Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 53529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
“Sure. Okay.” He sets the empty syringe next to the other one on the small table and backs away.
I walk over and snatch it up. “I’ve never done this before,” I say, hoping he might volunteer to show me. Come closer, Morris. Just need to kill you.
“You point it toward a vein in your arm, push it in, and pull back the plunger. I only need a few drops.”
Man, I hate needles. I’m talking hate-hate. I think because when I was a preemie, I was stuck like a pig repeatedly. I don’t remember any of it, but subconsciously, the brain stores all our threats and dangers.
You can do this, Huff. Then maybe I can fake passing out. He’ll have to come closer to grab the syringe with my precious blood.
I take the packet and tear it open, swabbing a spot on my inner arm where several plump blue veins are exposed near the skin. I grab the syringe with my shaking hand. My heart feels like it’s about to give out.
Breathe, breathe, breathe. I plunge the needle in and pull back the plunger until a bit of red appears in the cylinder.
Oh no. Blood… Suddenly, the room starts spinning. My vision closes in. The small amount of light turns to black.
The last thing I hear is, “I’m on your side, Huff. We’re going to be good friends.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“He took your blood and got away?” Kyle says, pacing just outside the airplane hangar back in Mexico. The sun is about to go down, and those men in camo are nowhere to be found. Where’d they all go?
“I wasn’t expecting to draw my own blood, okay?” I’d woken up a few minutes after passing out. Yes, from the sight of my own blood. What a wimp.
Kyle shakes his head, thoroughly disappointed.
Me, I’m getting annoyed. “I risked my life, Kyle. I was completely alone with Morris. No army. No help. No—”
“You have superhuman strength. You have powers.”
“Yeah, and so does Morris. Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
“We didn’t know he’d made progress with his formula.”
“Fine. Whatever. That’s not the point,” I argue. “I have no training for this kind of stuff. Eight months ago, I was still living with Mom and Dad, getting ready to leave home for the first time.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that the mission was a failure.”
“You know what? Fuck you, Kyle. I’m not in law enforcement or the military. I’m just a guy who fell into a super-Slurpy and came out with big muscles, incredible speed, and a monster cock.”
“You just had to throw the cock thing in my face, didn’t you?” he sneers.
“First, I would never throw my dick in your face. You’re my brother. Seems a little wrong. Second, you’re not hearing me. I’m still the same old Huff on the inside, but you sent me to save an entire city and kill some guy.”
Now that I’m saying it out loud, I don’t know why I agreed to it in the first place. Stupid plan. I guess I wanted to prove to myself I could be the hero everyone thinks I am.
“I have no business running around playing Superman, Kyle.”
“Well,” he snaps, “that’s the problem. You think this is all just one big role-playing game.” He takes a long pause. “Being a hero isn’t a costume or a job or a title, Huff. It’s just something good people do when they’re in a position to help.”
The guilt of his words slam into my stomach. The day Joy died—beaten to death in the girls’ locker room—I was just down the hall. River came running, saying something was going down, but instead of bolting to the gym to help Joy, I just stood there arguing with River. I told her she was worrying for nothing, and that Joy could handle herself when really I was too cowardly to confront Joy’s attackers—some girls on the cheerleading team. I worried that their boyfriends would kick my wimpy ass, because they’d done it before.
I gave in to my own fear instead of taking action, and it’s a decision I’ll regret for the rest of my life, even though I don’t know if I could’ve changed the outcome. The point is that I never even tried. I sat on my skinny hands. Never again.
“I know how to step up and help, Kyle. When River was attacked at her sorority house, I stopped the guy, and I nearly lost my life for it. I also stepped up when the roof of that hospital collapsed and left a bunch of people trapped inside.” It was during a hurricane near my old campus. “I have no problem helping others. But you sent me to kill a person, and there is a big difference between helping and killing.”
“Except when there’s not.”
This is typical Kyle. Nothing’s ever good enough for him. “Golly gee, Kyle. Sorry I didn’t plunge my hand into Morris’s chest and rip out his beating heart to present to you.”