Scorched
In a world where everyone wears a mask, you can't trust anyone… not even yourself.Verity Fortune was once Sapphire City’s top crime-fighter, wielding her powers of telekinesis to battle the city’s most despicable villains.Now, she’s consumed by a single burning desire -Revenge.Against those who took away her mask, her memory, and nearly her life.Having escaped from the asylum they left her to rot in, Verity dons her mask once again and becomes the Seeker, a vigilante warrior for truth.But when she unwittingly uncovers an evil conspiracy deep within her own family, she’s suddenly on the run, alone and hunted by those she thought were on her side…
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I'm an Aussie living in northern England, where at least the hospitality and the beer are warm. I write in coffee shops, feed my enormous cat, and watch TV or read until far too late at night. If it's got serial killers, superheroes, monsters or spaceships â preferably all four â I'm there.
On the big issues: Captain Picard is cooler than Captain Kirk, Batman would beat up Superman, and vampires are hotter than werewolves any day. See, I knew we'd get along.
You can follow me on Twitter @ericahayes.
I'm not a bad person.
I repeat it, over and again until the words scorch into my brain. I'm not a bad person. I don't deserve this.
It's the white room again. I'm strapped to the hard metal chair, my eyelids taped open. A dangling light bulb flickers. My feet are bare, my half-shaved hair a knotted mess under the heavy alloy helmet they've bolted around my skull to neutralize my power. I'm sweating in my gray hospital smock. It itches and stinks of piss. I don't remember pissing myself.
I don't remember much about anything.
But I'm not a bad person. They can't trick me into believing I am. Hour after hour, I repeat the words, so they can't make me forget: My name is Verity Fortune. I'm thirty-one years old. I'm not a bad person.
In the dim control room behind safety glass, the pretty doctor pushes her glasses up on her nose. She's the one I call Dr. Mengele, blue eyes like ice and a thick blond braid over her shoulder. She wears a clean white coat. She twiddles knobs on her machine and hurts me.
I brace for the next assault, struggling to keep my thoughts untangled. They can't make me forget. I know who she works for. My archenemy, the psychopath who locked me up in this place. He's the evil one, not me. If I ever get out of hereâ¦
Mengele presses one of her buttons. Current crackles along my skin, and the tiny hairs on my arms jerk taut. My muscles crunch and twist in agony. An angry bonfire ignites behind my eyeballs, and even after so many daysâeven though I know it's what she wantsâI can't help it.
My power flexes, a warm muscle in my head. I remember that, all right. I can break glass, crush concrete, move objects at will. But nothing happens. The augmentium helmet just heats up, absorbing my telekinetic energy. Electrodes sizzle. My skin burns, the stink of singed hair. I gnash my teeth. Spit bubbles on my lips, coppery with blood.
"Zero point three micra on the left frontal." Dr. Mengele's voice, distorted over the tannoy.
The orderly waddles closer, his grin full of bad teeth. It's the fat one today. The fat one likes to hurt people, and his greasy hospital greens are already pinpricked with bloodâmine or from one of the other poor fools they've got locked up in this dungeon. A black expanding baton dangles from his thick waist. The nametag sewn onto his shirt says Frank.
I've been watching the orderlies, while each day they tie and untie me, shove me from room to room, bring my plastic trays of pureed food. Fat Frank is slower and stupider than the others. And today, I'm more awake than he thinks.
Last night I choked up my meds, mashed peas and acid and two little red capsules of mindfuck. Again this morning. I'm feeling more alert, more alive than I have in weeks. And for the past few days, I've been giving Frank attitude. Making wise-ass remarks. Spitting stewed apple in his face. He's already blacked one of my eyes, and he wants to hurt me more. He's easy game.
Frank looms over me, his globular shadow blotting out the light. I whimper, like I usually do. Let myself drool. Fight to keep my senses sharp, though the raw-scraped nerves in my brain scream for silence and surrender.
Keys jingle on Frank's belt. My ears twitch. I can smell the peculiar sweetness of his breath, like spoiled flowers. His sour body heat is an unpleasant caress. His thigh squashes mine. He reaches for my helmet to make the adjustment.
Clickety-snap. The vise-tight band around my skull loosens, just a fraction.
I sink my teeth into his fat wrist.
Blood spurts. Frank howls, and slaps me upside the head. My ears ring, and the helmet knocks crooked, just an inch or two.
Told you he was stupid. An inch or two's all I need.
I let loose with a clumsy surge of power, and rip the buckle from my left wrist. I'm out of practiceâcreaky, like a rusty cell door in some ancient prisonâbut the leather tears clean off its studs. A crushing ache squeezes my skull, but I don't care.
Mengele shouts. Frank's already lurching for me like a bleeding ox. But he's too slow. With my free hand, I tear the helmet from my head. Horrid thing, now I see it, wires and clamps and a rusty bolt at the back. I throw it across the room, and I'm free. My power thrashes and screams, a tortured beast released at last, and I pick Frank up with a huge invisible fist and slam him into the wall.
