Overpowered (Powered Trilogy #2) (6 page)

“I am Hero Ernesto. Everyone is to remain right where you are until I give you further notice.”

Katia approaches me with her arm outstretched. I shake her hand. “Maci, good to see y
ou. This is one hell of a scene. I can’t wait for you to explain it.”

“The shirtless guys had some kind of a fight club going on in the middle of the street. I intervened, these two were belligerent, and I had to take them down.”

“Did you hook a
human
?” Ernesto cries. He drops to his knees next to the tattooed guy, feels for a pulse, and calls for human emergency medical services.

“Trust me, he deserved it. I don’t know what’s going on with them, but they attacked me with inhuman strength.” I expect to get a disbelieving look from the senior Heroes, maybe even an accusing comment about my infamous anger problem. What happens is the exact opposite.

“¡Dios mío,” Ernesto mutters. “Not again.”

My dreams are an assortment of nightmares that segway into more nightmares. At some point I become aware that I’m dreaming and force myself to wake up. The momentary comfort of opening my eyes to view the starry night outside is quickly replaced with fear.

Someone is watching me.

With lightning speed, I leap out of bed and turn to face my attacker head on.

Evan almost jumps out of his skin. “Jesus, Maci. Turn off your crazy eyes. It’s just me.”

I collapse into frenzied giggles and sit back on my bed, knees first. “What are you doing here? You can’t just crawl into a Hero’s bed without permission. I almost hurt you.”

He clasps his fingers together behind his head
and sinks into my pillow. “The other version of you passed out on the couch and Max snores like crazy in his room so I had no other choice.”

“Ah, so it had nothing to do with you wanting to be next to me?” I poke him in the ribs.

“Of course not.”

“My dad would kill you if he knew you were here.”

He wiggles his eyebrows. “Good thing he doesn’t.”

I lie back down on my bed, snuggling my face against Evan’s chest. A girl could totally get used to this. “So what happened at Central?” I ask as we gaze out the glass wall at the moonlit canyon around us.

He sighs. I think he’s trying to figure out his answer before he speaks. “They questioned me a lot. Asked me every possible thing they could think of about my work and Research and Felix. It was so freaking exhausting.”

“Were they jerks about it?”

“Not really. I wasn’t locked in a dungeon or anything. Interim President Havoc even stopped by to talk to me.”

“What did he want?” I ask, suddenly missing my dad.
Hugo Havoc is Dad’s best friend. I can only hope he’s doing a decent job as his temporary replacement.

Evan’s fingers trace my hair from my head down to the tips. It makes me feel like a fat house cat being scratched behind the ears. “He wanted to know everything about my DNA research.”

I stiffen. “No need to worry,” he says. “I didn’t say a word about you.”

“How romantic,” I tease. “You committed perjury for me.”

“Guess that makes us an official couple,” Evan says with a yawn. “I hope you don’t mind that I have no plans to leave this bed for another eight hours or so. I haven’t slept in days.”

I wrap my arm around his stomach and hug him tightly. “I have no plans to leave, either.”

In a crazy twist of ironic fate, my Hero alarm goes off. Evan snorts when I reluctantly climb out of bed. He leans over and slaps me on the butt. “Go get em’ Hero.”

Nyx stands with crossed arms and an impatient tight-lipped frown on his face when I arrive at the blue dot on my BEEPR. We’re at the main offices in Central where the elders and retired Heroes work boring desk jobs. My mission simply reads:
Wait until further notice.

“Are you here for the mission, too?” I ask him. He nods. Nyx is a year older than I am. At about my height, he’s short for a guy but he makes up for that with his fierce features that a lot of girls find super
sexy. His silky white hair swoops in front of his eyes and he shakes it to the side. For the record, I don’t think he’s all that hot. Probably because of all the years I spent training in SLAM with him. He’s more of a brother to me than a lust object.

I’m excited to work with him, no matter how lame this mission might be. Nyx Nightly has an incredible talent of being able to get around without making a single
sound. The guy can leap from fifty-foot high buildings and land quieter than a moth. He is the absolute worst person to volunteer at the annual Halloween haunted house they set up in the Atrium. He’ll scare you every time.

“Do missions usually make you come to Central first?” I ask. I wonder if he’s always been this agitated while on a mission. He’s outgoing and fun
while training in SLAM.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know what to expect from missions anymore. It’s like every villain just straight up disappeared when that bitch died.” I’m assuming he means Aurora.
Looks like I picked a boring time to turn sixteen and get my Hero status.

My BEEPR lights up with a new message from Evan.
It’s no fun without you. Going home to get a start on my research. Miss you.

I reply
I miss you too.
Nyx lifts an eyebrow and I wipe the stupid love-sick expression off my face before he has time to say anything.

Crimson whips around the corner, slowing to a jog and then a walk when she sees us.
Her silky maroon Hero suit glistens from the overhead lights, highlighting all of her gorgeous features. She frowns just like Nyx. “Ugh, I was hoping for a full on villain attack or something,” she says, running her hands through her wind-blown platinum blonde hair in an attempt to tame it. “I never get called to Central for a mission. I was afraid villains had broken in again,” she says, winking at me. “And by afraid, I mean, hoping.” She cracks her knuckles against her palm. “Things are too boring around here lately.”

Nyx lets out a sigh that lasts for a good thirty seconds and leans his back against the wall. This tiny hallway is just crackling with energy from our trio of power. Unfortunately, mine is the only power that’s still excited. It’s my second mission, after all.

Our wait is over when an older Super with silver hair opens her office door and invites us inside. She introduces herself as Bonnie Bloom, a senior level Mission Specialist. For an official mission with a Hero alarm and everything, she doesn’t seem to be in a rush. She offers us a seat in front of her massive mahogany desk, but we all choose to stand.

“You three will work in tandem with Hero Max Might on this mission,” she begins, setting
down three holographic disks in a row on her desk. With a wave of her hand, they flicker on and display three Barbie-doll sized holographs of Supers I don’t recognize. My eyes light up at how freaking cool this is and I glance at Crimson, hoping to share in the excitement. She isn’t paying attention to me; she’s all business. She flicks the holograph in front of her and it zooms in on the man’s face.

Bonnie holds out a black device
and taps it to our BEEPRS one by one, loading it up with confidential information. “Four Supers have gone missing this week, each one leaving behind no trace. Max has already been briefed on George Goodfellow, but I urge all of you to look for each missing Super, not just assign yourself to one.” She points to the first holograph of a man about my brother’s age. “Corey London, age twenty-one. He works in food service and hasn’t shown up for work all week. Li Guo, age forty-six. Divorced with no living relatives. He ran one of those comic book kiosks in King City and hasn’t been seen in seventy-two hours.”

“I remember that guy,” Nyx says, nudging the middle holograph with his finger to get a zoomed in look at the peace sign tattoo on Li’s forearm. “He wrote fan fiction about me. About had a heart attack when I signed one of his comic books for him.”

Bonnie gazes solemnly at the third holograph. A tiny teenage girl with floor-length golden hair stares blankly at us. “This is Mara Moone. She’s fifteen. We lost both of her parents in a villain attack when she was a toddler. She’s been from foster home to foster home, usually running away or begging us to move her somewhere else when she didn’t get along with her foster siblings. Of all the missing Supers, this one is the only one who makes sense. She’s prone to running away, however, her current foster mother says she was doing really well and even had a boyfriend.”

“Who’s the boyfriend? I’d like to question him,” Crimson says.

Bonnie shrugs. “The foster mom didn’t know. We’ve searched her things, but again, there’s no evidence.”

Crimson’s eyebrows knit together. “Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll just speak with every teenager in her class or social circle. Should be easy to find.”

Bonnie nods. “Please review the files I’ve loaded to your BEEPRs. Each of you take a holo-disk; they all have the four profiles of the missing persons on them. Examine them carefully, both alone and together. Let’s bring our people back home, okay?”

Nyx’s fingers clasp around the back of the
mahogany chair in front of him. “This is a Retriever’s job.” He makes a point of looking at her loyalty award plaques on the office wall. “Surely someone who’s worked in Mission Control for nine decades would know to assign this task to the Retrievers.”

Bonnie’s reply is quick. “Surely a Hero with accolades such as yourself would know that I wouldn’t summon Heroes until Retriever efforts have been exhausted beyond all means. This is no longer a
task
. It is a mission. If you feel you are not capable of executing this mission then I am happy to assign someone else.”

Talk about burned. I turn to see Nyx’s reaction to being thoroughly chewed out, but he’s already gone. So is the
holo-disk that was in front of him.

“What a drama queen,” Crimson says with a snort, taking the other two
holo-disks and giving one to me. To Bonnie, she says, “We’ll find them.”

While Crimson is on an information scout at Central High, and Nyx is...well doing whatever he jetted off to do, I call Max and update him on my second Hero mission. He’s psyched that we’ll be partnering together on a mission so soon in my Hero career, but I can’t ignore the hopeless tone in his voice.

“Why are you acting like this is a lost cause?” I ask him as I hold the holo-disk out in front of me, staring at the holograph of Mara Moone. Although I don’t focus on it much as I walk down the corridor leaving Central. The last thing I want to do is trip over my own feet in front of people.

He sighs. “Because I’m pretty sure it is a lost cause, Mace.”

“Heroes never give up.” I remind him of Hero Rule number three.

I can picture the look on his face now, even though I can’t see him through the phone function of my BEEPR. He’s giving me that Brother Look; the look that’s a little sarcastic and a little appreciative. It’s a look that only my brother can get away with. Anyone else would get a punch in the face.

“You’re right,” he says over the sound of a KAPOW pod door swooshing open. “I’m headed to the game store that George Goodfellow liked to shop for video games. Maybe there’s something on the security footage that’ll help. What are you doing?”

I reach the KAPOW pods on this end of Central. “Oh you know,” I say with a smile. “Just some research.”

“Destination Evan Letta,” I say aloud once I’m off the phone with Max and securely inside the pod.

The computer voice
resonates throughout the enclosure. “Destination denied.”

Uh, okay. I try again. “Destination Research Facility in South Africa.”

“Destination denied.”

Curious Supers walk past the rows of public KAPOW pods, giving me an odd look. No one ever sits in these things longer than a split second before it zooms off into the tunnels, taking people to their destinations. I slouch back in the plastic chair and call Evan from my BEEPR, hoping to get some kind of explanation as to why I’m not allowed to visit him at home. He
had said he was cleared to go back now, so I don’t know why someone with my Hero status would be denied.

He doesn’t answer.

“Destination home,” I say with a sigh, still annoyed as hell when I step out of the KAPOW pod in front of our home a few seconds later. I know I should be out in the field working on these missing persons cases, but I figure I’ll update Nova and show her how to work the microwave before I leave for who knows how long.

I palm the front door and hear everyone’s voices before it
finishes sliding open. Crimson, Nyx and my brother all gather around the holographs on the coffee table in the living room. My two colleagues and friends appear to be content doing their research and discussing tactics for finding the missing Supers. They aren’t blood thirsty and cursing me out for hiding a wanted villain so that means only one thing.

Max gives a slight nod to the hallway when I look at him and continues his chat with Crimson about the Central High’s classroom structure.

“What took you so long?” Crimson asks, sliding over on the couch and patting the seat next to her. “Didn’t you read my message?”