Don't Call Me A Hero

Chapter 7

Itchy. Above all else, I had felt itchy. My mind couldn’t focus on the horror of the past two weeks and, instead, focused on my physical discomfort and pain. I hadn’t dared to focus on the experiments or the fact that my own mother signed me over to the state because she didn’t know what to do with me.

Of course, in the past I had felt the pain. Now in this weird memory-dream I felt nothing. I felt numb to my past turmoil. I hadn’t had this particular dream in a long time. 

Why was I having it now?

I was absently itching at my bandaged right arm when I first met the counselor. She never gave me her name or anything to call her even though I ended up seeing her for the next four years. She was drop dead gorgeous but the coldness in her eyes distracted everyone from that fact.

She had seemed nice, at first. It only took me a few minutes of speaking with her to realize she was just like them. She wasn’t there to help me. 

No, she was there to study me…

The dream shifted and I was sitting on a hard metal chair. My shirt was gone, revealing the scars that littered my right side. I looked over and saw a familiar face. He was holding a tattoo gun and holding my right arm on his lap. I glanced over at the counselor watching with narrowed eyes. She had hated the idea but I had insisted.

“Are you ready, friend?” he asked right before starting. I remembered being nervous. I remembered also being weirdly excited. My scars were getting covered up and I was getting back at my mother, or so I had thought at the time. Either way, the tattoos had turned out great.

No regrets.

When I glanced back up, the counselor was gone. Amanda stood in her place, her arm still horribly twisted with a look of patience on her pale face. I tried to stand but I found myself unable to move. I glanced down and found myself strapped to a metal table. 

“No,” I muttered as I looked up at the silhouettes that danced at the end of my vision, “no…”

“Alex,” Amanda’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, “save me!”

I scrambled up when I felt I could move again and found myself in a small, square room. I was definitely still dreaming but it seemed more realistic somehow. It wasn’t something I knew. 

Someone was huddled in the corner, curled up in the fetal position. There was a door with a small square window which provided the only light. Even without seeing their face, I knew it was Amanda. I slowly walked toward her and kneeled beside her shaking form. Her dirty face slowly peered at me before she let out a terrified scream.

“Amanda,” I held my arms out as she crawled away from me. Her arm was now in a cast, thank god. She looked at me with shock obvious in her eyes, “it’s Alex.”

“How?” she asked. 

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” I told her, “where are we?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a sob, “they...they’re doing it again, Alex.”

“s**t,” I muttered, “can you tell me anything that could help me find you?”

“Arthur,” she said, laughing bitterly, “he’s…alive.”

“What?” I asked, my heart dropping. 

“This is his doing,” she said as the sound of the lock behind us shifting stopped us from any further conversation, “find him, find me.”

I sat up, groaning as the world swam before falling back against the thin pillow. Owen was immediately at my side and I let him help me sit up. I was in a hospital room. There was another occupied bed to my side but I didn’t let my eyes linger on the sleeping man. My mother was curled up on one of the cushioned chairs, her head in her arms with her snores echoing the machines in the room.

“Why is she here?” I grumbled.

“She paid the bill,” Owen said with a chuckle, “so I thought it would be rude to ask her to leave.”

“Am I remembering correctly?” I said as I mentally started to take note of my injuries before continuing, “the house just exploded?”

“Yes,” Owen said, “the lady inside died almost instantly.”

“Oh no,” I muttered.

“Another issue,” Owen said, “there’s a group of cops waiting to speak with you. They already spoke with us.”

“Okay,” I muttered. I didn’t feel terrible. Nothing seemed broken. I only felt a little dizzy. I sighed as I looked up at Owen, “what’s the damage?”

“Concussion and some bruised ribs,” he told me, “but the doctor said you’re free to go as soon as you talk to the cops outside. They had a healer on call so you shouldn’t feel much discomfort, or so the doctor said. They can’t always tell with bruised ribs, though.”

“Great. Where did you say the cops were?” 

“I’ll let them in,” he said and hurried out the door. 

 I sighed as I leaned back against the pillow. Amanda could project herself, that much I knew. She could also pull me to her at least when I’m dreaming, which was kind of cool. It definitely wasn’t me. My powers were physical, not mental. That, however, was a small development. 

Far more troubling was the fact that she said they were doing it again. I doubted she meant the they we knew. Most of those crazy scientists were either jailed or put down. There had to be a whole new group of crazies. And it was all happening again because of Arthur. 

Was he the reason the house exploded? 

Would he kill his own mother?

I shook the thought out of my head just as my mother stirred in her slumber. Her eyes slowly opened and landed on me. We held each other’s gaze for a moment before she jumped up and lunged toward me. I didn’t have time to think before her arms were wrapped around me.

“My poor boy,” she cried into my throat.

“I’m not your boy,” I said but there was no fight in my voice. I knew I should hate this. I knew I should be pushing her away but it was kind of nice to be held by her.

At least for a little while.

“Ma’am,” a familiar voice called from the door. She stepped back and looked at the two men standing just inside the room, “could you step out, please? We need to speak with Mr. Blackwell alone.”

“Okay,” she said and walked out, only stopping to send a small smile my way before softly closing the door.

“Mr. Blackwell?” I asked, lowering my voice to mock his. 

“I’m on duty, Alex,” the one on the right said. They were both wearing black suits with card badges hanging off the breast pocket. Peter had been an officer at the compound. We had seen each other often enough to become, well, friends. He was a tall man with a slender build though there were very few who could take him in a fight. His partner, however, was new to me. He was a short and wide shouldered man that looked like he had played too much football in high school. He offered me a smile and stepped forward.

“You already know my partner,” he said, his voice even lower than Peter’s, “I’m Officer Cankles but you can call me Tom if I can call you Alex.”

“That’s a fair deal,” I answered, “I thought you were cops. What are you guys doing here?”

“We’re here to investigate,” Peter said, “as you know, your group of friends weren’t the only people kidnapped and experimented on. Several of them are missing, including one of your own.”

My heart skipped a beat. I wanted to tell him what happened. I wanted to tell him the reason I went to the house but I couldn’t. Amanda said no police. They would know.

Who the hell were they?

“Why were you in that neighborhood?” Peter asked, “I know you weren’t visiting your mom.”

“A friend had died,” I answered truthfully but finished with a lie, “I had a good relationship with his mom. I wanted to make sure she was alright and now...now she’s dead.”

“We have reason to believe,” Peter spoke slowly and carefully, “that the bomb and these kidnappings are related. The state has ordered all of you to have some sort of protection.”

“Am I going back to the compound?” I asked, dreading the thought. 

“That’s an option,” Tom said and sat at the edge of the hospital bed, “or you can hang out with us for a bit.”

“Meaning?”

“Nothing that will disrupt your life,” Peter spoke up, “we already have a room in your dorm room. You’ll see us a lot but you won’t hear us. We’ll be in the background as much as possible until the situation calms down.”

“So,” I sighed, “I either have to go back to the compound or have you two watch my every move? Can I refuse?”

“You could,” Peter shrugged and grinned at me, “but you know me.”

“You’re going to do it anyway,” I grumbled. 

“Yep,” he chuckled, “your clothes are the cabinets beside you. We’ll be waiting to drive you home when you’re done getting dressed.”

“Gotcha,” I nodded as they left the room. I sighed as I rolled off the bed. I had totally forgotten about the other man. He was looking at me with milk white eyes.

“Experiments?” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“You’re dreaming,” I told him as I dug out my clothes. The man nodded as if he assumed as much and turned his head away from me. I sighed and started to pull on my clothes. They all smelt like smoke and were dotted with little holes. At least none of the holes were anywhere revealing. 

I opened the door and found the crowd waiting for me. My mother insisted on taking me, however, Peter pulled out his orders and threw them in her face. Owen walked in pace with me, silently watching the two men argue with the older woman as we neared the front door. 

“You know,” Owen whispered, leaning done toward my ear, “I could take you. That way none of them will get the satisfaction.” 

“I told you that I didn’t want to do that again,” I replied as we stepped through the front door. They had stopped walking now and my mother was in Peter’s face. Owen looked down at me with a smile and open arms and I sighed. I stepped over toward him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

Strange, I hadn’t realized how intimate this felt. 

The smile never left his face as he slowly wrapped his arms around my back. He looked up and I couldn’t stop the gasp from leaving my lips as we launched into the air. I giggled as I heard Peter curse below me as we flew into the sky. I held onto him and hid my face in his shoulder. My stomach was in knots from the movement. I didn’t want to know what it would do if I actually saw where we were at.

“Here we go,” he said as he landed skillfully onto the front lawn of our dorm building. I took a deep breath to calm myself before I moved to step away from him. His arms, however, held me tightly to his chest.

“Owen?” I asked as I looked up at his face. He looked pissed. I shifted my head and gasped. My stomach dropped as I glared at what was written across the wall of the building in blood red paint that was dripping down from the letters. Owen slowly let his hands fall away from me as I looked at it in horror. 

Shadowmaster.