by Megan Derr
Table of Contents
Title Page
Book Details
Close Enough to Touch
Anti-Heroes will continue in Not with the Eyes
About the Author
CLOSE
ENOUGH
TO
TOUCH
ANTI-HEROES | Book Three
MEGAN DERR
Leland has always lived a life apart, never willing to get too close to anyone for fear of what might happen should the wrong people learn just how powerful he really is. Then his own reputation led to a friend paying the price, and he'll do anything to get her back.
Even if it means breaking all his rules to align himself with exactly the kind of troublemakers he's always avoided as strenuously as he's avoided the G.O.D. Even if it means sharing space with Byron Valentine, the beautiful, mysterious leader of the group fighting to destroy the G.O.D., a man who makes Leland wish he could have the normal life his own abilities have always denied him.
Close Enough to Touch
Anti-Heroes 3
By Megan Derr
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Samantha M. Derr
Cover designed by Natasha Snow
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition April 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Megan Derr
Printed in the United States of America
Close Enough to Touch
Leland watched silently, tucked out of the way in a corner, as Byron and Dixie worked while Greg tried not to fuss.
After two months of recuperation and another two and a half months of work, this should be the last session needed to have Dixie back up and running. Leland thought he'd seen everything when it came to supers, but a living computer was a whole new level. Seeing a living computer nearly destroyed, and then slowly rebuilt, was something else again.
Dixie settled into the large, long leather seat that reminded Leland of going to the dentist, but much, much fancier. Bands came up to secure his arms, and Byron went to work peeling back fake skin to attached tubes to his forearms and wire to the back of his neck.
"So what's this again?" Greg asked. As ever, he couldn't seem to hold still or be quiet. Super weird behavior given that when he was working, he made less noise than a ghost. It was the hands that really gave him away: those long, slender fingers that never failed to move with deft, easy elegance. They moved like spider legs on a web. There was no better thief alive.
Smiling fondly, Dixie said, "This is replacing my nano-structure. My wiring, basically. It runs along my skeleton and hooks into the rest of me, so my bio parts power my computer parts. It'll take most of today, and tomorrow we'll run diagnostics on everything and fix any lingering issues. Shouldn't be much, but there's always something needing tweaking."
Byron approached and swiftly got Dixie hooked up to some medical equipment. When all was finished, he picked up a syringe. "Ready?"
"As ever," Dixie drawled.
Greg ducked through the mess of tubes and wiring and gave Dixie a brief kiss. "We'll be here when you wake up."
"Don't jinx it." Dixie nodded to Byron, who fed the syringe into a tube.
Seconds later, Dixie was out cold. Byron went over to the black glass table and touched several glowing buttons on the projected screens.
The lights on a set of nearby cannisters, small and made of some gleaming metal, turned blue, and something poured from them into the tubes that connected to Dixie's arms.
"I would have thought nano machines would be…" Leland shrugged, "less?"
"Most of this isn't actually the nano machines," Byron said with one of his beautiful smiles. Leland hated that he noticed Byron's smiles. At least the man had stopped flushing and squeaking around him. That had been… Well, it was a relief he'd stopped. It was. "Part of it is the delivery system—if you simply dumped the nanos in there, they'd clump, kind of like just dumping grits into hot water and not stirring them."
"What in the world are grits?" Leland asked.
Greg laughed. "You're lucky Dixie is already out. He'd be highly offended by your ignorance. It's cornmeal, kind of like eating cream of wheat."
"Ah." Leland hated cream of wheat; it tasted like paste.
"Anyway, most of this is to keep the nanos from clumping and also deliver them exactly where they need to go, and ensure they attach properly when they get there. Like a bandage that covers a wound for a few days until it's healed enough to not need the extra safeguard." Byron looked over the monitors that were tracking the anesthesia. "The last bit of it is an additional painkiller that will start releasing an hour or so after he wakes up, so that he's not in pain while the process finishes up."
"How painful is it?" Leland asked.
Byron grimaced. "Imagine someone tattooing every inch of your body all at once, then quadruple that. Some of the earliest experiments didn't anticipate the pain levels properly, and people died from it. That's part of the reason we weren't sure he'd live when we went after the Mason System: sheer overload of pain. After a point, even drugs can't help. The body simply can't take it. But Dixie was literally born and raised for this; he's been modified for it in terms of endurance, as well as his tolerance and threshold. He still obviously needs painkillers, but not as much as an un-altered person would, and if something fails, he stands a chance of enduring long enough to get help. He's one of a kind."
"Yeah," Greg said fiercely, curling his fingers into one of Dixie's quiescent hands. "He is."
Leland ached watching the three of them. He'd never had such close friends, not until Ariadne and later Greg, and even them he'd kept at a certain distance, afraid they'd eventually just wind up like his family. He'd lived through that once; he didn't want to do it a second time.
It was the Prince who'd killed them, so intent on slaying Devastater that he hadn't cared who died in the crossfire. Leland had been eight when he'd come home from getting ice cream to find his house a pile of rubble, press everywhere, and three black bags containing what little remained of his parents and sister. She'd only been three. His parents had been young too, though he hadn't appreciated that until he was older. When his mother had gotten pregnant at seventeen, his parents had married, buckled down, and by the time Leland was five they had a good house in a shiny new suburb and a second child on the way.
Three years later, Leland had lost everything. The state had thrown him into the foster system and Leland had started a living nightmare that wouldn't end until puberty brought his powers in a terrible, horrific way. After that, he'd lived on the streets, working under the table jobs until he'd been able to buy a new identity, far too terrified to go back to his old one.
He'd been Leland ever since—and Minder, determined to do right what most so-called heroes did wrong. Then he'd meet Ariadne, and the children she took care of, and it started to feel dangerously like he'd had a family again. Greg had only added to the sensation.
Now, standing here in their midst for going on four months, all he felt was discombobulated. He didn't know how to do this anymore, not really. He could chill over a beer with Greg and help Ariadne with the kids, but the rest?
He had no idea. Not a single one.
Leaving them to it, Leland slipped away, threading through the building to the kitchen.
He loved the way Byron had taken an entire apartment building and turned it into a sprawling complex of interconnected rooms, secret tunnels, and more. Only in the past week or so had Leland really star
ted to feel like he was getting the hang of the place. The mazelike design made it feel oddly safe, when normally he was perpetually exhausted because sleeping too soundly meant not waking up in time to avoid disaster—or worse, he'd wake up just in time to react instinctively and cause the disaster.
There were days he loved his powers and all the ways he could use them to help people the rest of the world ignored. There were also days where he bitterly hated them and everything they deprived him of.
In the kitchen, he took out a cherry-flavored soda and sipped it, leaning against the counter and idly listening to the news while he pondered what to have for a snack. Like every other day, the news was filled mostly with hero exploits and all the reasons the "villains" should die.
"…the Prince."
Leland's head snapped up. "Rewind thirty seconds."
The TV froze, then wound back and started the latest report over, slightly sped up so eventually it would sync back up.
"Earlier today in Wayne City, the Prince clashed with new, notorious super villain Countdown as well as Trick of the Light. Early reports are saying the clash was over a new G.O.D. building here in the city, intended to serve as a shelter for the homeless and a soup kitchen."
Leland snorted. The G.O.D. had never built a soup kitchen in their life that wasn't a front for something else—usually a way to kidnap supers under the radar. He'd nearly fallen for such a trap when he'd first been living on the street. He'd been stupid enough to use his powers without making absolutely sure he was alone, and it had almost cost him everything—again.
Thankfully, everyone tended to underestimate him, since his power levels were considered legendary at best, and pure, made up bullshit at worst. Leland was in no hurry to disabuse the world of their notions.
"Here now is the Prince himself," the reporter said, lifting her mic so the towering Prince could speak, the TV shifting back to live as it caught up to the broadcast.
Leland didn't bother listening. It was the same drivel as always, where the poor, beleaguered heroes were constantly thwarted in their goodness by the cartoonishly evil villains who wanted to destroy the world for reasons nobody ever really explained.
The Prince had gained his name by way of his looks, which to hear Byron and the others tell it, was a constant source of frustration for him. He'd started out with a different name, but it had never stuck because all the people who fawned over him said he looked like Prince Charming. Unlike most of the G.O.D., he didn't have a secret identity. He sat on the G.O.D. council and was pretty much only the Prince.
His original call-sign—or hero name, in common parlance—was Kratos, after some Greek spirit or something, Leland couldn't remember exactly what. Essentially 'Power,' which was typical of the G.O.D. His ability was one of the deadliest: siren song. Going head to head with the Prince was not to be done lightly. More than one villain had fallen beneath his spell and killed themselves on his command. Watching the Prince in combat was sickening once he got the upper hand. All he had to do was stand there and talk.
Thankfully, he had two weaknesses: one, like all sirens, he glowed when he used his powers, so it was impossible to use it without people at least being aware of what was happening, even if they were helpless. Despite the efforts of the best scientists in the world, no one had yet devised a solution or even some sort of masking for the problem. Leland wasn't much on religion, but even he considered that a blessing.
The second weakness to siren song was good old fashioned earplugs, though they had to be damned good ones; or some other suitable disruption that made hearing him clearly impossible. There was no way to fall under the Prince's spell if he couldn't be heard.
Still, Leland dreaded the day he went up against the bastard. Which he would, as surely as Dixie had gone up against Hades. For killing his parents. His baby sister. Nearly the whole block they'd lived on. Hundreds, even thousands, of others in the years since.
The Prince should have been booted out of the G.O.D. and thrown into prison for what he'd done to Leland's family and neighborhood. His siren song had gotten hold of Devastater and… nothing, because it was easy to blame the Prince's choices on a dead villain whose power had essentially been destruction.
He sipped more of his soda, half-watching the news. The Prince prattled on, and Leland wondered if the barely-there sheen about him was merely the glaring sunlight or if the bastard was manipulating the audience. It didn't work through the TV, his powers had to be live, as it were, but it certainly would work to calm down anyone in the immediate area who was angry. Disgusting bastard.
Leland looked away before he gave into the urge to break the bastard's face. Instead he focused on everything else in view of the camera: the tired reporter with a strained smile, the people in the background, the man with the shotgun—
Swearing, Leland let go of his soda and thrust his arm forward, heel of his hand out, fingers bent, like he was driving it into someone's nose.
On the TV, the shotgun barrel swiveled up into the air right before the gun went off. Leland swung his left arm out like he was sweeping items off a desk, and the man hit the pavement with a startled cry. Leland slammed both his hands down, pinning the man in place until police arrived to arrest him.
Poor bastard. A shotgun was never going to kill the Prince. The G.O.D. was well protected against such things. Their flashy black-and-red uniform could stop just about anything, including their full-head masks. For those few like the Prince, there was an invisible shield protecting their pretty little heads, so they could be corrupt assholes and look good at the same time.
The poor guy currently being hauled away for attempted murder would have only found himself eating his own ammo—possibly by way of ricochet, or more likely by way siren song-assisted suicide once there was no longer an audience.
Leland grabbed a napkin from the basket on the island and pressed it to his nose to staunch the bleeding. Speaking of stupid. He gripped the edge of the island tightly, but despite his efforts to fight everything back and hold on, the aftereffects of pushing too hard swept over him. He hated the nausea the most.
Before he could toss his lunch, however, the dark won out.
Leland crashed to the kitchen floor, still clutching a bloody napkin. The soda, until then hanging in the air, landed beside him and spilled across the floor, filling the kitchen with the sticky-sweet smell of cherry cola.
*~*~*
He woke to the unpleasant smell of a hospital—specifically, the miniature hospital on the top floor of Byron's apartment building. The steady beep and hum of machines throbbed at his temples, making him groan.
"Leland!"
He cracked his eyes open and stared into Greg's pale, worried face. "Hey."
"Thank god. I swear I'm going to beat you and Dixie to death. What is it with you two and always doing this dramatic collapse stuff?"
Leland licked his dry lips. "Sorry. Didn't plan on it."
Greg huffed. "You did it long distance, didn't you?" When Leland didn't reply, he added, "You may as well fess up. Byron has already figured it out. Given what was on the news when we found you, it wasn't hard to put everything together. I haven't said anything, but…"
At that, Leland gave a weak laugh. "You don't have to say anything. It's written on your face. You really are a terrible criminal."
"Oh, be quiet," Greg replied, but smiled. "How are you feeling?"
"Like somebody took a jackhammer to my head. I don't suppose my pills are somewhere nearby?"
Greg winced. "Yeah, um, about those…"
"What?"
"'What' is definitely the question," said a sharp voice, causing Greg to jump and yelp.
Byron moved to the other side of Leland's bed, muting the machines before picking up a penlight and checking Leland's eyes before poking and prodding elsewhere. "To clarify, what in the hell were you doing taking such a dubious substance? That stuff can kill you."
"Can I have some water?" Leland asked, voice raspy, dry lips cracking.
"Of course, my apologies." Byron poured him a glass of water and handed it over. When he was done, Byron gently rubbed Vaseline on his lips.
Leland swallowed, shoving the gentle touch to the back of his thoughts. He wasn't going to be that stupid, he wasn't. He couldn't afford to be.
"Greg, go." Byron jerked his head in the direction of the door.
Greg pouted, but at Leland's nod, conceded defeat and left.
"Why did you want him to go?" Leland asked.
"You're still exhausted, and I wasn't sure how much he knows. Why do you take such a dangerous drug? That stuff is normally only used for end of life care."
Stupidly, Leland wanted to cry for a moment. Not once in all the years he'd taken the drugs had anyone cared enough to ask. They just assumed he was one more homeless bum or bored office junkie in need of a fix. "It's all that stops the pain when I strain myself, which is easier to do than you'd think."
"I'm not surprised, given what your power levels must be." Byron pulled up a rolling stool and sat. "I thought you must be a seven, possibly an eight, but you're a 10-level easy. Probably higher. Nothing less would allow you to use telekinesis over such a long distance. Wayne City is far northwest, right on the border of the United Tribes."
Leland sipped more water, grateful that it stayed down. The bitch of pushing his powers too hard was that it left him with nausea and a migraine for days afterward.
He looked at Byron, who stared implacably back, and decided denial wasn't worth it. Given that Byron had shared his deepest secret, it only seemed fair that Leland finally do the same, even if he felt like throwing up at making himself so vulnerable. "I've never been formally tested, but I'm definitely higher than a ten. I've read everything about meteor powers that I was ever able to get my hands on, and it all pointed to me being something most people don't even believe is possible."
"I assume it only works with live television?" Byron asked quietly. "You couldn't say, move a stationary object like a mailbox that you saw in a recorded feed?"
"Yeah, it's gotta be live, even if it was something that hasn't moved for fifty years. I have to be able to see it. Even moving something like this cup wouldn't work with my eyes closed. Once I'm moving it, I don't have to keep seeing it, but it's necessary to…grab it, I guess."
