The Last Hero (Book 1): Ultra (6 page)

I
felt
the darkness surrounding me as the gunshot rattled through the air.

I waited. Waited for the bullet to hit me. I could hear the gunshot firing at me as if in slow motion. Tears streamed down my cheeks, their saltiness hitting my lips. My body froze all over. In my mind’s eye, I saw Cassie; I saw her lying there in the road as the explosion of The Great Blast surrounded me.

And then I saw Ellicia. The way she’d smiled at me. The way she hadn’t judged me. Despite everything that’d happened.

I saw her, and in that millisecond since hearing the gun fire and the bullet hitting me, I wished I’d had more guts. More guts to tell her how I felt. More guts to stand up for myself. To be as strong as I knew I could be. Because I was strong. I was strong because I’d had to be with the upbringing I’d experienced. I had to be after losing my older sister.

I waited for the bullet to pierce my skin and for the darkness to get a whole lot darker.

I realized then that I’d been waiting a long time. A hell of a long time.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to see what was in front of me.

But I had to.

I opened my eyes.

I didn’t understand what I was looking at at first. It just didn’t make sense. Didn’t add up, in my mind.

The gunman who’d pointed the gun at my chest pulled the trigger, was lying on the floor.

There was a bullet hole right in the middle of his head.

I looked down at him. Still frozen. Part of me wondered whether this was some kind of trick. Whether it was a plot to scare me, to toy with me.

But there was no denying the reality of the gunshot wound on the gunman’s forehead.

I walked over to him, slowly, shaking. I wanted to pick up the gun. I could use it to defend myself if I needed to. But then that was a stupid idea. The police would think I was one of them. They’d shoot me down before I had a chance to even explain myself.

The police. They must’ve been here. They must’ve got in here and shot the gunman down before he had a chance to…

No. I’d heard the gunman pull the trigger. And I’d only heard that one bullet. I’d
seen
his fingers tighten around the trigger.

The bullet he’d fired should be inside me.

I should be dead. Or at least, wounded.

But I wasn’t. I was standing. I was alive.

I stepped back. Started to head towards the steps. A weird feeling took over my body. Thoughts about that cubicle, how it felt like I’d shifted between them when I needed to most. And then the incident back at school. The windows smashing when I was at my angriest. When I felt that sadness and frustration in the form of a weird tingling sensation, just like I had one other time in my life more than any.

The day of The Great Blast.

I started to descend the steps. What was I thinking? That something happened on the day of The Great Blast to make me… well, to make me what? No. I was being stupid. I was in shock. It was natural.

I had a guardian angel looking out for me. That’s all it was. Luck was on my side, for the first time in my stupid life.

I got halfway down the steps when I saw someone appear through the door in front of me.

It didn’t take me long to realize it was another one of the gunmen.

He lifted his gun. Went to fire.

I felt the anger, the fear, just like I’d felt it before.

I felt the tingling sensation take over my body.

I jumped. Jumped to the right as the bullet fired from the gunman’s gun.

I jumped over onto the wall. Ran down the side of it, not really in control of myself, not knowing what I was doing, just that the gunman was firing at me, and I had to stop him.

I jumped off the wall to the right and spun in midair as the gunman looked on, open mouthed. And then I landed right behind him. Pulled back my right fist and punched him. Hard.

He went flying.

Not backward, but upward.

Up onto the top level that I’d just run down from.

And…

Shit. I was back up there with him.

I felt the gunman reach for his gun, which was by his side. I looked at it, my body fully taken over by that tingling sensation, and the gun just flew out of his grip, then snapped in midair.

I looked down at the gunman and saw him start to lurch. Start to struggle to find his words.

I lifted him up. Threw him back against the wall. He stayed there. Stuck there, as I directed that fear, that anger, towards him.

As I looked up at him, the reality of my situation dawned on me. The reality of what was happening. Of why the weird things had been happening to me these entire few days.

I dropped the gunman back to the floor. Tied his hands behind his back, twisting them around one another in a bone-snapping knot.

And I did all of this with my mind. Nothing else.

I looked on, heart racing, feeling stronger than I’d ever felt before. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I didn’t understand how I’d just done what I’d done, why I’d been able to do what I’d just done.

But as the gunman struggled and writhed around, hands knotted behind his back, I knew one thing for certain.

The windows in class smashing.

The movement between cubicles.

The… strength. That was all I could call it. The strength I’d shown to defeat these gunmen.

These weren’t the abilities of a normal person. These weren’t things normal, everyday humans were supposed to be able to do.

These were the abilities of ULTRAs.

So why the hell did I have them?

The thought of having ULTRA abilities punched me in the stomach with its dark realization. ULTRAs were the enemy. They were hated by the masses for the destruction they’d caused, particularly in New York and The Great Blast, as well as the great three-year battle between Orion and Saint. Sure, they’d done good things when they were Heroes. But their intentions, their morals, were always under the microscope.

Besides, ULTRAs didn’t exist anymore. The ULTRAs were gone. The era was a dark footnote in history.

But I had the abilities of an ULTRA.

I thought back to that day. The day of the Great Blast. I always wondered why I hadn’t died. My sister died. Other people in the streets died. And sure, there were many random survivors. But I hadn’t even had a scratch on me.

I’d felt something inside me that day. The same tingling feeling that had been emerging within these last few days whenever I was upset, angry, mad.

I’d felt it, and I started to understand.

There had to be a link.

Something happened on the day of The Great Blast.

Something terrifying happened to me, and it was only just starting to wake up, eight years later.

I walked away from the gunman. Backed off as the sound of sirens filled the outside.

My head spun with the adrenaline. I felt sick with the revelation.

I was an ULTRA.

I was an ULTRA, and there was nothing I could—

I saw the movement in the corner of my eye.

Saw the masked person—another gunman—raise the butt of their gun.

And before I could think to react, they smacked me in the side of my head, and everything went black.

I
felt
the sickness in my stomach. I felt something in my lungs. Heaviness, like I was surrounded by water.

I could hear voices echoing above me. Someone trying to push me down. I wanted to cry because it’s all I could do, all I was capable of.

I saw that I was small. Smaller than I’d thought. Not as strong as I wanted to be. Not as strong as I needed to be.

“He’ll be okay,” a muffled voice said. “He always is.”

I knew the voice. I recognized it from somewhere. I…

Then, I saw the light above, and I snapped out of my dreams.

I was lying down. Lying down somewhere. I wasn’t sure where I was, only that it was so bright above me. I could hear beeping from somewhere to my left. I was vaguely aware of a figure standing by my side, saying things to me, but it was all so muffled and distorted that I couldn’t make sense of it, not really.

I thought I must be back at home. Back in my bed. But then this couldn’t be my home, this couldn’t be my bed because there was never a light that bright above it.

“Kyle? You okay, son? You okay?”

I heard the voice and recognized it. Mom. I was pleased to hear her voice for some reason. Relieved. I wasn’t sure why, or what, but it felt like I’d been through something. Like something had happened to me. Something big. Something…

I tasted vomit and blood in my mouth.

My body tensed.

The soccer stadium. I’d been at the soccer stadium with Damon. We’d seen Ellicia there and… shit, me and Ellicia had been talking to each other. We’d been getting on fine.

And then…

I remembered the sounds of the gunshots and it made me think back to the explosion again. The Great Blast.

I’d run. I’d run away from the gunmen. Damon and Ellicia got out. Or at least I hoped they got out. And as I’d been running, another gunman appeared at the exit gate, and I’d gone back inside, gone to the restroom.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Mom said. I could hear the shakiness in her voice. She leaned over. Stroked my head. Kissed it. “Thank the Lord you’re awake.”

I widened my eyes, as sore and tired as they were.

I saw then that I was in a hospital bed. Blue curtains were wrapped around my bed. I could hear coughs and beeping from others in the ward, but I was cocooned in my own little zone here. The back of my head hurt like mad.

“How you feeling?” Mom asked. Her eyes were dark underneath. Her face was pale. She didn’t look like she’d been sleeping well lately.

I pushed myself up, but doing so made me ache some more.

“Oh, you keep still,” Mom said. She eased me back down onto the bed, adjusted my pillow. “Don’t move if you don’t have to. Don’t want you hurting yourself.”

“What—what happened?”

Mom backed away. She held on to my hand. Looked into my eyes with wide-eyed severity. “You really don’t remember?”

I pushed myself to try and remember what she might be talking about. The attacks, yes. But what else? There was something else.

I’d run into the restroom and…

My skin went cold.

I remembered.

I was locked in that cubicle. Waiting for the gunman to reach my location. Only he hadn’t arrived. Well, he had. But for some reason, somehow, I’d shifted to another cubicle.

I’d closed my eyes, embraced the fear inside me, and I’d shifted to another cubicle.

My heart pounded. My hands shook a little.

“You okay, Kyle? Your dad’s on his way soon, Son. He’s been here by your side all this time. Just gone to grab himself a coffee.”

I swallowed the phlegmy lump in my throat. The memories kept on rolling back through my consciousness. I’d left that restroom. I’d reached the stairs. But then a gunman had pointed his gun at me, shot at me.

Only when I opened my eyes, he was lying dead on the floor.

I was still standing.

“I told him to cut down on coffee,” Mom said. “Read online that it’s bad for the nerves.”

Then there was the other incident. The main incident. The one that hit me even harder than anything else so far.

I’d attacked one of the gunmen. I’d run along the side of a vertical wall, jumped acrobatically down onto him, and taken him out. And then I’d lifted him up with a strength that went far beyond my own abilities. Tied his hands behind his back in an impossible knot.

I’d done things no human should be able to do.

I’d done things only an ULTRA was supposed to be able to do.

“You’ve gone pale,” Mom said. “You sure you’re okay?”

I cleared my throat. Made a conscious effort to give Mom some of my attention. “Yeah,” I said. “Just… sore head.”

“Of course it’s sore,” Mom said. “It’s amazing you ain’t sore anywhere else. Doctors thought you were gonna be unconscious for days. That you took a nasty knock to the head, but… but somehow you’re all okay. All the scans, everything’s okay.”

There was a pause. I considered my mom’s words. Was that something to do with the powers I had? It had to be. Scared me, but it had to be true.

So I could heal myself, too. I really was… well. Not just any old ULTRA. A special kind of ULTRA.

Great.

“Do you still not remember what happened in that place?”

I wasn’t sure how in detail to go when speaking to Mom. I’d realized what I could do. Perhaps I could dismiss it as adrenaline, but no. The things I’d done, they were ULTRA abilities. Unmistakable ULTRA abilities. And damned strong ones, too. Speed. What seemed like teleportation. Strength. Telekinesis. Dammit, I didn’t just have one ability. I had a whole truckload of ’em.

But I couldn’t tell Mom that. I couldn’t tell anyone that. Because being an ULTRA was more dangerous than being one of those gunmen who shot up the soccer stadium.

And being an ULTRA with as many powers as I had…

“Damon,” I said. “And…”

“Damon’s fine,” Mom said. “So too’s your other friend. That girl. Elle, or something?”

“Ellicia,” I said.

Mom nodded. “Both fine. Both got out okay.”

“How long have I…”

“Just the night,” Mom said. “Gave us a scare, though, Kyle. Doctors said you were out cold like I said. But then you started showing serious levels of brain activity, or something. Like you were conscious all along. And then everything just… fixed itself. Like nothin’ they’ve ever seen.”

I knew I’d have to be careful if I didn’t want my ULTRA abilities exposing already. “Right,” I said. “Weird.”

“Kyle, I… I don’t know how much you rem—”

“I remember a lot of shooting. I remember running away. Then… then I remember getting stamped on. And not much after that.”

Mom nodded like she was trying to conjure up a mental picture of what I was saying. “My boy,” she said. I saw her lips quivering. “My sweet boy.”

She hugged me. And I felt tears building at my eyelids as she held on. I’d come close to dying in that stadium. Any normal human being and I’d be dead. But something saved me.

No.
I
saved me.

I was an ULTRA.

For better or for worse, I was an ULTRA.

I had to learn to deal with that one way or other.

“The police. They want to speak to you. About some… some CCTV footage or something.”

My stomach dropped. Shit. CCTV. Of course. They’d have footage of me doing… well, whatever I was doing. They’d figure out I was an ULTRA right away. I couldn’t let them speak to me. Couldn’t let them get to me. It wasn’t safe.

“I’m… I’m really tired,” I lied.

“I know, sweetie,” Mom said, turning her head to one side, stroking my fringe some more. “And this’ll all be over soon and you can come back home. But they said it’s really important they check something with you. Let me know when it’s okay for me to call them in.”

Call them in?

I became aware of voices outside the curtain. Of footsteps walking backward and forward across the hard hospital floor. Dammit. They were outside already. They were outside, and they were going to take me away. Or worse—they were going to kill me.

I felt that tingling sensation growing inside me but it felt weaker than before, less focused. Maybe they were using something. If they suspected I was an ULTRA, they must have a way to repress my powers.

I was finished. This was over.

“I’ll call them in—”

“Mom, wait!”

But it was already too late.

The curtains opened up. Outside the curtain, I saw two police officers standing there. Both of them were dressed in black suits, wearing sunglasses like they were from the Men in Black or something.

Both of them had little yellow FBI logos on their jackets.

“Kyle Peters,” the officer on the left said, a bald black guy with a deep voice. “Detective Agent Kirsh. And this is Detective Agent Cole.”

The man beside Kirsh nodded. He had a broad head and a big figure that I didn’t want to mess with anytime soon.

I thought about using what I’d discovered to teleport my way out of this. But it was just too dangerous. Too risky. Besides, I wasn’t even sure I
could
replicate those abilities.

“Obviously, we’re sorry to intervene right now. You must be traumatized. But we have to ask you a few questions.”

Here it comes…

“The CCTV we retrieved was down. Completely fried.”

Wait. What?

“So we aren’t able to gather any footage of what happened inside the stands. The gunmen must’ve shot down the cameras some way, I don’t know.”

Cole interrupted: “But we believe some of the gunmen got away. And strangely, it looks like some kind of fight went on in there before we got there. Some kind of in-fighting between them. Broken bones. Bullets fired. Seeing as we found you in there, we were wondering if you saw anything?”

I looked between Kirsh and Cole. My heart still pounded. I couldn’t believe my luck at the CCTV being taken out. They didn’t know. They genuinely didn’t know.

Or, they were testing me.

I wanted to tell them the truth. That several of the gunmen had got away. That
I’d
been the one to stop the ones who didn’t.

But instead, I said the only things I could, the only things I knew would keep me safe. For now.

“I remember running,” I said. “Then I remember… I remember being knocked down and stamped on. I remember passing out. Then I remember waking up.”

Silence between me and the two officers.

“So you don’t remember how many of these gunmen there might’ve been? Where they might’ve gone to?”

I searched my mind and played my words carefully. “No. Well, maybe something about going out onto the field to get away. But I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I don’t remember a…”

I started coughing. This brought our conversation to an end.

The officers sighed and walked towards the curtain. “You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Peters. Eighty-nine people died in that stadium. You’re fortunate to have a guardian angel looking over you. Rest well.”

They disappeared, but before they did, I swore I caught a look of suspicion in their eyes.

I did have a guardian angel looking over me.

His name was Kyle Peters.

And if I wasn’t careful, Kyle Peters was going to get me in big trouble.