Des stood in the centre of the basement and clapped his hands. "People, I would like your attention please. The Compounders have a problem to solve. They have a weapon to get back from the GEM, something we can use for ourselves. We need volunteers for a dangerous mission. And I'd like you to volunteer now."

Daniel watched as a light smattering of arms raised in the air. Luce raised hers first, as well as Dale and the other Freaks. He pushed Hiro's hand back down and tutted at him.

"You're not going."

Hiro pouted.

Ali raised his good arm.

"Hold on, Ali you aren't going. The wound on your shoulder has only just healed." Matthew glared at his partner.

"I'm fine," Ali said. "The lass has done me up a treat an' I've been scavenging with worse injuries than this."

Matthew narrowed his eyes dubiously.

Des sorted them into teams, with the youngest a like Mike and Kitty a to stay at garage blocks in the city to help them hide the vans. Luce insisted on being part of the team to infiltrate the GEM.

"I've hated them all my life," she said passionately, "and I'm not about to sit aside as you get to kill Enforcers."

They stepped out into the inky-pink colour of pre-dawn. Daniel wrapped a Resistance scarf around his neck and tucked it below the dark jacket that went with his black outfit. The group piled into a dark van with tinted windows.

"God willing, we'll be back with Mina in just a few hours. Our insurgent has planned out the times to the second. She's arranged everything. We just need to get to the car park and hide until she lets us in." Des slammed the van door with finality.

It all sounded so simple. What could go wrong?

29 * Mina *

In my dreams the head of a snake slowly opened its jaws. I stood transfixed. Its slit-eyes regarded me with cool composure; almost hypnotising me to stay still and quiet. My heart beat so fast I thought it might explode. I stood there and watched its horrible mouth open to reveal something sharp and pointed. A needle... but why?

I woke up, threw back the sheets, and strode into the bathroom a determined to shake the dreams away. Instead, the image of Daniel with the blonde girl haunted me. Maybe Mum was right. Maybe he really had moved on instead of coming with me. I stared at my quivering hands, forcing the thought away. What did it matter? I'd decided, sometime between going to bed and falling asleep, that the only thing that mattered was my mother and training.

I was so sick of people. They lied to you, hid secrets, and replaced you without a second thought. It wasn't fair. But then life is never fair and there's no point crying in a corner about it. Get even or get hurt.

The shower started with just a squint of an eye. I floated the shower gel over to me, and worked the sponge on my back with a giggle. Mum was right. I needed to use my powers more often a it was fun!

My clothes dressed me today. I stepped into floating jeans and wiggled my arms through my top as it hovered above my head, laughing all the time. I laughed until I noticed the tremor in my fingers. Not again. I needed more tea to calm my nerves, so I went into the kitchen to see Mum.

"Ready for training?" she asked, passing me my first cup of the day.

"Yup. Ready and waiting. I'm going to juggle the boulders today, I can feel it. I feel powerful."

"I told you sourcing your energy from hate would work better. Anger is too fleeting, too emotional. Hate is a cold freeze that works its way through your system, like water gradually becoming ice. It's more permanent."

"I hate my dad," I said, half to myself. Sometimes I had to say it out loud to remind myself.

"I know, honey. I do too. Just remember that saying it and feeling it are two very different things." She seemed out of sorts and more flustered than usual. Most of the kitchen counter drawers had been left open. She rifled through the tea-towel draw hurriedly.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine, honey. I've just misplaced something."

A knock on the door interrupted us, and Mum stepped through the open plan kitchen to answer. I followed her, knowing we'd be leaving for training soon anyway.

Elena stood in the doorway, her face flushed and pink. "I'm yours today," she said with a smile that bordered on "too much". "They don't need me in the lab so I can be your biscuit fetcher." She grinned again.

"Well, I'm not sure we needaa"

"Oh, go on, Mrs Hart. I love watching Mina train." The grin widened. I noticed panic in Elena's eyes. Something seemed off.

"All right then. You won't have much to do though. I don't want you to be bored." Mum followed Elena out of the flat and I tagged along, watching Elena very closely.

"Well, I can always come up for the morning," Elena said. She glanced back at me furtively. "If there isn't much to do I'll find somewhere else to... aren't we taking the stairs this morning?"

Mum stopped at the end of the corridor with her finger hovering over the lift button. "Well, Iaa"

"My calves need a work out. Mum always said: acardio before nine makes your legs mighty fine'." Elena clutched her fingers behind her back which forced her to stand ram-rod straight.

"Your mother sounds like a wise woman," Mum said with a chuckle. "Okay, we could all do with keeping in shape. Stairs it is."

Elena seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and the tension in her back relaxed. I continued to hang back, watching her all the time. I never read the note she handed me in the apartment. I didn't want to know what she had to say after her accusations. No friend would ever say something like that.

"Great," said Elena. She took Mum's arm with over familiarity. "I'll have to tell Mum you think she's wise. She'd never believe it herselfaa"

An alarm rang out through the building and cut Elena off. Mum froze mid-step.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Intruders," Mum said, shouting over the noise. "We should go and see what's happening."

"No!" Elena put her hand on Mum's arm. "I mean... they've got plenty of guards down there, what do they need us for? Mina would be better getting to training, letting this all blow over."

"What if they need me?" I asked. "I could stop people getting hurt."

Mum frowned. "You're still too hung up on saving people. Maybe we should go and train."

"Yes, that's a good idea." Elena nodded with enthusiasm.

Mum stepped towards the door to the stairs, her palm resting on the glass panel. I watched how Elena stared at Mum's hand, her face a mask of anxiety, and her chest rising and falling in rapid motion. There was definitely something going on.

"No," I said. "I'm going down there. And I'm taking the main stairs."

Elena stared at me in horror, shaking her head from side to side. She tried to mouth something to me, but I couldn't work it out in the chaos of the alarm and lab workers hurrying by. I decided to ignore her and turned away from them both, striding along the corridor without waiting for either of them. Only Mum caught me up at the main stairs further down the hallway.

"Where did Elena go?" I asked her.

"She disappeared when I went to follow you." She shrugged. "I don't get it. She seemed to be really looking forward to seeing you train this morning."

Elena was up to something and her fake smiles had Mum fooled. What could it be? Why would Elena be my friend in Area 14 if she was going to stab me in the back at the GEM? Nothing made sense.

The blaring alarm rang in my ears as I rushed down the stairs to the lobby. Guards and lab workers panicked. "It could be a bomb," yelled one woman. I ignored them. If it was a bomb, they would have detonated it before alerting the intruder alarm. This was something else, and a part of me felt that there was something not quite right. Why break into the lobby of a huge building like the GEM? Why not break in one of the back entrances? It was almost as if they wanted to be caught.

I took a left turn towards the reception, pushing through swing doors. This time I let my mind do the work, leaving my hands free if I needed them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mum nod with encouragement. It spurred me on, faster. Whoever these intruders were, I would take them out with ease. No one could stop me as the final doors swung open.

I surveyed the scene before me. Security guards grappled with a man a tall, wearing a Resistance scarf a on one side of the lobby, and more security guards shot their laser guns at two men taking cover behind one of the large pot plants by the entrance. They shot and ducked back behind the plant.

"What are you going to do?" Mum asked.

I lifted my arm to toss one of the attackers, when more intruders burst through the lobby doors behind us. I spun on my heel, and a jolt shot up my spine, as I realised Daniel ran towards me. Our eyes locked, and for a split second the lobby faded away a leaving just him. My heart soared. I wanted to run to him. I wanted to throw my arms around him. But then I saw the same blonde girl from the screens, and remembered Mum's words. He'd moved on. He'd replaced me.

He kept on running right for me with a gun in his hand, and his eyes were wild thunderstorms. He wanted to attack me, with that girl. How could he?

Power and rage built in my chest, and I swatted them back against the wall. Daniel's eyes widened as he hit the plaster. With a flick of my wrist I pinned him to the wall with a sofa.

"What are you doing?" he shouted. "You can't do this, Mina." He tried to push the sofa away as Elena and a tall, dark skinned man came running through the doors. I lifted them away from me.

"He's trying to tell you what to do," Mum said with a smirk. "I don't think that's wise, do you?"

One of the attackers pulled away their scarf and came out from behind the plant with his hands up in surrender. It was my dad.

The security guard raised his gun to take aim. "No!" I yelled, chucking the guard to the side.

"What are you doing, Mina? You hate him," Mum said, the disgust evident in her voice.

"I want him for myself," I replied.

"Mina, sweetheart, you need to stop. You need to come with us," Dad said. "In your heart you know that she's not good for you. Look at what's happened to you."

A great surge of anger flowed through me and I pushed Dad back, pinning him against the wall with my force. "Anything that's happened to me is because of you."

The gunfire stopped. The guards stood still. Everything in the world seemed to stop and stare at me.

All the intruders removed their scarves and I faltered. Ali and Matthew were there, too.

"Don't lose yourself, Mina," Mum said. "These people are not your friends. They've come to attack the GEM."

She was right. Daniel had brought his new girlfriend to harm me.

"We've not come te attack ye, kid." Ali ran forward but I propelled him at the wall.

"Stop it!" I yelled. "Stop trying to hurt me!"

The hate and anger built up like a snowball rolling down a mountainside, collecting more and more hate, until I thought my entire body might freeze. I opened my arms to embrace it, lifting my head to the ceiling. I watched the plaster crumble as the walls and floor shook with my force.

"That's my girl!" Mum said.

Ali ran again. I threw him away like a rag doll.

"No!" Daniel shouted.

I turned to him, the one person I thought I could trust. He had that girl at his side. I hated him, too.

"Mina, kid, you've got to stop this." Matthew approached with his gun still in his hand. I swatted him away.

The doors exploded, showering me with glass. I didn't care. I felt invincible. I controlled the glass, made it take life, and formed it into a swirling cyclone; picking up all the debris from the floor; all the bits of broken plant pot; the chairs from the lobby. I added them to my deadly tornado. Mum's hair whipped around her face as she stared in awe at my power.

"NO!"

Who dared to try to stop me?

Dad forced his way through the glass. He held up one arm to shield his face. Shards struck him all over; turning him into a human pin cushion. The shock distracted me, and the tornado slowed to allow him closer. I watched him keep coming a even as the chairs and debris crashed into him. He should've been knocked to the floor, yet he stayed upright somehow, and he kept coming.

"Get away, Jonathon! You can't stop her now. She's mine!" Mum shouted.

"Never!"

Dad took another step, forcing his way through. One more step and I saw the glass sticking out from his body; thousands of tiny pieces; one large shard stuck in his stomach. Still he carried on until he stood just inches from my face. Mum seized him. Her fingernails dug into his arm. Dad shook her off.

He held my face and his eyes searched mine a desperate. "Kill me, Mina, but don't kill your humanity." Tears ran down his face. "You're nobody's weapon. You're my little girl. I deserve to die for what I did to you. No one else does. Let them go."

Humanity?

I was back in the basement of our house. Dad stood with chalk in his hand, writing words on a blackboard.

"Humanity a do you know what that is, Mina?"

I shook my head.

"It's what separates us from other species. It's our conscience and our ability to know right from wrong. It's the ability to love and spread kindness, and it's the biggest weapon we have as human beings."

The glass dropped, tinkling to the floor. I blinked, finding myself back in the lobby of the GEM.

"I love you, Mina," Dad said. His eyes fluttered and he fell backwards. I lunged towards him, but he was out of reach. Ali and Matthew caught him, and dragged him out of the building.

I collapsed to the floor, my body physically spent from using so much power. My chest constricted, and I gulped in air, trying to catch my breath. Tears rolled down my face as they pulled Dad away.

Daniel struggled against the heavy sofa, shoving it with his shoulders. I'd wedged him in tight. The blonde girl lay bleeding on the floor. Random Resistance and guards lay lifeless. Others stood motionless a completely stunned by what they'd seen. I fumbled across the floor to find Mum unconscious. My fingers found a pulse.

"Mum? Mum are you okay?"

The tall dark-skinned man limped across the lobby with his arms stretching out to grasp me. His pained face grimaced with each step. Elena swooped in and pulled me to my feet. I staggered up on aching legs.

"We have to get out of here. Now!"

The guards sprang back into action and blocked the exit, forcing us back through the lobby. The tall limping man lurched towards Elena. She gave him an almighty shove and he fell backwards.

"I'm not handing her over to you, Des," she said. "Dale told me what you're up to. You're not using Mina as a weapon."

She dragged me through the lobby and towards the fire exit. Broken glass crunched underfoot. Elena slammed her palms into the door and rushed into the open air.