By the time I made my way back to 12th Avenue (as Rylee, now, despite the crippling taxi prices), most of the crowd had dispersed and gone back to the little restaurants scattered around the fountain. Bloggers were talking into their phones, excitedly explaining what just happened to their legions of imaginary audiences. I walked past them, hands in my pockets, trying to stay clear of the weirdos asking people questions about what would happen to Olympia and what they thought about her. Inevitably, arguments broke out between people who seemingly had enough time in their day to drop everything and fight with strangers. The avenue had been buzzing before I arrived. It was bubbling now. More people. More cameras. More superhuman chatter in the air.
A few tourists were shielding their eyes from the sun as they searched the bright blue sky above us. A young couple even asked me if I could take a picture of them pointing upward, grinning as they did. I didn’t mind, because at least I wasn’t getting insulted this time around.
It was always a little fun blending back in with the humans, because at the end of the day, I looked just like them. Just another blonde teenager out in a richer part of the city probably far away from home. I tried to clean up a little, even showered quickly before putting on a clean pair of jeans and sneakers and a varsity jacket I used to wear in high school. I even spotted the lady who threw her coffee at me, but she was surrounded by reporters, getting in her five minutes of fame, and way too busy to notice anyone that wasn’t either a reporter or an influencer with a phone in her face. She barely spared me a glance as she started stuttering over herself as she explained her brave exploits against Olympia herself. She had a smile on her face, wide and proud, almost arrogant.
Whatever, I didn’t really care. The news of me escaping from the police would get to her again, and then it would be back to the same old arguments about what the government should do to stop me. But judging from what I’d just learnt, I figured they wouldn’t do much to me at all.
But it was a reminder that I didn’t have time to waste being here. Ryan Kennedy—a new name to get a face pinned to. Lucas first, because I had to run him down what had happened last night. Juliana Cortez after that and figure out what she’s got to do with the Triumvirate. Gods, I thought, shaking my head. Relax, Ry. All that stuff comes after you sort your own life out first. At least, sort it out as much as I could. Superheroing was a lot simpler than being a normal person.
I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time here, anyway, but flaking on Emelia didn’t sit right with me, plus Bianca might still be around here somewhere, too. At best, I had twenty minutes left to be a normal kid for a while before everything got serious again. I could at least grab a few churros and make up some lie about where I had to go. Would I suck for hurting Bianca and leaving her with a lot more questions than answers? Probably. Was this the first time she’d seen me since before graduation? Maybe. But I could at least show her that I was still alive and kicking.
Before I disappear again and leave her wondering where I keep running off to, I thought. Yes, I was going to tell her one day, but only after supervillains stopped trying to kill me so often.
Because, if you hadn’t caught on yet, I’d already hurt her as Rylee, but doing it as Olympia would be crossing a personal line that I didn’t really know how to fix without finally snapping.
And sure, maybe it was impulsive coming to see her, maybe a little stupid and wrong and I could have done this in a lot of other ways, but if it wasn’t right now, then when would I?
Hell, for all I knew, she must have moved on from feeling hurt about leaving her hanging. She was meeting with some friends, is what she’d said. Good. Her summer was going well then.
I just hoped I could still fit somewhere on that roster. If not, then there wasn’t anybody else left to blame except for the idiot playing superhero. Maybe she won’t even stomach seeing me.
Like most of my decisions, I left it to my gut feeling, and kept going toward her.
It took several minutes of searching and asking around until I found Em again. She was closer to the mall near the end of the avenue now, hidden by a baseball hat she must’ve gotten from one of her fans. And it was just my luck that she was talking to Bianca, sitting around a small glass table beside some bushes obscuring the two slightly. The place they sat in front of was packed full of people trying to get expensive burgers, probably way too out of my budget for me to bother checking the prices as I got closer. I was nervous, I’ll admit. Seeing Bianca as Olympia was easier (though not by much), but seeing her as myself would be a lot harsher on the thing beating in me. Pretending I didn’t know how she felt made our friendship that little bit more complicated for me.
And maybe that was one of the reasons I hadn’t told her about who I really was, just because I didn’t know how she would take the news. Like Dennie said, I don’t have many friends.
Losing another because of my own screw ups wasn’t going to happen, not again.
A part of me wished that mom did a better job of explaining how human relationships worked. I wasn’t going to think about Ronnie right now, though. I didn’t have the mental space.
Shouldering my way through the seemingly thicker crowd, the smells of sweat and saliva and bodily odor assaulted my nose as I got closer. I got there, eventually, after some guy sweating enough to dampen his dress shirt shoved past me and quickly apologized. Were humans always this much of a mess? Smelling so strongly of perfume as if to mask their bodily smells? And what was with all that mint gum? I couldn’t really tell. My mind was far away from here, my body a little further. Bianca looked up, caught my eye before she started smiling at something Em said.
Then the smile fell away, faded to nothing, and the pit in my gut suddenly got a lot larger.
I had to force my feet to stay on the ground, because my gut told me to take off right that second and go somewhere else. I watched her slowly stand up, pushing her chair back. I got bumped into by several more people, each one of them sweaty, all of them heading the same direction: toward the shopping center. And before I knew it, she was practically in front of me, mouthing my name, and I could hear every letter of it coming out of her mouth. Sure, I was using my powers to focus on her, leaving everything around me to fade away into background noise.
But I guessed that would have happened with or without my powers.
“Where the fuck have you been for the past two months?” she asked, now in front of me. I didn’t know if that was the first question she’d asked me, but it was the first thing I heard from her.
It took me a little by surprise that she’d gotten here so quickly, or maybe I’d just been a little too zoned in on the scar on her lip and how it moved when she talked sometimes. She didn’t sound angry, but she did sound hurt, almost betrayed that I would show up today of all days.
I scratched the back of my head, not really knowing what to say. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Too busy to answer my calls? My texts?” She had been a lot more excited to talk to Olympia than she was me, but I figured I had to reap what I sowed. “Jesus, you look exhausted.”
“I’m fine. I promise, B,” I said. “Like I said, I’ve been really busy, but I’m here now, so I guess that’s proof that I’m doing just fine. And you look great. Good, I mean. Healthy. Strong.”
Bianca stared at me, and the longer that continued, the more my mouth dried. Was she taller now, standing in front of me? She moved to speak, say something, then she shut her eyes for a second and let her shoulders drop. She sighed through a gap between her lips, then looked at me again. “I went to your house a couple times. Your mom told me what happened between you two.”
I nearly choked on my own spit. “She told you what happened? Everything?”
She nodded. “Yeah, everything about you wanting to get out and live on your own. Something about finding yourself? I don’t know. I don’t really think about this stuff because it kinda hurts when your best friend just vanishes one day without even telling you where she’s going or for how long or why she’s not even picking up your calls anymore. But it’s cool. It’s whatever.” Bianca shrugged, nodded again, then looked me over. “You look fine, so… alright.” A pause as she stared at me, chewing her tongue inside her mouth as she often did when she was thinking. She finally sighed, then muttered, “I’m guessing you’re not staying for long, are you?”
I hated how easily all of that came out, and I hated that question even more. She’d asked me that so many times during high school, so many times I was over at her place, that the resignation in her voice wasn’t even there anymore. It was just defeat in her tone, cold and distant. My gut curdled with emotions, sick, sick emotions that made me want to puke, because this could have been a lot easier if I’d just explained who I was, or what I was doing. But distancing myself from people made doing what I had to do a lot easier. Heck, getting thrown through several trains, leaping in front of supervillains and getting punched through buildings by a blast of golden light to save them wouldn’t be things I’d do willingly if I was worried about people caring if I was alright or not. It wasn’t voluntary, but it just made it a hell of a lot easier getting up again and again.
And at the end of the day, it was just me that I was worrying about, not anyone else. If I died, then sure, that would fucking suck, especially if I checked out before I got my statue erected.
But if I constantly had someone waiting for me to come back every night, then I’d just be holding myself back. Bianca was always worried about each bump and scrape and scar I got. It was sweet at first, I’d admit, but then she started asking questions, started trying to dig, and I wasn’t planning on getting her hurt the way that supervillains loved doing to me. It wasn’t fair. Not to her, and it hadn’t been to Selina either. Sometimes the people you cared about got hurt in this line of work, and it was my job to make sure it didn’t happen, even if that meant sacrificing a relationship for their safety. I wished it was easier, but easy wasn’t something I usually did.
So, finally, all I had to say was: “Yeah. Em told me you were here, so I wanted to—”
“Save it,” she said quietly. Bianca pinched her nose, then sighed. “I’m trying to be really understanding, Ry. I am. But I just don’t get it. Did I do something wrong to push you away?”
I blinked. “Of course not. Why the hell would you think that?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because it feels like I’m talking to a stranger right now.”
“I’ve only been gone for two months!” I said. “I’ve been fine, alright? Just really—”
“Oh my God, I get it,” Bianca said. “You’ve just been so, so busy, Rylee. But busy doing what? For all I know you could be selling drugs! Or-Or doing something illegal, like”—she dropped her voice—“gang stuff. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just freaking out. But you look sick, and tired, and you’re looking at me like I’m some crazy person just because I’m worried about you.”
“I can take care of myself just fine,” I argued. A few people were looking at us, glancing over their shoulders. I tried to ignore the rivers of people rushing their way around us to the shopping center. If we were going to have this conversation, then we might as well have it right now before I had to leave again, which, yes, was a point that stung. “I just need some time to sort things out before I start hanging out with you again. Give me a few weeks. Two months tops.”
Bianca shook her head. “No way, you’re not running off again this time. At least tell me if I can help you out in some way. I’d feel shitty if you were hurting and I couldn’t help you out.”
Unless you’re a superhero, B, I doubt. “You’re just… You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
“Do you hear how that sounds, Ry? Trust you after all of this?”
I nodded, not meeting her eyes. “Yeah, I know how it sounds, but that’s all I’m asking.”
Bianca stepped a little closer, and her cinnamon scent immediately ran down my throat. She gently took my shoulder, looking me in the eyes, forcing me to look at her. “What’re you hiding?”
I smiled weakly. “If I told you, I doubt you’d believe me, so please, just trust me?”
She frowned a little. “How about we trade? One of your secrets for one of mine.”
“We’re not ten anymore, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, shrugging. “But it used to work then, so let's see if it still does.”
I couldn’t think of anything I didn’t already know about her. Unless something had happened over the past few months since I’d seen her. Maybe someone else was in the picture now. Or maybe she was going to tell me about what happened on prom night between her and Olympia. She never did tell me where she went. All she did was call later that night and ask if I got home safe after the supervillain attack. I had hoped she would tell me eventually, but she hadn’t yet, and I guess I didn’t really have the ground to point and judge her when I had been doing the same thing to her for years now. So that was a new possibility: she’d found someone else now.
And for whatever reason, my gut was sliding lower into my body. I didn’t know why, and I wasn’t about to question the human part of me and its stupid little emotions flooding through me.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“I mean, sure,” I said, only lying a little, bracing myself in the process. “Go first.”
She pursed her lips, then quietly said, “It’s about Ben.”
I stared at her, then at Emelia, who had been watching us not-so-secretly from just over the rim of her drink. She quickly looked away when we locked eyes, suddenly very interested in her strawberry smoothie. “Bianca,” I said slowly. “You promised that you”—I can’t say "gotten over,” because how can you get over burying your own freaking brother?—”had dealt with all of that.”
“I know, I know,” she said, voice shaky. “But this is something new. Different.”
I wasn’t sure where this was going, and I didn’t know if I should keep asking. Bianca was a lot better at handling her emotions than I was mine, so talking someone through grief wasn’t exactly a superpower of mine. But I could try, for her sake, and listen to what she had to say.
Before she could answer, a voice that shocked my system back to high school, and specifically my cafeteria table, called through the crowd for Bianca. Suddenly, the people around us were louder, smelt more, and were circling us as they tried getting past us. It was like snapping out of a trance and waking up when Bianca’s hand fell off my shoulder as she raised it to wave at two girls coming toward us. One was new to me, someone I’d never seen before. About as tall as Bianca, but with only that little bit more muscle on her frame. She had light brown skin and curly black hair that sat around her shoulders in a dark cloud. It looked damp, until I realized that she was one of the lucky ones with healthy hair. She wore jeans and sneakers, simple and effective, because her green eyes were striking, and the look in them was, too. Knuckles had that same look.
Almost defensive and wary, ready to react to anything surrounding her, but hers were soft enough to not look at everything and everyone with a sort of malicious venom behind each blink.
I couldn’t help but notice the slit in her brow from recent stitches, so fresh that, if I squinted, I was sure I could still see the fresh tissue. She must have been in a fight of some kind. A punch like that would have been going for the eye, but she didn’t have any bruising around it. Her hands were stuffed in her jacket pockets, so I couldn’t spot any bruises on her knuckles, either.
But the other girl next to her, the one waving back at Bianca, wasn’t new to me at all.
In fact, I hoped to high heaven when I missed my graduation that I’d never see her again.
But fate, that old bitch, seemingly worked a lot harder than the devil walking toward me.
“Bianca!” Harper Goldstein—yes, that Goldstein—said, almost chirping when she brushed past me like I wasn’t standing right there. She hugged Bianca, doing that rich person thing when they kissed both cheeks after she flipped up her large sunglasses. “Oh my goodness, I’m so happy I spotted you. There are way too many people here today. I swear, you’d think there was some kind of fiesta going on. That’s what the Mexicans call festivals, by the way. That’s so fun, right?”
Emelia tilted her head at Harper, choosing to finally stand up from the table and stand beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder before I could do something I probably wouldn’t regret doing to her. The girl was so invested in telling Bianca about everything she’d done on her super cool trip to Mexico last week that the three of us were left standing together watching them.
“‘Sup,” the brown-skinned girl said to us, not offering a hand. “Name’s Victoria.”
Emelia smiled at her, then elbowed me so I could stop staring and simmering at Harper. “I’m Emelia. Emelia Del Rosario. I used to go to school with Bianca. You’re new here?”
Victoria nodded. Her face hadn’t shifted from bored yet. “Just last week. You always hear so much about this place, but dude, it’s a lot louder and larger than the newspaper always says.”
Who still reads the newspaper? “I’m Rylee,” I said, because Em elbowed me again.
“—and then we went to the pool, and these really hot guys were checking me out,” Harper was saying. I was finding it hard staying still. It was even harder watching her steal Bianca. Her back was facing us, her thick black hair swaying as she shook her head. It was like we weren’t there, like she was doing this on purpose! No. I had to relax. If I started thinking about… Wait a minute, I thought. Since when did these two become friends? “So I ended up getting his number, and his friend’s, too, so if you ever need a little bit of a break, then you know where to find me.”
“That’s super, Harper, but,” Bianca said, taking her by the shoulders and slowly turning her around, “you also haven’t said hi to everyone else, like, you know, the way we agreed last night?”
“Oh,” she said. “I’ve already said hi to Vicky. She’s a sweetheart. Love her hair.”
Victoria didn’t correct her. Silent type. I liked her. She almost made me miss Knuckles.
But it also left Emelia and I staring at her. Em and I didn’t agree on many things, and we fought about almost everything, but if it was one thing that united us, it was Harper Goldie, like people used to call her behind her back. Was it wrong that I wanted her to commit a crime? Just so I had a reason to try out a new move I had been working on that involved the cold hard pavement.
“That’s Emelia,” Bianca said to her. “You know, the girl on your track team a while back?”
I didn’t know if she was acting or not, but her gray eyes soon glazed over, and her nose scrunched up just a little bit, too. “Oh, right. You. I’m surprised you’re even here in New Olympus. Aren’t you supposed to be in some producer or director’s office right now with the curtains shut?”
Emelia blinked, and I prayed to the heavens to make Harper at least jaywalk to give me a reason to shut her up. “I… I’m an actress because I was scouted. What the hell’s your problem?”
“Harper,” Bianca said sharply. “What did I say about insulting people?”
“God, It’s not my fault that her little tv show needed to hit a quota,” Harper muttered.
“Tv show?” Victoria asked, cocking her stitched eyebrow at Em. “You’re in the pictures?”
“You’re just as much of an asshole as you were back in high school,” I said.
And now she looked at me, eyes narrowing. “I’m sorry, are you here for something? If you want her autograph then ask her and leave, we’re trying to have a conversation here, okay?”
I hadn’t noticed that I was off the ground by a few millimeters. Em noticed, bumping me again. “I’m not some fucking fan, idiot,” I said, a little angrier. “You don’t even remember me?”
Harper hummed a little, looking me up and down. “Should I? Oh! A waitress.”
It took all my willpower not to grab her throat. “You used to pick on me.”
A beat of silence as she stared at me, then, “No, I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I almost laughed at the absurdity of hearing the girl who made coming to school every morning a living hell for the past few years of my life. Being a superhero was well and good most of the time, and being Zeus’ daughter made the deal sweeter other times, but when your greatest villain to date was a girl who technically hadn’t done anything wrong in legal terms except making you feel like shit for most of your teenage years, then it got a little difficult to suppress some of my urges. People didn’t usually talk to me this way, but that was Olympia I was talking about. Sure, they spat and threw food, but if I flew a little closer, balled my fists and stared them dead in the eyes, then they would learn to keep their mouths fucking shut.
But Rylee couldn’t do that, because doing that meant hurting someone technically innocent.
Even though she made eating in the bathroom part of my routine so I could escape having to listen to whatever rumor she had come up with that day. Or when she stuck gum in my hair totally by accident. And poured glitter on a sweater that my grandma made for me on Christmas. Tripped me in the hallway. Shoved me against the bathroom sinks, breaking them in the process. Stealing my homework. Hiding my running gear so I was late to track meets, making the entire team mad at me, and thus making Coach punish us with suicide runs rather than actual training.
Or the time she had the fucking nerve to tell the school that my dad cheated on my mom and ran off. That’s why he’s not around, you know, she’d said to her friends at lunch. He screwed some broad and her mom found out. Lucky that Zeus was busy dying so he could run off after.
It wasn’t the only thing she’d said about dad. There was a list of things so long I couldn’t even begin to name them individually, but that one stuck with me the most, because from then onward, most people from school either looked at me with this sad, sad look of pity in their eyes, or would snicker as I passed. Then she said I came from a sperm donor, or that I was acting out in school because I didn’t grow up with a dad. No wonder he left, was what she loved muttering if I screwed up. Or maybe that was just how I was remembering it, with emotions blurring and churning and stitching together broken memories. But picking on me was one thing. I stomached it. She did it because she was captain of the track team, and her dad was rich and her mom was a retired superhero back in the Golden Age, so she figured she could treat anyone like shit, but she chose me specifically because, well, she was the first person to think I looked a lot like Olympia.
And for a girl who was wearing a necklace with her own name on it, with a tiny bolt of golden lightning coming after it around her throat, then who was I to judge her? After all, I was also the girl who got her suspended, lowered her GPA, put her into detention several times, and her face into the same bathroom mirror a few minutes after she’d shoved me against the sinks. The hate was mutual between us, but she started it. How did it start? Well, I was being a superhero, and she hated entertaining the thought that I might actually be the person she had stickers of on her laptop.
At least, that was my way of trying to understand why she hated me so much. Losing both the Nationals and State championships rested on her shoulders, despite what she tried telling Coach. Suddenly, the Goldstein family had a child that wasn’t quite so perfect because of me. Bad exam results. Missing tests because she chose to fight with me instead. Missing track meets only cemented the idea in her head that I might just be Olympia, so she made sure that it wasn’t true.
But I guessed that sucked for her, because daddy’s little princess was a failure. Like me, in some way, and no, I wasn’t going to bother thinking that Harper and I were two sides of the same coin. That shit didn’t float around here, because I was going to get my statue regardless of her.
All that Harper could do was keep being an asshole, even after high school ended.
“Wait,” Harper said suddenly. “You’re that girl who used to reek of sweat coming to school! Oh, wow, I forgot all about you. What’re you doing here? And… Gee, you still reek of it.”
I had to tell myself that hurting her wasn’t worth it, but oh, man, how badly I wanted to.
Bianca grabbed her by the wrist, and then said, “We spoke about this last night, Harper. I only promised to come to 12th with you if you weren’t going to be weird about it all day long.”
“I feel like I’m intruding,” Victoria muttered. “I’ll go find food for us to consume.”
“But—”
“No, Harper.”
Harper sighed for several seconds, making a grand show out of it. Eventually, with her sunglasses now back in place, she looked at the pair of us, and only our reflections stared right back. “I liked your outfit in the first season,” she said to Em. “It was really in for the time.”
“Which outfit?” asked Emelia, folding her arms.
She smiled at her, then looked at me. “You… You’re still here, so good for you.”
I couldn’t stomach this much longer. I grabbed Bianca by the forearm and led her away by a few dozen steps, leaving Emelia to grill her. “Really?” I asked. “Harper fucking Goldstein?”
“I know, I know,” Bianca said hurriedly. “She’s rough around the edges and has some work to do, but I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress. She’s cut down on her insults recently.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded, like I was talking to an alien that had taken over her body and had forgotten about taking me to the principal’s office after Harper and I were caught fighting in the girl’s locker room several dozen times. “She made me miserable, and now you’re friends?”
Bianca shrugged, then shook her head, then gave up when I muttered something foul. “Okay, look, I know she was terrible to you, and she probably didn’t deserve a chance to make—”
“Deserve a chance?” I asked. More people around us than before, I noticed, when I got shoved past again. Where were so many people going? Whatever. Not now. “She hates everything and everyone that isn’t herself. Why would she ever deserve another chance to be any better?”
“What else was I supposed to do?” she asked. “Harper’s got nobody else right now.”
“And what about all her cronies from school?”
Bianca shook her head. “They’re all going to Olympus West in the fall. She’s not.”
I smiled, almost grinned excitedly. “You’re telling me she got rejected?”
“Yeah, she did, “ Bianca said, glancing at her as Emelia started slipping into Spanish the more heated their argument got. “It turns out all those fights you guys had tanked her GPA. She barely graduated, Ry, and so did you. It was Olympus U or disappoint her parents, so…”
Finally, a win for Rylee. “Looks like I might just have done the world a favor.”
“Could you at least have a little bit of sympathy?”
“For the girl who poured egg yolks down my shirt in home room?” I asked. I shook my head and shrugged. “You really should stop trying to help everyone. Especially people like her.”
“Well, Ben helped a ton of people, people who probably wouldn’t be here without him,” Bianca said, her eyes softening. I hardened a little, not allowing myself a second to even think of giving Harper any sympathy. “Like this one girl, Katie. She told me that she would have—”
“Who is that?” I said. “You keep mentioning her name. Is she someone you… You know.”
Bianca shook her head, waving her hands in front of her. “No way. Never. Katie was Ben’s girlfriend before he, well, anyway. I didn’t even know he had one till she knocked on the front door one night. You should have seen the look on my mom’s face when she introduced herself.”
“I don’t really see what Katie has to do with Harper, B,” I said.
“I’m just saying that I wanted to give her a chance to at least change,” she said, taking my hands in hers, almost pleading. “I know you hate her. Hate me, too. But Ben was… He was—”
Before I heard a shriek of terror, I smelt the bitter pang of blood in the air. It was sudden, sickening, sour to my taste buds. A splash of cold water on my face, shocking me awake. I grabbed Bianca’s wrist, my eyes and ears heightened. I scanned the faces around us, faces just as confused, growing more worried as the screaming from somewhere in the crowd continued. People started getting restless, pushing and shoving, panic slowly seeping into bloodstreams. Where’s that smell coming from? It was growing, so was the shrieking. I looked at Emelia, and she was already looking at me, at the crowd, her back toward Harper who was still trying to argue.
Victoria appeared from the masses, a tray of hotdogs soon forgotten in her hands as she dropped them, splattering food onto the pavement, and pointed just over my shoulder. “Kaiju!”
And with just a single word, and a blood chilling scream, the world around us erupted.