So the original plot I had was Dallon dies but he comes back and he's a zombie. Like Pet Semetary and he'd go wack and kill a bunch of people. Wanted to have the final scene as the major fight scene and he like destroys the city/world/whatever like he wanted. I had trouble trying to translate grief into Brendon's motives from one point forward and I had a difficult time progressing the plot after a certain point. Then I came up with the unintentional but purposeful death and I took it in a completely different direction.

And then at the end I just straight up didn't like this idea anymore. I dragged it out too far and I didn't know where to take it. Thus I changed it because I wanted to complete the book. 8,500 words scrapped :)

I haven't edited this since July so don't yell at me if it doesn't make sense or has spelling errors or drags on because I knOw that's why I scrapped it. Anyways here u go read Hotel California so I can be #1 in chair thanks

———

There isn't a funeral because they can't find the body. The coroner started his autopsy with the exterior examination and a quick glance of the insides, packed up, locked the morgue, and set up the alarm system. However, when he returned the next morning, the body was gone. The cameras frizzed out for an hour, nothing was stolen or damaged, and the rest of the bodies are still where they had been left.

But he's gone.

The news stations don't report on it, and I sift through every single channel to see if anybody, anybody, is allowed to speak about it. It's twice as dangerous and terrifying to know he's out there somewhere, dead or alive, and there isn't a single person on watch.

Of course most of Council is out searching, but the media would be shocked to find out he wasn't dead. That wouldn't go over well.

My dad wanders back in the room and quietly closes the door behind him. He slides his phone into his back pocket and takes his seat at my bedside. I feel a lot better, but he's still worried about me, so I have to stay for another day or two. The concern only continued to peak once he was contacted about a missing body.

"The only coverage we should see is if someone finds him." He mutters. His foot taps against the ground anxiously.

"Duh. Did they find anything after a sweep of the morgue?" I was told they were disassembling the slot where they kept his body, just in case he'd left behind any clues. The investigation of the rest of the room was still in progress.

He nods. "Scratches and dents on the top wall, lock on the hatch door was shattered, blood all over the inside. Either an elaborate set up or a goddamn miracle."

'Miracle' my ass. It's a scene straight from a movie. "His blood?"

"Testing it. Should get the results soon." He checks his phone again but doesn't pull it out for another call. "Do you know what he can do?"

Anything but self resurrection, I assume. Never assume, though. "You name it, he would probably have it."

"Your friend really wasn't messing with us when she said he's a carbon copy? We thought it was an exaggeration." He says.

"He could shapeshift into anyone he wanted to, but he had to touch someone to be able to replicate their powers. Every now and then he could match their skill level even if he'd just absorbed it. Pure luck, I guess."

I still remember when I used my tree house in my backyard, where we'd sit across from each other in old bean bags and play games for hours on end. We'd have sleepovers and watch awful sci-fi films, we'd tune in a radio to the police dispatch station.

I remember when we'd take trips to the lake and hold hands on inflatable pool floats while we drifted away from the shore. One of us would bring chips and the other would smuggle a can of beer to split. I think our moms knew about it, but they never stopped us.

I remember when we'd sit on my roof outside of my room late at night, staring at the stars that were brighter than the light pollution, catching glimpses of downtown between the houses. There were so many times I nearly kissed him out there.

My heart drops through my stomach when I think about when I did, finally, after the first day of training at Next Steps, and every day after that when it became the norm and we only used one bed at night.

Alive or not, he died. If there's anything I learned from Pet Semetary, it's that the dead don't come back the same. No matter how much he changed, he still died, he still killed people, he'll still have the Y-incision down his chest and the cloudy eyes. I wonder if he'll need a heartbeat, if the blood that settled down will stay or start to circulate. Would he be deathly cold forever?

"Have you ever seen someone come back to life?"

My dad rests his chin in his palms, biting at his thumbnail and focusing on the news channel subtitles. "Once."

"Why?"

"Not sure. Nobody ever figured it out." He whispers. The tapping stops, the worried gleam in his eye fades with his focus.

"What did they look like?"

"I don't want to tell you."

I can't help but crack a smile. "So I start romantically seeing a literal super villain, he bleeds, I stitch him up, I rip them out and stitch it up again, I learn everything about his abilities and everything his dad did, then I watch him almost kill Miss Stone and shoot a dozen people, and then I learn that he died. All this and you can't give me some descriptive words about a dead body? Don't patronize me."

His lips split into a grin too. "You're right, but look, I still have nightmares about that shit. I think I could classify it as the scariest thing I have ever seen."

"I don't believe you."

He squints and a chuckle shakes his body when he tries to keep it contained. He doesn't do a good job at keeping it in for more than ten seconds, because then he's leaning back in the chair and fucking losing it. "Good try! You almost got me, almost, almost."

"I'll google it when I get back home to sweet sweet free WiFi."

"I'm calling your mother before I leave to turn off the WiFi," the laughs breaks into a sigh, "because I'm dead serious. No pun intended."

I don't get the chance to fire back at him, because he gets a call. He pats the top of my head before slipping out of the room to take it. "Five minutes."

Channel six is still replaying the footage of the destruction at Next Steps. It's not awful, our room is completely demolished, but that's pretty much the extent on the exterior. They don't show the other scenes, and for the split second they do it's blurred. Dallon's picture hovers at the bottom of the screen, his yearbook photo from our last year in school. I hate him but I miss him. I wish I could see him one more time.

Just as channel six goes black, the door swings open and my dad stumbles into the room, fumbling for his backpack with shaking hands and wide eyes. "Stay put," he reaches through the bars of the bed barriers to squeeze my hand, "Hayley and Jake will be here soon. He can protect you if anything happens."

It must be serious if he's sending someone else to watch over his injured kid. "Is everything okay? What's happening?" He tries to wiggle out of my grip but I squeeze back harder.

My dad sits back on his heels and drags his free hand down his face. His eyes are already glassy and panicked. "Frostbite found him. I should've known, I should've fucking known. I should've been out there looking for him—"

"It's okay," I mutter to him, "you didn't know."

"I did, I did. His dad was resurrected, Dallon is a carbon copy, he was brought back too. It's common sense, they're identical. I'm an idiot, I can't believe I didn't catch on quicker." He takes the chance to rip his hand from mine when shock hits me like a brick. There's no way he knew.

The room starts spinning and I feel like I could float away. Suddenly, the drip of the IV is ridiculously loud. It makes sense he would let The Reckoning go, they were friends before he turned. Something about it still seems off, strange that he wouldn't keep him in headquarters, isolated and under security. I can't think about that now, though, Dallon's alive. He's not dead anymore, he's alive.

"Are you gonna go catch him?"

"I'm going to try to talk him down. The dead get brought back for a reason." He swings his bag over his shoulder and presses his lips to my hair before scrambling for the door. "Here, I'll get the nurse, just try to sleep, okay? I'll be back soon, here comes Jake. Love you!"

I don't even get the chance to say it back before Jake barges in and slams the door behind him. His eyes are wide too, I assume he got the message. Channel six turns to static. The walls start melting. I don't even know if I'm really in the hospital still.

"Hey, buddy," he coos like I just woke up for the first time in days again, "are you feelin' okay? Hungry? Thirsty? Do you need anything?"

"I need to go." I tell him and sit up despite my brain swimming laps in my skull. I can't even grip the IV needle without feeling nauseous. Jake quite trying to stop me after he realizes I can't see straight anymore.

"You can't go anywhere. The nurse is almost here, just try to sleep. I know it's stressful and scary, but you need to trust us, okay?" He sounds so calm, I don't know how he's doing it. I could scream at the top of my lungs if I could channel it long enough. My brain says no.

I think I blackout for just a second, just a crucial second when the nurse runs in with a honking needle and punctures the bag hanging behind me. Everything hurts. I don't want to sit down and hang out like a kid, but holy fuck my entire body aches and I feel like I'm standing on a boat in the middle of a storm. There's no way he's alive. He's still dead, I bet. He has to be.

My eyelids feel like slabs of concrete. I can't even move my arm to stop Jake from touching my hair and trying to calm me down. Nothing can calm me down. I am a tornado.

"I don't want to sleep. I have to help." I mumble out just as I give in to the persistent sleep. I miss my asshole dad already. "Sit with me."

The last thing I know is that Jake jerks the barrier down and crawls in the blankets beside me. One of his arms hugs across the chest and the other holds my head into the crook of his neck. It's comfortable, and I get why Hayley puts up with him. I get it. I get it.

..

All the television blasts on every channel is the path of destruction Dallon left through the city. Nobody else was hurt explicitly, but the houses surrounding his also caught fire, Next Steps was almost completely demolished, and every building on Main Street was flooded. The worst injury by far was Hayley's.

Everyone on Council stopped by to see Hayley and Jake, and from there they deduced a plan at the foot of my bed when they found the couple there. The button to call the nurse is now for a serious emergency, not for if the sheets fell off again. There are three cameras set up around the room, I have a little blade tucked under my pillow for the worst case scenario, and the needle of the IV is out and only taped to look like it's still stuck in my hand.

My dad is in the room across the hall, Hayley is out of the hospital and somewhere safe, Jason and Frostbite are on the roof together, Sleepwalker is hiding in the air vent across the room, and the rest of Council is out searching for Dallon.

I am a sitting duck, but I'm the best option out there to lure him right where they need him. The problem is if he catches on, he won't come looking for me again. The other issue is the possibility of casualties, so the staff is on standby for immediate evacuation. Surgeries and operations were rescheduled, emergencies that required intensive care had been temporarily redirected to another facility across town.

One of the cameras has a live feed to the computer my dad has. It also has a speaker, so we've been pretending like I'm on the phone while we speak in case anybody is watching.

"I've been thinking about getting your mother a dog, especially now that you're going to be out of the house. What do you think?"

"She's always at work. Don't you think the dog would just sit at home all the time?"

"I mean, I could probably train it to work with me. We can afford a dog trainer, one of the good ones."

"Don't waste your money on that. You don't even know if I'll even be leaving or not."

He starts like he's about to say something, but then it hits him and he goes quiet instead. "...What do you mean?"

"I might join Council." The truth is, it's more appealing than I had previously thought. Maybe my dad can retire and he won't have to get a dog, maybe I'll be able to stop something like this from happening again now that I know the signs. It took a bit to realize that not everyone on Council was a narcissistic jerk with super strong punches, but better late than never.

I can almost hear him grinning through the monitor. "Really? Are you messing with me?"

"I'm not. You don't do anything anyways, I think I can handle that."

"Brendon, I—"

"Now I'm messing with you."

"I don't even know what to say. I'm so glad you're even thinking about joining, I knew you would be a good fit. Icicle and Miss Stone already love you, I'm sure—" He stops mid sentence, and there isn't a sound throughout the city but the beep of the monitor behind me. I probably should've had them shut that off.

My heart starts racing when there's static filling the room, he's still using the microphone but he won't say anything. "Dad? Is everything okay?"

"Frostbite just called down and said they saw something pass between the hotels across the street. Put the phone away and watch the news. I'm right across the hall."

"Okay. Please keep an eye on the cameras."

"I will. Jake said he just logged in and can see from the one in the corner closest to the door. Love you."

"Love you too."

I do as he says and slide my phone under my leg. I try my best to keep the monitor as steady as possible, but I'm terrified. I don't think Dallon would hurt me, but he stabbed Hayley clean through the chest and set fire to his home. I don't think he's the same person anymore. Am I even his anchor anymore?

Dallon clears his throat in the window. He's cupping his chin in his palm, resting his forearm on the windowsill while the rest of him dangles three stories above the apparently nonexistent traffic. I'd worry, but he can fly, so I don't. "Did you miss me?"

"Only a little bit." I don't turn to look at him but I see him in my peripheral vision as he slides in and rolls in the air to land on his feet and walk like he'd been standing the whole time. "Why're you here?"

As he draws closer, I finally bring myself to spare a glance, and I understand why my dad wouldn't tell me what a reanimated person looks like. His shirt is torn and reveals the deep red scar dragging down from his collarbone to his stomach. His bloodshot blue eyes are bright as ever but clouded over, like shining a light through thick fog, and the color of his skin is just a little off, toned a sickly yellow-green. The cuts and scrapes covering his body have been cleaned and the blood vessels cease to show, leaving ugly torn flesh to rot in the open air.

"I wanted to apologize. I saw the ambulance pick you up and take you here." He grunts.

"You could have killed Hayley." I'm trying to stay angry but it's difficult. I want to hug him and tell him it'll be alright, but I can't. I can't anymore.

"She was trying to take me away from you. So did Jake, so did the little army they brought. I did what I had to do to keep us safe." His blue eyes spark with a fire a bit different than before, anger and something violent behind the clouds.

Not only did I get knocked into a good sleep for three days, but he scorched my hand and scared the living daylights out of me when he killed ten people within the blink of an eye. I'm not even going to mention the fact that he died. "If you'd gone with them, you would've spared their lives. Those people you turned the bullets around on, they had families and a life. Did you even think about what you did for more than a minute?"

His fists clench and his jaw sets into a grimace. He stops right beside me, across from the chairs my dad had sat in barely an hour before. He smells like smoke and blood, death and decay. "I did, I did think about what I'd done and the things I took from people, and I think it's a fair trade for the person they made me out to be; I also think it's fair to take on that persona, since everyone was so set on me being evil, they had to kill me over it. So I answered your question, now you answer mine, and if you can give me a straight answer, I'll let your protection squad take me in without too much of a fight."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He kneels down at the bedside like he's peeking through the window again, a crooked smile tugging at his bruised and pale lips. "You know what I'm talking about. Your dad is just across the hall, Icicle and Frostbite are hanging out up on the roof, my buddy Sleepwalker is hanging out in the air vent. I see the cameras, I heard that heart to heart, I heard you tell him you wouldn't mind joining Council. So, I'll give you my question, you answer it, and we'll go from there."

God, I hope he didn't short out the cameras, and I hope Sleepwalker is paying attention. "Fine, whatever you want. Just don't hurt them."

"Well," he glances down at his wrist and taps it like he's touching a watch, "they haven't come for me yet, have they? They don't hurt me, I don't hurt them. It's not rocket science, love."

The speaker from one of the cameras crackles to life. "Dallon, it's me, it's John. You know it doesn't have to be like this. Let us take you in, we can help you. Be the bigger person and spare the rest of the city. We're trying to help."

"Help me with what? Are you scared that I have the upper hand now? Are you scared that I'll end up like my dear old dad, six feet underground? That clearly didn't work the first time, but I'm sure we could try for the second!" His body moves alongside his shaking hands while he mocks my dad, staring him down through the camera lens the whole time. I was right. I don't even know him anymore. "I just want to know one thing, just one."

"Shoot. What is it?"

He sighs, popping back into an unsettling grin, running the his fingers along the edge of my bed. They shake, purple and barely healed. "Why didn't they give me a chance?"

I almost hit him with an answer straight away; he'd been losing his grip and it was only a matter of time before he snapped, not at the fault of the labels and assumptions, but at his take on them and what he obviously inherited. However, I don't think he'd like how quick the response would be, let alone what it is that I say.

Maybe it's because his dad really had lost it and passed it down the line to him, or at least Dallon had it set in his brain that he did. When he first learned what he could do, he didn't exactly take it easy, and he sure did act out to the extreme.

Or it could be because Jake could tell. Dallon didn't have to go all out on the first day of training, but he did. He stuck with the injuries and kept going through all the cuts and scrapes, and an eighteen year old kid fighting through that with a rare ability could be a red flag, especially when you have the idea their father was a murderous super villain.

It's also in the realm of possibility that they were giving him a chance. They gave him the chance to admit who he is and seek for help beyond what Next Steps could offer, because the weight on his shoulders was a heavy one, but he genuinely chose to reject it. Maybe they had the resources to give him a sense of control he hadn't known, the opportunity to live the life his dad would have wanted him to live.

But I've seen a few scary movies to know that he isn't the same. If he had stayed dead, he wouldn't be looking for revenge. Maybe if death didn't unhinge morals, he would be welcomed back. Maybe I love him, but it has to come to an end.

"Because you didn't realize you ever had a chance."

His right eye squints a little more when he frowns and turns over my response in his head. I can feel my heart skip every other beat. Even though I've gotten better and didn't come close to receiving the short stick, I still don't feel the greatest, I'm certainly not up for a brawl with a zombie for the time being.

"I like that answer. Very deep and thoughtful, up for interpretation," Dallon stands and runs the back of his cold hand down my cheek, stopping to rub his thumb across my jaw, "but not quite what I was looking for. You see, I knew I had a chance to prove myself to them, but I shouldn't have needed to do that in the first place. After all, I was just a kid, right? I wasn't a killer until I was told I am one."

As soon as I grab his hand and swing my leg to kick him in the stomach, my dad is bursting into the room and lifting his arms in the air to fling chairs upon tables, pinning Dallon against the wall before he could even blink.

He only cries out when a scalpel drives itself through his wrist and tacks down his outstretched arm. He doesn't bleed. "Hit me with a couple more and I'll have to die for your fucking sins, god knows I've already done it once."

I don't think I've seen my dad try so hard to keep control over his abilities. His arms are shaking, feet planted to the ground. Jason swings through the open window, leaving a trail of ice as he steps. Frostbite follows behind with his hands already coated in cold crystals. Sleepwalker crawls from the vent with the purple sleep dust falling from her fingertips.

He scans them all for a second, an unsettling smile splitting his face as he laughs. "I've almost got the whole squadron here, that's pretty cool! It's such a shame," he pulls his arm out from underneath the rubble shoved up against him, "that this probably won't happen again. You know, because most of you will be down for the count soon. No guarantees, though. I'm still learning, so let me know how I do on a scale of one to ten."

"It'll happen when you're behind bars," my dad grits his teeth and starts to slide backwards as Dallon stares him down, "and we're all there to welcome you in. Just give in. It's over."

"It's not over until I say it is." Dallon grabs the handle of the scalpel buried deep in his wrist, and rips it out without so much as a flinch, and returns the blade to Sleepwalker's throat in one fluid motion. She grasps at the weapon with wide eyes as blood gushes out through severed veins and arteries, but with the simple twitch of Dallon's hand it digs itself deeper and deeper into her neck, until it carves its way through her trachea and she collapses to the ground in a large pool of her own blood, dead.

While they stand shocked and appalled at the gruesome death they just witnessed, Dallon's body fades into the background until he walks through the items holding him down and reappears as a solid person away from the wall.

My dad's jaw drops. He lets the tables and chairs fall to the floor and rushes to tackle Dallon to the tile, but he isn't quick enough. Before Icicle and Frostbite can so much as blink, lasers blast from his cold blue eyes and burns a hole right through them. By the time he is slammed to the ground, one lays in two pieces, and Jake lies beside him with intense burns across his arm and most of his suit. Lucky for him, it seems to have stopped at the base of his neck.

And just like that, there goes two of the most powerful members of Council, and a possible third if he isn't treated soon. I didn't even have time to rip the tape off my hand and swing my legs over the side of the bed before Dallon flies off through the wall with my dad clutching on for dear life the whole way.

That all happened so fast. I didn't even have the time to react, I was paralyzed with fear, I thought four adults could handle one eighteen year old kid, but I guess not.

I peel the sticky pads off from my chest and as I swing to my feet, the heart monitor flatlines, which will surely bring the nurses in if they weren't already on their way. I can't stand to look at Sleepwalker on the floor, and it just gets worse when I have to step over three pieces of two people to reach the hole in the wall. Who would break the news to Hayley? What would she do with her ring if he didn't make it?

I lean over the edge of the building, and sure enough a crowd has gathered on the sidewalk, hanging out of windows, filming and taking photos of the destruction in the hospital. The skies are clear, but my dad and Dallon are nowhere to be found.

They're nowhere to be found until a ball of light shoots from the sky at lightning speed and demolishes the street as it lands and sends waves through the ground, knocking down everyone in a fifty yard radius. The building shakes, but I hold on to the chunks of the wall still attached, and I wait for the smoke to clear to see who comes out on top. I love Dallon, but I find myself praying it's my dad that walks away.

I get my answer before it settles. Two figures rise into the air, one holding the other. The news helicopters buzzing overhead aim their spotlights down at them, and it's Dallon lifting my dad by the collar of his suit; no fight, no struggle, nothing.

An antenna pole sticks clean through his chest, and Dallon spins his immortality bracelet around his index finger.

...

I watched the footage online of the events that unfolded afterwards. Hayley sat on the other end of the couch and spun the ring around her finger until I finished it.

The video ends after his little speech and an ad for the news network plays out, and it's that that sends me off the edge. They just televised the death of the head of Council, the speech of the kid that killed him, and then plugged their social media and advertised for their own channel for more updates.

She doesn't flinch when I chuck my phone at the wall. "I'm just glad you're home and safe, babe."

"Whatever."

"Do you want to talk about it? I can get some ice cream or I can heat up some chicken nuggets. They're shaped like dinosaurs."

"I'm not hungry."

"You should eat." She kicks her feet to the floor and braces her stomach to stand, but she doesn't move after about a minute of deep breaths. I sit her back down and go to the kitchen to dig them out of the freezer myself and pop them in the toaster oven for her.

Maybe I'm not fit for Council. I just watched people die, and I didn't move until my dad was at risk and ultimately impaled. I've had my ability for a couple months, I've had limited training, and I could never make significant headway in a fight against someone with dozens of powers, if not more. Everyone is on the look out for him now, but he just needs to brush against someone to replicate an ability, and who knows how far he's willing to go now.

We still hadn't heard anything about Jake. Last I saw, he was alive, just burnt to a crisp on half his body. I'm sure that if he was dead, someone would have let us know. I don't think he'll be returning to Council; healing abilities can do a lot, but they can't exactly wave away burn scars with ease. He's served the city for years, but it still costs money for those types of services.

I think if I hadn't sat in bed like an idiot, I could have saved him. I could have saved my dad, Frostbite, Sleepwalker. If I had helped convince him to go with Hayley and Jake at Next Steps, his mom would still be around, and there would be three more houses sitting on the block. If I had told my dad to keep an eye out, things could have been handled when he was barely a danger and when he wasn't dead.

But I didn't do anything.

People are dead. People are going to die.

And it's all my fault.

"How are those chicken nuggets doing?" Hayley calls and peeks at me from the living room.

"Fine."

She lifts herself up to see over the back of the couch. She looks concerned, her fingers grip the cushion tightly. "Are you okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost — do you feel alright?"

"I'm fine."

I feel like I'm about to puke out my insides. I want to rip my lungs out of my chest and skip chunks across a lake like they're stones. I want to pull my head off my body and kick it around like a soccer ball.

Hayley's arm wrap around my waist and her hand finds my shoulder. Her cheek presses against my hair. "I'm sorry this is happening to you, I'm sorry you had to see everything, but I hope you know there wasn't much you could have done without getting hurt too."

"I just sat there."

"You watched the video and listened to his little speech. That isn't the same person you had grown to love. Whoever he is now would have killed you just as quickly as he did everyone else. Your dad would have wanted you to stand back; you did the right thing."

There isn't anyone else to stand up to him and take him down anymore. The biggest challenge Dallon faced was four of the most powerful members of Council at once, and he pummeled through them like it was nothing.

I barely have half as much power as he does, and even less control. I don't know what Dallon wants, I don't know what he wants to gain from what he's looking to do next, but he'll get it no matter what. There's very few people left to stand in his way.

"It should've been me. Not him."

Hayley rips my shoulders into a spin and hugs me against her so tight I can't breathe. Her hand runs through my hair as she forces me to bury my face in the crook of her neck. It takes a minute to realize she's sniffling and tears are streaming down her cheeks and on to my head. "I don't ever want to hear you say that again. Your father would never have wanted that. He may have been cold and insanely private, but he loved you. I love you, Jake loves you."

I can't hold it in anymore. Grief washes over me like a tsunami and I can't feel my legs, my heart sinks to the bottom of the ocean. I want to eject myself into space without a suit. All the words that were on the tip of my tongue tumble back down my throat and dig blades into my guts to hunker down for the winter.

I can't believe he's gone. What would have happened if I had tried to stop Dallon? Would I have died too or would both of us have been spared? What if we hadn't made his abilities out to be such a big deal? Would he still have died?

There's a lot of things I could have done and I didn't do any of them. Now a good portion of Council is dead, Hayley and Jake are in no shape to fight. It's just me and my mom, and I don't think I could handle it if I lost her too. I can't imagine how she feels now; she hasn't spoken to me since the news broke a couple hours ago. She knows where I am and who I'm with, so I won't give her shit for rejecting any contact with me.

Who am I to put an end to the things I started? I'm still a kid, I've barely had my ability for long. I just graduated school, and now I'm responsible for the next apocalypse.

"I don't know what to do. Dallon is my responsibility."

Hayley holds me at arm's length and wipes at her eyes with her sleeve. I don't know if she's crying because of what I said or if her situation with her boyfriend just hit home. "You do your best because nobody else can. If you succeed, you succeed. If you fail, you fail. It won't matter as long as you put effort into ending this."

I don't know if I can.

I think she can sense it, because she takes me to the couch, sits me down, and limps off. There's a loud thud and a string of curses before she drags a suitcase sized bag into the room, stopping a few feet away and letting go of the straps. "Your dad gave this to me a while ago, he said in case anything happened to him. I'm an idiot and I forgot about it."

I slide to the floor and pick out the first thing on the top, a little book. The pages are filled with photos from when I was younger, pictures I hadn't seen in years or had never known were taken. The book stops at the last page, my elementary school graduation, because there wasn't enough space for the other events in my life. That may have been why we got so distant — he didn't have a scrapbook to make.

The second item I fish out is a small box packed full with folded drawings I made when I was still learning how crayons worked. They're messy and make no sense, but I think he has every picture I ever drew.

The third is just a box of bandaids. They're patterned with spotty prints of the members of Council, but the ones in the tin are just of my dad.

The fourth object is something I have only seen in textbook pictures. I lift out the set of white fingerless gloves from the first year on Council when the uniforms were freshly designed and shit. The designer was fired directly after and replaced, but there was still a sweet year of fingerless gloves, black polka dot bodysuits, and thigh high white snake skin patterned boots. He only saved the gloves, but those are enough.

And that's the bottom of the bag. There's only one box left, a small thin lid over an even smaller box. I glance up and Hayley is flipping through my scrapbook, grinning ear to ear.

I gently pull off the lid, and I'm confused for a second. It's a slip of paper, and a little velvet bag from a jewelry store. Hayley still isn't watching, so I unfold it.

Brendon, if you are reading this, I assume the worst happened. All I can hope for is that you and your mom are safe and sound, which means my mission was accomplished. I know we haven't been close for a while, and I think you really hate me now. You're turning sixteen in a couple days, and you already told me you don't want to see me.

I made you this bag instead of visiting you because I know you'll use it someday. I've been keeping the scrapbook and drawings forever, the bandaids for eleven years, and the forbidden gloves since we burned the rest of the outfits. The last item in here is special. It's the bracelet I received after being named the head of Council. The one I've been wearing for the last six or seven years is a replica, and I've kept the actual one in a box for you to find when the time would come.

Since you're reading this, the worst has happened, like I said. Maybe that means I should have kept the bracelet on, but I always felt better knowing it's set aside for you. I'm sure you'll use it more than I would — after all, you could do my job a thousand times better than I could.

I hope I don't see you again anytime soon. Sincerely, John.

I undo the string to find, sure enough, in that little velvet bag, is the bracelet.

....

When I tie the bracelet on, I feel nothing. There wasn't a shock or a spark like I had dreamt about when I was seven. There wasn't a parting in the sky or a singing chorus like I thought about five minutes ago. It's just a bracelet with a broken clasp threaded into a band that feels like recycled cardboard. It doesn't look or feel like anything special, but it is.

The only special bit is the pulsing red bead that glows. That's it. Nothing else does anything, and I feel like an idiot sitting alone on my bed in a tiny makeshift bedroom. Maybe my dad wore the real one and this is a fake. Either way, Dallon has one of them, so there's no point in worrying.

It's been roughly a week. Hayley let me stay with her, so wherever Council's little panic room is, that's where I am. Her boyfriend made it home a day ago, and she hasn't left his side ever since. He's okay, clearly, but she missed him.

I catch her in the corner of my eye, standing in the doorway. "Do you really think that's it?"

"Does it matter?"

"No," she shrugs, "but it'd be cool to know."

She's right, but I don't think I want to know. I'd feel like shit if the reason my dad died was because he kept a fucking immortality bracelet in a box for me when he did die because he didn't wear it. Idiot. "I don't really care." Either I have it, or Dallon has it, and I don't plan on leaving wherever I am any time soon.

"I got a call from your mom," Hayley sits beside me, "your dad's identity is out. She kept both of you registered under her maiden name so neither of you have any association, but she had to identify the body so one coroner knows."

I don't care. I don't want to hear anything about it. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to read about it, I don't want anyone to try to comfort me in the fact that my dad is dead and my best friend killed him. I just want to curl up into a ball, dig myself into a hole, and never see the light of day every again. It doesn't feel like anything matters anymore.

"Don't want to talk 'bout it."

Hayley's hand squeezes my shoulder, her nails dig lightly into my skin. "I know, but you can't keep everything bottled up until you're on your death bed. I don't recommend it."

"I'm not keeping it bottled up, I just want to be alone. Do you even understand how I feel right now? Do you even understand that you basically caused all of this?"

She pulls back in shock. Her eyebrows furrow and her lips part into a pout. "What are you talking about? This was inevitable, Brendon. You know that, don't blame this on anyone but Dallon."

"If you hadn't barged in and accused him of being a murderer before he'd even done anything, he wouldn't have killed all those people. You shocked him into thinking he was already the bad guy, Jake initiated the fight, Jake took him in and everyone collectively put him in a fucking detainment cell. Who in the world thought that was a good idea? Why not just make him more isolated, scared, and prone to lashing out? Brilliant."

"What would you have done?" Her words spit venom as her arms cross over her stomach.

"I don't know what I would've done, but I wouldn't have done it like that. I wish you had told me you were there to find out if he was who he is; I could've helped you ease him into finding help from someone like you." The death of so many people was something I blamed on myself originally, but it didn't take long to come to the conclusion that nothing was entirely my fault even if it felt like it.

"Well, we didn't do that. Maybe we should've thought about it a little longer, but we didn't have much time left until something went wrong." Hayley frowns. "Now we don't have any time. You're the only person he's going to even remotely trust."

"Bold of you to think he'll trust anybody anymore."

"If you hadn't noticed, he likes you. Everything at Next Steps was because of you, he tried to keep himself a secret because of you, he's acting out now because of you. Jake can't fight, I can't fight, the rest of Council is in no position to do something, and I don't think the majority of the city has enough power to do shit."

Before I can start running my mouth and deflecting her points, Jake catches our eye standing in the doorway. It seems like a couple healers got to him because the scarring doesn't appear to be life altering, just a couple webs and bumps poking through loose bandages here and there. I can't help but wonder if his abilities will still work where the burns are.

"Knock knock," his knuckles tap the wall, "the chick from Next Steps is at the door. I don't know how she found us, but she's asking for Brendon."

The door slams open, the stopper at the base of the wall vibrating so fast it sounds like it's about to pop off. Taylor leans over from the hall so she barely makes eye contact, but it doesn't take long until she's sprinting across the carpet and tackling me to the bed. Her hair is loose and dangles into my face and it snags in the zipper of her olive green jacket every now and then.

Out of the corner of my eye, I sneak a glimpse of Hayley joining her boyfriend in the doorway, leading him back to bed. She doesn't give me so much as a glance over her shoulder when I swing the door shut and finally roll Taylor off of me.

She runs her fingers through her tousled hair and tries to catch her breath. The backpack hanging on for dear life slides off her shoulders and plops beside her chunky black boots with too many straps and buckles. "I thought you died or something, after the whole hospital thing. That was insane, did you hear Dallon's speech? Talk about a villain, you know?"

I don't say anything, I can't even look at her. She takes a pause on the rapid fire rant to squeeze my hand. "I'm sorry about your dad. If I had known it would've gone down like that, I would have tried to help more."

It's not her fault, she shouldn't have been obligated to reach out and find someone to deal with such an unstable and overpowered kid. "How did you find me?"

"Easy," she turns my arm over and draws a circle with her finger on the inside of my wrist, "I broke into Council headquarters, found a map of the city, found a little dot from your tracking device. I can't believe you didn't notice it, this is fresh."

I squint at the skin and she's right, the pink scar is just barely there. She presses a little harder and a red light blinks back at me. I wonder if my dad insisted it be put in while I was under at the hospital.

"Council headquarters is in shambles, by the way," she wiggles her fingers just over the tracking device and her breath hitches, "there's supposed to be people coming in from a couple states away to try and take your friend down, but I don't know how that'll go. It's not going to be televised, and everyone has been instructed to either evacuate or stay put and out of sight. Word going around is that he's looking for you."

If more people come in with stronger abilities, Dallon has the chance to absorb those — it's an awful idea, but I'm not sure anybody knows what he's capable of. Whatever plays out next will need to be perfectly calculated and executed with at least a dozen backup plans.

With a sickening squelch, the device cuts through my wrist in a small slit. I instinctively hold my thumb to the blood that starts to dribble down my arm while Taylor takes the chip, set it on the carpet, and crushes it underneath the heel of her boot.

"What's in the bag?" I point to the backpack and her blue eyes light up.

Her lips curve into a wicked smile as she pulls it on her lap and starts to unzip it. "I'm not an idiot, I know nobody else can take Dallon but you, and I think you're going to need some backup," she shakes out a silver Council suit, tosses it into my hand, and keeps digging, "so I got us whatever I could find in headquarters."

My breath hitches in my throat and sucks out every ounce of my recovery into a normal human being again. "No. I can't do it."

The grin falls with the suits as they fold up in her lap. "Look, I know you need more time, I'm not saying we have to get out there in the next five minutes, but we have to do something, we're the only people that can."

"We are not. There are people qualified to stop this, we're still gullible kids with superpowers that we don't know how to use. In case you haven't seen the news or spoken to anybody, my dad is dead, and so are a shit ton of other people. I can't risk losing my own life on top of my dad's, and I refuse to let you risk yours."

"Speak for yourself when you talk about experience, I've known how to handle myself since I was first hired to kill people when I was twelve. I know you're not ready, nobody in the world is ready to deal with that batshit crazy monster hiding somewhere in a funky cave brooding to himself and heading out to terrorize more people on the search for you," she balls up the suit and shoves it into my chest where it unfurls and falls neatly over my legs, "but someone has to stand up to him. You know him better than anyone else does, and I have the most experience and available power than anyone else here."

"He's too overpowered. If anyone's going to be able to stop him, they'll have to kill him."

"Wow. You're such an optimist."

I shove the suit back into her lap and try to leave the room before she can convince me. "I'm just being realistic. We should leave this to the real superheroes."

"The real superheroes are dead, and you should know that better than anyone. Nobody else is going to take action, and those people flying in soon have no idea what's going to hit them." She says.

"This isn't my fucking job! I don't know why all this responsibility is on me, I didn't cause this, I didn't encourage this, I shouldn't have a part in any of it." I pause at the edge of the bed. "Get out of here and find somewhere safe. Be a hero another day."

She stands when I'm halfway out the door, and stops me with her little knife sticking in the frame between my fingers. My heart skips a beat for just a moment, but I know she wouldn't hurt me, not when she says she needs me. "You're a fucking coward, Brendon."

I glance to meet her gaze over my shoulder, but I don't turn around completely. I know what needs to be done, and it isn't my job. "I know."

.....

Taylor doesn't leave. She fucks off for a couple hours after we fight and then comes back to sleep on the couch and hang around for a few days. We don't talk expect for the one instance where I had to direct her to the stash of specifically flavored cup noodles.

She throws a couple knives, tries her suit on once or twice, makes herself a new mask out of plastic wrapped with tinfoil secured with elastic bands, and chews me out one last time before she leaves again.

Taylor doesn't come back after that. I wouldn't even know she was dead if I didn't turn on the news. I wouldn't even know if I hadn't seen Dallon impale her on the top of a building and shoot lightning from his palms to fry her like a piece of chicken.

I hate that they televised everything. I understand why they released footage of Dallon catching Taylor's blades between his fingers when they're inches from his face, I can see why they show the videos of the heroes from out of town trying to take him down. I don't know why they show all the deaths and the endless destruction. It just makes me feel like a shitbag for starting all of it. I don't have one person to grieve over, I have hundreds.