Supervillain Stalker

8 || act oblivious

Skull comes to three hours later. He wakes up to the stink of Burger King, intermingled with the delicious aroma of Costa. Blade and I are singing along to some Ed Sheeran song that neither of us knows all the words to.

"Shut...up..." he grumbles, choking on his own breath. I turn to look at him; Blade blinks at him through the rear view mirror.

It's strange to see Skull's face. His face is so unique and yet too plain. It makes sense that no one's ever caught him; he could blend into a crowd like a rainbow salmon hiding in the murky depths of a river.

He's got cropped blonde hair and eyes like ice. His lips are perfectly weighted for his face and are a gentle pink hue. His skin tone is snowy, his body is lean but muscular, his chest is littered with scars.

Not that I'm staring...

"Mornin' boss," Blade greets, overly cheerful. Skull glowers at him. "We're almost there. Just go back to sleep. Daisy and I have it all under control."

Despite the physical battle his eyes are clearly undergoing, I can see Skull's lids pulling down. A slip of his milky white teeth shimmers between his lips, his neck tense. After a few seconds, he slips away again.

"Should we stop and get him some food?" I ask, because I can feel that guilty knot in my stomach that whimpers at the idea of letting Skull starve. Blade shakes his head.

"Boss doesn't like service food," he tells me. "Everything's got to be five star or his royal tastebuds will reject it."

My eyes linger on the last bite of panini that sits between my fingers, warm and oozing cheese. "This is five star worthy," I mention, holding up the last of the bread. "D'you think he'd like it?"

"Five star my butt," Blade chortles. "That's as low quality as my burger."

I feel kind of annoyed that he groups my favourite food with his cheap burger but I see his point. I scrutinise Skull again. Now that I think about it, he does look slightly familiar. I feel as though I've seen him on the front of Forbes magazine. Or maybe Entrepreneur?

Blade and I settle back into a casual silence, our breaths synchronised, our eyes absorbing the surroundings in case of danger. I pull my hood back over my face once I've sucked the heavenly juices of my meal from my fingers. There's an instinctive self-consciousness that nudges at the back of my mind, implying trouble, to the extent that I quickly start blurting out conversation.

"D'you believe in magic?" I ask, reluctant to reveal my desperation for a distraction. His swirling, swoon-worthy orbs flick my way in curiosity.

"No."

This time a snippet of surprise and offence kneads itself into my tone. "Why not?"

When I was a child, my father used to call himself The Godfather. Not because of the Mafia film but because of Cinderella. You know, the fairy godmother who blesses poor Cindy with a dress and new shoes and a pumpkin that rolls? It was my favourite film to watch and my Dad would play the soundtrack while he and his minions worked around me. It soothed me.

"Because it's creepy," Blade starts, his fingers drumming on the wheel to the jolly tune that the radio has begun to belt out. "Guys in red suits that come down your chimneys and leave presents in giant socks. Tiny little people who wait for you to find them at the end of rainbows with a pot of gold. Magic mirrors that let you spy creepily on people. Women in horned hats that turn into utterly awesome dragons that can be defeated by tiny little fat fairies..." He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. The corner of his lips tilts upwards. "Are you getting my gist?"

I try not to frown. I've never known anyone who thought magic was creepy. Impossible? Yes. Confusing? Uh-huh. But creepy? Swallowing hard, I tug the jumper's cowl lower over my face. "Yeah," I whisper, "magic is so twelve years ago."

We drive for a little while longer. Then all Hell breaks loose.

To begin with there's only the faint song of sirens that squawk with heavenly fury, but soon there are lights in companionship, their nostalgic white and blue spearing through the night with a sharp point.

"Blade," I whisper, his real nom de guerre strange now that I'm saying it, uncomfortable compared to the preferred nickname I often use.

"I know," he murmurs, his breath quiet but heavy.

My hands are twitching, my heart is beating spasmodically, and all I can think about is that day at school; the day this misunderstanding turned my life upside down and pulled its pants over its head. "What do we do?" I question, my voice calmer than me.

"We act oblivious," he tells me. "They don't know that I'm Blade. They don't know you're Daisy Matthews. We're just another car in the crowd."

I don't have to look at him for him to sense my incredulity; I express it through my next words. "Yeah, they totally won't pick up on that while you're in your supervillain suit."

Blade looks down. "Shit," he hisses before he looks at me. His eyes look kind of crazy. "Take the wheel."

Then he grabs a book from the compartment at my knees and props it against the accelerator. The speed rises gradually. The book is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Blade proceeds to clamber through the gap between our chairs. In the process, he gets stuck and I have to place my hands on his spandex clad butt and shove him through head first. He lands on Skull but the villain remains entirely too silent. I begin to worry if he's dead.

"Get behind the wheel!" Blade commands, horrified that I haven't moved yet.

My muscles kick back into action, helping me heave myself over the gear stick into position. I kick the book away and try to remember what my Grandpa taught me when I was twelve.

The police vehicle draws up beside me, the driver and his partner encouraging us to draw into the hard shoulder. The only problem? I can't remember which pedal's the brake.

Breath cracking with thirst, I indicate left and slowly make my way sideways across the motorway, nervously halting for the policemen to scold us. Have we been speeding? I don't think so...

Blade appears in the passenger seat. I glance his way and my eyebrows crunch together in startled confusion.

"You're Japanese?" I ask, voice soft.

"Yes," Blade pulls a hand through his hair. It's dark, almost black, but with a reddish brown tinge. And it all stands up on its own in a messy patch of gravitational defiance. "And apparently you're racist."

Now I'm really confused. "I didn't say anything!" I exclaim.

"Does there have to be a reason?" Blade smirks. He is as beautiful as I predicted, if not more so. His smile makes me want to spin in circles until I have a reason for this vertigo I'm feeling.

Before I can jump out and do so, though, an officer has rapped his fingers against the window, appealing for our attention. His face is very round, his hair very thin under his cap, and his eyes are faded and cloudy.

"Hello officer," Blade sings as the window rolls down.

"Hello boy," the man responds with a small tip of his hat. "Ma'am," he adds when he sees me.

My lip trembles. Blade reaches for my hand. As he does so, that voice reappears, that voice I heard that first day I saw Blade. It comes with a strange, invasive sensation that makes my skin crawl. It's okay, the voice whispers. Just follow my lead.