"James! James!" A familiar Australian voice wailed my name. I groaned, rolling under the sheets before someone pulled me on my back. "Wake the bloody fuck up, mate." He dug his fingers into my side, and before I reacted, my eyes fluttered and peered open, laying in a puddle of sweat, a purple hue illuminating the bedroom and fading away. With the hoodie flung above the boy's masked face, a super in the corner stood and watched me with concern.
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"Son of a bitch," I growled, swinging my legs off the mattress side as I charged at the super, slamming his back against the wall behind him, pinning him there. The supers' arms shot to the ceiling to surrender, pure fear on his face.
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"Chill, mate. I'm not going to hurt you." He persuaded. I stared into the supers' brown eyes, digging my arm deep into his neck as he choked. Realizing I wasn't in danger, fingers slowly slipped from his neck, allowing his feet to level with the floor. "You're so bloody strong." The boy said, dusting himself off.
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"Good to know. Now, who are you?" I made a note of that, sizing him up. The boy was my height, maybe an inch taller, with deep brown eyes and a mask covering most of his face. He had an almost innocent look as he silently pleaded with me. Was this Noah or Max I was facing?
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"What the bloody fuck is with this family? Do you think I'm telling you that bloody information?" He said, ruining the moment.
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I threw him against the wall again, watching him slowly lift his hands to the ceiling. "What do you want?" I raised my fist to punch the kid, and the super shielded his face.
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"Hey—Whoa. What the bloody fuck. Easy there, mate." Loud footsteps outside my doorway distracted the two of us. The boy wiped his foot under my feet, knocking me to the floor before fleeing to the window.
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"I'll see you around, Knight," he said, tipping the brim of his hoodie at me before disappearing out the window. Then, Sam rounded the corner.
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"You good?" Sam's eyes locked on mine as I pulled my chest from the floor. He put out his arm and helped me to my feet. "Son of a bitch." He swore.
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"I should have killed him."
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"You know killing him won't solve our problems," Sam said. "I know you don't want to live with the guilt that you murdered—" Sam took a long hesitant beat. "I'm driving you to the mall. Matthew and Derek had an emergency meeting at work this morning and had to leave early, and you need to get out more."
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"Fuck," I swore.
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"Do your super-speed thing, Superboy. I want you downstairs no later than ten minutes."
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My eyes rolled. "Whatever."
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"Just let me know when you're done. It would be nice seeing you act like a teenager for once, James." I rolled my eyes again, watching him wander to the doorway. "You have ten minutes tops. I mean it," He warned, tapping his wristwatch. Then, he left the room.
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∆∆∆
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The nearby mall was the one place nobody would dare catch me dead in, but I was, sitting against one of the empty glass store windows with Derek, licking chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream out of a cone.
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"These two new kids in my class are those supers," I said, slurping, dripping vanilla ice cream off my thumb. Derek looked at me, his eyebrows raised, and sucked on his mint chip cone.
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"What?" He asked me.
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I shrugged. "It just seems weird that they came out of nowhere. Besides, the two new boys' accents match the supers, too." We sat momentarily, and I dipped into my ice cream with my tongue again.
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"I can't do much without substantial evidence, but maybe you should trust your instinct," he said. "It could be your Spidey senses tingling," he laughed before biting into his ice cream. Who does that? "Are we almost done?" he asked.
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"I may or may not have a few more bites out of this," I pointed out, my two scoops of ice cream still piled onto my cone. "You're kidding, right?"
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"What?"
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"Who bites ice cream?" He snapped. You, I thought. You just bit it, Derek.
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Nearby, an alarm sounded at a jewelry store. I didn't even notice a masked man walk by us while Derek and I were busy with our midafternoon desserts. I don't think either of us did.
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"Nobody moves, or they get a bullet in their bloody skull." the masked robber demanded. He seemed Australian, just like those other two supers. It couldn't have been more of a coincidence.
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"Son of a bitch," Derek cursed. We tossed our ice cream in a trash can beside us and strategized momentarily.
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"Go, Derek!" I ordered. Derek rolled his eyes and stayed put.
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"You go. I'll be right behind you. You're the one with powers." He spoke. I rolled my eyes this time.
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Wimp.
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Instead, I tucked my hood over my head and lifted into the sky, floating across the mall until I was in front of the jewelry store, watching a masked man pull a smash-and-grab while Derek ran out on foot. In the background, the two employees looked mortified as they slid to the floor, and people wandered out into the open, taking videos on their cellphones and staring. What is it with these people?
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"Hands up," Derek announced, pulling his gun from his waistband beneath his hoodie, feeling mighty momentarily. But the robber turned his attention to me as I floated in the air, staring down at him. My eyes drifted to Derek below, standing there watching me.
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The robber plucked the gun from Derek's hand with something simple as a thought, and it floated across the room into the robber's hands. And I sucked in a sharp breath. Shit. The man was super too. Why didn't I see that coming?
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The masked man lifted into the sky and matched my height, and he pointed the gun back at Derek. Then he pushed his finger against the trigger, narrowly missing the young couple walking by, totally not paying attention. I was in front of Derek in a split second, and my eyes squeezed shut. Then, as the bullet bounced off my chest, my eyes peeled open, and I sighed.
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"Whew." I panicked for a moment. "I haven't done that in years." I dropped to ground level with the robber. The man's blue eyes narrowed with mine, and his grin dropped.
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"Stand up, James!" he demanded. My eyes widened in panic as I looked at Derek, who was also shocked.
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"Bloody hell. I said, STAND UP, James Everett Knight,' He snapped.
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"How do you know my name?"
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"Ask your bloody father who I am," The robber grumbled.
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Noted.
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I raised my hands, as the robber pointed the gun at Derek. "You too, Derek."
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Derek rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. Then, the robber irritably pointed the gun back at the two employees standing cautiously with their hands in the air. "Leave them alone," I demanded back. "They didn't do a thing to you."
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The robber turned the gun on me this time, and I bit my tongue. Shit, I needed to learn how to filter sometimes. Then he turned the gun back to the employees. One male employee eyed the counter. His hand slipped under, and he pressed a panic button. The alarm whistled. The impatient robber growled, and the gun clicked. Derek stood there, watching me as I froze in fear for the first time, adrenaline pumping through my veins.
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"Do you want to fucking die today?" he yelled. Well, this certainly wasn't Noah, nor was it Max. This was fucking great.
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The robber adjusted his hold on the gun, and employee number two, a young girl, slipped her hand under the table, hitting the alarm again. The robber pointed his gun at her, and a bullet flew from the gun. Time froze while everything moved in slow motion. I took off at superhuman speed, swiftly rushing to both employees' aid. The glass from the countertops shattered. I knocked both employees to the ground on top of one another while the bullet pierced the wall. Then, I pulled off the two of them when I felt they were safe.
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"You're foolish, just like Sam," the man growled. My eyebrows raised, and I could have sworn that Derek had the same expression. It was the second time Sam's name came up. What dumb thing did Sam do to get us into this mess?
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The robber raised the gun, pointing it at me again. I charged the man, frozen in time, and yanked the gun from his hands as we tumbled three stories to the ground level below in the air. Our eyes shifted to the smashed weapon on the floor next to us as if it were a plastic toy.
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"What the hell?" he snarled. We collected ourselves from the ground. I dusted the debris from my shirt and shrugged. Then, the police barged through the mall, guns drawn on the robber. I took a deep, relieved breath.
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"Hands up," my dad demanded, his eyes studying me, standing there momentarily and his gun drawn on the robber. But a dozen officers turn their weapons on me. I lifted my hands in the air to surrender. Instead, my father stopped them before they could pull the trigger.
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"Stand down," my father ordered. The police retreated with their guns to the robber. My eyes landed on Derek, who raced down the second-floor elevator to meet the other cops.
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"Where's your brother?" my dad asked Derek. Derek's eyes met mine before he shrugged, and my eyes shifted to the floor, away from my father.
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"Not sure. James wandered away to get something, but I haven't seen him since."
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"Find him," my father barked. Our eyes dragged the other officers' gazes, shifting around the open mall.
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"What the hell," Garrett Reignson said. His eyes drew to me. "Where is the damn robber?"
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The other officers looked dumbfounded. "He's superhuman," another officer stated. All eyes turned to me. I threw my hands in the air again, and there was silence until I finally cleared my throat, avoiding the dead silence.
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"I guess I'll go," I said, pointing to the sky. Then I raised in the air, floating above the heavy police presence. Cameras flashed from every angle, trying to catch the best picture. I saluted the officers below, staring at my father, watching me from below, and then I took off, flying past the group of Mark's friends who looked up from their cellphones as I passed by, barreling through the double sliding mall entrance.
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