Or maybe I’m just too much for him. Maybe I’m trying to convince him to have something he really doesn’t wish to have? I suppose I’ve never exactly had a healthy relationship with anyone in my life, so I might be going about it all wrong.
“Let’s go.”
I give him a nod and trail after him at a decent distance while we make our way back to the house. “Wait out here,” he says. “I’m just telling my mother I’m leaving.”
“Okay,” I agree as I lean against the hood of the car I’d stolen and watch him walk away from me. Would he be happier if his mother wasn’t in his life? If I could kill the person stalking him? Or if he found someone who wasn’t a monster?
I dig my fingers into the bleeding palm of my hand.
After a few minutes, Ellison comes out looking even more upset than he had going in.
“I’ll follow you to headquarters so you can return the car and then we’re going home,” he says, voice emotionless.
I give him a nod and get into the car which I drive to headquarters. I park it in the same parking spot I’d stolen it from, toss the keys to a security guard, and get into Ellison’s car. He drives us to his home in complete silence.
When we get there, we head inside before he glances back at me. “I’m taking a nap.”
“Sounds good,” I say as I watch him walk upstairs.
I wish I was better at this. It’s clear he’s caught up in something, but it seems like the more I try to involve myself in his life, the more he tries to cut me out of it.
I pull Pocket Lint out and set her on the floor before sinking down in a kitchen chair and staring up at the second floor, but my mind is in too much turmoil to think. Then I head upstairs, slip through the window, and climb out onto the roof where I call Valerie.
“I would prefer not to speak to you,” she announces.
“Have you gotten any matches?”
“On?”
“Supers who can teleport. Or honestly any kind of invisibility, speed. Things that I can’t see,” I say.
She’s quiet for a moment before responding, “I see.”
“You see what?”
“I’ll let you know if we find something when we do.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’s going to have to be,” she says.
“Give me their names, and I’ll look into them myself.”
“No.”
I grit my teeth. “Then I will deal with it myself.”
“You stay put and I will tell you when you can deal with it, you hear me?”
Seething, I hang up on her before deciding that I’m accomplishing nothing sitting here. Swinging back in through my bedroom window, I tug my shirt off and toss it before grabbing a clean one. I briefly run my arm and hand under the faucet, shake it off, and start to pull my shirt on as Ellison looks into the room.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“With?”
I don’t have time to pull my sleeve down before he sees my arm.
“Did you do this when you fell?” he demands.
