A piece of rock smacks Skipper in the side of the head, exploding into dust. I didn’t know what else to do. Right now he’s exactly what I was on that dock in Mexico. I tackle him, and I’ll probably break my shoulder. I grab his leg and stop it from smashing the thug into the soil, and my hands come clean off my wrists. I’d picked up a rock and thrown it as hard as I could, pitcher-style like I do for the boy’s baseball team sometimes. Except nothing happens. His foot remains above the man’s head, and now his head is slowly turning around to look me dead in the eyes.
Everyone else is frozen stiff, as if they’re afraid to move so much as an inch. The birds are silent. The dogs and cats that lurk around this area remain in the dark, their ears back and their tails flicking around restlessly. When I say nothing moved, I mean nothing at all—not the wind, not the echo of sound; all that mattered now was Skipper.
As if the world was holding its breath because he commanded it to.
Not knowing what else to do, I pick up another rock, my throat dry as he turns fully around, his foot finally away from the man. Now he’s facing me full on, his burning blue eyes painful to look at. They look like dad’s eyes.
And right now, Skipper might as well be just as powerful.
“Kacey,” Phoebe hisses from behind me. I spare a glance. She’s taken a step back. “Let’s leave. Now!”
“And let this maniac just keep killing people?” I say, because that’s what his speech had been about, right? About some weird sense of justice, some need to clean the world of its scum and whatever bullshit he’d spewed that I can’t think of right now because he’s moving toward me, closer and closer, until he’s almost in my face. I swallow, forcing saliva down my throat, but don’t let go of the rock. I breathe through my nose, trying to relax, to remain calm, but he knows I’m not. He can hear my heart, see it thumping against my ribcage. “Capes don’t kill people.”
It’s all I can think of saying right now. It sounds weak and pathetic, a whisper muted by his shadow.
“He was going to kill some gangster,” Phoebe says from over my shoulder. “Who cares?! Run!”
I don’t. I stare into Skipper’s eyes—into the beams of hellish plasma simmering behind them.
Then, slowly, he leans closer to me, his lips nearing my ear. “Until next time, Chosen.” Skipper’s eyes roll back into his skull, then he collapses against me, a heap that makes me stagger, catching him before he can fully hit the dirt. I get to my knees and check for a pulse, but I hear it before my fingers even get anywhere close to his neck. I stare at my hands, then at the veins and arteries right underneath my skin, the bones in my hands and the rib cage underneath my fingers. I blink, shake my head, then can’t help but suppress a smile, then I let the faltering grin fall off my face, because what the fuck was that? I flex my fingers, something telling me that they’re back, if the x-ray vision didn’t already give that away. It’s that thing again, isn’t it? That creature on the throne of superheroes.
Either that, or Skipper is one hell of a liar and a Mimic. A very, very powerful Mimic.
A hand grabs my shoulder and shakes me. “Shit, dude,” Phoebe says, pulling me to my feet. “Are you alright? What the hell did this creep do to you?” For extra measure, in case I didn’t know who she was talking about, she kicks Skipper in the ribs, forcing his midday nap to an abrupt end. “We should beat it before those—”
The man in the suit is standing a stone throw away from us. Nothing in meters for the bullet he’s got in the chamber of the pistol in his fist. He knuckles away the saliva that leaked from his mouth in his panic, and then my body feels it again. That tingle that makes my skin crawl as he stares us both down. You can feel it, can’t you? It’s almost like I can hear Skipper’s voice again in my mind, almost telling me to stand up and throw him back into the small dirt hole he’d just been put in. But I resist that urge and stand, lifting Skipper onto my shoulder like a sack.
Phoebe gapes at me, because I guess I’m technically only meant to have one superpower.
“Put the body down,” he demands. “And you get your money. Everyone’s happy.”
“Yeah…” I say, then shake my head. “Not happening. Find someone else to steal.”
Preferably not, but you get what I mean.
“You think I’ll forget a face like yours?” he snarls. “See, I’m a nice guy. Hate to get the folks involved, but trust me, kid. A lot of important people aren’t gonna be happy if that guy gets out of my sight. He has a debt to pay, and if he doesn’t pay it, people get hurt…people you care about. Don’t play the hero. You ain’t even in costume.”
My throat dries a little the moment he mentions my family, but for his sake, he shouldn't even bother.
Not unless he can take down Guardian.
So I flip him off, then slam my foot into the ground, blinding him in dust. I take the chance to grab Phoebe by the wrist and very, very gently fly into the sky, skimming over apartment buildings until we’re far enough away to know for a fact they won’t find us any time soon. I also don’t want to keep holding her over the street by her wrist alone, so I try my best to drop her on a rooftop without breaking her ankle. I land beside her, for once not hitting the deck hard enough to go straight through the roof of the building we’re on. Some other apartment building and grocery store mixture, complete with a large yellow Megakima billboard opposite us, casting a shadow on the roof.
I lay Skipper gently on the ground, his head propped up against an AC unit. Still out cold.
Honestly, I think that’s a job well done. Apart from Big Ben, which pauses me. My powers hadn’t worked when I needed them most, and I don’t know what that means for the times I’ll actually need them to fight a villain or a Calamity or something that can very easily kill someone I care about. I flex my fingers, then bury the thought.
No point mulling over it now. Just have to do better next time and the time after that.
A lot of blood left to wash off my hands. Seemingly, it was just getting wetter.
“YOU HAVE SUPER STRENGTH?” Phoebe yells. I flinch, then spin and tell her to relax, but she doesn’t want to relax—she stumbles away from me, hands on her head. “Dude! I just watched a Supe get fuckin’ smoked by a sneeze! And then a gangster tries to take him because who knows why! And then…And then you come in and—”
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“Phoebe,” I say to her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. “Chill out.”
She nods, then nods again. “Yeah. Okay. Chilling out.” She takes a deep breath, exhaling through her nose, then she takes hold of my shoulders, putting us in a lock, then says, “Are you, or are you not, a real life superhero?”
“I…guess I kind of want to be?” I say. Don’t look at me that way. I didn’t know how else to ever get around to telling her this about myself. One person knows who my family is, and that’s Monroe…and maybe the police chief, and a few people in the force…the guy who also tried to tattoo me might have a hunch, but that’s not the point. Telling people who can’t protect themselves isn’t part of the memo. Besides, what is there to tell? I’m not like Jade, with her official costume and official meeting place and mentor and sidekick status. I was just a dreamer.
Like any other kid who wants to be a superhero someday.
“Dude,” Phoebe whispers. “That’s…kinda lame.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
She shrugs. “I mean, I know like five people who live in my apartment building who say the same thing. My aunt is a support hero in freaking Idaho, dude. Literally everyone and their mom wants to be one eventually. It’s, like, oversaturated or whatever Richlin would say. I always kind of thought you’d, I don’t know, join the army.”
“Why the heck would I join the arm?” I ask her.
“Let’s be honest—your grades suck, but you're physically gifted. There’s one route for you, and that’s with the airforce or whatever.” She lets go of my shoulders, and I do the same. Phoebe stuffs her hands into her pockets and smiles at me. “But a superhero…that’s kinda childish. I mean, shouldn’t you have your license by now then?”
I stare at her, my mouth drying by the second. “I was gonna get it,” I say, defending myself. “Soon.”
“Don’t they start that weird program when you turn sixteen?” she says. “What’s your excuse?”
I step back. “I just saved you.”
“I had nothing to do with that fight.”
“Why the hell are you being so weird about this?” I say. My chest feels tighter. Air was getting harder to breathe. I tense my jaw and stare at her. “It’s not childish wanting to be a superhero. I think it’s pretty damn cool.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Whatever you say. I still think it’s lame.”
“Bigger than any dream you’ve ever had,” I mutter.
Phoebe pauses, then asks, “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I sigh, just a little annoyed, maybe hurt—doesn’t matter how bulletproof your skin is when your best friend can get to your heart so easily. I crouch next to Skipper and shake him awake, because at least one of us here on this roof would appreciate the save. “Hey, Skip? You can stop pretending you’re asleep. You’re safe.”
He slowly opens one eye, then sighs with relief. “Goodness, for a second, I thought I was toast.”
I smile a little. “Yeah, well, you’re good now. You should probably get a new costume, though. Those guys are gonna be looking for you. They’re kinda not too happy you blew up their parlay with a sneezing fit, dude.”
He glances at his gloves hands. It’s only up close when I realize how cheap his suit is. I think it’s some kind of Halloween costume, but I can’t judge him, ‘cause last I checked, I don’t really have a suit of my own. “I don’t know how I did that,” he says quietly. Then he pales, his mouth swells, and he pukes up his lunch beside him. Both Phoebe and I grimace as he does, except I’m the one patting his back until he’s finished. “I just…” He dry heaves, and the smell of vomit smacks me in the nose. “I just killed someone. I just killed a man.” He moans, then puts his hands on his head, digging his fingernails into his scalp. “What…What am I gonna tell Marge? The police will—”
“Nobody said anything about the feds,” Phoebe mutters. “You’re literally a masked man right now. Hide.”
I shoot her a glare, and she looks at me all surprised. “He just murdered someone. The police have to know, especially if there’s people who want him dead or in debt or whatever.” I can actually help with something for once.
Phoebe snorts. “Since when were you high and mighty? You’re literally skipping school, Kace.”
“What’s that got to do with killing someone, Phoebe?” I ask hotly.
“Just sayin’ you’ve gotta practice what you preach. If you wanna go all Guardian on me, then every crime deserves an equal punishment, right? That’s what he’s always talking about on the news, anyway. So…you know.”
I stand up and glare at her. “Fine, we’ll head back to school and get detention. How’s that sound?”
“My mom isn’t gonna freak when she finds out, that’s the difference,” she says cooly.
And she’s right. Mom is going to blow her top, especially since I just witnessed a murder, and maybe kind of helped a murderer escape, even if he was innocent. But the irony hit me a second later, because dad had done just that a few days ago for me. The scene had been cleaned and the dead Supe thug had been scraped off the pavement, and now here I am, debating whether a murderer should go to the police. But…still. A supervillain was a villain. She had shot me in the face and the chest and killed me. Isn’t that at least a little bit different than it is right now?
Skipper slowly stands up, using the rattling A/C unit to do so. “I-I can’t go to jail. M-my wife is pregnant.”
“See!” Phoebe says. “The guy’s gotta feed his family. He can go to church and pray or whatever.”
“I still don’t feel quite that good about it…” Skipper got even paler as, I’m guessing, the memories leaped back into his mind’s eye. “That poor man. He could have had kids and a wife. Nobody is ever going to tell them.”
And yet his own children will have the privilege of seeing their father tonight. Unjust.
I frown and look over my shoulder, seeing nothing except for the vandalized billboard behind us. What the hell was that? I shake my head and turn to look at Skipper, ignoring it. “Look,” I say. “If you’re not gonna go to the cops, you’re gonna have to go to someone. A clean heart is better than a guilty one. My mom always says that.”
“Sounds a little ‘higher than thou,’ don’t you think?” my best friend helpfully adds.
“But…But I wouldn’t know what to do if I lost them.” Skipper, I’m quickly finding out, is as morally strong as he is physically, which is barely enough to keep him from occasionally twitching. I can see the face behind the mask, the tired eyes and the bags, the sagging skin and the years of that cubicle grind that has whittled away whoever he used to be twenty years ago. “My whole family, my colleagues, they’ll think I’m a joke.” He bangs the side of his fist against the unit, then winces and cradles his hand. “Look at me, dressed like this. I go to the police, and they’ll take photos. They’ll…they’ll put i-it in the papers. Everyone will see me as this idiot Cape.”
“Or,” I tell him, and again he looks at me with that gleam in his eye, this odd need that I had seen when I had cheered him on at the beginning of the fight, “you can actually start by doing some good around here. If you don’t go to the police, then you’re gonna have to work your ass off washing your hands clean. Do good deeds. Help kids tie their laces going to school. Grab a few cats stuck in trees. You can’t just keep feeling pity for yourself, dude. That just kinda saps all the fun out of wanting to be a superhero. Wear the costume and help people, goddammit.”
“Corny,” Phoebe mutters.
Would you just…Nevermind.
“Be a hero,” I say to him, “for your kids. I mean, that’s why you fight, right? To get money for them?”
He shakes his head. “I-I film it sometimes. So when I eventually win one day…I don’t know. My kids might think their old man isn’t just some workaholic who missed their entire lives,” His voice pans out as he stares at the ground, shaking his head slowly. “Maybe they’ll find me cool…I-it was stupid. I bought the costume and put it in my head that t-this was a good i-i-idea. It isn’t. It’s tiring, and I better get home soon before it gets too late.”
“So that’s it?” I ask him. “You’re gonna give up?”
“Not everyone wants to be a superhero,” Phoebe says. “Some people eventually grow up, Kace.”
I sigh through my nose and pack that bag of annoyance away. I look at Skipper, then pat his shoulder. “Well,” I say, “if it means anything, I came to all your fights, and you never stopped coming for them, no matter how many times you lost. Personally? I think that’s pretty cool. If you ever think you’re not, just know I bet on you every time.” With that, I turn to Phoebe and say, “Come on, let’s get going. Detention awaits the dastardly duo.”