They Call Me Daring

Chapter 18

"Liam, you are an idiot." Clark groaned when they found me in the morning.
I had been awoken by the sound of chopper blades and the scattering of old newspapers by the breeze they created. I sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and found myself lying in the middle of the street.
"I can't remember...."
"That's why we're worried." Clark shook his head in disbelief, looking around the street at the mounds of dead zombies, every one of their necks snapped cleanly. Pale, white, sticky and rotten, the scent suddenly became overpowering.
"I don't know how you could have done this." Clark looked back at me, then, and shrugged. "Of course, I guess you didn't do it."
Then we were on the chopper and I was being flown back out over the city to the mansion. I watched the old radio tower disappearing into the gathering fog, then sat back in my seat. The Doc sat across from me, Clark beside me.
"Dad didn't come?" I asked after a moment, once I confirmed the pilot was nobody familiar to me. Clark grimaced and shook his head, and the beating of the helicopter blades filled the cabin in the silence.
It was a few more minutes of steady flying before I could speak again. "Doc, I have a question."
"Hit me."
"I obviously lost control last night..." I said slowly, trying to think back to what had happened, but the last thing I could remember was swinging off the top of the radio tower, screaming my heart out. I recalled the speed and strength I had felt, hurtling along the rooftops... Obviously, that hadn't been me... But I had kept hold of my mind until then. What could have happened that could have made me forget? "But if I lost control, and... you know, wasn't exactly human... then why did I attack the zombies? They don't attack each other."
"Well-- and this is just a theory-" The Doc warned. "But my guess is... well, see Liam, you're not exactly human."
"Really, now?" I said sarcastically, running a pale hand through my white hair.
"-but you're not quite one of them either." He finished abruptly. I processed that.
"So... what you're saying is... is... I'm... I'm something else?"
"Not quite." The Doc compensated. "You're kind of caught in that in-between stage.... But your case is unlike any other transformation I've ever seen."
"Well, by all means, do tell." I urged him after a moment in silence.
"What I mean is, you're still..." He waved his hands for lack of a word. "You! You're still you!"
"What, and other people weren't?"
"No! Never!" The Doc nearly shouted. "Never have I ever seen this! Most people only manage to hold on to themselves for the first day, sometimes two, if they're lucky! But after that, they just give up! They lose hope, because there is no cure-"
"Don't say that." I said quietly, closing my eyes and concentrating, trying to erase that thought from my brain. There was a cure. There had to be. "There is. And I'll find it."
"Yes, right," The Doc said pityingly. "But, Liam," He leaned forward. "How long has it been? Three days? Four?" I splayed open all my fingers and held up my hand. "Five?! Liam, it's scientific phenomenon! You're body and reflexes, all changed, but somehow you're able to keep yourself human (most of the time)! You seem to realize the infection is straining to take your brain and, mentally, you're fighting back! It's a breakthrough!"
"No." I said slowly, looking back out the window and finding the glowing white of the Trackerson mansion. "It's the cure."
Dad was waiting for us. He stood on the front lawn as Clark clambered down via a rope ladder, and I chose to free-fall the thirty foot drop. I flashed through the air, bending my knees at exactly the right moment and transferring the force of impact forwards, diving and rolling and coming up casually at my father's feet.
I stood and met his gaze. He was a foot taller than I was, but I met his eyes with an evenness and defiance that made him cringe slightly. Or maybe my eyes had flashed red.
"I can control it." I said evenly, knowing he was only thinking of the people I had injured yesterday. "They need a cooperative test subject."
"Glad it worked out." He said, looking away towards where Clark was disentangling himself from the ladder and struggling to get to the ground. I had no intention of making up with my father at the moment. He had given me up. I had seen it in his eyes; he hated the other species more than he cared for his son. After all, he had two more, whom he had always favored-- and they weren't turning into monsters. I made it clear we were no longer family when I looked him in the eyes, and I no longer considered him my master. I didn't want to make up. And I doubted we ever would. The tear that had been made at the moment of my birth would finally be ripped apart, and we were separate.
Clark's feet landed on the ground, and the helicopter lifted back off. Just before the helicopter's noise would cease to drown out the sound of our voices, and before Clark came within earshot, my father growled in a low voice. "I had hoped my son would aspire to more than a lab rat."
I felt the rage like a wave of unbearable heat. My blood was on fire, the hair on my head stood straight up, and I took deep breaths as my vision flickered between pulsing red anger and stark reality. No, I had to prove I could control it. I couldn't let myself slip...
Clark's footsteps broke through the rushing in my ears.
"Liam, I-" He stopped talking, leaning back slightly from me. "Um, Liam...?"
"What?" I growled through gritted teeth, struggling not to bend them, break them. Clark looked slightly taken aback.
"Um, nothing... It's just that..."
"It's just that what?" I exclaimed, pressing my hands to my temples as     everything pulsed red again.
"Yeah, um Liam?" Clark winced when I glared at him. "Your, uh... your eyes...."
"What about them?!"
"Um... they're... they're red."