The Darkness Rises

1
The night was a sweaty palm clamped over my mouth. Still, I took a grateful gulp of air. Anything was better than the mass of sweat, bodies, and chaos inside the house.
Marissa pulled the sliding glass door shut, muffling the noise inside.
“Better?” she asked, fluffing her dark curls. They immediately started to wilt from the humidity. I could tell she wanted to be back in the center of the living room with the rest of the dance team, shouting song lyrics and performing snippets of the choreography they’d learned at dance camp. Things had probably been easier this summer without me.
“Better.” I tried smiling. Her real question was written all over her face: What’s wrong with you? What aren’t you telling me?
I jerked my head skyward, pretending I hadn’t noticed. Pretending the freckled sky and finger of clouds passing over the moon were the reasons I came outside.
“I just needed some air,” I said, like that would explain everything. “Why don’t you go back inside? I’ll meet you in a few.”
“Nice try, Whit.” She arched an eyebrow and thumped my shoulder with hers. “You’re stuck with me.”
I smiled and thumped her back. More like she was the one stuck with me.
The back door slid open, belching music and several people onto the yard. Beau Gunter marched toward us, balancing a pitcher of his infamous punch in one hand and a stack of cups in the other.
“Ladies,” he drawled, “don’t tell me y’all are leaving. It’s early! The Beau hasn’t even had a chance to hang out with you.”
He grinned like he expected us to be grateful for the Beau’s presence. If it wasn’t for his height, he might have been cute, but his lanky build made him look too much like a praying mantis. That, and he had a penchant for referring to himself in the third person and making innuendo-­laden puns out of his name, which for obvious reasons made me hate him.
“Haven’t seen you all summer, Supergirl. Where you been?”
My fingers curled into fists at the sound of my old nickname.
I am not super. I am a monster.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop the onslaught of images. Trying to keep Dwight’s face from surfacing. I pictured Gams’s dance studio, remembering the way the wood felt against my feet and the resin crunched against my pointe shoe. I tried to disappear inside that feeling.
For an attitude turn, begin in a wide fourth position, croisé devant arms in third position, right leg in plié . . . 
“Whit?” Marissa’s voice came to me like an echo down a hallway.
“What’d I say?” Beau asked. “Supergirl, you all right?”
I opened my eyes, cheeks flaring with heat.
“Stop calling her Supergirl,” Marissa snapped. She may not know why I hated that nickname, but Marissa had my back.
“It’s fine,” I told her, even though it made me want to shove my way through the crowd inside and run straight out the front door. “I’m fine. I just—­I have a headache.”
“I have just the cure for that!” Beau shook the pitcher of punch at us, sending the pink liquid sloshing onto the ground.
“That stuff is liquid headache.” Marissa cocked her head and perched a hand on her hip, making her look like a teapot on the verge of exploding. Although if she knew I was comparing her to something a song called short and stout, her exploding would be the least of my worries. If you valued your life, you did not refer to Marissa’s diminutive size.
“Calm down. I’m just playing around,” Beau said.
She glared up at him. He grinned.
The group hovering on the porch let out a loud whoop as Beau gave up on us and moved to refill their cups.
Marissa sighed and gave a huff of defeat, sending dark curls dancing around her face. “You wanna go?”
“Why don’t you stay? There’s no reason for me to ruin your night.”
“No way.” She looped her arm through mine. “I haven’t seen you in almost two months. You owe me major catch-­up time. Plus I’m going to get pregnant if I stand on that dance floor any longer.”
She gave me a wry grin and pulled me toward the side yard, where we could make our escape unnoticed. I thought she was going to let me off the hook, but when we got to the street, she tugged me to a stop. “Are you going to tell me what that was back there?”
“What do you mean?” I dug through my purse for my keys, feigning innocence.
Marissa bit her lip and looked away, and I felt the familiar knife of guilt slice through me. Lying to Marissa was a skill I’d acquired out of necessity. She would hate me if I told her the truth. Everyone would.
“You never minded when people called you Supergirl before. What gives?”
“I’m just over it, that’s all.” I searched the street to avoid eye contact, trying to remember how far down I parked. “People shouldn’t make me out to be some hero just because I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
Marissa pressed her lips together. She knew it was more than that. She’d been with me when I darted across the cafeteria to give that kid the Heimlich maneuver, which may have seemed right place, right time to anyone else watching. Except she’d also been with me when I’d pulled Janell Barbers out of the deep end, at Nordstrom Rack when I’d told the woman working the register not to take her lunch break, and standing next to me when I’d told Mr. Franklin to go to the doctor. He ended up getting triple bypass surgery two days later. There were way too many right place, right times to explain away as a coincidence. Marissa was too smart for that.
Still, she didn’t know the truth. And I was grateful. 
I clicked my key fob, avoiding her stare. As the lights on my Accord flashed, I caught sight of a figure fumbling with the driver’s-side door.
“Hey!” I called. The figure yanked on the door handle. I shouted again, this time jogging ahead with Marissa close at my heels. “Hey, what are you doing to my car?”
A guy looked up and staggered back, squinting. There was a pink stain around his lips. He was one of Beau’s punch-­chugging minions.
“Your car?” He put a hand on the doorframe to steady himself. “This is my car.”
I clicked the remote again and my headlights flared to life.
“Nope, my car.”
“Well, it looks like my car. Where’s my car?”
The boy scratched his head, stumbling slightly. Strands of sandy hair clung to his forehead. In the muted glare of the streetlights it was difficult to tell exactly what color his eyes were—­blue or green. Maybe both. Either way, they looked unsteady. He looked unsteady, like he’d been riding a Tilt-­A-­Whirl and his feet were still adjusting to stable ground.
“Looks like your car?” Marissa crossed her arms and glared at him. “That’s exactly what a car thief would say.”
He held up his hands. “I swear! I’m sorry, I thought it was mine. Where is my car?”
“Whatever.” Marissa moved to the passenger side. “Find someone else’s car to vandalize.”
He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but closed it quickly, looking to me for help. I offered him a shrug and reached for the door handle. “You probably just parked farther down the street. But you don’t look like you should be driving.”
“I’m fine. I didn’t drink that much.” The alcohol wafting off him told a different story.
He went back to scanning the street. Hopefully he was smart enough not to drive home. Not that it was any of my business.
I slid into the front seat and closed the door but couldn’t resist glancing once more toward the boy. There was a small smudge of a black cloud forming over his head that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Oh no. Not tonight. Please, not tonight.
Through the rearview mirror I saw him ambling down the street inspecting vehicles. With each step the cloud grew in size, roiling larger and larger. It pulsed above his head like a black tuft of living sky, sliding over his hairline and down his cheeks. It was growing too quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Marissa turned around to look at him, trying to figure out what caught my attention.
I shook my head. It wasn’t my job to save him. If he wanted to get behind the wheel drunk, that was his problem.
Except it was my problem, wasn’t it? I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the churning darkness swelling around his head or stop the what-­ifs from squelching the finely tuned logic that told me to ignore him.
What if he hurts someone else? What about his family? He’s just a kid.
And then the other thoughts crept in—­the ones that kept my mind racing in the middle of the night.
You don’t know if he’s a good guy. What if you save him and he goes on to do something horrible?
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was an impossible choice. It was always an impossible choice. But it was my choice to make, and my consequences to live with.
I let out a growl and slammed my palms against the steering wheel. “Stay here.” I jumped out before Marissa could argue. Then I marched down the street to catch up with him, cursing myself the whole way. Why was I doing this again? What was wrong with me?
The boy turned at the sound of my shoes clapping against the pavement. I could barely see his face through the cloud thrumming around his head. The wisps of smoke had already begun to lick at his shoulders, curling around him like a hungry shadow.
“Hey, wait up!” I called, jogging to close the distance.
“I told your friend I’m not a thief.” He slurred when he said the word thief. “I have keys, see?” His fingers displayed a car remote with a Texas Longhorns key chain dangling from it.
“Yeah, I know. I just thought that maybe I could drop you off somewhere. Or call you an Uber?”
“Thanks, but I don’t need a ride. I just need to find where I parked.” He ran a hand through his hair, squinting as he scanned the street.
“I really don’t think you should be driving. Why don’t you let me drop you off?”
I couldn’t read his expression through the blackness swirling around him, but I thought his shoulders slumped with relief.
“I can’t leave my car here. My mom will kill me.”
“Your mom can’t kill you if you’re already dead. And if you need me to, I’ll bring you back here in the morning. I’ll even give you my number so you can call me if you need to. Come on, let me take you home.”
He stood there for a minute like he was weighing his options, but I already knew he’d made up his mind. The cloud had begun to curl in on itself, the tendrils of smoke sliding up his cheeks until it finally shrank to a tiny puff of gray above his head and vanished altogether.
He nodded once and shoved the lump of keys back into his pocket. “Thanks.”
Marissa’s right eyebrow arched when he climbed into the back seat.
“We’re making a pit stop,” I said in a voice that removed any possibility of discussion. Marissa shrugged and fiddled with the radio until music filled the small space, but there was a smug smile on her face, like she knew all along I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from driving him home.
This is the last time, I thought as I eased onto the road. No more saving people after this.
Because there are consequences to saving people.
Because enough people have already died from my choices.