Super?

Through The Flames

       "Maya, please wake up!" I've heard these words too many times this night. Wake up, Maya. Stay with me. Stay awake. Don't let go. I suppose it's my fault that I suffer through so many near-death experiences. I could be more careful, sure. I can be a bit reckless at times. But in the end I will never regret putting my life on the line for something I believe in, as cheesy as it sounds.
       So when I come to with my stomach on fire and my head throbbing to its own beat like a sadistic mariachi band is taking host in my skull, I feel nothing but peace. I think I would even if I opened my eyes to a mob of angry villains waiting to wreak revenge upon me for the death of their leader.
       "Dominic?" I manage to gasp out, my eyes opening. It's completely nighttime now and we're still in the parking lot, but Ivory's gang is gone. The only ones remaining are the heroes Bloodhound and Tate gathered, Sebastian, and Tate himself. And they're all staring at me. The sword is a few feet away on the ground, the oversized blade drenched with blood. Ivory's body is gone. So is Bloodhound's... Breathe in. Breathe out.
       "He's ok, Maya. So is Taylor. You did it. You saved them," Tate murmurs and gives my hand a squeeze of reassurance. He looks over his shoulder into the darkness, and when I follow his gaze I can see the dim forms of a woman tearfully embracing her young son. I feel a tired kind of happiness in addition to the mind-numbing pain coming from the ragged hole in my stomach. Breathe in. Breathe out. You did it.
       "Yay. Good job, team," I cheer weakly, letting my eyes roll up to stare at the stars in the night sky above. "Is Bloodhound...?" I let my voice trail off fearfully, not knowing if I want the truth or not.
       "He's disappeared. Nobody can find him. But Wolf Spider here is pretty sure he saw him teleport away not so long after you killed Ivory," Tate assures me. "You know Bloodhound. He probably has a way of evading even death itself." Wolf Spider is standing a ways off, delicately blotting a handkerchief to his blood-stained face. The stains match the color of his ruby-red eyes. His powers have always kind of creeped me out because he delivers poison to his opponents through a bite of his fangs, not so different from a vampire. But nobody can deny that he is effective at what he does.
       "Let's get out of here," I tell Tate. A black feather drops from the bottom hem of his shirt and he looks down.
        "I think you need help, Maya. Medical help. Your healing factor seems to have fixed your shoulder, but I don't want to leave something like your stomach up to chance," Tate explains to me, his dark eyes pleading with me to understand. He should know how much I hate hospitals. He should know because he probably does himself- his identity is as secret as I keep mine. I don't want the government snooping into the woman who shows up at the hospital with a freaking arrow wound to the stomach.
       Before I can argue, Sebastian pipes up too. "He's right. You've passed out twice, May. And this last time we thought we had lost you for good," he tells me gravely. There's a single bloody thumbprint on one of the lenses of his dorky Coke-bottle glasses. "Isn't there a single doctor you trust?" he inquires. I go quiet and think, but before I can tell him that there is literally nobody I trust, period, an awkward throat-clearing interrupts me. I ease myself into a sitting position despite Sebastian and Tate's protests, and look over my shoulder to see who wants my attention.
       Taylor stands there, her tangled curls hanging in front of her glinting amber eyes, her hands gripping her son's shoulders before her like they're anchors and she'd float away without him.
       The anger is gone from her face, leaving behind a desolate weariness. She looks so pitiful and broken standing there that I just have to open my mouth to speak to break the silence, but she beats me to it.
       "Thank you," she says quietly, barely looking up. "For rescuing my son. For making me believe he was alive in the first place. You gave me hope when I thought I wouldn't ever have any. You got my baby back. I'll never be able to repay for that. You really are a Guardian Angel, aren't you?" No. No, I'm not. You have no idea. "I... I recognize you," she continues, eyes still downcast. "When your illusion failed... You're that girl I talked to that one day after my son was kidnapped, aren't you? The one outside of the bar, with the bruised face?" She finally meets my eyes, and they bore into my with an uncomfortable intensity.
       "That's not all who she is," a familiar voice says from the shadows like in a soap opera. I can feel my heart slowly start to sink as Gia steps up and reveals herself, her illusion carefully put back in place and her sapphire eyes narrowed mischievously.      "She's more like me than she is a guardian angel."
        "Who the hell are you?" Taylor snaps, her hands tightening on Dominic's shoulders. She steers him behind her protectively.
       "Relax," Gia says to Taylor condescendingly. "I have no interest in hurting your son. Your friend is another matter," she adds, turning to me. I should have taken her out when she was down. Why did I walk away instead? Why did she stay after everybody left? To make your life miserable, obviously.
       "Gia, don't-" but she makes to continue on like she didn't even hear my pleading. There's a sadistic sort of excitement in her expression. She acts like a hole in my stomach isn't enough injury for her. She wants more blood.
       "Go away, Gia, before I get Wolf Spider here to work up an appetite for pretty-fake-girl blood," Sebastian warns her. She merely smiles.
       "I think Taylor here will find it very interesting to hear what I have to say," Gia explains, her words geared towards the hacker but her eyes settling uncomfortably on mine.
       "Get out of here," Taylor bristles suddenly, her lips pressed thin and a small glow working its way up her neck. Gia shrugs.
        "Your loss. But why don't you ask your precious little angel why exactly her face was bruised that day?" A smirk lingers on her painted face before she turns and dramatically melts back into the shadows with the help of a cloaking illusion. I wonder how she plans to get away from here. Did she conveniently park a getaway car nearby? I turn back and see that Taylor's gazing at me with a cautious curiosity alight in her eyes. Dominic also looks at me, but his is more of an expression of knowing. He knows where he recognizes me from. It seems that the truth is destined to out. I might as well get it over with.
       Sebastian seems to notice the defeated look in my eyes and raises a hand to stop me, saying, "She'll explain it all after we make sure she didn't rupture anything important after pulling an arrow from her stomach, 'kay?" He forces a smile and Taylor nods hesitantly. "Good." He turns to the line of battered superheroes before me. "Thank you for your service. We couldn't have done it without you," he tells them solemnly.        "Tonight, you put your lives at risk, stopped a super-villain, and rescued a child and a fellow superhero from his clutches."
       Wolf Spider tucks the handkerchief into his pocket and smiles wordlessly in reply, those red eyes shining in the dark.
       Thunderpunch puffs out his chest and makes some sanctimonious remark about "just doing his duty." If there were an American flag waving nearby, he would've saluted to it.
       Rocket just shrugs and says, "It wasn't like I was going to say no." His companions all smile and agree, exhaustion beginning to weigh on their bloodied shoulders.
       "Thanks," I interject weakly as they all start to walk/fly/run/disappear into the shadows. When it's only the five of us remaining, Sebastian turns back to me with his brow furrowed.
       "Time to pick a doctor, Maya. You got one in mind?" I open my mouth to protest once more, but again he just glances pointedly at the bloodied hole tore through my hoodie pocket.
       "Fine. Um. Greg Johnston is his name, I think. He works at Thompson. Late nights. Nurse of some sort. I dunno," I mutter. Remembering his name brings up other memories I'd rather forget: the car crash, lying broken in that alley, running from Mel and Greg after witnessing Dominic's "death" on the television. But he's the only medically trained person I know who I can trust enough to save my life, because he's done it once before.
       I only hope that when I show up, he won't immediately call the cops on me like he was going to the last time I saw him. We didn't exactly leave off on a pleasant note, to say in the least.
       "Well, Thompson is on the other side of this city. How exactly do you plan on getting there?" Tate asks nobody in particular. However, much to everybody's surprise, it's Dominic who pipes up.
       "I can take you all." At our identical looks of surprise, he huffs out impatiently. "I can teleport, remember?"
       "Or we can just forget about hospitals in general and trust in the fact that I have a healing factor like every other normal super," I say. "We don't have to make this a big deal. Seriously."
       "There's a hole in your stomach. I think it's a pretty big deal," Sebastian scoffs. He looks at Dominic as if evaluating him. "Are you positive that you've got those power thingies under control? You're not going to send us to Canada or anything?"
       "I'm fine. Ivory trained me. Plus," he says, "I have this now." He reaches around his neck and much to all of our chagrin, pulls Ivory's amulet out from under his shirt collar.
       "What the hell do you think you're doing with that?" Taylor gasps immediately. She snatches the amulet from his grasp and pulls it from over his head, her hands visibly shaking.
       "Ivory said he would pass it on to me one day. He said it would make me more powerful. I thought-" he's interrupted by the sudden fury blazing in his mother's eyes.
       "Ivory is a psychotic asshole. Ivory kidnapped you and let me think you were dead. Ivory..." She doesn't continue, just takes in a short angry breath. The hand holding the amulet starts to glow, lighting up all of our uncomfortable faces. We watch- and feel- as the heat in her fist gets hotter and hotter. Slowly the amulet begins to melt, the stone dripping onto the pavement like liquid mercury.
       "Um. That's not normal," Sebastian stutters. "Stone melts at approximately 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit. Your hands, while they can get up to extreme temperatures, are unable to physically melt a rock-"
       "Like I was trying to get at, this isn't- that wasn't- an ordinary stone necklace." She drops the cord onto the ground as well and kicks it dismissively.
      "Ok, ok," Dominic bleats in obvious discomfort, his caramel-colored skin tinged pink. "No weird necklaces. Got it. Shouldn't we take her to the hospital now?" He gestures at me and Taylor follows his gaze.
       "No, please, keep talking." I urge him on. "Eventually this wound'll heal by itself and we can stop making such a fuss over it." He rolls his eyes and kneels down to grab onto my arm.
       "I'm afraid you're not so lucky," the little boy tells me in a manner unlike that of his age. He raises his eyebrows at Tate, Sebastian, and his mother. They eventually get the hint and dutifully link arms.
       "I really feel like this would be a good time to start singing Kumbaya..."
       "Shut up, Maya," Sebastian sighs. "You're going to the hospital whether or not you gripe about it the whole time."
       "I think I'd rather gripe about the whole time," I retort. He opens his mouth to shoot some response back to me, and it's then that I feel the familiar feeling of my bones shrinking and the world spinning before me. Dominic is taking us away.