Podcast of a Teenage Super-Villian

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Monet Jaimson-Jackson

Song Selection: Elastic Heart—Cover by Written by Wolves (in the spirit of Chip Hardwell)

Percy's been having a rough day, like a really rough day. Like a, her girlfriend's dying, she's aware of a criminal's identity so someone totally wants her dead, and she'd been taken hostage kind of rough day. And in all honestly, she's tired. So tired, she doesn't really even care that much about trying to find a way out. 

Weeks ago, when she walked in on Monet almost dying, the bleeding girl had said "It's okay," a couple of times, which seemed morbid to Percy when she watched it play out. But now?

Percy gets it.

Before losing most of her powers, her mother could rip right through duct tape, could probably rip a steamboat and half with a little huff-n-puff. Same with Monet. But Percy is kept easily bound to her uncomfortable folding chair with tape around her wrists. Her shoulders ache, and she's been staring at the same spot on the steel wall of the warehouse for hours. There are boxes and plastic bottles stacked on pallets in all corners of the room, and the colorful liquids inside the bottles are glowing, pulsing, brilliant blinks. Her captors are playing dice on a faraway folding table. All this she'd taken in many hours ago, and now it's all dull images at the corners of her vision.

She put up a fight at first, the whole "Let me go! You'll never get away with this!" shtick, but after getting ignored, or chuckled at, or patted on the head a few times, she eventually fell asleep. Woke up again, still tired. The emotional kind, less like it was something in her muscle or bone, more like her soul had fallen asleep against her ribcage. And honestly, she couldn't wake it up, even if she tried.

But now Mr. Jackson, Monet's dad, is bowled into the warehouse, fighting against his bonds. Ropes this time. He's tossed against the warehouse wall and Percy wakes up, really wakes up. Because the "I'm okay with this" feeling only applies to herself. Someone else? Her girlfriend's dad? The man who had welcomed her into his home as if she were his second daughter?

"Percy?" He stirs, his shoulders rolled all the way back and his chin held up. Acting dignified. He's doing it for her, she knows, and that makes the brave face he puts on hurt even more. "Did they hurt you?"

She shakes her head. She's about to ask the same question but blood's trickling down his face from a gash along his forehead. He doesn't even look up at it. He's just looking at her, and her heart hurts, because that's the way her own dad looks at her after bruised shins and busted knees. All that fatherly concern in the wide eyes and arched brows. "We're going to be okay," she whispers.

He nods and scoots himself closer, leaving a blood splatter on the floor. The henchmen are still playing dice at their table, only a couple of eyes on them at any given time, shifty and unfocused, because Percy keeps her eyes half-lidded as if she's still asleep, and Mr. Jackson freezes, with his head dropped to the side as if he's fazing out from his head injury. "You have a good head on his shoulders," he whispers, "you're more than capable of getting out of here. It's going to be scary, but you need to try to to make an escape." The alternative....he leaves that unspoken. Even whispering, even feigning being mostly asleep, his eyes are stark and clear. And something about the trust in his face makes her believe him.

They're going to kill us. He wouldn't demand her try making an escape otherwise.

"But, I don't have superpowers."

"You don't need them, Percy."

Her mother hadn't said as much, and just those few words from a man that she isn't related to, hardly knows even, steels her. She forces a meek smile at him and he grimaces back, an attempt at that smile through pain. They whisper back and forth, barely audible over the sound of cussing henchmen, cards being slapped down, and dice being thrown. They come up with a plan. Not a good one, the teenage girl and the expert journalist agree, but better than sitting there, waiting to be thrown into the surf. They sot there for a second, Mr. Jackson still bleeding from his head, Percy's heart slamming against her ribs. Anything, and everything could go wrong. But she has to. For Monet, for her mother, for him, for justice. She's tired, but she can't go to sleep just yet.