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

Chapter Forty-Two: Speech

Gatsby.

For a commander of a small supervillain army that will follow her every whim if so ordered, Owl works hard and often alone. She leaves to change into her armor: a polished red super-suit that shines in the light. After meeting with a handful of her followers and making phone call after phone call, Owl makes photocopies. Lots of them. I watch her fingers move, mesmerized as she writes a name on each copy she prints. She scores each map and fills the page with essay-long notes. When I talk to her, she pretends I never spoke. When I inch toward the door, she tugs her lasso and flips the chair on its side. "I should've left you in your cage," she grumbles, never looking up from her writing.

"You should've left me at home," I shoot back, and I feel pretty slick even though the comeback makes no sense. Owl torments me further by rummaging through her drawers for a stapler, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I decide very quickly that villainy is boring. After guards take her plans, Owl yawns and stretches, her armor creaking from time spent sitting. She finally looks at me. Straightening her patch, she gives me a polite nod and flashes a silver key between her thumb and index finger.

"Was that so hard?" she asks.

I blink. "What?" My tongue feels like sandpaper and I want to ask her for water, but I don't want to show another weakness. She could use my thirst against me like she did my hunger, and though I know it isn't going away, I'm pushing it to the side as best I can. 

"Staying quiet."

I shrug and try to smile. To charm her. But I know she can see through the cracks in my facade and I'm sick of the charade anyway. I rub my bleary eyes. "I don't know, lady. I thought villains were supposed to do cool stuff. I watched you use a copy machine for forty minutes. What was there to even talk about?" 

She shrugs back and hands me a root-beer flavored Dum Dum scavenged from who knows where to shut me up. "Follow me," she says with a wave of two fingers, so I stick the lollipop in my mouth and shadow her as she glides out of the room. 

The complex opens up into a guarded parking garage of broken car parts, the place where I was shot. She gave me a pair of boots, and they click as we walk on the dusty concrete. She leads me through one of the doors that takes up the outer walls of the garage, an atrium.  The walls are painted a midnight blue, folding chairs spread in countless rows. Each chair has a pillow in it, all matching white. The air itself is crisp, a smell between roses and fresh linen. I have no doubt Owl was in here earlier, a can of Glade in her hand, fluffing pillows and making everything just so. There's even a stage with a projector, a small oak thing that looks so small it's more of a podium than a stage. It only fits one person, and the message is clear: Owl is the leader, and she stands alone.

My skin prickles as people file in. The atmosphere crackles with anticipation, the whispers of supervillains eerie in a way I can't pinpoint. A smooth wooden banister curves from the doorway down the room. As I watch the costumed audience file in, Owl leads me to the banister and snaps something cold around my wrist. I yelp and drag my feet to pull away. She rolls her eyes and slaps the other metal band to my free wrist, the chain between the cuffs looped over the banister. "Hey!" I yank and yank, but the villain slips down toward her stage before I can even yell at her for attaching me the rail. I grunt to myself and chomp into the Dum-Dum. Today'll be long. I plop on the floor and cross my legs, hands drawn up over my head. At least I'll try to make myself comfortable.

A portrait of a young woman dangles on the wall. Her ponytail flopped over her shoulder, her chin tilted down just so. Her smile is small and proud, a twinkle captured in her handsome brown eyes. There's something very familiar about her, like I've seen a piece of her somewhere before. If I tilt my head a little, she looks like Jaylin. Pink flowers wreath the frame in a crown of fresh petals. Owl raises her eyes to the portrait and kneels before it. The followers hush.