Saving a Superhero

4: Stranger+A Baseball Bat

Not ten minutes later, while I lay in my bed trying to make sense of what the robber had said, a knock came from the upstairs door. I didn't expect that. Our old two-story that we shared with three other girls downstairs, at least two resident ghosts, and more mice than I cared to count was equipped with rickety metal stairs around the back that led directly to Jenna, Josie, and my rooms upstairs. Even we didn't trust the rusted stairs enough to use them and instead opted to use the front door.

How did Rory even know about the stairs? Assuming it was Rory knocking on my door this late at night.

As I padded through the hall I fixed t-shirt and running shorts. I had yet to change out of the same pajamas since I got home from the robbery. Now I was regretting that. I even managed to fix my dirty hair in a ponytail by the time I got to the door. If it wasn't Rory outside but a serial killer I was going to look presentable when I was found in a ditch without teeth or fingertips. That's what Netflix binging had taught me about answering the door in the middle of the night.

To be on the safe side, I grabbed one of Josie's softball bats that was leaning against the wall and gave it a test swing or two. It was lightweight aluminum that was light enough that I suspected I could knock someone out with it if I had to. A few nails through it or barbed wire wrapped around it would have made it truly formidable, but this was just answering the door at night, not the zombie apocalypse.

If I lived through the night, installing a peephole would be my top priority.

With only an inkling of who was on the other side, I swung the door open and almost got clonked in the nose. Not because the figure looming in the doorway had sucker punched me in the jaw or because the door swung back and hit me in the schnoz, but because their fist was still poised to continue the ceaseless knocking. Relying on my dormant superpower I managed to dodge the fist last second.

The girl on the other side was a stranger.

She looked to be at the tail end of high school with the lithe figure of a fairy or a middle schooler. She was almost transparent in the muddy moonlight because she was so pale. Equally pale hair framed her face reaching almost to her waist. Her eyes glowed in the night light, accenting her blonde eyelashes and the mascara smeared beneath them.

The girl could have posed for a high school senior hoping to sneak into a frat party. She must have just come to the wrong house. Everyone mistook my dark house in the middle of an equally silent street for a secret rave. It was only logical.

The door was already halfway shut and my, "Wrong house," was hanging in the air. Before I could close it she jammed her foot in the frame. From the jerk in her face, I could tell it hurt. Served her right.

"Juliet Rossel?"

I paused with the door still half closed. "Rory?"

Before I could stop her, the tiny girl turned into the Hulk and shoved my door open to wrap me up in a hug. Protip: Hugging a stranger is never a good idea. Beings hugged by a stranger is an even worse idea.

I tried to wiggle out of her vice grip, but she was stuck on me like glue. It wasn't until I pretended to be unable to breathe that she took a step back. I was only half acting. My ribs were definitely bruised if not broken beyond repair.

I didn't make a move to return the hug until I asked again. "Rory?"

"Of course." Her face lit up with a smile. And there was the girl I had imagined on the other side of the phone during all of those five-way phone calls and group messages. Because we didn't remember seeing each other, it was impossible to know what we looked like. All I had to go off of were arbitrary descriptions from sophomore year of high school. We had all changed since then.