Seek {Superhero AU} - Ending 2

8: Icarus, Lead The Way

WPOV

Track: Icarus & Apollo, Ripto

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

That's all I could think as Nico told me about the missing girl. My mother and I had completely misjudged the situation—what if I had really gotten Nico arrested? The missing girl would have been lost forever. I realize for a brief, horrifying moment, that I am probably the villain here, not Ghost King.

Finally, I managed to put my thoughts into words: "Shit."

I had just been listening to my mom. She really believes that he's from some crime family, doing evil just because he can—why does she believe that? What made her come up with something so extravagantly wrong about a person she doesn't even know? I remember the first week that Ghost King began searching the city, the media was all over it—every news channel was theorizing.

"Someone has to do something about that villain," my mother had said one day when she got back from work. I had looked up from my homework at the dining room table and saw her nod at the television.

"Isn't that the police's job?" I ask.

She snorts. "The police aren't doing shit. We need a miracle." And she left, and the next day I went to go see Hecate. I told her about how there was a villain in the city who I was worried was going to hurt people, and the police weren't able to catch him. I repeated everything my mother said about Nico—all the heinous things he's capable of.

But I see now. I was wrong about all of this—from the beginning, every move I've ever made has been wrong. He's not hurting people. He's not stealing. He's just searching for a girl who the police gave up on. He's trying to save someone. He's being a hero.

Which makes me a villain, and I feel sick to my stomach. I had never meant to cause any harm. I thought I was protecting the city, not dooming a lost girl.

I stare at the boy in front of me. We're still floating above the clouds together, and the light from the sun combined with the light reflected from the clouds makes him shine. He's watching Luke's house below us, trying to decide if it's safe to go back down. I wonder if this is the first time he's ever backed down from a fight—he doesn't seem to understand that going back in as quickly as possible is dangerous.

He's a little bit beautiful in the sky like this. Plus, the knowledge that he's a hero has completely shifted how I view him—he took some pretty horrible burns for the sake of saving the girl; he skips school for her; he has put up with relentless scrutiny from all the major news outlets over this. He put everything on the line to save her—

Wait. Who is the girl, again? Is she his girlfriend?

Suddenly I don't feel as good about this situation.

"How do you know the girl?" I ask.

He doesn't hear me the first time I ask; he's still watching the house below like a hawk. I still have his hands in mine, so I trace patterns into his skin again, trailing up his fingers and then back down to his wrist. That gets his attention again.

I repeat my question now that he's looking at me, "How do you know the girl, Nico?"

He shivers. I'm expecting him to put up a fight again; he never answers my questions easily.

But he glances down at his hand in mine, watching me trace patterns. He's silent for so long that I think at first that he's not going to answer me. Just as I'm about to ask again, I watch him take a deep breath and then exhale it slowly. Then, he says, "She's my sister."