The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible by J.B. Garner

probably caused myself from spasms and fits.  I just had to not think about the easy way out of the pain.  Biting the inside of my cheek to focus, I kept my eyes locked on Medusa.
    "What do you mean?"
    "Now it's your turn to stop it.  Look, I may have had my head up my own butt some of the time these past months but I can still tell there's something eating at you."
    Of course.  That's why we were here.  Rachel wasn't just looking forward to reuniting two friends.  Sometimes I wondered, no matter how much of a friend she was, if Agent Choi didn't have an angle in mind even when she ordered her coffee in the morning.
    "I- Well, really, it'sss nothing.  Essspecially not anything for you to worry about, chica , you have enough on your plate asss it iss."  Selfless as always.  I stopped peddling and leaned my elbows on the handlebars.
    "It especially does sound like something for me to worry about."  I flashed a smile.  "You're the one person when we get out there that I know I can count on.  Sure, Quentin, Frost, Voltage, they seem like good folks and they're decent when things get hot, but it's not the same thing.  We've saved each others' lives how many times now?"
    "Point taken."  Medusa looked up from the dumbbells she had set in front of her.  "There'sss been a lot in my mind thesse passt weeks and -"
    "Don't you mean 'on your mind'?"
    "No."  She paused to see if I would interrupt again.  I didn't.  "Firssst it wasss Bathory.  Do you have any idea what it'sss like to have sssomething ssso ... wrong ... insside your head?"
    "Only a little."  The Countess had certainly tried to stick her hypnotic claws into my brain but if there was one thing I had you could call a 'superpower', stubborn willpower would be it.  "It didn't feel good, even that little touch."
    "I wasssn't ssso lucky."  Her serpentine face contorted in an unreadable expression, but the look of horror on the woman inside that face spoke volumes.  "If sshe had jussst taken me over like a puppet, it wouldn't have been sssso bad.  Bathory, though, for thossse minutesss ssshe wass there, she made me love her.  I would have done, Madre de Diosss, anything I could to protect her."
    I remembered that all too well.  Her gaze hadn't been directed to just crumble the ice slide Extinguisher and I were riding.  She had full well meant to turn us to statues and it was Ex's last minute evasion that saved us (well, him at any rate) from that fate.
    "It could have been any of us.  You can't beat yourself up over -"
    "You don't underssstand.  Thossse thoughtsss linger.  Even though I know that wasssn't entirely my fault, I ssstill felt those things.  Did thossse thingsss."  Her fingers clenched the handles of the weights and her knuckles were turning from deep emerald to pale green.  Meds wasn't nearly as strong as Hexagon was, but her inhuman strength was enough I feared for the equipment if she got too upset.
    "Those headbands, they didn't control you either, did they?"  Even one minute forced to feel that way would linger, sure, but it seemed to me that weeks of it would turn that moment into a lasting trauma.
    Medusa's eyes widened slightly and she nodded with deliberate slowness.  I knew that snakes couldn't cry and it appeared that she couldn't either.  Despite that, the rest of her body reacted as if she were starting to sob.  Her long fingers came up to her face, as if she herself was hunting for tears that should be coming but couldn't.
    I was sitting on the long bench facing her before I knew it, gently grabbing her hands in my own.  I tried to be careful and not press through the soap-bubble scales.  I didn't want to upset her more, after all.  She turned her gaze away as much for my safety, unnecessary as it was, than her embarrassment.
    "Eight daysss, Irene.  Eight daysss of thinking Epic and his commandersss were the bessst, that I ... that we'd all do anything for them."  Her snakes hissed like mad.  "Firssst Bathory, then