The Freaks

chapter ten

The ten abilities I took from the Freaks show along my back now.

It's the same pain I felt when I took my first power, when Dara gave it to me, but it no longer makes me feel weak. I feel like I can really do this—that I can go back above and complete a mission that could quite literally cost me my life. I almost lost it once, if it weren't for Serena and Nox saving me from the execution.

But I'm not going to let anything like that happen again. Not to me, not to the other Freaks, not to my friends.

I will defeat the Soldiers.

"You did really well back there," Serena says quietly from behind me, the water-soaked cloth halting against my ripped-open back.

I turn my head to try and look at her over my shoulder, but I must be too tired for my neck to move too far. "It almost killed me though." I say it with a smile on my face, hoping she can hear the joking tone to my voice.

She laughs lightly, dissolving my worries. "I wouldn't have let it get that far, Luca."

"Thank you for trying to stop her."

She lets out a little bit of air from her nose. "I didn't stop her, per se, but I made her give you a break." She returns to wiping a moment later, the liquid slowly cascading down my flesh. "So, you're welcome for that."

I smile down at my lap, concentrating on Serena's touch and nothing else. I don't even feel the pain of the warm water seeping into my wounds anymore. My mind reels with what might happen when I'm up above, with the Soldiers. Even though Sigma told me—demanded, really—that I shouldn't think about what will happen, because I won't focus all my energy on training and power practice.

I'm trying to do what Sigma says, but the bad scenarios in my head are too overpowering. I've already thought about it too much that I've started coming up with scenarios and ways of how I can't do this mission. They are way more believable.

My mind is so focused that I don't realize when Serena stops wiping the cloth against my skin, her warm touch no longer against my cool flesh. It takes me a beat to focus again, then another to look up from my lap.

"Fifteen," I hear her say under her breath.

"What?" I ask softly, my voice just as quiet.

She is silent for a moment. Then, "Fifteen wounds. Fifteen scars. Fifteen abilities." Her fingers graze along the ragged cuts from my neck, traveling down to the small of my back. "Do you feel any different?"

Almost powerful. No. Too powerful.

"Not really," I lie.

Her fingers don't stop moving against my skin, and I don't mind one bit. "I know I would." Her voice is quiet, almost a whisper. "When I first got my ability, I felt so much more..."

"Stronger?"

One of her fingers stop against a scar, and she doesn't move it away. "Yes. I did feel stronger." She goes silent again. I almost think she has nothing else to say, but then she speaks up again. "But I don't think about it too much."

"Why not?"

She breathes through her nose deeply. "I don't want the feeling of being stronger to corrupt me."

I pull away from her touch and turn around to face her, peering deeply into her dark eyes so she understands the seriousness of my next words. "That won't happen to you, Serena." My eyes search around her face, taking in the perfect warm brown colour of her skin. "You're too good for that to happen."