The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Forty Four: Clean Up Crew

In the seventy-two hours since my Gift made its surprise appearance, it had hurt. It had burned and frozen and shattered. But now it hurt in a way I had never felt before. I hadn't understood the term Gift burnout until now.

The bonds between my atoms were coming apart. They were ripping and expelling energy that my body could not contain. I was shredding every piece of me.

Around me, the ground shattered into ice. It wasn't a gradual spread. It was a crack of Elliot's blue energy filtered through Cody and then out of my Gift. Then the dirt and dead grass were covered in thick frost. But around me, it burned. Whatever my Gift dared freeze near me turned into steam.

Not fog. Fog and mist I could deal with, I could use. This was boiling steam that pushed down on my screaming limbs and clung to the walls of my lungs. I couldn't see through it. Just the outline of Elliot burning himself out. He never listened. He was a bright flash of lightning that left spots in my eyes. He was not a crack of lightning, he was the storm condensed into shared space.

And he was flickering. Like a lightbulb dying, the light around him shuttered on and off, on and off, on and off.

The energy kept coming. It changed as it ran from Elliot into Cody's veins. I don't know what type of energy I was using to freeze the world, but Cody was sending it my way. And in surplus. I wondered if I had an extra organ that stored my Gift. I would have liked a physical well I could imagine overflowing inside me.

Elliot's lightbulb stuttered to a stop. It didn't return in the haze.

There were tears leaking from the corners of my eyes, squeezed out by the pain. Maybe by the world outside of the mist that I wasn't allowed to see ever again.

For a moment it was just me and the mist. Hushed breathing beyond me. A moonlight colored world. Invisible energy bubbled beneath my skin. From start to finish, mine and Elliot's energy exchange lasted 1.5 seconds. It was quiet now.

The energy left with a scream. It tore from my throat, ripped through my vocal chord, sliced the now silent air. It bounced against metal towers and trees and fallen bodies. And it froze the steam in the air. Delicate diamond droplets suspended on nothing. They floated themselves in place. The breeze held its breath. Everywhere in the powerplant, the world froze.

It wasn't like Freyson's Gift. There was no slowing down. And with her power, there was no ice.

There was no longer frost marring the ground. Instead, the ground had frozen solid. Although it felt like I left half my body on the ground, I stood and batted away the ice crystals hanging in the air. On contact with my skin, they melted.

I tore the Conspiracy-sanctioned mask from my eyes to get a better view of the mess I created.

Elliot and Cody were closest. Both were on the ground, both were not breathing. And both of them had inch thick sheets of ice over them keeping them in cryostasis. I found Miguel and Mona's fight next. They were frozen in place, no breath in their chests. Eleanor had a gun trained on Mona. Miguel was balanced on one foot, preparing to leap into the air. He had that wrinkle between his eyebrows, the Anna wrinkle.

It hurt more than the bullet in my gut to walk past them. Every piece of me cried out. It wasn't just the excruciating physical pain. I didn't want to leave my friends behind. I wanted to thaw them and tell them it was going to be okay. I wanted to work things out with Mona. And get mad at Elliot for burning himself up for my stupid plan. And hold Miguel's hand again.

Instead I placed a burning hand over my wound and tried to summon any of my Gift to freeze the blood. It was as useless as trying to use my powers back at the Academy. There was nothing there. No well to draw energy from. It was a miracle I was still walking.