Chapter One
June 10th, 11:32 AM
Margot hummed to herself as she sat at the kitchen table, flipping through a magazine, sipping her coffee. It was a cool, crisp morning, and the breeze passing through the open window fluttered her close-cropped, reddish-brown hair. For a moment, for the first moment in a long, long time, her mind felt at peace. Peace that was suddenly interrupted by a horrible hacking sound coming from the hallway.
Margot knew what was happening, knew she couldn't really help. But it was her duty as a good friend to at these get up and ask. She set her coffee down and walked toward the bathroom, where perched in front of the toilet, wearing bright red bra and panties with black lines of text, hair sticking to her sweat-stained face, was her roommate and crimefighting partner, Erin Steele, puking her guts out.
"Are you okay?" Margot asked, perfunctorily.
"Yeah," Erin muttered, coughing into the bowl. "I'm fine."
She was sitting on her knees, her hands loosely on the rim of the toilet, her face and neck covered and sweat, her skin blanched. Even in this state, Erin couldn't disguise what a beauty she was, but there was no question she had been letting herself go. Margot looked at her arms and saw none of the muscle definition that used to be her pride, noticed that her stomach rolled into a little potbelly, saw her thigh muscles drooping lazily on the floor. She saw, too, that the text on her underwear was just the word "Slut" written again and again in different fonts.
"What are you wearing?" Margot asked.
Erin flushed the toilet, sat back against the bathroom wall, and looked up at her friend.
"Do you like them? I'm trying something new."
"Humiliating yourself?" Margot asked, crossing her arms.
Erin nodded. "Might as well."
"Might as well." This had been Erin's hopeless motto ever since that fateful morning she'd come home, clad only in a massive men's softball T-shirt, her eyes bloodshot, blubbering "he knows, he knows, he knows." Margot had taken her in her arms, held her for hours, eventually put her to bed. When Erin awoke, she didn't want to talk; in fact, she had hardly talked to Margot at all in the past two weeks. She no longer spent nights in the costume of the Blue Lynx-- Margot eventually figured out that the Spaniel had stolen Erin's spandex right off of her body-- but rather at the bar, inhaling shot after shot, coming home late, getting up late, throwing up.
She slept through most the day, and drank through most of the night. And whenever Margot asked why, she'd said the same thing. "Might as well."
It was awful to see, and Margot felt incredible pity for her friend. But in the past couple of days, a new sense of anger had crept into Margot's conscience. Erin was wallowing. She was acting like a child. She was better than this.
"Get up, Erin," Margot commanded. "We're going outside, today. And not to the bar."
"Outside? To do what?" Erin said, uneasily, using the bathroom wall to scrabble up to her feet.
"Well, to get you back in shape, for starters," Margot said. "You're losing all your muscle mass."
Erin looked down at her rounded stomach. Margot knew she felt ashamed, but Erin attempted to cover it up with a smile.
"Could still beat you," she said with a small laugh, poking Margot in the chest.
Margot's reaction was instantaneous. Her hand shot out, seized Erin's wrist, and bent it back. Erin squealed in pain and fell back to her knees.
"Ahhh..." she said. "Let me go!"
Margot smiled a secret smile. What she hadn't told Erin-- because Erin didn't want to talk at all-- was that while Erin had been sleeping and drinking, she had been training. She had gotten stronger and faster, more agile, had researched new fighting techniques. She invested all of her free time into a single mission: becoming the Blue Lynx's replacement. If Erin couldn't fight crime-- if she was being forced by the Spaniel to throw in the towel-- then the sidekick would have to step up.
She finally released Erin's wrist, and Erin fell to a crawling position.
"See?" Margot said. "If I can take down the Blue Lynx with just one hand, then you know something's wrong."
Erin stared up at her friend with a morbid expression. "The Blue Lynx is dead," she intoned.
"No, she isn't," Margot said. She bent down and set her hand on Erin's shoulder. "She's just in hiding. Waiting to make her next move. Waiting for Erin Steele to stop throwing up."
Erin brushed Margot's hand off and turned away. She knew that this wasn't right, that this wasn't her. Margot heard her whimper, and imagined the thoughts racing in her brain. Erin had been pushed to the brink, and it looked like the Spaniel had removed the Blue Lynx from the city forever. But Margot couldn't give up hope. They'd get their chance. They'd find a way.
There was a sudden KA-CHUNK from outside of the front door. Margot stood up.
"The mail!" she said. "Hopefully it's my new phone!"
She left Erin crumpled over in the hallway, a mess of hair and sweat and self-defeating red lingerie, and opened the door. There was no package in the mailbox-- just a manila envelope with the girls' address and two words written in bold, uppercase letters:
BLUE LYNX
On to Chapter Two
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