Chapter 11
“You know I can hurl fire, right?”
“Okay, big shot.” Hellcat stepped back into the alley, motioning to the dumpster. For a hero without abilities, she wielded her sarcasm like a cosmic power. When I didn’t summon it, she continued her prodding. “Well, show me these amazing abilities. I’m ready for shock and awe.”
I had gone toe-to-toe with Shadow, hurling fire like a badass. This garbage-can had no idea the danger coming its way. I thrust my hands forward with a loud grunt. There was no warmth, no burning along my skin. Most of all, there was no pillar of fire obliterating the garbage.
“Invisible fire? That’s a new power!” She squinted, and I could feel the mounting attitude. “Can you turn invisible when nobody’s looking? The villains of Vanguard won’t know what hit them.”
“Tone it down. I still have that entire strength and bulletproof thing going for me.”
I had barely extended my middle finger in her direction when she spun about. The heel of her shoe caught my chin. The momentum allowed her to hook her arm around my neck and swing her body to my back. I tried to turn, to drive my elbow into her mask, but she easily dodged the blow.
“Is clumsy a power?”
Her heel struck the back of my knee. Wrapping her arm around my neck, she held me in place with her leg. I couldn’t gain leverage to grab her over my shoulder. I had power at my disposal, and I was being bested by a vigilante who knew how to kick.
Pointing a fist at the dumpster, I let loose a stream of obscenities. The fire gathered at my forearm, pulsing as it shot from my hand, slamming into the side of the bin. It rocketed upward, metal screeching along the side of the building.
Hellcat let go, backing away. “Until you can be consistent, it’s best not to rely on your fireworks.”
“But—”
“Me…” She moved where I could see her patting her chest. “Mentor. You…” She gestured in my direction. “Mentee. Listen, before I have to send you to detention.”
I bit my tongue, a sign of a newly growing maturity.
It was aggravating that I understood what she was saying.
I didn’t want to be a hero, but okay, I had a skill set that made me useful.
Except, it only showed up sometimes. Hard to scare villains when you have to tell them to wait until I turned into a living matchstick.
“It’ll be okay. The public thinks superheroes get their powers and overnight they’re out saving the streets. That’s why there are so many teams, and they go through members so quickly. Think of it like superhero boot camp.”
“So you’ve done this before?”
Hellcat laughed. “God, no. But right now, seems I’m your best bet.”
No powers, no experience, and yet, I couldn’t see any other options. Prometheus had made a mistake in choosing me as his heir. Sure, getting shot and laughing it off was a fun parlor trick, but it didn’t make me a hero. Hellcat had bested me with a couple of swift kicks.
“I’m—”
“Scared?”
“No.”
“Determined?”
“Well—”
“You think this is all a mistake, and you should go home and call it quits?”
“I mean—”
With no fanfare, Hellcat ripped down the zipper of her leather jacket. In a dark alley, a vigilante flashed me. No, worse than that. She took my hand and placed it just above her bra. She held it there, making sure my fingertips grazed her skin.
“I took my first bullet at age twenty. It was me or a school kid.” She dragged my hand to the side of her navel. “Metalica turned her fingers into blades and ran me through. But I wouldn’t let her murder an innocent bystander.”
The skin along her torso read like a fighter’s version of brail. Pink scars were visible across almost every part of her body. Hellcat might be a skilled fighter, but even she couldn’t win all the time. I moved to a square of gauze covered in red blotches.
“This?”
“Shadow,” she growled. She stepped back, zipping up the jacket, returning to the indestructible Hellcat. “You can be fast, but you’ll encounter somebody faster.”
Before I could ask questions, she turned and walked toward the mouth of the alley. We had ventured to a questionable part of Southland, and it surprised me that we hadn’t been mugged upon arriving. It seemed without the heroes, more than a few citizens had indulged in their criminal tendencies.
“Are you coming?”
I sulked, so sue me. I followed until she stopped me with an outstretched hand. She pointed to the ground, where the streetlight cast a shadow on the pavement. With another step, I’d leave the darkness and be visible to nearby citizens of Vanguard.
“Superheroes don’t need to deal with this. For now, we’re hiding in the shadows. It adds to our mystique.”
“What other rules should I memorize?”
“Don’t give monologues. That’s for villains.”
“Really?”
“Oh, and...”
She trailed off before kneeling in a crouch.
The vigilante ground the toes of her boots, trying to gain better leverage.
With one hand, she pointed at her eyes before gesturing toward the street.
There were several dozen citizens walking along the sidewalks, but it was a hooded young man glancing over his shoulder that caught her attention.
“A kid?”
“A thief.”
“You want me to stop a brat from stealing?”
“You want a lesson in being a hero? Sometimes the biggest victories are in the mundane. If you’re—”
Nope, no more monologues. I stepped into the light, not to chase the teen, but to put distance between myself and Hellcat’s rules. I had dealt with addicts determined to break into my ambulance. If she thought this was going to be a challenge, I’d scare the kid straight and be home in time for—
The sounds of the street vanished. The symphony of car horns, squealing tires, or even scuffling feet evaporated.
My ears hadn’t failed. Even the deep bass of the subway turned off as if by a magical switch.
When I caught the boy’s face, his eyes glowed a vibrant green.
I reconsidered listening to Hellcat’s speech.
The kid inhaled, his chest rising. My brain attempted to seize control of my body and set me running in the opposite direction.
They taught citizens from grade school to flee battles between heroes and villains.
There had been seminars on how to not be used as a hostage.
But I wasn’t normal, not anymore. I was…
Inferno—no, that sounded worse than Blaze.
While I debated superhero names, the kid pulled back his hoodie, revealing golden curls.
Other than the eyes of doom, he looked like any other kid out after sundown committing petty crimes.
The exhale wasn’t a simple expelling of carbon dioxide, of course not.
He screamed, an ear-piercing, blood-curdling—
The high-pitched tone turned a deep bass.
I watched as the pavement of the road rippled, bits of rock flying in my direction.
There wasn’t time to react, not before it sent me hurtling into a building.
Even from thirty feet, he hammered away with his powers, causing the brick to push inward, leaving a giant-sized “me” crater.
“Fuck. This.” Even shouting, I couldn’t hear myself.
I spotted Hellcat out of the corner of my eye.
I thought she might swing in to karate chop the kid.
She could have used one of those tranquilizer darts they always seemed to have.
No, instead, she was holding a sandwich while she tried to open a can of soda one-handed.
It was the wink at the end that did me in.
Tough love, I got the message. I deserved nothing less.
Pushing off the wall, my limbs strained until I dropped to the sidewalk.
I tried taking a step, but vertigo took over and I braced myself against a post office box.
The kid’s screaming stopped, his eyebrow raised as he processed.
I tried willing the fire, summoning the pillar of flame.
I shouldn’t have wanted to turn him into ash, but after trying to pierce my eardrums, I’d at least crisp his edges.
Nothing.
“Dammit.” My ears continued ringing.
Shaking my head, Hellcat came into view. Her lips were moving. I tried making out the words, but rolled my eyes when I discovered she was just taking another sip from the can. I needed a new mentor.
Okay, no fire. The suit remained intact. Eyeing the broken wall, any other person would have been pulverized into a fine powder. He might be a kid, but the brat needed to be taught a lesson in manners. The city’s sounds vanished again while the kid made a show of sucking in the noise.
“Not today, Satan!”
Fingers pressed into the metal of a mailbox until they pierced the blue exterior.
With a sharp jerk, it pulled from the cement.
Seconds later, the mail receptacle soared through the air.
I had never been one for athletics, and I doubt I could throw a baseball.
But if hurling mailboxes became an Olympic sport, I’d earn a gold medal.
“Score.” The mailbox hit the kid, bouncing him against a car. As he reached for the side-view mirror, I knew the fight wasn’t over. I ran across the street and jumped as an angry driver honked his horn. At least my hearing wasn’t completely shot, a small miracle.
I grabbed the kid by the shirt, slamming him against the car. The alarm went off before I kicked the fender hard enough that it pushed onto the curb. Who knew super strength could be this dangerous?
I struck his throat with the edge of my hand as he started to inhale.
He grabbed at his neck, clawing at his skin, struggling to breathe.
He might be a teenager, but if he could destroy a street and hurl me like a rag doll, I considered him dangerous.
Punks like him made heroes a necessity, and I hated it. I hated him.