85.
Sienna
We headed toward the cops in the distance, the collapsing hospital rumbling like thunder behind us. Police cars filled the road ahead, blinking, lights bright and flashing in the midday sun. I trailed behind Jamie a little ways, watching her carry her daughter to safety, disappointment and disgust churning in my guts.
It felt unjust to know she was going to be arrested. I’d been arrested once before, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that when I was arrested, I was guilty as sin for what I’d done. I’d killed the people I’d been accused of killing.
Not that there had been a lot of comfort in that. It had still been one of the scarier experiences in my life, staring down the barrel of all those guns, knowing my life as I knew it was over. But at least I’d known I was guilty.
Jamie wasn’t.
She set Kyra down first, gently, in the middle of the squad cars, sandwiched on either side by barricades stacked up with onlookers. No FBI cars in sight, just good old fashioned NYPD squads as far as the eye could see, interspersed with the occasional fire truck or ambulance, all the way back to where the cops were holding the line against spectators.
Jamie had her hands up, her face ashen. About like you’d expect from a law-abiding citizen who was about to get handcuffed and thrown in jail. I bet she’d never so much as put a toe out of line, and this was her reward.
Meanwhile, here I was, a murderer, free as a bee and buzzing around.
“I surrender,” Jamie said, touching down and standing there, arms in the air. “Please … take care of my daughter.”
I hovered overhead soundlessly, watching the whole thing unfold. Kyra was ushered off by a cop, her shoulders draped in a blanket as she shook, watching her mother.
“Gravity Gal!” a loud voice shouted from past the barricade. “We believe in you!”
The crowd erupted, shouting support, yelling, rattling the metal barriers between them and the line of cops. I looked again at the cops, and they put their guns away almost as one. Within about five seconds, not one of the NYPD officers had their gun out. They stood there, looking at her, until one of the lead officers stepped up with the industrial strength handcuffs they issued municipalities these days and beckoned her forward. I heard him speak over the roar of the crowd, which was booing as they saw him step up to her, cuffs shining in the sunlight.
“I don’t wanna do this, but I gotta,” the cop said. “It’s either me or the FBI. If you wanna run …” He shrugged his shoulders. “You won’t see any of us shooting after ya.”
“I’m not going to run,” Jamie said softly and extended her hands. The cop looked at them, almost regretfully for a moment, and the crowd grew hushed as he clicked cuffs around her wrists.
“You’re our hero!” someone shouted, and the crowd roared approval. “You do Staten Island proud!” someone else shouted, and the crowd roared again. “Stay strong!” That one got a chorus of cheers, too.
The cop carefully led Jamie over to the nearest squad car, and gently ducked her head so she didn’t bump it. She got in, willingly, and he closed the door behind her to deafening boos. The crowd rattled the barricades again, and I heard some florid swearing of the sort that almost made me blush. Good heavens, Staten Island.
I drifted down toward where Kyra Barton was sitting on the back of an ambulance. Her gaze was fixed on the cop car her mother was sitting in, and I dropped right in front of her, breaking her line of sight. She didn’t need to dwell on seeing her mom under arrest, after all.
“How are you holding up?” I asked, folding my arms, intent on blocking this shameful scene from view. I momentarily considered taking it right out of her head, but decided I’d probably gotten myself in enough trouble for stealing memories.
“Umm, gee,” Kyra said, in the manner of a teenager, “I just found out my mom is New York’s lamest superhero, after we were losing our house last night, and now I just watched her get arrested.” She glared at me. “I’m doing great.”
“Oh, good,” I said mildly, letting all that irony wash past. “Most people might—y’know, feel an emotion or two under that kind of pressure, but it’s good to know you teens don’t feel anything but withering sarcasm. And you share, so generously, too.”
She stared at me. “You’re … really good at this.”
“I’m not that far removed from being a teenager myself,” I said, settling down next to her on the back of the ambulance. “People forget that sometimes. And about your mom being ‘lame’?” She looked at me, kind of quizzically. “Seriously. Nobody says ‘lame’ anymore. What are you, thirty?”
“Sick burn,” she said, seeming a little less guarded.
“It’s one of my few marketable skills,” I said. “But … putting that aside … your mom’s a hero, you know.” I paused, listening to the crowd. They were chanting, “Gravity—Gal! Gravity—Gal!” I frowned. “I’ll give you that the name sucks, but your mom didn’t pick that—”
“She probably would have picked something worse if she’d been able to,” Kyra said, and I caught a mingled hint of sadness with her rebuke. “She named her company ‘Barton Designs.’ That’s a stunning lack of creativity from someone whose job it is to be creative.”
“She’s not a hero because she’s creative,” I said, watching as Scott, Friday, and Frost made their way out of the fence separating us from the hospital’s wooded, overgrown campus. “She’s a hero because she does the right thing, and she doesn’t compromise it because someone else says she’s wrong.” I thought about Nadine Griffin, happily sipping whiskey in a bar while she watched her attempts to destroy Jamie play out live on television.
“I guess,” Kyra said, and I could feel her palpable discomfort. She had emotion welling up inside, plainly, something complicated that I doubted she really wanted to dive into, especially with a stranger. She’d probably vent her feelings later on Twitter, or Instagram, or whatever the hell the kids nowadays did to express themselves. “We … we fought a lot—”
“Fight,” I said, “present tense.” And when she looked up in mild surprise, I said, “I’ll get her a lawyer. I’ve got some good ones that I’m connected to. She won’t go down for this. We will get her out. She won’t rot in the Cube.” Even the mention of the Cube, thinking about Jamie being shoved into the old prison that I used to be warden of … it wasn’t a pleasant thought.
“Then we’ll have fights yet to come,” Kyra said, still sounding pretty subdued.
“Yeah, you’re lucky,” I said, looking away from her. “My mom and I used to fight all the time, too.” I stared at the crowds. They were still chanting Jamie’s superhero name. “Sometimes I wish she could yell at me one more time.”
“Really?” Kyra asked.
“Really,” I said, and meant it.
“Kyra!” An African-American lady came rustling through the police, escorted by a cop. “Kyra!”
“Clarice!” Kyra jumped up and hugged the lady tight. I could tell they were family by the way that Kyra defaulted to running to her for comfort in time of trouble. It was a sure tell of who you were really close to, that.
Clarice hugged tight for a minute and then let her go, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I was worried about you when all the news about your mom broke on the—but it doesn’t matter, you’re safe now.” She hugged Kyra tight again.
“Clarice,” Kyra said, “this is Sienna Nealon.” She towed the lady over to me, and I watched the surprise in her eyes when she caught her first glimpse of me. “She helped my mom save me, and she says she’s going try and get Mom out.”
I watched Clarice take a moment to compose herself before speaking. “I—you know that Jamie had nothing to do with any of—”
“I know, “I said, and watched that hit the mark with Clarice. It was plain to me that this lady was deep in Jamie’s corner. “She got set up,” I said.
“By who?” Clarice asked.
“I …” I thought about that one for a minute. “I don’t know,” I finally lied. “But we’ll get them.”
Kyra’s eyes were big, bigger than mine had been as a teenager. “Really? You will?”
I watched her standby mom, Clarice, studying me to see how I answered. As it turned out, the words were tricky, because I already had a plan for how to deal with the person responsible for all this shit, but speaking too much of it aloud would be the surest way to see any plans I had undone. “We’ll get them,” I said coolly, trying to be reassuring, while keeping a stoic mask on tight. “Don’t you worry about that.”