Super

59. reverse-rainfall

"Are your water powers even good for anything?"

Doyoung whirled on the silver-haired boy with a scowl, clenching his fists, but Donghyuck was relentless. He glared back at the man, and if it hadn't been for the slight difference in their features, they would have looked almost like brothers.

"I told you, they're water manipulation powers, not water generation powers," Doyoung said through gritted teeth. "Are your powers good for anything?"

"Of course they are!" Hyuck said scornfully. He straightened, putting his gloved hands on his hips, and donned the most contemptuous scowl he could summon. "You losers and your loser powers have nothing on me."

"Please stop fighting," muttered Sicheng, the only actually productive person in the three-member team, glancing around the bare room for anything that could help. "There are kids who need out, and trying to pick arguments amongst ourselves isn't going to help."

"We're not arguing," Hyuck said with a roll of his eyes, then side-glanced at Doyoung with suspicious narrowed eyes. "Any ideas, office boy?"

"Now why the hell would you call me an office boy?" Doyoung roared.

"Because you are an office boy, technically-"

"Guys," Sicheng interrupted, making both of them look at him. He was studying indentions made in the wall, like chunks of the plaster had been punched through...or dug out. He trailed his fingertips along the ragged edges of the hole with a disturbed look. "I think this is where they shackled mentally unstable prisoners back when the asylum was first built."

Hyuck shuddered. "People are sick."

"And they didn't even try to fix these when the hospital was rebuilt," Doyoung muttered with a shake of his head. "This isn't a hospital, not really."

"It makes sense," Sicheng murmured. "They said Irene was insane too, right? It makes sense she would trap people here-or keep, whatever word she uses. Getting that sense of power or dominance over other unstable people by keeping them in contained little holding cells like these. With marks left behind by the original keepers, back in the-1800s, was it?"

"Do you think someone kept her like this, too?" Doyoung asked quietly. "Before she freed herself and did-all of this?"

A sudden silence prevailed over the room. None of them knew what to say. They didn't know enough about the notorious Bae Irene to make assumptions about her, and their job was to oppose her, but the thought that she herself was treated in such a way was sickening even for them.

"You said they used shackles to hold the patien-prisoners, right?" Hyuck asked, breaking the silence. His voice was loud, slightly dubious, but he tried to hide his doubt. "Do you think the chains are around here somewhere?"

"I don't think so," Sicheng replied, straightening, but his eyes lingered on the twin holes. "They probably discarded them after pulling the chains out of the wall."

"Darn it," Hyuck muttered, ruffling his silver hair thoughtfully using only his fingertips. "A five-storey building and not a single piece of metal?"

"You can't touch metal, Hyuck, it's all going to melt if you walk into the fire," Doyoung muttered. "Now, if only there was some water..."

"The metal will hold for a few minutes at a time, at least," Hyuck said, flexing his fingers inside the special gloves. The trainees were usually encouraged to use their abilities more often so they would get used to controlling them, but that hadn't been the case for him. Unlike the others, Donghyuck's problem wasn't his inability to control his powers-it was that his powers were too wild to be controlled. He was surprised Baekhyun had assigned him to the B squad instead of the C squad. "Then I can get some people out."