Stupid empathy.
She didn’t let herself do it very often anymore, but sometimes she couldn’t help but think what life would have been like if she’d grown up without the Infinite serum. Evan had told them, after his research at their new in-home lab, that they were probably already gifted humans before the serum.
Each of their bodies reacted differently to the serum by enhancing their natural predispositions. Evan was always going to be a problem solver, Alik was always going to have had an excellent memory and Meg was always destined to be hypersensitive.
That doesn’t seem like a very useful natural “gift,” does it? As metas, Meg’s brothers had these cool nearly superpowers. However, she had always just been a “stupid emotional superconductor.”
Watch out bad guys, or else I’ll cry you into submission! Give up your wicked ways before I subject you to my tears of torture! Surrender before I psychobabble you into a blubbering fool!
Meg shook her head angrily as she sprinted the last mile back to the ranch’s barn that she and Alik retrofitted into a gym. Without missing a step, Maze panted into the room at her heels and headed to the faucet and the water dish beneath.
So accustomed to their routine, she didn’t even bother with the light switch as she slapped the spigot on for him. His thirsty slurps echoed through the wide room. Meg paced, hands on her hips until his bowl was full of fresh water and his slobbering face nudged her sweaty leg reminding her to turn off the water. Still wallowing in her dark thoughts, Meg yanked the handle off and ran to the huge, thick punching bag hanging from a beam in the center of the room.
Dust from the dirt floor plumed at her feet as she moved, delivering strike after powerful strike to the inanimate bag. Meg’s fists begged to feel the beating, her legs screamed to deliver throat cracking strikes. Without thought, her body responded to the years of conditioning.
Margo taught them from as far back as they could remember how to hold their bodies in perfect form, to use every movement efficiently, powerfully. Her fists flew into the bag, pounding again and again.
Meg’s thoughts were slipping further into the darkness with every hit.
You want some more truth? The truth is I’m barely keeping my head above water. The blackness she was exposed to in Williams felt like it latched on to her and wouldn’t let go. She sometimes felt caught in an undertow, being pulled further and further away from the safety of shore.
Since this seems to be a morning of confessions, here’s the mother of them all: Creed haunts me.
Her heart screamed in pain at the loss of the blue-eyed avenging angel. The look on his face as they drove away two months ago, his hand rubbing his chest like his heart was shattering in slow motion with every rotation of the tires pulling her further away from him. He knew she was leaving him to die alone.
Anguish at the thought yanked a scream from her throat.
Meg flew into a whirl of round house kicks, elbow strikes, palm thrusts and another battery of full-body fist flurries. Her emotions were sheer anguish oscillating between images of Creed and the macabre visions from Williams. Wherever she looked, she was tormented. She opted to focus on her memories of Creed.
A crisp image of his crooked smile flashed in front of her. Her skin ached at the memory of the way he held her in his strong arms, though he had never been held himself. She remembered the look in his eyes when he shared his fears of being soulless. She could hear his voice crack with emotion when he shared how tormented he felt to have a brother hate him, beat him religiously and try to kill him. Creed’s masculine, gruff voice echoed in her mind. The sound of his heart beating in her ear the few times she got to hold him. That strong whoosh-whooshing rhythm she would do anything to hear again. The large, calloused hands holding hers made them look like a child’s in comparison. Meg only wanted a chance to love him, but all she got were brief moments in time. All she got was enough memories to know how close she was to her soul mate. She never even got to touch those beautiful lips she stared at as he spoke—sharing things with her she knew he had never expressed with anyone before, ever.
Meg ran up to the pole Alik installed just last week and flipped her body up, flung back, hooking her knees. She hung for a moment, her tearing eyes only seeing a blurry Maze watching her with worry from the other side of the room. She felt the blood rush to her head as her long, dark curls fell loose from the pony that finally gave up holding her mane at some point during her fight with the punching bag. Meg’s hair was so long, it lightly dusted the floor as she hung.