Secret Super (Book 1)

33. Breaking Point

Kara felt about to snap.

She had waited for hours, and if there was one thing she hated, it was waiting around. She'd slurped down some bitter-tasting plankton soup from a vendor to get back her energy. She'd nabbed a face-mask and cloak to conceal herself. She'd seen a NewsNet broadcasting a bounty on her head and proceeded to kick it until the holograph sputtered and extinguished, and then some. She'd dodged several men who were either superheroes, agents sent by Xavier, or just real creeps. And still no message from Harrison or Zadia.

This deep in the bowels of the City, she couldn't rely on the burning hazy glow of the sun to determine the time of day, but according to the watch on her comm device, night was coming.

Where the skies were they?

She was considering tearing down the whole damn City to find them when the message flashed across her screen: Sector 111A N17 apt. 5 rm 99. -Z.

Finally. Kara headed for the elevator.

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The address led to a small apartment building in a neighborhood built around a coal power plant spewing fumes into the air. A rotten-egg stink hung in the air, and most surfaces were covered with a dusting of black ash. Kara wrinkled her nose. Was this normal for a Lower Sector?

When she knocked on the door to room 99, there was no response for several seconds. Then the door creaked open. In the doorway stood an elderly woman, glaring up at Kara from beneath thick spectacles and a sagging face.

"Oh. Uh . . . wrong address."

The old woman beckoned inside.

Kara backed away. "Actually, I have to go, so—"

The woman sighed, grabbed Kara's arm, and pulled her inside the house with surprising strength. She slammed the door behind them.

In the flash of a second, the woman's spectacles vanished, her back straightened, the gray of her hair bled into auburn, and she was replaced entirely by Zadia.

"Z!" Kara grinned. "Told you I'd find you, didn't I?" Then she looked around and her shoulders tensed. "Wait, where's Harrison?"

Zadia bit her lip.

Kara felt a cold sinking in her stomach. "Where's Harrison?"

"I . . . We got separated. He stayed back to delay Xavier's people so that I could go get the tracker removed."

"You left him behind?"  White-hot energy flared in Kara's chest.

"I'm sorry, I didn't have a choice!"

Kara scoffed. "Yeah, of course you didn't. Well I'm going to get him back." She wasn't about to lose him a second time.

Kara turned to the door but Zadia grabbed her sleeve, pulling her back. "Kara, stop it! It's not gonna help him if you get captured by Xavier too."

"Yeah, 'cause apparently Xavier's evil now." Kara yanked her sleeve out of Zadia's grasp, purple sparks flying from her hands. "You gonna finally explain that?"

"He has two organizations," Zadia said. "The S.S.S. and the A.S.A., Anti-Super Association. I ran into the second one. He wants to eradicate supers, apparently."

That doesn't make any sense. Can one single thing please make sense? "Okay. Whatever. I'm going to find Harrison, and then we can talk about this."

"Kara, tell me you're joking. We can't just run blindly after them! We need to know more about Xavier, the S.S.S., the superheroes, everything."

While Harrison could be getting himself tortured or killed because of his stupid selflessness? Yeah, right. "I'm leaving," she insisted, and started walking towards the door.