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Bree caught sight of the pamphlet in the library, excitement sparking in her veins. She snatched one and ran out to meet with the others in the commons. “Did you guys know we had a study abroad program?”
Adam frowned. “Why would I go to another country to do something I don’t do here?”
She rolled her eyes and held the paper out to Chase. “Look, it says you get to spend a whole semester at a high school in Australia. I’m going to apply.”
“Cool!” Leo grinned. “Kelly Porter went last year; she got sucker punched by a kangaroo.”
Bree scoffed. “I think I can hold my own against an oversized rabbit.”
“Actually,” Chase butted in, “kangaroos are classified as marsupials, and are closer related to koalas than rabbits.”
“Don’t care.” Bree took the pamphlet back, reading over the sign-up information.
“Well, all right,” Adam said. “I guess we’re going to Australia.”
Bree scoffed. “Uh, no. No, no, no. No way. This is my thing!” She rolled her eyes at the boys’ confused looks. “I mean, I can finally be on my own. I can study in peace, travel, make new friends—”
“But we’re siblings. We go everywhere together,” Adam said, looking dejected.
“Not this thing, this is mine.”
Chase winced. “Mmm, I hate to be a wet blanket—”
“No, you don’t,” Leo corrected.
Chase glared at him before continuing. “Mr. Davenport is never going to let you do this. You can’t go on missions if you’re halfway across the world.”
Bree frowned. “Uh, yeah, I can. Super speed, remember? I can just zip back across the Pacific. It couldn’t take that long.”
“Or maybe one of these two can unlock a new ability to make up for you not being here,” Leo suggested, and Bree pointed at him triumphantly.
“Ooh!” Adam grinned. “Maybe I can unlock an ability where I disappear and reappear somewhere else! Let me try.” He crouched, pushing his arms out in front of him and tensed, grunting like he was constipated. He gasped, his face red. “Did it work?”
Chase grinned conspiratorially. “You didn’t do it long enough. Try it again, this time, more grunting.”
Adam closed his eyes, crouching and grunting again. Chase pulled Bree and Leo around to the other side of the center seal. Adam opened his eyes, startled by the fact that the others were gone. He looked around and grinned at the sight of his siblings having moved, clearly thinking that it was him that moved.
They started cheering, congratulating Adam for unlocking this new ability, because sometimes you had to give him a little something so that he didn’t wallow in self-pity.
~*~
Bree sat on the couch, anxiously waiting for the phone call that would decide her future. She dug into the popcorn bowl, slapping at Adam’s hand as he tried to grab one of the extra buttery pieces out of her hand. The TV was set to some kid’s show that he liked— Doc McStuffins?— which surprisingly proved to be a good distraction.
“Bree, is there something you want to tell me?” Mr. Davenport stalked up to the couch, holding his phone up.
“I got this.” Adam stood up, dropping the bowl into her lap, and put a reassuring hand on Mr. Davenport’s shoulder. “Look, we all like you, but we think Tasha could’ve done better.” He patted his shoulder, walked toward the kitchen, and started digging through the fridge. Bree snorted, shoveling in some more popcorn.
Mr. Davenport shook his head, turning back to Bree. “I just got a phone call that said you’d been accepted to study in Australia.”
She nearly choked. She jumped up, grinning full force. “No way! Oh, my god that’s amazing! What day did they say I’m leaving?”
“I told them you’re not going,” Mr. Davenport said with a glower.
She felt her heart plummet. “What?”
“Come on, Bree!” Chase scoffed, leaning over the kitchen counter. “It was obvious. Even Adam saw that one coming.”
Adam pulled his head out of the fridge and shut the door with his foot. “No idea what you’re talking about, already moved on to cold cuts.”
“You can’t abandon the team,” Mr. Davenport said, folding his arms in what was obviously supposed to be disappointment. “What if Adam and Chase picked up and left for a month?”
Bree frowned. “Then I wouldn’t have to go to Australia? I just want some space, is that too much to ask? Besides, I wouldn’t be leaving you guys high and dry, I’d be able to super speed back any time you need me.”
‘That’s not the only issue!” Mr. Davenport had a look of disbelief. “What about your bionics, your training, your capsule?”
She could feel her throat tightening. “I know it’s a lot to ask, a lot to figure out, but this is really important to me. Can’t we at least discuss it?”
“We just did. You’re not studying abroad. End of conversation.” He marched away, the door to his bedroom upstairs slamming shut.
Bree fought the tears that pricked her eyes, the wobble in her lips. “This is so unfair!”
~*~
Maybe she couldn’t go to Australia, but a night out would at least give her a little bit of a reprieve from the chaos that is her life. She dropped her bag on the couch, grinning at her brothers. “Guess who just got invited to the Panic Inferno concert tonight?”
“Ooh, Brandon Delaney?” Adam guessed, looking up from the TV.
“Me,” Bree corrected. “Caitlin’s boyfriend dumped her, so she has an extra ticket and doesn’t want to go alone.”
Mr. Davenport closed the fridge. “Bree, I’m sorry, but you can’t go. I have to extract your chips tonight for a critical performance modification. I need you to sit with Chase.”
Her lungs burned hot. “Seriously? Can’t we do that tomorrow?”
Mr. Davenport looked at her with a look Bree couldn’t identify. “No, I’ll be gone all day with a new product launch. Look, I wish I could go to the concert, too. You know, I get the whole rock and roll thing—!”
“People who get the rock and roll thing don’t say, ‘I get the rock and roll thing’,” Chase interrupted.
“Please, Mr. Davenport,” Bree begged. “Can’t I just—”
“No,” he snapped. “I said you can’t go, that’s the end of it.”
Once again, the door to his bedroom slammed shut.
She felt like throwing something. “Being bionic is ruining my life! I can’t go to the concert, I can’t go to Australia, I can’t do fucking anything!”
“You could get me some juice?” Adam asked hopefully.
The heat in her chest spread down her arms and up her neck. “No. No, you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care anymore. I always have to give up what I want, he always gets his way! I’m going to that concert.”
“Bree, wait—!”
She slammed the front door behind her. She didn’t care anymore. Why couldn’t she have this one thing? All she wanted was to have a great night out with her friend. Why couldn’t Davenport do the boys’ chips first and wait for her to get home? Chase would surely survive without her there to babysit. Or, why couldn’t he push the launch by a few hours? It didn’t make any sense to her that he got his way and she was just supposed to deal with it because… what? She was younger, or his kid, or because she was bionic—
She just wanted some normalcy.
~*~
His hand dug into her arm, and she was pretty certain that if she didn’t have super healing she’d be left with a deep purple bruise.
“I can’t believe you went to the concert when I specifically told you not to!” Davenport bellowed.
“I can’t believe you jumped on stage and begged every member of the band to sign your T-shirt!” Bree snapped back.
Davenport scoffed, glancing at the boys. “I most certainly did not!” He paused, then pulled at his shirt, trying to look at the back. “But I got all of ‘em, didn’t I?” Chase cleared his throat. “Huh? Oh. Look, that’s beside the point!” He pointed at Bree with an accusatory finger. “You are in big trouble.”
“Yeah, thanks for selling me out, guys!” she yelled past Davenport.
“Oh, you have no idea what we went through! He grilled us!” Adam grimaced.
Davenport frowned. “All I said was, ‘Where’s Bree’?”
“At the concert— Oh, man, he got me again!”
Bree rubbed at her temples, fighting the building headache.
Davenport turned back to her. “Look, because of you, we are three hours behind. Now the modification’s going to take all night. Go get in your capsule so I can extract your chip.”
“Fine,” she snarled, and sped past him so that the wind nearly knocked him over.
“I don’t know what has gotten into you lately,” he said, prepping the equipment. “You can’t just do whatever you want whenever you want.”
“You do,” she muttered.
“What was that?” Davenport glared at her.
“Nothing. Trust me, you have made it abundantly clear that my life is not my own.” She felt the pinch of her chip being pulled from her skin and the wave of exhaustion that settled in her bones. She waited a moment, making sure that she wasn’t going to pass out, before grabbing her chip from the extractor and handing it off to Davenport. “Here, finish your shit so I can go to bed.”
“Language, Breanna.”
“All I want is a little control over what I do!” she shouted.
“Yeah, well, you’re part of a team,” Davenport scoffed. “That’s not gonna happen.”
“So, what, I have to give up my entire life because of it?”
“Yeah,” he said, like it was supposed to be obvious.
Her future life flashed before her— babysitting her stupid little brother, making sure her dumbass older brother didn’t accidentally kill himself, mission after mission with no breaks, no friends, no freedom— Bree could hear her heart pounding like she’d run thousands of miles, lungs gasping for air, legs restless.
She looked at the chip lying on the table. Her hand reached for the heavy paperweight sitting next to it.
“Bree, what are you doing?” Chase asked worriedly, moving around the table like he was going to stop her from doing— something. She didn’t know what to do she didn’t know what to do she didn’t know but she couldn’t live her life like this she couldn’t and he was going to stop her—
Her hand shook, her chest heaving for a breath she couldn’t catch. The metal was cold in her fingers.
“Getting my freedom.”
CRACK.