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

Chapter Twenty-Six: Tracker

Poison.

"Sucks for you," Ceres says, a guy with a true gift for understatement. I grab at a crumbling wall and press my face into it as people ebb and flow around us, rivers of criminals moving past in a loud, boisterous current. My head feels like it'll explode if I so much as think another thought. I lost Luce. I lost him. How did I freaking lose him? How does he even move that fast?

My knuckles bulge. Breathing quick and arms trembling, I start to swing. Crack. The hook-shot smashes a hole into the wall and my fist stings. The pain is nothing compared to the pressure in my head. 

"Poison..." Ceres warns. Shocks of impact seer my balled fingers as I throw another. And another.  And another. Crack, crack, CRACK!  I hardly feel my arm sink into the drywall or the cut of the  seams as they meet my torn-up skin. "Why can't you just stay put!" I shout into the yellow plaster, my throat raw from screaming and my fists ragged from punching. Gasps leave me in short wheezes, my lungs shuddering in my chest. "Why can't you just play along! You freaking—"

"Poison... "

"I hate him." My voice wavers. "I hate him."

"Yeah, I noticed."

"If he had never been born..." I start, but I never finish. Ceres knows what I will say. I roll my head back, pressure still mounting. A corner would be nice to curl up in right now. I think I've said it a hundred or so times, to myself, to him, to my journal. If I were the only son, if this human weapon had never been created, if Dad thought about me half as much as he did about this 'Angel'...

"Relax." Ceres rests his hand lightly on my shoulder. "We'll find him, He can't run away, at least, not for long anyway."

I clutch my head. "Of course. Any hunches, Ceres? I'm open to suggestions."

"The worst place he could possibly go. He's just unlucky like that." I drop my hands and glance to the side. Ceres smirks, his green eyes glinting. Mischief.  That's what Dad calls the stuff Ceres does when he isn't being watched. There are so many sides to this guy, a panicked side that shows in those moments when he's sobbing in a corner, a calm side that spews wisdom and builds plans, and a strange side that makes him seem like a kid. 

It's true, what he says about Luce. We found him last time by asking Dingo, one of the alliance-less guys, to track him down, since Dingo had the power to sort of "feel" his presence. Usually, Dingo hangs at the Super Supply in the mall. Coincidentally, that's where Luce went for God knows why. Probably for tips on his precious Catsby. Pathetic.

I nod, though the gesture is slow and aches at the base of the neck. "Okay. We'll set up. And I'm sure we'll see him again."

Ceres smirks, his shoulders quaking. I snap my hands to my sides. "What?" He holds out a clenched fist to me, and I can't help but raise an eyebrow. "What's this?"

Ceres smiles, throwing his fluffy brown bangs out of his face. He opens his hand and shows me a bundle of silvery-gray chips and wires, sloppily strung together. Pieces are duct-taped in, and a  red light flashes near the end. Beep. Beep. Beep beep. For a second, the pressure subsides, and a flutter of hope lifts through my chest. It could be too much to ask for, but maybe, maybe . . . 

"A tracker?"

"I was rereading this Trinity comic a while back, and in this one scene, Batman slipped this tracker into Wonder Woman's hair. And I thought it was a really interesting idea. Like, how do you slip a tracker into someone's hair without them noticing? And what if it falls out or whatever, and—"

"You're not Batman." If only I had patience. Ceres actually looks down at his feet for a second, as if ashamed by his non-Batmanness, but then he just powers up again, his face cut by a wicked grin.