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  “My cousin’s been shot.” My emotion began to brim over into tears. “The Shop Mart on Colonial, by the bail bondsman and tattoo place. Please hurry.”

  “I’m right by there. Give me less than two minutes.”

  How had I never seen him out and about if he lived in my neighborhood?

  I shook my head quickly to clear my thoughts; I had to focus. Ember sputtered on some blood and I squeezed her hand. “Soon. Help will be here soon.”

  Though he’d told me he’d be just a few minutes, it surprised me when he ran up to the door in less than sixty seconds.

  He saw Ember and gasped. “Have you called 911?”

  I faltered. None of us were in the habit of calling emergency services when things went wrong; we usually called each other. If any calls were being made, it was the police calling us or us calling them after we’d stopped a crime. However, I knew that a normal person would call the police in this case, so I lied to Benjamin again.

  “They said they’d be here as fast as they could.”

  Benjamin kneeled down next to Ember and lifted her limp hand, his fingers feeling around for her pulse. “She’s fading,” he said quietly.

  “Can you help?” I wiped my face as his eyes flitted towards a camera on the ceiling. “Don’t worry. Nobody will ever know about you. I can make the tapes disappear.” And I could, if I asked Captain Drummond.

  He looked doubtful. “How?”

  Ember’s breathing slowed.

  “Benjamin, please! You have to trust me!”

  His jaw hardened but he nodded. “Okay.” He placed his hands on Ember’s belly.

  Ember cried out and arched her back.

  “Is she in pain?”

  “No,” he murmured. “She’s feeling the relief.”

  The bullets popped out of her torso and the wounds shut themselves, leaving no trace.

  “Whoa,” I breathed. “Just…whoa.” I put my hands around Ember’s shoulders, helping her sit up.

  She took a shaking breath. “What just happened?”

  Benjamin and I stared at each other and I mouthed for him to leave. He gave me an unreadable parting look that lasted for the longest second of my life, and then he was outside and out of sight before Ember could process anything. I stood up and offered Ember a hand.

  Ember kept touching her stomach. “Was I dead?”

  I shook my head. “No, my friend saved you. He’s got a handy talent.”

  Sirens in the distance—presumably the cashier’s doing—alerted me that we needed to take our leave, too. Stepping over the two gunmen, I hastily grabbed the lemonade for Marco and we left the store with our bags, though we hadn’t paid.

  When we passed an alley, Ember flattened herself against the wall and gestured for me to follow. She checked to see if we were alone and then whirled around at me, her face livid. “Jill, tell me everything. What happened back there?”

  I didn’t see a point in lying to a telepath. “You were shot and probably dying. I called my friend because he has healing powers. End of story.”

  Ember goggled at me. “So not only are you crushing on a civilian, you’re crushing on a civilian Super. Jill, you’re so freaking stupid I could kill you right here and now.”

  Though her insult to my intelligence hurt, I ignored it to address her claim. “I am not crushing on Benjamin.” I instantly regretted using his name. So much for protecting his identity.

  “Oh, shut the hell up,” she hissed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Don’t you dare lie to me. I am a telepath, for God’s sake. I hear your ridiculous daydreams about his hair or hands or lips or whatever every damn day. I hear you wish you could see him, and talk to him, and text him. Hell, I’m surprised I haven’t caught you dreaming about him.”

  Invisible walls closed in around me as I realized the veracity of her words. Still, I tried my one last chance at redemption.

  I cleared my throat and swallowed. “So what if I have a crush on Benjamin? He’s just a civilian. I know it’ll never go anywhere, so what’s the harm in meeting with him to chat and have coffee once in a while?”

  Ember slammed her fist into the bricks. “Because you don’t know his allegiance! Nobody is born with superpowers that doesn’t come from one of the superhuman groups, Jill. You know that. We all have an agenda.”

  I was resolute. “Not him. He’s from one of the obscure families. He’s not like us. His parents own a human resources consulting firm! You don’t get more ordinary than that.”

  “And you’re an assistant gym teacher.”

  “What?”

  “That’s your cover story. What if the consulting firm is his? What if he’s not from one of the obscure families? What if he’s from one of those families?”

  “He’s not,” I said, an odd high pitch in my voice.

  “What’s his family name?” There was a dark edge in her tone that I didn’t like.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jillian Johnson, what is his family name?” The anger in her words alarmed me.

  “I don’t know, I swear! I never asked.”

  “Find out, and find out soon. If he’s from one of the forbidden families, I swear to God, Jill….”

  I straightened, my hands curling into fists. “Will you tell Patrick?”

  Ember blinked at me, shocked. “No. No, I would never do that. I’m annoyed at you right now, but I don’t want you to die.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Jill, I’m angry because I’m worried, okay? You’re playing with fire. Maybe this Benjamin guy really is just a civilian, but there’s every chance he’s actually a homicidal maniac from one of the forbidden families. He could try to hurt you. Or worse, Patrick could find out somehow and he would hurt you. So I think you really should act like Benjamin is from a forbidden family.”

  “I won’t stop seeing him, but I promise to be very careful,” I said in pacifying tones. “I’ll stop daydreaming about him, too.”

  She huffed at me but said no more.

  10

  We entered through the laundry room door so Ember could shuck her bloodstained clothes without notice. Ember and I were assigned laundry duty, so we weren’t worried about one of the guys finding bloody clothes. After she put on pajamas from the dryer, we went to put the food away in the kitchen.

  The adrenaline from the evening had worn off and a deep fatigue trickled through my veins. I barely noticed when Patrick strolled in halfway through our emptying of the bags, only realizing he was there when he picked up a shopping bag and started digging through it.

  He poured the contents of the bag onto the table with a tremendous clamor. “Took you long enough. I hope you got more soup.”

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous. “Um, I forgot you liked that. I’m so sorry.” He shot me a dark look. “I’ll go back after sunrise and get some.”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t bother. You’ll just get the wrong type anyway. Where’s the receipt?”

  My breath hitched. We hadn’t paid for our groceries, so there was no receipt to show him. “We, uh, we forgot to get it.”

  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “And let me guess,” he said, opening his eyes. “You’re sorry about that, too?” Shaking his head, he picked up the bottle of lemonade and read the label.

  Without thinking, I said, “Please don’t drink that. I bought it for Marco.”

  The bottle hit me on the side of the head so quickly I didn’t have time to process what had happened before I was on the floor. Blood poured from a fresh wound on my scalp. An annoying, logical part of my brain chastised me for letting my guard down around a known threat.

  “Please don’t,” Ember begged while backing away. “She didn’t mean it.”

  “Don’t you ever tell me what to do,” he growled, his fingers tightening around the bottle’s neck.

  I peered up at him through the blood dripping down my face. I was still in shock. He gazed down at me for a long second and then threw the bottle at the wall. Ember an
d I flinched.

  Patrick stalked out of the kitchen, crunching on the glass as he went.

  Ember fell to her knees next to me and put her arm around my shoulders. “You need to stop the attitude. For your own good.”

  “Let’s…let’s go…to the clinic. Down the hall. Yes, the clinic is down the hall.” My disjointed words sounded far away, as though another person were speaking them. Pretty little red and green stars flashed in front of my eyes, disappearing when I tried to focus on them.

  Ember patted my hand and guided me to the sick bay, calling for Marco when we passed his room. He poked his head out and swore when he saw me clutching my bleeding wound.

  While Marco worked on my bandages, Ember gave me little tests like “count the fingers” and “name your siblings.” My memory recall was fine but she didn’t like how I reported seeing lights.

  “I want to take you to the clinic.” She took a step back and looking me up and down. “You’re a mess. Or even the ER? We don’t have to tell them we’re on the city team. Nobody would have to know that we checked into a hospital. Or maybe I could ask a civilian to admit us? I think there’s a loophole in the rules about that.”

  “No.” I slid slid off the table, swaying on my feet. “Hospitals aren’t allowed and I…I just want sleep.”

  Ignoring their protests, I left the sick bay and wobbled down the hall to my room. I didn’t bother to undress before I curled up under the covers of my bed. The hard floor would hurt my head too much.

  As the shock abated, hot tears dripped onto my pillow. What on earth was wrong with me? Why, why couldn’t I just joyfully submit like all the others? Why did I have to earn Patrick’s anger so much?

  The events of the evening overwhelmed me and I burst into sobs. Angst over the video and the card, Ember’s near-death, and Benjamin’s face all fought for dominance as the thing I was crying about the hardest. Then I realized I was wallowing in self-pity, which made me cry even more.

  I whispered relevant principles to myself in an attempt to focus on anything besides the pain of the wound. “Deference. Reverence. Contentment. Gratitude. Humility. Deference. Reverence. Contentment. Gratitude. Humility. Deference. Reverence. Contentment. Gratitude. Humility. Deference. Reverence. Contentment. Gratitude. Humility. Deference. Reverence. Contentment. Gratitude. Humility.”

  I dried my eyes and blew my nose, and after a few deep breaths I'd pulled myself together. Just when I was on the edge of sleep, my phone vibrated. I peeked at the screen.

  It was nice seeing you tonight, gunshots aside. Meet again sometime?

  Smiling, I deleted his text before I tapped out a reply.

  Yes. :)

  11

  “Tell me what happened. Don’t leave out any details.”

  Captain Hannah Drummond of the Saint Catherine Police Department sat across from me on a park bench under a shady weeping willow in Varina Davis Park. The breeze made her brown hair swirl around her shoulders.

  Children ran around us with balls and toy airplanes, too involved with their play to notice or care about us. As it was, we both wore civilian dresses and hats, and were completely unremarkable, exactly how I liked my dealings with the official police department liaison.

  I took a breath, though deep breathing made my aching head wound flare. “Firelight and I went to the convenience store last night around zero two thirty. Two men ran in and held up the cashier. Before I could do anything, one of them shot Firelight. I didn’t know if they’d shoot anyone else, so I incapacitated them.” Captain Drummond nodded and made a note on a little pad of paper. I remembered my promise to Benjamin and switched to fib mode. “I called my brother Mason because he has healing powers. He healed Firelight.”

  Captain Drummond scribbled something on her notepad. “Is Mason a registered superhero?”

  “No, ma’am. That’s why it’s so important for the security tapes to be destroyed. I’d hate for him to be tracked down by people who want to exploit his power. He was simply visiting me to see how I’m doing. I hadn’t seen anyone from home in over six months.” I leaned closer. “After our younger brother died, things just weren’t the same. My leaving hit him hard.”

  I hated to manipulate Captain Drummond like that, but I knew sharing a personal secret softened people. She wouldn’t pry.

  As I predicted, the police officer closed her pad and placed it in her pocket. “This all looks fairly cut and dry, so you don’t have anything to worry about. I’ll have to verify your story with your family history on file, but I don’t think there’ll be any problem. Thanks for calling me right away, Battlecry.”

  We exchanged goodbyes and she left.

  I’d written in the logbook that our meeting was about the mugging, not the robbery. Little lies like that became easier every day.

  Indeed, instead of immediately getting up and returning home, I sat on the bench for a few minutes and simply enjoyed the day. Sunlight drenched the park, sparkling off the pond’s ripples. Sunbathers with earbuds lay on blankets in the lush emerald grass, oblivious to everything around them. Young couples pushed strollers with chubby babies on the bike path. A father bought his preschool-age daughter an ice cream cone from the snack stand and her face lit with anticipation.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the sleepy scent of the Georgia summer, imagining that sunshine and peace could intoxicate me. A curious contentment seeped through my veins; there on the bench in my sunhat and blue floral sundress I was unremarkable, and all the more accepted by the surrounding people because of it.

  “Jillian?”

  I opened my eyes.

  Benjamin stood a few feet down the path next to a pretty young woman who looked so much like him it was amusing—she had the same sandy blond hair, friendly hazel eyes, and an identical contagious grin. They even had the same build, with long, lean limbs. The lines bracketing her eyes hinted that she was, perhaps, a few years older than him.

  I smiled my first real smile of the day. “Benjamin! What are you doing here?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. We’re here for the free concert.” He pointed to a pavilion in the distance where men were unloading instruments. “Are you here for the World’s Biggest Hat competition?”

  He indicated my straw hat, which I wore to conceal my head injury. Even though the chance was now before me, I didn’t dare ask Benjamin to heal it since not only were we in public, but he’d want to know how I received it.

  The young woman smacked his arm. “Benny! Don’t be mean.” She offered her hand. “I’m Eleanor, Benny’s older sister. He’s been showing me around the city. I’ve never been here—my family moved to Saint Catherine after I’d left for the Rockies.” She cocked her head and smiled. “You must be the new friend he mentioned. I think your hat is stylish,” she added, smiling beautifully. “Very Scarlett O’Hara.”

  Her voice was lilting and endlessly sweet, like how someone would talk to a small child. I had no idea who Scarlett O’Hara might be, but the way she said it made it appear a compliment.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Eleanor. How do you like Saint Catherine?” Being friendly to her required no effort.

  “Oh, Saint Catherine is the most beautiful city. I’ve never seen such a charming place to live. Old Town is my favorite with all its little cafes and boutiques. In fact, I heard that Benny met you in a cute bohemian place not far from here while studying for his nursing classes.” She beamed at her brother. “When he was little he ran around with a toy doctor’s kit and listened to our heartbeats.”

  Benjamin cleared his throat. “El, what are the chances you could get us front row seats if you went to get them right now?”

  Eleanor winked at me. “I think there’s a strong possibility I can do that. See ya soon.” After winking at her brother, who made a face, she walked away.

  When she’d disappeared over the hill, Benjamin turned to me. “So…can I buy you an ice cream?”

  I chewed my lower lip. A nap with a cool rag over my eyes sounded
equally appealing. On top of that, I’d written in the log that my meeting with Captain Drummond would take about an hour, which left me about thirty minutes before I had to return to base camp. But who knew when I’d have a chance like this again?

  Pulling my hat down a little lower, I nodded. “I can’t stay long, but I would enjoy that.” We walked to the ice cream cart, exchanging a coy glance along the way. I examined all the novelties and flavors for sale, unsure of what to request. “What’s the best flavor?” I whispered. “I’ve never had ice cream before.”

  Benjamin did a double take. “Are your parents dentists?”

  Once again, I was unsure how to answer him without revealing far too much about my upbringing and heritage. I opted to laugh and point to a picture of a neon ice cream novelty shaped like a cartoon character I often saw on children’s shirts. “I’ll have that one.”

  We walked around the lush beds of daffodils and tulips with our ice creams in silence for several minutes. The sweet creaminess of the dessert was wonderful, and I decided to have it again if I could.

  Finally, Benjamin turned to me. “So are we going to talk about what happened last night?”

  “My cousin is visiting me. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “What were you two doing at the Shop Mart at that time of night?”

  I decided to bring up the subject that always deterred Marco from getting too nosy into my private affairs. “She needed tampons.”

  Benjamin didn’t blush like I thought he would. Instead, he took a bite out of his ice cream. “Fair enough.” He was quiet for a moment. “Have you thought about what I said at the café?”

  “It’s like I told you. Nobody’s abusing me.” I avoided his gaze. My aching head wasn’t from abuse, but Benjamin wouldn’t see it that way.

  Benjamin stopped walking. “You never did tell me who gave you the black eye, and I’ll never stop wondering. I can’t just ignore injuries. Maybe it’s because of what I can do. When I see a person’s pain I need to fix it. For example, I can tell you have a pretty bad headache right now. I can’t fix headaches, though. I’m really sorry.”