She went still. This wasn’t Dancer. Not the Dancer she knew, the one who always went along with her decisions. Never gave her guff. Well, except for once. “You never used to talk to me like this before,” she said coolly.
He snorted. “I was never willing to risk it. You ran at the drop of a hat. My every move was designed to keep the magnificent Mega from dashing off. One wrong phrase, one hint of emotion or expectation, and she vanished into the night. I watched every bloody word. I lived with the constant awareness that if I cared about you and you figured it out, you’d leave. Then you left. Again. For another month. Didn’t even tell me you were back. Then I heard you told Ryodan’s men you weren’t even willing to work with me. Was I dead to you? You shut me out completely and now only spend time with me because you have a mission you need me for. I’m sorry if you don’t like what I have to say but I’m not walking on eggshells around you anymore. If you want to avail yourself of my many splendid qualities—and they are pretty stupendous,” he flashed her a smile, “accord me the courtesy I give you. Take me as I am. A real person, with desires and boundaries of my own.”
Jada spun on her heel and began to walk away.
“Great. And there you go. Fine. I’ll be fine alone. I’m always fine alone,” he shouted after her. “It’s just that you’re the only person I ever feel completely alive with. You’re the only girl that ever gets half of what I say. Do I really have to come up with some fucking superpower just to hang out with you?”
She stopped. Completely alive. She remembered feeling that once. Running the streets of her town with him, laughing and planning and fighting, amazed and thrilled that she got to be alive in such an exciting time. She remembered, too, the unique feeling of being so easily understood by him. They’d had an effortless rapport.
“Run away,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s what you do best.”
Killing was what she did best. She didn’t run anymore. She never ran. She knew the price. She never reacted. Merely divined the logical, efficient action most likely to yield intended results and pursued it.
Was she running?
She went still, sought that cold clear place inside herself, tacked the emotions and elements of their interaction on a truth table of sorts, analyzing her responses. She pinned his words here, overlaid the subtext, her words there, interpreting the subtext. Then in the middle of the whole thing she taped up the question: What harm if I let Dancer help me hang the papers?
Absolutely none.
In fact, there was more potential for something to go wrong if she left him behind.
There was an unacceptable amount of “reaction” evident in her actions. She knew better. She who controlled herself, survived.
She turned around. “You may come with me.”
“Why do I feel like I just won the battle but lost the war?” he said softly.
—
The slipstream was beautiful, trailing past them like a starry tunnel. It took thirty minutes to plaster papers around Dublin proper. Hours to return for more at the old Bartlett Building, then dash around the outlying districts, distributing them far and wide, knocking on doors, hanging them on houses with lights on inside when no one answered.
It felt good to be back out, taking care of her city again. Along the way they tore down every Dublin Daily they saw, as they’d been written in a way that imparted no useful news and incited fear. For the dozenth time she wondered who was crafting the slanted things. All they’d done was turn the entire city on her and Mac.
“Holy human surfboards, you caught a perfect wave every time!” Dancer exploded when they paused, back in town, near the River Liffey. “Not one rough start or stop. We didn’t hit a bloody thing!” His beautiful eyes were brilliant with excitement. “That was incredible! You’ve gotten massively better at freeze-framing.”
“I learned a few things Silverside.” She winced inwardly at his Batman quip. She’d given them up long ago. Shortly after she’d accepted that Ryodan had never read a single comic and had no idea the lengths to which Batman and his fearless sidekick would go for each other.
“No kidding. It felt different. Instead of trying to force yourself into something that didn’t want us there, you were in sync with it. One with the force.”
She had Shazam to thank. She would never have survived without her cranky, mopey wizard/bear/cat manic-depressive binge-eater.
He was watching her. “Did you meet anyone in there? Did you have friends?”
“A few. I don’t want to talk about it.” Some things were private. She’d lost too much. She wasn’t losing anything else. Feeling suddenly drained, she grabbed a couple of power bars from her pack, ripped them open, dropped down on a nearby bench, and shoved one after another into her mouth. She missed the glistening silvery pods Shazam had encouraged her to eat on the planet with the dancing vines, the ones that had kept her fueled for days. She’d filled her pack with them before she left that world and had been rationing them for herself since. Back on this world, food didn’t pack nearly the energy punch as it had on many in the Silvers. Too much processing, not enough purity. Or maybe Earth just didn’t have any raw elemental magic in the soil anymore.
They sat in silence for a time, watching the river roll by.
When Dancer touched her hand, she moved it quickly. Nearly stiffened but caught herself.
“Easy, wild thing.”
She looked at him. “Is that what you think I am?” Others thought her rigid, passionless.