BROKEN

Levi never felt the bullet penetrate his skull. That's odd. I really expected it to hurt more. The fact that he could still see out of both eyes was currently lost on him. He watched dispassionately as his father dropped the gun and sank to the floor with a stunned look on his face and blood dribbling from a hole that was dead center in his forehead, though the scene didn't register in his mind. He heard the shouts and multiple gunshots of a fierce, though brief firefight that followed, but somehow, his mind never made the connection to what was really going on. It was as if everything going on was a tv show playing in the background while taking a nap.

His expression remained dead as he suddenly saw Kenny's tearful face leaning over him. He finally realized that the first gunshot had been Kenny's and not Jerome's.

Kenny gathered the broken boy in his arms and held him, ignoring the sting of the barbed wire. "Eld! Grab a couple of pairs of wire snips! Gunther! Call Doc Beringer and tell him I'm bringing in a wounded Super."

"Explosives."

Kenny looked down at Levi in surprise. "What was that?"

"Explosives. About to go off." His weak, broken voice was barely more than a whisper.

Kenny's eyes widened. "EVERYONE! EVACUATE THE BUILDING IMMEDIATELY! IT'S SET TO EXPLODE!" He jumped to his feet, Levi still in his arms and raced to the nearest exit. He, along with all his men didn't stop running until they were inside the next warehouse over. Moments later, the first warehouse exploded and then what was left collapsed into a fiery heap.

"Holy, shit!" Eld cried. He was an average height man with 'three hairs on his chin' as Levi jokingly called the beard, and his blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail. He ran out to one of the cars to grab the wire cutters Kenny had asked for, while Gunther tried to get a signal on his phone.

"Damn it!" Gunther cursed. Though his round face showed anger and frustration, his dark eyes showed the fear and concern he had for Levi. He'd known the boy since the day Kenny brought the frightened and grieving 5-year-old home. "The explosion scrambled the electronics! I can't get a signal!"

"It's okay. We'll get a hold of Beringer once we're outta here," Kenny replied. He then looked down and the dying boy in his arms. "You still with me, boy?" Grey eyes looked back up at him, devoid of all emotion.

Eld ran back in with the cutters and he and Kenny immediately set to cutting and carefully removing the vicious wires from Levi's bloodied and broken body. He almost immediately began breathing better, finally able to take in a full breath. He winced, though, as broken ribs protested. "I'm so sorry, son. I should've gotten here sooner. I'm sorry." He held the broken teen in his arms and wept as he carried him out to one of the cars.

Levi had long since passed out by the time they arrived at St. Sina Hospital. The hospital's east wing had an extra top floor that was high security and inaccessible to the general public. It was almost an entire hospital unto itself and dedicated to the treatment of Supers. Dr. Emilio Beringer was the head surgeon, often referred to as the Coffin Breaker. He had powers of his own that he used to heal others. Through energy manipulation, he could enhance his medical skills and never lost a patient. He treated all people, not just Supers, but he was the one that Supers went to. He was the only one Supers trusted with their identities and their lives.

While he was capable of healing a body completely, he'd learned at a very early age, trying to heal his pet dog, that though a body can be forced to heal, it was still a huge drain of energy and put tremendous stress on the body, resulting in death by exhaustion rather than injury. So, Beringer became a doctor, using his power to enhance his work, repairing the body enough to stabilize, but allowing it to heal on its own so as to not over stress it.

Even he was amazed that Levi was still alive. Even with his powers, it took Beringer more than ten hours to put the boy back together again. When he finally came out to talk to Kenny, he looked exhausted. He hadn't even stopped to change his scrubs, Levi's blood still staining the teal blue cloth.

Kenny was on his feet in an instant. "How is he? How's my boy?"

"He'll live," Beringer replied. "He's quite remarkable. There's a lot of internal damage, but his body is already making repairs. I could actually see it happening. He's currently in some kind of coma. Not a normal coma either. He's not on life support or anything. I've got him on oxygen, D5W IV and an Albumin IV Dilution to support his body's accelerated healing, but that's it. I've also refrained from using stitches, seeing as they will do more harm than good for him due to how fast he's healing. That coma he's in seems to be his body's way of shutting down and focusing entirely on healing itself. It's remarkable, really. However, it's still going to take a couple of weeks for him to fully heal, especially the bones. Harbinger is immensely strong to be able to break those bones, let me tell you. It will take time for the missing feathers to grow back in too. As for his mind healing . . ."

Kenny looked down at the floor. "You don't know the half of it. I got there just in time to see his own father about to put a bullet in his head. I saw his two best friends on the floor; one gutted and the other with both arms cut off." A tear ran down the man's face. "What kind of a fucked-up world is this, anyway?" His voice held none of the anger that his words held – only weariness and grief. "That boy loses his ma, then he sees his best friends die, then his own goddamn shit stain of a father tries to kill him. He doesn't deserve this shit. He's a good kid. Why is this world so fucking unfair?"

The doctor quietly listened to Kenny vent. "If only I'd gone with my first instinct and never told him we'd seen his pa. If I could have found out where Harbinger was sooner. If I'd moved faster when I got word about Harbinger kidnapping those 8 kids . . . god, their bodies are still back in the rubble of that warehouse. Everything is crushed and burnt to a crisp. The families ain't gonna even have bodies to bury. And on top of everything else, I'm the one who killed his pa."

"Don't second guess yourself, Ackerman. You did what had to be done," Beringer countered. "And while we're going on about 'if only' and 'what if' – what if you hadn't gotten there in time to save Blackwing? What if you and your men had been caught in that explosion? I'm not suggesting that the circumstances are in any way ideal – they're far from it – I'm just saying that the circumstances, bad as they are, could have been far worse."

"Yeah. I guess. But I still feel horrible. I swore to his ma that I'd protect him. I've failed both her and him," Kenny responded. "When can I see him?"

"You can go in now. He's probably going to be out for a quite a while though."


Pain.

That's all there was.

Everywhere.

Then the blessed, comfortable darkness again.

The pain returned, slightly less, but again, the darkness drove the pain away.

The third time the pain returned, it brought quiet beeping noises and . . . was that someone snoring?

Levi slowly opened his eyes, but even the dim light was painful, so he briefly closed them again. He opened them again, but everything was terribly blurry. He blinked a few times to clear his vision. Where am I and how did I get here? he finally wondered. He slowly became more aware of his surroundings. A clear, plastic mask was fit over his nose and mouth, fogging slightly with each breath he exhaled. There were tubes sticking in his right arm that lead up to a couple of large bags above him. What he could see of himself was covered in white bandages. The pain. What happened to me?

He heard a soft snore to his left. He turned his head slightly to see Kenny in a chair beside him, the man's head resting on his arms on the edge of the bed, and sound asleep. It was then that the memory of what happened came flooding back. A harsh, choked sob ripped from his parched throat, waking Kenny instantly.

The man was on his feet in a flash. "Levi! Easy now, it's alright. You're safe. This is St. Sina Hospital."

Tears began to run down the boy's face as the memory returned to him in its full horror. A shattered croak followed by a harsh cough signaled the teen's attempt to say something. "Hang tight, son. I'll get some water."

Kenny vanished, but returned seconds later with a cup of water with a straw in it. He gently removed the mask from Levi's face and helped him up a little so he easily drink. Levi pulled back after a couple of sips. "It's all my fault," he sobbed.

"No, son. It's not your fault," Kenny rebutted, gently pulling the broken teen into his arms. "It was never your fault. Even I never guessed your pa was actually working with that monster."

"Izzy. Farlan. They're . . ."

"I know, son. I know. I'm so sorry. I wish I could undo all of it." Kenny began to shed his own tears. "I'm so sorry. I'm the one who shot your pa. I had to choose. Even if I'd had more time, I'd have chosen your life over his. So when I saw him about to shoot your eye out, I just . . . I . . . I shot him first. I'm sorry. In know he was your pa and all, but . . ."

"You did the right thing," Levi whispered through his tears. "He deserved it. He wasn't my dad. He wasn't the man I remember." With that, he began sobbing uncontrollably as Kenny held him and gently stroked his hair, letting him get his grief out of his system.