Chapter 1

“I said no and I meant it, dickhead. No. Not now, not ever. Not if you were the last mammal on Earth. I’d date a rattler before I would date you.” I snarled, getting in his face. “And you if lay another hand on me, I swear to god, I will fucking end you.”

The scumbag had tried to grab my ass. Again. I saw him and moved in time so his fingertips just barely grazed me, but I was furious. If one of my brothers had been around to see it, Jimmy Fucking Mason would have a broken arm at the very least. He still might when I told them about it tonight, I was pissed enough to not give a shit about how they punished him.

Most days, I was a bit more guarded. My brothers loved me, I was pretty sure of that, but they liked hurting other people just a little too much for my comfort. Besides, I was a big girl and could usually take care of myself. This asshole just wouldn’t take no for an answer though, and he was seriously creeping me out.

“Fuck you, you fucking dyke. Maybe me and my buddies will come by and take you out on a real date, show you what you are missing,” Jimmy said with a sneer, grabbing his crotch and moving closer, invading my personal space.

I already had my hand in my pocket, my pen grasped in my suddenly sweating fist. I was going to fucking kill him. I was going to bring out that aluminum pen Michael bought me and shove it into his eye until I could scramble his fucking brain.

“MR. MASON.”

We both froze. Well, I guess all of us did. Marcy Allen was with me and Jimmy’s two peons had been laughing it up behind him, but they weren’t laughing now! That voice would freeze a lava flow.

A little quieter, but no less menacing, the voice of Mrs. Matilda (Matty) Greeves, the vice-principal, continued.

“You will step back and put some space between the two of you, and do it right this very second.” She snarled at him, her face almost forcing itself between Jimmy and me.

When Jimmy had stepped back a couple of steps, his face looking mighty pale, she turned her basilisk gaze on me.

“Mizz Landers, what is the meaning of altercation? The language you were using was against school policy and, if there is anything in your pocket other than lip balm or spare change, you better be sure whatever it is meets school guidelines.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. Technically, I was probably okay but it was pretty obviously not a normal pen!

Without waiting for me to answer, she whipped her head back towards Jimmy. “You, Mr. Mason, it would behoove you to keep your mouth closed until your parents get here. In the meantime, you will be escorted to the office, both of you,” she hissed, switching back and forth between us.

She motioned to Mr. Kent, our math teacher, and directed him to escort us both to the office while she stayed behind and interrogated Marcy and the Tweedle twins. They had names, I was certain of it, but I couldn’t remember which was which. They were brothers or cousins or something, both of them Turners, but there were a dozen kids in that extended family and they all looked a lot alike. I just called these two Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.

I followed quietly behind Mr. Kent, dreading the look on Daddy’s face when he showed up. This wasn’t the first time one of us had been in the school office, of course, my brothers were hellions in their prime, but it was the second time this year for me! I was the baby of the family, the only girl. I think Dad expected me to be, well, girly, and I was anything but.

Mom had died four years ago, undiagnosed thyroid cancer that took her only eight weeks after it was diagnosed. I had been going through puberty and it had been just one more cross Dad had to bear at a time when he was already overwhelmed. He got through it by treating all of us the same. Me, the twins, Michael; all of us were treated exactly the same. Well, except for tampons, that nearly killed the poor man.

Mr. Kent had us sit at opposite ends of the long bench that ran along the hallway side of the school’s administrative offices. There was chest high counter that ran almost the whole length of the room and, behind which, sat the secretary and the Principal, Mr. Coombes. There was a third desk for Mrs. Greeves, but she mostly worked out of her classroom and only came in here for stuff she couldn’t do elsewhere.

“Two for Matty, Liz, though I imagine Peter will see them eventually. She’s getting witness statements down in the lunchroom.” Mr. Kent said, leaning on the counter.

“Thanks, Andrew. What’s the charge?” Ms. Baker asked, rising just enough to peer over the top of the long counter at us.

“Oh, the usually. Mayhem, skullduggery, inciting a riot, I think.” Mr. Kent joked, then waved in the direction of Principal Coombes, who had ignored the exchange, before leaving us there to stew.

I glanced over at Jimmy, still pissed off at the scumbag and he was glaring back at me, his mouth open as if he was about to say something. Luckily, for him, anyway, Ms. Baker, the school secretary, chose that moment to stand up at her desk. She walked to the filing cabinet and both Jimmy and I turned our heads to watch her. It was weird, in a way, and foreboding.

We both had been here before, though not together, and we both knew she was pulling our files for Mrs. Greeves and, like Mr. Kent said, probably Mr. Coombes, the principal, too. She would also be getting the emergency contact phone numbers for our parents.

The tension was high, but got pushed higher when Mrs. Greeves stalked in, tapping me on the shoulder on her way by. I got up and followed her, watched her take a handoff of what was probably my file, and then into her office. She pointed to a chair in front of her desk and closed the door behind us, remaining silent until she was seated. Then, surprising me, she let out a deep sign and sagged back in her chair a bit.

“Okay, let’s hear your side of this, please.” Mrs. Greeves sounded tired, as if this was yet another thing added to the load she carried on her slim shoulders and I felt guilty for the first time, instead of just apprehensive.

“He keeps making sexual advances, touching my breasts and my butt every chance he gets. He makes suggestions that are disgusting and veiled threats that he and his friends will get what they want or they will catch me alone and take it. I am done being passive.”

“There are procedures...” she said, interrupting me, but I wasn’t having it.

I heard the door to the office open but I wasn’t going to let anyone derail me. I was absolutely furious.

“Ma’am, you can punish me if you think it is right, but that is so much bullshit. I have filed three complaints with teachers, and one to Miss Baker out there, but nothing has happened. The school has done nothing to prevent that creep from sexually assaulting me. The sheriff has already told me that he can’t do anything until that creep actually rapes me because hitting on me is not a crime. He refused to take a complaint about the sexual assault. I am done. Done.”

“I think you are too, sweetheart. You, Mrs. Greeves, should get with the school district’s lawyer, because you can bet that we will be seeing ours this afternoon. Come on, Kate, we got places to go.”

Daddy! I was mortified and happy and embarrassed and ... I jumped up and hugged him as tight as I could, while trying to keep from crying. He just wrapped an arm around my waist.

“Now, you hold on a minute, Mr. Landers, we are not...”

“Not what, Matty. Not what? Not done? You certainly are. More so than you think if you believe you can stop me from walking out of here with my daughter.

“Now, Chuck, hold on there...”

Another voice sounded off from behind dad. It was the principal, Peter Coombes. He was a tall guy, but on the skinny side and though he had a deep voice, he looked like he was pretty fragile.

“No, Pete. No holding on, and if you think you are up to stopping me, you feel free to wade in.”

I had never heard my dad use fighting words with anyone. He would raise his voice if needed, but usually let his reputation and his stature, both real and in the community, get the message across without actually making threats. Today, though, he seemed like he was ready to start breaking things.

“Come on, Chuck, you’ve known me for, heck, all our lives. I wasn’t trying to stop you from leaving, I just ask that you give us a chance to see what is going on here, not jump to conclusions.”

“Pete, if you didn’t know about my daughter being sexually assaulted by that little creep sitting there, then you should quit your damn job because you are no damn good at it. She says she filed three complaints with teachers. Do you know what they say? She said she talked to your secretary? Do you know about that? The answer better be no, Pete. I would rather think you are incompetent than think you were hiding this from me.”

Principal Coombes looked like he had seen a ghost and stepped backwards, clearing the door way. Outside the door, I could see Ms. Baker, the secretary, was looking mighty pale too. Jimmy Mason looked scared shitless, but for good reason. Robert, William, and Michael were all crowded in the entryway to the office, all looking murder at Jimmy.

This was looking less like a disciplinary meeting and more like an impending riot!

Of course, things had to get worse.

“Can you boys clear the doorway? Fella can’t hardly get into the office and I got business in there.” A loud, boisterous voice sounded from the hallway out in front of the office and my brothers, having dealt with the person outside before, cleared the way so he could enter.

“Pete, what is this I hear about my nephew getting into some fight or somesuch nonsense? His daddy is in Dallas and my sister asked me to come see what was happening.” Sheriff Andrews swaggered in, only belatedly realizing that something was off in the room.

Dad had pushed me behind him and stepped up so he could look down at the Sheriff. Sheriff Danny Andrews was a little man, though he was damn near as wide as daddy’s shoulders. He had the little man attitude about having to prove how tough he was, and went into law enforcement after college.

“Jimmy is your nephew, Danny? I guess I should have known that, somehow. Is that why you refused to take my daughter’s complaint about sexual assault against the boy?”

Daddy’s voice was so cold, you’d’ve thought winter was here, but the Sheriff just puffed up his fat little chest and sneered at him. “Jimmy’s a good boy, just high-spirited, is all. He didn’t assault anyone; he just got a little excited when asking the girl out. Besides, you let the girl walk around in jeans that look painted on and that kind of thing is likely to happen.”

I don’t think the Sheriff saw it coming. My father hit him so hard I could hear bones break from ten feet away. Ms. Baker screamed and fainted while Principal Coombes, sat down in a chair, grabbing his chest and groaning.

My brothers were all staring at dad like he had grown a second head. We had all heard claims that dad had been a hellion when he was younger, but none of us believed it. We just thought it was old people exaggerating and blew it off. But dad, man, he broke that man’s jaw and spread his teeth across the office like he was broadcasting alfalfa seed!

Jimmy, a suspicious stain spreading on the front of his jeans, tried to dive through the hole his uncle had left when he came in, but despite his claim to fame as a starting JV halfback, my brothers shut him down hard. From the thuds I heard, maybe they took the chance to get a lick or two of their own in while doing it!

The tableau in the office was a mighty strange one. Michael, the youngest, was literally standing on Jimmy Mason’s chest while the two older boys were kneeling on his arms. Principal Coombes was having a heart attack, I think. Sheriff Andrews was unconscious and bleeding, his jaw looking really bad. Ms. Baker, the secretary, was out like a rock and when I turned to look at Mrs. Greeves, she just looked disgusted.

“Daddy?” I said quietly, flinching when he turned and his face was still filled with more anger than I can ever remember seeing, “we should probably go and see that lawyer now.”

He took a deep breath and nodded his head. Turning back to my brothers, he growled, “Let that idiot up.”

Everyone got off of Jimmy and William grabbed the smaller boy by the hair, lifting him off the floor completely before setting him on his feet. Now, when I say smaller, don’t get to feeling sorry for him; I mean smaller by an inch or two, not that he was a little guy. He was right at six feet and two hundred pounds, but my big brothers were my big brothers, and even Michael had two inches and fifty pounds on him.

“Jimmy, you tell the Turner brothers that this ain’t over and I won’t forget their part in this either. You better think about leaving town.” I called to him, staring right into his beady little eyes.

My brothers exchanged glances and all of them made sure to meet Jimmy’s eyes before they let him run away. When I looked back at dad, he just rolled his eyes. I am sure he thought I was making things worse, but we had already started a fire that was going to burn down half the town before this was over, you can bet on that!

Instead of going to see the lawyer, dad called him and asked him to meet us at the ranch in an hour. Then we went for ice cream.

That evening was tense around the house. The lawyer, Frank Meyers, told us straight out that dad would probably be charged, but that he was certain he could get him out on his own recognizance or, worst case scenario, bail. He was going to file, on our behalf, civil rights violation charges against the County Sheriff’s office, and Danny Andrews, and see if he could get an audit going by the State or the Feds. In addition, he had called the retired State Patrol Lieutenant he kept on retainer as an investigator, and found that Jimmy Mason and his mother, the sister of our beloved Sheriff, had already skipped town in the few hours since the confrontation in the school office!

That could help or hurt, depending on which way the judge was leaning. The next step was he would be at the courthouse when it opened to get a court order for the files of the school. Complaints of this type were required, by federal law, to be investigated and the results of the investigation maintained on site for a minimum of seven years unless otherwise directed by the court.

After he left, dad went into his office and the three boys and I were talking this over. Mostly they were giving me a hard time about not telling them what was happening.

“If you had let us deal with that shit stain, dad wouldn’t be in trouble, Kate!” William looked really mad, but Robert just looked sick.

“I warned those Turner boys at the beginning of the year. I heard them talking about what they wanted to do with you, but, you know, it was asshole talk, not real ... that is what I thought anyway,” he said quietly, exchanging looks with his twin. They both knew!

I was about to light into William, Michael was starting to stand and act as peacemaker like he always did, when it hit me.

I saw both William and Robert grab their heads and practically dive to the floor, flopping like fish out of water, and it felt like someone had split my head open and stuck a live wire right to my brain! I couldn’t feel my legs and I just knew I was dying. I could see the ground coming right at my face, but nothing I could do would stop it, and everything went black.

When I woke up, the twins were gone. Just ... gone. Their clothes lay there like they had turned to smoke and left them behind, like they were raptured or something. Gone.

Dad was kneeling down next to their clothes and weeping. I had never seen my father cry, not even when momma got sick. He held her hand to the end, kissed her on the forehead and shooed us out of the room. At the funeral, he was dry-eyed too, though we could see he was in a lot of pain. Now though, he was weeping, huge tears rolling down as face as his shoulders heaved silently.

Michael was there, and he had my head in his lap. He was stroking my hair but he was watching dad and crying his own tears.

“Mikey?”

His eyes snapped down to mine, going wide and he cried out, “Dad! She’s awake!”

Dad moved like someone goosed him and spun so fast, he lost his balance. He landed, practically looming over me and resting on his hands as he looked me over.

“Baby, you ... you okay?”

“What happened, daddy? Where are the twins?”

Dad just shook his head, looking confused.

“I just don’t know. Something is happening. Something happened, I mean, but other stuff is ... can you sit up?” I hadn’t even noticed the television on, but it was playing in the background, the big screen dad had gotten last year for us to watch football and movies on.

“Something happened all over, Kate. All over the US, anyway. When you were laying there, an emergency broadcast thing, you know like when they do those tests? It came on TV and the news is saying planes are falling out of the skies, people are crashing cars, lots of folks are dead and other, well, there are like, monsters and people with powers. Look, there...” Michael pointed to the television as the anchor started talking again.

“As you can see, it is chaos on the streets of the capital as some kind of monster, maybe an alien, has attacked the state capital building, screaming that the Governor must pay for the deaths he caused. No one is sure what deaths he is referring to, but it could be any of the thousands reported so far by this mysterious event!”

Behind the anchor, a man with beams of something, like lasers, were pouring from his eyes and mouth and leaving huge swathes of damage behind. Cars were blowing up; buildings were collapsing under the power of his beam and bullets from police officers seem to bounce right off.

What happened next was even more shocking. Something, or maybe someone, dropped out of the sky like an incoming missile and landed right on top of him, or it, pounded the attacking monster deep into the street, leaving a mushy red stain on the cracked and crumbling asphalt. Out of the resulting cloud of smoke and debris walked a man at least seven feet tall and built like a comic-book character. He struck a pose, fists on his hips and chin up, and it would have been ludicrous if this was a movie, but now it was just frightening.

“We have a reporter on the scene?” The new anchor asked in a confused tone, looking off screen, then he turned back and said it again, shouting out excitedly, “We have a reporter on the scene!”

The camera switched to a man who looked shell-shocked, but who was doing his best to get close to the posing ... hero?

“Sir, sir, can you tell the people who you are? Where did you come from? Did you know that man?”

The hero looked down at the reporter and smiled, his teeth seeming impossibly white in his soot-streaked face.

“I am Capt ... no ... um ... I am the Texas Ranger! Yes, the Texas Ranger. I am here to fight for the people of Texas, to protect them from evil doers!”

“Evil doers?”

“Exactly! Like that evil-doer right there! He was attacking innocent civilians and I did my duty! I suppose I should go and tell the governor he is safe now, citizen. I am sure he’ll want to give me an award or something. Maybe a medal! Oooh ... a key to the city!”

The reporter was left speechless when the man waved happily to the camera and leapt, streaking up into the air and out of sight in an instant. He turned to the camera and shrugged, “You heard it here first, folks. The Texas Ranger flew in and killed the man with the lasers for eyes, and is now on his way to be rewarded by the governor. I just ... I don’t know what to say. No, wait, I do know. Mike, back to you in the studio and I quit.”

We watched as the man dropped the microphone and walked away, the camera staying on him until a swirl of smoke obscured the retreating figure.

The anchor was flapping his jaw, but nothing was coming out. I turned to dad, and he was looking at me.

“What happened, Kate? Mike says you and the boys screamed, holding your heads and then just collapsed. The boys...” he swallowed and wiped his eyes. “he said the boys just sort of turned to dust, right Mike?”

“It wasn’t dust, but it wasn’t smoke, it was ... I don’t know what it was, Kate. They just sort of disappeared. I don’t understand, that shouldn’t be possible!”

The next few days were ... a nightmare. It seemed the world was falling apart. The atmosphere in the house was sad and tense at the same time. It was hard to even get the chores done! I would go to fork hay for the milking cows and think of the twins. I would feed the horses, or clean the stalls, or a million other chores that ranch owners have to attend to, and realize how much of it the boys had taken care of. They loved this ranch and now ... What? We didn’t even have bodies to bury and daddy, he was a mess.

During the following week, we watched the television almost compulsively, learning about a thousand impossible things. We learned of a homeless man who had eyes like the guy on the news, and who took down an entire overpass. We learned about a woman who woke up and burned down her whole apartment building, and a man who, they think, got so heavy that he broke through the outer layers of the earth’s crust. They have video of him slowly sinking and, eventually, a gout of lava bubbled up in his wake.

Things were bad enough that the Reserves were getting called up and martial law had been declared for a week. The president and Congress were having all-day and all-night skull sessions and even though crime was out of control, with new powered criminals taking what they wanted; there were super powered good guys takin the fight to them as well.

One group calling themselves the Justice League had formed in New York. They included somebody who could fly, another with super speed and strength, a woman who could throw a bus, and one guy who was covered with quills and could shoot them. They had banded together and said they were going to stop any who were like them that broke the law. It was ... crazy. Comic books come to life.

And they actually stopped a few! The most spectacular was a guy that could not only cover his body with fire, but throw balls of fire! He had robbed a jewelry store, and had the loot in some kind of metal mesh bag when they caught him. As several distracted him (and the porcupine guy got badly burned), the “Super Woman” as the press was calling her ripped off a fire hydrant, blasted him with the water. This largely snuffed out his fire, and the fast guy simply ran up and hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

It was the very first of many filmed encounters, where teams of good guys banded together to fight a powered bad guy, and everyone seemed to think it was significant. I guess that Texas Ranger guy didn’t count because he was alone, and besides, he disappeared and no one ever saw him again. The man had obviously been a little off his rocker or maybe, since it was the very night all this started, he was just as stunned as the rest of us and trying his best.

We finally learned the scope of the problem. This event had not been all over the whole world, and it was not just death and destruction. It covered an area from Central Alaska across to Newfoundland, then south to the Dominican Republic. From there, it headed west through Nicaragua to somewhere off the California coast and back up to Alaska again.