Hero Types

Chapter 31

There was one week of pain before it all came together.
    Kit felt sick. She went to school and would go entire days without speaking. She was scared all of the time.
    Amanda had known Lucas's secret identity, which was why he was in hiding in Kit's living room. Jersey, Mardie, Howe, and Benji had gotten to go home. Lucas promised her she was safe, that Amanda didn't know where she lived, but she still moved the cabinet in front of the door every night.
    She was sad all of the time.
    Mickey made her laugh and smile, and now he was gone. Worse than gone. He had lied to her.
    And the worst part of it all was that she had known how dangerous he was, and she had still fallen far too deep. She had fallen so far, and now she couldn't pull herself out of the pit.
    She had meant it when she told him to stay out of things. She may not have wanted to, but she still cared about him. He was almost a liability. He would just get hurt, and she didn't want him to. She needed him far away, in a place where he couldn't hurt her or anybody else, but he would still be safe.
    Even Bridget seemed concerned. They were changing in the locker room for gym class, and as Kit was pulling on her sneakers she sat down on the bench and asked, "What's wrong?"
    And it sounded genuine.
    "Um..." she shrugged. "Nothing."
    "You look like you've been crying." Nobody else was down there and it was weirdly quiet. The heating system hummed. Sneakers thudded across the gym floor above their heads. "Is your grandmother okay?"
    "Yeah. Yeah. It's..." Kit finished with her sneakers and stood up to take care of her bag. "I was...seeing this—this guy, and it...it didn't work out."
    "Oh."
    "Yeah."
    "That sucks."
    "Kind of, yeah."
    "...Was it Brad?"
    Kit grinned. "If it had been Brad I wouldn't be so worked up over it."
    They laughed. It was simple laughter, probably the first time Kit could remember actually enjoying a conversation with Bridget and making a joke that wasn't at her expense. As their laughter subsided, the floor shuddered. They looked up.
Thump.
    They exchanged a glance. Bridget frowned.
    "What was that?"
THUMP. The walls shook. There was a loud crack from above. Kit bolted for the stairs, Bridget on her heels.
    Smoke was coming from the front entrance, wheeling up to the gym ceiling. Her classmates had formed a semicircle, trying to peer through the dog to see what was going on. Alarms sounded throughout the school. Kit's stomach was twisting.
THUMP!
    It was coming from the door.
    "Everybody, get back," her gym teacher commanded. She waved her students away and went to investigate herself.
Crunch! Slap! BANG!
    Silence.
    Someone took a step closer. "Coach?"
    A dark figure appeared in the smoke. Kit recognized it immediately. It had only haunted her nightmares for seven months. She backed away.
    "No..."
    The Raider stepped into the gym, moving slowly and deliberately as he always did, breath hissing in his mask. The class followed her move and increased the space between them and the man.
    He was trained on her. He tipped his head.
    "Kit Folly."
Amanda knows where you go to school, you idiot.
    Everyone looked at her. She shook her head. He chuckled. It was sick and dry.
    "You're always so...energetic, when we meet," he said, amusement crackling in his voice. "I was looking forward to this."
    "Kit?" Bridget looked at her. "Who's that? What's he talking about?"
    "I don't know." Her voice didn't work. She cleared her throat. "I don't know. You have the wrong Kit."
    "No...but, I don't." He reached into one of his many pockets, and she noticed the stiff way his arms moved. A mechanical suit. He revealed a strip of golden cloth and threw it at her feet. "Lose something?"
    She stared at her mask. She raised her head.
    "Everybody," she said, attempting to channel Lucas's gift for tranquility, "needs to run."
    He moved swiftly, as she had come to expect. She dodged him easily and squared herself to produce a shield, but then another sound from the entranceway caught her attention, and she turned around.
    Of course he hadn't come alone.
    Amanda hoisted her dagger and bared her teeth. "Hey, sweetie."
    "Run," she repeated, and she turned her back and shoved Bridget toward the hallway. "Run!"
    Her classmates screamed and took off. She sprinted for the doorway and as she ducked around the corner an icicle embedded itself in the wall by her head.
    She whipped down the stairs, leapt the last few steps, and hit a couple walls down the unintentional junior-high hallway past the boiler room. She thought about Mickey, but then there were clanking footsteps behind her and a woman with metal boots was running after her.
    She jumped the next few steps and bolted down the hallway. Kids looked up and teachers frowned around their doorways, and she opened her mouth to yell at them to—
CRACK!
    She was airborne. The ground vanished, she was soaring through the air, arms flailing. She hit the floor and rolled over and over, smacking her elbows till her momentum slowed and she could sit up. The woman stomped again, and the floor splintered and shot up unevenly beside her. She threw herself out of the way.
    "Stay inside—" she shouted when a kid poked her head out, but then the floor cracked and she fell into the wall.
    There was no plan of attack. There was nothing to—she snatched a backpack off a hook on the wall and hurled it over her head. It hit the woman's shoulder and knocked her off kilter. Kit darted forward, caught the same arm, and pulled her down. As she fell to the side Kit gave her another shoved and ended up sitting on top of her. She tore another backpack off a shelf—this one was heavier—and she slung it over the woman's head. She fell still.
    Kit sat back, panting, and wiped the sweat off her brow. People were crowded in doorways, watching her with wide eyes. She wasn't wearing a mask.
Worry about that later. If you're still alive. Just don't let anybody get hurt.
    "Somebody call the police," she said. She hopped up and darted for the stairs, but then two more vicious-looking adversaries charged and she had to make a mad dash for the staircase at the other end of the hall.
    She didn't hear them when she set foot on the first step, and a glance back revealed that they had halted in their tracks to take notice of the yelling people in the classrooms. She hung onto the doorframe and took a deep breath.
    "Yo!" she cupped her hands over her mouth and hollered. "Mofos, I'm over here!"
    They started moving.
That's better.
    She sprinted up the steps, taking them two at a time and panting. She was glad she was wearing a sports bra. It got harder to breath, as she ran, and she felt herself slowing down. She grit her teeth and pushed forward. She finally realized that it wasn't natural and she turned to the men running after her, their arms outstretched. They looked like twins and they were still wearing their orange prison jumpsuits.
    She couldn't breath. She was suffocating.
    She panicked and threw up her hands.
    Her shield flared up and she gasped in a breath of air. One of the twins growled and lunged for her leg, bouncing off the ball of light. She dropped it for a second, grabbed the railing for balance, and round-kicked the other in the face. He fell down the flight, knocking his brother down, and she continued.
    "Hey—hey, you!" A woman with black goo dripping from her hands was peering into a classroom on the upper floor. She looked around and Kit bowled her over.
    She turned and grabbed Kit's leg. Her skin burned. She shouted and kicked instructively, her foot making contact with the woman's nose. Crunch! Blood squirted onto the floor.
    Kit checked the room for a second and took off again. The elevator opened and she jumped out of her socks, but it was just another teacher who stared at her as she raced away.
    She couldn't call Lucas. She couldn't call anybody. She didn't have her damn phone on her because it was against school policy. But if she could reach a phone—no, that wouldn't be any good, she didn't even know Lucas's number, it was on her speed-dial.
    "Kit Folly."
    She stopped in her tracks. The voice came from every direction, dry and vaguely but indiscernibly accented and crackling with the pain of each and every breath. The intercom in every room and hallway hissed with a second of static.
    "I'm here for you."
    She gulped. She felt sick to her stomach. There were at least a dozen of them out there, maybe more. She couldn't take them all, not at once.
    "AAhhhhh!!!"
    A woman's bloodcurdling shriek penetrated her thoughts. The hair stood up on the back of her neck.
    "Come to me," the masked man said, "and no one gets hurt."
    "The worst ones," Lucas said, helping her wipe the blood off her arm, "are the ones that will hurt innocents to get what they want. A lot of villains are pretty casual, but it's when they'll take it to the next level that you know you need to be careful. There's something not right in there. It's when they're off-center like that that you really need to watch your back."
    Kit opened the door to the stage and walked across. She trailed her fingers over the top of the piano and watched the rolling of her sneakers.
    She could live without her powers. She could live without hero work. She had something else, something that kept her going. There had to be something else.
    What else did she have?
    At least she would lose them like a real hero—to save other people.
    She opened the door and hopped down onto the gym floor. The Raider knelt in the middle, a microphone and a knife shoved under the neck of one of the junior-high teachers. The woman was sobbing.
    "Please, please..."
    "Hush." He lifted his masked head. There might have been a villainous grin there, and somehow it was even worse when she couldn't see it. "There you are."
    "Don't hurt her, okay?" She was shaking. It was like eight-grade speeches all over again. She was terrified and she had to set her jaw and keep it buried deep down. "I'm here."
    "Tie her hands."
    She gasped when someone grabbed her out of nowhere and fastened her hands tightly together. She struggled against her own will and barely fought at all.
    The Raider dropped his victim, who crawled away as quickly as she could, and approached her. He stood directly before her and she glared into his blacked-out eyes. Up close she could smell him. He stank like rot, something long past its expiration date.
    "Get on your knees."
    She didn't budge. He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and forced her to the ground. Slam. Her kneecaps screamed. She clenched her teeth and glared at him.
    "This will hurt," he said, as his hand began to glow and he raised it to her head. "A lot."
    She clenched her fists. Her fingernails dug into her palms. She closed her eyes and held her breath till she thought she was going to pass out. A leather finger brushed her forehead.
Vwwoooooooooooommmmm....
    The room went dark. Kit opened her eyes. The last lightbulb flickered and died. The hand had withdrawn from her head in the darkness. She heard the boiler below groan in protest. The intercom system hissed and spat screeches of bright metal before crackling and dying, as the scoreboard ticked down in a millisecond and went black, and the spastic cry of the buzzer echoed through the hollow room in the silence that followed.
    Kit grinned.
    A sliver of light fell on the floor, and shadows appeared in it. Four figures appeared in the doorway, and one of them was sparking with electricity. Lucas spun his sword in his hand. Jersey twirled his nunchucks, nonchalant. Mardie cracked her knuckles. Howe watched a bright, venomous serpent twist up his arm.
    "The more the merrier," the Raider said. Lucas bobbed his head.
    "I agree." He took a step forward. "It's time we got this settled once and for all. The CAA is here to—damn it. Never mind. We're—"
    The Raider flicked his hand, and his army launched themselves at the CAA—or whatever Lucas would change their name to next. Kit fell to the ground and rolled out of the way before he could grab ahold of her again.
    She heard screams, ducked a glowing green boomerang, and spun on the spot. It was dark, and she had to squint to see the people huddled in the corner behind a group of stored lunch tables. A man caught his boomerang and advanced.
    She chased him down. He heard her panting, spun, and sent his weapon straight for her head. She slung up half a shield on her way and it bounced off right before she tackled him.
    They struggled and she took a knee to the gut. While the wind was knocked out of her he crawled out from underneath her and when she rolled over there were two of him. He raised the boomerang.
Thwack!
    The one on the right swayed and fell over. The other one spun around, and then there was another loud smack! and he toppled onto the ground. Jersey appeared, his hand over her and his nunchucks spinning in the other.
    "Need a hand?" he said, grinning. He helped her up and she reflected a wave of heat. Jersey leapt out of the golden barrier and knocked the woman out with one swift swoop.
    "Watch your back—"
    She turned around and narrowly avoided a spiked fist. She kicked his legs out from under him and Jersey hit him. She took a deep breath and peered around the room, in the moment of peace they had, with the light of her shield as aid.
    Her heart sank.
    It had seemed like they were winning. The team was there and nothing could stop them.
    They were still far, far outnumbered. There might have been a dozen villains to begin with, but maybe Kit was bad at counting. Either way, there were more now, and less of them. Lucas was cornered, Howe was struggling, and Mardie was nowhere to be seen.
    Kit glanced at Jersey. His eyes said enough. He rubbed his arms and lifted his nunchucks once more.
    "I mean, it was going to happen eventually, wasn't it?" He tapped her arm, gave her a nod, and they charged together into the last big battle.