Obviously, my parents wanted me to tell them the whole story about what happened while I was at the skatepark, more than once. The uber-paranoid part of me almost thought it was because they were trying to trip me up, but the more rational part knew they were just worried. They needed to hear that I was okay, that I hadn’t actually been confronted by any of the bad guys directly. So, I just repeated the same thing I’d told my mother on the phone. I saw the gang members show up, so I hid under a car in the parking lot until things calmed down. I wasn’t a great fan of how it made me sound like a coward who couldn’t even check on Izzy, but that was probably better than giving my family any reason to think I was up to anything else. Better a coward than a secret superhero who knew all about their criminal activities.
I would’ve preferred the chance to get away from them sooner so I could talk with the rest of my team about everything I’d overheard, but there was absolutely no way that was going to happen for awhile. Izzy and I were sitting in one of the dens back home, drinking hot chocolate and eating fresh cookies while my parents took turns talking to us. It was almost amusing seeing the way they kept juggling being present, worried parents and running damage control as the Ministry. One of them kept stepping out of the room to use the phone. The excuse was that they were dealing with fallout from the attack considering our family helped sponsor the exhibition.
While the two of them stood in the doorway, whispering to each other, I glanced toward Izzy. The story I’d been given, of course, was that she had simply run off with Amber and the rest of the hostages after Paintball appeared and distracted the bad guys. The two of them stayed together, but had no idea where I was. Eventually (supposedly) they were both extricated from the group of freed hostages by my father shortly before he found me. We’d dropped Amber off at her own house before coming back here.
Seeing me look that way, Izzy gave me a tiny smile and nod before starting to talk about, of all things, how cool and amazing it had been when Paintball showed up. She really poured on the gushing over ‘him.’ Seriously, it sounded like me talking about Inessa. Actually, she might’ve been inspired by that, come to think of it. She was totally using my own rambling, enthusiastic praise as inspiration for this bit, which was totally unfair and she knew it. I just had to sit there and play along with how cool the guy obviously was.
“Ahem.” That was my mother, coming back over before sitting on the chair next to the couch where Izzy and I were. “Yes, we are all very grateful for Paintball and all the Star-Touched in the city right now. This whole situation could have been so much worse without them. Not only at the park, but other places too.”
“What–um–” I started before coughing. “I heard something about that girl who attacked the baseball stadium the other day going after a police station? Is she crazy?”
“She is…” Mom hesitated, clearly trying to find the right words.
“She’s someone who belongs in prison,” Dad finished for her, coming over to sit in the other chair. “But from what one of my cop buddies was saying, she was just trying to do as much damage as possible. It didn’t seem like she was there for anything in particular. Just…” He trailed off, but I was pretty sure that was mostly because Mom glanced at him. She didn’t want him speculating about that stuff in front of us. Or in front of me. The two of them exchanged a silent look, obviously communicating so much without saying a word.
“But the Conservators stopped her, right?” I put in, pretending I hadn’t noticed that. It was getting really hard to guess how oblivious my parents thought I was supposed to be. At least in this case I had the excuse of having gone through something crazy and distracting. “Did they, you know, catch her?”
With a heavy sigh that obviously had a lot behind it, Dad shook his head. “Unfortunately, it sounds like she managed to take control of about half the police force in the station and kept using them as distractions, making them try to hurt themselves or others if any of the Stars stepped in. But uhh… it could’ve been worse, if the others hadn’t shown up.”
“Others?” I echoed, shifting a bit in the seat with a glance toward Izzy.
Mom chuckled softly. “Yes, odd as it may be to hear, apparently the day was saved by, of all people, that Grandstand woman. Well, she and those three members of La Casa. The lizard girl, the sound girl, and the ahh, computer boy?”
Right, sure Mom, I totally believe you’re unaware of their actual names. Excellent work. A-plus acting.
Pushing that feeling of sarcasm as far from my voice as I could manage, I hesitantly spoke up. “Wait, what were they doing there?”
“That’s… probably something for the police to determine,” Mom carefully replied. “All we can say for certain is that they interfered with that girl’s attack. Hopefully before she could take whatever it was she was after.”
“I’m still not sure if she was after anything in particular,” Dad put in. “Seems to me like she just wanted to cause as much pain and suffering as she could in an area that was supposed to be safe.” He said that in a low, dangerous voice that told me just how angry he was about that whole situation. And if I could actually hear it, that probably said something about how close my father was to putting his fist through a wall.
That made sense, of course. If my family had this big plan about how to scare Inessa just enough to accept protection from people who worked for the Ministry so they could figure out how the DNA lock removal thing worked, then obviously they’d be pissed off about Jennica choosing that moment to come in and start screwing things up. And it was more than that. She went against the control they had established over the city, just like the psychopaths she was trying to impress. And, I was sure, my dad was upset about the people she had hurt and killed in that police station.
It was a mess, a total and complete mess. To the point that I was kind of surprised they were still making even the token effort to be here with us. I mean, sure, they’d thought I was in danger. But it turned out I wasn’t, at least as far as they knew. By this point, shouldn’t they have given me the last couple hugs and then headed off to take care of actual Ministry stuff? This had to be a huge deal for them, too big to just handle over a few furtive phone calls in the hallway.
While I was still thinking about that, Izzy actually spoke up, sounding tentative and uncertain. “Um, Cassidy?”
Her voice made me blink a couple times. I’d been so focused on a mix between trying to keep my reactions to my parents reasonable and figuring out what was going on with them that I hadn’t really thought too much about the fact that she was sitting there too. “What?” I managed blankly after turning that way.
Izzy shifted uncomfortably, biting her lip before meeting my gaze. “I decided to say, umm… y-yes. I mean, to your parents. To your family. I mean not that–” Her face was flushed. “About the adoption thing, I mean.” She sat up a bit straighter and locked eyes with me. We both knew what she was saying with this, what it really meant. “I decided to say yes, I’d like to be adopted. I um, I told your dad that when he found me.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Oh.” Taking that in, I smiled reflexively. Yes, there were so many ways this was dangerous, especially for Izzy. She would’ve been so much safer in the long run if she just went with some other family. Preferably far away from here.
Or would she? Obviously the Ministry was dangerous and all, but Mom and Dad clearly cared about her, and–fuck. It was complicated.
Still, I had to say something before my parents started to wonder what was going on with me, so I forced all those thoughts out of my head and simply leaned over to embrace the other girl. “That’s amazing, Izzy!” I didn’t even have to fake that enthusiasm. I really enjoyed having her around. Not to mention how much better it was to have someone in the house I could absolutely trust and who knew all my secrets. Which did make me feel a little selfish considering how much trouble those secrets could get her in, but still.
Simon, who had just come in through the doorway while I was reacting to that, spoke up. “Yeah, it’ll be cool to have an annoying little sister I can still stuff into a suitcase.” Immediately after saying that, he snapped his fingers. “Oh wait, I can totally still do that with the first one.”
“Yeah, try it and see what happens, jerk,” I sent right back at him while baring my teeth like a raccoon. Wait, raccoon? Why was that the first image that stuck in my hea–oh yeah, Price, duh. “Izzy, if he tries anything, his hair’s a weak point. That includes pulling it or putting something sticky in it.”
Mom cleared her throat. “As much as I might enjoy listening to our children discussing how to torment one another more effectively, I believe there are more productive uses of our time.”
“Uh, yeah.” Izzy shifted again, her gaze going back to me. “There’s something else, Cassie. Something I need to tell you about me and… and what I was really doing during the attack today.”
Oh–oh, we were doing this right now? Wait, we were really doing this now? Izzy was going to tell me the truth about her identity in front of my–our parents (and boy did that ever send a tickle down my spine). At first I wondered why she hadn’t warned me ahead of time, but then realized this way was probably better. The sense of surprise would be more genuine and nothing would sound rehearsed. I was definitely mentally on the backfoot right now. “I–uh, what?”
So, she told me. Or rather, showed me. Rising from the couch, Izzy summoned water from the glass on the nearby table and made it spin in circles in front of me. Then she soaked down the expensive vase sitting in the corner and made that float through the room (while Mom winced just a little). She told me she was Raindrop, and that she had been living with us because her birth mother tried to sell her to Oscuro before Silversmith saved her.
I sat there through the whole story, pretending I didn’t know any of it. And, dare I say, I put on the performance of a lifetime. It helped that I was surprised that this was happening right now, of course. But the other thing that helped was the fact that I was still extremely pissed off whenever I thought about what her birth mother had done. There had been no easing of emotions when it came to that. If I ever found out where that bitch was…
In any case, that all helped make my reactions very real even though I knew all this stuff already. By the end, as Izzy stood there awkwardly, I pushed myself off the couch, grabbed her hands, and jumped up and down. “A superhero! My sister’s a superhero! Dude, that’s fu–” My eyes darted briefly to my mother. “–freaking awesome! You’re Raindrop, you have superpowers, you can fly, you can–oh my God, you’ve got action figures! I’ve gotta get your action figures and your cups and your posters and–” In mid-sentence, I grabbed my phone and quickly checked something. “Sheets and blankets! I can sleep on Raindrop sheets and blankets!”
Yeah, maybe this was payback for the way she had been gushing over Paintball earlier. And I wasn’t done yet.
“Wait, hold on, you can make other things fly too!” I made a point of overly dramatically widening my eyes with that ‘realization’ as I started to focus on the younger girl once more.
“I think we can talk about anything else regarding that later,” Mom immediately put in with a pointed tone as she squinted at me knowingly. “Izzy, I trust you are careful enough not to listen to any wild fancies Cassidy might have about flying skateboards or the like.”
“Aww Mom,” I pretended to complain, “We’ll be careful, you know that.”
“I’m not sure you could define the word ‘careful,’” Dad informed me with a chuckle. “Or that you wouldn’t hiss and recoil from it like a vampire if you saw it written down.” He stepped over, putting one hand on Izzy’s shoulder and one on mine. “But does this mean you’re okay with this? We didn’t want to keep a secret this important from you like that for so long, but there were reasons.” He said that carefully, and I knew what it meant. This whole thing was a rehearsal for when they eventually told me the truth about everything. He was obviously playing that out in his head and watching my reaction now.
Taking a breath, I grinned at Izzy. “Okay? Dude, did you hear that? My sister is a freaking superhero! She has superpowers. She helps people in trouble. She puts bad guys in jail. She helped save all those people today! And she helped put out those fires the other day, and–” I cut myself off and just embraced Izzy again, because I didn’t want Dad to see my face in that second. “This isn’t just okay, it’s awesome!”
“Ah, awesome as it is,” Mom spoke up, “I trust you know how important it is to keep it secret?”
Squeezing Izzy one more time, I released her and turned to face my mother–our mother. I knew this was a bit I couldn’t joke my way through or blow off. It was serious and important enough right on the face of it, and my parents would be paying extra special attention for other reasons. They weren’t going to accept a dismissive response.
So, I faced her and gave a short nod. “I’m not gonna go blabbing about it to impress people at school or online, Mom. I’m not a complete idiot. If those bad guys like the ones who were at the park today ever found out who she was, they might try to hurt her. Or one of us. It’s cool knowing she’s a superhero, that’s all. I don’t need to brag about it to anybody else.” Pointedly, I added, “I mean, if Simon can keep it a secret, I can.”
“Oh come on,” he shot back at me, “your mouth’s about the only thing big about you, Booster.”
With a sigh, Mom interjected before I could retort. “Please be nice. I mean that at all times, naturally, but especially today. This is a time to celebrate, not bicker.” She poked me with one finger, then used the same one to poke Simon. “You are both about to have a new younger sibling. You shouldn’t be looking to her to set the best example.”
“Yeah, but she’s a superhero,” Simon pointed out with a sly shrug. “How’re we supposed to match up to that?”
“Just do your best,” Dad replied before adding, “It shouldn’t take being a superhero to get along with your sibling.” Before either of us could respond, he quickly pushed on. “Now, there’s a lot of stuff your mother and I still need to take care of tonight, after everything that happened. But you three go on into the kitchen and you’ll find a special sundae bar Claudio whipped up before he retired for the evening. We’ll get the adoption papers filed with the court as soon as they open.
“And something tells me, it won’t take long to be approved.”
*****
“Sorry about that,” Izzy murmured to me while the two of us were sitting in my room with our sundaes a bit later. We had gone over the intercom system again just to make sure we weren’t being eavesdropped on, but I was pretty sure my parents had other things to focus on right now.
“You mean the being ambushed thing?” I teased while nudging her. “Nah, I figure that was probably the best way to make me sound genuinely surprised about it.” When she still looked a little guilty and uncertain, I insisted. “No, seriously, it’s okay. You meant to take me by surprise and you did. But you also trusted me to run with it and not screw up. That… that means a lot. And so–” I hesitated, setting my bowl down for the moment so I could focus on her. “So does the fact that you want to be my sister.”
Izzy blushed a little, also putting her bowl down. She shifted awkwardly, hands squeezing one another as she played with her fingers. “Whatever happens, I’m all in with you, Cassie. I… I don’t know what we’re gonna do, but we can figure it out together.”
Biting my lip, I took both her hands while she was still worryingly squeezing and twisting her own fingers. “You’re right, we will figure it out together. One step at a time. And–” As I was about to continue with that, my phone buzzed from its place on the bed next to me. Glancing that way, I read the message that popped up. “Oh.”
“Oh what?” Izzy asked, leaning over a bit.
“It’s Paige,” I replied. “They finished the photoshop for those pictures, so she and Sierra really want to get the next bit going. You know, cuz they’re worried about Irelyn.
“Which means the news stations are gonna get a late delivery tonight.”