I could hear sirens by this point over the fire alarm of my building and all the shouting.

The police? The ambulance service? The fire brigade? All of them together? Should I go to them--would any of them protect me?

The problem was, I didn’t know if the people who had attacked me were the police or not. They could have been the police, or the military, or a SWAT team, or the government agency I had been waiting for a call from.

I choked back the tears which had started to well up underneath my eyeballs. I had absolutely no idea where to go or who to turn to. Had I blown it? Had I blown my chance at becoming a superhero, at becoming cool, all just for sneaking out to a party and by not being able to control the use of my powers? And where was Mom? Was she safe? Had I put her in danger too?

Stupid, stupid weakling! You’ve messed it all up!

I set off at a run again down the alleyway, away from the front of my building. I wasn’t going to take my chances with whoever was now in front of the building.

As I ran, I pulled out my phone again and did the only thing I could think of--I rang my Mom. I had her on speed dial so all I had to do was jab at the buttons a few times as it bobbed up and down in the semi-darkness.

I held the phone to my ear which was sticky with sweat, pressing it hard against my skin so it wouldn’t slip off as I continued to run. The ringer sounded. It sounded again. And again.

“Come on Mom, pick up the damn phone!” I pleaded.

“Hi, you’ve reached Deborah,” said the voice of my Mom. “I can’t come to the phone right now but please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

I swore loudly, forgetting myself for a moment, then looked to either side to check if anyone had noticed me. By now I was out of the alley and into one of the roads behind our apartment block, heading south, further into Brooklyn. The sidewalks were clear.

Beeep sounded the voicemail tone in my ear.

“Mom!” I gasped in a primal cry. “Mom, please ring me back as soon you get this! I did something bad, Mom, I used my powers and now these people are after me--I don’t know if it’s the government or the police or something worse--they came to our apartment--it’s not safe there, don’t go back there--and now I’m--shit!”

I suddenly realised that if it was the government who had come to subdue or assassinate me, they might be listening in on my call. Then I realised that if they were able to do that then they would probably also be able to track my location through my phone too.

I looked at the phone in my hand. On the screen was a picture of me and my Mom a few years ago at my twelfth birthday celebration--just me and her. She had her arm round me and I was holding a homemade cake that said “YOU’RE A HERO!” Above this, though, at the top of the screen, was a little flag symbol which meant the location service for my phone was on.

I pulled back my phone and then flung it as hard as I could into the air in the opposite direction to the one in which I had been running. Because of my super strength, it soared into the sky and disappeared long before it came down. I worried for a moment about it hitting someone, or breaking something, but I couldn’t help that now. I had acted purely on impulse.

What the hell do I do now? I thought, choking fear pushing down on my lungs and threatening to compress the air out of me. Mom was still out at her writing group. I couldn’t remember where they met. I hoped that she would listen to my message before she went back to our apartment. I hoped that she wasn’t being tracked too. Part of me wanted to go back to look out for her and try to protect her, but I couldn’t go back there, I couldn’t. I was being hunted. I was being hunted by people who were prepared to shoot me. Where did I have left to go?

I realised. There was one more place I could try to go for protection, to hide. I was already heading south, after all. I must have already been running there instinctively. Was that place being watched as well? Screw it, I thought, if it is, I’ll fight them off there too. Maybe then he’ll take me seriously. I have to try.

I carried on the way I had been going, running as fast as I could, trying to keep outside the halos of the streetlamps as much as possible. I ran into Brooklyn proper, the centre, filled with busy roads and scrapers. There were still a lot of cars on the road, lighting it up red, yellow, orange, joining the greens of the traffic lights, despite the late hour. There were always lots of cars on the road in this suburb.

When I’d started I’d still been able to hear the distant blare of sirens behind me. That had died away now. That was a good sign. That must be a good sign. I looked behind me.

Nobody was following me, as far as I was aware.

Still I did not let my body ease up its pace until I came to a particular brownstone set a little way back from the street. I looked over each shoulder again. Though cars still rolled past, honking occasionally, I was alone on the sidewalk in front of the building. I bounded up the steps that led to the fancier, wood-panelled double doors of this building. How he was ever able to afford the rent on a place like this I didn’t know.

This one had an intercom. I found “Lopez” on the list of names and jammed my finger into the button. A buzzing sound issued from the horizontal lines of the speaker built into the doorframe. I held my finger on the button for a good five seconds.

I waited.

Nothing.

I jabbed it again. Another count to five. Nothing. I stabbed it with my finger over and over. For a moment I nearly lost control and ripped the whole intercom out of the door, but I stopped myself just in time. He must be out as well.

“Que pasa?” said the amplified voice of my father all of a sudden over the intercom, angry, harsh. “What is it?”

“Dad, it’s me! Please let me in, something’s happened, I’m in trouble!”

“Gonzalo?” His voice was disbelieving. A pause. “What are you doing here? You should be at your Mama’s.”

“I know, Dad,” I spluttered. “I’ll explain when I get up there! Please just let me in!”

Another pause, longer this time. Was that muttering in the background? Then: “Gonzalo, you go back to your Mama’s right now. It is not safe for you to be out this late at night time, understand? Go home.”

A clicking sound came through the intercom, signalling that my Dad had hung up the receiver at his end.

“What?!” I shouted at the intercom. “Are you kidding me?! If it’s so ‘unsafe’ why don’t you take me home?!”

I buzzed again. No reply. Again. No reply. I buzzed another ten or so times, pressing the button repeatedly in quick succession. He didn’t answer again.

The fuse of my temper lit and for an instant my fear and delirium was transfigured by blind rage, the sound of rushing blood filling my ears and hot acid welling up from my gut.

“You have got to be kidding me! You are such a shitty father!”

I drove my finger into the button so hard that I pushed it back through the wall. I punched my hand through the smoked window pane of the door, shattering some of the glass, then reached in through it and unlocked the handle from the inside. My hand was fine. Not even a scratch.

My rage cooled a little as I bounded the steps to my father’s apartment on the eighth floor. I needed somewhere to hide. I needed somewhere I could be safe for a while, where I could get through to Mom and warn her about what was going on at our apartment block. Surely my Dad would provide that for me? Surely when I had a chance to explain to him what was going on he would take care of me. He was my Dad. He had to.

I arrived in front of his grey door a sodden mess of sweat and snot and tears. I hammered on it, taking just enough care not to put a dent in it or hammer it off its hinges.

Again, there was no reply. Did I have the right door? Of course I had the right door. I knew his address from the odd weekends I had spent with him here listening to old music and watching bad films on the rare occasions when Mom went out of town. Plus I had just seen the number of the apartment on the list outside.

I knocked again.

And again.

At last, the door cracked open just enough to reveal the width of my Dad.

Dad was handsome; tall, with a dark Chilean complexion and a chiselled jaw. That’s why my Mom always said she’d fallen for him even though he was a gabal (that means ‘scoundrel’). If handsome was in his genes, apparently I hadn’t inherited any of them. Or at least if I had, I didn’t know how to use them properly.

He was wearing a navy blue dressing gown with a white fur-lined collar and apparently not much else. I could see the curly dark hair on his lower legs all the way down to his bare brown feet.

His half-cocked eyebrow and frown presented a mixture of confusion and profound irritation.

“Gonzalo,” he practically growled at me, “I told you to go home to your Mama’s. How did you get in here?!”

It was time to tell him. “I used my powers, Dad,” I carried on without drawing a breath. “I’ve got powers, I’ve got super strength and invulnerability--I tried to tell you once before, but I didn’t think you’d believe me. But now you know--that’s how I got into the apartment--I smashed through the door. Dad, I’m in trouble, Dad, I’ve got these powers and the doctor told me not to use them but I used them--I went to a party and used my powers--and now these people are after me--they came to my and Mom’s apartment and it’s not safe--it’s not safe, Dad! I need somewhere to hide from them, and we’ve got to tell Mom--I don’t know where Mom is and I don’t know if she’s safe and we’ve got to warn her that the apartment’s not s--”

“Gonzalo,” my Dad interrupted me. He spoke in a bass whisper. “You have got to calm down. I don’t know what you are doing here, but you have got to calm down and go back to your Mama’s. Nao, understand?”

“Carlos?” came a sultry feminine voice from somewhere inside the apartment. “Who is it, Carlos?”

My brows rose with realisation.

Dad turned for a moment to call over his shoulder. “It is no-one! Go back to bed, chica, I’ll be there in a moment!”

He turned back to me. It wasn’t shame on his face. It was annoyance that held his jaw tight.

I pushed the door forwards. Normally he would have been able to hold it shut against me, but I had super strength now. It swung open, knocking him back slightly.

There in the corridor behind him stood a dark-skinned Latina woman wrapped in a towel. She looked about ten years younger than Dad, with big full lips, black hair that draped messily down her back and round breasts that pressed up against the wrapping of the towel. I felt disgusted at myself that a part of me desired her.

He didn’t want to help me because he was with a woman. He was with yet another woman who wasn’t my Mom.

“Who is this?” said the woman, smiling, curious.

“I’m his son,” I said with venom. I decided to leave my Dad with a parting gift. “Actually, I was his son. Do yourself a favour, lady: dump this loser while you still can. If he ever accidentally knocks you up he’ll drop you sooner than he’d drop his trousers at an all-you-can-eat brothel.”

I got a last glimpse of her open mouthed shock as I turned and ran again. “Gonzalo!” my Dad shouted after me angrily.

New tears flowed as I pounded down the stairs. Bastard! He’s no help at all! Why did I think he would ever take care of me? All he cares about is himself!

It sucks having parents who have split up. You try and detach from it, but deep down it’s like you’re made up of parts from two different people, and when they split up it’s like those two different parts also split off from each other. It’s like the two people whose love brought you into existence don’t love each other any more. So how can you love yourself?

I flew out of the doors of the building, down the steps, and carried on running--I don’t know where. The sirens were getting louder, like they were coming towards my Dad’s apartment. So they did know about it! They had been watching it!

I just ran now, anywhere that was away from the people I had hurt at the party, away from my apartment, away from my Dad. I lost the time, though it was still night. I just took random twists and turns in the general direction that was away from where I didn’t want to be. The sirens began to fade again.

Questions knocked together in my mind as I ran. Why did this attack only happen now? Did my actions at Sam’s party trigger it off? Were those people sent by the government, or by someone else? No answers.

Eventually, chest heaving, sweat completely drenching me, I realised that I was running in the direction of Manhattan. So I ran towards Manhattan on purpose, the headquarters of the world’s dreams. I ran towards the place that was in all the movies, where the miracles happened, where the superheroes came from.

I ran over the Brooklyn bridge. The scene of so many well known superhero battles. There were a few more people scattering the sidewalks now that I was closer to the heart of the city, even at this late hour. I skipped round them, weaving in out of them.

The iconic skyscrapers rose up to greet me. The tipped rectangle of the Empire State. The iconic curves of the Chrysler. I carried on running. Dark rectangles, coloured neon adverts filled my vision. The thrum of the never sleeping traffic and the demands of the car horns filled my ears.

When I got into Manhattan, eventually I stopped on fifth avenue by a streetlamp and clutched it with one hand, hunched over, drinking in the cold, polluted night air in huge, desperate gasps.

I simply could not run any further. I had brought my legs as far as they could go, and felt like I had nearly given myself a heart attack in the process. I had no idea how far I had run.

In the corner of my vision, I noticed a car pull up to the sidewalk and roll to a stop nearby.

I looked at it. It was a long black limousine and it had stopped right beside me.

I was too exhausted to run any more. A door opened, level with me, so that I could see inside.

Sat in the car on black leather seats was an early middle-aged white man in a navy suit, white shirt and blue necktie. He had salt and pepper hair and a tidy grey beard, but looked healthy, with round cheeks that I could see were rosy in the light of the limousine interior. He smiled at me in a kindly way.

“Who are you?” I managed to say.

“My name is Commander Abram,” he said. “I’m a friend. But I can introduce myself properly later. Get in the car, Gonzalo.”