Fear Her Wrath II: Crucible of Glass

Chapter 29

Gennifer's house was just a few blocks from my family's old place in Fredericks Park—where, so far as I knew, my mom still lived. I kept my hood up and my head down, and watched for a flash of fiery red hair, but I reached my destination in safety. I'd been over to Gennifer's house a few times over the years—mainly because she had the most permissive parents of anyone on the team, so they didn't nag us to go to bed or turn down the radio no matter how late we stayed up. Like me, Gennifer had followed Anaya to Sefton Polytechnic. Unlike me, she'd stuck with it after Anaya was paralyzed. It probably should have been the other way around: I was the better player, and Gennifer had actually been injured in Icemane's attack—a broken piece of riot shield got lodged in her shoulder during the fight with SWAT. But I had been the one who quit, and Gennifer—against all odds—emerged as the new team captain and took them to the state championships.

She was the hero. I was the one protecting the Fen from mafiosi and crazy people in masks.

I could hear the muffled music inside the apartment as I knocked hesitantly on the front door. It was electro swing—which, for the uninitiated, is basically just taking a Duke Ellington song and setting it to a pounding house beat—and that told me Anaya was already here. I'd hoped she would be the one to answer the door. Instead, it was Gennifer.

"Oh," she said. "H-hey Maggs."

She was obviously not happy to see me. I smiled and pretended like I didn't notice.

"Hey, Gen," I said, my voice a little scratchier than usual. "Uh, Anaya told me I could—."

"Oh, s-sure," said Gennifer, stepping aside and closing the door behind me. "You can, uh... put your stuff over there."

I set down my backpack at the back of the huge pile of handbags and jackets in the entryway closet. A heavy combination lock would keep any nosy partygoers from digging through my stuff and finding my costume—assuming they didn't have bolt cutters. I just hoped I could find it again. As usually happened, what was supposed to be a party for "just a few friends from the team" had blossomed into 30-or-so teenagers crammed into a medium-sized Fredericks Park apartment, and I wasn't exactly late. Anaya had promised handsome boys from the Fredericks Park JV team, and they'd obviously brought along friends. It was crowded. And loud.

I wouldn't say it was out of control. But it was getting there, and it was barely after 7:00.

There was lots of the dancing—the kind of dancing that made me uncomfortable. Dad probably would've thought that was reason enough for me to leave right away, but I had come all this way and I was going to pretend I was a normal teenager making normal bad decisions for at least one night. Plus, I didn't see any alcohol. That had to count for something, right?

I looked around for anyone I knew—really, just for Anaya—but she was busy flirting with Gennifer's cousin Avon, who was DJing. That meant talking to Gennifer, or Amber, or Gabriela, or making new friends. I wasn't sure which sounded worse. Even if I didn't know most of these people, all of them knew me. The look on my face when Psychosis had finally revealed himself at Simon's trial had apparently gone viral—helped by the fact that the clip ended with a giant gorilla bursting into the courtroom. Even to the kids from other schools, I was "Psychosis's girlfriend."

At least now they said it with pity instead of disdain.

Fortunately, I was saved from socializing by a tantalizing smell wafting from the kitchen. Tony C's Pizza—the best in the North Wards. Suddenly this was all worth it. I piled a paper plate with five slices of Hawaiian and made my way to the only open seat I could find—the bench of a dusty piano that looked like it hadn't been played in ten years. As I commenced stuffing my face, I noticed that some of my former basketball teammates were clustered together in what they probably thought was just out of earshot, murmuring seriously to each other and shooting occasional glances in my direction.