I PULLED into the parking lot of Ebon High School, and walked to the gym. The front of the lot was full, which meant I had to park in the back. I had a long, hot walk ahead of me. The weather had been hotter than usual as of late, which lead to lots of theories about the correlation between the heat and Richter. Most of them were stupid, like his hideout was in the Sun, which explained both why nobody was able to find him and that he was somehow heating up the Sun. The others were just as ridiculous. However, I guess it could’ve been true. I mean, no one’s tried looking in the Sun, so it could’ve very well been possible. I highly doubted it, though.

  I thought that once I reached the end of my junior year just a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have to step foot in my high school until the beginning of my senior year. However, thanks to Richter, my summer plans were drastically altered. The gymnasium of the high school had been turned into a shelter for those who took too long to evacuate the cities. The hotel rooms filled up fast, so shelters like ours were the only option. A couple hundred terrified people crammed into a high school gym made for some interesting experiences, that’s for sure. It allowed me to meet a lot of interesting people, though, so even though it kinda smelled and most of the people had bad attitudes, it was fun.

  “Hey man, you ready to enter the lions’ den?” somebody asked as they came walking up next to me.

  I recognized the voice as soon as I heard it. It was that of my best friend, Drew Polar.

  “Lions’ den?” I asked as I gave him a fist bump. The two of us walked side-by-side up the sidewalk, the heat of the Indiana summer sun bearing down on us.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You didn’t see the group text?”

  I shook my head as I reached into my pocket to pull out my phone. Displayed on the screen were a dozen group texts between Drew and my other best friend, Michael Teller. I skimmed them, but Drew continued talking, filling me in on the details.

  “Yeah, apparently Brian Turner was talking to Macy—”

  My blood immediately began boiling.

  “—and she told him to leave her alone because she had a headache and wanted to go take a nap. He did, but five minutes later came to her spot and tried talking to her again—while she was laying down trying to sleep!”

  “Holy shit!” I exclaimed. “What an asshole!”

  “I know!” Drew agreed.

  We reached the gymnasium doors, and pushed them open, blasted by cool air. Our ears were assaulted by the cacophony of voices. It was getting close to dinnertime, so most people were inside, instead of hanging out outside as usual. That meant it also reeked of body odor and was hotter than normal, thanks to all the body heat.

  “So how is this like the lions’ den?” I almost had to shout to be heard. I was nervous about Drew’s answer.

  “Well, you know Brian’s best friend Tommy?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, he told Brian about how Macy’s been hanging out with Michael and us, and since Brian’s hated you since you were still in your mother’s womb, he naturally assumes that you and Macy have a thing going on.”

  “But we do,” I said as we walked behind the concession stand that now held the night’s dinner instead of the usual candies and hot dogs it did during basketball season.

  “Somebody forgot to tell Macy that,” Drew teased as he put on his apron.

  I put mine on and rolled my eyes. “You said yourself that she told Michael that she thought I was cute.”

  “Yeah, but so does your grandma, and that doesn’t mean anything.” Drew grabbed a plate and dumped the night’s meal onto it, which consisted of mac and cheese, green beans, and some chicken nuggets.

  “You know what I mean, though,” I told him as I grabbed a plate of my own and began doing the same. We loaded up our plates and put them on the counter where a hungry refugee would come and grab one.

  The concession stand was filled with people, and Drew and I had to practically elbow our way back to the end of the line to begin filling up another plate.

  “That’s not even the issue here, though. The issue is that Brian wants you out of the picture.”

  “Brian’s always wanted me out of the picture. I can take him if I need to.”

  Drew laughed and rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything more.

  I felt like I could take Brian if I needed to, but you can take almost anyone of any size down with a swift kick to the nuts. If we’re talking a “fair” fight, though, Brian would have me whupped. I’m not that scrawny; I try and run at least every other day and hit the weights every once in a while. But I’m definitely not buff by any stretch of the imagination. Brian’s not all that buff, either, though. He’s got maybe fifteen pounds on me. He also has years of martial arts experience, however. Like, this dude could break my arms with his eyes.

  I wasn’t worried, though. Brian had a lot of talk, but since his father was the deputy sheriff, it was mostly just that. Talk. He’d never actually do anything, unless he wanted the punishment of his father to come down on him. And rumor had it, his father showed no preferential treatment, given the black eye Brain showed up to school with every once in a while.

  Once Drew and I were finished making plates of food for others, we made two of our own. We walked out onto the crowded gymnasium floor, and scanned the sea of cots for Macy. Her wavy red hair stood out in the crowd, and her bright green eyes met my own, sending waves of happiness shooting through me. We made our way down the line of cots, and sat down on the ground next to hers.

  “Hi,” she said with a charming smile.

  “Hey,” Drew said as he dug into his mac and cheese.

  “Hi,” I said. I fumbled with my fork and dropped it on the ground. Macy giggled, making me even more self-conscious. “I gotta go grab another one. I’ll be right back.”

  I stood up, and so did Macy. “I’ll go with you,” she told me.

  My heart skipped a beat, and I nodded my head. “Alright, cool.” Really? ‘Alright, cool’ is the best you could come up with? I thought to myself. When we were in a group, I was relatively normal around Macy. But on the rare occasion it was just the two of us, I always did something embarrassing. Even though we were in a room filled with hundreds of people and so not technically alone, I could feel my “make-a-fool-of-yourself” engine revving up.

  “How was your day, Kane?” Macy asked as we weaved through the cots.

  “Good, I guess. Oh, shit,” I said, suddenly remembering the earlier events. “I forgot to tell Drew! Richter flew by my house and shattered all my windows.”

  Macy stopped walking, and people around us turned and looked at me.

  “I-uh-I,” I stumbled over my words. I motioned for Macy to follow and kept walking.

  Macy got close enough to where I could feel the heat of her breath on my skin. I did my best to ignore it, trying to focus on not doing something foolish. “Are you serious?” she whispered.

  I nodded my head. “I mean, it doesn’t mean anything. Just that we were in his path. Crazy, huh?”

  Macy scoffed. “Yeah, crazy’s one word for it.”

  I shrugged. “I’m mostly just upset that he messed up all of our windows. It’s gonna be a pain putting them back up.”

  Macy placed a hand on my arm and stopped walking. I did as well, my blood pressure going through the roof. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  I smiled. “Me too.”

  Macy chuckled and so did I.

  Feeling confident, I decided to keep the jokes going. “Hey, I’m perfectly content with only seeing Richter through a television screen.” Shit. That wasn’t a joke at all!

  “I am too,” Macy said.

  We reached the concession stand and I grabbed my fork. We turned around and headed back to the cots, totally oblivious to how ironic the conversation Macy and I had just had would be in just a few short days.

  GENESIS

  I RETURNED HOME as my father was making his walk back from the barn to the house, having just finished feeding the livestock. He wiped his arms on his muscular body and threw a smile my way.

  “Hey,” I said as I closed my car door and started walking to the house.

  “How was it?” he asked in a teasing voice, and I instantly knew he was talking about my time with Macy in particular.

  My dad was only in his early forties, still young and with his best years ahead of him. He definitely didn’t look like the farming type, that’s for sure. When I was six, we moved from Indianapolis, where Dad had been a lawyer and Mom a teacher, to take over the family farm after my grandfather died. At first Dad was hesitant, but he fell in love with the farming life fast and swore he’d never go back to the city. Still, he looked out of place on a country farm. He still carried himself like the business lawyer he once was, always making sure his hair was cut and beard trimmed.

  “It was good, I guess,” I said.

  Dad chuckled. “You guess?” He shook his head as if to say Ahhh, teenagers.

  “Yeah.” We walked into the house and began taking off our shoes. “I mean, she’s not going to stay here forever. Eventually, her and her sister will have to move back up to Indy, and I’ll probably never see her again.”

  “Not with that attitude, you won’t,” Dad said with a smile.

  I rolled my eyes and walked through the living room to the stairs. “I’m going upstairs,” I announced as I made my way up. “Goodnight, guys!” I shouted.

  Mom and Dad echoed their “goodnights,” and I got ready for the last few hours of sleep I was going to have before my life changed forever.

  THE SCREAMS of my mother woke me from my sleep. I jumped out of bed, grabbed a pair of sweatpants, and put them on as I scrambled down the hallway.

  “Shut up!” The yell of a man’s voice I didn’t recognize stopped me in my tracks.

  We were being robbed.

  “Look, we don’t have anything valuable. Our livestock is the only things of worth. Just leave my wife alone, and I’ll take you to them,” my dad said, pleading with the intruders.

  “We don’t want your dumb cows,” a man said. “We want your money, jewelry, anything you got that can make us a pretty dime.”

  I inched closer to the top of the stairwell and peeked down. There was nobody at the bottom, but if I wanted to see what was going on, I’d have to go halfway down the stairs, as that’s where the opening to the first floor began.

  “You aren’t listening to me,” my dad said. “We don’t have anything.”

  “You’re telling me that you haven’t bought this pretty lady—” my mom began whimpering “—a diamond ring? A pearl necklace?” The intruder’s tone was condescending and rhetorical.

  I inched down the stairs one-by-one, being as quiet as possible.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Dad answered.

  It wasn’t true at all. My mom had more money than she knew what to do with, and there was a safe hidden in the closet with over twenty grand. The farm wasn’t bringing in that kind of cash, Dad just had plenty of money left over from his lawyer days, plus Grandpa left a lot of money with the farm.

  But our intruder didn’t know that, and Dad wasn’t going to tell him if he could help it. He was an ex-lawyer, he’d mastered making people do what he wanted.

  I reached the point of the stairs where the first floor met the second, and peered around the corner. Most of the lights were off downstairs, save for the one in the kitchen, which was across the wide-open living room/den area. There were three intruders in total. One had a gun to Mom, another had a knife to Dad’s throat, and the one who I assumed was the leader stood between the four of them, facing my father.

  “You got five seconds to tell me where the most valuable thing in this house is, or else I start searching myself.” The intruder whipped out a butterfly knife and walked over to Mom. Her long, blonde hair was a mess. She did her best to hold her composure. “Maybe I’ll find something valuable here,” he said as he pressed the knife flat against Mom’s cheek.

  She whimpered, but bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her terror-filled eyes watched the knife blade as it traveled to her neck.

  “Or here,” the leader said with a smile.

  My dad fought against the man holding him back, but the leader pressed the knife deeper into Mom’s skin. I watched in horror as she cried out in pain.

  “Nah-ah-ah,” the leader said, grinning from ear to ear. “Am I getting warmer?” The knife moved down further.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I let out a scream. I looked down, and the toothy grin of a large man looked up at me. I was so distracted by Mom, I didn’t even notice a fourth member of the gang sneaking up on me.

  He pulled me down, and I fought against him, kicking and screaming, but my punches did nothing. He was a very large man, who laughed at my futility.

  “Bingo,” the leader said, pointing his knife at me.

  My dad was going ballistic, but the man restraining him kept his grip, not allowing my dad to escape.

  “Be still or I will shoot your wife!” the leader shouted at Dad.

  Dad must’ve believed him, because he stopped fighting.

  I, on the other hand, did not. I struggled against the grip of my captor, but he wrapped his arms around me, restraining me. I tried kicking him, but it was no use.

  The leader walked over to me and got right up in my face. He wore a ski mask, but I could still see his evil eyes, and the body odor emanating from his body. His breath, however, smelled of baking soda and mint. A stark contrast from the rest of his body, and a smell I became very familiar with as he leaned in close.

  “Do you want me to hurt your mommy?” he asked in a babyish voice. “Your daddy?”

  I said nothing. I was fuming. Livid. I wanted nothing more than to tear this monster apart. If looks could kill, I’d already killed this dude a thousand times over. My eyes were shooting daggers into his, and I wished they were real.

  “You’re going to tell me where the money is, aren’t you, son?”

  The fact that he called me “son” made me want to kill him even more.

  “Don’t do it,” my dad told me.

  I looked at him, confused. Was all this really worth saving a few thousand dollars?

  Police coming, he mouthed.

  Relief washed over me. There was hope. Dad must’ve called them before the intruders got him.

  I turned my eyes back to the leader, confidence radiating from me. “Get the hell out of my house,” I told him.

  The leader let out a bellowing laugh. He leaned back, placing a hand on his chest, laughing as hard as he could. When he leaned back down, however, he brought his knife down deep into my thigh.

  I let out a scream as the pain seared through me. My dad shouted in anger, and my mom screamed in fear.

  Anger swelled within me, and that’s when it all began.

  I kicked the leader as hard as I could in the chest. He turned into a rag doll and flew across the room, through the kitchen, and slammed into the kitchen sink, causing pipes to break and water to shoot in the air.

  I turned my torso and threw the man restraining me to the right, and he went flying through the air and slammed into the brick wall, slumping to the ground.

  The man who had a gun to Mom began to realize what just happened, and pointed the gun toward me. Even though he was on the other side of the room, my instinct was to dive at him, so dive I did. I pushed myself off the ground and cleared the length of the room. I reached out, and slammed into the henchman before he even knew what was going on. The two of us fell to the ground hard. I pushed myself up, but the man I tackled stayed down.

  I turned around to get the man who had Dad, but Dad was one step ahead of me. He’d used my distraction, and had taken his captor down. He was on top of him, punching him over and over again, his hands as much of a bloody mess as his captor’s face. Finally Mom pulled him off the man, and the three of us came together in a warm embrace.

  Police sirens sounded in the distance, better late than never.

  Cold water reached my feet, and I let out a sharp hiss in surprise. The three of us looked to where the leader of the group sat in what was left of our kitchen sink, groaning in pain.

  Mom and Dad looked at me with so many questions in their eyes, to which I knew the answer to none.

  “I don’t know,” I said before they could ask. “I just don’t know.”

  THE SECOND SUPER

  I CLOSED the car door behind me as Dad and I pulled into the hardware store. There were a lot of things we had to get in order to fix the damage done both by the intruders we’d had last night, and by Richter.

  Both Mom and Dad thought it’d be good for us to get right to work on the repairs, in order to best take our minds off the events of the day before. Unsurprisingly, I found this very difficult.

  Dad got out of the car, and we began walking into the store. The two of us were deep within our own thoughts. Even in the car ride up to the store, we didn’t speak. We were both so confused and scared. Not just from the fact that our lives had been threatened and the safety of our homes destroyed, but the way that I’d taken them out.

  We’d all come to the conclusion that it was some really intense adrenaline. It made sense. Fight or flight. Like how people are able to lift cars to save loved ones trapped beneath them. If adrenaline could allow someone to lift a car that weighed tons, it’d definitely allow an in-shape seventeen-year-old to kick a hundred-and-seventy-five pound-man across a room, especially when the lives of his family were being threatened.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out as Dad opened the door and I walked into the store. A text from Drew was on the screen, and it read:

  Dude! You gotta get to the school. There’s a news crew here covering the shelter. CAMERAS EVERYWHERE!

  I surprised myself when I smiled and chuckled a little.

  “What is it?” Dad asked as we walked down one of the plumbing aisles of the hardware store.

  I shook my head. “Drew. There’s a local station at the high school covering the shelter, and he’s freaking out.”

  Dad shook his head and smiled. “It’s a local news station, I don’t get what he’s freaking out about.”

 

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