Chapter 18

When I came too, my left arm was practically burning with pain, white light filling the room. Quietly screaming with pain, I struggled to sit up, realizing that I was in a hospital. The walls of the room were stark white, there were glass doors in front of me, and the hospital bed felt hard to the touch. How had I gotten here?

"You said you weren’t going to do anything stupid." A voice said. I jumped a bit, realizing that Edward was sitting in the chair next to me.

"Good God, you scared me." I said, steadying my breathing.

"You could have died. You realize that, right?" He asked angrily, meeting my eyes for the first time, his rimmed with red. How long had he been crying?

"Spare me the lecture, okay? I did what I had to do."

"You could have-"

"There wasn’t enough time!" I argued back as Edward sunk into his seat a little further. Then, I looked around and saw that Erika wasn’t in the room with us. My heart sank. "Is she-"

"ANNA!" Erika yelled as she ran into the room, jumped on the hospital bed, and hugged me tightly. "I was so scared that you were dead!"

"I was scared you were gonna die." I said, attempting to hug Erika back as Edward slapped his hand down on my left arm, causing me to freeze for a second because of the instant pain in my arm.

"Don’t move your arm." Edward commanded. "You got stitches in it from the bullet wound."

Erika released from her death grip on me before sitting down at the edge of the bed. I gave the two a confused look. "What time is it?"

"Almost one in the morning." Erika said quickly. "You were out for roughly three hours."

"Shit. Did one of you-"

"He’s working on release papers right now. Hospital didn’t want to release you until you had woken up." Edward explained.

"What happened-"

"After you took that bullet for me?" Erika asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, once your arm got shot, you passed out on the ground. I started panicking, Edward grabbed your phone from your bag to call your father, and Becky and I grabbed your body and hauled you to my mom’s van so that we could get you here."

"Where’s Becky now?"

"We did a tag team after getting you to the van. Becky mass called the rest of Y.A.K.S. and went to go pick all of them up. Well, all of them except for Beth and Callum. They picked up your father and drove him here. While she was doing that, Erika and I drove you here and waited with you while they stitched up your arm and checked to see if you had any nerve damage." Edward explained.

My eyes widened, looking over at Erika and seeing her unphased expression. "You told her about Y.A.K.S."

"What exactly is Yaks?" Erika asked. "Is it not a yak lovers club?"

I sighed a breath of relief. "No, it is. Continue, please."

"You did, by the way. Nerve damage. You had it. One of the nurses has a healing power though, so she healed you up for the most part. You were starting to move and make noises when she tried to heal up your arm though, so they said that they were going to wait until you were awake to try healing your arm the rest of the way. After you got your stitches, my moms called to ask what was taking us so long to return to the party, I explained everything, and now they’re both waiting outside." Erika concluded.

"So everyone’s here?"

"Just about."

"What do you mean just about?"

"Your father wouldn’t let me call your mother to tell her." Edward explained. "She’s the only person who isn’t here right now."

"Great." I said, sighing heavily. Why wouldn’t he let Edward tell her?

"Well, good thing you’re awake!" A nurse said as she walked into the room. "I was beginning to worry there for a second."

"In pain, but awake." I said as Erika jumped off of the bed.

"You got some pretty cool friends here. They were practically yelling at my other nurses when they told them that visitation hours were up." The nurse said, walking over to my left arm and setting down a pair of scissors. "Now this is gonna sting a little, okay? I’m speeding up the healing process on your bullet wound."

Nodding, I closed my eyes as more pain filled my arm until the nurse released her hand from my arm, grabbing the pair of scissors and cutting the thread that was keeping my arm together. Smiling, the nurse gathered her stuff. "You’re free to leave now, honey. Just be more careful next time."

I nodded. "Thank you, ma’am."

As soon as she was gone, I swung my legs over and tried to stand, only to be taken over by intense pain. Edward swooped in, quickly getting up and putting my left arm around his neck. "You also kinda scraped your knees on the way down."

"Of course I did." I said exhaustedly. "Let’s just go out and face the music. We gotta do it eventually."

Nodding, Edward kept a firm grip on me as the three of us walked out to the lobby where Dad was pacing nervously in front of the other people gathered to make sure I was okay. Dad saw me, quickly running towards me and hugging me tightly. "Oh thank God you’re okay. When I got the call from Edward-"

"Of course I’m fine, Dad." I said, laughing a bit.

"I already lost your mother, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too." Dad said, crying into my hair.

That was when everything clicked. Why Dad didn’t want to call Mom so that she could come up here. Taking a deep breath, I looked up at Dad and smiled weakly. "You’re not gonna lose me in the divorce, Dad."

Dad’s eyes widened. "How did you-"

"It’s hard to explain. I’ll try and tell you when we get home." I said as Dad let go of me, letting me stand on my own as Edward and Erika stood on either side of me, waiting to see if I would go down.

"Is it true?" Emily asked from her seat next to Yukiko, her dirty blonde hair held back in a messy braid. I had only met Emily a couple times, but she was always nice to me. Most of the people here had come in their pajamas, so I was expecting Yukiko and Emily to look like a mess. "Is it true that you took that bullet to save our daughter?"

"I couldn’t just let Erika die." I answered honestly. Both moms got out of their seats and hugged me tightly.

"Thank you." Yukiko said through tears. "Thank you for saving our girl. I don’t know what we’d do if she had died."

That was when I remembered what Sewage had been saying at the party. Once the two moms let go of me, I looked over at Callum. "Can I take over your president duties for a minute?"

Callum just shrugged. "It’s one in the morning. I’m off the clock. Go for it, man."

"Is everybody parked near each other?"

Becky, Beth, and Erika nodded. I took in a sharp breath. "I would like to call to order an emergency Y.A.K.S. meeting."

"At one in the morning?" Keisha groaned.

"I’m with Anna on this." Edward said, looking at Becky for help.

Becky obliged. "Yeah. Stuff went down at that party that we need to talk about."

"Erika almost died and Anna got shot. There. We talked about it." Trayvon said bitterly.

"That’s not what we need to talk about." I said quickly. I looked over at the adults and Erika. "Adults, Erika, I would like for you all to be there too."

"Why do you want us at a meeting for yaks?" Erika asked, tilting her head with confusion.

"Sweetie… They’re not gonna talk about actual yaks. Why we need to be there though, I’m a bit confused about." Emily said gently.

"I’ll explain when we get there, I promise. Right now though, let’s head to the cars so we don’t have this conversation in the middle of a hospital." I said quickly.

The other teenagers in Y.A.K.S. gave Callum a confused look as he motioned to the door. "You heard your acting president. Go to the cars."

Everyone stumbled out to the cars as Dad gave me a concerned look. "What’s going on, honey?"

"It’s a long story. I don’t want to have to explain it twice." I said, staggering to the van and leaning against the door as everyone gathered around me. Taking a deep breath, I looked at Edward and Becky. "Welcome one and all to this morning’s early bird meeting of Y.A.K.S., or Youths Against Killer Supervillains."

"Is this like that F.E.R.R.E.T thing?" Erika asked anxiously.

"Yes, but we’re the good guys. We’re not gonna try and kill you." Becky explained quickly.

"Thank you, Erika, for bringing up our first matter of business." I said as Erika seemed to relax a bit. "So it seems that Sewage is back."

"What?" Keisha asked. "Does Herbstreit know?"

"That is another thing we should probably tell everyone." I said, motioning to Edward. "Edward, will you please do the honor of ripping off the band aid?"

"Herbstreit isn’t Brain Dump." Edward said quickly.

"Of course he isn’t." Beth said, crossing her arms. "Callum, I told you to talk to Andrew Hellsing about this. That’s Brain Dump. You did… Talk to him, right?"

"Your handwriting made it look like Alexander Herbsrteit." Callum groaned, realizing his mistake.

"Then who have we been trusting this whole time?" Trayvon asked.

Dad’s eyes widened. "That’s why you asked if I could help with your history project!"

"We have a history project?" Keisha asked. "Since when?"

Dad crossed his arms as he looked at me. "You lied to me."

"I didn’t want you to get involved. I’m sorry." I apologized.

"Okay. You don’t do it often, so I’ll let it slide. Don't make a habit of it."

"Anyway, we don’t know who he really is. Damian, one of my friends from another school, gave us a couple ideas, but we need to do more research on it to figure out fo-"

"Who are you guys suspecting?"

Becky started fidgeting with her hair since most of it was in her face. "Well, now I guess our main suspect is Sewage because of tonight, but I know we were also suspecting Giga-"

"It’s not Gigabyte." Keisha said quickly, then looked like she was regretting what she had just said.

"How do you know for sure, Keisha?" Trayvon asked in a tone of voice that made it sound like he knew exactly how she knew.

"I just know, okay?" Keisha said harshly, shutting Trayvon up as he shriveled where he stood.

"Anyway," I said, getting us back on topic. "I don’t think that we should be near Herbstreit for a while. Still check in with him and stuff like that, but be wary near him."

"Well, where are we gonna have our meetings?" Callum asked.

"I did recently finish setting up the basement of the house..." Dad said uneasily. "You guys could do… Whatever you do for meetings there until we figure out a better idea."

"Party at Anna’s house." Trayvon said, raising his hands above his head like he was raising an invisible roof.

"So, are we cool with using my basement?" I asked. Everyone nodded happily. "Good. Now, onto our next order of business. What happened at the party tonight. Edward, Becky, Erika, would any of you like to take over?"

"I will." Becky said as she started to explain the sudden appearance of Sewage, the new team he had, and the fact that he had marked Erika as a target to get a message through.

As soon as she was done, Yukiko started running a hand through her loose black hair. "That is troubling..."

"Is it too ate to appeal the law?" Emily asked.

"We’re trying to appeal the law by starting Y.A.K.S.." Beth said, looking at the two other present superheroes. "If Y.A.K.S. can make its debut at the Super Awards this year, that could be the first step to changing the law. I know that it exists for a reason, but if Sewage is gaining this much support because of it, then maybe we should consider changing it slightly. Baby steps are all we can really do right now."

"That’s the thing though, Beth." Edward said cautiously. "He didn’t say how many kids were in F.E.R.R.E.T., but I’m willing to bet that whoever tried to kill Erika is a member. The fact that we don’t know how many there are is troubling, but maybe we can still combat them by getting ahead somehow."

"And how exactly are we going to get ahead of them?" Keisha asked. "It’s not like we have a person here who can see the future."

Feeling Callum and Edward’s gaze land on me, I cleared my throat. "We just need to look for increases in criminal activity and go from there. Be careful around our classmates since we don’t know who’s with them. Start relying on each other more."

"Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna work." Trayvon said uneasily.

"Yeah. I’m fine with us not being friends." Keisha said, glaring at Becky angrily.

Becky held up her hands in defense. "Do you have a problem with me or something Keisha?"

"Yes, I do. You’re friends with the person who bullies one of my best friends! You don’t even try to tell her that it’s wrong-"

"I can’t control Gretchen even if I wanted to. She doesn’t listen to me!"

"She really doesn’t, Keisha." Trayvon agreed. "There really isn’t anything Becky can do in regards to Gretchen."

"She could at least-"

"ENOUGH!" Callum yelled, causing the entire group to freeze. He was usually such a chill guy, so the fact that he yelled at them was surprising. "Anneliese is right. How are we expected to be a team if we don’t even see each other as friends? We need to start spending more time together during school. We’re stronger together than we are apart."

"Exactly." I agreed, crossing my arms. "Since there’s strength in numbers, I would like to add one more person to our team."

"Who? Erika?" Keisha asked sarcastically.

"Yes, Erika." I said, looking over at her and smiling. "She’d be a good asset to the team."

"Absolutely not." Emily said quickly. "Listen, Anneliese, we like you, but our daughter’s life is in danger a-"

"Which is exactly why she should join." I said quickly. "Nobody really knows what Y.A.K.S. is besides the people here. If she has at least one member near her location at all times, she’ll be protected. She’s already in danger because of Sewage. How much more danger can she possibly be in by joining Y.A.K.S."

Yukiko paused for a second. "But I thought that Y.A.K.S. was for kids with superpowers."

"It is."

"But Erika-"

"Actually, Mom," Erika said, pouring a couple seeds into one of her hands as a giant watermelon sprouted in her hands. "I know you’ve been complaining about the lack of watermelon in the garden."

Emily’s eyes widened. "Sweetie, how long-"

"Since Sunday. Anneliese was the only one I told because I figured that she wouldn’t freak out about it." Erika said, the watermelon in her hands condensing back into some seeds that she put into a small bag. "It’s really recent, I promise."

"I don’t kn-"

"Mom." Erika said, grabbing Emily’s hands and smiling at her. "I want to do this. Besides, Anneliese is right. I’m already in danger because I’m your daughter. How much more danger can I possibly be in by joining?"

"Just let her do it Emily." Yukiko said, putting a hand on Emily’s shoulder.

Emily just sighed exhaustedly. "Fine."

"I have another addition." Trayvon said happily. "If Erika gets to join, then so does Koda."

I sighed heavily, knowing that that was going to happen. "Fine."

"Well, we’ll be happy to have them." Beth said happily.

Dad looked between me and Beth, mouth agape. "Are you talking about our dog? And what do you mean we’ll be happy to have them!"

I gave Beth an exhausted look. "You mean you haven’t told him?"

"I didn’t know the right way to tell him."

"And, of course, it lands on me. Dad, this is Bethany Baxter, aka Unicorn, aka the superhero sponsor of Y.A.K.S.. Unicorn, this is my father, Anthony Andrews, head of security at the Treatorian Collective."

"Of course." Dad said, sighing as he shook his head.

"Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner." Beth apologized.

"Technically, it wasn’t you that told him." Callum said, shaking his head. "It was his teenage daughter that just got shot in the arm because she was protecting her best friend after sh-"

"OKAY, meeting over." I said, clapping my hands. I shot Callum a dirty look, causing him to shut up. "Next meeting is Tuesday at my house, but I don’t think we’re actually gonna start doing hero stuff until we can work together as a team."

"You heard the girl. Go home and sleep." Callum said, climbing into the backseat of Beth’s van.

Everyone dispersed back to their cars to drop people off at home. By the time Dad and I got home, it was almost two in the morning. We walked inside the house and I started climbing up the stairs as Dad paused. "Not so fast, young lady."

I sighed heavily. "Right. I owe you an explanation."

"You bet your ass you do." Dad said, crossing his arms. "How’d you know that your mother and I were getting divorced before I even told you?"

"I… I didn’t just get the electricity thing when… Whatever happened happened."

"What else did you get?"

"The ability to tell the future." I said uneasily.

Dad’s eyes widened. "That’s how you knew? You saw me and your mother signing the divorce papers?"

"Not exactly..."

"What the hell do you mean ‘not exactly’?"

"I saw you on a date with Beth, okay?" I yelled, the electrical outlets sparking on the wall. I took a deep breath as I tried to calm myself down, knowing that I was the cause. "That day you and Beth showed up to the band competition and sat down next to each other. When I hugged you, I saw you and Beth kissing on a bridge in some city I didn’t recognize."

"You knew before I knew?" Dad asked gently.

"I know a lot of things before you’ll know them."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that you’re going to die because of me." I said, feeling my eyes start to tear up again.

"You saw me die?"

"I also saw Mom die. And Edward. And Callum. I’ve basically seen my entire friend group die."

"Including Erika..." Dad said, sitting down at the kitchen table, his eyes widening. "That’s why you jumped in front of her, isn’t it? Erika told me that you were trying to convince her to not go tonight and I didn’t think anything of it until now. You saw Erika die and you resigned yourself to do whatever you could to save her, even if it meant that you got hurt in the process."

"May as well start paying my dues early before..."

"Before what?"

"Before I kill you."

Dad froze, getting off of his seat at the table and walked towards me, gently touching my hand. "You’re going to kill me?"

"I don’t want to!" I said, feeling the electricity behind the sockets start to build up as I whipped my hand away. "At least, I think I’m going to kill you, but-"

"You mean you don’t know?"

"I can see the person doing the act, but not who they are. I don’t even know who tried to kill Erika tonight! All I know is that they were wearing a red hoodie. That’s it!"

"Honey, calm down-"

"Why should I calm down! I should probably go live with Mom so I don’t hurt you-"

"Anneliese, will you let me talk for one second?" Dad asked exhaustedly. As soon as I was quiet, Dad took a deep breath. "I want you to stay with me."

"But Dad-"

"I don’t care, Anna." Dad said, gripping both of my hands tightly, his voice cracking as he talked. "I don’t care if you are going to be the one who kills me or if you’re not. You are my amazingly talented and caring daughter to me, okay? Nothing else. And if you do turn out to be the person who kills me, then that’s fine too. I wouldn’t have it any other way because I’d be going out the way I always wanted to. I’d be killed by something I love."

"Dad, do you even-"

"Of course I understand what I’m saying." Dad said, reaching forward and caressing my hair like he always did when I was upset with something when I was a kid. "And I’d love you, rather you were my killer or the one who wound up saving me because I believe in you. You managed to change fate with Erika, so who says that you can’t change fate with me, huh?"

I didn’t even say anything else. I just took a step forward and hugged Dad tightly. We stood like this for what felt like hours, me crying into Dad’s shoulder and Dad doing his best to calm me down as he caressed my hair. It felt good to get that off of my chest, even if I didn’t tell him everything about how he dies. Eventually, Dad let go of me, smiling at me happily. "Now, why is our dog joining Y.A.K.S."

I laughed. "Right. That. Koda, where are you buddy?"

Koda came cautiously trotting down the stairs, sitting on the ground as I bent down to pet him. I whispered, "Hey buddy, why don’t you say hello to Dad, okay?"

Koda barked at Dad and Dad just tilted his head in confusion. I sighed heavily. "I’m giving you permission to speak to him, bud."

"Hi..." Koda said nervously.

Dad widened his eyes nervously. "The dog talks."

"The dog talks." I confirmed.

"Well, that would explain why he’s joining Y.A.K.S." Dad said, laughing a bit.

"I’m joining Y.A.K.S." Koda asked excitedly.

"Yes you are, bud. And so is Erika."

"Really? She’s gonna give me so many treats!"

Dad and I both laughed as Dad bent down and put an arm around me as he messed with Koda’s fur. "I love you, Anna."

"I love you too, Dad."

"No more secrets between us, okay?"

I nodded in agreement. "No more secrets."

"Okay, I think I got all the answers I needed. I’m gonna let you go to bed now. You look like you need it."

Nodding, I stumbled upstairs and into my bedroom, not even bothering to take off my clothes as I collapsed into bed. By far, this was the most peaceful sleep I’ve gotten in a long time.

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