“That, and this plan allowed us to put you to the test,” Amity added.
“Me?” I frowned. “Haven’t I proven myself already?”
“Yes. Cleaning out gang members. Intimidating criminals. Quite a different test of wills than snatching a middle-aged divorce attorney from the comfort of his own office.” She chuckled. “Unless you believe what they say about lawyers.”
As she spoke, a document came up on the Smart Board, revealing a ring of five images. Calypso took a step away from the board, allowing me to take a moment to examine them. I recognized Arthur Hamilton right away. It was the same shot Calypso had shown me days earlier. The other portraits were of strangers, but their names were clearly displayed: Johanna St. Pierre, Edison Kent, Sylvie Bouchard, and Dana Peterson. I couldn’t help but notice that while most of the pictures looked professionally done, Dana’s seemed like it had been taken from behind some bushes.
All in all, it was an interesting spread of images. There were two women and three men. The ages ranged from Peterson’s thirty-two years to Hamilton’s fifty-eight. Peterson also appeared to be the low man on the totem pole economically, the rest of the cast having far better-paying positions.
Calypso turned around and rested her hands on the back of a wheeled office chair. It squeaked softly.
“These are our targets,” she said, gaze on the table in front of her.
I found myself letting out a long breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. When neither woman spoke, I realized that they were waiting for my response.
“That’s…a lot of marks,” I said.
“Which leads us to plan C.” Amity rose from her chair as she spoke. “Thanks to Bailey City’s newest Costume, we are going to have to change our plans again. So we figured, if we’re going to make a lot of noise, why not do it all at once?”
Calypso tapped the screen, revealing an article in the paper. The headline read “Bailey City to Hold Annual Charity Benefit at the Tong Building.”
“As a longtime resident of Bailey City, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Harvest Ball,” Amity said.
I nodded. It was an opportunity for local bigwigs to throw some of their disposable income at a charity and pat their own backs over how they were “contributing to the community.”
“Our remaining targets have already received invitations,” Calypso said, her gaze in the distance.
I felt my stomach begin to drop.
“I will be securing a number of invitations for a small team of operatives,” Amity added. “And the masked atmosphere will be quite convenient, given that you’ll want to protect your identities, of course.”
“Wait.” I raised a hand. “I’m sorry, but I think this is a bad idea. For one thing, you don’t even know if your remaining targets will accept their invitations.”
“Three of them have in previous years. Peterson remains a gamble.”
“Even if they do, there are so many opportunities for things to go wrong. Calypso, your people are devoted to you, but they’re not trained. And they don’t always have the most level heads. Even under the most ideal circumstances, things are going to get messy.” I dropped my hand to the table. “Why not just go with plan A? Yeah, it didn’t work with Hamilton, but I’m sure the remaining targets have people close to them.”
My suggestion was met with silence.
“Well, aren’t you awfully demanding today,” Amity said with a bright smile I didn’t trust.
“I’m sorry,” I said, rising to my feet. I began to make my way toward Calypso. “But you said you needed me for my clear head. This is me being clear. And with more time, we can even pull in someone close to Peterson. Keep things quiet again…Calypso?”
It had taken me a moment, but as I drew close to Calypso I realized that there was something off about her. I was used to her distracted way of talking. She rarely looked straight at me, but now she didn’t even appear to be in the room. Her gaze was completely dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t heard a single word.
“Calypso?” I repeated. “Are you…”
“Callie?” I heard Amity say from behind me, a note of what could have been mistaken for genuine concern in her voice.
I reached out to touch the woman’s shoulder.
She slapped my hand away. I jumped in surprise.
“I’m fine,” she said, meeting my dark eyes with her green ones. I was surprised not only to find focus there, but what looked like anger as well. Anger at me?
“Amity?” She nodded toward the other woman, then left the room. She didn’t even look at me as she passed.
“Right,” Amity said, all chipper again. “Anyway, the Harvest Ball is a good three weeks away, so we have plenty of time to work out the details. Thanks to your help with the Arthur Hamilton case, we have decided to make you an instrumental part of this plan. Because of its high-stakes nature, the hazard pay will be triple the normal amount. Also, in the instance your identity is blown, we will have another one set up for you if you decide to follow us to our next location. Do we have a deal?”
I turned back to Amity, to see her standing there, holding out her bare hand. It was all too appropriate, accepting something I knew was likely to cause me more trouble than I could handle.
But triple the hazard pay?
I only hesitated a second before reaching out and taking her bare hand.
8
Dawn
“Hey Dawn. How are things going?”
Steve waved to me as I walked into Northwest Comics. In his hands, he sorted through a deck of Magic Cards, each one already nestled in a plastic sleeve.
“Tournament coming up?” I asked, thinking back over the poster I had seen on the front door.
“Yeah,” Steve replied. “And once again I find myself strangely thankful that your brother has moved south. It ups my chances of actually winning.”
“I could give him a call.” I pretended to reach for my cell phone.
“Only if you wanted to attract the ire of every participant.”
“I probably don’t need that much bad karma.”
“So what brings you here on a Saturday?”
I felt my face fall slightly.
“Oh, you know. I was in the area,” I said with a halfhearted shrug.
Steve frowned. “Is everything okay?”
I winced. I really needed to get better at the lying thing. The truth was, after the joyous discovery that my powers had not abandoned me, the last twenty-four hours had been a little on the frustrating side. I hadn’t been able to find Noel. His sleepy, pants-less roommate had explained that Noel hadn’t returned Thursday night and was staying with some friends. I had tried the social media route, friend-requesting him on Facebook, and receiving no reply (God, what were Renee and Ashley going to think about that?). I had found a pretty active Instagram account. It included the standards: pictures of friends, food, and city life (not a single selfie, though). Strewn amongst that were pictures of art, with a real focus on sculpture. There were pieces from all around the city, including a few that I, a lifelong resident, had never seen. There was also stuff from the Bailey U gallery, local museums, and some cool-looking graffiti. Looking at these pictures told me a bunch about Noel: from his interest in art, to the fact that he didn’t seem to have many male friends. And most importantly, a couple weeks ago, he went from updating multiple times a day to posting almost nothing. This did fall in line with around the time classes had started, but I wondered if there was more to it than that.
Unfortunately, while the pictures told me a lot about who Noel was, they didn’t tell me anything thing about where he was. So instead of chasing down leads, or hanging out with Sunshine (she traveled home on a lot of weekends so she could do her laundry for free), I spent my Friday night sitting in front of my laptop, a blank page for my Mansfield Park presentation staring me in the face, ignoring another phone call from Detective Bronson at the BCPD. The only thing that seemed to keep my attention was the stack of comics I had
picked up on Wednesday, and Lockheed’s laser pointer workout sessions. Unfortunately for me, I ran out of comics, and the cat’s attention span for physical exertion was famously limited.
I knew these were warning signs. I had picked up on them when I was in high school. A lack of interest in anything important, the inability to concentrate…left unchecked, that could lead to badness. I was the type of person who needed concrete goals, something to work toward. But since my costumed goals were coming up dry, I decided to focus on something simple.
Which was what had led me to Northwest Comics.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just…I’m having problems with stuff for school. I needed to get out of the house.”
“Well, hopefully, this will cheer you up,” Steve said, turning to the computer.
I perked up immediately.
“The new Hunter Davies cover?” I asked.
“Just updated this morning.”
Steve’s keyboard clacked a few times before he reached to the screen and turned it toward me. I felt my heart skip a beat.
There was no denying it now. The person on the screen was me.
Oh, it was still a sketch. It hadn’t been colored in or inked, but I could make out the pattern of stars on my cape. The next Hunter Davies comic was going to be about me. I was going to be an Actual.
I felt a smile spread on my face. It sounded strange, but it was almost as if the famously reclusive comic book artist was cheering me on.
“Bailey City’s going to have its very own Actual,” Steve said. “And…whatever these guys are.”
I broke away from the sight of my own smiling face to see the two figures behind me. I recognized one right away.
“That’s…” I paused. “That one doesn’t look very friendly.”
Behind my right shoulder was Faultline, dressed in armor that was uncannily close to what the real Faultline had been wearing on Thursday night. The positioning of his figure had been changed from the original sketch. Instead of standing upright, he was now leaning on one leg, which was propped up on some sort of a rock, cracked right down the middle. The crack extended out from his foot and led toward me.
On the other side of the cover was a white woman I had never seen before. Unlike the other two figures, she was looking away and shown in profile. Her hair was a mass of tight curls. Her face was beautiful, but also sad.
“Yeah, people are assuming he’s probably not a good guy. Jury’s out on the woman, though. She’s not even wearing a mask.”
I nodded.
“I…guess it’s not official until the first issue comes out,” I said.
Steve nodded.
“Should be soon, though,” he said. “I imagine it will be all over the news. It will be a nice change from this…”
He gestured toward the other screen on the desk, his tablet. It was open to a newspaper article about a candlelit memorial service for the security guard. The crowd was sizable.
“Yeah,” I said. “I agree.”
My mind swam with possibilities as I walked out of Northwest Comics. An Actual. I was going to be an Actual Superhero. It was hard to repress the squee! building up inside of me. Did that mean that this thing with Marty and Noel was going to work out? That I was going to find them? And would I be able to save Arthur Hamilton? And Faultline…well, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to run into him again.
I was so distracted that I didn’t notice the person in front of me until it was just a torso in my face.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, looking up. “I wasn’t paying—”
I froze. It was the hot guy from earlier in the week. The one who was apparently “into me.” He was dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt, and a beat-up brown leather jacket. He had a bag from Colossus Fitness thrown over one shoulder, and his hair was slightly wet, as if he had just spent some time in the shower.
Oh God, the last thing I should be doing was thinking about this guy in a shower.
“Oh,” he said, blinking and pulling an ear bud out of his ear. Something with wailing guitars and thumping drums drifted from the tiny speakers.
“Um…”
Well, we were off to a great start.
“Hey,” he said, a smile forming on his face. “The girl from Wednesday. I remember you.”
“Me too.” I tried to sound friendly but ended up with half-choked.
“I…well, it probably looks like I’m stalking you or something. I swear, it’s just that I go to a gym down the street.”
“Colossus Fitness,” I said. When he raised an eyebrow in response, I added. “Um…your bag?”
“Oh yeah! Forgot I had this thing.”
A pause of not-insignificant length settled between the two of us.
“Am I interrupting your shopping?” Alex asked at the same time I blurted out. “I’m really sorry about last time!”
Alex tilted his head to the side. A smile began to spread on his face.
“Sorry about what?” he asked.
“For being really awkward and everything? Unless you missed out on it, I’m really bad at talking to guys…not that that’s the only thing I noticed about you, of course…”
What was I doing? I had no idea what was controlling the words coming out of my mouth, but it certainly wasn’t my brain. I looked to the ground, wondering if it was possible for me to be worse at this.
“I think I’m starting to get it now.”
I looked up at Alex, blinking in surprise.
“How about this,” he said. “As you’ve witnessed, I just got out of the gym, and I’d like to replenish some of the calories I just spent. So I’ll be heading to that cafe down the street. I can’t remember what it’s called but it has that picture of a woman juggling cupcakes on the door, and I’ve always wanted to try it out. I’ll be there for the next half hour. If you would care to join me and talk someplace a little less awkward than a random street corner, I would be very flattered. If not, I still get baked goods, and I’ll leave you alone from now on. Okay?”
“Okay,” I found myself saying.
“Good. And don’t rush. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your shopping.”
With that, he turned and walked to the end of the street.
For a few seconds, I could only stand there. What had just happened? A boy wanted to talk to me? Painfully awkward me? A cute boy too. And friendly. And he wanted to talk to me!
I frowned. Hadn’t I ruined our meet-cute already? What was I supposed to do with this second chance? Talk back, of course. Have a conversation like a normal human being, which, as had been established, was kind of not easy. What was I supposed to do?
I pulled out my phone and texted Sunshine.
“Ran into Alex again. He wants to go get coffee. What should I do?”
Sunshine was pretty much guaranteed to answer her phone within ten seconds, as long as she wasn’t in the middle of a photo shoot, class, sleeping, or driving. As expected, a response showed up immediately.
“Like. Right now?”
“Ya. Open invitation for the next 30 min,” I replied.
“Then get it gurl! Clock’s ticking! Where’s he taking you?”
“Cupcake Cafe.”
“Oh! Get sprinkles!”
This text had a little cupcake emoji next to it.
“I don’t know if I want sprinkles!” I replied.
My fingers flashed across the touchscreen. Sunshine’s response was just as quick.
“You think he’s cute, right?”
“Um…duh.”
“Then go eat a cupcake! It’s not like you’re getting married. If he’s an asshat, you can leave.”
I paused. Sunshine was right. It was just thirty minutes. Less than that now. And if I embarrassed myself too badly, I could always leave.
Then why did this sound just as terrifying as jumping out the thirty-fifth floor of the Commerce Center?
Well, I had survived that. Technically.
I texted an “Ok” back to Sunshine before sticking my
phone in my jeans pocket (ugh! What was I wearing? Had I even washed this?). Before I knew it, I was at the front door of the Cupcake Cafe, trying (and failing) to look confident and natural.
The doorbell jingled as I stepped inside. The Cupcake Cafe, despite its name, was actually a full-service bakery. Beyond the wide variety of cupcakes, which sat in circular dishes under glass, they sold other pastries, freshly baked bread, and even pizza. Alex, who sat in one of the four tables set up across from the counter, had ordered a cinnamon bun roughly the size of my face. It was already half gone. The moment I walked in, his eyes shot up and he grinned. A small smile twitched on my face.
“Glad you came,” he said as I approached the table. “The cinnamon buns are great.”
“Great!” I said. Ugh. Why was I repeating him? “Ah, I should probably order first.”
“It depends on how hungry you are,” he said. “I couldn’t wait.”
Thinking there was a pretty good chance that this meet-and-greet would fail, I decided it was better to have something to chew on so I had an excuse not to talk. I quickly ordered a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting and chocolate sprinkles. Sunshine would have been proud.
“Have you ever eaten here before?” Alex asked as I took a seat across from him.
“A couple of times,” I admitted. “With my friend Sunshine. She’s um…the girl you saw me with before?”
“Your names are Dawn and Sunshine?” His eyebrows drew together in confusion.
“Yeah,” I said with a chuckle. “We get that a lot.”
And then, silence. I swear, I needed to take improv classes or something. Why was it that keeping a conversation going was so damned impossible? Should I have said something different? I began to unwrap the bottom of the cupcake. Time to chew.
“How long have you been friends, if you don’t mind me asking?” Alex asked.
“About a year,” I replied. “We both go to the same school. Met during freshman orientation and have been close ever since.”
Alex froze.
“Freshman orientation,” he repeated. “You mean for college, right?”
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