Have you ever woken up feeling like you’ve been run over before? It almost tops the feeling of being thrown off a skyscraper and then run over. I’d like to make it seem a lot more normal for you; it was like those parties that people went to back in high school that I somehow wasn’t invited to (probably because I was too busy being a superhero, anyway), where everybody would come to school with raging headaches and terrible hangovers, But when your body feels this stiff, each of your joints cracking and squeaking and popping like you’re some old machine, it almost makes you stop and reconsider what exactly it is that you’re doing with all of your time and effort.
Then you turn on the news to hear about the good deeds you’ve done to make it worth it!
And then you find out they’re calling you lazy first thing in the morning.
“Last night’s attack near Patriot Boardwalk was a disgrace to not only Mayor Blackwood, or even our greater state of New Olympus, but to the entire country, no, the world as a whole!” Paul Macey said from the radio on my desk. I groaned into my pillow, hating that I had left it on a general frequency last night when I snuck in, hoping to hear that everything was deescalating in that part of the city. “We aren’t supposed to have attacks like that anymore, and where’s the Golden Girl when we needed her most? Nowhere, folks. She’s in the spotlight only when she looks good.”
“Yeah, well, how about you get punched through a train next time since it feels so good,” I muttered, my words muffled. The sun was on my back, the noise from just beyond my window slipping through the loose, flapping blinds. Bands of sunlight stretched across my room, touched the costume hanging in my open closet. I shut my eyes before I could stare at it for too long.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little too harsh, Paul?” Lucy said. “She saved dozens of lives yesterday, and knowing Olympia, she probably went straight to some other crime scene.”
“Listen, Lucy. All I’m saying is that Olympia needs to confront the public on her actions and keep us in the loop. She kills several thugs right in front of our eyes, then flies off, job done, without taking any kind of accountability for her actions? Where’s all the gold? The stolen truck? Who exactly is going to own up to the bodies she left for dead on the street for everyone to see?”
“They were criminals, Paul. What chance did she have to deal with them properly? Would you rather she let them keep shooting at storefronts and pedestrians as she tried saving civilians? It’s brutal, yes, and some aren’t going to agree, but maybe that’s the kind of force we need now.”
“What kind of superhuman kills people? I’ll tell you what kind: the villain kind.”
Lucy sighed. “Oh, please, don’t start with that, Paul. It’s too early.”
“No, no, this has to be asked: why can Olympia just do what she wants all the time?”
“Then you shouldn’t be directing these questions at Olympia, but at the Olympiad.”
Paul guffawed. “And why exactly should we do that?”
“Because they’re the ones who pick and choose what battles they want to fight, and the last time I checked, their roster recently just crossed over roughly one-hundred and thirty five thousand members worldwide,” she said, making me smile just a little. “Olympia’s just one girl, frankly.”
“And that doesn’t stop me from asking why she thinks breaking international law is justified in her eyes!” he argued. “She’s a walking crime scene! She’s killed in front of our eyes! And what gives her the right to brush off every one of our laws? Is it because the government is afraid of her? Are they really bending the knee to a girl who probably isn’t even out of highschool yet?”
“Then let me ask you this, Macey: why wasn’t Zeus arrested for forcefully de-escalating conflicts in Eastern Asia without international permission from neither the United Nations nor the DPIA? And why wasn’t Cleopatra found guilty for killing Samson after he took over large swathes of the Middle East in hopes of bringing peace to it which, in fact, he did before she arrived?”
She let the question hang for a second, then she said, “Because sometimes you just have to allow the superhumans to make the decisions for us, and pray that it’s the right one, Paul. Without Zues doing what he did, who knows how many people would have starved to death during that war whilst the UN sat around bickering amongst themselves. Cleopatra stopped Samson from putting up an iron curtain around Saudi Arabia, meaning we wouldn’t have known what he was doing behind the praised peace we later found out was all kinds of heavy-handed propaganda.”
“And I would trust her, Lucy, if Olympia was anywhere near the hero her father was.”
I clamped my jaw shut and pressed my face into the ratty pillow. It was just one thing after another with this freaking guy everyday. I was pretty sure I could save him from a burning building and he’d still question why I didn’t turn off the running faucet in his bathroom on my way out.
Being talked about on the news used to get a buzz going, feeding this thing inside of me that I never knew existed. Then the humans started nitpicking everything I did. Analyzing pictures of me and breaking down each possible new scar and rip and tear either on me or my gear. She’s supposed to be a symbol, but she’s walking around with a uniform that filthy? That was the start, the small things that got to me during lunch breaks in the school cafeteria, making me brush my hair before I went out as Olympia, clean my nails and put on cherry red lipstick. Then came the hour long news segments breaking down how I fought against a certain supervillain, or how I stopped a lowly C Grade kaiju from ripping up a grocery store. They always found something to criticize, something that made my job a lot harder because, truth be told, I let them get in my head.
And even now, listening to them argue, I could feel my pulse quickening rapidly.
I tried asking Lucas what I should do, how I should take it whenever some post-graduate news reporter trying to get their big break caught me off guard with a question that would land me in hot water on social media, but Shrike had been little more than a urban legend than a superhero that people believed actually existed. So long story short, he gave me a shrug and one sentence.
“You fly, don’t you?” And when I stared at him, not particularly in the mood to play along, he added, “The only people you have to answer to are yourself and every single person you save. You can fly, and they can’t. You lift thousands of tons, they can’t. Don’t let them judge you, but when they do, and they will, all you can really do is try a little harder to make them keep quiet.”
Right, because all it’s ever been is just a little more, Rylee. Just a little bit more.
But that was easy for him to say, because he had a PR department in the SDU telling him what to say and how to say it. The report they came up with stated that I had acted out of duty to the people of New Olympus, dealing with the immediate threat presented, which was true. And I agreed with Lucy, because the Olympiad watched it happen from their reinforced windows, high up in their black skyscraper and sprawling complex. Just another group of lesser villains stealing some gold and making a break for it, but what else was on, because we’ve all seen that already.
Maybe everything’s the problem, I thought. Maybe everyone’s a little too used to it all.
Maybe we were all pretending that our city wasn’t falling apart around us, and if we just kept arguing louder and louder with each other, we might not hear the sound of crumbling pillars.
I slowly sat upright, feeling every fiber in my body cry out in retaliation. I needed to rest, let my body naturally heal itself before I pushed it more than I should. But I was out of my Tempest gear, the black dye washed from my hair. Rylee was in the driver’s seat now, and both of my alter egos were going to have to wait until after I had breakfast. My stomach turned. My mouth felt dry, bitter, and tasted heavily of concrete powder. I must’ve only slept for about an hour or two, but the clock was ticking, and my cracked phone screen told me I didn’t have any time to waste.
And I have about a dozen leads to follow today, I thought, massaging my eyes. I’d have to stop by Lucas’ house, search for Juliana Cortez or whatever her name was, see what she knew, who she was, then maybe scour Lower Olympus for all that property damage I caused yesterday. Going as Olympia crossed my mind. Get myself out there, get a few good PR shots as I helped clear up the rubble I’d sprinkled across half the city, but… that didn’t sit right with me. I groaned, muttered a slew of swear words, and swung my legs off the side of my bed. I’d do it as Rylee, some girl who has super strength and a lucky pair of ears that can hear anyone calling for help.
Just some kid passing by who just so happened to help clear the rubble she poured over Lower Olympus. She’s a great kid, I bet they’d say, but I didn’t really feel anything except guilt.
But it was the least I could do after I destroyed several people’s lives last night. If I didn’t, then Emelia would be on my ass about not helping the humans with their problems or whatever.
Gods, that reminded me, I needed to ask her to send me my rent for the month.
And also find out who Ceaser was, the thought hitting me like a gust of icy wind. Finally, someone who would put me on the world stage. Someone I could test myself against properly.
But that would have to wait, because wasn’t there something else I was supposed to do?
I swore. Right, I had to go talk to Ava about everything that happened last night. About the monumental screw up that left more than enough chaos right on my doorstep for me to deal with as she twirled her mustache and played supervillain until Lucifer decided to return. Then I had to talk to Witchling and figure out why she knew about some kind of group—dare I say a freaking cult, but I was never the biggest fan of horror; you couldn’t blame me for being afraid of something I couldn’t floor with a good punch to the skull—that dealt with reanimating dead people.
I also had to ask her about where Dominion took me a few hours ago. How she broke it—shattered it—with just a single word. I’d never heard of any superhuman being able to do that, either from Witchling or Dominion. I hated psychics, anyway. They were a dime a dozen, but each one a little different, with a little more knowledge on how the world worked than I ever would.
Was it a real dungeon? Some vast, empty space he somehow found with his powers?
Did Dominion create it? And what the fuck was that giant thing lurking in the dark?
I leaned forward, elbows on knees, face in my palms. My hair fell around me, a brief, slightly wet shield to the light streaming into my room. So much to do. So much to deal with. But it was okay, because I chose this for myself, and nobody else was going to handle it for me, anyway.
A part of me would kill to go back to fighting a weekly idiot who thought taking over a small midwestern town was a good idea, then go back to school to get my butt kicked by calculus.
But things don’t stay simple around here, and I would just have to get used to it.
Besides, nothing had been simple since the day I picked up Lucas’ call instead of ignoring my phone and graduating high school like a normal teenager should have a few weeks ago.
A knock on my door, two solid taps. Shit. I must be late for my shift this morning.
“Hey, Buck,” Dennie said from the other side of the door. “Can I…?”
“Sure,” I called, hovering to the radio and turning it down. “Door’s always open.”
Dennie shuffled in, and my nose nearly snapped my neck when it latched onto the smell of buttered toast and eggs on a plate. He set it down on my bedside table, then said, “Don’t bother yourself coming in to work today. It’s a Saturday, and you’re a teenager on spring break. Go outside, take a walk to the park. Don’t worry, I ain’t firing you, just giving you a few days off.”
I sighed, leaning against the wall as I felt a part of me loosen up. “Gods above, D. You don’t know how much I needed to hear that. I must’ve cleaned the shop up pretty good, huh?”
He shrugged, scanning my posters and the stack of comics on the floor beside my bed. He stepped over a pile of soggy clothes, and a towel I’d left in a ball in the corner of my room several days ago. It still had some kind of slime stuck to it from a villain I’d rather not remember fighting. “Yeah, you ain’t too bad at cleaning up after yourself. After all, this place is exactly like Eden.”
“I’m also just a teenager on spring break. Gotta act the part out in full, you know.”
He smiled, laughing a little. “And any plans for what comes after spring break?”
A shrug. “Winter break, I guess. Then New Year's break and Christmas, too.”
“I’m talking about college, Ry.”
Ah, so that’s why he came in with breakfast and a day off—a peace offering.
I picked at the scabs on my arms, then walked over to the windows to push aside the blinds. With my back to him, I said, “You never went to college, and you turned out just fine.”
He chuckled. “Right, ‘cause you want to end up like me, some lonely old man.”
“A lonely old man with a bunch of comics to read all day every day,” I said, shrugging. “What’s better than that? ‘Cause I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing all year round.”
Dennie sighed as he sat on the edge of my bed. His suspenders were tight, his shirt buttoned right to the neck, as if he was expecting to go and interview some Cape any minute now. “Rylee, when you came knocking on my door at two in the morning a few weeks ago, I agreed to help you out because it’s the least I could do for you. But this place…” He trailed off , then looked up at me, meeting my eyes with his distant gaze. “It’s not a place someone like you should be in.”
I pulled the seat at my desk and sat, facing him. “Why not?” I said. “I like it here.”
“This isn’t the room of someone who likes staying here,” he said, gesturing to the mess of clothes and books and the short stack of pizza boxes underneath my trash can. “You’re always in and out, sneaking off late at night. Your head’s telling ya that you want to be here because there’s a bed waiting every night, but your heart keeps dragging you out of it to who knows where, Ry.”
A lump of ice filled my gut and crawled up my throat. I’d had a conversation like this before, except it had been a lot more explosive, back-and-forth, rapid like gunfire. I cleared my throat and leaned on the desk, then waved my hand, playing it off. “I’m just busy, D. Plus I hate having to go through the shop if I want to leave because I know how hard it is for you to go to sleep, then you have me jingling the bell above the door at four in the morning, maybe dru—”
Dennie raised his hand and shook his head. “Don’t lie to me, kid. Drinking at your age happens with friends, and I know you can probably count those on an amputee’s hand.”
“Gee, thanks, Dennie. Maybe I like getting drunk on my own.”
That wasn’t true, because it took a hell of a lot of alcohol to get me drunk, way too much for my weekly wage. And besides, it was easier telling people I sold drugs or went partying every night rather than telling them who I was, simply because they either thought I was being sarcastic, or explaining to them how important it is keeping my secret was to their safety was sometimes a topic a little too heavy for them to grasp. That was something nobody ever talked about in the comics I read, at least the ones I knew about: if someone else knows that secret, that silent truth, then they’re carrying that weight right along with you, which wasn’t fair, because you’re the superhuman here, and they’re just the Normal you put in danger because you slipped up once.
Being the local bad influence meant they didn’t keep an eye on me at one point. People were just a little wary of me and what I got up to. They often clutched their purses a little tighter because I had bags underneath my eyes and reeked of cold sweat. I blended in with people my age in this part of the city, even though it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. It was just easier this way.
As for lying to the people I cared about… Well, I’d done that my entire life. There used to be weight to it, this pressure of keeping the secret that Zeus was my dad, but that vanished this year when Veronica looked me in the eyes and told me to leave the only home I had ever really known.
People used to ask who my dad was, where he was, what he did for a living.
Then you grew up a little more and moved out, and nobody really cares.
“I don’t mean it like that, Buck,” he said. “Hell, crack a cold one with me some time. But I just want you to know that sure, this place is always gonna be here for you, that’ll never change.”
I leaned forward, looked away and muttered, “You’re starting to sound like Veronica.”
Dennie’s eyes creased as the corners of his mouth tugged down. “I’m not kicking you out, because that’s not for me to decide. All I’ve got is coffee, kiddo, and old, rotting comic books. I can’t teach you much because you’re not the same kid who used to work night shifts over here. I just don’t want you to…” He sighed, rubbing his bad knee for several moments, then said, “Before you came looking for a place to stay, I was thinkin’ of selling this old place for a long time.”
My brows furrowed. “But… you can’t. This store is, like, my entire freaking childhood. Hell, mom used to bring me here after school, remember that? You promised I would run it—”
“I never really understood having a sidekick,” he said quietly, looking at a comic spread out on my desk. Shrike: Issue #158—The Boy Hero. It was the first time the world got to see Shrike have someone constantly by his side, someone who never left until the very end. “Too much work keeping someone inexperienced alive, I figured. Not worth the pain or effort. And not one of the Olympians had one, ‘cept Shrike, of course, and I remember asking him why bother with one, and he looked me in the eyes and said: because I’m not gonna be here forever, but Shrike will be.”
Dennie looked at me, his face papery, thin, that bit more paler. “Then the kid died, and Shrike was right there by his side when it happened, and a part of me wondered… why?”
“Why what?” I whispered.
“Why did that kid deserve to have that kind of weight on his shoulders?” he said, turning away, now looking at my barely finished comic. “Weight that’s older than him, bigger than him, that comes with feuds and pain that belongs to someone else he never really got to understand.”
“Where’s this going, Dennie?” I asked, feeling slightly cold, not really able to stand up and walk off like I usually would have once he started getting close to home. “I’ve got things to do.”
He remained silent, distant, staring at a grinning Olympia, before he shook his head and stopped rubbing his knee. “Create something that you want to create, not because someone else came along and did it before you. That ain’t your responsibility. Build your own house, live in it, and make sure whoever comes next after you knows how to build one on their own, too, alright?”
I knew what he was saying, knew exactly where the words were coming from, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on any of that right now. Maybe some other time when I couldn’t hear the distant bark of gunfire ring through Lower Olympus, or smell tire smoke and taste the burnt remains of someone’s car probably being lit up by a White Cape not too happy about them living so close to their area. Dad was the blueprint, and I was going to do it his way, even if it was going to take some time. Doing it on my own was hard enough, but also mapping it out for everyone else who wanted to tag along for the ride was impossible. I never wanted a sidekick, anyway.
I wasn’t sure that I was the right person to work alongside another Super. Been there, done that, and I didn’t have it in me to see what happened to whatever was left of them minutes later. There was a reason Olympia was a solo act, why Lucas had me on speed dial and I did what he said; not because it was the mature, intelligent thing to do, but because I owed that to him at least.
Olympia was the one they were after, anyway, not me, and she already had enough on her plate now. But a part of me figured that having someone always there to criticize me wouldn’t be fun for either of us. Emelia said I was a symbol, but I hadn’t been particularly feeling like one.
And disappointing people was just about the one thing I was getting pretty good at. I should have called Bianca after graduation, or Veronica, or Emelia and Grant and Michael, too.
But going cold turkey is a lot easier than facing the music.
Stolen story; please report.
“And what if I want to stay there?” I asked, my voice quiet. “What if I want to stay somewhere I know instead of leaving it behind on some whim? What if it’s all I’ve got, Dennie?”
He tilted his head, smiled. “You’ve always got more than you think, kiddo. Always.”
I nudged a cardboard box with my foot. “I came with my whole life in a box just like this, Dennie. All eighteen years, and it fits inside a box, so I’m not so sure how much I really have.”
“You came with what you needed, Rylee, what was important, and you haven’t even finished removing everything inside of it yet,” Dennie said, jerking his thumb at my closet.
Because maybe staying here wasn’t meant to be permanent, I thought, but I didn’t know how true that was either. Maybe some part of me was still holding out, still wanted to leave.
But I shook my head and shrugged slowly, tiredly. “No place for picture frames here, D.”
“Tell ya what, I’ve got a hammer and a nail, and we’ll put them up beside all these posters.” He nodded, pointing at a spread of the Olympians. “Right alongside that bunch, alright?”
I laughed a little, running a hand through my hair. “Not my style, Dennie. Kinda lame.”
“You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Shrike told me that a couple of days after the funeral, and I figured you should hear it as well, Buck. You might’ve removed all your clothes and your shoes and all these damned comics, but the pictures in that box are important. Heck, they snuck into that box without you knowing, apparently! So call your mom, too, and take a day off to maybe go grab coffee with her. It beats listening to those two mugs on the news, tell you what.”
Go and talk to Veronica, I thought, rubbing my hands, my knuckles, and feeling the roughness of my skin. That wasn’t on my bingo card for things I had to do this morning.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I said to him. “There’s just… more important things to do.”
Dennie’s eyes creased, the crows feet either side of them deepening as he stood. He smiled at me when he reached my door and said, “Don’t let your food get cold, Ry. Ronnie always makes sure that I warm your food three times longer than I do mine ‘cause she knows how you like it.”
He left me sitting at my desk, closing the door gently behind him. The food sat steaming hot, the eggs still sizzling silently in my ears. I didn’t really know what to say or what to do. I felt odd inside, like my stomach wasn’t settling down for whatever reason. No, I wasn’t going to believe that Dennie was talking to Veronica that often, because he had to be lying. She was always at work, too busy, on her phone checking emails or always a little too occupied. I snorted, picking up the plate, only to get it out of the sun, because the only reason my food was always so hot at home was because she would get caught up doing something else after she left it in the microwave.
It didn’t mean the eggs on toast didn’t taste good though, but that didn’t matter right now.
I wiped the crumbs off my fingers and walked toward my closet, pulling out my limp and slightly damp costume. I had tried washing it for about ten minutes when I got back this morning, tried to get the stains and the smells out of the spandex and the protective cotton knitted into it underneath. No game. The suit was a little cleaner, but it was getting old, a little more faded—the red wasn’t as sharp, and the blue was looking tired and weak in the early morning light. The only thing that still stood out was the lightning bolt, so I guess it wasn’t all a giant loss so far.
A part of me had the urge to go out there and be Olympia for at least a few minutes, an hour at most, just so I could get the weird supervilla funk off my skin. But I also had responsibilities, you know, like telling Lucas about everything I saw, and also figuring out where those special grade assault rifles we weren’t able to get our hands on disappeared off to. The drugs, too, and all those new supervillains like Frankie and Wraith and their not so little monster pet.
And Caesar, I thought, sitting on my bed. I searched for a thread and needle in my backpack, and finally found one so I could start piecing together the rips and shreds. Caesar, Caesar, it doesn’t ring any kind of bells. He must be new, maybe someone from outside the city.
But someone seemingly big enough, important enough, to have an operation as large as the force I had fought against last night. He was a threat to Ava’s group, and more importantly to me.
I had to admit, I was just a little bit excited as I sewed my gear together. I had cut my teeth on countless burglars and purse snatchers when my powers kicked in, not getting much further than just around the block from home, then I graduated to murderers and war criminals, but now I needed someone to test my metal against, someone that dad would have approved of, because superheroes didn’t get statues in the bay by catching some homeless guy stealing buns from a bakery; they got emblazoned in gold in their home city by defending it from threats so great that only a certain brand of superhero could defeat it. I didn’t know if I was that crop yet, on that level.
But I didn’t have anybody else to test myself against than Caesar. I didn’t know what he was planning, or if he was the reason I hadn’t been able to sleep at night for the past month.
All I knew was that he needed to be dealt with, and spectacularly. I was all about statements, it had pretty much been my tagline ever since I came onto the scene, but letting the world’s worst know that the daughter of Zeus meant business would be a great starting point.
For now, though, I had to wallow in Lower Olympus’ filthy underbelly to find him.
My phone rattled on my desk, its tiny speaker screeching to life. I glanced at the name flashing across the screen, then sucked air through my teeth. “Hey, Em. How’s my fave superh—”
“Probably not as good as you are this morning,” Emelia said. “Vacation last night?”
I sighed quietly. “I was actually busy all night. Haven’t slept a wink in like two days.”
“So I guess this means that you’ve been kicking ass as Rylee, the comic book writer, too?”
It dawned on me that very second that I had a meeting in about…
Right now. I had a meeting with her agent right freaking now.
I stood suddenly, and the gust of wind threw papers off my desk. “Yeah, of course I’ve been kicking all kinds of ass with the comic I totally finished last night. In fact, it’s so good that I might need a little bit more time to make it less awesome. In case he thinks I stole it, y’know.”
I smelt the sickly stench of ozone blowing into my room the next second, and I shut my eyes, slid the phone off my ear, and sighed a lot louder when Emelia rasped her knuckles against my window. Here’s some fun advice for you: if you're going to make friends in middle school through to high school, make sure it’s not with anyone who can run faster than the speed of sound. On the other hand, Emelia had been stopping by a lot more recently, right in the middle of shooting whatever teen series she was starring in this year. I guess this made me really special in her books.
That, or both of us just didn’t have that many other friends to argue with every other day.
I pushed open my window, letting in the full might of Lower Olympus’ smoke-tinged air to infiltrate my room. Emelia leaned against the fire escape railing, hair in a ponytail, and this time in jeans and a baggy white t-shirt rather than her usual running gear. As always she looked like a million bucks compared to the two cents and an I Owe You that was me in my Olympian pajama bottoms and thrift store t-shirt. She didn’t always dress like this, especially not back in high school, but money polishes, and it seemingly used all of its spit and elbow grease on her this morning.
She popped up her sunglasses and said, “You look like you need a spring break, Ry.”
“How can I when I’ve got friends like you who remind me of the joys of daily labor?” I said, waving her in. She ducked under the window, stepping over piles of clothes and comics.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” she said, perching herself on my bed. “You know, back home, my mom used to make my brothers and I take everything out of the rooms, out of the house, and then start cleaning. Then we’d put everything back inside of it after we finished.”
“Yeah, well, Ronnie would just throw a fit about it then go to the lab for a few hours.”
Emelia looked me over, her brows creasing. “I’m guessing you didn’t finish it.”
I scratched the back of my head and turned toward my desk. “I’ve just been busy, Em. Really, really busy, and I know I was meant to finish it a while back, but things over here—”
“I’m not here to sound off on you, Blondie,” she said softly. “I came here just to check whether you’re alright. I didn’t catch you on the news last night, and I tried to call, but you didn’t answer. I’ll admit, I was kinda pissed off at first, but then I started getting all worried about you.”
“Oh my Gods,” I said, looking at her. “Are you getting all mushy on me, superhero?”
“It’s called being worried about your friends, or whatever it is me and you are.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Geez, at least wait for my food to digest first.”
She laughed dryly, then muttered something in Spanish. “I don’t really know how Brett is gonna take the news, but I’ll take your side, because I’m also partly to blame for this mess.”
I shook my head, sitting down beside her. “If you think this is a mess, wait till you see everything that’s happening in Lower Olympus, Em. Like actual Lower Olympus. Last night”—I dropped my voice to a whisper—“I fought some guy who could literally come back to life. Then this other creep who could use the shadows to, like, suck the life out of people, like he was some kind of vampire. Oh, and there was also this one chick, really annoying—she was immortal, I guess, and trust me, I tried getting rid of her, but she just pulled herself back together right after!”
Emelia nodded, hazel eyes searching mine. She remained silent for several seconds, her fingers tapping against her sunglasses; a bi-product of her powers. “Holy shit you’re not joking.”
“I wish I was,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes. “The comic just feels so small now.”
She leaned forward, too, elbows on knees. “Growing up here made everything feel small. School, my grades, making friends like you and Grant and Michael. But other things still matter outside of this place, you know. It can get too much too quickly, and you need something else to focus on eventually.” She bumped my arm, smiling. “Superheroes are all me ‘n’ you have, Ry.”
I laughed a little. “Except you get paid to get punched.”
“And I also get my own assistant, too.”
I snorted. “So what’s the game plan? I could always distract him with, well, Olympia.”
She shook her head and pulled out her phone. “We’ll just talk to him. There’s no point in the theatrics, because if you did try that, then he’d be on my ass about getting you a contract.”
“And I’d shake his hand if I got my very own assistant, too,” I said.
Emelia rolled her eyes and took a picture of the fire escape outside. Before I could ask what she was doing, I heard a soft, hollow pop, then smelt cheap cologne in the air. A man with a shock of pale blonde hair stumbled against the fire escape, put a hand to his mouth, then swallowed the vomit I could smell that he forced down his throat. After he popped a piece of mint gum, he threw on the kind of smile that would land him on a magazine cover, but the kind you would usually find in dollar store gas stations in the ass end of nowhere. He let himself into my room, and readjusted his black blazer as he looked around, still with that smile. I stood up, feeling like a mess.
And very underprepared. I always pictured an office, maybe some sparkling water and a receptionist in a pencil skirt that would look me up and down from just past a very sharp nose.
But no, my first ever meeting was happening in my pajamas, in my shed of a room, and…
Fuck. My costume lay splayed on my bed, and Brett glanced at it before he looked at me, his green eyes pale but somehow still bright enough to be enticing, like some kind of viper.
He stuck out his hand, the one with the large gold ring on his index finger. “Brett Gordon, super agent, superhuman, and you must be the fabled little lady that Emelia and Grant have been really, really forcing onto me.” Still smiling, hand still out. I shook it, not really knowing if he was complimenting me or not. I glanced at Emelia as she shrugged. “Well, where’s the comic, huh?”
“Well, funny story—”
“Oh, great! I love a good story,” he said, but his voice was enthusiastic, and I couldn’t really tell if he was being sarcastic, too. Gods, it was like playing a game. “Enlighten me, then show me the comic, because I just love New Olympus to bits—who doesn’t?—but I’ve got a meeting in about ten minutes that I need to get to or else she’s going to be out of the business.”
“We’ll talk about that later, Brett,” Emelia said. “You know, like we promised.”
He looked at me, dropping his voice a little. “And I don’t break promises, especially with the people who keep the lights on in my house!” He laughed, dry and short, then waited silently.
My tongue remained flat, stuck to the roof of my mouth. I pitched the comic back in high school to Emelia and Grant, because I knew getting into the Olympiad would be a pain, but I knew I could do it on my own somehow. Veronica wasn’t going to lend me a single second of the day to explain why she should shell out that kind of money for a dream she hadn’t believed in for longer than I’d been alive, and most of the rich superhuman kids around the city just bought their way into the Olympiad training program, anyway. Hell, even Velocity’s entire family had all been in the Olympiad. They were heritage, legacy, and I had that too, but I couldn’t exactly knock on the front door and tell them that hey, the guy you built that statue of? Yeah, he’s my dad, and I’m Olympia.
I would be fine doing that if it wasn’t only myself in the picture, but dragging my friends and, even though I didn’t like admitting it, my only blood related family left into this part of my life wasn’t what I was planning on doing. I needed to get the money first, then I’d talk to them about it, fill them in on everything, but after last night, joining the Olympiad felt a little strange. Weird.
Because I didn’t really know what kind of people were saving the world right now.
I cleared my throat, wrung my hands, and said, “I’ve got nothing.”
Brett stood motionless. “I’m waiting for the punchline but it feels like the joke is over.”
I gestured toward the papers on my desk and the few on the floor. “All I’ve got is a couple of stencils, storyboards, and that’s about it.” I sighed, feeling a pit open in my stomach, because blowing this chance meant undoubtedly relying on Ava. “The comic isn’t even close to finished.”
Silence followed, and his smile became a thin line of faintly glossy lips.
“But,” I started, as Brett sighed, “if you just gave me about two… no, one week, then—”
“Listen, Rebecca,” he said.
“Rylee,” Emelia said. “She’s called Rylee, remember?”
“Whatever your name is,” he said, picking up a piece of paper with a faint sketch on it. “I’m not a talent scout, alright? And if I was, I’d probably have signed you onto some temp contract, but that doesn’t work in the comic book industry, nor does it work for authors, so I don’t really see how I can help you here. I was promised a finished product and this… Well, it just isn’t.”
“But it can be if you just give me a few more days.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What, you can draw an entire comic, start to finish, in just a few days? Right, and you can dress me in red and gold and call me Zeus, because that’s nonsense.”
“But what isn’t nonsense is that she’s also just one person,” Em said. “Remember the first time you ever called Grant, and you asked to be our manager and agent? You were working out of some trailer park in God knows where, Mr. Cufflinks. You’ve just got to give her a shot, too.”
Brett looked at her, then at me, then finally nodded. “Ah, I get it. The old team-up-on-Brett thing. Make me feel guilty for not picking up some teenager from the skids in Lower Olympus.”
“Is it working?” I asked. “Because we’ve been practicing all night long.”
He sighed, rubbing his forehead with his thumbs. “Sure, whatever, but mostly because this comic could be… something, I guess, and pair it with a sad sap story of a disenfranchised girl from boot-lick county Olympus making it big in a world that wasn’t going to accept her otherwise is always going to sell a few more copies. Sympathy points and all the rest of it.” Brett looked me over again, biting his thumbnail. “Emelia says that nobody else can write this comic better than you, and I don’t exactly know how much of that is true, so I’ll ask you, Rebecca, why it is.”
I picked up my costume and said, “‘Cause I’m Olympia, and I know who I am.”
Brett rolled his eyes. “Lace me up in some thigh-high boots and call me Cleopatra, and maybe nobody’s gonna tell the difference between us and the Olympians. But you know what?”
I could see Emelia shaking her head behind him, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Brett patted my shoulder and said, “You’re a mess. A grand mess. It’s so spectacular and so layered that I can almost see myself in you, and that makes me viciously uncomfortable. But it works, because, I mean, look at this place, at these posters and these comics, all this art and this lingering smell of sweat and… rust, I guess, that comes together to create this hurricane of delusion. And it’s just so sad!” He grabbed me by the shoulders, and I recoiled, but didn’t pull away—he was so insistent, his eyes burning with some fire he’d lit in himself, that I just couldn’t find it in myself to break apart his flow. “You can be the face of hope, you know that, kid?”
“And here he goes,” Emelia muttered.
“What do you mean the face of hope?” I asked quietly, because, hell, a part of me was buying into this little speech. Everyone always had something to say about Olympia, but not me.
I know it sounded selfish, but it felt kinda good being actually seen for once, even if I was being called a slob by some guy who probably has someone wax his entire body every other day.
“Kids in these parts don’t have anything going for them,” he said, then added, “No offense, Em, you were special, but a lot of ‘em aren’t. But if a girl like you, Rebecca, can make it into the limelight, purely from this delusion she’s got inside of her, from this need of wanting to be the superhero she looks up to—the very superhero she’s dedicated her entire life to creating a comic about, heck, even a replica, shitty costume—then what’s the limit for every other kid around here? Anyone can be a hero, you’ve just gotta… gotta…” He swore, then bit the corner of his mouth. “I just had it. Ah! Anyone can be a hero, but you’ve just got to be strong enough to trust the process.”
He breathed a little hard, and I could even see the pinprick red veins in his wide eyes. I swallowed saliva, slickening my throat. You’ve just got to trust the process. I liked that, loved it.
High school, especially my senior year, had been one of the hardest years of my life. But the Olympia part had been the easier part, the part I understood a lot more. People praised me—well, they praised her—and gossiped about her in the cafeteria, after class, in class, and some people wore unofficial merch (which I never saw a single dollar from). But it felt so surreal being this person that everybody loved and listened to and watched videos about. I was popular, and it sounds trite now after leaving high school, but it meant the world to the weird little blonde girl.
Because she wasn’t getting the attention, and nobody paid attention to her.
But my heart was beating faster now, pulsating against my chest. Blood sang in my ears, and heat bubbled in my gut. This was my chance, something that I could do for myself for once.
So I nodded slowly, once, then nodded again. “I think I kinda like hearing that.”
He grinned nice and wide. “And you will, but only if you get a draft on my desk soon.”
“I can do it by tomo—”
“She’ll get it to you by next week,” Emelia said. “Which means that she’ll give it to me to give it to you, Brett. Isn’t that right, Rylee, since you can’t just up and leave New Olympus?”
Right, right, I still have to put out about half a million fires in this city this summer.
“Oh, nonsense.” He waved his hand through the air, looking at me. “Have you ever wanted to see the palm trees down the sunset strip, Rebecca? Las Vegas has one hell of a killer superhuman night club scene, and I don’t know about you, but this summer feels special.”
Emelia looped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me away. “She’s sure.”
“I can speak and think for myself, you know,” I said. “Matter of fact, Las Vegas—”
“—is gonna have to wait until you finish all that important superhero comic work, right?” Emelia stared at me for several seconds, tilting her head toward the open window, and the distant rattle, crack and pop of gunfire, superhuman street fights, and who knew what else going on.
I groaned internally. “Yeah, whatever. I’ll get it on your desk in a couple of weeks.”
An alarm buzzed on Brett’s phone as he shook his head. “Real shame, but I’ll be waiting to get that comic. This could be your really, really big break. Once in a lifetime stuff.” He smiled and slapped my shoulder again. “I bet nothing this exciting has ever happened to you before, right?”
And with that, he disappeared with the same soft pop, leaving behind a faint scent of aftershave, cologne, and fruit punch. I sat down on my bed, bouncing a little. I looked up at Emelia, and found that she was staring hard at me, almost judging, as if I’d done something wrong.
“I think that went great,” I said, lying down and putting my hands behind my head. “Look at me, Em, I’m a natural. I should be doing this instead of putting on this old thing every night.”
“He figured you out in a minute and played you like a flute, Ry. That’s what happened.”
I shrugged. “Then he’s a pretty good musician, ‘cause I’m sold. Plus… I don’t know, Em, I did kind of like what I was hearing, even though he didn’t really mean it. I don’t have much for myself, you know, and making something for myself is at least a little better than just being—”
“A superhero who everyone relies on?” she asked. “Which might be a little more important than some struggling, tortured artist living in the attic of yet another old and tortured artist.”
I blew air through my nose. “You just love sapping the fun out of everything.”
She gently kicked my foot. “You know what you need? Some time off.”
I shut my eyes and asked, “Aren’t you the same person who pissed all over my parade last night because I wasn’t working hard enough? Now you want me to work less? Pick a struggle.”
“I meant you need some time off of being yourself,” she said gently. “This new you that’s always stressed out about what’s coming next needs to take a backseat for a moment and let the Rylee I used to know have a little bit of fun. The old you would probably be somewhere above the Atlantic right now, flying at mach two just to feel a little loose. Now you’re old and grouchy.”
“I guess that’s what happens when I learnt that taxes are a thing people actually pay.”
Emelia tossed my Olympia gear onto my face. “Put it on, and let’s go. The city isn’t going anywhere, and if you’re going to see Lucas, my guess is that he’s probably busy dealing with last night’s mess, which means that you have at least a few hours to just be a teenager who can fly.”
I opened a single eye, looked her up and down. “What’re you playing at, Light Bulb?”
“I’m just making sure you feel a lot more like Rylee than you do Olympia, because somewhere along the line you separated the two when you shouldn’t have in the first place.”
“You know that it's easier like that, anyway,” I muttered. “I’ve got a dozen leads—”
“That’ll just have to give you an hour,” she said, stepping toward the window. “Nothing more, nothing less. Then I’ll go back on set before Grant blows a fuse. What do you say?”
I sighed, rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. “How fast do you run?”
“Faster than you can blink, probably. I beat you the last time we raced, remember?”
But I was already out the window by the time she finished her sentence.