Library, Young Defenders Training Facility, Meritas City. October 24th, 2014

  After Wednesday’s patrol, Elena and I had gone through the motions of classes. Getting our hand-to-hand combat skills sharpened, getting our physical fitness up, the usual.

  But the entire time, I’d been off. Everything about Patch kept rolling around in my mind; the fight, how she’d spoken to Maddie, but more importantly, how Maddie had reacted. Maddie was being incredibly evasive, that much was obvious, but what Jessica had said was what had stuck with me.

  Had Patch really tried to kill Maddie?

  I didn’t dare to ask Jessica or Maddie, neither would’ve taken it well and I was pretty sure Jessica would’ve tried to launch me out of a window if I tried.

  So, first thing Friday morning, I went to the facility’s library in the Administrative Building. I’d stayed in Elena’s room and woken up early, slipping out so I didn’t wake her. By the time I got to the library it was after six; it was less quiet than I thought, with other students having clearly been pulling all-nighters, still locked in on books or computer screens.

  Then, I headed to the desk. A librarian - an older, shorter man wearing a beige cardigan - looked up at me from behind a pair of thick glasses.

  “How can I help ya, miss?” He asked, sounding like an old grandpa.

  “H-hi,” I started, trying to keep my voice quiet, “I-Is there any way to s-search up previous students?”

  He paused, before eventually answering. “‘Fraid not. If they’re a public figure, then it’d be a case of searching based on that. But if they’re just a run-of-the-mill normal student, then no. Personal privacy, you see.”

  I nodded. “T-that’s fair. What about if they went-” I stopped. Would this be saying too much?

  “...If they went..?” He asked gently, waiting for me to finish.

  “S-sorry!” I replied, suddenly nervous, “I-it’s nothing, thank you though!”

  He smiled back. “Anytime.”

  I lingered for maybe a half-second too long, before I stepped away, quickly.

  Why would you ask that?! I chided myself. It would look even worse if I was asking about a student who became a super-criminal.

  Plan B, then. I took a seat near one of the unoccupied PCs, and decided to cast a line: send out a post onto one of the forums I frequented, see if any of them knew anything. Those people were obsessive about supers and their activities, so if anyone knew, it’d be them. In the meantime, I’d see if I could find anything more local.

  I sat down and got to searching, trawling through all different kinds of articles and posts; videos, news stories, even a study or two, trying to see if any of it was related to Patch, or even Razor and Twist.

  Some of the articles had ridiculous headlines like “New Criminal Grew Back Her Legs In Seconds!” and “‘She got flattened by a car and got back up.’ New super-criminal on the streets?” Clearly headlines to grab attention, but the pattern was hard to ignore: a new, unidentified and apparently uncostumed super-criminal was committing a petty crime - robbery in the first one, assault in the second - and when she was intercepted by on-patrol heroes, she would just get hit by whatever attacks they had and heal from them without issue before fighting back. The articles also went into a lot of detail, perhaps too much, of just how brutal she was, often aiming for people’s vitals and eyes.

  Other articles showed her committing crimes alongside Razor and Twist, with her seemingly acting as a fall guy while they got away and did the bigger jobs, letting her deal with proper heroes.

  The forum post I’d made got some replies too; a few of them sent articles that they thought were relevant. Most weren’t, but there was one that felt very relevant, dated about six months ago: “Violent Super-Criminal escapes from holding cell.” As the title said, it outlined how a super-criminal matching Patch’s entire MO had been apprehended and placed in a holding cell, before she’d escaped later that same night. One quote in the article made me shiver:

  “Officers report that despite this super-criminal being the cell’s only occupant, the interior of the cell was coated in enough blood and viscera for multiple people.”

  But then, the articles dried up. From that point on, they were more to do with Razor and Twist; it was as if between then and now, Patch just disappeared.

  I realised, slowly, that my eyes felt sore. I’d been staring at the screens, barely moving.

  At this point, the words felt like they were blending together.

  I leaned back in my chair, stretching, feeling joints all across my body pop and crack; I’d clearly been sitting here way too long.

  “Hey.”

  Elena’s voice made me jump, making me let out a surprised yelp. Immediately, I heard someone shush me loudly from the other end of the library.

  I looked up. Elena was trying very hard not to burst out laughing as she handed me a cup of coffee.

  “You been here long?” She asked, grinning as she wrapped her arms around me before kissing me on the cheek.

  I looked down at the clock on the computer. “About…th-three hours?”

  “Jesus, three hours?” Elena asked, pulling up a chair and scooting next to me. “You find anything interesting?”

  I let out a bit of an exhausted sigh as I turned back around to the screen.

  “I-I couldn’t find anything about P-Patch being a former student,” I said, keeping my voice low. “T-The librarian said student records are off-limits.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “S-so I just started looking up d-different news stories and a-articles from the last c-couple of years…”

  I pulled up a couple of articles that I’d found and saved.

  “Oh that definitely sounds like her.” Elena laughed as she read the headlines.

  “S-so these ones are from about a year ago, and they match up with Patch pretty well,” I said, skimming through the article again.

  “‘Witnesses say the perpetrator got hit by a car and came-’” Elena paused, reading it again as if she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. “‘Came apart into a dozen pieces’?”

  I just gave her a slow nod. “S-so Maddie wasn’t e-exaggerating about that.” I said, dryly. “B-but a lot of it’s like t-that; she g-gets involved, gets b-beaten up badly, t-then fights back a-after she heals.”

  “So…pretty much what happened when we fought her?”

  I nodded.

  “Anything else?”

  “N-not really,” I admitted, “S-she eventually teams up with Razor and T-Twist and does the same t-thing with them, u-up until six months ago.”

  Elena raised an eyebrow. “What happened six months ago?”

  Without saying a word, I pulled up the article about her escaping from the jail cell. She went quiet as she read it, murmuring every so often as she went down the page.

  I could almost hear her brain get to the description of the cell; she stopped reading, her eyes wide.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Oh my god.” She gasped.

  I just nodded, my face grave.

  “T-there were some a-articles of similar crimes from outside M-Meritas but not s-sure if they were definitely her or not.”

  “So a dead end, then…” She said, sighing.

  I nodded, before yawning.

  Elena leaned in, resting her head against my shoulder. I leaned in too, resting my head on hers.

  “Maddie said something about her getting her powers, how it was bad, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Could you go down that route?”

  “I-I’d need more details…” I said, before yawning again. “M-maybe it’d be better if I could f-find her real name…”

  “Good luck.” Elena scoffed. “Can’t imagine any of the teachers’ll spill her name.”

  “P-probably not, it’s just…I f-feel like I’ve been here for so l-long but haven’t f-found anything.”

  “You need a break.” She said.

  “Y-yeah…” I admitted, “I-I’ve been looking at the screens t-too long.”

  “You wanna see if Siobhan and Anton are free?” She asked.

  The Quads, Young Defenders Training Facility, Meritas City. October 24th, 2014, 12:30

  By lunchtime, the four of us - me, Elena, Siobhan, and Anton - had met up in the Quads, on one of the smaller benches near the sports courts. Turns out Fridays being more open-ended meant that we could hang out more, which felt nice.

  Naturally, the conversation had spiraled into Halloween.

  “Come on,” Siobhan groaned, “I’m not goin’ as Frankenstein!”

  “Why not?” Anton responded, nudging her in the ribs “You have the lightning and everything.”

  “I mean, hey,” Elena said, cutting in, “If you did, you could always pair with Skye doing the Bride of Frankenstein thing. Could be a couple.”

  That nearly made me choke on my food, coughing and spluttering as I felt myself blush.

  “Nah, no offense, Skye.” Siobhan said, leaning back, “Wouldn’t want to intrude on you two.”

  “N-none taken.” I said, my voice slightly hoarse from nearly choking as Elena patted me on the back a couple of times.

  “What about you, Ant?” Elena asked, turning to him.

  “Well, I was having quite a few ideas.” He said, before standing up, his golden strings gently crawling out from his fingers and tracing up above him.

  All of a sudden, his strings went completely straight and taut and his body went completely limp. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Siobhan looking at him, confused, before she suddenly put her head in her hands.

  “Oh for fuck sake…” she groaned.

  Then, Anton started moving strangely, like his strings were moving first and his body was following behind him. It was strange enough that I found myself bursting out laughing, watching him do an impression of some giant puppet.

  “Was thinking of going as some scary puppet.” He said, still ‘hanging’ limply as Siobhan tried desperately not to laugh.

  This was…nice, I realised. Sitting out here, hanging out with two people who I’d been anxious about even speaking to at the start, side-by-side with Elena, it just felt good.

  Then I caught Siobhan’s face changing, her scowl growing intense.

  “Eyes up,” she said, her voice low, “Miss ‘golden girl’ is on the prowl.”

  Elena and I turned. Sure enough, Jessica was pacing on one of the walkways, her head scanning around like she was looking for someone.

  Then she made eye contact with me.

  Shit. I thought, immediately looking away, but not before I realised that she was heading our way.

  “If she’s here to start some shit-” Elena started, about to stand up before I grabbed her hand tight, shaking my head. I could hear her footsteps approaching, crunching against the leaves and grass behind us.

  “What do you want, Jess?” Siobhan asked, barely hiding the contempt in her voice.

  “Skye, you got a second?” Jessica asked, completely ignoring Siobhan. I turned around slowly to look at her.

  I was…surprised at what I saw. She was dressed casually - black and gold varsity jacket, black pants - but she didn’t have the same annoyed expression that she seemed to have whenever we spoke. If anything she looked tired.

  “If you need to speak to her, you can say it in front of us.” Elena said, glaring at her.

  “No, I really can’t.” Jessica responded, bluntly.

  “Excuse y-”

  “I-it’s ok.” I said, cutting Elena off as I stood up.

  Jessica started walking a bit away from the benches until we were under a tree. She leaned back against it, hands in her pocket as she looked at me.

  “Y-you here to try and ruin my d-day again?” I asked her, staring her dead in the eyes.

  “Zip it.” She snapped, rolling her eyes. “I just wanted to give you some advice.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “‘Advice’?” I couldn’t help but laugh a little, “D-Didn’t think you’d ever g-give me ‘advice’.”

  “Will you put a fucking sock in it?” She barked.

  I froze for a second. I felt like I was on alert for any sign of her trying to upset me, but this felt different from before; more genuine, somehow.

  She sighed. “So, you two and Mads had all the bullshit with Patch on Wednesday.”

  I nodded.

  “Mads is…she’s pretty torn up about it, dunno how much of that you picked up on.”

  “Y-yeah she seemed…pretty upset when you started to talk about whatever happened between her and Patch.”

  “Great,” she said, sarcastically, “You picked up on that, too. She’s trying to keep it on the down-low, but yeah, she has some rough history with Patch. So do I.”

  “W-what kind of-”

  “None of your business.”

  “S-so why did you need to-”

  “Don’t go snooping around for shit about Patch.”

  That made me blink; it was so blunt that it made me pause for a second. Did she know I’d been looking?

  “I-I never said-”

  “You didn’t need to.” Jessica cut me off, again, “Mads took one look at you and knew you’d go digging.”

  Well she wasn’t wrong… I thought. Wouldn’t have needed to if she was being honest.

  “S-So she couldn’t tell me herself?”

  “She doesn’t know I’m talking to you. Plus, I know you aren’t dumb enough to try and pry info out of me.”

  I narrowed my eyes, looking at her. What had happened between her, Maddie, and Patch? It must have been way more than she was letting on.

  But also, she was right; I wasn’t stupid enough to try and ask Jessica of all people. She’d probably throw me through a wall if I tried.

  “I-I mean I…I wasn’t going to s-seek her out or anything I was just…I-I wanted to know more about her so we knew what to d-do if we saw her again.”

  She gave a slow nod. “Not a bad instinct. But let me give you a proper tip.”

  She took a step closer, looking up at me and meeting my eyes, her voice low.

  “You see Patch, you even get a whiff that she’s nearby, you run as fast as you fucking can in the other direction and you do not look back.”

  She stepped closer.

  “You might think you’ll be able to outlast her, you might even think you’ve killed her. But the bitch is a fucking cockroach; doesn’t matter what you do to her, she will get back up. And if she gets her teeth in you for a second, you’re fucked.”

  I froze. She sounded angry. Even a little bit worried. I noticed that her fists were clenched tight at her sides.

  “W-why are you telling me this and not E-Elena?”

  “One, because you’ll tell her anyway.” She said, pulling away, “Two, because she knows when to cut her losses and run. You don’t.”

  I stood there for a moment, processing what she’d said. Was I really that reckless?

  You are. The thought glided across my brain. As if to emphasise the point, the memory of punching Slaughterhouse in the jaw flashed in my mind.

  Besides, I thought. Running hadn’t exactly helped last time.

  Jessica took a step away, heading back towards the walkway.

  “W-wait,” I called back, “I-Is that it?”

  She turned back to look at me. “Unless you wanna argue, then no.”

  I didn’t respond, just shook my head slowly.

  “Good answer.” She said, “Congrats by the way.”

  I tilted my head. “F-for what?”

  “Getting a girlfriend, moron.” She said, laughing to herself as she headed away, disappearing onto the walkway.

  I stood there for a second, watching her go, before I felt Elena’s hand on my shoulder.

  “You ok?” She asked, “Sounded a bit tense.”

  I turned to her, putting a hand on hers. “Y-yeah I’m fine, just…s-she just wanted to give me advice.”

  Elena scoffed. “Really? Jessica wanted to give you advice?”

  I laughed as we headed back towards the table; Siobhan and Anton had gotten into another playful argument where he was clearly laughing, taking it in stride while she was getting genuinely heated.

  It was just nice to chat with them, to get along. For the anxiety that clouded my mind to not be so overwhelming.

  But there was so much about Patch that I couldn’t get it out of my mind. All this history, this hatred Jessica had towards her, her apparently trying to kill Maddie.

  There was something else too: Jessica’s warning. Did she really think we’d end up seeing Patch again?

  Did she really think that I’d not run away?

  The fact that I couldn’t immediately answer that last question made my stomach twist.