Kaja Lando March 10th,20XX

Tillo and I laid on the beds Aaron had helped us push together, and Tillo’s dry palms felt uncomfortable in mine. But then again, I’m sure mine wasn’t any more comfortable since they were bandaged up from when I’d caught our fall.

I didn’t dislike my powers, but if I could have traded them for anything right now, it would have been to go back in time.

It wasn’t like we’d never been scolded before, but the adults had been as uninvested in our safety as we had been. Despite being so angry, Aaron and Joyce looked more worried about us than they had been angry.

Tillo didn’t say much, but I could tell he also felt terrible about getting Archer pulled into the lecturing despite us being the ones that messed around and got hurt. The fifteen-year-old had looked seconds away from bursting into tears, which was probably why Aaron had cut his part so short.

Joyce and Aaron had helped us get comfortable by taking off our jackets and boots. They had also made sure our ankles were elevated enough and had brought in so much ice that I could barely feel my leg. Physically I was fine, but my heart was heavier than I wanted it to be.

We’d only known everyone for a few months so far, and Tillo and I weren’t the type to get over-attached like this. I hadn’t thought about how I would feel about disappointing those two, but the intensity of my current emotions… was scary.

They’d seemed more worried than angry, but the disappointment was there, and it hadn’t been fun to see.

This time was fine, but what if Tillo and I made a big mistake later on? What if they decided we would be bad influences on the others?

Would they just dump us on the streets again?

But no, Joyce seemed concerned about our powers and wouldn’t let us loose on the public.

What if she transferred us to another building altogether, and it was just the scientists and us. She would definitely give us an allowance, and she’d let us go to school too.

At least we wouldn’t have to scavenge for food and bathrooms anymore. We could also graduate properly and make out proper lives for ourselves.

No matter how hard I tried to see the positive in our upscaled ‘worst case’ scenario, my heart felt heavy, and I held back tears.

What was wrong with me? And why was I overreacting?

I pushed back the bellowing emotions and turned to my right side before remembering and turning over to my left. If I felt this bad, then there was no way my sensitive younger brother would be fine.

“Tillo, how are you feeling?”

My twin brother stayed silent for much longer than was comfortable and I felt , but his grip on my palm tightened. His wordless frustration passed onto me, and I respected the emotion by staying silent. It wasn’t like I could say anything to make him feel better.

We stayed in silence like that for what felt like an eternity until a knock rang out from the heavy wooden doors.

“C-Come in!”

A sheepish-looking Destia poked her head into the door, and she struggled to maneuver the large tray into the room. Eva’s head poked into the room at a much lower level than Destia’s had, and she helped push the door wider open.

Eva skipped into the room with her trademark blank expression, but I could tell by how excitedly she moved that she’d had a lot of fun hanging out with Destia. The older girl had decided to try harder in getting along with all of us, so I was happy on her behalf that it was paying off.

“Hey, how are you guys doing?”

Destia’s soothing voice crept into the room and loosened up the stifling air. She spoke with a bit of a lisp I’d never really noticed before, and she more emphasized her vowels than she did her consonants. She was a fit person, but she constantly spoke like she was running out of breath. Something about its awkwardness made it calming.

“I brought in some snacks and company if you guys want it. Ah, there’s juice as well. I know you won’t want to drink too much, so you don’t have to use the bathroom often, but its best to stay hydrated. There are enough people here to help you if its too difficult to go alone.”

Although she seemed cautious, like she was afraid of being a bother, Destia made it evident that she would not take no for an answer. She efficiently distributed the contents of the large tray into two smaller ones she’d had Eva bring in.

She set the bright blue tray beside me and had Eva take the bright yellow one over to Tillo.

I suddenly remembered her mentioning that she volunteered at a hospital, and the mental image of her in nurse scrubs filtered into my mind.

If we’d been closer, I would have changed her clothes into nurse scrubs and made a joke about it, but one, I wasn’t that great at transforming clothes and two, I was sure she’d hate it.

Then again, I wouldn’t have thought she would be the first one to barge into our room to cheer us up, but here she was.

“Thank you.”

She gave a bright smile to Tillo, who had recovered from the sudden shift in the mood first and got to work arranging the bed to make things more comfortable. Aaron and Joyce had tried their best, but it was somehow more comfortable after Destia fiddled around with the stuff on the bed.

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Eva drifted out of the room after seeing Destia had us handled and crossed the hall to hang out with her brother. Destia waved her goodbye with a doting expression before taking a seat at my side of the bed.

There were desks on both sides of the room, but I guess she’d come to my side first.

“Seriously though, are you two okay? Joyce and Aaron laid into you two pretty heavily.”

I wanted to brush off her concern and say I was okay, but somehow tears flowed down my face and my throat closed up.

Ahh, I was being such a baby.

Once I cried, Tillo broke as well, although he hid it better by chugging down the drinks Destia had brought in.

I expected Destia to panic and try to tell us that things weren’t that bad or to clam up and pretend to not have seen it, but she just looked over at us with a sympathetic expression and quietly handed us a tissue box.

“Sorry-.”

“Shh, just take your time. You can talk when you’re ready. It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”

Not only did she cut me off when I tried to bluff through my tears, she even snuck in a casual joke.

I put it up to her being used to patients bursting into tears and tried to stop being so embarrassed.

I tried.

Destia let the two of us cry it out for a bit longer before she suddenly launched into telling us a story.

“Did I ever tell you two about what I was doing before Joyce came to pick me up?”

The topic change was random, and I thought it was her trying to distract us from our tears, but thankfully neither Tillo nor I minded being distracted.

“No. But I remember Joyce suddenly getting a phone call and having to go to the police station.”

She froze, and the cool expression on her face threatened to melt into an embarrassed one, but she kept her composure by taking a deep breath.

Well, that was mean of me to bring up while she was trying to share a story that was so obviously difficult for her to tell.

“Sorry.”

“No, its fine. Its true. I... got my powers about a year ago, so I’ve had quite a bit of time to get used to them. At first I’d just wanted to get used to them. They scared me like hell and I could barely walk a few steps before ending up slammed into the wall. I sprained and broke so many bones in that period of time that the hospital almost called child protective services on me.”

She let out a dry laugh as she went down memory lane, but I could see from her expression that it hadn’t been a fun time for her.

I suddenly thought about how I would have reacted if I hadn’t had Tillo with me when I’d found my powers. Would I have found them as fun as I did? Would I even be able to use them at all?

“At the time it was one problem after another for me. My body healed unreasonably quickly, and I ended up having to leave the hospital I was with and going to one in almost another town over when things got so bad I couldn’t handle them on my own. I lived about half a year like that until I finally learned how to control them and use the powers at will. But you know how it goes. Once my life was out of danger, I had time, and enough confidence to think of what I could do with my powers.”

Destia looked wistful as she remembered this time, and her the balls of the foot bounced against the floor in excitement.

“I lived in a pretty bad sector of the city. The neighborhood wasn’t that bad, but a lot of less-than-ideal places and businesses surrounded it. I was having a hard time at home and… I used to be a big fan of superhero shows… and I was young, so I got some ideas into my head.”

Well, where the story went from here was pretty obvious, but she told it so engagingly that I found myself completely invested. Even Tillo leaned forward to get a clearer look at Destia as she told her story.

“I picked up a hoodie, a mask and a fresh pair of shoes and headed into town. I could move fast, and I could go invisible as well. Even though it was only so no one could see me, I felt invincible. I felt like no matter what I did, no one could ever hurt me. However, I also felt like it was my responsibility to help others that didn’t have these powers I got! And at first it worked great! I was beating up villains left and right, and even ended up tending to a few of them as I worked at the hospital.”

She had a bit of a scary smile as she spoke, and I remembered just how unfamiliar I was with the woman in front of me. The sadistic smile stayed as she continued the story, but I suddenly got a clue why Joyce had to pick her up from the police station.

“Then… one day I picked a fight that was much more than I could chew.”

Destia trailed off for a second as she got excited and suddenly cooled down as she looked at us and remembered her audience.

“I won’t go into too much detail but they had knives, and all I had were my hands and some fun quips I’d picked up from the comics I read.”

Her hand drifted to her torso, and I got the feeling if she lifted her shirt, I’d see more than a few nasty scars on her body.

“I got hurt… badly. So badly that I couldn’t even go home for the next half a month as I recovered. Thankfully, I had a friend that could help me patch myself up and get better… but honestly I was ready to leave in about a week in. She yelled at me so much I couldn’t tell if I felt terrible from my stab wound or from how often she yelled at me. Yet, she never left my side the whole time. For every meal, for every drink, heck, for every time I had to use the bathroom. She was there.”

The wistful expression on her face made it hard to interrupt her and ask more questions, but I suddenly got a feeling I knew why she was telling us this story.

“Well. Getting yelled at like that hurt, especially because she was my friend, you know? She was someone that never got mad, no matter what. So, I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but getting treated like that hurt even more than the injury I was nursing. It hurt, but it was the motivation I needed to get my act together and to stop being so reckless. So I stopped going out to play vigilante, and I stayed away from the villains on the streets, although I would call the cops when I saw them going too far.”

“So, was that why Joyce had to pick you up from the station? Were you there as a witness?”

I’d come to the same conclusion as my younger brother and was already fighting off disappointment from the anti-climactic resolution to something that had made me so curious for so long. However, when Tillo abruptly asked his question, Destia’s embarrassed expression only deepened.

“Well, that day in particular I was having a hard time… I let my anger get into my head and ended up taking it out on a couple of thugs that were messing with this kid on his way home from school… I went a little too far.”

“But how did you get caught by the cops? I’d think it would be easy to escape them with your powers.”

A malicious expression merged with the embarrassment on her face and created a fascinating look on her face. Even if I shifted my face to look exactly like hers, I didn’t think I could pull off such a look.

“The kid I’d saved held on to my clothes like the jaws of life. The only way to have escaped is if I’d broken his fingers.”

Something about the way she casually said it made me sure that she’d considered it, but I was glad she didn’t.

“Well! I just wanted to tell you guys my story and… well, I originally wanted to stop at when my friend yelled at me enough to make me change my ways but I just kept talking. I just wanted to say that even though having people be mad at you hurts, you two should try to remember that its because they care about you that much and that they probably don’t feel that great about it either!”

She got up and out of her seat and patted herself down to make sure nothing had gotten on her clothes.

“You two should rest! Eva wanted to show you guys how much of the dance she’d learned so rest up so you can give her the best reactions possible.”

As I watched her leave the room, her wild story bounced around in my mind, and I realized something I’d already known.

I really didn’t know her at all.