THE WHOLE ORDEAL can’t last more than thirty seconds, as the three of us batter against Sherman’s shield like hamsters in a dropped ball, clothes and skin and hair frosting over wherever they touch. Doesn’t stop it feeling like thirty days and thirty nights, or some other form of biblical torture.
Sherman forms the shield beneath us to slow our descent. Banishing it again just as fast, again and again, before the cold burns.
We still smack down hard, but it’s only brain-rattling, not brain-splattering. I spend another small eternity sprawled flat out on the rubble. Only once the room quits spinning do I push to sit. My ears ring so hard they hurt. Sherm’s words—“Let’s all agree to never, ever do this again”—drift to me from afar.
The skeleton of city hall rises above us. Hollowed, blackened, innards gouged out by a red-hot melon baller. The blast burst the floor we were on and punched holes in both below. One of them, we fell through.
The ceiling droops like an overstuffed hammock. Cracks braid the plasterwork. Sherman re-forms the shield over us and dust soon coats it, gray and heavy as volcanic ash.
That’s just background scenery. As I blink the residual flashes from my eyes, all I see is Sofia Sherman. Gorgeous. Grumpy. Dressed in—of all things—a navy-blue Sunnylake sidekick uniform.
“You came back,” I croak, though I can barely hear myself speak. Then, just to be a shit: “My hero.”
Sherman doesn’t waste time snorting. She shouts something loud enough for my busted eardrums to catch: “We need to move!”
Threads of sunlight pierce the billowing dust. When this cloud clears, we’ll be left in the reception area of the building the Flamer allegedly blew up, heroes charging in to rescue us from all sides. Or not, given who they work for.
How could this happen? Would the mayor really go this far to shut us up?
Perhaps, whispers something at the back of my dazed mind, we’re more of a threat than she wants to admit.
I try to stand, but my legs won’t obey me. It takes several attempts, and when I manage a tenuous vertical I still have to stabilize myself on Sherman’s arm.
Jav, though? Jav doesn’t try at all.
“Jav?” I whisper. Then louder, since I can’t hear myself—“Jav!”
Sherman says something muffled. Telling me to stay quiet. The sidekicks will arrive soon, sweeping for survivors.
I don’t listen. I crouch beside Jav, cataloging my own aches on the way. Raw and tender all over, skin prickling from heat and cold. Feels kinda like I’ve had a full-body exfoliation session with a cheese grater. A phantom echo of the blast still rattles around my head.
Jav looks worse.
I thumb dirt and blood off her slack cheek. “Jav. Jav, please. Jav, you gotta open your eyes—Jav!”
Her lashes quiver apart. I could sob with relief. Then I see how mismatched her pupils are, one bulging like she’s high while the other shrinks down to a pinprick. How she struggles to focus on my face.
“Rile … Riley?”
Jav’s never confused. Jav’s never out of it. Jav’s needle-sharp and cleverer than anyone I know, and she always, always knows what to do. This isn’t right. This isn’t her.
Jav reaches up, the backs of her shaky fingers brushing my chin. Her nail polish is chipped, her hands grazed and ice-speckled.
“Did we … did we … do it?” Her voice is so faint, it could come from the far side of City Square.
“Yeah. We sure did.”
She flumps back. “This is all your fault.”
“What? How?”
“I’ll work it out later.”
Ass. Still, I can’t bite back my grin.
Sherm jostles my shoulder. Her voice sounds a little louder than it did a minute ago but still nowhere near its usual volume. I have this sudden, sickening fear it’ll never come back, that I’ll never fully hear her say all the things I want her to—but then her words sink in, and I realize we got bigger problems. “Sidekicks incoming. Go, now. Grab her feet.”
We’re lucky Jav’s such a twig. I’m still jellified from shock, so Sherman handles most of her weight, hooking her under the armpits. As the beams from the sidekicks’ flashlights pour over the rubble around us, the roof bowing dangerously overhead, Sherman dismisses her shield in a whirl of ash and hot, itchy dust.
We run. Over the hammer of my heart, I wonder if we’ll ever stop.