"Go fish."
Sighing, Tempest drew a card from the pile. His countenance perked up immediately, and he took a four of clubs out of his other hand to match the four of hearts he just drew, laying them out on his side of my hospital bed.
"Any queens?" I asked in the bored drawl of someone amidst a boring card game that had gone on far too long.
Reluctantly, he withdrew a queen of diamonds from his hand, which I gleefully accepted, and placed face up in front of me beside its matching pair, leaving only one card remaining in my hand.
Alas, the sweet taste of near victory.
A soft breeze brushed softly over my skin, sending the deck and our carefully paired off cards scattering to the floor in mixed up jumble. Despite the cracked window behind him, Tempest's too innocent expression made my eyes narrow, and I flung the sole card in my hand at him like a throwing star.
"Cheater."
The wind stopped the attack in its tracks, the card bouncing harmlessly off a wall of air just shy of touching his clean-shaven jaw.
"You can't blame me every time wind blows your life off course," he chided.
"I can, and I will."
"Mature. Reaaaally mature."
"No," I began, leaning forward, "what was mature was not cheating at Go Fish. I expect you to pick up the cards, by the way."
"But it was a breeze from outside!" he protested.
"Uh huh. Right. Let's say I believed you, sadly, I am still too ill to leave my sickbed."
To drive my point home, I flung myself back onto my pillow, the back of my hand strewn dramatically across my forehead like a Victorian maiden languishing over her final days on the mortal plane.
He scoffed, but set about collecting, nonetheless. His powers, it seemed, did not operate with enough precise attention to detail for him to be able to harness the wind to collect the cards for him. Seeing him resorting to doing something so menial as crawling around on his hands and knees gathering a few dozen cards without the boon of his super power lit a spark of something I wasn't proud of in my chest: bitter satisfaction.
"It seems super powers can't solve every problem," I tutted, shaking my head for affect, although he couldn't see it with his own head ducked low to reach a stray card that had worked its way under my bed. "How does it feel to be reduced to such plebeian tasks? Not quite as glamorous as tackling supervillains, is it?"
He merely shook his head and clambered back onto the foot of the bed, deck in hand. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."
Tempest began shuffling. Nothing complicated, just the simplest means of folding the cards together, his thumbs deftly fanning the split piles into one larger one. With his attention focused on not making another mess, I leered at his face, his jaw, his nose, his lips. Anything I could set my eyes upon.
I was on a mission. I wanted my tuition paid up front and in cash, and if I squinted just the right way, I imagined him somewhat familiar, a small nudge of recognition alighting the back of my mind. Maybe. A little.
Not really.
A girl could hope, though, couldn't she?
Which did remind me of something, as a matter of fact.
"Hey." He glanced up from shuffling the cards at my questioning tone. "What were you doing by the coffee shop the day I nearly got hit by that car? Was that a coincidence or," I wiggled an eyebrow suggestively, "were you stalking me?"
His fingers fumbled slightly, sending several cards sprawling across my rumpled sheets.
"The coffee shop?" he questioned, and I couldn't tell if he was trying to play coy or not.
"Yes, the coffee shop. The one I almost got ran over by. The one where your wind rescued me from certain peril." Possibly an over-dramatization of the event — I likely would have only broken a few bones — but I fancied a bit of drama, so I pressed on. "Ring any bells?"
"I will neither confirm nor deny whether I was at any location outside of uniform at any time," he said formally. Formality was such a bizarre color on him. "What I can confirm is that at that date and time, I did not use my abilities to rescue you from any car." The cards once again collected into a neat pile, he began dealing. "Old Maid?"
The abrupt jump between topics nearly gave me whiplash.
"You wouldn't happen to be trying to change the subject, would you?" I pried, only half joking. "How cute. You really were stalking me."
He bristled, straightening his spine. "Of course not. I don't know what happened to get you out of the way of that car, like you say happened, but it sure wasn't me, and trust me, I can't hide my heroics. The Guild keeps strict documentation of all rescues for legal reasons, so if you don't believe me, check the records for yourself." His fingers hesitated dealing seven cards each. He asked, "So is that yes to Old Maid?"
I arched a brow at his obvious deflection. Did that mean he was lying, because he didn't want his identity caught out of costume, or had he really not been the Super to help me? The whole thing left me with more questions than before, but I chose to let the matter drop.
"Will we be playing Bingo next?" I inquired, poorly feigning interest. "I swear, you and your old lady games. You'll ruin many a school-girl crush should the masses find out about how you spend your free time."
"This isn't my free time," he pointed out. "I'm on duty, protecting you, I might add."
I made a noncommittal sound at the back of my throat. He had a point, not that I cared to admit it. Three days. That's how long I'd been back from the brink, shoved into a darkened hospital room a world away from any other occupied rooms where only specifically selected personnel could visit. Tempest, as my constant companion, surely felt every bit as stir crazy as I did. My dads and Alexia dropped by when they could, at least once a day, but that about summed up the full extent of my social interaction over the past few days, since they didn't allow me to call my friends.
What was the Guild waiting for? Just announce I was back home, safe and sound, and be done with it!
Just as heat began pooling under my skin from annoyance and, yes, anger at their gall for trying to control my life in such a way without giving me a solid reason why, a knock sounded on the door, stopping me from doing something foolish, something like walking right out of the hospital and straight to the first news agency I could find to just get my return over with, consequences be damned. Tempest and I shared a curious glance, only for the intruder to waltz on in anyway, before I could give them permission to enter.
We both visibly relaxed when the unknown Guild man strode in through the door, his slicked back hair as perfectly quaffed as the first time we met in the Emergency Department downstairs.
"Hey, Ren." Tempest waved lamely. "Didn't expect you by today."
"My dads will want to be here for whatever you have to say," I said by way of greeting.
"You're an adult, kid," he said, breezing right past the contradictory statement. "Their presence is unnecessary, given that what you want is all that matters. They have no say in these things. To include them, we would need to reschedule this meeting for a later date, and until then you'll remain stuck in this," he gestured vaguely around the hospital room, "limbo."
I balanced my cheek on my fist, watching Ren through lowered lashes. He clearly thought I was born yesterday — this morning, even — if he imagined I'd be blind to such blatant manipulation.
"I value their opinions, nonetheless. Consider them my lawyers," I drawled, then, as an after thought, I added an insincere smile, just to take the confrontational edge off my stand-offish words.
I doubted it worked. Luckily, it didn't need to, because I could have sworn I saw the barest hint of a smile pull up on his lips, too.
Unless that was a bad sign. Admittedly, I didn't know his character all that well. Perhaps he delighted in the misfortune of others, and that sign of happiness actually meant he was seconds away from using my IV drip to choke me out.
Most disconcerting of all was how fast the shadow of a grin vanished as his eyes swept the room.
"My point about having to reschedule still stands," he reiterated, tapping his foot impatiently.
"A shame we live in the Bronze Age with nary a carrier pigeon in sight," I said wistfully, and then I held out my palm, returning to a flat, serious affectation. "Your cellphone, please."
He made no immediate moves to leap to fulfill my will, so I turned to Tempest. "His cellphone, please."
"I'm pretty sure there's something in the Superhero Code of Conduct that says no mugging people for their electronics," he said wryly.
A code of conduct? The more I heard about the rules placed upon our Supers, the less I wanted to know. It didn't matter how reasonable the restriction, it stole any glamorous sheen the profession once held.
"C'mon..." I pleaded. "There must be a solid middle ground between helping a damsel in distress — me — and mugging a soulless bureaucrat."
Ren lifted a single unamused brow. "I presume I'm the soulless bureaucrat in this little scenario?"
Tempest appeared to think on it, fighting off the warm amusement tugging at his lips. With faux seriousness, he said, "Well, when you put it like that, what else is a hero to do?"
"Tempest," Ren warned, taking a cautionary backwards step, to no avail.
By the time he felt the shallow gust swirl past his suit pocket, inciting him to swat at the same spot, it was already too late. The phone whirled up over his head and into my awaiting hands.
Tempest blew out a held breath, grinning at the successful delivery. "I thought I might accidentally drop it there for a second."
Ren glared in halfhearted irritation. "Be glad that you didn't. Burglary and destruction of property? That's a heavy charge."
I highly doubted Ren would hand his PIN over free of condition, so I swiped to the emergency call section and dialed my dad's number from memory. Luckily, he picked up at the third ring.
"Hello?"
"You really shouldn't answer unknown callers, Dad," I chided. "I could be a scammer."
"Lily? Is something wrong?"
I glanced askance at Ren. "I wouldn't say anything is wrong, so much as that the Guild guy is back and I figured you might want to be part of the discussion."
After a muffled curse on the other end of the line, he said, "I'll be right over."
"No time. He's making as though he has a veeeerry tight schedule to keep. Whether that's true or not is up for serious debate." I gave him a look that said, I'm onto your lies, Ren. "I was thinking that I'd put you on speaker phone while we figure out what..." I searched for an appropriate word, "the plan is."
The plan could translate to my future, how we'd deal with Shade and the press, and any number of other tricky things. A good word. A multifaceted one.
I hated plans.