I’ve grown so used to hiding my immunity. What am I going to do now that I actually have to protect myself from the powers?
“Damn it.” Draven snaps out of the fog first. “I screwed up. I should have wiped their minds.”
“You didn’t have time, dude,” Dante insists.
Nitro shakes his head. “Not a chance.”
“They knew we were villains.” Draven pounds a fist against the van door. “There will be retribution. We need to warn Uncle Anton.”
Dante digs out his phone, punches an access code, and dials. “Come on, come on.” He listens impatiently and, when the call presumably goes to voice mail, pounds the screen so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. Then he starts texting.
“Where should we go?” Rebel asks. “I can’t drive around forever.”
No one has an answer for her. Dante is trying to reach his dad, and Draven and Nitro are sending out a series of text messages to warn their fellow villains that the superheroes will be looking for payback. Jeremy is typing furiously on his laptop, searching for…I don’t know what. And I can’t stop thinking about my vanishing immunity.
How can I save my mom when I don’t even know if I can save myself?
Rebel turns onto another street and guns it, steering the van up a steep mountain road. I lurch against Draven’s side, wincing when my arm smacks into his. I can’t believe how much it hurts. It’s been so long since I suffered a super-related injury that I forgot what they feel like.
Trying to hide the pain, I regain my balance and put some distance between us. He turns and frowns at me, his gaze darting to my arm.
Suddenly, Rebel slams to a stop. She’s driven us to a small mountain park that overlooks the city. It’s a beautiful view of the twinkling lights of Boulder and the vast dark of the plains beyond. It’s way more peaceful than the reality of what is happening down there behind closed superhero doors.
“We need to regroup,” she says, cutting the engine. “No one should be looking for us up here.”
Rebel flings open her door, jumps down, and starts pacing off some of her nervous energy. Nitro and Dante pile out too. Jeremy takes one look at Draven’s scowl, and then he’s struggling to climb down on his injured ankle.
“Hey, a little help,” he calls out, and Nitro gives him a hand. They hobble toward the low stone fence at the edge of the overlook.
If he can hobble, then it probably isn’t broken. That’s one good thing.
I start to follow everyone out—the crisp mountain air will be good for clearing our heads—but Draven puts out a hand to stop me.
“Can we—can we talk for a sec?”
I nod. “Sure.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I frown. What does he have to be sorry for?
“I didn’t mean to scare you back at the lab,” he continues. “I just—when they mentioned the tattoos, I thought it was Deacon in that bag. I lost it.”
“Totally understandable.” Knowing how much he loves his cousin I’m surprised he was able to pull back at all.
“No, I mean I really lost it.” He lowers his gaze. “I lost control of my power. I never lose control of my power.”
“So…that thing you did,” I venture. “You did that with your psy ability?”
He hesitates. “No.”
“No?” I echo. “Then what—oh. Oh.”
If his memory-wipe ability didn’t take down those guards, that means he has a second power.
Second powers are extremely rare in the super world. Extremely rare. In fact, only children with both a hero and a villain parent are gifted with double powers.
The implications shake me deep inside.
One of Draven’s parents is a hero.
Oh my God.
“So one of your—”
“Yes.” He cuts me off. “My mom was a villain.”
Which tells me two things I didn’t know. First, that his mom is dead. I place a sympathetic hand on his knee. No matter how long it’s been, it’s never easy to lose a parent. I would know.
The second thing it tells me is that Draven’s dad is—or was—a hero.
Stunned is a ridiculous understatement.
I have a million questions, but I can’t ask him. Not when he’s looking at me like that. Not when he whispers, “No one knows. Only Dante, Deacon, and Uncle Anton.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“I know it scared you, and I needed to explain. I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
The silence stretches as I process his revelations. Not just his second power and his mixed parentage, but the fact that it bothers him to think I’m afraid of him. And how much courage it must take for him to trust me with a secret almost no one else knows.
“I would never hurt you, Kenna, even if I could.” He stops then and glances away, his hands fisting and unfisting by his sides. I start to answer, but then his gaze returns and my breath catches at the intensity in his icy blue eyes. “I only want to protect you.”