Shining Heroes

Chapter 109

*POV change to Melodic mood*

It had taken us all night to chase down the person who broke into a bank. Thankfully, we were able to get him out of the building before he took anything of true value, but now it was just the point to catch him.

"Hey, fly ahead and cut him off," I ordered Reaper.

At first, he refused to listen, but the villain yelled something, and Reaper decided to finally cut him off.

The villain wasn't expecting Reaper to land directly in front of him. As a result, the villain slammed directly into him, giving us the ability to finally catch him.

As we were loading the villain into the van, my phone vibrated, and I found Shining had texted me.

'Are you still coming?'

'Yeah, sorry, we are running a bit late.'

'OK, I'm still here training. I'll probably be here another hour or so.' 

I rushed inside to collect the paperwork I needed to fill out. I tried to fill out the paperwork as soon as I could without making a mistake. Immediately after filling out the paperwork, I went heading toward the training hall.

I heard music loudly playing from the room at the very end of the hall. I was thankful it was late enough that there wasn't anyone here that would be disturbed by it.

"I'm sorry, but there is a level of black training in there right now, so the guy is off-limits."

"The level black is my charge." I firmly said while pulling out my clearance.

"I'm sorry." He said as he quickly unlocked the door, which led to the training studio.

When I opened the door, the music got louder. I followed the music to the source I found, Shining gracefully dancing in the very back of the training room. I could tell right away that she was favoring her right side while she gracefully danced.

Why did they consider her dancing dangerous training? Anyone could see that she wasn't even using her powers.

For a split second, my heart dropped as she dropped to the ground, but she kept going as if that was a part of the dance. Her movements occasionally moved from smooth to sharp, yet still looked gracefully as if she had carefully planned every movement just before they happened.

Before the song had ended, she had twirled and froze when she saw me. Her face began to glow as an embarrassed smile formed at her lips.

"You said you were running late..." she mumbled while looking behind me.

"I was.  I said I would be here at 6, and it is 6:10."

"Really?" She softly chuckled. "This," She gestured between us sheepishly, "isn't work Mood." 

"In private, it's not." I whispered, and almost immediately part of her shrank, hearing me say that.

I should have kept my mouth shut. I couldn't believe I responded so quickly without considering who it would make her feel.

She began to walk past meand I could feel heat radiating from her, but I couldn't tell if this was caused by her dancing or from irritation.

"Do you plan on going back in?" The man keeping people away asked, but Shining just ignored him.

"She's done." I softly said as I followed after her.

She had picked up her speed until she made it to her motorcycle.

"Do you need a ride?" She asked while holding out a pink helmet to me. 

"A ride would be nice." I said as I grabbed the helmet from her and carefully put it on.

"Did you bring a disguise? Or do we need to stop at my place?" She asked. 

"I could use a change of clothes."

Thankfully, she no longer sounded upset, but she still was warm to the touch. I wrapped my wrist around her waist before she began to zip through traffic.

Before I knew it, we were in the alley outside her apartment.

She did a quick scan of the alley before she twisted a knob and it changed her motorcycle license plate into a civilian issued one.

"I'm going to take a quick shower since we are here." Shining said as she guided me upstairs.

"Wait, are you mad at me?" I asked when she tried to rush into the bathroom.

"No. I'm not mad at you." She sighed. "I'm upset that I can't be open about you.  It's like being in the closet all over again. Except this time, I can't pretend that I don't like you because I can't look at you without people realizing I love you."

I felt my face warm up at the end of her statement, but worry quickly filled my mind.

"People know?"

"They don't know how you feel." She sighed. "You know how to control what people see when it comes to your feelings." She laughed a little. "After getting kicked out by my father, it was like I forgot how to hide my emotions."

She sighed and grabbed a hoodie and a couple of other things before locking herself in her bathroom.

I jad started changing into one of my disguises when I heard my phone go off.  At first, I thought it was an emergency based on the notification sound, but instead, it was orders.