Hope

I want to bloody well punch him in the face. I want to scream at him. Tear his head off. How dare he put me in this situation?

I’m cold, I’m miserable, and I’m very angry.

He hasn’t texted back yet but he did read the message. Well, it’s not like I’m leaving him much of an option. He might know that I wouldn’t tell them everything about him, but he bloody well knows me well enough to know that I’d absolutely go around the city screaming his name until either he’d appear or somebody else far more unpleasant would find me.

I try to imagine what the conversation’s going to be like.

Is he going to apologise? Is he going to scream too or just take it, like he usually does? Fuck, I’d welcome a screaming match right now. Why do none of them shout back when I yell at them? Not that I feel like they have a right to. But it’d make it easier to get even more angry. Justify me in my rage.

I want to tell him how much of a dramatic little bitch he’s being about this. Becoming a villain because he doesn’t want me to keep healing him and supposedly risk my life?

My hands shiver from how tightly I’ve balled them into fists.

I’m barely paying attention to my surroundings, even though I know I really should. So far I’ve gotten lucky. I’m probably in the part of town they haven’t pillaged their way to yet. The streetlights are still out, for some reason. But the sky has cleared and the light from the moon and the stars is enough to find my way.

I’ll be there soon anyway and once he’s there, well, they better keep staying the fuck away from us.

I turn the last corner and enter the footpath along the flower beds. It’s gonna be easy seeing anybody coming along here, but I’m also going to be very exposed for the time it takes me to get to the playground right in the middle. I didn’t choose this place for some tactical advantage. The way I’m waltzing along the street right now, Sun Tzu is probably turning in his grave. No, I chose this place simply because I could be certain Ezra would know it, too. That I could just have sent him a location on Maps never occurred to me in my seething rage.

It’s not just because of him, of course. A very large part – probably most of it, if I’m being honest – is because of Dad. But that won’t keep me from taking it out on him. He deserves it for being such a massive idiot.

I swallow. My throat is closing up at the thought of it. This is so frustrating! Why couldn’t he just listen? I know what he had wasn’t ideal but-

There’s a rustle behind me. It takes only a fraction of a second for adrenaline to virtually replace my blood, the same time it also takes me to whirl around. But the footpath is vacant. Only a single pair of prints in the snow where I came from. Mine.

Another rustle. This time, I can locate it. The flowerbed. So it’s too small to be dangerous, right? Right?

Focus.

If it’s gonna kill me, there’s literally nothing I can do about it. I’d really feel a lot safer right now if Emily were with me. But she didn’t follow me. Probably, because she thought I was going back to Atlas HQ. She’d never have let me come here. The others wouldn’t’ve, either. How sweet.

I arrive at the playground, think about sitting on one of the benches for a moment, but don’t. It’s too cold to sit, really, and my jacket isn’t long enough to sit in the snow without getting wet anyway.

So instead, I lean against the climbing wall that’s barely taller than me. This way, I’m at least somewhat protected from the wind.

The snow must’ve stopped falling hours ago. Now it’s just cold. I suppose usually, I’d’ve found this pretty. There’s a perfect sheet of snow where there’s usually grass. The snow is undisturbed everywhere except where I walked along.

I destroy everything.

It’s still pretty, though. Thought-provoking. A picture of this would fit great in a modern art museum. So thoughtful. So melodramatic.

The sound of steps from behind me snaps me back into the moment. They’re slow, but not the sneaking-up kind of slow. Casual. Still, my heart speeds. Even if it’s Ezra, I have no clue how this is going to play out.

But I promised myself to stand my ground. Briefly, I close my eyes, take a deep breath in.

This is for the old you.

I set my jaw, push back my shoulders and step into the line of view of whoever’s approaching.

Suddenly, the wind is back, hitting me in the face full-force, tearing at my hair.

And then there’s Ezra. He’s not far away, maybe ten yards. He stopped upon seeing me and now he’s… looking. I can’t read his expression.

And suddenly, all the rage, all the frustration, everything I wanted to say and do, it’s just… gone. My mind is blank. There’s a pit in my stomach and a knot in my throat.

I swallow. “Hi,” I whisper then. Like I’m scared he might disappear if I’m too loud. Maybe I really am.

He nods ever so slightly, like he too is trying to get himself unstuck, also fighting against this emptiness. “Hi.”

Slowly, he comes closer, never taking his eyes off me, searching my features for anything. But there’s nothing.

He stops at a respectful distance. Close enough to talk, far enough to seem distant. That stings.

I point in direction of the climbing wall. “It’s less windy there.” Then I walk back and lean against it again. He follows me and when he leans against it, he’s no longer so distant. But that’s probably because there’s not enough space to keep an arm’s length between us.

And then there’s a long silence. Because how do you start a conversation like this?

You know, killing our principal was kinda stupid. Really? Like he doesn’t know I think that way. Like he doesn’t think differently. He wouldn’t’ve done it otherwise. He knew what he was getting himself into. Premeditated murder, as they call it. Along with probably a lot of other things as well.

“What did you tell them about me?” he asks hesitantly.

I don’t look at him when I reply. “I told them to fuck off. And that they had a dent in their wall.” There’s no humour in my voice. I think I sound tired. Well, I am, probably. Not that I’ll be able to sleep anytime soon. Like Ezra. I could just take his hand now. I could take his pain and probably prove to him that he’s wrong. If he let me keep at it for at least an hour. Fuck, my hand grows stiff even thinking about it.

He doesn’t laugh, either, and another pause ensues.

“You know, I thought you’d never talk to me again, after what I did,” he says then.

Absently, I push my chin forward to release tension in my cheeks. “You thought wrong, then. We made a deal and I haven’t forgotten it.”

“So you came here to convince me that what I’m doing is wrong.” Not a question. A statement. An assumption.

Wrong again. At least partially. “No. I came here mostly to yell at you, maybe hit you a little.”

“Then why aren’t you doing it?”

Good point. I shrug. “If only I knew.”

Being in a situation like this is weird. I know what he did. I know that killing isn’t okay, but somehow…. I said it myself, after Mr White had put the bracelet on him.

I want to kill them!

And now he did, at least with one of them. And sure, maybe I only don’t care because I know what would’ve happened if he hadn’t fled. Keeping his powers locked up wasn’t an option, even if I hadn’t seen it.

“I still think it was stupid of you to kill him. You could’ve killed that plant guy and then they wouldn’t’ve had a choice but to employ you as a hero.”

“His name’s Noah.”

“Who?”

“The guy with the plants. The one who tried to kill Mr White before I did.”

“No, not him. Who asked?”

His breath hitches almost like he’s laughing. “Fuck you.”

Another pause. My nose is numb. The stars are bright tonight.

“Did they tell you about Atlas’ secret prison?”

I nod. “Yeah. The mass breakout there was the reason why nobody came to interfere at the school.”

“Did they also tell you that they had children in there? Did they tell you that they experimented on them?”

“No.” Of course not. Probably, because Elsa didn’t know and it’s not in Atlas’ interest to hand out information like that. I hate that he can argue against my point, just because I didn’t know.

“I talked to this woman, earlier. Her name’s Mira and she likes pigeons. She barely talks. She was locked up in there for years, do you understand?” He pauses. “And now tell me again that I’m supposed to hand myself over to them.”

He doesn’t sound angry at all. He just says it.

“I talked to Elsa. She doesn’t like it either, even if she only knew that it was a ‘secret prison’. As soon as this is over, there will be investigations and everybody responsible is going to stand trial.”

Funny, that I of all people am talking about following the law now.

I want to kill them all.

Now that I said it, I know how stupid it sounds and Ezra seems to think the same way.

“You can’t seriously think that’s going to change anything. They’re going to fire a few people, maybe move towns. And there they’re going to start over, doing the exact same shit they were doing before.”

“So what’s your plan, then?” I ask, finally finding my heat.

“Kill them.” He says it like he has trouble forcing the words past his lips. “If I kill enough people at the same time, maybe the pain won’t return to me.”

So what? He’s going to walk up to the building and just throw pain and hope it’ll get so comfortable in a sea of corpses that it lets him off the hook?

“How do you even know whether that’s going to work?”

There’s the sound of his jacket scraping against the wood behind us as he shrugs. “I don’t. But they let all those things happen. Do you think they deserve to live more than you do? Or me?”

“But you don’t know them,” I plead. “And they’re so many more than us!”

“So what?” he spits. “Just because they’re more, there’s a law that we have to sacrifice ourselves? What right do they have to live more than I do? What makes me different besides these damned powers I never asked for? Didn’t I try to be the hero? Didn’t they throw it back in my face the moment I lost control?” His voice has started to shiver and he’s sunk into a crouch, hiding his face behind his hands.

It hurts to see him like this. I want to touch him, tell him that it’s going to be okay, say anything to make him feel better. But there’s nothing. My mind is blank. It hits me how long it took him to finally snap like this. He’d always put on this facade of braveness and I’d believed it. Even though I’d felt his pain.

Together, we tried so hard to contain it and still, it wasn’t enough. The worst part about this is that I know what he was like at the beginning, when we’d just swapped bodies. And knowing what his pain is like, who could ever have endured it for this long without being willing to push it onto others?

“Great power great responsibility my ass! I want to live!” Ezra whispers next to me with a sniffle and then looks up with tear-smeared eyes. “Why does that make me a bad person?”

My stomach is hollow. My chest hurts.

Even if somehow, somewhere, there was someone that wouldn’t want to live after having been through so much, what would it matter if Ezra does?

“I don’t think it makes you a bad person,” I say after a while, finally crouching too. “It makes you human.”

It takes him some time to calm down. While he wipes his eyes and concentrates on his breathing, I look up at the stars. If all this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, why does it hurt so fucking much?

With a final sniffle, he looks back in my direction. “What are you going to do, now that you know my plan?”

That’s a good question indeed. And the honest answer is… “I don’t know.” I feel heavy, thinking about it. It is my responsibility to prevent the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands. I’m the only one who can do anything about it. I am the one who has to somehow save everybody and I don’t have the first clue how to go about that. So much for wanting to be left the fuck alone. “But I’m not going to leave you alone in this.” Not only because of the promise we made. I’m the only one in this position and carrying out the duties fate has bestowed upon me doesn’t involve dying. Not immediately, anyway. But if I’m totally honest, that part doesn’t matter, either. It’s because of him. It’s because I care. It’s because I want to be with him.

“Let’s hope I figure it out soon.”

I take my left hand out of my pocket and hold it out for him to take.

“Can you promise me that we’ll keep talking, no matter what happens? This is the only way-” I meant to say more but already, his warm hand is in mine, gently squeezing it.

“Yes. I promise.” Pause. “Y’know, I don’t care what anybody else thinks. You’re the biggest hero in this story.”

“You’d have been a better one,” I blurt before I can even think to stop myself.

He frowns, of course. “But I’m not, so… let’s not get hung up on the what if’s, okay?”

I nod, slowly and a tiny smile appears on his lips.

“And hey, this way, you get to save the world from me instead of killing everybody. Isn’t that something?”

I nod, seriously. “Yeah. I’ll be the superhero.”

“My superhero,” he corrects with a giggle.

“Your superhero.”

And suddenly, it just bubbles out of me. I’m giggling! It’s all just too absurd.

-------------------------------------------------------

Riekah

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asks, watching the two teenagers with a weary gaze. The boy just stopped crying. “She might make him back out.”

He can feel Noah shake his head next to him. “No. He loves her way too much to risk losing her.”

“And what if she leaves him?” It wouldn’t surprise Riekah at all. He expects it, even. The girl isn’t one of them. She’ll never be hunted for who she is. Her powers are too good. She can’t-

Another shake of Noah’s head. “Look,” he says, pointing.

Riekah turns his attention back to the two, only to see them holding hands and… laughing?

“The relationship between these two is something special,” Noah says, thoughtfully. “I’m sure we can find a way to use it to our advantage.”

SeptemberMorgan

Not gonna lie, I'm kinda proud of this one XD
As always, please tell me what you think! Also, by the time this comes online I'll hopefully have put in a new cover text for this story. Please have a look at that as well and give a little feedback; I might still be looking to make improvements :)
Happy Easter to everybody who celebrates it!