Shadow

Spandex Butts and Identity Revelations

"Cameron . . . what happened?"

The last time I'd seen her, she'd been a cheerful little girl willing to help out her favorite superhero. Then, later that day, she'd been a scared child that didn't know what was happening, who was worried for her best friend. Her only family.

"Well, you see, after you killed Finn, a foster family finally took me in. Except I kept running away to look for Finn. I couldn't find him anywhere and I was confused. You'd told me you'd save him. My favorite superhero can save him, right? Wrong." She scowled at me. "They gave me back to the shelter. Said they couldn't handle me. After another month or so, another person took me in. His name was Ripper. That was all he'd let me call him. I called him dad on accident one time and he hit me." My jaw dropped in horror. "He kept on hitting me and all he ever did was drink beer and gamble with his friends. They would all yell at me and throw stuff at me. The only good thing Ripper did was teach me how to fight. If I lost to him, I got beaten up."

I sat down on the ground, my eyes stinging. That little girl that I'd known . . . she was gone, replaced by a hardened soul that had been forced to grow up too fast. And it was because of me.

"I finally got out of there. By then, I knew for sure that Finn was gone. He wasn't coming back. He was dead. I'd found a newspaper with the story on it, but I thought they were wrong. Turns out, I was wrong." She gulped, holding back tears. "I've blamed you ever since. You were the reason my life went wrong. Maybe I could've been adopted with Finn. He was my only family, you know. The only one who cared about me. And you got him killed. And you didn't even bother to come back to the shelter to see any of us, to tell us what happened. To tell me what happened." Cameron looked me in the eye. "I left the shelter. They've never found me. Never bothered to look very hard, either. So take me back to my alley, and don't bother me ever again."

I stared at her for a moment, her dirt-streaked face, her calloused hands. I couldn't let her go back to that life. Nine year old girls shouldn't know this hardship. They should still be playing with dolls, thinking boys had cooties, not scavenging through trash and stealing to provide for themselves. "No," I decided.

Cameron looked up in surprise. "What?"

"I said no. I'm not letting you go back there. You're going to come home with me." I honestly didn't know what was going through my mind. Inviting a strange thief child into your house? Not your brightest decision, Kiera.

She frowned. "I don't want to. I want you to leave me alone and I never want to see you again. Things always go wrong when I'm around you."

"Not anymore. We can afford anything you want, you can eat a proper meal. I don't even have parents there to boss you around." I looked the young girl straight in the eyes. "Finn was my only real family left too, you know. That's why I went looking for him as soon as I'd heard about him."

She looked surprised at first, then masked it with a glare. "Why can I trust you?"

I took a deep breath, then reached behind my head to untie my mask. I bit my lip anxiously. I'd only revealed myself one other time, to just one other person. And now, he was dead. I hoped I was making the right choice. Her eyes widened. Even Cameron knew that Supers didn't give their identity out to just anyone. I took off my mask, the cool air brushing my face. "My name is Kiera Knight."

Her jaw dropped. "As in, the Knight Enterprises Kiera Knight?"

I nodded, wincing at my family's company name.

"You're rich," was all she could say.

I smiled. "Thanks, I know." I watched her face for a minute, childlike awe lighting up her features. "So will you come with me?"