KOPANO OKEKE
HOFN, ICELAND
KOPANO STOPPED TRYING TO YANK THE MAGNETIZED handcuff loose from the side of the refrigerator when he saw Einar enter. A feeling of dread washed over him as the young man trained his beady eyes on Kopano. He was relieved to be stuck.
If Kopano couldn’t move, Einar couldn’t make him hurt his friends.
Einar sized Kopano up briefly, concluded he was trapped and ignored him. He went into the living room and pulled an attaché case out from underneath the couch. With his case in hand, he started to leave out the back door.
That’s when Nigel bounded down the steps from upstairs.
Einar paused. He smiled slowly.
“Nigel Barnaby. You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
Nigel took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air, ready to unleash one of his sonic screams.
His mouth snapped shut, teeth clacking together hard. Einar had forced it closed with his telekinesis. Nigel’s eyes were wide with surprise. Kopano could tell Nigel was struggling, but he couldn’t break Einar’s telepathic grip.
Kopano shoved Einar with his own telekinesis. Einar stumbled for a moment, but quickly regained his balance. A powerful telekinetic force overwhelmed his own and Kopano bounced back against the refrigerator.
“They need to teach better telekinetic control at that school of yours,” Einar said.
Helplessly, Kopano watched as his index finger bent all the way back to his wrist. The bone popped. Kopano shouted in pain.
“Unbreakable skin, yes? But not unbreakable bones.” Einar glared at Kopano. “Stay still or I’ll rip you apart.”
Fear clutched at Kopano’s stomach. He held his injured hand close to his belly. His lip quivered as he watched Einar, unable to do anything else.
The anger had been bad. The fear was worse.
Einar glanced up at one of the room’s cameras. “I hope you’re watching,” he said to whoever was on the other side. Then, he looped an arm around Nigel’s shoulders.
The British boy, always so confident, possessed of so much swagger—his face crumpled into a mask of utter sadness. His entire posture changed—shoulders slumped and turned inwards, chin to chest, eyes downcast and watery. To see his friend like this made no sense to Kopano.
“I want you to think about Pepperpont,” Einar said softly. “All those years, without a single friend. Abandoned by your parents. A worthless piece of forgotten shit. Something the better-looking boys passed around like a toy, hmm? Do you remember those days, Nigel?”
Nigel shuddered, said nothing. Kopano stared. How did Einar know so much about Nigel?
“Will they hold you down in bed tonight and beat you? Will they lock you in a closet? Will they force you to take a shower with the water boiling hot?” Einar’s lips were nearly against Nigel’s ear. He led Nigel towards the door. “Better to end it, isn’t it? Better to give up than endure another day?”
“No . . . ,” Kopano croaked, the words hard to get out against the terror gripping him. He wanted to shrink back into himself, to get small . . . but he couldn’t let this evil bastard get into Nigel’s head. “Don’t listen to him, Nigel! Don’t listen!”
But Nigel didn’t hear. Or, if he did, Kopano’s shouts didn’t penetrate the crushing depression that Einar was forcing Nigel to feel.
“It will be over quickly,” Einar said. “Just walk out and let the cold take you.”
He led Nigel out the front door. Kopano could hear their feet crunching across gravel.
There was an iced-over lake out there.
“Nigel!” Kopano shouted. “Ran! Someone!”
No answer. The backyard was quiet.
The fear disappeared. It turned off all at once, giving Kopano a nauseous feeling as the muscles in his abdomen unclenched. Einar must have gotten too far away from him. The effects of his control wore off.
The fear was replaced by desperation.
He had to save his friends.
With a bellow, Kopano used his telekinesis to lift the refrigerator. Food spilled out of it as the doors swung open—a glass bottle of milk shattered on the floor. Kopano crunched through the broken glass, carrying the appliance like an albatross, his wrist aching from the manacle still attached to the fridge’s side.
Kopano charged across the living room. The refrigerator crashed against a chair, knocked it over. He smashed the base into a TV, shattering the screen and knocking it off the wall. Didn’t matter. He maneuvered as best he could towards the front door.
He could see Nigel. Walking out on the ice. Like a zombie. Einar watched him from the edge of the lake with his arms crossed.
One second Nigel was there, the next second he was gone.
The ice cracked beneath Nigel’s feet and the water sucked him down.
Kopano shouted. He tried to run through the front door, but the refrigerator became wedged in the doorway. He pulled against it, using both the strength left in his handcuffed arm and all the power he could muster from his telekinesis. The metal of the appliance squealed and bent; the wooden door chipped and broke.
But he was stuck. In the end, all Kopano’s tugging did was get the refrigerator jammed worse. His wrist was a raw and bloody mess from where he’d pulled against the manacle.
Nigel had been under the water for thirty seconds.
He glanced warily around the lake’s edge. Einar was gone. Out of sight.
Kopano had to get his arm free. Brute strength wasn’t doing it. He tried to slip loose of the cuff, but it was fastened tight.
He pulled and pulled. The bracelet had to give. Or else, let it slice right through his arm. Take his hand right off. He could get to Nigel, save his friend, and worry about that later. Kopano snarled, bracing one of his feet against the fridge, ignoring the pain as he wrenched against the handcuff with all his might.
Kopano fell onto his back with a thud.
It gave. He was free.
His wrist was whole. The cuff was unbroken. It didn’t make sense.
He didn’t pause to think about it.
Nigel had been underwater for a minute. More, maybe.
Kopano sprinted towards the crystalline lake. During training, Dr. Goode had told Kopano to think of himself as heavy. That seemed to help him control his power—he often focused on that feeling, making his skin impenetrable and his hands hard as bricks. But he didn’t want to be heavy now. He needed to be light. Nimble.
He hit the icy lake at a full sprint, the frigid water filling up his sneakers. The surface was already cracked where Nigel had walked on it. Kopano’s long strides, his large body—he should’ve plummeted straight into the water.
He didn’t. Somehow, Kopano’s feet were light as feathers. He practically floated across the ice. Was he moving so fast that the ice didn’t have a chance to break? Was it luck? Something else?
Kopano didn’t care. He saw the dark and jagged hole where Nigel had fallen through. That was his goal.
He sucked in as deep a breath as he could and dove.
The water was so cold that it stunned Kopano and he nearly gasped. He steeled himself against the pinpricks and numbness, plunging deeper. He was never a strong swimmer and the water was dark. He couldn’t see Nigel. He looked for bubbles but didn’t see any.
Kopano needed to go deeper. He let himself get heavier, like Dr. Goode had taught him. He sunk farther down, his chest tightening.
Spinning, Kopano began to pull with his telekinesis. He didn’t grab for anything in particular, he just made the water churn around him. He created a whirlpool with himself at the center.
Two minutes? Three minutes? How long had Nigel been down here? Kopano’s lungs were beginning to burn.
A broken chunk of an old rowboat was pulled into Kopano’s whirlpool. A school of fish spun past him. Smooth black stones from the lakebed began to blur his vision.
There! It looked like a blond jellyfish waving back and forth, almost glowing in the dark water. Nigel’s bleached mohawk.
Kopano reached down. The other boy wasn’t moving, unconscious, his mouth open to the water. Kopano grabbed him by the back of the shirt.
Lighter, thought Kopano. Be lighter. Up, up, up.
Dragging Nigel with him, Kopano kicked his feet and sped towards the surface. He was surprised by how buoyant he was; it felt like the water itself was trying to shove him towards the surface.
A sheet of ice became visible above him. Kopano’s heart beat harder, his lungs screaming for air. As a boy, he’d read adventure stories about a young man traveling the globe; always, when he was in cold climes, someone ended up trapped beneath some ice. His stinging eyes couldn’t find the break in the ice that he’d jumped through.
Kopano reached out towards the ice with his free hand—his injured hand, the broken finger hanging loose, forgotten about in his rush to rescue Nigel. He prepared to thrust out with his telekinesis, ready to break the ice apart.
He didn’t need to. Kopano’s hand passed right through the ice, like he was a ghost. His eyes widened, uncertain what was happening. His whole body floated upwards, transparent, sliding through the frozen barrier. He could feel something happening within him—an opening sensation, like his body’s cells were spreading apart to allow the ice to pass through. He glanced down and saw that Nigel had gone transparent too.
And then Kopano stood atop the ice again, his feet feeling light on the fragile surface. His Legacy—he’d unlocked something, figured something out in his desperation.
Kopano didn’t have time to relish the milestone. Nigel wasn’t breathing. His face was blue, his body limp and freezing.
Gulping in air, Kopano gathered the British boy in his arms and ran towards the shore.
“Kopano!”
The Nigerian let out a groan of relief when he saw Taylor and Ran running towards him from the house. Neither of them looked well—Ran’s clothes were dark with fresh blood, Taylor was hobbling and bleeding from a head wound—but they were alive. They were alive and they would know what to do about Nigel.
Kopano set Nigel down on the rocky shore of the lake. His clothes were cold and heavy on his thick frame and he felt suddenly, unbearably heavy.
“He’s—he’s not breathing!” Kopano said. “That bastard made him . . . made him . . .”
Kopano couldn’t bring himself to finish. He looked around wildly for Einar, his fists clenched.
Taylor went to her knees next to Nigel, immediately pressing her hands to his narrow chest. Ran caught Kopano’s crazed look and put a weak hand on his arm.
“Einar’s gone,” she said. “He teleported away with Rabiya while Taylor was healing me.”
Ran looked shaken and rough. She crouched next to Nigel and held his hand, rubbing it between her own. Kopano leaned in over her shoulder, staring between Nigel and Taylor.
“Can you . . . ?” He tried to catch his breath. “Can you heal him?”
Taylor didn’t respond. She was concentrating on Nigel. There were dark bags forming under her eyes, her skin pale. She’d been overtaxed in the short time since her kidnapping. Kopano wondered how much healing she could manage.
A bubble formed on Nigel’s lips. The water he’d swallowed slowly trickled out of his mouth, pushed out of his lungs by Taylor’s healing Legacy. Kopano let out a sigh of relief.
But Taylor didn’t look happy. She put her ear against Nigel’s chest.
“He’s not breathing,” she said, her voice cracking. “His heart’s not . . . I don’t know how to heal this. It’s not wounded, it’s just . . . stopped.”
Tears streaked down Taylor’s cheeks. Nigel was still, no color returning to his cheeks.
“Step back,” said Ran.
Taylor did as she was told. She stumbled to Kopano and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her, grateful for the warmth of her small body in his arms. His teeth were chattering.
“I didn’t get to him quickly enough,” Kopano said quietly.
“It’s not your fault,” Taylor replied.
Ran touched Nigel’s cold cheek. Her shoulders shook. She bowed her head for a moment, whispering a prayer.
Then, she ripped open Nigel’s shirt.
“Ran—?” Taylor said, startled.
Ran put her hand on Nigel’s chest. She charged his sternum with her Legacy. He glowed. His body vibrated.
“Ran!” Taylor yelled, alarmed. “What are you doing?”
“Waking up . . . his body,” Ran replied, her eyes flashing with energy. “Making . . . breakfast.”
Kopano took a step back, bringing Taylor with him. Nigel’s body pulsed with crimson energy. Kopano could see where Ran’s energy surged out of Nigel’s pores, out of his nostrils, his eyes.
And then, she pulled it all back into herself.
The force of yanking that much energy out of Nigel blew Ran backwards. Acting quickly, Kopano caught her with his telekinesis.
Nigel’s whole body convulsed with the concussive force, bouncing against the rocks.
And then he screamed.
Coughing raggedly and holding his chest, Nigel rolled onto his side. Taylor clapped a hand over her mouth and Kopano let loose with a cheer. Color slowly blossomed in Nigel’s cheeks. He shuddered, peering around at his friends with bleary eyes.
Ran grabbed him in a hug, squeezing him close. Her hands and forearms were already dark purple with bruises from where she’d pulled back the energy, but the pain didn’t seem to bother her.
“I found a nonviolent use for my Legacy,” she said.
“Fuckin’ hell, Ran,” Nigel said. “Tell me about it later, yeah?”
Then, he fainted.