I tell her everything. I dissect my life with bloody knives and lay it all on the table. She listens, enraptured by how I lived in the lab, how I escaped with Paul, how I ended up in Houston. When I finish, we sit there for Metis knows how long. Silence full of tears. If the earlier wave of emotion from her was intense, this is a hurricane, roiling with all species of sadness.

After a while, Bedevil says, “So you’re Gabe.”

“I’m Gabe.”

“Do you have anywhere to go?”

I shake my head. “All that was in Mateo’s head, too. Plus apparently you were tracking me, too. And the only house I had, the Front owns, and they’re pissed at me.”

Bedevil winces. Then she stands up and offers me her hand. “I’m tired. Are you?”

“Beyond,” I say, taking her help to get to my feet. I want to sleep for a year.

Motels exist even now after the end of everything. They are, I’m told, much the same as they were before everything fell, like the housing equivalent of a cockroach surviving nuclear winter. The rooms are always tiny, badly lit, poorly cleaned, and presided over by someone far too old or checked out to care about who comes through the door. And they love to take cash, which I still have a bit of from Thanh's last job. I pay for a room with two beds from an elderly Hispanic woman who never even looks up from her clipboard. She chews gum, smells like cigarette smoke, and hands us a key card without ever meeting my eyes. She doesn’t look up because there’s an unspoken agreement between her and the local masks.

Bedevil and I walk out into the motel lot. There’s only one story of quiet rooms, bathed in shadows. The sign is dead. Motel? More like the bottom side of a rock. Grimy windows and musty wood. Stone walkways caked with dirt. Grass overgrown.

Our room is covered in nasty green carpet that I’d hate to walk on barefoot. There are two beds with thick comforters, a window AC unit belching frozen air, and a musty smell in the air. Bedevil wrinkles her nose as she walks in, waves her hand, and the smell vanishes, replaced by pleasant bouquets of flowers. The carpet visibly becomes cleaner in a wave rippling from her feet.

“Much better,” she says. No sooner does she say that, though, she puts her fingers on the bridge of her nose and sits down on the bed, looking more tired than I feel.

“You okay?” I ask, sitting down next to her.

“I’ll be fine.” She gives me a smile, a fake one that her Affect betrays with frustration and hurt. Then, I notice her nose bleeding.

I reach out on instinct. “You-”

“It’s nothing,” she says, pulling her face away from me, wiping her own nose. “I struggle sometimes, but that’s it.” When I don’t stop fretting over her, she grabs my arms and makes me put them at my side, and then wraps me in a hug. “I’ve been through it before. It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re sure?” I ask.

“I’m sure.” She shakes her head and looks at the room. “You want to shower first?”

The shower is grody, and the water smells like sulfur, but it washes the filth and dried blood from me all the same. Standing against the shower, I begin to feel the pain from the fight. I may have stood up to Krater and beaten him, but he still did a number on me. I look down and see green spots across my chest and stomach.

I look at my bruises, letting the shower run over him, thinking that maybe I should leave. A bed sounds amazing, but there’s nothing good that can come of this. My heart pounds in my chest. My whole body aches, and not from pain. There’s a beautiful woman in the shower, about to share a room with me for the night. A beautiful woman that I’ve already kissed, already felt…

And, predictably, Megajoule appears, an ominous shadow on the other side of the shower curtain. “Falling into bed with her?” he asks, dismissively.

“There’s two beds.”

I don’t really care what he has to say, because like it or not, I want a bed to sleep in. Whether or not I can trust Bedevil, whether or not I’m alone, whether or not I wake up under arrest, I’m going to sleep in that bed out there. I’m too tired to care.

Megajoule rubs his chin, looks away, as if he’s thinking about something he’d really rather not be. Then, he says, through his hand: “She wants you to be someone you’re not.”

I turn away from the curtain so I don't have to look at him. “She knows who I am.”

“She’s also drunk. You know it.”

“Yeah well, she’s an alcoholic.”

“And she was in love with him. You can see it in the way she looks at you.”

“Who wasn’t?”

“This is only going to hurt.”

“And you’d be the expert on hurting me, right?” I ask, turning to face him.

But, also predictably, he’s gone again. He got his pound of my flesh, so now he’ll leave me alone for another business day.

I towel off and, lacking any other clothes, put on one of the crappy robes they have in the closet. It’s itchy. From the bathroom, I can hear Bedevil sing softly to herself:

Across the bridge of cobbled stone

Where pebbles bear your fingerprint

Where trees have learned your cherry scent

The falling leaves ask where you went

And I don’t know

I don’t know

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Bedevil is sitting on one of the beds, staring at me as I emerge from the shower,wearing a silk robe—much nicer than the one I have on. She tosses me a set of pajamas. “I think I’ve got your size right,” she says.

I chuckle and set them to the side. “It’s fine, but thanks.”

Her Affect buzzes with both warm and cold feelings, both good and bad. “They’ll take you if they can. Mom- Oracle won’t let you go. There’s no way. But I can help you. You could go anywhere. You could be anyone.” Her nose wrinkles up, her eyes flood. “I could help you live a normal life. I can get you far away from here.”

“Yeah?” I can’t help smiling at the thought. Paul wanted the same thing for me, although Houston was the best he could manage. Living in a dump, never going out without a mask, doing violent jobs to make ends meet… but at least I had a dog. Fuck, I hope Pawpaw is okay. “Where?”

“There are some places,” Bedevil says, curling some of her hair around one finger. “Places where people go to be far away from the Vanguard. Places people go to hide. One of my jobs used to be finding these places.”

This kills my smile. “So you reported on people who just wanted to be free?”

Bedevil sighs, rubs her eye, and then nods. “Yeah. Not for a long time… but yeah.” Regret rolls off her.

I leave it there. “Shower’s free.”

“I’m already clean,” she says.

She sits next to me. We don’t speak for an eternity. I count my heartbeats, lost inside the black hole in my chest. One, two, seven, twenty—

At last, she looks over at me and breaks the silence. “Are you okay?”

“You’ve really been in love with him this long?” I ask.

Bedevil’s mouth drops open. She stammers, scowls, and tries to deny. “I’m not… I wasn’t.” When she sees my knowing stare, she buries her face in her hands before regrouping to meet my eyes. “It comes and goes. I’m able to ignore it.”

“Never tried to move on?”

“I’ve dated.”

“Century, right?” The Vanguard tabloids would not shut up about them for an entire year, I remember that. It was my first taste of hero gossip. Hollywood faded; heroes took over.

“Yeah.” Bedevil wrinkles her nose, shakes her shoulders, and crosses her arms. “Let down.”

“Men.” I jokingly shake my head.

Bedevil chuckles. “Yeah, men.” She stares at me a little longer than she should. Like, when you’re on a bus and you glance at someone across the row, but you can’t linger too long otherwise you’re creepy? She’s doing the creepy thing. I mean, it is just us, but I get uncomfortable when someone looks at me too long. “Have… have you dated?” she finally asks.

“Oh yeah, mostly super models and world famous capes.”

Bedevil snorts and laughs. “Shut up.”

I smirk and say, “Only Kitsune, if that counts.”

“It does. It counted to me.” Her hazel eyes shine, a full smile dawns on her lips, and I can almost see down the robe she’s wearing… and what am I saying? I need a distraction. My heart’s thumping; I can hear all the blood screaming through my veins.

“I probably look a lot younger than him,” I manage. My head is blazing.

“He had crow’s feet, around the eyes. And laugh lines.” She smiles, then gingerly caresses my cheek. “You don’t.” She traces fingers along my face. The tips of her fingers are soft and cool; they feel nice running along my cheek. My natural inclination is to just let her get her fill, but she falters. The smile dies out. “I’m sorry, I’m touching all over your face.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” I put my hand on her arm. She doesn’t retreat.

Her hands grip my neck. She pulls me in to a fierce, sloppy kiss, and then releases me with a gasp. My mind buzzes and shuts down; I can hear the neurons catching fire and exploding like transformers in a storm. Her eyes dance as she stares into mine, her mascara runs. Her chest heaves.

She reaches for me again. I grip her back, her hips, pull her in and we kiss again. I’ve never kissed anyone before her - I can’t get enough of it.

“Easy,” Bedevil says, pulling back, chuckling, wiping her mouth.

I laugh, feeling both a bit sheepish and like if I don’t kiss her again I’m going to explode. The breath runs out of me. My heart is hammering.

Her hands search under my robe; she shivers and gasps while rubbing my chest. She’s prodding me, and I have a shuddering recollection of my time in the lab, where they would lay me on a metal table and prod at me. Bedevil’s touch is much more tender than that, but it’s still prodding. “You’re injured.”

“I’ll be fine. Just bruises.”

I can feel the blood flowing through her veins with my heat sense, pumping faster and faster. Her cheeks flush, her body blazes, her breathing is erratic. Her lips run up my jaw. “Please,” she breathes into my ear. “Fuck me.”

Her voice banishes every single doubt I have.

“Yes,” I whisper back.

She kisses my chest. The belt around my robe comes undone, but she’s otherwise occupied, stroking my thighs with her hands. She kisses my chin at the same time. How is she so good at multi-tasking?

She pulls her robe off and then she’s completely naked.

As I said, I’ve never seen a real naked woman, so my eyes must be popping out of my skull. She puts one knee on the bed between my legs and loosens the tie on my robe. Her breathing quickens as it falls away.

She crawls on top of me, locking eyes. I am on fire. Heart slamming against the walls of my chest. I’ve never been more aware of the blood in my body and where it’s moving. She starts to kiss my neck and her hands go wild exploring me. I respond in kind. She’s soft, so soft.

She nibbles my ear and plants a kiss. She giggles and it’s all I can hear. “Touch me.”

I reach down, fumbling for a spot that makes her feel good, and she reaches down to guide me. . She’s already wet, grinding against my hand. She strokes me in return.

We stay like this for a while, feeling each other. Her heart’s beating just as fast as mine. My heat sense tells me that she’s on fire as much as I am.

“I… want to…” she says.

“Yeah,” I answer.

She reaches back, straddles me, and rocks her hips so I slide into her.

She moves like its a dance, throwing her head back and moaning. She steadies herself with a hand on my chest and grinds hard. She never closes her eyes. She looks right at me, throws herself forward and kisses me passionately while still bouncing. I feel like I’m melting alive. Melting into her.

Instinct takes over, and I toss her off me and onto the bed, onto her back. She squeals in delight as I pounce on her and take over. She wraps her legs around me, pulls me into a kiss.

She pushes me back, wanting to look at me. I keep the rhythm going while she drinks me in.

“Mega,” she moans.

My heart stops pounding, and drops out, instead.

“Fuck me, Mega, please, fuck me,” she moans, putting her hand on my ass and pulling with each thrust.

I pull free of her, startling her with my sudden movement. I can’t even look at her. I try to find the door knob, which I can’t seem to look at either. I don’t have control of my body. I am a ghost, I am not here. This isn’t happening to me, it’s happening to someone else.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Bedevil asks. It hasn’t dawned on her yet.

But it does. It dawns on her like a bad sun on the day of a death. Whatever pleasure she felt is gone. “I’m… holy shit. What did I just do?” She starts to panic. “What the fuck did I just do?”

I can barely speak. “Y-you-”

She sits on her knees and looks down. Tears spill onto her thighs. She whispers something I can’t hear.

“What?” My arms are numb.

“I’m fucking sorry!” She grabs her clothes, gets to her feet and stumbles to the door. “I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.”

I don’t know what to say. So I say nothing, which is probably not a smart move either. My body puts on pants. My ears roar. I’m resurfacing, rebooting. I’m trying to rip down the wall between me and my skin.

She’s frantically pulling her clothes on, too. She cries to herself: “I’ll… Metis, I’m fucking awful.”

I reach out to her, not sure what else I can do.

“Don’t-” She holds a hand out. “Please.”

My body stops.

She balls her hand into a fist. “I’ll… what the fuck? What do I say? What do I do?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her.

She whirls around. She’s in anguish. I’ve never seen someone look so broken. “Why did they do this? Why did they pull him from the grave just to torture me?”

“I’m not him. I’m my own person!” I have to be. I need to be.

Bedevil turns away and thumps her head on the wall. “This is so fucked.”

Metis, I feel so worthless. Rage fills me, so white-hot my arms have no choice but to move. My hand slaps the wall. “I don’t know. I’m just never fucking enough for anyone, am I? Not even his fucked up sidekick.”

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she says, trembling and crying. She’s crying so hard, snot’s running down her lips. “I am fucked up, you’re right. I’ll leave you alone.” She rushes out the hotel door. I don’t have the energy to chase after her.

My heart collapses again, and I am well past the event horizon.