by H. D. Gordon
It was hard to see, hard to breathe, impossible to think. Moving out into the hallway took more courage than I thought I had, but my feet obeyed the command and I moved toward the room I knew the child to be in. The little soul’s aura was rife with enough fear to make my stomach turn.
Flames licked at my face, heating up the left side of me, but I managed to keep moving. Twisting the hot metal knob of the door beside the one I’d exited, I pushed into the room where the girl was.
It was a dismal little bedroom, almost small enough to be a closet, and the walls were painted a fading pink that somehow served to make the space sadder, more despaired. The paint bubbled in places where the heat had reached it, making for a horror-movie effect. I glanced around the small room and located the child, my heart jumping up into my already tight throat.
She was a tiny little thing, adorable on a scale that almost made one’s heart ache just to look at her. She had the smoothest of chocolate skin, and puffy black hair that was tied in two clouds of pigtails right behind her ears. She was sitting against the wall between a multicolored plastic dresser and a matching toddler bed that I thought she might be a touch too old for. Her little knees were pulled up to her chest, her big brown eyes filled with fear and tears streaking down her beautiful face. A stuffed tiger was clutched tight in her hands, and she blinked up at me in terrified silence.
I moved over to her in a flash and scooped her up into my arms as though she were my own—and in that very moment, I supposed, she was. I gave her a smile, and ran a thumb over her cheek, brushing a tear away.
“I’m gonna get you out of here, sweetheart,” I told her. “All I need you to do is close your eyes and hold on tight. You think you can do that?”
She nodded, in too much shock to speak. She tucked her head against my chest, her little arms holding fast around my neck.
With her hanging onto me, I moved back out into the hallway, running through flames that threatened to scorch me and shielding the girl as best I could. A rush of heat and fiery blaze hit us and made me stumble, but somehow, I made it back into the adjacent room with the broken window I’d climbed in through.
Somewhere behind us in the hallway, there was an enormous crack and boom, the terrible sounds of structure buckling.
I rushed over to the window through which I’d entered, realizing with a sinking in my chest that we were not in the clear yet. There was no fire escape outside this particular room, and I couldn’t swing up to the roof with the girl in my arms even if I wanted to—which I didn’t, not with the building coming close to collapsing below it. No, we needed to get to the ground.
“I want my momma,” the little girl said, her voice muffled against my chest, her words wrenching at the muscle inside it. “I want my momma,” she repeated.
I held her close, trying my best to keep my wits about me. Leaning out the window, I spotted a drainage pipe about three and a half feet away that went all the way down to the sidewalk below. Looking back at the approaching flames, which had just begun to lick over the edges of the doorframe of the room we were in, I knew there was really no choice. This was the only exit.
I swallowed hard and held the girl out a bit so that she could look at me. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Maleia,” she said.
I gave her the best smile I could muster. “That’s a beautiful name. Maleia, everything is going to be okay. I’m going to take you to your mommy. All I need you to do is hold onto me, hold onto me as tight as you can, because I’m going to have to let you go so I can climb us down that pipe out there. Can you do that? Can you hang on?”
Big brown eyes stared back at me, her aura more filled with fear than it had likely ever experienced in her short life, and she nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Move onto my back, okay? And remember to hold on tight.”
Maleia shifted around to my back, her arms going around my neck and her little legs about my waist. With a hitch in my throat, I pulled my hood down tighter over my head and climbed out onto the six-inch window ledge, with the child clutching for dear life on my shoulders.
CHAPTER 5
The leap from the ledge to the drainage pipe was the worst part of all. If I missed, or lost my grip now, the little girl and I would fall to the pavement below, and probably to our deaths.
It was harder than I’d anticipated with her added weight, and I could hardly breathe past the smoke that was filling the night air and the pounding of my heart in my chest.
Crouching on the ledge, I stretched my right arm out as far as I could reach, my fingers brushing the pipe. I’d need to reach a little further, and with every second that passed, I felt my anxiety increasing.
Risking losing my balance, I stretched out just a bit further… and at last, reached the pipe, wrapping my fingers around it in a death-grip.
With a move that nearly stopped my heart, I swung us out into the open air, latching onto the drainage pipe with a sigh of relief that had me coughing on the smoke. The pipe groaned and shuddered under our weight. I reminded Maleia to hold on, and wasted no time climbing down.
The descent couldn’t have taken me more than a minute and a half, maybe two, but it felt like an eternity to me, and certainly to the terrified child on my back. When the soles of my shoes finally touched the pavement, I bent over double, clutching at my knees. Maleia was still attached to my back, and I could hardly process the fact that we’d made it.
I shifted her to the front of me, brushing away more of her tears and offering her a smile that made my lips quiver. “We made it, Maleia,” I said. “You did amazing.”
We were in the small alley beside the building, and on the street ahead, I could see the flash of red and blue lights from the police and fire engines parked at the curb. I could also hear the crying and screaming of a woman.
“She’s still inside!” the woman cried. “Oh my God! My baby! Please save my baby! She’s still in there!”
Slipping my black mask out of my pocket, I asked Maleia if she could keep a secret. She nodded that she could, and when I showed her the mask, she took it into her tiny fingers and pulled it over my head for me, concealing the top half of my face. Then she pulled my hood back over my head.
“I saw you on the news,” she told me. “My mommy said you must be a damn fool.”
The admission shocked me; the obviously repeated words making me chuckle at the same time as tears burned my eyes. “I think your mommy might be right,” I said, and the little darling smiled a smile that was missing the front left tooth.
I carried Maleia around to the front of the building, spotting her distraught mother on the sidewalk. When her mother saw us, she ran over to me and pulled the girl out of my arms, holding her close.
She stared at me with eyes as wide and as brown as her daughter’s. “Oh my God,” she said. “Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.” She took my hands and kissed them. “Thank you so much. You saved my baby.”
I nodded, winking at Maleia when she turned her little head to look at me, and got the hell out of there before I could be spotted by the firemen or police, who were plenty involved with containing the flames.
A few minutes later, I was leaping back over the rooftop of my own building, which had a close view of the chaos taking place across the street and below, but was luckily far enough away to not be in danger of igniting as well.
Thomas Reid was leaning over the edge, staring at the scene with tight shoulders. When I landed beside him, his large hand came up and gripped at his chest, over the place where I knew his heart to be.
In a flash that nearly made me gasp, he was clutching my shoulders in his strong hands. “For the love of God, Aria,” he breathed. “Don’t ever do that again.”
This reaction shocked me so that I could do no more than stand there, staring up into his hazel eyes and at the tension and relief pulsing through his aura. I found I had to swallow twice before I could speak.
“I… I couldn’t l
eave her,” I said, and the tone in which my voice sounded revealed how scared I’d truly been. “Did… did you see?”
His stare held me in a suspended state, his eyes an endless hall down which I could wander. His right hand lifted from my shoulder, his rough but gentle fingertips brushing my chin, causing the air to rush into my lungs and then stop up in my chest.
Slowly, just barely making contact, his thumb brushed down my cheek. I stood immobile as he gently pulled a few ashes from my hair, which was hanging onto its bun-status by the skin of its teeth. My cheeks were aflame, my blood afire as I realized that I probably looked like a hot ass mess right about now.
Of course, Thomas Reid looked like… Well, Thomas Reid—tall and imposing, dark hair and light hazel eyes, a strong jaw constantly adorned with a five o’ clock shadow… and too old for me with his twenty-six years. Not that he was even interested in me in that way, anyway.
In reality, this intense little moment between the two of us only lasted a handful of heartbeats, but I would examine the interaction in the days to come the way a biologist studies a curious cell under a microscope. I would replay it in my head like a YouTube video.
One held breath, that’s really all it was. Then Thomas stepped away from me rather abruptly, shaking his head just once, as if waking from a dream. I stepped out of my own little dream world and smacked right back down in reality.
“Alright,” I said. “Well, that was a… uh… awkward little moment we just shared,” I said, chuckling nervously and then resisting the almost overwhelming urge to slap myself on the forehead for this idiotic and embarrassing utterance.
I was rewarded for my efforts, however, because I saw that touch of golden-yellow fill the edges of Thomas’s aura, which I knew represented amusement. The hint of a half smile even played on his lips.
“Damn it, Aria,” he said, shaking his head, and that was all.
Suddenly, I wanted to run away, to escape what felt to me like a very uncomfortable situation. My eyes flashed down to the brown paper bag with the remaining food, but I decided it wasn’t worth the extra time it would take to grab it, which was surely a testament to the tension in the air. I retreated like a buttwipe toward the edge of the building, where my fire escape waited not too far below, anxious as all get out to hide in the sanctuary of my apartment.
When I got to the ledge, however, Thomas stopped me.
“Aria,” he said, making me turn back and face him. He grabbed the brown bag and handed it to me. “Take the food… and the stairs. Please.”
I could hardly have denied him the moon had he asked for it just then, so I took the bag and offered him a smile that was positively sheepish, backing away from the ledge.
“Thank you, Thomas,” I said, clutching at the food like I was Gollum and it my precious ring, and then retreated inside the building by way of door, like an almost-normal human being.
CHAPTER 6
“You don’t want to hear it, Aria,” Sam insisted.
My teeth clenched along with my shoulders. “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t want to hear it, I have to hear it, so hand over the damn computer, Sam.”
She clutched the device to her chest. “No.”
I let out an exasperated breath. “You know I could just take it from you. Or I could leave and buy a newspaper to read the article. You can’t protect me from it, Sam. I love you for trying, but you can’t.”
Sam bit her lip, sighed, and passed over the laptop. I took it to the card table and opened it up. The screen came to life, and I read:
GRANT CITY GAZETTE
Masked Maiden of Grant City: Hero or Menace?
She comes by way of night, showing up out of seemingly thin air, a hood covering her head and a mask concealing her face.
Word has spread about the nameless female running around the streets of Grant City after hours. Stories and accounts have been told in the dozens. Speculations of all sorts have been made about who this person could be, as well as the motivations behind her reckless actions.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you know what I’m talking about. Grant City has a vigilante on the loose, and though tales have been circulating about the heroics of this unnamed individual, the public should pause before rejoicing in the presence of a criminal with no apparent regard for the law.
As a society, we are fast to label someone a hero, but the need to conceal an identity speaks about the kind of person this masked individual is—someone who needs to hide, and to lie. The Masked Maiden’s supporters have pointed to lowered crime rates as a result of her presence, but are failing to consider the dangers associated with taking the law into one’s own hands, and the feelings of being above the law, which this individual surely has.
Rather than rejoicing, citizens of Grant City should take warning. What happens when someone with that kind of power and disregard for civil procedure decides to take a turn? What happens when a proclaimed hero turns out to be a menace?
Chaos, danger, destruction; these are the things awaiting the citizens of Grant City if this vigilante is not brought to justice.
Gail Golden, Contributor Grant City Gazette
I sat back in my seat and shut the laptop, taking a moment to absorb this little piece of literature. Lacing my hands behind my head and stretching, I said, “Well, I think it’s safe to assume this Gail Golden lady is a total bitch.”
Sam didn’t laugh at this, only pushed her glasses up her nose. “It’s just one person’s opinion.”
I nodded. “Yes… just one person’s very public opinion.”
Matt wandered over to where we were sitting and pulled up his chair. We were at the warehouse—or as the two of them liked to call it, the lair. School had been long and boring, but thankfully, had passed without incident. My mind had been a torment the entire day. Too much had befallen me. I was wallowing in my woes.
“I’m not sure what her obsession is with you,” Matt said, pulling me out of my head. “This is what, the fourth article she’s written about the Masked Maiden in two months? And every time she tries to make you into a villain. It’s almost like it’s personal.”
Sam squinted, nodding. I could practically see the wheels turning in her strawberry-blonde head. “Or someone has instructed her to spin the stories like that,” she surmised.
I chewed at my lip. “Why, though? I haven’t done anything other than help people.”
“You’re bad for someone’s business,” Sam said. “Dyson was proof of that.”
Dyson Gracie, the Halfling werewolf who’d taken Sam captive, was still a sore subject for us all, and I felt my already ill mood plummeting. I hadn’t told them about the visit from Nick Ramhart this morning, and it was weighing on my mind. The escape of the Scarecrow was even more difficult to contemplate. The cherry on top of all that was this new article in the Gazette.
Why was it always that when life rained, it seemed to pour?
I stood from my chair, needing to escape all of a sudden. “I think I’m going to call it a night, guys,” I said.
Sam’s brow furrowed while Matt gave me a sympathetic look. It was a Friday night, and as such, was usually one of the nights when I would go patrolling the city, helping people in need.
“Aria,” Sam said, her voice gentle, “don’t let this reporter make you feel like less. Just this morning you saved a child from a burning building… Remember how important that is. You’ve saved lives.”
This was why I loved Samantha Shy, despite only knowing the girl for a little under four months. We shared a sense of humor, a sense of justice, and a sense for the feelings of others. Sam could be counted on to say the right things to me, and I was grateful beyond words for it.
But sometimes words just aren’t enough.
I nodded and swallowed. “Thanks, guys. I know you’re right… sometimes you just gotta crawl back under your rock for a while, you know?”
Both Matt and Sam nodded. They did know, because despite the small team
we’d formed, all three of us were introverts, and introverts understand needing to be alone.
It was ironic, really, because being alone made me feel alone, and yet I still had to do it. I still had to hide.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay?” I said, shrugging my jacket on over my shoulders.
“Okay,” said Sam.
“Okay,” agreed Matt.
CHAPTER 7
Something in the darkness jerked me from my slumber, and I sat bolt upright in my bed. For a handful of seconds, I couldn’t remember where I was, or how I’d gotten there. I could only sit there, panting like a dog as sweat trickled down my brow.
As the objects around me began to take shape, I remembered I was in my studio apartment in Grant City. I rubbed my eyes and retrieved my phone from beneath my pillow, seeing that it was 3:30 am on Saturday morning.
Wondering what had woken me, I flopped back on the bed. My eyes began to settle closed.
Then they popped wide open again as I heard it. My head snapped to the side and my gaze went to the single window in my apartment. When I saw what waited beyond the windowpane, my heart stopped dead in my chest.
I was out of bed in a flash, my staff gripped in my hands as the magical weapon grew to its full size. Every hair on my body seemed to be standing on end, my heart jammed somewhere in my throat. I hated myself for the almost overwhelming fear that overcame me, for the instinctual urge to scream, but there was nothing to be done against it. It was a scene from a personal nightmare.
Just beyond the window, the Scarecrow stared back at me. Though it had been nearly a decade since I’d seen him, he looked wholly unchanged. His hair was the same long, scraggly gray, his teeth the same jutting brown. His long, lean body sat crouched on my fire escape, his dirty hands, with those terrible long nails, pressed against the glass. His eyes, the same as they had been in all my nightmares, in all the memories I had of him, were dark as pitch and void as two black holes.
