"James-Everett-Knight," my dad greeted me with a scowl as I entered the house. It was pure luck; I wasn't using my powers.
My father appeared exhausted, dressed in his cop uniform, with enormous bags under his hooded eyes. His golden hair was unkempt and he sported stubble on his chin. He was a disaster. My father sat in the big chair in the corner while Sam and Derek rested on the couch. They stared at me as I slammed my backpack and wandered into the living room.
"What?" My voice broke as if I was still going through puberty. I leaned against the side of the couch, watching my dad give me that angered parent look.
"You know damn well what, James," my father retorted, sitting in the chair, his head in his hands. He had a reason to be angry.
"Dad, you don't know everything," I snapped. Though it was possible, he did. I leaned deeper against the couch. If only my father had understood the emotional pain caused by Mark's antagonistic bullying.
"James!" He chastised me. Sam and Derek parted the couch as I wandered between them and got comfy in the middle.
"Dad!" I yelled in the same tone. I bit my tongue for my sake. He was my father, and I deserved this, so I kept my rage inside. As my father and I exchanged glances, I watched the muscles in his jaw tighten. I got lucky when Derek stepped in, drying the awkward silence.
"I think he's right, James," Derek interjected. Instead, he protected dad's words instead of mine—father for son and cop for a cop. Derek was the type of brother who kept the peace in the family but took a side now and then.
"Of course, Dad is right," I mumbled. "He's always right." I laughed out of annoyance. I clutched my phone, crushing it and watching the screen shatter further in my fist.
Both Samual's and Derek's eyes widened. Before my father could see it, they quietly struggled to pry the phone from my palm. I let go because I hadn't backed it up to my laptop in months.
"When does your shift start?" Sam distracted my father while Derek pushed my phone deep below the couch cushion, glaring in my direction.
"It started ten minutes ago." My father's eyes drifted. Of course, my family was often late for work, so it didn't surprise anyone.
Derek yanked on his gun holster and mouthed, "You owe me," while my father adjusted his utility belt. I flipped my hood above my shoulders, but Derek pulled it back before my father could see me.
My father grumbled, adjusting his badge on his shoulder, "I don't want to hear about you fighting again, especially Mark Reignson." My father rushed to the door and went out to patrol for the night.
"Derek, I don't owe you anything. I already do a lot, "I mumbled. I rummaged through the couch in search of my phone. However, two pairs of eyes gleamed at me from each of my vantage positions.
"What do you guys want from me?" I snarled. Sam and Derek liked to act tough around me, but they both knew my strength and power appalled them.
"Would you like to go to the laboratory so I can test your powers?" Sam asked.
After being freed from his government position, Sam created his laboratory in our basement. Sam kept his work hidden from my father and the public to ensure nobody found out about it, and I kept any new experiments he was working on between Derek, himself, and me under wraps.
"I need to get to work. Keep your cool before you break something other than your phone." Derek walked away from me, patting my back and walking towards the door.
"Then there were two," Sam said, taking a deep sigh of disappointment. "What happens when your father, brother, or I cannot save your ass, and you get in trouble with the sheriff? What happens if you lose control of your strength as you did with your phone and your father notices, or if you kill someone, or if—"
"Sam!" I stopped him, taking a deep breath. "I'm fine. I won't get in trouble with Mark's father, and I'm not going on a murderous spree." I let out a sigh. "If Dad finds out I have abilities soon. He won't die. I want it to happen on its own time."
"I understand, but your powers are dangerous and not something you should mess with alone."
"I guess," I said with a half-smile.
"Not, I guess." he admonished. "That attitude may work with your father, but not me. Take these powers seriously. Okay, bud?"
"All right, I get it. I need to control my superpowers." I amused him.
"Yeah, you do. Especially your super strength." Sam took a pause. "So, are we going to the lab?" He asked. I nodded, taking a deep breath.
"Yeah," I replied. My heels sunk firm into the ground, rocking back and forth, and my lips pushed together.
He added, "Good, I'll meet you down there."
Sam treated me as though I were one of his children. Everyone in my family served as a parent figure—even my uncle Henry often phoned to see how we were doing. I always assumed he was the oldest in the family. I hadn't seen him since we moved from Los Angeles. Life was boring without him.
Sam smiled, and I dashed down the stairs, my feet scuffing on the floor as everything froze in place. I accidentally bumped the wooded cabinet in the hallway, stopping as one of my mother's glass plates wobbled off the wall. I caught it as if hovering there, plucking it out of mid-air and placing it back on the shelf like a scene from a matrix movie. I was the only one able to move. I raced down the stairwell to the basement.
"Slow down, James," Sam yelled, running after me. Sam rounded the corner to the staircase beneath the upper-level stairs moments later, huffing and catching his breath. I twisted in his swivel chair, watching Sam catch his breath and protect me from the top step. "Record timing." He gave me a satisfied nod and raced down the steps after me.
∆∆∆
Our basement was a scientist's haven. Sam possessed gamma-ray lasers, as well as experiments. An antique computer, which I always imagined was from the dinosaur age, sat in the corner of the off-white changed room where Sam used to test my powers' progress. It was, however, in better shape than many of those gadgets, and it was the only rare piece of equipment we possessed in the house. He had both a conventional laptop and an old PC.
Sam switched between the antique computer and his laptop, collecting data as I hung over an eight-hundred-pound refrigerator in the air. A band stretched across my brow, designed by Sam to measure the frequency of my brain waves.
I mustered up the strength to push myself off the ground before Sam tossed me a pair of unique weights he used to assess my strength. The single weighted bar was wireless and long-lasting, monitoring muscle density, stability, mass, and power.
I felt like a circus performer balancing a few office supplies from Sam's desk. I almost fumbled as I swooped to grab the bar, but luckily caught it.
"You almost didn't catch that," Sam said with a chuckle, his hands melting into his hips as he watched me juggle multiple objects in the air with amusement.
"Forcing me to use my telekinesis isn't helpful either," I informed him. It didn't help at all, and it was annoying and frustrating, too. "What is this supposed to teach me?"
Sam tossed a granola bar my way and added, "You're fine," he said with a shrug. I caught the granola bar just before I plummeted out of the air, along with everything else, falling onto the cracked concrete floor, but I lowered the fridge before it crashed.
I rubbed my temples and pushed myself to my feet, feeling the draining effects of doing more than I could at once, and sighed, laying back against the cold floor to catch my breath.
"Again!" Sam demanded, but I gave him my best death stare as I stood up and brushed the dust off my shirt.
"Later," I grumbled. "You give me too much to do, and I might murder someone." I raised an eyebrow at Sam, but he didn't mind.
"I heard you and Derek made two more friends this morning."
"You mean the supers? Yeah, I may or may not have bumped into two of them. You know they asked for you again?"
Sam lowered his glasses to look at me and took some deep breaths. "What else did they say?"
"Well, the one guy nearly kicked my ass, and the other saved me from a hardcore beating. I don't know if that should relieve me too or not—"
"You're going to stop those kids." Sam interrupted me. He pressed a few buttons and looked up from his desk.
"Really?" I focused on Sam, yanking him from his seat and balancing him in the air. Unfazed, Sam crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows at me as I held him in the air at his desk. He was familiar with me using telekinetic energy on him, but I always felt he was hiding something bigger from me or as if there was something big he forgot to mention.
"James put me down now," Sam roared. My feet left the floor, lifting into the air, pulling Sam closer until we were face to face.
"You're going to help me," I said half-grimace, imitating his tone. Sam gulped a deep breath of nervous air. Instead, we challenged each other while watching and waiting for me to fall to the ground from the sky. I deliberately dropped him, catching him in my muscular arms, and helped him to his feet.
"I hate when you do that," he noted, shaking off his phobia of heights.
"You're going to help me stop those kids," I insisted, my eyes meeting his.
"I'll do what I can," he replied, nodding before returning to work behind his computer.
∆∆∆
Derek and my father got home a few hours after a long night of crime fighting. Sam and I sat on the couch, watching the news as Derek entered the room, slamming his back against the sofa beside me as he got comfy.
My father didn't even bother saying hello as he wandered past the living room and made his way up the long staircase to his room. Hence, Sam, Derek, and I discussed the supers more honestly, my powers, and my involvement in the situation.
Derek inquired, "How's Superboy doing?" I sighed and rolled my eyes at him. He knew well that I preferred avoiding comparing comic book characters.
"Don't call me that," I grumbled at Derek, but he wrapped his arms around me and sat beside me on the couch.
Derek assured me, "You'll get used to the nicknames someday, Alpha." I rolled my eyes at him, annoyed. I had loathed nicknames since I was seven, when my brother started calling me Superboy.
"Has anything new happened with the supers?" I asked, having my doubts.
"Not a lot. The supers vanished again. I have heard about any more super-crime since this morning."
"Good." Sam rubbed his palms together in satisfaction. "Let's hope it continues."
I chipped in, "It's for the best. "We were all struck by a strange sensation we would hear about again.
∆∆∆
My body hung mid-air over my bed, in the ceiling's corner. I dangled my feet and scrolled through my social media account. Apart from the police chase that morning, nothing regarding these new supers or Alpha, my alter-ego, came up. My gaze shifted to the opening of the room. Derek knocked and entered, and I floated down to my mattress, sliding my feet toward the end of the bed and crashing my neck against my pillows.
"Anything new on the supers that you didn't mention?" I asked.
Derek shook his head. "Nope. I'll let you know if anything new is in the police reports."
I nodded. "Sure."
Derek nodded and paced to my desk, half-covered in papers and comic book designs, with a gifted laptop resting in the middle, barely touched since Sam had given it to me for my birthday. Derek tapped the wood with his fingers. He took one of my comic books from my desk, a page depicting a superhero wearing a hood and mask floating above the buildings.
Do you want to be more than Alpha: Arizona's greatest crime-fighting super? You know, like a real superhero?" Derek asked. I shook my head, disinterested.
"Not if it's anything like what I had to deal with this morning."
Derek smiled and nodded. "That's reasonable." He took a big breath and exhaled. "What do you want to do when you graduate from school?" He asked me. I scoffed as I tossed my phone around, spinning it back and forth as if it floated above me. Derek slipped out a page from the comic I was working on from under my chemistry book and studied it.
"You mean when I'm eighteen, in a year and a half?" I asked.
Derek sighed, sitting back in my rolling chair, and said, "Yep." His eyes darted to my hoodie this morning, lying dirty on my bedroom floor.
"I'm not sure," I admitted. Even though college appeared to be an option, I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance it wouldn't be with these supers showing up.
"Don't you think it's your destiny to save people? I mean, James, you have superpowers. If I had powers like yours, I would branch out more away from Arizona. Do a lot more for our country."
"Possibly," I contemplated, giving Derek the benefit of the doubt.
"Possibly?" He wondered aloud, holding up my comic page. It was a scene from when I took out two men who kidnapped a local girl. The day I became Alpha, Arizona's most well-known and only superhero.
I murmured, "Yeah." Derek nodded, sat in his chair, patted the page, and then got up and walked away. "I don't want these powers."
"You should think about it," he concluded, his teeth pushing together nervously as his sharp jaw tensed. He set my page down and tapped the desk for a moment. Then he saluted me and roamed the doorway, leaving me alone in my room.
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