3
Six months later
I swirled champagne around in my cut-crystal glass. Bubbles rose up in the golden liquid, then fizzed out.
Just like my life.
After Travis Teague committed suicide by throwing himself out of his office on the thirtieth floor of Teague Towers, my star hadn’t just fallen, it had been snuffed out like a candle. Unmasking was good for business. Having Tornado, one of the most beloved superheroes in the world, commit suicide because you unmasked him was not. I got numerous death threats, not only from Tornado’s fellow superheroes, but also from the general public. People crossed the street to avoid walking past me. Restaurant waiters refused to serve me. Kids gathered in front of my apartment building and threw rocks whenever I stuck my head outside. People hated me with a passion heretofore reserved only for heretics and lawyers.
I accepted the abuse. I deserved it. My guilt over Tornado’s death knew no bounds. I barely ate. I hardly slept.
On the rare occasion I did drift off, nightmares plagued my feverish dreams. All I’d wanted was to tell the truth, to reveal the people behind the masks. But things had gone terribly wrong. Instead, my own bad karma had bitten me on the ass, and Travis Teague had paid the ultimate price for my smug, stupid arrogance.
After his suicide, the only thing I wanted was to hole up in my apartment and never come out again. However, the editors at The Exposé wouldn’t let me slip quietly into the good night. Hell, they wouldn’t even fire me outright. Oh no. The newspaper’s cross-town rival, The Chronicle, would get too much mileage and glee out of that. Instead of axing me, the editors at The Exposé devised a fate worse than death—they reassigned me to the society beat.
I trudged to function after boring function, chatting up old, rich ladies and their spoiled, horse-faced daughters. I learned more about shoes and designer dresses and accessories in the last six months than I had in my entire life. Not to mention plastic surgery, liposuction, and prenuptial agreements.
I lived a sort of half-life at the newspaper. I came in, schlepped out to the latest debutante ball or charity function on the schedule, schlepped back, wrote a story, e-mailed it to the society editor, and left. The only one who even acknowledged my presence was Henry Harris and that was only when his nose wasn’t mashed against his computer screen.
Tonight, I was attending the opening of yet another art gallery. I’d been on the scene over an hour and had done all the usual things—chatted with the artist whose work was on display, gotten some quotes from the owner, taken notes about the latest in designer fashion. Now, I sipped flat champagne and tried to find someone who would say something moderately interesting about the opening. Sandra, the other reporter who reluctantly worked the society beat, had come in, gotten a few quotes, and left after ten minutes. Not me. I might not care about who was wearing what, or who was sleeping with whom, but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing the best job possible. I still had a little pride left. It was the only thing I had left.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Sam Sloane, one of the wealthiest men and most eligible bachelors in all of Bigtime.
“Mr. Sloane! Mr. Sloane!” I waved.
Sam Sloane gave me a look that would have frozen ice. He walked right by me, his eyes fixed straight ahead. I sighed. Two months ago, my editor had ordered me to get an exclusive interview with Sloane, the owner of The Chronicle . I couldn’t understand why my editor wanted a story on Sloane, given his legendary business battles with Morgana Madison. The two hated each other with a passion, as did the staffs of their respective newspapers. Reporters and editors at The Chronicle and The Exposé always tried to one-up each other, just like Sloane and Morgana with their corporate shenanigans. Morgana barely tolerated Sloane’s name being mentioned in passing on the society page. She’d blow a gasket if we did a whole story on him. Perhaps my editor just wanted to get me fired.
Not that it really mattered. The assignment was impossible. Sloane never talked to anyone with the media, not even the reporters at his own newspaper. His conversation was reserved for the latest supermodel hanging on his arm. Unless I morphed into a six-foot-tall, blond Amazon with a tiny waist, fake boobs, and questionable morals, I wasn’t getting anywhere near Sam Sloane.
Even then, I would have a hard time fighting my way through the throngs of women that flocked around the billionaire. In addition to being richer than a sultan, Sam Sloane had dark good looks and a killer smile. Even I had to admit that a tuxedo never looked better on a man. Sloane was also supposed to be quite the charmer. Or so I’d been told. He’d never done more than stare coldly at me the few times he deigned to acknowledge my presence.
After another hour of flat champagne, moldy Brie, and stale crackers, I left the gallery and took a taxi downtown to the gigantic skyscraper that housed The Exposé. The glass-and-chrome building never failed to take my breath away. With its winking blue lights and glittering facade, it was even more impressive in the dark night. Only The Chronicle’s building, a gleaming skyscraper a few blocks away, rivaled The Exposé’s height and beauty.
I rode the elevator up to the one-hundredth floor, where the reporters and editors worked. I walked the length of the newsroom, or the gauntlet, to the very back wall. I’d once had a desk right in the middle of the newsroom, where the golden girls and boys lorded over their beats like queens and kings. After the Tornado fiasco, I’d been shuffled to the back, along with the other rejects who hung on to their jobs like spinach stuck in your teeth.
I reached my desk, a tiny metal affair on four shaky feet, sank into my uncomfortable chair, and smacked on my computer.
“How’s it going, Carmen?” Henry Harris asked from his own desk a few feet away.
“Fine, Henry. The usual. Another night, another opening, another glass of flat champagne.”
The black man smiled and went back to his computer. He pushed up the sleeves of his plaid sweater vest, adjusted his polka-dot bow tie, and started typing. The faint light emanating from the humming monitor made his glasses gleam and highlighted the smooth planes of his face. Henry was just shy of thirty, but he looked much younger, despite the old-fashioned clothes he always wore.
For the next hour, I tuned out the world, including the giggles and whispers of the golden girls and boys. I wrote a glowing story about the gallery opening, describing the scene in detail and adding in quotes from all the pertinent power players. I threw in some tidbits about the resident fashionistas and their outfits, shoes, and accessories, and sent my story to the society editor. I picked up one of the Rubik’s Cubes that littered my desk and fiddled with it, sliding the rows of colors back and forth. A few minutes later, my computer pinged with a new e-mail from the editor.
Fine. You can leave now.
Ah, short and sweet like always. I gathered up my things and headed toward the elevator.
“Later, Henry.”
He gave me a distracted little wave. His dark eyes never left his computer screen. I often wondered whether Henry ate or if he just subsisted on data bytes alone. I’d put money on the data bytes.
I rode down to the bottom floor, pushed through the heavy revolving doors, and stepped onto the street. It had rained while I’d been inside, and a damp, glossy sheen covered the sidewalk. Heavy clouds blanketed the night sky, and the metallic scent of more impending rain tickled my nose. No taxis cruised by, so I decided to walk home. It wasn’t far.
“Hey, baby! How about a little fun tonight?” a low voice called out from a dark doorway.
“Get lost, creep,” I snapped and kept walking.
My hand slipped into my purse, where I kept my pepper spray. Since Tornado’s suicide and the various death threats that had come my way, I’d started taking self-defense classes.
Oh, the superheroes would never make good on their threats to injure me. Their moral compasses wouldn’t allow them to harm normal folks, not even a low-down, good-for-nothing reporter like me. No, it was regular people, the ones who called me nasty names and left dead fish outside my apartment, that I worried about.
Shoes squeaked on the slick sidewalk, and I glanced over my shoulder. Two men dressed in pinstriped suits lumbered along behind me, even though it was after midnight and all the downtown office buildings were closed. This wasn’t terribly unusual, as many Bigtime businessmen worked long, hard hours. But the flat, dead look in their eyes made me walk a little bit faster. Cold dread curled up in my stomach. My fist closed around the pepper spray.
I squinted, trying to make out the numbers on a nearby street sign. The subway was only two blocks away. Cops patrolled the underground tunnels all hours of the night and day, watching for purse snatchers and muggers. It would be safer down there. I picked up my pace. My feet snapped against the concrete like rubber bands. The footsteps behind me quickened, and I lunged out onto the street. A black sedan skidded to a halt in front of me. I jumped back onto the sidewalk.
“Hey!” I smacked the car’s hood with my purse. “Watch where you’re going!”
Something sharp pricked me. I yelped. One of the two men in suits shoved a syringe deeper into my arm. A strange, blue liquid glowed inside the glass tube. I yanked the pepper spray out of my purse and gave the goon a face full of it.
“You bitch!” he screamed and stumbled back.
I whirled around and gave the other goon the same treatment. He, too, cursed and stumbled away. The black sedan sat silent, its occupants enjoying the show. I tugged the empty syringe out of my arm and threw it down. The glass shattered. Blue liquid hissed onto the concrete, and white steam rose up from the strange substance.
My inner voice shrieked with fear. I was in serious trouble. I had to get away from these people, but everything seemed so strange. The world wouldn’t stay still. It kept spinning round and round and round like a carousel. I took a step forward. Two more blocks. I could make it two more blocks.
I took another step forward. Dizziness hit me like a tidal wave. I pitched to the ground, and darkness overcame me.