Me & Her

Her

Seconds before I jump into the proverbial driver's seat, Doc's hair begins to change colour.

Noah scrambles back, cursing at the top of his lungs. I'd always counted on his reaction being the best, or at least the most outrageous. Emma only stares. She stares a lot in fact. Not just at the Doc', but at me. At the way Alice's mind has melted away to reveal mine. The way my stance changes, from a hunch to a lightning rod, my eyes sunken to fiery. She shoots me a small smile. I grin back.

Before I can stop myself, I reach for her hand, give it a squeeze.

"Thanks for finding us," I tell her. I don't wait for her to reply; she doesn't need to. There's no possible way I can tell her how much that means to me – what she means to me – without breaking. Besides, we don't have time to turn all gooey in the middle of this hallway.

The red alarms are blaring, people in black are running like ants. I'm definitively sensing some negative vibes. Here they come. The clomp of heavy-duty boots, the crackle of shifting firearms all rumble together to make a beautiful symphony. What I wouldn't give for my Mp3 Player right now.

A wave of disgust washes over me as I think of Karen Hill, when she put a bullet in my music, the one material item that actually meant something to me. My mother – my real mother, who's still out there somewhere – gave it to me. She gave it to me and now it's gone. They are shouting, those people carrying little baby guns. They look like tranquilisers, but you can never be too sure. Getting shot doesn't sound like too much fun. They murmur when they see Mr. Dark, who's poised like a panther waiting to strike. Waiting for me.

"Get behind us," I instruct my friends. My friends – those words are alien to me. They catch between my teeth as if I'm afraid to say them. But I'm never afraid. I am Alyssa Callett. Emma doesn't listen, instead brandishing her preferred weapon of the bedpan. I suppress a chuckle. I'm starting to wish I'd had the chance to pee in it. Noah straightens, but I can seek the way his knees quake. Mr. Dark grins as I nod. The guns surround us on all sides, pointing, ready. For a moment no one speaks. Then a voice booms over the screeches of the alarms, so loud I can't tell if it's a man or a woman. It doesn't matter who it is.

"Stop or they will shoot. They don't miss," it says. I bet they don't, not usually. Not in the sealed training room where they pretend they're heroes, fighting the good fight against their augmented villains. But they're here now, in the real world, where the lines are more than a little blurred. Where right can be wrong, where people are savages. The real world. Here with me. And I don't miss either.

I catch his eye – Mr. Dark's – and I know his name. I know his name. His name is freedom. I remember the translation, clear as a glass in my mind: Ferenc. Hungarian. Meaning 'free'. I remember the name, carved into an exhibition we'd visited with our mother five years ago as part of my high school history project. Ferenc. I want to speak his name, to capture his eyes with mine. To tell him that we will make it out of this. To tell him I'm sorry about how I once thought of him as less than human. So, I waste no more time.

"Ferenc".

The name sounds right on my lips, sounds sure. Certain. His face crumples a little, and then he understands. Neurons dance in his eyes, and he reaches across the canyon between us and grasps my hand. Or at least, that's what I was hoping. Instead, he lifts his hand and uses it a foundation for a duck and roll.

Spurred into action, I hurl my body forward, parrying the barrel of a gun, while Emma guides Noah to edge of the corridor. Their faces are pale even against the white walls. I keep one eye on their location, the other on the black clad guns before me, attached to the limbs of liars. A burly man lunges, so I dodge, kick his legs out from under him, while Mr. Dark – Ferenc, my Ferenc – launches a foot into his head. I offer him a grin. He instantly smiles back. The butt of an automatic is pressed against his head, but a millisecond later, he bends the weapon in on itself, pointing the barrel towards its handler with a grating screech. The woman drops the gun, steps back.