Solstice Survivors (Book 1): Superhero Syndrome Page 3

  I leaned my head against the glass for a moment before pulling a pencil and my trusty sketchbook out of my backpack and beginning to draw. I’d missed this view, the way the crowded skyscrapers gave way to five- and six-story mixed-use developments, growing older and more rundown as we left downtown. My hand drifted across the thick, rough paper as I sketched the skyline until we passed into the Trident.

  On either side of the tracks, three long blocks of identical brown apartment buildings marched between downtown and the suburbs like dominoes. They weren’t pretty. They weren’t exciting. They were the city’s response to an overpopulation problem, and most taxpayers didn’t give a crap if low-income folks had to live in the architectural equivalents of oversized and overcooked toaster waffles. Somewhere in the sea of postage-stamp-sized balconies was my new home.

  The train coasted to a stop at the station on Triton Avenue, and I hoisted my bag up onto my shoulder. The doors slid open, and the frowning face of Jim Jenkins greeted me from an advertisement over the platform’s benches. The serious-faced anchor had been whipping the residents of Weyland into panicked frenzies over everything from tropical storms (“Watch out for looters, folks! They’ll be using power outages to their advantage!”) to NBA finals (“No matter which team wins, there’ll be riots in the streets! You can count on that!”). In all likelihood, the “human trafficking ring” Bethany was fretting over was nothing more than a few runaways hyped up by a paranoid old newsman.

  I descended the concrete steps from the platform to the dim street below. As the sun began to set, all natural light disappeared beyond the towering apartment complexes around me. In the ritzier parts of Weyland, the city’s elite built homes high up on the hillsides to enjoy the sunset over the mountains to the west and the sunrise over the ocean to the east. Here in the Trident, the residents at street level had to live with artificially shorter days.

  The ground floor of each building was taken up by shops, fruit stands, and payday loan centers. I glanced into the windows of a few fast food joints as I passed them, my stomach growling. I was ravenous after surviving on chips and soda for the whole trip. I suddenly felt exhausted, and all I wanted to do was find my apartment and collapse onto the floor with a bucket of French fries.

  As I walked down Triton toward my new building, the street lamps dotting the sidewalk every fifty yards started turning on, creating pools of sickly yellow light that didn’t come anywhere close to touching each other. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck twitched as I scurried from lamppost to lamppost, and I wondered if Jim Jenkins could be a broken clock, finally right after chiming midnight all day. My sister’s warning rang in my ears, and a tiny pang of fear prickled in my chest. My hand slipped into the depths of my bag, curling around the tiny canister that rested at the bottom. Despite my tough talk to Bethany, I was just a teensy bit nervous about moving to this area… nervous enough to grab some Mace from a rest stop on the way down from Albany. With my defensive strategy in hand, I scanned the businesses around me for somewhere to duck into for a cheap meal and a little sanctuary from the dark street.

  Just as I was about to make a decision between a greasy fast food chain and a cheap sandwich place, a tall man in a hooded sweatshirt stepped out from the covered doorway of a pawn shop and fell into step a few paces behind me.

  Is he following me?

  Only one way to find out. I rounded the corner onto Palaemon Street—a narrow offshoot mainly filled with boarded-up businesses—and he made the same turn a second later.

  It didn’t feel like a coincidence. Sure, he could live near me. Hundreds of people lived on each of these city blocks; he could easily be one of them. But would that explain why his strides exactly matched mine? Why he slowed when I slowed, and kept up with me when I quickened my pace to a light trot?

  Chancing a glance over my left shoulder, I confirmed that the man was still behind me. His hands were tucked into the wide pocket at the front of his dark hoodie. We locked eyes, and fear stabbed my chest again. He dropped back a few paces, but when I turned my face forward again, I could still feel his stare boring into the back of my head. No. This wasn’t coincidence. He was following me.

  My breath caught. I tightened my grip on the can of Mace, visualizing pulling it out of my bag, spinning around, and blasting it into his eyes. Was it even possible, or would I just spray wide, somehow managing to blind myself in the process?

  Thin tendrils of panic began to creep around my organs. There was no way I’d be able to fight him off when he grabbed for me, and it had become a definite when in my mind. I wanted to walk more quickly, but I was terrified he’d realize I was onto him, and that would spark him into making his move. Ahead of me, the white-and-blue banner of Helena’s Place glowed comfortingly in the twilight from the other end of the block. I knew that sign from the internet search I’d done while looking for an apartment. Safety lay just over that diner.

  Don’t run, I cautioned myself. Act normal.

  The word echoed in my mind. Normal. Normal. Normal. In an instant, it lost all meaning. There was no normal. There was just me, a tiny girl who was literally just skin and bones. And then there was him, this hulking monster with something in his hoodie pocket.

  What’s he hiding in there?

  I imagined a chloroform-soaked rag, a switchblade, or even a gun, and picked up my pace, nearly sprinting toward my building. I didn’t want to look behind me; I was sure if I did, I’d see his face inches from my own and feel his hand close around my wrist. But when I was within a few yards of my building, I knew I had to check again.

  If he’s still following me, I decided, I’ll duck into the diner for help.

  Eyes wide, I turned my head to look over my shoulder once more. He was still there, but he’d allowed the distance between us to grow so he trailed me by half a block. The tension in my chest loosened, and a sigh escaped my lungs.

  And then the toe of my beat-up sneaker caught the edge of an upraised section of sidewalk, and I pitched forward. By instinct, my hands rushed upward to protect my face, and the rough concrete shredded my palms as I dove into it. My canister of Mace went flying, and I heard a faint clink as it landed in the street.

  Footsteps thundered toward me from behind. I twisted my neck to see the man who’d been following me, now sprinting toward my prone body.

  My stalker skidded to a halt beside me and grabbed my shoulder. I was completely defenseless, and he knew it. I couldn’t help it; I screamed, letting out a high-pitched yelp that echoed off the brick facades of the buildings around us. My shoulder burned where the stranger gripped me, and then I felt it.

  A pulse—like an electric shock—raced from my fingertips, up my arms, and down my spine. My body convulsed, every muscle twitching together like they were part of a choreographed flash mob.

  “Whoa!” a deep voice said, and the pressure on my shoulder released. “Are you okay, lady?”

  “Don’t touch me!” I shouted, rolling away from him. The sidewalk scratched my face, but I didn’t care. I ended up on the large welcome mat in front of the restaurant with the blue-lit sign and only stopped moving when I bumped into someone’s legs. Scrambling to my feet, I raised my hands and held them in front of me in a defensive pose.

  The hooded man mirrored my stance, raising his hands in front of him. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not trying to hurt you.” With one hand, he pulled back his hood and revealed a lean face and chin-length, sandy blond hair. “I’m not trying to hurt her,” he repeated in a louder voice, looking past me.

  I turned my head to peer into the restaurant. I’d attracted the attention of everyone inside, and several people had left their tables to stand in the entrance and get a better look. I searched their eyes; they looked curious and a little frightened. The woman whose legs I’d rolled into stepped backward, closer to the knot of other diners.

  That’s when I realized nobody was looking at the hooded guy. They were all staring at me, the Skeletor-impersonator in the puffy coat. They had
the same expressions on their faces as the other patients in the hospital, and the strangers at the meteor shower, and the park ranger.

  Pity mixed with disgust.

  Only one person looked truly concerned. A tall woman with long, dark curls pushed her way through the crowd. Deep lines creased her forehead, giving her a serious appearance, but her brown eyes were warm.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  I glanced back at the blond guy who’d been following me. His eyes were wide, and he looked genuinely surprised to be suddenly faced with a knot of onlookers. He met my gaze and raised his hands a little higher.

  “I swear,” he said. “I was just trying to help.”

  The woman nodded to him. “Okay, then. Why don’t you move along?”

  He dipped his head in a quick nod of his own and hurried along the sidewalk, walking in the same direction I’d been heading and ducking into a record store a few doors farther down the street. My shoulders fell. All that fuss, and he was just a regular guy shopping for some music.

  “Show’s over, everybody,” the woman called to her patrons.

  They shuffled back to their seats, murmuring to one another. I distinctly heard the word “crazy,” and the knot in my chest tensed up again.

  “Thank you,” I told the older woman.

  She looked down at me, the lines of her face deepening as she frowned. She had a motherly demeanor, and I got the sense she was trying to decide whether to call the cops or give me a hot meal. Then her expression softened, and the crease between her eyebrows let up.

  “You still haven’t answered me,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” I turned my hands over, assessing the damage. The flesh on my palms was raw and red, and bits of gravel had cut angry little swaths into my skin before lodging themselves into the meaty parts above my wrists. But they didn’t hurt as much as my pride. I gazed around at the restaurant patrons, who continued to stare at me from their seats. “I just feel stupid.”

  She shrugged. “Yesterday, I dropped an entire tray of enchiladas on the ground while I was serving a table. I’m still waiting for the dry-cleaning bill from the customer they landed on. We all have those moments.”

  “Seriously? You’re not just making it up to make me feel better?”

  She grinned. “I wouldn’t make up something that embarrassing. Good thing I own this place, or I could’ve gotten fired.”

  It was funny, but I was still too shaken up from my fall to give anything more than a weak chuckle. “Well, thanks again. I appreciate it.”

  “Want a cup of coffee? It’s on the house.”

  My stomach growled, but all I wanted was to get into my apartment, away from the judgmental eyes of the diner’s patrons. I shook my head. “I’d better not.”

  She shrugged and picked up a tray from an empty table. “Offer stands, any time. Good luck out there.”

  I wanted to tell her I didn’t need it, but as I stepped out of the diner and cast a nervous glance up and down the block, I suddenly felt like I could use all the luck I could get. I stared at the spot on the sidewalk where I’d convulsed just moments before and shuddered. I honestly didn’t know what was worse: that I’d beefed up my hands or that I’d had an audience while I’d done it.

  Either way, so far Weyland didn’t seem any happier to see me than I was to see it.

  Bethany’s hands shook. Steam billowed up from the tea as she poured it into the china cup in front of me, and I shivered. We had no business sitting on her screened porch in January. Even though I sat within the reach of the small electric heater, cold air pricked at my face. Every gust of wind from the ocean managed to scream its way through the neighborhood and race down the back of my shirt. Grateful for my mittens, I wrapped one end of my long scarf around my neck and pulled up the hood on my puffy black jacket.

  She sat across the coffee table from me, cradling her cup in her hands, and just stared at me. I stared back, trying to figure out her expression. She didn’t look angry. She didn’t look sad. She just looked like she was trying to figure out where in the hell I’d come from. It was like looking into a very confused mirror.

  I cleared my throat. “So… I’m back.”

  “You’re back,” she said.

  I could only nod. I didn’t like it. When I’d texted her that I was moving back, she’d seemed excited. And yesterday on the phone, she’d sounded happy I was in town. I’d dared to hope she’d forgotten why we’d stopped talking, and maybe we could just slip back into the easy friendship we’d always shared.

  But from the way she was gazing at me, half in wonder and half in disbelief, I got the feeling something very awkward was coming.

  And I was right.

  “So, what was it that finally brought you back?” she asked. “I thought it’d take the apocalypse to ever bring you home.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you said, ‘I’m leaving and I’m never coming back.’” She took a sip of her tea. “Right after you called me a stupid bitch.”

  Heat raced up the back of my neck. So this had been a trap. She’d been all nice to me on the phone yesterday just so she could lure me here and confront me? What a bi—

  But just as I was about to think it, the memory of that day came back. It was my eighteenth birthday. We’d been standing in the living room at my parents’ house drinking champagne (hey, I was the guest of honor—of course I had some) and celebrating, and then he’d waltzed into the room, made a joke about how I was “legal” now, smacked Bethany on her ass, and burped like a foghorn.

  Maybe I’d been emboldened by the champagne. Maybe there was something magical about being an adult on paper that made me think I could talk to other adults however I wanted. Whatever the reason, I’d suddenly been brave enough to call him a drunken waste of space.

  The room had fallen silent.

  Then, for some inexplicable reason, everyone in the room started yelling at me. Like I was the bad guy. Like I was the one who’d treated Bethany like shit for years and given my parents zero respect ever. Yep, my parents, my aunts and uncles, and even my cousins had glared at me, mouths hanging open after asking things like, “How dare you?”

  And Bethany? She was the worst of all. She burst into tears and demanded an apology. When I refused, she called me an ungrateful brat and stomped off to comfort her husband.

  Cue the “stupid bitch” remark, the claim that I’d never set foot in Weyland or see any of them again, and a flurry of online job applications to anywhere and everywhere far away from here.

  Bethany was still staring at me as little wisps of steam rose up from her teacup and curled around the tip of her narrow nose. I was struck again by the fact that her eyes weren’t angry… She really just looked curious. I wondered if she’d already forgiven me. Was it even possible? I’d never even apologized.

  So I did.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She blinked, nodded, and gestured toward my cup. “Milk or sugar?” she asked.

  I frowned at my sister. Could it really be that easy? I wasn’t in any hurry to discuss the past, so I rolled with it. “Since when have you used either one? What is this, Downton Abbey?”

  She cringed. “Okay. You got me. I’ve been marathoning it all week.”

  “And now you’re suddenly British?”

  “I just want to try it. They’re always doctoring their tea just like it’s coffee.” She pushed a sugar bowl toward me. “Come on, Tess. Let’s give it a go.”

  I picked up the bowl and set it on a side table, effectively exiling it from my presence. “Ew, no. Milk and sugar in peppermint tea? You’re a monster.”

  We grinned at each other. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed teasing her. Mom used to call it “poking the bear” when I was little, because Bethany would get so flustered that she’d freak out and start throwing around insults. They never stung, though. The angrier she got, the funnier I thought it was, and I�
��d laugh until I puked.

  She didn’t disappoint. “I’m the monster? You’re the one wearing sweatpants outside your house.”

  I burst out laughing. It was like a spell was broken. Bethany doubled over and giggled, and all the awkwardness and tension in the air fizzled out, carried away from us by the winter breeze. And I had to admit she was right. She was chic as always in a pair of high-waisted pants and a cream-colored Burberry coat. Meanwhile, the stuffing was poking out of my jacket, and I had a mustard stain on my gray sweatpants.

  “Hey, give me a break. The rest of my clothes haven’t gotten here yet.” I nodded toward her outfit. “Once I can unpack, I’ll look all fancy, too.”

  Bethany tucked her blonde hair behind her ears. “If you think comic book T-shirts and baggy jeans are ‘fancy,’ then—”

  “What the hell is that?” I interrupted.

  A sliver of purple glared at me from her cheekbone. She’d done a good job covering most of the bruise with makeup, but now that her long hair no longer masked the left side of her face, one of the edges shone through.

  She brought a hand up and touched the mark. “Oh… I-I walked into an open cupboard.” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “It was a silly mistake, but you know how clumsy I am.”

  “Yeah. Funny how you went from being as graceful as a swan to a total klutz right when you married Bruce.” I cringed when his name left my mouth. Just when we’d gotten past our last ugly conversation, he had to come up again.

  Bethany’s eyes hardened. “He had nothing to do with this.”

  I leaned forward and studied her face. She was three years older than me, but most people wouldn’t know it. She looked like she could be my twin. We shared the same slender build and fair complexion, and even had the exact same hazel eyes. I’d taken to cutting my hair into a short pageboy, but Bethany loved to keep her golden locks long and flowing. She’d always looked like a fairytale princess. I saw now that behind her clever use of cosmetics, her face looked gaunt. Her eyes looked too large in their sockets, and her cheeks were hollow.