by Kelly Oram
And with that last plea, I was gone.
After the thing in LA, I went straight to my parents’ house. I knew they’d be beyond upset. As expected, they fussed over me for a few minutes and then lectured me. Per their usual MO, they begged me to reconsider the superhero thing, but I wasn’t going to budge. I enjoyed it. I needed it. Doing this was helping me as much as it was helping others.
My mother’s main argument was that it was dangerous—even though she’d been the one to text me what was going on—and my father’s was that my identity was going to be found out and the government was going to lock me up somewhere. He was every bit as fond of theories as Ryan was. His were just of the conspiracy variety, whereas Ryan’s were always more scientific in nature.
The way I saw the situation—not that I was theorizing in any variety—was that because Visticorp knew about my powers I was already in danger and people were already trying to lock me up. I didn’t see any reason to stop helping people when safety didn’t really exist.
Of course, voicing my argument only made them freak out worse. I swear, if I were still a minor living under their roof they’d have us living under a rock in Alaska by now.
My dad was using the word “aliases” when Ryan finally called me. I was so glad for the excuse to end the conversation.
“The news came on in the lobby of the hotel during Gene’s banquet. You have no idea how hard it was not to flip out in front of him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. What could you have done? Not go?”
“Exactly!” Have I mentioned how much I love my boyfriend? “My parents were so mad at me. They were only scared for me though, so I guess they’re forgiven.”
“I didn’t like watching that guy point a gun at you.”
“I almost wish he’d gotten a shot off. Then they could nail him with attempted murder along with all his other charges. Chelsea’s Angel would so show up for that subpoena.”
“So, what did the police think of you?”
“Pretty much what we’ve talked about before. There was one guy on a major power trip that wanted to haul me back to the station in cuffs, but most of the people there had a hero worship thing going on. The negotiator guy was pretty cool. I kind of liked working with him. He tried to convince me to join the force, but didn’t seem all that surprised when I said no. I’m mostly worried about this kind of thing happening again.”
Ryan laughed. “I could tell with your whole ‘I don’t negotiate with terrorists’ speech. Very hardcore of you, babe, and so hot. But I really did have a hard time watching you out there. I don’t think I’m going to feel better until I have physical proof that you’re okay. I’m on my way back to school now. You should meet me there. I need you in my arms ASAP.”
“I’ll come in a bit. I think my dad’s gotten enough lecturing out of his system for the night. I just have to sit through dinner.” My mom is such a stress cooker. She’d already been preparing a meal even before I got there. “You want me to bring you some leftovers?”
“The only thing I want is you, so eat fast.”
I couldn’t eat fast enough. Finally, we were starting to wrap it up when the doorbell rang. My parents were still in high alert paranoia mode, and both looked at me. I listened and was a little surprised by our guests. “It’s Becky and our friend Teddy. I was with Teddy when I saw the news. I bailed on him without much explanation. They’re probably just checking on me to make sure I’m okay.”
They were. “What happened?” Becky demanded as soon as she was in the door. “Is everything okay?”
My mom was quick—so much better with the excuses than me. “We’re all okay. We’ve had a death in the family—my aunt. She was very old and she went peacefully, but it was pretty sudden. I was really upset. I’m afraid I called Jamie in a fit of tears and scared her half to death. I’m sorry we worried you.”
“Oh, Mrs. Baker, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, honey. I’m sorry it’s under such sad circumstances, but I am so happy you’ve stopped by. It’s been weeks.” She hugged Becky—whom she worshiped as much as Ryan for helping to bring me out of my Ice Queen phase. Then she smiled at Teddy. The poor guy was still holding my basket of laundry. Mom did a double take, but didn’t ask as she took the clothes from him. “Are you guys hungry? We were just having dinner and there’s plenty extra—I’m a bit of a stress cooker.”
I had to smile to myself at her choice of words. When your parents are the only people you talk to or hang out with for over a year, you get to know them pretty well.
Two minutes later Becky and Teddy were sitting at the table with us, heaping piles of stir-fry in front of them, while my dad grilled Teddy. I think he assumed Teddy was Becky’s boyfriend, and his favorite thing to do in the world was play the overbearing dad routine. It didn’t matter that Becky wasn’t actually his daughter.
“Italian, huh? Do you speak the language?”
“Yes, sir. I speak all of the romance languages, including Latin.”
We were all impressed by this news. My dad didn’t quite know where to go from there, so my mother jumped in. “You’re one hundred percent Italian and you speak the language fluently, but you don’t have an accent?”
I could hear the disappointment in her tone. She was as much a goner for that dimpled smile as Becky and I were.
Teddy shrugged a little uncomfortably. “I was born in Rome, but I lost my parents in an accident when I was three and was adopted by some people here in the States. Someday I hope to go back there and learn a little of my heritage.”
Teddy gave me a small smile at my look of sympathy and then immediately changed the subject. “Did you guys see that they finally got Chelsea’s Angel on camera?”
My family might seem like a family straight out of Leave It To Beaver, but actors we are not. The tension we displayed at the mention of Chelsea’s Angel was pathetic. If it hadn’t been for Becky’s enthusiasm, she and Teddy both might have read the truth on our faces. “No way!” she shouted. “Really? I missed it! What happened?”
“There was a man holding his stepdaughter hostage, threatening to kill her unless Chelsea’s Angel showed up.”
“And she came?”
“Of course she did!” I blurted annoyed by the astonishment in Becky’s voice.
Teddy met my eyes over the table with an amused smile. “Always so opinionated on the subject of superheroes. You’d think you know one personally or something.”
I knew Teddy was talking about himself, but I still kicked myself internally. I seriously needed to get a better handle on this whole alter ego thing. You’d think after having kept my secret so well-hidden for so long it’d be easy for me, but no. I have to run my mouth off every time something gets on my nerves. Sometimes I miss the Ice Queen days when nothing anyone said about me bothered me. “Whatever. What was she supposed to do, not show up and let that little girl get killed?”
“It’s just she’s always been so illusive,” Becky said. “I’m surprised she let herself get caught on tape.”
“She didn’t have much of a choice,” I argued, trying and probably failing not to grumble the words.
“Can we see it?” Becky practically begged. “I’m sure it’s all over the Internet.”
I had that deer-in-headlights feeling. I wanted to say no, but how could I? She’d eventually see it and if she was going to recognize me—because let’s be honest, I may be wearing a mask and have yellow eyes, but it’s still clearly me—then it was better for her to do it while I was there to explain and swear her to secrecy.
With a sigh and a reassuring look at my parents, I led Becky into the office and pulled up YouTube. Sure enough, there were already tons of Chelsea’s Angel videos posted. Becky clicked on the one that boasted an exclusive interview. It also had the most hits of all the videos.
Becky watched the helicopter footage with rapt attention, gasping when she saw the poor, terrified girl being held out on a ledge
and then squealing with excitement when I showed up. “Wow, she really is pretty, isn’t she? Love the costume! So glad she doesn’t wear some kind of spandex bodysuit. The kicks are classic and the superhero T-shirt? Hello, ironic! She is so awesome!”
Nice to have a fan…
Teddy, my parents, and I had all gathered behind her, watching over her shoulder. When I showed up on the screen, my father pulled me against him in a light hug and my mother cut off the circulation in my hand by squeezing it too hard. I felt both of them flinch when the man’s gun swung in my direction, and I prayed my mother would be able to hold back the tears in front of company.
After the drama was over, I realized why this video claimed to have an interview. The footage cut from one of the helicopters to one of the reporters standing on the ground. She jabbered repeated facts into the camera and then suddenly I popped into the frame asking to borrow her microphone.
The second I came into focus Becky gasped. “Holy crap! Jamie, she looks so much like you!”
“I thought the exact same thing when I saw this video.”
I jumped at the sound of Teddy’s voice. He’d murmured the words in my ear, and did he sound suspicious? Or was that just my paranoia checking in again? I couldn’t be sure, but I felt Teddy’s eyes on me like burning lasers.
I’d been so worried about Becky that I’d forgotten about Teddy. If Becky figured it out that was one thing—I was sure I could trust her—but I barely knew Teddy. I told myself that he was like me, and prayed that meant he’d keep my secret if he really had put it together.
I wanted to disagree with Becky and make them turn the video off, but the girl on camera was so obviously me that denying any resemblance would have looked suspicious, so instead I gasped, too. “That’s insane!”
“I know!” Becky agreed, her eyes glued to the screen. “I mean, except for the freaky eyes, and you totally have way better hair…”
Ha!
On the screen I was now chastising the world about calling me Super Babe.
Beside me, Teddy snorted softly. I forced myself to smirk at him. “You see?” I said with all the in-your-face pride I could manage. “I told you she wouldn’t like it.”
“Yeah,” Teddy replied in a dangerously sarcastic voice. “The two of you share amazingly similar viewpoints. In fact, she sounds more like you than she looks. If it wasn’t for the eyes, I’d be half-tempted to accuse you of being the same person. Maybe you have an evil twin.”
I think I felt my heart stop. There was no mistaking the challenge in his voice this time. He was calling me out, but I wasn’t going to give him a straight answer unless Becky straight up asked me for the truth. She knew me too well and I didn’t want to lie to her, but with Teddy I was still willing to play dumb.
Somehow, I managed to force an amused laugh. “Right. I may not be the Ice Queen anymore, but we all know I’m still not exactly a people person. I’m way too self-centered to spend my free time saving lives.”
My parents both grumbled their disapproval of my self-deprecating comments, but they said nothing else. They understood what I was doing.
“The evil twin thing could be true, I guess, though I’m pretty sure I would qualify as the evil one in that scenario. I mean, she’s the angel. Literally.”
I met Teddy’s gaze with a challenging stare, daring him to call out my B.S. for what it was. I could tell he was considering it, but then Becky pulled us out of our showdown.
“Oh! My! Gosh! No! Way!”
“What?” My mom asked, startled.
Becky spun around in the desk chair and gaped up at me with wide eyes. “Do you remember last year when that one kid, what was his name—the loser on the football team that hit on everyone and always forgot that he was white…”
“Paul Warren?”
“Yeah!” Becky was getting so excited she was in danger of bursting at the seams. “You remember when he crashed his car into the school marquee and almost killed that gardener?”
Uh, yeah, not exactly something I could forget. It was my first heroic rescue, and the catalyst for everything that went wrong last year.
“I remember.”
“This guy on a lawnmower almost got smashed and he said some girl with yellow eyes pushed him out of the way,” she explained to Teddy. “He said she got crushed by the sign, but was totally fine, and then she disappeared. Half the school saw her. Everybody thought it was Jamie at first. Even I thought so. I mean, she looked just like her.” She met my gaze again and smiled. “The cops tried to arrest you or something, right?”
“Something like that.”
“But they couldn’t because she was with Ryan when it happened.”
Teddy frowned at me. “Wouldn’t they just assume your boyfriend was covering for you? Because I would.”
I gave him a look, but it was Becky that defended me. “He wasn’t her boyfriend then. Plus, Mike and Scott were there, too. They all had to give the police statements.” She looked at me again. “Do you remember that?”
I laughed at her. “Kind of hard to forget being accused of having superpowers.”
“Right,” Becky went on. “So, don’t you get it? That had to be her. It had to be Chelsea’s Angel. Maybe she’s been helping people for a long time and she just never got caught until she found Chelsea because that was such a public case. This is so amazing! I can’t believe we actually saw Chelsea’s Angel!”
“Becky said Mike was there that day?” Teddy asked suddenly. “Is that the Mike from the accident? The one you guys hate?”
“The very same,” I said quickly.
“And he vouched for you with the cops?”
I smiled hugely. “Of course he did. Because I really was there the whole time.”
“The whole time?” Teddy asked.
Oh yeah, he was more than suspicious. He was convinced. And I was screwed.
So screwed.
Teddy matched my frown and then turned his attention back to the computer screen, eyes narrowing on the image of me as Chelsea’s Angel.
I risked a peek at my parents, finding the exact expressions on their faces that I’d expected. Worry on my mom’s, and rage on my father’s. I could just see the thought bubble above my dad’s head with his cartoon stick figure tossing Teddy in a shallow grave.
So, so, so screwed...
Geez. That was becoming my motto these days.
The next day I got a text from Mike Driscoll asking me to come visit him at the rehab center he’d been moved to. Since Mike and I barely tolerated each other, and only for Ryan’s sake, I knew his request could only mean one thing. And here I thought it was going to be Teddy forcing me to spill the truth today.
“So you weren’t drugged up enough last time I visited you,” I said when I stopped by after my classes that afternoon.
“I was plenty drugged. I was almost convinced I’d dreamed your whole visit, but then that thing went down in LA yesterday.”
Mike reached for a magazine from the table next to his bed. There I was, plastered on the cover in front of the building in LA sporting a Punisher T-shirt and glowing yellow eyes. “You might want to rethink your costume. That disguise isn’t much more than Clark Kent’s glasses.”
I wanted to smile—I’d always thought the same thing—but it was Mike cracking jokes, so I refused to show any amusement. I folded my arms across my chest. “Is this the part where you try to blackmail me by threatening to sell out my identity?”
Mike’s expression turned hard. “No. This is the part where I ask if Miller knows. Because you’re into some serious stuff here, Baker, and I won’t let you lie to him about it.”
I was shocked. Mike’s main concern was Ryan. So not what I’d expected. Once again, I found I couldn’t hold on to my hostility.
“Yeah, Ryan knows everything.” I plopped down into the armchair next to Mike’s bed. It was so much more comfortable than the one in the hospital had been. “Ryan’s known since Paul Warren wrecked the school marquee last year. L
ong before we were together.”
Mike looked relieved by this, but his eyes still narrowed. “It was you we saw that day,” he said, drudging up the old memory. “You did get smashed by that sign. You saved the guy on the lawnmower.”
I couldn’t find my voice to answer him. Not when he was sitting in that bed, his body broken forever. Yes, I’d saved the guy on the lawnmower, but I hadn’t saved him.
I waited for the accusation to come. I knew Mike had to have put that together by now. But Mike didn’t say anything, and in the silence my eyes spilled over with tears.
“Mike—” I began, my voice shaking so hard I could barely get the words out.
“Don’t. I know why you didn’t help me, Jamie.” Mike’s voice was almost as unsteady as mine. He cast his eyes down to his lap, unable to look at me, and just as incapable of tearing his eyes away from the casts on his legs. “I don’t blame you. I deserve this.”
Now I was more than shocked. I was truly and utterly speechless. Mike had never admitted what he’d done to Becky before. Not to anyone—not even to himself as far as I knew. Now, not only was he accepting the truth, he was overcome with remorse. The look on his face was one of complete anguish. His guilt was way worse than the guilt that either Teddy or I dealt with because we’d both hurt people accidentally. Mike couldn’t claim the same.
“I made a mistake, Jamie,” he said, astonishing me further when his eyes brimmed with moisture. “I was drunk. I wasn’t in control, but that’s not an excuse. Becky was my friend and I...I...I took advantage—” Mike took a breath and forced himself to say the impossible. “I raped her.”
His eyes weren’t just moist now, they were bloodshot and spilling tears everywhere. He finally looked up at me. “I barely remember any of that night. I told myself it didn’t happen, that I couldn’t have done it, but I did, didn’t I?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I just said, “Becky’s not a liar.”
“I know.”
Mike sniffled and I got up to hand him a box of tissues. He took them, again hiding his face. He was ashamed of his tears, but he shouldn’t have been. It was his tears that were convincing me how sorry he was.