“Still me,” I breathe, just loud enough for her to hear. We only have a moment before Vin comes back.
I loosen the knot with a tug, and the blindfold slips from her eyes more than I mean it to. Her long eyelashes flutter, her eyes rimmed in smudged eyeliner squeeze momentarily, and then open.
I freeze. I wasn’t quite ready for her to see me. Clearly, she wasn’t ready either, the shock still clear on her face as she takes me in.
There’s something about the first few seconds that anyone really looks at me, when they realize what I am. Most mutants they see on TV are no longer capable of polite conversation.
Lacey stares at me, and I can feel my heart thudding in my chest. I don’t like scaring people.
She doesn’t flinch away.
“Keep this on for another minute, then you can take it off,” I murmur, downgrading the blindfold’s double knot to a single, flimsier one. Hopefully it holds long enough to fool Vin. “Then you should probably tell your boyfriend to hurry up and get here.”
I drag a sharp claw through the duct tape encircling her ankles and then squeeze them together for emphasis. I hope she understands to wait for us to leave.
Lacey holds still as I stand and take a step back. Vin appears, pushes through the doorway quickly. He steps up onto thebalcony ledge, readying a grappling hook gun. He catches my eye and orders, “Follow me.”
Vin proceeds to fire the grappling hook at a nearby building, and without a beat of hesitation, ziplines across. A true professional. Sighing, I step up onto the balcony, and when he’s safely across, I unhook this side’s end of the line for him.
“Right. Ms. Vigil, see you on the news,” I say, right before I tip over the side of the ledge, and catch the wind under my wings.
We scale the remaining distance up the adjacent building to the roof, a little higher up from where we left Lacey in the abandoned Steel Industries factory. I make myself comfortable on the newer, colder concrete while Vin sets up another one of Maestro’s devices on the ledge.
“You shouldn’t have talked to her so much,” Vin mutters as he adjusts one of the dials. He can be such a joyless asshole.
“Yeah, yeah. So, what now? We just sit and watch?”
He sighs and rolls his eyes. “You need to start paying better attention during dinner.”
The building has some of that nice older architecture, lots of exterior trim that’s good for perching on. The city looks almost peaceful up here, when it’s just darkness dotted with activity and neon signs, the corners of buildings only made visible by the way the lit windows warp with perspective.
Traffic below is a stream of colors and sound, the harsh din faded and far. It’s not quiet up here, exactly. The wind is loud, and constant. It gusts in waves that have their own invisible shapes to carve around or glide through.
We’re a few stories up from where Lacey is. I catch sight of her without the blindfold. She struggles a moment, and rips her hands apart, duct tape and all. I’m impressed. I honestly didn’t know she had that in her. She gets up and goes back inside the building.
Vin makes a noise of irritation. “We’re going to need something better than duct tape next time.”
“I think that was actually gaff tape.”
“What?”
“It was in the news van. Gaff tape. It’s black instead of metallic, tears easier.”
“Why didn’t you bring duct tape—”
His walkie interrupts in Maestro’s whispery voice: “Steel Heel is headed directly to the abandoned factory.”
Vin and I look up at the same time, and right on schedule, there’s the bright flare of Steel Heel’s trademark rocket boots cutting through the night sky.
It looks a little different. I lean over the edge, squinting. I’ve lived in Goethal a good while, I’ve seen him fly plenty of times. He’s twisting around a whole lot more than usual. Then he veers and crashes through a couple windows on the corner of one of the skyscrapers, and I realize he’s not alone.
“He’s still fighting that mutant,” Vin says incredulously, as the pair streak past us with a flash of light and smoke. There’s mere moments before the pair of them collide with the building we left Lacey behind in, punching a hole through a concrete wall. Hope that wasn’t structural.
Steel Heel throws the mutant, who seems to be shedding layers upon layers of scales every time he moves, through theglass-panel window, and Lacey scampers out of the way on the balcony. I grip the ledge, and Vin grabs a handful of my shirt to hold me down.
“Asshole!” I hiss and shove him off. “She’s right there, what if he hurts her?”
The next moment, what if’s become irrelevant.
