Saving a Superhero

9: Home+Sniffles

Warning: VERY unedited chapter below. More info at the end.

By some small miracle she did too. She only had ten feet to fall, but the pavement suddenly looked a lot harder than it had from my vantage point. Was I supposed to stick the let my body go limp and relax? Or was that a car crash? I was supposed to stick the landing. No, that would break my legs.

Seconds from impact I squeezed and prepared to be part of the seventy three percent to break a bone.

But I didn't hit asphalt of land on Kennedy in a splot. Instead I opened my eyes to find a bed of vegetation laid out under the ladder like a trampoline. Soft, tiny flowers hid thick vines that would leave bruises, but hadn't snapped my femur.

The only problem as the the patch of greenery hadn't been there when I jumped. Not that saving my no broken bones in my life record was a problem.

It was then that I noticed Harper with both hands open toward the sky like blossoming flowers. She didn't look like she was breaking a sweat from summoning a bush, but I suspected from the pale tint to her ebony cheeks that she may pass out soon. Part of me thought it was less about the exhaustion of using her power and more about how close to the ground and imminent death Kennedy and I had been.

"We were really bad at guessing," Rory muttered from the shadows of a dumpster that stank of rotting food. We were zero for two so far. Judging by Kennedy's fact I guessed zero for three.

I quickly vaulted off the magic bush, pulling Kennedy with me, and Harper curled her fingers into fists.

Responding to her will, the flowers wilted and the vines dried immediately until they blew away as ashes on the breeze. A mere weed in the crack of the pavement was all that remained.

"It's been a while," Harper stammered. She was staring at her fingers like she had a fresh manicure worth of admiring.

"That's great and all, but we've got to skedaddle or explain why we were in Grace's apartment."

The choice was a no brainer and I was already pulling Kennedy behind me through the alley and into the flow of people on the street. Harper and Rory were right behind us. Though the foot traffic had thinned when the sun set, there was still enough people to easily get lost in the crowd. Even with Rory holding tight to Grace's yellow overalls that Kennedy must have dropped when I threw her out of a two story window.

It was also the perfect place to bump into people if you weren't paying attention. And Kennedy wasn't paying attention.

As we weaved against the flow of traffic I felt Kennedy's arm jerk from my grasp and heard her off as she feel flat on her butt. The culprit, a man no older than us, was dodging away in the crowd. The jerk hadn't even stopped to say sorry, he just continued walking and hiding in the herd of people on the sidewalk.

"Are you okay?"

Kennedy shook her head, clearing it from the fuzz of jumping off a fire escape. I was buzzing with adrenaline that blurred the edges of my vision and made my heart race.

"I'm fine," she said despite her body language. "You're sure Grace wrote home on her nightstand?"

Harper and Rory were beside us now, standing in the middle of the stream and blocking foot traffic going both ways.

The word was clear in my head. I didn't know why or how, but Grace was going to Nova City and we had to follow her.

Harper slung one of Kennedy's arms over her shoulder and I took the other when she looked like she was going to pass out. Her red lipstick that I was once envious of only emphasized the pale worry in her skin.