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

Chapter Sixty-Six: Final Fight

Heaven.

I've lost him. For good or for now, I don't know. And frankly, I'm in too deep to care. I brace myself off the cracking interior, gasping breaths to punctuate my thoughts, flecks of green paper catching under my nails. Dust lifts from the walls and windows, choking the air out of my lungs. But I can't focus on Angel now. Can barely spare him a thought. I have to save who I can, and worrying over him won't help anyone, certainly not Jaylin. If Angel won't kill Owl, then I'll do it myself. I'm like the little red hen of superheroing. Except I don't even get a lousy loaf of bread out of it.

Priorities, Hev, priorities. I grip the window frame so hard straggler fractals burst outward, drywall and piping punching through with my touch. Bits stab into my fingers, motes floating near my eyes and catching the light like butterfly wings. Breathing deep, I decide that by the time I turn twenty I'll be nothing more than a throbbing, miserable scab. I raise my unarmored fists and launch at Owl, who grips the sword in her free fist like a life-raft. Jaylin is limp and saggy in her grip. In the beginning, I knew something like this would happen to her. She betrayed super villains, but with all that happened, the thought slipped my mind.

Owl stabs for me, and I duck. The blade whooshes by my head with a teasing whistle. She drops Jaylin flat on the table, who groans and curls into a quivering ball. Her leg, snapped into pieces like a jigsaw puzzle after meeting Owl's reinforced armor.

I suck in a breath and it tastes like bile. Owl grabs at my skull. Her finger grazes my ear, scraping the skin and ripping a chunk of cartilage. My curled fists smash into her unprotected chest and ribcage. She winks out of existence.

Her illusion powers kick in like a second thought as if she expected to play with me instead of really fighting. Good. I shut my eyes, something Storm taught me to do when fighting an enemy who can fool your vision. To rely on other senses, and most importantly, your gut.

As in the ones I spilled out in front of Owl. All my insecurity about dying, about not deserving the rest. She heard it. I feel like the guy who ticked off Zeus, the guy who had to push that dumb rock up that dumb hill until the end of time only to have it kicked down when he got to the top. And, you know, time doesn't end. But I feel lighter, saying how I feel.

My knuckles find a soft spot that I pound relentlessly, hoping—praying—to cause enough damage that she stops for a breather. Jaylin cries out, and I wink one eye open.

Bad move.

Owl's a puppetmaster, she pulls heartstrings. I refuse to believe her story about knowing my mother, and the thought that my dad died begging won't compute. I know less about him than even about my mother, but I know that us Brooks are stupid. Foolhardy. But cowardly?

That's something I can't bring myself to believe, no matter how Owl may try to make me.

But the illusion she pulls, the one of my mother, that rips my very breath out of my chest. It's only a flash, as quick as she pulls it, as quick as it leaves. Her eyes, as dark and warm as in the pictures, hair as curly and wild as mine, knotted and pulled back as if windblown. Saggy slacks, flowy mustard blouse, stained with sweat and blood. A blossom of red at the chest down the front and back, blue gauntlets at her wrists, the rest of her armor stripped. It only fazes me for a moment, but when it does, Owl pounces. She's not playing Bounce the Super off the wall anymore. She spins the sword in her free hand. It glints in my peripherals, dazzling in the soft glow of morning light. My back hits the hard wall, but this time she doesn't let go. A crushing hand on my throat. Pinned. I wriggle my shoulders. Hot pain washes through me, can feel it pulsing through old aches. The room tilts.

I shoot Owl a sheepish shrug. "I tried."

Her expression changes. The concentration and rage, the look of sheer primal hate. She blinks, and a warmth lights her eyes. She's looking up and away, grinning. Like she can see something I can't. My shot. I squirm my leg and lash a kick at her wrist. The sword wrenches free. Hits the ground. The pressure still, between her strength it mine, it's like I'm being squeezed flat by steel plates. She slams her palm harder into my throat, all the muscles in my neck constricting against the force. Every breath comes out a gasping wheeze, every attempt at speech a spit-gargle.