One (One Universe)

Elias and me is the only thing you really want,” I say. “Let my mom and dad take my brothers.”
    “Excuse me?” Fisk scoffs.
    “I don’t like to repeat myself.”
    “You mean, let them go? Oh, my dear, you can’t be serious.”
    “They get to leave. You won’t need them anyway, when you have us. Then — only then — I show you what we can do.”
    Fisk nods to the guards-dressed-as-nurses, and they step to the side so Mom can wheel Max out. Dad watches me, and I see anger, pride, and sadness in his face all at once. Each one of them kills me.
    “I’ll get the car ready,” he says, nodding at me. “She’ll be back for Michael.” Then he follows Mom out.
    “And the girls.” I nod toward Nora and Lia, still floating, unconscious in that goop. I swallow hard. I don’t even know them, but I know what they mean to Elias, and I can’t stand to see them this way. “They go, too.”
    This is the first time Fisk lets his face fall, and it fills me with a small amount of glee. He swallows and then nods his assent to the nurses. They head toward the tank.
    Fisk stays there another minute, standing too close, breathing so close to me that I’m afraid to open my mouth for fear we’d use the same air. He stares me down, looks at my hands again. He’s seen that photo of me levitating that apple. He knows I can go light, that I can make Elias do it, too. He knows we can fly. He just wants his damn machines and serums to pick up every second of it.
    Now that I’ve gotten the boys out of here, I have no idea how to stop that from happening.
    The weird sucking-and-whooshing sound of the huge door to the testing arena opening, the one that made me jump and giggle during the night of the Symposium, startles me now.
    One of the guards says, “We found more of ‘em.”
    My heart races. I hear the sounds of struggle first and then see a swoop of bright strawberry blond hair.
    My heart sinks, then soars again when I see that Leni isn’t freaking out, shaking and crying like I would have expected, and Daniel stands tall. Half as second later, I see why. The guards have made one big mistake, one they wouldn’t have known not to make because Leni and Daniel burned out the lines to the security feeds.
    They’ve bound their hands together.

TWENTY-EIGHT
    “F ound these two trying to sneak out the way they came in. They won’t tell us a thing,” the guard reports.
    Fisk chuckles. “Yes. Thank you,” he says to the guard and then turns. “Helen. Daniel. Welcome to the Hub’s state-of-the-art testing arena. I’m giving more tours than I anticipated today, but no matter. The more the merrier.”
    Daniel’s jaw clenches, and he stands up even straighter.
    Fisk turns to Mr. Hoffman and says, “Pity the son of the famous Doctors Suresh couldn’t make more of himself, isn’t it? It’s no wonder his parents never had any more children since he was such a disappointment.”
    Fisk grabs each of their hands and walks them over to where we stand. Leni moves with jerking steps, like she wants to stand her ground, to fight him touching her, but she knows it’s futile. Daniel hangs his head.
    He pushes them so they’re standing right next to me, shoulder to shoulder, like we’re dolls or pawns on a chess board. Like he’s posing us for a picture.
    He steps back, clasps his hands together, fingers interlocked, and brings them to his mouth, smiling a little behind them.
    “Yes. Yes, lovely.”
    Behind me, the paper on Elias’s bed rustles, and my heart thuds to a stop. I whip around and watch his chest inflate fully and quickly. His head moves to either side, and his eyes flutter open. I squeeze his hand for dear life, but I don’t bend over him. I won’t make myself look weak either. Not now.
    Next to me, Leni gasps. Her eyes focus on something behind Fisk and become pools of tears. She sees Nora and Lia in the sensory tank, now only a quarter filled with green goop, behind me.
    “What…what are they doing to them?” Leni chokes, staring at Nora and Lia. But I want to maintain eye contact with her. Need to.
    “Getting them ready to go home,” I say, keeping my voice steady, squeezing Elias’s hand to tell him that it’s true because I know he can hear me now. Elias’s head moves one way, then the other, making the paper under his pillow crackle.
    Fisk’s voice floats between us like noxious gas. “Trust me, Merrin. You’ll be glad you agreed to this.”
    If he keeps saying my name like that, I swear