Super

68. grab a number

Mark didn't even realize how much time had passed until he saw the first rays of dawn.

Taeyong had just dragged the last of the unconscious Supers out of the building—some bound, some even gagged (Jisoo) for safety purposed. If he was being honest, Mark had expected the fight to go on for much longer, but it wasn't really that surprising that it had been finished up nice and neat in a few minutes. There had only been about a dozen people to knock out, and against six well-trained Supers with stable powers it should have been easy enough.

"You're still here?" Lucas grunted, looking pretty bashed-up with the side of his face coated in blood from the time he had hit it against a column. He was finishing up tying one of the artificial Supers—the strongman—and looked at Mark skeptically. "Aren't there only a few minutes left?"

"Five," Mark confirmed, his teeth chattering. He and Taemin had found that Shao had miscalculated her fifteen-minute window, but not by much. They had only had about twenty minutes to prepare, but even that was down to five now. "I was going to go with Taemin, but I would have only weighed him down. There's, like, a dozen different locations, all spread apart, and he will need his energy if he wants to get to all of them in time."

"A dozen?" Ten echoed, frowning a little. "I don't know much about physics, but even with Taemin's super-speed, that's a lot of places to be in a big city like this in such little time."

"That's what I'm worried about," Mark confessed. He turned away, watching the sky as it turned a lighter shade of mauve over the towering asylum. "I don't know if we have enough time."

They were all standing just outside, within the bounds of the asylum itself but outside the building. His shoes were still sole-deep in the mud, which made sucking noises when he walked, but anything felt better than being inside that horror house. Absently, Mark picked at the tattered sleeves of his outfit, in which his own newly-developed fire powers had burned various holes.

And the deadline wasn't his only worry, either. Kai and Jeonghan still hadn't shown up. Mark had hoped that they were inside with the rest of his team, but apparently that hadn't been the case.

He swallowed against the dryness in his throat, turning away from the group so they couldn't see the deep crease in the middle of his brow. He hated feeling powerless. It had been hard enough to adjust in the team despite now having powers, but at least Mark had gotten used to that. Now, he had powers, but he was even more useless than before.

"Mark," Taeyong said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. His features were soft, but a little sad, like he knew he was going to end up nowhere but had made his peace with it. "It's not your fault."

"But it is," Mark said, blinking back the stinging in his eyes. His emotions felt like they were overflowing out of a broken dam, after the water pressure had built up for days. "I'm supposed to be the one with the answers, but I can't even do that right! All I've done this entire mission is set a house on fire and endanger everyone's lives."

"It still wasn't your fault," Taeyong repeated, more firmly this time. His grip was firm on Mark's shoulder, and strangely reassuring, like it was anchoring him to the earth. "You were just trying to help—and you did, in some cases. People make mistakes. You didn't mean to make them, but they happen."

Mark said nothing. The sensible part of him agreed with Taeyong, but it was a little hard to listen to that part when he was so emotionally charged and drained and the same time. He didn't even know that was possible.

"Jeonghan!"

Both Mark and Taeyong turned at the cry, seeing Ten rush up to Jeonghan, who had just appeared—seemingly out of thin air, but Mark knew that wasn't the case. The whole magic/immaterial dimensional travel thing still confused him, but he didn't really have time to figure all of that now.