Hero Stalker

Part Forty-One

Don't get cocky. You're not invincible. I launched myself off the roof of a bank, sailed across four lanes of traffic, and landed in a crouch on top of a club. Dubstep pounded through the soles of my boots. A second later, the music was a block away. I flipped over alleys as I raced along the rooftops of Circle Street, just because I could. My feet landed soundly after every one.

For the first time in weeks, I had a plan.

I didn't even need to climb into my back window. I could jump the three stories. By the time Mom found me, I'd pulled on my PJs, sent Dan ten reassuring text messages, and sat down before my computer.

"Are you okay, baby?" She wrapped my pink and red quilt around my shoulders. "How was work tonight?"

I quickly thanked God I hadn't told her where Valerie was taking me, because Mom would have seen it on the news. "Fine. Nothing special. Valerie made me walk her dog."

"I'd rather walk that dog than spend time with her. Have I ever told you—"

"That I deserve a better job?" She had. Dozens of times. Whenever she whipped out that speech, I'd smile and nod and look abashed. I didn't have time for that tonight. "I'm fine right where I am."

Mom cleared her throat. "Your grandmother was a maid. She worked all her life for people who treated her like dirt so that me and my sister could have a future. And I've tried to do the same for you and your siblings. So help me God, Gloria, you don't make it easy. Personal assistant? You're a glorified servant. I want you to take advantage of the opportunities you've been given. Stop daydreaming about superheroes and wasting your time on the internet."

My laptop screen did display The Worldley Fewe homepage. "I'm not wasting my time," I muttered. Tears threatened to flood my eyes.

"Then what do you call what you're doing?" Mom folded her arms over her chest. "All I want is to see you succeed."

"Maybe we have different ideas about what success is." Somehow, I kept my voice steady.

She left after that, her lips tightly pinched together. I braced myself, opened the Villain Trackers subforum, and created a thread entitled 'Tracking Harpy'. An 'In defense of Shadowcat' thread had popped up on the Hero Trackers subforum. That might have cheered me up if I'd been a newbie, but I knew all too well that 'In defense' threads only appeared after the Centurion in question had been trashed up and down the board. As I refreshed the page, a moderator locked the thread.

Five minutes later, my thread on Harpy had garnered fifteen responses. The first three insisted Harpy came from Mars. Someone using a dancing cartoon cat as an avatar had posted them. I read a claim Harpy had assassinated three superheroes in Bolivia and a claim he'd eaten a human heart. One person insisted he was Greek because his name came from Greek mythology. Flowerchild_ofdawn had posted 'He just killed a man over in Orignal. You might want to stay out of this one, Tygerfire."

Annabelle. Now she wanted to protect me? That took some nerve, considering that less an hour ago she'd been out for my blood. Of course, she didn't know that the Centurion she was writing about was me. I didn't have a right to be mad at her.

I did have a right to ignore her post and pretend I'd never seen it.

The final poster said his sister worked at a club called Mantis on Elvin Avenue and had seen a man in a metal suit walk down into the basement. I googled the club—it sat on a section of The Wall that had long since crumbled, near the mouth of Washington Harbor. That struck me as pretty odd location for a club.

I shut my laptop and peeked out into the hallway. The TV blared downstairs. Mom always needed her MSNBC fix. Vicky would be in bed, since she had morning cheer practices in summer. Will hadn't come home yet, but the worst he'd do if he learned I was out would be telling Darryl.

I shoved some old clothes in my purse and dropped it out my window. It landed just in front of the black-eyed-susans.

I hadn't even bothered taking my leotard off.