Chapter Nine #3
Her head bobbed up and down. “Uh huh. My dad usually takes my tips, but I stashed away enough over the last week or so to buy a meal. From what I read, a guy usually buys, but since I was asking you, I figured you wouldn’t be offended.
Also, I noticed you stopped at that food truck on your way home the other afternoon, so I thought you might like something from there.
I went with chicken. Do you like chicken? ”
He staggered back a step. “Have you been following me?”
“Yes ... no! Maybe. It depends on your definition of following.”
“What definition have you been doing?” he pressed.
She rubbed her upper arms. “I’ve watched you leave the coffee shop a few times, when my shift ended around the same time you left, and walked a little ways in the same direction is all.”
He relaxed.
“Also, my father has your apartment bugged, and I listened to the playbacks yesterday.”
He choked. “Okay, we need to talk about boundaries.”
“I know it’s not normal!” she said. “I didn’t want to plant the bug.
I didn’t want to fight you at the convenience store either.
I didn’t want to be a villain in the first place, but it’s kind of what I’m built for.
I have powers that can literally send a grown man to his knees in terror.
Those aren’t skills that lead to me being a good person with a stable career.
” Her lips pursed. “Don’t you think I’d like to be a good guy for a change?
” Her eyes glistened with pent up tears, and Shawn’s stomach twisted.
“Don’t cry. Why can’t you be a good guy?”
“Because I’m not! Because everyone who has ever witnessed my powers has been horrified by them. Because I’m a villain and the daughter of a villain and that’s all I’ll ever be!”
Shawn rubbed the back of his neck. Her demonstration of her powers at the convenience store had been terrifying.
He couldn’t deny that. Still, he hated to think of anyone doomed to the villain life.
A breeze rustled his hair, but the candle flames burned steadily.
“Are those candles one of your illusions?” He strode closer and held out his hand to the nearest flame.
“Don’t!” she gasped.
He jerked back in pain as the fire bit his fingertips. He shook his hand. “That was stupid.”
The candle disappeared. It didn’t just go out, it popped out of existence, flame, wick, wax, and all.
“They are my illusions, but my illusions are strong enough to fool all senses, including making you feel pain.” She reached for his hand.
After a moment’s hesitation he held it out to her.
She examined the place where the flame had touched him.
“See, there’s no real burn. It’s all in your brain.
” She traced her finger over his unblemished skin.
Her touch sent a pleasant thrill through him. “The candles don’t look very scary. It seems like your powers can make nice things too.”
“Nice but useless.” Her nose twitched, her freckles reappearing like stars kindling in the evening sky.
“Pretty isn’t useless. The world needs pretty things.” He curled his fingers around her hand.
Her gaze dropped to her feet. “See, there you go, being nice to me again.”
“Nice should be the default, not the exception. If you think we should be a couple just because I’m nice to you, then you’ve set too low a bar, Nikki.
” He decided to keep that name. It felt more her than Apparition .
.. or the other name which he wasn’t sure he could remember and didn’t want to embarrass himself by getting wrong.
“I don’t think a high bar is ever going to be in my reach.
” She coughed quietly. “Look, maybe you’re right.
Maybe this won’t work, but I’ve already set up the dinner, and I’ve never had a real date before.
Please, just sit and eat with me. Let me pretend that I’m having a nice evening out with a handsome, kind young superhero who likes my drawings and thinks I’m cute and that I have a nice laugh and .
.. and all those things that I wish were real.
Maybe it won’t be any more real than my illusions, but you’ve seen how illusions can feel very real? Let me pretend.”
His heart fluttered, leaving him terrified that he wasn’t pretending at all. “I have a lot more questions, but I guess we could sit and eat while I ask them.” He sat cross legged on one side of the blanket and watched her settle on the other side. She opened a to-go container and passed it to him.
“The Greek truck is my favorite place to eat,” he admitted.
“Good.” Her smile brightened her face, and for a moment he would’ve done anything for her.
He considered her. “So, if I sit and eat, you promise to answer my questions?”
She nodded. “Anything you want. I don’t have any reason to hide anything any more.”
“Okay, first things first, beyond warning me that your dad is trying to kill me and this whole date thing, what’s your plan?
I mean, have you thought this through beyond this evening?
” He took a bite savoring the sharp tang of the taziki sauce and the savory chicken.
She definitely had pegged his taste in food.
Her gaze dropped to her lap. “Yes, and no. I mean, I’ve thought about it a lot, but I’m still not a hundred percent sure. I can’t really go home after this.”
He paused mid-chew. “Why not?”
“Because my dad isn’t the kind of person who is going to forgive me for this,” her words came out in a rasp.
“I ... I honestly don’t know that I want to go back, anyway.
He ... he says he does everything to keep me safe, but I can’t live the way he wants me to live anymore.
” Her shoulders hunched. “I’m not even sure he won’t hurt me if he finds out what I’ve done.
I’ll probably need to hide from him at least until he’s cooled off. ”
The little clues she’d let slip about her father started to link up in Shawn’s mind. “If you don’t mind me saying so, I don’t know your dad, but my instincts are screaming at me that you’d be better off without him.”
“He’s all I’ve got, though. Without him, I have no home, no life, nothing.” She bit her bottom lip.
“So come to DOSA. We can protect you.”
She snorted. “Protect me in a holding cell as I serve a life sentence for multiple acts of supervillainy? I have been an active participant in my dad’s work, and DOSA knows it. I have a record.”
“DOSA has a whole program dedicated to getting supervillains out of the life, though,” he said.
“The Supervillain Rehabilitation Project has been going for I think about four years now. They’ve rehabilitated far worse villains than you.
Fade and Wildfyre both had records going back over a decade when they joined the program, and they’re both top DOSA sables now. ”
She sat a little straighter. “I’ve heard of Wildfyre. Didn’t he, like, burn buildings and stuff a few years ago?”
“Back then, yes, but he’s been part of the SVR for over a year now, and from what my dad has told me, he’s now off probation and doing full-time hero work.
” Shawn leaned closer to her. “Look, where me and you stand, I don’t know.
I’m still recovering from finding out the girl I thought I had connected to doesn’t even exist—”
“She kind of does,” Apparition whispered. “I never actually lied to you. I just left a lot out. A lot a lot, but ...” her voice cracked. “Can we not talk about that right now? We’re supposed to be pretending to have a nice date.”
“Sure. My point is, though, you have options.”
“I’ll think about it.” She focused on her food. “So when we had our first ... when we ate together at the pizza parlor, you told me a lot about your life, but I was pretty cagey about mine.”
“Yeah, you were.” One of many warning signs he’d ignored.
“I don’t have a reason to hide anything anymore,” she said. “Do you want to know anything about me?”
He hesitated. How much of Nikki was real and did he even want to know? As much as it would hurt, part of him needed to find out if the sweet, shy girl he’d found himself falling for actually existed.
“Do you really like to draw?” he asked.
“There aren’t a lot of hobbies that are portable, cheap, and quiet,” she explained.
“Even reading wasn’t a great option because every time we had to move, Dad would make me leave my books behind, and he didn’t like me going to the library on my own.
However, you can get free pens pretty much everywhere and most hotels have notepads you can take. It’s how I like to waste time.”
“I wouldn’t call it a waste of time.” He frowned.
“Dad does. He thinks I should use my time practically, and drawings don’t have any real value.” She opened a second clamshell revealing a chicken and rice bowl. “I ... I saw you kept the cups I drew on for you.” She picked up a plastic fork and moved her food around but didn’t take a bite. “Why?”
His muscles tightened at the thought of her breaking into his apartment with him remaining blissfully unaware. “They were special to me, I guess.” He fell quiet, eating mechanically but without much enjoyment. How had he been such a sap?
“Well, there’s not really a lot to tell you about me, I guess.
After my mom died, Dad and I started moving around.
We settled a couple times long enough for me to go to a real school, but it never lasted.
I’ve learned a lot of things from him, though.
Lock picking, surveillance, self-defense—” She winced.
“All pretty villain-related skills, I guess.”
“Honestly, hero related, too,” he said. “I bet my dad could give your dad a run for his money with most of those skills—well, maybe not lockpicking, but even that wouldn’t surprise me. Not really.”
“I love the way you talk about your dad. You seem so happy to be his son that it makes me happy too. It’s like your happy kind of spreads into me—” She smiled slightly. “I could listen to you talk about your family all day.”