Chapter 4 — Comes the Hero

Sunlight streamed through the open window. Hailey groaned and rolled over, pulling the sheets tight over her face to try and block out the light. She reached behind her and magically felt out the window, sliding it closed with her mind and drawing the blackout curtains. The room plunged into darkness once again. She reached forward across the bed—but to her surprise, Jessica wasn't there.

Hailey's eyes popped open. She flicked on the bedroom light switch across the room. The hands on the wall clock read seven thirty in the morning. They'd only gotten in from another run to Cinza's home at three, so why was Jessica awake so early?

A week had passed since they'd decided to reach out to the newly awakened. Thanks to Hailey's conversations with Beverly, she knew that somewhere, people were finding pages and scraps, but Beverly remained stubbornly neutral. She refused to reveal any information whatsoever, which left Cinza and Josh crawling through local news while Hailey patrolled every small town within fifty miles of Rallsburg, flying low and watching out for anything unusual. So far, they'd come up with absolutely nothing.

The constant late-night patrols were really starting to mess with Hailey's head.

After vaguely hoping for ten minutes that Jessica might come back, Hailey finally gave up and rolled out of bed. She pulled on fresh clothes, then stood in front of her mirror and took a deep breath. Muttering the proper words under her breath, she reached inside her face and cleaned it up, doing the work of ten minutes of makeup in an instant. She sent a burst of magic down through her hair, refreshing the messy bush of the Silverdales instead of the perfect waves her body wanted them to grow into. Hailey winced slightly as it pulled at her scalp, but it was better than taking the risk of being recognized.

Hailey pulled on a light-blue cardigan and headed downstairs, feeling mostly-refreshed and with a massive craving for doughnuts. As she emerged into the kitchen, that craving disappeared—to be replaced with confused anxiety.

Jessica was sitting at the small kitchen table across from her parents, silently and deliberately eating through a bowl of cereal and avoiding their eyes. As Hailey walked in, Beth gave her a top-tier disappointed mother glare. It might have been totally withering, if Hailey hadn't been raised by a powerhouse businesswoman with less patience than a hungry cat.

"Uhh, good morning?"

Beth shook her head. She pointed at Jessica, then at Hailey, followed by several angry jabs at the sky. She shook her head again, a bit more violently.

"Dear, Hailey can understand you," said Malcolm, touching his wife's hand.

She slapped him away. "Excuse me for trying to show some solidarity with my daughter."

"Do you really think Jessica would want you to be acting like a mime for no reason?"

"It's my job to make sure she feels comfortable and at home here!"

"Why don't you just ask her?" Hailey cut in. "Jess."

She immediately looked up, the spoon halfway to her mouth. Hailey pointed at her mother, then clapped her hand over her mouth, followed by tilting her head slightly to the side as a question.

Jessica just rolled her eyes and went back to eating.

"Okay, dear?" Malcolm asked.

"Would you stop saying 'dear' so much?" Beth snapped. She rounded back on Hailey again. "What are you doing with my daughter every night?"

"Working." Hailey went to the cupboard and got out a bowl and spoon, before setting them down next to Jessica. Without even glancing at her, Jessica filled up her bowl with milk and cereal, while Hailey went to get a glass.

"That's it?"

"I'm sure they—" Malcolm started.

"Would you stop interrupting? I want to hear her answer."

Malcolm threw up his hands in surrender and got up, walking out to the living room. He turned on the local news, retreating from the conversation entirely.

Hailey sat down across from Beth and dug into her cereal. "We're doing our part. Trying to make sure no one gets found out. The usual." She was feeling a bit cranky and stubborn on such low sleep, plus she'd never really liked Beth Silverdale much anyway. Not after how they'd treated their daughter and practically driven her out of the house back in Rallsburg.

"And that means you have to be out until the crack of dawn every night?"

"Nah, we're definitely home before it starts getting light out. That's kind of the point."

"What if you're seen? What if someone follows you back here to us?"

Hailey shrugged. "We'd stop them."

"You can't just—"

"Beth, an ordinary human's no match for me or Jess. Not in a million years."

"What about someone with a gun? Didn't Rachel kill that horrible man with just a plain old pistol?"

"She had help."

"And you're going to be up against who-knows-what!"

Hailey shook her head. "It's not like we're going up against the army. Even if someone spotted us—and they won't, because Jess can make us totally invisible. Even he couldn't do that."

Jessica looked up briefly at her name, saw Hailey looking away from her, and ignored them again. She got up and began to clean up after herself and her father's abandoned dishes.

"I just think you're taking a lot of risks with my daughter's life here."

Hailey frowned. "It's her choice to make. She's an adult, too."

"Oh, come on!" Beth pointed at Jessica, who had joined her father on the couch to watch the news. "She can't understand a word of what she's watching, or anything we're saying! She probably thinks you're just going out and having fun every night, not risking everyone's lives! How can she be making an informed decision about the danger involved?"

Hailey set down her spoon and glared at Beth. "She's informed. We went through all of this together for a whole year before you showed up. Don't you dare talk about her like you know anything about what she's been through. You kicked her out."

"I—"

"Dear, can I talk to you for a moment?" Malcolm said, standing up. Jessica looked between the three of them for a moment, confused, before she gave up and laid back down again. Beth looked annoyed, but she followed her husband outside and across the small backyard while Hailey finished her breakfast.

Hailey surreptitiously waved her fingers under the table, creating a current of movement across the yard. It was a useful effect that Jessica had helped develop, back when she could still speak. Hailey could accelerate the movement of sound waves across a space by shifting around the air they flowed through, making them louder and easier to hear from far away. There was a side effect at first of loud sounds reaching deafening levels, but Hailey had managed to refine the spell over the months to only affect soundwaves at a certain amplitude. She could make quiet things move much further and reach her ears before they ran out of energy.

"Don't tell me you're not worried."

"I'm terrified, but I think we have no idea what we're doing here. Neither of us can do magic."

"That doesn't mean we don't have a say in what happens to our daughter!"

"Do we though? We made it pretty clear we didn't want her around anymore when she left."

"We tried to help her!"

"We didn't. We pretty much gave up on her as parents that day."

"So we're just supposed to let her run off alone and do whatever she wants without saying a word?"

"She's not alone."

"You think Hailey's a good influence?" Beth paused. "Christina used to talk about her all the time, God rest her. Hailey was that oversexed irresponsible party girl you always hear about. Jackie even broke up a few of her get-togethers because of all the drugs and drinking."

There weren't any drugs, Hailey mused. Well, nothing serious.

"They've got a weird relationship and I don't like it. I let them both live here, in the same bed and everything! I didn't complain once, but this is too far."

"We didn't let them do anything," Malcolm pointed out. "We're here under their protection, remember?"

"What do we need protecting from anymore? He's dead, isn't he?"

"You know that's not the only danger."

"You're all just assuming the government would sweep down and grab us up."

"Beth, I'm just as concerned as you are. I don't like that Jessica's clearly hurting and there's nothing we can do for her. And you're right, we're assuming a whole lot of danger when there might be nothing at all. But we can't hide out here forever. The money Kendra gave us will run out sooner or later. If Hailey and Jessica can do something about making sure the world's ready for them, why wouldn't we want them to try?"

"I—"

Hailey's phone buzzed, and at the same time both Malcolm and Beth's did as well, interrupting their conversation. Hailey nearly dropped the empty bowl she'd been holding, too busy focusing on the conversation to finish putting it away. She scrambled for her phone, finally unhooking it from the belt clip and pulling it out. A search alert had just popped up for Rallsburg.

Something was happening.

Hailey bounded over to the couch while Beth and Malcolm rushed inside. Hailey flicked the news over to national channels, fearing the worst.

"Breaking news from Washington state today, as officials from the FBI confirmed the death of one Jerry Hauserman, age thirty-nine. Hauserman was one of the missing persons still unidentified from the mysterious incident that destroyed the town of Rallsburg in the foothills of the Olympic Forest. The spokesman for the coroner's office released the official time of death as September 14th, well after the event in May. Special Agent Jeremy Ashe was unavailable, but a spokesman for the Bureau refused to comment on the significant delay in Hauserman's death or his condition. Thanks to our sources, we can exclusively confirm that Jerry Hauserman's body was in the same condition as the so-called 'pulverized' victims in Rallsburg, whose cause of death was never determined. With Hauserman's death placed more than four months after the first incident, experts are suggesting that this may not be an isolated case anymore."

Hailey took a deep breath, trying not to panic. They hadn't shown any images on screen, but her memories of the golems stalking through the town were vivid enough to still send her heart racing. She looked up at Beth, who had clapped her hands over her mouth. Hailey felt like being spiteful—but when she saw Jessica's worried look, not understanding what was going on, she relented.

She stood up. "You two stay inside, keep the windows closed and the doors locked. Don't go out today."

Beth nodded, shaking slightly. "Those things are back?"

"I guess so." Hailey turned and held out a hand to Jessica, helping her to her feet. "We've gotta go."

"Go where?" Malcolm asked, clutching his wife's hand.

"To protect everyone." Hailey tried to crack a smile. "Don't worry. We've beaten them before, and it's not like they can fly. We got this."

Beth nodded. She looked Hailey directly in the eye. "Keep her safe?"

Hailey smiled for real. "She keeps me safe, you know. I'm just the wings here. Jess is the firepower."

She made a quick fluttering motion to Jess, who nodded and sped off upstairs to grab their flight equipment. In spite of everything they'd said and done, Hailey didn't want to leave her parents feeling so awful—not when she was about to fly headlong into what could be another heart-twisting, blood-searing fight for their lives.

"You raised her right. She's trying to save people. Don't beat yourselves up so much. You did okay."