“What?” Sam asked, snapping back to attention and nearly knocking his glass of tea over.
“It’s none of your business,” Ozella said.
“What are you doing?” Helena asked Sam.
“I didn’t do anything!” he said.
“You said it yourself, he’s not that good at public awareness,” Helena told Ozella as she pinched Sam’s arm under the table. “Behave,” she said under her breath.
“Maybe I should go,” Ozella said as she started to stand.
“Ozella, please, wait,” Sam reached his hand out to her, as if he would be able to grab her from across the table.
“What are you two talking about?” Helena asked. “I thought this meeting was about tea and stats!”
“I will tell you later,” Ozella said. “It’s not why I called you here, to have that happen. I don’t know why she’s here,” Ozella whispered.
“Who is she?” Sam asked, ignoring more questions coming from Helena.
“Dinah,” Ozella whispered so only Sam could hear.
“Sorry,” Sam said as he got back into the booth.
“What the hell is going on?” Helena asked again, looking between the two.
“Long story, it’s nothing, really,” Ozella said, also shuffling back into the booth. The waiter from earlier looked over to them, rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air, saying something to the cook in the back.
“I want to know why you guys were on the turbine,” Ozella said, changing the subject.
“Yeah, about that…” Helena and Sam exchanged glances. They didn’t need to send each other a mental message to know what this exchange meant, and true to his ‘Good Guy Dave’ nature, Sam decided to be honest with Ozella.
Overlooking the ghost woman named Dinah for the time being, Sam explained how they had come to help Zoe, who had gotten herself in trouble with some mob guys in the red-light district.
He then went on to tell her how they’d all come together, how Zoe and he had known each other before and had dated, and that they had all met at the police station. Flashing the number three with his fingers, Sam explained that they would all end up in jail if they got caught impersonating exemplars again, which was related to the fact they were tied to the turbine on top of the roof.
They could have called law enforcement had it not been for the three strikes rule.
Finally, Sam mentioned the H-Anon meeting they had just come from, the volunteer work that they did.
“But you’re an exemplar,” Ozella told him.
True to her observant nature, she’d learned of Sam’s incredible sense of smell earlier that morning. He hadn’t mentioned it outright, but he had been talking to Zoe about it before he left Helena’s mansion.
“My ability just sort of came out of hibernation,” Sam admitted. “Basically, I was assaulted by the police, and my assault led to something happening to my nose when I hit the ground. Now I can sense everything.”
Helena nodded in agreement, a tight smile on her face. “I’ve seen this famous nose of his in action. It’s no lie.”
“But how did you end up on the turbine?” Ozella asked.
“We pretty much handled everyone back at the warehouse,” said Helena, “but then an actual exemplar appeared, one that used kinetic projectiles. So that’s how we ended up on the turbine. I really don’t know why he didn’t just kill us.”
“Odd,” said Ozella. “I mean, I’m glad you’re alive, but it seems odd to do something like tie you to a wind turbine. And how did he do it anyway?” She thought for a moment. “I suppose the cosplay cafe’s backup power would have kept the place running while he tied you all up. But it still seems strange. Anyway, I am in.” She lifted her cup of tea, took a sip from it and set it back down.
“In?” Helena asked.
“If you three are out there trying to take these type of people down, then I’m in. I’m serious. I could be of some use.”
“Of use how?” Helena asked.
“You have this incredible nose, and you’re pretty kickass, and Zoe…” Ozella tilted her head to the left. “What’s her dormant power anyway?”
“Correction: I don’t have a power,” Helena said. “I just exercise a lot, and I’ve been studying combat dance for years. Gym Rat Pat, like you said. No power.”
“Zoe is pretty agile,” Sam told Ozella. “She wishes she was some type of tiger girl, a beast morpher. It’s sort of a fetish of hers. So maybe agility? Sounds about right.”
“Well, I’m in. Maybe I can help you guys get stronger.”
“Stronger for what?” Helena asked, but all Sam could do was nod.
He hadn’t expected their little meeting to have an outcome like this, but now that it was going in this direction, he was happy, even if what they planned to do was technically illegal.
“I’m in, that’s all I’m saying.” Ozella said, steeling herself. “I need this.”
Chapter Eighteen: Ready to Pounce
(Go get ’em, tiger!)
Zoe Goa Ramone was named after her grandmother, a fierce immigrant from the Southern Alliance. Her grandmother had neck tattoos, which was common in the South, and since she was a non-exemplar, Granny had come to Centralia as a refugee, a victim of political violence.
Zoe had been raised mostly by Granny, her mom giving birth to her and handing her off like a hot potato, back to chase her dreams along the borders, a smuggler of sorts between the two countries.
And a bad smuggler at that.
BANG! Zoe’s mother had been killed when she was six by a non-exemplar wielding an energy weapon, but Zoe didn’t find out about it until she was eight. But by that point, she had so rarely seen her mother that she thought of her more as a distant older sister, easily awarding her grandmother the honor of maternal role model.
And it had been a hard life at points, a gift and a curse, really.
But Zoe’s beauty started opening doors for her, and she was able to bring in an income in her early teens as a children’s clothing model. In the years that followed, her modeling career waxed and waned, waxing like crazy over the last eight months or so.
Zoe knew the routine, and she didn’t necessarily like the people she worked with, but her newfound status as a pinup model had brought in a considerable amount of sweet moolah, something she wasn’t used to being handed so readily.
Which was how she was able to afford the gloves she was just about to buy, yet another reason why Zoe couldn’t meet with Sam, Helena, and Ozella.
The special gloves with retractable claws were pricey, quasi-illegal at best.
But Zoe wasn’t going to listen to the law, and even though she had been captured the last time she went prowling about, she had no qualms about going back out again.
Crime-fighting was an addiction, really; dangerous as it was, it allowed her to get some of her anger out, to work through some of her frustrations, from her talent agency and the jealous bitches that modeled there to Centralian politics.
But one that was currently on her mind was Sam’s status with Helena.
Zoe, while usually aggressive, wasn’t the type of person who normally got jealous. Not very often anyway, mostly because she got her way in almost every encounter, even ones in which she was on the weaker end of the power dynamics.
Zoe thought the fact her looks helped her so much was stupid, of course, and she remembered her grandmother pinching her cheek and telling her not to feel that way, to use whatever advantage she had.
“If you don’t, they will,” her grandmother warned.
And for real—what kind of world judged people solely on their appearance? Centralia, that kind of world, and Zoe planned to milk it for as long as she could.
After all, she knew that old age would eventually creep up, and because she wasn’t an exemplar, if there were any new breakthroughs in life expectancy, she wouldn’t be one of the people that benefited from it.
If only…
Zoe shook her head as she took a right on
to 49th Street.
She wore a hooded sweater with perky tiger ears on top and a pair of armor-enforced tights. How different would life be if she could actually morph into something more powerful than her current form?
It was already too late for Zoe anyway, and she didn’t have a dormant power that had somehow appeared like Sam’s, which only made her despise him a little, and at the same time, experience guilt for feeling that way about someone she cared about.
Why had they broken up anyway?
As she continued down the dark street, Zoe couldn’t find a point that actually led to their breakup. She knew that finding that point didn’t matter, that it wouldn’t change anything, but she still wanted to know what it was anyway, hopefully prevent it from ever happening again.
This caused her to smile bitterly.
Helena was some stiff competition, lean, a cute tomboy with stylish gray hair who would one day inherit the entirety of the Knight dynasty.
Shit, she already had a goddamn mansion.
But jealousy was ugly, and Zoe had seen it play out in the boyfriends she’d had in the past.
That kind of crap definitely wasn’t going to win Sam back, and really, what was so great about Sam Meeko anyway? He was handsome in his own unique way, but he was also all over the place, a radical at times, and his new ability? That was going to get him into some trouble.
Zoe was also a little embarrassed for him due to the fact that he had been caught with a sex doll. This made her embarrassed herself, mostly because she was still wet-panty crushing on a guy who was pathetic enough to have relations with an inanimate object.
Complications, complications, complications.
And this was why Zoe was getting her claws, why she stopped at a bodega with wooden steps leading up to the entrance, visiting a weapons dealer she’d met before but never been properly introduced to. She went inside, ignored the dusty goods on the shelves as she went straight to the back counter.
“I sent a message about some kitty litter,” she told the guy at the counter, an older man, missing one eye, a salt-and-pepper goatee giving definition to his chin.
“I remember,” was all he said as he pulled the package out. “Cherry bombs too?”
“Not today. Next time.”
“I’ll be here…”
They exchanged cash, a lot of it, and Zoe was on her way without saying goodbye.
Hopefully, she would have this pair for a while; they cost her a shitton, easily an eighth of her net worth.
While Zoe had been saving some money, her living expenses were high, mostly because of where she’d chosen to live. So Helena’s offer of cohabitation made sense in a way, but then she would live with the woman boning her ex-boyfriend, and even if that living was free, it would still be awkward.
There was always the option of sharing, which was becoming more common in Centralia, but Zoe had never been in a relationship like that before. Not that she was opposed to it, she had experimented a bit before, but with Sam?
She shook her head, annoyed with where her mind had gone.
“Dammit,” she told herself, as she looked for a fire escape.
There was another reason she’d chosen this side of town.
Zoe recalled what it had been like to be taken hostage, to fear for her life, and oddly enough, while it was a traumatic memory, it brought more anger than anything else. She wasn’t scared to have it happen again; she was eager to make sure it never happened again.
And she didn’t blame Helena and Sam for ultimately failing to rescue her. She knew she wouldn’t have been able to take on that mohawked kinetic energy exemplar on her own.
He was powered, she was not.
Exemplar versus non-exemplar.
Superpowered versus half-powered.
But she could at least find out what the guys who kidnapped her were up to, and the reason she knew that this was the area to come to was because one of her captors was stupid enough to mention a restaurant nearby.
Now all Zoe had to do was wait.
And even with her occasionally impulsive nature, this was something she was actually good at. It was what tigers did, lying in wait, ready to pounce when necessary.
Zoe perched on the fire escape, wearing both her claws now, her hood over her head, perky tiger ears on full display.
She would strike quickly as soon as she saw the guys.
Even if she had to come here every night for the next week, Zoe Goa Ramone would find out what they were up to, and once she did that, she would do something about it.
Chapter Nineteen: A Walk in the Park, A Sniff of the Vial
(A midnight stroll, a new discovery.)
Sam Meeko could have gotten laid.
He knew it, Helena knew it, he could damn well sniff it, and Helena had already arranged for candles to be delivered, some essential oils too.
It would have been so choice, so goddamn choice.
But Sam had other things on his mind, and as he kissed Helena on the forehead, telling her that he would return late, he asked that she not wait up for him.
“I got some things I need to do,” he told her.
Helena was cool with it, and she had been ingrained with enough etiquette to cover any feelings she might actually be experiencing. Prim and proper, you could almost insert any adjective to describe how well-mannered she was [here].
Helena was attending board meetings with her father at the young age of three; putting up with greedy rich kids giving her thinly veiled shit for years during her chubby times; dealing with the press and Centralian tabloids before she started middle school—Helena was a twenty-two-year-old used to silver platters, elaborate tea ceremonies, meeting foreign dignitaries, and taking bad news with dignity.
She was so good at not letting someone know how she felt that Sam couldn’t sense her disappointment. She had actually tricked his sniffer, something that he didn’t know at the time, and neither of them would know was a possibility for quite a while.
And after another kiss, this one on the lips, she said goodbye to Sam as well.
Helena’s teleporter appeared, a guy with a bunch of gold sparkles glittering in the air around him, and she was gone, still maintaining her sober look even as she flashed away.
“She’s disappointed,” said Ozella.
“You think?”
Sam and Ozella were outside Star Diner, the blond-haired non-exemplar standing in a cute, pigeon-toed way, her red backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Trust me,” said Ozella, “I’m good at reading people. Anyway, I guess I should go too.”
“Where are you off to?”
“I need to pack my things,” said Ozella. “Hey…”
Sam made eye contact with her and she looked away. “What is it?”
“Never mind,” she said, shuffling away.
“No, you wanted ask me something, so ask me.”
“Two things.”
“You want to ask me two things?”
“Three things, okay?”
“Ask me as many things as you want,” Sam said with a grin.
“One: where are you going?”
“I’m going back to Central Park.” Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the small vial he’d found. “I want to check the place once more, and see if I can figure out where this is from.”
“Like a bloodhound?”
“Um, sure, like a bloodhound.”
Ozella thought for a moment, a breeze whistling through their legs. “Have you cataloged your nose yet?”
“Cataloged my nose?” Sam brought his hands to his face. He had an average-sized nose, not something that was super large, nothing really distinct about it. “I mean, I guess it’s maybe a little larger than average?”
“No, not size, your ability. Have you worked any of that out?”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin doing that.”
“Are you serious?” Ozella moved closer to Sam, and lifted her hand to his face. “Smell my hand.”
“Didn’t you just come from the bathroom?”
She started laughing. “No, and they’re clean, I promise.”
“Okay,” Sam said with a big sniff. “Smells like soap and…”
A thousand images came to Sam in that moment, about Ozella, about the future of her role in his narrative, or was it her narrative? Their shared narrative. He found himself nodding, understanding what she was suggesting, realizing that her unique skill truly would help them. The only problem was, a ton of other information came to him as well, from her self-mutilation days to her childhood.
It was too much to parse.
“What are you suggesting?” he finally asked.
“What if we tried to break down smells and classify them?”
“How would we do that?”
“There’s a couple ways we could do it,” she suggested. “We could use scientific terminology, but I don’t think that would help and you’d have to remember all of the names.”
“Pass,” Sam said, his hazel eyes widening. He’d never been that great with science.
“The more you know about the chemical makeup of our environment, the better you would be able to advise us…”
“Advise you?”
“Yes,” Ozella nodded, “an understanding of chemical makeups would help.”
“Well, I don’t know how scientific I’m going to be able to get about it. At least not at first.”
“Hmmm. Okay then, let’s start small. Let’s start by going to a thrift store.”
Sam eyed her curiously for a moment. “I’m not following you…”
“Think about it,” Ozella said, a smile beaming from her face. “We’ll pick an item, you will smell it, and then we’ll return the item to the person who donated it.”
“Why would we do that?”
“To test what you sensed. Just because you feel like you’re able to sense things, doesn’t mean that what you are sensing is true. Not until we test it further.”
Sam’s heart sank as he recalled the young redhead on the trolley.
He had sensed she would die tonight, and then there’d been the other woman, Emelia, the telepath who had spoken to him about it. What if his sense of smell was actually off, or not always 100% correct? This was something he really needed to consider.
We Could Be Heroes Page 10