"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Where the Invisible Hand's voice had been deep and silky, Gold Thrush's voice was light and airy. Where the super villain's face was framed by a short, wavy mop of mussed liquorice locks with eyes as startlingly blue as forget-me-nots, Gold had long spikes of strawberry-blonde hair swept up and to the right and wide hazel eyes. Where Gold was all sweet, charismatic dork, the Invisible Hand was a smug, yet alluring mystery. The biggest difference, though, was their facial expressions – or what I could see of them. Where Gold was all smiles and grins, IH was just smirks and patronising chuckles.
I noticed all of this as Gold completely relaxed around me. I was happy that he didn't feel as on edge as before. No longer in the company of four other teenagers/young adults with super powers, Gold lowered his guard and exposed his true self, which was a fun-loving, sweet, dork of a guy.
"Damn this mask," Gold sighed, tugging at the knot to loosen it a little and sending me a guilty smile. "You know I'd take it off, right? But I just–"
"Don't trust me," I finished for him, "I know."
"No it's not that, it's just..." He blew out a hot breath, dislodging a blonde strand from his forehead, and said, "I can't take the risk. What if the Invisible Hand shows up again? With the whole invisibility thing he's got going on, we would never know he was here."
After about twenty minutes, we decided we couldn't sleep and, with my mom having finally gone to bed, snuck into the kitchen for a snack. Gold leapt agilely up on to the kitchen counter and began rummaging through the cupboards on top (where my mom kept her secret stash of Oreos) as I paced around the island in the middle. Gold hovered on his back for a while, munching on cream-filled goodness as I sat at the island counter with my chin in my palms. Eventually noticing something was wrong, he floated down into the chair next to me, like a feather on the wind.
"Something's bothering you." It wasn't a question.
"Ardie," I explained. Gold cocked his head and I turned to him, shocked. "You–you don't know?"
"Who's Ardie?" He asked, further proving my point. Gold hadn't known Ardie's name. So maybe they don't know each other after all... I shook my head.
"Nevermind," I said quickly, "just a friend from school."
"Is he... more than a friend?" Gold frowned, "because if he's done something wrong, I can totally–"
"No!" I interrupted, shaking my head, "no he's just a friend. He would never do anything wrong though," I smiled wistfully. Poor Ardie was only sixteen and he'd have to put himself in harm's way just to try to capture the Invisible Hand. Then again, he put himself in harm's way every day: he was a super, after all. "He's always hyper, like, to the extent that his parents banned him from coffee. And sugar. And some sweet fruits. He's the sweetest guy, but it's like he's got ADHD or something," I mused.
Gold nodded like he understood, "sounds like Lodestone," he murmured. I bit my lip and said nothing, praying he wouldn't make the connection. I wouldn't be responsible for nearly slipping up on two super's identities today.
"You know," I said thoughtfully, "if the Invisible Hand popped in for another visit tonight, we'd have no idea. Then he'd kind of suspect something if he found you here, wouldn't he?"
Gold shook his head; "he's not going to visit you three times in one night. Although..." He looked at the time blinking on the microwave: 5:03. "It's technically not night anymore, is it?"
"No," I laughed, "I guess it isn't." We talked for a little while longer, our conversations ranging from anything to everything as the first rays of sunlight peeked in through the cracks in the window shutters of our small kitchen and casting stripes across Gold's and my face. It was ironic, I thought. Here was Gold Thrush, dressed all in gold spandex with a gold strip of fabric wrapped around his head and to top it off, he was bathed in an almost ethereal golden glow, as if the heavens themselves were shining down on him. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe Gold was my guardian angel.
"Boxers or briefs?" I asked suddenly.
"Boxers," Gold answered, not batting an eye. "Definitely boxers. Although maybe not in this spandex," he signed, snapping a piece of material against his thigh. I grimaced, realising he was probably naked under his suit.
"Ice cream or cookie dough?" He asked me.
"How about cookie dough ice cream?"
"I like the way you think!"
"Peanut butter or Nutella?"
"Nutella all the way!"
"I'm more of a peanut butter girl."
"You're kidding!" He gaped. "No, we can't be friends. Nope. Not anymore. The friendship is ruined. I'm disowning you as my designated damsel in distress."
I laughed and chucked an Oreo at him. "My English teacher would be proud of that alliteration," I giggled and he threw another cookie at me. It was conversations like these that I wished I could have with the guys at my school. Even Nick or Ashton, two of my best guy friends, would probably laugh at the stupidity.
Honestly, Lila was the only person that I knew anything about. Her favourite colour (purple), favourite food (peanuts and pizza, but not together, obviously), her favorite animal (a cat, duh), her favourite shape (triangle because that's the only instrument she can play), but even with my past boyfriends, we never bonded this much. I didn't know a thing about Trevor or Paris or even Alex, whom I had dated for eight months.
"Oh," Gold frowned after another twenty minutes of laughing about mindless things, "someone's in trouble."
"Oh," my face fell too. Thus ended our all nighter with Gold off to save some civilian. My hero.
"Anyone there?" He pressed his finger to his ear chip, looking unsurprised at the lack of response. "I guess everyone's still asleep. We take our chips out at night ever since Lodestone woke up Electro when he started listing off elements of the periodic table in his sleep. Batboy has a pretty bad tendency to sleep talk, too," he laughed.
I laughed, too. That sounded just like Ardie. He was a pretty big chemistry nerd.
"Until next time, miss Annie," Gold kissed the back of my hand and crossed to the window, thrusting open the shutters and letting in a steady stream of yellow light. Cracking the window was easy. Heaving it open kind of ruined the dramatic exit, but soon, he had climbed agilely out and flew away into the sunrise.
It was a good time for him to go. Less than twenty minutes later, Lila had climbed in the same window and ate the same Oreos that lay abandoned on the counter from Gold's and my little chat.
"Where'd you find the cookies?" She said through a mouthful of crumbs, "I thought your mom hides them." I chewed my lip to keep from telling her about Gold flying up to grab them. Luckily she was too preoccupied with stuffing as many Oreos as she could in her mouth to notice I hadn't answered.
If I told her about Gold, I knew I'd tell her about Ardie and I couldn't blow his cover, not when he was nice enough to trust me into unmasking. It was cute though. When Ardie removed his silver mask, he had to shake out his tangled bronze hair. It had been flat where the mask wrapped around his head, giving him some weird version of a mullet. Ardie's spandex was bright red with a silver belt, silver mask, and the symbol of a horseshoe magnet plastered on his chest. It was a good look for him, I thought. He looked better without the mask (minus the mullet, of course).
"Can I crash on your couch?" She asked. "Only for a few hours. I need sleep. Guess who got her cat stuck in a tree again? Twice in one night, I mean c'mon!"
"Sure," I laughed, "you're practically nocturnal now, you know that, right?"
The Claw groaned and whipped off her mask, too tired to peel off the rest of her spandex before she passed out on the couch. Thankfully it was a Saturday and I wouldn't have to wake her up in an hour for school. That would just be cruel.
While my best friend napped, I paced. Unable to think straight, I poured a glass of water with a shaky hand and nearly spilled it when I turned on the news. A newscaster was interviewing a civilian who was so scared she almost peed herself as she explained the Invisible Hand had killed her boyfriend. Two pictures of one of the driver's thugs appeared in the top right hand corner, from both before and after the mutilation of having his spine broken.
I gulped, sending a silent prayer to whatever deity was listening.
The Invisible Hand was out for blood.
I could only pray I wasn't next.
✩✩✩
Lila slept for most of the day. I ducked out a few times to grab groceries, but mostly just for something to do. New York City was in full swing by the third time I left the apartment. Smoke rose steadily from the drains in the street and street cleaners rolled lazily by, spitting out gas clouds that forced me to nuzzle my nose into my elbow in hopes of not getting poisoned by all the pollution.
I passed an electronics shop, watching a live broadcast of Gold Thrush rescuing a kid from a fire and waving to the camera crew. All of the televisions were tuned into the same channel. Instead of focusing on the Invisible Hand and his next move, I noticed they were all focused on the super heroes and what they were doing.
Finally I reached the convenience store. A tiny bell rang as I pushed open the door. Belatedly, I realised it was the same store Grace Williams had gotten killed. Strangely, it wasn't the poster of her smiling face tacked into the window with the letters R.I.P. printed below that tipped me off. Nor was it the workers' solemn faces and slumped shoulders. No, it was the way they jumped every time the little bell above the door rang, signalling a new customer.
I found the manager easily, with a little instruction from a girl whose nametag read "Stephanie" with the "anie" part scratched off in red sharpie so it just read "Steph". She directed me to a man named Ben who looked a little surprised when I asked what had happened to Grace.
"The door didn't open or anything," he explained, "she just started bleeding and then out of nowhere materialises this Invisible Hand guy with a blade in her gut. I called 9-1-1, but by then it was too late. She was..." he trailed off, swallowing hard and I nodded to show I understood. It seemed the Invisible Hand's body count just kept going up.
Finally, Ben seemed to compose himself. He set his lips and said, "she was a good worker, that Grace. Her poor brother was messed up from it too. Liam," he remembered, "that was his name. Good kid. He was only thirteen and he came in here screaming at us for not doing more. Couldn't blame him really. No one could. None of us could have done anything, but if I was in his shoes, I'd be screaming too."
Feeling sick to my stomach, I bought some aspirin and trudged home, popping a few pills in my mouth and massaging my temples. Right before I left, Ben had handed me the card the super had left him. Apparently he had been wearing gloves so there would be no trace of finger prints, and all the card said was Mayor Collins is an evil man so here's a visit from the Invisible Hand.
So Lodestone had been right. It was something to do with my dad. Except... Except my father wasn't evil.
The wind began to pick up, blowing some smoke in my face and scattering the fall leaves through the street, but I took no notice because when I rounded the corner, who should be standing there, but Ardie himself.
I opened my mouth to say his name, but he put a finger on his lips, silencing me as he pulled out and pocketed the ear chip. Then he nodded at me to continue.
"Ardie," I hissed, glancing around, "what are you doing here?"
"What?" He wiggled his eyebrows, "just 'cause I'm a super hero, doesn't mean I get to walk around in street clothes?" He laughed and then sobered, "I followed you here. We need to talk... You're not going to tell anyone are you? You haven't told Gold?"
"No," I shook my head. Though I almost did, I wanted to say.
"Good," he sighed in relief. "They've seen my face, but they still don't know my name. That's okay."
"I thought you all knew each other?"
Ardie barked out a laugh, "that's just a conspiracy theory. People feel more reassured if they think we know who are behind the masks." I nodded, knowing he was right. To be honest, it unsettled me a little not knowing who anyone was. Like Ardie, they could have been anyone. Everyone had gasped when he unmasked so there was no real way to know if anyone recognised him or not.
"So what's it like? Being super, I mean..." The truth was, I already knew the answer to the question. I asked Lila every day.
Ardie chuckled, debating how to answer. Suddenly, I felt very small. Despite being a year older than him, knowing Ardie's secret just made me feel intimidated. Here was this super hero who had probably saved hundreds of lives and he was talking to a lowly civilian like myself. I got the sudden urge to bow down.
"It's not all that different. When I got my powers, I was really scared. I didn't even know about superheroes," he admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets, "you know, because everyone kept it under wraps. The world just wasn't ready to know, ya know? But now..." He trailed off.
Now there were fangirls, wishing the supers were real just like all the other fantasies: demigods, shadowhunters, Narnia, Neverland, all of it. People wanted that stuff to be true so they could have an adventure. Now that it was true, girls and boys would swoon this way and that every time a super came near them or beg them to take him or her out on a night of fighting crime. Some supers took advantage of this, but others – the smart ones – left normal people like me out of it.
"Anyway, I had no idea what to do. Apparently back then, supers had this kind of sixth sense for every time a kid found his or her powers so within a day, Bat Boy, Electro, and Gold Thrush had all shown up to help me out. It was pretty cool. I've only ever had a sister, but suddenly I had three older brothers too."
Ardie's eyes grew misty and he had to laugh to disguise him blinking away the tears. "The only one in our little group who knew anyone's identity is Gold. He knows who Bat Boy is and vice versa, but none of the rest of us do, obviously... I think the weirdest part was whenever I got into a fight with my mom or if my parents were arguing, I got the whole queasy feeling, you know?"
I did know. Supers got this feeling, similar to nausea, when people were in trouble. Somehow it let them pinpoint the source of trouble, almost like a GPS.
"Usually I don't feel petty fights, but I guess since they're family, every little thing..."
"Yeah, I get it," I said, though I didn't really. Lila had described that feeling many times, but I never quite understood. She said normally it was like getting sick from a roller coaster, but with family, anything from a family member losing their keys to getting trapped in a burning building would give her a migraine, like a spear being forced through their head. I couldn't imagine it, but I did understand.
"I should probably go," I said, "Lila's staying over. I don't want her to wonder where I am." Ardie nodded. He knew just from school that Lila was my best friend, but luckily he didn't seem to have figured out she was the Claw. Still... I wasn't taking any chances. I scurried away before he could say anything else.
✩✩✩
By the time I got back, Lila was channel surfing. My mom sat next to her clutching a bowl of popcorn and the channel guide, trying to figure out which channel Jaws was on. I laughed. Only these two would want to watch a summer movie in the middle of fall. Finally they found it and I plopped down next to them, stealing a handful of my mom's popcorn and shovelling it in my mouth as I ignored her scowl.
"Dad didn't come home last night," I noticed, though it was nothing new. "Did he call?"
"Yeah, after your friends got here," my mom said. Lila froze in the middle of adjusting the volume.
"What friends?"
"Oh, some other supers showed up," my mom said with a flick of her hand. I blushed at Lila.
"I was going to tell you when you woke up," I lied.
"I'm awake now, aren't I?"
I hesitated and then nodded, recounting everything that happened last night from the moment she had leapt out my window and warned me they would probably come. I did, however, leave out the part about Ardie being a superhero.
"No," they said together when I finished. "Absolutely not." They even shook their head simultaneously. Frankly, my best friend and my mom speaking and acting in sync kind of scared me.
"They can't use you as bait!" Lila protested. "I was joking when I said that. Well, sort of... See? This is why I don't team up: because groups lead to bad ideas and bad ideas lead to people getting killed. Mob mentality, people!"
"Lila's right," my mom pursed her lips. "I don't care if this Invisible Hand guy did your didn't hurt you. He hurt Lila and that should be warning enough. We're not risking your life"
"Why did he even hurt you?" I turned to Lila, ignoring their arguments.
"Well I felt a slash across my side then heard someone running, like, running away and all of a sudden he became visible and turned around to face me while jogging backwards like some pro badass and the bastard had the nerve to wave. And then he teleported right in front of my eyes! At first I thought he just went invisible again, but he kind of disappeared all at once. When he goes invisible or becomes visible or whatever, you can always see him disappearing, even if it's quickly. It's not all at once, you know? It's gradual. This time he disappeared all at once."
I nodded, remembering how even when he was invisible, my hand could wrap around his wrist until suddenly, I was clutching nothing.
"What's scary is he can clearly remain invisible while teleporting," I said. "Like, he'll teleport somewhere whilst invisible so nobody even knows when he shows up!"
"That's creepy," my mom's eyebrows knit together. "Teenagers these days."
"Hey!" Lila and I slapped her arms from both sides and my mom just huddled into herself, clutching her bowl of popcorn a little tighter.
"Where are all the other supers anyway?"
"Good question," Lila sighed.
"I noticed that too," I nodded. "It's like they all just dropped off the face of the Earth in the last week. I haven't heard about any rescues from them. In fact, other than you, Electro, Gold Thrush, Lodestone, Bat Boy, and Mist, I haven't seen any of them on the news recently."
"Neither have I," mom and Lila said together.
"Did they all just retire?" I thought aloud.
"Impossible. They're more responsible than that," Lila defended, "besides, when supers retire, they're supposed to alert the government or the media or whatever. We're not allowed to just go off grid. The world likes to know when we have one less hero."
"Is that so?" A deep voice said from in front of us. My mom jumped and popcorn rained down on us as we stared in disbelief as a familiar grin and pair of forget-me-not eyes winked back at us. My mom hurtled the nearly empty bowl at him and the eyes dodged easily as the body faded into view. "Good afternoon ladies... Annabelle, Annabelle's mom," he nodded to us both and then fixed his eyes on Lila. "Well, well, well," he mused, "a hero unmasked."
"Shit," Lila muttered, grappling for the strip of leather on the coffee table in front of us. She was still wearing her midnight blue spandex, but her mask wasn't around her face.
"Please, Lila, give me some credit," the Invisible Hand scoffed with a wave of his hand. "You really think I wouldn't recognise you just because I can't see your cheekbones?"
Lila gaped. Not only did the Invisible Hand know me, but he knew Lila too. That could mean he knew anyone. He could go to our school! He could know Ardie, a small voice said in the back of my mind, but I pushed it down with a swallow.
"Whoops," the Invisible Hand put a finger to his lips, now curled in a smile, "someone let the cat out of the bag." Lila was still speechless, staring, for the first time, with horror in her eyes. "Literally." He chuckled at his pun.
"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" My mom was shrieking while chucking anything within reach at the super villain, pillows and remote controls included.
"As you wish," the Invisible Hand nodded. This time when he disappeared, he didn't fade out gradually. He just vanished. Teleportation. But that didn't necessarily mean we were alone. There could be some of his little clones here too, invisible. Nowhere was safe when he was only twenty feet away.
I smirked. At least he had his limits. I opened my mouth to tell Lila what he had told me, but something held me back. That same something told me I would see him again, before our staged plan even, and that if I told Lila now, I wouldn't earn the super's trust and would therefore never find out what he intended to tell me.
"That's it. I am super-proofing this apartment," my mom pursed her lips.
"What an asshole," Lila muttered. My mom didn't even bother to chide her language as we all stared at the spot IH had been standing. "What a self-aggrandizing asshole."
✩✩✩
If you're liking the book, please vote, comment, etc. :) thanks! <3
This ch is dedicated to tasting_stars because she's pretty much what inspired me to actually publish this story. Been wanting to write it for a while, but didn't really GO for it until I read Men In Tights (which you should check out btw! Amazing trilogy!!!)