Power (Book 1)

Chapter 41

At that moment, I realized there was something wrong with the world.

Of course my father was the guy trying to kill me. Of course I had a sister who wanted me dead. The universe had a personal vendetta against me.

"How the hell..." I started to say. "I thought you were in the hospital? And how are you the Master?"

"I guess our family is a lot more messed up than you thought," he said.

"No kidding," I said.

"It wasn't very hard to fake my coma. After all, you never looked to even see if I was there," he said. "Since then, it wasn't very hard to send trial after trial at you. You were looking for trouble."

This made me even more confused. "Why are you trying to kill me?" I asked him.

"It's a little bit more complicated than that," he said. "What you should be saying is, 'Why haven't you killed me yet?'"

I didn't repeat the question.

"Well, thanks for asking," he mocked. "I'd love to tell you. It's because you're my son."

I waited for him to elaborate.

"The people I work for want you dead. They're convinced you'll interfere with their plans," Dad continued. "Although, sending Metagor after you was probably what put them on your radar in the first place."

"Didn't you just call yourself a god?" I interjected. "Seems to me like a god doesn't take orders from anyone."

"Yes. But if I am a god, then they are the Titans. They tell me what to do- they were the ones who ordered me to eliminate you, despite my protests."

"Like that makes it any better," I snorted.

"You always wondered why we told you not to use your powers. It was because we were trying to convince the people above us not to kill you. The powers you were supposed to have when you were born were going to be uncontrollable and strong enough to kill us all. Thankfully, the infinity matrix was able to suppress your powers and eliminate the potential threat. But now..."

"Yeah, good job with that. Now I'm a ticking time bomb," I said. "Didn't really think that one through, did you, Dad?"

"That wasn't me. That was all Metagor," he said. "Besides, I'm sure the matrix put in a few safeguards in case they didn't last." He put a nice spin on it, saying the word 'last' instead of 'destroyed.'

"You better hope-" I didn't finish the statement. I felt the pressure in the air change, a slight movement behind me. I think my new vibration-sensitive powers were trying to tell me something.

"What's wrong?" Dad seemed concerned.

"Nothing," I replied.

I didn't hear it, but I sensed it. Or, more accurately, her.

In the time it took to blink, I had Sage pinned down on the ground in front of me.

"Hey! Let me go!" She wriggled around on the floor, trying to get to the specially made gun I had kicked out of her reach.

"Oh, good job!" Dad clapped his hands as if I had achieved some great feat. "I thought you would miss it that time."

I had completely forgotten about Sage's nanobots, which would have enabled her to heal just as fast as mine did. She must have known where I went as soon as she woke up and followed me here- unless she was still taking orders from Dad. Then she wouldn't have had to have known where I was. She could've just followed his instructions.