I swallowed my food, forcing it down my constricted throat. I felt a little dizzy. “Watch it, jerk. I don’t care what you do to me. Just leave him alone, or I’ll make you sorry you even thought of messing with us.”
Boy, that was lame. Having seen him go head-to-head with Magnifiman, I was quite sure of his ability to take my head between his fingers and pop it like a grape even when he was bored. Unfortunately, a plain, ordinary high school kid with bad Geometry and Chemistry grades could offer nothing much in the cosmic battle between good and evil—nothing much but a dumbass threat if he thought his darling’s in any danger. Maybe I should’ve glowered while threatening him.
“Oh, I’m leaving him alone. I’ve never once touched our charming young Romeo. My business, you see, is with Magnifiman.”
“And I’m supposed to be involved in that?”
“That would be a ‘yes,’ yes.”
I grimaced, pressing a hand against my forehead. “You’re beyond strange. I don’t even think a shrink’s going to help you and whatever issues you might’ve had with your dad.”
“Oh, dear. Adolescent insults. After all the trouble I’ve gone through, planning this feast, giving you the best bedroom for a non-resident…”
“Yeah, well—you deserve more than insults, you psychopath. Thanks for lunch or dinner or whatever the hell this is, but I’m done.” I pushed back my chair and started to rise. Another wave of dizziness swept over me, and I clung to the table’s edge to keep myself from falling off. “Oh, God—what—”
“Ah, yes. Must be the sardines. Special spices, you know—a family kitchen secret.”
“Y—you drugged me with your fish?”
Through the rapidly thickening fog, I glimpsed his figure as it rose from its seat. “It was either that or blindfolding, gagging, and tying you up after your meal, my dear boy. And that’s a very crude alternative. I despise soiling my hands in such a manner. Transporting you back to your cozy little hole, unconscious, is the easiest method for supervillains. It says so in the handbook.”
“Handbook?” What the hell? I struggled to get up but instead felt the ground open up beneath me, and I was once again sucked into the night.
Chapter 27
What came after was a string of nightmares. I didn’t know if I was awake or not, but I was very well aware of voices fading in and out of my consciousness. My parents, calling my name—Liz, urging me to wake up—Althea, threatening to kick my ass if I didn’t open my eyes—Peter, quietly ordering me to get up. I didn’t know how long I stayed in that horrible state, floating in the dark, on fire and yet shivering from chills, unable to move my lips to speak, feeling my tongue thickened and glued against the roof of my mouth. It was so gross. My head throbbed. It wasn’t painful, but it was uncomfortable all the same, and like the voices, it faded in and out.
I could feel nothing in my hands and feet. Just numbness, fire, and cold. I could only call out to my family in my mind.
Eventually, though, the fever dissipated, the chills stopped, and the voices grew steadier. I couldn’t open my eyes yet, but at least I came out of my drugged state little by little. Mom was talking to me when my brain finally felt clear of the effects.
“We’re here, Eric. You’ll be fine. Dr. Burford’s taken care of you. Sleep now.”
I felt her hand press against my forehead, and I shifted under the covers, still unable to open my eyes, and promptly drifted off to a deep, dreamless sleep.
All was bleak, gray-skied, acid rain-drizzling normalcy when I finally came to. I lay in bed under God knew how many layers of blankets. I was soaked with sweat and probably growing black mold all over, but my family left my window partly open for fresh air. I stared at the countless trails of rain that ran down the window, gently loosening my mind from the cobwebs and the thick darkness of sleep. In bits and pieces, events of the most recent past came to me.
I’m quite done.
My blood ran cold at the remembrance. I immediately moved my hands under the covers and felt around. I’d been cleaned up, I was sure, and then dressed into my pajamas before Dr. Burford was called. I wondered if anyone—Mom and the doctor, anyway—noticed anything strange on any part of my body.
Dad was at work, and Liz had gone to school. Mom had stayed home to look after me, and the jubilant and weepy embraces I got from her when she came to my room with hot water and a washcloth made me feel like a ten-year-old again. I came down with chicken pox at that age, and Mom was terrified that I wasn’t going to make it past the fever’s crisis point. I did, with a few scars on my back like Peter, which I’d always treated like a badge of honor.
“Mom, what happened?”
“You disappeared, Eric.” She asked me to sit up, so she could wash my face and arms, but I offered to clean myself up in the bathroom. Mom was too relieved to argue, and she sat on a chair she drew up next to the bed. She seemed to spend more time observing me than listening to what I was saying, her eyes constantly moving all over my face as though in a perpetual search for something she could never find. “Then you showed up again, unconscious, on your bed.”
“Someone came to my room and found it empty?”
“Your friend Althea called us and asked for you—”
“She did? I thought…” I paused and realized I was about to go one step too far. No one in my family knew about Althea’s powers. Not even her mom, from what I remembered of our last conversation, knew about them. If my friend called for me, she did it to make sure someone in the household went up to my room and found it was empty. Good thinking, girl! “That’s cool. I’m glad she did,” I finished instead.
“We couldn’t find you anywhere. We went to the police, but they told us to wait forty-eight hours. So we did the searching ourselves.”
“Then you found me back here?”
Mom shrugged helplessly, her eyes reddening.
“Back in your room, yes—lying in bed, completely passed out. We went to the police station at around ten the night you disappeared. We spent the next few hours combing the streets for you. Then we went to bed when nothing came up.” She paused to dab her eyes with the washcloth. “We all skipped work and school the next morning, and Dad even called around—your favorite hangouts, mostly—to see if anyone knew where you might be. It was Liz who found you in your room. We sent her here to take one of your pictures from your desk for copying. We heard her screaming for us after a few minutes.”
“Then you called for the doctor…” Dr. Burford was a good friend of my dad’s. He was probably the only physician I knew who still made house calls—at least for his buddies. Considering our financial situation and Dad’s violent allergy toward hospitals, having Dr. Burford around was a real godsend.
Mom nodded, smiling and taking one of my hands in hers and pressing it gently. “Your friends came together. I didn’t need to call them. Peter’s been keeping our phone busy when your dad wasn’t using it, calling every hour, almost.”
“How—how long have I been out cold since you found me?”
“A couple of days. Your temperature was pretty high.”
I swallowed. “Did you change my clothes?” Mom nodded, and I continued. “Did you see anything on me? Marks or bruises or whatever, anywhere?”
There was a brief silence at first, as though Mom were suddenly reminded of something. She stiffened. The air around us chilled even more. “A few faint bruises that looked old,” she eventually replied, her eyes narrowing, her mouth losing its softness. I recognized that look. I was in trouble. “I know they’re not from drugs. Any idea where they came from?”
Oh, damn. I couldn’t answer. God, my face was on fire, and that was enough for her.
“Eric, I know you’re in love with that Barlow boy, and I’m glad that he loves you, too, but, for God’s sake, you’re only sixteen, and—”
“Mom, nothing’s happened. I swear. I’m fine. He’s fine. We just, you know…”
Yeah, Mom, we drive off after school, find a safe spot, and make
out in the back seat like there’s no tomorrow. Unfortunately, Peter can’t control himself when he feels, you know, horny, and his superpowers kind of work their way into our private moments. He just gets a little too rough with me sometimes. Oh, sure. Mom would just love that confession.
“Okay. This isn’t the time for that. We’ll talk about it later. You’re not off the hook yet, young man.” She sighed heavily, shaking her head and looking exhausted. My heart resumed its beating. “Other than those bruises, I saw nothing. Why do you ask?”
“It would’ve helped me figure out what happened.”
Mom’s eyes widened. Her hand stiffened against mine.
“You mean you don’t know?”
I hoped I didn’t blush even more, but I did manage to look her in the eye while lying through my teeth. My gut twisted the whole time I fed my mom all loads of bull, but I needed to do it. Being taken by The Devil’s Trill, of all people, was one less thing for her to worry about. “I don’t, Mom. I swear. All I remember was taking up hot chocolate and bread to my room, washing my hands, and then walking smack against something dark and solid. Everything went black then, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in bed.”
“Oh,” she said. “I—I guess that’s a relief then. I promised the police to contact them as soon as you’re able to talk. Since you can’t remember anything, they won’t have to bother you—I hope. You’re back. You’re safe and healthy. That’s all I want.”
She leaned close and kissed my forehead. “Now rest,” she said. She stood up and collected the hot water and washcloth and was gone within seconds.
I waited for several minutes to make sure she wasn’t coming back. Then I tiptoed to my door, opened it slightly to listen. I could barely hear Mom moving around downstairs. I shut the door and tiptoed back to bed, but I picked up the phone and called Peter. His answering machine kicked in, and I cursed under my breath.
Of course he isn’t home, dumbass—he’s in school. The whole world’s in school.
I didn’t leave a message and just hustled over to the bathroom to wash up. Once scrubbed clean, I stood before the mirror in my bedroom to scan my body for signs of the Trill’s handling.
Save for the impossibility of getting a good, thorough view of my back, a long, close examination showed nothing other than those faint incriminating bruises I’d got from Peter. Somehow, though, I couldn’t feel any relief from it. I was convinced the Trill had done something to me while I was passed out. Considering the way his skills in causing mayhem had enjoyed visible progress, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover what had just happened to me was just one more step up the ladder of Supervillain Proficiency. I desperately needed to talk to—no, to see—to be with—Peter.
I shrugged off all dark thoughts and turned my attention to a more casual appraisal of my appearance.
Still pale, still skinny. Mrs. Zhang would be upset if I were to tell her her weight-gaining potsticker and double-dose of fortune cookies didn’t work. I also couldn’t help but wonder what Peter would think if he were to see me like that, exposed in all my bony glory.
“Hopefully not too grossed out,” I muttered, my spirits sagging at the hopelessness of my gay boy aesthetics. I suppose I could always work out, but I didn’t have the money for gym membership or even the cheapest weight training equipment. That is, my parents didn’t have the money. If I dug around the house, maybe I could manage to find a stack of old, heavy books I could lash together and use for weights.
The cold, wet weather finally got to me, and I hurried off to throw on some warm, thick clothes and go downstairs. It had been less than two hours since I’d woken up, but I felt great—as though I’d never been drugged or fed suspicious sardines.
Mom fussed over me the whole day, and I faked still feeling icky if only to avoid having to talk much. I was too preoccupied with my adventures and especially the conversation I’d had with the Trill. Could something merely exist for its own sake? I tried to wrap my mind around it. There had to be a reason, I argued, but what?
Maybe I was too young, maybe I was too stupid, maybe I was too ignorant of the world. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t find a good enough explanation for The Devil’s Trill’s existence. Like he’d said, he simply was.
“Why are you around?” I kept whispering. I got nowhere fast.
As I ate lunch while Mom flitted around the kitchen and elsewhere in the house, I could have sworn I heard the Trill laughing quietly from somewhere nearby.
Mocking me with a complacent: Let yourself go, you silly thing, and accept things as they are—without question. You’ll find that life’s a great deal improved if you do. Who needs logic twenty-four hours a day? Not I. Neither do you. And you know that I’m right.
“Maybe you’re right,” I whispered again before shoveling food in my mouth. Hallucinations sucked.
Of course I’m right.
“Don’t flatter yourself. As far as I’m concerned, this is the only time I’m conceding to you.”
Feisty chatterbox, aren’t we? Take care now. Best not to talk like a neurotic, with your mother only a few feet away. You know she’ll be asking too many questions.
I blinked, my mouth frozen in mid-chew. Was I just holding a conversation with the Trill? How the hell did he know Mom was there with me? Where was his voice coming from? Hell, I didn’t even know if what I was hearing was real or not.
In the meantime, Mom set down a steaming plate of nuclear drumsticks. “There’s something wrong with the oven, sweetie, just when I planned to roast some chicken. Hope you don’t mind having microwaved drumsticks for now. Dad might be able to fix things when he comes home tonight.”
Ugh. What’s this contemporary mania for prepackaged food? Are you aware human bodies decompose much more slowly nowadays, no thanks to all the additives we consume in our food? We, sir, are all pickling ourselves alive with every meal. What a disgusting thought.
“Oh, my God.” I dropped my fork, startling Mom with the sudden clatter. I quickly pushed my chair away. “Oh, no, he’s here.”
“Eric? Honey, is there anything wrong?” Mom started to walk toward me. I reflexively leaped out of my chair, knocking it over, and scuttled to one side of the table. She stopped, blinking. “Eric?”
Did you just throw a piece of furniture down? Goodness, that was subtle. I ought to give you a lesson on finesse, Mr. Plath.
“Nothing, Mom—I just—remembered something I need to do.” I took a few breaths and steadied myself. “I have to go.”
“What? Where? It’s raining right now.”
“I know,” I stammered. “But there’s something I forgot to get for—uh—”
Music class.
“Dude, I’m not taking Music classes. Butt out.”
No music classes. How crass. Well, so much for the youth of today.
“I said, butt out! God, you’re worse than Althea!”
“Eric, who’re you talking to?”
“Nothing—no one—I was just trying to think out loud—you know?” I hurried to the door. “Mom, I gotta go. I won’t be long, though, I promise.”
“Where are you going?” Mom demanded, her voice turning harsh. She stood at the other end of the dining room, hands on hips, her brows raised. “Eric, you just got over a fever and a kidnapping, and you’re waltzing out the door like that?”
“Mom, I’ll be back soon.”
“Eric! Come back here!”
I ran down the hallway and tore past the front door.
I even ignored my bike in my hurry. I just needed to get the hell out of the house, keep the damn Trill as far away from my mom as I could. It was still drizzling when I stepped out, and I was glad I’d put on a thick, warm hoodie. Though an old pair of sneakers in the rain wasn’t a very good idea. I pulled down my hood, but while it helped keep my head from getting wet for the time being, my glasses weren’t safe from the weather, and I blindly fumbled my way through the city. I didn’t know where I was going—only that I wanted to go as far away
as possible from my hovel. I meant, house. Yes, house, damn it.
I ran out the door, and my pace didn’t change until I’d wandered several blocks away, turning into little side streets here and there just to make sure that Mom wouldn’t be able to shadow me. I hoped to reach the farthest point in the city by the time fatigue overtook me, but all I managed to do was lose my way somewhere in the dingier neighborhoods. I kept reading the street names aloud to myself, forcing my foggy memory to recognize them, but nothing sounded familiar. In time, I plain gave up.
A very clever move, running off to the seedier corners of the city. I must confess it took me a while to understand your intentions, but it was well worth the effort. Bravo, sir.
I’d completely forgotten he could hear me. The list of street names I’d been muttering to myself surely would’ve given him a map to use if he chose to hunt me down.
“Oh, shut up, you psychic vampire.”
I will, I assure you, but not without conditions.
“Great.” I sighed, throwing my hands up.
Tsk. Have you learned nothing from—
“Yes, yes, yes, what I know about life, I learned from Batman.”
Excellent. You’ve done your homework.
At this point, my feet were wet, and my soaked sneakers were making all kinds of embarrassing squishing sounds. I was also beginning to shiver against the cold, and a good part of my jeans were also damp. If I were to engage in a surreal conversation with someone who existed in my head, I might as well look the part.
I turned into one alley, grimacing as I hopped over slimy black puddles. A battered old dumpster stood against the rear wall of a filthy apartment building. I’d rather not dig around the main bin, but I managed to spot an old cardboard box that had been discarded and left next to it. I broke it down, stomping it flat and sitting on it, huddled beside the dumpster. The building’s jutting roof helped keep the rain from washing me down though the occasional breeze scattered the raindrops, and I was pelted with cold, dirty water. I drew my knees up to my chin and hid my face against them. No one from my family would be able to spot me here, I told myself. I clung to the hope with tired desperation.
Rise of Heroes Page 20
