Struck Read online

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ethan,” she told me, shaking my hand with enough enthusiasm to set my teeth on edge.

  “Really? Because I have a long list of people who’d disagree with you.”

  “If you could come with me, that’d be great,” she crossed the floor to one of the empty rooms. I followed her reluctantly, glancing at Adam over my shoulder. He nodded once, before turning his attention to Jones.

  The room I followed Dr Lawrence into was bigger than the others. It was furnished with a gurney, a couple of machines, a treadmill and a desk complete with three monitors and two different keyboards. She scooped up a tablet from the table and started tapping away.

  “On the gurney, please.”

  I hopped up onto the gurney, trying and failing to tear my eyes away from Adam. He had followed Jones into what looked like the gym and had started lifting weights. His muscles were rippling, scars catching the light. My mouth went so dry, it felt like I’d swallowed half the Sahara and was begging for seconds.

  Dr Lawrence cleared her throat, a knowing little smile playing about her lips. I could feel the tips of my ears burning – I hated that I’d given myself away.

  “Ok, Ethan,” she pushed her glasses up her nose and started fiddling with one of the machines. “If you could take your shirt off, please, I’ll get you hooked up to the monitors and we can begin our tests for the day.”

  “My shirt?” I repeated, stumbling over the words. There was no way in hell I was taking my shirt off, not while Adam was around and able to see me. Before I’d met him, I would have described myself as slender, but after seeing the way his skin pulled taut over his strong arms? I felt more like a limp noodle.

  She tapped away on her tablet and the walls around us went dark, like sitting in a car with tinted windows. It took me a second to realize that was exactly what she’d done – she must have been able to control the settings of the room with some sort of app. I liked her a little bit more.

  “Ok, that’s cool,” I admitted, smiling just a tiny bit.

  “Isn’t it?” She grinned. “Shirt off. Let’s get started.”

  ***

  Four days later, and no one had a clue what abilities I’d developed when I was Struck.

  Dr Lawrence was clearly frustrated by the lack of progress we’d made during our daily testing sessions. She didn’t say it out loud, but I could see it splashed across her face, could read it in the furrow of her brow. I ran on the treadmill, I lifted the weights (ok, whatever, I tried lifting the weights), I sparred with Esther - who was definitely going easy on me - and nothing out of the ordinary happened.

  There were no answers, no eureka, just an endless cycle of tests, machines that beeped ominously and needles that glinted viciously in the overhead lights.

  It was super boring, spending my afternoons hooked up to whatever soulless machine Dr Lawrence rolled out. The only plus side was I got to lie down, take naps and watch Adam work out like the creeper I am.

  He definitely knew I was checking him out, he’d caught me more than I care to admit. The first couple of times, I’d look away as quickly as humanly possible but after a while, I realized there was no point hiding it. It would be an insult to his intelligence to pretend I wasn’t looking and to be honest, I was pretty sure I was going to pull a muscle in my eyeball.

  Sure, I could just stop looking at him, but then I’d be having literally no fun at all while I was cooped up in the basement and that just wasn’t a fair trade.

  Dr Lawrence let me go early on Friday afternoon, trying to hide her sigh as she waved me out of what I’d not-so-fondly come to think of as our room. The others were getting ready to leave too, gathering their towels and gym bags (or in Adam’s case, his shirt – thank you, non-existent Jesus) and shoving playfully at each other as they traipsed to the shower room.

  I had no reason to shower, because unlike them, I hadn’t worked up a superhuman sweat doing anything remotely interesting. I hung back by the free weights, awkward as hell and wondering what’d happen if none of the complicated tests Dr Lawrence was running came back positive.

  I could’ve just gone upstairs, but I was really trying to socialize with the others even if it was exhausting. It’s not like we could bond over our super powers, so I was trying to win them over with my sparkling wit. I was averaging at a 65% success rate, as far as I could tell, so I was hoping to use the weekend to put some work in. Heading upstairs together and hanging out while Jones made dinner (he’s like a butch Mary Poppins, as it turns out) sounded like a pretty good, totally not forced, bonding experience.

  I waved at Dr Lawrence as she scurried out of the lab, leaning back against the rack of weights knowing there was no hope in hell I was going to knock them over with my skinny frame. It took me a minute to realize she hadn’t switched off the lights in our lab and I decided to go in there and turn them off, because being a superhero means being kind to the environment, right?

  The lab was a mess, as usual. She had books and files and printouts scattered all over the metal desk where she usually left her tablet and her laptop. I wasn’t sure why she needed both but she’d assured me there was a very good reason, really Ethan, stop rolling your eyes at me and so on.

  A folder on the desk caught my eye. There was a white sticky label on the top right-hand corner – Thorn, E J. Wondering if it was the epic file Jones had been talking about, I reached out for it before making a conscious decision to do so.

  I flipped it open with a low whistle, glancing across the basement to make sure the others were still showering. Confident that I had the place to myself, I started flicking through it.

  Copies of my school report card and personal file were in there – Ethan continues to display anti-social behaviour at every opportunity – along with notes from when my mom had me tested for ADHD and autism. She’d been so certain I had some sort of trendy condition, something that she could write off, medicate. I guess it would’ve been easier than admitting her son was just a little bit of an asshole.

  Thinking about my mom made my stomach hurt in a vaguely unpleasant sort of way. I wondered what she was up to. It’d only been a week since I’d “died”. Did she still stand by the kitchen window, waiting for me to come trudging up the dirt track we’d called our driveway? Were there a few seconds every morning, when she’d just woken up, where she didn’t remember that her life had completely changed in the blink of an eye?

  I decided the best way to distract my impending (and totally bizarre) wave of homesickness was to read through my file a bit more. There were all sorts of notes about electromagnetic fields, currents and conductors that I didn’t really understand, so I flipped right to the back where Dr Lawrence had been scrawling notes on printouts of various test results.

  Six little words blazed across my vision, hitting me like a sucker punch. I felt my breath leave my lungs in one quick, shocked whoosh, my head spinning with it.

  Potential for weaponization: to be determined.

  Weaponization.

  I tried to hold back the tsunami of nausea that rose up, bile burning my throat as it did, but I just couldn’t. I dropped the file like it’d burned my hands, reaching for the little waste paper basket and retching so hard it made my ribs hurt.

  My head was still spinning as I wiped a clumsy hand across my mouth, grimacing as I did. My heart was racing, a mile a minute. I forced down a sarcastic chuckle at the thought that maybe panicking was my super power – if so, they were doing a pretty good job of testing for it.

  Jones had assured me, at least twice a day, that the tests being conducted in the basement were going to help establish what powers I’d developed after being Struck. When we knew what they were, they could teach me how to control them and then I could have my life back. That had been the deal, picked over and promised and debated at least a dozen times since I’d arrived at the Tower.

  It had all been a lie.

  They were testing me so rigorously because they wanted to know if the powe
rs I’d been “gifted” with could be used as a weapon. If they were testing my potential to be weaponized then they’d certainly tested the others and I was willing to bet my family’s non-existent farm that they’d passed with flying colors.

  They hadn’t given us powers to “help” humanity. We’d been given powers so we could use them to hurt people; mysterious, faceless enemies of the state. I’d known, in my gut, that the government wasn’t building some sort of superhuman hippy commune, but to lie so blatantly? To me, of all people?

  That was a mistake.

  I left the lab on silent feet, moving as quickly and as quietly as I could. The others were still showering – I could hear Tomas singing something in French while Adam begged him to stop – so I had a few minutes to grab my stuff and leave, at least.

  I headed to the top floor, breathing a sigh of relief when I realized that Jones wasn’t there yet. I ran down the hallway to my bedroom, grabbing my backpack and pulling all my old clothes down from the fancy hangers in my closet. I shoved everything in without a second thought, wondering if my mom was frowning somewhere, knowing the clothes she’d laundered so carefully were being disrespected.

  I took the stairs back down, my usually lazy legs running on sheer adrenaline. There was a side door, on the basement level, that didn’t seem to be guarded as closely or checked as often as the other exit doors. It led to some outdoor sports courts (basketball and tennis, I was pretty sure) that the others used on sunny days. Adam was apparently really good at both sports, something I hadn’t been surprised to learn. Of course he was good at sports, because apparently being good looking, smart and blessed with super powers wasn’t enough and the universe just had to bless him with the ability to score a basket or whatever from behind the 3-point line.

  The basement was empty when I got there – the others must’ve already headed up to the apartment in the elevator. I kept glancing round so much my neck actually ached a little by the time I made it to the exit door.

  I cursed under my breath when I realized there was a keypad beside it, indicating a coded lock. I tried to cast my mind back over the past week; had I seen someone use the door? Had I noticed a random security guard punching in the code with his clumsy fingers?

  Adam and Tomas had headed out to the courts the other day. Adam had been wearing a green tee shirt, I remembered thinking it brought out the flecks of gold in his eyes. I didn’t remember him punching a code in before walking through the door, so there was a possibility it wasn’t locked all the time.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered, holding my breath as I pushed at the door. It was heavy but it creaked open, inch by inch. I was half expecting an alarm or something to go off, but there was no imminent sign that I’d been caught.

  I crossed the sports courts, shimmied up and over the fence (without ripping my jeans – thanks again, non-existent Jesus) and dropped onto the sidewalk with minimal fuss. I slung my backpack up onto my shoulder and fell into step with the half dozen permanently pissed off pedestrians who happened to be walking by.

  It had all been pretty easy, so of course, everything had to go wrong really, really quickly.

  ***

  It’s a universally accepted truth that all bus stations are shit holes. Really, they’re like the armpit of every city. I may not have travelled much in my ridiculously sheltered life, but even I knew that bus stations were gross and to be avoided at all costs.

  Unless, of course, you’re trying to run away from the secret government funded organisation that tried to turn you into a superhero against your will. Then, the bus station seems like a pretty good place to hide out.

  I wasn’t stupid enough to think that the shady operation behind The Lightning Project wouldn’t start searching all the various forms of public transportation as soon as they realized I was missing, but I hoped that my sudden (and let’s face it, not exactly well thought out) decision to just walk out would help buy me some time. Part of me also kinda hoped they thought I was smart enough to know that heading to somewhere like a bus station was a sure-fire way to get caught.

  I was bouncing on the balls of my feet while I waited in line to buy a ticket from the woman seemingly trapped behind the grimy glass that formed the ticket booth. I had one earphone in, which was something I hated doing – a spare ear inevitably meant some stranger would make an increasingly strained attempt to talk to me – but I knew I needed to be alert. Sooner or later, they were going to come and get me.

  That was why I’d headed for the bus station. Sure, it smelled like day old sweat and something I suspected was piss, but it was busy. Among a crowd of grumbling city dwellers, I was just another face in the crowd. My tendency to dress in dark colors and walk around with my hood up wasn’t going to hurt either. In my small town, I’d stuck out like a sore thumb, but in a city like New York, I was so bland that I all but disappeared into the background like human wallpaper.

  So if they were coming to get me, at the bus station no less, they were going to have to do it in front of dozens of witnesses. They were going to have to drag me back to the Tower kicking and screaming. Or bellowing, whatever. I don’t scream as a rule – it’s too expressive, and I’m an emotionally stunted (yet incredibly self-aware) small town screw up, etc.

  Turns out, state funded terrorists don’t really care about witnesses.

  I didn’t realize a man was approaching my left side until he walked right into me, damn near knocking me off my feet. I stumbled, flailing a little, but he grabbed my arm with a grip so strong I was sure it’d leave bruises. My stomach dropped so fast I nearly threw up on his stained black hoody.

  “Stay quiet,” he hissed, stale breath washing over me. “And no one gets hurt.”

  “Except me, right?” I hissed, twisting in his grip even though I could see a half dozen other meatheads looming in the corners of my vision.

  “You really are the smart one,” he replied grimly in clipped, accented English. I couldn’t place it (not well travelled, remember) but it sounded vaguely Russian. Or maybe my mind just unhelpfully supplied that assumption due to years of brainwashing – villains are always from somewhere other, somewhere far away. There’s no such thing as home grown villainy, or so the mainstream media would have you believe.

  Maybe the more paranoid than most teenagers note Dr Lawrence had scrawled in my file wasn’t too far off.

  “Did you get that from my totally invasive and probably lacking context file?”

  One of the others approached us, whispering something that was in another language to the man trying to cut off the circulation in my arm. I really should’ve spent more time with the free weights.

  “We’re leaving,” the man told me, dark eyes making it clear there would be no arguments. I was too panicked to take in much more than his grim expression, but I was pretty sure he was armed and extremely dangerous.

  I wasn’t going to go without a fight though. Not to wherever he was going and not back to the Tower. No one was going to take my life from me.

  “Fuck you,” I growled, stamping on his feet with as much strength as I could muster. The answering howl was way more satisfying than I was expecting, but the fist flying at my face didn’t really give me much time to appreciate it.

  Oh shit barely crossed my mind, and then I was unconscious. Again. Cue an epic eye roll.

  ***

  Esther didn’t like to pry. Well, she didn’t like to admit that she pried, which was pretty much the same thing, but she had a knack of walking in on conversations she shouldn’t be hearing.

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?” Jones whispered into his cell phone, his spectacularly large back turned to the door. He’d been in the middle of making dinner, if the array of vegetables left abandoned on the counter were anything to go by.

  “I was assured the perimeter was secure,” Jones continued, voice taut with rage. “That means no doors should be left unlocked, ever. I don’t understand how this could happen.”

  The person on the other end was cl
early just as flustered by Jones’ tone as Esther had been by the words he’d spoken, their voice rising so that even she could hear it. She did a silent headcount – there was only one person who could be missing, only one person Jones would be so concerned about.

  “I don’t know how this happened, sir, we’re scanning the CCTV now to try and establish how much of a lead he has on us.”

  Esther backed down the hallway, eyes fixed on Jones’ back as he started issuing orders. The others were heading out to play basketball, she’d come upstairs to get a book to read. If she was lucky, she could get to them before Jones did.

  It wasn’t until she was in the elevator that she realized what she should’ve done.

  “You have the power to make yourself invisible, idiot,” she muttered to herself, even as she started to fade from view. “What the hell are you tiptoeing around for?”

  She passed through the foyer without attracting any attention, switching to one of the elevators that went down to the basement. There were a couple of janitors heading down to the basement to give the lab its weekly deep clean, they stood silently in the elevator without realizing she was right there. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes as they discussed their mundane plans for the weekend and sincerely wished she never got to the point where a trip to the farmer’s market was the highlight of her week.

  Esther felt herself pop back into view as she sprinted across the basketball court, narrowly avoiding a collision with K.

  “Are you ok?” Adam asked, reaching out for her as she pushed the hair from her eyes. K, Sierra and Tomas all gathered round. Laurel had hopped gracefully down from the bleachers when she’d noticed Esther’s tell-tale shimmer in the air and was making her way across the court.

  “It’s Ethan,” Esther said, shaking her head like she couldn’t quite believe how stupid their new recruit could be. “He’s run away.”