There were no alarms to wake us up. Mercifully, we were all allowed to sleep in as late as we wanted. Unmercifully, that didn’t end up mattering. I was up at seven in the morning. Lori had already been awake and was dressed. Megan was sprawled out over the space that Lori had vacated. I thought that Alex might’ve been dead with how little the guy moved. You could hardly see the dude breathe while he slept.
Lori was sipping some tea out of a mug when she noticed me getting up. She grinned at me, and I noticed that she looked different in a few small ways, but they added up to create a moderate image change. She placed a finger to her lips and pointed at our two snoozing friends, before directing her thumb to the door. I stepped in the bathroom to quickly brush my teeth. Then, carefully and quietly, I followed her out and we headed out of the hotel for a nice morning walk.
“Did you put on makeup?” I asked.
“Lizzy told me I should practice with it; that it might be fun.” A flush crept across her brown skin. “She also got me some clothes she described as ‘more flattering’. When I told her about Alex, she did her Lizzy thing. God forbid the day she sees you with a girl.”
I took another look at Lori and could tell the Lizzy influence in it. She had a long-sleeved white shirt and small denim shorts over grey leggings. While not constricting, everything was much tighter, drawing more attention to her figure than the clothes I’d previously seen her in. She also had her hair back behind a red hairband. It looked like she still needed some time to get used to it.
“Lizzy did a good job,” I said. “It’s still saying ‘Lori’ with a little more flare. What’s your plan to woo him?”
“What do you think about the outfit?” Lori had trouble meeting my eyes. “Is it too much?”
I shrugged. “It’s cute and flattering. You look good.”
She looked up at me, her face a little pink. “Do you think he’d like it? Wait, what if he likes it too much? What if things move fast?”
“Lori-”
“My underwear doesn’t even match,” she hissed.
I snorted. “Lori, relax. Trust me, if he’s attracted to you, he will not care if your underwear matches if it gets to that point. I promise you that.”
“Okay, right, I’m overreacting. One step at a time.” She noticed me catch a chill and try to warm myself up, happy to change the subject. “That’s actually why I wanted to come out here. I needed to see if I’d freeze my butt off, but these are really warm clothes. I’ll need to figure out where Lizzy does her shopping.”
“You needed me to test dummy with you? I should have grabbed a jacket before we left.”
“Well, no, not entirely,” she admitted. “I wanted to tell you that I think we should take most of today to relax and make sure we all have everything we need. I want us to get to St. Louis tonight to sleep there. We believe the cave system where the Tomb should be is in the southwest part of the state. So, we’ll spend today taking it a little easy, then we go from St. Louis to our hopeful cave tomorrow. We’ll kind of hop from hotels in that area if we need to.”
“How long are we going to look without finding anything?”
Lori shrugged and pulled out her phone. On it was a highlighted area in Southwest Missouri, indicating where she wanted us to start. “Failures happen sometimes, so we’d go back home. It’s not like she was the goal of this, but saving Megan already makes it worth it. Finding anything else is just a bonus.”
“That’s true.” I stopped to shiver again, really beginning to regret coming outside in my light pajamas. I started to head back toward the entrance. “But my goal is to warm up a bit. Can we head back in?”
“Oh, Ethan!” Lori yelled, catching up to me. She pointed at her phone again, this time the screen displaying a map of the Columbus area. “Look, there’s a park nearby. Why don’t we all go there? It’s chilly, but it’ll let Megan get some exercise.”
I nodded and noticed her hand when she put her phone away. Her knuckles were bruised and there was some swelling. She didn’t seem to be favoring the foot she used to break that drunk lady’s heel. If she saw me shaking my head, she managed to hide it well. “You need to get some ice on that hand, Lori.”
“Ah, you’re right,” she said quietly with a sheepish grin on her face. “I didn’t think about it last night. I felt so crappy when I woke up, I just did my makeup to see if it’d make me feel a little better. I’ll get a baggie and some ice from the cooler. Thanks for reminding me.”
When we got back inside the hotel, I noticed that they had a little breakfast bar. Moving around other hungry guests, I snagged four bagels and some packets of cream cheese to pile on a plate. I also came across some boxes of orange juice in an ice tray, which I helped myself to as well. I ignored the weird looks from the people watching one guy take all that stuff. Lori stood in the hallway, so it looked like I was just taking it all for myself. Hey, it was a breakfast buffet and there were four mouths to feed, so I wasn’t about to hold back, no matter what looks I got.
When we returned to the room, we woke up Megan and saw Alex sitting in the leather chair. He had opened the blinds to let some sunlight into the room to help the heater keep it nice and toasty. Megan rubbed her eyes and looked around, seeming a bit confused. It looked like she still had some adjusting to do, but she was thrilled when we walked in the door. I was starting to get used to her invading the personal bubble I usually set up to keep people away, and that didn’t bother me one bit.
“You look so pretty today!” Megan yelled. She gently tugged on Lori’s new shirt and leggings. “Nice clothes. I like them lots.”
“Thank you, that’s very sweet of you to say.” Lori crouched in front of her and hugged the still-sleepy kid. “How about we get you some cute clothes as soon as we can? The friend who got me these would love nothing more than to take you along. I bet she’d get better stuff than Alex did anyway.” Lori made that last bit a whisper just loud enough for Alex to overhear.
“Hey, you try driving around a city you don’t know looking for kids’ clothes. Those bagels for the team?” Alex stood up and grabbed a bagel and a packet of cream cheese when I nodded. He glanced at Lori and did a small double take. “Huh, you changed your hair. Looks nice.”
When he turned his back toward us, I elbowed her gently and gave her a thumbs up. She was embarrassed, her face as red as it could be, and she was obviously thrilled. I could already see her reporting the news back to an overly enthusiastic Lizzy once we got back. I was especially impressed that Alex even noticed. I could tell he was perceptive, yet I didn’t think he’d notice a small change like a hairband. Lori didn’t even care that he didn’t comment on the rest of the outfit.
“Megs, do you want to play in the park today?” Lori’s glance went back to the little girl at her knees before turning back up to me. I felt her happiness from the compliment rubbing off on me. I was feeling eager to get back outside and play with the kiddo. “I think after last night, we could all use a nice day outside.”
Megan nodded emphatically. I thought her head was going to fly off her shoulders. Without being told, she started to make the bed back up and make sure she didn’t have anything of hers laying out. Taking that as our cue, the rest of us also packed up as best we could. We all agreed on divvying up Megan’s new clothes into our own suitcases and baggage. Until we could get her one of her own, it beat trying to manage that many plastic bags of clothes.
The rest of us changed into proper clothes for the cold, with Lori being extra fussy about how Megan should be dressing for a winter day outside. Poor kid could barely move with all the layers she had on. I checked the forecasted temperature, and it was supposed to be around forty degrees with plenty of sunshine, so we were able to talk Lori down from all the clothes. At least removing enough layers to let Megan actually walk instead of waddle like a penguin.
Alex and I bundled up appropriately as well. Lori grabbed a jacket to throw over her shoulders, though she was confident in Lizzy’s outfit to keep her cozy. I packed up my suitcase, checked it twice to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything important behind, and made up my bed as well. I had a feeling that anyone coming in to finish cleaning up the room would either change everything out or remake it, yet it felt like the right thing to do. We had some minor bagel-related cleaning to do as well that was totally not because we were rushing like idiots.
We checked out and the lady behind the counter gave our group a weird look. Admittedly, a gangly pale guy, a muscular Chinese man, and two darker skinned girls over a decade apart in age probably wasn’t the most common assortment of people the lady had seen. I remembered that we didn’t get that kind of reaction when we came in. The dude who checked us in on the nightshift was probably used to seeing some greater diversity in the folks who came in.
“The park should be about...eight minutes away if we’re driving,” Lori said, popping the trunk. She helped us get all of our bags in there. Somewhere she found time to wrap that bag of ice around her hand too. “Sorry we don’t have toys or anything like that, Megs.”
“That’s okay! I have Max,” she replied, holding up her teddy bear with pride. “And you guys can play with me.”
Lori ruffled her hair and we all got inside. Alex offered to drive, but Lori said she didn’t want the slight caffeine boost from her tea to go to waste, so she got behind the wheel. She waved bye to the hotel in a dramatic way that Megan was happy to follow. I joined in and I was pretty sure I even saw Alex give a good-spirited little hand motion.
We moved onto greener pastures a whole mile away. The park was crowded, though not terribly so. Lots of college kids which kind of put everyone on edge after the previous night. Thankfully, there wasn’t any alcohol to be seen. Perhaps no booze made some sense, since it was barely eight in the morning at that point. Closer to the playing equipment was where we saw a bunch of kids with plenty of moms and a few dads. I was worried that Megan wouldn’t have a lot of room to play on any of the structures. Her face didn’t betray the same level of concern.
“You like making new friends, Megs?” Lori asked, pulling the keys from the ignition.
“Duh, I made friends with you guys, right?” She had us there.
“If you mouth off like that again, I’m going to tickle you!” Lori reached around and started to tickle Megan’s legs, sending her into hysterics. After a couple seconds of that, she pulled away from the giggling child and reassessed the area. She pointed to a fairly big space of green grass between the playground and our vehicle. “Hm, I think we can set up between here and there. You guys hungry or did those bagels do the trick?”
We all agreed that we were full and would eat when it got closer to lunchtime. Everyone got out and we pulled out a big quilt that was stored away in the trunk. I was really curious as to why that was there. I settled on it being useful if the SUV broke down and someone needed it to stay warm for the night. Regardless, it almost felt like a prank every time someone pulled a weird object out of a Luna-related vehicle or building. If it was an item that existed, they probably had a few spares lying around somewhere.
“Oh, Megs, we’re going to need to keep a secret.” Lori laid the quilt down in a sunny spot. Alex and I helped spread out the edges while she continued. “No one here can know about us being superheroes, okay? That includes you, since you’re a hero in training.”
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“I’ll stay quiet, promise.” She set Max down on the quilt next to Alex, unofficially making him Guardian of the Teddy Bear, easily the most vital job on our entire trip. “Oh, oh, does that mean we get superhero names?”
“You know, how is that going to be handled?” I asked. We had brought the cooler out and I was getting some drinks for everyone. “If someone with an Anomaly starts to fight crime or whatever, would they need a name to protect their identities?”
“Zero idea,” Lori said. “Briggs-Mason isn’t the only other group with a sizeable Anomaly population in the States. There are a bunch of smaller communities or teams, even people that are rumored to live in mountains or caves away from the rest of the world. I’ve even heard of some people living under the sea. Right now, it’d be hard to make all of them agree on one single thing. They’d all have to unite to an extent to make that decision.”
“If we do have to take secret identities, I hope there’s someone who can choose mine for me.” I sat down to soak in the sun for a little while. The air was crisp and cool, but with no clouds, that sun felt wonderful. “I’m not the creative type. Do you want a codename, Alex?”
“Don’t really care. Using my powers to help protect people is what I’m here for. If someone gives me a nickname or a codename, that’s their business.”
“I’ll think of a cool name for you!” Megan declared, proudly sticking out her chest. “I’ll get one for all of you.”
Lori and Alex both shared a chuckle at the girl’s enthusiasm. Seeing them laugh gave me an idea that might be able to help Lori out. I stood up and held my hand out to Megan. “Hey, want to see how high you can get on the swings?”
“I’ll go. I’m stronger than you, so I can push her higher.” Alex started to get up, but I waved him down.
“Then let me get that exercise.” I pointed to my bicep. “See? I need all the help I can get. It looks pretty crowded over there, too. Best if you just relax here. You don’t want to accidentally use your Anomaly or something.”
Alex began to protest, so I hurried away with a giddy Megan. We passed a bunch of parents and Megan did spend some time looking at them playing with their kids. I looked at kids with their parents for a while after I lost mine. They gave me some strange looks. I wished that we looked more alike so we could easily just play it off as being siblings. Sadly, she looked more like Lori, so we weren’t pulling that off very well.
There was an empty swing set at the far end of the set, so we awkwardly made our way past other people having a good time, almost getting bonked in the head a few times. Megan got into the seat, but she wasn’t looking as eager as she had been earlier. I heard the laughter of the surrounding families and thought I might have an idea. I walked over in front of her and crouched down.
“Missing Mom and Dad again?” I asked and she nodded in reply. She was such a pleasant kid that I was certain her parents had to have been good people themselves, which couldn’t have made the loss any easier. Grief was never easy to process, let alone at such a young age, which made everything both easier and harder in different ways. “I’m sorry that we can’t really fill that spot in your heart. You were dealt an unfair hand in this.”
“It’s okay...” she said, her voice solemn.
“But it’s not okay,” I told her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to hide it if it’s too much. We all want to do our best to take care of you, so if you need to let it out, you can let it out. It was almost impossible for me, and I was older than you when I lost my parents.”
“And you guys will be here forever?” she asked, her voice almost breaking.
“Forever. We’re not going anywhere,” I promised. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do given McLeod and our circumstances, but she really needed some reassurance. “Do you want me to start pushing you?”
She nodded her head, her usual happy energy making a return. I didn’t want to keep her waiting, so I gave her a little nudge to get us both used to the swing. Some old, bad experiences with them made me hesitant to give it all I had in one go. She kicked her legs out a bit, but gave me a sour look that told me I wasn’t doing a good enough job, so I gave her a bigger push. She went out farther and that one was much more well-received.
I kept on pushing and she kept on swinging. I was careful to find a good balance between fun and safety. If I launched her out of her seat and she got hurt, I’d be sent back to Luna in a body bag. Megan was having a blast and I found her laughter contagious. We were both louder than any of the people surrounding us, and neither of us could have been paid to care. We were both having our fun and that’s what mattered.
Megan swung for around five minutes before her laughter and cheers started to die down. The parents were practically glaring at us for all the noise, which I took as a point of pride. I was pretty sure they were only upset because I didn’t look like a parent, so they probably formed their own prejudices about the two of us. It wasn’t our fault that we had more fun playing than their own kids did.
“Sorry that I couldn’t push you as hard as Alex,” I whispered, helping her out of the seat. “His powers help with that.”
“That’s okay, I had fun. Why did you tell him to stay over there?” she asked.
I faltered for a second, not fully remembering the lie I told him. Her question caught me off guard and I didn’t think that she’d be able to tell I was lying. After a few seconds of her quizzical look growing more suspicious, I gave up. “You have to promise not to tell anyone. Lori...likes Alex and I wanted to let them talk a bit.”
“Lori and Alex, sitting in a tree...” she began the little song, but I stopped her and looked over my shoulder in a panic. They didn’t seem to hear, so I let myself relax a bit. “Just kidding. I won’t tell, promise. Do you like anyone, Ethan?”
“You mean like a crush?” I asked. She nodded and I just shook my head. “Nope, no one yet.”
“Hey!” The loud, sudden greeting that startled me. In a clear space in front of the swing set, about thirty feet away, a pretty woman with dyed green was waving at us. She had bright blue eyes, stood only a few inches shorter than me, and looked to be a college student. Behind her, a much shyer boy stood. Around them were orange pylon things, like I’d seen in football games. “Do you guys want to play?”
She lifted up a blue, rubber kickball. I looked at Megan and shrugged. She was liking the idea. She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the happy lady. That was a good thing, because Megan didn’t have any toys herself, so she couldn’t just swing for hours on end. I made sure to remind myself to get her some outdoorsy toys for her.
“Hi there, my name’s Chloe and this is my brother Ryan.” She gently nudged Ryan forward and he gave a shy wave. He looked to be about Megan’s age, maybe a tad younger. “We thought it’d be more fun to play in teams, and some of the moms don’t like it when their kids to try play with Ryan.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” I asked, looking back at the same moms that had given us some looks.
“They think he’s my kid, but I’m only twenty myself.” She dramatically rolled her eyes and shook her head. “They don’t even bother to ask, they just assume. I swear, they have a hivemind mentality.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said. I paused to think about how I wanted to introduce ourselves and just decided to wing it with siblings. “My name’s Ethan and this is my sister Megan.”
“Nice to meet you both!” She stuck her hand out for both of us to shake, and with a bit of encouraging, Ryan shook both of our hands too. He didn’t meet our eyes. I did feel bad for the kid, since I had trouble with strangers at that age too. “I haven’t seen you before. You go to Ohio State?”
“Nope, I live in New York now,” I said. Chloe and Ryan backed up to get ready to start. “I’m kind of a road trip right now. I’m close to graduating high school.”
“You do have a bit of a baby face to you, but there’s a lot of younger looking students here,” she said. She pointed to the pylons I saw before. “The ball has to stay inside the pylons! If it goes past, that’s a point. First to ten points wins.”
“What does the winner get?” I asked, trying to recall how I played soccer in gym. Probably pretty badly, to be completely honest. Being a D1 athlete was never in my future.
“Loser does the winner’s homework!” Chloe dropped the ball and kicked it toward us. She was holding back since it was just a fun game with kids, which was good, because I was not in great shape with my cardio.
“I’m not sure if that’s fair!” I yelled back, doing my best to kick the ball in a fair way toward Ryan. “I could maybe do Ryan or Megan’s homework. What’s your major?”
“Engineering.”
“Oh yeah, no chance,” I said. Ryan and Megan were mostly kicking it to themselves by that point. Chloe and I drifted off to the side to give the kids room to play. Ryan was getting over his shyness and that didn’t seem to be an issue for Megan. “Thanks for letting her use your ball. We, uh, forgot her toys from New York.”
“Don’t mention it!” Chloe clapped me on the back with surprising strength. I stumbled forward a bit, which got a snort from her. The touching sent an uncomfortable jolt down my back. “Let me guess, you’re not a star quarterback for your school, are you?”
“Haha, hilarious.” I saw that Chloe knew I was joking, which was good.
“I’m glad Ryan got someone to play with. The moms here don’t really think I’m his mother. Ryan has autism, so he doesn’t always fit well with the other kids here.” Chloe made sure to glare at the other women. Upon further inspection, they did have a snobbish air to them. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’d think that given everything going on, they’d be clamoring for some escapism for their kids, you know? He’s not even different from their kids. That doesn’t matter in the slightest.”
“What do you mean?”
“With what happened to Pittsburgh. I’m surprised that the parks are even open, considering we’re pretty close.” Chloe shifted uncomfortably. “You have, like, something that completely changes the game and what we understand. I feel like we should let our darn kids play without everyone blowing their collective gasket.”
“It’s really terrible what happened there.” I wanted to know what Chloe thought of people with powers, so I tried to push it a bit further. “What do you think’s going on with that guy? The one who attacked the city, I mean.”
Chloe shrugged her shoulders. “He’s a terrorist and a monster. I don’t know how he’s doing it. Some kind of superweapon or maybe he really is just a higher being and this is a punishment for us. People at OSU are beyond livid though. I don’t live on campus, but I’ve seen non-stop protests about ‘getting the freaks out’, whatever that means. They don’t even know exactly what they’re protesting. They see one guy do something and think their roommates can turn into biological bombs.”
“I blinked and the entire world is different,” I said. Chloe looked sad about the whole thing. I didn’t want to reveal more than I should, so I had to tread carefully. I was enjoying the conversation. For me, it felt surprisingly normal and natural. “We didn’t have the heart to see Pittsburgh on the way here.”
Chloe was about to reply, but she was stopped by the comforting sound of a rubber ball bouncing off the face of a youth. My head snapped toward Megan who was on the grass with a hand over her nose and mouth. Both Chloe and I rushed to her side, both of us landing on our knees by doing two impressive slides. Ryan looked horrified and dumbstruck.
“Are you okay?” I asked, trying to keep a level head. Megan had her eyes shut closed, but she opened them when she heard my voice. I gently patted her back to try and keep her calm.
I expected her to start crying. That’s what I would have done at that age. What she did was arguably worse, or at least creepier. She pulled her hand away and it was covered in blood. Her nose was providing a steady trickle of the red liquid. Megan opened her mouth to talk, but a tooth fell out, and that really scared the crap out of me. Then I remembered that she wasn’t even seven yet, so losing baby teeth was something that could happen. When the tooth fell on her jacket, she picked it up and started to laugh. A little girl cackling with blood running down her face was not going to help us fit in with other families.
“Look, Ethan! I’m like you when you used your-”
“Jeez there, kiddo!” I said, a bit too forcefully. I could already tell where she was going. “You really took one in the face there. Does it hurt?”
Catching on, she shook her head a bit too hard. That got blood on my jacket as well as Chloe’s. I placed my head in my hands. The situation was only getting worse and worse. All I could hope for was that Chloe’s jacket wasn’t expensive and she didn’t have any issue with having another human’s blood just flying on her. Still, the most important thing was that Megan was okay, and she’d probably like getting a visit from the Tooth Fairy.
“Oh man, I better get this one back to the car and clean her up.” I picked up the bleeding child, making sure to hold her upright so the blood flowed out of her face instead of back down her throat. “It was really nice meeting you Chloe and Ryan. Sorry that we have to cut it so short! Um, sorry about your jacket!”
“Wait, before you go,” Chloe placed a hand on my arm. I managed to resist pulling away out of reflex. “What’s your phone number? Let’s stay in touch. I want to make sure that Megan’s okay later.”
I quickly rattled off my phone number for Chloe and she entered it in her own phone just as fast. She sent a test text message, and I felt my pocket vibrate a few seconds later. I gave her a thumbs up and she beamed at me. She took Ryan, who was still freaked out, and took him to play more. A bit of a weird interaction. At least she seemed nice enough. I thought it would have been cool to hear about how students in her university felt about people like us.
When I got back to Lori and Alex, they were both chatting away. Lori was completely absorbed in the conversation, and he didn’t seem disinterested himself. I had Megan positioned in a way that her back was toward them. I felt really bad about breaking up their sweet moment so soon, but there wasn’t really anything else I could do with a bleeding child that was under my care.
“So, don’t get mad, but...” I set Megan down. Lori looked horrified and Alex looked surprised. They did relax a bit when Megan held up her bloody baby tooth. “Megan got hit in the face by a kickball. Just a little bump. You know how noses bleed from even the littlest thing.”
“Kids will be kids,” Lori said with a weary sigh. She took a napkin, got it wet with some ice from our cooler, and wiped the dried blood off as best she could. The heavy bleeding had mostly subsided, leaving just a small trickle in its wake. “Does it hurt anywhere, Megs?”
Megan shook her head, still happy as can be. At least one of us there could have some fun with blood leaking out of our noses. Lori wiped the tooth off and gave it back to its owner, who eagerly put it in her pocket. Not satisfied with the blood trickle, Lori stuffed two bits of napkin in her nostrils. A real photo-worthy moment right there.
Suddenly aware of my own hunger, I was pumped to see two sandwiches made up for us. Doing my best to not chew with my mouth open, I recapped the fun little bonding session that Megan and I got to share. She already thought of Ryan as her new best friend, so I let her take the reins and talk about how much fun she had with the siblings we’d just met.