The Marvels

Ep. 2 | Perfect Girls and Dilapidated Samosas

Hovering.

Vidya suddenly fell, her face smashing into the concrete, her eyes filling with tears. She lifted her head slowly and looked up at the overpass through blurred vision. The thief and her backpack were already gone. He tried to kill her and didn't even stick around to see it through. Jerk. Was her life worth that little to him?

Lucky for her, the overpass ran above an old, closed-off street; otherwise, an oncoming car would've killed her if the fall failed to. She stood up, wincing, and brushed gravel off her palms. A feral cat hissed in defiance, protecting its grand territory of cracked concrete, trash, and overgrown weeds. Vidya ignored it and looked for the hero who'd saved her. They had to be around here somewhere.

She turned in a full circle, blinked, and turned again. There wasn't a single person, super or civilian, around. Someone could have saved her and left before being seen...but what was the point in that?

What if no one caught me? she thought uneasily. What if I caught myself?

It was ridiculous and made as much sense as a super saving someone without sticking around to take the credit, but Vidya looked down at her hands like she'd never seen them before. These hands braided her hair every morning, fed her goldfish, held paintbrushes and pencils and pens, they did a million things but they did not light on fire or effortlessly lift trains. She was not...she couldn't possibly be...a super.

Could she?

The cat, the only witness to her fall, hissed again, like an alarm reminding her that she had things to do, places to be, but her mind had gone blank. Jonah's party and calculus and art and homework were all replaced by one electrifying thought: Vidya Khan might be a super.

Vidya started running home, fueled by shock, unable to pause for a breath. The neighborhood passed by in her peripheral vision, nothing but a faint blur of familiarity that offered no comfort.

Her key was in her backpack, which was no longer hers, so Vidya pounded a fist against the door until her stepfather opened it. José barely got a word in before she brushed past him and inside. The house smelled like cooking, as it always did. Her parents were in an ongoing food war: Mom tried to cook Mexican food as good as José's, and José tried to cook Indian food as good as Mom's. It was his turn today, judging by the dilapidated samosas on the counter. It was so achingly normal that Vidya almost burst into tears.

José shut the door and turned around, wiping his hands on his apron. "What's wrong?"

"I got mugged."

"What?" he shrieked, rushing forward to pull her into a hug. "Did they hurt you? Are you okay?"

He threw me off an overpass, and hey, I might be able to fly. Vidya opened her mouth only to stutter. The last thing she needed was for them to worry about something she didn't even understand herself. She survived. That was all that mattered.

"He pushed me," she said instead, pinching the bridge of her nose. The shock was beginning to subside, and growing throbs of pain were spreading across her face. "I got scared, that's all."

José nodded, blanked for a moment, and then snapped with both hands. "We need to call the police!"

"No!"

He almost dropped his phone in surprise. "We need to report this!"

"And we will." Vidya took a deep breath to steady her voice. "But later. I can't do it right now. Please?"

José had been her stepfather since she was eight. He knew her well, and she could see it in the way he narrowed his eyes that he could tell something was up.