The Light of Redemption

by Natalie Damschroder

  My stomach rumbled loud enough for Evan to hear. He smirked and signaled for the next exit, only ten minutes outside of Pilton and not even halfway to the next decent-sized town.

  “Don’t give me grief.” I straightened, trying not to be uneasy when the exit ramp ended at a heavily wooded two-lane road. “I haven’t eaten since I got blown up, and my body’s trying to heal.”

  “You’re right. Sorry.” He turned right.

  “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “I have a safe house about a mile from here.”

  “A safe house.”

  “Yep.”

  “That you just happen to, what? Own or rent?”

  “It’s Airbnb.”

  I stared at him. “You’re serious.”

  He shrugged.

  “Out here? Do they get many people?”

  “Probably not. They were very excited when I called.”

  Huh.

  “So . . .” I made a show of examining our surroundings. “Probably no restaurants on the way, I’m guessing.”

  “No. But the house is stocked. You won’t be hungry much longer.”

  No restaurants. No stores. No neighbors. I wasn’t always on my phone, always connected, playing or reading social media or being alerted by some app or another. But it was still disconcerting not being able to use it, and now I didn’t know how long it would be until I could replace it.

  I was just about to ask Evan whether there was at least a landline at the safe house when he turned onto a stone lane that was practically a tunnel through dense foliage. The trees weren’t super mature, but there was a thriving second story. This had been farmland left to renew itself. And then we emerged in a domestic clearing, and I totally understood the whole Airbnb thing.

  Talk about charm. We drove past a garden shed with a thatched roof. A rake leaned against the wall between a Dutch door and a multi-paned window. Flowers exploded in pinks and reds and purples out of a window box. After the shed was a neatly stacked wood pile. I bet I could count it and find every row had the same number of logs, all split as perfectly as an ax could manage.

  After the shed was the garden. I only glimpsed it on the driver’s side of the vehicle, because we wheeled right and angled under a carport. One of three in a row, painted white with red clay tile roofs. One was empty, and the other held a small wooden wagon that looked ready to be drawn by—

  “A horse!”

  Evan laughed. I frowned at him, but he only laughed again and turned off the ignition. “You sounded about twelve just then.”

  “You didn’t tell me there would be a horse.” I quickly unbuckled and then much more slowly opened the door and slid out onto the packed-dirt floor of the carport. “This place is so well kept.” But I didn’t care about the tools and auto-detailing accoutrements along a sheltered bench on the back wall. I wanted to see the horse.

  “Careful!” Evan called after me. He lifted the SUV’s hatch. “The ground is uneven.”

  “I’ve got it!” But he was right. I should have asked for a cane at the hospital. Every step with my right foot tugged my battered knee and thigh in a different way because of the angle. The horse—more of a pony, a beautiful bay whose head was even with mine—nickered impatiently and pawed once at the ground. She stood in a single-stall barn-like thing built from rough-hewn logs. I could smell hay and oats and it flashed me back to my riding classes in college.

  “We should go inside and talk.” Evan stood halfway between the SUV and the house, watching me. A laptop case was slung over one shoulder, and in one hand he held a dark-blue metal case while the other was wrapped around a paper grocery bag.

  “I’ll be right there.” The horse’s nose was so soft. I stroked her neck. She arched it, eyes fluttering, and a rumble rolled under my hand, as if she were purring. “You are a sweet thing, aren’t you? What’s your name?” I looked at the door and found a small placard. “Delphi. Hello, Delphi.”

  She nibbled at my sleeve. We got to know each other for a few more minutes, until Evan lost patience entirely.

  “Harmony!”

  I made a face at Delphi. “I need go school Mr. Forgeron on the etiquette of ordering people around.”

  She blew out a breath in agreement and swung her head up and down. I laughed. “Oh, we’re going to get along great.”

  It took me a whole minute or more to cross the grass to the cottage, but that gave me time to admire it. Like the garden shed, the stone-and-wood building seemed to overflow with flowers from window boxes and in beds around the base. The windows actually sparkled, and the high-peaked roof held a horse-shaped weathervane and an old-fashioned television antennae.

  The whole time, Evan watched me from a tiny front porch with a wrought-iron rail. I didn’t know whether to give him points or take them away for not offering to come help me.

  I climbed the steps with surprisingly little additional pain and followed him inside, where the charm continued. There was a perfect balance of comfortable, cushy-looking furniture, interesting photos and knick-knacks, and modern technology with a large flat-screen TV over the fireplace on the back wall and a charging station on top of a sideboard on the right. A couple of doors flanked the sideboard, and I guessed they were bedrooms. A half wall separated the living room from an efficient-looking kitchen that held no visible food.

  Sighing, I went to the refrigerator to see what I could make for myself. While I perused the few items in there—well-stocked, my ass—I reminded myself that Evan wasn’t my friend or my employee or my nurse. It wasn’t his job to do anything for me, and I had to stop expecting him to.

  Once I had the fixings for a salad laid out on the butcher-block counter, I looked over to where he’d settled at the small dining table. His laptop was open and he was reading something on the screen, so I held my tongue while I made my salad. Chopping veggies with my bandaged right hand was a literal pain, and I ended up with a pile of large, uneven chunks.

  Frustrated, I stopped waiting for Evan to start. “So tell me what I need to know.”

  He lowered the lid and turned in the chair. “What do you know already?”

  At this rate, we’d never find a place to start. “Tell me what brought you to Pilton.”

  “I track known members of the Citizens Against Superhero Existence, determine their legal status, and take steps if their activities have broken or are anticipated to break the law.”

  He really got stiff when he recited official-speak. “And?” I drizzled some dressing on my salad, put everything away, and carried my bowl to the table.

  “And that’s what brought me to Pilton.”

  I sighed and dug into the pile of lettuce and veggies in front of me, using my left hand. “Who did you track here?”

  “A guy who calls himself The Chaser.”

  That wasn’t what I expected. “Really? A guy?”

  He frowned. “Why? You think there’s someone else here who’s not a guy?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t know if she’s actually CASE or just a wannabe.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Olive Cruz. She grew up here. She moved away after elementary school, but we knew each other as kids. She saw me manipulate light once, and I ran into her again a couple of weeks ago.” I speared a cucumber and ate it. “At first, I thought she wanted to be friends with Eclipse. That’s how she acted. But then she got weird and I think she’s been spreading rumors. Trying to make people think of Eclipse in a negative light. Someone put propaganda in my library that sounded like CASE’s work, but it wasn’t marked CASE. And then the bad stuff started to happen.”

  While I talked, Evan had opened his laptop again and typed something. He shook his head. “I don’t have an Olive Cruz on the list. But that doesn’t mean anything. They’ve been very good at hiding their
identities. I’ll dig deeper, see if I can find any ties.” He closed the lid again and frowned at my salad. “There’s no protein in there.”

  “I have feta cheese.”

  “Not good enough.” He stood and went to the freezer. “Chicken kielbasa? I can fry some up.”

  That actually sounded good. “Sure. Thank you.”

  He ripped the plastic off the meat, dropped it on a plate, stuck it in the microwave, and hit a button. While it defrosted, he dug around in a cabinet and came up with a non-stick skillet.

  “So who’s The Chaser?”

  “One of the higher-level members of the organization. We haven’t determined his identity yet, but we’ve gotten deep enough into CASE’s online presence to start decoding their language. So that’s how I figured out he’s in this area.”

  “But why?” I stabbed into my salad a few times. “We’re small-town. Eclipse is small-time. CASE likes attention and flashy, horrible results.”

  The microwave beeped. Evan flipped the meat, then hit start again while he gave me a sidelong glance. “You keep referring to Eclipse in the third person.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  I almost sneered but knew it was a defense mechanism, and not a nice one. “Because no one knows who Eclipse is, and I work hard to keep it that way. Slipping up even with the one person who does know is stupid.” Except it wasn’t one person anymore. All at once, I’d gone from having one risk factor to, what, ten? I knew for sure the two EMTs, the doctor, probably other staff members, and now Evan, Simon, and Julie. And Conn, of course.

  Speaking of . . . I glanced around for a clock but didn’t see one, and the front of the microwave was at the wrong angle. If I’d known he was going to take my phone, I’d have worn a watch. “What time is it?”

  “A little after four.”

  “I need a phone. Does this place have one?”

  “Yeah, but it’s across lines so Pilton numbers are long distance. I had to promise I wouldn’t call any.” He quickly sliced up the defrosted kielbasa and dumped it into the heating pan. There was sizzle, and an instant aroma of hot butter and spiced meat. Despite the bulky salad, my stomach rumbled again, though much more gently than it had before.

  “What about your cell?” It seemed wrong to ask, as if it were an unreasonable intimacy. “I really need to contact some people.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “Oh, come on.” I jerked to my feet, noting that it didn’t hurt as much as it should have. My knee did throb when I took a step, though. “I’m not the prosecution’s key witness or something. And I’m skeptical that Olive Cruz, freelance web designer, has the skills to tap my friends’ phones or triangulate my position based on the call.” I washed my bowl and pulled a towel off the oven handle to dry it.

  “The Chaser does.”

  “And we still haven’t determined that he wants me. Conn has a different theory altogether.”

  Evan cocked his head. “Are you two involved?”

  My eyebrows went up. “Romantic gossip instead of theory dissection?”

  “He’s a good guy who’s dealt with shit he didn’t deserve. He does deserve happiness.”

  Heat rushed to my face. “It’s too early to know if I can do that for him.”

  “You saw how hard he tried to block me about your identity. He’s already gone.” He pointed the spatula at me. “Don’t hurt him.”

  I swear, my heart shriveled. I already had. Evan must have seen something on my face, because he cursed under his breath. He’d been nudging kielbasa medallions around in the pan, but now shoved hard enough that three of them flipped out onto the stovetop. He cursed again and tossed them back in.

  “I didn’t mean like that,” he said. “You didn’t do that. And he’s going to be fine.”

  “I did do it. My light touched the wall, and it exploded.”

  He shook his head but didn’t bother trying to argue with me.

  “So . . . I need to call my friends,” I reminded him. “We were discussing phone options?”

  “Fine. But you don’t need to use my phone.” He angled his head toward the metal case on the table. “You can take a burner.”

  “One of society’s most wasteful ideas ever.” Even though I used one, I didn’t actually burn it. I went back to the table and snapped open the latches, then lifted the lid, whistling when I saw what was inside.

  Okay, I had no idea what most of it was, but it seemed to warrant whistling. A foam insert cradled a bunch of delicate electronics and a row of five small, matte-black flip phones that still managed to look high-tech despite the old-fashioned design.

  “Any one?”

  “Yeah, they’re identical. How brown do you like it?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, my hand curved around the surprisingly heavy little phone. “That’s fine. Thank you.”

  He distributed the meat across two plates and we resumed our seats at the table, eating silently while I programmed a couple of numbers into the contacts. Since Angie’s and the library’s were the only ones I knew off the top of my head, and Evan wouldn’t even let me turn on my phone to access my phone book, I called her next.

  “Who’s this?” she demanded after picking up on the first ring.

  “It’s me. New number. Burner phone. You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Hold on.”

  She might be physically okay, but she wasn’t fine. I heard footsteps and voices, and then maybe a door closing, and the background noises diminished.

  “Oh, Harm, I screwed up.” Even though her voice was low, it echoed slightly, as if she was in a bathroom.

  “Are you at the hospital?” I motioned to Evan with my hand, writing in the air, and he tossed over a small pad and pen. “Is Conn okay?”

  “He’s gone.”

  I froze with my thumb pressed hard against the pen’s clicker. “What do you mean? What kind of ‘gone’?”

  “I went to the cafeteria to get some food for us, and when I got to his room, he wasn’t there. I thought maybe they’d taken him for tests or something, so I stayed for about fifteen minutes. And then I noticed his IV was just hanging. When I saw the needle dragging on the floor, I knew that was wrong. I asked the nurses, and they wouldn’t tell me anything, but one of them ran down to the room and then called someone when she saw it was empty.”

  “Did they see anyone?” Clickety clickety clickety. Evan scowled at the pen I clicked over and over, so I put it down. “Did you check the other rooms or the stairwell?”

  “What kind of spy movie enthusiast do you think I am? Of course I checked. And closets and storerooms, too. Why are hospitals such mazes? I didn’t see anything, not even a discarded hospital gown. Do you think someone took him?”

  “No. I think he left. And I think I was stupid not to expect it.” Someone like Conn would never lie around when people might be in danger. “I don’t know where he’d go.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “For now, just do what’s normal. Have you been away from the tearoom all day?”

  “Mostly. But they can handle it.”

  “If you go to work, you can see what people are saying about the explosion, listen for gossip about Eclipse or The Brute. If you see Olive Cruz, call me.”

  “I don’t need to be at the tearoom to know what people are saying about Eclipse.” Her tone shifted, a hint of excitement coming through.

  “Yeah? Good or bad?”

  “Good, of course.”

  She could say of course, but I wasn’t counting on it. Olive had been trying to convince everyone that superheroes were dangerous, and what better way to convince them than to destroy an important downtown business with a superhero at the center of the destruction?

  Angie went on. “Yo
u know no one was hurt but you and Co—uh, The Brute, right? So everyone’s just really worried about the two of you. Hoping you’re okay.”

  “Not afraid of which of their businesses or homes will be busted up next?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Well, that’s nice, even if it doesn’t last.” I sighed.

  “You doing okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Surprisingly well.” It was true. Maybe because of the food or the distraction, or both, my injuries were hurting less right now. I’d eaten most of my kielbasa while we talked and had to give Evan points for knowing how much the protein would help. “And hey, wait until I tell you about the safe house.”

  Evan’s head jerked up from his own plate. I shook my head. Like I’d be dumb enough to tell her now. He’d never know how close I came to mentioning the horse, though.

  “Sounds intriguing.”

  “It is. Hey, can you do one more thing for me? I don’t have any of my contact numbers. Can you give me Simon’s?”

  “Of course.” I waited, wiggling the pen—no clicking this time—while she looked it up. Then I scribbled it down on the pad.

  “Thanks. Be careful, okay? People could be watching you if they’re trying to track me down.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  We hung up, and I dialed Simon. He took four rings to answer, which was more nerve-racking than the news that Conn had gone.

  “Hello?” He sounded wary.

  “Hi, Simon, it’s me.” Evan had gotten into my head. Now I didn’t even want to say my name, even though I didn’t really believe anyone could be listening in.

  “Heyyyy, how are you? I couldn’t get a hold of you earlier.”