They wanted my blood. I understood that from the moment I woke up to the moment they gave up trying to cut and grind and weaken my skin. Then came the beast with the white flesh. No face. No features. A mass of muscle seven feet tall. Please. At some point, the only blood getting spilled was his. This final punch had smashed open his fists and let the bones shatter and the muscles shred. Now he was screaming and raging and swearing at me, spittle flying from a torn open mouth, flaking my cheeks. I spat in his face, because he got his blood in my mouth. An electric shock knocked him flat, and two Damage Control guards came and dragged him away by his bulky forearms.

  I stared them down as they neared. Two had their guns ready, the sleek kind that hummed with golden energy. Two more took the chance and dragged the guy away. I stepped forward, the heavy steel chains bolted to the ceiling and floor that kept me in place groaned in protest. All four of them froze. I didn’t move any further. Why should I? They got the memo. These things would hold me for so long, and when they gave, they shouldn’t be here. I didn’t care who was under those white face masks. I didn’t care about their stories or why they were doing this. All I cared about was him. I wanted him dead, and it was weird, you know, really strange, because I thought I’d be angry.

  All that I really felt was a sense of cold calmness seeping through my veins. I almost wanted to laugh at how quickly their hearts were beating. Their lives were too short to be so serious. I’d told them that they should quit and go home to their families before I walked through them. They said nothing. Orders not to talk. I figured that out when droves of them came in and out, guarding the scientists that looked me up and down, took measurements and consulted each other over every inch of my body. I was almost naked standing in this warehouse of a jail cell. Down to a bra and underwear and nothing else. But if they wanted to demean me, then fuck that—they were looking at eighteen years worth of Arkathian muscle and bone structure, and what the fuck did they expect to me to feel?

  Ashamed? Scared? Like an animal in some petting zoo? Oh, Gods, no. That was just crazy.

  They could gawk all they wanted. They could whisper and scribble and get as close to me as possible, their shoes grazing the large yellow circle that surrounded me. Anything further was marked with red paint, because they thought I’d lash out and kill them. Good thinking, you wouldn’t want to find out what your spinal column looked like as your buddy got disemboweled in the next second. Shame, you know, that Normals were pretty breakable.

  But that’s all I did for hours on end, staying perfectly silent when they asked me questions. I stared at them with nothing in my eyes and nothing on my lips. Some of them tried to aggravate me, hoping to get a reaction. I’d stand still and slowly breathe, keeping my heart rate so low and so stable that they sometimes thought I was dead on my feet. And then they’d get close. And then I’d make one of them flinch and scamper and run to the safe zone.

  I wouldn’t smile, I wouldn’t laugh—I’d just keep watching as they all filtered out of the cell.

  Leaving me alone to my thoughts in a room so large it made any warehouse look pint-sized.

  That was until they brought in a man riddled with holes in his stomach, his arms and legs and head a mess of sinew and frail skin and those frantic purple worms. I swallowed for the first time in who knew how long as the door to my cell sealed shut and the hum of oxygen getting filtered into the cell slowed. I sniffed. Less sweetness in the air. Less Ambrosia they want in my bloodstream. Some kind of physical test. My arms remained bound above my head and my feet remained in place as he began jerking and foaming at the mouth. The worms got him to his feet, reproducing and filling his body, wriggling just underneath his flesh until he had bulging purple growths fat with fluids swelling around his chest. Then he lunged at me, a shrieking mess of a dead body and hot bloodlust.

  As soon as he touched me, I flooded his body with enough energy to pop him like a balloon, blood, guts, worms and flesh gushing in a fountain around me. I spat a piece of his eyeball out of my mouth and superheated my body until the blood flaked off my skin. Slowly, I looked up at the bank of cameras embedded into the walls above.

  I didn’t say anything to the people watching, because I figured the message was clear enough.

  Eventually, when the door opened, it was the one man I had been waiting the longest time for. He walked slowly, effectively, making sure the sound of his shoes echoed loudly through the cavernous room. No coat this time. Just a shirt with rolled up sleeves, a handgun strapped to his chest, and a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket.

  Lucas stood at the end of the hazard zone, the toes of his shoes grazing the red. We stared at one another. He put his hands into his pockets, not afraid, tilting his head to look me up and down. “You look angry, Ry.”

  I tensed my jaw, which was the most anyone had gotten out of me for possibly days.

  “You can fester in your silence however long you want,” he said. “It won’t change anything.” He tapped a cigarette out of the packet and lit it. Smoke from his nose, silence from his mouth, then: “This could be easier.”

  “You killed Dennie.”

  “I made you throw caution to the wind. I made you let your emotions get the better of you.” More smoke. More lasting silence. “I held him hostage so you could listen to what I said, but you’ve always been emotional.”

  I stayed silent, watching him without blinking.

  “Now,” he said. “It’s your blood we’re after and nothing more. You want to make the world a better place like the rest of us, and we’ve all but found a solution—in our case, it doesn’t involve the needless slaughter of dozens as you battle this never ending feud between what’s good and what’s not. I’m in the business of making the world a better place, no matter what I’ve got to do for that to happen. You’re not what the world needs, unless you’re willing to change.” If he wanted me to speak, I didn’t give him the luxury of hearing my voice. Lucas sighed and slowly shook his head. “You were meant to be great. Special. The best. But you blew it, all because you thought yourself a worthy heir to his legacy, just because you’ve got the same powers. But times change, and you need to understand that we’re trying to do this for your sake as much as everyone else’s. Give up, and this all stops. You can finally get your rest.” He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. “Or we’ll move you aside, Rylee, for what’s next.”

  “Bring her in here,” I said quietly, “so I can look her in the eyes and tell her what I think about the future.”

  And speak of the devil.

  She wasn’t anything like Lucas. She didn’t take her time coming in here. As soon as the door had opened wide enough, she was in my face, arms behind her back and a wide grin on her face. It was like looking into a mirror of myself from four years ago. Freckled cheeks, bright eyes, short hair and a gap between my front teeth. She smelt like Adam, though, even if her eyes glowed. Smelt false. Fake. Like a piece of burning plastic, vile to my senses.

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  “You called?” she asked, hands on hips.

  I leaned a little closer, making the rivets and the chains groan and complain. Lucas glanced upward as dust drizzled from above, the smallest of cracks splintering the ceiling. I dropped my voice and put my lips to her ear.

  And quietly said, “I’m going to wear you like a fucking cape.”

  Her grin turned into a thin smile, her eyes cooler and body tensed. “Fighting words you can’t back up.”

  I bit down on her ear hard enough to soak my teeth in blood. She swore and stepped back when I let go. I spat the piece of flesh on the floor at Lucas’ feet, then swallowed. Bitter, too. Not real blood, but something close. But nothing like the real deal. Not a single ounce of her was anything like me. She was meat and sinew, blood and brains that had been stuffed into a skinsuit with my face on it. I’d feel insulted if it wasn’t so pathetic. She was essentially a jelly donut, and just like them, if you squeezed hard enough, I was more than sure all the good stuff inside of her would come gushing out. I watched her cup her ear. Watched as she stared at the shine of blood on her fingers. Something new. She hasn’t bled yet, has she? She better get used to it. I’ll take a bite from her throat next.

  She turned and looked at Lucas. “Am I allowed to put my hands on her now like you promised?” Her fists didn’t have to be clenched for golden electricity to spark and flicker in her wild blonde hair. Whatever she was, it just wasn’t right. They’d given her powers Adam still hadn’t been able to get his hands on. I figured their closest attempt must be Victoria, considering she looks, sounds, and even has Cleopatra’s powers, wherever they both are.

  The thing in front of me was a meat sock dressed in red, white, and gold, wearing my symbol.

  A symbol she didn’t understand. A symbol Lucas wanted to turn into some radical call to action.

  I wanted to murder them both on the spot, but I stayed where I was, staring at Lucas.

  The blonde didn’t deserve my glare.

  “No,” he said. “Bloodforge is going to be here soon and I wanted another chance for her to see reason.”

  She cracked her knuckles, then looked at me. “You are so lucky. I would’ve put you through a wall.”

  “You’re lucky you’ve got that mouth on you,” I muttered. “I’ll take it off your hands next time.”

  She blinked and raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’ll pull your guts out and hang you with them off my father’s statue.”

  The clone smiled even thinner, bitterness in her voice as she said, “You think I’m afraid of a fuck up? I’ve watched enough of your fights to know that you’re nowhere near as good as you think you are to say all of this.”

  “You don’t know me,” I whispered, looking through my hair at her. “You don’t know anything at all.”

  She got closer again. So close I was sure she could smell the stink of blood in my mouth. “When they’re done with you,” she said quietly, “I’m going to make sure there’s nothing left of you to scrape off the floor, ‘kay?”

  If she wanted a rebuttal, she was dumb out of luck, because I didn’t have anything else to say. My fingers were encased in thick iron gloves, and I had the sneaking suspicion they had drilled holes through my hands to make sure I didn’t think about breaking my way out of here through brute force alone. Smart. Barbaric. What it was didn’t matter to me. I’d made my mind up about a lot of things as I had stood here in silence. About Lucas, about this clone, about the year I’d had and all the things I needed done. Both of them left at some point. I was too deep in my own head to realize when. My knees began to hurt from standing so long. My neck ached and burned. But if I slumped, then that would mean they won, and I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. So I stood and ignored the voices of exhaustion and anger and agony, staring at the floor with my blood-tinted hair covering my face.

  My stomach was in knots, but I’d run out of tears to waste. What little emotions I had left withered.

  This time last year, Bianca and I were going for track meets around the country. We’d watched movies in Dallas and went on roller coasters in Orlando. Life had felt so different. So pure. Shutting my eyes almost makes it feel like we’re still there, still buying ice cream until it makes our stomachs hurt. Still trying to pretend that our fingers hadn’t touched when we’d reached for the popcorn bucket. The nights we’d sit at the back of the bus, her head leaning against my shoulder as she slept, her earphones in and her mouth slightly open. I’d watched the world pass by the window and didn’t for a second think it would come to a stop. Being happy, being in love, was one hell of a way of tricking yourself into thinking the sun felt warmer and the breeze felt cooler. But back then? It all did.

  All I wanted now was to see her again, even if it was from afar. Even if I never spoke to her again.

  I’d want her to know what I felt about her, because it was the one emotion inside of me that didn’t feel the urge, the need, this sick and screaming desire to rage my way out of this prison. I held onto it and clutched it to my chest, hoping it wasn’t going to flicker and die getting held so tightly in my hands. I wanted to think, wherever she was right now, that she would be thinking the same. But I…I don’t know. She loved Olympia. She had her problems with Rylee. I guessed neither of them was a good option for her, but she believed, to some extent, in both of us. So for that, I kept standing, however much my knees swelled and my hips ached because of the exhaustion and the Ambrosia flooding my lungs. I forced my spine to straighten and my head to lift, then stared at the cameras again.

  Dennie had been a good person. He fed me and housed me and taught me how to draw and imagine. He knew I was Olympia a long time before I ever thought he knew. He kept it secret because he knew what she meant to me and he never stopped believing that it would amount to something. The Narrator of the Golden Age died in a dark alleyway in the arms of a superhero he thought could save the world, dreaming of a time that just didn’t exist anymore. And for that, they’d understand something about me nobody else had—I could try my best to be the superheroes from the comics, and I hope Cleopatra would understand, but I was never meant to fit in that kind of costume and cape and cowl. Should’ve known that from the very beginning. One size doesn’t fit all around here.

  Hell, if the all powerful Ruler of the Skies himself bent the knee for a villain, then what does that show?

  Fuck it, I thought. Just fuck it all.

  The door opened again, flooding the cell with the stench of raw blood and fresh meat. I swallowed my saliva as it soured. Bloodforge was part of that Golden Age, too. Well, for a while, at least, before he’d been beaten so soundly that his cult of followers left him at the Olympiad, broken, beaten, and mangled. Now, though, he looked stronger, healthier, and larger than I last remembered seeing him on the news. Thick black boots that matched the heavy trousers he wore. A deep red leather coat that hung off broad shoulders. He’d always worn a mask around his mouth, almost like a muzzle from an insane asylum, matching blood-red eyes and a veiny pale head. Two men followed closely behind him, wheeling in surgical tools and operating machines and rattling trays of books and tomes that reeked of dirt and age. He stopped in front of me. The three other men kept their heads low.

  A heavy iron cross hung from his throat, glinting in the pale white light.

  He was easily just as tall as dad, probably as muscular, too. He clenched his leather-gloved hands.

  Then he spoke: “Child of Zeus. How bountiful for the first banquet of a new age.”

  His words came out raw and ragged from a throat that echoed his words.

  “Try your luck,” I said quietly. “And see where that gets you.”

  “Ready the bone saws,” he said. “And up the dosage of Ambrosia. The flesh, however taught, is always fragile under my care. I will take my time. I will ensure cleanliness and accuracy. I will assure that you feel it all.”

  “Quit the talk,” I whispered. I stopped looking at the cameras and instead looked at him. “And try.”

  The ventilation grew louder, the air sweeter, and the shriek of his saws became deafening.