Victor, Victorious

Chapter Twenty-Six

As he ran at Colin, Victor silently prayed for a miracle. When he was a few feet away, Colin turned.

"Stay back!"

The smaller boy tried scuttling backward, but Victor had a long reach. He took hold of Colin's uninjured hand.

Electricity roared between, around, within them like an army of dragons.

Both boys fell to their knees, unable to scream. Each of them was too focused on pain that seemed to split their skulls apart down the middle.

Victor suddenly swelled with energy, draining it from Colin like a vampire. Voltage coursed throughout his body, traversing up and down his limbs, swirling in his chest, his belly. He was ready to burst.

Fireworks seemed to explode inside his head, but he snuffed out the lightshow with a single thought:

No more.

No more.

No more.

No more No more No more No more No more No more No more No more

Then, all that same energy reversed its course, gushing out, away from him, back down toward his fingertips.

He released Colin from his grip.

Electric blue bolts blasted from Victor's hand and rocketed upward, finding a home inside the power lines above him.

He and Colin both fell to the ground, exhausted. The others still kept their distance.

Victor felt lighter. Free. There was no buzzing in his skull. No tingle in his fingertips.

"No," Colin whined. "No... I...I don't...feel the same..."

Victor managed a weak smile. "Did...Did it...work?"

Colin reached out to the broken power line that flickered behind him. It did not move. "What... What...did you do?"

"I...I think..." He laughed. "I actually...canceled out...and...and...got rid of...our powers..."

"No..." Colin began to sob.

"I...I guess I...should have...shaken your hand...a long time ago..."

At lunch, Victor had read that hero, Pulverizer, accidentally lost his power of superstrength when he touched his twin brother, the evil Mister Mind. The villain had also lost all of his superintelligence in the interaction due to blah, blah, blah, something about there not being enough space in the human body for overly excessive amounts of energy. When the body takes on far too much of any one thing, it purges all the extra stuff that isn't needed. Just like when someone has too much to drink, eventually reaches a point of no return, and vomits up all the alcohol that has been forced into his or her system.

Victor knew it was stupid comic book stuff, but his life had become a stupid comic book. It had been worth a shot.

Totally freaking worth it!

"What's going on?" Bart shouted to him.

Victor stood. He gave a thumbs-up. "It...worked."

Colin caught Victor off-guard, shrieked, and plowed a shoulder into the bigger boy's back, right where he'd been struck by lightning. Victor stumbled to the ground. With all of his strength, Colin pulled on Victor's wrist and yanked him forward, driving him toward the exposed power line.

The lunatic intended to electrocute Victor, just as he had done to Sway.

Sergio, Bart, and Courtney raced their way, shouting, but Colin ignored their pleas.

He was too focused on his coldblooded mission: finally giving Victor Villa what he truly deserved.

The mouth of the wire was close enough to spit sparks into Victor's face.

But Victor twisted in Colin's grasp. He dug into the dirt with his heels, stopping himself, in turn halting Colin.

"You did this!" Colin shrieked, tugging on Victor's arm in futile attempts to move his enemy. "You made me who I am!"

He wasn't wrong.

Victor pulled himself free. Colin fell onto his rear.

"You're...You're insane," Victor wheezed, standing on shaky legs.

The smaller boy held his face in his hands, defeated. "You...You've ruined me..."

He wasn't wrong about that, either.

When his friends reached him, Victor received fist bumps and high-fives. Everyone was happy not to be zapped. They all stepped away from Colin—even Courtney—leaving the boy to mourn alone.

Suddenly, sirens blared. Close. So close.

Ohhhhhhh, shiiiiiiiiiit.

5-0. Fire department, too, probably. The paramedics. All coming to investigate the ruckus in the alley.

Victor looked around.

A dead body. Wrecked power lines. Bloody, bruised Colin.

There were gonna be questions. So many questions.

Too many questions with unbelievable answers.

The kids had to run. There was no other option.

"Go!" Victor cried. "Go!"

"No," said Sergio.

The others turned to him.

"Listen to me," said Sergio. "If we run, we won't make it. We all just have to say the same story. You, too, Colin. It's our only option."

The boy looked up and nodded. Who knew if he'd actually follow the lead?

"Okay, so we tell them Sway beat up Colin, which is the truth," said Sergio. "We say, Colin said something bad about his cousin, Bart, and that's why Sway went psycho on him. The telephone wires just broke apart, because...who cares why. We can't say anything about the superpowers, or else they'll think we're high. And Sway...He got too close to one of the wires, so...Well...That's what happened, isn't it?"

The others agreed.

The cavalry arrived. Three cops cars. A fire truck. An ambulance.

The kids stuck to their story, even when they were separated and individually interviewed.

They said nothing about what really went down in the alley that day or what had happened in the hours, days, weeks before it.