by Kelly Oram
Ryan’s arm came around me and I almost cried from relief. I was so glad he was here. His presence—his warmth, his love, and his calm confidence—was the only thing keeping me together, and I did not want to fall apart in front of Mr. Edwards. I’d rather join a bowling league with Carter and Mike than let Mr. E. see me vulnerable.
Ryan squeezed me to his side and put his lips to my ear. “You saved Chelsea, Sunshine. Remember that.”
The ridiculous nickname made me crack a smile. I’d turned my head away from Ryan to hide it, but he noticed anyway and elbowed me lightly in the side. I gave him a look that he only met with that stupid, cocky smirk he’s so famous for. “You know you love it.”
I groaned, but his ego was exactly the thing I’d needed to bring me back to myself. For once, I resisted the urge to kiss him and looked back at Mr. E., finally ready to do what I came for.
“So this guy is with Visticorp?” I asked, relieved that the confidence had returned to my voice.
Mr. E. shifted his gaze back and forth between Ryan and me. I swear, if I had to have picked out one emotion from his face right then, it would have been disappointment.
“Answer her question,” Ryan said, his voice suddenly so hard that I jerked back in surprise. He must have noticed the longing in Mr. E.’s eyes, too.
With a sigh, Mr. E. nodded. “He is, and that means that Visticorp has been keeping tabs on you—at least loosely since I got arrested. I am so sorry.” Mr. E. sunk his face in his hands. “They were watching you because of me.” He took a deep breath and then shook his head. “But they didn’t find anything. I’m sure they don’t believe it.”
He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself more than me. My cynical self wouldn’t be fooled. “Then why are they still stalking me?”
“What?”
I gave Mr. E. the condensed version of what was going on with me. He was every bit as mad about the superhero bit as my father was, but at the same time he couldn’t hide his fascination. When I mentioned the surveillance team that was constantly following me now and how they were even following my friends, he completely freaked out.
“I caught the names Demakis and Reynolds. There was at least one other guy with them, and then of course we have the Good Doctor.”
Mr. E.’s eyes flickered back down to the photo on the table. “That’s Charlie Murphy. He’s like me—a scientist sent to observe a possible candidate for study.”
I shivered at that thought, but didn’t have much time to dwell on it.
“The couple you saw at school doesn’t sound familiar to me. They were probably the same, but Jamie—Demakis and Reynolds are part of Visticorp’s retrieval team. They’re not sent out to observe. They’re sent to acquire.”
“Acquire?” Ryan hissed. His entire body had gone rigid.
Mr. E.’s voice turned urgent, almost panicky. “You’re in danger, Jamie. You have to disappear.”
“How?” Ryan asked without a single thought of protest.
I glared at him first and then sneered at Mr. E. “I’m not going to run away! That’s why I’m here. I came so that you could tell me everything you know about Visticorp. How can I get them to back off?”
“You can’t,” Mr. E. said. “You don’t understand. I don’t know why they haven’t tried anything yet. Maybe they aren’t sure what you’re capable of, or most likely haven’t figured out a way to capture or contain you yet, but they will. They’ll figure it out, Jamie, and they’ll come for you. You have to leave. Go into hiding.”
Ryan gasped again but I shook my head. “Be real. I can’t just disappear off the face of the earth for the rest of my life.”
“Then you’ll spend it locked up in a lab.”
“Jamie,” Ryan whispered. He sounded terrified. “I think he’s telling the truth. You’re in trouble.”
My instinct was to be insulted, but Ryan was right. Mr. E. was scared. Scared enough that I believed him. No one could fake that kind of worry. He was sure that Visticorp would come for me.
“I know,” I admitted. I have a lot of faith in my own abilities, but even I am able to put my pride aside when my safety and that of my family and friends are involved. I didn’t like the sudden coldness that filled my body as fear crept into my heart. “Carter knew everything I was capable of too, and he was always every bit as sure that I couldn’t handle Visticorp on my own.”
“You can’t,” Mr. E. said simply.
Great. But what was I supposed to do, then? Hide for the rest of my life? Not an option. “What would happen if they caught me?”
The question was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. It startled Mr. E. and his face crumpled. “They would lock you up. Run tests. Study you.”
All the worst images from every sci-fi B-flick I’d ever seen ran through my head. In a small voice I asked, “Would they be cruel about it?”
Mr. E. looked away. I didn’t think he was going to answer the question, though I suppose that in itself was answer enough. But then Mr. E. sighed and said, “You would be a test subject to them, and nothing more. They would be humane to keep you complacent, and if they could manipulate you, they would use your skills to whatever ends they desired. But if you weren’t cooperative, things would be very difficult for you.”
Ryan’s arm was now trembling. I would have said something to reassure him, except I remembered the cold voices of my stalkers and shuddered. “Subject 4281,” I whispered.
Mr. E. gasped. “What did you say?”
“That’s what that Reynolds guy called me when he found me in the café talking to my friend. He said he had a confirmed sighting of Subject 4281. You’re right. It’s like I wasn’t a person to them at all.”
Mr. E. zoned out for a minute, lost in his own thoughts. When he snapped out of it, he looked at me with wide, crazed eyes. “You have to get me out of here,” he whispered.
“Excuse me?”
Ryan was just as incredulous. “Get you out?”
“I’ve seen what you can do. It would be so easy for you. The next time I go out for yard activity I’ll go to the southeast corner of the yard. You just jump the fence and piggyback me out of there. As fast as you are, they won’t even see it. They wouldn’t even know I was missing until it was time to go back inside, and we could be clear across the country by then.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going to—”
Several guards came over to our table when I raised my voice. I gave them a sheepish smile and my best apology, then hissed at Mr. E. once we were left alone again. “I’m not going to break you out of prison!”
“You can’t take them on by yourself. We could go somewhere safe and make a plan. You need me.”
“Absolutely not!” Ryan said while I nearly combusted in my chair.
Ryan had to let me go again and scooted a safe few inches from my electrically charged body. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Ever! The only thing I need from you is everything you know about Visticorp. Tell me what you know!”
Mr. E. matched my attitude. “They’re powerful, they’re dangerous, and they won’t stop until they get everything they want from you. You can’t take them on alone. Please, Jamie! If you try, you’ll only make them angry. Bad things happen to people who make them angry.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got for me? What a waste of a trip.”
“Anything I know won’t help you unless you get me out of here. You need to disappear. Jamie, we still have time. You need to get me out.”
This was useless. He had that frantic, desperate quality about him again. But even if what he said were true, and I really was in danger, there was no way I was going to break him out of prison. And what, run away with him? Disappear and go into hiding? Shack up in some cabin in Canada with him? Right.
I was on my feet somehow, leaning over the table toward my ex-English teacher with my hands clenched into tight fists. My palms were on fire and I could only assume my eyes were starting to glow.
“I’
ve got some bad news for you, Mr. E. You’re still delusional.”
“Jamie,” Ryan whispered urgently, confirming my suspicions about my Danger Mode status.
The guards had come over now to see what was going on again. They didn’t look happy. I took a deep breath and then looked at the waiting guards. “I’m sorry. I’m ready to leave now.”
The guard smiled, surprisingly sympathetic. “I think that would be wise, miss.”
He escorted Ryan and me to the door while Mr. E. continued to call out to me the entire way.
“No! Jamie, wait! Please! I know you’re angry with me, but there’s more to this than you know! You need to trust me!”
I stopped at the door and gave Mr. E. one last, hard look. “Trust you? Trust you? Everything about you has been a lie since the day we met. I will never trust you.”
“Come on, miss,” the guard said, gently tugging my elbow.
I sighed and let the guard escort us back to the parking lot. Once we were alone Ryan scooped me into his arms and upheld his philosophy of kiss first, talk later. When he could finally allow himself to release my lips, he looked me over from head to toe as if he expected there to be blood and missing limbs. “Are you okay?”
“That was a complete waste!” I yelled. Not at Ryan, just in general. I was angry. “We accomplished nothing except to confirm that my stalkers are from Visticorp, and I’d already guessed that much! Mr. E. was never going to be of any help to us!”
Once again I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being totally screwed.
“Jamie, we’ll figure something out, but you have got to calm down. I refuse to let go of you right now and I really don’t want to get fried.”
I sighed and indulged Ryan when he tried to kiss me again. Once I was good and calm, Ryan ran his hands through my hair and smiled. “Why don’t you go out on the town for a few hours and then meet me for dinner?”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Out on the town” was Ryan-speak for putting on my mask and playing hero. “That’s what you think I should do right now?”
Ryan met my look with a grin from his arsenal of irresistible smiles. “You know you want to. You need to get some of this reckless energy out. It’ll make you feel better.”
I placed my hands on my hips. Defiance was always my first reaction to his ego. “So you’re an expert on what I need now?”
Ryan flicked the tip of my nose. “You’re not nearly as complicated as you pretend to be.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah? Well you’re wrong, Mr. Think-You-Know-Everything.”
“Sure I am.”
I decided to kiss the smirk right off Ryan’s face. In no time, I had his brain completely scrambled without using any electricity. Well, not the literal kind, anyway.
“I do need to blow off some steam, but being Chelsea’s Angel is definitely not how I want to get rid of all my reckless energy right now.”
I gave Ryan a lust-filled look and he caught my drift. Within seconds he was behind the wheel of his truck, honking the horn at me to join him. I started to walk toward him and he rolled down his window. “Come on, Sunshine. I know you can move a lot faster than that!”
I burst into laughter and was buckled in the cab next to him before he could even blink. I batted my eyes at him with a big smile. “Better?”
He answered me with a kiss that made me shiver. Just for fun, I relaxed and turned the kiss into a superkiss so strong it made the hairs on his arms crackle with static electricity.
“I did promise we’d experiment with Super Ryan more often,” I explained when we pulled apart.
Ryan’s smile turned wicked. “I should really try to be wrong more often.”
To say the following weeks were stressful was putting it mildly. I knew I was being watched, but I didn’t have a clue what to do about it. I think the fact that they never actually made contact with me made it worse. No one ever talked to me, but twice I came home to find my room had been bugged.
Ryan was so busy with his practices and workouts on top of classes and homework that we didn’t get to spend much time together during the week, and since I knew it was dangerous for my friends to be around me at the moment, I spent the entire week doing nothing but going to class and going out as Chelsea’s Angel. (The name had stuck.)
Being a superhero was kind of amazing. I loved being able to help people. I loved knowing that I was doing something good for once, making people’s lives better instead of worse. I also really loved being able to use my powers without worrying that someone was going to see me. As Chelsea’s Angel I didn’t have this deep dark secret part of me that I had to suppress all the time. I felt like I was finally able to really be myself—my whole self.
My mind was made up. I was going to keep being Chelsea’s Angel no matter what. Nobody was going to stop me. Especially not some stupid scientists who wanted to lock me up just so they could figure out how I did the things I did. Who cares how I did them? The important thing was that I could do them, did do them.
It was really easy to lose the people following me. They were watching all the exits to my building except for the roof. I guess they didn’t think I could jump off a three-story building.
I’d come home from class, listen for new bugs, do all my homework, and then turn up my radio or TV and sneak out. I hoped that this gave the illusion to the people following me that I was home being boring and not out, you know, doing things that shouldn’t physically be possible. I hoped it made them think that someone else was Chelsea’s Angel, though I doubted those creeps were that dumb.
Playing superhero did give me something constructive to do with my time and had the added bonus of keeping me away from the people I loved so that I wouldn’t put them in any more danger than I already had. I tried to tell myself that these Visticorp people weren’t interested in them, but I knew once they were ready to come after me that they would use any means necessary to make me do what they wanted. Hurting the people I loved most was probably at the top of their list of acceptable methods.
Three weeks after the whole thing had started I was stressed out, lonely, exhausted, and frustrated as I came home from classes Friday afternoon. I needed a night off from hero work. I went and took a nice, long, hot shower as I debated whether to go out and confront the people making my life miserable or climb into bed and get a good night’s rest for once. My plans were decided for me when I came back to my room and found Becky and Teddy standing there, arms crossed, reeking of grim determination.
I pretended to be clueless. “Hey, guys! What’s up?”
Becky’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what we’d like to know.”
Teddy’s tone was pleasant when he said, “We haven’t seen you much this week.”
“Or last week.” Becky was a lot more suspicious, but she knew me better. “Or the week before that.”
“I’ve just been swamped with work,” I told Becky. “Midterms and all that.”
Becky frowned, but she couldn’t really argue. She’d been busy too, and she didn’t have anywhere near the class load I had. She wanted to be angry, but couldn’t stay that way. After huffing a few times, she sighed. “Well. No excuses this time. The game tomorrow is at UC Davis, so, since we’re not traveling, Ryan and I have the night off. That means we’re going out.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could think of an excuse Becky shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I don’t want to hear it. I have just learned that a great injustice has been done. Teodoro has never been dancing before and tonight it is our duty to change that. I’m not talking about the sorry scene that passes for eighteen and up nightlife in Sacramento. We’re going to San Francisco.”
My mood brightened considerably. I couldn’t help it. I love dancing. I may have been a cheerleader, but I also took gymnastics and hip-hop for years until my accident. Since then I’d only been to one dance: prom. I’d had a great time, but that wasn’t the same as going dancing.
As adorable as Ryan is, he is not a dancer. He’d ha
d no problems slow dancing with me at prom, but anytime the music picked up he gravitated toward the punch. Mingling at a chill party is more his style than hitting the club scene. I’d been eighteen for almost a year now and I’d never been to a real club.
Becky saw the light go on in my eyes and squealed. “Yes!” She turned to Teddy and said, “She’s in. You must now go home and make yourself as sexy as possible and then meet us back here in an hour. We will be here doing the same. You and Ryan are going to have the two hottest dates on the planet tonight.”
Teddy grinned. “I can’t really say no to an offer like that.”
I waited until Teddy was gone before I turned on Becky. “Not that I don’t want to go, but are you sure you’re ready for a club?”
She understood my meaning and sobered up a little, but still smiled. “I think so. I was talking to Teodoro a couple days ago and I sort of asked him out. Like on a real date.”
Oh man, I was the worst best friend ever. “You did? I can’t believe I missed that. Beck, I am so sorry. I suck as a best friend.”
Becky smiled. “It’s okay. You’re making it up to me tonight.”
“For sure!” And I meant it. I was going to be the world’s best, most attentive friend ever, and we were going to have fun. “So? What happened?”
“I was tired of all the waiting and wondering, so I called him up and asked him if he wanted to go on a date this weekend.”
I held my breath, waiting for what I knew was coming. “And?”
“He told me he wasn’t really interested in me that way, but that he really liked me and hoped we could be friends.”
“Oh Beck, I’m so sorry.”
Becky shrugged, but I could see how she was hiding her disappointment. I felt awful for her. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’d kind of suspected as much and I’m glad he was honest with me. I’m a little bummed, but I think this is good for me. He’s a good guy, and I need more of those in my life.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Anyway,” Becky continued, “we talked for a long time after that. He straight up asked me about Mike and I ended up telling him the whole story. I told him about you, too. I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t give him details about Derek or anything, but I told him that you’d had bad luck with guys in the past too and that’s how we became such good friends. Then of course I ended up telling him the whole story about Ryan and I being best friends and you being the Ice Queen.”