"Be that as it may, we didn't raise a hussy," Dad said, looking down his nose at Nate.
And despite Nate's stature, Dad could do it. Adam was, perhaps, of a height with Dad, but no one else I knew was anywhere close. I shook my head. "I'm not a hussy and I'm not a Psychic. I'm a Blitzer."
"You can be more than one and if you have any sense, you'll make it a priority to re-sign with the Alliance as a Psychic. They make much more than smashy crashy types," Mom snapped. "And we'll talk about all these boys of yours, later. Not you, Nate, honey. You're fine. But really, Cassandra. A Reed boy? What were you thinking?"
Yeah, no. I sat back down on the bed and put my head in my hands. I'd thought they'd come to my rescue. Really. What had I been thinking?
Chapter 2
Cassie's parents hated me and she was still stuck in the dream.
My fault. It was all my fault.
I stared at the food in front of me but couldn't eat it.
"Creedie, sweetie," Iz cooed at me. "You gotta get something down. You're gonna get sick."
Isabella, my sister, nudged my plate closer to me. Slowly, I looked up at her and sighed. She didn't understand; how could she? I'd lost her and, to get her back, lost everything else. My heart was in pieces, freefalling down some dark hallway I didn't recognize. "I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten all day."
I sighed once more and rocked back from the food, pushing my chair out. "I'm going for a walk. Scribe didn't ban us from that, did he?"
"No, Adam, but you don't look good and you aren't talking to me," Iz whispered, trying to keep others in the cafeteria from watching us. It was a moot point. There were only a handful of other superheroes and attachees getting food that late at night, most of which were just hanging out near the cafeteria lines waiting for their take-out order. No one wanted to be too close to anyone else.
Not when there was a traitor in the room.
It didn't matter to them that my sister had been under the control of a Psychic super-turned-villain when she'd gone berserk and partially leveled the room in which we currently occupied. The only thing they cared about was seeing someone punished; that justice be served. Typical, I guessed, of superheroes.
But it didn't fit me anymore. I was like a butterfly, trapped in a chrysalis and trying to break free. Yet, when I'd shattered my enclosure, I'd become a slug. Filthy, disgusting, I'd fallen and kept falling. When you ride a roller coaster or any ride with a drop, you experience some form of weightlessness. It's in the feeling in your gut, that weird shivery adrenaline that pumps through you to let you know that something is wrong.
That sensation hadn't gone away since I'd pulled my hands off her neck and it damned sure didn't as I left the cafeteria.
Allison Clark, my girlfriend's cousin, had been a menace to society. She'd caused my sister to go nuts, she'd put Cassie in prison, and she'd controlled most of the women in my life like puppets over the past few weeks. She still hadn't deserved to die by my hand, defenseless, smiling up at me and knowing what would happen when she did go.
In killing her, I hadn't gotten rid of her. Instead, I'd released her from her body and allowed her to continue doing horrific things. I'd been trapped in the Dream the same as the others, but when I had gotten out I'd seen the destruction my idiotic mistake had allowed.
There were hundreds dead all over the city. The Dream had seeped out of the Alliance and spread throughout Yarborough, wreaking havoc on those who were driving or busy taking a shower. Sometimes people were vulnerable and when they were snapped out of their reality, the worst happened.
It wasn't just Allison's death that I'd caused; it was the little girl in a family of six whose family had been driving home from a school event. I'd killed the grandmother who had been walking down a flight of stairs, carrying her garbage to the dumpster outside her home. My hands had smashed the dreams and hopes of a person walking their dog, and that of the dog, too, when they'd been run over by a man who had been driving and was taken by the Dream.
The guy who had been driving was fine. Cassie's parents had already pulled him out of the Dream and taken care of his memories. He didn't know what had happened, only that the situation was very sad and that his vehicle had suffered a collision several days prior.
That was all a lie, of course, but it didn't matter. Nothing did.
I just wanted to land on something soft, like when I'd started flying as a kid. My gravity manipulation powers had come in early, leading to me floating through the house and irritating my parents. They had tried to weigh me down, but it hadn't worked particularly well. Instead, it'd ended with them putting mattresses and couch cushions everywhere to catch me if I were to fall out of the sky. ...Which I had, frequently.
"Creed."
Scribe stood on a corner as if he were waiting for me. I stiffened, looked around the abandoned hallway, and wanted to run away. I didn't, but everything in me screamed to run away from him. Since Cassie had gotten back from prison, every time I'd been anywhere near Scribe pain had followed shortly thereafter.
"Come with me?"
He opened the door to his office and I realized where I was. Had I walked so damned far in such a short amount of time? I shook my head,
