Heroine Complex (8 page)

After many attempts to dissuade Aveda from going through with her plan, I gave up, changed into one of her spare pairs of sweats, and dragged myself upstairs to check on Bea. My sister was sprawled facedown on the bed, her violet-streaked hair fanning around her head like a rage aura.

I eased myself onto the bed and smoothed her hair off her face. Her eyes fluttered open. She was drowsy, but in the process of making the turn to sobriety. In sleepiness,
she was more like the Bea I remembered from before our parental situation explosion: a girl who hadn't yet experienced tragedy and was still open to the possibilities life had to offer.

“Evie,” she murmured, guilt creeping into her eyes. “Did Aveda tell you about . . . ?”

“Yes. But I'm too tired to punish you right now. And it was half my fault for leaving the liquor cabinet unlocked, so let's call it even?”

“Okay.” She pressed her lips together. “But I think I'm coming down with something . . .”

“You're going to school. Do this one thing for me so I can feel like I'm not completely ruining your teenage development.”

“But I'm not feeling . . .” Her eyes slid to the side. After a long pause, a mumbled series of words slipped out of the corner of her mouth. “I got an email. From Dad.”

Oh.

“Oh,” I said, unable to think of anything more eloquent.

Our dad couldn't cope with his grief, so he took off on a spiritually dubious “vision quest” two months after Mom died. He'd gone back to Oahu, where he was from, for a bit. But after that, he was all over the globe. Once in a while we'd get a sparsely worded postcard or email from an exotic location (“Peace, love, and llamas” from Peru; “Find your inner gladiator” from Rome). As maddening as this was, I always felt a stab of romanticism whenever one of his notes came our way. He loved our mother so much, her death broke him into a million pieces. Now he was a larger-than-life figure who only communicated in single sentences from lands so far away, they seemed imaginary. Nothing would ever bring him back to the real world. Not even us.

On those rare occasions when he chose to get in touch, it always threw Bea's world off its axis.

“What did it say?” I asked.

“The usual. Something about his new ‘spiritual wellness' training with someone called ‘Yogini Lara.' I can't handle being around people right now, Evie. School is too much.” She let out a dramatic sigh.

“I know.” I stroked her hair again. “You still have to go to school, but why don't we hang out tomorrow night? Masses of junk food. All the bad movies you can handle. Just you and me and a cross-section of the city's best take-out menus.”

She peered at me through clumpy mascara. “I guess,” she said, doing her best to reinstate her disaffected veneer. “That could be fun. Or whatever.”

“Okay!” I said, infusing my tone with false cheer. “Get some sleep, then. Looks like we're staying here tonight.”

But her eyes were already drifting closed.

I lay down next to her. My breathing slowed to match hers, uniting us in a rare moment of peace. I had just begun to drift off when I heard the door creak open and footfalls leading someone over to the bed.

“Evie . . .”

“Scott,” I murmured. “I told you to go home.”

“I know,” he said. “But I wanted to see how you were doing. The glamour I gave you—it was for more than what you said it was for. Obviously.”

“Yes,” I admitted, hoping that would be the end of it.

Naturally, it wasn't.

“Evie.”

This time his tone had a trace of disapproval to it. Scott's protective big brother side always came out at the most inconvenient of moments.

“I'm fine,” I murmured, keeping my eyes shut. “Everything is . . . totally . . . fine . . .”

I pretended to fall asleep, hoping that would make him leave.

There was a long pause, then, “We're not done talking about this.”

Maybe it would be totally fine, I thought, as I heard
the door close behind him. Aveda was currently lit up by a heady rush of social media feedback, but surely she'd see things more clearly in the morning. Surely I could talk her out of this crazy plan. Surely.

I let my head fall against Bea's shoulder, our breathing matching up in a perfect rhythm until I finally slept.

IN THE PANTHEON
of Comforting Smells, I ranked McDonald's french fry grease in the top five. Maybe top two, even.

In seventh grade Aveda and I went on fry runs every Wednesday after school, cramming piles of those golden grease sticks down our throats while gossiping about the latest developments in our social circle (which was mainly just us and Scott). I hadn't eaten fries since converting to my Lucky Charms-only diet. But I still liked the smell.

I awoke to that french fry scent, a sleepy smile spreading over my face as the greasy aura invaded my nostrils. Then my eyes snapped open and panic replaced comfort.

Aveda had banned carbs from HQ, my Lucky Charms arsenal being the one notable exception. Therefore the presence of that smell indicated something was very wrong. And speaking of wrong . . .

The events of last night came flooding back. My freak-out. The fire. Aveda's plan.

Shit.

I rolled out of bed. Bea's side of the mattress was rumpled but empty, which I hoped meant she'd already gone to school. I opened the door to the hallway and looked back and forth, attempting to discern where the mysterious fry smell was coming from.

“Morning, love!” Lucy bustled down the hall and snagged my arm, pulling me along with her. “Aveda wants to see you.”

“And I want to see her,” I said, my brain diverting from the fry smell to the speech I was preparing. All I had to do to talk Aveda out of her plan, I reasoned, was play on her vanity. There was only one Aveda Jupiter. Accept no substitutes! Remember
Highlander
! Etcetera! There was no way I could step into her formidable shoes, and not just because the five-inch heels would send me sprawling. And if we had to call on a lesser hero like Mercedes for a bit . . . well, that would make the public appreciate Aveda Jupiter even more.

“Luce,” I said, as she dragged me toward the stairs, “you're very peppy this morning.”

“Aren't I always?”

“Yes, but . . .” I hesitated. “Last night, you seemed kind of scared? Of me?”

“I was momentarily shocked, but I'm over it. I think your suppressed power is rather cool.” She flashed me a devilish grin. “I'm devising a Total Superheroine Workout Plan for you: running, kickboxing, Pilates. Piloxing. It will be intense.”

“Intense?” I was pretty sure I'd never exercised. Like, in my life.

“If we're going to pull off Aveda's scheme, we have to get you into tiptop shape,” Lucy said. “Scott's glamours might help you look the part, but you also need to be able to run up a flight of stairs without losing your breath.” She cast a sidelong glance at me. “And,” she added, worry creeping into her voice, “if we're going through with this, I need to keep you safe.”

I couldn't help but feel touched. Underneath all the bravado and ill-timed flirtations, Lucy was a softie.

“Now let's talk about something more important,” she said, veering back to perky. “Like: have you had any sex since this horrible-sounding Richard person? I know
we've joked about your Dead-Inside-O-Tron and surely you would have confided in me about any recent exploits. But three years of vaginal hiatus seems extreme.”

“Lucy! No. Nothing since then.” I hoped she'd let me leave it at that. I did
not
want to discuss Richard. The truth was, sex with him had never been that exciting. He'd often insisted on discussing “the way mainstream fictions reinforce dated gender roles” right in the middle of the act, claiming nothing was quite as stimulating as “robust academic conversation.” I disagreed and faked more than a few noises of passion just to get him to shut up. In retrospect I wasn't sure why a person who'd failed to inspire my libido went on to inspire so much rage. Maybe in addition to being pissed about his secret second girlfriend, I'd been furious he'd never managed to give me an orgasm.

“Three barren years. So tragic,” Lucy said. “Speaking of tragic, Letta isn't responding to my texts. I still need you to help me pick out that deal-closing karaoke number.”

We reached the bottom of the stairs and she gave me a shove toward Aveda's room. “In the meantime, I'm going to put the finishing touches on your workout regimen. And it's going to involve honing your own deal-closing skills. You must use this whole fake superhero thing to
get some
.”

She made a not-at-all-subtle hip-thrusting motion.

Was this part of being Aveda? Your friend ordered you to have sex via X-rated mime?

Another reason I wanted no part of it. That and the exercise. And the whole “I could possibly kill people with fire” thing.

Seriously, of all the people in all the world, I was probably least equipped to be a superhero. Or even impersonate one.

I squared my shoulders and marched into Aveda's bedroom.

“Oh, there you are!”

Aveda beamed at me from her perch on the bed and waved me over with a french fry. Which was inexplicably clutched in her hand. As I entered the room, my eyes darted to another unexpected element: Scott. Sitting in a rocking chair next to the bed.

I looked from the fry to Scott and back again. It was hard to say which element of this little scene weirded me out the most. Nate, at least, was ever reliable, leaning against the dresser with his usual scowl in place.

“Scott,” I said. My brain grasped a possible explanation. “Are you here to do a healing spell on Aveda's ankle?”

“No,” he said. “You know that sort of thing is way outside the range of my abilities—”

“Scott and I have come up with a most excellent plan for you,” Aveda interrupted. She popped the fry in her mouth and rooted around in the McDonald's bag sitting next to her.

“Plan?” I stared dumbly at her and Scott and couldn't help but flash back to them sitting side by side in our junior high cafeteria. He had always reveled in needling her, in trying like mad to get her haughty exterior to crack. Usually this translated into something like stuffing his mouth full of grapes and offering advice for her sixth-grade presidential campaign in a garbled cartoon voice (“Free nuts for all, Annie! Capture the rabid squirrel vote!”). I'd egged him on by giggling until my sides hurt. She'd responded by giving us A Look and going back to her work. In retrospect, it had probably seemed like we were ganging up on her by refusing to take her seriously.

And now they were ganging up on me.

“You two don't even get along,” I blurted out. I picked irritably at the cupcake demon bite on my wrist. It had already almost healed.

“We're getting along for your sake, Evie,” Aveda said sternly. “Isn't that generous of us?”

“I've been trying to get ahold of you all morning,” Scott cut in. “Annie called me—”

“Aveda,” Aveda corrected through a mouthful of fries.

“Annie. She has an idea.”

“An idea I strongly oppose,” Nate grumbled.

“It's the spell!” Aveda shrieked. “The one you've been begging him to try for years. I've convinced him to give it a go!”

That pretty much stopped my entire thought process.

“The depowering spell?” I said, my voice small and quavery. I turned to Scott. “But you always said—”

“Everything I've always said holds true,” he said. “I still think it's too dangerous.”

“At least we agree on something,” muttered Nate.

I ignored him. “Then why now?” I asked Scott. “Why are you willing to—”

“Because you and Annie clearly need some kind of intervention,” he interrupted. His voice was low, tight, controlled. He frowned at me and suddenly it felt like we were the only two people in the room. “How could you let her convince you to go through with that charade at the party? How could you . . .” He shook his head, as if he still couldn't quite believe it. “Maybe if I finally give you what you want, you'll feel less tethered to this version of ‘stability.'” He gestured to our surroundings. “And maybe that will make the two of you reevaluate this toxic, codependent bond you've got going on.”

“Since when are you so melodramatic?” Aveda said. She rolled her eyes and poked him with a french fry. “What Scott's not getting to is the fact that I made him see the spell in a whole new light.” She thwacked him in the arm with the fry. “Go on, tell her!”

Scott batted her fry away. “Annie and I have an idea that might make the magic that goes into this less dangerous. Normally this kind of spell—like a healing spell—is beyond the scope of what I can do. I can manipulate
small bits of magic to create equally small things—the glamours, the love tokens—but I can't just up and eliminate something. Especially something as huge as an injury or a superpower.”

“But?” Aveda prompted.

“But if I can take something that already exists and, rather than eliminating it, move it somewhere else—”

“Scott's going to put your power
in me
!” squealed Aveda, no longer able to contain herself. She dragged a pair of fries through a ketchup splotch on a napkin. “I told you: freakin' brilliant! I'm saving your life again!”

“But it will take some time,” Scott said. “I have to make sure all elements of this spell are going to work and that means—”

“He estimates it'll take four to six weeks!” chirped Aveda. “Perfect timing. I'll be all healed up by then. So you only have to be Aveda Jupiter for a little bit longer.”

She looked at me expectantly. I gnawed on my lower lip, my brain awhirl.

Scott was going to try the spell.
The
spell. The one I'd been begging him to try forever. If he succeeded, I'd be free of my long-held curse.

In short, he'd finally make me normal.

But was “normal” enough of a reason to risk calling forth the fire I couldn't really control? To willfully put myself in danger?

I opened my mouth to tell Scott that I was, in fact, not intent on going through with this and was about to successfully talk Aveda out of the whole thing and—

“I know you're worried about going out there as me, what with the demons and all,” Aveda said, as if reading my thoughts. “I know
you
, Evie. And while I may have gotten carried away in my thrill over seeing you finally fulfill that Michelle Yeoh-an heroic promise after all these years, don't worry: I realize you don't actually want to
be
Michelle forever, and I will do everything in my power to protect you.” She gave me a smile that actually
verged on reassuring. “Rest assured, Lucy will take a more active role whenever there's actual danger or demon-fighting to be done. She'll keep you safe. She has all those weapons and she knows all my best moves, even if she's not as skilled at them. You won't even have to
use
your fire power. The public's already seen it in action; now it's just a matter of keeping up the heroic Aveda Jupiter appearance while my ankle heals and Scott figures out the transfer.”

Normal. Normal.
Normal
. That single word pulsed through my brain, overwhelming any further protests I might have had. “Normal” was something that hadn't been even remotely within my grasp for years. Now here it was: a beautiful possibility. I could already anticipate the sweet, crashing sensation of relief I would surely experience once I didn't have to worry about the fire ever again.

God, what would that even be like?

“When you think about it, Evie, this whole fire thing is more suited to my superheroing lifestyle, anyway,” Aveda said. “Imagine how much more awesome my spinning backhand will be with a fist of flames.”

That was probably true. The fire was nothing but wild, unpredictable danger to me. To her, it would be a new weapon in her artillery, a powerful force she could use to enhance her already kickass moves and level up her demon slayage. Although . . . she would need to rein in those diva mood swings. Maybe once Scott figured out the transfer, I could delicately recommend some good therapy.

Okay. I could do this. True, the party the night before hadn't gone as planned, but it had at least given me a little practice being a fake superhero. Lucy would be there for me the whole way through, and at the end of this little adventure, I'd finally get what I wanted more than anything.

Normal.

“I don't know why we're even considering this.” Nate's rumble of a voice cut into my thoughts. “Evie hasn't had a chance to think about the ramifications of—”

“
Evie
thinks this is a fine plan,” I interrupted. “And it's my decision, isn't it?”

He gave me an exasperated look. “Which is one of the many reasons you should take some time to think it through.”

“I have thought about it. I've thought about pretty much nothing else for the past three years. And I know this is right.”

“But Scott himself correctly points out that it could be dangerous,” Nate pressed. “And he's never tried anything like this before.” He turned his scowl on Scott. “What makes you think you can go from treacly love spells to pulling an incredibly complicated power out of a human being?”