bad enough that Macy was dating my enemy, but I was the one who had made him the person he was today—the person Macy had apparently fallen in love with.

  “Good to see you too,” I lied.

  I looked over his shoulder at Macy. She looked down and began to inspect her drink when she saw me looking at her.

  “Hey, Macy,” I said.

  She looked up at me. “Hi.” Then she tu
rned back to her drink.

  Ouch.

  I’d had enough. I walked past Brian and right over to Macy. “Can we talk?”

  “Fine.”

  Without looking back, the two of us walked through the kitchen and out the back door.

  I shut the door behind me, and when I turned around, Macy slapped me hard across the face.

  “I deserved that,” I said.

  “You deserve worse, Andrews,” she spat.

  I fought the urge to wince. She wouldn’t even use my first name. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? I was going through a rough time, with Michael and everything. I just needed some space.”

  Macy slapped me again, this time harder. Tears welled in her eyes. “How dare you use Michael as an excuse like that? You could’ve called. You could’ve texted. Hell, get out a pen and paper and write a goddamned letter, I don’t care. You have no excuse, Andrews. No excuse. None that I’ll accept, anyway. You’re just an asshole, and I’m through talking to you. Just leave me alone.” Macy pushed me aside and started to open the door.

  I grabbed the doorknob and shut it. “Macy, please. Just listen to me, alright? I can explain.” My brain was telling me to shut up, but my heart ignored it. I was prepared to tell Macy everything. To show her the Tempest suit I had on under my clothes and explain everything.

  “Get out of my way, Andrews,” she said, pushing me back. She opened the door, slipped through, and slammed it in my face before I could react.

  Then she screamed.

  Party Crashers 2.0

  I swung open the door and saw the living room engulfed in flames. I stood there for a few moments, stunned. People were clambering over furniture and each other, trying to get out of the house.

  “Brian!” Macy yelled, and began running toward the living room.

  That was when I saw it. The fire had come from a person engulfed in flames—Brian Turner.

  “Oh god, help me! What’s happening?” he screamed. He reached out to someone, and a torrent of flames shot from his hand, igniting the couch. Luckily the person he’d been reaching for was fast enough to run out of the way.

  I wrapped my arms around Macy and lifted her up. She punched and kicked, trying to get free, but it made no difference to me.

  “Put me down, Kane! I have to help!” she yelled.

  I didn’t listen. I took her out the back door and set her down. She tried to get past me, but there was no way I was letting her back in.

  “Go get help,” I said. She looked at the door behind me, trying to see Brian through the window. “Macy! Go get help!” I yelled.

  She nodded, tears streaming from her eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to try to find a hose or something,” I lied.

  Macy nodded again and got out her phone as she ran to the front of the house. Once she was out of sight, I ripped off my outer clothes and revealed the Tempest outfit I was wearing underneath. I pulled the hood up, my eyes began to glow, and I ran back into the house.

  The house was an inferno. Brian was running around wildly, trying to put out the flames that covered his body. From the way they shot from his body, it was clear that he wasn’t just on fire, he was the source of the flames.

  Brian Turner was a Super.

  “Hey, kid!” I shouted, being sure to disguise my voice and making sure I didn’t use Brian’s name.

  When he turned to look at me, his face looked like it was made of lava. Flames licked from the top of his head like they were now his hair. “Help me!” he shouted.

  I reached into my pocket, and as fast as I could, sent Samantha a one-letter text. I looked around for a fire extinguisher while I waited for her to respond. I dashed to the stove and looked in the cabinet beneath it. There sat a small fire extinguisher, not nearly big enough to take on the inferno Brian was creating. It was worth a shot, though.

  I grabbed it and began spraying it onto him. The foam didn’t even reach him. It all evaporated almost as soon as it left the canister.

  “It’s not working!” Brian cried.

  “What’s up?” Samantha said in my head.

  “I need you to see!” I shouted.

  More flames erupted from Brian, burning a hole in the ceiling. I could hear people screaming outside in fear.

  I felt the tingling.

  “Holy shit, that’s not good,” Samantha said when she saw what I could.

  “I’m going to try to grab him,” I told her. “Take him to water.”

  I ran toward Brian, everything around me turning to slow motion. I watched as another plume of flame unfurled from his hand, reaching for the wall, ready to punch a hole through it with its force and heat.

  I reached out for Brian. I could almost make out the fear and confusion radiating from his glowing orange eyes. I felt searing heat as I got closer and closer, the skin on my hands melting and immediately beginning to repair itself again. My hands touched Brian, and I screamed out in pain. The heat was so intense, I felt my suit begin to melt. It was almost as bad as the nukes I’d experienced when I was battling Richter.

  I slammed through the wall of Zach’s house, leaving Brian behind. I fell to the ground, skidding across Zach’s yard, leaving a trench in my wake. I screamed in pain, and heard answering screams from the people gathering at the front of the house.

  I looked down. My hands were gone. They had been completely melted away by Brian. I panicked, screaming loudly, “Holy shit!”

  The bones started to regrow. Fifteen more seconds, and the flesh began to grow back. My hands tingled as the skin grew over the flesh. I had my hands back, but Brian was still on fire. If he didn’t get it under control soon, I was afraid of what might happen to those who didn’t have the same healing powers I did.

  “Open to suggestions,” I said, speaking to Samantha.

  “I’m trying, I’m trying!”

  Another explosion erupted from the house. I could hear sirens coming in the distance. I wasn’t sure how much longer the house would last.

  “Okay, Doug says to run circles around him as fast as you can. It’ll create a vacuum, sucking out all the oxygen. Without oxygen, there’s no fire.”

  As Samantha finished her sentence, I was already running back into the house through the hole I’d created. I got as close as I could bear to Brian, and began running as fast as I could.

  I ran circles faster and faster. A sonic boom shook the house, breaking everything that was fragile nearby. The house seemed to hold up, though, so I didn’t have to worry about the place crashing down on us.

  Faster and faster I ran, my eyes focused straight ahead of me. The fire seemed to be receding back toward Brian, and his glow was diminishing. I thought it was working, but I was moving so fast, I couldn’t tell. To me, everything was slowed down.

  I began to slow my speed, and things around me started to speed up. The flames sucked back inside Brian, and he stopped glowing. He fell to the ground, and I stopped running.

  Most of the fire in the house had dissipated—only a few small ones remained here and there.

  Brian’s body was black and covered in soot. Ash rained down on us, and the house groaned. I had to get him out of there and fast.

  I picked him up and ran outside just as the house began to collapse on itself. I brought him out to the road where the fire trucks and ambulances were arriving.

  I set him down on the curb, and people from the party rushed over.

  “Stop! Give him some space,” I shouted. Everyone froze, staring at me. Seconds later, phones were out, flashes blinding my glowing eyes.

  An unmarked van pulled up, peeling to a stop just a few feet away. The doors opened, and soldiers in black came pilling out of the back of the van.

  “Everybody get down!” they shouted, waving their guns around. The partiers complied.

  “Who are you?” I asked, struggling to see around the flashing lights from the different emergency response vehicles.

  “We said get down!” one of them shouted.
>
  “Look, I don’t know who you think you a—”

  One of them fired at me, purple electricity shooting from his gun. I did a back flip off the ground, the electricity traveling just beneath me. I landed in a crouched position, and the bolt of electricity hit the house behind me, sending a section of it to the ground.

  The whole team opened fire. I flew into the air, dodging each bolt of electricity with ease. But there were too many of them. I couldn’t keep my eye on every one.

  “Kane, get out of there! Trust me, do it!” Samantha shouted at me.

  I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave my friends with these crazy people with the guns, but Samantha didn’t seem to think I could take them down.

  I couldn’t give up. I began flying toward the company of soldiers, ready to take them down with ease.

  Until one of the bolts hit me square in the chest.

  I lost all control of my body.

  I went rigid, and felt myself begin to fall toward the ground. I still had all of my forward momentum, however, and went flying straight through the second floor of the house across the street.

  I slammed through the house, every hit sending shockwaves of pain through my body. Then I exited out the other side and slammed into the ground.

  I lay in the backyard, broken. I couldn’t move voluntarily. My body spasmed as the electricity from the bolt continued to course through me. I felt it traveling through my head, down my arms, across my chest—in every fiber of my being.

  It dissipated, and I lay there utterly motionless.

  I felt my power returning. My body worked furiously to heal me.

  I could hear the soldiers who had attacked me shouting orders to one another as they made their way toward the back yard.

  I got to my feet, slowly—painfully.

  The soldiers were close. I could hear them opening the gate leading to the back yard. Leading to me.

  I jumped into the air and flew away, leaving it all behind.

  Theories

  I lifted the door to Samantha and Doug’s storage unit and shut it behind me. I stumbled to the big comfortable chair and fell down into it. Then I slipped my hood off and sank deeper into the chair.