The Flower Garden

Evan

Evan was losing this battle, as per usual. And, as per usual, it wasn’t an experience he was particularly enjoying. The worst of it was, ending the fight would be so easy. All he had to do was open his mouth, tell the simple truth…

And watch years of hard work blow up in his face. Evan let out a sharp sigh and stabbed a piece of broccoli. 

“What was that you said, Ev?” 

Evan–with some difficulty–bit back another sigh. He closed his eyes, forcing his thoughts into line, and opened them again, looking up at his father. 

George Leto Meyer. Short, curly hair, pale blue eyes, face half-hidden by the thick frames of his spectacles. He’d traded his sense of awareness for stupid delirium about two years ago, and ever since had lived in a state of contented blindness, seeing the world only how he wanted to see it. 

“Oh, I think Evan was trying to tell you about that math test he failed.”

Evan glared at the speaker–his younger sister, Luci Meyer–but it rolled right off of her, as everything tended to do. She propped her chin in her hands and gave their parents a sickly sweet smile. “Mrs. Bay was thrilled with her star student’s C-minus.”

Evan’s mother, Carrie Meyer–finicky, nervous, thought she knew everything and had missed the source of the problem for years–let out a groan and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Evan–”

“I didn’t fail my math test.” Evan gave up on glaring and attempted a lofty sniff. “Despite Luci’s best efforts.”

Luci arranged herself into the picture of innocence: dark eyes batting, curls bouncing, hands clasped to her chest like Evan had just attempted to stab her with one of his fire knives. Which, to be fair, he had done before and was trying to resist doing again. “Whatever do you mean, my darling brother?”

Evan could tell her exactly what he meant in just a few words: Traitor. Murderer. Villain. 

She wanted him sidelined. What better way to do that than to get him grounded for poor grades? It would be easy–Evan grimaced–far too easy for her to break into the school’s student files. One simple change would be enough to get him grounded for a month. Virtually free reign for her. 

He couldn’t just let it happen. Evan opened his mouth, drew a breath–

Nope. He shoved down another piece of broccoli instead. He’d come too far to give up now. Even if that meant letting her think, once again, that she was winning. 

Were all younger siblings allowed to get away with being this annoying, or was it just in his family? He was starting to wonder. 

“So you didn’t fail your test?” His mother clarified, glancing back and forth between her children. So oblivious. He shouldn’t really fault her–she had no reason to think that a math test wouldn’t be the most important thing on her kids’ plates. But a small part of him blamed her anyway.  

“I did not.” Evan folded his arms and tried for another glare. “You really shouldn’t believe anything she says.” Or anything she does. You can’t trust her. None of us can.

Luci rolled her eyes, shoved the last bit of food into her mouth, and stood up. “May I be excused? I have homework. And unlike some people, I’m not a math whiz.” She stuck her tongue out at Evan, and for the briefest moment it was easy to see why everyone could be fooled by her act. She was studious…well, she probably cheated on every test, but she got straight As, and that was all anyone cared about. She didn’t get into trouble–no surprise there; she’d been avoiding the cops for two years. And she knew how to make people like her, something that Evan, despite all of his lectures and practicing, could never seem to achieve. 

One would have thought that, being the city’s famed and beloved superhero, he already understood that kind of thing. Well, they’d have to think again, because Evan was pretty sure the city’s love for him came only from Hilliard’s constant praise. And that, while great for building his reputation, wasn’t something he was comfortable banking on. At least, not anymore.

Someday. Someday the people would love him so much that Hilliard’s words wouldn’t matter. Evan would have the city in his pocket. Then he would be the one in control. 

But that ‘someday’ would never happen if he shot his mouth off. 

That–and a whole Power Core’s worth of self-restraint–was all that kept him from leaping to his feet as Luci dropped her dishes in the sink and danced her way across the thin, metallic tiles of the kitchen floor. She ducked through the living room, passed the black, boxy SuperheroSafe™ power monitor mounted by the front door, and disappeared up the stairs.

She would hang around in her room for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, and then slip out of her window and down the fire escape. After that…well, Evan never knew where she would go, but he’d become fairly proficient in tracking her down. It had been easier before Hilliard’s protections had been put in place…before the SuperheroSafe™ alerts would notify the police at the first hint of a power outage, or the Surge Grids would send up alarms if an energy spike was detected. Before that, Evan had been able to follow the trail of blackened windows and dead streetlights, or look for sudden explosions of energy from his sister using her power. 

She’d been a lot less careful back then. They both had been. Evan ran a finger along one of the leaves dotting the kitchen tablecloth, watching the stairs out of the corner of his eye. He’d give Luci a bit of a head-start, then excuse himself and slip out after her. Past experience had proven that, wherever she was headed, it usually took her an hour or two to begin an attack. By then, he was usually well on her trail and could predict what she’d do next. 

He would catch her this time. Catch her and turn her in. Then all of the lies would be over. 

“Evan?” His mother’s voice snapped against his thoughts, and he bolted upright. She raised an eyebrow. “Did you hear my question?” 

“What? Oh. No, sorry.” Evan rearranged his face into a worried expression and bit his lip. “I’m just…I’m concerned about Luci, you know? What was the question?”

His mother glanced at the stairs. Evan could have told her that Luci wouldn’t be listening–she’d be too busy unearthing that ridiculous costume she wore from some dark corner of her room–but that would also defeat the purpose of his every endeavor over the past two years. So he kept his mouth shut as she looked, looked again, and lowered her voice to practically a whisper. “I was asking about the latest Nightshade attack. Has she heard about it? Have the teachers…mentioned anything?”

“Has Luci heard about the attack?” Evan scrunched his face into his best ‘thinking’ expression. As a matter of fact, she has heard about it. In fact, one could almost say she’s the source of the rumor. “Probably, by now. The teachers don’t like to bring up that kind of thing, but I hear other kids talking about it all the time.” Following his mother’s example, he glanced over his shoulder at the staircase. “She hasn’t even talked to me about it. I wonder if it’s affecting her…”

His parents exchanged a glance. “Maybe we should have a talk with her…” His mother rubbed her forehead. “I just don’t want to bring up any more bad memories. The last few conversations…haven’t gone well.”

“I still think we should leave it alone,” His father said with a shrug, scraping the last bits of food off of his plate. “If she doesn’t want to think about Ben, then she shouldn’t have to. That’s all there is to it.”

He said the name so easily. So simply. Like the very sound of the word didn’t snap his attention right to the empty space next to Luci’s chair. But they’d all looked. There was no point denying it. 

Evan’s plate couldn’t have been more than half-empty, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. He pushed back from the table and took his dishes across the kitchen to the sink. The sleek white counters seemed almost too sterile, the pale gray cabinets too cold. Too similar to something he wanted to forget. Maybe his mother had noticed the resemblances after she’d gotten home from the hospital that day. Maybe that was why, in the months following, she’d added so many…distractions.  

It was brick-a-brack, really, but it did its job. Hand-knitted hotpads, and bright, colored towels. Curtains draped around every available window, overgrown hanging baskets trailing vines down the walls, a chandelier added to supplement the LED light strips embedded in the ceiling. All to make it more homey. All to distract their minds from that horrific white room. 

He made some excuse after that and excused himself. He probably should have planned his story more carefully, but he didn’t have the headspace at the moment. It had been two years. Two years, and there still hadn’t been a change. He didn’t need tears–he needed justice. 

Evan climbed the stairs and turned down the short, narrow hallway. More LED lights lined the ceiling, reflecting against the glossed white floor. Luci’s bedroom was right next to his. Evan didn’t count the dark, unmarked doorway in between. 

He stepped up to his sister’s door and entered her password into the panel on the wall. The door slid open to reveal a dark bedroom, yards of old-fashioned string lights hanging in crazed diagonals across the ceiling. Posters, shelves, decorations had been slapped haphazardly on every available portion of the walls–and if Evan hadn’t known better, he would have thought that she, too, was trying to block out any memory of that bright, suffocating room. But he did know better. She hadn’t been there. 

He turned his attention to the loft bed in the far corner. Its blankets were skewed, pillows tossed in every conceivable direction except for where the head would logically be. A large, Luci-sized lump was tucked under the comforter.

Evan briefly considered setting it on fire. It would have relieved some of the anger, at least. Instead, he marched over and engaged his second power, levitating himself upwards until he was glowering down upon the lump. Then he ripped the blanket off and stared at the worn, faded-out body pillow underneath.

He sighed and lowered himself to the ground. She was so stubborn. Well, at least it never hurt to check. He tossed the comforter back on the bed and made an uninspired–yet dutiful–attempt at tucking it around the pillow. It wouldn’t really do for his parents to check on Luci and realize she wasn’t in bed…that would lead to chaos, during which it would undoubtedly be discovered that Evan himself wasn’t in bed either. 

And that…well, that was something Evan planned to avoid at all costs. 

Evan finished with the blanket and was stepping back to survey his handiwork when a scream broke the silence. Evan’s heart leapt clear through the roof–and the rest of him would have followed, had he not crashed into the thick, metal ceiling. Then the scream descended an octave and was joined by the wail of an electric guitar. 

Right. His ringtone. He should really stop taking musical advice from his father. 

Evan took a deep breath and pulled out his phone, glancing at the caller ID as he lowered himself to the floor.

He gave a soft groan. It was Hilliard. Which probably meant more screaming. And this time it wouldn’t be in an attempt to create art. 

Sure enough, Hilliard’s “WHERE ARE YOU?” came almost as soon as Evan put the phone to his ear. “I NEED YOU HERE, NOW!”

“Relax.” Evan glanced out into the hallway, but he could hear the Telescreen playing downstairs, which meant that his parents probably wouldn’t be up anytime soon. “I’m already tracking Nightshade. I’ll be on her tail before you can say ‘Power Cores’.” 

A stream of unintelligible shouting followed, during which Evan was forced to hold the phone away from his ear. When he was moderately sure that his eardrum wouldn’t burst, he tucked the phone against his shoulder and ducked out into the hallway. “Come again? I didn’t get any of that.” He scanned his palm against his door scanner–he’d switched from a password after Luci had figured it out for the fourth time–and slipped inside. 

“Are you–NO! SEND ALL OF THE SQUADS, FOR PETE’S SAKE!” This time, Hilliard’s drawling shout didn’t seem to be directed at him.

Evan frowned, crossed to his closet, and leaned down, letting the closet’s panel scan his eyes. “Hilliard, what’s going on?” The door slid open, and Evan shoved aside a row of t-shirts and jackets, revealing a ratty, faded poster hanging from the back wall. 

“What’s going on is that Nightshade tracked down the Sector #2 Power Core.” Hilliard snapped. “Where the heck are you? I need you out here!”

Evan froze, his hand halfway to the poster. “What?”

“She’s at the–YES, ADVANCE! DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE ABOUT THE CASUALTIES?” Hilliard took a deep breath, then returned to Evan, his voice low. “Whatever Nightshade found at the university last night was a heck of a lot more important than we thought. She’s got the location, and she’s attacking now. I’m sending in as many squads as I can, but we both know how long they’ll last.”

Evan slumped against the doorframe, staring dumbly into the closet. Luci was attacking a Power Core. She was there now. People were dying. 

She’d never attacked this quickly before. Not in two years. He should have known–he should have seen this coming. And now he was late to the battle. People needed him, and he wasn’t there. What would the press say tomorrow? 

Weak. Inconstant. Unable to defend the city. 

He had to end it tonight. Stop the nonsense before the media had another chance to destroy everything he’d worked for. 

“Send me the coordinates.” Evan hung up and tossed his phone on his bed. He leaned into the closet, yanked the poster to the side, and scanned his thumb against the pad of the safe embedded in the back wall. The safe beeped and slid open. Evan’s suit, a gift from Hilliard a year or so ago, was folded neatly inside. His mask sat on top, its green and white plating shimmering softly in the dim light. 

That was the face Hilliard was using to control the city. The face of a hero. 

The face of a puppet. 

The face he had to wear if he wanted justice. 

He snatched the mask and suit and headed to the bathroom. Moping could wait. He had a sister to catch.