Super Secret | Half Hero Book 2 [ON HOLD]

Chapter 20: The Gang

When my sleep-crusted eyes peeled open, I'd changed locations and found a partially healed (but still throbbing) scar in my upper arm meat. At least my chains were gone.

Groaning against the dull ache of my entire body, I rolled over a lumpy mattress to look around.

I was still in my soiled clothes from the attack and tucked into a rickety bunk bed that looked older than most major roads. A thin cotton blanket covered my legs and a gossamer curtain hung over the bedframe, muddling the room beyond. I searched aimlessly for the edge of the material to pull it back, only to be met with a voice that sent my stomach plummeting into my butt.

"Hey, little Half Hero," Mac's warm baritone enveloped me. "Hold on, Isla kind of tangled you up in that bug netting."

"Mac?" Instead of a question, it came out as a sob.

"Well, at least you remember me," he sighed, poking a meaty hand into the gauze to pull it apart.

"I really don't know what's going on," I told him, sniffing like a baby through the happiest tears I'd cried in a long time. "But I give zero fucks right now."

"It's good to see you too, Ella," He sighed, wrapping me up in a gentle hug that kind of hurt when he squeezed. "You need to take it easy right now."

"How the hell are you alive?"

"Your stalker buddy, Cyrus. He and his super siblings got me off that roof just in time," Mac answered. "I've been trying to figure out a way to get a message to you ever since."

"I'm so sorry," the apology welled up in my throat before I could catch it. "That bullet should have hit me. That doctor didn't even turn me into a Scion, the whole trip was a mistake. All of this, it's my fault."

"It most certainly is not, little half hero," Mac caught me before I could collapse into myself. "Hey, listen to me-"  

"No! I screwed up, Mac! Again!" I shout-confessed, ignoring the way my muscles screamed when I sobbed. "Aaron's really banged up, and my mom is in big trouble because of me. Well, actually because of some weird ninjas in jammies calling themselves C.E., but I made things so much worse!"

"Anne?" Mac's eyes darkened with naked fear when I pulled away.

"We have to go get them!" I shook his shoulders fervently before burying my head in his chest. "You and me! We can grab them and run away to Canada, or Russia!" 

"Already planning your next big caper?" Cyrus' raspy voice infiltrated our emotionally charged moment.

I pulled away from Mac, bringing a trail of slimy snot with me. Snatching the booger and simultaneously wiping my face (which didn't happen in one fluid movement), I stared dumbfounded at the foot of the bed.

His soulless black sockets had been replaced by a pair of light hazel eyes that shone like rich caramels in between wisps of dark hair. Without that devilish mandible mask, I could see a distinct scar that ran the length of his mouth and up into his austere cheekbone. A wide smile pushed the slightly raised mark to almost brush his lower lashes as he studied me.

"You look better," he nodded as a flush of heat tore up my spine.

"Yeah, you too," I mumbled through frozen lips.

"Hey look," Mac commented flatly. "The gang's all here."

A tiny figure zipped around the door and leaned over Mac's shoulders to hug him from behind with effervescent giggles.

"Hey, Darlin'!" Mac laughed. "Meet my friend, Ella."

"Hi, Ella!" The spritely cutie waved an armful of spangled bracelets. "I'm Isla."

I offered a weak smile as I glanced around at the new (and familiar) faces filling the cramped room. The slinky cat-suit lady followed, striding past the exquisite curves of a mocha-skinned woman with bright blue curious eyes surrounded by a halo of ebony curls. Basem positioned himself next to the blue-eyed girl, who was obviously his twin sister, to give me a friendly wave.

"You feel up for a trial run?" Cyrus' lady friend asked, folding her arms over her pert breasts (highlighted in a plunging V-neck shirt that bordered on distracting.)

"She just woke up, Val," Cyrus answered for me, watching my every move with quiet caution. "Give her some space."

"Is that why you came in?" Isla teased laughingly.

I glanced over at the youngest of their clan. She could've been seventeen (at the most) with lovely toasted skin, long gangly limbs like a supermodel, and enormous brown eyes lined with expertly smudged kohl. Her full lips were stained in squid ink that somehow didn't smudge on her teeth. 

"Can we just, go around the room and say everyone's name?" I pleaded with them. "Then maybe someone could tell me what in the big hairy beanbag is going on?"

Isla erupted into another bout of adorable chortles, while Mac beamed on with pride.

"Basem!" My new friend called out joyfully, thumping his massive chest with a closed fist. "But she already knew that! And this is my sister, Nawell."

"I can speak for myself," the gorgeous woman next to him scolded in a honeyed voice, nudging him with her hip. The movement fluttered the elegant floor-length skirt draped over her enviable shape. "Nice to meet you, Ella."

"Hi," I replied shyly.

"Valentina said she told you my name," Cyrus commented with a knowing smile that grew when our eyes met.

Something close to the electricity that I used to embody, flickered in my chest to spread tingling warmth over my face and arms. For a halting second, I thought my powers were resurfacing, but the energy retreated as quickly as it had zinged to life.

"Oh, I thought your name was Val?" I turned to the girl who'd unapologetically sliced me open to find she was still staring daggers at me.

"Only my family gets to call me Val," she corrected me with a low growl.

"Good deal," I shrugged, trying to ignore her blatant hostility.

"So, Val," Mac suggested gruffly, trying to move things along. "Do you want to fill Ella in on what's going on?"

"Sure," Valentina started, scrunching up her face scornfully. "You're untested, unpredictable, and right now, unable to use your powers. It also seems you've attracted the attention of a pretty nasty group of war dogs. Let's face it, you need us, Ella."

"That's not how we talked about the general tone of this conversation going," Mac reminded her. "What Val meant to say, is that you've accidentally kicked up a lot of shit, Ella. We've been tracking C.E.'s movements for a while now, and it's pretty safe to say things are going to get far worse unless we put the kibosh on this whole thing. What do ya say, little Half Hero? Want to use those powers for good?"

I blinked back my surprise before stammering an answer.

"Yeah, see, I'd love to help you guys," I bargained with the softest touch I could muster. "But I was really set on saving my family. So, no. "

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