13

"CJ is an idiot." Jim Eagan told his daughter. "He's not going to discover the truth about Bridget, so, don't worry about it."

"I don't know, dad." Cate talked as she drove her father to refill his prescription at the local Walgreen's. "He's getting sneaky. He's sneaking through the house listening in on conversations." She made the turn on to Main Street. "I was talking to Paul in Chicago when he picked up the extension."

"And what did he get…" Jim saw the Walgreen's coming up. "A few things about the water bill, work and the bald patch where the tree used to be." He shook his head and felt the bump into the parking lot. "I swear. I bet Bridget could come up behind him and all he'd want would be her autograph." The car pulled into a space. "Cate, I'm telling you. Don't obsess over it. Let CJ tire himself out running around in circles." He popped his seat belt and opened his door, sending his cane out first to support him.

"If you say so, dad…" Cate waited for him and helped him through the door of the pharmacy as she looked for her shopping list. Her father had taken two steps and had stopped. She looked up herself and discovered the location being robbed. Two guys with guns were holding the two clerks behind the counter at gunpoint. The taller guy had a Dirty Harry special, a Colt 35 revolver. His shorter partner had a sawed off shotgun.

"I thought I told you to lock the door!" The bigger gunman waved his revolver at their new hostages.

"I thought I did!"

"Don't mind us!" Cate flashed a smile. "We'll just be going…"

"You're going no where!" Eugene DiPaolo had been out of prison for eight months. Unable to get a job because of his record, he reverted to bad habit of stealing money and drugs and leaving no witnesses alive. He grabbed Cate by the arm and pulled her hard into the store. Getting over his shock of the discovery, Jim reacted.

"Hey, that's my daughter there!" He raised his cane. "You little punk…" He tried swatting the younger felon. DiPaolo might have been his size and younger, but Eagan recalled being a police officer and an army sergeant. DiPaolo grabbed Jim's cane and threatened to shoot him. Cate screamed as fat and pudgy Danny Loekle held her restrained and pulled her backward.

"Dad! Don't…" Cate was terrified. She was pushed to the floor hard with Mr. Harding, the manager, and Mrs. Bonaduce, a local resident on the floor with their hands over their heads. Daisy Loftus, the cashier, had gone to school with Rory. She was crying. DiPaolo had told them that no one was going to survive.

"Don't worry, Catey," Her father looked annoyed. "I can take this punk."

"Really?" DiPaolo heard Cate crying. "Then you're going first." He raised his gun and squeezed the trigger as more than the gun exploded. The electronic doors before him came crashing down and the potato chip display went flying across the room. Jim and Eugene suddenly saw a third person standing between them. Dressed in her brand new dark blue, red and white costume with the longer cape, Bridget palmed the bullet from the gun in the palm of her hand grinning; her eyes narrowed to narrow slits. Just a few feet behind her beyond the snack aisle, her own mother was speechless.

"Holy Mary Mother of God!" Jim looked right into his granddaughter's eyes and realized just how close he had come. She had snatched the bullet right out of the gun!

"Hi, pudding…" Bridget spoke to DiPaolo. "Wanna learn how to fly?"

"I'm out." Loekle suddenly turned smart, dropped his shotgun and ran for it.

"Bridge…" Cate barely spoke and ducked as her daughter grabbed DiPaolo and flung him across the store. He sailed over the paper towels, through the glass door of the beer cooler and pushed them through to the other side as broken glass went everywhere. Falling bottles and tiny shards of glass rained around Harding, his employee and customers as they hid behind the snack shelves before the drink cabinets. It was going to take a lot of insurance to clean up this mess, but at least everyone was alive and someone was going back to prison. Trying to proudly thank his granddaughter, Jim saw her racing for the doorway.

"Catey!" He couldn't believe it. Her power, her presence, her conviction… "Did you see? Did you see?"

"Don't let her get away!" Cate fought off seeing the spectacle and helped Mr. Harding. Loekle was getting away. Uninterested in going back to jail himself, he jumped into a parked ice cream truck at the end of the block and pushed out the ice cream guy to the kids waving money. He saw Bridget in the mirror coming after him and hit the gas pedal. Automobiles stopped and people in the parking lot and at the garage watched as Bridget grabbed hold of the back of the moving white truck. She had the bumper and started lifting as the weight of it cracked through it. Loekle started racing the engine as he looked at her and started racing through the parking lot. Trudy Borland and her son, Junior, were just about to enter the Food Lion market, when they saw balding and portly Loekle coming straight at her. He looked up at just the last moment.

"Trudy!" Local Detroit TV personality Al Borland was at the gas station when he saw the girl in the Supergirl outfit try stopping the ice cream truck only to have it break free of her. Since his days as a "Tool Time" sidekick, Al had become a success hosting his own TV Series for History Channel, but he'd give it all up to just find his wife and son still alive. Amidst the excited spectators rushing to the scene, he raced to get to his family as Cate raced the length of block to the scene to confront her daughter in person. The kids wanting ice cream now wanted autographs of the beautiful blond superhero. Witnesses were trying to get photos or film footage. In front of the market, Al found his wife and son alive! Somehow, the front of the ice cream truck had bent around… something. As Loekle moaned delirious after smashing his head to the interior, the front grillwork and body of the ice cream truck had shaped around something that had stopped them. Cate ran through the people at the scene.

"She saved us, Al." Trudy confessed to her husband. "She shielded Al Jr. and I with her body!"

"Where'd she go?" Cate looked around. Trudy pointed up to the heavens. Cate swung around and noticed her daughter several feet above her and getting further and further away.

"Get your ass back here, young lady!" Cate screamed dropping to her feet. "Come back…." She heard the police cars coming. There was an ambulance somewhere beyond them. "So close…" She opined as people snapped photos on cell phones, congratulated Al or posed with the ice cream truck. "I was so close…" Cate drifted back into depression.

Somewhere, Bridget wanted to be with her too. She tried to fight back her own tears….

Beyond Highland Park, there was a neighborhood of neat and tidy homes, which belonged to upper middle class residents. The stone statue of a red and white horse jockey rest at the end of a driveway with a BMW parked in it. Another house had a wraparound porch with a swing. Nikki Alcott skipped down from the Victorian black and white.

"Thank you for the donation, Mrs. Gardner." She told her neighbor. "I'll try to think of you if we win the trip to Venice." She skipped down the walkway and out to the sidewalk. The next neighbor had a high hedge. Parked in front of it was a black van, but Nikki barely looked it over. It had muddy wheels and an out of state license plate. As she passed by it, the driver came around to meet her.

"Excuse me," He looked young and cute and showed her a road map. "Can you show me how to get back to I-90?"

"Man, are you lost!" Nikki looked around. "Okay, let's see…" She saw his gun under the map as the van opened up. Another guy clamped his hand over her mouth and pulled her in; the first guy lifting her legs up and hoisting her inside before slamming the door shut. The donation can had rolled off the curb and under the van. Kicking and fighting, Nikki tried to scream. A hypodermic passed over through her vision as they quickly drugged her to control her. With her heart racing, it was almost instantaneous. She struggled a bit more and felt her head fading away. She wanted to sleep.

"They're a lot more easier to control when they're juiced." The driver got back behind the wheel and started the engine.

"Remember the route." His partner covered Nikki with a tarp. "We ditch the van and switch to the truck."

"Right…" The driver started driving through the crossing as the car suddenly lurched to a stop. The back wheels were screeching on the asphalt, the engine was roaring but they weren't moving. Were they caught on something? He started getting out then fell forward into the dashboard. The back end was lifting up, his partner crashed into the dashboard as the vehicle stood up on its grill and their abduction victim fell across the backs of the seats unconscious. After getting turned up, the driver looked down through the windshield and saw them passing over the tops of electrical lines, trees and houses. They were moving fast through the air. What was going on here? The engine had cut out. They struggled and fought to right themselves. Was a helicopter or something towing them? Far under them, people looked up at them, geometrical shapes of buildings passed away to roads and highways and then gave way to the shoreline and open water.

"What's going on?" They were screaming. "What's going on?" The back end above them popped open.

"Hi, boys…" Holding on to the back bumper by the chassis, Bridget grinned at them over the lake. "I'm sorry, but my friend just ate, she can't go swimming with you."

"What?"

"Don't do it! Don't do it!" The driver searched for his gun in the loose trash that had fallen forward.

"Say hello to the sharks for me." Bridget grabbed Nikki's unconscious body by her Gucci belt and let the van fall down from around her. Her screaming abductors felt zero gravity for a minute and then freefall as the vehicle hit the water at twenty miles an hour, rolled sideways then started filling with water. High above, Bridget carried Nikki over her shoulder back to the Oakdale neighborhood near Highland Park. Recognizing the homes and streets, she descended down over Cheatum Drive, looking back several times in case her old rival woke up and recognized her. The brunette diva lived with her family in the large blue Federal edifice with the white shutters, upstairs balcony and Dorian columns with the wrap around porch. Bridget's red boot touched the concrete of the walkway and carried her forward with Nikki in her arms to the porch swing. Quietly laying her down, Bridget silently kept checking to make sure she wasn't going to wake up. She checked her pulse, tucked the donation tin with an extra $100 bill in it under Nikki's arm and palmed her hair from her face before turning around to leave.

Delirious and addled from the drugs in her, Nikki opened her eyes and looked up. She saw the tall blonde figure of a person heading away from her in a red cape with the yellow "Superman" crest off their shoulders. She never saw a face. Her mind was struggling against the drugs in her system. The figure turned down off her porch and just alighted off the bottom step into the air. There was no jump, nor a running start. The blonde one just alighted and vanished into the sky. Her mind fighting to stay awake, Nikki tilted her head back as her thoughts swam around and played games with her senses.

"Did I jas' get reshcued by Reesch' Widderspoon?" She mumbled incoherently.