Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life
Omar Khayyum
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“So, he mentioned a Stiletto code? Shouldn’t that give us some new leads?” Blue Hawk vouches. I watch Puma inch closer to him and when they make eye contact, something wordless passes between them.
Huh. Nice to know someone missed Blue when he was away.
“Yes. Except we don’t have any traces of such a code. We tried multiple decryptions and I had it sent to the lab,” Dex replies.
“And nothing turned out?”
“Absolutely nothing,” My boss goes on. “There’s no fingerprints, not a strand of hair or any DNA molecule picking up for that matter”
Blue doesn’t respond but with his chin propped on his knee, and a faraway look in his eyes – I know that expression well – he’s deep in thought trying to figure out a solution. He drops his hands from his knees and rifles through the pile of evidence on the desk in the middle of the room.
Whatever information Dex and the Lighters could scour is on that small table, from interviews with the thief and their taped transcripts to a complete file taken from the Lighters database. The thief had a criminal record already so with a little bit of facial recognition the lab techs easily found our thief. However, there were no leads to him and Chasm or any mention of this mysterious Stiletto code. And, as Dex pointed out, the pouches the thief contained were completely blank of evidence. Penny inspects a file on Chasm taken by Officer Carpenter and Skye’s eyes are drawn to blueprints, his face morphing into a frown as he unrolls the paper.
“What's this?” Skye asks, laying the blueprint on the table, his gloved hands smoothening the edges.
“It’s a copy of the blueprints we found on our thief,” I explain. “The real one is still in the labs, but this is an exact replica of what he had”
“This is an outline of all our stolen tech,” Harry says factually.
“Yes, it is,” Dex agrees. “My guys came to the same conclusion”
“So, this thief is working with that warehouse,” Skye deduces. “And they are in turn working with Chasm. And the whole lot –”
“Is part of the Stiletto Code,” I complete for him with a sigh. “Yup”
Skye slouches back tiredly. “Damn”
“Why steal all this tech?” Penny asks. “I mean what’s they’re endgame?”
“They stole prototypes mostly,” Harry says. “And if they're able to draw up their own modified blueprints, it means the Stiletto Code are armed suppliers. There's a whole network of criminals receiving weapons from them. Including Chasm”
“All these villains we faced in the last couple of months, they're all supplied by the Stiletto Code,” Skye shoves back his hair. “Cannon Ferrous, Flamethrowers, the works”
“What happened to this thief anyway?” Penny asks.
I glance at Dex, and he meets my eyes with a heavy look. When we called for a meeting to announce Harry’s return and the story of the thief, we didn’t tell the rest of my team the whole story. Yeah, they know about the interview and the chase – but they don’t know what happened next.
“The thief….” Dex trails off, looking at me.
I swallow hard. “He’s obsolete”
Penny is taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“He’s dead,” Harry states.
“Tactful as always, Hawk,” Skye mutters and then turns to me. “How?”
“Killed himself,” Dex answers for me. Because I can't speak. Can’t let my mind go back to that horrible place – the thief killed himself, so he didn’t have to tell us what he did. I might have threatened to take his life, but I would never have done it. I never had a death on my hands before.
I hate this feeling.
There’s a moment of silence after Dex’s predicament and we don’t talk much afterwards. There’s nothing left to say, nothing else to say.
“Take to Blue, okay?” I whisper to Puma as the squad makes their leave.
“I will,” She ducks her head.
Hawk waits for her and the two leave together. Scorpio squeezes my shoulder reassuringly.
“What happened isn't your fault,” He tells me seriously.
“I know,” I give him a small smile and he nods.
***
“Hey Woods,” Skye says when I answer my phone.
I frown, glancing at the screen. When did he get my number?
“Hey,” I say tentatively.
“Are you busy right now?”
I swirled my cup of cocoa, staring at the nearly finished cup. I was just relaxing, drinking something warm and reading my setbook for school when Skye called. But for what he called struck me as suspicious. We had a Lighters meeting only yesterday to discuss our latest plans and so far the criminal underworld has been quiet.
“Not really. Why?” I finally respond.
“Good. Penelope is being a drama queen as usual; she wants to meet up to put together the last part of this project,” Skye says. “What do you say, let’s get together now?”
“We have to do the model somewhere so we can’t really meet at a restaurant or library,” I say. “If you can find a place we can work at, I’ll be there”
“Your place?’ Skye tries.
Yeah right. I look around at my small apartment at the top of the Lighters towers. Surely, that won’t give away my big secret.
“We can do it at my house,” Skye suggests. “My dad and brother are away for baseball practice. I’m with my mum”
“No friends over?”
“Nope. You’re welcome to change that though”
Smooth.
“Okay,” I give in. “Let me know if Penelope and Harry are cool with that and then text me your address”
“It’s a date, Woods”
***
Fifteen minutes later I’m standing in front of Skye's house, my fingers tightening around the strap of my schoolbag.
Never in a million years did I think Ill be at the Stingworth’s residence.
Skye has a nice house, I won't lie. Standard, a decent neighbourhood, something out of a Disney movie with its white picket fence and mowed lawn. Normal. So unlike my crazy background. Orphaned, troubled youth with hidden superpowers. The house is a light face-brick double storey with white window ledges growing pretty little flowers. There’s a driveway on the side, leading up to a closed garage and a set of stairs in front of me leading up to a porch.
I will my legs to move. Here goes nothing, I think, and I ring the doorbell.
A woman with curly red hair opens, with a bright smile on her round face. She’s the perfect image of a mother, wearing a floral shirt and faded jeans, slightly shorter than me in height and a little plump in a cute kind of way. The way her face lights up and the twinkle in her warm brown eyes is inherited wholly by Skye.
“Hello,” The woman says cheerfully. “You must be Kourtney?”
Suddenly, I feel like I should have been more presentable. Nice people always make me feel like this – like I’m not good enough. I'm dressed in a grey tank, black plaid shirt and skinny jeans, my hair is loose and falls over most of my face. I look like someone who has an attitude, someone who gets into trouble and doesn’t look like they give a shit about school. I'm not like that, not really. But Skye’s mum, all put together makes me feel like a delinquent. Makes me feel guilty for not putting an effort into looking decent and smiling.
“Hi,” I respond. “Yeah, I ’m Kourtney”
“Yes, yes. Skye told me you’d be the one with the black hair. Please, come in,” She opens the door wider, and I nod politely, following her in.
The interior of the house, predictably so, is just as magazine-worthy. There's a wooden theme, like autumn all year round, from the light wooden floors to the pastel orange walls. Pot plants hang from the ceiling with bright green leaves, there's ancient looking vases dotting small tables around the entryway.
“Skye, you have a visitor!” Mrs Stingworth yells from the bottom of the stairs. She turns back to me with a serene smile, and the change of character from a yelling mother to a polite guest is jarring. “He’ll be down in a minute”
I only nod. I'm completely tongue-tied, like I’ve swallowed all speech, and my mind goes blank, unable to comprehend what the English vocabulary is. Fighting a supervillain with Earth-shattering powers is easy. Talking to Skye’s mum? Not so much. So instead, I stand awkwardly with my hands twisting in my top, unable to meet her gaze.
“You're here for a project then?” Skye’s mother asks me.
“Yup. For physics”
“What's it about?”
I shrug. “We have to explain Coulombs laws as a model and wrote up a report on our findings”
“Sounds interesting,” Skyes mother grins. “I’ve never done physics in school; I wasn’t one for academics, but my boy has a real liking to science and how things work. He gets it from his father”
“Stop embarrassing me mum,” Skye comes down the stairs and I swear he’s blushing.
“What?” His mother blinks innocently. “I was just telling your friend here how you're a genius with fixing things like your father”
“My dad’s a mechanical engineer,” Skye tells me flatly. “Come on, Woods, let’s get started”
“Don’t call the girl by her surname, its unbecoming”
“Yes mother”
“It was lovely to meet you Kourtney,” Mrs Stingworth says to me.
“You too Mrs,” I smile.
“Please, call me Lexie”
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