“I need you to trace a cell phone.”  Izzy stood in the door the LC’s tech lab.  

“Fill out a form,” Garrett, the lab tech said, pointing at a counter with trays of request forms without looking up from his computer.

“Yeah, this one’s off the books.”  Izzy strode across the room, reaching in front of the computer wiz and shutting off his monitor.  “Now I could find some clever way to distract you and do it myself, but I’m in a hurry, and if you just go ahead and do it for me, I’ll bring you the appropriate bribe I should have had with me today later.”

“Still no, Barrage.”

“I will go to fucking Minnesota and get you a Mrs. Saunders Blueberry Pie.  The real deal.”

“I’ll know if try to pass off a store bought one,” Garrett said, finally taking his eyes of the computer.

“I am well aware.”

“Make it two.”

“I’m already going to Minnesota, I’ll buy you a hundred if you want, just track the damn phone.”  Izzy tossed a crumpled up post it note with Anna’s number on it on Garrett’s keyboard.

“Thank you,” he said, gingerly picking up and unfolding the number.  

Izzy stepped back, leaning against the doorframe, tipping his hat low over his eyes while the tech got to work.

“The phone is off,” Garrett said flatly.

“Yeah, I know that.  That’s why I want you to track it.”  He felt his own phone vibrate in his pocket.  He didn’t recognize the number.  “Hold on a second,” he said, stepping out of the room.

“Who is this?” he answered.

“Is this Izzy, er, Barrage?” a vaguely familiar female voice answered on the other end.

“I’m going to ask you one more time who is this?” he asked, his voice low.

“Sorry, this is Macy Williams, I’m Anna, er, Siren’s adoptive sister.  We met a few times.”

“I remember you Macy.  How the hell did you get this number?”

There was an uncomfortable pause on the line.  Finally, “I may have stolen your number from Anna’s phone…  But I only did it in case of an emergency, and, I think this might be one.”

“The woman she thinks is Liv Hoonan isn’t Liv Hoonan,” Izzy said.

“Oh, you already know…”

“Yeah, I’m trying to track her phone now.”

“I actually might have something better.”



Anna paced her new prison, measuring the length of the glass cage she’d woken up in.  After being abducted from the “Whips and Flails and Cat o’Nine Tails,” she’d been administered a sedative, and when she came to, she found herself lying across a velvet chaise, her naked body covered only by a silk sheet.  The sheet had quickly been repurposed into a makeshift stola, as she explored her new surroundings.  

The box itself was about fifteen feet long by eight feet wide, and the thick glass panels went all the way from the floor to the ceiling.  Other than the chaise, the only other thing in the small box was a toilet and pedestal sink in the corner.  She could find no evidence of a door in the glass walls, nor the marble floor or ceiling.

It hadn’t taken her long after exploring the tiny room that it wasn’t a room, but a case.  A trophy case.  As she looked out through the glass, she saw a myriad of other items and relics, similarly displayed behind glass.  Weapons, armor, books and tomes.  And there, directly in front of her, in its own glass display case, was her costume.  A placard in front of it displayed her super heroine name.

She slammed the heel of her hand against the glass, a frustrated scream tearing from her throat.



“I really wish you’d tell me what’s going on,” Ellen said as Macy glanced out the window again.

“It’s a work thing,” Macy lied, double-checking her phone.  Izzy had said he’d come pick her up around 12:30.  It was 12:33, and every minute her agitation grew.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, just don’t lie to me.  I know they don’t need you down at the station for hair and makeup at 12:30 in the morning.”

Macy turned to her girlfriend.  She hated lying to her, but right now, Anna’s safety was more important.  “Fine, I don’t want to tell you.  No, it’s not even that.  I do want to tell you, but I can’t.”

“Macy, what is going on?”

Headlights caught her attention, and she looked back out the window to see a truck barreling down the street.  “My ride’s here.  We’ll talk about this later.  I’ll be fine, I promise.”

Ellen let Macy kiss her before she ran out the door, but she didn’t return it, watching forlornly as Macy bolted out the door.

“Get in,” Izzy said, throwing open the passenger door as his truck screeched to a halt.  He was already hitting the gas before Macy even had a chance to shut the door behind her.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Get on the highway and head north,” she said, buckling herself in as Izzy ran through a stop sign.

“So.  You lo-jacked your own sister,” he said as he got on the exit for the highway.

Macy blushed, looking down at her phone, displaying a beeping signal of Anna’s location.  Or more accurately, her mask’s location.  “It came in handy, didn’t it?” she said defensively.

“Oh, I wasn’t going to give you shit for that.  It was smart.”

“Oh,” she said.  “I’m sorry I didn’t just give you the location.  It would have been faster.”  She’d held Anna’s location hostage, insisting Izzy come get her and bring her along.  

“It’s fine.  She still hasn’t moved?”

“No,” she said, still not divulging the location.  A small part of her worried that once he knew he’d shove her out of the moving truck and keep going on, even though she knew it was ridiculous.  “Do you think it’s Ursula?”

Izzy’s knuckles tightened around the steering wheel.  “I don’t know.”



Anna paused in her latest escape attempt, the chaise currently propped against the glass wall, as she saw a man walking towards her.

“Hey!” she screamed, banging on the glass.  “Let me out of here!”

The man, in his mid fifties and wearing an expensive looking tailored suit, his graying hair combed back, approached her.  His blue eyes looked her over, dressed in the violet sheet, and the chaise tipped up and braced against the side of the glass prison.  

He reached into his pocket and brought out a small black device.  He pressed a button, lighting up a small red light on the device, and Anna heard the faint crackle of static.  She glanced around, looking up as his voice projected through the cleverly concealed speakers in the ceiling.

“Ah, my beautiful Siren.  I didn’t give you such luxuries so you could make a mess and try to cover yourself.”

“Listen here you son of a bitch!” she said, stepping up to the glass so her nose was practically touching it.  “You are going to let me out of here right now.”

He watched, an amused smile on his face as his newest trophy ranted at the glass, her lips moving soundlessly, her pose and stance aggressively assertive despite being locked in a cage.

“You’re wasting your breath,” he said, his voice raining down over her from the speakers.  “Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Jacob Calloway.  I am your new owner.”

“New owner my ass!” she spit, banging on the glass.

“You aren’t the first Super Heroine I’ve added to my collection, but you are the most powerful,” he went on.  “Former LC, and that voice is quite impressive.  I’ve pulled out all the stops for your accommodations.”

It was quickly dawning on her that he couldn’t hear a word she was saying, but she kept on, shouting at him through the glass, hoping if she was loud enough, he might hear her.

“It seems you may need a demonstration.”  He walked over to a case, opening it, pulling out a polished revolver.  Anna watched curiously, as he took it out, cradling it in his hands.

“This belonged to Henry Newton Brown.  He rode with Billy the Kid, and was rumored to have superhuman speed that made him such a quick shot.”  He pulled an accompanying holster out of the case, and took off his jacket before strapping the belt on and holstering the gun.  “What I wouldn’t give…” he said, and then his hand snapped down to his waist, drawing.

Anna reflexively dove for the ground, covering her head.  She heard the rattle of six rapid shots over the speaker, but no sound of impact or shattering glass.  She peeked up, seeing six smudges on the glass in front of her.  The flattened bullets lay on the floor below.

“Completely soundproof and bulletproof,” Jacob said, reloading the gun.  “You’re not going anywhere, and your voice won’t do you any good.”  He walked up to the glass case, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping off the smudges on the glass.  “Now, I gave you the sheet for comfort.  If I’d wanted my new trophy clothed, I would have given you clothes.”

Anna stood back up.  Glaring at him, she slowly raised both of her hands, uncurling both of her middle fingers.

“Have it your way.”  He pressed another button on the black device, and small vents opened in the ceiling.  

Anna watched as a thick white gas poured from the vents.  She pulled the sheet up over her face, but the gas quickly filled the small room.  Anna felt dizzy, and she slumped against the glass, sliding to the floor.  She looked up, the last the thing she saw before she passed out was her self-professed owner staring down at her.

“I’m going to enjoy breaking you,” he said.



Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” finally came to an end, the battered old cassette tape popping out of the dash as it finished.

“So,” Macy said, trying to fill the awkward silence.  “How’d you figure out Anna wasn’t working with the real Hoonan?”

“‘Cause I talked to the real one.  You?”

“I looked her up after meeting her.  She looks almost exactly like her.  And I don’t get it.  Do you think she’s a shapeshifter?  I mean, Anna said she interrogated her.”

“And that’s the problem.  I doubt it’s a shapeshifter.  But if you’re going to go through the trouble to look like someone, it’s not that hard to change your name so when Anna asks you, you can truthfully tell her.”

“But she said she worked for the LC.”

Izzy gave her a look.

“Oh right, acronym that could literally mean anything.  Damn.”

“Yup.”

They drove in silence again.

Macy finally let out a long sigh.  “I want her to do this.  I do, more than anything.  But I’m so worried about her.”

“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Izzy said.  “She’s going to try to be a hero no matter what.  All you can do is keep her from doing it on her own.  Even if that means tracking her and stealing numbers from her phone.”  He gave her a wry smile.

“Thanks,” she said, looking down at the blinking dot on her phone.



Anna awoke to find herself lying on the floor.  She was still in the glass case, but the chaise and sheet were gone, leaving her naked and exposed on the cold marble floor.  She sat up, using the glass wall to climb back to her feet.  She made no effort to cover herself.  There was no point; she was meant to be on display.

Jacob watched her.  He’d moved a heavy leather arm chair in front of his newest trophy case, where he sat, sipping cognac.  He smiled as she walked up the edge of her prison, glaring at him through the glass.  

“Once you learn to behave, you can earn some of your creature comforts back,” he said, his voice blaring down on her.  

She made no move, locking gaze with him, staring him down.

He snapped his fingers.  “You will break, it’s just a matter of time.”  A naked woman walked over to him.  Anna watched her out of her peripheral vision, never taking her eyes off of her captor.  “This is Cassiopeia,” he said as the gorgeous blonde woman sat on his lap.  “She was a super heroine not unlike yourself three years ago.  Enhanced strength, some regenerative capabilities.  But now, she is mine.”

Anna watched as the man slipped his hands between the woman’s legs, and she tilted her head back in pleasure.

“She’s learned her place, just as you will.”

Anna brought her fist into the glass as hard as she could.

“Really?  I thought you’d know better than that by now.”

She brought her fist back and slammed it into the glass again, and again.  

He grabbed the remote device out of his pocket, his thumb over the gas button.  “If you won’t stop, you’ll wake up restrained, until you learn not to hurt yourself.  You are to remain in pristine condition.”

She stopped.  Not because of his threat, but she’d accomplished what she needed to.  She traced her finger through the blood oozing from her knuckles.  She ran a streak vertically down the front of the glass, using her blood to draw on the surface.

Jacob watched as she slowly, deliberately spelled out her message.

“I will kill you.”

Jacob stirred uncomfortably.  He shooed the broken former heroine off his lap, standing up and walking towards the glass.

“I will break you,” he repeated.

Anna only stared back.



The dusty old pick up pulled up to the wrought iron gate guarding a long driveway.  Up the hill in the distance, the faint lights coming from a large mansion could be seen.

“All right, this is as far as you go,” Izzy said, pulling the truck off the road and turning off the engine.

“You’re going alone?” Macy asked.

“Yeah, you’ve done great, but this next part is usually violent.”

“What if something happens to you?”

Izzy snorted.  “Tell you what.  If I’m not back in an hour, call this number.”  He texted her a phone number.

“Who’s is it?”

“Lady Sapphire.  I don’t think I have to tell you to delete that number after tonight, and only call it if it’s a real emergency.”

“Holy shit, I have Lady Sapphire’s phone number.”

“Yeah, and you’ve already stolen mine.  Don’t make it a habit.”  Izzy opened the door and got out.  He leaned back in the window, dangling the keys.  “If someone comes, get out of here.”

Macy took the keys, nodding.  “Be careful.”

“Thanks.”  Izzy turned, breaking into a jog as he casually ran over to the gate, vaulting over it with ease.



Anna held her pose even as her feet and legs screamed at her, and her back ached uncomfortably, but she would not sit down.  

Jacob had returned to his chair, where he watched her stoic defiance.  He tried to maintain his air of confidence and control, but Siren had unnerved him.  More drastic measures would likely be needed to tame her.

Anna watched him shift, his body language betraying him.  He wanted a broken heroine, she’d give him one, but she didn’t have years to wait; she’d have to speed up the timeline, and make him try to break her faster.  And just when he thought he had succeeded, she’d strike.