After all, if we didn’t smile, people might guess the truth about us.
Battlecry - Chapter Two
“Jeez, Jill. What did you do to yourself?”
Marco examined my shoulder.
My cousin and I were in the sick bay, a cramped room with peeling white paint, lined with wooden shelves of medicines, pain relievers, bandages, and other supplies. The only furniture was a chair and an examination table made of a material that always stuck to my skin.
“I didn’t do it to myself.” I was unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “A bomb knocked me into a brick wall and then that freak gave me trouble on the roof.”
He prodded my shoulder and frowned deeper. “Well, you were right, it’s a sprain. You’re going to be in a sling for a while. I don’t like the look of those cuts in your neck and leg, either.” He took an arm sling off the shelf and handed it to me. We'd made Marco the team's official medic, simply because he had read more first-aid pamphlets than the rest of us. He’d even understood a few of them.
“That’s just excellent,” I muttered, putting the sling on and securing it. “Every team needs a useless member.”
Marco casually redid my attempt to secure the sling. “Stop that. Nobody on this team will ever be useless.”
I sighed, then pointed to the ugly gash that marred his light brown face. “Does that still hurt?”
He playfully smacked my hand away from his face. “Yeah, but I’m going to have a cool scar to brag about, so who cares?”
The front door slammed. We froze.
“Maybe all the swooning girls improved his mood,” I whispered. Patrick’s stomping footsteps through the house caused my heart to pound.
“In my office, now!” Patrick’s harsh tones made my mouth go dry. His tone made him sound much older than twenty-five.
Marco visibly swallowed. “Maybe a missile will hit the house in the next sixty seconds,” he whispered back. He helped me off the table and gave my shoulder one last worried glance. “Let’s go.”
We walked to Patrick’s office and were joined outside the door by Ember and Reid. Ember’s long red hair still smelled of smoke and death, and her skin was even paler than usual. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Reid’s mouth formed a thin line, and his gray eyes contained the same hard apprehension that curdled in my stomach.
I took a deep breath and opened the door. We all filed in.
Inside, Patrick, tall and blond and terrifying, sat on the edge of his desk with his arms crossed, a look so chilling on his face that I had to fight the urge to step back. “Shut the door.”
Everyone flinched, but he spoke only to me.
I closed the door as quietly as I could, trying not to seem fazed.
Patrick looked directly at me. “Jillian, we’re going to talk about what happened today.”
I gathered my nerve. “We fought the Destructor and won. Because we followed your orders.”
Everyone nodded and murmured agreement. Patrick’s eyes narrowed. I struggled to keep my breathing steady. Already my fight-or-flight instinct was screaming at me to escape.
“If you followed my orders, why didn’t you drop the Destructor?”
The question cut into my core. My eyes itched with tears, but if I let them fall, he’d say I couldn’t control myself.
“Because, um…” My gaze darted around the room as I tried to stifle the shame that my team had to watch what was coming. “Because…”
Patrick abruptly stood and took a step towards me. Everyone else moved back. “Because what, Jill?”
My mind was racing. I couldn’t pick out a coherent answer. Patrick was my leader and I had to listen to him. As a member of a non-elder family in the camp, my position in life was to be under another person’s authority at all times. No exceptions. To defy the authority of my leader was unthinkable—practically as unforgivable as defying an elder directly. The turmoil of being at a loss for words began building up inside of me.
“I was worried he wouldn’t make it,” I finally blurted. “A lot was going on and it was a long fall, you know.”
An invisible force slammed me into the wall.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you do not have permission to question my orders?” He strode towards me. “You stupid, insignificant piece of crap! I let you stay here and this is how you repay me? This is how you treat me? Who are you to question what I’m capable of?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, I swear!” The words struggled to come out through the pressure on my chest and neck. I couldn’t control the tears any longer, and my fear transformed into naked humiliation that my team was watching me not just get punished, but cry about it like a child.
“Then how did you mean it? Were you questioning my authority?” His fist clenched.
Reid moved to stop him, but pulled back his hand after a second, doubt and fear warring on his face.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to whisper as I hung my head, tears dripping down my nose. “I just…I didn’t want him to die.”
“What have I told you? Nobody cares about what you want!” The invisible hand of Patrick’s telekinesis threw me into a bookshelf, where several heavy tomes of Leadership and Wisdom fell on top of me and made my shoulder light up with excruciating pain.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to stay still. If I kept quiet, there was no way he could think I was fighting his discipline. Marco rushed over to help me up. His hand brushed the laceration at the back of my neck and I could tell that it had opened up again.
“You’re going to make her shoulder worse,” Ember said, her voice shaking.
She crashed into the desk. “Now you’re questioning me?”
My chin lifted against my will, forcing me to look into his hard blue eyes. New tears appeared. The telekinetic force grabbed my collar and hoisted me to my feet. The chalkboard we used for strategy notations floated over and landed next to me. My fingers plucked a piece of chalk from the air.
Patrick crossed his arms. “Draw the chain of command and explain it to us. I want to hear from your own mouth that you know our law.”
I gulped and started sketching, struggling to control my trembling hand. “The chain of command is like an umbrella,” I began, using the same words my teachers had used over the years. “Elders are at the top, followed by team leaders, then your father and mother.” I drew a crude likeness of an umbrella and sectioned it horizontally, labeling the lines. The umbrella analogy was very old, created when people in the camps still had umbrellas.
“Go on.” He gestured for me to continue.
“If you go out from under the umbrella, you’ll be exposed to danger. If you mix up the parts of the umbrella, the umbrella won’t work and you’ll also be exposed to danger.”
Patrick nodded. “Tell me the core character traits of a good superhero.”
Those had been drilled into me since I was three. “Obedience, joy, loyalty, and silence.”
“Tell us how you will model all these traits during our next mission.” His voice was suddenly softer.
I breathed easier now that his ire appeared to be fading. “I’ll obey you without question. I’ll do so happily because you’re my leader, and I’m loyal only to you. And, um, I won’t talk much?” Silence had always struck me as an odd concept to call a “trait.”
Patrick’s face relaxed and he rolled his neck. “You guys all know I don’t enjoy these types of meetings. But I carry the burden of leadership. If you don’t obey, it is my responsibility to discipline you.” He looked at Ember. “Em, we’re going to have a discussion tomorrow about interrupting me during discipline sessions.”
She gulped and nodded. Even though I could still feel the tingle in my injuries from his punishment just minutes ago, I had to quash the desire to beg him to not hurt Ember, too. Was I demented?
With that, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. I’d survived.
We were all slow to move.
“At least he only wanted t
he four traits. I’d have been screwed if I had to list the principles under pressure,” Marco said, erasing my drawing on the board and sliding it back to its storage place.
“I can review them with you,” Reid offered, gently brushing chalk dust off my arm. “Cautiousness, deference, deci—”
Ember bent down to help me pick up the books that had fallen. “Spare us. That’s the last thing we need right now. Jill, how’re you doing?”
“My shoulder hurts,” I mumbled, trying not to sniffle. “I’m going to go to the clinic.” The free clinic downtown was our answer to injuries that basic first aid couldn’t address. Most of their patients came in with gunshot wounds and knives sticking out of them, so they didn’t ask questions about things like broken bones, sprains, or serious burns.
“Are you well enough to walk?” Marco started to fuss over my injuries again, but seeing the hard look I gave him, he stepped back. We finished putting away the books in silence, and I hobbled to my room.
Before I headed to the clinic, I would need to change into civilian clothes. As I undressed, I laid my uniform out on my bed: gray mask, bulletproof vest, khaki pants, utility belt, combat boots, and black gloves, undershirt, and hooded tunic. Gazing down at my battered, bloody uniform, I briefly thought about what it would be like to never put it on again. I was blessed with powers and the chance to defend innocent people with them, and here I was, disobeying my leader and daydreaming about abandoning my team. Loyalty, I reminded myself.
I pulled on a pair of worn jeans and comforted myself by putting on a pretty blouse speckled with blue flowers, the latter with some difficulty because of my sprain. After gently unwinding my regulation waist-length hair from its messy bun, I sat on the edge of my bed and brushed it.
I caught a glimpse of myself in a windowpane. Bruises and cuts crisscrossed my thin, pale face like splattered paint, though they couldn’t distract from an obvious black eye, a leftover from a fight a few days prior. My thick hair was such a dark brown it was almost black, and it was matted with dirt, blood, and who knew what else. It was painfully clear that I wasn’t pretty on the outside and, as Patrick was fond of reminding me, I was too obstinate and impulsive to be pretty on the inside.
After braiding my hair tightly in two sections, I scrubbed my face and put on foundation over the black eye, which didn’t really conceal it. I topped off my disguise with thick-framed glasses that slightly obscured my dark brown eyes. I took a moment to gaze at my reflection, and all I could see was an unfortunate young woman, as forgettable as she was powerless.
Before I left base camp, I signed out in our log, writing my name, the date, time, location I was going to, and how long I expected to be gone. With any luck, my outing would be unremarkable.
Battlecry - Chapter Three
The downpour mirrored my mood while I walked towards the clinic. I mentally dared every hypothetical mugger and rapist to try me, but I walked down the street in miserable safety. I kicked a soda can into the gutter.
I’d said I’d be gone for an hour. The clock was ticking.
When I arrived at the double doors with the large red cross on them, I only paused for a second before continuing on my way down the street. I didn’t know where I was going. I passed the park where I’d once stopped a shooting, the office building where I’d chased a man who could chew metal and spit it out like bullets—three people died that day—and the road that led to the bridge where just six months ago I first met Patrick, Ember, and Reid. An ice storm had encased the city—Marco and I had been dispatched to help the other three, and our team had finally become complete.
Soaked to the skin and shivering uncontrollably, I turned down Davis Street, a fancy neighborhood filled with boutiques, specialty bookstores, and ritzy little restaurants that catered to the city’s wealthiest.
As I approached a coffee shop called Café Stella, a customer opened the door with a jingle, and the swirling aromas of coffee and spices enticed me to enter. My hand met the door handle.
There was no way to justify this act of rebellion. What if a teammate saw me? But the café looked so warm and cozy, I decided to step in. Just for a minute or two. Patrick couldn’t punish me too harshly for just wanting to step out of the rain.
The café was almost empty. The glass counter off to the side held rows of glistening pastries filled with chocolate and jams. Two glass jars on top of the counter were labeled “biscotti” and “amaretti.” Other jars showed off types of cookies for which I had no name. Behind the counter hung a chalkboard listing the café’s offerings. With a stab of embarrassment, I realized I didn’t know most of the words. What the heck was a macchiato?
The digital clock on the microwave reminded me that I had forty-five minutes left.
“What would you like, sweetheart?” The middle-aged man behind the counter smiled at me. His name tag read Lee. I bit my lip.
“I’ve never had fancy coffee before,” I admitted. “What’s your most popular?”
Actually, I’d never had coffee, period. It wasn’t available in the camp where I’d grown up, and if it had been, we probably wouldn’t have been allowed to drink it. Elder St. James often lectured to children that anything that alters the mind, besides medication, was dangerous, though he never explained why. The coffee smelled so good, and the old lady in the corner who sipped on a large mug seemed to enjoy it.
He thought for a moment. “If you’ve never had a specialty drink, I’ll start you off with a latte. It’s just coffee and milk, so if you want something more, I can give you some syrup or chocolate.”
He poured my coffee and gave it to me with a wink. I handed him my money, donated by a thankful almost-victim of an armed robbery, and sat in the corner on a squishy loveseat, grateful for Patrick’s generosity. He allowed us to keep three percent of any money donated to team members. Because I didn’t spend often, I’d accrued about twenty dollars in six months.
Before I indulged in the coffee, I took one last glimpse around me to make sure nobody was watching.
A fashion and entertainment magazine rested on the table next to the loveseat. I turned it over so as to not be tempted to look at it, because looking at media not sanctioned by the camp elders was a very serious infraction, far more serious than sipping coffee. Coffee just temporarily intoxicated the mind. Most, if not all, movies, television, books, music, and magazines could pollute it forever. If I thought hard enough, I could probably trace my character flaws to some rock song I’d overheard while grocery shopping with Ember.
I settled back into the loveseat and started flipping through memories, looking for a song or image that had left a bruise in my psyche. I took a sip from my latte. It was bitter, but I decided I liked it.
The door of the café opened again with its friendly jingle.
“Hey, Lee!”
I looked over to see a handsome young man about my age walk in with a thick book in his hand.
Lee looked up from cleaning a coffee pot and grinned. “Benjamin! How are you?”
Lee and Benjamin shook hands and chattered for a few minutes. I didn’t normally listen in on civilian conversation, but Benjamin’s deep voice and bracing northern accent were pleasant to listen to.
Lee pointed to the menu. “So what’ll it be? I’ve got all the usual stuff and the new seasonal menu. Three new pastries, too.”
Benjamin waved his hand. “Just my usual order, thanks. I’ll take a chocolate croissant, though.”
“You got it.” Lee got to work, and I couldn’t help but notice that Benjamin’s “usual” involved a lot of chocolate syrup.
After Benjamin paid for his order and took it from Lee, he looked around for a place to sit. I returned to mentally reviewing all the civilian songs I’d ever heard—it wasn’t a long list.
Far in the distance, many blocks over, wailing sirens made me pause in my thoughts and turn my ear towards the door. No explosions or gunshots…probably just an accident. Civilian authorities preferred that we wait until called in for thos
e.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
I startled and looked up.
Benjamin stood next to me, smiling pleasantly. He gestured to the empty spot on the loveseat. “Not to be weird or anything, but the loveseat is the best spot in the place.”
I doubted that. An identical couch sat in another corner near a pretty girl with spectacular hoop earrings. She’d been shooting glances at Benjamin since he’d come in.
I scooted closer to the arm of the loveseat, my own automatic smile stretching my face as I made room. “Er, no, that’s fine. Make yourself comfortable.” I certainly wasn’t comfortable. Speaking with normal people outside of strict superhero business was so forbidden I half expected to spontaneously combust.
He sat. “Thanks.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Benjamin.”
I awkwardly shook his hand with my left, a thrill shooting up my arm when he touched me. “I’m Jillian. Sorry about the sling.”
He did a double take. “No apologies necessary. If you don’t mind my asking, what happened? You look like you went through a harvester. Er, I mean, you look fine,” he said sheepishly.
His embarrassment was touching. “Don’t worry, I know I look bad. I got hurt at work today.”
Benjamin’s face hardened for a moment but then smoothed over. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I lifted my left shoulder in a shrug. “It happens.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds. I tried to rework my face into something other than a grin. He seemed to search for a topic of conversation.
I glanced at the microwave. Thirty-three minutes.
Finally, he said, “So, first day of hurricane season. Scientists are saying we’re overdue for a big one. Do you think it could happen this year?”
“Don’t they say that every year?” I murmured into my latte.
He nodded. “Yeah, I guess they do. So, are you a student down at the university? I’m thinking about going there myself, and I wouldn’t mind an insider’s perspective.”
Sea of Lost Souls Page 21