“Barb, short for Barbarian.” Reo snickered.

“No, it’s not. Idiot.”

“Just kidding. Something to do with the tree-like powers she can shape into anything. Barb…jeez. Talk about lack of creativity.”

I clenched my teeth upon hearing that but then relaxed my cheek muscles so they wouldn’t notice my reaction. Can she make something like a spike with her powers? Barb…spikes. Close enough.

“Shut up, you.” Myra picked up a pillow from one of the sofas and threw it at Reo, who promptly ducked. She winced and massaged the side of her neck. “I’m not in a mood for your jokes, Reo.”

“Grumpy, grumpy.”

“Are you okay now, Myra?” Dario asked.

Myra stretched down the neckline of her sweatshirt to her shoulder, revealing the side of her neck. “Just redid my bandages.”

“Here you go,” Deen said, handing her an ice bag. “Might help.”

“Thanks.” Myra sat on the arm of the chair where Everett was. “Oh yeah, that feels good,” she said, pressing the ice bag on her injury.

“Sorry, I wasn’t able to get more of the Diluter,” Dario said. He held up his own bandaged arm.

“It’s fine, I don’t want to overdose on it. I actually missed feeling pain like a normal person.” She pointed her finger at Reo who had his mouth open about to say something. “Can it! I can see from your face you’re about to make a BDSM joke.” He grinned and raised his hands, backing off.

Myra, you sneaky, sneaky slime, I thought. I was raging in my mind but I easily kept my face neutral; years of practice. She was the one who attacked me! I was sure I heard the word ‘Barb’ mentioned when I transformed and fought at the mall. It turned out it was Myra’s codename.

The bandages on her neck were the final confirmation. I bit off a huge chunk of her flesh; I think I even reached her bone. But if Myra had powers, then I wouldn’t be surprised if she could heal herself from that apparently fatal injury. Kelsey was an Adumbrae...and Myra was what?

And how could she have gotten to the mall before us from where we dropped her off?

Hold on, wasn’t the mall just on the other side of that block? Deen asked Myra if we could take a shortcut through the parking area of the building but she said she forgot her car pass. But what if she didn’t have one? Did she even live in that building? Or did she get off there so she could pass through and arrive at the mall before us because we had to navigate the busy streets of the business district?

If I’d known she had powers, I would’ve thought of her as the prime suspect. Not Kelsey. When my attacker mentioned a sister, it was Myra asking about Kelsey, not the other way around. I don’t know shit about your sister!

The mystery of the attack was slowly getting revealed. But there were more questions. Were all of them my enemies? Then why did Myra’s friends stop her and save us? Were they going to silence us now? What was the blue vial she gave us back in Melchor?

Control your anger, Erind, I coaxed myself. Which was easy. I couldn’t properly get angry actually, more like only an approximation of it—like all other emotions. After a few minutes, I wouldn’t be angry at her anymore even though she did try to kill me.

But it didn’t mean I forgave her. Even if I did want to do so, there were no exceptions to Rule #4. My hands were tied. Emotions and the application of the Rules were entirely different matters.

“Let’s hear it then, Erind,” Myra said. “What happened after you ran away from the parking area? That’s the last part of the story we got from Dario and Amber.”

I needed to be in control of the conversation and not let this turn into a Q-and-A with Myra on the reins. I wasn’t going to be a witness grilled by a lawyer on the stand. Divert. “Dario was the one in the car?" I said. "I was surprised when a car crashed into the man attacking me.” I corroborated Deen’s incorrect belief that our attacker was a man. I paused and inhaled deeply. Distraught. I needed to be distraught so I could tell a jumbled story without arousing suspicion. “I’m really, really sorry, Deen. I just ran away after that. I…I…” My voice cracked, lips trembling. I reached for her hands and held them.

“Eh? What are you talking about?” Deen said. “Erind calls me ‘Deen’,” she explained to them. “It’s my second name, ‘Amber Deen’.” Then she turned to me. “What are you sorry for? You’ve done nothing wrong to me.”

“Because I just left you! I was dying to tell you sorry over the phone but you immediately clued me in not to say anything about the mall.” Cue in teardrops. Just a few, don’t exaggerate.

“Oh, that! Don’t worry about it, Erind. Dario fought off the Adumbrae. I don’t actually know what happened because I passed out in the commotion. That’s where Dario was injured, I think? You couldn’t have done anything there.”

“I just ran away and left you behind. I was only thinking about myself.” Deen hugged me and I sobbed on her shoulder.

“But what did happen after?” Myra impatiently said.

“Relax, Myra,” Everett said. “Can’t you see she’s upset?”

“Don’t think too much about it, Erind,” Dario said. “It’s understandable why you ran away. You were scared.”

Could I push this a bit more? “If you guys weren’t there, Deen would’ve died.”

“You already saved me when my leg got hit,” Deen said. “If you ran away that time, the Adumbrae would’ve killed me. You didn’t leave me when it counted the most.”

“Hey, if we’re up against a strong opponent,” Reo said, “I’d also run and leave these guys behind. Don’t sweat it.”

Myra made an exasperated sound. “You were attacked, Dario hit the guy with his car, he and Everett got Amber while you ran away. Then what happened next?”

Cunt. Based on their reactions, they didn’t appear to have hostile intentions towards me...including Myra. I could be wrong, but I sensed she was more interested in knowing the identity of the woman who attacked her than what happened to me.

I wiped my tears and added a couple of hiccups. “It was all a blur. I just ran and ran. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. That door at the side of the parking area…all my focus was just getting to it. I thought it would go into the mall but then it…it led into a stairwell.

“The door didn’t have a lock. I dunno, maybe I didn’t see it or I’m too dumb to figure it out. Maybe I was just super scared I couldn’t think straight. I…I…I’ve seen on the news what Adumbrae can do—the guy who wanted to kill me is an Adumbrae, right?”

“We think so,” Dario said, glancing at Myra.

“Yes, he’s an Adumbrae. Our enemy.” She had a straight face. “Anyway, what happened in the stairwell?

“Because I couldn’t lock the door, I held it shut with my body. Really stupid, I know. I’m small and the Adumbrae could force the door open, just fling me away. I’ve heard, they’re all incredibly strong. I just stood there by the door because I didn’t know which way to go…up or down. I might get trapped if I went the wrong way. Someone grabbed me and pulled me away from the door. Which was lucky because the Adumbrae shot several spikes that pierced through the metal door."

“Someone?”

“A woman in a weird getup. Without her, I would’ve been injured, maybe dead.”

“Can you describe this woman?”

“She’s tall with a body like a supermodel.” I loosely described my appearance when transformed, adding in a few wrong details so it wouldn’t seem I was too familiar with it. Myra’s eyes lit up while I was talking, and she gave a hint of a nod to Dario.

“I sure wish I could’ve met her,” Reo said. Myra shot him a menacing glare.

“I didn’t even notice her when I entered the stairwell,” I said. “Which was weird because there wasn’t any place she could've hidden. Like, it’s just the stairs going up and going down. I would’ve seen her approach me. But I didn’t think about it at that time. I was just relieved I didn’t die. Maybe it’s just one of her powers.”

“Why do you say she has powers?” Dario said.

“Besides the appearing out of thin air,” Myra said.

“I didn’t say she appeared out of thin air. I just didn’t notice her…maybe. But it was pretty obvious she wasn’t normal because of her mouth.” Myra, maybe subconsciously, rubbed her injured neck. Should I ask her about her injury? Nah, too suspicious. I said, “After pulling me away from the door, the woman opened her mouth. Like, I mean her mouth as in the mask thingy full of sharp fangs. That was her actual mouth! Like not a human mouth at all. She has a monster mouth!”

“Maybe I don’t want to meet her,” Reo mused. “Or maybe I do…You said she has a hot body?”

“Don’t be a pig, Reo,” Myra said, “or I’ll tell your girlfriend.”

“Kidding. Man, can no one take a joke anymore? She’s an Adumbrae anyway.”

“I was terrified thinking she’s with the man chasing me and she’s going to attack me too. It didn’t register in my mind at that time that she saved me. I was so sure I was super dead. If I went out the door, the man in black will skewer me and if I stayed there, she'll bite my head off. But…she didn’t bite me…she bit herself.”

“What?” All of them said.

I nodded fervently. “She bit her own arm. I was so shocked when she did that. She let her blood flow to the ground. Then she pointed at me and pointed down. Next, she pointed at herself and up. She growled or something while doing that pointing thing. I’m sure she was trying to talk to me but I couldn’t understand because she couldn’t speak with her…uh…monster mouth. I don’t know what to call it.

“When she smeared her blood on the spikes, that was when I understood what she was trying to tell me. The blood trail on the floor, the blood on the spikes. She planned to make it look like I was hit and then lead the Adumbrae with spikes a different way.”

“I see,” Myra said, more to herself than to me. She was looking at the pool, chewing her tongue, deep in thought.

What do you mean ‘I see’, you bitch? I continued with my story, “I ran down the stairs while the woman with the weird mouth went up. I couldn’t see her but I assumed she dripped her blood along the way.”

“How about the man?” Deen said. “Did you see him? He also entered the stairwell?”

“He did, but I didn’t see him. I descended the stairs and tried to open the door of the lower floor when I heard a crash above. I’m not sure, but I think that door got stuck because of the spikes he threw and he was trying to force it open. I was so scared I didn’t even try to exit the stairwell. I just sat in a corner.

“I kept very quiet, covered my ears, and closed my eyes. I didn’t move, I was praying the whole time he'd follow the woman. I still didn’t budge when I heard him going up the stairs. It was the fire alarm that finally made me move.”

“And then what?”

“I was able to escape from the mall before the fire spread. Everyone was running out. I rushed back to my condo and hid inside until Deen called. I didn’t know what to do. At first, I wanted to call the police but…but I changed my mind. I mean two incidents on the same day. With Myra’s sister…and the mall. What if the Adumbrae has started to infect me too?”

“Do you know what happened to the woman with the monster mouth?”

“I don’t know. I never saw her after we parted ways in the stairwell. Do you know who she is?”

Dario shrugged. “We don’t.”

“She really saved me back there. Obviously, she’s not human, but she wasn’t a bad…not sure if I can call her ‘person’. Could she be like you? With supernatural powers but not a Corebring or an Adumbrae.”

“No, she’s not like us,” Dario said. “There’s only five of us in our group. Four with powers, one who decided to stay normal. Four of us are here. Johann, the normal guy, couldn’t come.”

“That woman is definitely an Adumbrae,” Myra said.

“But she helped me.”

“We still don’t know her true intentions. That’s one of the things we’d like to find out.”

“How about the fire? Did the Adumbrae with spikes do it? It couldn’t have been the woman. I hope it wasn’t her.”

“We also don’t know anything about the fire,” Everett said, perhaps too quickly, then he looked away.

You guys set fire to the mall? If they did, then I had to thank them because they probably destroyed the recordings of the parking area security cameras. Or was that their intention? “How about you? Did you see the woman or the Adumbrae trying to kill us?” I asked Dario.

“No. When the Adumbrae went after you, we took Amber, um, Deen, and escaped in our car. We only knew about the fire when we were already out of the mall.”

That’s going to be your story? They were saying they already left so they could disclaim any knowledge of the fire and push it on their imaginary enemies at the mall. Let’s take more control of this conversation. “Huh? You left, just like that?” I said with utmost indignation, adding in a stamp of my foot. “You just left while an Adumbrae was chasing me? I could’ve died! If the woman with the monster mouth didn’t appear then I really would be dead.”

Everett fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat and glanced at Myra beside him. She intently stared at the pool as if she couldn’t hear us talking.

“Erind…” Deen said, but she didn’t continue her sentence.

“You said you guys have powers.”

Dario calmly answered, “We do have powe—"

“And you’re fighting Adumbrae. Right? Right? So why did you leave me?” Either they should be nominated for the best actors of 2020, or, based on their expressions, they truly felt guilty. I surmised it was all just Myra’s own thing. “Why weren’t you able to stop the Adumbrae?”

“I guess I better explain,” Dario said. He fished a square leather object from his pocket. I thought it was his wallet, but I realized it wasn’t when he opened it. “It’s because of this.”

“The blue vials,” I whispered. There were three of them inside the small leather packet. “Just like what Myra gave us at Melchor.”

“Ah, yeah, she mentioned she gave you some. There was no need, this would have barely any effect on you and Amber Deen.”

Myra grunted. “Was just trying to be helpful.”

“What are those?” I said.

“They have scientific names for their formulas, but we just call them Suppressors for simplicity. There’s another set of vials colored red, the Diluters.”

“Need to keep them simple because Reo can’t remember their names,” Myra said.

“Ha-ha-ha, very funny,” Reo said sarcastically. “Sounds like we’re talking about drugs if we refer to them like that.”

“It’s way better to be caught with drugs in our possession than these," said Dario. "Their official names shouldn’t even be known by the public. Someone might overhear us and one thing can lead to another and we’ll be investigated for possessing something that’s government top secret.

“We use the Suppressor stuff to...well...suppress the source of our power as well as parts of our brain that connect to higher dimensions via the gestalt subconsciousness of humans. I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty details, but we basically use them to get past Adumbrae scanners and tests. Not only we do have special abilities, but we also have super strength and increased regeneration like Adumbrae—”

“Like Corebrings,” Everett said. “Don’t compare us to Adumbrae.”

“Sorry, wrong choice of words. Yes, like Corebrings, we have superhuman bodies and we need the Suppressor to hide it when necessary. The effect lasts for a few hours and we gradually get our powers back. For normal humans? Not much effect.”

Deen waved her hand to join in. “Myra said we could use it to pass tests in case we were affected by being close to an Adum—uh, I mean Kelsey. Something about false positives.”

“Technically, yes. It does suppress parts of the brain associated with establishing a connection with an Adumbrae, biochemicals, and electric signals. But this is more suited for our use. In your case, it wasn’t necessary at all. The chances you were affected by that brief interaction are minuscule.

“False positives are possible; the brain is a complicated thing and science is still very far in unraveling its secrets. However, further testing would clear that up. It'll be a huge inconvenience, yes. Follow-up tests and records, but not worth even one of these rare and expensive Suppressors.”

I recalled Myra mentioned she got the blue vials from her boyfriend. She meant Dario? They didn’t seem to have a relationship. She told us a lie so we would trust her and take the Suppressor thingy. Technically, it was a white lie. The twist was that she was really trying to help us.

The fuck was going on? She helped us and then she attacked us afterward? Did she think we were Adumbrae? It wasn’t like she suspected we had powers so she tried to trick us into losing our powers by drinking the blue stuff. She let us pick a vial first and even drank hers before us. And she couldn't have known if we drank our vials after she left.

“Myra wasted our limited supplies,” Reo said.

“I already talked with her, Reo.”

“She had good intentions,” Everett said.

“Dario,” I said, “is that why you were injured and had to run away? You drank some Suppressor?”

“In my line of work, I always need to take it so I wouldn’t get discovered. When I came to the mall, I could barely use my powers and I couldn’t properly fight. That’s how I got this injury that’s still healing. If I didn’t have the Suppressor in my system, this would’ve healed in a few minutes. And it’s also the reason why we ran away. Sorry. In our minds, at least we saved one person.”

“We hoped you would’ve escaped,” Everett said.

“I understand now,” I said. “Sorry I overreacted.”

“We’re the ones who should apologize,” Dario said. “No matter what explanation I give, we did leave you behind.”

“But isn’t pretty dangerous that you can’t use your powers for a few hours? Like what if you get ambushed?”

“That’s where the Diluter comes in. It counteracts the Suppressor, flushes it out of our system. It’s not immediate, but better than nothing.” Dario scratched the back of his head. “I didn’t have any Diluter on me at that time. We don’t have any right now.”

Because Myra took it? Was that how she was able to use her powers and also survive a fatal bite on her neck? She probably ingested some on her way to the mall. I recalled she jabbed herself with a syringe after I attacked her. Must’ve been more of the red stuff to help her heal.

“Again, I sincerely apologize,” Dario said. “You’re right. We’re fighting Adumbrae and we should’ve chased the one attacking you. Even though my abilities were restricted, that’s no excuse. Sorry. Now, we’re here to fix our mistakes. We’re here to help. You explained what happened in the mall, now it’s our turn to explain what’s going on. Or try to explain, because we also don’t know plenty of things. As Amber told you, we also don’t know why you were attacked. We have our guesses, and maybe you’d have an idea after I give a backgrou—”

“Can you show me your powers first?” I said.

“If that’s what you want,” Dario said. “We already showed Amber our powers.”

I wasn’t sure what the exact truth was, neither did I really care for it. However, I was certain they didn’t want to silence Deen and me or dispose of us in some way because they already had many opportunities to do so. The deal with Myra seemed like a misunderstanding.

So, what did they want?

Their intention must be connected with my transformation. Otherwise, they just would’ve left Deen at the hospital or something—she was passed out anyway—and just not bother with us. If they posed a threat to me, or more specifically, my transformed self, then I needed to have an idea of their strength. If they didn't, I still needed information because I was the one who'd be going after them eventually.

“Ok, everyone,” Dario said, “who wants to go first?”

“Reo should go first,” said Everett.

“Why me?” he replied. “Save the best for last. You guys go first.”

“Delude yourself all you want,” Myra said, “but you’re wasting time if you don’t start your summoning now.”

“Ah! Forgot about that. Go ahead and continue while I do my thing here calling my baby.” He knelt on the ground. “Nice, this carpet is soft.” Looking up at the ceiling, he extended his arms out to his sides, palms facing upward, and began chanting words I didn't understand.

“Don’t get weirded out, Erind,” said Deen.

Was he praying in a foreign language? Japanese? No, it didn’t sound Japanese. I had no idea what he was saying, but it looked like the start of some ritual. “To be honest, this isn’t what I envisioned for a showcase of powers,” I said.

Everett said, “Powers of both Corebrings and Adumbrae aren’t usually as clear cut as shooting lightning bolts out of your fingertips like in the movies.

“What’s yours then?” I asked him.

“Mine is a bit hard to explain. What do you know of that famous formula, E=mc2?”

“Only heard of it. I don’t exactly know what it’s about.”

“I’m not a physicist by the way, but a simple explanation would be anything with mass has a huge amount of energy. The next problem is how efficiently can energy be extracted. Take a burger, for example. You can last for an entire day eating just one burger, but you’ll be hungry and tired by night. That’s because we are severely inefficient at extracting energy from our food. If there was a way to extract energy with even…how about fifty percent efficiency…from a burger, I’m sure you could destroy a block of buildings with it.”

“Is that true?” I said skeptically.

“That’s an underestimation,” Dario said. “An average human contains energy equivalent to ninety-thousand times the power of the explosion of the first nuclear bomb used back in the Adumbrae war—the one dropped on Munich, the site of the first Purple Bloom. I’m sure the energy in a burger extracted at fifty percent efficiency can destroy more than just a few buildings.”

Everett said, “I extract energy from what I eat…which we all do. The difference is that I can extract energy more efficiently.”

“Seriously? You just eat a burger and then you can blow up a building?”

“No, that’s too much,” he said, laughing. “I’m just a tiny bit more efficient than a normal human digesting food, but not that efficient as to turn a burger into a bomb. With the energy I extract, I can focus heat around my body or on specific points.” He held up his fist and the air around it started to shimmer, like the hot air over the pavement on a searing summer day here in California.

So, he’s the fucker who burned the mall. My skin stung from the heat and I retreated a couple of steps. “Woah, that’s hot.” I was sure he was holding back a lot of his power so we wouldn’t immediately suspect him of being connected with the mall fire. Based on our prior encounter, he could make things burst into flames from the amount of heat he could generate.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to give off that much heat.” He smiled slyly at Deen. “I do need to eat a lot to sustain my power. If I ran out of food, I’ll start to digest myself. Think of ulcer, but way worse.”

“Aren’t you hurt by your own power? The heat?”

“I’m heatproof to an extent,” he said. “That’s the second part of my power.”

“How about Myra next?” Dario said.

Finally!

What was she going to do so we wouldn't suspect her as our attacker?