A Karma Girl Christmas by Jennifer Estep Page A

nobody cared except me. Not even my father, the esteemed police chief of Bigtime, as well as a member of the Fearless Five.
    In return for my blatant hostility, Lulu zinged me with heat-related puns whenever we crossed paths. Fiona’s hot. Fiona’s smokin’. Fiona’s on fire. Like I hadn’t heard them all a hundred thousand times before. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Lulu could have at least come up with something original, if she was going to mock me on a daily basis.
    My eyes fixed on Lulu’s hair. I could turn those blue streaks red in a heartbeat. Heat pulsed through my body. My fingers twitched. Just one little spark . . .  
    “Fiona,” Carmen warned. “There will be no flare-ups today. You promised Sam.”
    I had promised Sam. And my father. And Henry. And even Carmen. Three times each. I let go of the fire coursing through my veins and banked it deep inside me. It didn’t matter anyway. Carmen would have just done her empathy thing and used the ambient energy in the room to buffer Lulu and herself from my heat. Carmen had the ability to tap into other people and use their own energy against them. I hated her power, mainly because I hadn’t figured out a way to counteract it yet. Most of the time, I either punched or flambéed my way through danger. But I couldn’t do that with Carmen, because she gave just as good as she got.
    Lulu smirked at me and motored away. She’d probably max out my credit cards or do some other devious, identity-theft thing as soon as the wedding ended. I didn’t know what Henry saw in her. Maybe he was just glad that he’d finally found someone who understood all the techno-babble he spouted on a daily basis.
    Lulu left the door open, and classical music drifted in, along with the murmur of distant conversations. I eyed the clock on the wall. Five minutes to go. Good. The sooner this spectacle was over with, the better. I wasn’t in the mood for a wedding today. Not any day. Not anymore.
    Carmen picked up on my dark thoughts and stared at me in the mirror. “I know this has been hard for you, Fiona. The engagement, the wedding, everything. I’m sorry. I wish things were different. I wish Tornado was still here . . .”
    Her soft Southern twang trailed off under my hot gaze. Hard for me? She had no idea.
    It’d been over a year since my fiancé, Tornado, had been murdered. Carmen had exposed the superhero’s secret identity as Travis Teague to the world, including our arch-enemies, the Terrible Triad. The ubervillains had killed Travis and used Carmen to get to the rest of us. We’d been captured, stuffed in glass tubes, and almost sucked dry of our superpowers, before Carmen had saved us by getting dumped into a vat of radioactive goo and developing superpowers herself.  
    Sometimes, I couldn’t believe the irony of it. Carmen exposing superheroes, becoming one herself, and now marrying one. Things never seemed to turn out the way you thought they would, especially in Bigtime.
    Mostly though, I still couldn’t believe that Travis was gone. Forever. My heart twisted, and the burning fire inside me flickered and dimmed. My eyes dropped to the square, diamond engagement ring on my finger. Travis had given it to me a week before he’d died. I hadn’t taken it off since.  
    “Fiona? Are you okay?” Carmen asked.
    I wasn’t. Not even close. But this was Carmen’s big day, and I didn’t want to ruin it for her.
    “I’m fine,” I lied. “In fact, I was thinking that it’s time for me to get out and start dating again. I’ve done the men of Bigtime a cruel, heartless injustice, depriving them of my fabulous company all this time.” I tossed my long, blond hair over my shoulder for effect.
    Carmen’s face lit up like I’d just hit her with a fireball between the eyes. “That’s wonderful, Fiona! Just wonderful!”  
    Her blue eyes grew cloudy and distant, the way they always did when she was listening to the strange whispers in her head. Carmen called them her inner voice,