Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Twenty-Four: Reveal

Darkness weasels under my eyelid. My limbs are weightless in sleep, this warmth creeping into my skin like I'm floating under the closed black lid of a coffin. I twitch and mutter and claw and scream. Spasming in a puddle of cold sweat, I spend hours trapped in that gentle lull of night.  And then, a voice:

"Monet, I know you're awake. How do you feel?"

It's a voice full of calm authority. My chest stirs with a soft thrum of recognition. My wrists itch, my fingers half curled, a douse of scratchy heat bringing sweat to my skin. I don't want to open my eyes, because the voice is caring and gentle, and I want to pretend I passed out at the carnival. I'm at home, I decide, swaddled in blankets, my dad standing over me, interrogating my two best friends. Or maybe I'm at the Patience First, collapsed on crinkled parchment paper, and that nice over-caffeinated nurse lady is looking over me.

It's only the thought of Percy with a dart in her throat that makes me open my eyes.

"Masquerade, I swear, if I'm duct-taped to an ironing board and an ax is slowly lowering from the ceiling..." I rasp, trying to keep my quips about me. The room is all dark, wires tangled in my fingers and stuck to my wrists, a single dim light flashing above my head. It sears my eyes in their sockets. A clear IV bag drips fluid into my bulging veins. The walls are lashed together from metal rods and rusty bolts, and my legs are dangling over the edge of a stained butterfly sheet. I blink hard. There's a curious lack of a headache, the pressure relieved from my temples. 

It clicks, all at once, my heartbeat ratcheting against my chest. "My mask! Where—"

"It's pretty obvious, you know." He dangles the sweaty piece of plastic over my face. I twist my wrists, but they won't budge. I glance down. Duct tape.

My superstrength has been one-uped by duct tape.

My heart stops. I'm screwed.

Masquerade settles beside me, hands folded neatly in his lap. He sits criss-cross applesauce, his knee just poking my side. With a whistle of a sigh, he leans back. Relaxed.

"Where's Percy?"

"With Red."

"Where's that?" Don't say dead. Don't say six feet under, or in heaven, or put to rest. Don't say I can't save them. Masquerade yawns, stretching over me while I writhe against the tape. Every muscle is clenched, warm sweat inching down my sticky hands. Amber and black fluids are pumping in chipped plastic cords jutting from the left side of my body. They tangle and knot on the butterfly wings like the gnarled black and yellow bodies of snakes.

Superpower juice.

"Nearby. How do you feel?"

"Like I've been chewed up and spit out of the gears of pick-up." I shake my head to clear the tangles of hair from my eyes. Unlike when I woke up in the warehouse, I don't feel afraid. I feel ashamed. Ashamed I couldn't protect Percy. Ashamed I couldn't solve the mystery. Ashamed my dad will lose his only daughter because she couldn't save her own stupid self. My throat is dry. My heart hurts. "Are they alive, then?"

Masquerade paces the table, his cape brushing the floor. His mask is cracked and blood-smeared, the grin peeling and broken. "Your heart stopped twice, you know."

"You overdosed me, you moron." I test the tape. The glugging of my superpowers down the tubes makes flecks of starlight whirl before my eyes. Masquerade leans over me, slim hands pressed into the rust-colored fabric on either side of my face. He smells uncomfortably of cologne, thin against the thicker scents of blood and human misery that cling to the stuffy air. His cape falls over his shoulder and puddles on my chest.