Starlight (Book 1)

9: Phantom Pains

The precise moment Kieran knew what was going on, he stood up.

"Kacie, I'll get that stuff I forgot to get earlier—"

"Are you certain?" asked Alaina, staring at him as though he was a suspect she was investigating. I wondered how long it would take for her to figure it out and mentally started the timer.

Dad waved his hand dismissively. "Ah, I'll be fine," he said. "It's rather far away from us now. Plus, we need stuff from the grocery store, right? I don't mind, really."

I noticed that behind Kieran's head, the cars rolling speedily towards their untimely trajectory towards Sleeping Lake had stopped. They stood, held in the air by some unseen force. It appeared as though the entire crowd was holding their breath.

Dad's hands were still moving about as he spoke, but I realized that was his intention: as he gestured, he was sneakily holding the cars back from falling. It wouldn't work forever, though: if he didn't get out there, the figure from before would attack first.

"Okay—" Alaina began, but whatever she was planning to blurt out died in her throat as Kieran scrambled out of the camper and dashed off towards the store without so much as a word. He was half-jogging, half-strolling, trying his best not to arise suspicion.

"Hey, can you drive us closer?" asked Jax. He pointed towards the end of the parking lot where there were cars watching and the few scattered news stations broadcasting. At the mere mention of getting closer to danger, Alaina looked like she wanted to protest, but Jax said, "Adventure."

It was like an expertly crafted manipulation tactic. Alaina couldn't deny the chance to see some adventure happening.

As she brought us closer, Lily, Eleni, and I crowded closer to the passenger's side to see. Jax wasn't far behind us. He tapped my shoulder and pointed towards the police cars.

"Level two, I'd say," he muttered.

"What's a level two?" asked Eleni, who had somehow heard him.

"Oh, it's my ranking system for super-related catastrophes. A level two is the police attending to one villain. If there's the news and they have yellow tape, that's a three."

She nodded. "So, basically, everything is two or higher?"

"That makes it sound lamer than it actually is," he replied pointedly.

"Is stealing the chocolate considered a one?" said Lily mockingly.

"Shut up."

From directly ahead of us, I saw the first flash of Orion. It had taken him only a few seconds to change out of his clothes. I assumed with time that no matter the circumstance, Kieran was always wearing the spandex suit underneath. At this point, I was hardly even bothered by the realization. It came as more of a 'well, of course,' than a 'wait, what!?'

"It's Almighty Orion!" Lily cried, pointing wildly at the figure as he wove through the mass of cars huddled together on the road towards the bridge. With a great leap, Orion climbed on top of the hood of one car, and he began to hop from vehicle to vehicle in order to get there faster.

Jax scoffed. "All right, you don't have to break our ears. He's not..." Instantly, he trailed off.

I glanced to shoot him a look. "What?"

He fumbled with his words, instead pointing over my shoulder towards where the figure who had come from up above should have been. The signature disappearing act would have been more than enough for anyone.

"Phantom," I said. The word felt like uttering a curse. Of course, he showed up now. Immediately, I began to wonder if Riley knew about this.