The Marvels

Ep. 39 | The Truth About the Windmill (ft. Froot Loops)

Vidya crumpled up the paper. Drafting the anonymous note was harder than she'd expected. It wasn't the severity that gave her trouble—she knew very well how serious this was and the tone she needed to take, but she didn't know how to put emotion into it, how to make the readers understand how much blood was on this note, and how much more could be spilled if they didn't take the right course of action.

Maybe she was taking it a little too seriously.

Vidya stretched back on the couch, putting an arm over her eyes. No need to stress; there was plenty of time. David's computers were running through Celestro's files, encryptions, and a bunch of other things she wasn't tech-savvy enough to understand, and it would take a while. A few more days, even weeks, of planning and careful consideration wasn't a bad thing, and she was still finalizing her own timeline.

The plan was for her to quit the Marvels three days after the public release, claiming that she was afraid her secret identity was compromised and that she was leaving for the safety of her family. It was exactly the kind of precious excuse they would expect from Frostbite. She would have to tread carefully during those three days, but watching Celestro's world go up in flames and pretending she had nothing to do with it might end up being the highlight of her short-lived career.

She sat up to see what David was up to. He stood on a ladder, installing new light bars or something along the upper edges of the greenhouse planes. His projects remained scattered around; he still worked on them when he wasn't checking the progress of the plan. Vidya wished she could do that, focus on something else every once in a while, but until this was over, getting justice for Aisha would be the main thing on her mind. Her grades were suffering a bit, her dreams were nightmares, and she missed Amber, but it was all snowballing up a hill: when it finally came crashing down, she would be free.

"Isn't it your birthday today?"

Vidya jumped. "Yeah," she said, startled. "How did you know that?"

"Aisha may have stalked your social media the very night you told her your name," David replied, smiling over his shoulder. "Happy birthday. Doing anything special?"

"Thanks. And no, just having cake with my parents." Which was what they always did on her birthdays, but this time she'd have to find a way to explain why Amber wouldn't be coming over.

Eighteen. She wasn't a kid anymore. She could vote, she could drive without restrictions, and she could be tried as an adult. Fun.

"I've found a few things," David said, gesturing backward to the computers as he climbed down the ladder.

Vidya perked up. "Anything that incriminates them on the murders?"

"No." He shook his head and added, "Not yet. There are other things—questionable partnerships and correspondences, proof that they intentionally released Heat, stuff like that. Want to see?"

Vidya turned away from the monitors. "No. I don't need to read it, I've had enough disappointment."

She grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and tried drafting again. Every time she finished the intro and reached the middle, where the truth was to be told, she got stuck. Her fingers sent little shoots of frost across the paper, connecting in jagged, lazy designs. Whether it was out of frustration or a reflex meant to relax her, she couldn't tell.

"There was something else I found."

Vidya turned around. David was on top of the ladder again, his back to her. There was something strange about how he'd said it, with less excitement than what he'd said earlier. He sounded almost...wary.