Taylor

It takes almost a day of driving to go from Georgia to Vermont. The entire time, my mind is empty. It's a welcome feeling after the turmoil of the last few days. Staring out at an endless road with nothing in my head except the roaring of wind is like therapy.

When I reach my hometown, it's night. I stop at the high school first. It was one week after my graduation when we had the accident, and it appears the administration hasn't forgotten me. On the digital school sign, the one meant to advertise events and spirit days, there's a dedication to me and my brother, who graduated two years ago.

Rest in peace, Taylor and Andrew Novak, it says. Accompanying the words is each of our senior portraits. Same eyes, same nose, same hair. Same face, essentially. I'm never going to be able to look in a mirror again, because I won't ever see me. I'll see him.

The sign eventually switches to a career day advertisement, and every few minutes, the dedication comes back. I stand there watching for three cycles before I'm able to look away from it. The school, dark and empty in the night, watches me, the remains of a student who once walked its halls. What I wouldn't give to rewind the clock by a year, to live in this town again and complain about having to sit in those classrooms every weekday.

I drive to my house next. A For Sale sign is propped up on the lawn, and I glare at it as is I go up to the porch. The lock melts with a few seconds of burning, and I push open the door gently. The soft creak of its hinges echoes through the empty house.

There's no sign that we ever lived here. Mom's favorite doormat is gone. The hook that Dad hung his keys on is gone. Andrew's soccer bag, which used to sit right there, at the foot of the stairs, even after he stopped playing, is gone. All I see are empty walls and shadows.

I walk upstairs and open the door to my room. It's a sickening feeling I'm hit with—when I left for the last time, I didn't know it was the last time. The big details stick: where the furniture was, what I had up on my walls, those sorts of things, but the little memories are gone. I don't remember what was on my desk when I left, or if my bookshelf was organized or not. It's been four months since I step foot in here, but with all this emptiness and sorrow, it may as well have been four years.

I lean against the wall and sink to the floor. Just as I tilt my head back and close my eyes, I hear it.

Relax.

His voice is clear as day, ringing in my ears. He would say relax every time it seemed like I was waking up to fight back. I never knew what exactly I was going to fight back against—I only knew that something hurt. This was the first memory that returned, and I just about jumped out of my skin when I first heard it.

What follows is the bone saw. I was awake for that, mostly. All he did was shave a little off the sternum, right before he jabbed a needle into my heart. I run a finger down that scar, face twisting into a scowl.

The memories are just that—memories. Sometimes they pop into the forefront, and I have no choice but to think about them. They work like all other memories do, like all the other random things you think about at the most random moments. It's not an attack, not an in-your-face hallucination, but it feels as violent as one.

I don't know why we forgot what happened in the first place; I assume that we blocked things out due to the horror. Or maybe the drugs Jansen pumped us with had something to do with it, and after it stopped, it took a little time for what we experienced to return. I don't know. I never will. It doesn't really matter.

The front door is opening.

The sound of it snaps me out of my misery, and I shoot to my feet and creep against the wall. A single footstep echoes through the house, and then another.

A soft, familiar voice says, "Taylor?"

I extinguish my hands and go to the top of the stairs. Rani is standing at the bottom.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"Jude said you were going home," she explains. "Your address was in the file he sent me."

"What are you doing here?" I repeat.

Rani puts her hand on the banister, but she doesn't make a move to come up. I stay where I am on the second floor, looking down at her with narrowed eyes.

"I wanted to apologize," she says.

"I don't need to hear it."

"You're going to hear it," she snaps. "Look, I think it's shitty that you wanted to kill us, and it's shitty that you didn't tell Jude and Lana the truth right away, and it's shitty that you killed Jansen without giving the rest of us a chance to lay into him...but I do regret trying to drown you. I'm sorry."

The apology's sincere—if her tone wasn't enough, the fact that she came all the way to Vermont seals it. "Don't be." I shake my head. "He did what he did best. He lied. I don't blame you for falling for it."

Rani laughs that forced, emotionally distressed laugh that people let out when they don't know what's going on anymore. She takes her hand off the banister and steps back. "That's all."

"Bye, Rani."

"Goodbye, Taylor."

She leaves, closing the door softly on her way out. It bounces back open a little, since I deformed the lock, but that's okay. If any thieves drop by, they won't find anything worthwhile. I stay at the top of the stairs until I hear her car pull away, and then I go back to my room.

I sit down in the corner, wanting to do nothing but breathe. Now that Rani's gone, I can feel the saw again, shaving away little bits of bone for him to do who knows what with. He did different things to us—you can't make fire, plants, water, and air through the same fucked-up procedures—but though the chemicals were different, the big processes were the same. Soon Rani will have the phantom sawing feeling I have now, and then Jude will, and then Lana will. I stare at the wall, wondering if I should've told Rani to take care and to not freak out if she suddenly hears relax.

The door creaks again.

A footstep echoes through the house.

And my eyes fly open. It isn't her—she has no reason to come back, and this person isn't stopping downstairs. I stay where I am, listening as someone walks upstairs, checks the room down the hall, and finally comes into mine.

"Hello, Mr. Novak," the man says, sporting a Cheshire grin.

I blink. I have no idea who this is and why he knows me and why he's smiling after seeing a supposedly dead son sitting in his definitely dead family's house, so I give him the only appropriate response.

"Get out."

He pauses by the door. "You can't kick me out," he chides. "There's a For Sale sign out there, which means this is the bank's property, not yours."

"Well, your ass is going to be the Moon's property when I kick it there. Get out."

The smile stretches wider. He leans against the wall across from me and slides down so we're eye-to-eye. "I've been dropping by for a few days now," he says. "I figured you would come by eventually."

"Talk faster."

His face twitches. "You killed Jansen."

"Sure did."

"Why?"

It's my turn to smile. "Take a guess."

He doesn't return the joy. "And the others?"

"What about them?"

"Do they also know the truth?"

"I didn't tell them anything." I shrug. "I've never even met them."

His eyes narrow, but there's no clues for him to find. I'm only a bad liar if I feel guilty, and over him, there's no guilt. Only a creeping suspicion.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"William Hendrix, of the Hendrix Corporation." His head tilts up a bit. "We're Jansen's benefactors."

"Benefactor?"

"We provided the funding and resources." Hendrix laughs. "You didn't think he could pull it off on his own, did you? We're the ones who made it possible, and we're the ones who'll own the Elementals after your debut."

My foot taps once against the floor; what it really wants to do is kick him in the teeth. "Own?" I repeat coldly.

"Yes, own. Did you think four kids would make it as superheroes by themselves? You'll need someone to handle your affairs, your legality, the inevitable media shitstorms..."

He goes on a bit more, but I've heard enough to understand what he's saying. After our personal debut, they were meant to control our every move. A superhero team, managed by the Hendrix Corporation. I can imagine that it was meant to be gift-wrapped with a nice little bow, presented to us as a good thing that we, not knowing better, would definitely fall for, but after what I've done, he's foregoing the pretenses.

"We gave Jansen what resources he needed, and he kept us updated, but we were hands-off," Hendrix continues. "We didn't choose you, didn't create you. We weren't supposed to get involved until you came together as a team, but then I find out that his house—and he along with it—has been burned down, and the cops can't determine the cause of the fire."

"I'm sorry to mess with your plans," I say sarcastically.

"I'm sure you are," he says, equally sarcastic. "The matter is, the work is not unsalvageable. The Elementals have a chance. And despite what you've done, I'm willing to give you a chance, as well."

Gee. Thanks.

"You have a choice." He stands, looking down at me. "You can live out your life in loneliness and spite, or you can join the Elementals like you were meant to and keep your mouth shut. Will you consider my offer?"

I never turned the light on in my room. We see each other only because of the moonlight streaming in through the window, and in its bluish hue, his eyes are dark and beady like a demon's. I'm sure mine are, too, and we stare at each other, two demons full of wrath.

After a minute, I nod. He hands me a business card with a shiny Hendrix logo on it.

"It will take a bit of time to find the others and sort out some affairs," he says, "but regardless of my timeline, I expect you to be in touch very soon. Good day, Mr. Novak."

He leaves, and unlike Rani, I don't hear him try to close the door.

A shine runs across Hendrix logo when I tilt the card back and forth in the moonlight. Beneath it is a phone number. I stare at the card for what feels like hours, running through the words of his offer over and over again. Then I stick it in my back pocket and stand up.

My hand slides along the banister as I go downstairs. I leave through the back door for the last time and turn around in the backyard to look at the house. The dark windows watch me. I twitch my fingers and throw a spark at the corner of a window. The fire catches a little, creeping up the frame, and when I twist my hands, the flames multiply and spread.

My parents bought this house as it was being constructed, and that means we're the only ones who ever lived here. No one else has decorated these rooms or repainted these walls or put up holiday decorations on these stairs. This is our home.

And if we can't have it, no one can.

I raise my hands, and the entire house bursts into fire. Fingers of dark smoke climb into the darker sky, and the moonlight chokes on it. I let it burn hot for only a few seconds, and then I spread my fingers and make the entirety of the blaze disappear. What's left is charred, unsalvageable ruin.

Before the neighbors call the fire department, I say my goodbye and begin walking away. The business card feels heavy in my pocket.

I've got research to do.