'Your dad committed suicide?!' Owen asked him, his mouth wide open, a spoon loaded with cereal waiting halfway from his mouth.
'It's a long story,' Brendan replied. He did not want to re-think the whole scene, coming home to find Howard on the floor with medicine bottles lying next to him.
'You have cars too?' Simon asked.
'Yes…two luxury cars and two sports cars.'
'Where are they?' Simon asked again, this time with zest in his voice.
'Didn't you see them? They're at your house.'
'Really?! I must have missed them; I must go see them.' He stood up and so did Owen. They had all finished breakfast.
'By the way, Brendan, school opens tomorrow,' Owen informed him.
'You did just mention the Dance a few seconds ago,' he said in an all-knowing manner. 'The only thing I want to know is how they managed to repair the damage that quick?'
'The only damage was the wall, sinks in the boys' toilets and two or three lockers,' Owen reminded him.
'And lucky for you, they're probably going to fix yours too,' Simon said.
Brendan walked them to the door and waved them goodbye as they left.
As soon as they had gone, he went into the living room, fell onto the couch, switched on his new flat screen TV set and began flipping through the channels. He was happy. He now had everything he wanted and needed. He did not owe the Finch any longer and he had forgiven Samantha and the two had become friends.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. It was a very expensive one. He sighed, sat back and relaxed. Vanquishing all negative thoughts from his head, he started watching TV. He was also waiting for the people who were interested in the advertisement he had placed in the newspaper; the one about him searching for a maid and a chauffeur.
Just then, he stood up. He had remembered what the Finch had told him. That he was vulnerable to bullets and all other mortal weapons.
He headed upstairs and pulled out all leather materials from his wardrobe; anything from jackets to shoes and even Howard's leather gloves. He went back downstairs and grabbed sewing needle, superglue, a dish of water, white, black and blue paint tins and the sharpest kitchen knife then he returned to his room and sat on his bed with all the leather material spread around him. Cutting, sewing, gluing and putting together the leather, he made a mask for himself. The mask had a wide opening for the eyes but it covered everywhere else from the bridge of the nose down to the chin. The top of the mask was arch-shaped but the bottom was trimmed to fit the shape of his jaw and the opening for the eyes was the shape of two curved rectangles. He took a pair of leather boots and began modifying them, adding to them an extra layer of leather from another pair and he carved them slightly to fit his feet perfectly. He brushed the boots with a long white line from the top to the bottom. He took Howard's leather gloves and cut their fingers; he was doing this because he had always thought this to be stylish, and besides that, he would be careful not to leave any fingerprints for the police to find.
He put on the leather jacket, a pair of black skinny jeans, the leather gloves and the two layered leather jacket then he glued his balaclava into the inside of the mask . The opening for the eyes of the balaclava was the shape of the top of the hearts used in playing cards and this shape he saw as he admired himself through the mirror on his wardrobe.
There was not a single piece of material that had not been put in use and the leather had not been hard to cut because of his newfound strength. As he admired his work, he suddenly heard a scream from outside. Without taking off the costume he had created for himself, he used his heightened speed to get to the source of the scream.
The scream had come from one of the local shops. Brendan stopped by an alley then moved further and further into its thick darkness to see what was inside. He was convinced this was where the scream had come from.
At the very end of the alley there was what appeared to be a foggy mist, thick and oddly mobile, like one's breath on a cold day.
But then the mist began to slowly clear away and Brendan now saw Thomas Bradley and he was holding Miss Putin by the throat, pinning her against the wall. Brendan wondered why he had heard her scream but everyone else in the area had not. And from so far a distance? But he decided this was not the kind of thought to trouble himself with in a situation like this.
Thomas looked completely strange…totally different; if different was the right word for a teenager whose pupils were red and frost was emanating from his body.
Miss Putin's throat was freezing because of Thomas' hand squeezing tight on it. She was clearly finding it difficult to breathe.
'Hey, kid!' Brendan shouted, pretending not to know him. Thomas turned his gaze towards him and then made an irritated sigh, breathing out icy fog at the same time. He looked back at Miss Putin's throat, his hand still holding firmly on it. Ice began to form on it until it completely covered her throat, trapping her. He released his hold on the block of ice and he started for Brendan.
Brendan wanted to use his super speed to free her but he was afraid that things would not turn out as expected just like in his fight with the Flicker.
Besides the red pupils, everything about Thomas was the same; his smirk and his scruffy dressing, and all the pomposity that reminded Brendan of what a horrible and most unpleasant human being…now creature of some sort, he was.
'You must be Anonymous; the boy of legend,' said Thomas.
'Maybe…What's it to you?'
'I'm not going to waste my time fighting a superior race so I'll keep this short. I'm not scared of you but I also can't beat you. I just want you to give me a chance to enact vengeance upon the woman who broke my heart.'
Miss Putin flinched when she heard this and tried all the more to break free from the ice on her throat but the ice was just too thick and stubborn.
'You think I'm just going to stand by and watch you hurt her?'
'Call it a favor to Black Ice…dat's my name now. Thomas Bradley is just a memory.'
'First of all, kid; we're not friends so I'm not about to grant you any favors. Second; I'm not about to stand by and with my arms folded and watch you murder an innocent woman.'
Black Ice shook his head. 'You possess power beyond anyone's imagination but you want to waste it on serving these pathetic weaklings?' he nodded over his shoulder at Miss Putin. 'You want to be a protector of them?' He gave a hoarse laugh, 'I've heard better jokes at a funeral!'
'I'm no protector. Me choosing to help that woman doesn't make me some hero. It only makes me human.'
'And are you..?' he licked his upper lip greedily.
'Am I what..?'
'I think it's obvious to both of us dat you're not human. But judging from that corny statement you just made, I see dat convincing you would be just too annoying, so I just want you to go think about this: These people do not deserve you. You saved them from a Destroyer but they still call you a freak, a lawbreaker. But remember this; greater evil will come and then what?'
'Then I'll do to that evil the same thing I did to the last,' Brendan answered boldly also taking one step closer.
'And that Troll happened to be a student at Bradwield High. You see? They will always try to find wrong in what you do.'
Brendan remained quiet, realizing that there was some truth in Thomas' words.
'Think about it, Anonymous…' he slowly walked backwards until he was engulfed by the darkness of the alley, leaving Brendan with Miss Putin.