Chapter Eleven
February 22nd, 2:31 AM
Erin had no time to move, and no space to move to. When the mask left her face, all she could do was blurt out a pained, hopeless "NO." But that was hardly enough to keep Lora from seeing her naked, or from recognizing her.
"You're the mayor's daughter," Lora said, flatly. "Erin Steele. The one we kidnapped."
Erin squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears that were desperate to escape. Lora knew who she was. The Blue Lynx's superheroine life was... Over.
"I had a feeling," Lora continued. "Your smells are similar. And your voices. It really all lines up perfectly."
Erin had lost all her will to fight, all her will to even look her opponent in the face. She had gotten lucky earlier tonight, freeing herself just before Julia had a chance to discover her secret. Her luck had run out. She could only hang her head now, could only try to prevent the further embarrassment of crying in front of her foe.
"Now, now," Lora said, patting Erin on the shoulder. "You'll be okay. You'll forget all about this once the plants take you."
Erin sniffled. The plants. She had forgotten about the plants. But she could still feel them, the vines rolling up her legs. They were wet and sticky, leaving residues that dripped down her calves. It was gross, and wrong, but it was nothing compared to being unmasked.
"You really are an impressive young woman, Erin Steele," Lora continued. "You truly had Brent Hammerson on the run. I don't think a twerp like him deserves a superheroine like you."
Erin heard this and let out a single, chest-shaking sob. Why was Lora doing this to her? This was worse than any gloating she'd ever been the target of. Because it reminded her that she wasn't quite good enough. That, in the end, she had failed. That she had let herself, Margot, her father, the whole city... Down.
Lora placed her bony hand on Erin's stomach, fingering the pockets of her utility belt. "There, there," she said. "It will all be over soon. All be over..."
She turned around, looking back into the forest.
"Is there someone there?"
Lora hopped off her earth-ramp and wandered away from Erin.
"I can smell someone..."
Suddenly, an explosion burst through the room. A gunshot.
Erin lifted her eyes to see Lora stumble backward, twist around, and fall to the floor.
Was she dead?
"Stupid bitch!" a familiar voice called out.
And Erin dropped her eyes again when she saw its source. Standing there in the woods, beyond the half-Margot, half-plant statue, just yards away from the fallen bodies of Sunny, Steve, and Lora, was Julia Wright, a smoking pistol in her hand.
"That ought take care of you," she yelled, poking Lora's inert body with her stiletto.
Erin hung her head low, trying to drape her hair over her face. "No, no, no," she thought, her body trembling. "How did she get here?"
"What's this?" Julia said. Erin lifted her brow slightly and saw the reporter bend down and pull something from Lora's hands. "Oh my," Julia said, a laugh in her voice, bringing the Blue Lynx's mask to her face. "So they actually did it."
Julia looked up. "I guess it's my turn to see who you are, Blue Lynx."
Erin remained silent. Maybe she could play dead? She tried to slow her breathing. But all of the stress of the last hour had made her body a heaving, shaking mess.
"I see you friend took care of the rest of them for me," Julia said, stepping around Steve and Sunny. "She's a good partner, Blue Lynx. She definitely fared better against them than you did."
She had arrived at the place where Margot was glued to the ground. She set her hand on Margot's butt, still rising in the air, a purple peak emerging from a dense jungle thicket.
"I followed her the whole way," Julia said. "The poor girl didn't even notice. She was probably so worried about tracking you that she didn't think about herself being tracked."
Erin couldn't think of anything to say. At the moment, she only felt sadness: for herself, for her brave partner, and maybe even for Lora. Had Julia Wright really just... killed her? It seemed well beyond anything the reporter was capable of. But Erin had been underestimating Julia all night. She was a surprising, dangerous, terrifying woman. And now she was just yards away from uncovering Erin's secret.
"Your hair won't protect you for long, superheroine," Julia said. "And it looks like they've got you tied real tight over there."
Erin instinctively tugged at her bonds. She knew it wasn't the smart thing to do: that it would only encourage the plants to wrap her up even tighter. So she was surprised when the branches on her wrists seem to crackle, just the tiniest bit.
She gazed down at her legs. The vines that had been so steadily climbing her thighs were retreating, slithering down to her boots, dirt and leaves flaking off along the way. The branches covering her boots, once a powerful-looking shade of brown, had acquired a slight tinge of yellow.
"Are they... dying?" Erin wondered. In killing Lora, had Julia cut off the life supply to the garden?
She took quick, furtive glances around the basement. Sure enough, all of the plants seemed to be wilting: leaves drooping, roots receding, healthy colors turning into sickly ones. Margot seemed to be leaning over, too, as if the thick root base holding her up had begun to disintegrate.
It was all falling apart.
For the first time in hours, Erin felt something like hope.
"I still have to do this just right," she thought. "I'm not out of the woods yet."
Julia was almost on her now. Erin could hear her quiet, wheezing laughter underneath her breath.
"It's been a wild night, Blue Lynx," Julia said. "We had a nice chat. I took your mask, and you broke my nose. And then, they took you, and they took your mask. And now, I get some revenge."
She leaned up against Erin's body, flicking the ends of Erin's hair with her index finger.
"Anything you'd like to say before your superheroine days are done, bitch?"
"Yeah," Erin muttered.
And then, putting every ounce of her strength into her right arm, she ripped free of branch shackle, bringing her fist down and across Julia's face, catching her square in the nose.
"Sorry!" she yelled.
Julia cried out and stepped back. Her hands immediately flew up to her face, which was already gushing blood. As she paced around, ducking her head in pain and screaming, Erin pulled her left hand free. She bent down and tore at the roots covering her feet.
"You... bitch!" Julia said. Still clutching her nose, she ran back at Erin, slamming her shoulder into the Blue Lynx's exposed upper back. Erin yelped in pain, her fingers losing hold of her leg's bonds. She hadn't expected to Julia to recover so quickly. And now she was stuck in a position not unlike Margot's: bent over, her butt in the air, her fingers scraping at her boots. It was a helpless place to be, especially without her mask.
"Come on, Blue Lynx," Julia said, sinking her fingernails into Erin's scalp. "Let's see that pretty face."
Erin winced as Julia pulled at her head, craning her neck up, slightly. She tried desperately to hold on to her boots, and so keep her face concealed, but once again, Julia was tougher than she had anticipated. She was winning this fight, and inch by inch, she was dragging Erin's face from the shadows.
"Augh!" Erin cried. "Stop!"
Julia's fingernails had begun to draw blood. Her grip was getting stronger and stronger, motivated by mere centimeters separating Erin's secret from being revealed.
"Did you really just tell me to stop?" Julia said. "Really?"
Erin had made progress on the roots, but not enough. At this rate, Julia would have her face exposed in ten or twenty seconds.
"Think, Blue Lynx, think!" she thought.
She could feel Julia's body next to hers. They were quite a picture, at the moment: the frumpy, jacketed reporter bleeding from the face, pulling at the back of a shackled superheroine's head. Julia's crotch was just inches from her face.
So Erin formed one glove into a fist, lifted it from the branches, and pushed it into Julia's lower body.
It wasn't a particularly powerful punch, but it was definitely a surprise. Julia immediately released Erin's scalp, falling away from the superheroine with a series of "Ohs!." The separation gave Erin the chance to dig deep, and seconds later, she had broken through her root manacles.
Erin stepped off of the wooden slab that had imprisoned her for so long, sinking her head into her shoulders, letting her hair obscure her face. She stared at Julia through her locks, at her opponent dancing around, clutching her privates, and smiled.
"Time to end this!" Erin declared.
She took her tazer from her pocket, crept over to Julia, and brought it down hard on Julia's shoulder. Electricity flooded through the reporter's body. She shook and smoked and, after several seconds of pure agony, seemed to pass out. Erin removed the tazer from her shoulder and Julia fell backward, kicking up a cloud of dust from the moss-covered floor.
Before she even thought about celebrating, Erin darted over to Lora, bent down, and picked up her mask. The feeling of its blue fabric on her skin pushed out a long sigh of relief. Somehow, she had kept her identity a secret tonight. Only Lora had seen her face, and the old crone wouldn't be telling anyone about it now.
Erin looked around, from Lora's corpse to the unconscious bodies of Steve, Sunny, and Julia. They were all here, defeated: all of her foes. What had Sunny called them? The Fearsome Five? It wasn't a good name: there weren't even five of them, and at this point, they didn't exactly inspire fear.
Erin stepped over to Margot and patted her friend on the head. "Margot?" she asked. "Margot? Wake up."
Margot's eyelids began to flutter. "What?" she mumbled. "What's going on?"
"It's a long story," Erin said, tearing at the roots encasing Margot's legs, which were now mostly pale and brittle.
"Why am I bent over and covered in dirt?"
Erin laughed. "Because sometimes being a superheroine means getting down and dirty."
Erin freed her friend and they both sat on the floor, their arms resting on their knees, amazed by where they were, and all that had happened tonight.
"So Lora was the garden's lifeline?" Margot asked.
Erin nodded. "I think so."
"Is that why everything in here is wilting?"
"Yeah."
"So we should probably leave before the ceiling caves in?"
Erin blinked and looked up. Leaves and branches fell from the ceiling, which, on further inspection, seemed to be shaking.
"Oh shit," Erin said, jumping to her feet. "We gotta go! Now!"
She grabbed Margot's hand and tugged her to her boots. The girls dashed through the forest, leaping over logs, pushing through vines, eventually stumbling on a staircase. As they climbed, the steps crumbled beneath them. They jumped from the final step through the door, finding themselves in a dirty, dark kitchen.
"Follow me!" Margot yelled.
The walls around them were shaking. As Erin sprinted through the house, she saw hundreds of potted plants, many of them crashing to the floor. A massive chunk of drywall broke from the ceiling and nearly hit Margot, creating a crater in the ground. The floor they ran on broke into cracks.
"There! The front door!"
Margot stepped aside and Erin dove at the front door, breaking it open with her shoulder. The girls scrambled down some stairs into a thickly wooded yard. They could hear the house creaking, snapping, falling apart, and they kept running. Once they were several hundred yards out, standing amidst the tall, dark trees, Erin turned around. The house's roof seemed to slide into its walls, and the walls fell over themselves like dominoes. The building almost howled in pain; thick clouds of dust suddenly swarmed around it. Erin shielded her eyes against the debris, her mouth gaping open.
Within seconds, Lora's shack had become a massive pile of wood, dirt, plants, and rubble.
"Holy shit," Margot muttered. "That was a close one."
Erin wiped the sweat from her eyes and placed her hands on her knees. "Yeah," she replied. "Real close."
It wasn't a cool response, but Erin was too tired, too sore, and too plain weirded out to be a superheroine right now.
"Do you think... They're dead?" Margot asked.
Erin looked at her. "Who?"
"You know. Julia. The ninja. Sunny."
Erin once again looked at the massive pile. "Well I don't know how they could've survived."
Margot smiled at her friend. "You don't seem to upset about it."
Erin laughed. "You know what? I'm not."
And the girls giggled as they walked with exhausted, clumsy steps up the path to Margot's car.
THE END
Back to the Table of Contents
No comments:
Post a Comment