Shaken by an unexpected superpower reveal and a gut-wrenching murder, Caleb Grant dropped the thick, loosely bound manuscript from his hands to his lap. He took a deep breath to recover from the harrowing scene written in such a poignant way, he doubted he could ever shake it from his soul. Despite the hankering to find out what’s next, Caleb’s gut was still roiling from the betrayal a fictional character in the book had suffered. So, Caleb took pause, shifted on the dark-wood-and-black-metal bench, and re-calibrated his senses to focus on the park pulsing with life around him.
Suddenly, as if he had stepped out of another realm back to reality, his awareness of his earthly surroundings increased. The leaves of an evergreen tree rustled above him. A pop song played from a stereo nearby. Dog-walkers, cyclists, and random strangers went about their early morning routines, whizzing past the round water fountain facing Caleb. Hotdogs grilling nearby teased his nostrils. His stomach grumbled. A reminder of the breakfast he hadn’t yet eaten. Caleb sighed. It could wait. To him, finishing this novel ranked much higher in his hierarchy of priorities.
Caleb took a few more seconds to absorb energy from all the activity going on around him. He needed to replenish his soul’s strength if he was to finish this manuscript before he would need to rush off to work. He checked his watch. Eight o’clock. He still had an hour left. Eager to return to the gripping story that had somehow appeared out of thin air and fallen into his hands, Caleb was about to pick up the manuscript and delve back into the fictional world this mysterious author had created. However, a glimpse of something strange and curious jolted Caleb’s attention away from one of the most riveting reads he had encountered in a long while.
Amid the hustle and bustle of strangers minding their own lives, a bunch of colorful helium balloons flailed in the air as whoever was carrying it zoomed forward with lightning speed.
Caleb dropped the manuscript to his side on the park bench — his favorite reading retreat whenever he wanted to get away from the stuffy office atmosphere. He angled his head forward, facing slightly to the right, and blinked his eyes to make sure he wasn’t just seeing things.
No, definitely not a figment of his active imagination. There it was, a scene out of the ordinary unfolding before him.
On the path circling the water fountain, a little boy was running at a speed unnatural for a kid his size. The balloons were trying to keep up with him as they hung on strings clutched by his small hand. Quite a distance behind him was a masked woman with long, dark curls. Her pure white catsuit, silver utility belt, and blue knee-high leather boots made it seem like she had somehow escaped a graphic novel.
The boy was fast approaching Caleb when the woman — closing in on the kid — leaped over a running dog to the edge of the water fountain. She ran several steps at an almost 45-degree angle on the edge of the fountain and propelled herself forward by jumping from the fountain edge to the ground, then leaping up to step on the arm of the park bench Caleb was sitting on. Astounded, Caleb leaned back to avoid being swiped by her boot as she flew from one arm of the bench to the other and landed on the solid pavement, blocking the path of the balloon-carrying boy still running full-speed ahead.
Caleb’s jaw dropped as he perused the stunning figure before him. Until that moment, Caleb had never understood all the Bible verses referring to beautiful women being like gazelles. Now it all made sense to him. Heavenly Father above, she’s magnificent. He narrowed his eyes when he noticed the royal blue cape draped behind her back. She was like a character right out of the comic books he used to devour as a teenager.
With one hand planted on her waist and the other stretched in front of her in a gesture for the runaway kid to stop in his tracks, Caleb expected the boy to slow down to a full halt. But no. This kid would stop at nothing, and it seemed like the small unstoppable force was about to crash into this life-sized immovable superwoman. And Caleb was sitting there, holding his breath, privileged to witness every moment of this glorious scenario.
Sweet and spicy parkour. I must have done something right this morning if God is blessing me with a vision like this.
The boy rushed to ram his head into the woman’s stomach as he yelled, “It’s my birthday! These are mine!” Before his head could punch her in the gut, however, she gripped his shoulders and held him back.
“Kid, I bought these balloons. If you wanted them, you should have asked me for them. You shouldn’t have stolen them and ran away.”
“I didn’t steal them! It’s my birthday! The balloons belong to me!”
Both of them panting, the kid slumped himself on the ground, exhausted. Along with the sudden motion, he seemed to have forgotten about the balloons he was fighting for when he let go of the strings keeping them within his reach. The super woman gasped. Acting on reflex, Caleb grabbed as many of the strings as he could. Some of the balloons got away, although most stayed intact, clumped and tangled in his grip.
That’s when the woman noticed him. Behind the plastic white mask covering the upper half of her face, her brown eyes flickered and widened at the sight of him. “You!” she exclaimed.
“Me?” Caleb asked. Did this stunning stranger know him?
Her mouth parted to say something, but the boy suddenly started wailing. “Those are mine!”
The woman’s attention shifted back to the little thief. Her shoulders slumped. “Come on, kid. Where are your parents, anyway? Why are you in a park all alone?”
Caleb cleared his throat and pointed to an exhausted-looking couple jogging toward them. Both were panting for breath as they approached.
“We’re so sorry,” the man managed to say in between gasps for air. “We tried to stop him. He’s too fast.”
At this point, the kid was already having a meltdown on the ground, yelling, kicking, and crying to get his balloons back. Meanwhile, Caleb sat on the edge of his seat, clutching a bunch of balloons, wondering who this woman was and what she needed all these balloons for. Also, why did she yell “you!” upon seeing him? He still couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening, but one thing Caleb Grant knew for sure was this: that day couldn’t end without him finding out the name of this beautiful strangeness God had somehow saved for him to meet that day.
Just like that, Nova Stone watched a decade of deliberate and strategic avoidance circle down the proverbial drain. Caleb Grant was looking — no, staring — at her like she was a shocking mutation produced out of a lab experiment.
This wasn’t how she had imagined their first meeting would be; then again, she hadn’t quite predicted them ever meeting — not when she had been dead set on making sure that would never happen.
Yet, here she was, in full costume, standing in front of her childhood crush. All because of that stupid bet! She should have listened to her mother who, since they were young, had cautioned her and her brothers never to gamble. “Gambling ruins families,” Clara Stone had always said before explaining how their grandfather had lost their family fortune to casinos.
The bet Nova had gotten herself into was now rewarding her — as well as this kid’s family — a disastrous morning. She assumed the couple catching their breaths were the parents of the boy who had stolen her balloons — the boy who was now rolling on the ground, yelling for justice, because she had bought the balloons a few minutes before they could.
With her ultimate crush holding the balloons and the strangers trying to console their child, nonplussed, Nova made a mental note to kill Vienna and Miles later. If only this skintight costume came with actual superpowers!
Caleb cleared his throat. “Hi. Hey. So—” he extended his arm forward to bring the balloons closer to her “—these are yours?”
Nova bit her lip and nodded.
“No!” the boy objected. “They’re mine! Those are mine!”
The mother cast an apologetic glance at her.
Nova gulped. “Your kid sure can run,” she mumbled.
“He can.” The mother sighed. “He’s part of his school’s track team. His therapist advised that he join because he’s so hyperactive. It’s a means to release all that energy.”
“Mom, I want the balloons!”
Nova had never seen a kid cry, kick, scream, and make this much of a ruckus before. As a kid, her younger brother, Nolan, had mostly been precocious and well-behaved. Nova tilted her head to the side. She made another mental note to send him a text message to ask how his college applications were going. Her heart sank upon recalling that Nolan would leave home soon.
“Hey, kid.” Caleb’s voice yanked thoughts of her brother’s impending departure away from Nova. He handed her the balloons and crouched on the ground to talk to the child. “It’s your birthday, huh? Happy birthday!” He patted the boy on the head. “How old are you?”
“Seven.” The child whimpered.
“That’s awesome! It’s amazing how fast you run at that age! Super woman here was barely able to catch you. I’m so much older than you are, but I probably can’t run as fast as you can.”
A flicker of wonder in a morning that was turning out to be one of Nova’s strangest, the boy blinked his eyes, looked at Caleb, and sat up. He nodded slowly. “I’m the fastest one in my whooooole—” he made a big circle with his arms “—world.”
Caleb chuckled. “Your whole world, huh?”
The huge beam that formed on the kid’s face showed two missing teeth. “I get in trouble because of it a lot of times, but sometimes, if I run really really fast, the trouble doesn’t catch up with me.” He squinted his eyes and sent Nova a death glare. “She did, though.”
Nova debated within whether to be offended or amused. Did this child just refer to her as trouble? After he made her chase him all over the park on a day when she needed to be early for work? Nova facepalmed. Work! She wouldn’t be able to show her face in that office again if she walked in late for work dressed the way she was.
“I have to go,” she said. “Are we okay here?”
The parents nodded, but Caleb didn’t even bother to acknowledge her, his focus fully on the boy.
“Do you want all the balloons?” he asked.
The boy nodded.
“Well, Miss Trouble here seems to have already paid for these. We’re not sure what she needs them for, but can she give you one balloon instead of all to wish you happy birthday?”
The kid scrunched his nose. “I can’t fly with only one balloon.”
Caleb shrugged. “You can’t fly with all of them either, but what does that matter? When you run, it’s almost like you’re flying already.”
That statement animated the boy’s face. “You think so?”
“Sure. It’s rather impressive.” Caleb turned to her. “Hi again. Do you mind giving him one balloon?”
Nova shrugged. “Sure.” She pulled out a balloon and handed it over to Caleb.
The moment Caleb took it and turned his back to her, Nova waved goodbye to the parents, whose quizzical glances at her were starting to make her antsy. Of course, she couldn’t quite blame them, could she? Not when she was walking around in public, dressed like a deranged superhero.
Without bothering to even give Caleb a second glance, she ran off. After all, upon reaching the office, she could still look forward to a full day of figuring out how to survive the office without again bumping into Caleb Grant.
This is the first chapter of The One Who Wrote Away.