The Powered People

Chapter 10

"What did they do to her?" Evian asked Nolan later that night. She leaned over her bunk, staring down at Nolan on his thin mattress.

"Who?" Nolan questioned, though he knew exactly what she meant.

"The people at your lab. How'd they make her like this."

"I mean..." Nolan lied on his back and tried to think up an answer that wasn't too incriminating. "It might not have been the scientists that..."

"Oh, c'mon." Evian shifted so that she sat with her legs dangling over the edge of her bed. "They had to be doing something. Look at her!"

Macabre was in her bunk again, curled up in a ball. She hugged her knees and stared off into space. Her expression was blank, but her eyes were full of spite. No one slept in the bunk underneath her. In fact, no one had even tried to bother her all day!

"She...must've been experimented on a little bit excessively-"

"No kidding."

"And...I guess she was born in captivity. Though most raised in the lab is a bit more well behaved."

"'Well behaved?'" Evian spoke in a harsh whisper, as almost everyone in the room had already gone to sleep. "How is someone s'pposed to be well behaved when people are sticking needles in them."

"Well, we need to!" Nolan sat up, leaning on his hands. "We need to study them. We need to learn about how they work! We can't just let them live not knowing what they are. How's science supposed to evolve?"

"But do you need to do it that way?"

"What way?"

"The way that tortures them and traumatizes them and makes them end up like Mack! The way that makes them go insane! The one that... doesn't even consider the consequences."

Nolan's fists clenched until they were white. "Maybe the 'powered' people should be thinking about that, too. The scientists only punish based on how the subjects compose themselves. So when they do something bad, we give them what they need."

"So it's our fault."

"That's not what I'm saying, but-"

"Yes, it is!" Though it was only a whisper, each word stung.

"How would you even know? You were never tested on. You were never in the lab like the rest of them. Why are you even talking for them?"

"Because almost everyone else has," Evian retaliated, her face growing more bitter. "I listen to everyone else stories. They stuck Evie in a water tank. They chained up for an hour until he broke the chains himself. They took Imani's family and she's never seen them since. And you know what, I was in that lab at one point. Greg told me. I was just a little kid. I remember them putting me next to a fire to see how I'd react. For three hours. I was so scared that I didn't use my powers at all. They tried to transfer me. But Demetri and other powers found me and took me here."

Nolan rolled to his back and stared up at Evian dangling feet. It was less painful than looking into her eyes.

"And you know what? At least I try to put myself in someone else's shoes every once in a while. Does anybody at that lab even think about it? Because clearly, you need to. Especially since you're one of us."

And with that, Evian shifted back on the bed and slept facing away from him. Nolan buried his face in his thin pillow, spitefully. He tried to push the past conversation out of his head. He tried to come up with ways to disprove some of her points. He tried to just forget about all of it instantly. But before he knew it, every single thing Evian said started ringing in his head. Each thing she said about him and the lab. How she tore apart everything he'd lived by. But the one thing that kept nagging at his conscience was her final statement.

You're one of us.

It's the one thought he'd been putting off. The one detail he'd pushed to the back of his mind and procrastinated exploiting. It was what he'd been distracted from, but right there, right then, he didn't have a choice.

He was one of them. He was powered. No matter what he thought or what he said it was always a part of him. And nothing he could do could change that, ever.

Since he was a little boy, he had been raised hating freaks. In his short time as a foster kid, the one family hated freaks with all their heart. He didn't remember much, but he remembered seeing flags all over the house showing an ugly freak with a red line over the face. He'd heard the two parents ranting at the dinner table. They'd nod in satisfaction when a truck drove by with freaks locked in the back. Good riddance!

Once he was sent to the lab, his mind was set. The first time he met Tyrone, they were sitting together in folding chairs talking about their views as they waited for a lecture. Nolan was already certain. The freaks were uncontrolled like the people said. Tyrone had just learned that freaks were real. He'd come from farther away, were freaks were still something of fairy tales. Nolan didn't hesitate to repeat every single thing he'd heard his foster parents say, curses and all. Little Tyrone seems hesitant at first.

"Are they really that bad?" he'd asked.

"Of course, dude," Nolan responded, just before he was treated to lecture welcoming the little youngsters to the lab. Over the past few years, he heard the same stuff about freaks, if not worse. The other scientists would snicker about how the freaks would twitch and fidget during controlled electric shocks. Some would shout names to get their attention when the freaks wouldn't cooperate. Some would complain over coffee about how the freaks weren't punished hard enough. Or how the freaks weren't normal. Or how they didn't need to exist.

Nolan had heard they were freaky. And unnatural. And stupid. And uncivilized. And uncooperative. And useless. And unexplained. But now, he was all of those.

And there was no going back. He was a freak, through and through. He didn't want to be what he'd hated all his life. He didn't want to be surrounded by them all day! But he had no choice now. He was everything he hated, and there no going back.

He shifted from his stomach to his back. And stared up at the ceiling. Right above him was Evian. His sister. A girl that he'd been stuck to since the beginning, but only realized a few days ago. Now she probably hated him.

He buried his back in his pillow, completely defeated. He didn't dare lift his head for anything as the feeling settled in his stomach like a rock. Maybe he was a freak, but he had to live with it.

The next morning, just as a few people were waking, Nolan slipped out of bed. He grabbed his handmade leaf coat and climbed down the ladder. He past right through the few awake adults and marched right out the door. He walked forward on his very own nature walk.