by Charisma
fandom: Sky High
disclaimer: The mouse owns everything you recognize. Everything you don't, well, they own themselves. I just put down their words. Sometimes reluctantly.
summary: Love. Death. Betrayal. Hate. Lies. Truth. Revelations. Secrets aren't meant to be kept. Warren learns the hard way.
"Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair." - John Milton, Paradise Lost
He was having the dream again.
Firefly was struggling against her bonds, blood trickling down the ink flames of her wrists as she cut them with metal. She was hurting, hurting so badly, but no one was letting her go. Tears formed in her eyes; they hissed when they tried to leave, her body utterly rejecting the captivity. Screams tore themselves free, but their meaning had been lost in the collar surrounding her throat. She could still fly, hovering a scant two inches above the ground. Subtler powers too, but they could hardly assist. Didn't her captive realize he was hurting her?
"You're hurting her!" he cried. No one listened. He raced forward, clawing at the metal rings around her wrists, flaring his powers and finding them useless. She wasn't looking at him, never did, eyes staring forward with such disbelief, he knew it meant the ultimate betrayal.
It happened then, as it always did. The inches fell from her feet and her knees crumbled like a Roman soldier had been ordered. Blood seeped copiously, allowed to now there was no strain for life. Her head made a thwak noise when it hit the floor. A low breathy laughter filled the air and when he turned around he knew exactly what he would see:
His father killed his mother. Every night.
Just because he had friends didn't mean he had to sit or in any way associate with them. In fact, he'd spent the better part of the last year convincing them that yes, they were still friends, and no, this didn't mean staying around each other constantly. Even the Paper Lantern had lost its haven status. A strong showing of willpower on his part had finally convinced them that he didn't need company at his table. No, really. No, for God's sake don't – alright. So maybe he hadn't been as effective as he wanted to be in getting them to sit somewhere else. At least it wasn't every day. So far. God – what happened to the good ol' days?
Tuesday night, then, it wasn't unusual for him to ignore the fact that there was a girl donning green seated by herself in the third booth from the left, pushing the half-eaten remains of an eggroll around her plate, endlessly. She stayed when all the customers left, when Ken and Meilan Chiang wandered past him dubiously, when he had finished cleaning out all the ovens in the back. She stayed until he came back out, dishrags adorning him like jewelry.
"You know, we closed about an hour ago."
"I know," she said, defiance lurking warily around her chin.
He gestured to her plate with a rag-beheld hand. "I already cleaned all the sinks and dishwashers. Now I'll have to go back and clean'em all again."
There. Her lips parted and worry lanced through those too-expressive eyes. Either he was getting better at this, or the audience was just too damn susceptible. Probably the latter.
"Oh geez, Warren, I'm sorry. I didn't think it would-"
Passing a hand over her plate, he knew the searing heat cleaned just as well as any dishwasher, evaporating all traces of food. He sat and settled back into the booth, doing well at not smirking, dusting off the table with his rag.
"Not that much of a problem." He'd tried to find a suitable nickname for her, something derogatory but not harsh, so she'd know that they were friends – nothing comfortable. He'd found nothing except her own name. Damn. "You ready to leave, or do you two need some time alone?"
He pointed a finger at the orchids, who'd sprouted all over the table and off the sides. Layla turned a nice shade of red, twisting her fingers. A nervous habit of hers, one he'd found to mean several things, all of which involved a deep conversation with him. Oh, if only the joys in his life would never end.
"Sorry about that. I get nervous, and they looked so sad in their little pot – they just wanted to comfort me a little bit." Layla was, in spite of everything else and all evidence to the contrary, honest and mostly straightforward. She was hesitating though, and he hoped it wouldn't end up leading him down a path of world-saving again. He was working seventy hours next week.
"Does whatever you're about to tell me, or ask me, involve me spending more time than I should away from my job?"
"What? I- no. No, it doesn't but- it just-" Exasperated. "Warren, are you okay?"
He could hear himself blink.
Wrongly taking this as a sign of not understanding, Layla uneasily elaborated. "I just mean, well the last time we were all together, you were sort of distant. Well, more distant than normal. Will and I've been talking, and it doesn't seem like you. You're just… distracted. Like you're-" She reached out to touch the dark circles he knew prevailed under his eyes. When he flinched, her fingers curled back on themselves. "Like you're in pain."
"I can take care of myself," he said automatically. But Layla wouldn't just give up that easily; he wasn't Will after all. He bared his teeth, and hoped she mistook it for a smile. "The Chiangs get busy during the summer. With no extra help, I've had to work a lot. If I'm the subject of Will and your pillowtalk, you two are the ones who need help."
Her cheeks turned rosy and Warren considered it a job well-done.
"You should talk about getting more help then," she said hurriedly. That was a good idea.
Ten days later, he convinced the Chiangs that they needed to hire another worker. They acquiesced quickly enough, but there was a slight problem when Ken suggested that Warren head the interview process. It took another two days for him to be persuaded. Three days after that, he finalized the ad, put up "Help Wanted" signs, and began receiving resumes. Only a day passed before he remembered why he had rejected the human race for a life of solitude.
They were all insane.
Two guys had come in sleepwear, inclusive of undershirts and boxers. One girl appeared to have taken Magenta's make-up kit and exploded it on her face. Even more frightening another girl had burst out into tears, then proceeded to give him an intensive run-down of her five-year relationship that had just ended. When a Russian girl who could barely stumble through English tried to convince him she could speak fluent 'Chinese,' he fully thought of killing himself.
Other than those and a few more shining examples, though, he found a Bruno Chiauci who seemed to be competent and able to do the labor required of him. Chiauci had worked three years as a laborer on a farm. A little kitchen work would be nothing. He'd call back tomorrow, hire Chiauci, and get Layla off his back. Maybe he could invest in something that'd get rid of the circles too, so she didn't notice them. The chime that meant someone was entering the restaurant sounded, and he knew it was much too late for customers. Layla, again?
He said nothing, rolling up his sleeves past his elbows and setting down the rags he'd been cleaning with. Tingling, a familiar sensation, worried the marks on his arms, begging for a battle. Once, he thought that passion belonged to his father, but he later found that both parents loved a vigorous fight. Sometimes, it was hard to tell the good from the evil.
Peering around the corner towards the front desk, Warren spotted the intruder. A girl, around his age, held her back straight as she searched for life. She was tall, awkwardly so, moving like a newborn fawn, with mousy brown hair pulled back tight from an angular face, eyes sharp, if somewhat murky green-brown, and a long aquiline nose that was perpetually turned up so she could stare down. He couldn't much make out what she was wearing, but it was a dark suit of some kind, a skirt swirling around her calves. She looked like she belonged in a Catholic school - not some random Chinese restaurant.
"Hello?" He waited a few moments, watching her eyes nervously dart around the room. Something dark in color was clutched to her chest.
"We're closed for the night." A shiver of disappointment when she didn't jump.
"I know. I saw your ad in the paper, and I wanted to apply for the job in person."
One pointed glance at the clock, reading nearly an hour after closing time, substituted for the verbal bash. "The position's been filled."
"You should reconsider."
"Yeah?"
"I'm what you're looking for."
He grinned. "You know what I'm looking for, then."
She didn't seem impressed. He took it for a good sign, cocked his hip out for a long stay. "Look, I just know that whoever you got won't do as good a job as I will."
"You have a lot of experience then." She was steadily moving closer, and while he held his ground, Warren hoped she'd come around to moving back.
"This would be my first job," she said, flushing unpleasantly up the side of her face. "But trust me, you won't regret it."
"I can't-"
The glass door opened with a bit more force than necessary, and the chime jangled loudly. In the door frame, the dark sky behind him flashing with summer stormclouds, was Mr. Chiang. A short Chinese man with buzzed graying hair and glasses much too big, round, and 80s to look good with his face, Mr. Chiang had inherited the Paper Lantern from his father, and had every intention of keeping it a family establishment with moderate prices. He also rarely spoke anything but Mandarin, and absolutely abhorred the fact that his wife would only speak Cantonese. Their discussions would make most people's heads spin, but it was also one of the reasons they had lasted for thirty-seven years. Warren Peace, the child he and his wife adopted when the boy was only five, didn't know that he was a soft spot for both parents, neither willing to show how much sway he had with them. Eleven rounds of rock, paper, scissors had landed Mr. Chiang in the position he was currently in.
The boy's dark face immediately paled. Oh yes, he was well taught.
"I leave you in charge of the restaurant and you can't even close it on time?"
"Mr. Chiang –"
"Forgive me," the girl spoke up in heavily accented Mandarin. Mr. Chiang hadn't even noticed her, but was now thoroughly attuned. "It is my fault that the restaurant is not closed yet. I came in about the job without permission and I am very sorry for any… thing… bad."
Her Mandarin was atrocious, probably picked up from an American who'd had another American for a teacher, but Mr. Chiang appreciated the effort.
"I'm done with everything, Mr. Chiang. I was just closing up," Warren said, hardly acknowledging the girl.
"Is this the one you're hiring to work here?"
Warren frowned. "No. I've already decided-"
"Does the other one speak Mandarin?"
Through gritted teeth. "I didn't think to ask."
"Hire her. She speaks Mandarin well enough. It'll be good for her to hear native speakers." Warren looked as though he'd rather lick the floors clean after Friday night's rush. Just for that, Mr. Chiang tagged on a "And don't close up my restaurant so late! You can finish it early now, with this girl around."
He left, satisfied. Meilan would be angry the girl didn't speak Cantonese, he would have a new student to teach, and maybe Warren would even get a date. Not bad for a night's work.
"That doesn't mean anything."
The girl grinned, too many teeth and her lips pulling grotesquely. "It means I have a job."
"It means," he said, resignation reluctantly coating his words, "that you start tomorrow, 4 o'clock. Wear black pants and a white shirt. I'm Warren Peace."
"Darcy Bennett. Is your name really Warren Peace?"
"My mother had a thing for Russian literature. Is your name really Darcy Bennett?"
"My mother had a thing for Jane Austen. See you tomorrow, Tolstoy."
It was in that very moment, that Warren began to hate Darcy Bennett.
Things at the Stronghold household rarely seemed out of place. Mr. Stronghold could walk in carrying a severed arm bleeding blue, and no one would miss a bite of their toast. When the group of friends Zach had once tried to dub the 'Zach Pack' (superficially modeled after the Rat/Brat Pack, but when bearing no resemblance to such, was quickly shut down) met at the Stronghold residence, they were never taken by surprise. One sunny Saturday afternoon, while watching Layla and Ethan cook, since the rest of them only managed sandwiches and cinders, the air seemed a little uneasy. Warren could also cook, but no one ever asked him to, and he never did. At the moment, when Layla asked someone to give her the oregano and Warren was the closest to it, there was almost a collective gasp.
Warren had come over deceptively calm. This usually meant he was going to burn something to the ground.
He passed the oregano. Layla didn't catch on fire. The breath let out.
"I'm not angry at her," Warren said, taking a moment to look pointedly at Zach. Even though Zach had done nothing, it always made him feel better to watch the glowworm flinch. A by-product of his father. Maybe.
"We did notice you seemed a little… upset," Layla dared over her shoulder, intent on the gumbo she was stewing.
"That's the understatement of the year," Magenta muttered, effectively hidden behind Zach.
"A bad week, that's all." And so it was all. There was little to argue with Warren. No one would trespass when Warren put up the signs; only recently had Will stopped accepting the harsh nicknames (not that he'd gotten anything better than 'Stronghold,' but it was a start).
Soon, Layla pronounced the gumbo done, Ethan claimed the bread risen, and Zach managed to find an old VHS copy of the original Adam West Batman series. Heaven seemed to descend on the Stronghold home. There was little to be done other than stuff their faces and mock bad television.
They arranged themselves, somehow all falling over one another, together without being a puppy heap. There were understandings – Warren was alone, Layla and Will were touching – but they're together just the same. Burt Ward's Robin made a 'Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods, Batman!' which was apparently a signal for Warren to get up and leave. Having the entire plant universe on her side, it was silently unanimously agreed that Layla would sacrifice herself for the team. She warned of pothoses attacking them in their sleep; they seemed unafraid.
Just as she rounded the corner, Warren had stepped out of the bathroom and flared his hands. He probably just did it to dry them, but she had to gulp a knot down in her throat just the same. They caught each other's eyes at the same time.
"You blinked," he said.
"What?"
"Whoever blinks first is the loser. You blinked; I win." Quirked an eyebrow. "No more Batman for you?"
"Well, you know, there's only so much Adam West a person can take…" She smiled, he grinned, she looked down at her hands. "I-"
"Layla," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "You have a boyfriend – worry about him. I hired help at the restaurant."
"Good."
"Get back to your Batman." Then he grinned again, a little evilly. "Flower child."
Dana Goldberg danced as she walked home. Her feet moved quickly, artfully, tracing patterns in the ground. Whenever she finished off a design and gave one extra stamp, the drawing would spring from the ground fully formed. Two roses, then a tulip, all of which she gathered and pressed close to her chest. Dana tucked them into her belt, raised her hands, and started the routine Mme. Dupont was teaching her class.
After her session with Dupont, Dana had quickly gone down two streets to Lydia's house. It was the only time she could sneak away. Dana had only kissed her for the first time last week, and it was still so very new. When she'd brought up the subject, her mother had wrinkled her nose, said it was fine for others, but would probably think differently if it were her own children. But Dana paid little heed, humming as she moved into the second half, arms spreading gracefully around her.
Lydia said everything would work out. Besides, they were only fifteen. There really wasn't any need to get all tragic romance.
She was on Turner Street, nearly home. Moving her stance so that her legs were spread and arms tucked in her sides, Dana began a series of jumps. The last one, she landed, and twirled around, sticking her arms out in a pose.
Something slammed her in the back, and she was unconscious before she hit the ground.
"Again. One, two, three! I win!"
"One more time."
"Alright, but no cheating. One, two, three! Oh damnit."
"Ovens."
"You were seriously cheating that time. I saw it."
"Ovens. And sweep the floor."
"Best three out of five?" When she saw he was about to add something else, she raised her hands in defeat. "Alright. Ovens and sweeping."
Warren sat in the corner, closing out the registers. He added up the totals, and noted with satisfaction that there was only a two dollar and seventy-two cent discrepancy. It'd come out of his pay, but at least the number was lessening. Tiffany had been getting fewer hours, and he suspected the money missing from the registers had been linked to her. There wasn't nearly enough evidence to fire her, but she'd be given less and less hours until she would finally leave. It was an easier way.
Darcy, while definitely not the hire Bruno Chiauci would have been, learned the restaurant in time. She had spent the first few days not cleaning things hard enough, not removing dishes fast enough, and not minding his orders well enough. There was improvement, but he could always go back over her work and criticize. A small joy, but fulfilling all the same.
Finishing up the registers, Warren moved back to the kitchen, so he could see if he might indulge in that little pastime. Darcy was sticking out of one of the ovens. Her legs, clad in too-long black men's pants with obligatory Converse shoes dangling off the end, kicked rhythmically to the music she had blaring. She'd worked nearly every night this week, claming that she didn't have anything better to do. While waiting for her to surface long enough for him to frighten her, he inspected the other ovens. It was obvious which ones she hadn't done yet, a feat not accomplished her first three days on the job. She squirmed out of the oven in an uncoordinated wriggle. He waited until she stood straight, finger-combed her hair back into her braid, and surveyed her handiwork. Then, a gentle touch on the shoulder.
The wild flailing and near-tumble was more than satisfying.
"Finished?"
"If by finished you mean cleaned all the ovens and swept the floor, then no Tolstoy – I haven't finished." She gestured towards the ovens in the back. Her eyes vowed a revenge that she'd not yet take upon him. Two days had passed before he noticed that her eyes weren't a murky brown, but a nice leafy green. Must've been the light. "I have those two, then sweeping, then I'm done."
"I'll sweep," he said. "I'm finished out front."
"Alright." Darcy propped herself up on the edge of another oven. "Hey – do you want to play a game?"
"Game?"
"Yeah. I ask you a question, you answer it honestly, then you ask me one and I answer it honestly."
"That's not a game. Games have winners and losers. That's just a ploy."
"Sure it's a game. The loser is the first person to not answer a question." She glanced over her shoulder at him, shrugging a little. "But if you're scared…"
If the first wasn't a ploy, the second definitely was. There were a few questions, though, he had been wanting to ask. Besides – it was very unlikely she'd ask him if he had superpowers.
"Who'll go first?"
"You just did," she said, laughing in the loud guffaw way she had, then dove back into the oven. "When did you start working at this restaurant?"
"Started cleaning dishes when I was eight. Where are you from originally?"
She poked her head out, grinned. "Nice, being specific and all. I'm from Tulane, Louisiana. What happened to your parents?"
"They went home for the night." He saw her look out to glare at him, mouth open to protest, and then close when she realized she hadn't been specific enough. "How did you learn Mandarin?"
"My dad's a professor at Tulane University of Chinese Studies. He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and three other Chinese dialects. Mandarin was the only thing he taught me." She climbed out, inspected the oven, and moved on to the next one. Her answer was a little too explanatory, and he wondered if she thought that meant he would be too. "Where'd you get those tattoos on your arms?"
"They're not tattoos. And they're from my mother." Finished sweeping, he checked out the one oven she did, perching on the edge of the counter. "What do you want?"
Darcy came out of the oven, sitting, watching. "Just a little more control." Her eyes were far too serious; there was definitely something behind this 'game.' "What's your deepest fear?"
"That I'll end up like my father." There. A spark in her eyes, a little 'aha!' that meant she'd found whatever she was looking for. Maybe Warren was being paranoid, but he had a supervillian for a father, a corpse for a mother, and a friend's girlfriend for a first villain faced – nothing was beyond scope. He pulled out the trump card, the question he'd been saving for when he needed to end this game. "Why did you come here?"
Hopping off the oven, Darcy said nothing. Then, she crossed her arms and gave him a small cold smile. "Good night, Tolstoy."
Warren watched her leave. "You blinked; I win."
Maybe it was a little too much. Not only had he volunteered (if growling out an 'Oh I'll do it' counted as volunteering) to bring the night's entertainment, but he grumbled that he'd bring food too. Now, he stumbled down the road, balancing way too much Chinese food in one arm, and a bag of old, badly dubbed martial arts movies in the other. He damn well hoped they appreciated it, because it was never happening again.
As soon as Will opened the door, face drawn, Warren knew something was wrong. Something that orange chicken was just not going to fix. When he went into the kitchen, dumping his load on the island, the theory that something was wrong grew into fact. Zach was sitting closer to Magenta than she usually allowed, hands hovering around her shoulders. Layla paced, Will worried his fingernails, and Ethan pressed against the wall as though trying to bleed into it.
"What's going on?"
"Dana Goldberg is missing."
"Okay…?" Warren glanced at everyone, but they all seemed reluctant to speak. Hmm.
Magenta piped up again, anger lancing through her voice. "She was my friend. And a freshman at Sky High."
Ah. That explained the panic. Normal kids went missing all the time – after all, this wasn't Nebraska, where there weren't enough kids to kidnap. But this kid was special, had powers, and kids with powers don't just disappear.
"So, out of everyone with superpowers, we were designated to, what, save her?"
"We weren't designated to do anything," Will said, fingernails safe once again. "But it seems like no one's doing anything yet. Magenta says it's not like Dana to just leave. She's one of those dependable, boring people."
"Ah. So, since she's boring, we're going to launch an investigation." Just as he said it, Warren realized the thought hadn't occurred to any of them. Great. The spark started in Layla's eyes, the need to save people, and worked its way to Ethan, whose brain was already organizing.
"If we talk to her parents and friends, we can see if anyone had a reason to take her," Ethan said.
"We cannot start an investigation."
Magenta sat up, eyes shining with initiation. "I can make a list of her friends."
Both Zach and Will shrugged, and Zach put out his hands. "Tell me what to do, and we'll have ourselves a mystery!"
"We cannot start an investigation."
But the seed was set, and Warren knew he was not going to get out of it. Damn.
Twenty seconds after he'd walked into his house, Warren knew he was not alone. It wasn't the sharp darting shivers down his spine, a sure sign a fight was lurking, but instead the sort of tingling around the back of his neck. Damn. He needed a bit more human contact. Took one step around the corner, listening.
"Oh really Warren. If I was gonna sneak up on you, I'd do a little whirly whoo thing. And yes, those are official terms." A girl, dressed entirely in white except for a sash of turquoise across her chest, appeared in front of him, hands firmly on hips. Winnie Storms, marked with the incredibly ridiculous nickname Freeze Girl, had a tendency to barrel into whatever she was doing. If that included doors and privacy laws, so be it. Her white-blonde hair was up in some weird fancy twist, something so complicated girls had to take special classes to accomplish it. Her face was spattered with something shiny and blue and Warren was pretty certain that it would hypnotize you if you stared at it too long.
"Why are you here?"
Winnie frowned, something the shiny stuff of her lips made pretty. It was distracting. "I can't come visit my best bud?"
A look. She huffed, bangs flying in disarray.
"Fine. There's been stuff going on, and you're the most badass person I know. You know Dana Goldberg's gone missing? There's rumors, that she's been kidnapped. Like, taken against her will." Winnie put her hands in her hair again, moving restlessly. "Maybe there's somewhere safe to go? Maybe a super secret leftover villain hideout you wanna take me to?"
Winnie, while attempting to manifest the blonde stereotype many associated with her, was a little more intelligent than most people she met. She manipulated her words, making others view her as sub-par, then blasted them with some ridiculously genius comment. It was an event Warren knew he wouldn't tire of seeing. After all, it had been that very things that made them friends when the cover of homecoming ended.
"If I had a super secret villain hideout, don't you think I'd be there?"
Still poking around, touching the Buddhist shrine Meilan put up in the hallway, Winnie rolled her eyes at him. "No, I don't. You been hanging out with the Stronghold kid. He wants to change the world, ya know. You better be careful – he'll make you change it too."
Now that was a comment to ignore. "You knew Dana Goldberg?"
Winnie, having found a couch that suited her, plopped down and grinned up at him. She was too bright to be sitting in his dark, empty house. "You kiddin'? Me and Dana were always hanging out. She usually had Katrina there. You met Katrina Libowitz? She's a junior, I think, but she and Dana really hit it off in their phys ed class. Then me and Dana… it just grew from there. Katrina's man'a the moment, damn if I forget his name, tried calling us the three muskets or something. I called Kat, but she don't know what's up either."
"Can you give me her phone number?" Warren asked, deciding to leave the 'three muskets' comment where it was.
"Kat's? Sure thing." With some superpower beyond comprehension, Winnie pulled out a pad of paper and a pen from the three-inch purse she'd brought with her. She watched him fold it up, put it in his jacket pocket, then settle down next to her. "You wanna make out?"
He gave her another look. The first one had meant you aren't fooling me with that. This one was more of a sarcastic are you kidding and a resigned my parents taught me not to.
"Fine, fine. You go all noble on me. I swear I'm gonna freeze the hell out of that Stronghold kid." She chuckled, moved so she could see all of Warren's face. "Tell me: how are you going to entertain me while I'm here?"
"I'm sorry – you have to leave."
Layla looked the wrong side of bewildered, glancing around. Her demeanor was too sweet to tell the girl Warren usually let her stay after. She tried to speak, but all her hands did was move about like they were words. He found them like that, Darcy twisting a rag around her hands, and Layla sputtering in politeness.
"There a problem?"
Darcy visibly stiffened, shoulders rigid, spine ramrod, the whites of her eyes flickering like a scared horse. Immediately, she pushed the rag into her apron and turned to face Warren fully, eyes focusing on a spot just beyond his head.
"I'm just telling a customer she has to leave. It's fifteen after closing." The rules he'd given her second week had spelled out not only the blatant 'wash your hands,' but the more subtle 'Mr. Whittaker likes the center table.' Apparently, he'd forgotten to say that Layla liked to stay late, way past the usual fifteen. The girl in question was beaming a little too brightly. He wanted to kick her out.
"This is Layla. I go to school with her." He turned slightly, looking straight at Darcy. "She stays as late as she wants."
Teeth gritted. "You didn't mention her before."
"I'm mentioning her now."
"Anything else you want to mention?" A little too much, Darcy, he thought, and smiled at her.
"Could you take inventory in the fridge before you go?" Mouth opened, definitely in protest, before snapping shut. Gritting her teeth again. Darcy nodded, brought the rag to hang around her neck.
"If you're finished, I'll take your dishes," she said to Layla, smiling more pleasantly. Her hair was tied back severely, making her face seem gaunt even in the low light. When Layla nodded, Darcy grabbed her plate, sent a scathing look at Warren, and disappeared into the back. He sat across from Layla and pretended he didn't know what that look was about.
"That's Darcy Bennett. She's a new worker here." A little snide now. "Just like you requested."
"You two fight often?"
"No, we don't-" he bit it off, unwilling to let her have any more than that. "You didn't fall in love with someone else, did you?"
She blushed heartily, stroking the pansies on the table that turned away from him. It was good to see her embarrassed, because that meant she'd stop harping on him. Not that he minded. Much. "No."
"Good." But before he could tell her about Winnie's lead, she attacked. The girl was getting too much spunk from Stronghold.
"So, why'd you pick a girl?"
His turn to grit his teeth. "I didn't pick her. She just sort of… showed up."
Layla grinned, looking out from under her lashes, toying with the pansies again. "She's kinda cute. Doesn't seem like she's afraid of you either."
He leaned forward, so much that she curled her shoulders in, mouth dropping from the smile. "I know that one of the symptoms of a happy relationship is wishing the same for everyone else, but, the day I need a dating service, I'll probably have killed myself a few hours before."
She let out a nervous laugh.
Job well done. Finished with menacing, Warren slapped the paper on the table, figuring the jump on her part was just a bonus. "This is Katrina Libowitz's phone number. Apparently, she was one of Dana Goldberg's best friends."
"She might know where Dana is," Layla said, eyes going bright. "This is a great lead!"
"Don't get too excited. It could be nothing."
"Or it could be something." Smiled too big now, teeth showing and a little delighted breathing. "This is so great. Magenta will be really excited."
She stopped, considering.
"Or, I guess, what passes for really excited with Magenta."
It started with a small grin on Warren's part, then a snort from Layla, and pretty soon erupted into laughter. And it hadn't even been that funny.
Maybe he should've brought something, but the meeting at Magenta's this time didn't seem much the playful events they usually had. Neither one of Magenta's parents was home, but her stepmother had baked something delicious smelling and left it on the table to be devoured. The table, though, was left to grow stale and the jokes cracked weren't as funny as they could be. Warren settled into an armchair, far enough away that no one was near him, but close enough that he could see the chart Ethan had made up.
Dana's enlarged face smiled glossily from the chart. Down the right side were normal stats, like age and birthplace, while the left consisted of unusual activities that would make her a target.
"The only really unusual thing she did was dance. She'd been in ballet and modern dancing since she was little," Ethan said, pointing to the left list.
"Someone's attacking dancers?" From Zach, who perched on the edge of the couch, gleam forming in his eyes. "Maybe it's some crazy chick who has, like, a mangled foot and can never dance, and is so jealous that she kidnaps girls who have skill, then she'll use her Dance Ray to steal all their talent so she can finally perform on Broadway!"
Silence. Ethan pushed up his glasses.
"While that's a, uh, possibility, there isn't enough of a pattern to establish anything. I don't want anyone else to get taken, but if they did, it'd be a big help."
"I've been searching online," Magenta said, dropping her laptop on the table so everyone could see. "For any cases that might look like this. Turns out, there's a whole database of only superhero/sidekick involved crimes. It took a while, but I managed to get in-"
"Wait. You hacked into a government database?" Zach again, who looked more than a little amazed.
"Yeah? So?"
"My girlfriend's a hacker! A good one!"
"We are not dating," she growled; he cowered. "Anyway, there haven't been any crimes that look like Dana's, but there has been mention of a Lehnsherr organization that's been 'recruiting.' Dana never mentioned anything, but that doesn't mean she wasn't thinking about it."
"Then she might have just ran away?"
"No. She would've said something. She didn't go anywhere without telling someone."
"Maybe she did; maybe we just haven't found that someone," Will said.
"No!" Magenta jumped up, defensive. "She's missing because something happened. She wouldn't just leave. It's not like her. She's been kidnapped. That's the only explanation!" She stormed out.
A few uneasy shifts, and Zach sighed loudly.
"I have to go after her, don't I?"
Layla nodded. "It's a boyfriend thing."
He sighed louder, got up, began walking towards the back of the house. "If I don't make it, tell the kids I love them."
Nathan Jefferson liked to pretend that the wood forming wasn't him. Sometimes, shapes would magically appear and he'd accept them from the trees, as though they were offering gifts. He once gave his girlfriend a rose formed from the wood. She'd been so astounded, so moved, that tears had fell upon the wood thorns. A perfect gift.
Worried, for his mom had said he was to be home at six and not a second later, Nathan practically ran down the last street to his house. Mom was cooking something southern, fried, and utterly good for dinner. He stopped at the corner, smoothing out his clothes. Then, putting a hand to the base of a willow tree, he drew out and shaped a sow and two piglets – his mother's favorite animal. Nathan turned it over in his hands. Perfect.
Pigs covered his house. They, in glass, wood, metal, paper, or anything else, were slowly taking over. He'd managed to keep them out of his room, but Nathan was certain that the second he left for college, his room would cease to be a haven for abandoned records from the 70s, and instead be another victory for the pigs. But it was okay – Mom deserved special things for all she did.
He stopped, gazed at the pigs. They weren't looking back, but he figured they were too intimidated. After all, he was pretty happy about eating their kind.
When he collapsed, the sow's head snapped off, rolling along the ground.
Walking home alone was probably one the worst ideas Warren had had in a while. Two superpowered kids had already been taken while walking home – if that wasn't a pattern… Really though, he couldn't be bothered to deter from his well-established and very shortcut riddled walk just because people couldn't take care of themselves. Another uneventful evening, this time at Zach's house, which had proved not as he'd thought. There'd been hardly any drugs in the house. Now, though, the meeting had gone even worse. With Nathan Jefferson as a victim, they had no connecting factors. Dana was a Jewish, homosexual poor girl, while Nathan was a black, straight rich boy. They didn't live near each other, Dana was a sidekick, and they didn't seem to have any friends in common. None of the others had even heard of Nathan before Will said that his parents had mentioned him.
Nothing was adding up.
Two streets away from his home and lost in thought, Warren almost didn't notice the shadow not his own. He was meandering, moving from side to side, going through the lists of similarities and differences Ethan had brought up. Nothing made sense.
He stopped, finding a thought that stirred at the back of his mind, but wasn't forming. If he let it go, it would probably fester and pop out sooner or later, but he couldn't. Instead, he thought, trying to find out where it came from. He was overlooking something. That's when the shadow didn't cover its tracks.
It moved ahead, blending into his own shadow, but jilted too far to the left, creating a weird deformed head. Warren stared at the mixed shadows. Before he had time to react, the shadow was gone, darting away. When he turned around, there was nothing at all.
Had it been the mysterious being kidnapping superkids? Or was he being followed?
No good could come from either.
to be continued...