Scarred

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"Come back to me, firebird," he whispered. "You know you want to."

My pulse stumbled. I scrambled for a rational response, when all I wanted to do was roll over and surrender. Whisper his name, let him do whatever he pleased with me. I will keep cool. I won't lose control. I won't…

"Vincent, listen," I insisted, shaking. Good start. But what the hell could I say? How do you crack unbreakable conviction like his? "This is all a mistake. Whatever you think there is between us…"

"Whatever I think?" His eyes flashed a dangerous gold, and his grip tightened on my wrist, a bright edge of malice. "Shall I show you? Must we cover those lessons again? You know what happens when you disappoint me."

Oh, God, did I.

I trembled, lost. What was I thinking? Reasoning with him was pointless. The magnetism between us was beyond thought, beyond common sense. Oldest story in the book.

I'd loved him. And in his warped way, he'd loved me. How could anyone reason with that?

I felt him laugh, a frisson of unhinged delight at the game. His whisper scorched my earlobe, challenging. "Oh, this is precious. Do you surrender? Or must I subdue you all over again?"

I shuddered, and fled.

He didn't follow. Just let me run.

The fog swallowed me, cold and heartless. I didn't stop until I'd passed the end of the bridge, where the fishing pier's lights struggled through curling mist, and sprinted across the freeway into the park.

I collapsed, panting, against a tree trunk. My heartbeat galloped. My skin itched all over, like deathworms wriggled in my living flesh, and I doubled over and spewed my non-existent dinner into the dirt.

My eyes poured and I choked on burning bile. What the hell had I expected? He was merciless, insidious, every move a cunning gambit to kill me or trap me or make me do something I dreaded, all just to prove he was superior. To prove he still owned me.

I knew that was how he operated. So why had I agreed to meet him? Why didn't I just delete his damn text and go to bed like a normal person?

But I already knew the answer.

We'd been lovers, sure, and that part was incredible. Unprecedented. I could admit that. Still, I'm not a slave to that kind of lust. Sex is great, but it's just sex.

But all the common sense in the world didn't change the awful truth that I'd liked how he'd made me feel. Giddy, alive, free from crippling self-doubt and eager to take on the world. Loving Vincent had made me happy.

I wiped my acid-ripped mouth. I already had a splitting headache, like I'd cracked a machete through my skull, levering the bones apart to let all those black and ugly secrets ooze out. Now my guts hurt, too. I wanted to crawl into a hole, pull dirt over my head and sleep forever.

But I knew how to escape from too much thinking. Temporarily, at least… and my nerves twanged bad banjo tunes as I imagined Glimmer's disappointment. Glimmer never said anything, never scolded me outright. He just looked at me, with those warm starlit eyes, and lately, I'd been unable to meet his gaze.

Your friends despise you. Vincent's accusation pierced my skull with hot needles and popped my guilt like a bubble.

Fuck it. I yanked my mask from my pocket and tied it on. My damp fingers smeared the leather, and I wiped the sweat away. Vincent was right: my family already scorned me. And so did Glimmer. What did I care if I gave them one more reason?

Because it's always just one more reason. Then another. And another, until the little reasons pile up so high, they smother you. That's how villains are made.

What the fuck ever.

Ten minutes later, I stalked down a narrow street in Castro towards a place I knew, an underground dive where masks were just one way people hid from each other. Rats snickered in the garbage at my feet, and I kicked them aside. Down greasy steps, through the rusted door.

Inside, dark shapes hunkered in dim blue light, a snatch of meaningless sounds: music, groans, sobs, vacant laughter. Chains hung from the ceiling in drifting smoke. I inhaled, let the stinking air numb my senses, stumbled up to the bar.

Triple brainfuck with a twist of sordid, thanks, and keep the change.

The guy on the next stool—thin, his once-proud muscles wasting, nice clothes but old and unwashed—clinked his glass against mine, and we drank. Like Glimmer, he bore scars on the inside of his wrist. Unlike Glimmer, he looked ready to try it all over again. Search humandisintegration and you'll get a picture of this guy.

His phone lay beside him on the bar. One of Vincent's creations, an obsolete model with cracked glass. He wore his wedding ring with that wishful air that bespoke failure and tragedy. Probably carried pics of his estranged kids in his wallet, or on that ancient phone. Too young, I thought as I gulped harsh alcohol, to be so broken.

Aren't we all?

I banged the empty glass down. "Rough day?"

He lit a cigarette, ash flaring. "Fuckin' A."

"Same shit, different year."

"Sing it, sister." He offered me his smoke. Not one from the pack. I took it. What the hell, right? If this was his pick-up routine, I was about the best he could expect.

I inhaled, relishing the horrid gritty flavor, and let my special senses sparkle. I didn't taste augment. Only sour despair. He met my gaze, the wide brown eyes of an animal caught in a trap.

Was that what Vincent saw when he looked at me: prey? An inferior creature, fit only to be exploited or consumed?

I passed the cigarette back. Glimmer's eyes aren't brown, I thought mistily, alcohol already muddling my underfed brain. They're blue. Darkest midnight blue, the shade of the sky beyond stars. I didn't even know Glimmer's real name.

And that was relevant how?

The guy pointed at my glass and signaled to the barkeep for another. He took in my mask, my scarred cheek, let his gaze wander down to my chest. "You got real superpowers?"

Augments, idiot. I didn’t bother to correct him. I just grabbed his throat with an invisible fist of force, and dragged him in. “What do you think?”

~ 5 ~ (#u63e7c8ce-943b-5dfe-abee-c0561b1a1f92)

By the time I got home, orange dawn slanted through the trees, and I was wide-eyed and popping out of my skin after a gutful of drink and a couple of hours of muttering sleep. I hadn't been followed, or detected by Sentinels. I was pretty confident of that. I was remorseful, disgusted, so furious at myself I could scream, but that didn't make me an idiot.

That guy from the bar—I'd filed his name under too much information—had been sweet, and totally on board with my sordid-brainfuck plan, but by the time we'd gotten down to business, he was too drunk to finish, and I'd been too restless. He wept on my shoulder. I threw up in his bathtub. Altogether a fitting experience. I should be satisfied.

But I wasn't.

Birds chortled and trilled as I stomped through the forest, and I scowled up at them with half a mind to tear their tree down. "What in hell are you so happy about?"

They didn't answer. Typical. The world's divided into two kinds: happy people, who don't need a reason, and the rest of us, who can't find a reason to save ourselves.

I slouched into the refectory, where the family Fortune (plus assorted hangers-on) were getting stuck into breakfast. Uncle Mike was sitting straight-backed at a table, munching peanut-butter toast and thumbing through messages on his Glimmer-hacked Blackberry. He waved at me, a wry grin on his lined face.

I shrugged, and Mike shook his head in mock scolding. My uncle looked as I imagined Adonis would in thirty years' time: weathered and wise but still handsome, a mesh of silver through his blond hair, his eyes clear with nary a blue twinkle faded. One of those hip older dudes who has to fight off ambitious young tarts with a scythe, if Mike was into that sort of thing, which he wasn't, and for good reason.

Silver anti-conducting don't-kill-everyone bracelets glinted around my uncle's wrists. Static electricity crackled over the pale metal, his latent power battling to escape. It's tricky to be a playboy when you're such a lethal weapon.

Mike can fire lightning bolts. He's a menace, really, and it was only good luck for Sapphire City that all those years ago he and Dad decided to fight crime, not commit it. Blackstrike and Illuminatus, merciless scourge of Gallery villains from Oakland to the Bay.

Dad was the eldest, and with his power over shadows and darkness, he'd always been the thinker in their ass-kicking double act. These days, Mike was content just to give advice and let Adonis take charge. One of those rare, lucky people who managed to sustain both an augment and a life, or at least he did, before all this happened.

I wondered if Razorfire had ever tried to recruit Mike, and snorted. Good luck with that. Dad had a dark streak—no pun intended—but Mike is one of life's genuine good guys. Not a saint. Just a profoundly sensible man, who instinctively understood the difference between right and wrong.

But as I looked at him, my heart twisted. Mike looked so much like Dad. Except Dad would've speared me on his shadow-licked blue stare, and made some cutting remark about how some of his children—he meant Adonis, who aside from failing to marry some “nice girl” and crank out a brood of grandkids could do no wrong in Dad's eyes—could party all night and still show up in time for work.

Dad had loved me. In his distant way, he'd loved us all. Didn't mean he'd put up with our shit.

Thankfully, Adonis hadn't yet made an appearance at breakfast. The smell of baked tomatoes and French toast churned my abused stomach, but it watered my mouth, too, and when Peggy—cooking, of course, apron and oven mitts and all—offered me a plate, I steeled myself and took one.

"Thanks," I muttered, dredging up a watery smile. "You're a champion."

Truth was, my vision still blurred and my head hurt like someone had mistaken my brain for a hockey puck. Peg's existence was particularly infuriating this morning. But aside from a few extra throbs in my temples, politeness cost me nothing.

"You're welcome," Peg chirruped, like she meant it. Perky as usual, in cargo pants and a clean t-shirt, her ginger hair pulled into a cute ponytail. She was one of those stray augments who'd run to us for protection when Vincent got elected mayor, and it took Adonis about five minutes and a flirty smile to latch onto her. Dad would've approved of Peg. A “nice girl”. Pretty face, I admitted. Good cook. One of those happy people.

But this was all I knew about her. I frowned. Who was this chirpy cartoon housewife who was screwing my brother? What was her augment, even: baking the perfect soufflé? Did Adonis know? Had he even asked?

Still, unwanted sympathy nibbled my toes. Adonis had high standards, and I couldn't help wondering if she'd heard what he'd said about her last night. Give her a chance. It's not her fault she's…

Dumb? Boring? A lousy lay?

She'd definitely heard the part about the Stepford wife. I hadn't exactly been keeping my voice down, and besides, subtlety was never my specialty. She already knew what I thought of her. And sure, Adonis had lowered his girlfriend bar lately. He wasn't exactly dating celebrities and models right now, the way things were… but still, as I glanced sidelong at Peg again, my senses stung with nameless warning.

I found a seat on a table with Ebenezer (pasty-faced, greasy; situation normal) and Jeremiah (skinny and blond, coughing as he hunched over his coffee; looked like shit, in fact, damp and shivering like a waxed yeti) and plonked down my plate, reaching for the ketchup.

"Nice of you to join us." Eb shoved a clean knife and fork at me. "Get it out of your system?"

"Screw you, zombie boobs." I squirted ketchup onto my French toast and forked a slice into my mouth. Didn't look like Eb had moved since last night, except to pop a few pimples and swap his dirty tablet game for scrambled eggs. Dude could use a shower.

So could I, for that matter. My shirt was good and crusty, to say the least, and my trousers were probably a biohazard. I sniffed the fug around me and winced. I stank of… well, we all knew what I stank of. Better attend to that, before…

Flushing, I shrank into my seat. Too late.

Glimmer, fresh from the bath. Black jeans, plain black t-shirt, same as every day. Even after only a few hours’ sleep at his desk, he still managed to look great. He sat across from me—damn, why hadn't I picked a table without spare seats?—and gulped from a bottle of spring water. "Morning, all."

"Hi," I muttered. Munched another eggy mouthful. Waited for him to say, Jesus, Verity, you look like hell or what's that God-awful stink? or wow, here I was thinking you couldn't sink any lower but somehow you manage.

But he just drank his water, then cracked a can of high-caffeine cola. The white stripe in his hair poked up like a skunk's tail, and he ruffled it with a tired but cheerful yawn.

Goddamn it. He never said anything. Never judged me, at least not aloud.

I pushed my plate aside, appetite MIA all over again. He didn't need to judge. I did enough of that myself. Did that make it better, or worse?

Jem wheezed and barked a cough into cupped hands, ash-blond hair flopping wet over his sharp cheekbones. I grimaced in sympathy. He sounded like a sick Saint Bernard. His pale eyes were running, and his pointy face glowed pink underneath, like he was coming down with the creeping plague.

Glimmer pushed the water bottle toward him. "That sounds nasty. Take it easy, man. Rehydrate."

Jem twitched, and disappeared. Jem's secret name is Phantasm, and he's a lightbender, a trickster of the eye. Disappearing is what he does, and he does it more often when he's angry or confused or feeling just plain contrary. Uncle Mike's kids aren't exactly a well-adjusted bunch, but who am I to point fingers?

Glimmer eyed the shimmering Jem-space archly. "No goodbye? The manners of kids these days."

Ebenezer snickered, ratlike, and gulped coffee. "You spooked him, dude. You know he can't drink that water. He'll freak out unless he counts all the bottles in the shrink wrap first."

"What for?" I contributed, ever-helpful. "There are always twenty-four."

"He knows that," said Eb cheerfully, "but he counts them anyway. Why'd you think he's so antsy?" He leaned towards his big brother and raised his voice. "Hey, you: obsessive-compulsive. I can see your twitchy ass. Try harder."

The Jem-shaped shimmer cuffed Eb over the head, making him duck and wince and grab at his greasy hair, and then it slouched away, coughing.

Glimmer ate his Peg-fried tomatoes thoughtfully. "Hey, I saw that thing you brought me last night."

His voice was low and rough, yet sweet, like old bourbon. It took me a second to realize he was talking to me. "Oh, right. The museum. What a bust, eh?"

"Looked like a rough fight. You okay?"

"Sure." Automatic response. "Um… thanks for asking," I added belatedly, amid a searing rush of gratitude peppered with shame. What a bitch. I'd no right to be angry with him just because my own stupid antics embarrassed me.

I checked a sigh. Damn him for being the best friend in the world, when I was such a lousy one in return.

He winked, and I found a smile. Everything was okay. Well, as okay as it'd ever be.

"Haven't had time to do much digging," Glimmer added, "but I know the Latino guy with the glitter. Calls himself El Espectro."

"Specter," I supplied. "Nice brand. Unimaginative, but it definitely says villain."

"Pain in the ass is what it says. He jumped me once in some mansion's bedroom in Ocean Heights, long time ago. Cocky. Typical Gallery sticky-fingers."

"Yeah? What were you doing in the bedroom of a mansion in Ocean Heights, young man?"

"Nothing."

"Right. Same nothing he was intending, presumably. Thought you were above ordinary break and enter."

"Who said I wasn't invited?"

"Eww." I mimed sticking a finger down my throat. "I'm not even gonna ask. So did those storm troopers arrest this Espectro character last night, or just beat him to death?"

Glimmer finished his tomatoes and started on the eggs. He has this enviable ability to munch down food at any hour of the day. "Option A, bless 'em," he said with his mouth full. "They've got him in restraints. He's not going anywhere."

The PD had augmentium cuffs now, courtesy of Razorfire's City Hall. Perfect for banging up your discerning augmented crook. "Did you get a real name?"

"Arrest report says Jesus J. Flores, priors a mile long. Odd one to claim if it's false."

Gallery villains were notorious for taking a beating, pretending to give in and then giving the cops patently false information and smart-ass aliases, like Sawney Beane the short-order cook, or Dougal O'Pooball who works at the sewerage farm. They liked to play games. Still, you had to admire their intestinal fortitude. Sapphire City PD didn't exactly do Miranda warnings by the book these days.

But as usual, Glimmer had squeezed out the good oil. "You naughty boy," I said. "Thought your data-stealing gear was broken."

"It is." A piratical grin. "Depends on your definition of 'broken'. Still a few fakements I can pull."

I reached for coffee, but the jug was empty. Instead, I drank from Glimmer's water bottle. A faint curl of his vanilla-spice scent sweetened my mouth. "How goes the salvage mission?"