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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Family Doesn't Lie
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WHEN CECELIA BURST OUT of the back doors of Midtown Tech, fully suited up in her Phantom costume (she'd stuffed her dress into her backpack and shoved it into her locker), she fully expected to spend at least a couple of minutes searching for Peter. Spider-Man suit or no Spider-Man suit, he was fast, and his stupid, stupidly cool abilities made it so he could hide practically anywhere. He could be hanging off the side of the Empire State Building for all she knew.
However, when she actually made it outside, she found that her calculations were extraordinarily far off.
Peter lay crumpled on the asphalt, wearing perhaps the ugliest costume Cecelia had ever seen. Instead of the tight spandex suit he'd worn after Tony Stark had picked him up, he was now in a red hoodie with a crudely drawn-on spider emblem, sweatpants, and long, red boots. His mask was a rudimentary thing, just a wad of felt with what looked like cut-up goggles serving as lenses. The only thing that was even somewhat professional was his webshooters, and those were lying a few feet away.
Approaching Peter, malice in his eyes, was Schultz. He was wearing the shock gauntlet—he'd really taken up the mantle of the Shocker, now—and smoke billowed off of it. It wasn't difficult to tell that it had recently been used. Nor did it take a genius to figure out who it'd been used on.
As Peter attempted to regain his bearings, Schultz sneered, "He gave you a choice. You chose wrong."
Cecelia's stomach clenched. She looked from Peter to Schultz and back to Peter again, two halves of her warring for dominance. Part of her clamoured to help Schultz. She had a responsibility, after all, both to him and to the company. Even if Schultz had left her on the ferry, he'd gotten her out of enough scrapes in the past to give her a responsibility to take his side.
But that half of her sounded a lot like Uncle.
The other part was more concerned with her classmate, trapped by Schultz in front of him and a school bus behind him. He may have been an aspiring superhero—though he was still technically a vigilante—but he was fifteen years old. And, unlike Cecelia, he wasn't a fifteen-year-old that was used to being hurt.
Both sides clashed. Unable to make a decision, Cecelia continued to stand, encased in stone.
Peter raised his head, panting. "What the hell?"
Schultz chuckled. "What's with the crappy costume?"
He powered up the gauntlet, and electricity crackled at its end. Cecelia remained frozen in indecision, watching as Peter's head turned to where his webshooters were lying. If Cecelia wanted, she could toss them over to him, giving them a fair fight. Or she could ram either of them from behind with her stunners. Neither would know what hit them.
