No Peace for the Damned

their experiments—but you can’t heal yourself, can you, Markus? You couldn’t take it the way I could.”
    “You fucking bitch!” he screamed. Boards, nails, dropped weapons all flew at me again. Again they fell short by several feet. “Why couldn’t you just stay dead like the other one?”
    I paused.
What?
“What the hell are you talking about? What other one?”
    “The other one! The one they killed when they should have killed you.”
    Markus vibrated with rage. His thoughts slowly became clear.
    …
    High ceilings and dark wood furniture decorated the master suite. In the center of the room, writhing on a beautiful canopied bed, Mother screamed
.
    A young Markus cringed and huddled closer to Malcolm’s back. The doctor hunched over the bed as the guards held Mother down. Malcolm looked down at Markus in disgust. Then he turned to face Father, standing beside the bed, dressed in his finest business suit. Guards flanked him at both sides
.
    After a moment, the doctor rose, a bloodied bundle in his arms. Father cradled the small baby in his hands. His face lit up with a joy the boys had never seen before. Malcolm’s steady stance faltered. Markus cringed again
.
    With dark curls and vibrant eyes, the child radiated with light. But the pride on Father’s face shifted. He frowned in confusion. Then in anger. Then fear
.
    Both boys turned to the bed as Father placed the radiant child back into Mother’s arms. With thoughtful strides, he crossed the room. At the door, he paused. Sighed
.
    “Kill them both,” he ordered quietly. Then he strolled from the room, shutting the door behind him
.
    The boys froze
.
    “
No!
” Mother cried out. One of the guards snatched the baby from her arms. She lunged after him but the wounds of childbirth restrained her. A second guard walked mindlessly to the lace-covered bassinet beside her bed. He lifted from it another baby, her dark curls and bright eyes identical to her sister’s. But there was no radiant glow like her twin
.
    “Please!” begged Mother from the tangles of her bloody sheets. “Only the second is a threat! That’s what he said. The other has no power, no power at all. The second took everything that should havebeen split between them. Please, let me keep the first. She’s just a baby!”
    The guards ignored her
.
    The boys relaxed with relief as the twins were removed. Mother cried out in anguish
.
    …
    Twins.
    I had been a twin. Had I really retained all the supernatural power of my sister in the womb? Was that why I was so powerful?
    Even at the moment of my birth, Father had ordered my death. And now I knew why. I was more powerful than I ever imagined. So powerful that energy had literally shone out of me. No wonder they’d tried so hard to kill me. They couldn’t take the risk that one day I’d be strong enough to destroy them.
    That also explained the beatings and the experiments. I always thought the pain I’d been forced to endure was because Father had tried so hard to kill me and failed. But maybe it was more than that. If they knew I couldn’t be killed, Father needed a way to stifle my powers. And he’d found it, with pain and humiliation and constant, unending fear. Anytime I’d lost control of my powers or used them to resist or fight back, the punishments had been so much worse, the pain truly unbearable.
    All the new things I’d been doing lately—was something inside me changing, or just waking up? Was there even more inside me that I hadn’t discovered yet?
    I thought of Theo and immediately knew the answer. Hell, yes, there was more inside me. The question was, how much more?

Markus’s mind struggled as memories pushed at him. He fought to stay in the here and now.
    “You haven’t contacted Father,” I said slowly. “We’ve infiltrated the estate and killed family guards. Why aren’t the rest of the guards charging in? Where is Malcolm?”
    “I am the more powerful one!” he shrieked. The barn lights shattered around us. I shielded the others from his outburst with my powers. “
I
will be the one to eliminate our enemies. I will destroy the Network, and no one will ever hinder our family’s conquests again!” Markus’s fists raised high above his head as if in victory.
    Wow
. His delusions really knew no bounds.
    “You honestly believe that by turning over their leader, you can defeat the Network? Or that Father will even care?”
    “Not their leader,” Markus replied. “The entire Network! The