So Not a Hero Page 17

  Kurt’s menu had remained closed the entire time we’d been seated, but the order rolled off his tongue as if by memory. “I’d like the veal piccatta with steamed vegetables. And a bottle of Chianti, thanks.” Then he looked across the table at me, mischievous grin in place. “I never would have guessed you as one of those girls.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, arching a brow. “One of what girls?”

  “The ‘I-am-going-to-starve-so-I-don’t-gain-weight’ type.” He held up a hand. “I’m not judging you. Just observing.”

  “Ever think I might not be that hungry?”

  He nodded. “That is a possibility.” Something in his voice told me that he didn’t believe that. Probably because of the way my stomach had growled loudly on the way to our table.

  I clenched my jaw and fought against the urge to see if I could push the menu through his chest. I turned my head slightly to the side and spoke to the waitress, not taking my eyes off Kurt’s. “Cancel that. I’ll have the chicken carbonara and a side salad with ranch.” The girl made the requested change on the pad and left.

  I glared at the smirking detective. “My uniform damned well better fit tomorrow.”

  He took a sip of his water, grin widening. “If it doesn’t, you could always fight crime in your panties.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I think you’ve seen enough of me doing that already.”

  He gave a tiny shrug of one shoulder. “Oh, I could probably stand to see more.”

  The waitress returned with the wine and poured a small amount in a glass for Kurt to taste. Then she moved to fill my glass and I stopped her before she could. “I’ll stick with water.”

  Kurt gave me a curious look. “Are you sure you don’t want something stronger?”

  I shook my head. “I tend to forget things when I drink.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that I can rip a vault door off its hinges without a lot of effort. Too much booze and something like a simple handshake could turn into an emergency room event.”

  He raised both eyebrows and nodded with a whistle. “Good point. I’ll wait until I’ve a power suit on before challenging you to tequila shots.” The waitress smirked a little as she topped off his glass and set the bottle on the table.

  I let a small laugh escape at the image of Kurt in Mechanix-like armor. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes, sharing brief and casual glances. I felt as if that awkwardness I’d feared was rearing its ugly head. Finally, after several agonizing minutes, Kurt sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking at me.

  “Are you as rusty at this as I am?” he asked.

  I held my breath for a second and then exhaled loudly and buried my face in my hands. “God yes,” I said through my fingers. “I feel like I’ve stepped into a foreign country where I don’t speak the language and my guidebook is written in Aramaic.” I peeked at him over the top of my fingers.

  That charming smile was back on his face again. “Okay, so let’s take turns asking each other questions.” Then he held up a finger. “And we can have a pass on any that we really don’t want to answer. Sound good? It’ll kill the silence and keep us occupied through dinner.”

  I nodded and took a couple of deep breaths. “Ladies first,” I said, trying to relax. “Why did you join the EAPF?”

  He took a sip of the wine, apparently using the time as a buffer to formulate an answer. He set the glass down and looked at me with those light blue eyes. “I’m a third-generation cop. My grandfather was the Chief of Police for most of the Fifties. My dad was a Marine MP who came home from the first Gulf War and realized that he still needed that type of structure in his life. So he joined the CPD. I guess it’s in our blood.”

  I arched a brow. “Okay, but why not follow them and join the CPD?”

  He sighed. “Dad went Active in Ninety-Six. Enhanced strength. Only a low Class One, but still enough to be registered.”

  I nodded. “Bet that made catching bad guys easier.”

  The half-smile that had been playing on his lips faltered. “Yeah. Except … he got canned. The Enhanced were still a new thing. A lot of the other guys, guys he’d been friends with for years, didn’t want him around anymore.” His jaw clenched. “They didn’t want to put their lives in the hands of a ‘freak.’”

  “I’m sorry.” The un-Enhanced never seemed to understand just how deeply that word cut, especially when spoken by people we thought were on our side. “What did he do?”

  “What could he do? He took the payout. Now he spends most of his time fishing and watching sports on TV.” He drained the glass and immediately refilled it. “So when I graduated from the academy and my dad’s old buddies came courting, I told them to piss off and joined the EAPF instead. I figured that the best person to work in Enhanced law enforcement was either an Enhanced, or the child of one.”

  I nodded. “I’d like to meet your dad someday,” I said. “He sounds like someone to whom I could relate.”

  The semi-scowl vanished in a millisecond, transforming back into that smirk. “Already wanting to meet the folks, huh? Guess this date is going better than either of us had planned.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, cowboy. We haven’t even had dessert yet.”

  He laughed and gave me a little salute. “Touché. Okay, my turn," he said leaning forward to place his hands on the table. He looked so anxious and intrigued that I wondered if I should worry about what he was going to ask. "How did it happen?"

  "How did what … oh, you mean my Activation?"

  He nodded and it was easy to see the detective in him peeking through. "Yes. It's usually being in either a high-stress situation or a traumatic incident, right? Was it a robbery? A near-fatal car crash?"

  I looked down and mumbled, my face growing warm. He was apparently expecting an exciting, action-packed story, and I hated to disappoint.

  He leaned forward a bit more. "I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that."

  I sighed and made myself raise my head. "It was during the SAT."

  He didn’t say anything for a second and only stared at me. I shrugged and looked down at my plate again. His hand came across the table and rested on mine with a little squeeze that brought my face back up again. This time, the smile was genuine. “Tell me.”

  “I come from a family of academics. I mean, like multiple PhD’s and everything. So, needless to say, I’ve lived under enormous scholastic pressure my entire life.”

  “That’s rough,” he said.

  I smiled and took a few deep breaths. The only people who’d ever heard the whole story were Tommy and Martin. “So, I’m taking the test and doing pretty good. At least, I think I was. And then I got to this one question, a comparative. You know, something is to something as something else is to blank.”

  “Thank God they didn’t put any of those on the Detective’s Exam.”

  I laughed and took a drink of water to get the dryness out of my mouth. “Anyways, I can’t seem to make a decision between the answers. I mean, they’re all really close and each one seems like it fit. I just can’t seem to pick which is the most appropriate.”

  “So skip it and come back to it later.”

  I laughed again. “You would think so, right? Instead, I filled in one circle, then changed my mind, erasing like a madwoman, and pick another answer. Then I second-guess that one and erase again and pick a different one. Meanwhile, the clock is still ticking.” I bit down on my bottom lip for a moment before continuing. “Plus, I hadn’t been feeling totally well the whole morning. A little queasy. Touch of fever. That sort of thing.”

  “The Epsilon?” he asked, referring to the mysterious cosmic radiation absorbed right before Activation.

  “Must have been. At the time, I just thought I was panicking about the test.”

  Kurt leaned forward, eyes shining with interest. I chided myself for building the suspense on a story that really wasn’t all that interesting. After all, many Enhanced have actual movie-worthy origin st
ories. “What kick-started it?”

  I closed my eyes, thinking about that moment when I realized my life had just gone in a direction I’d never anticipated. “My pencil broke.” Both of his eyebrows shot up and I shrugged. “I don’t know if it was the sudden Enhanced strength, but that damned thing snapped like a twig. Pieces of Yellow No. 2 flew everywhere.”

  His smile turned into a grin. “I bet that got everyone’s attention.”

  The heat in my cheeks jumped up a few more degrees. “Well … that was when the invulnerability came into play.”

  “If you weren’t being attacked, how did you know that you were …” Then the realization of what he was saying hit the on button for the light bulb in his brain. “Your density went up.”

  I nodded with a flushed grimace. “Yep. First the pencil snaps in my fingers, then my weight jumped by a factor of five, causing the chair under my ass to crack into a million pieces. I landed on the gym floor … and proceeded to splinter the thick wood.”

  “And people noticed.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  “Oh yeah. Teachers came running to help me up. Of course, none of them could lift me. The other students stopped working and looked at me with either horror or amusement.” I smiled at him, trying to show him that it hadn’t been that traumatic an experience. In my mind, however, I could still see every eye, hear every gasp, and feel the catalytic energy surging through every molecule.

  Kurt nodded and leaned even closer, onto my half of the table. “Fascinating tale. However, what I really want to know is … did you pass the exam?”

  I blinked and pulled my hand out of his, crossing my arms over my chest with an exaggerated “humph!” The detective grinned and winked at me. Fortunately for my date, our food arrived before I could do anything more substantial than look annoyed.

  The food, as had been promised, was divine. The chicken was tender, perfectly seasoned, and the carbonara sauce was just the right level of creamy saltiness. I devoured my entire meal and a couple of offered bites of Kurt’s veal. The conversation, squeezed in between mouthfuls of the taste bud teasing food, remained safely locked into neutral territory. Even through those little snippets, we learned a great deal about each other.

  His mother’s name was Elizabeth, and she was not an Enhanced. He had a little sister named Katherine who was a freshman in high school. I shared that my birth name was Kamiko and I’d legally changed to Karen when I was eighteen. Kurt confessed that the first time he’d ever faced an Enhanced criminal, he nearly fainted. I told him the story about my father emigrating from Osaka to Raleigh for Doctorate classes at North Carolina State University. I also explained that he’d mistaken my mother—who was a T.A. working on her Masters in Engineering—for one of his students.

  “According to which of them you ask, the other was the one who was smitten first,” I said with a tiny smile.

  He nodded and pushed his plate away from him. “Are you the only child?”

  I shook my head, a stabbing sliver piercing my heart. I willed my eyes not to tear. “I had a big brother, Tommy. Tomiko.”

  “Had?”

  I nodded. “He died a few months after my Activation.” I drew in a breath and released it molasses-slow. “I’d rather not talk about it.

  “Okay.” And I realized he meant it. I figured him for the type that would dig to get at an answer, like a good detective. However, like a better man, he let it go.

  We ordered dessert. Well, Kurt ordered dessert and coffee. I told him that I wasn’t going to be tempted, no matter how great the tiramisu supposedly was. When it arrived, accompanied by two forks, I wolfed down half before throwing my hands up in surrender.

  “Please take it away, Kurt. Or I’m going to need a whole new wardrobe.” I grinned as I picked up the creamer and added a little to my cup. “I’m actually a little suspicious,” I said as I slowly swirled the spoon around in the coffee. “I mean, we’ve had a nice dinner with some interesting conversation and now we’re enjoying dessert. You’ve asked about my childhood, my parents, and my abilities.” I lifted the utensil and tapped it lightly on the edge of the cup before setting it down on the saucer. “What you haven’t asked about is my time in the Max or my days with Doctor Maniac. As an officer of the law, aren’t you curious?”

  Kurt arched a brow and leaned back in his seat. He didn’t say anything for a moment and I thought perhaps I’d taken our evening to an unrecoverable place. Then he shrugged one shoulder. “Karen, since I’ve met you you’ve stopped over a dozen really bad criminals. I watched you get slapped with a manhole cover while defending innocent civilians. Which looked painful, by the way.” He leaned towards me again and locked his big blue eyes right onto mine. “That villain who spent two years in the Max? That Crushette girl? I’ve never met her. The only you that I know is the one who is sitting right here. And to me, you’ve always been a hero.”

  I stopped stirring the coffee and stared at him, mouth agape. I couldn’t remember a time when someone said something so deep and beautiful about me. Not even Martin, with his eloquence, had made me feel as warm and delighted and appreciated as Kurt just had. I wondered, at that moment, if anyone would care if I just ravished him on the table. Or let him ravish me. I’m all for equality in the ravishing department.

  However, it was then our attention was pulled away from each other to the park down below by several voices, all hysterically shrieking at once.

  I jumped up from my seat and looked over the railing just in time to see twin jets of superheated plasma rise up from behind one of the billboard-sized plaques naming all the park’s donors. The ambient heat around the streams was enough to make the corners of the metal sign sag. Then the blasts stopped and Vaporizer stepped out into view.

  He fired another stream of blazing ions over the heads of the park patrons who hadn’t fled screaming. Then he turned and looked up at the back of Amalfi’s. Directly at me. Crap.

  “Hello again, my red-haired hero,” he yelled up at me. “Why don’t you come down so we can finish our game from last week? This time we won’t be interrupted by any of your little friends.”

  Kurt looked from the villain to me. “What the hell is Vaporizer doing here?” he asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. But if I don’t stop him, someone’s going to get hurt.” I frowned and looked at my date. “Sorry to cut this short, Kurt, but duty calls.” I put my hands on the deck’s railing to vault over when Kurt put his hand on top of mine.

  “Do you think you’re running off to face him alone? Karen, I am a police officer. One who specializes in super-powered criminals, remember?” That drool-worthy smile returned. “So, let’s go bust this guy’s head open.”

  Kurt told the waitress to hang onto the bill and we’d be back to pay it. Then he looked over the railing to the ground twenty feet below. “Damn, that’s a hella drop.”

  I laughed softly. “I got this.” I scooped him into my arms before he could protest and leaped over the railing. We dropped faster than expected, hitting the cement below with a bone-jarring (at least probably for him) thud. The ground under my feet shattered and bits of concrete dust floated up around us.

  “I’ll put in my report that the bad guy is responsible for that,” he said as I put him down. “And let’s never talk about how we got down here, okay?” He grinned and pulled his phone out of his pocket, thumbing the screen. “Dispatch, this is Lieutenant Braddock. I have a Class Three creating a disturbance in Center City Park. It’s Vaporizer.” He looked at me and winked. “The Good Guy Kayo is with me. Roger that.”

  “Calvary coming?” I asked.

  “On their way.” He nodded towards the awaiting villain. “Shall we hang back or …?”

  “Oh no, I’m not waiting for backup.” I cracked the knuckles of both hands. “Just stay low.”

  We weaved around the pathways, keeping out of Vaporizer’s direct line of fire. When we got close enough to feel the waves of heat rolling through the air, I pus
hed Kurt behind a cement flower planter and stood up to face the villain.

  He smiled at me, eyes sliding up and down. “Nice dress,” he said and brought his hands up to attack.

  I had forgotten all about the fact that I wasn’t in uniform. Damn Alexis and her jinxing me on my date. I held up my hands and waved them back and forth. “Time out!” I shouted.

  He lowered his hands, confusion spreading across his face. “Huh? Time out for what?”

  I pointed a finger at the glowing villain. “Just one damned minute, okay?” Then I moved closer to Kurt—hunched down behind a concrete planter—and squatted, turning my back to him. “Unzip me?” I asked, thanking whatever deity was responsible for looking over superheroes that I’d decided not to wear a thong under the dress.

  He blinked and shook his head. “Karen, as amazing as you look, and you do look amazing, I doubt this guy is going to be dissuaded by a striptease. I was only joking about fighting in your panties.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Kurt, this guy throws around thermo-ionic energy like it’s the Fourth of July. One blast and this dress, this expensive, brand-new dress, is going to be nothing but ash. I’d like to avoid that.”

  As if on cue, a super-heated beam sailed overhead and struck one of the modern art statues behind us. The bronze object turned a shining yellow color and then melted into a deformed slag. Personally, I felt the result was an improvement over the original, but what did I know about art?

  “See?” I asked, nodding to cooling pile of metal. “Now unzip me so I can get to pounding on this loser.”

  Kurt sighed and pulled down the zipper, allowing me to shrug out of the top. I stood up and stepped out of the outfit and folded it carefully before handing it to the detective. He grumbled something about women and their insensibilities, but took the dress from me. “Be careful.”

  I gave him a smile and a wink then stepped out from behind the planter. I faced Vaporizer again, this time clad only in bra and panties.

  The irony that I’d predicted this moment a week ago wasn’t lost on me at all.