The feeling of Astrid reading his echo isn’t something easily defined. At first, it’s a tickle—if she was feeling a room, it probably wouldn’t be noticeable. But Astrid didn’t just touch his fingertips, she dug deep, probing for something beyond his current emotions. She wanted his echo. His memories. And she pushed her own feelings back on him. It was akin to having her fingers under his skin. She felt what he felt, and he felt it back in return. A circle of energy and emotion; he has no doubt that with a little practice she can become even more powerful.
“Ready?” she asks, holding her hands over his.
They’re not in virgin territory this time. Owen closes his eyes and does his best to clear his head. “Yes.”
Her fingers are cool against his, but warm instantly on contact. He feels the tickle first and the probing second. Then his brain peels apart like an onion.
The backyard is large with a garage in one corner. A basketball hoop hangs on the front, the net ripped and weathered. Music flows from inside the building and there’s the rhythmic clink of metal on metal.
“That’s just Junior lifting weights,” a voice says beside him. “He wants to be the strongest man alive when he grows up. That seems silly to me. Who wants be strong?”
I would, Owen thinks. He’s seen Junior’s muscles. They’re bigger than any he’s ever seen before. He opens pickle jars and carries out the garbage. Ms. Rosalie likes him because he’s nice and doesn’t hurt the kids.
Muscles are something you can control, unlike the darkness that builds in Owen. All he can do is make things disappear. Or change things—usually when he doesn’t want to. The doctor said the shot they gave him would help him control his mind. He doesn’t feel in control, though, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Come on,” she says, tugging his elbow toward the playset in the backyard. The girl with big eyes and pretty brown hair has been working on it, or so she said. “You’ve got to see my ship.”
All Owen sees is the sad-looking wooden structure. There are two working swings, but the slide has a bend in the middle. Demetria pulls a small object out of her pocket. It’s a small plastic boat with white sails. Like a pirate ship.
“Remember the book Ms. Rosalie made us read? About Peter Pan and Captain Hook?”
Owen nods. He didn’t care for it much. He likes comic books.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she says. Her brown eyes get a faraway look. “Having a magical place to escape to. A friend who can fly.” She smiles at him. “I think we can go there.”
“What?” he asks. He knows why Demetria likes him. He showed her what he can do. Their powers are similar. He can change things and she can bring objects to life. Together, they are probably very dangerous.
“I think we can turn this yard into our Neverland. I know we can’t leave. The doctors would find us and Ms. Rosalie would get in trouble, plus there’s cherry pie for dinner and I don’t want to miss that, but we can still make Neverland happen.”
The next moments are a blur of boats and treehouses and mean crocodiles on the ground. They’ve built an entire world in the whole backyard, and she calls him Peter and in return, he names her Wendy.
Owen blinks, his mind yanked back to the present.
“You okay?” Quinn says, his voice cutting through the haze. Owen blinks and finds the man crouched between them.
Astrid nods, but her eyes are pinned to Owen’s.
“That’s all you did,” she says.
“What?” Quinn asks. “What did he do?”
“He played with her. That’s all you did. It’s all she wanted.”
“That’s all?”
“What did you say about her mental illness?” Astrid asks. “She lives in a fantasy? That’s all she needed, someone to go down the rabbit hole with her. When she found you again, maybe she thought she could have it back.”
Owen hasn’t spoken since coming out of his memories. It’s the first thing he’s remembered about his childhood—and it wasn’t bad. Demetria was his friend. Everything feels very confusing.
“Owen?” Astrid asks. She makes an effort not to touch him again. “Are you okay?”
He nods, feeling exposed—raw. The look in Astrid’s eyes knows she understands this. “Thank you for doing that. Hopefully getting to the rest of my memories won’t be so difficult. I will say that going to that place helped me figure out how we’re going to defeat Kincade and keep Demetria in check.”
Quinn perks up. “How?”
“By doing the unthinkable. Doing what your mentors set us up to do. The reason behind all of this.”
“What’s that?” she asks, but she knows. They both do.
“The right thing.”
Chapter Eighteen
Owen
The house is tucked between two vacant lots—both filled with junk, trash, and an obscene amount of drug paraphernalia. Owen adjusts his mask, getting used to the screen in front of his eyes. He’s been wearing it in training, but it’s still weird.
“Stop messing with your domino,” Casper hisses in his ear. “It jerks the camera around. I’m getting vertigo.”
“It’s too tight,” he complains, shifting the elastic strap in the back.
“It’s molded exactly to your face. Echo sent me measurements. The old one was too big.”
“If I get lines on my face…”
“Shut up, you big baby. I’ve never heard a guy—a superhero, at that—complain so freaking much.”
Owen mutters a swear word, tired of the bickering. “Any intel?”
“Echo is across the street. Charger is under the front picture window. I’m getting heat sensors off four people inside. Two aren’t moving, which makes me think they’re the homeowners. Probably tied up.”
“That leaves two home invaders.”
“Yep.” Casper pauses and clicks everyone on the comm. Their faces all appear in the corner of the screen. “I’ve been working on something that can get us better information. Now seems like the time to use it.”
“You better hurry,” Astrid says. “I’m not waiting much longer. We got the call twenty minutes ago.”
Take-out from Pesto’s Pizza had just arrived at the gym when all three phones lit up with an alert. The same push number as last time—a number Casper tracked back to Kincade. He’s now sending them crimes in progress way before the police arrive.
The man has eyes everywhere.
Quinn assumes it’s a test, so they suited up and got down to the middle of the Swamp as fast as possible. Home invasion. Shots fired. It was their job to save the day, or rather prove themselves to that slimy bastard Kincade.
“Give me two minutes.”
“We don’t have that long,” Quinn whispers.
“Deal with it,” Casper says.
The whirring sound comes from overhead, Owen jumps, trying to figure out where it’s coming from. A small, card-sized triangle zips through the air.
“Is that you?” he asks.
Casper laughs. “Yep. A recon drone.”
Footage runs in the corner of his eye mask. The others can see it too. The goblin is right, the information is priceless. From the window, the crime scene is visible. A woman and a man, tied to a chair. The man is bleeding. The woman crying. And a young boy squirms in her lap.
“Fuck. A kid,” Astrid mutters. “That information would have been helpful, Kincade.”
“It’s almost like he wants us to fail,” Owen adds.
With the new information, a plan unfolds, and he takes his spot at the back of the house. They’ll come in at once. Quinn will blow the lights. Astrid will track their movements with her senses and he’ll do what he does best—mess with their heads.
Owen’s screen goes blank, giving him full visualization. He’s on the back step, careful not to trip over a tricycle, when the fuses blow. Voices raise inside the house and he hears the glass break at the same time he kicks in the door. Running in the room, he flicks his hands, altering the guns--at least to the invaders’ eyes--from weapons into a ball of spiders.
“Ah!” one yells, dropping the gun on the ground. The mother and child scream. The spiders scatter and the gun returns to shape. The invader and Quinn lock eyes and they both dive for it.
The other guy, bald, ugly, and with a crappy tattoo on his neck, flinches but doesn’t drop his gun. He aims it at Owen and fires. Owen ducks and pulls the two blades from his waist. He’s been practicing on his own, figuring out how to make these weapons work with his ability. A blade isn’t always a blade, he realized. It’s just an object that he can alter.