I passed out by the time Bloodforge had tried, for a sixth time, to grind through my arms, then shoulders, then my legs. I remembered flashes of heat. I remembered agony and screaming. But most of all was the numbness that came over me. Almost like a sweet euphoria that dragged my mind away from my body until all of his bone saws had shattered against my bones, and each piece of his medical equipment had snapped or bent or just given in. The only reason I woke up just now was because I knew if I kept floating through unconsciousness, I probably wouldn’t get back up again. It was stubbornness. It was pain and burning fear that rolled me onto my side, and then face-flat on the floor. I was out of breath. I could barely hear anything over a whine in my ears and the war drum of my heart.

  I wanted so badly to pass out again. Instead, I got myself onto my back, feeling the cold concrete under my skin. I stared at the ceiling through unfocused eyes. I breathed slowly, letting the stabs of pain liquify and soak into my muscles. I sat upright because I didn’t want them to think I was in pain. I nearly puked between my legs from the effort alone. Sweat trickled down my spine, dampening the white shirt they’d pulled over my head when I was unconscious. I spat on the floor. Kept my eyes shut. Swayed a little, trying to ignore the itch of the bandages that wrapped around my shoulders, arms and legs. Everything ached. My head pounded with a nasty headache, the kind that gets your eyes blurry with tears and your stomach a little sick. Still, I grabbed the bandages and ripped them off one by one until spools of white lay around me. New scars, fresh and pink, all over my shoulders and arms and legs.

  I rolled my neck, got on one knee, then pushed myself off the floor. I swayed. The air stank of disinfectant. Of old blood still in the cracks along the floor. No more heavy chains. No more being locked in place. I clenched and unclenched my hands, forcing them to stay steady. I could barely keep my fists tight for more than a second.

  I let my arms drop and looked up at the ceiling. Still a little dizzy, and more than a little tired.

  I jumped once, then stumbled and hit the ground with my knees. I swore and stayed there, my head on the ground and panting like a dog. Not much of a choice other than to get up again. This time was harder, this time my chest felt like it was burning from the effort as I swayed on my feet and jumped up and down again. I stopped. Ok. Higher. I crouched and jumped, cratering the floor and getting to the ceiling. I landed on it with my feet, hung upside down, then shot back to the ground. I landed hard enough to dent the concrete. I vomited nothing except saliva and blood. I grabbed my guts and groaned. They felt like they were getting tugged and pulled and torn.

  I guess when I was out cold, they must’ve gone through exactly that. I could hear them squelching, almost like they were moving and shuffling around inside of me. I coughed and fell over on my side, curling into a ball.

  It didn’t matter how much agony I was in, though, or how terrible the taste of blood was in my mouth, spilling out through my teeth, because flying was what I wanted to do, so I struggled again and again onto my feet and into the air and onto the ceiling until the cell was marked with craters and blood. I didn’t stop until I could land without collapsing. And when I could land, I kept going until I was sweaty, exhausted, hungry and shaking from the fresh doses of pain I was filling myself with. Sweat dripped off my nose and stung my eyes, and again, I got up on one knee and looked up at the ceiling, my arm resting on my leg and my chest heaving from all the exertion.

  Gods, this hurts, I thought, standing up again. I hung my head and put my hands on my hips. I was filthy and sweaty and reeked of body odor, but I didn’t care. Not one bit. I rolled my shoulders and lightly jumped on my toes, back and forth, moving around, making sure my feet went where they should without making me stumble. I swallowed the pain and forced myself to keep going. Then came the first jab, the first hook—a slow combination followed by leg work. Stiff. Joints feeling like they’ve been welded to each other. I bent over and vomited, then knuckled it off my chin and put up my hands again. Each punch threw sweat onto the cracked floor. Each high kick doubled me over and left me spitting strings of saliva onto the ground. I felt woozy, dazed, and focused on the door.

  It’s what got me to stay on my feet without falling over again and again. I didn’t stop until the pain was dull and my heart was fast and my muscles were on fire. Push ups as hand stands, one-legged squats that stretched the twinge out of my lower back. I got myself flexible and tore open the fleshy scars. I bit down and didn’t stop.

  If I stopped, then making that promise to Dennie meant nothing.

  But…something was off. A dawning silence was in the cell. My grunts of effort echoed. I glanced at the air vents and strained to listen. They’re off. No Ambrosia in the cell anymore. No fluctuating currents of gummy wind.

  Then the lights flickered, cut, and died. I paused, then got into a crouch, straining to listen to the loud silence. They came back a second later, followed by the hollow whumph of an explosion. I stood. The ceiling shed dust and concrete powder, getting in my hair and eyes. I looked around. I smelt something strange in the air. Maybe smoke, maybe fire. Couldn’t put my thumb on it. I took several cautious steps toward the cell door and put my ear to the cold metal. Deathly silence, that’s all I could hear. I stepped back the same moment the lights died again, and this time, they didn’t turn on. Everything got warmer. The ground shuddered again. I cupped my hands together and focused on my palms, on the surging feeling inside my stomach. The Ambrosia had done its part to stop me, to dull my powers. But from my fingers, the tiniest spark leaped from my hands and onto the floor, vanishing in an instant.

  I stepped back from the door, bent, and slammed my shoulder so hard against it that it buckled. The hallway was a deep crimson that glared into the darkness of my cell. I wedged my hand between the gap and tore.

  The cell door flew off its hinges, all ten inches worth of solid steel, and slammed into the opposite wall. I stepped into the corridor, looking left and then right. No heartbeats. No sounds. Flashing red lights and another dull explosion that sent light fixtures rattling and falling out of their slots. The cracks around me shed dust onto the floor and my shoulders, coloring the air in a red haze. Whatever that is, it’s not my problem. I shut my eyes and tried to get my powers to work the way they should. I wouldn’t be able to fly for long, and my skin was still tender and bleeding. My best chance was to kill and not look back if it came down to it, and that was more than fine with me.

  The slightest breeze came from my left, and that’s where I decided to go. Wouldn’t waste my energy trying to run or even fly—I walked, my footsteps echoing into the silence. Every few seconds, a flash of heat would rush through the corridor, prickling my skin. If someone normal was here, they probably wouldn’t feel it, but right now, my feet were picking up shuddering vibrations, and my skin felt temperature fluctuations I’ve never felt before.

  “Hey!” someone barked. I looked over my shoulder. The sound of boots hitting the floor flooded the tunnel. A couple dozen Damage Control guards, some of them with soot smeared over their gear, a lot of them grunting with effort and panting behind those masks. They looked like they had come straight out of a war zone, filthy and exhausted and hurting all over their bodies. Bad day, I guessed. The leading one, a guy without a mask on his face, levelled the rifle at me and primed it, the crackling golden light staring me down. Dozens more rifles locked on the girl standing at the end of the hallway, and slowly, I turned, staring them down. “Get down, hands up, and we’ll put you back in holding without having to drag you there! Understand! Now get on your goddamned—”

  I went through him and stopped in the center of the group. Blood showered the closest ones. Some of them screamed. Some of them wretched when guts splattered onto them. I plucked a long, gangly intestine off my shoulder and threw it onto the ground, stepping on it and looking at each of them. “The exit is that way, right?”

  A trigger happy woman scared out of her wits discharged her rifle. I was behind her before she could realize that the blast had decimated a handful of her friends. Torn open torsos had gotten their chests cauterized and their throats singed into stubs of black meat. Legs attached to nothing remained standing. The unlucky few who’d gotten their limbs taken clean off wailed and shrieked on the floor. I figured they were panicking. The stink of it was in the air. Something had them terrified, and…hold on, was it me? Huh. I guess the hellish crimson lights didn’t really help, but I grabbed the rifle from her hands and threw it far, far down the hallway. I hovered closer. She backed up to the wall, head shaking and legs trembling. I grabbed her bulletproof vest and pulled her right up close to me.

  “I asked,” I said, “if the exit is that way or not.”

  She nodded quickly, tears building in her eyes. Smoke in the air, getting a lot stronger. I sniffed and turned and looked over my shoulder. Another explosion. And now it was followed by a gut-curdling, raging bellow.

  I kept a tight hold of the woman as I threw her into the ceiling. Most of her stayed up there. The rest of her splattered onto the floor in a heap of guts and broken body parts. I walked that way. A beam of light slammed into my back, sending me down the corridor and into the opposite wall. I shook my head. Swayed onto my feet. The dust hadn’t finished settling by the time I was right there in the middle of them again, and at that speed, clotheslining a human means taking their head clean off their shoulders. One head fell. Another caved in underneath their mask when I picked him up by the shoulder and slammed him skull-first into the ground. A man bellowed, wielding a machete made of golden light. That’s new. I ducked under his wild swing, swept my leg across his shin, and sent him to the floor. I grabbed both his ankles, lifted him up high, and slammed him down onto the others on the ground.

  I only stopped when there wasn’t much of him left to use. At that point, he was only legs and some meat.

  It kinda looked like someone had stepped on them, bugs smashed and smeared underneath a boot.

  I wiped my hands on my t-shirt and followed the sounds of chaos, stepping over the bodies littering the hallway. The blood on my feet left a trail on the cold floor behind me, making a sharp smack whenever my soles hit the floor. I turned the corner and found more empty cells. Some of them had been occupied, but the doors were open and bent and broken, and it looked like someone else had gotten to most of the Damage Control guards long before I ever came around. Bodies, sometimes alone, sometimes in scattered piles, were everywhere. One thing I noticed was that some of the faces were the same. It made sense that a handful of them were clones, but honestly, it didn’t change my mind. Especially when I came across a creature ripping apart a man clean in half, showering in guts.

  I looked up at the thing, his back turned to me. His skin was coated in black, shifting pellets, almost like some kind of wet gravel. I shrugged and walked past him, until he grabbed me by the hair. I took his arm with me and left most of him in a stony pile drenched in blood. As for his arm, I only kept it because I could hear even more commotion up ahead. Some woman made purely out of toxic sludge was throwing it down in a mad, raging fight against a man made of pure pink…something. I smacked her into the wall and bent the guy’s spine to a point that, if he ever found his way to the ICU, they’d have a hard time piecing back together all those little spinal fragments.

  I paused, then swore and pinched my nose. Should’ve asked them how to get out of this place.

  Couldn’t do much about that now, anyway, and walking around so aimlessly wasn’t going to get me anywhere. So I looked up, and slammed my way through the concrete floor. It smacked the air out of my lungs as I coughed and hovered in the air. I swept my arm out in front of me, banishing the dust as I looked around. It was a medical bay. The lights were dead in here, covering everything in a heavy black blanket. I flew through the silent aisles of equipment and empty hospital beds until a sound caught my attention. I was there in a moment, and the person I found trying to load up a cart full of vials of blood startled and fumbled for their weapon. I grabbed their wrist and put them on their knees. I looked at the vials. Some were green. Some glowed. Most of them were mine.

  The worst part was that this cart and the icy air that enveloped it was labeled #849B. I didn’t know if that meant there were more carts like this one lying around, but I also didn’t know what these guys had been planning.

  “Where’s the exit?” I asked them. They didn’t answer. Only peed themselves. I squeezed their wrist.

  And then he started running his mouth. “I can show you!” he said. “I-I was leaving just now!”

  I pushed over the cart, smashing the vials. He paused, almost as if he was going to mop it up on instinct. An intern or something. He was skinny, slightly bent over. The white of the Damage Control gear clung to his body like a skin suit, like he was just dressing up for the part. I shoved him in the back and told him to start walking.

  Through a door and down a hallway, over and over again like a monotonous game of snakes and ladders. He kept glancing over his shoulder at me as I flew behind him, as if he was contemplating if he should try and run or take a lucky swing and hope his fist doesn’t break the moment it hits my chin. We stopped at the largest door yet, one that was sealed shut. He put his hand on a screen beside it and it flashed red. He apologized and almost spoke.

  I wedged my fingers in the seams separating the door and forced it open, grinding my teeth until the gap was wide enough for me to walk through. Then I froze. The guy behind me bolted, running back down the corridor.

  Should’ve known not to trust a Damage Control lackey, I thought.

  I sighed quietly through my mouth, then looked through the hair that had fallen over my face.

  My day didn’t have to get any worse, but seeing Rhea standing in front of me dried my throat and nearly stopped my heart dead. Her head hung low, her hair a wild mess. She was soaked in greenish-purple blood, with some kind of Kaiju lying dead behind her in piles of wet meat. I looked away, because something hot was burning away inside my chest. Something that stung my eyes as I looked back at her. I walked forward into the dark. The silence echoed. She didn’t move forward. I couldn’t hear a heartbeat. I stopped. I waited. It’s not her. I slowly shook my head and breathed through my mouth in silent chokes. Where did they find you? Cassie wouldn’t have known unless…right. Lucas would have told her. They were all in the same sphere. They’d destroyed the grave I had left behind just to put her back together as this thing. Scars and gray flesh. Stitches and dull, dead eyes. I wanted to cry again. The emotion came so suddenly that I felt like I’d gotten the wind knocked out of me. I swallowed. Hard.

  Then reached for her face.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  She didn’t attack me as I cupped her cheek. I slowly rubbed my thumb along the jagged stitch that ran across her face from her forehead to her jaw. What did they do to you? She felt so cold. So stiff. Her skin was like hard leather and her hair thin and frail. I grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. She still didn’t move. She remained as she’d been when I last saw her—a corpse, one with rigid muscle and taught skin pulled over her entire body.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my face in her neck. “I wanted to be there to save you. I didn’t give up.”

  She said nothing. My head pounded as I put her at arm’s length. She stared at the floor, frozen, hair still dripping with blood that soaked into her black and white skin-tight clothes. It had been some kind of holding cell for that creature behind her, but judging by the massive hole in the ceiling, she’d come straight down and killed it.

  “I swear,” I said through my teeth, forcing my forearm across my face. “I swear, that’s the last fucking time any of them do this to anyone ever again.” I put my forehead to hers, holding her hands. “Gods, Rhea, I’m sorry.”

  A jolt of electricity jumped from her finger to mine. Her hand twitched. I moved back and she grabbed me. Her grip was strong, just as strong as it would have been any other day. She tried to lift my arm. I didn’t move. The concrete cratered underneath my foot as I shifted my weight on it, then I palmed her in the chest, shoving her away.

  She slid backward and stopped, half her body turned to fight. Finally, she looked up at me.

  “Traitor,” she snarled. Her voice was strangled. Her words raw. “You traitor.”

  “What did they do to you?” I whispered.

  She screamed and lunged. We collided and shot out of the room she’d been inside. We went through one wall and then the next until she stopped, grabbed my throat, and slammed me into the floor. I groaned and shook my head, then rolled as she stomped her foot through the concrete. I got to my feet and backed away. Rhea glared at me, electricity spitting and sparking around her fingers, darkening her pale flesh as it slowly burnt her skin away.

  “I’m not going to fight you,” I said. She stayed still. I circled her, getting an angle. “We fixed things!”

  “You left us to die!” she growled. “You were always weak. Never good enough to save anyone else except yourself.” My mouth soured. I stopped moving and clenched my jaw. “I woke up in pain. I woke up thinking that we all survived, but you left, that’s what I remember, and we trusted you to be there to make sure we all survived!"

  I dodged the fist she put through a solid concrete wall. Strong. Just as strong as any Arkathian.

  “Listen to me,” I snapped. She tugged her arm out of the wall and glared. “I tried, alright? I tried but you’re right, Rhea. I’m not strong enough. I killed that fucking thing and got there too late. I should’ve—” My voice failed. I swallowed and forced it to keep working. “But whatever you are right now isn’t you. Whoever put you back together didn’t give you the full picture. You’re meant to be dead, because the Rhea I know would hate this.”

  “You think I like being this way?” she asked, venom on her tongue. “I’m a gathering of death, held together by unholy means. How am I ever meant to look at anyone from the Empire in a state like this? How?!”

  I stepped back as electricity surged around her hands. “The Empire punished you by sending you here to die,” I shot. She lunged. I ducked. She caught me in the ribs with a knee that made something go crunch. I shoved her away as I knelt and gasped, choking on blood that I coughed out of my mouth. I looked up at her, blood on my lips and dribbling down my chin. “You said you were done with them. You were going to give Earth a chance.”

  “I was,” she growled. “Then Earth’s mightiest hero showed that she cannot even protect her own.”

  Rhea moved.

  She would have put me out flat on the spot if a girl didn’t just appear in front of me, arms wide and head turned, as if she was ready to both hug Rhea and get punched so hard it would turn her head all the way around.

  Rhea, though, paused mid-air, fist just inches away from the girl’s cheek. She backed up and landed.

  And Frankie breathed a sigh of relief. She bent at the waist and put her hands on her knees, dragging her arm across her forehead to wipe away the sweat. She looked haggard and filthy. Cut up and bruised and even had a metal cuff around her ankle that dragged along a broken piece of chain. She straightened and swore, then said, “You totally thought she was going to hit you. And don’t pretend like I didn’t see you flinch! Totally got you there, O.”

  I grabbed her throat. She gagged as I lifted her off the floor. I would’ve snapped her neck.

  But Rhea would’ve probably snapped mine if Frankie wheezed and said, “No!” I dropped her. She landed on all fours and massaged her throat, coughing and gagging until she was good enough to speak again. “Wow.” She looked up at me, her pale cheeks a deep blush. “You choke out all the girls you meet or is it ever just with me?”

  I eyed Rhea, then looked down at Frankie. “What did you do to my cousin?”

  And why the hell was she protecting her?

  “Cousin?” she said, getting up again. “Hold on, she’s Titan’s daughter?” Frankie whirled around and looked Rhea up and down, folding her arms and frowning. “How come you never told me, huh? That’s no fun.”

  She tensed her jaw. “You never asked, Master.”

  “Master?” I said. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

  Frankie looked over her shoulder at me. “A lot, actually. She was really, really dead when I got my hands on her body. I mean, they don’t call me Miracle for a reason, right?” I wanted to say nobody had ever called her that before, but she continued. “But I had to fix a lot of her brain to make sure she didn’t end up killing me the second I woke her up. Kinda like how Dr. Frankenstein made a slave that the world feared, except this time, they’d hate her.”

  I stepped closer, getting into her face. “You turned my cousin into a slave?”

  “You kinda killed my last one, so yes, I did.” She smiled and wrapped her arm around Rhea’s shoulder. “And I chose her because she looked pretty cool, and I’ve got the others almost ready, too. Just need to find the right kinds of spleens and kidneys, you know? In this economy, body parts are everywhere, but they’re bad quality. I used to get them at a discount, but my guy died when the Kaiju attack happened. It’s been a little rough since. The best kinds come from people with powers, because their organs are usually a lot more efficient, ergo a lot stronger.”

  I wanted to take her heart out of her chest and feed it to her.

  “Oh, come on,” Frankie said. “I just saved your life! You can say thank you any time you want.”

  Unlike before, I wasn’t angry inside. I was past that. So very passed that simple emotion.

  And it was so easy to be like them, exactly like what dad would have wanted from me.

  I breathed out slowly and calmed myself, then quietly asked, “What do you want?”

  “Rumor had it that the Triumvirate finally captured you,” she said. Another loud explosion shook the building again. “And it turns out that a lot of people don’t want you in their hands, so we all came here to help!”

  “Cut the bullshit,” I said, “and tell me the truth, what do you want?”

  Frankie smiled thinly. “Your blood.”

  “Bloodforge already has gallons of it,” I muttered, folding my arms. “Shouldn’t you go ask him?”

  “Funny story!” she said. “After I fucked up the first time, they kind of put me in timeout, and then I find out that my brother’s head got fucked with so now he’s a walking corpse.” Her voice had pitched slithy, but she kept smiling with her dead eyes and pale lips. “In all honesty, I almost gave up, and I probably would have if a friend of yours didn’t give me an opportunity of a lifetime, so now I’m on your side, and all I really want is to help you out.”

  I wasn’t buying this.

  “Like I’d fucking believe that.”

  “Swear it on your daddy’s grave,” she said. “If I help you get out of here, then that means you’ll give—”

  I spoke over her. “You were expecting me to just give you my blood? Gods, I should’ve just killed you.”

  “It wouldn’t be for her,” Rhea said quietly. “It was for the others. Your blood isn’t pure but it’s the closest to a clean genetic sample of Arkathian blood on this planet. If utilized, it means myself and the others don’t have to continue living in this disgusting state.” She spat on the ground. “I was willing to take it from you if you refused.”

  She wants me to redeem myself, or kill me and make something of my promise to her.

  I looked at Frankie. “And why would you care about their lives?”

  “Because I don’t want to get killed, silly,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Cherry is dead because of you and Caesar doesn’t want to fund any more of my projects, so all of this?” She gestured at Rhea. “Came out of my own pocket, which has been a pain. But if I have them on my side, it means I don’t get killed because of all the info I’m carrying around in my noggin.” She shrugged. “In short, they’re all pretty pissed off at me for going behind their backs and hot wiring these guys to listen to me and only me. And—” She put up her hands when I got closer to her, stepping behind Rhea. “And the public will love the fuck out of me if I have them do good things, you know? Like, I can totally be the person who saves New Olympus with these guys. And since they can’t feel pain anymore, I—”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked quietly. Frankie stammered into silence. “What’s wrong with all of you people? Why can’t you just let people rest? What kind of life do you think she’ll live, being a slave to the world?”

  “I mean,” she said, “aren’t you also a slave to humanity, being a superhero and all?”

  I stared at her, really, really stared at her. My brows furrowed, my face pinched and disgusted. “Oh my Gods,” I said quietly. “None of you get it, do you? Not a single person knows what being a superhero really means.”

  “No reason to get so worked up about it,” she said. “I’m doing a good thing, just like you pajama-wearing weirdos always like doing. Think about it, O. Me and you, teammates, working together to take down the no-good evil-doers in this city. We’ll crush the Triumvirate. Make them bleed. Then me and you will keep being besties.”

  I shut my eyes and put my hands on my hips. I smelt like blood and torn open guts. All I could hear were the thunderous explosions of fighting coming from above. I still didn’t know the whole picture, but my mind was solely focused on Lucas and that other version of myself. Right now, nothing else mattered, at least, it had been that way before Frankie came and screwed everything up. The worst part of all is that she almost made sense, but I had a bad feeling about, I don’t know, trusting a supervillain to control a group of the most powerful beings in the world. Reformed and retired didn’t mean she still wasn’t willing. And I wasn’t going to let my cousin become a slave.

  The Rhea I knew would’ve faster killed herself, like any Arkathian would, than bend the knee.

  “Who else did you come here with?” I asked, still looking away. “Who’s up there fighting?”

  “Oh, them?” she asked. “The ELS.”

  I paused and looked at her. “As in, the European League of Superheroes?”

  She nodded.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged again. “Dunno, didn’t really ask. Your friend told me not to ask any questions about why I had to come here tonight specifically, but I guess it was because the entire base would be pretty busy elsewhere.”

  “Who do you keep talking about?” I asked. “Who told you to come and get me?”

  “I think her name is Ava,” Frankie said. “So, whaddya say? Gonna break out of here with us?”

  I might just owe Ava, I thought. You crazy, crazy talking head.

  But that didn’t mean I trusted Frankie one fucking bit.

  “Not unless you fix them,” I said. “Not unless you put them back together properly. No slave crap.”

  “Okay, I hear you, and I understand you.” She pursed her lips. “How about no?” She stepped backward again before I could grab her. “But in exchange, I can tell you where your mother is, and that’s on my dad’s grave!”

  Suddenly, everything dulled. Sound. Color. Smells and tastes. I shut my eyes, the ringing in my head a silent hiss that made my forehead ache. I opened my mouth to speak. I couldn’t get the words out on the first or second try. I forced my tongue to work so I could talk. “Frankie,” I whispered. “You better be telling the truth.”

  “They took her because they needed her,” Frankie said. “Caesar wants to close out this year with you dead and himself alive, which means things had to change. Out with me and Bloodforge gets shelved, because your mom is the only person on the planet who can figure out how to make your other half work with this half.” She came out from behind Rhea, hands still on her shoulders. “I met her, you know. Crazy smart. She told me a lot of things, taught me how to make sure this one—” She shook Rhea—“didn’t die on me so quickly since I had to pump her full of synthesized human blood. She’s holding on by a thread and your mom’s work, kinda just like you, too.”

  I tilted my head. “What do you mean like me?”

  She blinked. “You didn’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “I mean, you’re not really a person,” she said slowly. I waited for her to finish. “According to your mom, she gave birth to you, that’s for sure, I mean, she was literally there when it happened, but you almost died several times when you were a kid. I bet you can’t remember most of it, but that’s only because your…what did she call it? Ark-something—” Both Rhea and I corrected her. She snapped her fingers and said, “Right, Arkathian blood just doesn’t mix well with the Divergent Virus. The virus views your blood as the perfect host to fester and kill. And like all viruses, they adapt and become stronger, learn how to get more efficient as they try to put you six feet deep. That’s why a Superhuman’s kid is always gonna be stronger than their parent at some point. The virus learns.” She nodded and rested her arm on Rhea’s shoulder. “The really short version is that you got your powers so late because it was up to your body and your mom’s bio-engineering of her daughter. Hell, she practically let you be Olympia. If she didn’t stop spiking your packed lunches, then the virus would’ve kept your body from ever developing.”

  My mouth was dry. My face was hot. I blinked and said, “Why… She told you all of this herself?”

  Frankie nodded. “She explained it because I didn’t understand why there wasn’t a single trace of the D.V. in any of the corpses I found, but they all had powers, you know. Aliens weren’t anywhere in my wheelhouse, but I guess I just needed a little proof that the world’s strongest isn’t even human, which means that Casear is fucked.”

  I looked down at my hands. At the blood and the grit and the concrete powder crusting my nails. She kept me from having powers all this time? She let me be Olympia only after dad’s death? I felt like the world was tilting. The ground didn’t feel stable underneath me. So this whole time, even when I thought she didn’t know what I had been doing, she knew about Olympia. She knew who I had been. She knew how much dad hated even being anywhere close to me because I didn’t have any of my powers. So why did she kick me out? Did she just not want me anymore, is that it? She was so plain sick of me to the point she spat in my face and wished she’d never had me?

  Then why go through all that trouble to make sure one half of me didn’t kill the other half?

  That I lived?

  What does she want from me?

  What the hell does she so badly want from me?

  Something clicked right there and then. She’d warned me about not fighting Adam that day in the basement. I’d thought it was because she thought more highly of him than she ever did about me. It hadn’t been that. She just knew my powers would take a longer time to develop. I was pre-pubescent in her eyes. No wonder my powers have spiked lately. No wonder I’m so much stronger than I’d been at the start of this year. I’d thought it was the fights I had been in that had made me stronger. It must’ve been the lack of anything stopping me from making them gush through my body. Adam didn’t have that problem. His powers were a stone throw away, and he wouldn’t have to develop and grow, go through all of these goddamned fluctuations to get there—he’d one day just…do it.

  Any day now, and he’d be powerful. So much more powerful.

  I still had to climb that ladder.

  My only saving grace is that my mom underestimates what kind of person I really am.

  “Take me to my mother,” I said quietly.

  “You’ll have to go through Caesar first.”

  He’ll be lucky to be alive in the next hour.

  “I don’t care,” I said, hovering. “Take me to her.”