It was creepy. Or, well, it would have been if the rest of the night hadn’t been such a complete and utter dumpster fire. Compared to what Ian had tried to do to me in that alley, a little bit of light stalking was downright gentlemanly. And I couldn’t fault Reed for following me. As soon as I saw The Fox and felt the smallest bit of kinship with him, I’d become a teensy bit obsessed.
Okay, a lot obsessed.
So I shrugged, reached forward as casually as I could manage, and picked up Reed’s hand in both of mine. “It’s okay. How about we call it even, since you saved my ass back there?”
He squeezed my hands. “Deal.”
“Speaking of which, I feel disgusting. I can’t wait to get into my apartment, rinse off, and crash.”
Reed shook his head, his long light-brown hair swaying back and forth. “You can’t stay here. It’s not safe. That guy at Bilgewater could already be awake and giving a description of you to the cops.”
“I don’t think he’d go to the cops.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Didn’t you see what he tried to do to me?”
Reed’s eyes narrowed and darkened, and his next words were nearly inaudible beneath the growl that accompanied them. “What did he do?”
I tried to relay everything I could remember about my encounter with Ian, from his lecherous knee-touching at the bar to his barely-veiled threats about selling me to the highest bidder. I wanted to keep it cold and impersonal, like I was talking about someone other than myself, and I desperately wanted to frame myself as anything other than the frightened girl I’d been back there in that alley.
But when I tried to talk about the way Ian had grabbed my hair, the way he’d pressed himself against me and slid his hands across my skin… my words shriveled up in my mouth, and I found myself hugging my knees to my chest, remembering the events without being able to recount them.
To my great relief, Reed didn’t push me to finish my story. He supplied the ending for me.
“I saw you fight him off,” he said. “You pack a hell of a punch, McBray.”
His quiet compliment was enough to bring a shadow of a smile to my face, and I was able to lift my head and look into his eyes. He stood, reached out a hand, and helped me to my feet.
“Come on. I’m getting you somewhere safe, then I’m going back to Bilgewater. Somebody there knows more about this.”
“Wait!” I reached up and encircled his wrist with both hands, ignoring the little jolt that hit me as I touched him. “You can’t leave me out of this. Do you even know why I was at that dump tonight?”
“I overheard part of it. You’re looking for some guy.”
“Not just ‘some guy.’ My brother-in-law. And he has my sister. He’s taken her somewhere, God only knows where, and he’s hurting her. I know it.”
He hesitated. “You’re sure she’s in danger?”
“When she’s with Bruce, she’s always in danger.” It was a truth I wished I’d learned earlier, one that’d been staring me in the face since before they were even married, but I’d tuned it out. It was easier to believe Bethany’s narrative, because if I believed it, I could at least run away from it myself. “And she’s pregnant.”
Reed looked away from me again and glared at the ceiling. He was silent for a long time. I hung onto his arm, afraid that if I broke contact, he’d tell me he was leaving me behind anyway. The initial spark I’d felt when I’d first grabbed him faded into a low, warm hum. As the seconds ticked by, I became more and more sure that if I could just keep touching him, he’d agree to help me.
I was right.
“All right,” he said, sliding open the truck’s cargo door. “But you need shoes. Let’s go.”
The second I opened my apartment door, Bear came bounding out of the kitchen and started barking. He sounded like an old man bellowing through a bullhorn, and I was sure he’d wake up the neighbors. The lean Doberman caught sight of Reed and raced straight for the door, knocking me into the frame as he shot past me.
“Bear! Down!” I told him.
“He’ll never listen to you if you whisper at him like that,” Reed said.
Bear was jumping up and down, pawing at Reed’s chest. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to lick him or bite him until his long black tongue shot out of his mouth and lapped up the side of Reed’s face.
I felt helpless as I ineffectually patted at the dog’s sleek back and said, “Down, boy!” in a perfectly loud voice.
Reed stared at me, eyebrows raised. “You don’t actually expect that to work. How on earth did you manage to housebreak him like that?”
“I didn’t.” I reached my arms around Bear’s chest and pulled back. My attempt to yank him away from Reed failed, and he just kept lunging, trying to paw at Reed’s face. “He’s not my dog. He’s my brother-in-law’s.”
“Ah.” Reed gently cupped Bear’s jaw in one hand and locked eyes with the dog. In a stern, commanding tone, he boomed, “Down.”
My mouth fell open as Bear obediently sat back on his hind legs and looked up at Reed, panting while his tongue lolled out one side of his mouth. Reed took a knee in front of the animal and scratched him behind the ears with both hands.
“Good boy, Bear,” he crooned. “Good boy.”
Bear barked—a single, happy sound—and continued panting. When Reed stood and walked into my apartment, Bear leapt back up onto all four paws and padded after him. I clicked my jaw shut, wondering what I’d just witnessed. Was this another one of The Fox’s powers? Or was this just how people who were used to dogs interacted with them? Shaking my head, I followed them, stepping through my apartment’s open door.
And then I stopped, coming to a halt so quickly I nearly fell over. A horrified squeak escaped my throat, and I covered my mouth with both hands.
When I’d decided to obsessively wallpaper my entire apartment with images of The Fox, I’d never imagined he’d actually set foot in it someday. Unfortunately, in my adrenaline-fueled state, I’d forgotten all about my poor decorating choice until the moment I crossed my threshold and saw Reed staring across the room at forty different versions of himself.
While these walls weren’t as thickly covered as the ones in my bedroom, there was still an unexplainably large number of drawings. There was no excuse for it, but that didn’t stop my mind from running in circles and trying to come up with one: I was drawing a comic book about a character that looks suspiciously like—but definitely isn’t—The Fox, or maybe I’d been commissioned by a local art gallery to do an exhibition on the local hero?
Stupid, stupid, stupid, I berated myself as I stared at the pencil sketches and—dear God—a large acrylic portrait on canvas leaning against my television.
Reed looked around the room, nodding at the ink-and-paper nightmare surrounding us. “Nice place,” he said. “Lots of space.”
I almost didn’t dare look at him. When I was finally able to raise my head, his dark brown eyes seemed to promise, Hey, I won’t say anything if you won’t.
“I’ll go change,” I said.
In my bedroom, even more likenesses of The Fox stared down at me from every wall. I ran around the room and tore several of them down before realizing I didn’t have time to take care of them all. I stuffed the ones I’d managed to rip down into the small wastebasket beneath my desk and started digging through my drawers, frantically looking for something stretchy and athletic. My run across the rooftop had quickly taught me the value of Spandex and shoes with good arch support.
A few minutes later, decked out in yoga pants, a black sweatshirt, and some Sketchers Sports that had never even seen the inside of a gym, I emerged from my bedroom. Reed had moved into my kitchen and was examining the photograph of Bethany and I that was taped to the fridge.
“I can see the resemblance.” He pulled down the picture and tucked it into a pocket, saying nothing about the sketches of his own masked face that covered the rest of the space. “Are you ready to go?”
�
��I think so.” I gestured down at my outfit. “Do you think this is okay?”
For the first time that night, Reed cracked a smile. It was a small one, just a tiny glimmer compared to the radiant and infectious grin he’d shown me when we’d run into one another on the train, but it was enough to break the tension.
“It’s better than what you had on before, that’s for sure. Your feet feeling all right?”
They weren’t, but I wasn’t about to say so and risk him making me stay here. The bottoms of my feet burned against my socks. They felt torn and raw, just like my hands had been after I’d tripped and fallen in the street in front of Reed.
I blinked, and the memory of my ripped-up hands swam before my eyes. Yes, they’d been shredded and bloody from the concrete. Until they’d changed. Once I’d gotten them to turn back into flesh and bone, they’d been fine. The skin had looked smooth and pink, like I’d just had them super exfoliated.
Realization slammed into me so hard I tipped backward, catching myself on the fridge before I could fall to the ground. They didn’t just look like they’d healed. They really had. Somehow, the process of changing into another material and changing back had healed me.
Reed’s tiny smile disappeared, and he softly grabbed my shoulders to steady me. “You’re not all right, are you? Tess, I’m not bringing you along if—”
“I’m fine.” I stared up at him with wide eyes. “Better than fine. Hang on.”
Shaking his hands off my shoulders, I plunked down into a kitchen chair and tore off my socks and shoes. Reed grimaced when he caught sight of my feet; the soles were cut and bleeding, and my socks were already turning red.
“Tess—”
I held up a hand to silence him. “I told you, hang on a minute.”
This was different than anything I’d done before, and I needed to concentrate. I’d gotten good at absorbing materials through my hands—it’d taken me less than a second to suck in the metal from the green dumpster so I could start swinging at Ian—but I’d never even dreamt of trying it with my feet before. I planted them firmly on the linoleum beneath my chair, closed my eyes, and tried to feel with them.
It happened more quickly than I was prepared for. The instant I began to tug at the thread of cold that ran up the length of my soles, my feet began to transform. My pale flesh took on the off-white, speckled coloring of the kitchen floor, and my skin became tight and unyielding. I allowed the linoleum to spread up as far as my ankles, then stopped pulling. I experimented with flexing my toes, but despite straining until my head ached, I couldn’t budge them.
“Wow,” Reed whispered.
I glanced up at him. “You’re impressed by that? You jumped off a two-story building not an hour ago.”
“I’m not denying I can do some cool stuff. But everything I can do just feels like… I don’t know… an amplification of things I could do before. I was already pretty into fitness. But this”—he gestured down at my feet—“this is just insane. Can you walk around like that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“Well, try.”
He reached out and pulled me up so I was standing in front of the table, then went into my living room to stand in front of my couch. Holding his arms out in front of him, he said, “Walk to me.”
Feeling like a toddler who was attempting her first steps, I raised my arms for balance and took a tentative step forward. My feet were heavy and inflexible, and I couldn’t bend my ankles. Raising my knees high and swinging each foot forward, I clomped into the living room.
“You look like Frankenstein’s monster,” Reed remarked when I reached him.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s the second joke I’ve ever heard you make.”
“What was the first?”
“Tinfoil hat.”
He shook his head. “You’re so wrong on both counts, I almost feel bad for you. I really do have a tinfoil hat, and you really are walking like a stiff, reanimated giant.”
Grinning, I held onto his hands while I let my feet return to normal. Looking over my shoulder, I bent my knee and raised a foot behind me to examine its underside. The cuts had healed, and my flesh was smooth and pink, like I’d just gotten a pedicure.
Reed reached behind me and caught my foot in one hand, running his thumb up the length of my sole. It tickled, and the little jolt of electricity that accompanied his every touch zipped up past my heel and along my calf.
“Strange,” he said. “Your skin feels hot, like you’re running an extremely high fever. Does it feel warm on the inside?”
“Not really.” I flexed my toes, happy to be able to move them again, and tried to gauge the internal temperature of my feet. “They feel cold while I’m absorbing something. Icy.”
Reed’s eyes narrowed. “Interesting. Absorption. That’s what it feels like to you?”
“Yeah… sort of like a sponge sucking up water, I guess. Why? What would you call it?”
“I don’t know. From the outside, it doesn’t look like you’re soaking anything in. It looks more like camouflage. Like a chameleon.” He tilted his head. “Or a butterfly.”
For some reason, his last comparison made me blush, and I stepped away from him, allowing my hands to slip out from his.
“In any case,” I said, ducking my head to hide my burning cheeks, “I can’t run like that, which sucks. I was sort of hoping to never have to wear shoes again.”
“We just need to find you something flexible but non-penetrable. Then you’ll have built-in steel-toed boots.” Reed smiled and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Maybe you’re not a butterfly after all, but a tough little armadillo.”
After returning to my bedroom for a fresh pair of socks, I sat back down in the kitchen to pull my sneakers back on, then returned to the living room. In my brief absence, Reed had sat down on my couch and was staring into Bear’s eyes. It looked like they were having a silent conversation.
“I’m almost afraid to ask what you’re doing.” I sat down beside Reed and looked down at the dog.
Bear looked fierce. His mouth was closed, and he stared straight into Reed’s eyes. Looking at the pair of them together, I was struck by their similarity. In the direct light of the lamp, Bear’s eyes were a deep reddish brown, not very different from the velvety mocha shade of Reed’s. They were each focused on the other, wearing expressions of grim determination.
“You’re not…” The question sounded stupid in my mind, but I felt compelled to ask it anyway. “You’re not part dog or something, are you?”
“What?” Reed broke eye contact with the dog and stared at me in surprise. “What makes you say that?”
I gestured at the two of them. “It looks like you’re communicating telepathically. And you were able to get him to behave in the hallway.”
Reed burst out laughing. It was the same deep, booming sound he’d made on the train the first night we’d really met. As much as I liked the sound, my shoulders rode up toward my ears, and I felt suddenly defensive.
“What’s so funny?” I demanded. “I’m just asking a question.”
He kept laughing. “Seriously? People can’t talk to dogs, Tess. We’re just having a staring contest. It’s fun.”
“Don’t act like it’s so ridiculous. I can turn into whatever I touch. You’re crazy agile and have some kind of super sense.”
His laughter slowed to a chuckle and then he cut himself off. It seemed to take some effort, as he kept sputtering a little as he spoke. “I’m sorry. You’re right. There’s no such thing as normal anymore. Nothing is too ridiculous.” He cleared his throat and looked at me with round, serious eyes. “To answer your question, no. I’m not part dog. So far as I know, I’m completely human.”
“So far as you know?”
He shrugged. “I mean, do you know where your powers came from? Because I don’t.”
“Well, no.”
“So we could be mutants. Or aliens. Or science experiments.” He shrugg
ed again. “Who knows? But what I do know is this: our powers are a gift. We have to use them accordingly.”
“What exactly are your powers?” As I asked the question, I felt a tinge of envy. It seemed like he could do so much more than me, and that his abilities were so much more applicable.
“Well…” He cupped his chin with one hand and rubbed it. “I guess if I had to break it down and label it, I’d call it extreme agility. One part of it, anyway. I’m way faster now than I thought any human could be, and I’m able to jump higher and farther than I thought possible. Sometimes it feels like I can fly, sort of. Just for a tiny distance.”
“I know that feeling,” I said dryly. “You flew me off the top of that warehouse. I thought I was going to die.”
He laughed. “Sorry about that. To be honest with you, I love the rush. It’s like a dream, except in real life.”
“But you’ve got the other thing, right? Your super-sense?”
“Yeah. That’s a little harder to describe.” He looked down at Bear and scratched him behind both ears. “I guess it’s almost like a dog whistle. Something only I can pick up on. That’s one of the reasons I decided to use the image of a fox as my disguise. They’re really quick and nimble, and they’re related to dogs. They have great senses and make good hunters.”
I grinned at him. “Perfect. Let’s go hunting, then. How do we do it? How can we find Bruce?”
Reed stood up and whistled. Bear leapt to his feet and stood at attention, as though waiting for a command.
“We use our four-legged friend,” Reed said.
Bethany’s house loomed in the starlight. One of her neighbors must’ve been a thoughtful person, because her storm shutters were firmly closed, protecting the windows from the fierce winds that would often come up off the sea during the winter. One sickly yellow bulb burned on the covered porch at the front of the house.
We skirted the silent structure and headed around to the back. I hoped none of her neighbors saw us creeping around in the hours before sunrise, because they’d probably call the cops. In the backyard, the door to Bear’s fenced dog run hung open. Reed allowed the Doberman to go inside, where Bear happily sniffed at the blankets in his kennel and lapped at the ice in his silver water dish.
Superhero Syndrome Page 15