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

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Luce

Angelos.

I grip the ivory rails. My aura bubbles in my veins, and I can feel its heat searing under my skin. It's like radiation, like something expanding out from my core. The sunlight seeps through my eyelids, and I let out a breath. "Barrier, barrier, barrier." I let go and pace, drinking up the heat. Even from so low, the city is beautiful, apartments glittering in the morning light.

 But it's just a backdrop. A set piece to be torn apart if the heroes can't save it. "Does she mean forcefield? I-I can do this, I can do this." I turn back toward the shut door, each thud of my heart like the tick of a time bomb in my throbbing chest.

In the glass, I see my reflection.

The smirking boy in black. His hands pressed against the door, his smile crooked. I grab for my patch to remind myself he's just an illusion. Not real. But the patch isn't there. His blacked out eye is my blacked out eye. His dark mask is my dark mask. I turn my head so my blind side's tipped away. He is still. You and I are one and the same. 

I press my palms flat against the glass, over the flickering image of his upturned hands. You need me.

My chest heaves. The voice is back. The thing is back, the monster inside me, the thing that wants to pull my strings. I can't let it in. But that's who comes out when I use my power, and I need more power than ever before to create a shield around the city. To keep the hostages alive. I'm losing my mind. I'm losing my mind, and it feels like an afterthought. "Oh, God," I whisper, "what do I do?"

"Hey, kid?" a woman asks, but I hardly hear. The reflection's eyes on mine. Goosebumps ripple up my arms despite the morning's heat. I refuse to turn away. It feels like weakness. "You okay?"

I shake my head. For a henchman, the woman has such a gentle voice. It barely sounds above a whisper. "What would you do, ma'am?" I try to make myself sound smooth, like my hands aren't trembling against the glass. Like I'm not about to have another panic attack. "If you had the choice, would you help Owl, even though you know she will hurt many people if she wins? Or would you fight back, and let innocent people die because of it?"

"Ah," she says it so gently. In the window, I watch her knock back her hood. Strands of blonde hair, almost white, fall in front of her face. She tucks one behind her ear, her smile as sweet as it is sad in the glass. "Owl has made lots of people ask themselves the same question. Fight at Owl's side, or watch your family be picked off one by one. Join or watch your city fall."

"That's terrible." I can just imagine it. Owl, dragging supers out of their homes, offering them The Choice, that awful smirk stuck on her supervillain face. You can't deny it, says the voice attached to the reflection. I'm you. I clench my jaw, ignoring it to the best of my ability. These poor henchmen. I wonder if Jaylin has a similar story.

"That's how Ivy and joined, and we'd been thinking of escape for so long..."

I shoot a look at my reflection, who grins back. It's like looking at the lord of the flies if the lord of the flies were a mirror instead of a decapitated pig's head. You can't escape me. "I'll help you escape if this blows over." The 'if' hits me like a gut-punch, because even I can't convince myself it's a 'when.'

"Your friend, the one who's a cat, already did."

I shake my head. "That selfish prick? Must've got the wrong cat-boy."

She laughs softly. The slowness of her speech, the easy way she lolls her arm over my shoulder, it doesn't seem to fit. The situation at hand is too tense for this, and yet it's comforting, the way she carries herself. I dig my nails into the glass, smearing it with my fingerprints. "Not a selfish prick. Maybe a self-absorbed one..." Her smile glows on the pane. "You must be his friend."