Sidekicks Page 15

  “Tell me you didn’t tell him!” I yell.

  “I didn’t tell him,” she says.

  “Tell me you’ll give all this up for me!”

  “Everything. Right now. I’m done with everything.” She steps toward me, close enough to kiss. She looks up at me. Tears are streaming down her face. “I didn’t betray you, Scott. I couldn’t, even if my dad wanted me to.”

  I’m breathing hard. I’m still crying. Her eyes are locked onto mine. She puts her hands on the sides of my face. “I couldn’t,” she says.

  I open my mouth, not sure what’s going to come out. “I—”

  The wall to the warehouse blows out. The blast sends us flying.

  “Don’t touch her!” Dr. Chaotic yells. He’s pointing a weapon at me. It looks like a little dart gun. He fires. I’m about to dive out of the dart’s path when someone pushes me from behind. I fall; the dart flies over me and hits Allison in the neck.

  She immediately pulls it out. It starts to dissolve in her hand. She looks at me. “Scott,” she says before the convulsions start. She falls to the ground.

  “Allison!” I scream. “Allison!”

  I race to her. She’s clutching at her chest, above her heart. She’s wheezing. She can’t breathe. I’m sitting over her. I don’t know what to do!

  “ALLISON!” I scream in her face. I start looking around frantically. “We have to help her! We have to—WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!”

  “Sorry, kid,” Trent says, standing over us. He’s pointing the dart gun at me. “End of the line. I’m just glad I get to do the honors.”

  “Wha—?” My mind is racing. “WHAT IS GOING ON?!” Allison is clawing at my arm.

  Before I can do anything else, Trent fires. I’m too confused to get out of the way. The dart hits me in the neck.

  “Wh—?” Before I can say another word, my heart starts racing. Suddenly, I can’t breathe. I feel like someone dropped a truck on my chest. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. I fall to my knees and collapse next to Allison. She looks at me. She’s scared.

  “Why?” Trent asks. His voice is muted … distorted … like he’s underwater. “Well, lots of reasons … but I don’t feel like going into them right now. I mean, what’s the point?”

  Allison’s breath is getting shallower. Her grip is getting weaker … I have to—

  “Let’s just say I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Trent says.

  I’m trying to shake it off … stand up … but I can’t even breathe. My chest is full of lead weights.

  Trent looks down at us. “Isn’t this sweet? Young love. Dying together … if only you didn’t completely lose all faith and trust in her a couple of minutes ago, huh? I bet even if you both survived, it’ll be hard to get past that, right? But as it stands, you only have a couple of more minutes to worry about it.”

  I look over at Allison. She grabs my hand. Hers is cold and clammy.

  “Oh no,” Trent says, lifting me off the ground with one hand. “We’ll have none of that ‘unspoken forgiveness.’ Not here. You guys can sort that all out in the afterlife. Here … I’ll give you a head start!” he shouts, then punches me. Hard. I lose my grip on Allison’s hand. I’m disoriented … where am I going? I feel weightless as I fly through the air. I crash into something metal. I stop flying and start falling. When I land, the ground knocks what little air I have left out of me. I taste blood. I can’t breathe. Blackness is creeping in.

  I try to pick myself up, but I no longer know where up is.

  Allison. I have to get to Allison. She wasn’t lying. I have to get to her. Can’t stand up … can’t move … breathe. I have to save—

  Lights are on me. Where are they coming from? Getting closer. Coming toward me. Can’t move. Can’t stop them. Didn’t think I’d die like this, lying on the ground, not able to move …

  The lights stop in front of me.

  “Get him in the car!” someone yells. “Now!”

  “He’s coming!” yells someone else.

  I’m lifted up and put in the backseat. Someone falls on me. “We’re in! Go!” We’re moving. The person stays on top of me. I try to tell them I’m having a hard enough time breathing without them sitting on me, but all that comes out is a squeaky whistle.

  “Bright Boy!” someone is yelling. “Bright Boy!”

  I try to answer, but I can’t. The yelling seems so far away, like they’re at the far end of a long tunnel, and I’m too tired to answer them. Too tired. Let me sleep … let me slee—

  “SCOTT!”

  My eyes open for a second. I try to see the face of the person sitting on me, but it’s in shadow.

  “SCOTT! I’m going to give you something! Don’t fight it!”

  I open my mouth to say I’m too tired to fight. OW! He jams something into my neck! I thrash.

  “Stop him!” someone yells from the front seat.

  “I can’t!” yells the guy on top of me. “He’s too strong!”

  “Scott!” yells the driver. “We’re saving you! Calm down!”

  “Give him the sedative!” comes another voice.

  “I did!”

  I try to keep fighting … but I can’t … I stop … I can’t move … I can’t …

  “He’s right behind us!” someone yells

  “Get us out of here!!” yells the guy on top of me.

  “Hold on!” yells the driver.

  I feel the pull of acceleration, but I’m fading. I can’t stay awake. I don’t want to die like this …

  flicked my switch from off to on. I’m in a bed in a tastefully decorated bedroom … all dark colors and dark wood furniture. Trace amounts of light are seeping into the room through the heavy curtains. My arms are secured to the sides of the bed. I can’t raise them past my chest. I feel too weak to snap the restraints.

  “Scott?”

  I look across the room. Someone is sitting in a chair facing me, but because of the lack of light, I can’t see who it is.

  “Scott?”

  “Who are you?” I croak. My throat feels like it’s stuffed with Styrofoam.

  “Would you like something to drink?” the person asks.

  “You have five seconds to tell me who you are before I snap these restraints and break your neck.”

  He stands up, and takes a few steps toward me. I must still be unconscious, because the closer the person gets to me, the more he looks like Jake Berkshire.

  “Jake?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Am I dead?” I ask.

  Jake smiles. “No. You’re—”

  I snap the restraint and grab his neck in one fluid motion. “Then where am I? And what the hell is going on? Five seconds. Four … three …”

  “This is not a dream. You are not dead. It really is me, Jake Berkshire … your ‘bully’ from school, and I just saved your life. Will you please put me down so I can explain?” Jake spoke all this without moving his lips. It was like his voice was projected over a loudspeaker inside my head.

  I put him down. I use my free hand to snap the other restraint. My legs are not restrained, so I swing them over the side of the bed. I try to stand up, but the world tilts at an uncomfortable angle. I sit back down on the bed.

  “What did you do to me?” I ask.

  “Side effects from the antidote.”

  “Antidote? To what?”

  “There’s a lot to explain,” he says.

  “Allison. I have to—”

  “You’ve been out for four hours. The battle is long over. Sit back. Let me get you some water. You need to rest.”

  “No, I …”

  “Scott,” Jake says, his voice in my head again. “You need to trust me. I’ve been watching over you for a while now. We have a lot to do, and not a lot of time, but the only way to do it is to do it right. I know you’re worried about Allison … but if you decide to bust out of here without a plan, you will die. And then you’ll be no help to anyone. Capisce?”

 
“Yes. Now get out of my head.”

  “OK,” he says, this time with his mouth. “You want some water?”

  I nod. He hands me a bottle. I take a sip.

  “You’re a plus/plus, aren’t you?” I ask.

  “Just one plus. Intelligence. Minor telepathy. Minor telekinesis. But those’ll get stronger as I get—”

  “Wait. Stop. What—?” I have so many questions, I don’t even know which to ask first.

  “To answer the first question on your mind right now: No, I’m not really a bully, and I’m not an idiot, but I guess you’ve already figured that out. As for the why … well, to protect you, of course.”

  “Protect me? From what?”

  He laughs. “From yourself. And some other people, as it turns out … but we’ll get to that.”

  “You’re not—” I start.

  “Making any sense?” he finishes.

  “Stop—”

  “Finishing your sentences? Sorry about that. Can’t help it, I’m afraid. Comes with the territory.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s—”

  “Annoying,” Jake says. “I know. I try to cut back. Anyway, you’re wondering why you would possibly need protection from yourself, right? Do you know how many times you almost gave up your secret identity? Hm?”

  “Uhh … none?” I say.

  He smiles. “Of course, you don’t notice. I’m not blaming you, or trying to be condescending. It’s just … well, you’ve got a lot going on. You don’t always notice when some cute girl is going to ask you out, or when someone who has been looking at your picture in the paper or on the news all morning sees you in school and suddenly puts two and two together.”

  “That never—I wear a—”

  “Mask. Right. Look, that whole mask thing may work in the comics, but it does absolutely zip in the real world,” Jake says. He takes a sip from his water. “You wear a mask, yet everything else about you is the same. And with the advent of digital photography, and the crystal clear images they’re been able to get of you lately, it’s much easier to see the person behind the mask. You may still fool some people, but more and more are catching on. That’s where I come in.”

  “But you’re a jerk to me.”

  “And you’ve had to take it, otherwise you were afraid people would find out you were Bright Boy. You had no idea how right you were.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh my God … so many incidents, I can hardly remember … I mean, not really … I remember everything, but cataloguing all the moments that you didn’t notice will do nothing to convince you. Either you believe me, or you don’t.”

  “I don’t know what I believe right now,” I say.

  “Fair enough. Take it from me, you almost let your guard down at least four times a week. Sometimes more. Then me and my idiot crew swoop in and humiliate you—”

  “So that I look like a wimp.”

  “Ahh … see? Finishing other people’s sentences is fun, right?”

  “But come on … if some kid was going to see my face and put the whole thing together, wouldn’t they think that this was part of an act to throw them off the trail?”

  Jake smiles. “Those are the ones I recruit.” He points to the door. His “idiot” friends are standing there. They smile at me. Jimmy Douglas waves. “Are you OK?” Jimmy asks. “You scared the bejeebers out of us.”

  “The bejeebers? Are you kidding?” I ask.

  “I don’t like to cuss,” Jimmy says.

  “Every other word out of your mouth is usually a swear word!” I yell.

  Shane and Andrew start laughing and teasing Jimmy, and Jimmy takes it all with a good-natured grin. The teasing is friendly, so unlike the way they tease me in school.

  “All right, guys,” Jake says. “Out. He and I need to talk.”

  They start to leave. Jimmy comes over to me and gives me one of the most sincere hugs I’ve ever received. He looks at me with tears in his eyes. “We’re so happy you’re OK,” he says, then leaves, sniffling.

  “He’s a huge softy,” Jake says.

  “He once gave me a wedgie and hung me on a hook by my underwear.” I say.

  “Yup. And then he locked himself in his room and bawled his eyes out for two days straight. He called in sick to school. We had to bust down the door to get to him … tell him that he did it to protect you. He came around, but vowed to never physically hurt you again.”

  “I … I can’t—”

  “It’s OK. We knew this would be weird for you. But you have to hang in there. We haven’t even gotten started yet.” He pulls a laptop out of the backpack at his feet.

  “Look, this is all really interesting, and thanks for all the saves … but I have to get out of here,” I say, steadying myself to walk. “My whole world just—”

  “—went nuclear,” he says. “Yeah, I know. Quickly, tell me what happened.”

  “I was with … a girl …”

  “Allison Mendes, aka Monkeywrench,” he says.

  When he says her name, I remember Allison holding my hand and looking scared, trying to catch her breath. My stomach tightens up. I start to rock back and forth with restless energy. “I have to go.”I stand up and head for the door.

  “SCOTT!” he yells, with his mouth and his mind. “You NEED to stay focused. I know you don’t want to hear this, but if she’s still alive, you’re not going to help her by rushing in and getting yourself killed! Then she’s definitely dead! Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Stay focused. Just like Louis taught you … but thinking about Louis is like ripping off another scab. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Focus. “Yes,” I say again, this time with a little more force. I turn and sit back down on the bed across from Jake.

  “Good. Now tell me what happened.”

  I tell him everything … the whole story about Allison and me, my outfit, the phone call and Phantom turning on me, watching Allison trying to breathe … all of it. And I don’t know if Jake is good or bad … if he really saved me, or if he’s trying to set me up. And really, I don’t care. All I know is that I have to tell someone. “Phantom tried to kill me,” I say, “and I still have no idea why.”

  “Do you even know what you were hit with?”

  “Some kind of dart, I don’t know.”

  “It’s adrenaline.”

  “Adrenaline? Seriously? Come on … there’s no way that a shot of adrenaline would kill me.”

  He turns his laptop around. There’s a picture of a man lying in an alley. “Does he look familiar?”

  “Should he?”

  “Well, you have fought him roughly a dozen times.”

  I look at the picture a little closer, but I can’t seem—

  “He’s a personal trainer. His name is Justin Wheeler. You knew him as Rogue Warrior.”

  My mouth hangs open.

  “His body was found in an alley downtown earlier today,” Jake says. “He had massive a heart attack. His adrenaline levels had spiked through the roof.”

  “He was on steroids.”

  “His heart literally exploded in his chest. Steroids wouldn’t do that.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “My dad performed the autopsy.”

  “Your father?”

  “Not important right now. Look here.” He boxes off the section of the photo that has Warrior’s neck in it and magnifies it so it fills the screen. “See that little pinprick right there?”

  “Barely.”

  “Exactly. If we weren’t specifically looking for it, we would have missed it. Sound familiar?”

  I put my hand up to my neck. “How did you know to look for it?”

  “Again, not important right now. Here’s the thing,” Jake says, “the reason you plus/plus, speed and strengths, are the way you are is because you were born with really dense, heavy bones. They’re A LOT heavier than normal human bones. Your muscles had to adapt to be stronger, have more elasticity. The older you get, the bigger your bones get, an
d the stronger and faster you become.”

  “Wait … the report said that I get stronger, but not faster.”

  He smiles. “You read the report?”

  I nod.

  “Yeah, well, they got some stuff right,” he says, “but not everything. And that’s kind of the way we want it.”

  “Who’s we?” Before Jake can answer, I say it for him. “I know … not important right now. So … I’m going to get stronger and faster than I am now?”

  “Yup, but here’s the problem: It seems that some of your organs are pretty much regular, old, run-of-the-mill organs. Your heart has somewhat adapted to the additional strain you put on it, but it hasn’t completely adapted. It’s still very similar to the heart of an average person, except the average person isn’t jumping off buildings or trying to lift a car over their head.”

  A light goes on in my head. “So … a shot of adrenaline takes my heart, which is under strain as it is, and pushes it right over the edge.”

  “Correct. You just survived your first heart attack,” he says. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks a ton.”

  “There was something weird about that dart, though.”

  “What?”

  “The adrenaline inside was a slow-release formula. Enough up front to take you out of action and give you some of the effects of full-blown cardiac arrest, but not enough to push you over the edge. Now, if you didn’t get the antidote, you’d have died within half an hour.”

  I shudder.

  “But it seems like whoever designed the dart gave you some time to get away,” he says. “Here, take a look at this picture of Warrior again. See how his eyes are distended. His heart looked like a burst water balloon. Whoever hit you didn’t give Rogue Warrior the same deal.”

  “Who—?

  “Well, it’s either Phantom Justice or Dr. Chaotic,” Jake says. “They’ve been working together for years.”

  It takes a moment for it to sink in. “Wait—what?! No, they haven’t.”

  “All right … really quickly, because we need time to figure out our next move,” he says. “Phantom isn’t really a superhero like you think he is. He’s in it for the money. Large companies hire him to fight battles over their products. He then hires the villains and stages everything. All those battles you’ve fought over the years? Yeah, those have all been elaborate ads.”