Super•Villainous

VIII

The sound of the fire alarm blaring nearly made me jump out of my skin, no doubt pulled during the chaos to warn the unaware that something was amiss. The rhythmic blaring set me on edge. I could no longer hear my own thoughts, let alone what my pursuer shouted after me.

I fast approached the end of the hallway and a final narrow set of stairs leading up to the roof. Like the previous flight of steps, a thick pane of foggy ice had walled over the entrance, flat and a burning cold, only this one was already completely iced over, leaving me nowhere to hide, yet unable to backtrack. Neck straining to see over my shoulder, I watched Shade approach, cloak sweeping below his knees and frost exploding from his every step, leaving snowy footprints in his wake. Twenty feet away. Nineteen. Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen—

Terrified and out of options, I did the only thing I could think of in that moment and planted all my weight into a flat kick through the frozen barrier.

For a fraught moment, I worried it had already grown too reinforced. Then, a hole just large enough to fit my body appeared, and I threw myself into it, as the ice began restoring itself around me. Not a moment too soon, I crawled out the other side, pushing up into a renewed sprint. I heard the wet crash of the barrier falling away to water as Shade stepped through it mere heartbeats later.

Ten feet away. Nine.

I crested the top step, violently out of breath and feeling as though my lungs themselves were bleeding, bursting out of my chest. I couldn't scream if I wanted to, there wasn't enough air left to try.

The last door was unlocked and yielded to my touch, crashing against the wall. By the time I reached the fence bordering the area, the door slammed shut, cutting the fire alarm into an ignorable throbbing hum.

"I told you to stop running." Shade's voice was close and even, not at all affected from the chase, but also.... off in a way I couldn't describe.

I spun to face him, my back flush up against the fence, pushing against it as far as I could go, until the uneven metal spokes stabbed into my shoulder blades. "And you expected me to listen? Don't answer that, and don't come any closer, either! I'll — I'll jump!"

The instant the words left my mouth I regretted them. I'd jump? To my death? The state of being he was currently trying to put me in? If anything, I would be saving him energy. That was hardly a threat.

My physics teacher, trying to evoke interest in unenticing subject matter, once had us calculate the average lowest height a person could die falling from. Although it was a morbid lesson in acceleration, it had the intended effect. She had our full attention for those fifty-three minutes of class time, and the answer?  Forty-eight feet. Roughly four stories. Standing there, fingers entwined through a wrought iron fence atop a school building, I stared down three floors, so maybe I wouldn't die. Maybe I could—

"You don't want to do that," Shade said, breaking through my rushing thoughts.

I gripped the fence tighter, uttering through a tight throat, "I might. It's no doubt better than whatever you plan to do."

"Unlikely." He edged forward. "You don't know what I plan to do — what I need to do."

Again, he stretched out a hand, shivering slightly, despite his cloak. All that clothes didn't protect him from his own ever changing ability, apparently.

"It's a bit dramatic to say you 'need' to kill me." I laughed nervously, not paying much attention to what spewed from my lips, merely talking in order to give myself time to think about better alternatives to jumping. With my luck, I'd beat the average and be one of the fifty percent who died upon impact below forty-eight feet. "At most, I'd say you really, really want to kill me. A lot. Violently."

"Oh... I am not going to kill you."

"Great. So you plan to torture me. I feel so much better."

He took another step, and in response I found quick leverage in the fence and propelled myself over onto the other side. I may not have been a runner, but I had great experience hopping fences at the back of the high school in order to get unsanctioned lunch off campus.

"I told you to not come any closer," I choked out, dutifully ignoring how the heels of my feet hung over the edge. This was fine. Totally fine. Just peachy. "Don't make me jump."

I wanted to make it sound like a warning. Instead, it came out like a plea. Please don't make me jump.

His eyes, the only part of him I could really see due to his black mask that curved up over the bridge of his nose and his hood that obscured most of his profile, narrowed. Distinctly irritated.

Another rush of cold surged through me, starting in my toes and sweeping up higher. I knew without looking that he was trying to freeze my feet in place, edging the ice past my shins against my best efforts to break free.

"Now," he said with a note of finality, voice low. "Time to go."

The space between us closed too quickly. Five feet. Another long step. Three.

My skin shredded at the ankles from how hard I worked to jerk myself free, simultaneously clawing one handedly at the hard frozen crystal, the other hand wound in a death grip through the wrought iron.

This couldn't be happening.

He tugged off a single leather glove, leisurely in his confidence that I no longer stood a chance of escape, even if I was desperate enough to take the leap, which I wasn't sure I was. I liked having the option, though, before he robbed me all semblance of choice. Maybe I would have jumped. Maybe I wouldn't have, but at least it would have been my own decision.

I couldn't shake one thought, one mundane concern that shouldn't have been the most important thing to worry about at that exact moment, yet was all that permeated my mind: when I never got off this roof, how would Alexia get home? Would her teacher keep her out of harm's way until a parent could arrive? Or would she be left scared and alone?

Shade's hand was still trembling, sharp, unmistakable tremors, and his pupils, they seemed dilated, especially obvious in contrast to the light shade of his irises.

Too caught up in each other, in my fear and his victory, neither of us noticed how the fire alarm temporarily peaked in loudness, only for a few moments, and then a glass bottle containing a single egg and a burnt out match from a science fair project downstairs smashed over Shade's head from behind.