Sixteen
I jerk awake. Ow.
My neck throbs like someone has punched me right between the shoulder blades.
Not lightly punched, like “you made a funny joke, congrats,” but pounded through my spine as if they’d intended to stop my heart from beating.
My cheeks sting like I was dragged across gravel, and a loud pain beats inside my head, drowning out my surroundings.
I flip at my waist to defend myself against whatever is happening, but instead of seeing someone standing over me, ready to end my life, I find a low ceiling, iron bars, and damp mold clinging to every corner. I’m inside a jail cell. Underground.
“Cheers, Madeline,” calls an unfamiliar voice. It takes every ounce of energy I can muster to roll over and sit on my sore butt. My throat burns, like I’d dry-swallowed a jellybean, and the back of my head thuds with the symptoms of what will soon be a dehydration headache.
Through the bars stands a man about my height, smoothly shaven and dressed in a button-down shirt, gray pants, and a silver vest. He wears a black bowler hat and shiny brown, pointy-toed shoes.
“Let’s experiment, shall we?” He produces a plastic bottle from behind his back, maneuvers it between the bars of my cage, and tosses it to me. It lands on the lumpy stone floor.
“Drink up.” His excitement flares in the dim basement.
Water, just what I need. I twist the cap off the bottle and examine its contents. The clear liquid looks and smells like water, but so does water with high levels of arsenic. So I’ve heard.
“Throw it back,” the man demands. I oblige, and it lands at his feet, right at the tips of his ridiculously shiny footwear. He brings it to his mouth, taking a long swig. “See.” He tosses it to me again. “All clean.”
I down the rest. The piercing pain instantly vanishes from my head, and my body aches less and less.
This is some fancy water. A normal human being can survive without consuming water for 72 hours, but I’ve always felt like my limit is much lower.
I could probably only go for ten. Ten and a half at the most.
I stand, feeling strong enough to use my wobbly legs. My first question for the man is, Where did you get that bowler hat? That classy cliché that of course an evil kidnapper would wear. But I don’t ask that. “Who are you?” I demand, “Why am I here?”
“Interesting,” the man muses. He takes four more water bottles from his pockets and places them on the ground. He tosses me one. Sheesh, how many does he have in there? “I want you to clean up.”
“What?”
The man’s eyes shine like a child watching a magician. “Pour some onto your face and hands,” he instructs.
“Why?”
“Because you’re trapped in a cell and I have a gun,” he replies, as if it were obvious.
Touché. Do what the man says, I force myself to comply.
Palms sweating, I lift the second water bottle over my head and tilt it to rain down on me. Drops run across my face, weighing down my hair. I shiver when it hits my neck. The icy liquid fights my elevated heart rate.
“Madeline Roberts, you’re positively glowing.”
That’s it. No more of this creepy, sadistic business.
“How do you know my name?” My heart bangs in my ears, which have filled with fluid. An iridescent haze glows over my vision, and a screeching wail fills the cell, like nails on a chalkboard into a megaphone.
SCREEEEEEEECH.
Steam tickles my nose, like stepping out of the tub after a long shower, and a sudden, explosive blast throws me against the stone wall.
BOOM.
I close my eyes to keep the dirt out. When the banging in my ears subsides, I try to catch my breath. Uneven stones challenge my balance, but I will my knees to lock together and hoist myself up.
Thick smoke spirals through the room, and the underground prison is completely trashed. Dusty debris piles everywhere. The bars from my cell are scattered along the ground, and one of them impales the criminal right through the breast-pocket of his vest. Dark liquid pools around his body.
Blood.
What the…?
CRASH. Glass breaks from somewhere on the floor above me.
I see the corner of the prison has a stone staircase leading…
somewhere. Although the shiny-shoed man is pushing up daisies, it appears I still have company.
I run from the remnants of my cell and tuck into a crevice beneath the stairs.
My obscene headache catches back up to me, its pounding matching the footsteps directly overhead. I stop breathing. Someone’s coming.
“Where do you think she is?” A low voice mutters.
I curl into a tight ball, squeezing my legs to become as tiny as possible. “If I were her,” a second person replies, “and I’d survived, I’d either run or hide. Going off the state of this place, running seems… unlikely.”
CRASH . They turn something from the debris over, scattering dirt and dust throughout the room. Steam curls off the walls and tickles the back of my throat. Don’t you dare cough, Mads.
“Stop,” the same person commands, “She’s gotta be terrified enough already.”
“Yo,” the first guy shouts, “Dude, look.” Fear freezes the blood in my veins.
I’ve learned two things:
The people here are men.
They’ve discovered the body.
“That’s Wilson,” says the second man. “I wonder…” He stalks over to it, and his figure eases into my line of sight. The man wears a shadowy black tunic with slick boots and dark spandex tights.
“D.S.” I whisper with cracked lips, barely loud enough to hear it myself.
He turns, seeing me, and I blink and there he is, crouching next to me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, his voice holding so much concern that my knees tremble. “Roberts, are you okay?”
“I think so,” I manage. “What’s going on?”
Dark Static brushes the dust from my hair. “I can’t believe—”
CRASH . I flinch, but D.S.’s stays still. “It’s okay,” he promises. “It’s only—”
“—Did you find her?” The person accompanying D.S.
asks. He steps over the deceased’s shiny shoes and into my line of vision.
He’s as impressive and heroic as I’ve ever seen him, in all those news photos, network interviews, and speeches, and in the two times I’ve met him in person.
I would know that glimmering uniform anywhere. Especially with the burrito stain.
“Golden Ace.” D.S. grins, introducing his friend to an invisible audience. “Here to save the day.”
“I mean, I would.” Golden Ace tilts his head, assessing the situation. “Although it seems like Madeline’s got this.”
“Hold on,” I gather enough of a voice to enter the conversation. “Why are both of you here?”
“You were in trouble. We came to help…” Golden Ace answers, misunderstanding the question. “Oh. You mean why are we together?”
The Supers share a hesitant glance. They seem to have some kind of mutual understanding about something.
Clearly, this is not the first time they’ve ever worked together.
The Goldies are going to flip when they hear about this, especially after the interview Golden Ace gave this morning about stopping Dark Static. Did Golden Ace lie to Capital City?
“Remember that project I asked you to help me with?” D.S. asks, his mask brushing my ear.
I force my mental processes back into action. Which one? “Finding out if Aaron has super powers?”
Golden Ace transports his weight from one leg to the other, issuing a warning.
D.S. slides up from his crouching position, pulling me up with him. I want to protest—using my legs shoots pain up my spine—but as I lean into him, with his arms securing me in place, I feel more supported than ever. He forced me to use my strength… and it helped. A lot.
“No, not that,” D.S. answers, “Our latest endeavor. About the mayor. It’s a lot bigger than you and me. Gold and I have been working on it for a while now.”
Wait. What? “How long is a while?” I ask.
Golden Ace’s jaw tightens as he and D.S. share another careful look. Sure, they’re treading in unsteady waters, but we’re all in this together now. Why can’t they give it to me straight?
“She’s right,” Golden Ace says. “Just tell her all of it.”
Oops. I hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
“You didn’t.” Golden Ace laughs. “I can hear thoughts.”
My jaw actually drops. Holy Aces . Of course he can. Of course Golden Ace has a secret power.
My ears burn as I realize he could hear that too. Golden Ace keeps his hands on his hips, Superhero style, and focuses on the more important business. Madeline, I say to myself, you are so embarrassing.
D.S. takes his time to respond, and I get the sense that he’s leading this project, not Golden Ace.
Another surprise for today. Not that D.S.
doesn’t seem like a leader—he’s got the charisma and seems to always know what to do—but wouldn’t Golden Ace naturally take on more of the responsibility to help Capital City?
Is a villain really the one orchestrating this mission?
“We’ve been doing this since I found out I have powers,” D.S. finally says, only vaguely answering. “For the entire time I’ve been Dark Static.”
D.S. tears his dark eyes away from me. He’s just admitted his deepest, most personal piece of being Super: the reason he put on his suit in the first place.
“Static is the villain the mayor needs for his evil plan,” explains Golden Ace.
“And that gives us a way into his office. But we also need someone to put out the fires, to make sure civilians don’t get hurt.
Someone to fight the crime Bridges throws at Capital City without losing face. That’s where I come in.”
“We can attack from two angles,” says Dark Static, “No one expects Gold and me to work together.”
“No kidding.” I exhale, leaning farther into D.S., and the arm he’s wrapped around my waist tightens. Our mission just got more awesome. “Wait,” I stop. “Is it just you two? Why don’t you team up with the other Supers in Capital City? Like Flare or Materio?”