I stood in my bedroom, still clutching Jesse’s shirt in my hand. After he’d left, I’d started crying again. He seemed perfectly fine, though I was pretty sure it was a ruse.
I killed him.
I held up the shirt again. There was a large hole with blackened edges where the first bolt had shot from my hand. I had attacked and killed my younger brother with these stupid powers. If they were a gift from God or something, they were given to the wrong person. I didn’t want them, and I clearly didn’t deserve them.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands and stared at my feet, letting my vision blur from the tears that were dripping from the end of my nose.
“This was a huge mistake. All of this,” I mumbled, shaking my head.
No, I shouldn’t be saying anything out loud. I don’t want Jesse to hear.
I couldn’t believe what an evil human being I was, albeit unintentionally. I had superpowers, but I was no superhero.
Hell, if anything, I’m a supervillain.
It wasn’t intentional, by any means. My first thought after I’d found out I was using my mind to control some sort of electrical energy was along the lines of Hey, cool! I’m a real-life superhero. And what had I done with my powers? I’d blown up a bus and killed my brother.
And I killed…what was his name, Andrew? He had a name, and I knew his name, and he died because of something I did. I didn’t mean to, but I did it. The bus driver… He probably had a family, and he was just doing his job, then had to deal with first one gunman, then another, and then an explosion.
At least, according to the TV, everyone else’s deaths had likely been “mercifully quick,” due to the intensity of the blast beneath their feet.
And then the homeless guy, the one who had originally had the gun: he wasn’t really to blame for what he did. Probably. He looked like he had something going wrong in his brain, and that really didn’t mean that he needed to die for what he did. Hell, I had been trying to explain that to Andrew, hadn’t I?
I watched the tears dripping from my nose. “And the poor mother and her baby…” I was muttering aloud again, and I stopped myself, looking up to make sure my door was still closed and that Jesse wasn’t standing there listening to me beat myself up about accidentally being a supervillain.
I didn’t know how to justify this in my head. I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, but how could this possibly be something that wasn’t genuinely evil? I had killed a half dozen people, including a baby in a stroller.
And then…and then I came home to train with my little brother, and I’d gotten it in my head to show off for the camera, and—
“The camera.”
I’d shoved it in a drawer after…once I was sure Jesse was breathing again, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get it or not. I really needed to go to bed if I was going to get up at four in the morning and get to work on time. Besides, it wasn’t something I wanted to deal with right away. Or ever.
I lay back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. At least I’d stopped crying, but whether I liked it or not—whether I had meant it or not—I was evil. Whatever that meant.
If I continued to use my powers, would I be able to break from the mould and be anything other than a supervillain?
It wasn’t what I wanted—it wasn’t what I believed I deserved, after spending half my life taking care of my younger brother. After all, isn’t it always the superheroes whose parents die at a tragically young age? I shook the thought away.
From my limited comic book knowledge, superheroes’ parents always died in a brutal fashion directly in front of them. I could always go and ask Jesse, but…well, he’d probably put two and two together and know how I was feeling.
I sighed and turned on my side, drawing my knees up to my chest. I was trying really hard not to start crying again.
Okay, next question: how would I approach the subject of my powers with Alex? There was nothing I would have liked less to discuss with him, but I couldn’t think of any way to get all of this—all of this…this entire fucking situation—off my mind.
I grabbed at my pillow and held it with both hands, contemplating ripping it apart or pumping it so full of electricity it would explode. Realizing what I was contemplating doing with my powers—the powers I’d convinced myself I never wanted to use again—I threw the pillow across the room. It hit a porcelain mug on my dresser, which fell to the ground and smashed; in the silence of the late evening, I flinched at how loud it sounded.
This was so far from being “my night.” I rolled over again, folding my arms across my chest, and let my mind drift, circling the same loop of thoughts until I fell asleep.
I have superpowers, and I can’t use them for good.
I blew up a bus. I killed that poor baby.
I killed people.
I killed Jesse.
I have superpowers, and I can’t use them…