Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Thirty-Four: Reveal

I never thought I'd have to explain the superhero thing to my dad. I wasn't thinking about him at all, really, which was a pretty big tactical error, but tactical errors are prone to occur when you're half-conscious and your only priority is incapacitating a would-be murderer. 

It was the rope I was after, the one Max used against me in the warehouse fight. And I carried Max over my shoulder, because damn if I was going to let the little bastard escape.  Ambulance and cop cars hurtled down the craggly back road,  and I flew just overhead, watching them, landing lightly on my bedroom window. I slipped as silently as I could through my room into the "library," where the rope lay coiled under one of the couches.

The apartment was dark. I threw Max dripping on the carpet, fished out the rope, and was busy tying up the kid when the light was thrown on and there stood Dad in the doorway, flannel robe tugged over his work clothes, newspaper clenched in one hand, orange jumbo mug in the other. I knew I was in trouble, or rather, we were in trouble when I saw it. That's what he uses in place of a wine glass.

So, hey, reader. You're here. With me. Good luck escaping this one.

A sharp, throbbing pain eases up my forearm and shoulder. "H-hi Dad," I say, boot on Max's chest, the ends of ropes pulled up in the air starting to glow.

Dad looks at me, looks at Max, takes a long sip of wine and sets the mug delicately on the arm of his chair. Max struggles, squirming in the tangles of rope. Then he looks up at Dad and shrinks back with a hiss, like he's a particularly tiny vampire and my dad's a ray of sunlight.

He shakes his head. "I knew it," he says. "I knew you were up to something. I don't know how you got the superpowers, but the broken ribs, the one-liners, the secrecy..." He throws the newspaper on the cushion, lifting his phone as slowly as if it were a gun. I'm frozen with this dumb laugh on my lips. Eh-heh-heh-heh. Heh-heh. Heh. "It was the one-liners. And the puns. If nothing else tipped me off, it was those."

Eh-heh-heh-heh.

"Onyx and Masquerade, huh?"

Heh-heh.

Max panics. Struggling and tugging and dragging himself across the carpet like a super-speedy worm. I yank him back with a quick jerk and he yelps. His eyes are wild. He's coughing up sludge and shivering, pools of goop creeping over the carpet when he moves. "Don't put this in print," he says.  The words are surprisingly calm, surprisingly lucid. "Please don't."

Dad snaps the picture in one swift motion and lays the phone back in his chair. My heart slams in my chest, a constant, relentless ache. "You're the mayor's boy, aren't you?"

Max stills under me, his eyes squeezed shut like he can will himself out of the situation if he just doesn't look at it. "Yeah," he says. "Maxwell Preston." When he laughs, it sounds painful.

Dad glares. His eyes are bloodshot and he braces himself against his chair. I'm holding up the tangles of ropes, still frozen, waiting to blurt out an explanation that won't come. "The Journal is going to have a field day—"

"No! Please, no, please, sir, don't. I-I'll do anything—she won, I lost, I'm going to jail for a...for a long time." His eyes are open again, pain staring opaquely up at a stained ceiling. His mouth curls into a smile, his voice, a relieved sigh. "I'm going to jail. I'm not going to have to kill people."

Standing over him, hearing him laughing, crying, I understand what Percy said. Because I suddenly feel terrible. Watching someone who I once cared for, someone so poised and charming and confident, break like that. Sobbing and laughing while my father looks down at him with visible disgust. Restrained, Max isn't as much a threat as he is a tragedy.