Super Powereds: Year 2 (33 page)

“I don’t understand,” Mary said. “Did you do this?”

“No, Nick did.”

“Then who set the defenses to begin with?”

“That was Nick, too,” Gerry told her.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t it? Haven’t you ever had a thought or an idea you tried to bury away, yet in moments of weakness would come floundering up because some piece of you was unwilling to let it go?”

Mary didn’t say anything to that. She couldn’t imagine what an appropriate response would be.

“I told you before, humans are multifaceted. Even Nick. Part of him wants to destroy this room and purge it from his head. There’s another part that refuses to let it stay forgotten.”

“Which part are you?”

Gerry turned and smiled at her. “If it were up to me, I’d set an explosive charge in this bastard and never look back.”

Mary nodded. If Gerry was the part of Nick that wanted to connect to the world and he abhorred this place so vehemently then it likely meant what lay within was part of what made Nick so, well, Nickish.

“How long until he gets here?”

“Once you step inside I imagine it won’t be more than a few minutes.”

Mary cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to go in?”

“It’s the only way to draw him here.”

“Something this guarded, it sort of seems like I don’t have the right to see it.”

“Mary, this is something Nick has never even talked about with the real Gerry. It’s a secret he holds closer than any other, even though clutching it so tightly is burning him away from the inside. If he never shares the burden with someone else, I’m afraid eventually he’ll be nothing but a charred and empty husk.”

“I thought you wanted to destroy this room.”

“I do. Letting it out is the next best option.”

Mary opened her mouth then closed it. She was, ultimately, arguing with a piece of Nick about what was best for Nick. At the end of the day, she had to defer to his expertise over her own. Besides, it would be a lie to say her curiosity wasn’t piqued. Instead of objecting, she took a tentative step forward and placed her hand on the door. It was cold, like someone had dipped the steel in liquid nitrogen before fastening it in place. Mary looked back at Gerry, who nodded his encouragement. She pulled the door farther open, noticing she could only make out shadows inside. With a tentative gulp she stepped across the threshold.

The first thing she observed was that she couldn’t see outside anymore. It was just a half-circle of bright light to her back, so intense that nothing was discernible. The second thing she noticed was that her eyes had instantly adjusted and she could make out the room now, or at least parts of it. There were still spots of inky blackness dotting the small landscape, but the rest had become clear. Mary was shocked by what she saw. Of all the things she might have imagined lurked in the lair of Nick’s inner secret, this one would never have occurred to her.

Mary was standing in a church. The carpet was a dark maroon, the pews a faded wooden color, and a large cross hung over the pulpit. There were no stained glass windows, or any windows for that matter. The entire structure seemed to be lit by candles along the walls, as well as a large cluster of them at the front. There was something else up there, too, but it was in one of the dark spots Mary’s eyes couldn’t penetrate. Overall the place was peaceful, quiet save for the soft sizzle of burning wicks.

Mary cocked her head. That wasn’t entirely true. There was another noise in the room, so soft she’d nearly missed it. Mary began walking forward and the noise grew louder. In a pew only a few rows away from the front she found a sandy-haired boy huddled in a ball on the ground. His face was tucked into his knees, muffling his sobs as he rocked slowly back and forth. He didn’t have the sunglasses or the attitude, but Mary made an intuitive leap.

“Nick?”

The boy looked up in surprise. His face was splotched and his nose was runny. It was evident he’d been crying for a very, very long time.

“Go away.” His voice was weak and cracked, but there a surprising fierceness to it.

“Nick, it’s okay. I’m your friend.”

“I know. Now go away. I don’t want to hurt you, too.” His voice cracked on the word “you” and a fresh dousing of tears sprang forth.

Mary crouched down and reached out to comfort him, but the boy slapped her hand back.

“What do you mean ‘you, too’?”

Nick reburied his face in his knees, but he pointed over his head toward the pulpit. Mary stood up slowly. For the first time she noticed that this Nick was wearing a small black suit. She turned forward. Even being only a few feet away, she still couldn’t see what was set in the center. She took careful, awkward steps as she advanced. A church. Candles. A young boy in a black suit. Mary wondered why it had taken her so long to understand.

She was at a funeral.

When she was inches away the darkness dissipated. Sitting before her were a pair of closed brown coffins. There were pictures mounted on each one; the right casket evidently contained a once pretty girl with chestnut hair and the left bore a tall gangly man with a thick set of spectacles. She barely noticed any of that, however; it was only in memory she would discover those details. What dominated her attention was what lay behind the coffins. It was a twisted, mangled pile of steaming black metal that might have once been a car. It looked as though it had been tossed through an industrial shredder, decimated by an angry god. There was something familiar about it, but Mary couldn’t figure out what.

“What on earth happened?” Mary wasn’t able to imagine the sort of accident that could have caused this level of damage.

The whimpering behind her redoubled, but Mary heard a word being choked out. She walked back to the weeping boy and crouched down once more. “I’m sorry, Nick, I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?”

“...Me.”

Mary felt an icicle shoot from her heart directly into her spine. “I’m sorry?”

“Me... I happened.” Nick’s voice was cutting through the rasping sobs that even his knees could no longer muffle. “I killed them. I killed my mom and dad.”

Mary opened her mouth to respond, but before the words could get out a pair of strong hands from behind wrapped themselves around her neck and began to squeeze.

63.

Nick’s right eye twitched and Mary’s throat bobbed. It was the first signs of stirring either had shown in the last few minutes.

“About time,” Rich sighed. Even bringing them out gently, this was taking longer than he expected. He’d just dropped them in the upper layers of their heads; they should have come back within a few moments. Unless, of course, they’d somehow found their way in deeper. Rich dismissed the idea. They’d need awareness to plumb their mental depths and he hadn’t given it to them. No, they must just be particularly stubborn.

“You’re sure they’re okay?” Vince asked. He and Sasha had been the last to join the table, getting quickly up to speed on why his friends were in a catatonic state. While neither he nor anyone else from Team One was particularly pleased with the events, it didn’t surprise any of them that Nick had riled Rich to the point of demonstrating his abilities. So long as the three came out without damage it seemed a harmless, if inconvenient, occurrence.

“I assure you, they’re fine. The place I sent them is like the home base of their subconscious. It’s built to be safe and comforting. If anything they’re resisting because they’re enjoying it too much,” Rich explained. “I could jerk them out, but it might be a bit jarring.”

“I can vouch for that,” Hershel added. “Last year when Roy snapped free of the illusion you put him in it took half an hour before he was sure of what was real and what wasn’t.”

“Precisely why I’m being more delicate,” Rich replied. “Shouldn’t be much longer now and their relaxing little vacation will have to come to an end.”

* * *

Mary gagged as the crushing pressure bore down on her windpipe. The powerful hands yanked her into the air and let her dangle, her small feet kicking helplessly as she tried to quell the rising sense of panic. This wasn’t real. She didn’t even need air, so choking shouldn’t matter. That thought was little comfort as she felt a burning sensation begin to creep across her chest. She groped behind her, searching for anything tender that was in her reach. Her nails brushed something she thought was skin and Mary drove her fingernails in with every ounce of strength she could muster.

There was a grunt of pain and suddenly Mary felt like she was flying. She realized a moment before impact that her attacker had released one hand and was using the other to hurl her down in a choke slam. Her backbone struck the wooden top of a pew and Mary lost most of her precious remaining air in a gasp of pain. If she’d been in her real body she was certain there would have been breaks in her spine. Her head swam, red dots blurring her vision. When they finally cleared, she could see the face of the person pinning her down on the unpadded slab of oak.

“You fucking bitch.” Nick spat the words as he glared down at her, but it wasn’t a Nick Mary had ever seen before. This wasn’t goofy Nick pretending to be dumber than he was. This wasn’t casino Nick, master of his environment and all he surveyed. This Nick had a face twisted in hate and anger, his eyes burning with a dark golden light and three slashes of blood trailing down his cheek. All that was scary, but the thing that terrified Mary the most was the shaky way he was clutching her throat. Nick was always in control, always able to stay detached. For the first time she’d ever seen it looked like his emotions were overtaking him, and these weren’t emotions she wanted to see play out. Mary felt the panic rise again; she began to claw uselessly at his hand.

“What fucking right do you have? I tolerate your intrusions, I bear your nosy nature, and you decide those acts of civility mean you’re free to look at any damned part of me you want.”

Mary opened her mouth, wondering if she had enough breath left for even one response. She didn’t find out; Nick jerked her up and slammed her back to the wood, smashing her head and leaving her mouth with the taste of blood.

“Don’t you fucking say a word. I don’t want to hear it. This is too much. There’s no going back from this one, Mary.” His grip grew even tighter. Mary wondered if he was really this strong or if it was simply because he made the rules down here. She was curious what would happen if she died like this. Would a part of her stay gone when she awoke, some piece of her mind eternally obliterated? Maybe she wouldn’t wake up at all. Rich would get blamed, Nick would walk away free. If she didn’t know better she’d swear he’d planned it all to work out that way.

“Stop it!” The younger version of Nick leapt onto the arm pinning Mary down and began trying to wrestle it away. “Don’t hurt her!”

Nick’s face flickered with uncertainty. It made sense: here he was literally fighting with himself. That was bound to cause some confusion. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone else I care about.” Young Nick was crying again, but his voice was determined and his efforts to free her unyielding.

“Her?”

“She’s my friend.”

“You don’t have friends,” Nick barked. Mary wasn’t sure, but it seemed like his shoulders sagged a bit. “We don’t have friends.” Nick shook his head. “I don’t have friends. Friends are for marks. All I have is the family.”

“She’s our friend,” young Nick said, staring his older version in the eyes. “Now please, let her go.”

Nick looked at the two of them, the golden burning in his eyes subsiding to reveal their usual brown irises. He slowly relaxed his hand and Mary nearly vomited as she gulped air down gluttonously. She fell to the ground, coughing and wheezing as her body began coming back to life. As she lay there, Mary made a mental note not to die by asphyxiation. There had to be more pleasant ways to go.

Eventually she regained enough strength to rise, getting to her feet and seeing that both Nicks were standing in front of the coffins. The older one was hugging the younger one close, like a big brother trying to squeeze in some semblance of comfort. Mary couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen Nick hug anyone before. She walked forward gently, not sure of what to say to the man who’d just been on the verge of crushing her windpipe.

“This never happened, you know.” Nick’s voice echoed through the church, reaching Mary easily even as he faced away from her.

“What didn’t?”

“All of this.” Nick made a broad, sweeping gesture. “I mean, there was a funeral, of course. I just wasn’t in attendance. They insisted on keeping me at the hospital for several weeks after the accident.”

“Wait, you were in that?” Mary came closer and stared at the hunk of metal. The idea that anything could have walked away from it was beyond mind-boggling.

“I was. They couldn’t believe I’d gotten through without some sort of damage, so the doctors had me under strict observation for some time.”

“That’s still terrible, not letting you say goodbye to your parents.”

Nick shrugged. “Given that I was only four months old at the time, I guess they figured I wouldn’t really know the difference.”

“Four months old? What about him?”

“He’s the age I was when I realized what had happened.”

Mary shuffled awkwardly. There was only one place to take this conversation, but even though he knew that she knew, it still felt like speaking the words aloud would be an act that could change everything. She decided to press on as carefully as possible.

“He seemed to think you had something to do with the accident.”

“I probably did. In all likelihood I’m the reason my parents are dead.” His voice was hollow as it cascaded through the room.

“You were a baby, Nick; you couldn’t have caused something like that.”

Nick turned around slowly and looked at her; his lean face seemed almost gaunt in the wavering light of the candles. For the barest instant his eyes sparked golden. “Couldn’t I?”

Mary felt a horrible, wrenching sensation as she put it all together. An accident that ravaged the vehicle, with only one miraculous survivor. The way the car resembled the wreckage that had once been the truck George tried to kidnap her in. Nick’s ability to manipulate luck, and what his life had been like back when he was a Powered. What it must have been like, always wondering if the reason you’d grown up an orphan was because of some awful curse that genetics or God had cast upon you.