Now that she was gone, I took the chance to take in the bedroom.
Above the bed, next to the Puerto Rican flag, hung a large professional photograph of Reuben and Gabriela on their wedding day. Her shining black hair was swept up into an elegant chignon, and she held onto Reuben, whose grin communicated everything he felt about his wife.
She’d worn a decadent white wedding dress, its large skirt adorned with seed pearls and lace. He’d worn his uniform. The ceremony had not been the traditional superhero hand-binding, but a church affair. The church was nearly identical to the one next door to our headquarters in Saint Catherine.
Bits and pieces of their lives were displayed around the room. The dresser held a framed dollar bill with a small engraved plaque: Gabriela’s First Dollar. I understood the name “Gabriela’s” to mean the fancy salon she owned. Reuben had told us all about his first meeting with Gabriela there before his trial.
Her parents had died when she was in college, leaving her with a substantial sum of money that she used to open an upscale beauty salon. One night, after hours, a man broke in while she was tidying up and tied her to a chair, then ransacked the place. Before he left he’d decided that Gabriela was too big of a loose end and had aimed his gun at her.
It was pure chance that Reuben was on patrol on that street and saw the broken glass. He killed the criminal with his shadow knife.
Gabriela had offered free beauty treatments for the whole team for the rest of their lives, but Reuben refused. She’d insisted that he at least let her make him dinner, and he was so taken with her determination that he agreed. One dinner led to another, and then they were meeting in secret once a week. Then twice a week. A year went by and Reuben proposed marriage, all the while pretending he was a perfect son of the camps.
They’d nearly killed Reuben for his harmless wife. What would they have done to me for loving Benjamin?
I heard the front door open. Three low voices greeted Gabriela, and then the sound of boots on the stairwell grew louder.
The door swung open.
Berenice, tall, blonde, and ever serious, entered the room with a large medical bag in her hands. Like Reuben and Peter, she wore khaki pants and a snug black thermal shirt with her codename stitched on the breast.
Behind her, Topher hunched his shoulders and bowed his head to fit under the doorway, his brown hair brushing the frame.
Lark peered over Berenice’s shoulder and sheathed a telescopic staff. She removed her gloves. The skin of her dark brown hands was scarred and bruised. They all wore masks.
Berenice stared at me. “Battlecry.”
“Artemis.”
“Where’s Imperator?”
“In traction, I hope.”
“You beat him up.”
“It was fun.”
Berenice’s lips twitched. She handed the medical bag to Lark, then strode to Reuben’s side and kneeled down, taking his hand in hers.
“Hey, Obsidian,” she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically kind. “It’s me.”
To my amazement, Reuben’s eyelids cracked open. He cried out.
Lark opened the bag and produced a bottle of liquid painkiller and a hypodermic needle. Both bore the logo of Bell Enterprises.
Lark passed the needle and bottle to Berenice. “Word on the street is that you guys have a medic on staff. Has he examined Obsidian yet?”
I hastily brushed away the tear that spilled over. “No. I need to talk to you guys about why.”
Berenice eyed me. “Tears, Battlecry?”
“Shut up. I’m tired.” I was hardly going to confess my feelings to the likes of Berenice. She’d probably make fun of me for them.
She didn’t reply, instead checking the amount of painkiller he needed on a little chart in the bag. She jabbed the needle into the bottle and removed the required amount, then slid the needle into one of Reuben’s veins with expert precision. “There. He won’t be in pain when he wakes up.”
“Why are you here?” Topher asked in a thick New York accent. “Where’s your mask? What’s going on?”
“This might be better suited to the kitchen table,” Gabriela said. “I want you all to clear out so my husband can sleep in peace.”
We trooped out of the bedroom and, after one stricken parting glance, Gabriela shut the door behind us.
All of us settled around the scratched oak table downstairs, though Topher remained standing because he couldn’t comfortably fit in his spot.
I rubbed my eyes; my eyelids were heavy. The floor no longer sounded like such an insulting option.
“What’s going on, Battlecry?” Berenice demanded. “Where’s your freaking medic and why hasn’t he healed Obsidian?”
I was too tired to care about her tone. I put my right hand over my heart. “I swear this is all true.”
“Good Lord,” Lark said. “What happened?”
I launched into the tale of the tribunal and how the elders had dealt with Reuben. Berenice cleared her throat several times when I described his punishments.
When I mentioned the JM-104, Lark leaned forward. “It took away his powers?”
“Yes. Elder St. James said Bell Enterprises makes it for the camps.”
She let out a low whistle. “That’s heinous.”
“You haven’t heard the half of it.” I explained how the elders coerced me into marrying Matthew. My hand closed around my neck, feeling for the necklace that wasn’t there. “And then he gloated about what he’d do to me on our wedding night. Have fun imagining that,” I said to Berenice.
Instead of a smirk, she looked offended.
“Matthew Dumont is a psychopath,” Lark said, drumming her fingers on the table. “I can tell you some stories from when I lived near his campsite. Marrying you off wasn’t the punishment, he was. They were trying to put you in your place.”
“I feel for you, I really do,” Berenice said. “Matthew was always a jackass, and I’m glad you got away. But what does this have to do with your medic not healing Obsidian? He’d better have a good… Battlecry?”
I didn’t know what my face looked like, but my expression had stopped her in her tracks.
“What happened?” Her voice was cold.
“Elder St. James ordered Matthew to impersonate Benjamin.” When I said his name for the first time, Berenice idly placed her hand over her heart. “As I was questioning him about Benjamin’s whereabouts, the Westerners attacked.”
Everyone, even Gabriela, stiffened.
“At the end of the night, Benjamin and Isabel St. James were gone, and two bodies that were not them were found, conveniently burned beyond recognition. They’d been shot in the head. Reid and I interrogated a Westerner and found out that they were there to ‘get’ people. Reid found a secret tunnel leading out of the camp. Elder St. James orchestrated this. I can feel it in my bones. We grabbed Reuben and hightailed it out of there when we saw that the bodies had been planted.”
“You want us to help you,” Topher said. “You’re going after them, aren’t you?”
Actually, I hadn’t considered asking for the Baltimore team’s help, but now that he mentioned it, it would be nice to have some more fighters. I had no idea what to expect in the days and weeks to come, but I suspected violence.
“My team won’t leave Benjamin and Isabel to whatever fate the Elders dealt them. If you’re willing to help, we’ll take it.”
Berenice raised her hand to her face, hesitated, then took off her mask. Her team did a double take, but said nothing. “Battlecry—”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, use our real names. We all know who we are.”
“Okay… Jill, you and I have had our differences. I’ve never really liked you, but that’s fine because you don’t really like me. But right now I need you to put aside all that we’ve ever said and done to each other and answer one question. Whatever you say, I’ll believe.”
I sat up straight. “Ask it.”
“Is your medic Benjamin Trent?”
I searched her face for the hidden meaning in her question. She looked the same as ever: light blond hair pulled back into a tight bun, a broad face marked with faint scars, and a tall, muscular body. She was many times stronger than me. If I told the truth, she might challenge me to a fight that I might not win. She could crush my skull like an eggshell.
Then she rolled up her sleeves.
Fresh and faded hand-shaped burns formed a hideous pattern on her skin, signs of Peter’s displeasure. I rolled up my sleeve, my own burns now pink and peeling.
Lark copied Berenice and took off her mask, and then Topher did, too.
Lark had changed quite a bit since I’d seen her last; the smooth umber skin of her face was mottled with small burns that I realized, horrified, were probably from Peter’s fingertips. Her shiny black hair was pulled into tight braids that were wound into an elaborate bun-like style, but her hairline was odd—part of it had burned away.
Topher’s handsome features, which were similar to mine, were marred by a large, shiny burn on his cheek.
“I think we all need to be honest with each other,” Berenice said. “The three of us, and Reuben, have kept an ear to the ground about what’s been going on in Saint Catherine. We’re… We don’t… What I’m trying to say is, we’re not unsympathetic to you, and we’re not going to turn you in.
“But we’ve dealt with the Trents before. They were based out of Annapolis until recently. I know that one of them is a superfast healer. There can’t be two of those in the world. We had a lot of trouble with Benjamin and his creepy dickweed of a brother.”
“To be fair, Beau was always the worst by a long shot,” Lark pointed out. “He’s up there with Matthew Dumont when it comes to being a scumbag. He once had me cornered and started talking about what he’s always wanted to do to ‘hero girls.’ Hitting him in the nuts with my staff felt so good.” She smiled indulgently.
“The lab,” Topher grunted to Lark. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that night.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lark mumbled. “That’s your story, B.”
Berenice’s face hardened. “We were tipped off that the Trents were going to knock off a chemical lab down by Johns Hopkins. Beau, Benjamin, and Eleanor showed up as planned, and we managed to get them all separated. I cornered Eleanor in a basement room and knocked her unconscious. Benjamin saw me carrying her out.”
Berenice lifted up her shirt to reveal her Kevlar vest, pointing at a small dent directly in front of her heart. “He pulled that gun out so fast, I didn’t know what had hit me. I woke up hours later in the med bay.” She pulled down her shirt. “So is your medic Benjamin Trent or not?”
Was this real? Was this happening? “You…you know Benjamin.”
“Yeah, I know Benjamin. I’m beginning to wonder if you do.”
I flinched.
Berenice chewed on her tongue while she thought. “I’m not so naïve to think that heroes can’t become villains and vice versa, but I’m not wasting my time going after someone who tried to kill me, and whose family has caused my team more heartache and pain than any other supervillain family I can name. As far as I’m concerned, he’s earned whatever has happened to him.”
Her hard stare dared me to disagree.
“Isabel.”
“What?”
“Isabel St. James!” I shouted. I banged my fist on the table, making the wood crack. “Marco’s little sister! Remember her? Friendly, smart, pretty, can blend in with her surroundings? Any of these ringing a bell, Berenice? She’s fifteen years old and our elder did something to her, and now she’s gone. Did she earn whatever is happening to her? Should I go upstairs and tell her big brother that?”
Berenice turned pink and pursed her lips. “Don’t put words in my mouth—of course I’m not saying that. But do you have an actual lead, Jill? Something concrete? The world is a big place.”
I sagged in my chair. “No.”
All I knew was “west.” We were in Baltimore—“west” was basically the rest of the country. And who knew if the Westerners were even based out of the United States? For all I knew, they were from Canada or Mexico.
Lark held up a hand, paused for a minute, and then said, “If you can show me that you have an idea of where they might be, I’ll help. But Baltimore is my city, and I won’t abandon it without a good reason.”
“Oh, come on,” Berenice whined. I’d never heard her sound like that. “Don’t leave me here.”
“Isabel,” Lark said, her tone patient but firm.
Berenice sagged as if she’d just been chastised. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Ember and me.
“I’m with Lark,” Topher said. “I want to see Isabel get safely home. And you know what, I want Benjamin safe, too. It sounds like he’s turned his life around.” He patted my hand. “I’ve seen the power of love and how it changes people. No offense, Mrs. Fischer, but Rube was such a jerk before he met you.”
Gabriela glowered at Topher. “Did it ever occur to you that he was just unhappy?”
Berenice glared at Lark, then looked at me. “If you can produce a lead, I’ll go. For Isabel.”
“It’s nice to know that you care so much, Berenice.”
Marco’s tired voice made us all turn in our chairs. Marco, Ember, and Reid stood in the doorway, slouching with exhaustion.
Reid rubbed his face. “We heard Jill yelling and figured we’d have to break up a fight.”
“Um, I’m okay,” I mumbled. “You can go back to sleep.”
The Baltimore three stood up and quickly exchanged introductions.
I looked at Gabriela, who’d been taking it all in for several minutes. “Can I use your computer?”
“My laptop’s in the living room. The password is ‘obsidian0613.’”
I left the kitchen and logged onto the laptop on the desk, massaging my forehead. There was a growing pressure in the center of my head, a sign that I was going to have a fatigue migraine soon. The brightness from the screen made it flare.
Ember joined me at the desk. “What are you doing?”
“I’m joining all the forums for teams out west. The fans of the western teams are probably more attuned to Super activity out there. I want to see if anyone can tell me about sightings, or weird phenomena, or things like that. Anything we can use to start our search.”
“You’re exhausted. Go to sleep.”
“Give me a few minutes.”
“I told you,” Reid grumbled.
I hastily joined ten different forums for teams in the major cities, which I figured had the most fans, and thus the greatest chance for a lead. In each forum I started a thread called “Non-superhero Super sightings?”
My threads began with a simple post:
Hi guys! I’m writing a research paper for school about Supers who aren’t superheroes. I’ve heard that there are groups of them out west, but I can’t find any good books on them. Has anyone seen or heard about people like this? Message me or reply to the thread. Thanks so much!
I didn’t know if there were any books about the Westerners, but if Benjamin—the great lover of all things superhero—had never heard of them, there probably weren’t any books to be found. Word of mouth was my best shot.
I logged off the computer and joined the group in the kitchen again. They were eating plates of food Gabriela had fixed for them and talking quietly about Peter.
“He’s going to be pissed when he comes back,” Berenice said through a mouthful of food, gesturing with her fork.
“Yeah, but that’s not exactly a new thing,” Lark said calmly. “We’ll just act like we didn’t see Reuben.”
“Oh, come on. Jill pounds him and then takes Reuben? Of course he’ll come here.”
I sat down at the table. “Is Reuben in danger?”
“Yes.” All of them answered at once.
I glanced at Gabriela, who was sipping a large glass of wine. “Is his wife i
n danger?”
Lark tapped her finger on the table. “I couldn’t say. Peter has always been rah-rah-rah about protecting civilians, but he has a real short temper, and sometimes people get hurt. I can see him telling himself that Gabriela is a threat, especially if he sees this situation right now as her harboring fugitives.”
I swore. “I didn’t think of that.”
“No, you were thinking about getting Reuben to safety, away from Peter,” Berenice said. “I never thanked you for that. I’m very fond of him, and I hate Peter for insisting on the tribunal. We all thought it would be best if Reuben just retired and lived with his wife.”
The gentleness of her tone took me off guard.
“Yes, thank you,” Gabriela said, extending her hand and curling her fingers around mine. “I didn’t give you the warmest welcome. But you and your team brought him home to me, and I’ll never be able to repay that.”
“Don’t you have another teammate?” Reid asked suddenly, looking at Berenice. “Tiger, right? Why isn’t she here? Will she pose a threat?”
The three shifted in their seats, clearly uncomfortable. Lark cleared her throat. “Abby, uh, she’s at home. She’s like our household guard.”
“Abby doesn’t join us on the streets unless things get really bad,” Berenice said.
Reid frowned. “Why? What’s her power?”
“She turns into a tiger,” Lark said. “And that’s the long and short of Abigail Calhoun.”
I sensed that there was something going on in the Baltimore team that they were ashamed of. “What do you mean?”
For the first time in my life, I watched Berenice rub her eyes to hide tears. “Abby is just a little different, that’s all. She’s very nice. She doesn’t talk, except the word ‘tiger’ before she transforms. She spends all her time in her room, and we’re okay with that. It’s better for her if she doesn’t anger Peter.”
“What did he do to her?” Ember said, gripping the back of my chair.
Topher’s face fell. “She talked a little bit when she arrived to the team. A word here and there. But Peter was convinced she wasn’t being respectful enough. So he hot-handed her arm one day to coerce her into talking.”
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