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

Chapter Sixty-Four: A Part of The Team

Jaylin.

Hev ran away. Again. And you know what? It's starting to piss me off.

Not that I can't track her down again. I'm getting good at that. "Kepler, come on. Kep." I rub the wolf-dog on the head, her cold nose pressed up into my calf. Nat and Poison are still inside, listening to Fallout scheme. But me? I was supposed to bring his son back, and I failed him. Betrayed him. When he says he wants to have me shot, who am I to think he's joking?

I'm still wearing Fallout's jacket, the hood thrown up, the sleeves so long they pool at my wrists. Light spills upon me through a stained glass porthole window, an image the mosaics make of a cross with a little pink heart at its center. I scratch the animal's chin, her fur shorn short and bristly around her snout. She whines. Hungry.

Each faded stair crunches under our steps with a low, painful moan. "Come on girl, find Angel. You're a wolf. You've got a good nose, right? Come on."

I brush a cobweb out of my face from a low-hanging beam. She whines, her tail curling behind her. I couldn't get a leash on her, could barely pry her out of the little girl's grubby gloves. She bounds down the crumbly steps and I follow, my footsteps like squeaks as I follow the click of her nails on the foyer floor.

The whole building has the feel of Old Starlight, before the supers and their super fights. It was a shabby apartment complex, even then. The tile is an ugly mint green, the type you can still find in bathrooms that haven't been renovated since the seventies. 

Wood planks chewed to their crumbling grain panel the walls. The ferns are wilted, have been wilted for years, told by the yellow mold creeping up their ceramic pots. And the whole place smells of must and age like it's sitting on piles of yellow-paged books. In this city of young blood and glittering towers, it's as much of a novelty as supers. Just less dangerous.

The wolf scratches at the door, a dark, ornamental thing framed with even more stained glass, more crosses and hearts. Even in here, the misty aura seems to burn, searing into my skin and with it the memory of falling helplessly in the air. With soft, creeping steps, I glide forward and push the door open, the voices of my friends and enemies a chasing echo.

Outside, the air is a heavy, dead thing. It weighs me down, like liquid lead in my chest, burning all the while. I hug Fallout's stiff nylon jacket tighter around me, the hem of it dragging like a cape on the sidewall. The hoodie thrown up and the cords pulled tight to protect my head and neck, I follow the wolf. She yelps, looking back at me, shifting her weight from paw to paw. Lines shimmer off the sidewalk, and I can only imagine the heat on her poor, fleshy pads.

"Hey, Kep." I slap my thigh and race after her. My throat burns with each breath, But I catch up with her, eventually. She turns around, her head cocked, her golden eyes glowing against the haze of sky Angel created. I catch up, panting, and lock my arms around her back and tummy. She's so heavy that with my super strength flicking on and off, I can barely carry her. Her tail thumps my leg, and with one gentle squeeze I fit her against my chest. The heavy jacket brushes over the wolf like a cloak. She buries her nose into the sleeve of my sweater, cold, twitching and wet against my pulse. I stagger my weight with giant steps to keep from falling over.

"I can find the capitol myself, Kep. I just need you to use that nose of yours to find Angel. I would, but my super senses are so jacked up right now that I'd only really find him if he screamed, and he doesn't seem all that interested in doing that now."

Her tail thumps faster. And I talk to her, all the way to the Capitol. The city is a loop. A whole island, pretty much, of glistening buildings and smooth streets. Hell, it spans four states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It's the first Megalopolis, that is, a megacity.