How To Ruin A City

Chapter Eleven

Nic

I knew I had it bad for Catalina, and I mean BAD. I was hoping I could have seen her at school, but when I woke up that morning, I had a message in my TVAH app inbox from Ghost. She wanted me to come into work as soon as I could.

With a sigh, I switched apps and texted Catalina that I wouldn't be at school. To my annoyance, the text wasn't sending. I rolled my eyes and walked downstairs, forcing myself to cry as I did.

Just thinking about not being able to see Catalina made the tears come pretty easily.

I'm kidding. I know I said I had it bad for her, but it wasn't that fucking bad. I'm not that whipped.

"Mom!" I wailed. "I feel horrible, where's the stomach medicine?"

My mom glanced up from her phone, then got up and walked over to me with a frown. "What's wrong?"

"I feel like I'm going to throw up," I said in an exasperated tone, making my skin hot as she went to feel my forehead.

My mother ruffled my hair. "Just go lie down for now, kid. I have to leave for work soon, but I'll make sure to pick you up some medicine on the way home. If you're feeling better later, email your teachers and see if you can get any work done at home."

I nodded. "Good idea."

"Of course it is, I came up with it." She kissed my cheek and walked passed me. "Feel better, kid."

As soon as she was gone, I ran to my room and searched through my closet for my suit. I nearly put on the Batman costume Catalina bought by mistake.

Maybe Catalina should have been Catwoman instead of Robin. The costume wouldn't be nearly as hideous. Never mind, she's forcing me to be Lilo.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and opened my window, then jumped out it as I took flight.

When I finally got to TVAH, the elevator wasn't working so I had to run up a lot of stairs to get to Ghost's office. I swung the door open, struggling to catch my breath.

Fauna glanced up at me as I said, "What do you need, Casper?"

I didn't know much about Fauna besides her having a cold attitude to almost everybody. I'd seen her walk around without her mask on before, and I'm pretty sure she did modelling for a clothing brand in her spare time. She had deep brown skin and wavy hair, with brows groomed to perfection and light pink lips that she achieved from always carrying lipgloss on her.

Evergreen once declared that Fauna was her rival, which I thought was hysterical. Their powers were similar, but Evergreen could manipulate plants and animals while Fauna could talk and draw up traits from, you guessed it, Fauna. Like Evergreen, Fauna always had her hair up in a ponytail or braided to the side. Her suit was the same design as Evergreen's but was gray and black with leather gloves. Her mask covered more of her face too.

Personally, I thought Evergreen should have just left Cyanide and started some sort of hippy animal lovers club with Fauna.

"You signed up for patrol today and I thought you needed a reminder," Ghost said. "I'm opening up a-"

Our phones all chimed simultaneously. I jumped at the sudden noise before realizing what it was.

Fauna snickered when she saw me, then checked her phone and sighed in annoyance. "It's that new villain. What's her name? The red one. Crimson Kitty?"