Chapter 11

-Alec-

"FINISH HIM!"

I watched as Scorpion ripped out another spine. Come on, you let him do that every game, come up with something new! Now what do I put in the next high… score…

My thought trailed off as I saw the scoreboard filled with gibberish, all timestamped this morning. That dirty cheater!

I tossed the controller aside and sank back into the couch. The lines of gibberish were taunting me. Wait…

I tilted my head to have a better look. The text was gibberish horizontally, yes, but reading it vertically…

T. H. F.

H. E. L.

E. A. E.

S. R. E.

E. T. S.

C. B. T.

O. R. O.

N. O. D.

D. K. A.

D. N. Y.

I remembered the crazy girl calling me "First of the Heartbroken" back at the store. Either she was raving again, or one of my siblings cut loose from Dad. The old man wouldn't be happy if that was the case -

Shit. One of my siblings is running loose. Okay… this is either bad or very bad depending on which one it could be…

Guillaume? Nah. He's a crony, through and through. Just being valuable enough for Daddy Dearest to notice his existence would keep him happy enough to stay.

Nicholas? Fuck no. That bastard enjoys torturing people and serving as the big stick to bring us all into compliance gives him that in spades. He wouldn't run. Well… maybe if The Nine sent him a fancy invitation, but the news would be all over them offing Heartbreaker. Or even just getting near him. It'd be a race all over PHO between the posters taking bets on who'd win and the posters scrambling to be the first to claim "whoever wins, we lose."

...Fuck. I need to have Lisa make sure Nicholas didn't join the Nine. Just in case.

Cherie? She's crazy but rebellious, and just smart enough to be truly stupid? Could easily be her, I suppose. Wouldn't be the worst one to have crashing on the couch, I'd only need to flee the city, not the state. Not that I wouldn't do so anyway, for when the rest of the family came looking. Subtle, she ain't.

Samuel, Juliette, Florence, Nathan? Maybe if one of them triggered while I was gone…Though, Flo'd be what? 3? 4? Sam's… gotta be nine by now, I think? He might be able to manage it if he got a good power and a headstart like I did.

Ah, who am I kidding. It's going to be Cherie, she's the one that was getting bored when I left. Actually wanted Dad to try and conquer Canada. Crazy bitch.

I heard a sneeze from Rachel's room that pulled me from my thoughts.

"...Lisa! We might have a problem."

"Okay, good news, whichever ran off likely isn't with the Nine unless Strider's a new member," Lisa started explaining. "Last sighting's way too far from Montreal for that. So excuse me but I'll hold on to my power for a bit - I've already used a lot dealing with Taylor and I have to save some up for if the boss calls."

"You don't think one of my crazy siblings being loose is a problem? After we already had one Thinker point it out?"

"For one, Alec, she's crazy," the blonde pointed out, sighing. "For two, Thinker powers aren't infallible. I'd know. And three, whichever one it was, they only ran away today. Unless you've been sending postcards home with your new address on it, then we still have plenty of time to sort it out later. Meanwhile, wrangling our new houseguest is important now."

Aisha walked in right after Lisa said that, grabbing one of Lisa's spare laptops and claiming a seat on the couch.

"The other houseguest," Lisa specified, glancing at Aisha and drawing a curious look from the other girl in turn. She sighed, rubbing at her face as if it would fend off the migraine I could practically see building with my power. "Look. Rachel manages to be a headache just by going out to walk her dogs, the new girl goes out to drink people's blood at night." Aisha looked over and opened her mouth, but then just shrugged and went back to her web surfing. I tried to catch a look at the screen in case she was watching porn, but it looked like she was just on PHO. "Even if she doesn't kill as far as I can tell, it can go wrong for us in so many ways if we - that is, me and Brian - don't come up with something..."

"Whatever you say, then," I said, stretching. "But if this bites us in the ass, I'll get to say 'Told ya'."

Looking back and forth between us, Aisha twirled her finger. "Turn around."

"What?"

"I need to compare so I know which one I wanna see Tay bite," she answered with a grin.

Lisa facepalmed, muttering something along the lines of "not what we meant" even as I turned around with as much flourish as I could put in the motion.

Despite our best combined efforts, Aisha and I failed to convince Lisa to copy me. We really gave it our all too, going so far as to practically squish her head between our butts as we shook them.

Maybe it would have worked better if we didn't both topple over from laughing so hard only a few seconds in?

I resolved to try harder next time.

I made my way up the stairs with my pizza (I was still annoyed about not being able to have it delivered to the lair because Brian got all butthurt about keeping the location secret. I knew he was right, especially if one of my siblings was running loose, but that didn't make it any less annoying to have to walk all the way down the street for pizza. I mean, come on, the fucking Ninja Turtles could get pizza delivered to the sewers...) when I heard Lisa complaining at someone.

"...had to have known this would happen!" the blonde ranted.

The crazy neighbourhood vampire tilted her head and stared, her face the picture of innocent confusion. "Have you not beheld me through false eyes yourself?"

"Yeah, all-knowing one," Aisha cut in. I like that one. "You figured the problem out when, exactly?"

"Something I missed?" I drawled. "I was only gone, what? Fifteen minutes? Twenty, tops?"

Lisa's angry gaze snapped to me. "Our camera-scrambling companion," she spat out, "decided it would be funny to troll Protectorate heroes in front of cameras."

"Yeah… I was there," I reminded her, raising an eyebrow and smirking. "I even paid attention cause it was hilarious."

"And it has absolutely put her on the Protectorate's radar," Lisa ranted on as a girl got off the chair behind her, next to Aisha. "They'll be on the lookout for her, and if they check enough cameras they will see her walking around with us."

"Having powers isn't a crime," I pointed out as the girl slipped past me. "They can't exactly do anything unless they have something to charge her with."

"That's not the—" Lisa started, but Aisha cut her off.

"Uh, guys? I think she just went on one of her walks." She held her index fingers in front of her mouth like tusk-like fangs.

...Motherfucker! If I'd known she was going out I could have had her pick up the pizza!