Jasper’s got other concerns, though.
“What? Mr. Wolfe, wait.” He tries to rise, but the henchman behind him holds him down. “Mr. Wolfe.”
But Wolfe turns and walks back into the penthouse, through an archway and out of view. By the door, the first man with the gun takes aim.
“No. No!” For a second, I escape the henchman holding me down, and I lunge for Jasper. If I can get in front of the bullet, this all starts over.
There’s a muffled pop. I squeeze my eyes tight, waiting for the pain. All I get is a spray of blood on my cheek before the thug wrestles me back into place. Beside me, Jasper slumps, gasping. Red seeps out over his T-shirt, and he looks at me with terrified eyes.
“Morgan,” he wheezes.
I’ve been powerless my whole life. And I don’t only mean the way my superness is not-so-super. When it became clear I wasn’t going to follow in my mother’s footsteps, I took what little zap I had and got a desk job at SPAM. A literal desk job. I made coffee and formatted slides. My mother stood her ground on the roof as Indigo broke free of her trap, and I was powerless to save her when she had spent her whole life saving everyone. I couldn’t even grieve properly because I couldn’t tell anyone whathad truly happened. I was powerless to do anything but hide. Nothing heroic at all.
And as I’m held on a sofa, and Jasper bleeds out against me, while the goon holsters his gun and the others all look like they’d as soon start talking about sports scores, I hate it. It might even be better if they laughed at me for my failures, but they hardly even acknowledge I’m there. Like I’m nothing. Insignificant. I’m not even worth shooting. I hate myself. Hate this hollow powerless feeling and the guilt that comes with it.
I hate the people who have left me feeling like this over and over.
And I scream. I don’t even know if it’s out loud or not, but it doesn’t matter. Because my mother died and now Jasper’s died and all I can do is sit there with my hands tied behind my back and let bad powerful people hurt them and it’s not fair.
I scream, focusing on the pressure of the man’s hands on my shoulder. I dream of what I would do if I had even an ounce of the capabilities my mother did. I would suck the life right out of him. I would build a force field around me and Jasper and watch the rest of them wither and die. My power would follow after Walter Wolfe wherever he’s gone, and it would make him hurt the way I do right now. It would be like Indigo. Painful and inescapable. They would know it was me who did it, even when I look like I can’t do much of anything. I scream until the heat goes out of me, until I’m numb and shaking, and then I scream more, embracing the cold because it’s better than pain and shame.
The sound echoes in my head and in the penthouse for a long time. The room has gone completely black. Except it hasn’t. My eyes are closed, squeezed shut so tight I have to think about how to open them again. My throat is raw and my skin is burning.
The first thing I see is the white puff of my breath in the air.
The next is Jasper’s body, the slick of blood, red and shiny. He’s breathing hard, but the terror in his gaze is directed at me, not at the wound on his chest.
Then, finally, I glance around and see what I’ve done.
The men—the henchmen—are frozen. Icicles drip from their noses and their ears. One is still holding his gun in front of me, and when I go to knock it away, the gun—along with the hand frozen to it—shatters into a million tiny shards and falls to the glittering floor, covered in a fine layer of frost and ice like a glazed donut.
I gasp, and it sounds more like a hiccup, then I gasp again, and this one is a sob. Relief. Grief. I did this. I stopped them, but I was too late.
Beside me, Jasper groans softly.
“Oh.” I reach for him. The zip ties have a second of resistance before they snap, the plastic gone brittle in the cold. I grab for Jasper as he falls toward me. He coughs and cries out as I try to prop him up and break his ties too.
“Ow. Jesus. Fuck.” He gasps and slumps against me.
“It’s okay,” I say, heart racing. “It’s okay.”
“Morgan?” His lips are coated in blood and even the few syllables of my name come out in a garbled string as his teeth chatter.
“I know. I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
“What . . . what . . .”
Jesus, of all the times for the med student among us to need help.
“It’s okay.” He groans again as I slide my hands under his armpits and pull him from the sofa, away from the frozen statutes of his former colleagues.
“Why is it cold?”
“It’s okay.” My feet skate on the floor as I drag him toward an open door that leads to a rooftop patio. Fortunately, my rage frost or whatever this is didn’t make it past the threshold. Outside, the air feels comparatively warm.
“Morgan.”
“Yes.” I drop to my knees. It’s like a reverse of the night with the bus. Only bloodier. So much bloodier. Jasper’s shirt is soaked, and his breathing is shallow and wet. “Yes, I’m here.”
