Hardly A Hero [REWRITTEN ON NEW ACCOUNT]

Chapter 33: Unbalanced

I remained perched on the edge of a neighbouring building, my eyes trained on a figure that had been admiring himself in the mirror for far too long.

My chest burned with heated fury as I watched Mayor Buchanon stare at his reflection, remaking James Bond poses and dishonouring them significantly.

Just like I had with Justin, I wanted to scare him. So I did just that.

The chandelier swung side to side, snapping his attention away from his reflection. Next, the door slammed, the chair darted across the room, the pillows exploded. I got whisked away in the madness of it all, fueled on nothing but unjustified, vengeful anger and a chicken wrap that I had for lunch.

It was satisfying to watch him worry, as the lines on his face grew bigger and his expression grew more panicked by the second.

I thought I was doing the whole town a lot of good by shaking some sense and reality into the man who had done nothing but host galas and ignore real, outside problems.

But, I had become so empowered by the anger that I didn't take control of what I was doing. Instead, I disregarded it when the heavy, chestnut cabinet behind him started to shake and grow more unstable.

It wasn't until it fell onto him that I realised what I had done.

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Jazmine and I sat cross-legged on her king-sized bed, our eyes glued to the screen of her laptop as a journalist reported the 'strange and upsetting news of Mayor Buchanon's accident'.

It was 9am and Jazmine had already kept me in her home for hours now. She had pulled me into her room during my break down, ushered a reason for it all through a series of soft-spoken questions and finally stayed with me until both of us could be bothered to get up off her array of pastel-coloured duvets and fluffy pillows.

"Rose, it was an accident." She repeated for the fifth time that morning.

"I could have killed him." I mumbled, beating her record of most spoken phrase of the day so far. "It's not too late, he's in critical condition."

She rubbed a comforting hand across my back, our eyes watching as the same reporter stood outside of the city hospital with a neon yellow umbrella held over her head.

"Okay, you've tortured yourself enough."

I huffed.

"Seriously, get off my bed." She ordered. "And pull yourself together."

Giving her a glare, I slid off the mattress and landed on my feet. I pulled on a grey hoodie with two horizontal stripes across the chest and tugged on the same, old, dark jeans. She shut the laptop with a conclusive huff and left it on the duvet.

I knew I had to stop thinking about what I had done and focus on the threat that NASEB posed. The same threat that a couple of hundred other Supers were going to face, whether they knew about it or not.

"You're right." I admitted, clearing my throat as if it would somehow disguise the statement that brought her much satisfaction.

She gave me a smile, which seemed to be just as good as any reassuring hug and I took a deep breath in.

"Now go take a shower." She laughed, clearly identifying the black mascara that had dried and died beneath my eyes and my pathetic excuse for a ponytail. "You can even use the water jets."

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There were so many things I wanted to do first. I wanted to locate NASEB's headquarters using the address Sebastian gave me, I wanted to find my mother and talk to her, I wanted to find TerraStorm and tell him he was right and that I was sorry. I desperately wanted to tell him how I felt, though I was reluctant to make myself that vulnerable.

I stood in the centre of the old, broken-down HQ. Everything had been dismantled and deactivated since the last time I had stepped foot in the place. Lord knows who did it, though I knew it was intentional. The place was pretty hidden and secure for any delinquents to go parading around with a baseball bat and drunken ideas.

Was this some sort of sign of the times? The old Red Hawk who used an abandoned army base for training had to upgrade and become stronger, which resulted in the HQ being built. Where was I supposed to go now? What HQ was better than this?

But at least I knew I would be growing out of my old self; the girl who fell for simple (yet supernatural) charm and always listened to her logic rather than her gut.

I was distracted from my thoughtful goodbye's with the HQ by a knock at the open door.

Ben waltzed into view.

"I don't want to talk to you." I said immediately and stormed towards the door, eerily comfortable with budging his shoulder on the way out.

"Rose, please listen to m-."

"No!" I shot back. "I'm done with listening to you. I'm done with listening to anyone because they all seem to be working against me!"

It was irrational to be so unstructured with where I was going with this, but I knew it was true. How many people could I trust when NASEB had already seemed to hire them all? First it was Sebastian, now it was Ben.

"I'm not working against you." He stated untruthfully. "I-I mean to say that it wasn't my intention when I decided to work with NASEB to hurt you." His eyes were all puppy-dog and I resisted looking into them.

"How can you say that when you have lied to me already?"

He cocked his head slightly to the side, clearly trying to take me for a complete fool.

"Your charm, Ben!"

He clenched his jaw and I noticed that he started blinking twice as fast.

Not so innocent now, huh?

"It wasn't important." He shrugged it off.

"Not important? You've manipulated every decision I've made since I met you, you've plotted a killing spree with the psychos you work with! Didn't you realise they are going to kill you off too? It's going to be like flipping Game of Thrones!"

"They aren't going to kill me." He almost laughed. "We made a deal."

"Yeah?"

He gave me a smug face, completely oblivious.

"That's what Sebastian thought too."

His face drained of colour, though he seemed to try and hide it with all the effort he could muster. He knew this already, but maybe he hadn't thought of it the way I had. Maybe he thought he was an exception.

"You aren't special." I added. "Not to NASEB... and not to me."

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Ben left shortly after that. He told me that if I wasn't with him, I was against him, which I had thought was the wrong way round from the start.

It was dizzying how quickly we went from a couple to each other's worse nemesis. He didn't seem to realize that NASEB wasn't on his side and, if he knew that there were no exceptions to their plan, he wouldn't be on theirs either.

But I didn't have time to worry about the physics of our relationship. I had to find NASEB.

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A/N:

Hey guys!
Sorry this update is late, I haven't been active at the moment. However, I have just got my GCSE results back and I am starting sixth form in two weeks.

I will be in Spain for a week, but that means I'll be able to do much more writing (while sunbathing :D) so I'll be much more active :)

Anyway, that's enough about me, I hope you guys really enjoyed this chapter. I would say it's getting intense but I think it always has been.😂

Have a wonderful week!

~SkyHunterXoX