Chapter Thirty-Two: No More Dramatic Reveals, Please!
Gatsby.
A riddle for you, if I may. How long does it take a super-healing, illusion-making, child-kidnapping supervillain to subdue a cat-eared kid with a bullet wound in his face?
Twenty seconds. Forty if you're generous.
I hold Jupiter's sword up like a shield as Owl flickers in and out of existence. I see her in blurs—a flash of white sweater, a swish of black ponytail, a gleam of her eyepatch. She attacks, I block. But the sword's aura seeps into my skin, a cold blue that flows through my veins and chills them like ice. My heart pounds as I slash and perry. My entire body trembles with spasms that come from the flames. I can feel it in my head, seeping into my thoughts, trying to take over. But it isn't my aura. It's Jupiter's.
I struggle with it, almost as much as I do with Owl. It creeps in no matter how desperately I try to focus on Owl and her movements. Thoughts splinter and memories roil across my conscience. His and mine. The distinction is blurry between the two because they both feel the same—mind-numbingly terrifying. There's a reason some memories go repressed. There's a reason I don't talk about my life before I came to Starlight City.
"Felix, honey, wake up. You have to go."
Gunshots. I can remember them clearly. I don't know how old I was then, nine? Ten? But the name of the people who took care of me, The Jameses, that's seared into my memory in a way I couldn't forget if I tried. They were the first people who gave me a glimpse of who I really was, showed me that people really wanted me dead. And the gunshots, that terrible moment I realized they were meant for me. I remember crying, as weak as it was for a "big kid," and I remember that night of hell. The police sirens, the strangers behind the wheel, me curled in the back seat of a little gray car. Shocked. Trembling. Numb.
Owl swipes her dagger at my head. I duck just in time and she slices the tip of a cat ear right off. It stings like heck, but that's all it does, sting. I smirk. "I was gonna do that myself," I say, stepping back with a polite tip of my head. "So, thank you, ma'am."
She actually laughs. "You think you're so dignified, you little lab rat." She smiles sunnily. "Or should I say cat?"
"Of course." I ignore her insult. "And lay off the cat puns, will you?"
The woman leans back on her heels and spins her dagger.
"The only reason I haven't killed you is that I want you alive." She stands in front of a door while her soldiers encroach, stepping a circle around us. The hair on my neck stands up. I grip the sword, my breath ragged and trembling. Violent images unfurl before my eyes, sending me reeling back.
I can't tear myself out of the memories that aren't mine. For a second I'm another person, seeing up into a broken ceiling, moonlight casting a low glow on my shuddering chest.
My body aches in odd places, my limbs splayed out and almost twisted on the ground. I have my answer to whether Jupiter died in pain or not. The sword lies several feet away. I can't move. Paralyzed, head forced to the side at an extreme angle, Jupiter—me, at the moment—laughs, spitting up blood. "Nebula and Taurus will find you." Each word is a struggle to squeeze out of my lungs, the organ crushed inside my chest like a flattened accordion fold. "You won't take Starlight so easy."
A man grunts, their footsteps lashing across the floor in ringing echoes. "You don't understand, Jupiter." Sparks flicker beside my ankles and wrists. I huff. It's a trick of Fallout's to make me squirm. The sneaky bastard. And somewhere deep inside I know this is it. This is where it ends. This is where I die.
Fallout strides up, black wings spread to blot out the moon. Flames crackle from his hands, his black eyes round and wide, his lips drawn up into a smirk. He has an aura. Pitch black. It drips off him like a shadow, as if the emo hair and goth attire weren't enough.
"We're at war." He shrugs. "What must be done must be done."
"And what must be done is torturing me?"
"Glad you're catching on," a woman says. She slinks out of the darkness, small, dressed in white, flanked by a tall, red-armored Owl. The woman in white shoves Fallout back and he yields, dipping his head and taking Owl's arm. My head pounds. I want to be back with my partners, with my friends. I'm willing to die, but not alone. Owl lifts her rifle with almost a childish glee.
And the images get blurry from there like someone dunked the film underwater and the villlains' forms drip down the strips. But the fear and the feeling of knowing is so vivid it sinks deep into the me part of me and I can't shake it no matter how hard I try.
I blink out of Jupiter's memory and find myself back in my body. I grip the sword so tightly I grease the hilt in a film of sweat. "What did you do to Jupiter?" My voice quivers when I ask Owl. She smiles sweetly at me, cupping her hands on her knees as I step back, trembling, sweat dripping down my face and mingling with the blood clotted under the bandage. She reaches for her hip, as if to grab her lasso. I hope she doesn't still have it on her, concealed by an illusion. If so, I'm going to be more screwed than my Trig grade.
"Jupiter," she repeats the name as if it's a foreign one, drawing out each syllable as if sounding the name out for the first time. "Ah." Her eyes light up. "Jupiter." This time she says the name as if it belongs to an old friend. "I killed him like I did all the others."
And if that's not a bombshell, I don't know what is. "Others?" I swallow hard.
And in the middle of our fight, her eyes cloud wistfully. I lower the sword just to catch my breath, tip pointed to the ground, shoulders trembling and forearms heavy as if filled with cement. I will fight for my freedom, but right now, I need to give my arms a break. She smiles politely down at me. "Fallout and I and our leader, we killed all the first wave of heroes. Found each of their weaknesses and watched them die." She shrugs. A wave of nausea passes over me. The way she talks about her murders makes me shaky, my mouth dropped open wide at her cruelty. Psychopath. Sadist. Villain. "All except the leaders."
"Leaders?"
She shoots me an appraising look. "Drop the sword and we'll talk about it. Anything you want to know."
I pick the weapon back up, the blade gleaming in my peripherals and rippling with blue electricity. It's heavy and my head throbs, half of me focused on keeping out the memories and the other half focused on keeping Owl away.
The fight is over, really. Owl has people with guns at her command with the wave of her hand. In a few minutes, I could have more holes in me than a block of swiss cheese and my book's plot combined. And Owl knows that I know that, so she's gonna rub it in with a vengeance.
The frigid aura flows up to my head and back again. I grit my teeth and ask, "Why should I care about what you did to the old supers? They're gone, and me and my friends have to deal with you now. You're just sick."
"Oh?" Her hand slides off her hip, a few extra long blinks the only sign she gives of her frustration. She cups her hand over her mouth and yawns. "I guess you don't want to know about your parents, then."
My hands squeeze the pommel so tightly my fingers tingle. I let them go numb.
Parents are a touchy subject. With Heaven, with Angel, and definitely with me. I always thought Angel got dealt the better hand, adopted by the Fibbs and not knowing or caring all too much about his biological parents—until this hell broke out.
I mean, I can't remember biological parents. Just blurry faces and indistinct voices. But I do remember slipping in and out of different homes. Switching faces, changing names. Trying not to get too close. Scared, scared, scared of everything, everyone. Of attachment. Of commitment. Of losing all the people I cared about.
And it's over now. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw throbs. I want it to be over now!
"My parents are dead," I say coolly. "They're dead and if you want to pull my heartstrings, you're gonna have to find a less cliche way to do it. Like with food. Or a hot shower and a fresh change of clothes. The neutral guys at least gave me that."
"Funny." Owl leans back and spreads her arms out, luring me to strike. I just stand there instead. She's feeling me out and I refuse to move, sword up to block my face. She's toying with me. And I'm lucky she's toying with me. I amuse her. And if I can amuse her by being my own charming, dashing self, then maybe she won't torture me for kicks.
"You could always throw in a sweet car to sweeten the pot. I've always wanted a convertible." I wink, leaning all my weight on the sword. Glimpses of moonlight and a woman's obscured face flicker in and out of my vision, images I have to squeeze out of mind by counting each individual thread of Owl's sweater. Damn you, Jupiter.
"It's funny," Owl says, flashing out of sight. Illusion powers. Stupid illusion powers. I slash, spinning to block her off. "The woman is brilliant, but she doesn't even tell her son who his mother is."
"Shut up," I growl, slicing and dicing, the sword whooshing through the air. I move side to side, bouncing so she can't get a handle on me like all the best boxers do. She doubles up, two copies of herself on either side of me. I bite back a scream. "And stop that, will you!"
"They're alive, Felix."
The sword almost clatters out of my hands, my fingers clammy and hot. "That's not my name. It's not."
Both Owls wave their hands in a shooing motion. "That's what your mother called you."
Sweat pours down my brow. Felix. It's been so long since anyone's called me that. And I want it to stay that way. Angel doesn't know. Hev doesn't know.
They aren't the only ones with double identities.
"You should be flattered." Owl smirks. I step back, trembling, about to mince her to Kraft shreds but my head whirling too fast and too hard to focus long enough for me to do so. I'm Gatsby. I gave myself the name and it's mine. "The son of a scientist and assassin."
"Flattered?" My voice quakes. "Flattered? They left me! An-and get this through your head, lady! I'm not like Angel. You can't just layer on the dramatic reveals and expect me to give in. I'm-"
"Distracted." I blink and she's gone. I raise the sword to strike, but a blade's cool touch whispers against my throat. I yelp and draw back. "Distracted, distracted, distracted." Owl squeezes the back of my neck and I gasp, sputtering and nearly choking. She etches the tip across the inside of my chin. "You're beginning to bore me."
I squirm. "It isn't funny. Not to me. Not to your son." My head throbs and the inside of my eyes sting like they've been rolled up in gravel and Tabasco sauce. "Let go."
Owl huffs, and it sounds more like a growl. She presses her fingers into my neck and yanks me back, farther, closer to the door. I look up and the muzzles of guns stare back. "Mutiny," she grumbles under her breath. "Mutiny."
My sword-holding arm quivers. I'm a little guy, still hungry, and this is going bad. I need Heaven and Angelos. I can't win this on my own. Jupiter's fear leeches to my gut, making my stomach twist up and sweat run down my face. "Listen, child," she says in my ear, "you're a pawn. An experiment. You want to stay in one piece?" She makes a slashing motion over my throat with the dagger. "Stay in line."
"Okay." I breathe out. "Fine. You win."
"Is that so?" I guess she didn't peg me as the type to give up so easily. And I'm not, not really. But I know when to quit while I'm ahead.
"Yes, but I have two conditions." I'm not in the position to propose conditions, but I might as well try. If I want to stay alive, I'm going to need to leverage some power in the equation.
"Yes?"
"I don't wanna be tied up."
"Can I trust you?"
"If you don't tie me up."
Owl snorts by my ear. Amused. I hate giving in like this, playing into her fantasy of tyrannical power. But I have to wait. I can't win this, not now. I need help from someone, someone with powers, someone like Heaven.
My heart clenches in my chest. I'll wait for you.
"Is that all?" the villain asks.
"I want cookies," I snap, tapping the sword's tip to the floor. "And they have to be Oatmeal raisin ones."
She pulls me back, blade still crooked at my neck. Her fingers tremble. She laughs, laughing so hard I press against her to keep away from the shaking blade. "Child, that can be arranged."
"And," I say breathlessly. Another shard of memory slips through my defenses. Jupiter's trembling gloved hand lifted to protect his face, curls of smoke choking the air out of his lungs. I swallow. "And I changed my mind."
"Yes?"
"Tell me about the supers. And—and my parents."
Owl gives my neck another squeeze. "All in good time." She removes the dagger. I let out a nervous sigh just as she slams something her fist against the back of my neck. I tumble forward, hitting the ground hard and breaking consciousness harder.
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