Super?

Until My Sleeves Are Stained Red

       When I pull up to the house, the lights are on, even though it's still only like 1 am. I get out slowly, a twinge of worry stirring in my stomach. That's when the front door flies open and Dave and Ollie come rushing out towards me.
       "Woah, woah! What's wrong?" I ask, feeling panicked. They stop in front of me, their faces conflicted.
        "I could ask you the same thing. What the hell, Maya? You scared us half to death. We wake up and see that your room is empty, and my car is gone! We thought you had..." Dave stops, pressing his lips together in a thin line. They're both wearing their pajamas still, hair mussed from sleep.
        "We thought maybe you had run away. We were worried," Ollie tells me softly. Dave grabs me and hugs me tightly, his eyes squeezed shut.
        "Don't ever do anything like that to us ever again, ok? For God's sake, at least leave a note," Dave murmurs, and then pulls away with a relieved look on his face. "And why are you wearing a mask?"
         "I wouldn't have run away- I could never do that to you guys. You're the best thing that has happened to me in... well... a really long time. Seriously. I'm not about to blow it. And I just had to-" I'm interrupted by a crackling of twigs coming from the line of trees in the yard, "-take care of some things," I finish cautiously, looking toward where the sound had come from.
        "What's wrong, Maya?" Ollie frowns as a stricken look overtakes my face, and he follows my line of vision. "Do you have something against crows? I mean, I know they're bad luck or whatever- or maybe that's ravens- but..." He's smiling, but I'm not. I take a step backwards as the black bird hops forward across the dew-covered grass, it's beady eyes shining under the starlight.
       "Get inside. I'll be in in a little bit," I tell them without taking eyes off of the crow. Ollie and Dave share a concered glance, but do as I say and walk back inside. I look over my shoulder, waiting until they're both safe in the house, and then I turn back to the crow. "What do you think you're doing, exactly?" I scowl at the bird, kneeling down. If anyone would happen to drive by, they would see a masked blonde woman talking to a crow in someone's yard at night and would probably call the cops. I think Crow enjoys making me look like an idiot, because a few more seconds pass by before he finally shifts back into his human form.
       "Well, well, well." He lounges against Dave's Chevy, a sneer plastered on his paper-white face, his long black hair blowing in his face. "Look what we have here. Little Eris, villain no more. See, I wasn't exactly telling you the entire truth when I spoke to you back at the pub." He stands up fully and walks up to me until we're practically nose-to-nose.
       "Get the hell out of here," I snarl. "Leave me alone."
      "See, that's the thing. You didn't let me finish. I'm not supposed let you go. Reggie didn't just ask us to keep an eye out for you... you have a bit of a bounty on your head, for heroes and villains alike. Mostly directed towards heroes, looking for glory and some cash. Villains aren't so big into catching other villains. But Reggie asked me personally to find you. I told him I would, for a modest fee of course. Now here you are. I could kill your little hosts and take you to Reggie, no problem. I'm rather disappointed in how weak you've gotten. I used to admire you," he says this all so casually, examining his ridiculously long nails.
        "What do you want?" I cross my arms over my chest, trying not to let my fear show on my face. I should've known Reggie wouldn't have let me go. This is a rather brilliant move on his part, really. Getting both heroes and villains against me- heroes because I killed a colleague's son, and villains because they want the money. I am so screwed.
       "Dinner. No masks," he tells me, his face entirely solemn. Does he think he's being serious?
       "Piss off," I spit. "If you don't leave right this moment, I swear to God I'm going to tear your head off and feed it to my pet snake," I add. He merely looks amused. He steps even closer, and before I know what he's doing, his lips are on mine and he's kissing me.  His lips are rough and cold and taste of death.
        Shocked, I shove him backwards into Dave's Chevy so hard that the metal dents a little bit and then proceed to punch him in the face. He spits blood onto the pavement beside him and continues to smile, like he's drunk.
       "Admit it- a part of you liked it," he teases me. I respond by punching him again, even harder. He buckles onto the ground, and I see a white tooth fall out of his mouth along with a steady stream of blood. I kneel down, grab his shirt collar, and lift him up with one arm. I push him against the side of Dave's car and stare him down, still gripping his collar. His black eyes bore into mine.
       "What do you want, Crow? I could kill you right now. I want to," I tell him, and the best part is I'm not even lying. He seems to notice this, because his face sobers.
       "I told you what I want. A deal. I won't tell Reggie where you are, I promise. All I want from you is dinner. Just to talk. As regular people. No funny business, I swear." He holds up his palms in surrender. His blood drips onto my jacket.
       "You probably could've convinced me of that before you tried to kiss me," I snarl. He laughs a little, and then winces in pain. A long cut runs down the side of his face from my fingernails.
        "I was testing you. You passed," he licks the blood from his lips and I look away in revulsion. "How about that deal?" He grins.
        "I think I am going to tear your head off," I tell him somberly in turn. He shakes his head.
       "All I ask of you is dinner. That's it, I swear. And then I'll leave you alone. If you do, I won't tell Reggie. And I'll convince the other villains to leave you alone. I'm rather influential. But if you kill me... well... Reggie won't like that. And neither will Blade and his pals. I'm just saying. This will benefit us both," he promises me. A shudder runs through my shoulders as I think about the last time I made a deal with the devil. But what he's saying is unfortunately very true, and even if I don't trust him with so much as borrowing a pencil, I don't think I have much of a choice. I let him go, and he crumples down at my feet.
       "Fine. Dinner. And you'll tell the others to back off. But if you tell Reggie, or if you try anything, I'm going to dunk you in kerosene, set you on fire, and watch you as you die. And if you so much as look at either of those two," I gesture toward the house, "I'm going to take a cheese grater to your face before setting you on fire. Understand me?"
       "Friday night, 6 pm. I'll be waiting outside. Wear something nice. No masks," he tells me, giving me a salute. Just as he's getting up again, I kick him in the ribs. He swears loudly. "What the hell was that for?"
        "Because I wanted to. Now get out of here," I growl. "And make no mistake, I may be agreeing to your stupid little deal, but this does not make us allies or friends or anything remotely close to some positive sort of relationship. I will always hate you for what you've done. Nothing will change that," I watch as he scrambles to his feet before I can kick him again. To my surprise, there's a somber expression on his face.
        "I know. And I'm sorry." With that, he wipes the blood from his face with a shirtsleeve and morphs into that dreaded bird. He's flying up in the air before I can say anything. I watch him, feeling confused, until he blends with the black sky and I can't see him anymore.
       A few seconds tick by where the only sound is the symphony of crickets and bullfrogs, but then the front door creaks open once more. I turn around slowly, and see Dave and Ollie standing there, gripping each other like they're one another's lifelines. And I suppose they are.
       "I'm sorry. I think I dented your car," I tell them casually, gesturing loosely toward's Dave's blue Chevy. "When I get money, I'll pay you back for the damage. I promise." They both just stare at me owlishly when I walk up to them, hopelessly trying to wipe away Crow's blood from my brand-new jacket. "Damn," I say sadly, staring at the red stains.
       "I think you could get those out. You just gotta use-"
       "Salt and cold water. Yeah," I interrupt Ollie, feeling weirdly empty as I look behind my shoulder at the sky where Crow disappeared. "This isn't my first rodeo." I look back and they're still both staring at me.
       "Dude. You're... like... badass!" Ollie scoffs. Dave starts to grin, and so does Ollie. They're like two halves to a whole. The cookie and the frosting. The peanut butter and the jelly. They share a connection that I will never have with anybody.
        "Hey, are you okay?" Dave touches my shoulder as I pass him without saying a word. "I saw... I saw him... I saw him kiss you." I look at him with blank eyes, and he falters.
       "I'm fine. I sorted it out. We made a deal," I tell him flatly. His brow furrows and he opens his mouth to speak. I know what he's going to ask so I beat him to it. "Reggie's put a bounty on my head. Fame for the heroes and money for the villains. He asked Crow specifically to track me down. And, well, he found me. But he told me he wouldn't turn me in, and that'd he'd go so far as to tell the other villains to back off," I glance down at the floor.
       "What'd he want in return?" Dave asks, his voice low. I shake my head and scoff to myself incredulously.
       "Dinner in two days. No masks. He wants to 'talk,' but if his little kiss stunt was any indication, he thinks he can win me back by playing guard dog. He doesn't know how wrong he is. He thinks that he can erase what happened in the past," I growl, clenching my fists so hard that my knuckles whiten, "but that's not going to happen." Dave watches me carefully. Ollie comes up beside his boyfriend but stays respectfully silent.
       "And what happened in the past?" Dave almost seems afraid to ask. I shrug and study my shoes. No sarcastic reply. He deserves that much.
       "Nothing that wasn't my fault," I reply, my voice so low I don't know if he can hear me. But he must be able to, because he lets me walk away. Ollie moves to follow me, but I see Dave gently hold him back.
       I take the stairs two at a time and when I reach the guest bedroom that I call my own, I slam the door shut and sit on the bed in the darkness. I will always hate you for what you've done. Nothing will change that. And then his reply... I know. And I'm sorry. I rub my temples with my fingertips, feeling a headache start to form. At least I found Bloodhound, and he agreed to help me. But now I've gone and agreed to have dinner with Crow, of all people.
       I don't trust him one bit. That goes without saying. But he confuses the hell out of me. I can't tell what will happen Friday night. What's he going to try and pull? Whatever it is, I have to be prepared. But I also have to try and stay out of the way of all of the heroes and villains in Birchwood, in addition to trying to find a six year-old I wasn't supposed to save in the first place. If I was anyone else, I would have given up already. Maybe I should've just laid down on the tracks and waited for the end. But I've never been one to let someone walk all over me. It's my stubbornness that's got me this far, and I'm praying it can get me to the finish line.