Super•Villainous

LVIII

For possibly the first time in our long acquaintanceship, she stayed serious. "This doesn't end well, Lily. You see that, right?"

Leigh was wrong. It had already ended. It ended the second Atticus put his hands to Tempest's uncovered skin. It ended when Atticus got captured, or before, when I forced him to whisk me away from the Guildhall to cover up my mistakes. Everything since that singular choice seemed like a forgone conclusion., and I existed in the blank space after the book spelled out its last words. The only avenue left in order for me to salvage a spiraling situation was to carve out an epilogue Atticus would have approved of.

"I'll be fine," I said. "I'm tougher than I look. Well, that's not true, but I'll heal." On the surface.

"He's my brother. I want to help him, too! It's just - it's just, we can't-"

I cut her off. "You can't, but I owe him this much."

She ground her teeth, clearly warding off the urge to snap at me. "You can owe him this same favor in a week when we are not at imminent risk of the law catching up to us!"

"You heard the Guild leader. He said 'capture'. They want to lock him in a cage, maybe even experiment on him to find out what makes him so different from other mimics. I don't know if that's even impossible at this point, but I can't take that chance."

I had no plan as I stormed past her into the open. Plans were the luxury of the well-prepared. None of my brilliant plans ever seemed to work out anyway, so maybe this was better.

"He won't thank you for getting yourself locked up!" she called at my back

I had no words left in me to say, so I kept quiet, kept walking forward. She caught my arm.

"I'm not like you. I can actually die here, and," her voice wavered in her throat, "I don't want to die, Lily. I was willing to risk it all at the chance of seeing you both safe, but there is no true reward out of this. I won't lie and say I understand everything that's going on, but even I can tell that whatever that thing is," her eyes briefly flitted to absorb Atticus, and just as quickly darted away, "it's not my brother anymore."

Even though I fundamentally disagreed, I at last understood her reservations, why she stuck around so long after my first dismissal. Over the years, we were attached at the hip, no task too simple or menial to not require the both of us, so of course she assumed I meant for this task to be taken on together.

I softened, disentangling myself from her hold and pulling back a step. "Leigh, I want you to go home. I never intended to involve you in the first place, and I would never risk your life, especially knowing there is no real risk to my own. It wouldn't be fair, so I want you to go home, and stay out of the city for awhile."

Unable to meet my eyes, she turned. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

*~*~*~*~*

I carried myself to higher ground to better assess the situation. Although part of me feared the uncharacteristically low roof for that part of the city was in imminent danger of collapse, taking after the other half of the building, it provided excellent views of Atticus lashing out against the dozen-plus Supers in active battle with him. It was a pitiful attempt at subjugation. The Guild's usual combatants had largely been decimated in the altercations before Atticus lost control. The only heavy hitter remaining were an electricity user and an explosives expert. Neither made much of an impact. Furthermore, a quarter of the physically able were too busy rescuing the unconscious from danger and dragging them to safety to assist in taking Atticus down.

Gravel crunching alerted me to someone's heavy-footed approach.

"Why aren't you over there? With them?" I motioned vaguely towards the Constable. "I always pictured you as something akin to his right hand."