by Robin Hale
“And she was there when — Lana Blake are you telling me that the woman you’re going googly-eyed over —” And surely that was an exaggeration. I’d never been ‘googly-eyed’ in my life, I was positive. “Is employed by the very institution backing Captain Colossal?” She hissed his name in a whisper, as though speaking it too loudly might summon him to the bar and she wasn’t prepared to be confronted with him.
“Worse than that,” I drawled, amused that Izzy was finally reacting the way I’d expected. “She seems to be his handler.”
Izzy sat in silence for a moment, something I didn’t think I’d managed to swing more than a bare handful of times in the entire time I’d known her. “Well, you’ve never been one to aim low. So what’s the next move?” She asked.
I blinked, surprised. “You aren’t telling me to stay away from her? That my line of work and hers are entirely incompatible, regardless of how cute she is? You don’t want to warn me off of this obvious trainwreck waiting to happen? Some best friend you are.”
Izzy rolled her eyes in a dramatic arc. “Like I’ve ever been able to talk you out of anything you wanted to do.” She took a considering sip of her wine. “I think this could be good. You seem genuinely excited about this woman, you know? I haven’t seen you like this in a long time, Lana. And sure, she’s on the other side of the line on a few things, but it might be nice for you to see what a woman like that is like! You lie down with thieves, liars, and general miscreants, you get up with —”
“Someone like me?” I said sweetly.
“I was going to say outstanding warrants from partners who aren’t anywhere near as good at this as you are. You aren’t a miscreant. And you don’t lie. Much.” Izzy narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t do that thing that you do. That thing where you pretend you aren’t allowed to have nice things in your life if you didn’t steal them.”
The seriousness in Izzy’s voice grated beneath my skin, along all of my suddenly-exposed nerves. It made my joking deflection into something I had to think about, something that was no longer just a glancing blow along my stony outer layer.
“Come on, Izz. She’s practically in Colossal’s hip pocket. She’s probably entertained by my interest, she might be intrigued, even, but at the end of the day, a woman like that wants a hero. And I don’t qualify.”
Izzy’s glare lost all of its mocking humor. “Lana, you deserve to be loved by someone just as wonderful as you are. Maybe that’s this Fawn woman, maybe it isn’t, but I will not sit here and listen to you say that you don’t deserve her.” She took a bad-tempered sip of her wine. “Besides, you might not prance around the city in tights and a cape, and as far as I know there’s no plan to hold a parade in your honor, but I seem to remember you being pretty damn heroic when you were keeping me out of juvenile hall.”
It was something we never talked about, how we had met in our early teens. It was an origin story, an inciting incident that pushed the two of us inextricably into each other’s lives and we’d fit together so seamlessly that focusing on how we got there didn’t seem relevant. It finally dawned on me how fiercely Izzy must care about my self-deprecating humor, for her to bring up that day.
“I didn’t exactly save you from a burning building, Izz,” I insisted, unfamiliar heat rising in my cheeks.
“No, you just made sure I didn’t make the kind of mistake that would’ve locked me out of half the opportunities I’ve had in my life. You kept me from doing something that would’ve changed the entire course of everything. And then you kept saving me. You helped me find a safe place to stay. You made sure I didn’t go hungry. Lana, don’t make me pretend that I don’t know exactly what you gave up for me.” Izzy’s voice was low, urgent, trying to keep beneath the notice of the other bar patrons but unwilling to drop the topic entirely.
“I kept you from picking a cop’s pocket, Izz. Let’s not overstate.” I rolled my eyes, but there wasn’t any heat behind it. Izzy was the worst pickpocket I’d ever seen in my young life. She was obvious, she was noticeable, and she had the sort of dexterity that made piano teachers suggest singing instead.
“I didn’t even know it was a cop. You kept me from ruining my life,” Izzy said, voice finally going soft.
“I lured you from a life of badly bungled pickpocketing into a more lucrative form of crime.” I caught her eye and stared her down. “They don’t exactly give out keys to the city for that.”
“Maybe they should.”
“Anyway, you don’t need to go so hard on defending me, okay? I said at the end of the day she’ll want a hero.” I quirked a brow in the cocky, arrogant expression that I knew drove Izzy out of her tree. “But there’s a lot of daylight in between now and the end of the day. No reason I can’t enjoy the afternoon.”
Izzy laughed, despite herself. “You deserve good things.”
“You’re a good thing. I’ve got you.”
“You deserve good things that aren’t basically your sister.”
“Now you’re just making up rules.”
9
MOLLY
Time moved particularly slowly in some places, I had found. Usually, it corresponded to a time when I was in a rush and couldn’t hurry, like being at the DMV when I needed to be on a conference call in an hour, or trying to hurry my way through a routine doctor’s visit when they were already backed up.
Or like trying to make the usual drop off for the office’s banking — a job which should’ve been Kevin’s, but I hadn’t gotten any better at telling him ‘no’ — when I was already running late and there was no one to pass my ongoing experiments off to.
I bounced on the balls of my feet, impatient and waiting in an interminable line. The line wasn’t terribly long, it just didn’t seem to be moving. I settled back. As I cast back over the twenty-five minutes I’d spent in line already, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen anyone come into the bank behind me, nor anyone leave having been helped. That was unusual. The bank we used for the lab had a very efficient staff behind the teller windows. They were comfortable, familiar with their regular customers in a way I’d never seen at any other bank. They swept more complicated cases into an office with a dedicated banker immediately, in order to expedite handling the rest of the quick banking customers.
None of that had happened since I had gotten in.
“How much longer could this possibly take?” Muttered a man in a well-pressed suit just a few places ahead of me in line.
“All I need to do is request another batch of checks,” the woman behind him agreed. “This just shouldn’t be that complicated.”
There was the sense of something building. It was the same prey response that I’d noticed in every goon Captain Colossal had ever fought, when they realized that it was only a moment, a breath before he would crash in through the door and their plans would be ruined.
And I was having that same feeling.
Like the buildup of electric potential in the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. Like the utter stillness that preceded the rumbling of an earthquake. The light-shifting, strange colors that painted the sky before a tornado ripped through your general vicinity.
There was something coming, I just didn’t know quite what it was.
The tension was so terrible that it was almost a relief when the lights went out.
The other customers in line let out little yelps and gasps of surprise as the ‘thud-click’ of the electricity shutting off rang through the open, high-ceilinged lobby. There were windows near the ceiling, tall, thin things that drew stark rectangles of light along one wall but didn’t do much to illuminate the floor below. There should have been emergency lights. There should have been an automated voice directing customers either to the interior walls in the event of a storm, or the outside of the building in the case of a fire or other problem. But the emergency lights didn’t kick on, and no recorded message played over the loudspeakers.
It was in that breath that I realized who would storm into the bank like the cycl
one I’d sensed in the back of my lizard brain.
The Silhouette. The Silhouette was coming.
The knowledge rushed through me like the first burst of cold from the air conditioning on a summer day. It traced shivers over my skin, lit up a part of my mind that was looking forward to seeing her, despite the obvious disruption of the events around me. God, she was robbing a bank. There was no reason at all that it should make me feel like a high school freshman waiting to be asked to dance.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the smooth, velvety voice of the Silhouette rang throughout the lobby everywhere that the emergency systems were suspiciously silent. “Please do not be alarmed. I will be out of your way shortly, as soon as I do a little…banking. I just need a volunteer from our audience.”
The skin on the back of my neck prickled with the sense that I was being watched. A volunteer? For what? Before I could correctly register what I was doing, I felt my mouth open and I heard my own voice calling back to the thief.
“You can take me,” I said, shocking myself just as thoroughly as I’d clearly shocked the people around me. “You don’t need anything from these other people, Silhouette.”
The man and woman who had been commiserating over the wait turned and whispered fierce, urgent messages to one another. It was too sharp, too low to puncture the fog that was settling over my brain. If they were trying to talk me out of the — truly idiotic — thing that I had just done, they were far too late for that.
The feeling of hands slipping over my wrists made me jump, only to be pulled back against the unforgettable curves of Opal City’s most notorious thief.
“Good of you to volunteer, doc. If you’ll just come this way, we can get things moving.” The cool alto voice I’d first heard less than a month ago purred into the shell of my ear and sent a frisson of confusing, undeniable sensation through my body.
The now-familiar sensation of plastic zip ties sliding over my wrists mixed with the supple, gentle press of the Silhouette’s leather gloves, and I relaxed into the hold. I was certain she wouldn’t hurt me, although god only knew why I thought that. Was it really enough to have run into her twice?
Well, once. It seemed unfair to characterize her rescuing me in my apartment as just ‘running into’ her.
I followed the firm, consistent pressure of her hand at the small of my back as she led me away from the lobby and toward the back of the bank. Past the tellers at their tidy windows, past the slumped figures of bound security guards — gas? Did she knock them out using gas? — and the individual offices where the bankers did their trade.
Back beyond all of those things to the vault.
It was strange to see the heavy metal door of the bank’s vault standing open, hovering over the marble floor like it weighed no more than a snowflake. I’d never seen the vault door open. I’d never even seen the vault door at all during banking hours. There had been attempted thefts, heists that the Captain had interrupted, support that I’d run from the lab or a van outside.
But I’d never seen it open.
“How on earth did you manage that?” I blurted, eyes wide at the sight of the breached vault.
“It’s what I do, darling.” I might have imagined the smile in the Silhouette’s voice, but I didn’t think I had. “Just step through here. I’ll find what I’m after, and we can be on our way.”
I stepped over the lip of the vault and felt the ambient noise of the bank drop away like someone had slipped noise-canceling headphones over my ears.
There were labeled, numbered lockboxes fitted into the three walls that faced the door, pristine keyholes showing their relative lack of use. A table, heavy and well-made from some warm, dark wood, stood in the center of the room, likely for use by lockbox customers wishing to go through their valuables. Next to the table there was a single chair, strange and out of place, matching nothing in the vault but — all at once it hit me. It was one of the chairs that the tellers used.
Even in the extremely surreal backdrop of the rest of the day, the idea that the Silhouette had procured a chair from elsewhere in the bank so I wouldn’t have to stand and wait for her was disorienting. I felt an absurd rush of fondness, like there had been something wrong and the gesture made it right somehow.
I was bound. I was her captive. I was standing there while she ‘liberated’ something that rightfully belonged to someone else. It was not a moment for warm feelings!
“I won’t tell you his name,” I said as firmly as I could manage.
I was rewarded for the assertion with a surprised blink. “Whose name, darling?”
“Captain Colossal. There’s nothing you can do; I won’t tell you.” And I wouldn’t. I’d been kidnapped before. I’d been pressured for it before. I’d even been tortured. I wouldn’t tell her, no matter how frequently she’d been on my mind, of late.
“Mm, as tempting as it is to test that claim of yours, you shouldn’t worry.” Her voice was dark and cool, like careful drips of ice water on overheated skin. Like laughter in the most intimate darkness. I fought back the shiver that threatened to skate down my spine.
“How did you even find me?” I asked as she guided me to sit in the offered chair.
Her hair was tied back differently this time, an elegant French plait that trailed an alluring weight down her neck. It brought to mind thoughts of silk rope and pleasant pressure. Cool sheets and the soft sheen of sweat on bare skin.
God, I really needed to start dating again if I was looking at the Silhouette’s hair and thinking about her tying me up somewhere outside a bank vault.
“What do you mean?” She asked, cocking her head to the side as she glanced back at me from the wall of lockboxes.
“I mean you obviously knew I was going to be here. I don’t think this was a coincidence, Silhouette.” I gave her a meaningful look. I might not be much for action and adventure, but I certainly wasn’t an idiot. I’d gone from never seeing the Silhouette at all, to seeing her three times in as many weeks. She didn’t insult me by insisting I was wrong. “And I want to know how. My digital footprint is practically nonexistent.”
“That may be, doc, but your physical footprint is very much existent.” There was an edge of amusement in her voice, a lilting half-laugh that I should’ve felt mocked by, but didn’t. She said it like it was a game we were playing together, like I was in on the joke. Her graceful hands worked silvery picks at the wall of lockboxes like a child might play with a cat’s cradle: confident, well-practiced movements that yielded beautiful and reliable results.
“You followed me?” I’d meant for it to sound more outraged, more scandalized. But where would I have been if she hadn’t followed me? If the man who had broken into my apartment had been able to…to do what he had come to do? It mostly came out sounding curious, interested.
“Mm, call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always liked boots on the ground recon.” Her face was in profile, and the lift of her painted smile was so gorgeous it was nearly painful to look at. “Oh, also, this is yours.” A casual flick of her wrist sent a plastic card across the space between us into my lap.
I stared down at the card, blinking as though it might dispel a trick. It was my driver’s license. When had she gotten my driver’s license?
“How long have you had this?” I laughed despite myself. The sound seemed to tear the Silhouette’s eyes away from the lock she was picking, undisguised pleasure on her striking features as though she were a cat presenting her owner with her prey.
“A few weeks. I meant to leave it for you in your apartment, but I was a bit distracted at the time.”
My cheeks went pink as embarrassed heat flooded me at the memory. I’d been more than a bit distracted myself. The emotional whiplash of going from my life being threatened to seeing the last person I expected dispatching my attacker was one thing. But the way the Silhouette had dragged me into her arms, had held me and stroked my hair until I could breathe again without panicking? It was the sort of comfort I had desperately n
eeded but would never have been able to ask for.
If I’d been able to talk to Jade right then, she would’ve known to hug me. But I knew that no one else would’ve even thought to. I fought back the urge to sigh. I really did need to start dating again. Relying on local villains for my daily touch requirement was sure to end badly.
“Mm, that’s pretty.” The Silhouette was openly staring at me, no pretense at picking the lock any longer.
“What is?” Was that my voice? That breathy, thready whisper of a thing? My face heated further.
“That blush.” The Silhouette winked at me, triggering another wave of heat so intense I was sure my face was glowing by that point.
“I can’t help it,” I whispered. My throat was too dry, too tight, and I had the feeling of being utterly and unavoidably exposed.
“I hope you never do, darling. It’s gorgeous. Have you ever seen a padparadscha sapphire? They’re the most delicate pink and peach and gold…just exactly the way you look right now.” After a long, hungry stare that seemed like it would mark my skin, the Silhouette mercifully dropped her eyes away and turned back toward the lock.
I swallowed hard, trying to clear the haze that had suddenly descended over every functioning part of my mind. I desperately pushed away thoughts of Jenna’s laughter when she made me blush, not fond and affectionate, but cold and almost…sneering. It had become painfully obvious in retrospect, but never quite made it through in the moment.
It was ridiculous. Idiotic. And not a useful line of thought.
How was it that the Silhouette knew just how to make me turn bright red? Did she often go around tormenting lab scientists?
No. She didn’t. The thought slammed into me like a freight train. The Silhouette didn’t often go around tormenting anyone at all. At least, not while she was in the middle of committing a crime. She worked alone. She worked at strange hours, in empty halls. She didn’t leave any evidence that she didn’t mean to leave and she certainly never paraded herself in front of a lobby full of banking customers like it didn’t matter who saw her.
