No, what worried me was the fact that Scribe knew us all so well. If he was the problem from the start; and I wasn't certain that he was, it made sense to assume that the reasons why we had all struggled so much directly rested on his shoulders. He had spent years trying to make sure we rarely left Yarborough and, all the more rare, spoke with our fellow superheroes.
Instead, we were sometimes transferred out of nowhere. Or we ended up dead.
I thought back to all the people Edwin had told me were dead. Five terribly long years in prison, but was it that common to see so many people dead at work? Yes, we were in a dangerous line of said work, but construction workers were, too. They didn't see that many of their co-workers drop to their deaths in that same five-year period.
And how many were gone? The Yarborough Alliance building wasn't nearly as well-staffed as it had been before I'd ended up in prison.
The sun struck me square in the face. I squinted up at Nishelle as she wrenched the curtains open. "Get up. We have to report in. Scribe's already saying that we abandoned our posting. Worse, he sent Logan the recording from the news last night."
"If we don't want to be arrested, we better show up fast?" I asked.
She grunted in response and I dragged myself out of the couch. It attempted to keep me there, but alas, I was stronger. Cassie 1, Couch 0. It's the little victories that matter most.
Breakfast was quick; a nearly expired cereal bar, and then we were off to a strange land with familiar trappings. Thomaston's PTB Alliance building had the same skyscraper appearance that ours did, but the area was less crime-y. There was gold inlaid around the edges of the door and the whole thing felt somehow cleaner than back home. I wrinkled my nose at it and looked over at Nishelle. "Kinda showy, aren't they?"
"We're no better," she shrugged.
She parked the stolen car out on the street, right in front of a fire hydrant. I glanced at her but she didn't seem to notice. Together, we hauled Adam out of the back and headed up the stairs. Edwin had decided to stay behind to guard the apartment against anyone trying to sneak in and check up on us.
The doors opened without any fuss. I frowned, but Nishelle shook her head. "They use the same system that we do back home. There's a bunch of them that are connected up together to make it easier for visiting superheroes."
"But we rarely go anywhere. Why hook up with us?" I asked.
An extra pair of hands caught Adam under the middle and gently lifted him from our grasp. The helper was a stout, bespeckled man just about five years older than me. His dark hair was shot with gray, though most of it had retained its original color. He gave me the warmest smile I'd had since I'd gotten out of prison. "Because it's important for any superhero currently working with the Alliance to have access to this place as a place of safety at all times. I'd think you'd know that, Cassie."
"James," I sighed, relieved. "Is Mr. Patterson here somewhere? We really need to sit down and talk with him before things get worse."
"He's in his office. Let me get Adam into the infirmary and we'll see what we can do for all of you."
It was like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. I watched as Adam passed through those gleaming doors, then Nishelle, but when I tried to follow my feet wouldn't lift. I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to push back whatever it was that Allison was doing.
It isn't me this time. It's him. He doesn't want you in there.
My brows knitted. Who?
Patterson. You're havoc unchained and he has a polite superhero business to run. There's no place for someone like you inside Thomaston's Alliance. She paused, then added a bit more as an afterthought. He certainly never wanted me there.
One foot lifted, then the other. I forced my way through, supposedly, Logan Patterson's control and grabbed the front door with both hands. I shoved it open and followed it inside. The miles-high ceiling stood above my head, a chandelier threatening to crash down upon me.
I ignored it all, I even managed to ignore Allison, and I took my first steps into the building.
Where I was immediately swarmed with uniformed police officers, all of them drawing their guns. I sighed and sank to my knees, putting my hands behind my head. "I didn't do anything, gentlemen."
"You're to have a police escort to the head office. Don't try any superhero bullshit, Strikeout. We're well aware what you can do," the officer to my left snarled.
I turned my head to look at him and scowled. He couldn't have been more than a few years younger than me, but he seemed so much more whole than I was. In short order, they shoved me to the ground and handcuffed me. It was far from the first time I'd been cuffed, especially when I'd been working without my supersuit. Cops usually overlooked us when we were in uniform, unless we'd done something so off the charts that we had to be taken in.
But when I was a teenager, I'd gotten into the terrible habit of punching villains in the face without the look to match my status. I couldn't count how many times I'd been arrested for doing my typical civic duty.
Idly, I wondered if that's why they'd been so hard on me when I'd turned up for Nishelle's murder, no matter that it'd been accidental.
Though I had to admit, I wasn't
