by R. J. Ross
“If she wants to meet me so badly, why didn’t she give us a name?” I ask as I finish the letter. “Or an address? Did she at least leave an email?”
“Yeah, I’ll forward the email to you,” he says, tapping on the keyboard. My phone chirps. “There. This way you can email her--but be careful,” he says, a bit abruptly. “I don’t think it’s a trick, but you can never be sure, right?”
“You should have thought of that before bringing it to my attention,” I say, bringing out my phone and staring at the email. My heart is pounding against my chest. My hands are slightly clammy. This is it--this is a chance to find someone like me. I know exactly how the writer feels, actually. I want to know I’m not alone, as well. “Can we--can we have Nico find out who it is?” I ask.
“Sure, I can do that,” I hear Nico say over my phone. When did he--oh for crying out loud. It’s like living with Big Brother sometimes. (I love Nico, I really do--I spent a lot of time working with him on Jack. But he could at least ASK before hacking my phone! I’m just so grateful that Jack’s not an internet boyfriend--can you imagine how awkward that would be with Nico around? I can.) “Huh...” he says.
“What?” I ask.
“Why don’t you email back and forth for a little while?” he says. “I’ll look into the details while you’re at Superior’s place.”
“What did you find out?” I ask.
“It’s an entire family--there are three kids and their parents. It’s hard to tell which one of them sent the email right off the bat. I also want to see if there’s any history of supers in their bloodline.”
“Okay,” I say. “What gender are the kids? How old are they?”
“Two boys and a girl--the boys are seventeen and seven, the girl is fifteen,” he says. I’m not sure I even want to know how he found out all those details. “Don’t worry about that. Weren’t you supposed to be getting some sleep? You have to be at the airport at five tomorrow morning.”
“We do?” I hear Liz yelp.
“You told me to book you a plane, remember?”
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR!” she wails.
I head for my room. A nap sounds better than ever, now. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep, though, I’m too excited by the idea of another healer.
Is it wrong to hope it’s the girl?
***
It’s around ten at night. I finally managed to get a little sleep, but not much. I just don’t want to miss saying goodbye to Jack before I head off, so I’m standing at the Style’s door with Emily and Ditto beside me. I knock on the door, not surprised to see it swing open. Jeanie pulls all three of us into a massive hug before we manage to say a word.
“Oh girls, I’m going to miss you so much!” she says, hugging us. “You’ll make sure to call every day, right? And change your socks on a regular basis, you don’t want to catch a cold! And make sure you write, too--”
“Jeanie, we’re only going for a week,” Emily says, squirming in the tight hold. Jeanie’s a tank. Her hugs can be deadly if she’s not careful. “And we can always teleport back,” she yelps as the hug gets a little too tight.
“Well of course you can, but I still feel like I’m losing my babies!” Jeanie says, letting go. “I’m so excited for you, though! You have to tell me all about Duplicitous, okay? She sounds amazing!”
“Yeah,” Emily says, grinning.
Ken gently nudges Jeanie out of the way, and we’re dragged into another hug. “You two be good, okay?” he says, grinning as he pulls back. “And take lots of pictures. We want to see everything, got it? We’re going to be doing double time to cover for it, after all.”
“Both of you?” I ask. Just one of them is enough to cover for a handful of lower class supers, right? And Central Hall has the biggest group of high ranking supers in all of the Halls--
“They didn’t tell you?” Jeanie asks, looking surprised.
“Tell us what?”
We both look up as a loud thump comes from outside. I head for the door, peeking down the hall, only to stare at Taurus. He’s got a full hiking pack that’s bigger than me--he just dropped it on the floor, which explains the thump. “What--Taurus?” I ask.
“You packed?” he asks me, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m all set to go.”
“Taurus is going with you,” Ken says from behind me. “I’m taking over gym class for the week.”
I let out a happy little squeak and race down the hall to hug Taurus. “This is going to be AWESOME!” I say. He catches me easily even though I throw myself at him. I’m not surprised when Emily and Ditto pop up, joining the hug. “How did you talk Liz into it?” I demand.
“She invited me,” he says, hugging all of us. “I get the feeling she doesn’t want to face off with Superior and Tatiana alone.”
“It’s a family visit, not a battle,” I say, rolling my eyes, “but I don’t really care why she did it, I’m just glad you’re coming!”
“Our first family vacation!” Emily says excitedly. “This is going to be SO COOL!”
“Freezing, even,” Taurus agrees with amusement. “I was really hoping for someplace warm, but hey, you take what you can get.”
“Oh! We’ve got to tell the guys goodbye,” I say abruptly, remembering what we’d originally set out to do. “We’ll be back,” I tell Taurus before heading back to the Style’s apartment. This time Jack and Trent are standing at the door, looking impatient. I head straight for Jack, looking up at him with a frown.
“What?” he asks.
“No taking food from people whose name you don’t know,” I say, poking him in the chest. It hurts my finger more than it hurts him, and we both know it. “No shoving ANYONE’S head down the toilet, and no bullying the zoo kids at all. Understand?”
I might love him, but like I mentioned earlier, he IS a super villain. He’s also a bit of a bully when he’s in a bad mood. “Hey, now--” he starts out.
“Promise me, Jack,” I say, staring him down. “I heard how snappy you got when I went to Texas--we won’t have a repeat of that, understand?”
He sighs. “Fine,” he says reluctantly, “except Max or Trent! You can’t make me swear anything about those two, got it?”
“Those two can handle themselves,” I agree.
“And Ace!”
“Nuh uh. You don’t get to bully Ace,” I say. “You can tease him, sure, and if it’s a legitimate fight, you can fight him, but no bullying. He’s doing Emily a huge favor by being her debut villain, and we’re going to thank him by being nice to him, got it?” Technically the summer camp is over, but the boys have kept up their little game of “points” as they call it. I’m not sure they’ll ever stop, honestly, because they talked Nico into turning the game into a phone app. And as soon as Sunny and Adanna get back from Texas, Sunny will start playing, too--at least that’s what Jack told me.
“Oh come on, Aub, Ace can take care of himself, too!” Jack protests. I give up, hugging him instead of arguing. He wraps his arms around me lightly, resting his chin on my head. “I already miss you,” he mutters. That has got to be the sweetest thing he’s ever said to me. Well, one of them. Every once in a while he sneaks in a really sweet moment.
“Me too,” I say, almost feeling the urge to cry. It’s silly, I’ll only be gone a week, after all. I sigh, cuddling closer and resting my head against his chest. I can hear his heartbeat, strong and steady. “Hey,” I say, pulling away and looking up at him, “I’ll bring home souvenirs, okay?”
“Can I have a polar bear?”
“Absolutely not,” I say firmly.
“Not even a little one?”
“Not even a little one.”
“Then I’m good,” he says, grinning at me. I reach up, kissing him lightly.
“We need to get back to our apartment,” I tell him. “There’s no point in trying to sleep, but we can at least close our eyes for a little bit. We’re leaving in four hours. You need sleep, too, you’ve got school in the morning. So... This is goodbye,�
� I say, pulling away. “I’ll call you, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, reaching up and touching the metal rose hanging from my neck. It shifts, changing into his super symbol. I can’t help but roll my eyes. “What? Can’t have the supers up in the Arctic thinking you’re free,” he says.
“Oh, please, Jack,” I drawl, “I don’t need to be branded--I’ll be faithful, regardless.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust,” he says. “Just think of me when you see it, okay?” He reaches up and pushes my hair behind my ear, leaning down and kissing me again.
“I prefer the rose,” I tell him.
“Okay, we’ll compromise,” he says, touching the necklace again. A rose appears above a much smaller version of his symbol.
“I can accept that,” I say, amused. I give him one more hug before grabbing Emily and Ditto. “Enough teasing your boyfriend, we need to go,” I tell them as they let out a laugh.
“Bye Trent!” Ditto says, waving happily as I drag them off.
“Bye,” Emily says, looking a bit sadder than her doppelganger. “If you get lonely, we’ll send Repeat, okay?”
“Please don’t,” Trent says dryly. Repeat is Emily’s second doppelganger, but she’s a bit harder to get along with than Ditto is. “Send Ditto, instead.”
“Love you, too, Trent!” Ditto says, grinning from ear to ear. We head into our apartment, heading for our rooms to lie down.
***
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~About the Author~
R.J. Ross has been writing since junior high, when she discovered that it could help her keep an A in English Class. She lives in Missouri, where she works as a secretary for the family business and spends all of her free time writing. If you would like to see more of her work, you can find several short stories at amazon.com/author/rjross!
Like her on Facebook for bonus material such as character profiles, unpublished information, and status updates at https://www.facebook.com/capehigh! Or check out her blog for free Cape High short stories at https://capehigh.wordpress.com or follow her on twitter @nosidekickhere