Chapter 21

They walked to Colliers, talking the whole time about themselves, making jokes, or shedding light about the kind of person they were. Cassie held his hand the whole time and didn’t let go until they came up to the doors. He opened them for her. Once inside, they headed downstairs like they were going to the cafeteria but instead of going left for food, they went right and followed a long hallway to its end, finally ending up at a set of glass doors. Through them, Alex could see a twenty-lane bowling alley. Not only that, but there were also ten pool tables set up to the right as they walked inside. Luckily, the bowling alley/pool hall was pretty much empty. They easily found an empty table and Alex racked the balls, grabbed the cue ball, and placed it in the middle of the table on the other end. He went over to the wall and selected two pool cues. Then he came back and held one out to Cassie.

She grabbed it with another gorgeous smile.

“Go ahead and break ‘em,” he told her.

“That’s all right.” She held the cue beneath her chin. “You can go first. I want to see the master in action.”

“Okay. Make sure you take notes. This part is important.” Alex smiled.

He was confident as he lined up his shot. He moved the cue ball a little to the left of dead center. He slid his cue back and forth a couple times and then shot it forward.

Unfortunately, he completely forgot about his enhanced strength. Terror hit him in a nauseating wave as he watched the ball jump free of the table and fly the entire length of the large room in a hard, fast line. It embedded itself into the back wall with a loud, audible thump! He cringed when he heard it and everyone else in the room turned toward the source of the sound. To make matters worse, the first foot or so of the cue’s tip burst into a cloud of splinters and jagged pieces of wood.

He groaned miserably.

Lucky for him, no one was in the runaway ball’s path. No one was hurt or, even worse, killed. As fast as that ball had been going, he was positive it would have gone straight through a human body.

Alex threw what was left of the pool cue down on the table in sudden, hot panic. He stepped back from it like it abruptly turned radioactive. Cassie, Alex saw, was staring in complete shock at what she just witnessed.

“I…uh…think maybe we better go now,” Alex stammered. His heart was pounding so fast.

“H-how did…,” she started to ask, but Alex grabbed her hand and started ushering her away from their table. Her voice faltered as he did so.

“We really should leave now. People are starting to stare at us,” Alex repeated, unable to control the panicky edge to his voice. “Come on.”

He rushed them out of there, half-dragging Cassie behind him, and ran them back up the stairs and out of Colliers. He didn’t stop until they were seated on one of the benches scattered around the Court. Cassie was puffing slightly with the hurried exit while Alex seemed unaffected by it.

“What was that? I’ve never seen anyone do that before,” she asked breathlessly. She was breathing hard. “How did you do that?”

Alex didn’t answer her. Instead, he gazed at the sky. He struggled with telling her the truth and wondered if she’d think he was a lunatic if he did. He weighed the pros and cons and finally decided to tell her everything. He really liked her and he didn’t want to lie to her. He wanted her to trust him. No secrets. Besides, Darius had told Anna. In his mind, that made them equal.

He eyed her and saw she was getting impatient.

“Well? You gonna tell me?” she urged.

“I am. But you have to understand, you can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. I mean anyone. I’m serious.” Alex, like Darius, was thinking about the burnt wreckage of Dr. Tiberius’s car. The people funding the geneticist had disappeared him quite effectively and Alex didn’t want them coming for her too. “This secret is huge. Probably bigger than anything you can even think of. If the wrong people found out you know about it, they might try to hurt or kill you.”

She looked him in the eyes and her mouth started twitching. Then she burst out laughing.

“Ooohh,” she joked. She twiddled her fingers and slapped his arm softly. “Do you ever stop kidding around?”

Alex wasn’t laughing though. He wasn’t even smiling. The look on his face was enough to choke the laughter from her.

“Wait. You’re serious?”

He nodded.

“You sound like you’re involved with some kind of big, government cover-up or something,” she said.

“I don’t have any proof of that, but to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if that ended up being true.”

Cassie felt a chill roll up her spine when she saw how serious he was.

“Okay then. I promise. I won’t tell a single soul what you tell me. You can trust me,” she declared.

Alex still hesitated though, obviously torn between wanting to be truthful with her but not wanting to put her in danger. Impulsively, she yanked him toward her and kissed him. It was deep, passionate, and more powerful than either one ever experienced before. Cassie felt the heat of it and pressed harder, her lips molding to Alex’s. After a couple seconds, she drew away. She was breathing hard again and her cheeks were flushed.

“I’ll...uh...take that as reassurance.” He smiled daily at her. The fire she stirred up in him made him want to kiss her again.

She read that in his eyes and smiled back. She could see how much he liked her, and couldn’t help but revel in that knowledge.

“Okay. So a few weeks ago D and I agreed to take an experimental drug.” He held up a hand when he saw her look of shock. “I know, I know. Trust me. I heard it all from Darius too but I really needed the money. My mom lost her job and couldn't help me pay my tuition anymore. The money from the trial was a huge help. Anyway, Dr. Tiberius was the one that developed the drug we took. Everything seemed fine after we woke back up but the next day we started changing. I lost all my body fat and gained muscle instead. Yeah, all this…,” He gestured at his impressive muscles. “Most of this was flab before I took that drug.”

“You were fat?” she asked, bewildered.

“Not necessarily fat, but a little overweight, yeah.”

“And the drug you took got rid of it?” She was clearly trying to wrap her mind around what was going on. “How does losing weight make you shoot a pool ball across a room hard enough to embed it in a wall?”

“That’s kind of the other thing I...sorta need to tell you,” he answered. He rubbed his neck self-consciously again. “The drug also gave us...and don’t laugh...actual superpowers.”

“Superpowers?” she asked, and Alex felt dismayed at her obvious disbelief. “Like X-ray vision, superspeed, telekinesis, that kind of thing?”

“Yeah. Like real, genuine superpowers.” He felt stupid the minute he mentioned the word superpowers. He glanced at her, clearly nervous. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Do you believe me?”

“If this was an ordinary day with ordinary events going on, then no, I probably would think you were insane,” she told him truthfully. “But given what just happened, it’s kind of hard not to. I watched you shoot that cue ball across the room like you fired it from a cannon. I’d have to be pretty stupid not to believe you.”

Alex visibly relaxed, feeling immense relief. He smiled shyly at her.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I forgot how strong I am now.”

“What else did the drug do to you?” she asked, now very curious. “You said superpowers. Plural.”

“Right,” Alex said with a laugh. “Well, you know about the superstrength. We’re not really sure how strong we are though. Darius tested it at the gym and was able to bench somewhere around five hundred pounds but he said he felt like he could lift more. Anway, we also have heightened reflexes. Things sort of slow down around us, giving us a lot of time to dodge whatever’s coming our way. It’s a lot like what happens to Spiderman in the movie when his Spidey-sense kicks in for the first time.”

“I admit, I didn’t watch that movie,” she confessed, smiling at the somewhat shocked look on his face. “But I think I understand what you mean.”

“What?” He shook his head, as if he didn’t quite hear her right. “Never mind. I’ll let that go for now, but I will make you watch it.”

“I think I can be persuaded,” she told him, a little smile on her lips as she thought about snuggling up to him on a couch to watch a movie. “What other powers did you get or was that all?”

“There was another one. Probably the one Dr. Tiberius was actually trying to accomplish,” he answered. “We’re indestructible. We can’t be hurt by anything. Well, almost anything anyway. D just found out knives and such can actually cut us. But other than that, we’re indestructible.”

“Wait, why would a blade hurt you?” she asked, curious.

“We’re not sure. There was a whole thing about nails to explain it I came up with but that’s just a guess.”

“How’d you two initially find out you couldn’t be hurt?” she inquired.

“Well, our biggest clue was when a car crashed into us. It practically wrapped around me, then rolled over me completely. I got the worst of it. D just got clipped but he still ended up getting knocked twenty feet away into someone’s car. As you can see by the fact that I’m here with you now, the crash didn’t do anything to us. We walked away from it without a scratch. Our clothes, however, got shredded which was awkward when you have to answer a lot of questions from the cop that showed up.”

“I heard about that crash. It happened close to your dorm, right?” she asked.

“That’s the one.” He nodded. “I found out about our strength when I had to rip the car’s door off to get the driver out. She got cut up pretty badly and was losing a lot of blood.”

“That’s incredible.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it slightly.

“That’s what we thought.” He laughed a little as the memory of the door tearing off the car floated up to the front of his mind.

She kept asking him questions, wanting to know everything she could. Alex was glad to tell her. It felt good to get it all out and in the open. It also felt good that she believed him and didn’t think he was crazy. It went on like that for several more hours and before they knew it, day turned to night. When Cassie finally realized how dark it was, she got up from the bench and looked down at him. A small smile touched her lips.

“Why is it that whenever we talk, we do it for so long it starts getting dark?”

“Are you complaining?” Alex inquired, matching her smile with one of his own.

“No. But it is late.” She reached out a hand and he willingly took it, folding it in his own and getting up as well.

“I know,” he grumbled, but he navigated them toward Woods, Cassie’s dorm, anyway. “I’ll walk you home.”

It took almost ten minutes to get her back to her dorm, but they talked the whole time so Alex wasn’t complaining. He reflected again at how easy it was to be with her. It felt so...natural.

When they got to her building and went inside the lobby, she kissed him goodnight and then headed toward the card reader.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked. His eyes were bright and intense.

She turned around and glanced at him, locking onto his eyes with a sultry look.

“Or you could…come to my room with me?” she said instead.

Alex felt a big, boyish grin spreading across his face. He couldn’t help it, he was excited at the prospect of spending more time with her.

“My roommate’s gone. She went home for the weekend. We’d have the place all to ourselves,” she went on.

Alex’s heart rate drastically increased, beating frantically inside his chest. His whole body suddenly locked up on him and he found it nearly impossible to move. The only thing he was able to do was nod dumbly at her.

She smiled, evidently pleased, and took his hand. Then she led him up to her room.