I awoke to excruciating pain in my head and sunlight streaming into my eyes.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had woken up feeling this awful, but last night’s activities were explanation enough. There were scarce details to what I remembered after defeating Grim; I knew we had ended up at a hotel.
It was a private suite on the other end of the city. I had blacked out the moment my head hit the couch. The last thing I recalled was Sam and Mia claiming the beds while Liam snagged one of the comfiest chairs in the room.
I groaned as I tried to sit up.
“Here,” I couldn’t see who it was but I recognized Sam’s voice. “I got you water and some painkillers.”
I groggily took the water and tablets after pushing myself upright. My head felt like a fish bowl with all the water suddenly sloshing to the opposite side.
“Tha—” I croaked, forcing myself to stop. My throat burned like I gargled acid after swallowing sandpaper. It was awful. I down the water and the pills without question, feeling the soothing sensation of chilled liquid. “Thanks.”
“You sound terrible,” the amusement in her tone was hard to miss. “Look about the same as well.”
I squinted and found her sitting on the coffee table across from me. There were black bags under her eyes and she looked like she hadn’t slept for days. She was still dressed in her costume – minus the domino mask – and her hair was damp, giving me the impression that she had just showered. I guessed she had washed her clothes while I was out of it.
“You don’t look like you’re faring much better,” I replied without any real bite to my tone. “What time is it?”
“Four in the afternoon. It’ll be dinner time soon,” she said. “Mia and Liam went for a walk to see if they could find a place that's open. The whole city is still reeling from the chaos so not much is open today. Obviously school was canceled, so no need to stress about that.”
School is the last thing on my mind, I thought with a snort.
“Didn’t even occur to me,” I waved off. My gaze gravitated to the curtains that were mostly closed. There was enough of an opening in them to let some sun through but not enough to light up the whole room. “How bad is it?”
Sam’s lips thinned. “See for yourself.”
Slowly, I got up and moved toward the curtains. My whole body ached, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep. My body demanded more rest, which it would get in due time. There were just some things I needed to take care of now that I was awake and had regained some energy.
Peering through the gap, I pushed aside the curtain to get a better view.
“Jesus fuck.”
There were still black columns of smoke streaming up like rivers. They all combined to form a smog so thick it looked like a black, dusty lake above the city. I was surprised any sun got through at all. A good fifth of the city was gone, reduced to dust and debris. It had been so dark last night that I couldn’t grasp the full scale of the damage. Now that I could see it, the weight of what happened settled onto my shoulders. The carnage bled from the harbor, through the industrial district, and stopped at Groves Den.
“The Cains are done,” Sam said. “Grim’s gone. Gold Rush fled the city and Nemesis died from his wounds early this morning. Pandora suffered the most losses though. Grim apparently killed eighteen Supers that were with Pandora.”
I kept my gaze locked on the city.
“How many others?”
“What?”
“People that didn’t have powers,” I said, my gaze wavering. “Do you know? Does anyone?”
Sam softly thumbed the TV on the wall. Although it was powered off, she had watched the news while I was asleep.
“There are a total of 4,723 injuries. There’s currently 2,397 missing people and another 1,400 confirmed dead. Although, it's almost certain that most of the missing persons are going to be confirmed dead,” Sam explained grimly. “Grim doesn’t leave anything behind so finding many of his victims will be… well, impossible.”
I would have snorted if I was able. I suddenly felt much less sympathetic about what happened to Grim.
“What happens now?” I asked, feeling a sense of hollowness. We had survived the night, but this didn’t feel like a victory. An unacceptable amount of people died, countless more were injured, and even more were rendered homeless. None of that took into account the amount of ruined businesses, and I had been at the center of all of it. It was impossible not to feel even slightly guilty. “Where do we go from here?”
“We pick up the pieces, we move forward,” she said simply.
I nodded slowly.
“Our place. Do we know if it's safe? Have you looked into that?”
“I had Mia scout it out earlier. It’s safe but it's clear that someone was there. Some of our stuff has been messed with.”
“Mirage,” I muttered under my breath. Sam just nodded as I sighed. “What about Banshee and Bonesmith? Anything on them?”
“Gold believes they were there as well. It looks like Mirage followed the carnage the morpher made. How he knew it would do that is complicated. It makes me think that he had some sort of in with Splicer, but I’d need to talk to him again if I wanted to be sure,” Sam said, rubbing her forehead. “Regardless, that place is compromised now. We need to find somewhere else to work from.”
I looked back out to the city.
“Any thoughts?”
Sam shook her head. “Not yet. I haven’t been thinking about house hunting yet. I’m still recovering from last night's switching. I’ll need to take it easy for a day or two. We all do.”
I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that.
Part of me wanted to go out and help the rebuilding effort, but it would be a few more days before that process started. The ECU would still be quarantining the whole area and dismantling the rest of The Cains. Another part of me welcomed the idea of resting. Getting involved in all of this was never my intention. I got swept up in everything because of my poor decision-making.
Reaching up, I pressed the button to engage my helmet. The compartments shifted back over my face, and the familiar L.E.D. lights lit up. I pulled up my message thread from Mom to see a couple of messages from her asking if I was okay. There was only one call at eleven this morning that I missed.
Only one?
I figured Mom would be more worried.
“Did you call my mom again?” I asked, turning to Sam. She had since walked away and plopped herself down in one of the seats. I caught her reaching for the TV remote when I asked. “Before everything went to shit yesterday, you let her know that I was going to be staying with you.”
“I haven’t,” Sam picked up the remote and sank back into the oversized chair. “But yeah, I did call her yesterday. I figured she would appreciate the heads up. Surprisingly receptive to my excuse, but you know me, I’m pretty good at that sort of thing.”
“Lying,” I clarified.
Sam groaned and rolled her eyes. “Come on, dude. Do you really want to do this now, after everything we just went through? I don’t have the energy to argue. I just wanna sit and watch some of the coverage.”
“I wasn’t—” I felt like kicking myself. I didn’t mean to sound like I was insinuating anything. “Sorry, I’m just surprised she bought it. The last time you guys met, you told me that she didn’t want to talk to you. I kinda blew you off what you said because we only had like, five minutes warning. Did you…” I trailed off a bit to see if she wanted to interject anywhere. Sam continued to stare, waiting for me to keep going. “Is there anything…?”
“Any what?”
“Come on, you said Gold feeds you information whether you want it or not.”
Sam sighed.
“Your mom doesn’t like me. Gold didn’t dig too deeply because she was preoccupied with other things. What are you actually trying to ask me, Max? You want to know why your mom hasn’t called you a billion times to make sure her baby boy is safe and sound? I called her and fed her a sweet little lie and later you followed up with your own to fill in the details.”
“Part of the city turned into a battlefield last night,” I shook my head. “I would have thought—”
“That she’d call you over and over in the morning?” Sam frowned and shrugged helplessly. “She probably thinks you're still asleep or have other stuff to deal with. Hell, that’s at least half the city. Just call her and stop stressing.”
There was another question on the tip of my tongue, but I was too wound up to go through that conversation.
“I’ll be back,” I said under my breath, heading towards the bathroom.
“You should take a shower while you're there, and rinse the suit. I can smell you from over here!”
I ignored her and locked the bathroom door behind me.
I paced the room, my thoughts lingering on what to say to Mom. I knew I wasn’t a good liar, and I was sick of trying to think of excuses that Mom would poke holes through eventually. Helping her was the reason I had gotten myself into this mess in the first place, so I thought I owed it to her to at least fill her in on what I was doing. I didn’t want to do that over the phone; it needed to be in person.
Without further procrastination, I took the plunge.
The call rang a half dozen times before she eventually picked up.
“Hello?”
There was some shifting on the other end.
“Hello Max,” Mom answered with a yawn. “I called earlier but you didn’t pick up. I figured you were still asleep.”
I felt myself smile bitterly.
“Yeah, I was. Didn’t get much sleep last night with everything going on.”
“Neither did I. You actually just woke me up, I was napping.”
“I just woke up as well. Thought I’d check in just so that you didn’t need to worry but, well… I suppose you weren’t all that worried if you managed to get to sleep,” I replied. “How are you? Is the house safe?”
“Max, it doesn’t matter what’s happening, I’m always going to be worried about you. I’m fine, the fighting didn’t get close to the house so there’s no damage. In fact, the whole neighborhood was spared, thankfully,” Mom said. “Are you coming home tonight? I can make some dinner if you are, but I think it might be best if you stay put for at least another day. The fighting might’ve stopped but there’s still a lot going on.”
I didn’t detect anything unusual in the way she spoke. Mom had always been overprotective as I had grown up, but our roles had reversed soon after her injury. She tried to keep her established motherly role going despite the dynamic not surviving my early adolescence. Mom eventually lightened up but still made sure to check in a lot. These last few weeks, she had been noticeably distant.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Mom.”
“Yes? What’s wrong, you sound distressed.”
“I think…” I paused for a moment to contemplate what I wanted to say. “I think we need to talk when I get home. There’s uh, some stuff I want to talk about.”
“You know I’m always going to listen. It’s not like I can run away,” she laughed. “But if something is bothering you, you know I’ll try my best to help you.”
Mom was a good listener, but I wasn’t sure how she would react to what I had been doing. I was tired of lingering on the ‘what ifs.’ I knew that telling Mom from the start was something I should have done and I recognized that now. Juggling my school life and my super life was hard enough. Trying to keep Mom out of the loop was more drama than I could be bothered to deal with.
“Yeah… yeah I know. Thanks, Mom,” I said, unable to suppress my smile. “I’ll try and get home as soon as possible, but that might have to be tomorrow.”
“There’s no rush. Just make sure you’re safe – and don’t worry about me! I’ll be fine. I still have Alex to keep me company.”
“If I’m not home tonight, tell her I said hi.”
“I’ll be sure to pass along the message. Be safe, Max.”
I ended the call and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. Reaching up, I pressed the button to dismantle my helmet. Nothing seemed… real anymore. Since my Awakening, I thought I had been doing my best. I thought I had been keeping on top of things, and maybe I was.
But sitting here in the hotel bathroom after almost dying several times last night made me realize that I shouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place. I never had a grip on what I was doing. All I had achieved was clinging to a log as the rapids pulled me down a rushing river. If I didn’t start making serious changes soon, I’d fall off and be washed away.
I knew what I needed to do, but the only question was if I had the time.
The answer was simple.
I will make the time.
Standing, I walked toward the bathroom sink, eyes locked on my reflection. I couldn’t believe I once thought I had looked bad with only the black eye. It was barely visible now, but my attention was on my broken nose, split lip, and general look of exhaustion. My eyes were bloodshot, and like Sam, I had dark bags hanging under them. Looking at myself made me want to find the nearest bed and sleep for a week.
Unfortunately, that would mean wasting precious time.
Disengaging the suit, I peeled it off and switched on the shower. The steaming hot water against my skin revitalized me more than I expected and left me feeling refreshed. Given that it was four o’clock in the afternoon, I knew I didn’t need to hold out for that long before my body craved rest again.
Besides, I still needed to eat. It was a good thing Liam and Mia were already sorting that out.
Once I had finished washing up, I slipped back into my suit just in time to hear the door of our hotel room open and shut. Liam and Mia’s voices came through, as well as Sam’s. When I left the bathroom, the delectable aroma of Chinese food assaulted my senses.
“Smells good,” I commented, walking up behind them. Liam and Mia were placing the bags of food on the table. They offered me easygoing smiles, but Liam’s seemed hollow, lacking any feeling behind it. “I doubt this was easy to find with everything that’s happened. I bet they were busy.”
“Everywhere we went, the lines were out the door,” Mia replied with an exaggerated sigh. “We gave up and just waited at this place after searching for hours.”
“I was in the mood for Chinese,” Liam shrugged, moving towards the cupboards to fetch some plates and cutlery. At first, he only grabbed enough for himself, but a quick glare from Mia had him turning around to get more. His arm transformed and carried a whole array of plates, bowls, and cups to the table. “There, now you guys can pick whatever.”
“I’m starved! Thanks, you two,” Sam pushed herself up from her seat. I looked over and caught a glimpse of the TV. She was watching the news – a full-day coverage broadcast. They were replaying an interview with Dreamweaver that happened earlier in the day. The press surrounded her with microphones pressed so closely to her face that I wondered how she could breathe. “So, how are we all feeling?”
“Is that really a question?” Liam asked with a snide tone. “I would have thought it was obvious.”
“Everyone handles these things differently. I thought it would be good for us to talk about it,” Sam replied. “And before you say it, no, I’m not trying to play therapist here. It will be good for us to talk about it so that we all know where we stand. Last night was intense – more so than what most people are used to.”
Liam wrinkled his nose at the explanation but begrudgingly accepted her reasoning with a shrug.
“I guess I feel… tired,” his shrug turned into a few rolls of his shoulders as he scooped more fried rice into his bowl. He looked over his shoulder and out through the crack in the curtains. “A bit guilty too, I think. We might have helped end it, but we fucked up a lot of shit doing it.”
I was surprised at his honesty. I expected him to bite back with more snarky remarks.
“We didn’t add to any of the chaos. As far as I’m aware, our efforts have won us a lot of brownie points with everyone,” Sam said. “Everyone knows who we are now and they know we’re not to be messed with. They’ll all think twice before making any moves. Grim’s gone because of us and everyone knows Bayside wouldn’t be here without us.”
“Yippe,” Liam muttered. “Now we’ve got giant targets on our backs. Can’t wait to see who we piss off next.”
Sam’s giggle made Liam frown. Mia didn’t seem particularly pleased by her amusement either.
“This is going to sound really stupid but there is such a thing as a good target and a bad target. Yes we have targets now but that is because of our efforts to dispose of Grim and help restore order. That’s a good reputation to have,” Sam lectured. “Our targets give us respect. An example of a bad target—”
“Grim,” Mia finished for her. “A common enemy for everyone.”
Sam snapped her fingers at her. “Exactly! As the saying goes; ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. We’re not in a position where anyone wants to unite against us. There’s no reason to.”
“Not yet,” Liam scoffed. When Sam crossed her arms and gave him a flat stare, he scowled with an indignant expression. “I get that you're super smart or whatever but I just don’t see anyone giving us a free pass to do what we want. The Cains are gone now, so what’s stopping Pandora or The Queen’s Court from just steamrolling us? You said you wanted to fill the void or whatever that The Cains have left behind.”
“Pandora lost a lot of their supers to Grim last night. They’re hurting and won’t be eager to pick any fights right now. The Queen’s Court has no interest in expanding territory. As far as Gaea is concerned, the entirety of New Elpis is her territory and she just lets other people take care of it temporarily. The ECU are too busy doing damage control so our only competition are small-time groups,” Sam explained with a growing smile. “Take a wild guess who they don’t want to mess with right now?”
Liam grumbled and shoved fried rice into his mouth.
“What about independents?” I asked.
Sam gave me a quizzical look. “What about them?”
“Won’t they want to take advantage of The Cains being gone? You think they won’t move to try and fill the gaps?”
“Unless there’s someone of Grim or Gaea’s caliber just hiding about in Bayside, then there’s nothing to worry about. Independents can’t hold territory. They won’t have the resources or the people to do it. The smart ones won’t even try, and the dumb ones will either die trying or get themselves caught by the ECU.”
“And which are we? The smart or the dumb?” Liam asked.
Sam groaned. “Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine?”
“Sam…” Mia started with a look of uncertainty. “Liam and I did some talking and we’re—”
“Oh, here we go,” any amusement on Sam’s face died. She opened her mouth to start a rant but I could almost see her other personalities try to interfere. The corner of her mouth twitched, halting whatever she was trying to say. Finally, she sighed and reluctantly nodded. “You guys don’t want to follow through.”
“It’s not that we don’t want to follow through. It’s that claiming territory is ridiculous,” Mia stressed. “You’ve been at this longer than any of us so you have a better idea of what this all entails, but I have to agree with Liam. I don’t like the idea of having targets painted on our backs. Taking what The Cains leave behind – whatever that actually means – doesn’t feel like something I want to be part of.”
Sam was quiet, which left the rest of us feeling anxious. She looked around at us, her gaze lingering on me longer than the others. It wasn’t until things started to feel uncomfortable that she cleared her throat and spoke.
“I guess I never did ask what you guys wanted,” she placed her plate of food down and wiped her hands on her legs. “So let's hear it. What do you guys actually want?”
“I don’t want to be a criminal,” Mia’s tone reflected finality. “I saw enough death and misery last night to last a lifetime and I know it’s only going to get worse. I want to help people, Sam. I can use these powers for good, we all can – and before you say it, that doesn’t mean we have to join the ECU. I… know that you guys don’t exactly see eye to eye with them and I get why.”
My brow rose at that.
Did she?
“The ECU doesn’t exactly treat vigilantes well. Make one slip up and they’ll come after you, just like they do everyone else,” Sam explained. “The thing with vigilantes is that they always overstep the line sooner or later. Things get messy; they get personal. If you really don’t want to be viewed as a criminal, then you should go knock on their door now.”
Their gazes met, and Mia didn’t move.
As more silence began to hang, Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You saw something, didn’t you?”
“I saw a lot of things last night,” Mia murmured. “I saw… that there aren’t any good sides.”
I found myself staring at Mia, waiting for her to elaborate. Sam did the same with the extra advantage of Gold discerning the meaning behind her words. The ECU doing shady things wasn’t new to me, but I had yet to hear how some of them acted during an emergency like last night.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“Lich and Ionizer doing the type of shit you’d only see in movies,” Liam chimed in without any enthusiasm for the conversation. “Interrogations and all that. Mia also saw some of their soldier guys just beating on injured dudes. Coulda been Cain or Pandora, who knows.”
“Heroes being unethical, more at eleven,” Sam sighed, turning to Liam. “What about you, tall, dark and eldritch?”
Liam didn’t say anything for a moment, his gaze drifting to the coffee table in front of him. He looked like he was mentally a thousand miles away until he brought another spoonful of rice to his mouth. Clearing his throat, he sat forward.
“I want to find out what really happened to Natasha.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah I can understand that.”
“She worked for those guys. You said Francis was telling the truth, so either he’s a good enough liar to fool a Mentalist or she really did work for them,” Liam’s stare locked on Sam. He looked like he was trying to beat her out in a staring contest before abruptly switching his gaze to me. “You said you’d help?”
“As much as I can,” I offered with a nod. “We get the right information from these guys and we should be able to do something.”
Liam raised one of his brows. “Should?”
“Assuming Sam will help. Gold will be invaluable,” I said, looking in her direction. Sam reflected a complicated expression, no doubt trying to weigh her options to see what was beneficial. I watched her meander to the curtains to look out across the darkening city. She was stalling, and all of us wanted an answer. “What do you say?”
A snort escaped her throat as she shrugged idly.
“Maybe I was being too hasty about wanting territory. There’s other ways to establish ourselves and I have a feeling we’re not going to get the opportunity to do everything I wanted anyway,” she turned, showing her bitter smile. “I’m so used to thinking of myself. It’s kept me alive, but you guys are starting to grow on me. I like you guys,” she said, looking in my direction. “I think… as long as we stick together we’ll be okay.”
“Ew,” Liam said, looking like he had swallowed a lemon. “That sounds weird coming from you.”
“Ha ha, just because I’m all about business most of the time doesn’t mean I don’t care,” Sam said, giving Liam a flat look. “I’ve been on my own for so long that trusting people doesn’t come easily – but you all know that. If you guys don’t want to take territory then we can figure something else out.”
“Uh oh.”
We all turned to Mia. Her eyes were closed, and she was holding the side of her head. “That old guy you guys talked about – Liam’s uncle? He’s on his way up.”
“Oh great,” Liam grumbled. “The fuck does he want?”
“I don’t imagine he came for dinner,” Sam grumbled, putting her food down. “The people he works for are powerful. They know who we are and most if not all of our personal lives. We’re about to get a recruitment pitch, and I don’t think we can refuse.”
I chewed my lip and looked toward the door with frigid anticipation.
“What’s our move then?”
Sam exhaled slowly with a melancholic expression. “Can’t see a way we can talk our way out of this, so we hear them out, negotiate as best we can. Then, we deal with whatever comes next. They’ll go for the carrot before the stick, so we should get something out of this.”
Despite her saying that, I could see her fingernails digging into her palms.
Mia looked uncertain. “They’re not a gang, are they?”
Sam giggled weakly. “Nope. Not even close. I’m afraid they’re much worse than a gang.”
The apartment door knocked twice before it clicked open. Francis strolled in without so much as a word to any of us. He wore a jacket, cargo pants, boots, and a cap. He acknowledged each of us with a nod as he removed the cap, his gaze lingering on Liam longer than anyone. Liam just returned the gesture with a blank stare.
“Now that Grim has been dealt with and you’ve all rested up, it's time we get down to business.”
For better or worse, it was time to find out what these guys were about.