Damsel[ed]: Some Rescue Required (#2 of the Damsel[ed] series)

Chapter Ten: Puppets

Poison.

Sneaking into supervillain headquarters is hell after midnight. You have to watch for the snipers on the roof and the little red lights that sweep over the fortress's sides going deet deet deet every few seconds. The building frowns on the opposite side of the street, a band of algae gleaming under a lamp post's glow. A copy of Super Weekly trembles in my hands. The pages are darker than usual, the articles mostly about the supervillain population growing and how the government is mad and yada yada yada. I want to rip it to shreds. Stupid Luce! Stupid Juniper and her stupid squeaky husband!

I huff, focusing on the dreary pages. Dad hates it when I go out alone. He even attached electrified bars to my windows to "protect" me. I shiver.

The night is cold. The wind, brisk. I don't want to go home. There's no place in the whole world I hate more, but I don't have anywhere else to go. Basically, I'm screwed.

Crappy little police cars buzz up and down the city street. Pathetic. Galaxy could get wherever they're going in a tenth of the time. I smile at the rusty nail by my shoe and give it a good kick. Too bad for them she's out of commission. Forever. I almost crack out a 'muahahaha,' but Dad says to use those sparingly, lest I become one of those cursed 'hand-wringers' he hates so much. The breeze whacks a few early blooms off the garden trees that spring from the sidewalk and I frown up at an eighth floor window.

The light's on; a series of lit up rectangles broken by shadowy bars. Ceres is a genius. Crazy, but a genius. Surely he'll have found a new way to short-circuit the electricity by now.

When the street is finally empty, I snap out my wings, flashes of white shining under the full moon.

When Dad dumped me and Ceres into the same room, Ceres asked me why I'd never just taken off. I had the whole world if I wanted it. I could go anywhere, if I dared. I remember smacking him and reminding him food wasn't free. Besides crime, I had nothing. He shrugged and whapped me back so hard I slammed into a wall forty feet away.

I coast, resting on my upward momentum. There really isn't a better feeling than flying, especially when people are shooting at you.

"Hey! Ceres! Hey!" I study the building's west side. With a shriek, my window's bars peel away and an upturned thumb slides out of the yellow square.

"Down here kitty Kat!"

"It's not Kat," I say, wind stinging my cheeks. Ceres probably can't even hear me, but I say what I usually say anyway. "It's Katris." I've gone by dozens of fake names. Robin, Jared, Colt, Bella, Rupert, Cliff.  Dad didn't name me, either my dead mom or one of my many dead uncles did, and they must've been crazy.

"Katris. What does that even mean?" Ceres asks for the thirty-thousandth time.

"Dunno." I sigh. No one calls me that anyway. 'Catalyst' and 'Katris' sound too similar, and Dad says 'Katris' is too prissy anyway. I mean, I like it. But no one seems to care what I like. "Coming in for a landing!"

I slam through the window, landing hard on the polished floor. The impact nearly sends me spinning, so I drop my fist into the ground to ease up the pressure.  

"You owe me fifty bucks," is the first thing Ceres says when he sees me. He smirks an easy, quiet smirk that sharpens his already handsome face and makes him particularly model-like. He's two years older, two inches taller than I am, dark haired and eyed with a hint of a stubble, a sort-of-not-really-adult who's too young to drink but still downs scotch like ginger ale anyway. It's the only crime I've ever seen him commit, and he can't get drunk anyway, so I don't think it even counts.