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

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Reaper

Jaylin.

"Oh, my God!" the girl squeals as she sniffs the air. "Food!"

I stifle a sigh. Heaven's body hangs limply over my arms. Her bleeding has long stopped, and I don't know if she's asleep or just pretending to be, but I can only guess she's too prideful for the latter and frankly, I stopped caring an hour ago. Many a time as Silver Girl and I picked our way through the undergrowth has Heaven woken up to fresh pain, muttering that she can walk if I just set her down. Many a time have my knuckles grown raw from knocking her back to sleep. The little hero glares when I do it, Heaven struggles. I just yell at both of them until they're both sufficiently silenced.

"Shut it, kid! I could kill you! And you." I'd squeeze Heaven until she made a little cry, and I have to say, that was hard to drive from her, the prideful little thing. "Have a taste of your own freaking medicine! I'm just trying to protect you, here. Go to freaking sleep and stay in it!"

I think she hates me now more than ever. Well, at least she isn't dead, though I'm beginning to wonder if breathing life back into the ungrateful brat was a wise move on my part.

My nose twitches. The prickly forest is behind us now and night has fallen. Darker than obsidian, thicker than oil. The stars, usually such a beautiful sight over Starlight City, are gone. Like someone smeared them all away. Tufts of green and brown clover spring up over the hills, and the slope is sharp under my feet, steep enough to break necks if one isn't careful. 

My face and hands throb from encounters with thorns and low branches. The air smells sweet with spring greenery and savory with the tang of cooking meat. I narrow my eyes, staring at the back of the brick building and the giant slab of a gray door. Gray chains dangle around the handle, padlocks hanging off them like keys from a lanyard. I smirk. They won't be an issue. "Food," I say with a sigh.

My skin is grimy, sticky with sweat. The girl glances up, her ponytail limp with grease and the glitter of her mask rubbed away in patches. She smiles. A tentative thing, probably expecting me to punch her in the face for it. I don't. My stomach rumbles, starving. Us supers, we eat a lot. Our strength comes unnaturally, every bit of sugar and fat metabolized in a queer sort of way that leaves researchers drooling over us. I was never interested in the science of it, not really. I know the name of certain chemicals, the ones that make my powers go berserk. But that's it. 

It's a lousy power, the catalyst-ism, I mean. The only good it does is occasionally bringing out sleeping superpowers in an oddball kid or two. Or blow things up. Tech stuff, usually. If I try to channel the power and stimulate reactions in machines, they usually can't take the surge and the world goes 'boom.'

"So. Do you plan on breaking in? Or can we just waltz in through the doors?"

I snort. "In your get-up, you'd be dragged to the machines in minutes. Plus, I kind of have a bounty on my head, so I'm just as much of a target as you. With better fashion sense." I nudge the girl in the ribs, playful-like. She looks up at me with such fear you'd think I vaporized everything I touch. And that only happens sometimes.

"M-machines?" She flinches, running a finger under the edge of her mask and sweating buckets. Her face betrays terror, even with the mask. Not very hero-like, but eh, they can't all be Heavens.

"Yeah, machines. Sap your powers. Scary things. Boo!" I crouch low, digging my hands into the loose layer of gravel on the parking lot. Tar-filled cracks weave 's's on pavement, and I know we're at Starlight's very edge. 

Mayor Curtis allots a fat chunk of the city-state's budget to infrastructure with all the loose-cannon supers hanging around, and since Starlight spends so much on keeping streets sturdy, the city likes to make them pretty, too. As for Old Newport, Starlight City's closest neighbor and biggest rival, their money goes into their police force. Their streets are safe, but they suck to drive on.