I hadn’t moved in about thirty seconds, my hand still firmly squeezing the doorknob. My breathing was slow, and so was my heart, as if my body was terrified of Veronica somehow being able to hear it through the door. Is she actually standing outside right now? I didn’t want to believe she was, because I was more prepared to face off against Ava than I was against my mom. I know what I said, all right? But seeing her again just after Lucas made my blood simmer and my gut boil was throwing my brain into survival mode. The superhero gig was supposed to have worked out by now, but I was deeper in the shit than I ever had been, and my mom was going to see that.
It felt silly, reacting this way, as if I had been caught trying to sneak out of the house late at night. I had seen Europe and flown across Asia, been in brawls in the Mojave and had been so deep in the Atlantic that all I could tell you about it is that I was never going back down there with the creatures lurking around in the dark. I wasn’t some kid, some teenager caught smoking pot in their bedroom, but hell, it felt that way. Slipping my hand off the doorknob was an answer to my mom being outside, because opening the door still felt like an admission of screwing up lately.
“Why is she here?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. “To goad me into coming back?”
“Please,” he muttered. “We both know Veronica wouldn’t be the reason for that.”
“So why?” I said, turning to face him. “I haven’t seen her in months, Lucas.”
“I know all about the argument. Driving here takes a long time, and Ronnie talks a lot when the silence draws out—I guess you got that from her.” He massaged underneath his eyes, silent for a moment, before he said, “Your mom’s no different than any other, you know that? She watches the news to make sure that you’re still alive, ‘cause she knows you’re not going to answer her phone calls or her messages. She calls me from time to time and asks me how you’re doing. Calls old Dennie, too, to check if you’re eating and sleeping. So when you disappeared, she came to me and told me that we were going to look for you, which I was already planning on doing.”
If she cared so much then she wouldn’t have told me to get out of her fucking house.
“Yeah, well, you can leave and tell her I’m fine.”
Lucas tilted his head. “I don’t lie to people anymore.”
I rolled my eyes, frustrated. “I’m fine. I eat and I sleep and I’m alive. Happy?”
“Why don’t you go and tell her that yourself, Ry?”
“Because I’m not the one who threw my clothes on the front lawn,” I snapped. Lucas remained quiet. I was forced to swallow my tongue. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Shit happens.”
Lucas let the silence stretch on until my skin began to prickle. He leaned forward in his seat, rubbing his hands and the scar tissue on his knuckles. “You know,” he said, “I sometimes wonder how differently things would have turned out if Zeus hadn’t died fighting Titan.”
My mouth drew into a thin line. “I guess that makes both of us.”
“I think,” he said, pointing at the door, “that he would have told you to talk to her.”
“He would have told me to stop bitching and get back to New Olympus.”
Lucas chuckled dryly. “Yeah, he was brash, wasn’t he? But he loved Ronnie.”
I shook my head, stopping my mind from allowing buried memories to resurface. “Why are you bringing any of this up? I’m coming back, all right? Just… in a few days. I need time, Lucas.”
“I’m sorry to break the news to you, Ry, but when people like you take time off, people lose their lives, get hurt, lose everything they cared about. You hate Lucian’s daughter. You hate what she did. And your answer to all of it is to turn your back on the problem for two weeks?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes as I pushed my hand through my hair. “I’m tired,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“I said I’m exhausted, Lucas.” I spread my arms, giving him a look at me, at the scars on my forearms and shoulders, down my thighs and across my midriff. Some were new. Some were old. It was a body that should belong to someone a lot older than I was. Someone who had heroic stories to tell about saving cities and the world a few times over. Not some teenager that’s been in too many fights to count that she could barely even remember anymore. “I’ve been fighting for the humans for years. New supervillains. New problems. Mobsters. Cartels. You made me miss my graduation, you sparked the argument that I had with my mom, but… I guess I was the one who chose to still go on the mission. I don’t want this gig to start feeling like a chore. I want to help people without not caring about what I’m doing, and after I saw those kids die, then… I… “
“You said you wanted to be great, didn’t you?” he asked. “Greatness doesn’t give up.”
My jaw tensed. “That’s easy for you to say. You gave up with the rest of them.”
His eyes narrowed. “We didn’t give up. The world changed, so—”
“So you push it all on me, right? Because that makes perfect sense.”
Lucas stopped rubbing the tissue on his knuckles. “You’re a superhero, Ry.”
“I know, Lucas. I know that’s what I am.”
“The city you left needs your help.”
“God, I freaking get it—”
“A girl,” he said quietly, “the same age as you died on your watch, and you were there, and so was I, and so were her friends, your friends now, as they put her casket in the ground. But no, Rylee wasn’t there—Olympia was there, in the sky, amongst the rain clouds because she’s a c—”
“Say that word, Lucas, and you’re going to find out what life in a wheelchair is like.”
Lucas stood up, his heavy trench coat hanging loosely off his shoulders. He was still muscular, taught, even after all these years away from his gear and the scene. “I fought alongside men who would beat you half way to Sunday and not break a sweat, but I’m not here to fight you. I’m here to make you understand that you’ve got two options. One is outside that door, and it’s the option that’ll get your head screwed on right, because you seemingly want to give up, and Ronnie would make you hang it all up.” He kicked something at his feet—a briefcase. “Two is right here.”
Stolen novel; please report.
I didn’t realize my hands were curled until I forced myself to breathe. “God, I hate you.”
“Yeah, and what’s new?”
“You make me feel like shit for everything I’m doing,” I said, the words spilling out of my mouth. I swallowed, but my throat felt raw. “I’m trying my best, Lucas. I really am. But you keep using what happened in the Alps like some kind of warning, like I’ve forgotten. I can’t forget.” My voice was starting to catch, to feel hot in my mouth. “How am I supposed to forget about her? I fucked up. I get it. I’m not the superhero you want me to be. I’m emotional and I think with my feelings and I’m not like the rest of your sidekicks, but guess what, Lucas, they’re dead, too.”
And so are the Olympians, your teammates. So stop it. Stop talking to me this way.
Like I was the first person in his life to screw up, but he had blood on his hands. He reeked of it. He could smoke all he wanted, drink from the bottle he kept in that brown paper bag in his office, but that scent was still there. It was always going to be there. A part of me didn’t want to end up like Lucas, and he knew that, could see it on my face—guilty, angry, bitter, because there was nothing he could do about what had happened because he was just human. But that wasn’t an excuse. Not to him. He had gotten kids killed and he carried that around with him everywhere.
And I hated him for making me lie to Bianca about what happened to her brother.
But I didn’t grow up with dad. I grew up with Lucas. I didn’t have anybody else.
My eyes stung, and I swore, dragging my arm across them. “Gods, just leave, Lucas.”
“Rylee—”
“I said leave!” I snapped. The sound shot out of my mouth. The TV screen cracked, and the empty beer bottles on the table shattered. Lucas flinched, covering his right ear and cursing.
“Right in the tinnitus,” he muttered, eyes still screwed in pain. Lucas shook his head, worked his ear, then stared at me. “You know I can’t. I made a promise to your old man, to your mom, and to you, too. And Christ, kid, before you say it, I know that I’ve said those same exact words to kids your age before. I’m tough on you ‘cause I don’t know what else to be with you. I’ve tried the gentle way, and got my best friend murdered. I tried again and spent weeks trying to find their body.” Lucas’ face was still stony, his eyebrows still low, shading his eyes. “Have you figured that I feel guilty being the one to teach you this shit? ‘Cause if you screw up, that’s on me. I didn’t teach you enough. I didn’t guide you enough. Didn’t put enough in your head to make the right decisions at the right time, and how am I supposed to do that with how you are right now?”
“And what am I right now?” I said, spitting the words. “Tell me, Lucas. Teach me.”
“You’re not human,” he snapped. Silence. Quieter now, he said, “How am I supposed to tell you how to do anything if you’ve gotten it in your head that you’re not even one of us?”
“Because it’s easier for me to think that way when I’ve got you judging me all the time.”
“Jesus, kid. You’re what we’ve got left,” Lucas said. “We don’t have the Olympians anymore. Poseidon and Ares and Heka might be Capes, but they’re shadows of who they were. Cleo is dead. Hermes is dead. The people I fought with are dead. Whoever’s left can’t do anything without the government giving them a document telling them what to do. I’m harsh on you, Ry, because I want you to keep being better than them. Than us.” He was in front of me now, close enough for me to smell the faint scent of cigarettes in his sweat. “I want…” His voice trailed off. He shook his head slowly and massaged his jaw. “I want you to be what I thought I could be.”
“You just said I’m not human,” I whispered. “A little hard for you, isn’t it?”
“All I wanted was to be human. Be better. But you’re not like me and I understand that, and thank God, because you can do things that I could have only dreamed of, and I’m not talking about flying or your super strength, Ry. I’m talkin’ about being what people actually need to save them, not some bastard in body armor beating thugs half to death every night.” He put his hand on my shoulder, gentle, not squeezing it. “I don’t have a right to tell you what to do. Lord knows I’ve done that too many times and gotten too many people hurt. Stop if you want. Step away from all of this and go hug your mom and tell her you missed her and her cooking and how she kisses your forehead every morning before she leaves for work before she’s gone and you don’t get the chance again. But one day you’re gonna look back on this moment and realize that the costume only fit one person for a reason. Putting it on is the most human thing you can do, and honestly, it’s what we need right about now with monsters pulling the trigger on children locked in dark rooms.”
I wanted to shrug off his hand, to look him in the eyes and tell him to leave.
Instead, I stood in place, not really knowing why I stayed there.
“I don’t even know where I’d start with Ava,” I whispered.
Lucas grunted quietly, moving aside to open the door. “Do what I couldn’t and do what you do best: think with your feelings, act with your head, and hit the broad like your Zeus’ girl.”
Once he left, I pressed my ear against the door and shut my eyes, listening to his shoes crunch against the gravel outside. I heard a car door open, then, moments later, a quiet voice.
“Was Rylee in there?” mom asked. Hearing her voice again pushed me away from the door, but nearly made me reach toward the door handle. “Let me go speak to her. Maybe she—”
“No cigar,” Lucas said. “She must’ve figured out about the tracker. Found it in the sink.”
“But I heard someone shouting. A girl shouting, Lucas. If you’re lying to me—”
“Then may Zeus throw one of his lightning bolts down and kill me right here.”
The sky was clear tonight, cloudless all the way to the glimmering stars. It stayed that way until the sun peeked over the horizon and the car vanished down the lonely strip of tarmac. Before they left, as I had sat on the floor of the motel room, my back to the door, someone had knocked on it just three times, curt and polite and patient, waiting, because Veronica knew someone was in here, but she wasn’t going to barge her way in. If anyone’s in there, she had said, I just want to talk to you, just for a moment. It’s about a tracker? It’s weird, I know, but I was wondering if you saw anyone in this room before you came? Then she waited, just like I did. Well, that’s alright. But if anyone comes back around, just tell them that I’m looking for them, and I hope they’re safe.
And I miss them, she had whispered, before saying, but that’s a lot for a stranger, so I’ll be leaving now. My phone number is on this, just in case you see a girl with blonde hair around here.
Then she slipped a coupon underneath the door with a number scribbled on it, and that was that. The closest I had been to mom in months. I had picked up the little burger coupon, had read the number again and again, and couldn’t help but smile a little because I knew this number. Hell, it was hard to forget it, because for the longest time, before I made any friends, it was the only number I had in my phone contacts. Eighteen years, and Veronica still hadn’t changed her number.
Since then, I had showered, stuffed my clothes into my backpack, and tied back my hair. I was about to leave, and had a good idea on where I was heading to this time, but the suitcase Lucas left behind was still sitting there on the carpet. I stared at it over my shoulder, my hand on the doorknob. Be human, I thought. It sounded stupid, to be frank. Why be one of them when I was what I was? Why lean into that side of me when I needed to be powerful right that second?
I found myself kneeling on the floor, popping the briefcase open.
My Olympia gear was inside of it, and it looked… clean. I pulled it out, and it unfurled as I held it up to the light streaming through the wispy blinds. It caught the golden lightning bolt going down the chest area, and the red and blue, nearly a deep crimson and even deeper blue, was stitched and new and didn’t have rips and tears in it. I smelt it, and heck, it smelt clean. The boots that came with my gear had newer soles, flexible, grippy, with the part of it that would go up my calf a little stiffer, meaning it was newer, tighter fabric. I felt like a kid at Christmas, wanting to try out the new toy before it was even fully out of its wrapping. But then a note slipped out of it.
And all it said was, I hope you like it. I used your body spray to make it smell the way you liked the rest of your clothes to. I don’t know if you chose right, but someone will be glad you did.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I finally look like a respectable superhero again,” I whispered.
I guess that also means that I was going to have to deal with Ava properly.