35. Identity Theft

The news report on the hospital was sobering, to say the least. They didn't actually give too much info on who or what caused it, other than the fact that it was a large explosion and was probably caused by someone with superpowers. I actually had no idea what had happened to Josh, after Julia and I made our great escape from the hospital on Tuesday night, but it was likely that he had been moved to a different ward, one for crazy (but injured) supers - unless, of course, he had managed to pin all of the damage on me, in which case, he would be in a perfectly normal ward, surrounded by normal people. From what I know, superpowers cannot be detected by normal medical equipment, unless the powers create some really obvious physical change, like scaled skin. Which, as far as I knew, Josh didn't have.

Back to the 'large explosion' - the pictures on the TV have telekinesis written all over them, stuff thrown around, walls blown down, etc. Of course, Josh isn't the only telekinetic - I'm sure there are at least a few more hanging around somewhere, but Josh seems like the most likely candidate for smashing up a section of the hospital, seeing as he was in there in the first place. 

Whether it is related to Josh or not, an explosion at the hospital is not a good sign. I turn the TV off when the news segment finishes, not having to look at Julia to know that her face is as grim as mine. Amy arrives home soon after, giving Julia a look of suspicion as she steps in the door.

Rather than asking why she is here, Amy just makes an 'hmmph' sound as she walks off to her room, muttering her favourite m-word as she closes the door to her room. 

"What is up with your sister?" Julia asks. 

I shrug in response. "She is crazy." 

I can't stop thinking about Josh. I can't help but get the feeling that I'm gonna be seeing him again soon and not in a nice, friendly, 'I'm sorry for hurling things and threatening you' meeting. More likely, he will do more of the hurling and threatening stuff. I wish there was something I could do to change his mind, not have him so determined to be evil and bad. Josh was an ass, with all his constant flirting and fake badboy persona, but he was my friend - my best friend. I don't want him to be evil, I don't want to have to fight him. Hopefully it won't have to come to that. 

"If I'm to be staying here," Julia starts speaking, ending my brooding session. "I need to head back to my family's apartment and get some stuff."

"Okay," I answer, thinking back to the news report, with Julia and her current semi-wanted status, all the supervillains and bad guys that would love to capture her. "Will you be safe?" 

"I should be okay." Julia frowns as she speaks, as if unsure. 

"Not good enough," I say, getting up from the couch. "And with Josh out there somewhere too... I'm coming with you."

"I only need a few things," Julia explains, standing up as well. "My suit, a change of clothes, so on. Shouldn't take long. And with some luck, my parents will be out."

"Let's do it," I say, cracking my knuckles. I quickly walk to my room and grab my phone, slipping it into the back pocket of my jeans. I tell Mum of our leaving and then we are off, soaring though the sky. The sun is setting over the city, casting red shadows over my skin and turning Julia's hair a pretty light pink. I really notice her beauty as she flies with me through the cool air, I can't believe she kissed me earlier. Is our attraction really mutual? Me, dorky, idiotic, with my messy, long hair and bent nose - what could an angel like her possibly see in me?

We get to the apartment block where she lives and rather than walk in the lobby and take the elevator up, we land on the roof, not seeing the point of flying down, just to come back up again. 

"Tim," Julia says, as we touch down on the paved rooftop. 

"Yes?" I respond, grinning as I look around at the familiar sight. I haven't been up here since I accidentally pushed her off and realised that I could fly, just in time to save both of our lives. Or not save our lives, as Julia could probably fly back then, too. Damn. How long has she been hiding her powers from me? I make a mental note to ask later. 

"Can you use your X-ray vision to see if the apartment below is empty?"

"Sure," I say, looking down and concentrating on the shadowed roof-tiles. They fade away beneath my feet and I get a perfect bird's eye view of the apartment below. "Yeah," I reply, seeing Julia's mum in the kitchen, cooking something. I look over a bit and see her dad, sitting down in front of the television. "Your parents are home."

"Shoot, okay." Julia thinks for a bit, before walking a few steps to her left, studying the ground. "Am I above my room?"

"A little more to the right," I say, Julia following my instructions. She motions for me to come over.

"Ready?" she asks, grabbing onto my arm. 

"For what?" Uh oh. 

"I'm gonna phase us through the roof, so we fall down and land in my room." I nod, and she continues to speak: "I'm meant to be back at my school's boarding house, so my parents will be very suspicious if they see me. We must avoid them, at all costs."

"Gotcha." I feel the tingling feeling and then we fall through the roof, levitating a little in order to slow our descent and avoid landing noisily on the carpet. Phasing feels pretty weird and gets a pretty solid rating on Tim's least favourite superpowers list, about the same as telepathy. Nowhere near as bad as teleporting, though. 

"In my wardrobe," Julia instructs, "there should be a small daypack, with my suit in it." She points me in the right direction, before turning to her drawers and starting to pick out some items of clothing. I take a quick look around her room, spying a few band posters hanging up on the walls and a photoboard. The room is very tidy, no clothes on the floor, no pencils and forsaken homework sheets scattered across the desk. It's probably more due to the lack of use more than a compulsive tidying habit, as she does spend most of the time away at boarding school. 

I open the wardrobe doors and push through the hanging clothes, coats and dresses and such. I spy what appears to be the bag she is looking for and bend down to grab it, but as I do so, my shirt catches on the buttons of one of her coats and tugs it off its hanger. It pulls several more down with it, trapping me under their weight. I try to pull them off but they have somehow tangled, snaring me in the material. "Help!" I cry and Julia quickly turns around, looking alarmed. "Your clothes are attacking me!"

"Seriously? Wow, Tim. Wow." She rolls her eyes and walks over, pulling them off and neatly hooking them back onto their hangers. She grabs the bag and closes the door. "You are such a klutz."

"Evil clothes," I mutter, shuddering. She snorts and tosses the bag to me, ordering me to check if everything is in place. I open it up, inspecting its contents. Her Ghostanna suit is neatly folded away, white and grey material, soft and stretchy to the touch. I dig deeper and find a box of contacts and her mask, which is made of the same material as her suit. "Why do you wear white contacts?" I ask, neatly putting everything back in place. 

She shrugs. "It goes with the costume."

"It makes you look like a zombie."

"Whatever, Tim," she says, going back to her packing. "At least I don't have a dorky red cape with a lightning bolt on it."

"Hey!" I exclaim. "The cape is cool! Also, didn't you pick that out for me?" She rolls her eyes and I pout, faking hurt. 

"Okay," she says, after a few minutes. "Almost done." She pauses for a second, thinking. "Tim, can I ask you something?"

"Sure?" I swing her bag over my shoulder, not quite sure if this is gonna be an awkward question, one that I won't really want to answer. I hope not...

"Why did that girl slap you earlier today?"

Yep, definitely awkward. Instant cringe. "I thought we had established this, she didn't slap me." My lie bounces right off Julia, who refuses to believe me. 

"Yeah, whatever. What were you doing with her, anyway?"

"Uh," I say, trying to think of a good lie. "Not much. She is in my class, we were just talking about an assignment."

Julia raises an eyebrow. "So that's why she slapped you?"

I could tell Julia the truth, the horrible story about me and Anna's date, but I have a feeling that it would probably ruin my chances of getting any more kisses, and that would be a great tragedy. I think of another excuse, hoping this one will fit better. 

"Okay, this is the truth," I say, in my best 'serious' voice. "She was a supervillain and she attacked me. That's why I got..." I cringe again. "Slapped."

"Hmmm," says Julia, placing her clothes in bag. "But she wasn't wearing any costume. And how did she know it was you?"

"Nah, she just attacked me thinking I was a normal guy. And maybe her suit was at the drycleaners or something?" Julia snorts and I grin, trying to imagine Anna as a supervillain. Well, it was only a few hours earlier that I thought she was Ghostanna, because of that suspicious bruise on her face and her suspicious excuse for why she had it. But hold on, if she didn't get that bruise from fighting Pyrola, then how did she get that bruise? Wait, didn't Ghostanna, Julia, hit Pyrola too? Hmmm.

"Hey, off topic, but when you fought Pyrola, what colour was her hair and eyes?" I could Google pics of her on my phone, but Julia is more likely to know for sure. 

"Uh, brown for the hair, I think. Brown eyes too, oh, I also remember that they did this really creepy turn-red thing whenever she was about to throw fire. Why?"

I can barely contain my jaw drop. "Holy shit, I think she is a supervillain."

Julia sighs in defeat, shaking her head in disbelief. "You know what, I'll just ask your Mum when we get back. She will tell me." She zips up the bag and swings it over her shoulder.

"No really," I argue. "I've just realised, that girl is a supervillain. No joke, no lie."

Julia sighs again. "Tim, we don't have time for this."

At that moment, footsteps sound upon the floor outside Julia's room, followed by the startled-sounding calling of her name. Julia swears and quickly grabs my arm, pulling me towards her wardrobe. "Get in," she whispers, opening the door and attempting to push me in. 

I resist, not wanting to go anywhere near the clothes of death ever again. "Why?"

"It's bad enough that I'm here! If my parents see you too, they will kill me. I have to hide you."

"What is their problem?" I whisper back, still refusing to get in.

"Teenage boy, me, alone, unsupervised in my bedroom..."

"Ah!" I grin, as it all connects. "Gotcha," I say, while clicking my fingers at her, much to her obvious unamusement. 

"Tim, just get in the wardrobe." 

Still grinning, I do as she commands, letting her shut the door behind me. Shrouded in darkness, I blush, wishing we were actually doing the sorta things that Julia's parents would accuse us of doing. I lean against the back of the door, before it creaks open a little and I discover that it is one of those doors that lack a proper turning handle and latch, meaning it can be pushed open from the inside. Julia pushes it closed again and I shuffle around amongst all the clothes and lean against the other wall instead. Well, at least I know I'm not trapped in here. 

Door opening and the sounds of surprised voices, as Julia's mum and dad enter the room. I get an inspirational lesson in lying as I hear Julia spin a very convincing story about how she had been allowed to quickly come home to grab some more clothes, how she was going to come home for the weekend but she decided to stay at school and get in some more studying for her rapidly approaching end of year exams. I roll my eyes at that, it isn't like Julia needs to study, she can probably get A+ grades in her sleep. I, on the other hand, probably should be studying, but like she is destined to pass no matter what, I am destined to fail, no matter if I put in the work or not. 

Julia continues to spin her web of lies, which her parents continue to believe. She didn't tell them she was home because she didn't want to disturb them, she should have called first, etc. Of course, having parents that aren't telepathic helps a lot with the whole lying thing. Man, wouldn't it be easy to have parents that were normal? Instead of a crazy super-powered mother and a dad that has previously ran off, vanishing from existence? Thinking of which, I need to remember to ask Mum about him sometime. Probably not going to be a conversation that will go down well, but this time, she has to give me an answer.

I eventually become bored of listening to Julia and her parents, as their conversation slowly degrades into small talk. I find myself brooding back on the events of the day, mainly Anna. Anna, who might just, if I'm correct, be an evil supervillain. But why? She seemed nice. At least, I think she seemed nice. But then, I did have no suspicions about Julia and she ended up being none other than Ghostanna, super-hot superhero chick. 

Just as I'm getting accustomed to the idea that I may be in this wardrobe for a very long time before her parents leave the room, my phone beeps from my pocket, giving me a fright. Shit.

"What was that?" Julia's mum asks, from the other side of the door. 

"Oh, just my phone," answers Julia, infusing fake boredom into her voice. Shoot, she is probably mentally cursing my name to the wind right now. 

"Really? It sounds different, that's all."

"I got a new ringtone," she explains, before quickly changing topic, trying to distract them. But not even half a minute later, my phone beeps again, followed by another beep, not even half a second later. 

"Are you sure it's your phone, honey?" her mum asks, voice full of suspicion. 

"It sounds like it is coming from her wardrobe," comments her dad. Uh oh. Come on, man. Why do I have to receive texts right now, of all times? Damn, it's probably that lame guy who thinks I'm M again. I shift my weight and reach into my pocket, planning on quickly turning it off, before it can make any more noise. But as I pull the phone up to my face, my arm gets tangled around the arm of one of Julia's evil clothes and I stumble as I attempt to free it, dropping the phone and falling against the door, pushing it open. I fall out of her wardrobe, landing on my back on the carpet and staring right into the startled faces of her parents and Julia, who looks like she is seriously considering either a) running and jumping out her window, b) killing me, or c) all of the above. 

At first her parents can do nothing but stare in shock, while I quickly pull Julia's coat from around my arm and throw it back in the wardrobe, brushing myself off and jumping to my feet. Julia glares at me. Oops, so much for getting more kisses. 

"Why," her dad finally growls, "was there a boy in your wardrobe?"

I try and give him a friendly smile, but his death glare burns it up faster than a ball of paper in a raging bonfire. 

"I can explain," Julia begins, but soon falling silent, probably when she realises that there is no possible way outta this one. It's not like she can say I was helping her study or anything. Sure, maybe if I wasn't a male and was not very suspiciously hiding inside her wardrobe. Well, it could be worse. At least I have my clothes on.

I nervously stammer, drawing their attention back in my direction. "I'll just be going now..."

"Wait," says her mum. "Aren't you Joshua's friend, Tom? Tim?"

"I don't care," her dad yells. "Get out of my house!" I gulp and run, not able to leave fast enough. Once I get outside into the street, I smack my palm into my face, trying not to cringe too much. I wonder how many millennia I just got Julia grounded for. To say she is probably mad at me would be an understatement.

I wait around in the dark for close to half an hour, before Julia finally emerges from the building. She looks absolutely pissed. I should have ran while I had the chance. 

"What part," she yells, "of 'hide in the wardrobe' didn't you understand?"

I raise my hands in the universal sign for mercy. "It's not my fault my phone went off."

"You could have stayed in the wardrobe though."

"I only fell out because I got caught in your clothes when I was trying to grab my phone to turn it off."

Julia snorts, obviously not impressed with my words. "So, blame it on my clothes then. Maybe they can get grounded instead." 

I wince. "If we blame it on the clothes, then we don't have to get mad at each other." 

Her face softens as she begins to calm down. "I'm grounded, Tim."

"Look, I'm sorry for getting you in trouble," I apologise. "But if you are grounded, then how were you allowed out?"

"I wasn't," she says, sighing and looking guiltily at the ground. "I snuck out. Oh man, Tim. Getting caught with you in my wardrobe is the least of my worries right now."

I raise an eyebrow. "What else did you do?"

"I'll tell you. But first, we have to get off the street, before my parents come out looking for me."

Julia is surprising me more and more, with her increasing acts of rebellion, and of course, her double identity. We fly up onto the rooftops and then she begins to speak. 

"Well," she starts, raising her head to look at me. "After you ran out, I attempted to give a reason to why you were hiding in my wardrobe. Didn't really work, that's why I'm grounded. They were unconvinced that you were here to just pick up some stuff for Josh-"

"Yeah," I interject, before I can help myself. "With my being in the wardrobe and all."

She glares at me to be quiet, so she can finish her story. "Anyway, so as you can probably guess, my parents were pretty unimpressed. I said that I did need to get back to school, so they 'very kindly' offered me a ride back to school. I could tell their motive wasn't pure kindness though, it was their way of insuring I would get back to school without getting up to anymore 'shenanigans with boys'." She rolls her eyes at the end of that line, those were obviously her father's words on the matter. "They also suspected that I had left my school without permission-"

"Why did you leave your school?" I ask, interrupting her again.

"I'm getting there," she answers, irritated by my interruption. "Just let me finish. So my parents were pretty suspicious, and thought it would be best that they returned me to school before I could get up to anything else. At that point, I knew that I was pretty much screwed and that going back to school with them would only end up making things worse. I was looking for the opportunity to sneak out without any obvious use of my powers, when the phone rang. It was my school, finally calling to report my absence. That was my chance to leave." She spreads out her arms, gesturing to the night around us. "And here we are." 

"Okay," I say, nodding. "Now, backtrack. Why did you leave your school?"

"About halfway through second period this morning, I received a very threatening voice message. It was from the guy in that black-suited duo, the ones who attacked us in the park." 

"Interesting," I mutter, prompting her to continue. 

"Of course, I was in class so I didn't check my inbox until later, during lunchbreak. When I heard his message, I knew that I was in serious trouble. They knew who I was and they were coming after me. I didn't hesitate to sneak out of school and back into the city, where I thought I could hide out, possibly contact you, once you finished with school. I managed to evade them for a few hours, until about 3p.m, when they found me, sitting in a café. I ran several blocks with them on my tail, darting into shops, getting lost in crowds, trying to shake them off. I'm pretty sure they were just toying with me though, waiting for me to use my powers and give myself away. I tried ringing you, of course, but your phone was off, so you didn't answer."

"Yeah," I say, still feeling guilty about that. "Sorry."

"I ran into the park with the lake, and you know the rest, as that was when I bumped into you." 

"That was pretty lucky," I comment. 

"Yeah," she says, giving me a small smile. "Not sure what would have happened if it wasn't for your help." 

"No problem," I respond, thinking on her last sentence. If she didn't show up. Well, for starters, Anna and I would have kissed, and I would probably have an evil supervillainess for a girlfriend. Always good to avoid being in situations like that.

"We should really head back," I say. "My mum is probably getting worried."

"Let's go," Julia responds. I nod, eager to get back home.

--

We are about three quarters of the way home when I spy what looks like a pileup and a small fire on the expressway on the edge of the city. Julia sees it too, pausing in mid-air to get a better look. 

"We should probably go down and see if anybody needs help," says Julia, swooping down a little and landing on the edge of a building. 

"Yeah, we should," I agree, landing next to her. "But I don't have my suit. It's at home."

Julia frowns. "Oh, right. Damn."

"Somebody probably does need help, though." I take her bag off my back and pass it to her. "You have your suit. How about you go down and help, while I take the rest of your stuff home and quickly get mine on, just in case it is serious and you need a hand."

She smiles and takes her suit out of the bag, before tossing it and the other bag back to me. "Okay. Good idea. I'll see you soon then."

It takes me about ten minutes to head back to my house, get my suit on and return, in which time Julia appears to have already sorted out most of the trouble. I land beside the scene anyway, looking around to see if I can help with anything. Just from a quick glance, I can see that this was a pretty nasty accident. About half a dozen cars are piled up and blocking three of the five lanes, leaving only two for traffic to slowly crawl through. Another car lays upside down to my left, this one a burnt out husk. A fire engine, two ambulances and a trio of police cars are already on the scene. Nobody that I can see looks seriously injured, but who am I kidding. Piled up cars: at least one person must have gotten pretty knocked up.

Julia frowns when she sees me, making a quick motion with her hand, obviously trying to give me some kind of signal, but I can't figure out what it means. One of the paramedics catches my eye and gives me a death glare - what is their problem? I didn't do anything. I hear noise behind me and spin around, just to come face to face with several surprised policemen. They react quickly, sounding cries of "he is back!" before simultaneously pulling out their handguns and aiming in my direction.

"Woah, what?" I ask, too surprised to be as scared as I probably should be.

"Put your hands up!" one of them yells at me, taking a cautious step forward and adjusting his aim, so the nasty end of the gun is pointing in my general chest area. 

What the hell? I didn't do anything, why are they pointing their guns at me? I'm the good guy, the superhero. It's not like I was the one who caused this terrible pile-up. They should be turning their attention to the idiot-driver or crazy supervillain instead. "I think," I stammer, quickly obeying and raising my hands above my head, "you have the wrong guy."

They don't respond to my call of innocence and I suddenly get the feeling that there is something deeper going on here, that these are not just a group of idiot policemen who think I'm some minor-grade supervillain who has turned up to steal things and/or laugh at suffering. I have been unfortunate to hit the news several times after all, I think someone would have to be living under a rock to not know that I am the good guy. Or, at least, a rock without television reception. Plus, these are normal, average - well I think they are - policemen, they wouldn't be pulling their guns on me unless they thought I did something seriously bad. So, according to them, I've done something bad. Maybe someone convinced them that this car pile-up was due to my actions? 

I'm brought back to reality by the same policeman as before, as he tells me "not to move, or they will fire".

As far as I can see, I've got two options. Option one, stay here and get arrested, or possibly shot. Yeah, not fun. That leaves - Option Two, which is to get the hell outta here, before anything else can happen. Thinking fast, I blast some electricity through my legs and into the ground, hopefully stunning them enough so I don't get shot in my next move, which is to quickly rocket off into the sky. 

Luckily, I make it, getting up and away without getting riddled with bullet holes. My mind spins, as I try and process what just happened. It's not every day that you get surrounded by armed policemen, expressly when you are meant to be the good guy. I wonder if Julia saw what just transpired. Looking down, I can see she is still preoccupied with the crash and will be for a while, so I head back home, not really seeing what else there is that I can do. 

I climb in my bedroom window and quickly pull my suit off and exchange it for the clothes I was wearing. I kick the dreaded red and orange spandex out of sight and collapse onto my bed, having had enough action for one day. 

The door to my room creaks as it swings open and I turn to see my mum, her phone in one hand as she closes the door behind her. 

"You're back," she observes. The tone of her voice is somewhere between annoyed and worried, I can tell from this that she hasn't got good news to share with me. 

"Yeah," I answer, just wanting her to get to the point. She nods and places her phone on the bed next to me, motioning for me to pick it up. 

I make sure to remove any charge from my hands before I do so, tenderly holding it in the tips of my fingers. Up on the screen is a loaded news article. I read the title and swear, earning a look of disapproval from my mother. I read it again, just in case I read it wrong the first time. Nope, still the same. I read it aloud, seeing if that can make any difference. 

"Hero no longer: Lightning Strike wreaks havoc all over the city." I quickly flick down the page, my eyes picking up keywords and phrases as the words flash past. "Destruction. Expressway. Cars. Bridge. Jaywalking. Public Property." Screw this. Not reading anymore, I've seen enough. I raise my hand and fling Mum's phone across the room. Just before it can smash into the wall and cause damage to either the phone or the house, Mum teleports and catches it. 

"Woah, Tim!"

"This is bullshit," I say, my voice raising into a near-yell. "I did not flip cars over on the expressway! Or smash that bridge, or any of the other things they claimed that I did!"

Keep it down, Mum thinks to me, I barely keep myself from glaring at her. Amy is in the room next to you.

"I don't care," I growl, even though I do, at least enough to bring the tone of my voice down a bit. Why, why and how would they think that I did that? According to the article that Mum pulled up on her phone for me, I not only flipped and threw around cars on the expressway, but I also smashed one of the Jason River train bridges and completely levelled the downtown cinema complex. They were also concerned about claims that I had been seen jaywalking, urinating on public property, and yelling out obscene and crude lines to passing girls on the street. Well, as frustrating as it is, it does explain why the policemen pulled their guns on me earlier. But no way would I be capable of thinking of committing any of that stuff, expressly the last bit. Horrible, crude pick-up lines aren't my sty-

"Oh, for the love of..." I whisper, coiling my fist in anger. "Josh. He is behind this, isn't he?"

"Josh?" Mum asks, now sounding confused. 

Horrible, cheesy and slightly perverted pick-up lines definitely was Josh's style. Jaywalking (not really that bad, but okay), peeing in public places, wouldn't put it past him. All that other stuff, well, he was 'evil', so it was possible. But how did he manage to make it out that I did those things? Mind Control? Did he dress up as me, or rather, 'Lightning Strike', before reigning chaos?

"Check out the pictures at the bottom," Mum commands, passing her phone back to me. "Just try and refrain throwing my phone this time." 

"Sorry." I slowly flick back down to the bottom, dreading seeing any pictures. I cringe at first sight, before zooming in and studying them closely. It's me, in all my 'evil glory', but it also isn't me. 'I've' gotten rid of all 'my' hair, 'my' now bald scalp is red, almost sunburnt-looking. Definitely Josh, dressed up as my superhero identity. 

But why? What did I deserve to get this treatment from him? I was his friend, I laughed at all his ridiculous jokes when no one else did. I played hundreds of hours of video games with him, I went out and bought his favourite comics for him, when he didn't want to himself in fear of looking like a 'geek'. If he has to be evil, he could at least make it up to me by not trying to ruin my life and trashing my identity. 

I pass Mum's phone back to her, having finished with it. That and the longer I hold onto it, the more likely I'll end up accidentally frying it. I brood on Josh and how absolutely screwed I am until Julia returns, a few minutes later. 

"What happened back there, with the police?" she asks, literally appearing out of thin air. 

"Guess."