Heroine Addiction

by Matarese, Jennifer

  Sweeping up the shattered remains of the glass from my kitchen floor is the usual wind-down after the cathartic explosion, giving me some time to shake off my restlessness. I'm used to this sort of reaction to tragic news or stressful situations. Breaking up with Hazel left my entire china set in ruins, along with the inexpensive set I hastily purchased at Wal-Mart to replace it. That set of dishes didn't survive the return visit from Hazel the next day, a destructive response to her futile attempt to either apologize to me or receive an apology from me. I've never been quite sure which, but I suppose a few trashed plates are less of a hassle than a broken fist and a hole in my wall.

  I feel infinitely better as soon as I dump the jagged pieces of glass into my garbage can and shut the lid. The way I see it, I'm allowed the occasional dip into my mother's tantrum-throwing gene pool, as long as I get out and dry off before I have nothing left off with which to eat.

  Now, of course, it's time to grow up and get back to the business of freelance superhuman private investigation.

  A half-hour later, I'm starting to seriously ponder why I ever agreed to do this.

  The constant low murmur from the television is the only sound in the apartment, unless you count the intermittent scratches of my pen across the brown shipping paper I've taped to my living room wall to allow me a central place to collect my thoughts. I'll freely admit to stealing the shipping paper idea from Troy, who mentioned it once in passing to Dixie. He told her he worked visually, needing to sketch out places or print out pictures to truly bring the characters in his mind to life. For some reason, the idea stuck with me.

  I've tuned the television to one of the 24-hour news networks, the one most likely to feature even the most insignificant story about my dad and least likely to call him a Satan-worshiping terrorist anchor baby when they talk about him. My laptop sits open on the coffee table. I've been regularly refreshing the official website of the Fairness Brigade in one tab and the “Superhumans” section of my favored news site in another. I've been out of the loop for far too long. I can already tell. I don't even recognize half of the names who are listed on TMZ as attending this movie premiere or saving that burning orphanage.

  According to the TV news, this morning a trio of younger superheroes rescued a group of terrified schoolchildren from the mutant tentacled narwhal who routinely attacks the East Coast around this time of the year. I'm positive just from looking at the three costumed boys beaming gleefully for the national news cameras that I have milk in my refrigerator that came into existence before they did.

  “I feel old,” I grumble at the boys on TV.

  I don't think the pout I make over that realization really helps me feel any younger.

  Another thing that doesn't exactly improve my mood is the current list of possibilities I've compiled as to who or what might have commandeered my father's body and personal life. It feels incomplete, but that could just be because five years away from active superheroism doesn't lend one to up-to-date information on the latest infiltration techniques.

  WHO IS DAD?

  1.Robot/android/cyborg

  2.Clone/evil twin

  3.Brainwashed

  4.Time travel/replaced with younger version

  5.Drugs/alcohol/allergic reaction to nerve gas

  6.Alternate universe version

  7.Shapeshifter

  8.He's the same Everett Noble he's always been.

  The last one unnerves me, mostly because it's not outside of the realm of possibility for Dad to have simply changed his mind. He is human, after all, superpowers be damned. He's certainly allowed to decide that the secret life he's been living for the past few years has been both a lie and a hassle, and that he's neither in love with Morris nor willing to fake it for the sake of the status quo. After all, the only person who'd be hurt by his decision would be Morris, and if he did fall out of love with Morris, who would care or even know to give a damn at all?

  It's a horrible, cruel option to consider. Something about the potential of my father treating Morris with such callous disregard makes my stomach swim queasily. And I don't even like Morris.

  I rest my bottom on the arm of the couch, tapping my pen against my lips as I study the carefully organized notes I've scrawled on the shipping paper over the past hour or so. I do better when I can almost literally connect the dots. I've checked off the numerous reasons for why my father could be behaving the way he is. I've written down every suspect who could possibly desire to replace Everett Noble regardless of motive or lack thereof – Morris, my family, the Brigade – and the only person I've been able to eliminate is myself.

  I suppose I could take it as a good sign that I've accomplished that much, even if it's something so painfully obvious as establishing that at least I'm not the culprit in question.

  “I'm awful at this, aren't I?” I say to my empty apartment. “That's why I quit. Because this is way too difficult for any sane person to do by themselves.”

  I glare at the wall and think forlornly that perhaps I need to break another glass.

  One trip to the kitchen and two destroyed coffee mugs later, I make my way back into the living room just in time to see my brother's distinctive costume of red, black and gold dart across my television screen, a shot from a news story labeled “Superhero Arrested?” in scrolling text.

  I can't get to the remote to raise the volume fast enough.

  “– was taken into custody only an hour ago, according to numerous reports from sources close to the Superhero Licensing Bureau. Fortress surrendered willingly to the proper authorities, but no reason for his arrest have been released as of yet. We will update with more information as it becomes available. However, as of right now, all we know is that Fortress, the son of supercouple Paladin and Wavelength, has been taken into custody by police on unnamed charges. Since Fortress cannot be held in normal prison cells, authorities plan to transport him to –“

  I switch off the television and wince due to the migraine I feel creeping up on me.

  “Well, this day just keeps getting better and better,” I say, mentally counting how many more dishes I can afford to lose.

  Superhumans under arrest suffer their enforced captivity at Hollyoak Hills.

  Hollyoak Hills dwells in a far less romantic or hilly setting than the rather random name implies, an open-air complex carved out of a jagged cliff face littered with the pitted glittery-green remains of a baconite meteor storm thousands of years ago. The prison itself resembles a misplaced Thai beach resort more than it does a maximum-security jail. A polished teak frame has been set into the rough stone as oddly natural as if it had grown out of it like a lost weed. The jarring facade sports expansive glassless window frames treated with filmy cream-colored curtains that whip in the unwieldy winds that toss and tumble through the narrow canyon. It could be the elegant featured setting for some yogurt advertisement, if only there were an unnaturally thin model posing in one of the visually stunning entranceways.

  At least, that's what I see. The unspoken rule about Hollyoak Hills is that no one talks about Hollyoak Hills unless you're staying in it, and even that's debatable. It's certainly not a rule anyone wants to test.

  For your average human lacking in superhuman abilities, Hollyoak would be impossible to escape. There are no stairs that reach it from the tangled brambles on the cliff's edge high above or from the rushing river below, no way to climb down on ropes or chains that the highly reactive chips of baconite won't inevitably melt or fray. No one really knows where baconite comes from, or at least they hadn't discovered its origins before I left the business. What is known is that baconite has a mind of its own, behaves defensively, and doesn't particularly tolerate anyone with superpowers anywhere near it.

  Come to visit Hollyoak Hills, and you'd better plan not to make use of your abilities for a good long while.

  Stay there for too long, and don't count on them ever returning at full capacity.

  I've never been to Hollyoak Hills before, not even
when my maternal grandmother found herself thrown in jail for a mortifying bout of contempt of court. Mom offered to take me, but somehow the possibility of being unable to escape a claustrophobic room where my seventy-year-old abuela refused to stop shouting at her captors in Spanish or to change out of her skintight costume wasn't any more appealing to my ten-year-old self than it is now. I've experienced the dizzying, almost euphoric effects of baconite before, though, so the wrenching sensation which yanks at my balance as I land in the greeting station on the opposite cliff is not a new feeling, just one I loathe dealing with.

  “Oh, hell,” a smoke-roughened voice says, my vision clouded from the stress of the jump. Gentle hands steer me towards a wooden stool. “There's a reason we recommend teleporters take the bus, kid.”

  I give my temples an absent rub while taking in deep breaths through my nose and out past my lips. “I know, I know,” I murmur. It's one of the many reasons I avoid Hollyoak Hills. I can already feel the yaw and sway of my powers as they ebb low enough to make me dizzy. The depleted maw inside me yawns and falls asleep, effectively announcing its temporary shutdown. I'm not going anywhere for a while.

  “Here, take this.” As my sight clears, an older woman with a wide mouth and tired eyes wraps my hands around a steaming cup of what looks like heated milk. A taste test informs me it's not milk, it's hot white chocolate, one of my favorites. I'm not about to question how she knows that.

  “Thank you. You didn't have to –”

  “You ain't been here before, have you?”

  The incorrect grammar grates, but I politely ignore it. Too used to it thanks to Nate, I suppose.

  She claps me on the shoulder, her hand too big and roughened by hard work. “No worries,” she says. It's only then that my ear picks up the slight pull in her voice, an old drawl peeking out from behind her words every so often. “Drink up and get a little sugar in you. It'll steady you some.”

  I nod, sipping absently at my hot chocolate as I take in my surroundings. I aimed for the compact greeting station across the ravine from Hollyoak Hills. The aim of the greeting station, as far as I understand it, is to give the captive heroes a place to meet with their families or legal council, a deceptively cozy place mocked up as a toasty English cottage. The casual comfort of the place is a lie. The building is a miniature fortress, almost as difficult to leave as the jail itself on the other side of the ravine. I won't escape until the jail's guards allow me to leave, and I'm not even a prisoner.

  No one knows why or how. That's precisely the point.

  The older woman settles into the seat opposite me, resting her folded hands on her denim-clad knees. Wrinkles bracket her eyes and mouth, smile lines and worry lines, a lived-in face in all the best ways. “Your brother's coming,” she says.

  “Oh,” I say. “I didn't know you knew who I was.”

  She just grins, a slow lazy pull of muscles.

  Telepaths are like this. They don't shock easily, and they know when to keep silent. Most of them can't shut their powers off, can't flip them off like a light switch like other superhumans can. The ones who maintain their grip on sanity turn out like this, with an even keel and a serene air. Dad's like this, I remember, and thinking it tightens my jaw and forces my gaze to the chintzy porcelain ducks lining the mantel of the stone fireplace.

  “I'm Marla, by the way,” she says. “In case you're curious.”

  It strikes me that I haven't introduced myself yet, either, and wonder if it would be rude to just let her –

  “No worries, kid. I already know who you are.”

  I scowl, although there's no real menace to it. “Now, that's rude.”

  “Not the worst thing I could have looked up.” Her smile doesn't fade.

  I wrinkle my nose, not caring if she hears me as I silently ponder how she can read my unsettled mind when my entire sense of balance continues to tilt from side to side, making teleporting away from here impossible. The baconite pushes me around on some unseen level, keeps me quiet and unsteady, and yet she still finds a way to fish through my cluttered thoughts.

  She chuckles low and soft, sandpaper rough.

  An instant later she's gone, swapped out with my startled older brother.

  Graham and I have never been close. Graham is the golden child, with our mother's strength and our father's telekinesis, with undeniable good looks and magnetic charm. He's everything you would expect from the child of Paladin and Wavelength, possessing just enough of their combined powers to be a noteworthy force all on his own, a class six hero ranked in the upper echelon of Who's Who in Working Superheroes and Villains every year out of the past sixteen.

  Dixie even based an entire fantasy superhero team around him once judging solely by his SLB power stats. She scored five thousand bucks at the end of the year thanks to his significant saves at the Nevada dam break and the mutant wasps in Puerto Rico.

  Graham is exactly the sort of elder brother a shy pudgy bookworm with only one measly ability least wants to follow through her formative years. No, tell me once again how wonderful and intelligent and handsome and strong my brother the shiny newly-lauded superhero is while I'm trying to slog my way through Atlas Shrugged for the AP English class I loathe. It's no wonder I spent so many of my teen years hiding away on uncharted Pacific islands eating bagged lunches and reading V.C. Andrews novels on the beach.

  I can't imagine why Graham eternally graces me with such utter disdain. I suppose it was a bit of a turn-off for him when I decided I'd rather not threaten our father with a sound punch in the family jewels when he left our mother for a man who once sent a genetically engineered praying mantis to attack Philadelphia just because it was there.

  What can I say? Only one of us inherited our mom's penchant for daily temper tantrums, and it wasn't me.

  He sneers as his gaze narrows ominously. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I barely resist the urge to throw a handful of bitter sarcasm into his face. He's certainly earned a bit of it. Just because I can't remember the last time we spoke to one another for longer than five minutes doesn't mean his sour attitude is called for.

  Well, all right, maybe he's allowed a little leeway on that count.

  “I'm visiting my brother at Hollyoak Hills,” I say. “I hear he's been arrested for some reason or another.”

  His disgusted snort rings harshly in the cottage, a disconcerting noise when paired with the soothing crackling of the fire. He rubs his hands over the arms of the easy chair. “Yeah, something or other. You here to point and laugh, or what?”

  “Why? Were you arrested for doing something silly and ridiculous that I should be aware of?”

  He starts, leveling confused brown eyes my way. “You mean you don't know?”

  “For heaven's sake, Graham –“

  “You don't,” he whispers, almost awed. “They didn't tell you, did they?”

  I slam my mug down on the table beside me. “Tell me what?”

  “Murder,” he says, and my breath hitches, an involuntary catch. “Vera, they arrested me for killing Morris.”

  “That's … that's impossible.”

  “You try telling them that,” Graham snaps.

  His fingers grip the arms of his chair, his knuckles whitening even through his unnatural weakness. My brother never deals well with his abilities numbing under the insidious influence of baconite. The last time I saw him suffering from its effects, his anger at the situation grew to the point where upon regaining his abilities he destroyed an entire roller coaster with his fists and his mind and his unrestrained temper. It wasn't one of his proudest moments, that was for sure. He didn't exactly enjoy paying back the amusement park, for one thing.

  I shake my head, distracting myself from the ill wrenching feeling in my stomach. “I just saw him a few hours ago,” I say. “He was … well, he wasn't perfectly fine when I saw him, but –“

  Perhaps it's the wrong thing to say.

  Graham doesn't need to possess superstrength
and telekinesis to wreak havoc. He bolts to his feet in a sudden move which startles me out of a relative calm, all six and a half feet of him unfolding from the chair like a contortionist who's crammed himself into a breadbox. The jerky motion knocks back the heavy oak-frame chair, a loud bang echoing through the cottage as it clatters against the floor. “They showed me a body, goddamn it.”

  “I'm not saying you're wrong,” I quickly add, holding up my hands in a calming gesture. “I just … Graham, when did they start looking for you for this?”

  “This afternoon when I took my break at work. They showed up at the Rafters and politely asked me to turn my ass in.” He seethes, his massive fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. If he doesn't cool down and fast, there's going to be a hole in the nearest wall, superstrength or not.

  I shove my stool away from the high table, the legs screeching across the hardwood floor as I snatch a pen and notepad from a visitors' center display near the front door to the cottage. “Enjoy your visit to Hollyoak Hills!” is emblazoned on both items in a loopy font. The entire uncomfortably encouraging set-up is only capped off by a rack of pamphlets nearby for mini-golf courses and cave tours in the area.

  I should have brought a purse with me, I suppose, a notepad and a pen and possibly a digital voice recorder just in case I missed anything in my notes. I used to carry them with me everywhere when I was on patrol, much to the constant amusement of my teammates. They could tease all they want, but those detailed, neatly printed notes came in handy more often than not. I click the pen open and smile far more brightly than the situation probably calls for. “All right, let's just take a deep breath and think about this calmly, rationally and professionally, shall we?”

  Graham scoffs at that.

  “What time was it when they showed you the body?”

  “I don't know,” he grumbles. “Six o'clock, maybe? I was too busy promising not to snap their weak fucking handcuffs. What does it matter?”