Pen Carter and the Superfreaks

Pen and Tommy Carter are teenage siblings living on the streets of New York City, running from a bad foster home placement and their own childhood trauma. To make matters worse, they have superpowers; Tommy can mentally manipulate technology, and Pen has both telekinesis and the ability to manipulate superpowers themselves. But when Tommy is kidnapped by dangerous people with superpower blocking technology, Pen must join forces with two other super teens to rescue him and the other kids who’ve ended up in the lab under Asclepius Incorporated.

Once they’ve done that, though, the kids decide to take down Asclepius Inc. and their secret military partner STRIKE, even though Pen just wants to run away and keep everyone safe. Thus sets off a chain of events that leads to the kids discovering the existence of an entire secret society of supers that never came to their aid. Friends and foes alike, both super and non-super, reveal themselves as the kids run around NYC trying to take down the people chasing them. And through it all, Pen slowly learns that she could be the key to superpowers themselves.

But how are you supposed to unlock a new understanding of superhumanity when you’re just a kid on the streets trying to survive? How can you save your newfound family when the power you can best use is one that you stole? How can you be worth anything when you’re actually a murderer?

How are you supposed to save the world when you can’t even save yourself?

***

The Pen Carter series is a book series I’m currently writing about trauma, siblinghood, and kids with superpowers. The main character is Pen, a sixteen-year-old super girl desperately trying to keep her little brother safe. It follows the intersection of her healing process and discovery of a found family alongside the politics of a secret super society trying to keep itself safe from those that would abuse them.

Inspiration for this story includes the X-Men movies, the Percy Jackson series, and the Maximum Ride series.