Shock and Awe (Enhanced Book 1)

Chapter 11

A/N 

As always, not edited. Sorry for any errors...

Dinner is ridiculously tense.

Kingsley was late getting to the table from upstairs, Dad keeps calling Rowan 'son', and Mom has poured herself a third glass of wine.

In some cultures, they call this a disaster.

Dad says something along the lines of: "With you in this house, son, we don't have to worry about that Crimson Current whack job. Honey, look at Rowan's muscles! Reminds me of me at that age." His words trigger a reaction in every single person at the table — including Kingsley who, up until now, has been sulking.

It took Kingsley a good ten minutes to come down the stairs after I stormed out of my room — leaving him behind. For a second, I worried that I might have left my suit somewhere he would see it, but then I remembered that it's hidden high in the closet where you would need either a ladder or flying powers to get.

When he made it downstairs, we were all already seated at the large table, Rowan and Mia on either side of me and my parents on the end.

Forrest is sitting in front of me and Kingsley is next to him, the furtherest away from everyone. Like I said, he has just been sitting there with a sour face for the last thirty minutes. This is, until my dad brought up the Enhanced.

"I don't see how you would even worry about Crimson Current in the first place. He hasn't made any advances on citizens and, in fact, has only targeted government operations." Kingsley's words are sharp and bitter, and a few of us exchange confused glances.

My mom sets her fork down on her almost empty plate. "Kingsley, I had no idea you followed the supers so intensely. I didn't even realize there was a pattern to his madness."

"They say he helped those people rob that bank," my dad pipes up.

Kingsley's jaw clenches in what appears to be anger or agitation. "Oh, yeah? Then why wasn't he there during the actually robbery?"

I drop my fork, angry at Kingsley for earlier as well as his defense of Crimson Current. Obviously, he doesn't know that I am the one fighting the Advanced super, but from the other night on the rooftop I would think he is at least is on Awe's side. "So, who fried the security system just minutes before the robbers showed up?"

"He's being framed," Kingsley says simply.

I let out an over-exaggerated, sarcastic laugh. "He's being framed by a bunch of norms in Halloween masks to rob a bank. The same bank that he returned to that night and attacked Awesomeness in, right? It's all a perfectly timed coincidence, then?"

The corner of Kingsley's mouth turns up in a sneer, his teeth flashing like a cornered dog. "We all saw the same security footage. He didn't intentionally hurt Awe — she got in his way. He was at the city bank and then the city police. Every other Advanced has targeted either the Generics or the citizens. How dense do you all have to be to not see that he isn't hurting anyone?"

I copy his sneer with my own, my voice deepening in anger. "He hurt Awe more than once. He and his accomplice hurt those police officers. One of the detectives ended up in the hospital, for goodness sake! The Advanced are the bad guys and they always have been. Stop making excuses for him just because you're jealous he got powers and you didn't!"

Kingsley and I have a stare down — angry grey eyes versus my equally as angry hazel ones. Sure, I may be letting my emotions from earlier rule my mouth, but I'd be defending my alter-ego either way. This way — this yelling— is just a lot more satisfying.