Four #2
He wears the same outfit as before: a darker-than-black spandex suit, obsidian mask, lengthy gloves, and boots that blend into every shadow.
The electricity that danced around him yesterday seems to have vanished or is dormant.
I stop swinging, but don’t get up. His blue construction paper note is in my pocket, burning through my leggings.
“You’re following me.” I say.
He settles into his seat, evidently pleased with himself.
He knows I can’t run or scream or hide. “Guilty as charged. Behold, the D.S. 6000.” He extends his arm, exposing a wristwatch that has a map of Capital City and blinking red dots.
He taps one. “This is you. Maddy, you have no idea how long I was waiting for you to come outside. I’ve waited practically the whole day to talk to you. ”
“It’s Madeline.”
“Right. My bad. Anyhoo, I’m glad you’re here, but it’s dangerous to be out after sunset these days, especially alone. You never know who might lurk just out of sight.”
“Good thing I’m not alone.”
He bends his whole body toward me, every movement as agile as a falcon’s, though his swing’s squeak detracts from his stealth factor.
While he’s admitted to stalking and given me a cryptic warning, I don’t get the sense that he plans to hurt me. Although having a Super track me doesn’t exactly instill safety either.
“How did you put that note in my locker?” I ask.
He claps his gloved hands together, excited. “I didn’t think that would be your first question, but I can see why you’d wonder.”
Wait. I put it together. No. “Do you go to my school?”
“You would be so lucky.”
“You’re my age.” I study him. The skin around his mouth is tight, and he’s tall, but not as filled out as Golden Ace.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. After yesterday. You’re welcome, again.”
“I didn’t say thank you.”
“You are so right. Where are your manners?”
I swing again. The night doesn’t feel cold anymore. “Answer my questions, and maybe I will.”
“Now this sounds fun.” The coating over his eyes makes them glow like a cat playing in the night.
“What’s your name?”
“Can’t say. Secret identities and all that.”
I frown, and he gives a mocking grin. So it’s going to be like this. “Is it D.S.?”
“Those are my initials.”
“Your Super’s initials or your secret identity’s initials?”
“Yes.”
“Like Damian Scott?” Woodchips scatter as I drag my sneakers against them. What if, on top of everything else, Damian Scott Jr. is a Super?
As if the Super can sense how badly I want him to confirm this, he smugly asks, “Who?”
“What happened to Raincoat—Gary?” I demand.
“Nothing too terrible. Not to worry, Roberts.”
I’m never going to get a straight answer from him. Unfortunately, I still need information, and I’m not quite ready for the big question. “How did you open my locker?”
“Didn’t. I found which locker’s yours and slipped the note in from the top. To answer your next inquiry, everyone’s locker numbers are in the school computer system. Not too hard to crack.”
“Why didn’t you just put it in my mailbox?”
“Would that have freaked you out less?”
“Probably not.”
We swing in a charged silence. He waits for my next question, which already hangs in the dark like a ghost. But I can’t ask it. So I make a statement instead. “You don’t know anything about my mom.”
He stops swinging. “What if I do?”
“But you don’t.”
The Super presses his watch, and an image lights up on it. “You’ve seen this picture?”
I squeeze the nylon fabric inside my jacket pocket.
Yes, I’ve seen the picture. It had been on every news channel for weeks.
A green minivan, charred black, lies in three pieces along Capital Cliffs.
The Levine family’s car had exploded when it crashed through the guardrail.
Hydroplaning, it set a small fire on the cliff, but the fire wasn’t enough to melt the car to nothing.
Not during a storm as powerful as the one that night.
He taps to a new image. “Here’s what a minivan should look like after a high-speed hydroplane. Even in a storm. Spot the differences?”
“It’s not as bad,” I say. In the next picture, the car is crumpled, but intact, and with zero charring.
“Did you hear what they found in the car?”
“Gasoline. The gas tank punctured after it hit the rail.”
He clicks another picture. A scorched, red lighter lies in a patch of grass. “Found about two hundred meters away. No fingerprints.”
A shrill ring swells in my ears. “That wasn’t in the police report.”
“The police didn’t find it.”
“You found it?”
“Golden Ace did.”
The ringing stops. This D.S. dude goes on, “The lighter is official evidence, but the police had already closed the case when Gold turned it in. Everyone accepts that the gas tank ruptured in the crash, but what if that’s not what happened?”
He watches me, but I say nothing. I can’t. D.S. muses, “Don’t you find it odd that they never did an autopsy? That everyone was quick to believe the worst car crash in forever was a freak accident? I’m just saying. If it were me, I’d want an autopsy.”
I have so many questions that I can’t think of a single one. I wipe my palms on my leggings. The smooth fabric helps me stay present.
A milky twinkle lingers on his mask from a splinter of the moon. Easy-going-ness glosses the rest of him, like enemies could corner him and he’d still crack a joke. He’s not carrying what my dad and I are. What Fox and his siblings are. Even Arielle. He’s free.
“There is still the matter of what you’re going to help me with,” he continues, “But I need your trust first.”
Why would someone stage the explosion? I shake the thought away. Not now.
“I’m not going to help you,” I say. Everything about him, from the shadows swirling on his suit to the electricity lying in wait, screams bad idea.
“I have total confidence that you’ll change your mind.”
I won’t. Although maybe I can find out what he wants another way. “You never told me what your name is.”
He chuckles. “And you never said thank you.”
His watch gives off two low beeps, which startles me right off my swing. He pretends not to notice. “Gotta go,” he says. “Think about what I said.”
“What, are you late for your League of Evil meeting?” I push. Now that he’s planted the seed, I want to know what his project is. I’m also itching to find out his name, since he apparently knows everything about me, and I have nothing on him.
“Something like that. But last thing, Roberts. Be careful who you trust.” Before I can ask anything else, he steps away, cloaked in the black sky, and vanishes.
I concentrate on the space where he disappeared, until I’m sure there’s nothing watching me back. I swing for a moment longer, then all I want is to go home. He has to be wrong. The logistics of exploding the minivan before it crashed are too convoluted, even for a city with Supers. He’s wrong.
He’s wrong.
I trudge home and remember—Fox. Math homework. Reality.
Wait.
We don’t have assigned lockers at school. We just picked one on the first day and our homeroom teachers gave out the combinations—they only have individual records. This D.S. character couldn’t have found my locker in a master database. There is no master database.
He has to go to my school.
The new kid. Aaron.
How could D.S. be anyone other than Aaron, the mysterious swimmer who’d appeared right after D.S. did? It’s too much of a coincidence, especially because I feel like I’ve seen Aaron before.
But…
If D.S. were anyone else… two others surface as candidates: Damian Scott Jr., whose initials are literally D.S., and Fox Levine, the only other person who would care about this car accident.
Except… D.S. knows too much about me to be someone new, Damian never recognizes me in school, and Fox hates me and wouldn’t wait so long to investigate something this big.
Another thing: all three of them play sports, and the school always tests athletes for powers.
Always. They wouldn’t be able to play sports if they were a Super.
Then, who is he? Could he really be Aaron or Fox? Could he really be Damian? After everything that’s gone wrong in the last three years, maybe the universe is finally giving me this one thing: Damian Scott Jr., helping me .
As I settle into my bed for the night and wrap myself in fuzzy blankets, I don’t think of the car crash. Seared into my memory is that one sentence, in D.S.’s mocking voice, I just want to make sure you’re okay.