Max didn’t know what to make of Dr. Asclepius: first the doctor had gleefully shocked him like the medical man was Darth Sidious, but now Asclepius had shed his Big Bad robes and sounded more like a concerned uncle, dispensing life advice about how Max should stop being an Unreal for his own good.

The attitude change was mighty confusing.

But perhaps useful. Maybe this was Max’s chance to get some answers.

“If I don’t deserve to be at a Hero academy or Prometheus,” Max said, watching Dr. Asclepius’ face carefully as he spoke, “then why did someone knock me out to stop me from winning the Capture the Flag tournament and leaving the island?”

“What are you talking about?” the doctor demanded.

“About the fact that when I was this close to winning the tournament, someone bopped me on the head. It must’ve been to stop me from winning the shore leave prize.”

“You tripped and hit your head. We’ve been over this.” The doctor’s poker face was good, but not flawless; Max would’ve sensed the man was lying even if he hadn’t broken into the doctor’s office and read his patient notes.

“I’d remember tripping. I certainly remember everything else. I was standing when I got whacked upside the head. I fell after I got hit, not before. I know it. I think you know it too. Who hit me over the head, doctor?”

The doctor’s eyes darted away before returning to Max. A classic liar’s tell. “You’re delusional.”

“It was Molly, wasn’t it? She was the only person in the immediate area.”

“Accusing a fellow student of assault is a serious allegation, young man.”

“As tired as I am, I still noticed you didn’t deny it was Molly.” Max jabbed a finger at the doctor. “Was she acting alone, or was she in cahoots with someone else?”

The doctor drew himself up haughtily. But it was an act; Max saw the sudden fear in the man’s eyes. “You falling was not the Kennedy assassination, Mr. Blackwood, and your scraggly ass is certainly not the Warren Commission. ‘Was she acting alone?’ indeed. I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And I’m sure you do. Why won’t you tell me the truth? Why do you look so anxious all of a sudden? Are you afraid of Molly?” Max shook his head. “No—I can’t imagine you being afraid of a student. It must be someone else you’re scared of. Who is it, doctor? Strategos? Pantheon? Stiletto? Waldo? Someone else? Who’s got you so intimidated you won’t even look me in the eye? Who’s conspiring to keep me here?”

His normal sangfroid shaken, Dr. Asclepius looked as guilty as a used car salesman caught rolling an odometer back. He shook his head vigorously, his forehead suddenly beading with sweat.

“It’s too hot out here to bandy words with a deluded student with a persecution complex. I’ve said my piece about what you should do with your life so you can die in bed instead of at the hands of someone more relentless and ruthless than you. The rest is up to you. Do what you want and see if I care. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth.”

The doctor smacked his lips like his mouth was full of sawdust; to Max’s jaundiced eye, it looked like the hammiest acting job.

“Speaking of water, saving a hapless student’s life is thirsty work. All this haranguing has dried out my mouth. A shame I didn’t snag two Villain-Ades from that servitor. Since you’re walking as slow as molasses in January, I’m going to hurry ahead and grab a drink from the servitor right around the bend. Mull over what I said, Mr. Blackwood, and save yourself while there’s still time. Don’t embrace the life of an Unreal, and just live a nice, safe, peaceful existence. Despite the sour look on your face, I suspect you’ll eventually realize I’ve done you a great kindness today. Turns out you’re not the only one with a Dudley Do-Right complex. Excelsior!”

Before Max could pepper him with more questions, Dr. Asclepius increased his tentacles’ pace. With a spray of sand, the doctor left Max in his literal dust.

Max coughed, spitting out sand for the gazillionth time that day. Didn’t oysters make pearls by producing nacre around invasive sand grains to protect their vulnerable innards? At the rate Max had swallowed sand, he figured he’d be pooping pearls by next week. Or vomiting them up like Koffi.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Max stared daggers at where Dr. Asclepius was receding into the distance.

On the one hand, it was gratifying to have shaken the doctor’s smug composure. On the other hand, Max’s questions frightening the medical man had opened a new can of worms. Dr. Asclepius had handled Max’s physical attack without breaking a sweat. If someone as capable as the doctor was afraid of something, that meant Max should be downright terrified of whatever it was.

Max had a lot of questions, but not a lot of answers. Max grilling the doctor had shaken loose one fact, though: Molly hadn’t been acting alone when she clocked Max. She had been acting on someone’s orders. The doctor’s reaction to Max’s hectoring had convinced him of that.

But who was the mystery person who obviously had the doctor cowed? That was the $64,000 question.

If I run across Molly today, I’ll pound the answer out of her.

But even Max knew his thought was a hollow threat. In addition to his never hit a girl rule, he was in no condition to pound anything out of anyone. Despite the Villain-Ade having put the tiniest bit of pep back into his step, he still felt like a scarecrow, with boneless limbs and a brain made of stuffing. A fight against Molly—or an especially aggressive toddler—would be an embarrassingly brief one.

Max trudged ahead. He wanted to collapse in the sand and take a much-needed break, but the doctor’s words spurred him on.

Abandon the dream of becoming a Hero, Asclepius had said. You don’t have a killer instinct. A winner’s mentality.

The doctor had all but called him a loser. Maybe he would’ve gotten around to it had Max not started hectoring him.

Max felt his jaw clench as he forced himself to keep walking.

Screw him. He’s wrong about me. I’ll show him. I’ll show them all.

Under the harsh glare of the unrelenting sun, Max’s mind, as weary as his body, soon began to drift back to moments from his past, dredging up uncomfortable memories.

The first memory was of a basketball game during his sophomore year in high school. He had been the starting point guard. During the final seconds of a crucial game, with his team down by a single point, Max had the ball. The crowd was a cacophony of screams and cheers, a tidal wave of sound that threatened to sweep Max away. The coach had designed the final play around him. His was the chance to take the winning shot.

But as the seconds ticked down, Max’s confidence wavered. Instead of taking the open shot, he passed the ball to Ryan Foley, a teammate who wasn’t expecting it, resulting in a turnover and a loss. The locker room afterward was a tomb of silence. His coach’s disappointed gaze and his teammates’ reproachful ones were weights Max carried long after the season ended. Weights he still carried, he realized, given how powerfully uncomfortable the memory made him.

Then, there was the science fair during his junior year. Max had always been fascinated by physics, and he’d spent weeks brainstorming and researching a project that would explore the principles of aerodynamics. But as the fair approached, Max found himself distracted by other things: his part-time job, basketball season, and—as always—girls. He threw the project together at the last minute, convincing himself he’d done enough, that his project was good enough.

The day of the fair, as he looked around at the elaborate projects some of his classmates had produced, Max knew he hadn’t given his all. His project looked even more half-baked and rushed than it had at his house.

He didn’t place in the science fair. In fact, he didn’t even compete. He was so embarrassed by what he had thrown together that he dumped it in the trash, telling Mr. Baxter that he didn’t have time to work on it, and took the incomplete.

There were several other instances like those. They all bubbled to the surface of Max’s mind like corpses dumped into a pond.

And what did Max have to show for all his daydreaming about leaving Villains Island? Despite wanting to escape since the moment he stepped foot here, he was no closer to escape now than he had been then. Heck, Edgar had been the one to come up with the best idea to find other abductees, not Max. Edgar! The guy Max thought was kind of stupid.

Son of a bitch.

Was Dr. Asclepius right? For all these years, had Max been too blind—too afraid—to face reality? Had he always found an excuse to not do his best, a reason not to push himself, to not truly test his limits? Was fear of failure, of not being enough, holding him back more than any external obstacle ever could?

Or was the fear of success the problem? Maybe the fear of surpassing and eclipsing his adored father? Though he had been a good man, his dad had hardly done anything in his life to set the world on fire.

With each step through the sand, a new resolve crystallized and hardened. The doctor’s words, whether they came from a place of concern or malice, were a gauntlet thrown at his feet. Max had always thought of himself as a fighter, but had he really been fighting with one hand tied behind his back all this time?

Damn it. Damn it to hell.

Max forced his reluctant body to up the pace. His lungs screamed, his muscles protested, but the fire within him burned brighter. He transitioned from a walk to a jog. Then, with a scream of effort that felt like it came from his very soul, to a run. Max was exhausted, every breath a dagger in his chest, but he ran.

He ran because he needed to know for himself what he was truly made of.

He ran because, maybe, just maybe, the doctor was right.

I’m as good as anybody here, Max silently swore. I’m as good as anybody here. I’m as good as anybody here.

He repeated the mantra over and over. He wasn’t at all certain the words really were true, but belief often presaged reality. If the words weren’t true, Max had to do what he could to make them true.

As God as my witness, I will.

Feeling half-dead, Max ran like his life depended on it.