“Let’s never use that word again.” I held out my hand. Her back straightened as she clasped it tightly. I never thought I’d so easily reveal my identity. I couldn’t live with myself knowing the next time she might get pummeled by a crook. “If you’re going to be on the streets, mind if I show you a few tricks of the trade?”
“But you’re old.”
“Ouch. That hurt.”
“I think I’m good on my own.”
I turned the mask over in my hands—firm rubbercoated in red paint. The whiskers had been cut off, leaving just the eyes and nose of a cat.
“Hellcat.”
She snatched the mask out of my hands. The moniker fit, and she didn’t try batting it away. I’d call that progress. I slid my mask on while she lingered, eyeing the cat's nose. When she slid it back into place, I let the black fade away.
“Want to call me when you’re ready?”
“Call?” She couldn’t hide the look of disgust. “What are you? A psycho?”
The sound of sirens filled the street, and she bolted. I wish I had given her my number, even if she called me old. Right now, Vanguard needed its heroes, even the high schoolers. I should tell her parents and ensure she never saw the light of day, but I couldn’t ignore the pride in my chest.
“We’re heroes,” I whispered.
I’d never tell her, but tonight she did the rescuing.
19
Twelve seconds.
I counted not because I wanted to intimidate, but because I needed time to think. My finger traced the hole I had made in the table. It didn’t take a genius to figure out I had strength beyond the average man. Yet Booker didn’t ask the obvious as he waited for me to speak.
I reached twelve, and I still hadn’t come up with the words to start the conversation. Every phrase walked down a dark path, one we’d never recover from. Ms. Keyes might have pulled back the curtain, but it was us who made it possible.
“When did you know you were different?”
Sitting on the wrong side of the table, Booker looked up from his lap. Every time he entered the interrogation room, it had been with his shoulders back and chest leading theway. I think he knew what it meant when he saw me sitting in his chair. The confidence had faded from his body, and he did everything to avoid my stare.
He pointed at the camera. A second later, a black orb swallowed it. The blatant use of my abilities didn’t register on his face. The lack of response told its own story. Booker knew some of my secrets. It came with a sense of relief tangled with worry. How far could his powers reach? Did they climb into the closet where I locked Hellion away? Had they opened the trunk and touched the rage?
“My mother had it. She referred to it as thesensation.”
He lifted his hands, eyeing them as if seeing them for the first time. I expected an aura, or a tinge of color, as he used his abilities. They were hands, the same ones that had carried me home and put me to bed. Those hands had traversed my body, making me feel things nobody ever had. Had I been subjected to his abilities this entire time?
“She prayed it would skip a generation. I thought I was broken.” He dropped his hands to the table. His eyes stayed focused on his fingers as they tapped a rhythmic pattern.
“I celebrated my twenty-first birthday in a dive bar with friends. When it happened, I thought I had died. The loneliness. Anger. Joy. Desire. She called it the sensation because there are no words for what we feel.”
The words caught in his throat. I could almost feel the pain in his chest. This wasn’t an origin story. For him, it was a confession.
“Is this the first time you’ve…”
A slight nod. “Other than Mom, nobody knows.” Forty years old, and for the first time, he revealed a secret that permeated his entire being. Ms. Keyes had predicted this moment, this very second. The truth had been revealed, and she wanted me to explode, to hurl accusations and claim betrayal. I could throw down my fist and let my insecurities drive a wedge between us. Like the rest of Secret Identities, fear sat between us, ready to be weaponized.
I recognized his fear, a feeling with which I had an intimate relationship. It reared its ugly head every time I looked in the mirror.
“I was thirteen,” I started. The fear had to stop. “A bully chased me after school. I ran behind a house. I couldn’t climb over the fence and get away.” Decades later, my origin story still made me cringe. “I wished I were invisible. I prayed.” While I bit my lip, my chest heaved as I remembered that scared boy. “I got my wish. Nobody ever saw me again.”
Booker’s fingers rolled into a fist. Powers or not, hurt called to hurt.
He looked up. “I see you. I have felt every emotion, every fear, from the beginning.”
