She's Behind The Mask

Chapter 15 - Super Secretive

"Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say."
- Mitch Albom

I wake up with a jolt, my eyes wide open and staring straight up at a concrete ceiling. My heart starts beating faster at the sight of the unfamiliar surroundings. I look around, and study the small room. The carpet is soft and fuzzy, contrasting with the hard, concrete walls. There is an old wooden desk in the corner with a lamp, casting the room in a warm glow. In the opposite corner to the desk is a tall door.

I scan the room once more before trying to sit up, using my elbows to push myself up, but quickly falling back down when my burn sends a jolt of pain down my arm. I look and see my arm wrapped neatly in bandages. I am no longer in my costume, but a plain black shirt and grey track pants. When I successfully manage to sit up the door opens and in comes Mrs Smith. I quickly read her mind but come to no conclusion as to why she is here or where I am from her current thoughts.

She silently places a tray of food on my lap and describes to me what each food is. She smiles at me before dragging the chair from the desk to the side of my bed. She gracefully places herself onto the chair and intertwines her fingers on her lap. She then sighs before starting to talk.

"You're probably wondering where you are and why I'm here." She says, and I cautiously nod my head. Before she can say much more, I read her thoughts. I let her continue though, and patiently wait for her to finish. "We found you on the rooftop after your fight. You see there are a lot more people out there like you, who have powers too. The man you fought yesterday is one of them."

"Most of them either hide their powers or join this place, Super Secretive, to train. There are also people who like to use their powers for bad, thankfully we've stopped most of them from doing anything before the public finds out about the supers. But as more and more bad people are forming powers it's hard to keep the public from seeing. It's probably best them knowing about supers now, your fight is already all over the news."

She finishes off by saying, "having supers known will help make it easier to stop supers who have gone down the route of crime and also help people in need."

"Ok", I say, and then I add, "You have superpowers then?"

"Yes." She states, and I look down to see the water in my cup slowly rise up in the air, swirling around a couple of times before freezing. The ice falls back into the cup and turns back to water. I look back up to see Mrs Smith has disappeared. I wonder if she quickly left the room without me looking before I see her reappear, sitting back in the same spot.

I look at her wide eyed before grinning and laughing a little, "That. Is. So. Cool."

She laughs and tells me to finish eating before coming out. I eat the food, feeding my grumbling stomach, and make my way to the door. I open it to see a corridor, Mrs Smith standing opposite to my door, leaning against the wall.

"Oh, you're done already?" She says, "We have someone who can heal your burn but they're out at the moment, they'll be here soon though don't worry."

"Thank you so much", I tell her. "Where are we going now?"

"I'm giving you a tour."

We wind through numerous hallways before getting to two double doors, she pushes them open and I smile with amazement. The large gym-like room has walls covered in special padding, the floor also built the same. Down the end are a couple arenas, seeming to have glass wall to keep the fighting inside.

All throughout the room are people, all training. I look one way to see a guy sparring with a girl, he is in front of her one second, then behind her the next. He wins and then notices me staring. He recognises me probably from when I was bought here and glares at me. I shrug it off, as I understand that some people probably disapprove of my acts around the city and continue looking around at the rest of the people.

In the background I hear the ping of a phone notification. Mrs Smith looks down at her phone and pats my shoulder to get my attention. "Emily is here, she can heal your burn quickly, she is good but hasn't fully mastered her powers yet. Your burn is quite bad so it will leave a scar, there's not much she can do about that yet."

She leads me out of the gym and into a room not far down the hallway. As we walk in, I notice the hospital-looking beds and conclude that this must be the medical room. Mrs Smith leads me to a girl sitting on one of the beds, preoccupied with the iPhone in her hand. She looks at us and smiles.

"Hi Sasha", she says to Mrs Smith, then to me she says, "you must be Kaylee, nice to meet you I'm Emily. Now where's that burn of yours I've heard about."

I put my arm out and she notices the bandages. She indicates for me to sit on the bed beside her and I do so. I hiss as she wraps her hands around my still bandaged arm. Soon I can't feel the pain anymore and she takes her hands off. She slowly peels off the bandages and I see that the skin where the burn was is slightly lighter than my natural skin colour. Other than that, there's not much there to show that just seconds ago my arm was burnt to a crisp. She puts on a new bandage for safe-keeping and I stand up.

I thank her before Mrs Smith leads me out of the room again. "Mrs Smith-"

"Sasha is fine", she cuts me off.

"Sasha", I start, cringing inside at calling my teacher by her first name. "Do I know anyone else here?"

"Yes, you do, one person." She tells me, "I might not tell you who it is yet though, they might not want you to know before they tell you first."

I nod in understanding, but she doesn't get the opportunity to ask them for permission first as I freeze in shock at the person in front of me.

"Lucas?"