=== CURT ===

"Mr. Reese. You've been avoiding my calls. Need I remind you of the dangers of that?" Marcelli's voice was a little staticky over the line. I looked over at Cindi. Typically, she would have spent a day or two with me and left. I think the longest time she had ever stayed with me was an entire week. And that's when she kidnapped me and took me to a beach. She forced me to take a vacation. She had been around for four days now. Normally by this time, even with someone she liked, she was clawing at the walls, wanting to escape. But she was just sitting there. After we got away from Kari, we lifted some more parts. Some stuff for Des, some more things for my rig. I had done everything I could to make sure our presence was as anonymous as possible. I didn't know if there was a range to the bomb in Cindi's back. I couldn't even think of a way to test it safely. I took a deep breath and focused on the man over the phone. "I can kill her anytime, and you're testing my patience. Both of you are. It won't be painful for me. One less meta on the street."

  I gripped the table I was sitting at. It creaked. I wasn't as strong as Kari apparently was. But I was no slouch either. I got my breathing under control. He was threatening Cindi. He wouldn't stop threatening her until she was dead or we got out from under him. This wasn't sustainable. But I also couldn't think of a way to do this safely. "Had to let the heat die down. In . . . In order to be of use to you, I had to rebuild my equipment. It takes time and effort. Especially when I have to dodge aliens and . . . And heroes."

  "Well, my patience and your time are up. If you're not at the coordinates I am sending you in ten minutes, you can say goodbye to the pieces of Miss Drei," Marcelli said coldly. I clenched my fist, and I saw Cindi's eyes widen. She wasn't used to seeing me this angry. The call ended before I could say something I would regret. I got a text a moment later. It wasn't that far. Maybe two hundred miles. Well-outside my previous range. Part of what I had been doing in the last few days was hacking into more satellites and building new batteries. Things that would allow me to teleport anywhere on the same hemisphere as I was. Which means that I could be anywhere on the globe in two snaps. But this told me he was testing me. He wanted to see if I had made improvements to my tech.

  "We could just run," I said.

  "That's my line. And no, we can't. We have to do something about this," Cin reached over and wrapped her hand around mine. "Curt, you're smarter than him. You can find a solution. We just have to work for him until you do."

  "He wants us at a new compound. I didn't know he owned this one. It's not on the list of any of his shell companies or personal assets."

  "That's the thing about these organized crime guys. There's always more influence than anyone can possibly understand. It's all a headache. It's why I've always been a freelancer." That statement broke my heart. She should be free. The one thing I believe is that Cindi should be free. She was like a force of nature. I never wanted to control her. I just wanted her to be happy. If she was with me or anywhere else. And now, some asshole had captured this beautiful creature and trapped her. Tying her down to me.

  "He's testing us. We're going to test him back . . . If you're okay with it."

  "If I'm okay with it? Curt, now's not the time to get cold feet. We have to push boundaries. What do you have in mind?"

  "He wants us somewhere in ten minutes. I want to make him wait. Not too long. I don't think he's bluffing . . ."

  "But he only has one shot, and if he shoots it and I'm dead, you'll rain hell on him, right?" I nodded. "Because you love me."

  "Oh God, you're such a pain-in-the-ass!"

  "Why haven't you said it again?"

  "I didn't say it in the first place. You just assumed that's what I meant."

  "Curt," she squeezed my hand. Her eyes met mine. She had light blue eyes. The kind that were sharp and could make anyone's heart skip. There was something about her eyes, even if she wasn't your type. People said that I had eyes like that. Eyes that scared them, but they were nothing compared to hers. Her eyes didn't cause fear. They just caused a spike. Of lust, of adrenaline, of intrigue. There was something feral about them. "Say it."

  "Why? You've never needed to hear it before. Hell, I'm pretty sure if I said it before you were . . . in danger, you would have left and never come back."

  "That's. . . Is that what you thought?" She looked a little hurt. She pursed her lips, considering for a moment. "I . . . I guess maybe you're right. Maybe I wouldn't have for a while. It would have scared me before. I don't think I would have been able to stay away. Not forever. But for a while. A few months, a year or two. To . . . test you."

  "Test me?"

  "Everyone says they love me. They say it on first dates. They say they'll get me anything I want, anything I need. And yet, people eventually learn not to trust me. They go away. My parents did. My first few hundred loves did." She stopped and looked at our hands. "But I'm not running now."

  "Because you can't."

  "B-because I can't." She pulled me over to her. "And . . . because I don't want to. C-Curt. Say it. Please."

  That sent my world spinning. Cindi Drei, the Buck Cherry, just said 'please'. I had never heard her earnestly say that word. She would say 'thank you'; she could be grateful, but she never asked for anything. She took everything she wanted. And here she was . . . Asking me for something. Not assuming that I would do it. Not trying to goad me into it. Tricking me into it. She's. . . She's terrified. I felt my lip tremble; I looked into her eyes. I've never been one for grand gestures, though I'm sure Des would disagree, but at that moment, I got it. I understood how people could promise her a kingdom. I didn't have a kingdom. They're terribly unethical, But I can give her this.

  "Cindi Lola Drei . . ." She groaned and started to pull away, but I clutched at her. She hated her middle name; it was her bitchy grandmother's name. But it was also hers. "I-I . . . I love you."

  My voice was pretty quiet at the end. But when I said it, Cin started laughing. Giggling like a madwoman. I felt like she had stabbed me. Even more than the time she actually stabbed me. She didn't mean anything by it. She shot up from her chair and did some kind of celebration dance. I sat there watching her, confused. When she stopped, she held up her phone and pressed something. It played back my last words. My eyes narrowed, and I lunged for the phone. And went straight through her. I should have seen it coming. "And sent!"

  "What? Who . . . What the hell? Who did you send that to? Cancel it! Cancel it right now, Drei!" I demanded, trying to reach for the phone.

  "Don't you work in IT?" She asked mockingly. "It's already gone. And your doctor owes me two hundred bucks."

  "Des? What?"

  "They bet me I couldn't get you to say it. I doubled the bet, saying it would take less than a week. Four days. They won't believe this." I sat there, dumbstruck.

  "So, it was for a bet. That makes more sense." My voice had lost all of the heat. All of the emotion. She frowned and wrapped her arms around me.

  "No, it wasn't for a bet. Well, it was a little for a bet. But it was mostly for me. Now I can hear it whenever I want, wherever I am. And I know that you belong to me."

  "Belong?" I scoffed. "No, no way. I don't belong to anyone."

  "But," she began, hesitating. "I want you to belong to me. I . . . I love you too, Curt."

  God fucking damn her. My heart skipped. Again. "Let's get going."

=== KARI ===

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

My face was out there. My mask had been destroyed by the end of the fight. And even though I was covered in blood and was a wreck, people still saw me. A lot of me. And they were obsessed. There were memes, and clickbait articles about the Tak-Tik star turned superheroine. So, we changed it up a little bit. We kept a mask on the new costume. It was a little more transparent now that everyone knew what I looked like anyway. But we put the equivalent of a Go-Pro in it, in addition to my speaker. I am a celebrity hero now. I guess I had been since I started the Smash Gal social media pages, but this changed things. I would no longer be allowed to live my own life. I was always going to have to be ready to be a hero. To sign autographs. I didn't realize it when I flew into Avalare the first time after the Grignau invasion. People gathered around; they called out by my real name. I had interview requests.

  This made things hard. Especially since I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a hero anymore. When I told my parents, they both said, "That's ridiculous. You love helping people. You love showing off your abs, you love showing off, and you love using your powers."

  And they were right. But could I turn Curt in? I hadn't told them about him yet. I didn't have the words. Could I deal with the police that I didn't trust anymore? Maybe I am being too harsh on them. The police. Curt was a criminal. I am not being harsh enough on him.

  It was overwhelming being back in the city; people swarmed me, and I was lucky that I could fly. Before my identity was out, dealing with some of the attention was already hard. There were cat-callers, paparazzi, and people trying to take pictures of every part of me. But now it was so much worse. When I tried to visit Professor Mind in the hospital, there were so many fucking people that I couldn't get in there without disturbing every patient in the building. I missed Chuck; I needed someone to talk to, and he was always so wise. He would know what to do.

  I stopped off for ice cream after rescuing people from a fire. I needed to cool down. And seconds after I landed, people swarmed me again. Taking pictures and videos. I heard somewhere that they were paying hundreds of dollars for pictures of me. Thousands if they showed . . . parts of me that I didn't want anyone to see. Again. My costume had been in tatters. There was . . . A lot of me on the internet now. Entire websites. Smashgalnaked.com was the top result. But some people also made 3D models of me from composite images. It was gross. It might have been flattering if I had been able to release some of the pictures myself, but this was so . . . exploitative.

  I was just about to leave without my ice cream when the crowd started splitting apart. Some of the paparazzi were pushed over and slid out of the way. "Kari. It's good to see you back on the streets."

  I looked down at the woman in a wheelchair. She had reddish-brown hair, thick glasses, and a bright smile. Kind of like a librarian. And was in a hover wheelchair combo. "Jenny? What are you doing here?"

  "Looking for you, obvs." She made her way a bit closer. "Fly with me? I think we need to talk."

  I considered for a moment. I didn't know how to feel about Jenny since that weird power-couple interview came out. Chuck said that she was just having fun, but it also felt invasive. But right now, I was just happy to see a familiar face. I paid for my ice cream, got Jenny one, and we took off. She guided us over to a tall building with a beautiful terrace. We landed, and I looked around. "C-can we be here?"

  "I would hope so," she said, taking a bite of her treat. "It's my apartment."

  "You live here?" The place was enormous. She had the entire top floor. And half of it was a pool and statues. Modern art and classic intermingled in a dizzying array. "How can you afford it?"

  "Well, that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. And some other stuff." She watched me for a moment. "And to save you from those vultures."

  "They're just doing a job." I shrugged.

  "Their job is to harass people into saying stupid shit."

  "Yeah, but isn't that also what you do? Talk about people and speculate about their personal lives." She looked like I had just swung at her.

  "I-I mean, I guess. I . . . I didn't mean anything by that interview," she said, gliding over to a table. "Sit. Let's talk about it. And the ethics of shipping your friends."

  "Are we?"

  "Are we what? Friends? I'm friends with Chuck. He's friends with you. We're at least friends-of-friends. Isn't that worth something?"

  "I'm. . . Okay. Do you want to be friends?"

  "Yes, Kari. I do. I . . . didn't know that it would hurt your feelings when I said that stuff," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

  "Well . . . It's not like you said there was a hard confirmation or anything. Professor . . . Chuck and I are just friends." I paused for a moment watching her. "C-can I tell you something?"

  "If you want."

  "I think the reason it upset me is that . . . I kind of . . ." She waited for half a minute before speaking again.

  "You like-like him. But you're scared."

  "Like-like? Isn't that a little childish?"

  "Crushes are always childish. Finding out you have feelings for someone will almost always reduce you to that same scared girl you were at your first dance."

  "I wasn't that scared at my first dance."

  "Lucky. Must be the bulletproof skin. I was sweating like a pig at my first one." She laughed. And I joined her.

  "So, what else did you want to talk about?"

  "What you're going to do from here." I looked at her quizzically. She leaned in and grabbed my hand. "Smash Gal is a hero to the people. Kari Stewart, the Smash Gal. By the way, don't Google yourself for a while. All that comes up is porn and articles about how you're either the greatest hero we have or the scariest potential villain."

  "What do you mean, though? I'm back. I'm going to be a hero. If . . . If I can be."

  "You can be. But this is going to be different than it was. Coming out means you will have a lot of attention on you. Lots of eyes. Lots of people asking you questions. You'll never get a moment's peace."

  "Yeah," I sighed. "I've noticed."

  "But it's not all bad, either. This does open up some options for you."

  "Oh, like what?"

  "Well, now you can do merchandise and be paid on the up and up. You can control your image a little more. At least that's what I did. That's why there're official Cannoneer Jenny action figures, dolls, plushies, and personal upper thigh massagers." I laughed and shook my head. "I'm serious. Those things sell like fucking hotcakes. Not as well as the action figures, but still."

  "So, I'm supposed to just trademark my stuff and sell it?"

  "If you want to. Well, you don't have a choice on the trademark." She took out some papers and pushed them towards me. I picked them up and read through them. One of the benefits of super speed is super reading. I didn't always remember everything, but I usually got the gist.

  "You trademarked Smash Gal? Without my permission?" Anger distorted my voice. My chest swelled. "It says this was filed . . . The day after we met. What the hell?"

  "I am going to sign it over to you. That way, you could make money off of it. I just wanted to do it before that parasite David Thrawn did. A real person has to file the paperwork, and I didn't know you would end up coming out. But I knew I could sign it over to you when you did."

  "What would you do if I didn't 'come out' as a hero?"

  "I would have held onto it. Talked you into some merchandising deals. I'm still going to try to do that. But I'm not going to hold the name hostage. I just wanted to make sure that you owned your own brand."

  "My own brand. The Smash Gal brand. My God, this is surreal."

  "It gets less surreal the longer you do it," Jenny said reassuringly.

  "Wh-why are you helping me?"

  "Because we're heroes. And we gotta stick together."

  "Okay, Miss After-School-Special."

  "Right? But it's also true." She sobered up a little bit. "I had to abandon my previous identity when I didn't take control over it early on. Now there are comics, movies, and a bunch of other stuff with an old name on them that I can't do anything about. I don't like to see heroes lose their rights to their own personality and brand just because they didn't know about corporate cultures. And you were ahead of the game in some ways. Your social media presence is great."

  I looked down at the papers in front of me. "Thank you for this. I didn't think about it."

  "No one ever does."

  "C-can I ask you something? As . . . as a hero?" She quirked an eyebrow but nodded. "If you had a friend who was a criminal . . . a really capable criminal . . . What would you do?"

  "Catch them and turn them in," she said matter-of-factly.

  "Just like that? No hesitation?"

  "No hesitation. It has to be done. People can't just be allowed to do whatever they want."

  "A-and . . . D-do you trust the police?"

  "Oh . . . Yeah, I remember seeing that live-stream of yours. That's. . . That's complicated. There are good cops."

  "Yeah, but I've been doing some reading. There are bad cops too. Ones that're never held responsible for their actions. And . . . There are problems with the way everything is structured."

  "Yeah. I ask myself about that a lot too." She sighed and stared up at the sky. "I advocate for change where I can. But I'm just one person. So are you. Right now, we have to work within the system to change it."

  "And if the system refuses to change?"

  "Then we remove it. It's cancer."

  "Just like that?"

  "Yeah," she said. Then hesitated. "I guess. I don't have all of the answers. Just some of them. And I'm glad to know I'm not the only one asking these questions."

  We smiled at each other.