Heroine's Journey

by Sarah Kuhn

  “You’re flushed,” Sam said, his dark eyes holding mine. “Why are you flushed?” His breathing sounded heavy, uneven. Maybe we were both a little more drunk than we’d realized.

  “You’re flushed, too,” I countered, refusing to relinquish my grip on the trap. His hand stayed on top of mine, neither of us willing to give in. “We both have the Asian Flush from drinking, duh.”

  He leaned in closer and looked like he was about to retort when a strange expression passed over his face. It was there and gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it—the whole drunken haze thing again. And I couldn’t parse it exactly, but if pressed, I’d maybe say he looked . . . confused? Sort of? Before I had a chance to analyze further, he abruptly pulled his hand away.

  “In the name of speeding things up, we’ll try your way,” he said, rolling his eyes and leaning back on the couch. “But let the record show I firmly believe that the most obvious route is not always the correct route.”

  “Whatever,” I said, but I was already reaching for one of the tiny screwdrivers that would allow me to unlock all the trap’s deepest secrets. One by one, I carefully removed the screws holding the bottom panel in place. Sam watched, sipping the remainder of the pink drink. I lifted the bottom panel reverently, as if whatever we were about to see would reveal the fate of the universe. And then we both leaned in to better scrutinize the maze of wires and gears, the stuff that made it work.

  Man, I love seeing what makes stuff work.

  “Okay,” Sam said, his breath warm against my ear. “So we can obviously give this thing an initial upgrade by replacing some of these basic parts. This all looks fucking ancient.”

  “Now who’s being pedestrian?” I turned to face him. “Is that really how you’d approach making it better? If you replace all this stuff with new versions of what’s already there, you’re only going to get something that works as well as it did when it was first invented. Which was like thirteen years ago—”

  “Did I say that was the only step?” he said, giving me an exasperated look. “That’s just the first step. So we can get a baseline—”

  “Ugggggh, you and your baseline,” I said, rolling my eyes in the most exaggerated way possible.

  “Baselines are important!”

  “Baselines are boring!”

  That competitive spark that had been percolating all night felt like it was blazing now, a fierce heat rushing through my bloodstream and roaring in my ears and making me realize that we’d been moving closer and closer as we’d been fighting and now we were so close and his lips were inches from mine and his hand was on my shoulder and I felt that heat again . . .

  The alcohol swirled through my brain, making me forget everything but that heat, and our competitive spark that always made me feel alive, so fucking alive, and how I was craving more of that, wanting to feel it in my whole body, my whole soul, my whole . . . everything.

  I closed the tiny bit of distance between us and pressed my lips against his.

  He made a surprised sound in the back of his throat, but then he was kissing me just as fiercely, his hands sliding up my shoulders, his tongue parting my lips so we could taste each other.

  I sighed into the kiss, thrilling in the way his tongue stroked against mine, the way he caught my lower lip between his teeth. His hands tangled in my hair and he pulled me even closer, then allowed his fingertips to drift down and feather over my collarbone and . . . oh, god. Why did that feel so fucking good? My sigh turned into a gasp, goosebumps pebbling my skin. His touch was the perfect mix of firm and gentle, aggressive yet coaxing, and I desperately wanted him to touch me everywhere.

  Then he made that sound in the back of his throat again—a growl that made my nipples tighten and my blood fizz with pleasure. My hands went to his chest and my fingertips skated over that hard wall of muscle, reveling in the heat of his skin through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

  We kept kissing even as I pushed him back against the couch so I could straddle his body—I needed to feel every single inch of him against me. His hands slid down my back and underneath my shirt, his palms warm against my bare skin. They slid higher to cup my breasts, his thumbs stroking my nipples, sending delicious little shivers up my spine. I shuddered, throwing my head back and losing myself in this feeling of being surrounded by pure sensation, of the chills racing through my entire body.

  I went back to kissing him and pressed my hands more firmly against his chest muscles—even though they were still covered by his t-shirt, I could tell the calendar hadn’t done them justice. And he was a really excellent kisser, which I knew he was always bragging about, but—

  Something pierced my brain at that moment, some kind of weird realization. I mean, of course I knew I was kissing Sam. But the fleeting thoughts of the calendar made me realize I was kissing, you know, Sam. My friend, my rival, somebody I maybe, probably . . . no, definitely shouldn’t be kissing.

  I pulled away, gasping for breath. “Sam,” I said out loud, as if reminding myself it was really him.

  “Bea,” he said, in pretty much exactly the same tone.

  “I . . .” I tried to start. “We . . .”

  “We . . . have definitely had too much to drink,” he said.

  “Yes.” I grabbed on to this explanation like a drowning woman grasping a life preserver. “Yes.”

  He gently moved me to the side, setting me next to him on the couch. Luckily I remembered to remove my hands from his chest.

  “Let’s pick this up in the morning,” he said lightly. “Um, the trap. I mean the trap.”

  “Of course you mean the trap,” I said, way too loudly. “Of course.”

  “You can have the bed,” he said, standing and making an exaggerated “after you” gesture toward the bedroom. “I’ll take the couch. Unless you want an Uber or something?”

  “Oh, um. No, that’s okay,” I said, getting to my feet. Pancake stirred and stood up, blinking his one eye suspiciously. “The bed is . . . is great.”

  I winced at how fumbling and awkward we sounded. And I probably should’ve just taken an Uber back to HQ, but I couldn’t process the full act of going outside and getting in the car and going home and . . .

  “Great,” he said. And now his voice was too loud.

  He put a hand on my back and steered me toward his bedroom. Pancake followed, looking like he was trying to figure out what we were up to. Oh, Pancake. If only you knew. The tiny dog trotted into the bedroom with me, and I closed door behind us before Sam could even say goodnight.

  I sat down on the bed with a heavy thump. Pancake whined and batted my foot with his paw. I picked him up and cuddled him to my chest.

  I’d had one hell of a first day as a full-fledged superheroine. And I thought it had been over.

  I had been so, so wrong.

  CHAPTER TEN

  REMARKABLY, I DIDN’T have a hangover. My first instinct was to send Sam a smug text, noting the apparent hangover-proof qualities of sugary pink drinks with twist-off tops. My next instinct was to remember that I was passed out in Sam’s bed after trying to eat his face off the night before. All right, so yay pink drink for being hangover-proof, boo for increasing the likelihood of making out with totally inappropriate people.

  Also, I’d gotten so wrapped up in Sam and the trap and drinking too much that I’d completely failed to make a posterboard documenting my Ghost Mom interactions. I’d totally gotten distracted by something shiny. Well, muscle-y. I could practically hear Evie tsk-ing in my head.

  I wanted to text Leah, but I didn’t even know where to begin. Best to save it for an in person catch-up. So I got up, made the bed, gathered my stuff, and borrowed a hoodie from Sam’s workout clothes basket to throw over my makeshift pjs. Then I prepared to slip out—stopping to serve Pancake a bit of leftover katsu with the breading picked off. The poor pup deserved a treat after being forced to watc
h his mom’s two best friends paw all over each other the night before.

  Sam was passed out on the couch, one arm thrown over his face, a blanket wrapped around his lower half. His upper half was not wearing a shirt, which was a factoid I would not have considered notable before last night, but now my eyes couldn’t help but linger, taking in the hard ridges of muscle, those beautiful abs—

  Ugh. WTF.

  I scrubbed a hand over my face. Maybe I had a hangover after all. I contemplated his sleeping form for a moment more.

  You could make it go away, a little voice piped up in my head. Just, like, project a feeling of total non-awkwardness onto all your interactions with him until this blows over.

  I shook my head. No. No fucking way. How could I say I had a code if I used my powers for something like that? I mean, I guess one could argue it was for the greater good—but really only my greater good.

  It was tempting, though, especially when I imagined the levels of awkward our next interaction had the potential to reach. I cringed at the very thought. Then I pulled myself together, sent Sam a bland thanks, see you later text, and caught the bus home.

  It was still early and things were quiet when I reached HQ. I headed to the kitchen to get myself some cereal and found Evie and Aveda huddled at the table, talking in low, hushed tones. Aveda was dressed for a workout: tank top and spandex pants, hair pulled into her sleek, superheroine perfect ponytail. Evie, on the other hand, was still slobbing around in her bathrobe.

  “Interesting contrast between you two,” I said, grabbing cereal and milk and plopping myself into a chair next to them. They both jumped, startled, like they hadn’t realized I was there.

  “Bea,” Evie said, turning to study me. “Annie and I were just discussing the missing tourist.”

  “Er, yes,” Aveda said, her gaze shifting to the side a bit. “That is correct. We were only discussing the missing tourist.”

  “Ohhhkaaay,” I said, drenching my cereal in milk. I liked to drown all cereal-type foodstuffs until they formed a mushy, goo-like paste—something that always totally disgusted Evie. Evie was too busy giving Aveda a warning look to take notice of my balanced breakfast, though. I imagined they’d probably been talking about me right before I walked in, maybe evaluating my superheroing performance from the day before.

  “Try as we might, we could not find hide nor hair of this Carmen, and our supernatural scans were inconclusive,” Aveda continued, smoothing over the awkwardness. “Which is my least favorite thing ever.”

  “Nate is going to do a deeper analysis of the scans using his power,” Evie said.

  Nate had a demon superpower: he could see things in what Evie called “4D.” That meant he had an extra level of observation most people didn’t, and could do things like tell you the exact makeup and fiber count of the shirt you were wearing. Sometimes, it allowed him to see extra stuff on supernatural scans, too, which came in handy when the scanners failed us. “In the meantime,” Evie continued, “the Wave Organ’s completely off limits to the public.” She hesitated, studying my face. “Bea, are you okay? I know you stayed over at Sam’s last night, but—”

  “How do you know that?” I blurted out, my defenses going up. Jeez, was my sister spying on me? Did she have a hidden camera implanted in my phone? Was Pancake her man on the inside? And, uh . . . did that mean she’d seen what went down between Sam and me the night before? I was still wearing his clothes . . .

  “You told me you were going over there,” Evie said, tilting her head at me quizzically. “I assumed you’d decided to crash there after working on your trap experiment all night. Plus, Nate is obsessive about the ‘find this person’s phone’ function when it comes to pretty much everyone in this household. He always lets me know you’re somewhere safe if you haven’t checked in. Otherwise I . . . I have a hard time sleeping. I know. Momming it up.” She raised her hands in mock surrender. I noticed then that she looked tired: there were dark circles under her eyes and her smile was wan.

  “Sorry,” I said, tamping down on my usual instinct to snap at her for babying me. “I should’ve checked in, but . . . well. Lots of weirdness took place. So much weirdness. Actually, I need to talk to you about some of it.”

  No, I didn’t have my Ghost Mom posterboard ready, but hey, I could wing it.

  “Yes,” Aveda said, stabbing the air with her index finger. “I had a whole superheroine mentor lesson planned regarding honing your observational skills when it comes to all things weird, and I’m so happy to see that you’re already on that, Bea.” She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, eyes gleaming with anticipation. “So?”

  “Oh, um . . .” How could I explain that this was something I wanted to talk about with just Evie, at least initially? The Mom piece of it felt intimate, something only Evie could truly understand. But I couldn’t deny that I still wanted to superheroine-bond with Aveda, even though her “lesson” about wardrobe yesterday had kind of annoyed me and—

  “Wait,” Aveda said, interrupting my runaway train of thought. She held up her hands. “I feel like we’re having a moderately tense silence here. Are we having a moderately tense silence? This is a social cue I should be picking up on, yes?” Without waiting for a response, she rose from the table and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she said. “Social cue understood.”

  “Aw, look at you, picking up on this stuff,” Evie said, patting her arm. “You’ve grown so much.”

  “I’m also late for the first of my daily workouts,” Aveda sniffed, sticking her tongue out at Evie. “I need to meet Scott for our kickboxing session.”

  Evie’s brow crinkled. “I thought Scott didn’t know how to kickbox.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t,” Aveda said, breezing out of the kitchen with something that definitely sounded like an Evil Supervillain Cackle.

  “There are so many ways that could be interpreted, and I’m not going to ask about any of them,” Evie said, chuckling as she turned back to me. “All right, Bea. Let’s hear about the weirdness.”

  “I guess it started when I went to get Mom’s stuff,” I said, thinking back to the day before, “which you still haven’t seen, but don’t worry, I brought it back with me. Or actually, I guess it was before that. The bathroom wall.” I shook my head, trying to get the order of events straight, then spewed it all out at her. The message on the bathroom wall, the voice in my head at the Market, the strange interaction with the artist-poet girl at the Wave Organ.

  “Okay,” Evie said slowly. “So what you’re saying is: you think our dead mother has been trying to contact you through various channels, and her messages are things like ‘good job’ and ‘I’m still out there’ and ‘maybe chill with the junk food’?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” My cheeks heated as I realized how ridiculous it all sounded.

  “All right, so we need a plan,” Evie said, nodding. “The team should do a full scan of It’s Lit for sure. Unless something else happens, though, why don’t we wait on that until you and Leah have had a chance to look through the bookstore security videos—see if you find anything that might help us direct our energy. Rose and her team are still monitoring the Wave Organ, but we can tell them about this new wrinkle, see if they notice anything down there. And we need to find this mysterious artist-poet girl, even though she may just be a vessel for whatever happened yesterday. Did she reveal anything about herself that might be helpful?”

  “Not really.” I replayed the moment in my head. “She said she was an outcast at school, but that’s a lot of kids.” I scrutinized Evie’s face. “Are you saying . . . I mean, you believe me?”

  Evie studied me. “Bea. We’ve fought off demon princesses and demon bloggers and evil bridezillas and . . . and evil cupcakes. The most logical explanation for anything happening in this city is that there’s some truly fucked up supernatural shit going down. Of course I
believe you.”

  “True,” I said, grinning. “But I know you think I’m very distractible and sometimes I exaggerate a lot because I’m trying to get attention. Maybe because in the past I’ve exaggerated a lot. To get attention.”

  “Well, yeah,” Evie said, giving me an indulgent smile. “But like I said the other night, I am trying to see you as the adult you are. I’m trying to grow as well—you know, tamping down on the Momming instincts.”

  “Wow,” I said, grinning at her. “Are we actually getting along and shit?”

  “We are,” she said, her smile widening. “Kind of cool, huh?”

  “Doesn’t it make you wish you’d promoted me to full superhero a lot earlier?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  * * *

  “Is this the same person we saw three minutes ago?” Leah said, tapping on her laptop screen. Some of her glittery nail polish flaked off, giving the latest unremarkable person entering the It’s Lit bathroom a sparkly halo. “Are they leaving you messages or do they just have a frighteningly small bladder?” She furrowed her brow, making a note on the spreadsheet we’d started. We’d spent most of our shift thus far going through the security camera videos to see if they provided any further clues about the bathroom writing.

  I’ll admit I kept irrationally hoping to catch a glimpse of Mom—or maybe her ghostly form. But so far it had been an endless parade of regulars, randos, and people who worked here.

  “I’d guess bladder,” I said, tapping my foot impatiently. Something sharp poked at my heel and I winced. I had once again donned my hole-y ankle boots without thinking, and I definitely had a new little rock friend rattling around in there. The hole just kept getting bigger and bigger. Pretty soon I was going to have a whole-ass boulder in my shoe. “I gotta admit, I thought investigative superheroing would be more exciting than this.” Pancake, who was lounging on his special pillow, made a whuffle-y sound of agreement.