Besides, I’d never needed other people’s approval anyway.
No, I didn’t want the others to know everything just yet because if they knew, then I’d have to admit to myself that Johnny and I were having more than a casual fling. That we were officially a couple. An item. Together. And that I was slowly but surely starting to forget about Travis.
I sat down on my bed. With a start, I realized that I hadn’t thought about Travis in hours now. Days really. Oh, he crossed my mind every now and then, but he didn’t fill my thoughts anymore. My heart no longer ached like a rotten tooth, pulsing and throbbing with each strained beat.
My eyes flickered to the beaming picture on my nightstand.
Travis’s blond hair and brown eyes looked strange to me, almost as if I were seeing him for the first time. The pain of his loss wasn’t the only thing fading from my mind. My memories were getting fuzzed over as well. And that’s what really scared me. I didn’t want to forget him. Didn’t want to forget anything about him.
But I was.
My fingers traced over his wide smile. The diamond on my finger sparkled like a small sun on my hand. “Well, I suppose you know about me and Johnny by now. You’d like him, I think. He’s a lot like you. Fun, energetic, full of life,” I whispered. “He’ll never take your place, but I like him. And he likes me. He makes me laugh, just the way that you used to. I’ve missed that. Laughing.”
Talking to a picture of a dead man was rather silly, of course. He wasn’t going to talk back to me or suddenly appear beside my bed as a shimmering ghost. Whispering to Travis was something Carmen would do while listening to those pesky voices in her head. But it made me feel a little better, even if Travis didn’t respond. Even though he never would again.
I snapped out the lights and went to sleep.
———
The next morning, I stood in the sick bay with Johnny and the chief, who was giving him one more exam before discharging him. Johnny grinned at me while Chief Newman checked his temperature, pulse, and blood pressure.
The last of his cuts and bruises had healed up, and Johnny looked no worse for wear, despite the fact I’d gone to town on him with a lead pipe. I didn’t feel quite so guilty about it as I had before. I figured last night had made up for it a little bit. Pleasure. Pain. There was a thin line between the two.
The chief tapped his knees with a metal hammer, making a hollow, ringing sound. Johnny slipped his hand in mine, while the chief continued his ministrations. I liked the solid feel of Johnny’s skin next to mine. All of his bare, naked, smooth, supple skin next to mine. His hard, muscled body on top of me. Under me. Beside me. In me—
“Fiona? Are you listening?” Chief Newman rumbled.
I snapped back to reality. “Of course. What did you say?”
“I said that Johnny’s fine, except he seems a little tired this morning. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” The chief turned his blue eyes to mine.
I flashed back to our time together in the kitchen. I could still taste the chocolate whipped cream on my lips. “Of course not.”
“I did tell him to avoid strenuous activities,” the chief continued. “But I don’t think he heeded my warning.”
Strenuous wouldn’t be the word I would use to describe last night. Perhaps vigorous or long-lasting or the previously agreed upon super-duper.
My father kept staring at me. His eyes glowed, like a match burning. Johnny looked back and forth between the two of us, still grinning.
“Johnny doesn’t seem to be one to heed warnings,” I said.
“That sounds like someone else I know,” the chief replied.
I tossed my hair over my shoulder, but I couldn’t help the blush that crept up my cheeks. I’d just been busted for having a little nookie-time fun by my own father. Way to go, Fiona.
The chief finished up his examination, pronouncing Johnny fit to take on the world once more. Johnny put on some more of Travis’s old clothes, and we headed back to the city in my convertible. It was a beautiful May day, with plenty of sunshine and a steady breeze. I put the top down, tilted my face up, and drank in the vibrant rays. Johnny leaned his head against the back of his seat and did the same.
We didn’t speak on the way back to Bigtime. I didn’t know what to say to Johnny, other than to ask him once again to abandon his vendetta against Siren and Intelligal. I wasn’t sure how he would react to that.
We pulled into the long, curving driveway of the Bulluci manor about ten that morning. I stopped the car outside the front door and killed the engine.
Johnny turned to me. “Come in. Stay with me for a while.”
I stared up at the house. A white lace curtain in one of the upstairs windows twitched and fell back into place.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Unless I miss my guess, Bella’s waiting somewhere inside ready to pounce on you and demand an explanation. Given how your last conversation went, I imagine there’ll be some yelling involved too.”
“That’s precisely why I need you to come with me. To protect me from my big, bad, nasty sister.” Johnny grinned.
I found myself grinning back. “I do so admire manly men, especially those who quake at the thought of facing their little sister.”
Johnny shuddered. “You don’t know Bella. She might seem mild-mannered and sweet, but once she gets going, she’s hard to stop.”
“Well, if you insist…”
The truth was that I wanted to spend more time with Johnny. Every waking minute if I could. Anything to keep him close to me, to keep him safe. Anything to keep him from trying to fulfill his vendetta.
“I do insist with you, Fiona. Always.”
Johnny pulled me inside, and we wandered through the angel-filled rooms, searching for the rest of the Bullicis.
“Bella? Grandfather? I’m home,” Johnny announced. His voice boomed through the sprawling mansion.
No response.
“Come on,” Johnny said. “I know where they are.”
He led me to the den. Bella sat on the long sofa, watching some art restoration program on the enormous television. A sketch pad lay on her lap, but she snapped off the screen at the sight of us.
“Well, it’s about time you got home,” Bella said in a tight, cold voice. Her hazel eyes shimmered like liquid gold with anger. “I hope the two of you enjoyed yourselves these last few days. Some of us were working.”
“I didn’t mean to be gone so long, but I ran into a bit of trouble. Fiona helped me out of it.” Johnny strolled to Bella’s side and planted a kiss on her cheek like nothing was wrong.
Bella narrowed her eyes. “What sort of trouble? Did the two of you run out of condoms or something?”
I arched an eyebrow. I wouldn’t have thought quiet, shy Bella would have the gumption to say the word condoms out loud, much less in front of other people. Perhaps still waters really did run deep.
“Not exactly,” Johnny said. “Fiona beat the stuffing out of me.”
Confusion and worry spread across Bella’s face. “How would she be able to do that? Your exo—” She cut off her words and looked at me.
I rolled my eyes and tossed my hair over my shoulder. All these innuendos and shortened sentences and half-truths were really starting to annoy me. So I did what I did best. I snapped my fingers, and a fireball popped into my hand.
With my other hand, I picked up the sofa—with Bella still sitting on it. She let out a squeak of alarm and clung to the side of the furniture.
“This is how,” I replied.
Bella’s eyes zipped back and forth from me to the fireball to the sofa to Johnny and back to me. Comprehension filled her face. “You’re Fiera?” she screeched. “The superhero? A member of the Fearless Five?”
I winced. Bella could almost match Siren when it came to her piercing voice. “That’s right.”
Bella’s golden gaze flicked to her brother. “Why are you telling us your secret identity?” She tried to be cool and casual, b
ut panic sparked in her eyes.
“You don’t have to pretend, Bella. Fiona knows that I’m Johnny Angel. She knows everything. About me, about Father, all of it.”
Bella’s mouth dropped open. She almost tumbled off the sofa. “Johnny! You didn’t!”
“He didn’t really have a choice,” I said. “I did beat the stuffing out of him. But I knew who he was before then.”
Bella turned on her brother. “Johnny, how could you be so reckless? Letting someone guess your secret identity. The family’s secret identity.”
I gestured at all the cherubs and angel wings and halos in the room. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out. In fact, it’s pretty obvious. You know, you guys might want to think about redecorating just a little bit. The angels are a dead giveaway.”
“That’s what their grandmother always thought, but I never listened to her.”
We turned at the sound of Bobby Bulluci’s voice. The old man stood in the doorway, staring at the three of us. His eyes went to the fireball in my hand and the sofa I had hoisted in midair. Busted again. If I kept this up, I might as well just take an ad out in the Chronicle or the Exposé announcing my secret identity to the entire world. Hell, maybe I’d just rip my mask off at the next superhero gathering at Paradise Park in front of Kelly Caleb. The SNN reporter would get the news out in no time flat. On the up side, I’d save a fortune in masks.
Bella rubbed her temples. “Let me get this straight. You knew that my brother, the man you’ve been dating, was Johnny Angel, yet you still beat up on him?”
“That’s right.”
“Johnny, do you care to explain this?” Bella crossed her arms over her chest, looking more like an uptight schoolteacher than a cutting-edge fashion designer.
“It’s a long story,” Johnny said. “Let’s sit down.”
I put the furniture and Bella back on the floor and snuffed the fireball out. We sat down on the lowered sofa, and Johnny spent the next ten minutes filling Bella and his grandfather in on everything that had happened since we’d had our knock-down, drag-out brawl at Oodles o’
Stuff.
“Incredible,” Bobby said. “All these years I’ve wondered about the Fearless Five, who they really were, and here you are, Fiera, sitting in my living room. Incredible.”
I shrugged in a modest sort of way. It was always nice to be thought of as incredible. My eyes went to Johnny. Or super-duper. I cleared my throat. Since all of our cards were on the table, I might as well appeal to Bella and Bobby to help me with my mission. My very personal mission.
“My friends and I have spent the last two days trying to convince Johnny to leave Siren and Intelligal to us. The two of them are planning something, and we need to figure out what it is and stop them before they hurt anyone else.”
“It is not simply a matter of stopping them,” Bobby said.
Tears gathered in his eyes, and he suddenly seemed old and small and frail. “I believe in the old ways. Eye for an eye, blood for blood. Those two killed my James, my son. They should be killed in turn to set things right.”
“I understand your pain, sir, truly I do,” I said. “But killing them won’t bring your son back. It won’t take away your sadness.”
Bella nodded. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them for months now. We’ve already lost Father. We don’t need to lose you too, Johnny.”
“He has a duty to his family, to carry on the legacy—”
Bobby started.
“Oh, screw the stupid family legacy,” Bella snapped. “I’d rather have Johnny home safe and sound any day than lose him to your silly legacy.”
The two of them glared at each other. Yikes. And I thought I could get hot under the collar when I was angry. I had nothing on Bella Bulluci.
Disgusted with the men in her family, Bella grabbed her sketchpad off the sofa and threw it onto the glass-topped coffee table.
Crack!
The pad hit the table with a loud smack, and the glass split down the middle. The two pieces fell on top of each other, along with an assortment of coasters, magazines, and a mug that hit the floor and shattered.
When the noise faded and the glass and dust settled, I looked at Bella. Wondering.
“It’s nothing,” Bella muttered, avoiding my eyes. “Just another part of the stupid family legacy.”
One that was getting more interesting and unusual by the minute.
“Maybe you should go and let us talk about this, Fiona,” Johnny said in a soft voice. He squeezed my hand. “Please?”
I looked at the three of them. This was a family matter, and I wasn’t part of the family. The thought made me sadder than I would have imagined.
“All right. I’ll go. For now. But think about what I said. Let the Fearless Five handle the ubervillains. It’s what we do.”
“It’s what Johnny Angel does too,” Bobby replied. “It’s what we’ve done for three generations now. We take care of our own. We always have, and we always will. That’s our family’s real legacy.”
I didn’t have a response. Johnny’s eyes begged me to go before things got any more heated. So, I left.
23
I drove to my office. Paperwork cluttered my desk, along with the remains of the wilted flowers Johnny had sent me. I stared at the dried-up brown petals and hoped they weren’t an omen. That my relationship with Johnny wouldn’t soon be as dead and decayed as they were.
I rolled my eyes. Sheesh. I was getting as bad as Carmen and my father looking for doom-and-gloom portents of the future. I shoved the flowers into the trash can and stared at the piles of messages on my desk, the notes from suppliers, all the thousand small details that needed seeing to. I really needed to get to work.
But I couldn’t concentrate on any of it, not even my Fiera fan mail. All I could think about was Johnny and his family.
I paced around my office. Bella had agreed with me, that the Fearless Five should be the ones to take care of Siren and Intelligal.
But Johnny and his grandfather hadn’t. And I knew they wouldn’t. Their honor, their code, their legacy was just as important to them as my superhero duty was to me. Why did men have to be such fools sometimes?
“If you don’t cut that out, Fiona, you’re going to poke holes in the floor with your stilettos,” Piper called out from the doorway. “You don’t want a repeat of last time, do you?”
I grimaced. The last time Piper was referring to was when I’d put my foot through the floor after a particularly grueling fitting session with Joanne James. It was either that or put my foot through her bony ass. Joanne had gotten off lucky that day.
“Why don’t you use the balls I got you?” Piper suggested.
In addition to leaving eating disorder and other self-help pamphlets on my desk, Piper was also fond of giving me gifts like those rubber balls you squeeze in your hands. She thought I needed to relax.
Piper kept staring at me, so I yanked open my desk drawer and rummaged through the mess inside until I came up with one of the rubber gizmos, which was a little smaller than a tennis ball. I rhythmically flexed my fist around the puny ball.
Piper smiled, happy that she’d gotten me to do her bidding, and disappeared back into her office.
I waited to make sure she wasn’t coming back. Then, I squeezed the ball with all my might. It only took me a second to turn the rubber into a handful of goo. I tossed it in the trash and watched it smolder.
Piper was right. It did make me feel better. I always enjoyed melting things.
———
I worked the rest of the day, stopping only to eat a quick but massive lunch at Quicke’s. Every so often, I’d look at the phone, hoping Johnny would call. Hoping he’d tell me he’d changed his mind about going after Siren and Intelligal. That he was giving up his quest, his mission, his vendetta. But he never did. Men never called when you wanted them to.
I left work around six and headed back out to Sublime.
Tonight was my night to be on duty in the lib
rary. I rolled my neck around, trying to ease some of the tension that had built up there. I’d zapped all of the rubber balls I could find in my desk, but they hadn’t helped much. Maybe I’d be able to do a few laps in the pool after my shift ended. Maybe not, the way things were going. It hadn’t exactly been a banner week so far. Except for my time with Johnny in the kitchen.
I stopped by the kitchen and made myself a couple of ham-and-cheese sandwiches, grabbed two bags of chips, and put a bottle of soda under my arm before heading to the library.
One of the doors was cracked open, and loud, angry voices bounced down the hall. I frowned and quickened my pace. What the hell was going on?
“I don’t see why you have to be so stubborn,” Henry’s voice floated through the door. “I love you, and I want to marry you. What could be simpler than that?”
I peeked inside. Ah, the two lovenerds were squared off above their flickering computer monitors, each one glaring at the other.
“There’s nothing simple about it, and you know it,” Lulu snapped back. “Your power is a precious gift. You deserve to have kids who will follow in your footsteps—who’ll have your mind-melding power and help others with it.”
“You’re acting like there’s no hope,” Henry said. “But there are things we could try. Medical advances like in vitro fertilization or a surrogate mother. And researchers are developing new methods all the time.”
Lulu shook her head. “But you should be able to have both—a woman who loves you and who can give you kids. It shouldn’t be this hard. Your power is too important to waste—”
“Oh, stuff my power.” Henry shoved his glasses up his nose. “I wouldn’t care if my power went away tomorrow, as long as I had you.”
Lulu’s face softened. Even I melted a little. Wow. Giving up your power to be with the person you loved? That was the ultimate sacrifice for superheroes and ubervillains alike.
Lulu drew in a deep breath. “We both know I can’t have kids. And unless they come up with some sort of superscience in the next couple of years, I won’t ever be able to have children. I don’t want you to give that up for me, Henry.”