No. The girls were still hunched over their phone, giggling at the picture online. Nobody else saw it because they didn’t expect to see it. The biggest component of any superhero costume was context.
“It’s a mistake,” she said, no matter how lame it sounded. “You’ll see.”
“Anna.” Teddy grabbed hold of her sleeve and pulled. “Let’s go for a walk.”
She wanted to say something else to Teia. This wasn’t over. She wasn’t just angry, she realized—she felt betrayed. They were supposed to be in this together. She’d always thought of them, the whole group of them, as a team. Friends. Were they still? But she couldn’t think of anything to say, so she followed Teddy and scowled at everything.
“They’re going to get themselves killed,” Anna muttered. “Why can’t they just listen to me? Can’t they see I might actually know what I’m talking about?”
“Maybe they want to get themselves killed. Go out in a blaze of glory,” Teddy said, and Anna looked at him sharply.
“That’s stupid. It’s a stupid idea.”
Teddy shrugged. “I have to admit, if that happened to me everyone would stop asking me what I’m doing after graduation. It’d save a lot of trouble. And I’d get the blaze of glory.”
She stopped. They were almost at the corner of the building, at a stand of shrubbery. Beyond that was lawn, then the wrought-iron fence that separated the school grounds from the road and the city. Part of her wanted to just keep walking. It would feel good but wouldn’t solve anything.
“Please tell me you’re not going to go team up with them.” That you’re not going to stab me in the back, too …
Teddy slumped against the stone wall. “No. They didn’t tell me what they were doing, either. I wouldn’t team up with them now. It’s not just about getting themselves killed, they’re likely to get everybody else killed, too. They’ve got all the firepower, and I don’t want to get in their way.”
“They should have told us,” Anna groused. “We’re supposed to be a team, why didn’t they tell us?”
“Because you’d argue about it, and they didn’t tell me because they knew I’d tell you.” He shrugged, like it was that easy. He still had the lingering shading of a bruise around his eye from his previous encounter.
“Well, thanks for that. I think.”
He chuckled, and the knot in Anna’s gut eased a bit. Maybe she did worry too much. Maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing.
“I just wish I knew which of us was right,” she said.
“You both are, probably. Here’s the thing: I figure I’ve got powers for a reason. I don’t just want to sit on my ass pretending I don’t. I want to use them. And you’re right, there has to be a better way. I think that’s what they’re trying to figure out. What we all are.”
“It’s different for you,” Anna said. She picked a leaf off a lilac bush, tore it apart. “I know you have to get out and use your powers. You can’t keep them shut off all the time. But the thing about me is—my power never shuts off. I can’t ever not use it.” Bethy was at the middle school now, walking down the hall with a gaggle of friends. Mom and Dad were together in her office, talking presumably, which made Anna feel somehow warm and protected even when they were across town. Her grandmother had a charity board meeting at one of the fancy hotel restaurants downtown. She knew exactly where her family was, knew how to find them. She couldn’t get away, and she would never be alone.
“But don’t you want to do something with it?” Teddy said. “Not just have it sitting there?”
Right. That was the whole question. They could be heroes, if they could just figure out how. “We have to show Teia she’s wrong,” Anna said. “Getting on the front page of the papers isn’t the way to do the most good.”
Teddy said, “So, what? Does that mean you’re finally ready to go out and do something, as long as we avoid publicity?”
She took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
They looked at each other, then back along the building to the stairs, to their rivals. A warning bell rang, summoning them inside. They’d have to talk about it later, but already Anna felt better. Like she had a plan.
Teddy said, “So when do we show them how it’s done?”
“Tonight.”
He grinned. He’d been waiting for her to say the word.
Back in front of the school, just a few minutes before the final bell was due to ring, a car pulled up to the drop-off zone. A latecomer, except that Anna recognized the car and the driver who stormed out, leaving the motor running: Ms. Baker, Teia and Lew’s mom. She came around to the sidewalk, hands on hips, glowering in an expression of fury.
“Teia, Lew, get over here!”
They did so, because how could they argue with that? Warily, Anna and Teddy approached the twins.
“Mom, school’s starting in a minute,” Teia said. Her brow was furrowed, confused.
“You’re not going to school today. Get in the car.”
That should have been great, but something was wrong. Teia hung back, glancing at Anna.
“What’s up with her?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know. Okay, wait, I do know. She was all in a fit this morning and asked if that was us in the picture, and of course we told her no. But you don’t think she suspects, do you?”
The words “I told you so” were on the tip of Anna’s tongue, and she bit them back. “Even if she did, what has that got to do with school?”
“Teia, into the car, now!”
“I’ll call you later,” Teia said, running to climb into the car after her brother.
Teia and Lew didn’t come back to school for the rest of the day.
* * *
Teia called that afternoon, and Anna hid out in her bedroom to talk so no one would overhear.
“What happened?”
“Mom’s completely freaked out but she won’t say why,” Teia explained. “Something about Elmwood not being what it’s cracked up to be, how we’d be better off in public school—”
“But she was so excited when you got the scholarships,” Anna said.
“I know, and I don’t want to go to a different school! All my friends are at Elmwood! I’m thinking this isn’t about the picture in the paper—she found out something about Elmwood.”
“If this was about Elmwood, my mother would be freaking out.”
“Then I don’t know what it is. All we can do is play dumb until she cools down.”
She was right—her only other option was to tell their mother that they had powers. Who knew what would happen then? Celia and Arthur could handle their kids having powers. They expected it. But Ms. Baker?
“Maybe you should cool it with going out. Lay low for a while.”
“Hell, no,” Teia said, vehement. “She’s not going to stop us.”
“Maybe … what would she do if you just told her you have superpowers?”
“She would lock us up forever,” Teia stated. “After what happened to Dad. You weren’t totally wrong, we couldn’t help but think about him. But it felt … good. It felt right. But yeah, Mom would freak. She couldn’t actually stop us from going out. But she’d never talk to us again.”
That sounded about right, from Anna’s experiences with Ms. Baker. Not an optimal outcome.
Teia went on, “If Dad were still here, I’d tell him. He’d understand. Convince Mom, you know?” More than sad, even, she sounded regretful, imagining that other life where he was still alive.
“Yeah, I know. What are you going to do?”
“Keep doing what we’ve been doing. Can’t stop now.”
“If you could just be careful for the next week or so—”
“You be careful. You stay home twiddling your thumbs. That’s what your real power is, isn’t it?”
“I’m only trying to help—”
“I gotta go. Mom wants to have a family night. Bye.”
She’d already clicked off before Anna could reply.
* *
*
Anna knew how to go out and fight crime without drawing attention because of her grandparents. Or she thought she did. The others wore the masks as much because they looked cool as to hide their identity. They didn’t understand how important hiding their identity really was. Things had pretty much fallen apart for the Olympiad when their identities had been revealed.
Teddy’s observation about them having all the firepower had clarified an issue for Anna: It was easy for Teia and the others to be brazen and forward with their powers, to look for publicity and appear in pictures on the front page of the paper all high and mighty and badass. Their powers were offensive. They could actually do crap. All she and Teddy could do was duck and stay out of the way. How were they supposed to look badass in a picture that way? They couldn’t. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to help people, stop bad guys, protect the city. The best heroes didn’t need publicity. Publicity was a by-product, not the point. Finally, she figured out how to prove that.
At dinner that night, her parents were distracted. Even Grandma noticed and bustled around the kitchen and chatted more than usual. Anna had planned all kinds of excuses about staying up late studying and not to worry if they saw her bedroom light on, she had to write an essay for tomorrow, and so on. But nobody even asked her how her day went. She stayed quiet and tried not to act too weird. Bethy kept looking at her, like she knew Anna was hiding something, and Anna almost yelled at her for it. But she kept her mouth shut, hunkered in on herself, and studied the lasagna on her plate.
Even if Bethy had powers, Anna wouldn’t have taken her little sister along. She didn’t think Bethy was getting powers. She wouldn’t be able to shut up about it if she were.
Late, after everyone else had gone to bed, Anna put on black pants and boots, a black long-sleeved T-shirt, and found a stocking cap and mask to hide her hair and face. Didn’t look like much when she stood in front of the mirror to check herself out. She looked like a bank robber. Strands of red hair kept slipping out from under the hat. Like that wasn’t a tip-off. Oh, well, it would have to do.
She pulled off the hat and mask and shoved them in her backpack with the rest of her gear.
She and Teddy didn’t plan to meet at City Park. That was the old meeting place, and it had become too obvious. Too tainted. Teia and the others were at home, so Anna wouldn’t run into them. But it was as if the park was their place; Anna and Teddy had to find a new spot now. Fine. They could do this on their own. As an alternative, they went to Pee Wee’s, the popular all-night coffee shop near the university campus. They wouldn’t stand out there—they’d look just like any other pair of kids studying.
The glass-fronted café had dim lighting and stainless-steel fixtures, hip and retro, a menu written on a chalkboard and baristas with interesting facial piercings. The music was something new and aggressively independent, and Anna didn’t want to look like a freak for asking who the band was. She pretended she already knew, like she’d heard it before.
The place was cool, too cool for her, and she tried to act like she belonged as she walked in, shoulders back and expression blasé. The bus ride had taken longer than she expected, and Teddy was already there when she arrived. Also dressed all in black, he sat hunched over a coffee while his foot tapped a rapid beat, and he looked sidelong at the rest of the room. She slid into the booth across from him, furtive, wishing she could disappear, like Teddy.
Right. Not only did they not look like they belonged here, when they sat together they looked like a couple of hapless emo Goth types getting ready to mug children.
This wasn’t going to work.
“This isn’t going to work,” Teddy said.
“We can still call it off.”
He didn’t say anything, which she guessed meant he didn’t want to call it off. She ordered coffee and brought it back to the table so they could both sit there looking sullen and conspiratorial. Nothing suspicious about that at all. Maybe people would think they were in a band.
She drew a packet of computer-printed pages from her backpack. Her voice was hushed. “We can’t win in a straight-up fight, not like the others can, so I figure we have to go at this backward. We can’t be fighters, but we can be spies, right?” Teddy didn’t seem happy. Well, it wasn’t her fault they’d been born with stupid defensive powers and couldn’t blast lasers like Sam. She pressed on. “We can find out things that no one else can. Then we can call in the cavalry. Anonymous tip to the cops. The goal is to stop bad guys, that’s how we do it.”
Teddy snorted. “So we just wander the city looking for … for what, random secrets to jump out at us?”
“No.” She spread out the pages she’d gathered. News articles for the most part, some police blotter reports. She’d zeroed in on one set of stories in particular. Jonathan Scarzen was head of a nascent drug cartel putting down roots in Commerce City, but the DA didn’t have enough proof to bring charges, and the police couldn’t make an arrest. As far as public records went, Scarzen was an upstanding businessman working in imports. But the drugs were coming in somehow. The police were looking for a witness or for evidence linking Scarzen’s import business with the new influx of heroin.
“We can do it,” Anna insisted. “We can get the evidence.”
Teddy nodded thoughtfully. “I sneak into the warehouse or whatever, search the place, bring a camera to record, and bingo. Is that what you’re thinking?”
This was why she liked Teddy, he always knew what she was talking about. “Exactly.”
“But we don’t know where his warehouse is. The cops don’t know, that’s the whole point,” Teddy said.
“I can find it,” she said. “I’ve been looking for it, and I think I know where to find it.”
“Anna—” Teddy’s tone was more than a little skeptical. “You don’t actually know this guy, do you? Don’t you have to know someone to be able to find them?”
“I’ve been practicing. Just because you guys can’t see it when I do—”
“I’ve never doubted your powers, Anna.”
Yeah, but she did. She had to prove she could know someone just by reading enough websites about him. If she was going to be anything more than a walking GPS locator for her family and friends, she had to stretch. She had to be able to do more.
Scarzen was thirty-two years old, of Cuban and Italian ancestry. He’d been arrested four times, spent a few years in prison for auto theft in his early twenties, and since then had managed to evade authorities while building influence among the criminal element in Commerce City. According to his mug shots, he had a snake tattoo on his neck, and descriptions said he had more tattoos on his arms. Not just gang signs but also personal imagery. She needed to know as many details about him as she could. Any listed addresses were probably not accurate, but he had a few places where he had been seen. Police usually knew where to find him. The trouble with Scarzen was the cops didn’t have any solid evidence to use against him in court, thereby justifying an arrest. He seemed like an ideal candidate for their first mission. Assuming she could find him, and the evidence.
Like some kind of fortune teller, she pressed her hands to the articles, the printed mug shots, the police commentary, and focused. She thought about where he might be, imagined the spots on the map where he’d been seen before, and concentrated on that needle in her mind, waiting for it to press against her awareness. People she’d known her whole life were easy to find. But what about someone she knew only by reputation?
Teddy waited patiently, quietly.
She didn’t think she had her eyes closed, but she no longer saw the coffee shop. Instead, she saw a brick building with a fire escape climbing up the side like an exoskeleton. The building was low compared to others in the neighborhood, and older. Some of the windows were boarded up. In Hell’s Alley, of course. Not the best part of town. She was pretty sure she knew where it was. To the needlelike instinct in the back of her mind, it glowed.
“I think I’ve got it,” she said, brea
thless.
* * *
If they were going to keep doing this, this taking the bus thing had to stop. Sam was the one with the car—the others didn’t have this problem. Anna was going to have to talk her parents into letting her learn how to drive. And they’d ask “Why?” and she’d have to come up with an excuse. Maybe she could say she was volunteering somewhere.
And her father would know she was lying. After tonight, she might not be able to stand in the same room with him ever again.
She’d worry about that later.
The bus driver raised an eyebrow at them when they got off at their chosen stop—a few blocks from their target but still in a crappy part of town. Two kids, dressed in black, in Hell’s Alley. No, nothing suspicious here. Anna’s heart was racing, and her face flushed. She tried to ignore it. Had to concentrate on the task at hand. She put her hand on the mug shot photo of Scarzen, folded up and stuffed in her pocket. Turned that image and the information over and over again in her mind.
The bus’s diesel engine growled as it pulled away, and off they went. She led Teddy around a corner. Once off the main street, she retrieved her mask from her bag; Teddy had his shoved in a pocket. They suited up.
That made Anna’s heart race even faster, but with something other than trepidation this time. Suddenly, they looked like they were on a mission.
Not many streetlights worked in this part of town. No people around, either, and the few storefronts that weren’t boarded up were locked with grates and dark. How could a place be scarier when it was utterly deserted?
“This is so cool,” Teddy whispered. The invisible boy—Ghost, she reminded herself—walked decisively. In fact, he wore a thin smile under his mask, like he was enjoying this. Even after getting beat up last time, he was happy to be out again.
He actually looked like a superhuman vigilante—chin up, alert, confident. She wasn’t sure what she looked like. The scruffy sidekick? She should be so lucky. Anna was a little freaked out, truth be told. But they’d be fine. They’d watch each other’s backs. She had her cell phone with her.
When they crossed the next street and turned onto another block, she stopped, startled, because the building they approached made her feel a stabbing moment of familiarity, like she’d been here before, even though she never had. That needle in the back of her mind was singing. He was here, right now, in that building. It was the right shape, had the skeletal fire escape, and seemed to nestle among the buildings around it.