Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Twenty-Three: Another Sort of Heroism

Kai leans against Finn's shoulder, digging his thumbnail between his teeth. The two boys sit in shared silence under the stars, the talk of strangers and the thump of faraway pop hits white noise to the drum of their own hearts and the quiet warmth of each other's grasp. Cold seeps through their clothes, but the two stare blankly off, watching the carnival pass in a swirl of savory smells and giggling teens, until Finn asks: "Where's Monet?"

Kai shrugs against his friend, sighing contently. "Probably in a tree, K-I-S-S-I—"

Finn stands. His chest suddenly hurts. "I haven't seen Max, either."

"Max?" Kai shakes his head, laughing.  "Are you blind? K-I-S-S-I-N-G Percy."

To this, Finn squints. There are few trees in the vicinity to kiss anyone anywhere. He pulls Kai to his feet with a few reluctant tugs. "We better look for her, I guess."

"Naw, leave Monet and her love life alone."

Finn scans heads, trekking through the grass, Kai skipping in tow. No Monet. No Percy. No Max. His heart stews behind his ribs, stirred with the certain knowledge that the pieces are snapping together to form a far less innocent picture than k-i-s-s-i-n-g. He grits his jaw. "Not her love life, her other life."

Kai's dark eyes light up as he swirls his thumb in Finn's palm. "You think she's superheroing again?"

Finn is no idiot. He figured it out about the moment Monet donned that stupid black hood she found God knows where. After all, she got super-powers the day before. But the boys agreed to pretend it wasn't happening, so long as she did. If she thinks she's "protecting" him and Kai, let her.

"Yeah." Now, Finn admits with a quiet grunt he regrets it. Maybe he shouldn't have played along. Maybe he should've demanded to be a part of that piece of her, the hero part of her. Because maybe now, she's gone.

The grass is damp and soft underfoot, bunches pulled up, patches flattened. The boys fix their collars snug against their throats, the wind brisk, chilling as the darkness thickens. "Hey!" Kai shouts, kicking up a twist of blue fabric. It shimmers in the muted sliver of moonlight. Finn's heart snatches in a clenched fist.

"What a disrespectful way to treat a friend's dress," he mutters. Kai scrounges the mangy grass, pocketing chips of painted blue paper plate. The rest of the dress is shredded. Neatly. The bodice sliced from the skirts with a single vertical tear, Monet's keychain blade, her trusty weapon, stabbed into the grass beside it. 

Monet is weird. Unkillably, unbreakably, weird. You attack her school and she chases you out with hardly your life intact, you fire her from her fake reporter job and she investigates the disappearance of Silver Dollar's supers by herself with thousands of fans clinging to her every word, you drown her in bubbling acid and she gets superpowers.

It's the gold and white wing that ratchets the closedness in Finn's chest. "Call the police."

"But what about her identity-thing?"

"Honestly, Kai! Call the police!"

Kai chews his thumbnail again, staring down at the broken wing. "She's been through worse, right?"

"You think Percy has?"

His heartbeat pounds between his ears, the air filled with the weight of their silences. Together, the boys stare at the scaly mask and the shimmering shreds of blue silk dress, sharing the slow, sinking thud of dread. It's only the gasping cries of a running boy that make them look up. Kai's quivering hand is curled around his phone. "Finn, Kaito!"