As her pulse sped, her face grew hot. Expectations. She had never lived up to expectations in the past, and she doubted that today would be any different.
“Come on,” one of the guards probed Nora, who had come to a complete stop just a few steps into the lobby.
Chris hadn’t thought it possible, but her stomach sank another inch after the elevator doors slid shut behind them. In her experience, situations that couldn’t be resolved by running rarely turned out well. She knew how it would go down. The Covenant would make them wait for eons while the heroes discussed whatever facts they deemed important before Nora and Chris would get summoned, either individually or together.
Hopefully they’ll call for me first, alone, she thought. Two girls who hated to talk would have twice the chance of screwing this up. Once the elevator stopped the guards led the two Wardens down a narrow hallway and into a small office with nothing except a bare desk and an office chair. A hovering drone floated in the corner, reminding her of the one she had encountered when she woke up on a park bench the morning after her transition. The drone’s camera lens buzzed as it refocused on Chris and Nora.
“Hi, Athena,” she tried.
The drone didn’t respond while observing her. It stayed silent and unreadable.
“Please wait here,” one of the guards said from the doorway. “Mr. Turner will be with you soon.” He closed the door behind him, followed by the distinct sound of a deadbolt locking.
Nora shook her head, angry. “First prison, now this? Do they think I’m gonna try and run away or something? Don’t they get that I’d never do that? Cursed is he who distorts the justice due.”
“Huh?”
“Deuteronomy twenty-seven, verse nineteen.”
“Oh.” Chris had never felt comfortable with Bible talk, so she changed gears. “Maybe they wanted to make sure they know exactly where you are. You know, in case the Covenant wants to get hold of you.” She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth because she didn’t like what they implied.
That’s what happens when I make small talk.
Nora didn’t notice, though. She walked over to the window and peered outside, her hands tucked away within the pockets of the oversized sweater hanging to her thighs like a loose sack. It looked like something she might have worn back when she was fifty pounds heavier, before she joined the Wardens.
The ticking of the wall clock filled the small room. Chris hoped the wait wouldn’t drag on for hours. Waiting around to be judged by the authorities was the worst, and she knew this better than most.
Two years ago she barely survived the two-hour lead-in to the announcement of whether or not she would get expelled from high school after she had gotten into a skirmish with a pair of bullies. Those guys deserved the broken noses she had given them, but the school authorities only cared about the rules. And Nora had broken the principal rule of never threatening normal people with her powers.
“You can take the chair, if you want,” Nora’s voice cut through her thoughts.
Chris shook her head. “I don’t feel like sitting.”
“Me, neither.”
The girls fell into another bout of silence as the wall clock ticked the seconds away. To keep her mind off her growing craving for a smoke, Chris paced across the room seven steps in one direction and seven steps in the other as the drone realigned its camera lens to keep track of her movements. Couldn’t they have read their briefing notes or whatever before they called us in here? she wondered. Their time wasn’t worth even half as much as the Covenant heroes’ time, but still.
Nora finally broke the silence. “Hey, Chris?”
She stopped mid stride, turning to face her teammate. The Darkshaper leaned against the back wall, her arms crossed over the front of her baggy sweater.
“Hmm?”
“You’re kind of okay, you know. Not what I expected when they said we’d get another high school kid.”
“Oh, yeah?” Chris said, touched by the compliment.
Nora fidgeted with the end of one of her braids. “Yeah. I figured you were another kid expecting special hero treatment.”
Chris smirked to herself, aware that Nora referenced Peter.
“But I knew you’d probably turn out to be okay when I found out you were that rogue freak from the news,” Nora finished.
Is that supposed to be a compliment?
“You’re okay, too, I guess,” Chris said. “I was afraid they would pair me with a posh princess.”
Nora gave her a mock scowl. “What? You don’t think I’m pretty enough to be a posh princess?”
“Um … that’s not what I meant.”
Nora’s face softened, but her eyes lit with a sparkle of mischief. “I’m just ribbing you.”
Chris returned a slight smile. Are we socializing or something? She couldn’t tell.
She resumed her pacing. Seven steps, turn around, seven steps, repeat. She was about to make another pass when she heard the deadbolt turning in the lock. Her eyes snapped to attention in the direction of the doorway.
“Christina?” Mr. Turner asked. He poked his head through the doorway, but withdrew it after a glance into the room.
He’s scared of Nora, Chris assumed. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Um, yeah?”
The Secretary of Evolved affairs stayed on his side of the door. “The heroes are asking for you.”
“Just me?” She noticed Nora’s sullen face and when their eyes met, the Darkshaper looked down at the carpet and pulled the sleeves of her oversized sweater over her hands.
“For now, yes.”
So far, so good. Untalented as she was in the social department, she knew she would do a better job of speaking on Nora’s behalf than Nora would do for herself.
“Okay,” she said in the direction of the door. Turning back to her teammate, she asked, “Um, Nora? Is there anything in particular you want me to tell them?”
The other girl raised her dark eyes from the floor, and shook her head. “What’s there to say? I always wanted to be a hero. I still do, no matter what those backwoods dumbasses say about me. I just never knew it would be so…”
Nora didn’t finish her thought, and Chris didn’t press her. She already knew what the other girl meant. She walked to the doorway, her heart pounding loud in her ears.
“Hey, Chris?”
Chris froze mid stride. “Yeah?”
“Call your parents when you’re done, huh?”
Chris was touched. With all that was going on, Nora was worried about her?
“Yeah, okay. I will.” She pulled the door open and slipped into the hallway.
There she found herself face to face with Mr. Turner, dressed in his usual suit and tie. “This way, please, Christina,” he said, gesturing at the end of the stark white hallway.
One of the guards flanking the doorway pulled the door closed behind her and locked it with a humongous set of master keys. She followed Mr. Turner down the corridor, desperate for a smoke.
“Do you have any questions before you go in?” he asked.
She shook her head. She wanted to get through this without any more delays and without feeling awful afterward.
“I should commend you for the way you handled the situation in Quebec,” Mr. Turner said as they turned a corner, heading to the group of conference rooms in the east wing of the building. “Given your limited options, you found the best possible solution.”
“Um, okay,” she replied in a half-hearted tone.
Since she spent the greater part of the day trying to forget about what happened in Quebec, she didn’t want to be reminded of it. She didn’t want to think about Saint, who had shaken her hand at the airport a few days before screaming his lungs out. She didn’t want to remember Josh’s checkered sleeve, half buried in the ground.
“In fact, you’ve piqued quite a bit of public interest,” Mr. Turner went on. “How would you feel about being interviewed on television? An Evolved talk show called Evo
Life called me a few minutes ago to see if you’d agree to be interviewed on camera.”
“No thanks,” she said, struggling to maintain a blank face. “I hate those infotainment shows.”
Since Mr. Turner got the hint, he didn’t press the matter.
When they stopped in front of a conference room marked Occupied, Chris took a deep breath and dug through her pockets in search of a cigarette packet that wasn’t there.
“Keep in mind that you’re not the one on trial here,” Mr. Turner said.
I might not be, but Nora is on trial. Chris cringed at the thought of potentially failing yet another person who counted on her.
Mr. Turner put his hand on the doorknob. “Ready to go in?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“Good. Let me know if you need anything.” He pushed the door open for her.
“You’re not coming in?”
“No. This is ultimately the UNEOA and the Covenant’s decision, not mine.”
Let’s hope Radiant is merciful today, she thought, stepping into the conference room. Radiant was nowhere to be seen at the oblong conference table. Only three of the five Covenant members were present: Paladin and Queenie, whom Chris recognized from the news and several tabloids, and Athena.
But where’s Radiant? And Samael? she wondered, hoping that something else had come up for them. Was a ruling on Nora’s life so trivial that two of the Covenant’s heroes didn’t even bother showing up?
Pushing the thought aside, she studied her surroundings. She stood in the doorway of a modest conference room, generic in every way. Beige blinds had been drawn over the floor-to-ceiling windows, blocking out the city lights. Commercial beige wall-to-wall carpeting covered the floor and the walls had been painted to match.
As she took a tentative step into the room, her movements were matched by the whir of one of Athena’s ubiquitous drones.
“Hi,” she muttered.
“Hello, Christina,” Paladin said from his place at the head of the conference table. He sat straight on a squat metal chair, no doubt custom fit to bear the weight of his bulky white-and-gray power armor. His helmet rested on the table beside one of his heavily armored elbows, its eye slit staring into space.
At least he left that huge sword at home, Chris thought, recalling what she’d overheard about the stoic Asian hero.
Paladin motioned to the lone chair positioned at the far end of the table. “Please, have a seat.”
Chris made her way to the indicated seat, resisting the urge to jam her sweaty hands into her hoodie’s pockets. The lights were way too bright and everyone, including the armed drones stationed in each corner of the room, was staring—at her—so she moved as fast as she could to her designated seat. When she passed Athena’s chair, the heroine lifted her gaze from her laptop to nod in greeting, dark curls bouncing on her shoulders.
Unlike Paladin, Athena wore a suit of power armor with a sleeker design in favor of aerodynamic function over bulk. It still looked massive enough to triple her body weight, thanks to the two-foot wing extensions that protruded from the suit’s back. Chris had never seen her in full attire before, not in person at least, and the heroine’s costumed appearance was notably different from the petite young woman Chris had met during her incarceration.
“Welcome, Christina,” Athena said with her picture-perfect enunciation. “I trust that you recognize Paladin and Queenie?”
As Chris lowered herself into her specified chair, she warily raised her eyes. Her attention shifted between the heroes and the drones, each following her every move.
“You can relax, you know,” Queenie said with her thick British accent.
“Okay,” Chris replied.
“We’re not going to eat you, I promise.” Queenie turned to Paladin with a laugh. “She’s shy, Sensei. Better go easy on her.”
Chris couldn’t help but to relax a little. There was something about Queenie which made her easy to like, even though the heroine was what one might consider a girly girl. Her lacy white-and-gold dress accentuated the slender lines of her body while the veil of her trademark diadem had been lifted to reveal her gold eyeliner. The snowy-white lace spilled over her back with her long blonde tresses.
She can’t be more than twenty, Chris thought. Only a couple of years older than me. Unfortunately, Queenie wasn’t the one in charge here.
Athena spoke next without her eyes ever leaving her laptop screen. “Are you familiarizing yourself with the Wardens, Christina?”
Can’t we cut the small talk and just get this over with?
Chris rubbed her sweaty palms against her jogging pants beneath the table. “Um, yeah. I guess so.”
Queenie’s fingers flashed a victory sign behind her chair, positioned in a way so only Chris could see it. It was nice to have someone in her corner for once.
“You have certainly made a positive impression,” Athena continued mechanically without looking at them. “All accounts say that your team has developed great respect for you. Perhaps you will fill the leadership role in the future.”
Chris didn’t know what to say. She didn’t agree with Athena’s assessment of her leadership ability so she kept her mouth shut.
“We have been informed that what we know about Legion is thanks to your observation and your conclusions. We have not been able to identify him yet, but we will. Should he emerge again we will be better prepared than we were, thanks to you.”
When Athena finally tore her eyes away from her laptop screen, Chris noticed the dark circles of exhaustion beneath them.
Wow, something’s really bugging her.
Paladin cleared his throat. “You may have noticed Radiant’s absence,” he said, forcing a casual tone.
It took Chris a moment to realize that he was waiting for her to reply. “Yeah. I guess he’s busy.”
“It’s not official until tomorrow, but you should know that he has gone rogue,” Paladin revealed without a hint of emotion on his face. “I’m taking the lead in his stead.”
Chris’s breath stopped while she thought about what his statement meant. Even she knew that dropping out of the Covenant to go rogue was a really big deal. No wonder Athena looks like she’s about to lose it.
“This means that I, along with Overseer Vega, will have the final say on your teammate’s fate,” Paladin went on. “I have one question for you. Do you believe Nora poses a danger to others?”
Chris felt like he had sucker-punched her. Had they brought her here to pit her against her own teammate? She lifted a hand to her face, causing the drones to buzz and reconfigure. She didn’t want Nora to be executed by the Covenant. But at the same time she had to admit that Mr. Black was dangerous. Sure, Nora was not a psychopathic villain, but no one could predict the long-term consequences of her emotions boiling over. Which had happened before. Only yesterday, in fact.
Chris dismissed the thought. She was there to stand with her teammate. If she didn’t, no one else would. Instead of wallowing in doubt, she willed herself to trust Nora and remember the facts and arguments running through her head in anticipation of this interview.
She’s one of the few Evolved on Earth who can fight against Legion.
“Nora really wants to do the right thing,” she tried. “She’s one of the few who can actually do something about Legion. Without her, I think we’d be”—she resisted the urge to say ‘screwed’—“short on firepower.” She cursed herself for her lack of eloquence. Her sister Helen would have charmed the heroes with a flick of a finger and one of her heart-stopping smiles.
“You’re right. Only a couple of Evolved are equipped to fight Legion, and those individuals are spread around the globe at any given time.” Queenie leaned closer to Chris.
Her sweet face made it easy to forget just how freakishly powerful she was. Her tracking powers were the main reason for the Covenant’s success in suppressing any would-be villains who surfaced. Queenie could geolocate almost any Evolved on Earth within a matter of seconds, pinpoin
ting them with enough accuracy for her teammates to resolve any conflict within a short period of time, minutes to hours. She could also analyze Evolved powers from afar, and provide the information the UNEOA needed to discuss execution orders.
Now Queenie’s face took on a serious edge. “The reach of Noire’s shadow is limited unless she actively directs it.”
“Keep in mind that she doesn’t have full control of it yet,” Athena added. “Not to mention what would happen if she surged.”
Chris didn’t like where the heroines were taking this. “But her shadow doesn’t attack people outside of its immediate range if she doesn’t want it to, right?” she asked, doing her best not to sound desperate. “If that’s what you’re worried about, maybe she shouldn’t work around normal people for a while.”
Paladin let out a small grunt at her words. “Most any situation with a threat is going to involve innocent civilians,” he said after a thoughtful pause. “Without Radiant on our side, I’m not convinced that we could respond fast enough if her power spun out of control.”
Athena’s mouth tightened.
So you’d kill her because you’re not equipped with enough manpower to control her? Chris thought. It was supremely unfair.
An idea struck her. “What if I was there?” she suggested. “My power blocks hers, like at the diner. Her shadow can’t get through my force field if I don’t want it to.”
“Now that’s an interesting solution,” Queenie said.
“But not a very feasible one,” Athena said. “What will tie two people together if one of them wants to leave, even if the intention is there?”
Chris felt the weight of her words even before she said them out loud. “What if I promised to stay with her and never leave her side? Whether she wanted me there or not? My danger sense would let me know right away if there’s going to be trouble. It would wake me up, too.” She was rambling now, but she couldn’t stop herself because too much was on the line. “I could carry a flashlight, just in case.”
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