"Is it because you keep having bleeds? I covered for you here at the hospital but if Nate knew, he'd be pissed."
That time, I didn't answer. Maybe it was the stress from losing my sister, maybe it was the strain on my own powers. I didn't know and I didn't want to find out if it was something worse than either one of those two. I'd had nose bleeds every single day for weeks. It was only with Edwin's help that I'd been hiding them from the staff.
Deep down, I knew they weren't actually nose bleeds. Instead, something was very, very wrong. And I could worry about that when things had calmed down. I swiped my hand beneath my nose and licked my lips, a bad habit from when they had been actual nose bleeds when I was a kid. You didn't stop racing around the playground because your face sprang a leak, you know?
I slid down the nearest fire escape and began my walk through the city's various alleyways and dives. Edwin's sneakmode active, I blended in almost everywhere I went. The high shadows, the dark spots of my home, I was part of them all and no one was any the wiser for it.
Part of me didn't like that. It felt odd, awkward, uncomfortable to go unnoticed around girls being pimped out and drug deals going down. Those could be easily handled by the local police, if they ever bothered to come through areas like the one I was in. Somehow, they seemed to forget about them.
Instead, I was in the slummiest side of town because Holloway, a cop that owed me a favor, had mentioned there were sightings of someone that looked a great deal like Nishelle in the area. We weren't prepared for another Pyro to launch a psychotic attack that could fry everyone in the city, the PR team would eat us alive. My orders were to corner her, talk her down, and try to get her back into the Alliance. There, we could monitor her and try to find out why she was dodging us.
Few Pyros were what you would call safe or sane. It was the same with a lot of other superpowers. After a while, the power just kind of got to your brain and bad things happened. That was one of the biggest perks of the Alliance; they took care of you when you failed and things started to go wrong. They'd put you on the shelf, get great doctors to take a look at you, and have someone dispose of you if you became a danger to your loved ones.
I didn't do the wet work. I wasn't that kind of a guy, but I suspected that Nate had more than once. Though fewer and fewer superheroes needed to be put down, there was always a chance it would happen. Having the Alliance to secure that end for you, so you'd never accidentally scorch some kid half to death in the mall parking lot, was the best we could ask for.
Wishing I had Nate with me in case things went to hell, I continued to creep along. "Who'd they set you up with after they kicked me out?"
"No one as of yet. Seems no superheroes have gotten their teeth kicked in tonight," Edwin answered. "No sign of her yet?"
"Oh, I already found her. I let her go," I said.
"Adam."
"And I gave her twenty gallons of kerosene on top of it."
Edwin sighed. "She doesn't need any kind of combustible substance."
"Yeah, but it's fun to hear you sigh like that. You get all cranky and it's the best thing."
"This is serious," he scolded.
Again, I fell silent and simply enjoyed needling him. Edwin was a treat when his dander was up and it was so easy to get him frustrated. I found my way into a club without the bouncer noticing me and snuck around back.
No luck, but there was plenty of eye-candy in the joint. I watched as two girls rode each other to the floor and turned my gaze away when they started tearing at each other's clothes. Cassie was more than enough for me, no matter how slow we needed to take it.
I'd nearly made my way out of the club when an arm slid around my throat and drew me behind a curtain. I followed, getting ready to crush whoever it was with a good gravitational smash until I heard the voice.
"Who sent you?"
Careful not to break her, I reached back and pulled her around me. Nishelle jerked free and pointed a freaking gun at my head. I held my hands up, my voice hushed. "Easy, whoa. I didn't even shove you or anything and you've got a gun out?"
"I don't even know if you're really Creed or not," she panted.
"Wow. Harsh. Like there's somebody else out there as gorgeous and patriotic as I am."
The gun tipped downward a fraction of an inch and I rammed forward, tearing it out of her hands and pinning her to the wall just to the side of the curtain. For a moment, I thought I'd used too much pressure. Maybe I'd been too rough, or I hadn't thought it through. Her knees waivered and the breath was knocked right out of her. I tossed the gun to the floor after making sure the safety was on it, well out of her reach and my own.
"I swear to god, if you don't get off me, I'll burn this place to the ground."
Yeah, that wasn't why I was there, either. "I let you loose, you don't run. You stay here. We talk. Emb, we can't have you out running around doing stuff like what you did at the mall. You know we can't."
"Not after what your fucking sister pulled?"
It was like driving an ice pick into my guts. Cold shot through me, angry and dark. I could smash her like a twig and she was running her fucking mouth about my sister, who was clearly misled or even under some kind of control. Of course the problem lay somewhere else, not with Izzy. She'd served loyally for as long as I had, always working to help better mankind. What had Ember done all those years except hide somewhere else? Maybe put out a forest fire or two?
"You don't put your mouth on my sister," I growled. "Not after the mall."
Stupid. It was stupid. I knew better than to corner her like that. She'd never react kindly to someone forcing her to do anything and yet, there I was. The fire struck the front of my suit and superheated it, the chill in my stomach replaced with hellish boiling. I ripped away from her, took one look at the champagne sitting in a bucket of ice on the single table in the room, and threw myself toward it.
The ice took the burn away immediately and I tipped my head back, breathing a sigh of relief. But when I looked up, Nishelle was gone and all that remained of her was a scorch on the wall the exact size of a handprint. I cursed under my breath, tossed the bucket to the ground, and stalked out after her. She and I were going to have a proper conversation one way or another, damn it.
Of course, the club was completely oblivious to our little drama in the hidden room. Who knew what happened to young ladies (and probably young men) when they got dragged back there with no one to help them. Hell, maybe even the older men got fleeced sometimes, too. "Edwin."
"You enjoying the club?"
I sighed. "We should probably raid this place some day, or encourage other people to do it. It's full of hideyholes and nooks where people can get hurt."
"Most clubs are. VIP rooms and stuff. It isn't against the law, you know that."
The back exit slid open easily for me. I walked out and looked either way, finding no trace of Nishelle or anyone else. "I know, but she and I just had a good tussle and no one heard anything."
"Also kind of the point, Creed."
I clenched my right hand into a fist, frustrated. He was probably right, but that didn't make it okay. It didn't make it safe. If people wanted to do sexy things, they needed to do them... safely. I growled and, again, wished I had Nate with me. He'd have been able to sniff her out in a second and we'd have been on the trail again. Instead, I had to use my head.
And let's be honest; sometimes that takes a little bit.
There was a fence to my left. It wasn't impossible to scale, but there were a number of cardboard boxes behind it that looked as though they hadn't been touched. A mouse darted over one with a pizza crust in its mouth, probably heading back to a little family to feed. It was possible she'd gone that way, but I doubted it. In that case, it meant only one other option. I turned right and trotted down the alleyway, re-activating sneakmode.
I blended in with the background of the city once more and, upon reaching the alley's exit, I was granted another choice. And there were three possibilities
this time. If I were a superhero trying to keep a low profile, I knew which way I'd go. I started down another alleyway when something sizzled just outside the entryway. Someone shouted outside, then the high-pitched shriek of a person in dreadful peril began.
Nishelle had found a victim.
My boots smacked the concrete sidewalk as I jumped around the corner, running full speed and straight into a towering inferno. Someone, an absolute idiot, had decided he was going to rob her. The thief lay on the ground, charred but not enough to kill him. Nishelle glared hatred at all of us, as the few people on the streets ran from the wall of flame. I was very interested in joining them, but I was also deftly aware that I was the only person who stood a chance of helping them.
"Edwin, I need at least one ambulance to wherever I am," I said, tightly.
His voice held a frown. "Try not to make it too messy. We want her in one piece."
I snorted and reached for the gravity in the street, then flung the whole thing as high as I could get it. Nishelle shot off her feet with a shriek and I followed her, quite literally walking on air. Upon spotting me, her face turned into a mask of confusion.
"I didn't do anything wrong," she said. "He came at me first."
Well, at least she wasn't hosing me down with her own special brand of napalm. I approached, cautious and ready to flee if I needed to. My suit was only fire-resistant, not fireproof. If she really hammered me, I'd fry just as fast as anyone else. "I took a guess that's what happened, but this has to stop."
The flames scattered weirdly along the ground beneath us, like little bugs looking for places to hide. They were low, flat, tired things that were on the brink of going out. She twisted in the air, trying to get her feet under her. "You don't understand. You can't understand. It isn't like how things used to be."
"It could be," I said, reaching out. I took her arm and gently tipped her upward, then held her until she could get her bearings. "What's going on? You brought her flowers then you tried to fricassee me at the club. You just barbequed that guy. And the kid at the mall?"
She held her arms out at her sides, balancing as best she could in the low gravity. It took time to get used to it, but I'd had decades of experience. My mom had needed to put a roof on mine and Izzy's playpen to keep us in it.
"It can't," she said. "And I don't know. I'm not me, right now, Creed. I'm not. And I can't control all of this."
"You can't control your powers, or someone else is controlling you?"
A wash of understanding cleared the anger in her gaze. "You get it?"
"Izzy, Lexi, you, maybe even Scribe. Who knows who else. Someone's playing a dangerous game," I said. "I won't believe Izzy spent so long trying to be a respectable superhero just to throw it all away. And that she didn't finish you off."
Nishelle scowled at me. "Like she could. Your sister didn't even know I was alive."
"Which," I said, holding up a finger. "Lends to the idea that she's not in control of this mess. How could she be screwing with your head if she didn't know you were there to screw with?"
Her eyes narrowed. "That's a pretty good point. But it still doesn't make it safe for me to be around any of you. Or anyone, really."
And that was a pretty good point, too. I rolled the idea over in my head, ignoring the now-familiar trickle of blood creeping down my lip. I'd drop the gravity when she dropped the fire, but this needed to be over sooner rather than later. Someone had mentioned Dreamweaver, Cassie's cousin, but she'd always been on good terms with the Alliance even when she wasn't associated with us.
"It still doesn't add up," I admitted. "But you're safer back at home with the Alliance than you are running all over the place out here. You drop the flames, I'll put us back on the ground. We can go to the Hideout. Grab some grub. Talk this over and figure out how best to fix it. Okay?"
There was a brief hesitation in which she stared at the blood dripping out of me, looked down at the ground, and obviously considered her options. Maybe she could swim away, throw fire at me, something like that. But I could also smash her itty bitty skull in like a beer can if I had to. And she knew it.
Below us, the fires slowly died. I raised the gravity bit by bit, allowing us to descend to the hot streets in a comfortable fashion rather than just dropping us. Sure, we were taught how to take a decent fall at a young age, but there was no reason to sling us to the ground if I didn't have to.
"Come on," I said, offering my hand out to her.
"You're bleeding."
I scrubbed it away with my sleeve and silently thanked whoever had made color-safe bleach a thing. Sure, it was darker material but I didn't want to stain this thing any more than I had to when it was still pretty new. "Better?"
"No."
Shit. I braced for the impact, but the fireball that struck my shoulder was still a whole lot more ouch than I'd been prepared to take. I swatted her with a burst of high gravity force, intent on sticking her to the ground so I could peel her up in a second. It caught her across the side and sent her spiraling into a nearby wall, but it didn't pin her.
The flames wreathed her in an instant, her hair smoldering, her eyes full of heat. The attack hadn't been enough to punch through my suit, but it still hurt a hell of a lot. "Ember!"
Her head jerked at the name, like I'd slapped her. She hissed at me. "Ardent."
A pyroblast lit the entire street for an instant. When my vision cleared, she was gone and a thousand little fire motes still skittered across the blacktop. I stared at the spot she'd been in. There were those who could teleport, yes. We called them Porters, because we're very original with our names. But I'd never heard of a Pyro-Porter.
Maybe someone had kidnapped her.
"Did you get all that?" I asked.
Edwin sighed. "Our lives are the biggest bunch of bullshit. Yeah. I got it all. You're telling Cassie."
I sighed, too.
Chapter 5
I knew the theory behind Porters and being teleported, but I'd never experienced it. My skin felt as if someone had rubbed me all over with sandpaper and I popped my ears a half dozen times before I could hear properly. The first thing I heard? Were my fellow superheroes' screams.
A tube of glass completely surrounded me. At least, I assumed it was glass. I reached out and tried to melt a pinhole through the material but it wouldn't budge. That was strange; even plexiglass or crystal should have failed against the heat. What else could make a perfectly clear tube like that?
Lexi sat in a pile at the bottom of her own tube, Isabella right beside her. Both wore the ripped remains of their supersuits and they were absolutely filthy. Not the sort of battle-worn dust-and-blood that I expected, but simply the sort that happens when you aren't allowed near a shower for a few weeks.
Isabella kept screaming at the top of her lungs, straining every bone in her body. The tube around her vibrated but refused to break, something that, at one time, I would have considered to be an impossibility. I leaned my back against my prison and watched her. Time and time again, she smashed and shrieked, desperate to escape. Whatever was holding us in never twitched.
"She'll do it all night if we let her," Lexi said, giving me a miserable look.
I shrugged. "Where are we?"
"If I knew that, I'd have called in the cavalry already!" snarled Izzy. There was a pause, then she smoothed her short, black hair back and cleared her throat. "Apologies. For what happened out on the street. I tried not to... all of that, but there was little I could do to stop it."
"Not like I have any better luck," I said. "We're captives. Somewhere. And someone's playing with our heads for... what gain?"
"We aren't the only ones. I've seen several superheroes I don't recognize coming in and out of this lab but they're probably just in alternate suits from their normal ones. It's not like I know everyone's voice the second I hear it," Isabella said. "I don't know what this villain’s end game is."
Lexi rolled her eyes. "Dreamweaver's end game."
"We don
't know if she's under someone else's control or if this is all her," Isabella snapped.
I watched the two of them like a tennis match, working through the possibilities. Psychic superheroes had always been something of a debate among the community. Sure, they were great at controlling mass chaos situations. Get thirty people in a room together all trying to cause trouble and I'd be hard put to take them all out. Someone like Creed might be able to plow the whole group into the floor, but that'd be the civilians and the baddies of the day.
Psychics were useful like that. They could pinpoint only the villains and shut them down in a breath. Cassie's family, the Clarks, were the largest group of Psychics in the world. Together, who knew how many they'd saved throughout the generations.
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