Natalie Damschroder - Heavy Metal

“No. Older models mostly. You know, big-car-old-people-club kinds.”

Sam laughed, the sound vibrating deliciously. “What? Big car old people club?”

“Yeah, you know.” She sketched a wide space with her hands. “Big boats that only old people drive. It’s like they’re a club.”

He shook his head, still chuckling. “Okay. So, the ones that are made of steel instead of fiberglass.”

“Right.”

“Does it still pull you like that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know why.”

He sat up, his voice taking on the educational tone from the video. “Goddesses have no sense of their source or how their abilities will manifest until they turn twenty-one. It can come on suddenly or subtly, and it changes as you adjust and adapt. What else happened?”

“I bent my pen. One of those Cross ones, the refillables? While I was writing with it, it got all misshapen. Then in a staff meeting, my boss said something nasty to me, I don’t even remember what, except it embarrassed me and made me mad, and next thing I knew, his chair had dumped him on his ass.”

“And that’s when you knew you were making this stuff happen, that it wasn’t just happening around you.”

“Right.” Riley was surprised at how easy it was to talk to Sam. He acted as if this was all normal stuff that happened to normal people. But when she thought about all the things she’d done since that day, the idea of describing them wore her out.

He read her mind. “Let’s skip ahead. I bet you experimented and found that it was the metal itself that gave you power.”

Riley hated that word. Power . She’d read comic books, enjoyed superhero movies as much as the next person. She knew what “power” meant, but for lack of a better description, she nodded.

“That’s rare.” Sam stood and moved the dishes to the sink, then grabbed the coffee pot and refilled both their mugs, though Riley hadn’t drunk much of hers. “In the last three years, I’ve never seen or heard of anyone whose power source is metal. It’s from the earth, sure, but it’s processed. The only thing that comes close is a woman who uses oil and can get a little power from plastic. But we’re talking only enough to snap a flame onto her fingers, not blow people across a lot.”

She wondered if he judged her for that. The whole “power equals responsibility” thing. “I didn’t mean to push them so hard,” she said quietly. “It’s difficult to regulate. Small pieces of metal, like jewelry, don’t do much. I carry some metal nuts and washers and stuff in my pocket, just in case, but it takes something big like the pipe to be able to do anything significant. And when I’m scared or whatever, I guess I…” She trailed off, not sure how to describe it.

“You channel more energy than you mean to,” Sam offered.

A knot of tension unraveled in Riley’s gut. That made it sound at least understandable. Almost scientific. Maybe coming here had been the right thing after all.

“If you’ve had people after you, why don’t you carry more metal?” Sam asked.

Riley fingered her mother’s pendant and thought about the pipe on the deck outside. “I have some pieces in my car, but what am I supposed to do, drape myself in chains? Metal is heavy. And this is the first time they actually got that close. I’ve felt them watching, following, but there was no one to defend against until last night.”

“Okay.” Sam leaned forward, the front legs of his chair thumping to the floor. “Back to the Society. Was your grandmother a member?”

Riley snorted before she could stop herself. “My grandmother hated the Society.”

“Why?”

She opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I always thought I did. I mean, it was just the way things were. My mother and grandmother would go off on rants about how evil the Society was, how they ruined good people. I didn’t realize they never talked about specifics until this happened to me and I had no one to go to. I always thought they were scammed by someone claiming goddess abilities or something. But now that I know the power is actually real…I just don’t know. They’re not around to ask, and if they were still alive, they might not tell me, anyway.” That was something she tried hard not to think about. They were all dead, so she’d never know if they’d have set aside their feelings and supported her, or if they’d have shunned her because she’d become the enemy.

“I’m sure we can figure it out,” Sam said. “The Society records might shed some light. You really should have gone to them right away. They’d have helped you with all of this.”

“No.” That was the one thing she knew for certain. “I don’t know why they hated goddesses so much, but the Society did something to them. There was a reason my family felt so strongly. I can’t trust them. Or anyone, really.”

“You trusted me.”

She looked away. “I got desperate, and you seemed…nice. Plus, you’re not a goddess. Or a god. Gods don’t exist, right?” According to the Society website, any power gods originally had failed to be passed down, so Sam was an outsider. Maybe not exactly like her, but it made him more approachable than the Society itself.

“The people at the Society are nice, too. I promise. They can help you train, teach you about your origins and your abilities.” Sam checked his watch. “They can also protect you from these people who are after you. Do you have any idea who they are?”

“No, but it’s not just them, I don’t think. There have been others in the last few months,” she admitted. “For nearly a year now, I guess. I lost my job when someone told my boss I’d been doing drugs. I’d been acting strangely enough that he believed it. Then somehow these people tapped into my life. Phone messages disappeared, my mail was searched and some stuff stolen from the mailbox. Then I couldn’t get another job. The electricity was shut off, so I assume they intercepted my payments. I handed my rent check directly to my landlord, but he claimed it bounced and evicted me.” Laying it all out like that overwhelmed her again, bringing back the choking anxiety. She sat up straighter, trying to breathe against the constriction around her lungs.

Sam reached over and laid his hand on her arm, seeming not even to notice he was doing it. The touch was enough to slow her racing heart.

“But no one approached you while that was all going on?”

Riley slid her free hand under her thigh and curved her fingers around the sharp edge of the chair. “Not directly, but they kept getting closer. I closed all my bank accounts and used only cash, living in motels for a while. They kept finding me. I went to the police but everything was so vague, they blew me off. So I ran.” She hated the admission and firmed her voice. She didn’t want him to think she was weak, even if her actions made her seem that way. “I’ve been moving around for about six months, getting short-term jobs and trying to keep my head down, but they’re tracking me somehow. I got desperate enough to look into the Society…because if my family was wrong about abilities being real, they could have been wrong about the other stuff too. Everything I read sounded like propaganda. Except for you. You were…different.”

Sam blew out a breath. “Jesus, Riley. You should have come to us sooner.”

Riley’s feet thudded to the floor, and she flattened her hands on her thighs. “Aren’t you listening? I came to you because you’re not an ‘us.’” That didn’t make grammatical sense, but she knew he’d get her point.

Sam tossed up his hands. “What did you think you’d get from me? You need a protector. You need people who can teach you how to use your abilities properly. I can’t do either.”