⏳ 

 It had taken a few moments to explain, but it seemed that the two understood. Boss had taken a seat, but he looked more excited than before. “That’s incredible! Even better than what we originally thought, right, AK?” AK nodded his approval. “Let me just run it by you one more time.” I nodded, but I felt embarrassed. I wasn’t used to being praised because of my gift. Most people reacted like the men from the other night or figured it was too complicated and the stipulations deemed it worthless. “So you can freeze any object or person in time as long as there is no device for telling time on the said object of person.”

  “Yeah,” I intervened, “but that’s quite a problem when you consider that cell phones tell time, people wear watches, and clocks make great projectiles. If the weapon even has a sundial on it, I’m screwed.”

  “Don’t worry about that. So, as I was saying, you can then interact with the time-frozen individual or object, but no one else can.”

  “It’s like they teleport away since it is no longer in the present time everyone else is in. So it just disappears to everyone but me.”

  “Yes, yes. And you can freeze yourself.”

  “Yes, but I don’t like to… If I cast my gift without a time-telling device, I automatically freeze myself. Not that it matters, I’m completely alone. No one can touch me or see me, nonetheless, hear me. I do see time pass around me as it would normally though. Again, not to much avail. I can’t do anything when I’m like that. I can’t move or even breathe. The only thing I can do is release my gift. It’s why I always wear this.” I lifted a necklace with a small, spinning hourglass on it. “This way I don’t freeze myself on accident.”

  Boss leaped off of his stool and pumped his fist in exciting victory. “Oh, AK, she’s perfect! Just perfect!”

  Andre smiled but waved his hands to motion boss to take a seat again. “Yes, Boss, but you still have some explaining to do. Besides, there’s that other manner to discuss.”

  Boss seemed to jar up the excitement immediately. I couldn’t help myself from wondering (not for the first time) if he had some kind of ADD. “Yes, yes. Right.” He sat down and turned back to me. “Arabelle, do you know what Astral Projection is?”

  I thought for a moment. “Isn’t that when your spirit leaves your body when you’re asleep?”

  “In layman’s terms, yes. My gift is kind of like that. I can leave my body and interact with items on the Astral Plane.”

  “What’s the Astral Plane?”

  “Well…” Boss thought about it for a moment. “It’s like everything and everyone Astral Projecting at the same time, all the time. Like this bar, for example. It has its own spirit on the Astral Plane, and I can even play with and manipulate its spirit. When your spirit is played with, your body naturally follows suit. However, nothing happens until I leave the Astral Plane. It’s sort of like when you’re frozen in time. You can’t do anything and the world continues on around you. With that being said, some things I can play with and put back and nothing happens. But if I play with something- Know what? I’ll just show you.” At that moment, Boss’s body went completely limp. AK caught him before he could hit the ground. Boss’s eyes had rolled into the back of his head and even his jaw went slack. The gentle heave of his chest was the only sign of life. Suddenly, he sat back up as if startled awake from a horrendous nightmare. In the same moment, I screamed as a dark red, lacey loop of fabric appeared at my feet. My bra had been removed and instantaneously materialized on the floor. I hugged my chest and kicked Boss in the shin as hard as I could.

  “You- You RAT!” I screamed. Boss merely winked at me as he rubbed his leg. “You womanizing-” I looked up to see that AK was also scowling at him with his arms crossed over his bare chest.

  “Boss, we’ve discussed the whole clothes thing,” AK said as he picked his shirt up off of the bar.

  “Oh, lighten up, AK. It was only a joke.”

  I hugged my chest tighter and picked up my bra with my foot. “An invasive, rude, and some would even say suable one. I should tear your peeping Tom eyes out of your head.”

  Boss frowned a bit. “That’s just the issue though. In that plane, I can’t interact with the living spirits. I can’t even get a good look at them. It’s just a conglomeration of colors that barely even take on the physical shape of its owner. So I wouldn’t say a peeping Tom, per se. I wouldn’t even call it all that invasive. I can’t touch you or even see what’s under there. Not that I’d want to see a bratty kid like you naked anyway.”

  “A bratty ki- Excuse me?!”

  Boss smirked at me and scoffed. “Just proving my point, Dear.”

  AK grabbed me before I could swing at him. “What he’s trying to say,” AK calmly whispered, “is that you complete what he can’t do.”

  I looked up into AK’s soft face. “What do you mean?”

  Boss looked away as his pride was pulled from him. “Well,” AK continued, “did you notice how these things didn’t move until after he came back?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Boss normally has to do one of two things with his gift. Either he has to exit and enter his body rapidly-”

  “Which hurts like hell, by the way,” Boss chimed in.

  “Or he has to set up elaborate, perfectly timed traps.”

  “But with you!” Boss spun out of his shame quickly, much like most of his fleeting emotions. He grabbed me by the shoulder with his eyes wide and gleaming. The gray color was almost a blinding blue. His happiness was infectious, and I felt the corners of my mouth turn up almost immediately. “You can freeze them in place, and it won’t be so damn exhausting! I could easily get rid of phones or watches or whatever and you can keep them in place for my traps! Don’t you see? We’re the perfect pair, Arabelle!”

  “Except.” AK prompted Boss to continue.

  “Except…” The bright, clear blue darkened like storm clouds on a summer day. A strange mixture of anger and sadness seemed to wash over him for a split second as if a painful memory had surfaced. Just as quickly, his eyes lightened to his normal gray as he put on a rather neutral expression. “You put down that you are attending the Hero Academy in your application. Is that true?”

  Looking at Andre and judging by Boss’s initial reaction, it was clear that the Hero Academy was a sore subject. I didn’t quite understand why either. These were two men who fought for justice. Why would they hate a place that created heroes? “What’s so wrong with the Hero Academy?”

  Boss gave a heavy sigh. “Several things, but I’ll run you through the major points. When you become a hero through the system, you are heavily restricted. You can’t use your gift to its full extent. If you aren’t a hero, you can’t use your gift at all. It seems wrong to inhibit something natural just because one person may mess it all up. People like AK here would never be allowed to use their gift because they can’t be fully-fledged heroes on their own.”

  For once, AK’s voice was dripping with sarcasm and disgust. “My gift is the only way to hear at all. It’s ridiculous.”

  “That’s not even the major point.” Boss turned away, staring off in the distance. He seemed distracted and his voice almost turned down into a mumble. “A villain is a villain, right? Wrong. The system merely forgets that villains are just broken people at their wit’s end. Most of them have nothing left to lose. ‘Such an easy mistake, right? Sorry. We simply forgot that you’re people.’ It’s disgusting. Instead, they treat them all like crazy murderers stalking the ‘innocents’. They are all given equal punishment instead of giving them what they truly need. No, the system is too busy focused on what they truly deserve. A hero works more personally with a villain. They should be allowed to decide jurisdiction. Heroes are the ones witnessing these ‘villains’ struggling through bad decisions. Not all of them deserve to be punished.”

  “Not to mention how many heroes work for fortune and fame instead of a righteous sense of justice,” AK tagged in.

  “So,” Boss looked dead into my face, “I ask you to go through the Academy, learn the skills, but I ask you to do one thing. Don’t become a hero.”

  I was appalled. It had been my lifelong dream. It had been my main motivation. Becoming a hero had been my only reason for living. “No. I… I want to save people. I want to help. Hero work is my life.”

  Boss smiled softly. “No. I don’t want you to give up hero work. I want you to become a vigilante. Like us.” Vigilante. I never even considered the thought. It had a strange, forbidden charm to it. However, my work would then be illegal. Wouldn’t I also be a villain in that regard? As if to save me from my own thoughts, Boss pitched in, “It’s a lot to take in, I know. We don’t expect an answer now. Just think about it.” I nodded, still lost in all the chaotic thought process. “There is still one more question we need an answer to.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I can’t very well call you Arabelle on a mission, now can I?” Boss leaned forward with a glint of curiosity in his eyes. “You know what to call me. What should I call you?”

  My hero name. I had it planned since I was fourteen. “Well, you said it last night, Boss. I’m an Hourglass.”