Hero for Hire: Chapter 11

A/N: Thanks for waiting, y'all. I've been drowning in school work, so in addition to time, I apologize if this feels a little choppy. That's what revision is for! Love you guys.

We last saw Eli falling out of a window, pursued by the police and the sinister Program. His best friend Sebastian is gone to who knows where, and Eli is sporting a small bullet wound in his side. All in all, things aren't looking great.

When he came to, crickets were singing in his ears, and everything hurt. Eli lay flat on his back on lumpy ground, and when he shifted, he could make out the rustle of dead leaves.

"Don't move." An unfamiliar voice cut through the chilly air.

He froze, his heart hammering in his chest.

The night sky stretched above him. There weren't many stars tonight, but the few pinpricks of light that he could make out send sparks of pain through his head.

He tried to speak. "Who--?"

"Shh."

He hesitated for only a moment before he tried to sit up, but there was something heavy on his chest. He fell back with a muffled gasp, and a stab of pain lanced through his side.

There was a crinkling noise, and a piece of paper was held over his face. The hand holding it had brown skin and clean moon fingernails. He squinted at the paper for a moment, unable to read it in the dark, before recognizing it as the list he'd found in the room.

His room. It all came flooding back.

The bomb. Sebastian. Falling out of the window.

His hand jumped to his side, to the bullet wound, but he got slapped away before he could touch it. The weight on his chest compressed his ribs further, and he gave a gasp of pain. A faint ache came from his newly healed burns.

"Leave it. I'm trying to keep you alive until you tell me what the hell you did. What is this note?"

Eli craned his neck back, and realized that the weight on his chest was the foot of a young woman. Her short cropped hair hung over her face like a black curtain as she loomed over him. Her eyes were so dark that they were indistinguishable from the shadows.

"Answer the question. The list."

His voice cracked, probably from the smoke inhalation. "I don't know."

She pressed down again, and he squeaked as the air was forced from his lungs. He grabbed her ankle in desperation, but she was unmovable. On instinct, he tried to turn intangible, before remembering that that time had come and gone. He realized with a jolt that Seb's device had also been removed from his wrist.

"I don't know!" The answer was pressed out of him in a painful exhale.

She was silent for a moment, considering. The pressure let up momentarily. Eli took a cautious breath.

"Don't lie to me, kid. I'm not playing around."

She pressed down again. He scrabbled at her ankle. "Please! I found it in my room. It's... not mine."

The woman paused and raised her foot slightly, but left it resting on his ribs. Eli coughed, his headache stabbing at his temples. He had to get out of here.

Her voice was low and even, as if she was conducting an interview. "New question, then. Who are you?"

Eli frowned, eyelids fluttering. "I think you already know that."

She tilted her head. "Yes. But I want to hear you say it."

Eli considered this. Even if the police already knew who he was, there was no way in hell he was going to just confess to it.

With a sudden heave, he grabbed her ankle and rolled as hard as he could to the side. She made a surprised noise, but he didn't wait to see if she had fallen over or not. He staggered to his feet, gripping his side, feeling new fabric crisscrossed underneath his suit. He felt a jolt of surprise. She had... bandaged his wound? And had she carried him here? He had no memory after passing out in his room.

He barely had time to take a few steps, barely had time to take in the fact that they were in a far corner of the park a few blocks from campus, barely even had time to breathe when a terrible shock went through his whole body.

His muscles spasmed. His jaw locked closed by the energy suddenly coursing through his bones and he collapsed to his knees. A groan forced its way out between clenched teeth.

"Come on, kid," the woman said, walking around to his front. Electricity sparked between her fingers. "You know better than that."

Eli shuddered, and then the energy was gone. He sagged, falling into a sitting position, legs curled beneath him. The woman watched him with a bemused expression.

"What I know is this," she said in a bored tone. "You're either a supervillain posing as a college student, or a college student who's made some very bad life choices. Rift, Eli Wagner, I don't really care." She peered down at him, her mouth drawn into a thin line. "Either way, a bomb went off, someone died, and Sebastian Reyes is missing. Care to explain?"

"Didn't do it," Eli gasped, struggling for breath. Awful, soul-sucking guilt sank into his bones. Someone had died? "I tried to stop... the bomb. Who died? I didn't--"

"You really expect me to believe that?"

He nodded, gritting his teeth at the residual buzz from the shock. "They're trying to kill me. Sebastian was... helping me..."

His hand crept to his side again, but she flew forward and slapped it away. Her eyes flashed.

"Who's trying to kill you?"

Eli didn't respond. He stared at the ground, could feel himself starting to dissociate into the dirt. He just wanted to sleep.

Two hands grabbed him by the front of the shirt.

Suit, he realized. He was still in his Rift gear. God, it seemed like forever since he'd been in that persona. Now he was just Eli, exhausted and terrified.

The woman hauled him to his feet, propping him up before her. Eli let his knees buckle, just to be difficult, but she held him up with ease. They stood eye-to-eye, and he saw that she had a black mask that covered the top half of her face. Another hero? A villain?

"The list. Did you write it?"

His head lolled to the side. "No."

"Who did?"

Seb was already gone. Telling her would make no difference. "Sebastian."

"Why?"

"Don't know."

"Who's trying to kill you?"

He glanced at her. "At the moment, you?"

She gave a short, dark laugh. "Keep trying my patience. I'm not sure whether I want to kill you yet or not."

"That's... reassuring," Eli said. His chest ached.

She paused, an unrecognizable emotion flashing across her face. "Who's my competition?"

He saw no reason to lie. She wouldn't be trying to keep him alive to find out why the Program was trying to kill him if she was part of it.

"The Program."

She tilted her head to the side. She was kind of pretty, under the mask, but her features were hardened, her jaw tense. "The Super Human Project?"

Eli's head was spinning. No one called it that around here. "Yes. Can... can you put me down? Who are you--"

"Don't ask me that again." She shifted her shoulders, and he noticed that she was wearing a small backpack, one that nestled between her shoulder blades. Her black, long-sleeved exercise shirt had a cacti symbol stitched over the heart.

Something clicked. The short black hair. The half-face mask. The backpack.

"Battery?" he asked, uncomprehending. "Are you Battery?"

Images from news feeds flooded his head of the elusive, Chicago-based vigilante who went around with a car battery in her backpack and electricity flowing through her blood.

The woman stared him dead in the eye, then released her hold. Eli's legs buckled beneath him. He cried out as he struck the ground, pain jarring up from his wounded side. Before he could move away, the woman grabbed hold of the front of his suit, pulling him close to her face. Her expression was calm, neutral, but her voice seethed.

"I said. Don't ask again." She knocked his head against the ground before straightening. Eli flinched, almost expecting her to kick him.

Her response had confirmed it, though. She was Battery. She carried a literal car battery in her backpack, because she couldn't generate her own power. The news liked to mock her for that, but honestly, she did more good than a lot of the "heroes" in the world did. The amount of arrests she'd assisted in was impressive, though at the moment, he wasn't particularly pleased about that fact.

"If you didn't set off the bomb, who did?"

Eli relaxed, just a hair, and looked up at her. She crossed muscular arms over her chest. Her hands were wrapped in black cloth.

"The Program. They're punishing me for breaking their rules." He paused, then added, "I'm being framed."

She rolled her eyes and crouched down beside him. Police sirens wailed in the distance.

"Sure. And are you going to blame them for all the other crimes you've committed?" She held her foot next his side, the bullet wound side, threatening him. Eli tensed.

"Don't even think of lying to me. I've been watching you." She paused. "Though, I have to admit. I didn't think you had it in you to bomb anything."

Eli tried to shift away from her, but she pressed her foot against the wound. He hissed in pain.

"I don't! I didn't do it. Everything else has been staged." He craned his neck behind him. They were in a forested area, somewhere, but there was a road not too far away. The police sirens were growing louder. Had she called them?

"The list. What's the list got to do with it?" She put the paper before him again. "Future targets? Accomplices? Program contacts?"

Eli stared at the list in dismay. She didn't believe him. "I don't know."

One of Seb's notes caught his attention. Under the names "Emma Zhang" and "Celeste Turner" was a bracket, and a scribbled question.

Zenith?

"No way," Eli whispered, eyes widening.

"What?" Battery snapped.

Eli pushed himself up on one elbow, mind racing. "Okay. I'll tell you. But I need your help."

She scoffed and tucked some hair behind one ear. "My help?"

He looked into her piercing gaze and held it, hesitant hope growing in his chest.

"We have to find Zenith."

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