Hero Stalker

Part Seventy-Five

"Good news!" Pulse shouted in my ear. "You don't have a concussion!"

I opened my eyes to the sight of a full-facial purple and orange mask. Somewhere underneath it, he was probably smiling at me. The roof of the Tower hung over his head. Sunlight streamed though the holes I'd torn in it.

My ears worked again. "How did you . . ."

"I'm the world's most powerful telekinetic. I can move things inside your body, too. All kinds of things."

I pulled myself off the training mats. Someone had taped up the broken window. Harpy's discarded helmet lay in the corner. Femme leant back against the Wall of Fame, her head in her hands. Cypher sat in front of his computers, but it didn't look like he was doing anything with them. "The machine!" I gasped.

"Cypher cracked it," Femme said. "Opened up the body with a penknife and detached the psi-meter by hand. It's now in PCD custody and will be shipped under guard to the Council in New York." A tired pride filled her voice.

"It took me an hour and a half," Cypher said. "If it hadn't been for Shadowcat, Harpy would have detonated it. Thank her."

"Don't thank me," I muttered. My chest burned. I'd probably broken a rib. "The bitch got away. I thought I had her and she got away."

"You said 'it's her' on the radio," Femme told me. "Harpy's a woman?"

Oh, Lord. She didn't know.

I stood and limped over to the table. "Cypher, get me the liquor cabinet is. I need a drink." I was most certainly off duty right now.

The four of us sat around the table with the Centurion seal. The words didn't come easy at first. A shot of vodka made them more bearable. The whole humiliating, horrible story spilled out: how one of our own had lied to us for years, how she'd betrayed and murdered my mentor, and how I'd maimed her and let her escape.

"Look on the bright side," Pulse said. "She might bleed to death."

"Only the good die young," Cypher said. "Let me do some research." He stood and walked over to his chair before his tower of computers. His cape swayed behind him.

"I can't believe this." Behind her mask, Femme's face had turned the color of printer paper. Tears brimmed in the corners of her eyes. "Slasher was the oldest combat operative in the country. And Peregrine—"

"Harpy," I insisted. "That's who she chose to be."

"Harpy." She shook her head. "I should have known. She had so much bitterness inside her. Always. For her mother, her father, her aunt . . . but I thought she'd channel it into doing something good."

"You know those revolutionary types." I remembered what she'd told me back at Randolph Tower. "Bastards have a way of getting under your skin. She really does want to think what she did was good. She's a psychopath."

Femme stood and walked over to her desk on the side of the room. She pulled a cellphone from her utility belt. "Let me make some calls. I'll find out if she's still alive."

Now only Pulse and I remained at the table. "I'm sorry about Slasher," he muttered. He'd taken off his mask. His hands were busy twisting the fabric into knots. For the first time, it really hit me that he was only a year Vicky's senior.

Speaking of my family . . .

I pulled out my phone. Mom had sent me twenty messages. All of them demanded to know where I was and if I'd been at the Centurion Expo. I told her I'd missed the expo because of work and that Annabelle would drive me home when my shift ended.