Super Secret | Half Hero Book 2 [ON HOLD]

Chapter 1: Dead Man Walking

"So, to make it an extra special Valentine dinner tonight," my mom was giddy. "Everything will be cut into the shape of a heart. What do you think?"

She was messing with me, and it was adorable. I reached around her slender waist to give her a grateful squeeze. I hadn't seen her since their big move out to the East Coast.

"Aw," I giggled. "Exactly how I hate it. Thanks, mom."

"Crap," Galen muttered under his breath, painstakingly fishing his phone out of his pocket in the cramped space.

"You forgot it was V-day, huh?" I smirked as my stomach sank into my butt from the inertia of our ride. "How mad is your wife gonna be on a scale of one to ten?"

This oddly characterless building made it nearly impossible to track the passage of time. Of course, that excuse wasn't going to fly with Galen's wife when she found out he didn't have a gift.

"You don't like Valentines' Day, Ella?" Varun piped up, stealing my attention.

"Does anyone actually like the needless pressure of this holiday?" I joked lightly, looking around to garner support. "I mean, besides greeting card companies?"

"They do if they have someone to share it with," my mom reminded me. 

My deep-rooted sarcasm was a defense mechanism I'd honed over decades of crappy life experiences, and it (rightfully) drove my mom up the wall. 

I cringed as the free-fall of our elevator gradually slowed to a stop for the doors to peel open at the seam. 

On the other side was a second, bright yellow perforated metal wall that split at a diagonal with a barely audible whoosh.

Galen stepped out first to trigger a series of lights embedded in the ceiling, illuminating the expansive area. The laboratory went on for hundreds of feet, or possibly took up the entire floor, it was impossible to know.

"Holy wow," I gasped, trying to figure out what the man-sized circular tube in the center of the room did. "It looks like the space station in Alien."

"Huh," Galen remarked, casting a doubtful look over the futuristic equipment. "Maybe we could hang some pictures of clowns and kittens to brighten the place up a bit?"

"That's the stuff of nightmares, man." I cautioned him with a wry smile.

I could feel Varun's eyes on me, but I kept my attention focused on the floor to ceiling computers housing large glass cases buzzing with electricity. Chrome accents bounced the pot lights off the speckled linoleum floor.

The distinguished clack of Varun's cane deliberately strolled into my eye line. The slender black wood with ivory or shell inlays forming recognizable Hindi symbols only added to his discreet charm.

"If anything in here makes you anxious," his lyrical accent was barely detectable. Varun was a good-looking older man with the wardrobe of a tech billionaire and the quiet aura of someone with studied serenity. "I will take you through the science until you feel comfortable. You are my patient and we are partners in this discovery, Ella."

In my peripheral vision, Galen buried his chin to snort at Varun's whimsical phraseology.

"So, you're a doctor too?" I was having a difficult time looking into the watery green pools that reminded me of his brother.

"A geneticist, actually," Varun answered, flashing his pearly whites. "The department's scientists, like Francis here, will also be assisting me."

A mid-western-looking man with light brown hair and rounded owl glasses gave me a subdued wave from his position in front of a circular monitor.

"Do people call you Frank?" I asked, reaching for something to say. Clearly, being sequestered from people had done nothing for my (already terrible) social skills, and I wasn't able to stop myself before making it worse. "Or Franky?"

"Uh, no," Francis' pasty white face was curdling with disapproval. "No, they don't."

"Alright, good talk," I mumbled, nodding absentmindedly and letting my eyes drift back to the racks and tubes surrounded by metal lockers.

If this weren't real life, ominous music would have gradually filled the background to audibly illustrate the sterile creepiness of the space age Scion lab.

"We can talk about our work together over dinner tonight," Varun suggested, giving my mom a smile that bordered on affection. "I understand Anne is making your favorite, vegetarian lasagna."

"Oh, so you're invited?" I asked carefully. "To our family Valentines dinner?"

"Varun is practically family at this point," my mom's edgy response let me know I'd crossed some invisible line (as usual.) "You could at least say thank you for everything he's done for us, and especially for you."

Not many people seemed to be acting in my best interests lately, but my mom was. 

She'd fought tooth and nail to ensure that Hamm wasn't just taken off Project Scion, but dishonorably discharged from the military altogether. While singlehandedly torpedoing the forty-year career of a decorated colonel, she also ran the first (and only) Scion activist group to lobby publically for my rights as a new subspecies of human. My mom was a superhero whose powers far surpassed my own, and her glowing opinion of Varun didn't come lightly.

"No thanks is required when one is doing what is right," Varun chuckled amiably. "Now, why don't we head out? It sounds like agent Smith has some last-minute Valentines' shopping to do, and I'm getting peckish."

I was leaving the unexceptional building I'd been holed up in for a month to see my family's new digs (courtesy of Varun's confounding generosity), and enjoy a home-cooked meal. So why were my guts twisting the remnants of the tuna fish sandwich I'd had for lunch?

It could have been the guilt of having to look Varun in the eye for an extended period of time. 

Or maybe it was the ankle bracelet digging into my flesh as a constant reminder of my self-sanctioned captivity. 

Heck, it could also be the endless layers of administrative ambiguity Project Scion was steeped in (none of which I had the clearance to know anything about.)

I'd have to chalk it up to bad tuna for the time being.    

WHAT IS UP?!?! First, THANK YOU for reading this story! 

Second, if you're at ALL confused by what you just read, you should know that this is the second book in the Half Hero series. The first book is called, you guessed it: Half Hero. It's a kickass tale of a young woman's fight to keep her electrifying new superpowers out of the wrong hands.  

Oh, BTW, happy National Superhero Day!!!