City Without Heroes

by Tanya Lisle

  “I don’t get to know this stuff,” Kyle said, sounding very annoyed about that fact. “My dad wouldn’t let us move out of Whitten ever. I can’t wait until I get to get out of here so I can see it all. Even when we went on vacation, nothing ever happens. Not that we got many of those either with how much dad works.”

  Indira’s pocket vibrated. She tried to look sympathetic as she checked it, finding a message from Penny. It’s time. Indira hoped Uncle Ness was ready to stop them from whatever this plan of theirs for the night was, because she was about to send them right to him.

  Chapter 14

  Mass Exit

  It took a moment for Indira to realize that Esther was no longer sitting next to her. She glanced around, catching sight of her on the other side of the room. Brittany looked like she’d been leading Matt somewhere more quiet until Esther had interrupted the two of them. It looked friendly so far, but Esther shot Indira a look like she was expecting her to finally pull her weight around here.

  “I guess you don’t realize how weird it all is when you live there,” Indira said. Her eyes returned to Kyle as she let her mind wander.

  First things first. Indira followed the mental thread she’d attached to Laura and found her escaping a very unwanted conversation. Indira left her with the idea of the bathroom, a nice private bathroom where she could lock the door and calm down, regroup, maybe fix her makeup before heading back out into the party for the night.

  “It’s not weird, though,” Kyle told her, staring into her silver eyes with his blue ones. She did like his stare and his intensity, even when she was working. “It’s just here that doesn’t have any of it. I’ve always wanted to see it. It sounds like it would be so exciting!”

  “It’s a lot of visiting people in the hospital, honestly,” she told Kyle. “I mean, look at everyone here. And imagine that half of them ended up in a hospital bed at some point during the time you knew them.” She looked around to illustrate it, looking at Brittany in the midst of it all and pushing a command into her mind. Lights out.

  Brittany dropped to the ground a moment after Indira looked past her, Matt catching her at the last moment before she hit her head and gently lowering her the rest of the way to the ground. Kyle jumped to his feet and went to her. Indira got up a moment later, spreading her mind out across the room to keep anyone from panicking or shouting to draw any more attention to what was happening. Confusion lingered over them all, none quite sure what they were supposed to do.

  Indira went to Matt’s side, bending down to get a better look at her. Her arm grazed Matt’s and she tried to renew the protections on his mind. She waited until the glazed look on his face started to subside and took a breath. Uncle Ness better be ready for them.

  Get out of here, she said in both of their minds as Esther dragged Matt back to his feet and away from the crowd. She watched, waiting until they were nearly at the door before she gently shook Brittany back awake. “Matt, Esther, go find Laura,” she said. “Kyle, can you-”

  Brittany’s hand latched onto Indira’s arm and pulled her down close. Fury was plastered across her face, a murderous glare coming out from behind those brown eyes, and her hissed words dripped with venom. “What did you do to me?”

  Indira’s mind went blank as Brittany’s nails dug hard into her arm, sure she was going to get hit or hurt and unable to escape. Her breath caught in the back of her throat and she tried to pull back, but Brittany had already grabbed her other arm and held her there. “I…” she started, but nothing else would come out over the feeling of her heart hammering in her chest. “I didn’t…”

  “Don’t you lie to me. It had to be you.”

  “It’s okay,” Kyle said, his tone gentle. He bent down next to them, Brittany glaring at him before she finally relaxed her grip and let Kyle help her sit up. “You’re gonna be okay. Hey, maybe you should see if you can find Laura too?” He looked pointedly at Indira, his chin tilting toward the door. “I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

  Wordlessly, Indira nodded and left the room, listening as the people around her started to talk and mutter once more. They assumed someone had done something. Someone must have done something by now. They would ask her if she was all right later. She looked mad right now. No one knew what happened, but they were willing to wait to figure it out.

  Indira walked slowly once she was out the door, letting herself take a few slow breaths to calm down. She was in no danger. Kyle had been there, as had several other people. Brittany wouldn’t have done anything. There were too many people watching. She had been perfectly safe.

  She should have never agreed to this.

  “Hey.” Indira looked up, seeing Laura watching her from the stairs. “Do you know where Brittany is?”

  Indira gestured back to the living room.

  “Thanks. Oh, hey, hold up a minute,” she said. Laura came down the stairs, meeting Indira at the base of them. She waved Indira in closer, keeping her voice low. “Look, I don’t know if anyone’s said anything to you yet, but you have to be careful with who you’re hanging out with.”

  Indira didn’t like being this close to her after her encounter with Brittany, but she didn’t balk and only nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Penny’s gonna get her brother killed eventually, along with everyone else she’s roping in. And Kyle’s… just be careful around him. I keep seeing you hanging out with him and he’s a bad idea.”

  “Okay?”

  Laura gave her a final smile and disappeared into the living room. Indira went the other way, heading to the kitchen and hoping that there would be a reprieve waiting for her there, or at least a familiar face that didn’t have anything to do with this. She passed the spot she’d seen Alan speaking with someone earlier, though he had now been replaced with another boy from History class.

  Indira was realizing just how many of her classmates she didn’t know. The party was filled with faces from her classes, most of them already clumped into groups that had been established long before she had ever gotten there. Penny knew a lot of them and Indira had been introduced to them at one point or another, but she wasn’t comfortable intruding on their conversations right now. Not when all they knew about one another was maybe their names.

  Instead, she looked around for anyone who had wandered off on their own and noticed the costume choices that they had flocked to. Superheroes. The party was awash in the traditional costumes of zombies and pirates, witches and vampires, and bright spandex colours. There were capes and masks and strange glued together contraptions that were meant to be technology. In Iverson, there had always been very few people who would ever wear a costume of a superhero, but here it looked like every second person had decided that was what they wanted to be for the night.

  Stranger, they were heroes that didn’t actually exist, as far as Indira knew. She was not versed in every hero in existence, but she knew that the bright colours was a very rare thing, many opting for things that would do better to hide the injuries as they got them or help provide at least a little camouflage if they needed it. She caught snippets of conversations where people mentioned what they would be and what they could do if their costume were real, some people living out their fantasy for one night.

  Indira tried to understand it. These were people in a town that got all the news of the rest of the country and the world, a city that was just as developed and larger than others that had an active hero community, but they had no heroes here. People who had powers weren’t even allowed to use them in most cases. But still they saw heroes on the news and on the internet every day, a normal part of everyone else’s life and not a part of their own. This was how they were dealing with that missing piece.

  It made it very easy to pick out who was not a local. For everyone who was dressed as a hero with their own elaborate backstory, there was someone listening patiently, telling them how cool the idea was and how they thought they might have heard of something like that back when they lived somewhere else. T
his whole place felt so strange.

  “Hey, Indira?”

  Indira turned around to find Ronnie there, also opting for a zombie costume and looking a little uncomfortable around all of these caped heroes. “Hey,” she said, taking a drink of the coke in her hand and offering him a smile. Around her, she could see that the alcohol had arrived and it was time for things to start getting interesting. “What’s up?”

  “How’s Shiraz?” he asked.

  “He’s fine. Why?”

  “He’s just been kind of weird lately. I’m just trying to figure out if I did something to piss him off.”

  There was another question there lingering loudly in his mind. He still didn’t know why she was at the Welcoming Committee meeting, but if Penny was paying that much attention to her, then she might be one of them. And if she was one of them, then he wanted to know if Shiraz was too and if he was doing all right adjusting to this place. Ronnie had no idea about what had happened or why he was…

  “How much school has he been skipping?” Indira asked as soon as the thought crossed his mind. “We’ve been getting calls about that.”

  “Oh no, it’s nothing like that! I was just-”

  “Then this is about Chris, right?” she asked, though there was no question in her voice.

  Confusion flickered over Ronnie’s face, though recognition flickered across his mind. He knew the name. It was something that Shiraz had said before and something that came up whenever he started retreating into himself. Something Shiraz would say before he stopped talking.

  “Look, don’t worry so much about Raz,” Indira told him, meeting his eyes and keeping them. “He’ll take care of himself. But if you could get him to stick around in school long enough go to class, that would be great. Shouldn’t be too hard. He’s a nerd.”

  Ronnie wanted to ask Indira more questions, but she just patted him on the shoulder and kept moving through the party. She was stopped a few times to say hello or compliment people on their costumes or listen awkwardly as someone created an elaborate backstory about how they were secretly a hero. Every now and then, something would flash red out of the corner of her eye, though it was always only part of a costume.

  If the specks were active, they were probably going insane. There was far too much happening right now where people were confessing they had powers and were ready to use them to go save Whitten from whatever small crimes were happening, or how they were just going to go the villain route on the unsuspecting city. These kids were obsessed with heroes and it seemed Halloween let them cut loose and talk about them more.

  She just wanted to find Kyle again. Surely he was done with Brittany by now.

  Indira felt her pocket vibrate and pulled out her phone. Shiraz had texted her. Come pick me up?

  She stared at the message on her phone, frowning. Shiraz was supposed to be home for the night. He was at the front door, handing out candy with both of their parents in the house. If he had been asking where she was or what she was doing, she would know it was a message from her parents funneled through her brother to check up on her, but this was weird.

  She looked back at the party. Well, she didn’t know where Kyle was anyway. Indira went back to her phone.

  I’m coming. Where are you?

  ***

  Even the adults of Whitten seemed to lean toward hero costumes for Halloween. Roaming the downtown streets late at night were crowds of people in costumes, many of them yelling and cheering, playing around and making gestures like they might have powers, despite nothing happening. It was good to know that Whitten was just as drunk as Iverson on Halloween, at least.

  Shiraz waited for her on the side of the street outside of a coffee shop that was currently catering to several drunk adults in costumes that Indira would have never been allowed out in. They were less rowdy, but they looked a little ridiculous in the window as they chatted in their costumes, obviously intoxicated and hoping that the coffee would end in more fun for the night.

  He got in the car as soon as she pulled up, two cups of coffee in his hands. She started driving as soon as he put the cups down, though said nothing as he put on his seatbelt. He fidgeted next to her, looking around at the city as it passed them by before he tapped on the clock. His shoulders relaxed with the small hiss of static.

  “Long way home?” Indira asked, taking a turn that was definitely not in the direction of their house. “Although after how many people I’ve heard confess they have super powers tonight and declare that they were going to save Whitten from itself, I don’t think they’re listening.” She took a drink of the mocha, letting the warmth flow through her. “So what’s up? You look like there’s another massacre coming.”

  “I saw Uncle Ness,” Shiraz said, sounding like he regretted everything was about to happen. “He said something was happening and he came back in town. And he came by the house, but dad wasn’t really all that happy to see him, so he didn’t stick around for long.”

  “Which doesn’t explain why you’re in the middle of downtown,” she said.

  “I snuck into his car before he left,” Shiraz said. “We talked for a bit. Apparently he knew some of the people who went missing in Whitten, so he’s come back to check that out. And then I told him about those friends of yours.”

  Indira narrowed her eyes over the lid of the cup. “What do you mean you told him about them?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Silence hung between them, though Indira wasn’t about to break it. She was busy trying not to let herself jump to the worst conclusions, to push the heart beating in her throat back down to her chest.

  “I just…” Shiraz started. He took a breath. “I knew something was going to happen to a couple of them, but it was weird. The chick and the guy, that one that the girls keep staring at the whole time, her brother? They’re not going to die exactly… I don’t know what it is, but it’s not quite dying. It’s something else that’s going to happen to them. The other thing.”

  “You knew something was going to happen to them,” Indira repeated, Shiraz avoiding her eyes as she rolled the information over again in her mind. The whispered words from Laura came back to her, warning that Penny was going to try and rope her into something dangerous. She knew that it was dangerous, but somehow it had never struck her just how dangerous until right now. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t know what it was,” Raz told her, shaking his head and taking a deep drink. His coffee stayed cradled in his hands. He was still shivering, but it had nothing to do with the cold. “I don’t even know what it was. I tried to ask mom, but she doesn’t really know what it is either. She doesn’t want to talk about it. And I can’t get to anything online that might tell me what it is. I thought it might be nothing.”

  “When did you know?”

  “I caught it off of her at school yesterday. It’s been happening here and there when I’ve been out around other people. I don’t always know who it’s coming from, but I got it off of her and her brother pretty strong. I just don’t know what the feeling was. It was wrong, somehow. It wasn’t normal.”

  Indira clenched the wheel tighter, taking in a deep breath. She’d helped them get out of there. She’d hoped that Uncle Ness would stop them from doing something stupid. Uncle Ness said he would, but even yesterday, Shiraz was still getting death omens off of them. Which meant that she had sent them off to their… whatever it was that Shiraz was feeling. Death of a sort.

  But they weren’t dead yet. And maybe, just maybe Shiraz’s talking to Uncle Ness might have changed things. Maybe he had changed things. Maybe it would be okay.

  “It’s okay,” she told him. Her mocha was getting cold, but she couldn’t loosen her grip yet. “I don’t know what you could be sensing here, but it’s not death. Maybe it just means that they’re going to get hurt. Which still sucks, but it’s not like that hasn’t happened before to a lot of people we know. Or Uncle Ness. Maybe you’re just getting more powerful or somethi
ng?”

  Shiraz shook his head. “It’s just like death that takes a really long time, kind of,” he said. “And I told Uncle Ness about it, so he dropped me off and left to go deal with it. He said he owed this woman and just headed off and left me here. I don’t think he was listening to me.”

  “How long ago was this?” Indira asked. She was still trying to put it all together and to keep herself from being angry at Shiraz for his silence. She didn’t even know who they had taken with them on the way out to do whatever errand they decided to go on. She didn’t know where they were going. And she would be of no help if she tried to find them and stop them.

  “An hour?” he said. “I know I was walking for a little while before I got here.”

  Indira nodded. “Well, we know better than to bother him and distract him until he’s done,” she said. “We’ll see what happened tomorrow, okay?”

  “He won’t make it to tomorrow.”

  Indira fell silent. Next to her, Shiraz let himself mentally shut down and retreat into himself, his coffee forgotten in his hands. She wanted to do the same, but first she had to get them both home. In the back of her mind, she remembered that she would have to change back into the more modest version of her costume before she walked in the door.

  Chapter 15

  Friendly Banter

  Indira barely slept, her mind busy turning over everything she knew and trying to convince herself that everything would be all right. That everyone was going to be fine in the morning and that she was worried about nothing. That she hadn’t sent her friends to their deaths.

  She waited until the clock struck six before she finally sat up. She grabbed her phone first, but put it back down. If everything turned out alright, they wouldn’t get back to her for a few hours. And if it went poorly, they would never get back to her at all. She couldn’t wait and just not know for any longer.