Runaways: Book II

XV

I was about to explode.

In that moment I was utterly petrified. The image of the explosion kept burning into my skull. I could feel that same energy building, and I knew this time it would be ten times as worse. I was literally a ticking time bomb.
I was at a loss of what to do, so I simply sat in the corner of the cell, and rocked there as I stared at Peter on the floor across the compound, with closed eyes and his chest heaving behind the glowing electrified bars.
I lied there and wondered about what was going through his unconscious mind. I hoped with all my being that it was better than anything that was going on now. Hopefully he was in a perfect dream world, unable to sense any of the horror and pain, that were both so strong now that I could sense them through the thick walls of the building.
A door opened with a slam and the soldier returned, heading directly toward me and checking his watch.
"Time's up," he stated to me as he unlocked the cell.
He saw me shivering in the corner with my eyes bloodshot and gave a disgusted look.
"Oh, cmon. Have some more dignity. You look like one of those mutant freaks right now. Get up!"
I couldn't move. All I could do was tremble there in the shadows, wishing I would wake up from this terrible nightmare and be back in the mansion.
"Get up! I told you to get up!"
I couldn't even look at him. I just stared at the floor with wide eyes as the dark energy wrapped itself around my neck.
He suddenly grabbed me by shoulder and threw me against the metal wall with a loud bang. I slid down to the floor as he stood over me and stepped on my hair, keeping my head in place.
Peter awoke with the commotion and began to scream across the compound,
"Stop! Don't touch her! I'm the mutant! Don't touch her!"
The man was deaf to Peter's commands. Peter rammed himself against the bars, attempting to break through and yelling as his skin burned against the electricity.
The soldier grabbed a pistol from his side and aimed it blankly at my forehead.
After a while Peter simply resorted to just screaming my name, desperately staring from the distance.
And in the break of a second the energy built up in my chest blasted out of me as a never-ending chain of words spilled from my mouth,
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry for killing those people! I'm sorry for dragging you into all of this Peter! I'm sorry for leaving you that night! I can't live like this anymore! I can't keep living being so scared of myself all the time! I'm sorry!"
As the words kept flowing, beams of multi-chromatic energy shot out from my palms and chest in a supernova, the light blinding me from the destruction I knew I was causing in those moments.
The energy abruptly stopped and I fell to the floor, still conscious, but only strong enough to stare at the blackened compound and burnt remains.
I had destroyed everything except for the metal plated doors.
Tears rivered down my cheeks and onto the floor until I was lying in a puddle as a terrible thought kept replaying.
I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.
I continued to whisper relentlessly to myself,
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."
I heard a voice call out among the room,
"___? ___..."
I lifted my head a couple inches off the ground and saw Peter behind the electrified bars, which had managed to protect him from the explosion.
"Peter!" I called out, believing for a moment that he was an illusion.
I painfully stood up and struggled over to the metal switch, shutting down the electricity and unlocking the bars. I slumped down wearily to the floor as a burning pain stabbed the sides of my head.
Peter flashed over to me and knelt beside me, his face smeared with obsidian ashes across it.
He lifted my head onto his lap and wrapped his arms around my shoulders as I shook.
"I'm sorry, Peter. I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have done that to you. I shouldn't have just left..."
"___, it's okay. It's okay—"
"But it's not Peter! It's not..."
He picked my head up and stroked the side of my face, moving my hair behind my ears and looking at me straight with his warm eyes,
"___, the explosion was not your fault."
"W...what?"
"It wasn't your fault."
An old feeling of tension seemed to break in that very moment as a sweet relief slowed my chest. The shaking stopped and I just peered back at him, finally relaxing for the first time since that night I had ran away. It was like a still sea after a chaotic storm, like cool rain after the summer heat.
And I lied there, my nose buried in his chest as I whispered once again to myself,
"It wasn't my fault."