Nora’s voice fell to a whisper. “Luke, get in here.”

The fear that struck his sister caused Lucas to jump to his feet. “Talk to me. What’s happening?” he demanded, moving quickly into the kitchen. When he joined her side, he saw them. A company of interlopers, crawling through their lawn with their weapons at the ready.

His eyes were saucers. “Holy-”

“Shit, I know,” Nora finished.

Moving to action, Lucas grabbed her by the arm. “Into the living room.” Obediently, she hurriedly followed him into the next room, where he locked the door behind them.

Peeking through the blinds, Nora’s face went deathly white. “Oh God. It’s happening,” she whispered.

“Go get the bags,” Lucas ordered as he heaved back the couch against the door as a barrier.

Nora’s bare feet jumped and took off into her bedroom. Knocking over boxes and chairs, the seventeen-year-old reached under her bed, grabbed two bulging backpacks, and while forcing on sneakers dashed back to her brother.

Ever since the attack on the president, the twins had been in the midst of preparation, on that chance that they should ever be discovered. After months of endless rehearsal, she should have felt calm. She should have felt poised. But when Nora’s eyes locked onto the shadows weaving their way closer and closer to their one-story Suburban home, she froze in place.

“It’s happening,” she repeated. Her eyes darted this way and that, trying to count them. “I’m not ready for this.”

Watching her, Lucas ignored the camouflaged men infiltrating their backyard and focused solely on his twin sister. “Nora, don’t you quit on me.”

“They’re everywhere,” she whispered, trembling. The pounding on the door and the muffled shouts made her scream.

Lucas took Nora by the shoulders, so she could only look up at him. “We can do this,” he said, shaking her to break her fright. “It’s just like we’ve practiced. Don’t let me down.”

When he looked into his sister wide green eyes, Lucas knew exactly how Nora felt, and she was right. It was nothing like they had practiced.

“Nora, who are you?” he asked.

She looked up into her brother’s eyes. “I’m Artemis.”

“That’s right. You’re an archer. You’re a hunter. Villages feared you. You don’t back down.” His voice softened as men bashed down their front door, only two rooms away. “We’re fighters, Nora. We were born for this.” Hugging her tightly, he kissed her hard the side of her forehead. “I love you. Don’t stop for anything.”

“I love you, too,” she said, made brave by her twin brother’s words. “Take the car.”

“And you take the van.” Lucas watched the door with squinted eyes as heat and electricity grew between the palms of his hands. “I’ll meet you there.”

Two years ago, the Blaize twins had learned of their supernatural ability. Both were able to create and maneuver strange swirling concentrations of red-hot energy between the tips of their fingers. Where it came from or why, neither were sure. Nora was born to control the electricity the energy gave off while Lucas controlled the heat that the same power granted them. And their abilities didn’t stop there. They could also produce small force fields, which could either protect or destroy, depending on how they were used. They relied on these fields from each other, along with their acute awareness that came from sharing a womb. Alone, they would have little way of protecting themselves, but together they were unstoppable.

Alongside of her brother, Nora widened the radius between her hands where a swirling orb of electricity, light, and wind floated in balance. Unaware of how it would be used, unaware of the changes its carrier’s life would endure.

The doors burst down in a cloud of smoke and gunfire. With a war cry, Lucas threw a pulsating red sphere into the clan of soldiers, sending the closest few flying backwards from the impact.

With a gasp, Nora used her left hand to hold a force field around her brother. “Behind you!” she shouted in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. Protected by his sister, the darts aimed at his skin ricocheted and skidded off an invisible field encircling his toned, muscular body.

Behind the walls, her parents were quieted by chloroform, and the same bearers of the drug dove at Nora. Glaring, she pressed her palms forward sending a circling wave of light blue energy into her oppressors, propelling them through the front bay window and into the flowerbeds she had planted last spring.

While he fought, Lucas secured his force field around his sister and swung his arm to throw another bolt of electricity into the nearest soldier, who went flying backward through the wall into their kitchen stove.

Fighting alongside her brother, the protection around her only shone all the more brightly. Gymnastic classes not wasted on her, the agile mutant did a back flip. When a fighter fired his weapon at her, she fell into a straddle and locked her force field around him, causing the darts to slam against the insides of the shield’s translucent walls and sink deep into the soldier’s skin.

Lucas tossed her the backpack, which she caught in midair. “Go!” he ordered forcefully. He contorted left, right, up, and down with his hands – the stream of power causing a red web to form above him just as quickly as it disappeared.

Against the shouts of the soldiers and the sound of ironclad uniforms shattering throughout their home, she held a force field on and off her twin brother in between his blasts of energy. When she was able, Nora jumped through a hole where a bay window had once been and chugged through the heavy down pour of rain toward their family’s Ford Windstar. She was cut off by a dart that would have hit her shoulder if not for her brother’s sudden protective cocoon.

Lucas didn’t have to scream his thoughts. Nora felt their impact all the same. Do it! I’ve got you. His swirling red force field weaving itself around her, she tore across the front yard and triumphantly threw back the door of the family’s van. Three-pronged darts pierced against the vehicle’s aqua exterior, but not into her skin.

“Get out of here! Drive!” Inside the house, Lucas’ voice cracked as he shouted. As the mutant scorched into each approaching soldier and held force fields around others just before they fired, he sensed Nora starting up the car and plowing down two unfortunate attackers underneath the weight of her wheels.

Good girl! he thought, knowing she felt his inner joy at her escape.

Just like they planned, Nora drove off, tires squealing into the stormy night. She kept her force field around Lucas’ body as she rounded the corner and took to the expressway, aware of her twin’s position and stance at all times. She would still be able to help him, but her power could only hold for so long.

Assured that his sister was away, Lucas glared down at what few remaining soldiers stood in his way. He opened his hands, causing a red stream of energy to illuminate his vengeful face behind his flickering blue force field.

“You,” he rasped to them hatefully, “are going to regret that you ever came to this house.”

The shield dissipated, and Lucas bounded into action. To the troops, he was everywhere at once, behind them, in front of them, away from them. The energy, stronger than ever before, forged a clean path through a screaming soldier’s chest and the back living room wall. Pushing his hands together, he smashed two others through the boards of his house and watched them land with a ‘thud’ onto his front lawn. His next blow hit a man in the neck, and he brought around that same hand to slam a stream of energy right into the center of another’s disbelieving face.

When no others came, his smoking, empty hands rested themselves on his knees, and Lucas listened to the sound of his breath wheezing in and out of his chest.

The silence took him by surprise.

Rejuvenated, Lucas scooped up his Nike Sports bag, took to his feet, and bolted from inside the house to his driveway where his yellow ’66 Mustang awaited. The car started with the reliability of a mint condition Ferrari, and back tires squealing, he raced through the pouring rain and around the corner on two wheels.

He weighed his foot down on the gas petal and flicked open his cell phone with his free hand.

If he hurried, he could catch up with his sister before she left the freeway.