The Undoing Of Heroes | ✓

seventeen

seventeen

I HAD KISSED MY cousin.

The more I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense. And the grosser it became, too. 

Mom had told me that my father had a brother, Gray's father. But my father's brother, essentially my uncle, was unaware of his wife's infidelity that had birthed Callum. 

It just didn't make any sense. It was hard wrapping my head around it, and hard comprehending why my mother had kept it from me all these years. 

I shook my head, kicking an empty soda can littering the ground. It'd grown darker, and it was nearing  9 pm. I'd left the motel as soon as mom was done explaining, and I'd dodged Gray when I saw him returning in the hallway. 

What was I supposed to tell him, anyway? I shook my head, kicking the soda can again, sending it skittering into an alley. 

The alley was dark and narrow with cracked brick walls lining both edges. A full container stood adjacent to the wall, filled of trash bags bursting with everything from banana peels to empty pizza boxes.  

The typical place a young woman wouldn't go into alone. The darkness alone would've sent skitters slithering along anyone's spine, but I saw a lone light fastened to one of the walls flicker. I narrowed my eyes at it, and the lightbulb flickered once before bursting with light, illuminating the night. 

I smiled, content, and continued kicking the soda can until I reached the end of the alley, the narrow pathway opening up into a wide yet empty road. The pavement wasn't lined with residential buildings, but dark, empty offices and a few locations that were for sale according to the fancy signs in the middle of their windows. 

My feet carried me down the street, the only sound coming from the now buckled can. The sky was dark above me, streaked with remnants of a vivid orange and pale silver. The sun hung low in the horizon, and if I blinked it seemed to wink at me. 

You're a nutcase. 

I bent my knee again, preparing to send the can skittering across the pavement when it jerked left. 

"What the hell?" I mumbled, crouching down to inspect it. It jerked further left, then dragged itself across the street, into an alley. 

I narrowed my eyes as the can stumbled over the edge of the other pavement and rolled into the darkness. I felt like a fish watching a worm impaled on a hook wriggle. Tempting, sure. But surely a trap. 

I recognized other supers when I saw their powers, and this was clearly magnetism. Of some sort. I wasn't sure, however I knew I wouldn't go after it. I couldn't.

I did. 

You're an idiot, the world's biggest idiot, I thought in a chant, but my strides never faltered. Before I knew it, my hand rested flat against the cracked surface of the dry, old bricks forming the walls on either side of the alley. 

I saw the soda can, buckled and broken, standing upright. Beckoning me to come closer. 

Maybe it was my current emotional turmoil that made me do it, clouding all sense and judgment. Maybe it was curiosity. Whatever it was, it was shitty and idiotic but promised something adventurous.