Twenty Eight
Dark Static never returns from checking the security camera footage. Instead, he calls over the speaker system with an order to get to the roof, pronto. By the time I ride the elevator to the top floor and finish the climb to the roof, D.S. is ready to take off.
“Bridges’ men found the food supply,” he explains. “I’ll drop you at the Levines’ house and deal with this.”
It strikes me that he referred to it as “the Levines’ house,” until I realize he doesn’t know that I read his letter. Dark Static, who has always known everything about me, can’t decipher that everything has changed.
“Can’t we find a place inside to use your shadow-portal trick?” I ask. “Do we have to fly?”
“I can only portal to places I can visualize. I don’t know the Levines’ place well enough.”
“Uh-huh. Right…” I nod.
With a resigning sigh, I hold onto his waist, ready for takeoff.
“Can I fight the bad guys too?” I ask. “I could use the practice.”
“You need to rest. There’s a bigger battle coming, I can feel it.”
He leaps off the building, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
Hopefully, he won’t need to fire lasers during this ride.
I don’t think I can handle free-falling for even a fraction of a second.
After the feeling of my insides moving at sixty miles an hour settles, I take in our surroundings.
Wait. I grip him tightly as I scrutinize the streets I’d walked on just a few days ago.
They’re familiar, and I now see that Golden Ace’s headquarters is hidden in plain sight in one of the largest attractions in Capital City.
League of Comics.
“League of Comics!” I yell into Dark Static’s ear. “That’s incredible.” The owner must sponsor Golden Ace.
When we reach Fox’s house, D.S. flies straight through Jamie’s bedroom window. I fall back onto Jamie’s bed, about to ask how many times he’d practiced that landing, or if he needs to swing by his room before defeating the bad guys, but the tightness in his posture stops me.
D.S.’s watch beeps. “I need to go. Before they…”
He needs to surprise Bridges’ bad guys. He jogs to Jamie’s window and crouches, ready to fly off into the late afternoon sky.
A whisper burns on my tongue. “Don’t forget to come back, Fox,” I say, because I have to.
Dark Static goes still. Without turning around, he lifts off from his brother’s windowsill. I settle into my pillow and listen to what he left hanging in the air.
“I won’t.”
~
“Madeline.” Someone shakes me awake. Arielle stands beside the bed, tapping my face with zero patience. “Good, you’re up. We need to discuss saving Dad. Now. Brynn has been nice enough to make an early dinner. Come down as soon as you’re ready.”
Come down as soon as you’re ready, please . A family emergency doesn’t give her the license to forget those impeccable Arielle Bridges manners. I wish I could call Kristen and talk about the “Fox is D.S.” situation, but it’s not safe.
I shift from the bed and, thankfully, don’t feel sore. My nap—a powers nap—had done the job. Downstairs, Arielle, Brynn, Jamie, and Damian Scott Jr. eat at the dining table. I sit beside Arielle, across from Damian.
Did Fox tell them about Dark Static when he returned from the warehouses? Brynn and Jamie must have known already, but why is Damian still here? I turn to Arielle for an explanation, but she just chews her chicken and spinach casserole like everything is totally normal.
Footsteps trudge down the stairs as his highness joins us for dinner. “Sorry I’m late.” Fox sits beside Damian. He has the same sweatpants and fitted t-shirt as this morning, looking like the person I played pool with, even though I know he’s not.
Did you love him?
“You needed a shower,” Brynn jokes.
Fox runs hands through his wet hair. Does a shower zap him? I wonder as he piles his plate with as much food as possible. I, too, plow through my dinner. We hardly look at each other as we inhale our food.
“What happened to your face?” asks Jamie.
“Girls are great fighters,” Fox replies. I allow myself to glance at him. Next to his right eye is a long, purple bruise. He catches me staring, but goes quickly back to his food.
“So, Madeline,” says Damian, “how do we save your dad?”
“You’re going to help?” I ask. Everyone else exchanges glances. Apparently, they’ve already been filled in on something.
“Yeah, Scott and I work together sometimes,” Fox explains with his mouth full. “He’s in.”
Scott and I work together sometimes. The fork slips from my hand, bounces off my lap, and lands on the floor with a clang.
No.
Nope.
No way.
“But Golden Ace has been around since—”
“We were twelve?” Damian finishes.
“What kind of twelve-year-old is strong enough to defeat The Mountain?” I ask, thinking of the infamous Super made of solid rocks. Damian Scott Jr. cannot be the one and only Golden Ace.
He works at League of Comics. The whole time I was asking for comics on water powers, he knew what I was researching. He said League of Comics was usually empty, except for weekends. How did I miss this?
“Yeah, bro,” Fox jokes. “Do you even lift?”
Arielle sighs. “Madeline meant to say we appreciate your help.”
I can’t look away from Damian. This is nuts . I was simultaneously obsessed with Golden Ace and Damian Scott Jr. for years. I’ve done more research on the two of them than the cops do for serial killers.
How did I miss this?
Damian nods along with my thought process, reading my mind.
Wait.
Blood rushes to my face. Does this mean that all those years I spent having a crush on him… he knew?
Damian grins and Fox, taking one look at my red cheeks and Damian’s grin, cracks up. Fox laughs so hard he wipes tears from his eyes, and I want to crawl under the table.
“You can ask him to stop reading your mind,” Fox says when he finally settles down. “We all made him promise not to read ours.”
“I can turn it on and off,” Damian explains, as if this conversation is normal. “No Fox, no Jamie, no Brynn.”
“No Arielle,” says my sister.
“That would be great.” I nod. Anything to end this embarrassment. Except… I face Arielle. “Did you know?”
“I’ve known about Fox for a few months, but not that Static and Gold were working together. I officially learned about Damian while you trained this afternoon.” She looks around the table and her face sets. All business. “We need to stop Phil’s control of other people.”
Damian winks at me while Arielle plots. I stare at my plate. Damian has officially destroyed all hope of things making sense.
“Phil relies on other people. If we cut out the people who do things for him…” Fox trails off.
“We cut him off from power.” Damian leans back in his chair, settling his hands in his lap.
“Right, because the only power Phil has is the power that others give him. He needed Dr. Milligan to get him elected. Arielle to host parties. Dark Static to sack the city, and his henchmen to kidnap Madeline. He still hasn’t found you all since Hallowfest. He can’t do anything himself. ”
Arielle patiently allows Damian to explain the obvious. “Thank you,” she says when he’s finished.
“There is,” Fox muses, “the matter of his powers. Phil’s.”
Damian blanches, and Arielle’s startled eyes pierce through me. She does indeed seem upset that I told Fox. Oops. Maybe I should have sworn Dark Static to secrecy.
“We’re all in this together now,” says Arielle reluctantly. “Yes, Phil has some powers. I’m not sure who else knows. I think just us.”
“That’s the secret Meredith had,” Damian says. “Holy moly.”
“It seems,” says Arielle, “that his powers can be stopped when a mirror is present. Fox and Madeline, we can put reflectors on your outfits to help mitigate him. Easy.”
This is why Dark Static—Fox—said that weaknesses must be kept secret. If your enemy can find out what very specific tool can counteract your powers, you would be worthless as a Super.
“We’ve got checkmate in two,” says Fox, throwing his dirty napkin on his plate. Now that everyone knows how smart he really is, he doesn’t hide it. “Phil still controls his henchmen and public opinion, so that’s what we need to cut off. I’ve already started on the henchmen.”
Arielle, our leader, jumps in. “I’ll alert the media to everything Phil’s done. We have proof that he kidnapped our dad from the voicemail he left on my phone.”
My phone, I think. The voicemail was on my phone. Arielle will need to bring my phone to the media, her phone doesn’t have it. But she knows that—her brain is just going a mile a minute. Right?
“Perfect,” says Brynn, who sounds excited just to be included. “Phil literally told everyone his plan. He walked right into that one.”
Damian, used to strategizing battles, fills in the rest, “Normally, three Supers taking one man into custody wouldn’t be hard, but we need to do so without looking like the bad guys.
Fox, you finish fighting the henchmen. I’ll take Phil.
If he’s going to run an article about Golden Ace turning on Capital City, Golden Ace is the one who needs to bring him down. ”
“And I’ll rescue Dad.” I nod.
“Go get that guy,” Jamie says. “That guy killed our parents.”
A silence passes, each of us stony faced and ready. The fear I had, hiding with Arielle in our old house, as the police shot at us, swells up. Arielle, the bravest person I know, fears Phil. When he killed my mom, he’d been steps ahead of Capital City’s finest investigative journalists.
It’s time to end his reign.
Out of everyone sitting at the table, it’s Brynn’s eyes that I meet.
I expected Brynn, who devoted the last three years to pretending everything in her family is fine, to hold back tears after hearing Jamie’s comment, like Arielle is.
Instead, Brynn’s face is intense, something I’ve never seen in her. She’s focused, like Fox. Like me.
“We will.” Fox looks straight at me. “We finally can.”
~