The Unfortunates

Chapter Thirteen

I woke up to light.

For a moment I couldn't remember where I was and I backtracked through my memories. The orb. The blue light. Aviance couldn't fly. She threw me out a window, my mask flew off, warm blood against the cool concrete—

"Leah?" A familiar voice said softly.

I moaned with pain and suddenly became aware of soft fabric against my scraped cheeks as I shifted on the ground, throwing my arms out and opening my eyes to a blue sky above me.

Then a face swam into my field of vision. "Leah?" the voice said again.

This time I remembered who it was and I worked up enough spit in my dry mouth to breath out the word. "Mason?"

"Yeah, babe," he said softly, taking my hand as I slowly sat up. "How are you doing?"

I pulled my hand away to clutch my throbbing head. Even the simple motion of sitting had sent waves of pain through my bruised body. "Not... not great," I said, my voice shaking.

"I'm not surprised. I'm so sorry."

I looked around suddenly. We were enclosed in a dome-like area of golden light, in a crisscross pattern. It would have been gorgeous if I didn't immediately realize its implications and feel sick to my stomach.

"We lost."

"Pretty badly, too." Mason shook his head and laughed a little, then gestured to the other side of the prison. Anna, Chase, and Zenna all lay on their sides, breathing steadily but unmoving otherwise. "There's this weird guy who can zap you with some charge and boom—you're knocked out. He did it to me too, but I recovered more quickly."

"Are they okay?" I asked nervously.

Mason picked his mask up off the ground, which I'd just realized was making the ground softer for my head to lay on as I was unconscious. "Yeah, they're fine. I've checked."

He motioned to a place outside the prison where the Supers had gathered, talking quietly, glancing over at us once in a while. "They figured out who we are, if you didn't notice."

I groaned and let my head fall in my lap. "We lost so badly... there's no chance of anonymity anymore either..."

"Well, I feel like that's the least of our problems."

And suddenly the whole week came flooding back to me in a rush and I felt a lump in my throat. "Mason... we... we messed up."

"Yeah, we really should have learned to fight more before we tried to take on Aviance again."

"No! We shouldn't have been doing this at all!" All the feelings I had held inside suddenly came out in a stream of words. "Anna and Chase and I let you and Zenna convince us that killing Supers was okay, it was what was best..." I started to sob through my words, making my head and body ache even more. "But it's not. Have you ever seen the superheroes in movies fight the good guys?" I cried harder, angrily wiping my eyes with the torn sleeve of my uniform. "No! We're not the good g-guys, Mason. They were right. Aviance was right. We were the villains all along!"

I put my head in Mason's chest and cried, gulping air as he patted my back (gently).

I cried for Wildflower, for the beautiful soul, just excited to help the world, that we'd snuffed out of existence before she'd really gotten a chance.

I cried for Anna, for dragging her into this mess when she'd had such big plans for life that could be over, when I knew she had anxiety and could be permanently scarred by this.

I cried for Mason, for my love for him borne out of blood when we should have just been kids having a high school fling.

I cried for Aviance, for we really had ruined her life, and though I was so angry still at her arrogance, I knew that she didn't mean to kill my mother and she didn't deserve what we'd put her through.