“Huh. I never thought about that before. So I guess that means I get to be the superhero. Cool. I’ll be Wonder Woman.”
Tate snorted. “Fine by me. We definitely need Wonder Woman.” He went back to studying the letter. “This is serious. No one would go through all the trouble Cora did to set all of this up without a major reason. We’re really in trouble.”
“Yep. Us and the others.”
“Others?”
“Keep reading.”
He moved to the next page, which was wetter and harder to decipher.
Tate finished reading as much as he could make out, and then looked up at Foster, who had started pacing back and forth in front of Cora’s desk. “There are more like us.”
“Yeah. Freaks like us. In danger like us. Being hunted like us.”
“But this Doctor Stewart guy, he’s your dad.”
“Yeah, well, Jim Jones had kids, too.”
“Man, this is bad.” Carefully, Tate picked up the last page of the letter, which was soaked. Half of it was illegible, but even that half was enough to send skitters of fear up his spine.
“It’s hard to make out, but does that really say this Dr. Stewart guy experimented on us genetically?” Tate realized his hand was shaking and he put the paper down.
“It does.”
“Damn, that’s creepy.”
“Right?” Foster rubbed her arms like she was cold. “Makes me feel all crawly inside.”
“Hey, no. We’re not gonna do that,” Tate said firmly.
“Do what?”
“We’re not gonna start thinking we’re freaks.”
“Uh, Nighthawk, we are freaks. Why do you think you can see so well at night? Why do you think you threw around a tornado like a gigantic, deadly football? We. Are. Freaks. Doctor Rick did something to us. On a genetic level. Your public school education obviously isn’t allowing the gravity of that biology to sink in, so let me educate you. We might not even be human.”
“First, I’m good at biology—public school or not. And I do get how bi zarre this is, but tell me this, what good does it do to wallow in pity and call ourselves freaks?”
She stopped pacing and fisted her hands on her hips. “I don’t wallow.”
“I thought you said you were honest.”
Foster frowned. “I’m wallowing?”
“Totally.”
She cocked her head to the side, studying him. “Why aren’t you wallowing?”
He shrugged. “I’m a ‘glass half full’ kind of guy. Sure, we’re science experiments, but I’ve always loved my night vision. Maybe once we figure out all these blurry, water-damaged parts we’ll love being, uh”—Tate looked down at the letter. Finding the right part, he read aloud—“‘linked.’”
“You really think so?”
“Yep. Why didn’t you tell me you have the night vision thing, too?”
Foster lifted a shoulder. “I don’t, um…”
“Trust people because they suck,” Tate finished for her.
She flashed him a hint of a real smile. “Ten points for the brunette.”
“Could we make another deal?”
Her smile faded like a snuffed candle. “Depends.”
“How about you stop keeping things from me and I promise anything you say to me goes into the vault.”
Foster furrowed her brow as her green-eyed gaze went to the Batcave. “Vault?”
“Not a literal vault. It’s what my g-pa and I always say when we tell each other a secret. It goes into the vault and it doesn’t come out unless the person who put it in there, which would be you, says it’s okay to tell someone else.”
“What if it’s never okay to tell someone else?”
“Then it stays in the vault,” he said.
“You’re serious?”
“G-pa and I never joke about the vault. It’s for real.”
Foster blew out a long breath. “All right. Deal. But if you mess that up, even once—I’ll never—”
“I won’t,” Tate interrupted. “I swear on the memory of my mom and dad.”
Foster’s eyes widened. “I believe you.” She drew another deep breath, like she was getting ready to dive into a pool, and then blurted. “I have this Jedi mind trick thing I can do.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if I concentrate, or maybe want it bad enough, I can make people do what I want them to do.”
“Like Yoda? Seriously?”
“Like Yoda. Seriously.” She picked at her fingernails. “I used it on you accidentally when I told you to go the fuck to sleep in the truck. But I didn’t know it would work. It never did before—not really. Then while you were asleep I went into the Quickie Mart and there was this bubba in there. He was watching the news and we were on it.”
“What!”
“Yeah, someone must have recorded us. It was when you tossed the tornado away. He recognized me and was going to call some news guy he knew. I panicked and used my Jedi mind trick. On purpose. And it worked. I told him to forget he’d ever seen me, and he did.”
“Holy crap. You Obi-Wan Kenobi–ed him! And me!”
She kept picking at her fingernails. “Well, I didn’t mean to Obi-Wan you. Only him. But, yeah, I did.”
“That’s freaking awesome!”
Foster blinked. “You actually think so?”
“Are you kidding? That’s a super helpful power to have! Of course I’ve gotta watch that you don’t go over to the Dark Side, but still. Super helpful.”
“I wouldn’t go to the Dark Side.”
“Said Anakin Skywalker, like, a bunch of times before he went over to the Dark Side.” Tate felt a rush of excitement. “Hey! What if all we have to do is find this Doctor Rick guy and have you use your Jedi mind trick on him and make him tell us everything?”
All the color drained from Foster’s face. “No. I don’t want to see him again. Ever.”
“But Foster, he could—”
“He pretended to die. He left Cora and me. He fucked with our genetics when we were fetuses and then he sent his goons to capture us. Who cares if he’s telling us everything if he’s also trying to use us or destroy us? No, Tate. Let’s figure out how to find the other kids. Bring them here. And then decide what the hell we’re going to do without that crazy bastard having any part of it. Okay?” Her green eyes beseeched him.