The Light of Redemption

by Natalie Damschroder

  “You’re glazing over. He’s that hot, huh?”

  I hummed. “And then some.” I dipped another shrimp in cocktail sauce. “He talked about me while I was setting up his library card.”

  “About you? Not to you?” She licked her fingers.

  “Well, both. But he said people only had good things to say when they mentioned me to him, and it . . . felt like flirting.”

  “Maybe it was!” Her eyes lit up. “He’d be the perfect guy to get you over Simon.”

  “Yeah, right.” I laughed. “I don’t need someone to get me over Simon.”

  “You know what I mean.” She licked chicken sauce off the corner of her mouth. “Whenever you have a lull, you start looking at Simon again. Since you haven’t dated since . . .” She trailed off, her brow furrowing as she tried to remember when my last date was. I didn’t remind her.

  “He’s just a friend. A good friend, who is now obsessed. He came by today, too.”

  “Busy library.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  We paused while the server dropped off the check. “Did you know he’s been working on an in-depth piece about Eclipse?” I didn’t mention the crush, because I didn’t want her to start thinking about when my love life had died.

  “For the paper?”

  “I assume.”

  “No, he’s never mentioned it.”

  “He came in asking me all these questions about her motivations and choices. It was enough to make me wonder who Eclipse is.”

  She shot me an ‘oh, come on’ look while digging in her purse. “Harm.”

  “I know how it sounds. But . . .” I lifted my shoulders and stuck my credit card in the folder, holding it up to show the server we were ready. She nodded, grabbing it on her way to the next table with a tray of drinks.

  “But what? You think you have some hidden agenda you don’t know about?”

  “No, that’s stupid.” I didn’t want to take the topic any further right now. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. I asked her something about the diner and successfully got the subject changed long enough to finish paying and head out. We’d just reached my car when my personal phone blared an alert, a klaxon that made Angie jump.

  “What the hell is that?”

  I checked the screen. “Incident involving the police. I set it for alerts for things Eclipse might be able to help with.” It had only worked a few times, mostly to catch petty criminals trying to hold up some convenience store clerk or something, and I usually just chased them down and wrapped them up for the cops.

  This time, though . . . I stared at the full report I’d found. Karma was so biting me on the ass right now. It was a four-car pileup at the bottom of the off ramp from the highway.

  Chapter 4

  “What is it?” Angie came around and looked over my shoulder, then whistled. “Wow. Get in the car. I’ll drive.”

  I let her take the keys and did as she said, already digging in my tote for my black catsuit as I got in the back seat. “I don’t know what I can do, Ang.”

  “You’ll figure it out when you get there.” She revved the motor and backed out of the parking spot so fast I tipped over. “You need one of those flashing lights.”

  “Yeah, because that won’t compromise my identity.” I quickly changed out of my skirt and blouse and into the catsuit and mask, covering my hair with the hood. Angie careened around a corner and I tilted, banging my elbow against the door. “Ow.”

  “What ow? You’re a damn superhero! Act like it!”

  She sounded entirely too gleeful. I grumbled at her, and she laughed. Maybe I should get some radioactive spiders so she could be a true sidekick.

  “We’re almost there. Where do you want me to go?”

  “I’ll tell you when to stop.” The area around the highway exit was pretty barren, but there were some woods that would hide my approach. I watched for the muddy pull-off, checked behind us for cars, and clutched the door latch, ready to . . . what, roll out of the moving vehicle? I was being so dramatic, but the whole idea of approaching an active scene as Eclipse had my heart tapping out the William Tell Overture.

  “Up here. See the barrel?” I pointed at the orange and white construction barrel marking the pull-off.

  “Yep.” She eased to a stop and twisted to look at me. “Be careful, Harm.”

  “I will.” I squeezed the hand she reached back. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  I flipped off the ceiling light and slipped out of the car, but didn’t worry about the noise when I shut the door. The commotion from the accident scene covered any soft sounds, even back here. We were mostly out of sight of the ramp, blocked by high grass and a sparse grove of trees.

  I hurried into the woods and paused in a deep shadow to get my bearings and check my mask to make sure it was firmly in place. The hood covered all of my hair so it was pretty much only my hands that were visible. The catsuit’s sleeves had holes to hook over my thumbs, but I needed some skin exposure to capture and direct the light. The fabric got in the way, so I kept it folded back.

  The air reeked of burnt rubber, metal, and something else I didn’t want to know. Shouts and clangs came through the trees as the rescue team worked at the scene. Under the noise, I heard a baby’s cry. No, more of a shriek. It tugged at me, made me want to dash into the fray, to save it because no one else was.

  But I’d learned my lesson about reacting without thinking, without knowing what I’d be running into. So I took a deep, fortifying breath and eased forward. The shoes I wore were similar to those designed for gymnasts. Soft black leather with suede soles and grips at the toes and heels, they allowed me to move silently but weren’t great protection from twigs and stones. The baby’s cry grew stronger, more desperate, but there was something off about it. I wasn’t sure what. Tone? Location? I moved as fast as I dared, but the cry faded away.

  I gasped when I reached the edge of the woods. This was so much worse than I’d imagined. Right in front of me was a compact sedan, its driver’s side caved in and right front quarter panel crunched against a traffic sign. A pickup truck sat skewed in the middle of the access road, listing forward and down, one tire blown. The damage to its front end made clear that it had collided with the sedan and shoved the lighter vehicle off the road, but the tailgate dragged on the macadam, almost completely ripped off the truck bed. Someone, either the driver or one of the rescue crew, probably, had backed it off so they could get to the sedan.

  No one was in either of those two vehicles, but the flashing red, blue, white, and yellow lights all around showed where blood glistened, both on the sedan’s steering wheel and on the ground. As I watched, an EMT closed the doors of one of three ambulances. Immediately, the siren screamed and the vehicle roared up the ramp onto the highway.

  There was a car seat in the back of the sedan.

  Bile surged up the back of my throat, but I forced it back down. There was no sign of the child now, so it must have been in the ambulance that just left.

  I swallowed and scanned the rest of the scene. A tractor trailer had come over the guard rail coming off the ramp, then tumbled down the hill. It was clear the other cars had swerved to avoid it, or been struck by it and sent flying. Tire marks striped the road, and an SUV lay on its side, tangled with the rear bumper of a larger SUV that was otherwise undamaged. People hurried everywhere in controlled chaos. Some dealt with what was probably spilled gasoline. It stung my nostrils, along with the odor of scorched plastic and electrical wires, but whatever fires there had been were out. Others ran back and forth between the rescue trucks and the overturned SUV, carrying tools and shouting at one another.

  “She’s losing consciousness,” I heard someone say, and a new urgency wrapped around the crews.

  I
had to do something. Didn’t I? Wasn’t this why I was here? I needed a way to use my ability to free the person in the vehicle who obviously needed medical attention. The situation was desperate.

  And I was a complete blank.

  I circled my hand and cupped my fingers, taking almost no thought to pull light energy to me. It pulsed and throbbed through the whole area, waiting, eager to be used. But how? Force had the most likely chance of success, but I couldn’t lob a ball at the door of the truck to knock it open. Not with all those people in the way. If I fed a stream of light into position, maybe I could use it as a crowbar to pry open the door. But I’d never done anything like that. What if it didn’t work?

  You have to try.

  I stepped out of the cover of the trees and drew more light, red and blue and white from the squad car furthest away, where it would be least noticeable. The bar went out, and the light mixed with what I already held, spinning into a cylinder, ready to stretch where I directed it.

  Something dark and heavy hurtled over the guard rail at the top of the overpass. It landed on the side of the hill and dove into an immediate roll, coming up onto its feet and leaping onto the side of the SUV in what seemed like one smooth motion.

  I recognized Mr. Clothesline’s silhouette. He bent, gripped the edge of the door, and ripped it upward. He didn’t fling it away but lowered it carefully next to the rear wheel behind him. Then he dropped to one knee and one hand, reaching inside and doing something I couldn’t see before carefully drawing something upward. He shifted and cradled what appeared to be a woman in one arm. Some of the crew shouted something I couldn’t understand, reaching out to take the limp body from her rescuer. Someone hustled up with a gurney, and she was quickly engulfed by first responders or paramedics.

  It was obvious, by everyone else’s body language, that the worst was over. The tension dissipated and the noise level dropped. And I’d done nothing.

  The light drifted back to its sources when I released it, and I faded back into the woods after one last glance at the hero. He still stood on top of the SUV, a tall, solid beacon of strength. And he was looking my way. I could feel his eyes on me, a feathery prickle that was at once new and familiar. And I knew those eyes were green-hazel framed with dark lashes.

  Cold resentment flushed from the soles of my feet up my body until it hardened in a ball in my chest. Until now, I’d only been excited about having another superhero in town. Thinking like a groupie, wanting to get a glimpse of him in action. But now I’d seen it, and all it did was put a spotlight on my inadequacies. Tomorrow, everyone would be talking about this. Mr. Clothesline would have a cool new name, and Eclipse didn’t stand a chance.

  ~ ~ ~

  I rotated the weekend schedule at the library, and the day after the car accident was my Sunday off. That was good, because otherwise I might have been tempted to call in sick. I got up early and dressed for jogging. Today, I was going to take my normal route and go down Medici Street. I didn’t have a plan beyond that, but my subconscious had worked through a lot of things while I slept, and it wasn’t going to let me keep wallowing.

  I locked up the house and secured the micro pack holding my keys and phone on my waistband, did a quick stretch, and headed south toward Medici Street. The spring air was warm and sweet, filling my lungs and pushing out the dark bitterness from last night. I tipped my head back to drink in the sun for a few slow strides and then pushed into my normal rhythm. As the purity of movement took over, my brain eased open.

  Last night had sucked in a lot of ways. I’d checked the news as soon as I got up. There hadn’t been a kid in the car seat, thank God, but the injuries of all involved had been serious, and the woman Conn pulled out of the SUV hadn’t made it. I didn’t think there was anything I could have done. The report said a vehicle up on the highway blew a tire, sending it swerving across lanes. The tractor-trailer had tried to avoid it but was going too fast for the ramp and caused the pileup, instead. There was no way I could have gotten there any sooner, and even if I had, and had helped get the woman out, she probably wouldn’t have survived, anyway.

  That was hard to live with, but I was way down on the list of people involved who were going to be struggling with the what-ifs over this accident. I could sulk about the limitations of my power. I could decide to stop being Eclipse. Or I could choose to do more. The problem was figuring out how, and for that I needed help.

  As early as it was, the neighborhoods I jogged through were peppered with people out enjoying the sunshine. I nodded at three other joggers, waved to Mrs. Vrabel pruning her roses, and averted my eyes from a wide backside as someone else weeded the garden around their mailbox.

  And then there it was. The Parsons House. I slowed a little as I approached, checking out what Conn had done since he moved in. The vinyl siding looked cleaner, so he’d probably power-washed it, and the small porch gleamed with bright new white paint. The grass was neatly trimmed, and he’d replaced the unruly bushes that had crowded around the foundation with younger, smaller ones. He’d even treated the macadam on the driveway, the rich black a contrast to the emerald lawn.

  Conn, however, was nowhere to be seen. I glanced over as I passed, and white lace curtains covered the front windows, no lights on inside. He wasn’t in the side yard, and I couldn’t see over the fence around the back because of the slope of his property and my bad angle. Okay, so I wasn’t going to be lucky. When I reached the end of the street, I considered turning around and jogging back, maybe knocking on his front door. But he could be sleeping, and appealing to a rudely awakened grump wouldn’t serve me well.

  Option Two was to keep jogging this way every day until I ran into him, but I didn’t have the patience for that. Plus, I didn’t need to be that subtle. It wasn’t like I could lead him into offering what I wanted. I was going to have to ask outright. The problem was that I didn’t want anyone else to know what I was doing, so boldly going up to his door and knocking was a bad idea. People would be curious, and since I hadn’t dated anyone in years, they’d leap into matchmaker mode. Approaching him in public might prevent that, but we wouldn’t have the privacy we needed. I wasn’t out to reveal his identity, or mine. I may be suddenly dissatisfied with Eclipse’s role, but that didn’t mean I wanted to tell everyone what I was doing.

  Instead of continuing my usual route home, I headed into town and slowed to a walk a few blocks from Millie’s. Angie probably wouldn’t be there, but I wanted coffee and a pastry—as a cover to hear what people were saying about last night. I cooled down and did a few stretches before I went in, and sure enough, there were half a dozen people at the counter, including Simon and Carmichael. Trillium, my storytime volunteer, chatted with them while she worked behind the counter. She smiled at me when I approached, still a little out of breath and overly conscious of the sweat trickling along my hairline. I raised my arm to smear it away on my sleeve, forgetting I was wearing a tank top. So gross.

  “Good run?” Simon asked.

  “Sure.” I grimaced as Carmichael hugged me, ignoring my sweat. “Ew. Stop. I’m slimy.”

  “Naw, baby, you’re gorgeous.” Carmichael shifted his immenseness back onto the stool and grinned at me, his dark eyes flashing to match his broad smile. A former NFL defensive lineman, he now ran Smart’s Salon and gave the best haircuts in town.

  “Coffee?” Trillium asked me, pressing one hand on the counter, the other braced on her hip. “We have cherry danish today.”

  I groaned, but she grinned, knowing it was all for show. I never turned down cherry danish. “Okay. To go, please.”

  “Gotcha.” She turned away to get my order.

  “What are you guys talking about?” I leaned my elbows on the counter between the two men, glancing between them.

  “Accident off the highway last night.” Simon’s hair was spiky, his finger tapping a rapid staccato against h
is coffee mug. He stared off past Carmichael’s shoulder and nodded a little. “I can see that, sure. It definitely fits the shot.”

  “What shot?”

  He didn’t seem to hear me that time. “But it’s not very elegant, is it?”

  Carmichael chuckled. “Someone said he’s my size. That’s not even in the same state as elegant.”

  “Who?”

  “The Brute.” Carmichael tapped the morning paper rolled in half next to his plate. “Someone took some bad camera photos of a guy rescuing a woman from a wrecked car. Makes him look brutish, for sure.” He slung his arm over my shoulder, making me sink three inches. “We got another superhero in town.”

  “No way.” I flipped the paper to see the front page. The amateur photographer had indeed captured Mr. Clothesline in the worst possible manner. There were two pictures, side by side. The first showed him ripping off the SUV’s door. He was in the process of pulling it back, so it was easy to assume the heavy object had gone flying off to smash somewhere nearby. The second photo showed him hauling the woman out. She looked limp and lifeless, which she nearly was, but the angle belied the man’s extreme gentleness when he extracted her. Shadows also bulked him up, even though Conn Parsons was about half Carmichael’s size.

  A cigar-sized finger came down on the page. “See? Don’t you think The Brute fits him?”

  I wanted to say no, but then they’d wonder why. “Where did you get these?” I asked instead. There had to be other photos that didn’t make him look so frightening. “Didn’t you send out a photographer?”

  Simon grimaced. “He didn’t get there in time. Someone sent these in anonymously, but the reporter confirmed they were accurate. She’s the one who first thought of The Brute.”

  “Does he need a code name?” I rolled the paper again, not interested in reading the article. “Most superheroes don’t bother hiding their identities.”