Heels and Heroes (3 page)

“Must have been hard,” he said finally. “Two parents on The Council and you being….” He stopped talking, trying frantically to think of a way to finish the sentence without sounding condescending.

“What? Disabled by my crappy superpower? There are a lot of paths to success, Justice. Superpowers are just the easiest way.”

“Hey, it’s not like good superpowers are a surefire way to success.”

“No? Well it’s the nearest thing to the easy street that exists. Most of us have to work a little harder than being born special to succeed in life.”

“Just because you’re jealous—”

She gasped. “I’m not jealous!” Her head whipped around to look out her window. “Hey, stop the car!”

“Oh, you’d rather walk home than face an argument you can’t win? Some superhero you are.”

“You passed my apartment half a block ago, genius.”

He opened his mouth but no words came out. As they slid to the side of the road Silencer jumped out before he brought them to a complete stop, slamming the car door behind her.

***

Work seemed a little drabber than normal after spending the night arguing with a superhero and investigating a crime scene, and for some reason Justice’s face—the part not hidden by his mask, anyway—kept flitting to the top of her thoughts. Not that it hadn’t in the past, but things were different now. He’d proved himself to be a jerk, just as she’d figured he would. He was a powerful superhero after all, and that kind of thing tended to go to a man’s head.

So why was it she couldn’t think about anything but how strong his hands looked? How they’d feel, rough against her skin.

“Hey, Bren, we’re running a bit behind out here,” Maria said, nodding toward the pharmacy as she peeked into Brenda’s office.

“Sure, no problem. I’ll be out in just a minute,” she said, face burning as if the woman could read her thoughts.

Maria nodded and turned back to her work.

What she should be worried about was Howler. What did Justice expect her to do if she blocked his powers? Run up and kick him? Self-defense and karate classes she’d taken over the years had been purely for fitness’s sake, and she wasn’t prepared for a real fight. Oh, there was the standard training regiment all superheroes went through, but it was just practice, not real experience. Not that she hadn’t imagined being in a real fight more than once while she practiced. She’d meant to ask Justice more questions, sort out the specifics of The Council’s plan, but he’d touched on her sore spot. Made her angry. Accused her of being
jealous
. As if he knew what it was like to be in her shoes.

Brenda shook her head to clear her thoughts. She had to focus. An administrator filling out a bit of paperwork could afford a distracted brain to a certain extent; a pharmacist couldn’t.

So for the next two hours she kept her attention on work. Thoughts of superheroes and villains and Justice moved to the back of her brain, and she focused on filling the prescriptions that might very well mean life or death to the people they’d been ordered for. Requiring superpowers or no, it was a hefty responsibility.

Superheroes weren’t the only ones who saved lives.

“It’s Ms., not Miss,” an icy voice said from the counter. The voice was familiar enough to pull her from double-checking the information sheet she was stapling to a prescription bag, but she couldn’t quite place it.

The woman who corrected Maria’s use of her name didn’t look familiar. Short, brown hair, graying at her temples, did nothing to cover an ordinary fortyish face that sat on top of a body that wasn’t exactly overweight but didn’t appear to get a lot of gym time, either. Her too-tight T-shirt that proclaimed she was a fan of the local high school football team didn’t ring any bells.

Brenda moved closer to the counter to get a better look. She still couldn’t place her, and it felt important she did. The woman noticed Brenda’s stare, and returned it with one of her own.

“Can I help you, dear?” she asked, voice only slightly more kind than the one she’d used to correct Maria.

Recognition hit Brenda. Maybe it was the “dear” that did it; most people didn’t call strangers dear—not in Chicago. Or maybe the slightly condescending motherly tone triggered her recall. Whatever the cause, she knew without a doubt that the woman standing at her counter was Violet. Violet in her normal clothes.

“No, sorry. I thought you were someone else,” Brenda stammered, and a flush crept up her cheeks for the lie.

She pursed her lips and looked Brenda up and down thoughtfully but didn’t say anything else. Instead, she snatched the prescription bag from Maria’s hand and turned to leave. She stopped after a couple of steps and pivoted back around, just enough to give Brenda one last considering glance before she walked out the door.

A loud chirp made Brenda jump. She glared at her cell phone and then grabbed it to silence the noise.

“Another emergency?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ll explain—”

“Later, I know.” Maria grinned and waved her away.

***

Operating on little sleep, Brenda had left the house without packing a superhero outfit with her. Luckily, she had the extra mask she always carried in her car—it was regulation, after all. So after parking, she tied the mask on and tried to look as official as she could while wearing a superhero mask with a pair of slacks and a button-up blouse. She had half convinced herself it was working until she met up with Justice at the crime scene.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked, after taking in her outfit and shiny red mask.

“It’s regulation,” she snapped back.

He frowned at that, but didn’t argue with her. He of course wore his normal gear, and she wondered if he ever took it off. An image of him showering in all that black leather flashed in her mind, and it was all she could do to suppress a giggle.

“Something funny?”

One of the bank’s double doors hung from a single heavy hinge, and the other was nowhere in sight. Rubble decorated the once-professional lobby, and peeking inside revealed that much of the debris came from the second story, which had half collapsed on the floor below it. Brenda backed up, not eager to test the stability of what remained of the two-story building. “This…doesn’t look like our guy.”

“I agree, but we’re checking anything and everything that could be Howler. I’ll get another team going on this, and we’ll get back to work on ours.”

Justice didn’t wait for her reply; instead he stalked off to meet a group of heroes who gathered at a slightly safer distance away from the scene. She recognized them; The Jumper, StrongArm, and Char. Moving back, Brenda gave her friend a small smile and wave. She grinned back openly but didn’t move to meet her. Instead, she nodded at something Justice told the group, and then followed StrongArm as he and Jumper jogged down the street away from the bank.

Justice met her with serious eyes as she approached.

“So, what now?”

“Now we stick together,” he said. “I think it’s best we arrive on scene together, just in case. Until then,” his gaze moved up and down her body, eyes seeming to slow down over her chest and legs, “let’s go get you a real uniform.”

“I have real uniforms, thank you very much,” she replied, more irritated with herself for forgetting her uniform after wearing one he deemed so inappropriate the night before than she was with him. She was a professional, damn it. Even if she wasn’t usually required to be a professional superhero, she was a professional and that extended to every part of her life. Forgetting something so important riled her.

“Hey—” she began, but the ringing from her cell phone stopped her explanation, and she was grateful for the interruption because she hadn’t been entirely certain what she was going to say.

“This is Brenda,” she said, raising a finger at Justice. His lip drew back in a grimace, but her attention stayed focused on Maria.

“I’m sorry, Brenda, I know you’ve got some family stuff going on this week, but I can’t get hold of Rachel and Ben’s school just called. He’s sick, and I need to pick him up.” Maria’s tone was pleading.

Brenda glanced at her watch. Only two hours until closing time. What was the likelihood Howler would strike again in the next couple of hours? And if he did, well, the pharmacy would just have to close early.

“I’m on my way,” Brenda said, and then clicked her phone shut.

“You’re on your way? Where do you think you’re going?” Justice growled.

“I have a job. A real job. One that needs me to be there for a couple of hours.” She took a deep breath and met his gaze. “I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t important.”

His eyes didn’t leave hers for a few moments, and he stared at her as if searching for some hidden meaning in her words. Finally, he nodded. “Fine. But I’m going with you.” He raised a hand at her before she could argue. “As a member of The Council, I already know your secret identity.”

Of course he did. But that didn’t mean she wanted him traipsing around her work. But he was probably right—they should stick together. No matter how much the man irked her. “Okay then, let’s go.”

***

He kept his face carefully blank as he pulled his Porsche into a parking spot next to Silencer’s red Lexus IS350 at Pranier Medical. One of the nicest hospitals in the city, it wasn’t one he frequented. His jobs—both human and superhero—took him to county hospitals and city morgues, rarely to private facilities like Pranier.

Silencer met him at his Porsche and raised an eyebrow at his expression. She reached up to her face and with a quick flick of her wrist, removed her mask. Her simple action forced his breath from his lungs.

Taking off a mask, especially a small one like she’d been wearing, shouldn’t have made such a difference in her face. But as his gaze traced the fine line of her jaw, the soft sweep of the blonde hair across her brow, the contrast between her pale skin and dark eyes, for a moment he imagined superhero masks were magic. A relic that could so change a person’s facade that when one’s true face was revealed, the effect was shocking.

She was breathtaking.

“You got that?” she asked.

She’d been talking, but he’d missed it. What had she said? It had been important. “Um….” he said, brilliantly.

“B-R-E-N-D-A.” she said, punctuating every letter as clearly as if she’d written the word down for him. “Brenda. That’s my name. Don’t slip up and call me anything else. Not like anyone has heard of Silencer anyway, but I don’t want them to know anything about my other…pseudo life. Got it?”

Something had changed. The woman standing in front of him with one hand settled on her hip while the other waved at him seemed like a stranger. But her direct gaze was the same, as was her matter-of-fact speech. He couldn’t put his finger on the change. But he would. He was Justice after all, the hero of the Millennium Park attack, the man who tracked down and defeated the super villain IronClaw, not to mention the people he helped during his day job.

His mind settled by his thoughts, he said, “How are you going to explain me?”

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty head about that.” She grinned, and his feeling of being off-balance about her grew. But before he was able to think too far into it, she strode toward the hospital, leaving him to follow in her wake.

He expected her to head for the elevator, so when she swung toward the pharmacy door, he changed direction awkwardly.

The woman behind the counter smiled at Silencer in obvious relief before disappearing to let them into the pharmacy area.

As they slipped through the doorway, the woman said, “Thank you so much, Brenda. I’m sorry about this, but he—” She stopped talking abruptly as she took in Justice, frowning at the reassuring smile he shot her.

“This is Justice. He’s doing some surveillance of the hospital, and we’re letting him use the pharmacy as his base. Justice, this is Maria, she’s one of our pharmacists.”

Maria took the hand he held out and shook it gingerly. “One of the local superheroes?” She didn’t sound overly impressed.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

“Hmph,” was Maria’s only response as she pulled off her lab coat. She grabbed a purse from the small office set in one corner of the pharmacy. “Thanks again, boss,” she called over her shoulder as she let herself out.

“You, wait there,” Brenda said, pointing to the office.

Justice followed her instructions; he seated himself and then peeked out to watch her deal with customers.

She was efficient, not brisk, but quick in the way of a person completely comfortable in her job. Questions from customers were met with compassion and direct answers, and it was obvious she knew several by name. After the first hour rolled around, realization hit him.

She’d changed when she took off her mask, changed in the way a superhero usually did when donning her uniform. For Silencer—Brenda—it was like putting on the uniform reduced her, removed a bit of confidence that, for some reason, a blouse and white medical coat granted her.

Suddenly, a blouse and slacks looked sexier than anything he’d seen in a while.

“So Maria didn’t seem exactly impressed to meet a superhero,” he said when the steady line of customers disappeared.

“Well, she wouldn’t be,” Brenda muttered, more to herself than to him. Shooting him a sharp glance, she explained, “Her ex was a superhero. Some hotshot out of Denver. I think he’s a big part of the reason she moved here.”

Unsure of what to say to that, he just nodded.

“Figures, though.” She tucked a chunk of blonde hair behind her ear and turned away to sort through a small stack of paperwork.

“Why?”

“Because she’s a normal human, of course. What kind of a chance did she have to hold onto a superhero?” She glanced at him before returning to her sorting. “A real one, I mean.”

“You think only some superheroes are real?” he asked, shock rushing through him.

“Justice,” she said, after glancing around to make sure they were alone. “There is a difference between real superheroes like you who have the power to save people from villains on a regular basis and people like me. My powers, such as they are, don’t make me any different from Maria and other normal people. Yours do.”