might, though she had nothing to suck in.
Reaching the first gap, Bella closed her eyes with relief that she was still in one whole piece. She stood rod-straight, her arms at her side, her breathing shallow.
The noise of the spinning metal was deafening. The blades were taller than the teenager, blocking her vision. Shut off from the rest of the world, it felt like she was in total isolation.
Terror rising and determination fading, Bella had to get a move on.
She watched, waited and eventually saw the path clear again. Mustering her fading strength, she darted for the sliver of an opening.
Jack had reached the end of the course with ease. He actually enjoyed it. Janie reunited with her twin and the two started talking excitedly as if they had been separated for decades.
The triplets made it through the course alive, too.
Ty grew back to his normal size and fell to his knees, kissing the polished wood gym floor. "I wasn't killed!" he cried.
Ethan slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't be such a drama queen, dude."
Ty stood up, checked the coast was clear of Dean, nodded and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "You're right, you're right: keep it cool, I got it."
Caleb hugged Jack and fake cried. "I was deprived of people who understand my jokes!" he said. He let go of Jack and straightened up. "Hey, where's Bella?"
Jack was wondering the same thing. He saw Sara and immediately assumed Bella was with her. Looking over at the Cover twins, he realized he was wrong. Bella wasn't there.
The girl that was paired with Ethan gasped and pointed to the last obstacle on the course: the blades.
"What is it, Lacey?" Ethan asked her.
"Isn't that your friend?" she responded.
Bella was caught between rows, horror clearly written in her denim-blue eyes.
The triplets and Jack rushed forward, all knowing only Jack would make it to the paralyzed Bella.
Jack ran, faster than lightning, the blades seeming to slow down as he increased his speed. He flew like a perfectly aimed bullet, over the blades.
Earlier, he flew over the blades with Janie, no problem. He assumed Sara would have assisted Bella with the obstacle.
He knew Bella was going to have a battle with this course. Everyone knew she was far out of her league.
Knowing he would crash if he tried to land, Jack kept up his momentum and swooped down. Grabbing Bella and holding her, bride-style, Jack flew away from the blades.
He hadn't wanted to crash before, but now it was even more important he avoid tumbling: now that he held Bella.
Bella clung to Jack, her arms tightening around his neck, her hands gripping the back of his shirt as if it was the only thing keeping her alive. Her eyes clamped shut, her face buried in his shoulder, it wasn't hard to tell she was scared beyond belief.
"It's okay, you're safe now," Jack said, trying to calm his friend down. Bella didn't respond.
Jack flew out the gym doors, through the locker-lined halls, through the auditorium, through the cafeteria and out the doors, into the bright, early afternoon sunshine, to the open playing field.
It was actually beautiful outside: the sky was bright blue, no sign of clouds, the summer sun warming the earth below.
Jack could land here, he was sure of it. There was so much grass area, he could do it with ease.
Just to be on the safe-side, though, he decreased his altitude and brushed by the bleachers, lowering and placing Bella, safely, on a long, wooden bench.
He then looped around and tried to land, precisely, on the open grass. It didn't work, though. He came down too fast and tumbled, head over heels, rolling like an oversized hamster in a ball, until he crashed into the goal post.
He got to his feet, dizzily, and looked around. He saw grass, trees, the Hero High building and a hysterically laughing Bella sitting in the stands.
"Good thing the track team wasn't out here!" she called, her previous fear ebbing away and laughter taking its place. "You would have been sent to the principal's office for playing human bowling!"
9
The drama of Hero Training behind them, the gamma accidents assembled in the gym to wait for Rust and Audrey.
Audrey arrived, promptly and early, wearing jeans, a simple T-shirt and sneakers with her hair in a ponytail. It was a stark contrast to her usual professional, business-like attire.
"He's not here?" she asked the teenagers.
They shook their heads.
Audrey had hopes, just like everybody else. One of her hopes had always been to meet a real life superhero, and Rust Swift was at the top of her list. She was a young girl when G-4 supposedly went rouge, devastated a city and killed themselves.
When she heard she was going to be the assistant to the amazingly still alive Rust, she was over the moon, to put her reaction mildly.
Her hopes were dashed when she saw Rust, that night at his apartment.
It was sad to see how far the once great hero had fallen.
What was worse was the fact that he couldn't be bothered to help. He couldn't be bothered to get off his lazy backside, train a team of potential superheroes and help a minority group rise from the depths of shame to the heights of heroes.
It made her heart race to think what she was a part of.
Rust, however, didn't share her enthusiasm and was nowhere to be seen.
Audrey tried to hope, she really did. Repeatedly, she told herself that perhaps Rust forgot he wrote the note earlier, or he forgot they were supposed to meet in the gym, or he was attacked by wild, rouge, toxic-waste enhanced squirrels or...
She could think of a million reasons why Rust wasn't there but no matter how plausible or how real they sounded, none of them would be true.
Audrey sighed, disappointedly, and joined the five teenagers hanging around on the bleachers, quietly.
Ethan was reading a book, Bella was drawing on her backpack, Caleb was messing around with a couple of old French fries he had found under the bleachers, Ty was playing a game on his phone and Jack was staring at the big clock on the far side of the gymnasium, watching time pass.
They had been waiting, eagerly, for half an hour. Now, disappointment was beginning to set in.
"He'll be here," Audrey said, reassuringly, though she didn't feel it herself. "He just... maybe... sometimes..." she hung her head. It was no use. "Yeah, I got nothing."
"Do you have a power?" Caleb asked, suddenly. He often blurted out random statements and questions, often saying the very thing everyone wanted to say but no one was brave enough to verbalize.
Audrey nodded, deeply grateful for the change of subject. "Of course. You don't think I could go through Hero High and Hero College without having a superpower... do you?"
Caleb shrugged. "I thought you might be a pilot or something."
"I can't fly a plane," she said.
"Oh," was all Caleb had to say to that.
No one said anything further and the vast gym was filled with the sounds of Ethan flicking pages, Bella sketching, Caleb bashing stale fries into each other and random popping noises coming from Ty's phone.
Rust never showed up.
Eventually, the janitor arrived, ready to clean the gym and get it prepared for Hero Training the next day. He whistled an old tune and backed into the gymnasium, wheeling in a cleaning cart.
Pausing his whistling, he looked up at the teenagers and Audrey.
"Howdy, folks," he said, tipping an invisible hat. "Don't think I've seen you kids around before..." he scratched his chin, racking his brains to see if he could place the faces. He clicked his fingers with recognition. "The gamma accidents, of course!"
"Hi, Darren," Audrey said with a half smile.
Darren the janitor scanned the forlorn faces and sighed, feeling sorry for them.
"You folks' best be getting a move on," he said, understandingly. "Whoever you're waiting for, isn't coming."
Shoulders sagging and hopes dying, Jack, Bella, Ethan, Ty, Caleb and Audrey
left the gym and went their separate ways.
The kids drove to the motel in the dark. No one said anything on the way home, each one knowing what the other was thinking but not wanting to hear the thoughts said aloud.
Their greeting was cheerful and uplifting, though.
As soon as Jack parked the jeep, before they had even opened the doors, a very excited Rosie and a smiling Alison greeted them.
Rosie flung herself at her brother and he swung her up, onto his shoulders. The small girl laughed and hugged his neck.
"How was your day?" Alison asked.
"Terrific," Ty replied in a monotone that suggested otherwise.
Alison knew, immediately, that the day hadn't gone off as nicely as everyone had wanted it to. "What happened?" she questioned as the group headed to their rooms in the motel.
"I now know what it feels like to be inside a blender," Bella mumbled as she set her backpack down by the door.
"That really doesn't sound good," Alison said, frowning sincerely.
"Did you catch the bad guy?" Rosie asked her big brother, eagerly.
He reached up and ruffled her hair from her spot on his shoulders. "Nah. We didn't find him."
The group entered the girls' room. Alison headed straight for the kitchen. "What else happened?" she asked, not turning around as she searched the cupboards for mugs.
"I made an enemy," Ty stated, sitting down on the couch and taking off his sneakers.
"Dean Lightbody?" Bella questioned.
Ty nodded. "He had this mean look on his face, like he was trying to decide if he should kill me now or wait for later."
The other teenagers laughed, despite their friend's genuine fear. "You're kidding, right? That's ridiculous!" Caleb said.
"He never said more than