The Girl Who Would Be King(5)

I check into the cheap motel attached to the parking lot, and I’m not even asked for my fake I.D., which I’d gone to a certain amount of trouble to get, including letting a creepy guy feel me up, pre-powers of course; there’s no reason to have to let anyone do that to me ever again. I’m super irritated that nobody even cares to see it. Once in my room I don’t have a goddamn clue what to do. I have this exciting, new feeling coursing through my veins, and the road trip has allowed my mind to wander into awesome fantasies, which when I step off the bike and into the real world, suddenly seem less likely.

Sure, I have all this new power, but really what can I do with it and still stay under the radar of the authorities? The last thing I want is to land in the hands of some FBI morons, or worse, end up in some secret government lab being experimented on. I totally believe that shit happens. I’ve seen the movies to prove it. So what can I do with my power, which I am literally itching to use, without drawing too much attention to myself? I figure there are plenty of things I can get myself out of, a locked police cruiser for example, maybe handcuffs, but I didn’t bother to take the time to figure out what my limits might be. What will happen to me if someone shoots me with a gun? Had Delia ever been shot before? I have no idea.

Whatever. I’m not looking back anymore. I’m going to experience life like Delia never did, I’m going to eat it all up, taste everything, and spit out what I don’t like, and I’m not going to wait. It starts tonight, nerves and second guesses be damned.

I unzip my duffel and rifle through it until my hands hit some silky fabric. I pull out the cat suit and hold it up in the dingy light. It glistens like a snake even under the cheap bare bulb. Instantly I feel better. I briefly consider unpacking but then decide it’s better not to get too comfortable and drop the bag on the floor and kick it under the bed.

I strip naked, pull on the skintight black suit, and zip it up from my belly button all the way to my neck. The sleeves reach past my wrists and onto my hands, leaving just my thumbs and fingers free. I pull on my knee-high black combat boots and lace them up, wrapping the excess laces around my calf and double knotting them at the top. I look at myself in the mirror. I look like the goddamn Catwoman. It’s awesome. I tie back my long dark blonde hair into a tight ponytail and then push it under the suit before pulling on the hood, which fits nicely and leaves only the oval of my face visible. I feel amazing. I walk around the room a couple times in front of the mirror, practicing. I even try a funny little prancy Catwoman-like walk, but it looks ridiculous and so I just go back to walking normally.

I still look awesome.

I unzip the suit a bit and put my hotel key inside a small hidden space above my breastbone and zip it all back up. I sit on the hotel bed fully decked out and wait for it to get later; it’s not even midnight. I’m about to turn on the TV when I see the flimsy folded piece of paper sticking out of the back pocket of my jeans on the floor. I pull the soft paper out and read it again.



Delia,

I know you’ll kill me to get it. I thought maybe I’d be angrier about it – but somehow it just makes sense. I can’t really blame you – I did it too – killed my mother to get it – and she fought me, as I’m sure I’ll fight you, and you’ll fight your own daughter someday. But I just thought I should say, I forgive you; it’s not your fault. It’s the disease calling out to you like a siren – the same way it called to me more than twenty years ago. You can only resist it so long – and once it has you – well, I hope you deal with it better than I did. I love you anyway, though I suppose I was terrible at showing it. Try to forgive yourself.

Aveline



I’d found the letter three days ago, while digging through Delia’s dresser looking for a push-up bra. I’d looked for push-up bras a zillion times before though and had never seen it. I don’t know if she put it there for me to find, or what. Maybe she knew this thing, whatever it is, was coming and couldn’t bear to write her own letter to me? That’s f’ed up if it’s true, but whatever the explanation, the words knocked me on my ass the first time I read them, if only because I realized with certainty, my eyes drifting over the letter, that I was planning to kill her. It didn’t seem like a reality until I saw the letter though. I’ve read it dozens of times since then. The paper, already old and worn where Delia probably held it hundreds of times herself, is almost as smooth as the cat suit fabric. And now, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Vegas three days later, having done it, having killed her. And I’ve gotten her power, just as she had from her mother, a grandmother I’d never met, Aveline.