Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 2-1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 5-1
Chapter 6
Chapter 6-1
Chapter 7
Chapter 7-1
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 11-1
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 14-1
Chapter 15
Chapter 15-1
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 19-1
Chapter 20
Chapter 20-1
Chapter 21
Chapter 21-1
Chapter 22
Chapter 22-1
Chapter 23
Chapter 23-1
Chapter 24
Chapter 24-1
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
About the Author
Super
by
Princess Jones
Copyright © 2015 by Princess Jones
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Blackbelle Books
204-17 Hillside Ave
Suite 343
New York, New York 11423
www.blackbelleco.com
Chapter 1
I fucking hate Thursdays.
Most of the time, people focus their hate on Mondays. I wasn’t a fan of those either. Mondays are the hall monitors of the week. They tell you to stop enjoying your time off and get back to work. But at least you know where you stand with a Monday. Thursday is a fence sitter on the other hand. It’s almost the weekend but not quite there.
It doesn’t help that every Thursday holds some sort of black hole, sucking away part of my day and making me late. I’m always late on Thursdays, which is why I was pushing the gas pedal on my Chevy Metro as hard as I could when I rounded the corner on Cadman Plaza West. It was a symbolic gesture at best. My car was held together with duct tape and good intentions. It wouldn’t get over 45 mph if I installed a jet pack. I was close to being late again but this was the only option I had. It’s not like I can fly or anything.
I’m not a great driver. I take too many chances on the road. Then again, I’m invincible. I can literally afford to take chances. This morning was no exception as I simultaneously changed lanes, cut off a hipster on a pretentious vintage bike that probably cost more than my car, flipped off the chick behind me for riding my ass and caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye.
Cadman Plaza Park was a smallish bit of green right next to the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian entrance. This time of morning, it was always full of nannies pushing strollers, commuters taking shortcuts, and early tourists taking the scenic route between Brooklyn and Manhattan. All this bustle, and yet no one noticed the slight, dark figure bump into an old lady hard, knocking her to the ground, then running toward the Brooklyn Bridge, taking the old lady’s purse with him.
Without thinking, I hit my car’s brakes, earning a chorus of car horns and curse words from the people behind me. I ignored them and pulled over. I hopped out of my car and ran to the lady, who was still lying in a heap on the ground. I slowed as I approached her and bent down to help her right herself. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll get your purse back. Just stay here.”
Satisfied that she was stable, I took off at full speed after the thief. He had a big lead on me, which was unfortunate because I hated running. It was part of the gig, though. I really should have been better at it, but I got winded walking up the stairs out of the subway each night. My ass was made up of Twinkies and it wasn’t aerodynamic. Mid-chase was no time to start worrying about all the ways I could have been better prepared, so I ignored my lungs screaming for me to sit my ass down and promised my legs I’d shave them more than once a year if they hung in there long enough to get me through this. Divide and conquer, baby.
The thief kept running through the park and made a sharp left down Tillary with me steadily gaining on him. I wanted to stop but I kept my head down and pushed on. Finally, I was close enough to reach out and touch him. My fingers were just about to grab the flapping hood of his sweatshirt when I was suddenly hit hard, briefly lifted into the air, and thrown about ten feet.
I slammed onto the sidewalk and tumbled along the ground before rolling to a stop. The area around my heap-like form had erupted into chaos. Cars honking. People screaming. A mind-numbing pain all along my right side.
I’d been hit by a car.
Again.
In my line of work, you take enough hits to get to know your body pretty well. The mix of sharp pain and throbbing sent a Morse code signal that added up to one thing: broken bones. I wasn’t sure how many but enough to hurt like fuck. I didn’t dwell on it, though. I know my body well enough to know that even if all of its 206 bones were broken, I’d still be good to go after 15 minutes and a couple of Twinkies.
At the moment I didn’t have the Twinkies or time. The driver of whatever hit me stood over me repeatedly asking if I was OK. A pair of joggers stopped and one pulled out a cellphone to call for help. Several other lookie-loos just watched the show. I lifted my head to shake off the feeling of nausea that always accompanies intense pain, and through the chaos I saw the thief on the corner. He must have stopped when he saw me get mollywhopped by whatever hit me. That was dumb of him, but it was good for me. It meant I still had a chance.
I stood, ignoring my body’s protests. Soon, the pain would be gone. As I steadied myself and waved off the crowd’s concern, the purse thief took off. Here we go again.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. It just grazed me! It looks worse than it is,” I yelled, trying to calm everyone down. Inwardly, I prayed I hadn’t gotten caught on someone’s smart phone camera and wouldn’t end up on YouTube before the end of the day. Then, I forced myself to run through the pain and followed the thief.
We picked up the chase right where we left off, the gap between us growing smaller and smaller. I’m not sure if that’s because I was running faster or if he was running slower. Either way, after a few more minutes of chase, I closed the gap between us.
I pulled the last of my stored energy and launched myself into him, tackling him to the ground. We slid into a messy tangle across the concrete sidewalk. I could already feel my skin ripping and bruises forming from skidding along the ground. It was small compared to what I’d already been through but I knew it would heal in just a few minutes, too.
He spoke first. I was too busy hyperventilating to push any words out. “What the hell, bitch?! Get your big ass off of me!”
Well that was just rude. But it gave me strength to lift myself off him and rise to my feet. He started to get up but I placed my foot on his neck to stop him. I looked down at him, using what I hoped was my most menacing face. “You know what the hell, asshole. Is that your purse? Do you shop in the Golden Girls section of Target? Give it back.” I moved my foot and made a gimme gesture. He handed me the purse.
He sat up and turned his head to spit, dislodging some of the dirt that he’d eaten when he hit the ground. “Fine. There’s no need for you to go all Jackie Chan on me.”
He looked young. Maybe not much older than fifteen. He was skinny, too. And honestly, he didn’t look all that smart, either. The gl
azed over look on his face didn’t exactly scream “criminal mastermind.” Suddenly, I wasn’t so proud of myself anymore. “What are you staring at?” I asked.
“You. You got hit by a car back there.”
I repeated the assurances I’d said to humans most of my life. “It just clipped me. It looked worse than it was. Besides, it’s your fault because I was chasing you. What are you doing out here anyway?”
He gave me a sheepish shrug that made him look even younger. “I’m a rapper.”
“A rapper?”
He sighed. “I’ve been coming up with some rhymes and I got some beats but I need authenticity.”
“Authenticity?”
The kid looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yeah. I can’t rap about living the life if I don’t live the life. You know?”
I was no expert on rap but I knew this was too stupid to work. “So you’re going to steal purses from little old ladies to help your rap career? That doesn’t even sound right. You’d have to deal drugs and shoot people or something.”
“You think I should deal drugs and shoot people?”
“No!” The last thing I needed was him getting any ideas from me. I pulled him to his feet. No one was paying too much attention yet but this was straight out of the handbook of how not to be discreet. I didn’t want to push my luck any further. “You should be in jail right now but I think you’re too stupid to survive in there. Now go do something with yourself. Go find something else to rap about.”
The kid gave me a funny look and took off. Walking back toward the park, I noticed that I was limping a little. I thought I may have broken my ankle. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, either. A few broken bones is normal in my line of work. Another ten minutes and it should heal. I don’t know about the limp, though. These sensible shoes were great for running around the office all day. Running through the streets of Brooklyn after a rapping purse thief? Not so much.
The little old lady was in the same spot I’d left her. “I got it right here,” I said as I walked up to her, waving the purse in the air.
I held out the purse and she snatched it. “Oh thank goodness!” She held it like I’d found her long lost baby. Then, “Wait a minute. What’s this?” She pointed at a scuff on the bottom of the bag.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he scuffed it when I knocked him down.”
“Knocked him down? With my purse? Oh so, you didn’t give a damn about my property, did you?”
“Excuse me?” This wasn’t the way I’d expected this to go down. Usually, people were at least a little grateful when you chased down their mugger and get their stuff back. “I think the words you’re searching for here are ‘thank you.’”
“Thank you? For what? I had a perfectly good purse and now it’s ruined. I can’t believe your nerve!” With that, the little old lady grunted, turned, and stalked away.
I stood there for a few seconds trying to make sense of this. What the fuck just happened? I turned to walk back to my car but before I even made it back to the street, I realized something wasn’t right.
My car was gone.
Shit.
Chapter 2
I never know what to call myself. Invincible makes me sound like I am strong but I’m not strong. Indestructible makes me sound like I don’t get hurt but I do get hurt. I just get better a lot faster than an average person might. The usefulness of that is up for debate. Honestly, in times like these I’d rather be able to just find my missing car instead.
After losing my car, I walked to work. Cadman Plaza Park was only about ten minutes from the office but I was already late when I started. Then I missed the elevator because the dick already in the elevator wouldn’t hold it for me. Actually, I think I saw him pushing the button to close the doors. After that, I had the choice to walk up seven floors or wait for the next elevator. At this point, I was already 45 minutes late so I figured I could rest my calves while I was at it, so of course I missed the Thursday morning meeting.
The Thursday morning meeting was meant to be a team-building exercise but it was more like an interrogation. Each member of sales had to report which deals they were working on and listen to our boss Larry tell us how he could have already closed them. We also talked about nonsense like who left the copier on overnight and whether we should have one birthday party for everyone once a month or individual birthday parties for each person. Honestly, I would have been glad to miss it if it wouldn’t make it obvious I was late yet again.
As long as I’d been old enough to hold a job, I was on the verge of being fired. Even if you’re a Super, you need a job because being a Super isn’t really a profession. You don’t get paid for it. You can’t put it on your resume. There are no Social Security benefits to collect when you get too old to fight for justice. And they sure as hell don’t put it on your tombstone. Most of the world never even knows who you really are.
Council dues ain’t cheap, either. You have to pay to be a Super. That’s after you pass their skills test to get your Super license. Only once you do that can you pay your dues each month to keep it.
The movies and comics get so many things wrong about superheroes. But one of the things they get right is the alter ego thing. Supers have to maintain alternate lives as a part of the compliance rules. Using your powers to make money is strictly prohibited. I need money to keep ourselves in Pop Tarts and diet cherry Pepsi. And so I’m forced to juggle an ordinary life in addition to my not-so-ordinary one.
I worked as a salesperson at The Brooklyn Paper Company, nine to five, five days a week. It wasn’t my first-choice job, but I was damn lucky to have it. I was four months behind on my Council dues, two months behind on my rent, my phone was a week from being shut off, and now I didn’t have a car. I didn’t know if I could handle being unemployed on top of it.
Working at a paper company was just as boring as you think it is. Before I ever stepped foot in the building a little under six months ago, I never thought much about paper at all. I just assumed everyone bought it from Target or something. But big organizations--think law offices, hospitals, schools --need tons of paper. They can’t just pop into a Duane Reade to pick up a ream every time they need to send out ten thousand bills. So they buy their paper by the truckload. It was my job to sell it to them. And I was very, very bad at my job. I had the worst sales record in the company and I had no idea why I hadn’t been fired yet. It certainly wasn’t for my punctuality.
BK Paper had a typical office setup. Most of the staff worked in half cubicles, giving the illusion of privacy when in fact there was actually none. Only my boss had a fully enclosed office but even that was glass with venetian blinds for when he wanted to pretend we all weren’t there.
As I walked through the office door, my eyes darted left to my boss’s office. I was relieved to see that he was on the phone with his back to me. I sneaked past, not hoping that he hadn’t noticed my lateness—it was too late for that. But hoping he was at least too busy to make me talk to him about it. If I could avoid him most of the day, maybe he’d forget about me altogether.
I got to my desk without making eye contact with anyone who might bring up the fact that I was late, sweaty, and looked like I’d been wrestling with homeless people in the park. I dropped my bag into the bottom drawer of my desk and turned my computer on. While I waited for the ancient machine to boot up, I popped a few Sour Patch Kids from my secret stash under the backup office supplies in my top drawer.
“You just got here and you’re already in the stash.”
I smiled as I looked up to see the slender brunette suddenly sitting on my desk. That was Mellie. Of all the people I worked with every day, she was the one I wanted to choke the least. She was also the only one I’d known before I’d worked there. We’d worked together at my last dead end job, a telemarketing company. Mellie moved on and up to this one after a few months. And when I finally got fired from the old place, she got me a job here. With her pale skin, long dark hair, and blue eyes, she
looked like an Eastern European mail-order bride but I liked her anyway.
“You like?” She hopped off the desk and did a little twirl in the limited space in my cubicle. She was wearing a pencil skirt, a pin-striped button up, and some serious red pumps. Her hair was piled on top of her head and she sported a pair of glossy red lips. “I uploaded pics only a couple of hours ago and I already have over 300 likes.”
“None of those words mean anything to me,” I said through a mouthful of candy. I shoved a few pieces in her hand she quickly gobbled them down with a smirk. That was probably my favorite thing about Mellie. Even though she looked like a model, she ate like a four-year-old child whose parents left her alone for the night. She was never on a diet. She never asked me about the calorie content of food. If I said that I was upset, she wanted to know what we’re going to eat to make me feel better.
“What happened to you?” Mellie looked me up and down. “You get hit by a bus or something?”
If you only knew. I imagined what she saw: Reddish brown hair in a frizzy, messy bun with twigs and leaves sticking out of it. A brown smudge on my freckled cafe au lait face that I hoped was mud and not any of the various animal and human shit you might find in a New York City park. Nondescript business casual clothing--gray slacks, white blouse, sensible shoes--that had already seen better days before my little adventure. Various stains covering my shirt and pants.
“My car got stolen and I had to walk the rest of the way to work,” I said, without elaborating. We Supers do a lot of that. It’s one of the first things you learn. Keep explanations simple. If you tell people more they need to know, you’re asking for trouble.
Mellie pointed at the rip in my pants over my right knee. “Must have been one helluva walk.”
“Something like that.” I tucked my legs back under my desk and away from sight. I know that whatever she saw was better than it looked a half hour ago. At least the scrapes had healed into red, but unbroken skin. My ribs were sore but not killing me anymore. The only indication that something happened were the ruined pants.
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