Chapter 12 – Hero in the Dark
"Hur-ry up! Hur-ry up!" Ivan chanted from the laptop. I hadn't even had a chance to get back inside my body before he was shouting orders. He clearly couldn't wait to get his hands back on the data I had taken.
"Cool your jets." I hissed as I closed my balcony door behind me, drawing the curtains closed once more.
"Stick-it-in! Stick-it-in!" He continued to chant, ignoring my grumbles. Oh, the innuendos I could have made from that, but I kept my mouth shut.
To make him shut up and save my sanity, I plugged in the flash drive and sat on the edge of my bed, opting to stay out of my body for just a little while longer. A window automatically opened up on the screen and I could see that Ivan had begun the transfer.
"Happy now?" I rested my chin in my palm, looking down at the laptop groggily.
"It's like Christmas came early." Ivan sniffled in joy. He was being genuine.
"Glad I could make you happy." I nodded towards the laptop.
"Thank you, Eve. I mean it." He muttered sincerely. "Been trying to get my hands on this kind of data for years. And you just walk in and take it. Should have asked you to do this a lot sooner if I knew it was this easy."
"What's in it that has you so interested?"
"Secrets." He whispered dramatically.
I raised an eyebrow at his one word answer but he didn't offer up any more explanation than that. My eyes landed on the clock in the lower right hand corner of the screen. It read 2:17 am. I could feel the pull on my soul growing ever stronger to return to my body to recharge. I was absolutely drained from the day's events and I knew I was going to pay for it.
"I'm going down, Ivan." I spoke up in the dark, adding in a warning, "And I won't be getting up for a long while." In other words it meant to leave me alone to sleep or risk incurring my wrath.
"Understood! I'm going to dive into the data on my end. Sleep tight!" Ivan called out then cut the connection between us to leave me in peace. Whether Ivan had caught onto my warning, or was just engrossed in his latest prize when he answered, I didn't know. Either way I was left alone in the darkness of my apartment.
I sighed heavily. Turning on the bed, I reached out to my body and eased back inside. I didn't bother to even open my eyes when I returned and instead fell into the blissful comfort of sleep.
How long I was out, I honestly had no clue. Ivan had left me undisturbed for once and when I woke I felt fully rested.
"God, I needed that." I groaned out happily, stretching my body like a cat and rising from my bed in search of my first cup of tea.
"Sleep well?" A man's voice spoke from the darkness.
Instantly I leapt into the air, releasing a scream from the top of my lungs.
There was a click of a switch and the apartment lights turned on. I hissed in pain with the sudden invasion of light into my corneas, momentarily blinded. Feverishly squinting through the slits in my eyes as they took their time to adjust, I focused in to see who had broken into my apartment. My heart was hammering in my chest and I was bracing myself, unsure if I had to fight or flee.
There in front of me, hand still on the light switch, was none other than the hero I had seen the night before - Eraserhead. I felt my heart stop cold. Fighting a hero would be very bad. Fleeing one would be even worse. For once I was at a standstill and it took me a moment before I could coax my voice to speak.
"W-what do you want?" I rubbed my eyes to clear them. "How in hell did you even get in here?"
It was then I noticed the smell of burning plastic which led me to the smoldering carcass of my laptop sitting on the floor by my bed.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY PRECIOUS LAPTOP!" I cried out, falling to my knees and cradling the warped black box in my arms. My main source of communication with Ivan had been destroyed beyond repair.
"Nothing. It exploded on its own when I pulled this out." Eraserhead said impassively, holding up the stolen flash drive between his fingers while watching for my reaction carefully. "I'm surprised that you slept through the explosion."
I clutched the laptop to my chest, internally panicking. There was a hero in my apartment and I didn't know if something had happened to Ivan or if he was protecting me by blowing up the laptop to erase all evidence that led back to the Hero Public Safety Commission. Either way I was on my own to deal with this situation.
"What can you tell me about this?" Eraserhead said, stepping forward while I stood to face him, still clutching the laptop to my chest protectively. He held up the flash drive to my face.
I quickly made up a lie in my head.
"Uh...I found it on the ground."
"Why did you not turn it in to the proper authorities when you found it?" His voice was even but bitterly cold.
"I was going to see...if I could find the owner myself." I smiled timidly.
"By sticking an unknown flash drive into your computer?" He spoke incredulously. "What kind of an idiot are you?" Eraserhead's eyes narrowed down into mine and I felt myself stepping back, anything to get away from his penetrating stare.
"It was stupid of me, I admit." I agreed, looking pensive. "But you have it now. So you can return it to whoever it belongs to." I prayed hard that Ivan had also wiped the flash drive before killing my laptop.
Eraserhead sighed tiredly, backing off on his advance towards me to make his way back over to the front door.
"I'm going to need you to come with me." He looked back at me over his shoulder. "You're being brought in for questioning for possessing stolen commission property. Please comply." He opened my front door and allowed two police officers to step inside.
They approached me cautiously as if I was the most dangerous criminal they had ever seen.
"Please hold out your hands, ma'am." One of them said, bringing forth a pair of quirk-canceling handcuffs. My eyes widened and the seriousness of the situation sunk in.
"So you finally get it." Eraserhead observed casually from the doorway.
Thoughts raced through my head. Thoughts to make a run for it. Thoughts to attack and then flee. But all of them would only cement my guilt. I had to act rationally here. My greatest chance to get out of this mess was if I could convince them of the lie that I was a stupid, but innocent civilian.
Very slowly I placed the smoldering laptop on the floor and offered out my wrists to the officers. The cold metal of the cuffs closed resolutely around my skin with a click that made my heart jump into my throat. A cold sweat had begun to form across the back of my neck.
"Good." Eraserhead nodded at me. With me securely pacified, his job was done and so he headed out the door and around the corner. More police officers filed inside armed with cameras and plastic gloves. Already they were tearing my apartment apart before I even had a chance to move.
There were so many people in my tiny apartment. They were digging through all my possessions with a recklessness that made me want to lash out. But I couldn't. My quirk was gone and I was powerless. I felt my chest constrict painfully, and I was almost grateful to be led out of there so I didn't have to see my home being ripped apart.
I was escorted out of the apartment and down the set of stairs to a waiting police car outside. Eraserhead stood there patiently with the car's rear door open, scrutinizing every step I made towards him. He could see the nervous apprehension dawn in my eyes when took sight of the police car. My legs wanted to bolt right then and there, and it took me every ounce of willpower I had within me to make it to the waiting car and hero.
Some deep seated empathy seemed to spark within the watching hero as he gently directed me into the back of the car.
"Watch your head." He murmured in a low tone as I climbed inside.
He closed the door behind me and got into the passenger seat up front before indicating to the officer beside him to drive. From behind the tinted car window I watched the apartment complex that I called home vanish from sight, silently wondering what the hell Ivan had gotten me into and if it was too late to make a run for it.