A figure in silver darted between him and the guns just before they fired. His sister walked slowly towards them; the bullets hit her and ricocheted into the ground two feet in front of her. The Elephant’s henchmen ran out of bullets before she’d walked halfway to them.
One by one, they dropped the guns, and feeling slowly returned to Red Racer’s legs. The henchmen dropped to their knees and put their hands behind their heads before she said a word. She placed a hand on each of their heads in turn, and they fell down unconscious one after the other. In less than 4 minutes, all 10 of the henchmen were laying on the floor.
Red jogged over to his sister’s side. She glanced down at him, a frown creasing her face.
“If they surrendered this easily, it’s because The Elephant is long gone already. I need to stay here and wait for the cops to come and pick them up. You should go home.”
“But-”
“Doing as I say is part of the deal. You need to go home and rest.” She glanced sideways at Red and sighed before letting a light smile to form on her face. “I’m sorry, but you froze again. You know you can’t stay out here after that.”
Red Racer wanted to argue, but the last time he tried, his sister had hidden his suit for a week.
“I’ll see you at home.” He hadn’t meant it to sound as abrupt as it did.
“I’ll pick up something to eat on my way, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Sirens echoed down the street as Red sped off. His fingers dug into the palms of his hands. Normally, it would only take him a few seconds to get home, but he ran up to the roof of the first tall building he could find and stopped.
The roof was mostly loose gravel with a single concrete footpath leading from the stairwell to various air ducts. There was no one up there, and there wasn’t going to be anytime soon.
Red Racer took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The air was crisper up here; cleaner than down in the streets where the filtering zeppelins couldn’t get to it so easily. The Air conditioners hummed all around the rooftop, but there was no other noise. Even the cars on the streets below couldn’t break the silence.
He didn’t want to be angry at Sara for sending him home. But he couldn’t help the tightening in his chest when she gave him an order. Her being right only made it worse.
Red took another breath. He felt the air rattling down to his lungs and shivered. The guns were back, floating beneath his eyelids. He shut his eyes tighter, so tightly that he began to see spots, but he couldn’t make them go away.
He opened his eyes and forced himself to look past the phantoms. He should get home.
“Doing as I say is part of the deal. You need to go home and rest.” Miss Mirror glanced sideways at Red and sighed before letting a light smile to form on her face. “I’m sorry, but you froze again. You know you can’t stay out here after that.”
Red Racer stared blankly at his sister. His face grew cold as the blood slowly drained from it. The henchmen were all lying unconscious on the ground, in the exact same positions he remembered.
“Red?” She turned fully towards him. “Are you okay?”
He barely managed to nod. This couldn’t be real.
“Are you sure? You look like you’re seeing a ghost. Look, wait over by the alley and I’ll go home with you. I’m not sure if you should be running right now.”
Red managed to stumble over to the sidewalk and lean against the building. Sirens echoed down the street.
Something was wrong, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Had he done something? Had he run in some kind of time loop? No…he’d been standing still when it had happened. Or had he? He tried to focus on the memory, but the details had faded away, he knew that time had fun back on itself, but he couldn’t remember where he was when it happened.
He needed to tell his sister. She would know what had happened. Or she would be able to talk to someone.
“Red!”
The shout shook him out of his stupor. HE turned to face his sister. She was hunched over and examining his face.
“I think you might be coming down with something.” She grasped his arm and squeezed it gently. “Come on, you’re not running like that, so I’m gonna have to carry you home. You need to get to bed.”
He didn’t have time to talk before she scooped him up and launched them both into the sky.
“Sis-“ The wind drowned out his voice.
Red glanced below them. He stared at the tallest building on the way home, but could only barely understand why.
Miss Mirror held him close and flew high into the air above the clouds. He felt one of her arms flick below him and her outfit changed colors, easily blending in with the sky.
The dropped quickly, faster then gravity should have pulled them, but they landed on the roof with the grace of ten cats.
Red followed his sister down to their apartment.
“Change into something warm, I’ll grab the thermometer.”
“Rachel, wait.”
She didn’t stop rummaging through the drawers. “Yeah?”
“I’m not sick. I…I saw something weird-eird.”
She stopped rummaging and turned towards him. Her mask had been peeled away and he looked straight into her eyes. He hadn’t echoed like that in weeks.
“I’m not sure how to explain it, but, things started happening twice.”
“You mean like déjà vu?”
“No. I was already on my way home, and then I was back with you and you said the same thing you just had.”
Rachel stared into his eyes without blinking until he looked away. His gaze landed on her hand, gripping the counter so tightly that it had turned paper-white.
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