Podcast of a Teenage Super-Villian

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Boomer Adventure Takes a Sudden and Unfortunate Turn

Song Selection: Typical Story— Hobo Johnson

(I'm so sorry how different each of these songs is)

Despite their differences in approach, journalists and superheroes fit nicely together when it comes to crime-battling. The one, a bit more stealthy, orthodox, and vulnerable. Avery Jackson has had to fit into all social situations, meld himself into the kind of person people like the spill secrets too. He's had to work within the law to get evidence, has had to become the most persuasive person in the room. It's not so much finding proof as it is convincing people to give it to him, and then having to sit down, watch dozens of tapes, read hundreds of pages, listen to countless audio recordings, and find where everything connects. 

When he was working on embezzlement cases of city officials, he'd have walls of his house covered in copies of documentation.    He'd watch interviews, over and over, in front of his daughter. She'd sit with him, playing journalism, pretending her stuffed animals were "bad guys" and quietly grilling them, and he would kind of listen, wrapped in his own thoughts. How many years had it taken him to bring the city council's embezzlement to light? All soft persuasion and heavy research.

And Anna, Red Comet, mostly threw punches.

"Do you understand trick cuffs?" They were sitting outside the mall in Anna's red Mazada—she had quite an affinity for that color—Anna holding up a bag from Spencer's. Avery hadn't followed her in, he'd been planning in the book he'd stolen from the hospital waiting room.

"Not exactly." He presses up against the passenger seat, his heart pounding against his ribcage. He can't get the image of being tossed into the ocean out of his head, can't stop thinking about drowning. When she tears the box open and reveals shiny metal links, he flinches. He's only human, easily disposed of, he knows this.

"You have to trust me, look." She presses her thumb on a small lever on the side and they fall open. "Do you see?"

Avery nods and tries to crack a smile. It doesn't work, his mouth only parts open.

"I'm not going to let them kill you." Her eyes burn into the side of his face. 

He draws in a breath. Because he can see the black waters up to his nose. One slip, one mistake, he or the girl will die. He can only see his own demise because he can't imagine the alternative. "If it's me or Persephone, it's okay. I understand. Promise me you'll choose Persephone without hesitation."

"Don't talk like that."

"Promise me, Anna. It's okay."

She turns the key in the ignition. The sun had fallen, slipped down past the black clouds. Stars blink overhead, cool and impassive against that inky sky. It's nine, they only have hours to steal back the evidence. It's illegal, it's all illegal. 

But journalism didn't work. Monet's blog, turning over the dirt, didn't bring the mayor to justice. He'd pressed his faith into a system that would see his daughter's death and turn a blind eye, and he couldn't trust it anymore. 

 "How about we go to the mayor's home?" Anna offers softly, avoiding his plea completely. 

Avery doesn't push it, he just nods, silently. The mayor likely had many places to store the excess of documents, and maybe he'd already destroyed them. More than likely. But this is his only lead, and Avery is desperate. "You'll be look out," she says, and he nods again, his mouth suddenly dry. This might be a dead end.Probably is.

But they pull up to the big house, and park in the shadows of another mansion, fit between a Land Rover and a Mercedes. Avery eyes everything around him as if it comes from another world. The house itself is ugly to Avery, the columns, made to add a sense of grandeur to the home, are tacky, unnecessary additions, the big spiraling roof a Frankenstein of baroque architecture slammed on for added opulence that doesn't fit. Anna reaches over him, grabs clothes out of the back. She fits a white blouse and dark jeans over her lycra suit in seconds.