No Capes

One

It’s probably also raining.

You know you’re being followed too. You see the guy in a dark raincoat watching as you stash your earnings not-so-safely in your pocket, and the same Raincoat Guy appears on your bus ride home.

Fudge nuts.

In fight-or-flight mode, I always choose flight.

Unlike the Supers, I can’t actually fly. I can only duck into a misty alley and whip out my phone.

Call Dad .

It doesn’t ring—no service.

Where the heck is Golden Ace? I ask myself. What’s the point of having Supers if they’re not around when you need them?

Skyscrapers loom overhead, casting shadows over abandoned apartments and boarded-up stores.

These buildings have been condemned for months, to be demolished in the name of “revamping” Capital City, meaning gentrify.

I used to think Capital City was such a boring name, cliché and vague, like Central City or Metropolis.

But most things about Capital City are total bummers, so now I think the name works.

Raincoat Guy’s sneakers slap the soaked sidewalk a few meters back. Something silver flashes in the puddles ahead of me—a pistol.

Well, shoot.

I take off. Empty and too narrow for cars, the backstreets form an eerie maze, which, thanks to the stranger chasing me, I’m forced to solve.

Mud splatters onto my Capital High Swim Team jacket as I skid around a dusty diner.

My loaded backpack throws me off balance, but I can’t ditch it—I have ten pounds of prescription kibble that Ms. Pellingham’s dobermans need ASAP, and there’s no time.

“I swear on my mother’s grave!” I shout. “My family has no money. If you’re here for a ransom, we’re both screwed.”

The man grunts but doesn’t slow. Who is this guy? He’s got at least 60 pounds on me, and he’s not a scrawny seventeen-year-old, like I am (though I’m slightly above average in the height department, thank you very much).

Think, Madeline . I can’t call my dad or Kristen, my best friend, and the cops won’t help since they’d assume a Super would reach me first. Muggings are rare in Capital City anyway, ever since Golden Ace arrived five years ago, set some crime fighting records, and scared off most of the bad guys.

Oh yes, that’s right, Capital City has real-life superheroes.

Golden Ace is our main Super. After he showed up, the other Supers basically retired. He’s got the best battle record and the coolest powers: super strength, speed fighting, and he can fly at over 100 miles an hour, for starters.

So maybe I’m fangirling a little . That’s because in eighth grade, he gave a self-defense talk at my school and I saw him in the hall after.

He’d given me a nod. I’ve been particularly invested in his heroics ever since.

The only strike against him is his Supersuit, which is mustard-yellow spandex.

The best thing is he’s supposedly just a few years older than me, though it’s hard to tell because he wears a gold mask to conceal his real identity.

I suppose the mask helps protect him from the bad guys… and particularly invested fans.

SPLAT . I round a corner and slam into solid cement. That’s gonna leave a mark.

CLICK , a gun cocks. I’m officially trapped. I spin to face him. Raincoat Guy inches nearer and trains his pistol at my heart, which pounds like the horizon before a tsunami.

On the wall facing me, wouldn’t you know, is graffiti of Golden Ace. In it, Golden Ace dodges lasers that a Super shoots from a pitch-black mask. The Super has on tight, obsidian armor with the letters D and S embellished on their shoulders.

Now that is a cool costume.

Of course, not all Supers who visit Capital City believe in using their powers for good.

Every so often, we’ll have a battle between Supers as evil tries to take over the city and good tries to stop it.

When that happens, graffiti, forum postings, articles in the Capital Chronicle , et cetera, pop up, although the evil Supers don’t last long.

I don’t recognize the Super in this drawing—they must be very new.

SPLASH. Raincoat Guy stomps through a puddle, pressing the gun into my chest. Why do I not have pepper spray?

But with crime rates so low, pepper spray hadn’t occurred to me.

I’d love to have at least pepper spray—superpowers wouldn’t be bad either.

Instead, I’m just an unprepared NSRP (Non-Super Regular Person.) Unfortunate, because clearly, Golden Ace is busy.

Raincoat Guy shouts the most unoriginal line in the history of mugging, “Give me your money!”

I hand him my two new $100 bills and my entire wallet.

He tugs my arm as he grabs it, and I shriek with pain, though the heightening rain drowns every sound.

Raincoat Guy pockets the money and my school ID—maybe to make it harder to identify my body—and tosses the rest into the night. Then, his boots step closer.

Uh oh. He smells like rotten eggs and greasy hair—but that second odor could have been me.

Fight, Madeline. I recall Golden Ace’s self-defense talk: Use your knees. Aim right between their legs. Don’t ever let them take you to a second location.

I’m running out of options.

I shut my eyes and brace for impact. “Why?”

“Because I—” the man starts, but an ear-shattering gunshot obliterates the rest of his sentence. I recoil, but a bullet never hits me.

Oofs and ughs come from nearby. I risk a peek.

A fresh bullet hole decorates the wall to my left, while a dim figure stands over my stalker, who now lies unconscious in the mud.

The hero’s dark outfit blends in with every shadow—like the night itself is determined to conceal them—until a bolt of lightning flashes across their chest.

A Super. Not Golden Ace.

“You good?” comes a male voice. Electric energy dances around his shoulders, illuminating him in the slivers of light.

I nod. I’ve never seen a lightning Super. Short bolts sizzle across his spandex, sparks of white hissing in the rain. He reminds me of a predator luring prey with pretty lights; if you can see their glow, it’s already too late.

Maybe equally as dangerous as his lightning, the Super also seems to have a thing for darkness.

Black gloves, wispy like shadows, reach his elbows, while tall, ebony boots hit just below his knees.

An obsidian mask covers his face, with a protective screen over his eyes.

The Super’s costume exposes only the curves of his mouth, which keep all of his secrets.

He gives one last kick to the man’s unconscious body and dusts off his gloves, admiring his handiwork.

Do I shake his hand? Hug him? Thank him fifty times? Get out of here ASAP? I almost do all four until the embroidery on his suit becomes clearer, showing two initials over his heart:

D.S.

The graffiti behind him captures his features perfectly.

Golden Ace’s latest nemesis.

“You’re him,” I say, guessing he won’t need me to specify. He’s younger than I expected, going from the pitch of his voice, though the exact sound seems disguised. Probably not too far from my age.

“So?” The Super replies.

“So,” I say, “aren’t you supposed to be the bad guy?”

In one swift movement, he scoops the $200— my $200—which has fallen in the mud from Raincoat Guy’s pocket, and slides it into his own slick, black boot.

“Who says I’m not?” He points at Raincoat Guy. “You, Madeline Roberts, are in quite a few people’s little black books.”

“Yeah, right.” What a load of bologna. Besides my classmates, approximately ten people in Capital City know who I am. Not even Arielle, my darling, icy sister, would have sent someone after me.

“Only fair to give you a heads up. Gotta keep things interesting.” He twirls a gloved hand, lethal luminescence flickering in his palm. “Next time, maybe don’t bring a dead phone to a gun fight.”

The Super reaches toward Raincoat Guy and takes an additional wad of cash, a black flip-phone, and two IDs from the soaked jacket. He tosses me the IDs, depositing the rest in his boot. Raincoat Guy had cash. So why was he after me?

“Yours and his. Gary Slate. Now you know.”

I turn it over: a driver’s license with a photo of Gary; Raincoat Guy, apparently. Only there’s paper stuck to the back of it. I peel it from the plastic, then stop.

Holy Aces.

It’s a print of a photo. In it, I stand with my mom—she holds an award, a journalism prize. This was taken just over three years ago. It also might be the only public photo of me where I’m not wearing goggles and a swim cap.

The Super is correct. Now I know: My encounter with Raincoat Guy wasn’t random.

“But what did he want with me?” I ask, but the Super has vanished into the dark. A gust of wind chases him, while I’m left drenched and shaking, but still alive.

What the heck just happened? Is the stalker man dead?

A groan comes from the pile of clothes. Raincoat Guy is regaining consciousness. Time to go.

On the run to my dad’s apartment, I am hauling a huge headache, ten pounds of crushed dog food, and a million questions.

My top three are:

Who the heck was that Super?

What “little black books” did he mean?

He’d greeted me before he recovered my ID. How the heck did he know my name?

~

As I arrive home, I leave the disintegrated dog food bag outside my landlady’s door.

It should be enough to hold those dobermans over until I get more.

I drag myself into my dad’s attached townhouse, trudge up the stairs to my room, quickly change into whatever looks clean, and collapse on my comforter. Even my bones feel waterlogged.

Blue swimming ribbons line each wall in my bedroom, while trophies collect dust on plastic shelves. A hamper with my wet clothes is by the door, and a few crumpled sweatshirts and jeans accessorize the carpet. Organized.

Whatever space isn’t full of my swimming treasures is dedicated to Golden Ace.

A printed certificate hangs over my bed, authenticating that I’m an official member of his fan club, the Goldies.

News headlines, glossy magazine pictures, and quotes from his fan-run social media fill a collage that takes up my entire ceiling.

My favorite quote is one that he gave my mom after he defeated Ghost Lord.

He’d said, “Not all Ghosts want to destroy, some just wish to be seen. The problem is when they destroy to be seen.”

Golden Ace is deep, right?

To complete the décor, nineteen palm-sized, plastic Golden Ace figurines cover my dresser, each featuring a unique, heroic pose.

It cost about $400 in cereal boxes to collect them all.

Yesterday, I’d say that $400 was a great investment.

Now, I wonder how much a girl has to spend on cereal to guarantee she won’t be in the 0.

6% of crimes that Golden Ace doesn’t stop.

Tap. Drip. Tap . Rain sprays against my sole window. Mist blows inside from where the window is slightly cracked, and I can’t remember if I left it that way.

Tap. Drip. Tap . My mom used to take me to a field near our old house when it rained.

We had the full getup: rain jackets, boots, umbrellas, and goggles.

Bathing suits, if it was over 75 degrees.

We’d compete to slide the farthest in the mud, and she never let me win.

Once, she’d pulled me out of school for it.

School.

The clock on my bedside table reads 1:12 A.M. Swim practice starts at 5:00 A.M. Then there’s my calculus test. Why can’t it be on cookies instead of derivatives?

Rather than let me study, Lily had reenacted her favorite episodes of Kids Baking Challenge , burned cookies included.

I need to tell my dad about Raincoat Guy-slash-Gary, but he has to be at his auto mechanic job at 6:00 A.M. and could get hurt without enough rest. I’m safe enough for now… telling my dad can wait.

I don’t bother showering, brushing my teeth, or packing up my backpack.

I just bury my face in my pillow and hug it as hard as I can.

The familiarity lulls the night to an end, until my elbow grazes something damp.

Shoot, did I seriously get water in my bed?

Besides my sheets, something else doesn’t feel quite right.

Carefully, I lift the pillow, then swallow a gasp.

Underneath, someone stashed a note scribbled on blue construction paper and two soggy $100 bills.

Roberts —

Regarding how you may pay me back for saving your life…

I’ll soon be in touch.

—D.S.

P.S. Don’t spend it all in one place.