There was a time when Eleanor was still Ellie. Before I sent shards of ice sharp enough to kill her. Before the Academy left the graduating class in the wilderness to die. Before everyone worried that I would go dark side. Before she left Paramount Lake.
There was a time when we were roommates sharing a little dorm room tucked away on Paramount Lake's campus in the center of Lincoln Lincoln.
Ellie was kind enough to keep the lights off while she got ready for class. It was my third migraine of the week, and I was determined to make an appearance in class too, but she talked me out of it. Each of her words just made the pounding in the base of my skull worse. She was right. I was in no shape to leave our room, let alone learn about advanced algebra and the new vigilante laws.
"I'll take notes for you," she promised in that small, eight-year-old voice that hadn't changed much. "And I'll try to get Principal Merriweather to excuse a few of your absences. She knows that you don't feel well." She stumbled through the dark toward the foot of my bed where our backpacks were heaped up in a pile.
I shook my head. The movement hurt. "She stopped back last time I missed class. She wants the Academy doctors to take a look at me. She sounded worried." I didn't need to let her know that Merriweather also thought Ellie was part of my recurring sickness. Ellie always hated it when she hurt people on accident.
At my words, she stiffened. I thought that I had accidentally slipped up and said that last part out loud, but Ellie said, "You can't let them look at you. Not all doctors are good doctors."
I tried to reason with her. "These ones work for Paramount Lake. Merriweather and the other teachers would let them hurt me." But the headache got worse. Whatever other arguments I had prepared were replaced with static. "Ellie, you're doing it again."
The pain didn't let up. When I looked at my friend, there was still that dark and dead look in her eyes that came with her Gift. "Doing what?"
I didn't want to tell her that she was hurting me. So I raised a shaky hand to my forehead like I was feeling for my temperature and willed some of the heat away. There was a flicker of blue that sputtered and fizzled out like a defective memento in Coke. That had been another reason Merriweather came to see me. My Gift Tests had taken a dramatic plunge for the worse as my headaches worsened.
When no cool relief came, I had no choice but to tell Ellie the truth. "You're hurting me again."
The static nearly disappeared. Her eyes widened but no tears replaced the darkness. I wished I hadn't said anything. The headache hadn't been that bad. It was still there anyway, in the back of my head where it would be aggravated by sound and light and my classmates. I should have just dealt with it.
I laid back down in bed with my head buried under a stack of blankets and pillows, anything to keep out the rest of the world. "Don't feel bad. You don't know what you're doing. But you need to go to class now or both of us will get marked absent." Without another word, our bedroom door unlatched and Ellie slipped out into the hallway, leaving me alone with the already growing static.
Maybe that's why I pulled my punch. The shards of ice flew through the air fast enough to find blood. They cut through the coat she wore and drew thin streaks of red on her cheeks and exposed skin. Behind her, the mercenaries doubled over in shock and pain. It should have been worse. It should have hit more of them.
Mona was already on her fit like a dutiful little soldier attending to her captain. The lines of blood sealed up on Eleanor's face, the mercenaries stood a little straighter.
Miguel was the first to jump. He streaked across the air in the form of a wolf, leaping over Eleanor and into the pack of mercenaries. They swarmed him but his giant paws batted away a few at a time. I wanted to shout out to him, to protect him, to help him. But I was too busy with my own fight.
I knew Mona was vicious, but I had never seen this side of her before. She ran at me without the glow of a Gift. Just her bare hands that wrapped around my waist and her full weight that shoved me to the ground. Before I caught my breath she threw one, two punches at my unprotected face. My skin felt hot and swollen already. Then she was up off the ground and I was scrambling back through the snow. Not fast enough. A well-aimed kick that broke ribs. My breaths were wheezes.
I threw up a thin shield of ice midair to block her next hit. It shattered against her knuckles and drew blood. The wounds sealed over before a drop of blood could fall on the snow.
The ice in my legs that had once held me up was nowhere to be found. I struggled to kneel with my hands supporting me in the snow then one leg bracing me up, every muscle shaking from a cold that reached deeper than the freezing temperatures of the night. She sent a perfectly executed kick to my side and I was back on the ground a foot back from where I started. Diana was next to me, lying on her side. Her hands were pressed over her ears but she had her eyes open. This was not what she signed up for. This was not what I had promised.
Beyond her was Elliot. He had come to once again and was attempting to get his feet under him with more success than me. Before his movement could catch Mona's attention, I used my screaming core muscles to pull me up so I could look at her.
Her eyes were wild. They always were, but something about the amber told me that this was not the Mona that I had shared a room with. Just like it hadn't been my ex-boyfriend who attacked me in the bunkhouse, and it hadn't been Lucia's cousin who threw me out of the sky.
I desperately missed my best friend.
"Mona?" She did respond.
Well, she did, with another kick at me. What can I say, I was an easy target. Her foot caught me on the side of my knee. I heard a pop rather than felt it. When my whole body and soul was in agony, a dislocated knee was hardly the worst thing that could happen.
I tried again, "Mona." There was no immediate attack and her eyes found mine. I took that as a good sign. I heard Elliot get to his feet and saw him jogging to Miguel on shaking legs. This was going to kill all of us. But Mona didn't go after him. Maybe I was her target. Maybe she wanted to hear what I had to say, so I continued. "I forgive you."
I didn't want to get into the detail of what I was forgiving her for. Breaking the cardinal rule of superhero friends and attacking me multiple times, trying to burn me alive, destroying my RV. Listing her mistakes wasn't going to fix anything.
There was no response. So I spoke up louder, "Did you hear me, Mona? I forgive-"
She ripped me up from the ground by the collar of my jumpsuit. She had always had a few inches on me, and she used that to her advantage now. My toes were the only thing brushing the ground. I struggled to take a deep breath. Her eyes were narrowed in front of mine. She wore a snarl that could have belonged on Miguel's wolf.
"What are you talking about?" Her voice was low, and her words were quick. Surely, bossman Eleanor wouldn't like her conversing with the enemy like this.
I followed her lead and kept our conversation hushed. "I mean that I'm turning over a new leaf. I don't care what you've done or who you've become. I just miss my best friend." There I said it. With all the sincerity I had in me, I said it. I wanted my friend back. I would take back my old life of ignorance and Giftlessness and abuse from my classmates if it meant that I could be friends with Mona again. And because I don't know how to do what's best for me and shut my mouth, I kept talking, "Miguel has been guilt-tripping me into being a better person, and Lucia decided that I had to help lead a bunch of teenage superheroes with surprisingly functional moral compasses and I needed to learn to be a better person and I forgive you."
She turned to look over her shoulder at Miguel. He was now a ferret viciously attacking a mercenary's hand that held a gun. Elliot was throwing whatever spare energy he had at the few remaining men. Evan dissipated most of it, but even Elliot's sparks were deadly.
She looked back at me. "And I see you've turned our nicest friend into a skilled fighter."
I shook my head but couldn't help the smile that was growing on my face because a matching one was starting to invade Mona's snarl. "I'm not sure that was me. He was hiding a lot from us. Did you know he doesn't even speak Portuguese?"
"Duh, everyone knows he's not actually Lucia and Diego's cousin." And then my best friend's hand warmed with a pulse of gold light and I felt a few bones shift back together and my knee pop back into place. It hurt worse than our fight. It would have been nice if her Gift had come with a natural painkiller.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" She still had me mostly off the ground. If Eleanor's people hadn't seen the glow of her Gift, they might not know she was going good side. Again. "This isn't a fight we're all going to walk out of."
She had that old light in her eyes. Like when she beat up Valentine in Forrest's class. I was as proud of her now as I had been then. "I'm sure."
"Ready to fight?"
The moment my feet were solidly planted on the ground, I felt the full effects of this heart to heart with Mona. My whole body still ached in a way that I knew I would never stop feeling, and her Gift had done nothing to clear the static or heat out of my system. But I could stand and breathe, and that was all I needed.
I sent another ice ball at Evan that hit him square in the back. It sent him tumbling forward and gave Elliot the break he so desperately needed. My legs pumped as hard as they could to get me next to Miguel as he flew around the last three mercenaries on crow's wing. He landed just long enough to rip out their hair and peck bloody marks on their skin. But he was slowing down in his flight.
I couldn't muster another ice storm, but I stomped my foot on the slushing ground and froze it without much trouble. It remained muddy around my feet, but Eleanor's hired men slipped on the ice skating rink and fell to the ground. A showering of Elliot's meager sparks took care of them. Meanwhile, Mona hung back to attend to Diana and the other vigilantes that had fallen earlier in the night.
It was just the six of us left standing on the battlefield. All staggering except Eleanor. Her lips were pursed. She had no black eye or scratch to show from the fight. Evan stumbled toward her, sensing that this was the end, he tried to shove her away from my friends and me. She held up a finger in his direction that politely asked him to wait one moment before escaping into the night.
She smiled apologetically and it burned worse than her Gift. "You all have so much fun with your little powers that you forget there are more effective ways to get what you want." From the back of her jeans, she drew a gun that looked giant in her hands. It leveled on me. Miguel, Elliot, and Mona drew closer to me like they could stop a bullet. Maybe at the beginning of the night, but not now.
The breath left my body as her finger found the trigger. I felt weak at the knees.
This was not how it was supposed to happen.
I was supposed to die with this stupid mask strapped on to my face when the battle had been won and when no one needed me anymore. That was what the Academy had told me was the end of my story and I had believed them.
It happened in a blur of movement. Eleanor's finger squeezed the trigger. And on either side of me, Miguel and Mona lunged half a second too late. They caught her just as the bullet exited the chamber. Enough to tilt the trajectory ever so slightly. I shoved Elliot out of the way. They still needed him much more than they needed me.
The bullet lodged deep in my side. It mingled among my organs and carved a hot path wherever it touched. The few shards of ice left in my blood froze it in place. Tried to calm the screaming nerve endings. Tried to stop the flow of blood that fell immediately on the snow. It steamed in the cold air. But Eleanor was right. My Gift was no use against a bullet.
With each slow beat of my heart that thundered through my ears, I could feel the pulse of blood pressing against the entry hole.
The world had slowed like Miss Freyson was watching from across the power plant and giving me one more second to back out and save myself.
Miguel and Mona had Eleanor pinned against the ground. Her Gift raged in the air. Blood drizzled lazily out of their ears and loosened their grip, but their weight was enough to keep her down for now. Evan had bloody ears too. He stood limply next to her like a sentinel with nothing to guard.
I motioned for Elliot to grab him with the last of my strength as I collapsed onto my knees.
There was a moment of dark and then they were at my side. Elliot had tears streaming down his face but he was still making some dumb joke that I could hear. Probably about how it was his job to get shot. I didn't have the strength to remind him that I had taken a bullet from the Phantoms the same night he had.
Instead, I managed to look at Evan. His face swam in and out of focus. But I had been looking at my classmates for enough years to know that he was lost. Like Mona after I forgave her, whatever spell Eleanor's Gift had over him broke with the sound of a gunshot. "If we don't stop this everyone is going to die. You and me. Cody and Foster. Ariana and Miguel. Mona, Lucia, Elliot, Diego, Valentine, Julien. Do you understand? Everyone we know. Please."
Paramount Lake Academy for Troubled Youth didn't accept dumb students. And at that moment both of them understood.
But Elliot still grabbed at my hands and my waist and clung to me and murmured over and over, "I hate this. You know how I feel about it."
And I desperately hugged him back like it was the last thing I was ever going to do. "Just do what you can, kiddo. Don't burn yourself out."
He pulled back enough to look me in the face. "That means nothing coming from you."
A smile wouldn't come, but we both tried. I nodded at Evan. He took a few steps back, half dragging Elliot with him. I looked at Miguel and Mona and at Eleanor fighting beneath them. The blood on the snow. I felt the static still growing like a crescendo. Back at Elliot and Evan.
"I love you guys." My words were lost in the storm.
A lightning storm swirled around Elliot. It was worse than his Gift attacks. His eyes glowed and his skin turned translucent in the light. He hadn't listened to me about not burning himself out. Stupid kind.
Evan closed his eyes and braced one foot behind him.
The lightning passed through Evan and burned him like a wire. He sent the raw energy my way and it hit me like you would expect concentrated lightning to hit you.
This isn't edited, it's a week late, and it's way too long and rambling.
But this is the finale.
I haven't finished TVH yet, but I think there's only going to be two more chapters.
I want to hear all of your thoughts. Seriously, just write down everything. Pretend this is book club. Use those inline comments. I don't care if you even make sense (this chapter surely doesn't in a few places).
(Sorry I'm still on that writerly high of finishing a chapter that I have been waiting for write for a year)
I love you guys
m burton