Anna felt like throwing up right there, she was so mortified. Eliot hadn’t e-mailed her because why would he? Why would he find her, a lowly high-school kid, even the least bit interesting? Worst of all, he looked up and caught her eye right before she turned around and stomped back out.
She was across the street and halfway to the bus stop when she heard him shouting.
“Hey! Hey, Rose, wait up a second.” His footsteps pounded.
She slowed, then stopped. Reluctantly. It would have been more dignified to keep on walking. She didn’t need him.
“Rose.” When she didn’t turn, he stepped around until he faced her. Him and his smug college boy expression. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Why didn’t you e-mail me?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I didn’t have anything to e-mail about.”
That wasn’t the point … She stopped short of stamping her foot in frustration, which would have made her feel like she was about six years old. That was something Bethy would do. “Well, I’ve got something, and how was I supposed to tell you about it?”
“Seems like you’re doing just fine,” he said.
She maneuvered around him. “You’re busy. This can wait.”
“No, seriously, we’re just brushing up for a chemistry test, it’s not important. What have you got?”
She didn’t have anything, now that she thought about actually trying to explain it. “It may be nothing. But you know about the planning committee? The downtown development project?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s been in the news.”
“There’s some weird stuff going on behind the scenes—one company trying to block another from having any influence. It reminded me of what you said about the Executive, and I thought this might be something he’d try.”
“What’s your proof?”
“We have to go find the proof, but I can’t do it on my own. There’s a company, Superior Construction. It’s a front, and we need to find out who’s really running it. Actual evidence. The trail stops at a law firm. I want to find out who hired the lawyers to front the company.”
“Corporate espionage.”
“Yeah, kind of.” “Espionage” made her wonder if she ought to call Teddy and get his help as well—this was exactly his thing. But no, she decided, that would take too much time. Eliot was here, ready to help, better to get it done now. She pulled a page from her pocket. “Here’s the name and address of the firm, McClosky and Patterson. They’re in one of the downtown offices. I couldn’t find much about them online, just a plain business page.”
“Horizon Tower—I know that building,” Eliot said. “Lots of good ledges. I can get us right to their floor. You think if we find out who hired them, we’ll find the Executive?”
“It’s just an idea.”
“No, I like it. It won’t even take long, just a quick look through filing cabinets.”
“And hope the place doesn’t have good alarms.”
His grin turned sly. “We’ll worry about that when we get there. Let me just go tell Becca that something came up.”
Punk jacket and a nose ring and her name was Becca? Anna waited, watching her breath fog, telling herself over and over that this was a good idea. It was almost a date, even.
No it wasn’t.
He returned quickly, backpack over his shoulder.
Anna asked, “Do you need to go get your suit?”
“Already in the bag.”
Anna suddenly didn’t feel so weird, if she wasn’t the only one doing that. “You want to take the bus?”
They set off side by side, walking along the street by the quad.
“Is that how you do your superheroing? You take the bus?”
“Hey, it works,” she shot back.
“Why don’t we take my car.”
“Can you get around without the traffic cameras IDing your plates?”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been doing this at least as long as you have.”
“Probably longer,” she muttered, and Eliot did her the courtesy of not responding to that. He steered her around the block to a student parking lot. She searched the rows, guessing which one was his—one of the beaters or one of the fancy, obviously parent-bought-and-gifted models? One of the latter, it turned out: a two-seater coup halfway to being an out-and-out sports car, all silver and streamlined. It had local plates.
“Nice,” she observed. So, he was rich, or came from a rich family.
“Thanks,” he said, his tone mirroring hers. Which meant he knew exactly what the car said about him.
If he’d grown up in Commerce City instead of Delta, he probably would have gone to Elmwood. They’d have grown up together, a couple of rich kids in their rich kid world. She probably would have avoided him. He unlocked the car and gestured her to the passenger seat. Leather interior, natch.
He guided the car out of the parking lot and onto one of the westbound arteries. If she thought hard about it, she’d acknowledge that she’d just gotten into a strange man’s car and she hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Horror movies started this way. No superhero code of honor was going to save her if he turned out to be a psychopath. She couldn’t say why she was pretty sure he wasn’t a psychopath.
“How long have you been doing this?” she asked finally. “How’d you get powers?”
“Born with them, near as I can figure,” he said. “I didn’t get struck by lightning or anything. They didn’t show up until I was about fourteen. I’ve mostly kept secret about them. You and your friends are the only other superhumans I’ve met.”
He turned off the main boulevard after a few blocks. The side streets weren’t so busy, and surveillance coverage wasn’t so pervasive. “What about you?” he asked.
“Me, too. I mean, my power didn’t show up until a few years ago. I had to experiment with it for a long time. I’ve really only started using it in the last year.” She didn’t say a word about inheriting her powers, that she was part of the famous West family, that her father was the world’s most powerful telepath. “You haven’t told anyone? Siblings, parents, anything?”
His smile turned pained. “No. I don’t think they’d understand. My mother isn’t around much—she’s a concert pianist and travels a lot. My father—he’s kind of a control freak. If he knew what I could do, he’d find a way to monetize it, never mind how I felt. It’s kind of a cliché, isn’t it? Big wheel corporate tycoon, never had time for his kids who now resent him. I ought to be grateful. If he kept better tabs on me I wouldn’t be able to do this.”
“Oh, you’d find a way.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Yeah.”
“I take it you haven’t told anyone, either. Outside of your friends, I mean.”
It would have been easy to tell him everything—so nice, to be talking to someone who understood. If she revealed enough clues he’d figure it out on his own. She’d have to tread carefully.
“No, I haven’t told my family. I don’t even know why. My mom’s kind of the same, corporate control freak. She’d be way too interested. Same with my dad. But I think … I’m sure they know something’s up. I mean, this is Commerce City, if your kid is sneaking out in the middle of the night, she might just have superpowers. But at this point I don’t know what to tell them, so I just keep quiet.”
Away from campus, the buildings climbed higher, becoming a forest of glass and concrete. The sky above was a hazy patchwork.