The Light of Redemption

by Natalie Damschroder

“Awesome.” He set about pouring it, and I shifted, trying to get comfortable enough to let my nerve endings stop firing pain messages to my brain.

  “So what’s the paper going to report about Eclipse? Is anything out there yet?” I had another niggle of fear. Would Journalist Simon supersede Friend Simon? He had been determined to get to the heart of Eclipse. Now that he knew who she was, that she was just good ol’ Harmony Wilde, would he be satisfied? Or disappointed? Because I didn’t really have the juicy motivations he wanted to know. Just cowardice.

  “Nothing.” He set a glass in front of me and picked a chair on the other side of the table. “The paper won’t report anything. I can’t do too much about the Columbus news, but they just had a short report of the explosion and no mention of Eclipse so far.”

  I smiled a little, noting how he’d referred to her as a separate person like I did, rather than falling into the dangerous habit of saying “you.” He was a smart guy, and I knew I could trust him not to accidentally reveal my identity. I wanted to believe I could trust him for more than that, but didn’t all journalists have the same purpose? Reveal All the Secrets?

  For now, I didn’t have many choices.

  “I guess I lucked out.” I drank a few large swallows of the lemonade. The acid stung my throat, but the sugar already felt as if it was feeding my energy stores. Suddenly, I was starving. But I didn’t want to ask Simon to wait on me anymore. I’d fix myself something to eat after he left.

  “I wouldn’t call anything about last night lucky,” he countered. “Except maybe for the bad guys.”

  I leaned my head on my less-injured hand. “So you think they were targeting us?”

  “You, anyway.” His mouth flattened into a thin line. “Look, Harm, this is probably a bad time to ask.” He cleared his throat and swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. I waited, my puckering brow letting me know I had some cuts on my face I hadn’t noticed before, probably from the edge of my mask. Was he going to ask me his Eclipse interview questions? His preface felt more like something a guy would say when he wanted to ask a woman out, though. That would definitely be bad timing.

  I waited a few more seconds, then opened my mouth to prod him, but he got there first.

  “Are you seeing Connor Parsons? Like, romantically?”

  So my radar was accurate. I wasn’t sure how to answer him. Before the kiss with Conn last night, I would have been careful not to read too much into our developing friendship. But the kiss had changed everything . . . unless it hadn’t. We hadn’t had time to talk about it, what with being blown up and all.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “We hung out at the festival, but it wasn’t an official date.” It had felt like one, though, and even with spear-filled sinkholes and sonic booms and jewelry store explosions, had nearly ended like one. “Why?”

  He took off his glasses and started cleaning the lenses with the tail of his shirt. I would have snorted if I didn’t think it would cause an eruption of fun new pain.

  “Does this have anything to do with you licking my fingers the other day?”

  He choked. It turned into a coughing fit, and finally, he shoved the glasses back on and sighed. “I don’t know what the hell got into me. I acted like . . .”

  I raised my eyebrows. I wasn’t filling in the blanks for him.

  He sighed again. “Like a jealous boyfriend. Or wannabe boyfriend.”

  “And are you?”

  He peered up at me through long eyelashes and half-cleaned spectacles. He was adorable. But even the part of me that had been reacting out of habit had disappeared. So when he said, “Do you want me to be?” I was able to be truthful in a way I never could have before.

  “I used to. Until a few weeks ago, as a matter of fact. But your timing kinda sucks.”

  He nodded. “Because of Conn.”

  “Not really.” I waved my hand, partly to hide the squiggle in my torso as I remembered the strength and heat of Conn’s hands on me. “Yes, there’s something there that I want to explore, but it was inevitable that I’d get over it. My crush,” I clarified. “On you. That’s all it ever was. And you don’t really want me, either. You just had your attention grabbed because someone else looked at me differently from how you did. And maybe enhanced by finding out I’m Eclipse,” I guessed. That would have devastated me back when I wanted Simon, but today it only amused me a little.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I guess you’re right. Have I—” He winced. “Have I made everything weird?”

  “No.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. “If this other stuff hadn’t happened, it would probably be weird. But you knowing I’m Eclipse changes our friendship anyway.”

  “It does.” His brow furrowed, and I could imagine the lede he was composing. I’d always thought Simon viewed everything around him as a potential story for the paper, even when it definitely wasn’t.

  He blinked and refocused with a rueful half smile. “Sorry. Can I get you anything else?”

  “No, I’m going to get cleaned up.” I braced my left palm on the table and the rest of my body in preparation for renewed pain.

  “Wait. You should take a pain pill.”

  I shook my head. “No, I can’t right now. Later.”

  “You’re not driving anywhere.” It was both encouragement and a warning, but even though I wasn’t planning to put myself through that agony, I wasn’t staying home.

  “I’ll call Angie. Or a cab. I need to get back to the hospital. I’m the reason Conn’s there. I want to be there when he wakes up.”

  “I can take you. I have time before I meet Julie.”

  After holding my breath and slowly pushing to my feet, I closed my eyes to wait out the throbs in my right hand, arm, thigh, shoulder, knee, and head. “I may need all of that time and more. I’m moving like a Loris here.”

  “I have no idea what that is. Don’t tell me.” He held up his hand. “Never mind. I’ll look it up. You go shower. I’ll wait, and if time gets short, I’ll call Angie and go meet Julie. I’m not leaving you like this.”

  Honestly, I was shaky enough to be grateful to have backup. “Thanks. I’ll try to—”

  “You will not try to hurry. Don’t even make me turn into my mother.”

  I laughed. “Okay. Thank you.” I shuffled off to the bathroom. The instructions forbade showering, due to the risk of infection, so I cleaned up with a washcloth as best I could and took a couple of ibuprofen before getting dressed in a loose skirt and flowy top with long-enough sleeves to cover my forearm laceration. I had to come up with an excuse for what caused my injuries if anyone figured out I wasn’t a hundred percent.

  God. I sank onto the side of my bed and stared at the sandals I was going to wear because it was too hard to put on anything else. Simon had called me off sick from work today. He said he hadn’t explained, so whatever story I gave Gladys would work. But however benign a story Simon ran in the paper, people would know what had happened to Eclipse and The Brute. It would be a constant stream of lies to keep everyone from putting it together. I’d never had to deal with that before.

  What if I couldn’t handle it?

  ~ ~ ~

  The nurse at the station at the center of the third floor smiled up at me. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Connor Parsons’s room.”

  The smile dropped into a less-than-sincere frown. “I’m sorry, his condition means only family are allowed to visit. Protocol.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m his fiancée.” The lie came smoothly because Simon had coached me on it for ten minutes on the return drive. It didn’t fool the nurse, even though I didn’t know her. Her gaze skipped to my left hand, which rested on the counter. I didn’t say anything.

  “Engaged?”

  “Yes.” I was going to make her ask, and
to my surprise, she had the balls to do it.

  “But no ring.”

  This time, my reaction didn’t have to be faked. “I don’t need a symbol of possession, as if agreeing to share my life with someone requires a brand of ownership. When some advertising agency decides to convince men that they need to display their status that prominently, maybe then I’ll consider allowing a leash around my finger.”

  “Ohh-kay.” She backed away, hands in the air, eyes rolling. “He’s in room three-ten.”

  “Thank you.” I strode swiftly—ha—down the hall and paused in the doorway, bracing my left hand to catch my breath and let my knee stop shrieking. The slice in my thigh throbbed hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. I tried to pretend I was reacting to the sight of my “fiancé” in the hospital bed, looking pale and diminished by his injuries and the tubes and wires surrounding him.

  In truth, Conn didn’t look diminished at all. The hospital gown stretched tight across his chest and shoulders, emphasizing instead of detracting from his strength. He had an IV in his hand, wires snaking to his chest, going through the neck and sleeve of the gown, and about three times as many visible bandages as I had, including one on the side of his head. They’d shaved the hair there, making the top look shaggier. His closed lids hid the startling contrast of his eyes, but the dark lashes had a similar effect on my insides.

  I didn’t know what I felt as I stood there. Something writhed beneath my breastbone, a nausea-inducing mess it took me a moment to sort out. Most obvious was regret that he was lying there because of me. If I hadn’t pushed him to help me be a better superhero, he wouldn’t be a wounded one. This situation would dredge up the past he’d been trying to escape by coming here. How could he not blame me for forcing him into that?

  But there was so much more. In the hours we’d spent together yesterday, he’d shown me a lot of Conn Parsons. His wry observational humor kept me laughing, even as we debated serious subjects. He’d helped an older woman struggling to carry her food to a table with her cane and a bulky shoulder bag, and won toys for three kids who’d been longingly watching the game booths. When we strolled through the booths, he talked to the vendors about their craft and wares, getting to know them. The people he’d protect, if he were an active superhero. Everything about him connected with something inside me, as if putting together a compatibility machine. And then the kiss had fused it all together. It wasn’t reading too much into it to know what we could become if we pursued it.

  But only if he wanted to.

  A wave of weakness washed over me, telling me a keel-over was imminent if I didn’t sit down. I limped to the chair next to the bed, struggled through adjusting it to be closer without interfering with any of the machines, and sank down with a loud sigh. My shoulder laceration stung, thanks to moving the chair, and everything else ached. Worse than the physical pain was the knowledge that I would be no good out on the streets for a while. That was probably their goal—if they hadn’t been trying to kill me, they’d at least wanted to incapacitate me, and it had worked. Which meant Pilton was vulnerable.

  But to what? I was just backup for the police. My limitations meant a real criminal could just study me, learn my patterns, and work around them. What did they want to do that necessitated sidelining me like this?

  Or was Conn the real target? He was a more powerful superhero, more capable of thwarting an equally powerful criminal. He’d been with me for both the pit in the woods—drawn there by screams—and the jewelry store attack, which came after the sonic boom. So whoever wanted us out of the picture definitely had to have some kind of extraordinary sound ability.

  And they used it when you were alone. The elderly couple—I’d been drawn to them by misleading sounds, too. And right afterward, Olive had shown up. Then she’d tried to befriend me, and now she was trying to discredit Eclipse with everyone in town. It didn’t take much to put all that together.

  I sat there fuming for a while, reviewing all the details of everything that had happened in the past month. If only I had the strength, I’d leave Conn’s side and storm over to Olive’s to confront her. But it would be stupid to do that when I was this weak. I just didn’t get it. She clearly knew who I was. Even if my denial gave her a hint of doubt, why not tell everyone? That would interfere with my work more efficiently than what she was doing instead.

  But maybe her intentions were more sinister than that.

  Never good with inactivity, and under the influence of a body that desperately needed to rest so it could try to heal, I dozed off in the chair for a couple of hours. I woke a little when the nurse came in. She hesitated next to me, probably contemplating waking me and kicking me out, maybe because she’d determined that I wasn’t his fiancée after all. But I wasn’t in the way, and I drifted off again before she even left, so maybe she left me alone out of compassion.

  My phone buzzing woke me up completely a while later. I checked Conn first. He hadn’t moved. Would they sedate someone with a head injury like his? Or was he still unconscious because of the head injury? I was afraid to ask.

  The text was from Simon, telling me he’d met Julie and taken her to the jewelry store, where they’d gotten samples—I couldn’t wait to hear the story of how they’d managed to do that from a crime scene—and he was helping her set up a portable lab at the newspaper office. I texted back my heartfelt thanks and checked my mouth for drool. As much as I wanted Conn to wake up and be okay, I did not want him to see me drooling in my sleep.

  It took another hour before anything else happened. I got up and walked around the room a few times, to keep from getting too stiff and tight. I’d just settled back into my chair when Conn woke up. No warning, no fanfare, just his open eyes, blinking sleepily at me.

  “Oh my God, Conn.” I lurched forward and squeezed his hand, careful not to dislodge the sensor clipped to his finger.

  “You’re okay.” The first word came out as just air, a motion of his lips, and the second was a croak. He swallowed and blinked. “Holy shit, Harm.”

  I laughed and covered his hand with both of mine. “You remember?”

  “Hell, yeah. That was some ride.” He raised his other hand toward his head, winced, and frowned at the IV and then the hospital gown and bandages on his arms. “What’s the rundown?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to anyone. They didn’t want to let me in, family only, so I threw a fiancée fit until they changed their minds.”

  His mouth curved up on one side, and those amazing eyes met mine, warmth and pleasure making me blush. I hurried on. “But I was asleep when they checked on you, and a doctor hasn’t been in.” I realized I was still holding his hand. Suddenly feeling presumptuous, I released it abruptly and sat back fast enough to yank at my two main cuts. I didn’t school my expression fast enough, and Conn saw it.

  “So give me the rundown on you,” he ordered.

  I shrugged my uninjured shoulder. “Abrasions, lacerations. I landed on my knee again, but it’s not broken or anything. I’ll be out of commission for a few days. I know they were worried you had a cranial hematoma, but haven’t heard the status of that.” I motioned to the side of his head where they’d shaved it. He touched the bandage there and rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, great, that’s gotta look cool.”

  I snorted, and we both laughed. But it didn’t last long.

  “What do you know about the explosion?”

  “Nothing yet. I have a friend who came down to analyze samples of the stuff on the wall.” I tried to figure out how to apologize for drawing him back into the same hell he’d endured in Chicago and San Diego. Maybe I hadn’t known what I was doing, hadn’t realized what he’d been through, when I asked him for help. But I had pushed when he said no, took him on patrol, and dragged him into my theories about Olive and CASE. His injuries were solidly on my shoulders. I couldn’t take
him any further down this road.

  “Harmony, I’m sorry.”

  I stared at him. “What do you possibly have to be sorry for?”

  “It’s my fault this happened to you.”

  Was this real? Was I dreaming the whole scene? I twisted to look over my shoulder, making sure the door was closed and the room looked exactly as it had when I came in. Dreams could feel absolutely normal, but they weren’t. There were always signs once you woke up and looked back.

  “Harmony.”

  When I faced Conn again, he was smiling at me. “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to determine if we’ve gone AU or something.”

  “AU?”

  “Alternate Universe. Conn, there’s no way this is your fault. It’s mine.”

  He shook his head and plucked at a wrinkle in the blanket over his thigh. “I thought if I retired, lived a quiet, normal life, others would be safe. Instead, I brought it here. I should have stuck to my intention to leave you alone, but . . .” He glanced away. “You kept drawing me back in, and I let you, and almost got you killed in the process.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit.” He glared at me, but my pain threshold had been exceeded and it caused a short in my tact machine. “It’s all bullshit. Did you betray your team in Chicago?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Did CASE tell you that you were the target? That they were trying to torment or destroy you and that if you didn’t give yourself up to them or something, they’d hurt others?”

  “Not— No. Nothing so blatant.”

  “Yeah. Because it’s not about you. Look.” I shifted, trying to take pressure off my injured thigh without transferring it to my shoulder or forearm. “The Citizens Against Superhero Existence aren’t exactly subtle in stating their mission. It’s right there in the name. What happened this weekend wasn’t targeting you.”