The Things We Do (Under Editing)

Found Family

A few days later, Kacie was released from the hospital and no traces remained of the night she'd ended up there other than some bad memories and a blackened tree stump.

When it fell, the tree hadn't ended up landing on town hall, but apparently my work had still been satisfactory enough that Wraith hadn't felt the need to give me any more orders. Hopefully that would last long enough for me to get my grades up a bit.

Mel and I were taking advantage of the fact that it was a Saturday to collect Kacie and walk her home. First we had to convince her to leave behind all the flowers her admirers had sent her, though. I wouldn't have minded having to walk with a bouquet or two, but I was unfortunate enough to have a very pretty best friend. There were flowers everywhere and Kacie felt it rude to choose some over the others.

I thought the solution was simple: throw them all away.

Kacie did not like my idea.

After nearly an hour, we settled on keeping the nicest flower from every bouquet and tossing the rest.

"You're too sensitive about flowers," I told her as we finally left the building.

"I just don't want to hurt anyone's feelings!"

"They'd never know that you threw their flowers away, Kacie. What they don't know can't hurt them."

We argued for a bit longer until Kacie's phone buzzed at her. She set it up to notify her whenever one of her favorite journalists published a piece relating to the crime in the city. She scowled at the screen.

"This lunatic scares me," she informed us without telling us to which lunatic she was referring.

"Phantom Banshee?" Mel guessed, based on recent events.

"What? No." Kacie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and turned her phone so that Mel and I could see the photo of Hangman she was presenting to us.

It showed hangman mid twirl, arms and one leg flying outward, head thrown back like they were dancing... right on the edge of a rooftop.

"Do they scare you more than Phantom Banshee?" I asked.

"Absolutely."

"Why?"

"The way they're dressed."

Mel rolled her eyes, turning to continue walking, as if abandoning the conversation. "It's just a hoodie."

Kacie jumped on the opportunity to make her point. She also jumped on Mel, who refused to stop again.

"All the other villains go full out on their brand, right?"

I could tell this was going to be a very detailed explanation.

Kacie continued without waiting for an answer. "Storm has his whole 'edgy' thing going on with the dark clothes and the shadows and the mystery."

Mel and I nodded along.

"Phantom Banshee went all out with the long red coat, the little top hat, and the red ribbon in her mask. Even Karma's got his whole lasso and, for some reason, a sleeveless jacket."

"What does this have to do with who's scarier?" I interrupted.

Kacie pushed a shushing finger towards my face. "Because Hangman is just wearing a hoodie, skinny jeans, and high tops. Sure it's color coordinated, but it looks like they were just hanging out on a normal day, wearing normal clothes, and randomly decided 'Hmm, I think I'll commit mass murder'! On top of that, the fingerless gloves aren't even useful for keeping fingerprints off things. It's like they don't even care about getting caught!"

Mel and I stopped walking again.

"You know, that's actually a pretty solid point," I agreed.

"Also," Kacie added. "Who commits crime in skinny jeans?"

"You do realize Phantom Banshee wears black skinny jeans, too, right?" I pointed out, and for good measure, "and Storm probably does too."

Kacie scoffed. "There's no way Storm wears skinny jeans. Yeah, they're probably black, but skinny jeans don't seem like his style."

"This conversation has taken a turn into the ridiculous," Mel informed us.

"Don't all our conversations?" I countered.

"Fine," she crossed her arms. "In that case, seeing as we never see anything of him but his chest and above, I am going to claim that he wears bedazzled booty shorts."

I nearly fell over laughing at the mental image that provided me with. Kacie hopped on the idea immediately.

"They probably say 'Dangerous' across them!"

"No, no..." I gasped in just enough air to make my own suggestion. "They probably say 'Tempest'!"

We all thought back to his initial introduction, with Kacie deciding to quote it exactly, dropping her voice and scowling over dramatically. "'I am the storm, and you will have no respite from the tempest.'"

The three of us earned ourselves some strange looks from people scurrying past, but that was normal for us, so I ignored them. It had been far too long since I'd had a chance to joke with my friends like this, and I wasn't going to let anyone spoil it.