A Hero in the Dark: 2nd Edition

Chapter 81: March

Math, English, lunch—except this time, it's not just Matt. It's the whole football team. "Go back to your own school, freak!"

"Get out of here, alien-girl!"

"Why don't you superpower you way to oblivion already?!"

"Get fucking lost!"

I try to ignore them as best I can, but it's still difficult.

Art class with Mr. Spadafora—a tall, toned man with a straight brown taper fade—is chill and easy, but his lectures are boring. Thankfully, we don't have that many. He mostly just gives us brief instruction at the beginning of class and leaves us to work on our own projects.

As for our projects, he writes a word on the board at the start of each class. We're meant to sketch whatever that comes to mind based on that—ideally, the first thing—and each assignment is due before the bell rings.

Today's word is care.

I open my sketchbook, flip to the next blank page, and wait for something to come to mind, anything, but the only thing that comes is him. I try to picture John instead, but my mind always returns to him. I shake my head and blow out a breath, then start sketching.

Occasionally, I glance around to see what other people are drawing; most people sketch meds, like kits and bandages, syringes, needles, prescription drugs... and suddenly, I feel a lot more self-conscious about what I'm drawing. It's almost like I'm doing something wrong, like I'm drawing the wrong thing, the wrong way, and I hate that, but I keep working anyway, it being the only thing on my mind. I stick to the 4B pencil, only reaching for 6B a few times. I'm not good at realistic three-dimensional art, so I keep tight on a more animated, 2-D approach. I stick to lines and curves—small ones—and sketch lightly so that if I make a mistake, it isn't hard to undo.

Big round nose, dark black eyes, hard lips smiling proudly, ears, neck with a thick strip of purple across it, and a sea of scars over his skin, then the hair. Hair is always the hardest, but the scars take forever. It takes a while to get it right, and multiple revisits of the eraser to start fresh. I always hated this part of art: constant fixing, adjusting, erasing the mistakes, starting over again, but at the same time, it's... bittersweet? It lifts me in a way that I can't explain.

I'm so wrapped in the process of transforming the hair piece by piece, working from memory but also trying to configure it to match the style of the art, that I jump when my teacher speaks behind me, "I know him," he says, and I have the sudden impulsion to hide my sketch in my chest. "What was his name again? Saytikis?"

"Setrákus," I correct and immediately feel guilty about it.

"He destroyed New York, didn't he?" asks a girl at our table.

"Duh!" shouts a guy beside her. "He almost destroyed the world!"

"Why him?" Mr. S asks. They're all staring at me now, waiting for an answer, and an incredible uncomfortable heat floods up my back into my shoulders and into my cheeks.

"I... I met him a while ago..." I start, trying not to meet anyone's eyes. "I hated him at first. But he... he helped me..." I wish I could sink underneath my chair. "He cared about me, and I cared about him. I hate that now, but I did..."

You are the most honourable and delightful associate I've ever had the opportunity of meeting, and you will do more than I can say... I shake the memory away, only to find that it's quiet at our table. I gaze down at the sketch.

"Keep up the good work, Emily," Mr. S says, clapping me on the back before he moves on to the next table. I hand it in five minutes before the bell and he grades it a C. I'm both disappointed in that and detached at the same time, and ergo, throw it out in the bin out in the hall.

My last class of the day is gym with Coach Wallis, though some call him Coach Walrus behind his back. He's a chubby man, which makes me wonder why he's teaching phys. ed. He gets us to begin our usual warm up: ten laps around the perimeter; I forget how many I've done so far. My legs start to slow. Although I know I could use my ergokinesis to amplify my speed and boost my energy, I don't. It'll only take more than I have, and I don't need that today.

I'm acutely aware of a stout guy running close by, but I don't pay him much mind, at least until he catches up to me. "Hey," he says, slightly winded, I think. "I'm Gordan. It's Emily, right? The one from TV?"

One from TV? Really? "Yeah. More or less."

He jogs alongside me. "I saw what you did in New York," he says. "Cool. What do you do exactly? If you don't mind me asking, that is."

"Energy," I huff, a little ticked that he's talking to me. "I control energy."

"Cool." Is that all this guy can say? "Maybe one day you can show me how it's done, yeah?"

I give him a look. "What's that supposed to mean? I can't show you my Legacy."

He frowns. "Why not?"

"Well, it's not like I can teach you how to do it too," I mutter, turning back to face forward as we turn another corner. "It's my Legacy, a rare one. It can only be used by me, and... it's, um, a personal one. I don't think I should show you."

"C'mon, please? You can lift things with your mind too, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Show me how!" His enthusiasm surprises me. Although this isn't an incredibly new occurrence anymore—countless people come up to me to either mock or beg me to show them how it's done too—but I never thought anyone would ask so intensely. "Between you and me, I can do it too, and I was hoping you could show me how to—"

"I'm sorry," I interject. "I can't." Coach Wallis waves at us, a gesture to indicate to anyone still running to call it in. "If you have telekinesis too, your best bet to train is with Number Nine at the Human Garde Academy."

"I don't want to go there," he says. "I want you to train me."

"I can't." Surely, he can find someone else or some other way to train himself than reaching out to me: a girl that nearly got the world destroyed.

"Why not?"

"I just can't." Before he can say anything else, I'm already back in the middle with the others. I sit with them, at the back, and Coach Wallis explains what we're doing today: European dodgeball.