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

Chapter Nineteen: The Calm Before the Storm

Heaven.
I've only flipped through a few books on the art of superheroing, but the advice they give on the Care and Keeping of Supervillains is all the same: don't trust supervillains, don't make deals with supervillains, and whenever a supervillain struts into punching distance, serve them a Nasty McBruiser with a side of Shattered Ribs. That'll show 'em!

As I shift on my knees, my hands dripping in the shiny, purple ink of my surrender note, I decide the authors of those books would add, "don't trust a supervillain when they make a promise with their fingers crossed, especially if that promise is 'I won't hurt you.'" But I don't care.

Larry the Russian Blue springboards off the couch and lands on Mom's best blue vase, toppling it over so it smashes onto the floor and shatters into millions of pieces. I care so little I can only mentally congratulate my cat for his ingenuity.

Why should I care about my dead mother's pottery? 

My boys are in danger.

I don't care what the authors of the superheroing books have to say and I don't care that trusting smiling, back-stabbing Catalyst will land me chained to a chair, pointed and monologued at by her sadistic villain friends; I have to trust her. It's a dumb and desperate move, but I have the same number of choices as I do friends to turn to: zero.

"Come on, Galaxy! We don't have much time." Catalyst squeezes my hand and yanks me to my feet with one sudden jerk. I wheel over, gasping from the shooting pain in my side. Who knew beatings from bat-wielding henchmen hurt so much? Sure, one might guess, but I'm used to taking punishment on a daily basis. For the hits to actually hurt is new for me.

"So how is this going to work?" I ask as I suck in a breath, the gray walls of my apartment closing in on me like a prison's.

"Hmm." She pulls me into the hall with a sharp tug, and I slacken the muscles in my face so she doesn't know how sharply I bite my cheek to quell the pain. "We need a car."

"Oh, no you don't!" roars Juniper from across the hall. I freeze, but Catalyst has probably found herself in situations like these before, so she bolts as soon as June's voice cuts the air. My feet drag as she yanks me along and I hobble to keep pace. After so much practice, I've gotten good at ignoring the pain. "You leave that apartment and I'll—"

"Bah." Cat waves a hand as she glances at me. "No sense of humor, you know?"

"Her son was kidnapped," I snap, each breath sending a shock of pain through my ribs. We pound through the custard halls, passing droopy potted plant after droopy potted plant, their leaves brown with neglect and their stems twisted as if in pain.

My heart feels like it's been thrown twenty feet. Here, I think about how Gatsby and I kissed in this very hall, the electricity that coursed my veins when he spoke.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I'm going to get him back. I don't know what I'll do if I don't get him back.

Catalyst shoves me into to elevator, smashes her fingers on the buttons, and laughs as the doors slam shut. She's always laughing at stuff that isn't funny. As I melt to the floor in a puddle of desperate, fractured, not-so-super superhero, she laughs at that, too. I guess she's rehearsing for the moment I wake up chained to that chair later.

"Did you see the delivery man come up here a few hours ago?" she asks. I shake my head no, thinking about how at the time I was screaming about Gatsby's kidnap and clutching bruised ribs.

Her eyes light up. They remind me of glow-flies, flickering and dimming, flickering and dimming. "Well, he has a van, right? And the passenger door is popped out and doesn't lock, but he never got it fixed, I'm assuming, because no one here would steal it. Well—"