Mom guards her immunity juice recipe like the password to Fort Knox. I can’t even help her make the serum, and if she knew I’d told Rebel about it in fourth grade, she’d have a fit. No one else knows it exists, but I think she’s still afraid someone might torture me for the information.
I don’t like to think about anything happening to her, but if it did, where would I be? You’d think she’d want me to know the formula, just in case.
“If you tell me what to add,” I offer, “I could go in and—”
“No.” She throws back a couple aspirin and swallows them without water. “I don’t want you going near the lab. The serum won’t be ready for forty-eight hours, and until then, you’re too vulnerable.”
“What? No,” I argue. “I’m in the middle of a trial. I have to go in to check the results.”
She shakes her head. “Now is not the time for your impractical experiments.”
“They’re not impractical,” I argue as I scrape the scramble onto a plate. My experiments are the only way I’m going to prove myself valuable to the superhero world. They’re my only chance of feeling powerful enough to go after the monsters who killed my dad. Not that I’d tell her that. “Besides, I left my backpack there. I need my stuff.”
Mom takes the plate from me. “It’s not safe.”
I clench my jaw, anger rolling through me. After surviving the villain attack and my fight with Rebel, I’m not in the mood for more bad news. “You can’t just make decisions like that—”
“Actually, I can. I’m your mother. In fact…” She sets her plate down and walks over to my purse. I’m too stunned to react as she reaches in and pulls out my ID badge. “I’m going to make sure you stay away from the lab.”
“Mom, no!” I lunge for the pass.
But I’m too late. She grabs the scissors from the junk drawer and cuts my ID into tiny plastic squares. I watch in horror as my badge—my access—falls to the tile floor in a series of little pings.
For several seconds I can’t breathe. It seems like such an insignificant piece of plastic. But that ID with its magnetic strip and RFID chip represents my chance to do something that matters. My experiments matter. They make me matter.
And she just took it all away, like it was nothing. Like I’m nothing.
“I’ll get another one.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Heather likes me. She’ll print me a new one.”
Mom casually picks up her plate and forks a bite of egg. “The lab is on lockdown. No new passes are being issued until the security breach is eliminated.”
The security breach—a.k.a. my supposed best friend.
Great. Just great. My life is getting better by the second. I swear I’m going to kill Rebel.
I clench my fists at my sides to keep from punching something. I might not have super strength, but I could do some serious damage to a stack of dishes right now.
“Hopefully they’ll have the new security measures in place quickly. Rex is trying to sneak cameras into the lab again, but I’ll tear them out if he does. That damn place already feels like NSA headquarters,” she says, her voice growing distant and distracted. “We’re just lucky the villains didn’t get to sub-level three, or he would have the entire facility on military lockdown.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
“Sub-level three?” I echo.
Our lab is on sub-level one with the other neurological and bioengineering facilities. Chemical and physical labs are on sub-level two. There is no sub-level three.
But this is the third time in less than twenty-four hours that I’ve heard about a secret level. The first two I can dismiss as crazy conspiracy nonsense. My mom, however…
Her eyes widen for a split-second before she shakes her head and laughs. “Sub-level two. I meant sub-level two. It’s been a long day.”
Rebel’s words echo in my mind. My mom is the most senior scientist at ESH Lab. If anyone had access to a secret level, she would. My chest tightens.
I must be so tired that I’m having aural hallucinations. Except…except Rebel seemed so sure. As did Draven and his friends. And even my mother said it casually at first, like its existence is obvious.
“I’m exhausted,” Mom says. “I’ve been up for nearly thirty-six hours, and if I’m lucky, I’ll sleep until morning.”
I nod and manage to force out a whispered, “Good night.”
She stops in the doorway and turns to me, a soft smile on her face. “In the meantime, don’t go getting into fights with any villains.”
I nod weakly as she walks upstairs.
They can’t be right. There can’t be a secret sub-level where heroes torture and experiment on kidnapped villains. Evil or not, villains are still people. They’re still human and deserve basic human rights. Superheroes are the good guys. They don’t hurt people. They sure as hell don’t torture them.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, palms splayed on the counter to hold myself up, mind whirling while I try to make sense of it all. Finally I shake my head, knocking the crazy thoughts from my mind.