But the past clouds my memory and I see it all play out like an out-of-body experience.
At the Harbinger Foundation, after Peter announced that my activation had failed, I was wheeled back to my room. I had been passed out for hours, plagued by nightmares of endless underground tunnels and whispering people in lab coats hunched together. I woke up to sirens blaring and a strobe of red-and-white lights.
“Security breach,” a robotic voice repeated over and over again. “Activate code yellow protocol.”
I stumbled out of bed and to the wall of glass windows looking out into the hallway. Guards and scientists darted down the hallway, not a single one bothering to spare a second glance at me.
Suddenly, my glass door shattered. Startled, I jumped backward, but my feet never touched the ground.
I looked down to find Peter standing in the doorway, shards of glass at his feet. “Holy shit,” he said. “You—it worked.”
I looked down at my hands and the floor below me as I hovered in the far corner of the room. “Am I—am I awake right now?”
“Uh, yeah,” Peter said. “And we gotta move it. You know how to land that thing?”
I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on something—anything—and in seconds I crashed to the floor face-first.
“There will be plenty of time to practice later!” Peter pulled me up by the arm. “We gotta get out of here.”
“Wait. Get out of here? You’re the reason I’m here to begin with, Peter!”
He threw his arms up, checking the hallway on either side of him. “Well, now I’m getting you out of here, but can you, like, hurry?”
I tripped to my feet and raced after him in my bare feet and Harbinger Foundation uniform. “Did you break the door?” I asked. “How did you do that?”
“Would you believe me if I said with my mind?”
I followed him into an elevator that I didn’t even know was there. “So what you’re saying is that you’re basically a superhero?”
Peter chuckled and reached into his pocket to check his phone. “Shit.” He looked to me. “Faith, do you trust me?”
“Why do people ask that just before they’re about to do something super stupid?” I nodded. “But yeah, I guess I don’t really have many options.”
“When we make it to the roof, I need you to jump off the ledge,” he said in an even voice.
“What?” But there was no time. The elevator dinged as the doors opened, and we were confronted with a whole crowd of very buff, very angry-looking people and Toyo Harada.
“Go!” Peter shouted as his chest bucked out and he began floating toward Harada like a moth to a flame. Harada’s arm was extended out, pulling Peter toward him using some sort of psiot ability.
There was no time to think or second-guess myself. Fueled by fear of what would happen when I jumped and what would happen if I didn’t, I sprinted to the edge of the roof and flung myself over the edge into the night sky. At first, my body plummeted a few stories before some sort of innate instinct inside me switched on and I began to descend to the ground. “Woo-hoo!” I howled. I couldn’t help myself.
It was the most incredible thing I’d ever experienced until my body somersaulted to the ground. I needed control then. And I need control now.
Pushing those memories aside, I force myself to concentrate. It’s hard. Most other times I’ve flown there’s been a rush of adrenaline and things have happened so fast that I haven’t had to find it in myself to measure my movement.
I glance down again. There isn’t exactly a lot of space to crash-land in a corn maze. It requires a little more precise maneuvering.
Closing my eyes, I focus on my breathing until every person, thought, and memory in my head has dissolved. All that’s left is the weight of my body. Slowly, I tell myself. Steady.
After a minute, my toes scrape the dirt until my feet are flat on the ground. I let out a sigh of relief and open my eyes before rushing toward Gretchen. I immediately check for a pulse, my hands searching her neck and her wrist until I quickly realize that I don’t actually know how to check for someone’s pulse. Maybe if I become a superhero I should consider taking a first aid class or something.
Holding my ear close to her lips, I hear a slow, rasping breath. Thank God.
I pull my phone out to call 911—and no service. Someone has to be around here somewhere. I’m in a haunted corn maze crawling with high schoolers . . . which leads me to wonder how she even got here.
“Help!” I scream. “Help!”
But other than distant sounds of laughter and shrieks, no one responds.
“All right, girl,” I say to Gretchen. “Stay with me. We’re on the move.”
I don’t know who decided to dump her in this wheelchair, but they’ve made my job easier.
I release the brakes and take off. Gretchen’s body flops with every bump and rock we roll over. I take turn after turn, just praying that some loser will jump out and try to scare me. Surely one of them has to know the way out.
I stop for a minute to catch my breath and try to get my bearings. “Help!” I scream once more.
Just ahead, the stalk rustles free of the wind. “You!” I shout, and jump back to get a look at who’s back there. “You!” I shout again. “I’ve got a seriously injured person out here. I need your help.”
“I’m just a freshman,” says a voice. A white, freckled boy dressed as a creepy ventriloquist’s doll with fake blood seeping down from the corners of his mouth steps through the stalks.
Then he notices the girl in the wheelchair. “Whoa. What happened to her? Did she get punched? I heard that happened to someone last year.”
Ches’s reputation precedes her.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” I ask.
He digs into his pocket and unfolds a paper with a hand-drawn map. “I’m not supposed to share this with anyone unless there’s an emergency.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure this is a freaking emergency!” I don’t even realize I’m yelling at him at first.
I pull back Gretchen’s hair and take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. This is Gretchen Sandoval.”
It takes a minute for what I’ve just said to sink in. “Holy shitballs. I totally thought she was dead.”
“Well, she might be if you don’t move your ass.”
He turns the map in his hands. “I’m, uh, not so good with directions.”
“What’s your name?” I ask, my patience wearing thin.
“Benjamin.”
I snatch the paper out of his hands. “Benjamin, you push. Follow me.”
We take a couple wrong turns, but after a few long minutes, the thrum of voices gets louder and louder.
Finally, we burst through a back entrance to the maze and run around to the side, where I find a group of employees clumped together. “Someone call 911!” I gasp.
Everything after that happens in a hazy rush. People swarm us and then there are sirens. I don’t let anyone separate me from Gretchen. I don’t trust anyone else with her. Not until paramedics drive through the crowd and arrive on-site.
A kind-looking but gruff older woman in a uniform and with a satchel of supplies slung over her shoulder looks me right in the eyes. “We’ve got her from here.”