Chapter Fifteen

Almost an hour later I was huddled under the gable of a brownstone across the street from the general hospital, arms wrapped around my knees. I was shivering uncontrollably, so hard that I probably looked like I was having a seizure. I was freezing and dripping with water. My soaked costume clung to me like a second skin of ice. I could barely breathe from my coughing.

There had been an explosion on a tour boat. One of those little dinner ships that circled the islands. I had hitched a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter out to the waters near Staten Island.

A fresh gust of frigid wind blasted me again.

I gave another shudder, one not from the cold. Water. Freezing, black, terminally deep water that would pull me down and down, to crushing, suffocating depths...I didn't understand it. I couldn't stand the thought of swimming anymore. Why not? I had been an excellent swimmer before.

Hobgoblin had already disappeared by the time I had arrived. One of his grenades had blown an eight-foot hole through the hull. The ship had been sinking. I had helped pull people to safety just as the boat had disappeared beneath the waves.

Then, dusty, dripping, and exhausted, I had webswung across the city to the Bronx. Black Widow-

That name hissed through my mind like a curse. Black Widow. Black Widow. Black Widow.

Yes, Black Widow had set fire to an apartment complex in the Bronx. She had herded the people to the roof where they could watch the fire creep up from below, screaming for help and sobbing with terror. Then she had run away. Just run away laughing.

I had crawled up there and down for each person, all sooty and miserable from their ordeal and the loss of their homes. The fire department had put out the fire. The entire building had been destroyed.

Black Widow. Hobgoblin. Black Widow. Harry.

They had put my mother in the hospital, wrecked a subway, sunk a tour boat, and burned a highrise to the ground. All for what? To get at me.

Mom had a fractured ankle. I had clung to the wall outside of her room, straining my ears for any word from anyone. She had been given medication to help her rest. And I couldn't go down there to see her. I couldn't go to see my mother in the hospital because Mayday Parker couldn't possibly already know what had happened.

My mother was in the hospital, my best friend was determined to kill me, a monster was stalking me, and hundreds of people had been put at risk. For this. Because of me. Because of Spider-Girl.

I hooked my fingers under the edge of my mask and wrenched it off. Blank, swept-back eye patches stared back at me. I clenched my fist, compressing the fabric. Spider-Girl. Right. Spider-Girl was a myth. An urban legend. All there was of Spider-Girl was a teenager in a costume who had just managed to cause her mother to be injured and hundreds of people to be endangered. Spider-Girl was only the cause of danger and misery and destruction, a pale, pathetic shadow of her father.

I knew I had to get indoors before I froze to death. I knew I had to get Benny before he got home to an empty house. I knew I had to call Gramma Watson, and Mom's work. But all I could do was sit there, arms wrapped around my knees, mask off, trapped in my own guilt and misery.

Danger.

I ignored the warning tingle. I didn't care.

Hummmmmmmmmm.

Adrenaline shot through my veins in an instant. I knew that sound. I had heard it too many times to mistake it for anything else. I jerked my mask back down over my head. The humming subsided.

"Awwwww, did Spider-Girl have a bad day?"

The voice came from just over my head. I didn't look up. I could see his shadow on the wall opposite, the shadow of Hobgoblin stepping down off of his glider onto the gable. Harry. I could still hear his voice through that harsh, grating, twisted parody of speech.

"Silent treatment, eh?" Harry snickered. I heard a faint slapping sound, as if he was tossing something up and down in his hand like a baseball.

"What happened to you," I said flatly.

Harry caught the grenade but didn't toss it again. "What?"

"What happened to you? Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting people to get at me?"

Suddenly I was up, leaping into the air, tackling him, full of a rage that I didn't know I possessed. Harry swung at me, roaring wordlessly. I caught his fist and wrenched, sending him smashing into the wall of the adjoining building. I grabbed him by the shoulders, slamming him against the wall again, hearing the back of his helmet strike the wall with an audible crack.

I reached forward and grabbed at his face. My fingers connected to the mask and clung as I ripped the entire helmet off of his head. I didn't know why. Maybe I had needed proof; maybe I had to see for myself, to convince myself that it was true.

The face of Harry Osborn stared back at me, his skin a sickly gray, his eyes wide and astonished.

"Wh-wh...what?"

Suddenly his face contorted, twisting into a snarling echo of his mask. An insane light flared in his eyes. Before I could anticipate, he pulled back his fist and smashed me in the head, sending me whirling around and stumbling backwards.

"Is this what you expected?" Harry snarled, half derisive, half furious. "Well? Do you know whose face this is, Spider-Girl? Do you know whose family your father destroyed? Both Osborn's...and mine?"

Osborn's…and mine?

"He killed my father!" Harry screamed. He looked completely insane now. His eyes were almost glowing with reflected light. "I swore that you would be the one to suffer! Just the way Osborn had suffered until he created me!"

I stepped backwards as Harry advanced, horrified. Harry had gone crazy. Totally insane. His voice continued to rise in pitch, in a hideous outpouring of mad rage.

"Yes, Spider-Man killed both Osborn's father and mine, that night," Harry hissed. "And Osborn would never have had the guts to do what I've done. He was too weak, too cowardly to avenge his father. That's when I stepped in. I had been watching, waiting, ever since the little accident that released me. I took control and met you on Halloween. I attacked in Times Square to lure you out."

In a flash, I realized that this was a much longer speech than Hobgoblin had ever made before. What was he doing? He was trying to distract me!

DANGER!

I sprang into the air just as a flurry of bullets tore into the gravel beneath me. I clung to the wall and whirled just in time to see the glider jet away again, somehow maneuvering on its own. Twin gun barrels protruded from under each wing. It circled, then came to a stop, hovering at the right height to step on.

Harry, if that was really who was standing in front of me, slowly lowered his helmet back onto his head, snickering. "What should I say now? 'We'll meet again'?" He hopped onto the glider with an agility that didn't fit his appearance.

"No, because there won't be a next time!" I whipped up my right arm and fired a web line that hit Hobgoblin directly in his yellow eyes.

"Aaaaaarrrrgh!" He reeled backwards, clawing at his face. His glider shot straight upwards as I jumped, catching hold of one wingtip and flipping upwards onto the glider. It rocked wildly.

He wasn't going to get away from me this time. I had him here, now. Whatever it took, I would drag this glider down!

"Get off!" Hobgoblin swung at me just as the glider lurched over the side of the roof, spiraling out of control towards the ground. The street below spun in a nauseating whirl, closer and closer-

CRASH!

"Aaaaah!"

"Hobgoblin!"

"My car! What did…what did you do to my car?" a strangely familiar voice squawked.

I scrambled out of the twisted wreckage of what had been until recently a very fancy car. Standing a few feet away was a man with a wild white hair, a briefcase, cigar, and a look of utter indignant astonishment plastered all over his face.

"Spider-Girl?" J. Jonah Jameson gibbered, his cigar threatening to desert him.

I turned around just in time to see Hobgoblin send the front half of the car flying with a kick. The plummeting glider had sliced Jameson's car open like a tin can. Ripped metal and slashed plush seats had landed directly at the feet of the editor-in-chief and owner of the Daily Bugle.

"H-H-H-Hobgoblin?" Jameson howled. He pointed at us wildly. "You're in this together! Just the second generation! And you...you blew up my car!"

In spite of all that had happened, the accidents, fear, and anger, I couldn't resist adding, "That's it exactly, Mr. Jameson. Our evil plot has culminated in the destruction of your car."

Jameson started to splutter. "Why you little—"

"Shut up, Jameson," Hobgoblin growled. Jameson's eyes widened and he began inching backwards. I turned towards Hobgoblin, tensely eyeing him, waiting. What would he do now? All around us people had stopped in their tracks, gaping at the situation but not fleeing. I could practically see Hobgoblin's eyes flickering about behind his mask.

If I charged him now, he would use a grenade or his glider. There were people all around us. They were all too close! I tried to stifle my growing frustration. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Another screw-up from Mayday.

I tried to dredge up the anger that had burned in me only moments before, but I couldn't. All I felt was a drained, mind-numbing exhaustion. And pity. Pity for my best friend, Harry Osborn, and this...this thing he had become.

Hobgoblin snorted. He must have realized the reason for my hesitation, because he pointed at me challengingly. "Don't worry, Spider- Girl We'll finish this soon. But I'll choose the time and place."

Crouching on his glider, he rose slowly up into the air and drifted forward. I didn't move as he brought his face inches away from mine and hissed, "You're not rid of me yet!"

"I'll be waiting," I said, struggling to keep my voice steady and confident. "And we'll see what you're made of, you abominable monstrosity. Now go run back to Black Widow, like a good little lackey."

I tensed as Hobgoblin let out an animalistic snarl. His right hand disappeared behind his back. Then, without warning he spun and jetted away, leaving a thin trail of exhaust in his wake.

"What are you doing? You just let him get away!" Jameson shouted.

"Oh, shut up, Jameson," I said wearily. Ignoring the stares and whispers of the onlookers, I webslung up to the roof without another word. I crossed the roof and took one last glance through the window of Mom's room. The blinds had been closed.

I had to get home. School was out by now, and Benny would be arriving at a deserted house if I wasn't there. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, I began to feel the cold and dampness again. Sighing, I stepped off the edge of the roof and swung from building to building down the street.

'Until he created me'. 'The little accident that released me'. What could that possibly have meant? Was he saying that he wasn't Harry, that he was someone else? And when I had first pulled off his mask, he had looked different. Frightened, even terrified. Then his face had almost morphed into a semblance of Hobgoblin's mask.

Split personality? Schizophrenia? People didn't suddenly develop serious mental disorders.

The little accident that released me.

I could think of only one place where this could lead. Quest Aerospace. I was going back to Quest Aerospace tonight.