Hero Stalker

Part Fifty-Seven

My fingers flew to my headset. "Shadowcat to Tower!"

Femme grabbed my arm. "Crawl!" she shouted, pointing at the door.

I wrapped my arms around my head and squirmed over the carpet. Bullets hit me in the side and bounced off my costume. Each one sent vibrations humming through my bones. Lord, don't let him hit my head! Why didn't our masks cover our heads?

The smell of blood and burnt metal washed over me. The silence said that Doctor Carlisle was gone. The gunfire paused briefly. Femme threw open the bullet-riddled door and I raced through behind her just as another bullet whipped past my cape.

People in lab coats flooded the halls, stampeding with excruciating slowness towards the stairwell at the end of the hall. Shit. We wouldn't get out that way. My head whipped back and forth—

"Over here!" Femme crouched down behind a thick metal filing cabinet. Every instinct in my body told me to get the hell out. But this was a hospital. Harpy had crossed a line.

I blurred over to her side. "It's Harpy." I'd only glimpsed the jetpack and the giant, horned helmet for a second, but features like that stood out in your mind.

"No shit." Another round of gunfire rang out near the stairwell. More screams. He'd targeted the doctors. "Go distract him. I'll evacuate this wing and call for backup."

Distract Harpy? "On it."

I blazed towards the center of the building, weaving through gaps in the fleeing crowd at superspeed. Behind me, Femme commanded the scientists to remain calm and shelter away from windows. The screams grew and spread, echoing up and down the glass-enclosed atrium. The giant abstract mobile vibrated. It hung from the roof and nearly touched the floor. Twenty stories long.

What a waste of money, I thought, and threw myself over the railing. My cape whistled in the wind behind me. My reflection grew larger and larger in the polished floor tiles. Doctors and nurses stared up in shock. Now. With a hard twist of my abdomen, I flipped onto my back and fired my grappling gun at the sculpture.

It connected a second before I'd have hit the ground. The line went taut and nearly ripped my arms from their sockets. I hiked my legs up against my chest and soared over the panicking crowd. Too many ran for the doors on the north side, where Harpy was shooting. I released my grappling gun and threw myself at them.

Plastic broke across my back. Safety glass rained down on my face. Doctors, patients, maintenance workers, nurses, and EMTs froze in front of me as I stumbled to my feet. My head spun. "Stay where you are!" I coughed out. The crowd surged forward.

Real convincing, Shadowcat. Frustrated, I extended my blades. That felt like something Slasher would do. Eyes widened and the crowd stumbled to a stop.

"You're running straight towards him. Find a windowless room and stay down. The rest of the Centurions are on their way." Another burst of gunfire. Shit. "Just stay put!"

And I sprinted out into the parking lot where. Just over a week ago, Darryl had shown me Harpy's manifesto here. Now, scattered people lay in pools of blood. Harpy hovered halfway up the east wing, firing on the cancer lab. Flames billowed through the open windows.

"Femme?" I shouted on my headset.

"Hurry!" Her voice rang stiff with fear.

I sunk my blades deep into the wall and climbed as fast as I could. The acrid smell of burnt chemicals filled the air. What would they tell Mom if I died here? The events that killed Centurions tended to take a lot of other people with them. They'd write off Gloria Dodson as a civilian casualty and hold an elaborate funeral in Shadowcat's honor alone. Far as my family would know, I'd have died a loser.

When I drew near the eighteenth floor, Harpy lowered his gun. His helmet swiveled back and forth. Searching for a new target. Well, I'd give him one.

"Over here!" I shouted, and scrambled upwards as fast as I could. Heat rose through the soles of my boots as Harpy's shots hit the concrete below me. I knew I couldn't out-climb his gun for long, but I kept going. My face pressed so close to the wall I scraped my chin.

My fingers found the rooftop's edge. Half a second later, I ducked behind Femme's jet. "Slasher!" I shouted over the radio.

"On my way," he drawled. "Femme even called in the wunderkind."

"I told you not to call me that!" Pulse whined. "God, I can't believe I'm cutting English for you guys!"

A jetpack hissed. I took off at top speed. The southern edge of the roof drew perilously near. I crouched and sunk my blades into the ground. My legs shot out from underneath me. Momentum pulled me over the edge. My blades cut deep gashes in the concrete as I slid down the wall like butter in a hot pan.

Vibrations washed through my wrists every time I cut through a floor. Harpy flew down towards me. I braced myself to swing through a window, but the supervillain had actually lowered his gun. His flight path leveled out and he soared away from the hospital. He did what he came to do, he's going—

I heard the explosion with my limbs, not my ears. Fire bloomed orange beneath me, demolishing what remained of the cancer lab. The bricks I had my blades in were thrown away with me.

The hospital grew further and further away. Wind rolled around me. I reached for my grappling gun, but I'd left it inside. Shit, I thought, and get here soon, Slasher, he's all yours now.

Then a jelly-like substance wrapped around my nose and mouth, cutting off my air supply but slowing my fall. It lasted less than a second before throwing me upwards and vanishing.

Even as that injection of momentum faded and I began dropping again, the falling bricks slowed their course. They reversed directions, flying into the broken hospital wing, stacking themselves back into the walls. The bubble seized me again and lowered me down in the parking lot.

I gasped for air, rolled onto my side, and saw the answer to my prayers. Cypher, Pulse, and Slasher all stood above me.

"You could thank me," Pulse said.

I rolled to my feet. "Femme's in there. Peregrine isn't." You think she would have bought the coffee Femme had commanded her to already. Maybe even gunfire across the street couldn't shorten Starbucks lines.

"I know." Slasher had agrim look on his face. "I'm going to help her evacuate civilians and rig our counterattack. Keep him occupied for five minutes. Work together." He shot off towards the hospital doors.