Around dawn I returned to Bea’s shop, still dressed as Death’s Dancer, with the scarf Bea had given me balled up in one hand. I wasn’t entirely certain what I was doing there. All I knew was that I had to go back, to see with my own eyes the impact of my decision.

I let myself in through the back gate and crossed the empty yard, my red dance slippers raising little puffs of dust that swirled lazily in the faint sunlight. The back door was unlocked, and I slipped inside, mentally thanking Bea for keeping the hinges well-oiled. I tiptoed through the kitchen, my soft shoes making no noise on the scratched wood floor.

At the curtain that separated the living area from the shop, I paused. Voices were coming from the front room. I peered around the edge of the curtain, and discovered Bea sitting behind the counter, staring into her hands. Sera, of all people, stood beside her, leaning against the counter. As I stared at her in confusion, Sera looked up, her dark brown eyes meeting mine.

“I don’t know what I would have done if Peg died.” Bea’s voice was barely audible.

“Oh, Bea…” Sera looked away from me, turning to place an arm over Bea’s shoulders. She squeezed, as though trying to squeeze all the sadness out of her. I took the opportunity to let out a long, slow breath. Sera had seen me, but for some reason she wasn’t going to reveal my presence. I wasn’t sure at all what to make of her anymore. It was only thanks to her that I had escaped Fireball last night, but then again it seemed likely that she had led him to me in the first place. “But she’s not dead, she’s going to be fine.”

“Yes, but what if that monster comes after Peg again? I don’t want to go through that again. My husband’s only been dead three years and I still have nightmares – dreams where he’s alive and then I wake up and have to remember all over again. Peg’s the one who made me love life again. And now all I can think is what if she had died?”

Bea’s voice cracked on the last word, and she turned into Sera’s embrace, burying her face in her pretend sister’s shoulder. Her whole body shook as all the tears that had been bottled up inside of her were released.

I backed away, tears pricking my own eyes. My lungs were empty, suffocating me, as though all the air had been sucked out of them. Just barely remembering to tiptoe, I made my way out through the kitchen and sat on the back steps of the house, staring over the empty yard. The red scarf was a sweaty, tangled knot in my hands.

What had I done? One moment of fury, and I had been prepared to cut off someone’s life, just like that. How could I have done that, and to someone who I had just recently been sharing a table with? Someone who could almost have been considered a friend, to Delphi at least.

Tears rolled unnoticed down my cheeks.

You did what was necessary. That was Death’s Dancer talking. But sitting here in the yard where I had met Peg, sunshine beating down on me, Death’s Dancer had never been further away. It was so easy to justify myself when I was hiding behind the mask, lurking in the shadows. Sacrifices were necessary when it came to overturning the social order and rising to a position of absolute power. What did Death’s Dancer care for the heartbreak of one, practically worthless individual?

As much as Death’s Dancer tried to convince me that my actions had been necessary, I didn’t believe a word. Peg’s only crime had been to question my plans one too many times, and for that I had sentenced her to death. Looking out over the yard where I had first met Peg, the utter emptiness of the trampled brown grass reached into my chest and ripped my heart in two.

Sera found me out there, arms wrapped around my knees, staring blankly into space. The tears had dried on my cheeks by then, but nothing could mend my broken heart.

“How’s Bea?” My voice sounded strange, deeper and huskier than normal.

“Sleeping.” Sera sat down on the steps beside me with a sigh. “I thought that would be best for her.”

“How do you know what’s best for her? You only met her, what...three days ago? What are you even still doing here?” I spat the words at Sera, all the while staring down at the weathered wood of the back steps where I was carving out a sliver of wood with my nail.

Sera was silent for such a long time that I lifted my head to look at her. Tear tracks glimmered on her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to notice them. She was staring out across the yard, her eyes unfocused.

“I care because I’m human,” she said at last, raising one slender hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Her voice was steady. “Bea might not be my sister, but she’s a kind and loving person. Yes, I only met her a few days ago, but empathy is one of those things that doesn’t require a strong connection. It’s just there, whether you like it or not.”

“Well I’m glad we’ve established I’m not human then.” I winced as my finger slipped in its carving, driving a splinter underneath my nail.

“Yes you are!” Sera grabbed my shoulders, pulling me around until I was nose to nose with her. I knew I could easily use my powers to buckle the stairs underneath her, or solidify the air between us into a battering ram, pushing her away, but I was so shocked by her sudden change in attitude I simply stared into her fierce brown eyes.

“I don’t care that you’ve trained for years as a supervillain. I don’t care that you’ve stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don’t care that you’ve murdered someone. All those things might not make you a good person, but they don’t make you any less human, Delphi.”

I winced at the sound of my secret identity. I didn’t want to be Delphi right now. Delphi was a girl whose friend was heartbroken over the near-death of her fiancé. Dragging my eyes away from Sera, I looked down at my tutu, smoothing its wrinkled red fabric with shaking hands. Death’s Dancer wouldn’t cry. She was the one who had tried to suffocate Peg, and for good reason.

“You are Delphi,” Sera said quietly, giving my shoulders a sharp shake.

Looking back at Sera was a mistake. The wall that I had just begun to build around my troubled soul crumbled under her gaze. The part of me that was Death’s Dancer through-and-through retreated to a corner of my brain to sneer at my weakness, but she could do nothing to stop it. I could do nothing to stop it.

“I didn’t mean to...she just kept talking, and I didn’t want to hear what she had to say.” The words bubbled out of me in fits and starts. “Why couldn’t she just stop talking, that’s all I wanted. She just had to stop talking! But she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t stop.”

Tears were running down my cheeks again, slipping out from under the mask and making shining trails across my face, but I didn’t care – couldn’t care about that right now. “And then she stopped, she did stop just like I wanted her to, only it wasn’t right, none of it was right. If you and Fireball hadn’t shown up when you did, she’d be dead now.”

I sniffled back snot, and wiped the tears from my face, watching them soak into the silk fabric of my gloves. Bright red, red as blood. There was a long silence. I stared at my tears, watching the dark spots on my gloves shrink and disappear as the water evaporated.

“It’s not too late,” Sera said, putting a hand on top of mine. “Peg’s still alive. You still have a chance to make the right decision, to walk away from all this.”

I found myself nodding along, staring at our hands interconnected, imagining a future where I was just plain Delphi, not a supervillain at all. Sera squeezed my hand. That was when an icy wave of realization hit me. Mind control. She was making me think this, making me turn my back on everything I had worked towards. My hands curled into fists underneath hers and I glared down at them, unable to look Sera in her lying, treacherous eyes. This had been her plan the whole time.

“You told me to run and I did, like the coward that I am.”

“You’re not a coward,” Sera protested. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

I ignored her treacherous voice. “This whole time I’ve been running from Fireball, hiding in the shadows, when it should be him whose running from me. All he’s got are a few stupid fireballs.”

I could feel a grin spreading across my face, as Death’s Dancer rose from the depths of my mind. She wasn’t a costume anymore, something to be taken off at the end of a night of supervillainy and stuffed in a bag with my tutu and gloves. I was Death’s Dancer, and it was about time I accepted that. “You’re wrong. I’m not a human, I’m a supervillain. And it’s long past time I did some villainous things.”

I threw Bea’s red scarf to the ground and jumped to my feet. Stretching my arms above my head, I bounced on my toes once, twice, and then took off running across the backyard. The gate to the back alley was open, allowing me to run straight through and out into wide open world.

“Wait, where are you going?” Sera shouted after me.

I ignored her voice. My mind was already churning through ideas of how to adapt my plan for just one person. This would be my biggest news story yet. I could take the Rubes hostage on my own, and after that it would be time for Fireball to meet his match.

Grinning wildly, I reached out for the nearest building, which welcomed my hands and feet openly. Crawling up the sheer brick wall, a giddy laugh bubbled up inside of me and I released it gladly, reveling in the way it echoed off the walls of the buildings around me.

This city hadn’t seen anything yet. Death’s Dancer was here for good now, and she wouldn’t rest until the city was in ashes or kneeling at her feet. Whichever came first.