Tex chews on his portion of the food, his rations for the night.

It’s barely enough for a small child, certainly not for someone his size. While superstrength had its perks, it also makes him hungry.

“Here, I don’t need a lot anyway,” Ness has half of hers in her outstretched hand.

He wants to deny her, but hunger gnaws at his insides. “I’m serious. Escaping won’t do us any good if you die from starvation,” she reassures. Even with his ability, he is weak and caves after that.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, guilt now eating at him instead of the hunger pains. She shakes her head, “Don’t thank me. We are barely surviving as it is.” Her eyes shift to their run down living conditions. The abandoned barn is good for hiding, but not much to look at. She is probably thinking about Penny and Landen right now. The absence evident in the quiet space. They left the safety of this place to scavenge for food.

“Maybe we should rob a bank.”

It causes a surprised laugh to leave him. Her tone was so deadpan. “Yeah, we should,” he agrees.

“It would be easy with our combined powers,” she continues.

“Maybe hold up the bank teller and terrify them with my super strength or your crazy weather abilities.”

They laugh and the hunger is forgotten. The jokes and teasing are a nice distraction from their situation. It is almost like they are normal teenagers. Not freak experiments.

Closing his eyes and laying back on some old, scratchy hay, he adds onto the story, “Then we would have money to rent a motel room. Maybe not worry about food for a little bit. Go to an actual fast food place.”

“I would literally kill for a burger right now,” she says in jest, opening her palm with a mini lightning bolt flashing in it. Tex would understand how some may underestimate Ness. She is small and not threatening looking. But she is dangerous. All of them are.

The stupid scientist didn’t give them stable powers. Left with uncontrollable, destructive capabilities. All for his fucking cure.

Tex hopes it was worth it.

Actually he hopes it wasn’t and that Dr. Marken lives a painful life filled with misery and failures.

“Think of how easy it would be. Just one display of our powers and we could rob the whole bank. I could rip the door off. You could create a tornado inside the building, really make a scene,” he says.

Ness shrugs. “Yeah, but we would scare a lot of people. The path given to us isn’t easy if we want to be good people. And we are good people. So we’ll continue down this path in hopes it will lead us to what we need.” There is a quiet optimism about Ness. There always has been. It dimmed a little after Project Arizona disappeared. Just thinking about her makes his anger rise. But Ness, she held on to whatever shred of hope she had left. Penny renewed it when she arrived.

“And what do we need?” He asks,

“I don’t know. The basic survival items like food and water and shelter. Then answers, hopefully. I would settle for revenge as well,” her voice turning darker, sharper at the end, no doubt remembering the horrible experiments and the loss of Project Arizona. Zona, they had collectively decided to call her.

Maybe Penny or Landen would dissuade from the revenge part, but Tex wasn’t as kind.

“I’m with you. One day, we’ll get revenge on Marken.”

She nods in understanding.

Even when Penny and Landen announces a feast of a thrown away pizza, he and Ness don’t look at them. Instead, they take a moment and bask in the solidarity of their agreement before springing up to see what they scavenged.

Over a box of pizza, munching on greasy cheese and pepperoni, Tex and Ness share a look.

Dr. Marken will answer their questions on what he did to them. And then he will pay.

Even if it is the last thing Tex does.

————

(Say a number between 1-43 in the comments. I may or may not have that many drafts. I want to finish a random one, so you get to pick which one(s) I finally look at and hopefully put out!)