Super Zero

by Rhonda Stapleton

  My resolve to remain quiet lasted another five minutes, until I got tired of the sound of silence. Simon and Garfunkel were wrong—it was way overrated. I turned on the radio, surprised to hear the female newscaster’s urgent voice ringing through.

  “—learned that Bradley Summers, CEO of SummerTech Enterprises, had signed his majority percentage of SummerTech shares over to the leader of The Night Alliance, Dementrix. He allegedly jumped off the fortieth floor of SummerTech to his death approximately two hours ago.”

  “What?” Vigilante’s voice had a sharp edge that took me by surprise. He quickly steered the car onto the E. 9th St. exit, listening intently to the rest of the newscaster’s words.

  “Police are on the lookout for Dementrix,” the woman continued. “We’ll provide more details as we hear them.” The newscast stopped, and a flooring commercial jingle came on, singing about the glories of their company’s carpet varieties.

  Vigilante shut the radio off, his face stern. He quickly navigated to my office building, parking out front. He turned at me. “I need to use your car.”

  “For what?”

  “Dementrix is my arch nemesis. Something bad’s happening. You’ll be safe with The Machine. Once I see what’s going on I’ll be back.”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. I’m going with you.” I didn’t care if Mason was there or not. Those villains from Mrs. Wong’s parking lot could find me anywhere. Besides, I was curious about this Dementrix dude. He was a new villain to me, and I wondered how powerful he was.

  Mason, along with his buddies in the League of Heroes, had fought off scores of baddies, from your everyday idiot running food stamp scams out of convenience stores, to super mega-villains threatening to blow up various buildings across the Midwest.

  But not once since I'd known Mason had a villain named Dementrix shown up in the area. I wondered how he’d crossed Vigilante to become his arch nemesis.

  Vigilante squinted at me, his eyes barely visible from behind the mask.

  I slit my eyes and squinted back. Two could play this game.

  I could tell when he finally gave up, because he rolled his eyes and threw the gear into drive. “You’re stubborn,” he mumbled. “Fine, you can tag along, but do what I say.”

  “You got it.”

  Less than five minutes later we pulled to a stop across the street from SummerTech, a pristine all-glass building just over forty stories tall. Carefully manicured trees and shrubs lined the front of the building.

  The place was packed. Camera crews, police officers, ambulances and fire trucks swarmed the street, as well as hundreds of onlookers. There was a taped-off area to the left of the front doors. Oh God, that had to be where Bradley Summers had landed.

  My stomach turned at the horrible thought. What could have made him kill himself?

  “Stay right here so I can keep an eye on the car. I’ll be back in a minute,” he ordered, striding off before I could reply.

  I watched Vigilante cross the street and head to a police officer. He tapped him on the shoulder and began to speak. The officer waved toward the top of the building, and Vigilante nodded. He strolled back to the car, the corners of his mouth turned down.

  “Just as I suspected,” he muttered. “Dementrix is involved. This is going to get bad. Fast.”

  * * *

  That afternoon at work I tried to focus on the budgeting task at hand. It was not going well, because I kept losing my place every time I thought of Vigilante.

  “What are you doing?”

  The logbook fell out of my hands as I nearly jumped out of my skin. Vigilante’s sexy mouth was mere inches from my right ear, and when he spoke his warm breath caressed the back of my neck.

  I grabbed the book off the floor and put it firmly on my desk, trying to ignore the rush of excitement that surged through me at his proximity. “I’m documenting what we spent on The Machine’s laundering last month.”

  Mason liked to keep a running log of expenses so we could update the main accounting database on a regular basis. And when I say ‘we,’ I mean ‘me.’ When I took this job, I hadn’t realized being a personal shopper would involve any math, other than counting cash to buy stuff.

  Using the hand-written receipt Mason gave me, I tallied up the total. My jaw dropped. I quickly redid the numbers, as there was no way the total was accurate.

  Nope. I’d added them right.

  From behind me I heard Vigilante’s grunt. He whistled. “Four grand seems like a pretty steep bill for one month’s laundry. What did he do, fight a whole squadron of Sludge monsters?”

  I shrugged, chuckling. “Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he’s laundering money. Ba dum bum.”

  Then I realized I probably shouldn’t be showing Vigilante the accounting books. That might piss Mason off. I quickly closed them. “I’ll figure it out later.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to sort through everything in my mind. “You know, I haven’t seen The Machine since this morning so I have no idea what’s going on with the attempt on my life.”

  It sounded so flippant, so blasé to refer to the attack that way. The words were not nearly strong enough to show the panic I felt whenever I thought about it. But I also didn’t want to look like a whiner in front of Vigilante, so I tried to play cool.

  As soon as I’d gotten to the office after we checked out the SummerTech fiasco, I’d made a beeline for Mason’s desk, telling him about the punks in the parking lot. He’d written himself a memo to let the league know, promising to keep me updated, then sent me back to work.

  “Not sure either,” Vigilante said to me, stretching out in the chair across from my desk. He ran a hand through his tousled dark hair. “But we need to figure out something a bit more long-term. We can’t keep holing up.” He glanced at me for a brief moment then cleared his throat. “I have stuff I need to do.”

  Right now, holing up sounded like the best plan we had. But since he was a superhero I knew that wouldn’t work for him. And, to be honest, it wasn’t the most comfortable situation for me, either. The more I stayed at his house, the more I felt the tension between us, made all the more potent in an enclosed environment.

  “Well, I’m open to any ideas you have," I said, "because I’m tapped out.”

  What if an attack actually worked next time? Or what if I went to the bathroom, and someone was waiting there for me? Vigilante couldn’t be everywhere.

  A shiver ran up my back as a thought popped up in my mind. Wait—maybe I was being watched right now and have been since this started. How could those thugs have known to find me at Mrs. Wong’s?

  Something was wrong here.

  I dropped my face into my hands, unable to fight the nauseating wave of paranoia taking over.

  “Hey.” I heard Vigilante squirm in his seat, the chair creaking beneath him. “It’ll be okay.”

  “This is just hopeless,” I said with a deep sigh, rubbing a hand over my face. I could see it now—my shredded body stuck on a wooden post in front of the League of Heroes building, a vivid warning to other regular people to not get involved in the goings on of superheroes.

  I felt a warm hand on my back. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He tipped up my face to look at him, those serious, piercing eyes locking with mine. “We’ll work this out. I promise you.”

  I nodded, the panic attack subsiding. I wasn’t alone in this. Vigilante was going to help me fix everything.

  Maybe things weren’t so doom-and-gloom after all.

  * * *

  I finished up my invoicing and the rest of the day went by surprisingly fast. I found if I buried my attention in my work, I could focus for small chunks of time and almost shut the death threat—and Vigilante—out of my mind.

  Not that it ever lasted. Even with my head down and attention focused elsewhere, I could feel Vigilante in the room, his presence constantly pulling my eyes back to him. He was simply magnetic.

  It wasn’t like he did anything to make me look at him, though. He sat pe
rfectly still in the chair, exuding a patient quietness that would make the Dalai Lama proud. But everything about the man just seemed to resonate in me. I didn’t understand it.

  I was probably just undersexed and overstressed. Once this nightmare passed, things would go back to normal, and Vigilante would move on without me, fighting crime and kicking ass in dark alleys.

  My cell vibrated, interrupting my obsessive thoughts. I grabbed it from my pocket.

  “Jenna, it’s Mom.” Her voice was perky as usual.

  “Oh, hey. What’s up?”

  “You’re still bringing dinner rolls tonight, right?” I heard whirring sounds coming from her side of the phone. She must have been whipping up something in the kitchen, her usual favorite pastime.

  “Dinner rolls?”

  “Don’t tell me you forgot about dinner tonight. Your sister’s bringing over that nice guy she’s dating so we can meet him.”

  I smacked my forehead. Crap! With everything else going on, the family dinner had completely slipped my mind. “Mom," I whispered, turning my back to Vigilante, "I can’t make it. Something came up.”

  Best not to involve the family too much in my drama. The last thing I needed was to have a hit happen by a baddie trying to steal the crystal, while we’re all innocently gathered around the dinner table eating blueberry pie.

  “You promised, Jenna.” Disappointment oozed from her voice, and my stomach turned against my will.

  Dammit, she always did this to me. If guilt were a superpower, my mom would kick some serious ass. With one carefully worded comment she could belt any bad guy in the nuts.

  I could tell her about the changing crystal, but I didn’t want to freak her out. Besides, I already knew what her reply would be—since my sis would be there, she’d simply say that Amy could protect me from any harm. In fact, I’d bet my last dollar she’d ask me why Amy wasn’t guarding me in the first place.

  And then she’d insist I quit my job and move back home until everything was smoothed over, and I’d be trapped in her house, living in the basement with the cats, growing old and miserable in my forced isolation.

  Ugh—no thanks.

  I turned back around and glanced at Vigilante, who stared back at me. He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, his movements nonchalant, then straightened the black mask over his eyes.

  “Okay, I’ll be there,” I said.

  “Wonderful,” she breathed into the phone. “Be here at six. And don’t forget the bread.”

  I hung up and thrust my cell back into my pocket. “I need to go to a family function tonight. If you want to drop me off and pick me up later, that’ll be fine.”

  He scratched his chin through a five-o’clock shadow, the right side of his mouth tilting up ever so slightly. “Oh, so I’m not invited?”

  What? While I didn’t expect that answer, I didn’t mean to insult him. Backpedaling, I said, “Uh, of course you are.” When Mom cooked, she made enough food to feed a small army, so no worries on that front. But what would she think about Vigilante? Guess I’d find out. “I just didn’t think you’d be interested in something like that," I continued. "But yes, we’d love to have you there. If you want.”

  He nodded, his half-smile getting slightly bigger. It was dazzling, and I found myself caught up in the moment. Vigilante was already handsome, but when smiling he was like an all-consuming wildfire. My heart thudded painfully in my chest.

  “I’ll come," he said, his tone resolute. "I don’t want you unprotected.”

  Well, it was better for him to think he’d be the only superhero there, as he didn't know about my sister. So I didn’t bother to correct him.

  Looked like I had a date. Sort of.

  * * *

  “Jenna!” Mom ran up her sidewalk and caught me in a bear hug. She’s not a small woman, so when she hugs you, you know you’ve been hugged. Then she pulled back to stare at me, her hands digging hard into my forearms. The lines between her eyebrows deepened as she frowned. “You haven’t called me lately.”

  “Sorry, Mom. Things have been nuts at work.” To say the least.

  I attempted to pull out of her vice grip on my arms, which were starting to bruise, and tried to maintain my grasp of the beer cooler. She grabbed my chin, turning my head slightly left and right and scrutinizing my face. She shook her head slowly—obviously, what she saw wasn’t good.

  “You’re not getting enough iron. Look how pale you are! Don’t you eat?” She clucked her tongue. “Good thing I made meatloaf. Are you taking an iron supplement? I’ll call Doctor—” She trailed off, her eyes glancing over my shoulder. Her death grip on me relaxed.

  Vigilante, who’d been parking the car across the street, stepped right behind me. He thrust out a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Peterson. I’m Vigilante, your daughter’s—”

  “Date,” I quickly inserted, heart thudding a painful staccato in my chest. Stupid me, I’d been so focused on other things I’d completely forgotten to warn Vigilante to keep quiet about the bodyguard stuff. Amy would keep mum, because she knew how crazy Mom would get.

  I raised my eyebrows at him, silently pleading with him to not say a word.

  He shot me a quick, startled look but blessedly kept his mouth shut.

  A small gasp escaped from Mom’s mouth. “Oh, heavens. Jenna, you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend!” Luckily my mom was used to superheroes, having been broken in by my sister, so she didn’t bat an eye about his getup.

  “He’s not a boyfriend," I protested, "he’s a—”

  Paying no attention to my words, Mom grabbed Vigilante's hand enthusiastically with the same fervor she’d previously mauled me, pumping up and down. “Well, I had no idea Jenna had found someone, much less a superhero!” She looked him up and down. “Well, aren’t you a strapping young man. Look at those muscles.”

  I groaned, wishing I had the power to vanish into thin air. I should have known she would mortify me like this.

  Vigilante, however, seemed to eat it up. Odd, because as quiet and withdrawn as he is, I would have thought he’d shy away from such attention. However, he puffed out his chest and jutted his chin out, basking in my mom’s glowing attention. I guess all men's egos were alike, masked or unmasked.

  “Guys, let’s move inside,” I said, suddenly aware we were still standing outside.

  “What’s in the cooler? Does it have the bread in it?” Mom said, reaching for it.

  I jerked it out of her reach. “It’s—” I paused. Crap, I hadn’t thought of an excuse for having it, either. Planning failure. Well done, Jenna! From my other hand I quickly lobbed the bag with the bread rolls at her. “Here’s the bread,” I said, trying to distract her, then ran inside the house.

  Mom and Vigilante followed closely behind, and we headed right into the living room.

  “Vigilante, have a seat,” she said, practically pushing him onto the cushy floral couch. “Let me get you a drink. Want a beer? A glass of wine? A soda? A bottle of water?”

  Gosh, Mom. Wanna offer him a foot massage while you’re at it? I fought the urge to roll my eyes at her lavish attention on him.

  “Thanks. I’ll have a Coke if you have one.” He sank back into the couch, which almost swallowed him alive. It was more than a little odd, seeing this very manly man in all black sitting on my mom’s pastel furniture.

  “You got it. Okay, we’ll be right back.” Mom grabbed my free hand and hauled me into the kitchen.

  Once we were there, she spun and attacked. “Tell me everything. Who is he? Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing him? How long have you been dating?”

  I held up my hand, chuckling. “Whoa, whoa, one thing at a time.” Desperate, my mind spun, trying to come up with a quick story to get her off my back. The closer I stuck to the truth, the easier it would be to remember my story. “We’ve only been…seeing each other a few days now. Um, I don’t remember what else you asked.”

  I heard the front door to the house open. “Mom, we’re here
,” Amy said, feet shuffling as she and her date moved through the foyer.

  “Amy!” Mom cried out, moving quickly to greet her. For a large woman, she sure moved fast.

  A huge wave of relief surged through me. With Amy here, Mom’s attention would be diverted long enough for me to get my bearings. Thank you, God. I grabbed a Coke from the fridge and practically ran to the living room, thrusting the drink into Vigilante’s hand.

  “Look, I can’t tell my mom my life’s in danger,” I said, my words tripping over each other in a rush, “so play along, okay? For tonight I need you to pretend to be my date.”

  He leaned back into the couch, drawing a deep drink from the Coke. “And why would I want to do that?” he said, his lips parting in a small grin.

  Where was this side of him coming from? He seemed like he was joking with me, almost jovial tonight. Vigilante must be feeling more relaxed in my company now. Hence, the end of the conversation freeze-out.

  Still, I was suspicious of this new turn of events. I eyed him warily. Maybe instead of him warming up to me, he knew he had me under his thumb. I was totally in a pickle, and he could smell an opportunity.

  The bastard. Was he doing this to prolong my panic?

  “Um, you’d help me out because you’re a gentleman?" I asked, trying to keep my tone even. "And a superhero? And gentlemanly superheroes like to help people, not make their lives harder?” Maybe the guilt angle would work. I wondered if I could wrangle up any panicked tears.

  “Good point.” He scratched his chin, thoughtful. “So, what’s in it for me?”

  I swallowed hard. “What do you want?” I blurted out.

  His hand stopped mid-scratch, and he stared at me, piercing me with an unexpected bold stare. A small flutter of excitement twirled in my stomach, and I realized I’d stopped breathing. Some part of me wanted to hear him say, “You.” Some wicked, evil, slutty part.

  My mom’s footsteps headed in our direction. Time to wrap this up while we still had the chance.