Silverfish (Excerpt, Chapters 9 and 10)

Freedom, freedom, freedom! 

There was no telling how long it would last, and I didn't want to waste a moment of it. My backpack slapped up and down against my spine in a rhythmic thumping heartbeat as I hurtled down the street.  

Freedom, freedom, freedom! 

I stopped running only once I had reached Conner Park, where I changed back into my regular clothes. There was no point in running around looking ridiculous if I didn't have to, after all. My pace was slower after that, but there was probably still a bit of a bounce in my step as I walked.  

Freedom, freedom, freedom!  

I chose to take the long way home, passing by the grocery store to pick up the lettuce I'd promised Gilly. It wasn't that crowded for a Saturday morning, but I did see my best friend from school, Charlie, pawing through the vegetables near the back of the store. Charlie loved food, vegetables especially, and it was a small miracle that he looked away from his broccoli long enough to stare at me as I walked past. 

"And it's on sale! Score!" I scooped up a full head of Gilly's favorite lettuce, a heavy bag of carrots as an afterthought, and waved once more to Charlie as I headed for the far side of the store. He only blinked, a baby carrot in his mouth. 

There was only one other person browsing the cereal aisle - a boy of about eighteen - and I immediately froze in place. Every hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood bristling at attention. Goose bumps ran down the length of my arms, sending out a thousand tiny uh-oh signals to the rest of my body. The boy who slouched against the shelves was tan-skinned and dressed in a red T-shirt that hung loosely over his thin shoulders. He wore no mask around his eyes, but I still recognized him instantly by his trademark dreadlocks. And if he could recognized me too (or rather, if he could recognize the hints of Jason in me) then I was about to be in serious trouble. 

I must have made some sort of noise, like a squeak or something, because Atomos looked up from the box of cereal he was holding. 

Please. . .don't. . . 

Atomos' eyes slid briefly over my face, then flicked back down to the Cherry Bombs in his hands. Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief. There weren't that many kids of Japanese descent in the city to offer me cover. . .but then again, I didn't remember Jason ever mentioning a time when he had been recognized out of costume, and he had attended school with his fangirls. 

Either way, the experience was too close for comfort, and I shifted cautiously towards Atomos inch by inch. What was he doing here? Atomos didn't have a super power of his own, or so I'd gathered from Jason's stories, and he controlled his giant robots instead with two elbow-length mechanical gloves and a pair of heavy metal boots. I didn't see either one on him, and it didn't seem particularly likely that he could have stuffed them in his pockets for convenient storage, ready to whip out at a moment's notice.  

That, added to the fact that there weren't very many places a giant robot could hide inside a little grocery store. Could it really be that Atomos, the oldest (and therefore arguably the most dangerous) of the city's current super villains was simply. . .shopping for cereal? 

Huh. Well, I guess super villains have to eat too, and maybe they don't always like to call so much attention to themselves or go through all the trouble that comes with breaking into places and stuff. Food for thought. 

I slid a box of Frosted Sugar-Minis off its shelf, sneaking a look at Atomos in the process. Geez, he was tall, five-foot-ten at the very least, and maybe even more. It was hard to make a very accurate guess due to the way that he was slouching over. He was scowling at the nutrition facts on the side of the Cherry Bombs, eyebrows knitted, and he glanced up again when he sensed me looking at him looking at the cereal box. I turned away too quickly.