“Oh my God,” Reid gasped, kneeling next to me. “What happened? Why didn’t you block it?”
I waved him away and struggled to my feet. My ankle throbbed, weak from its momentary hyperextension. Holding a hand up to my nose, I tried to smile, but the tears coming from my eyes certainly dampened the effect. “That’s, uh, that was how not to block a punch,” I said lamely.
The Sentinels had recovered, and a few laughed silently.
Gabe handed me a towel and I accepted it, dabbing at my face. He glared at his laughing comrades. “You should go see the doc.”
I instructed Reid and Marco to keep demonstrating to the guys, then limped toward the door.
Eleanor held it open for me. “That was unfortunate.” She slammed the door behind me.
I stared at the door, still hardly able to believe that she was the same woman I’d met last summer. After a minute, I began to make a slow path down the main road, little drips of blood falling from my chin onto my clothes.
Though I was in pain, I couldn’t help but feel a spark of hope. I’d won some kind of regard with a few of the Sentinels, and though my lesson had ended poorly, I’d accomplished something.
I limped down the road, taking in the quiet daytime activities of the snowy town. As I passed Dean’s house, I heard the sweet, tinny sound of a harmonica. Through the thin white curtains of the front window I could see him perched on the arm of his couch, playing the small instrument.
I closed my eyes and let the simple tune carry me up and away, to years before when life had been simple, and Gregory had loved me. The harmonica’s tune was similar to one I’d sung for my brother when he was small and afraid of the monsters he believed lived in the forest.
I’d once held him in my arms and comforted him by promising that I’d fight off every monster. He’d hugged me and said—
“Hey, Antonio! Wait up!”
Gregory rushed out of the main building and chased after Antonio, who was halfway to the range. When he caught up, they fist-bumped. Antonio glanced my way, then muttered something inaudible to Gregory, who looked at me briefly.
Gregory said something in return, and they both broke into loud laughter. Antonio mimed punching Gregory in the nose. Gregory laughed harder.
Something in my heart crumbled and blew away.
I continued down the road.
I stopped in front of the medical building and stared at the door. I didn’t want to see Benjamin just yet. Though I knew I was being immature, I turned and wandered toward the school building. It was Saturday, so it would be mercifully empty. I turned the doorknob and walked into the cold, dark wooden room.
Instead of desks, the room contained a dozen long tables with mismatched plastic chairs crowded around them. Old books on various subjects lined the crude wooden bookshelves. An ancient upright piano sat in the corner, its yellowed keys displayed forever because of its lack of key cover. Though drafty, the cozy room was deeply comforting, like a hug from a long-lost friend.
My fingers grazed the piano keys, plunking notes at random. They needed to tune it.
I perused the bookshelf, pulling out random volumes. I sat down with books on astronomy, herbal remedies, and the intriguingly-named Language of Flowers. I couldn’t deduce what kind of curriculum the students learned here—none of the books were proper textbooks, nor were there any volumes on history that I could see. The map on the wall behind the teacher’s desk showed the USSR, which I was certain didn’t exist anymore.
I was probably better educated than some people in Liberty. I’d never considered myself better educated than any non-superhero in my life.
I sat down and flipped through the astronomy book, enjoying the grainy black-and-white photos of constellations, nebulas, and satellites. I already knew the information, so I quickly turned my attention to Language of Flowers. Apparently, flowers and plants bore traditional meanings. People used to send coded messages to each other in bouquets to avoid prying eyes.
I flipped through the book with interest, reading about flowers familiar to me like irises, oleander, evening primroses, marigolds, and lotuses. Others, such as lily of the valley, linden tree, coltsfoot, wormwood, and belvedere were new, but no less fascinating.
Finally, I flipped open the book on herbal remedies, smiling a little as I realized that the books were in the school because of Dean’s value of plants. I browsed the book for a few minutes, memorizing the uses of common kitchen herbs in case I ever needed the information.
One of parsley’s many uses was the healing of bruises. Oregano had antiviral properties. Peppermint tea could relieve menstrual cramps.
I read page after page of the herbal book, fascinated by the wide range of uses of plants I could find on Reid’s spice rack.
Blood dripped off my chin onto the page about tansy.
I jumped up, ashamed that I’d left permanent, macabre stains on one of the few books the students had. I put the books back onto the shelf and wiped at my nose a little, then left the school house.
Maybe Benjamin and I weren’t getting along, but my stubbornness had just damaged someone else’s property. I needed to get healed. My ankle felt swollen, too. I limped up the steps to the medical building, took a deep breath, then turned the knob.
Though it was about midday, the medical building’s interior was shaded and watery, like an old photograph. Benjamin was alone, for once not attending to flu patients, who probably preferred their own beds.
He looked up from a thick book he was reading on one of the patient beds. Concern colored his features. “Good God, what happened to you?”
“An accident during sparring. My ankle gave out and I couldn’t block Reid’s punch.”
Benjamin crossed the distance between us and touched my cheek. I sighed from the instant relief, as well as the warmth of his fingertips. After an awkward moment, I turned to go. I doubted he wanted me around. “I’ll leave you to your reading.”
He reached out and grabbed my hand. “Please don’t.” Moving quickly, he pulled a washcloth from a shelf and turned on the tap, steaming water soon rising from the sink. “I hate the sight of your blood,” he said quietly without looking up. “It always reminds me of that night in the warehouse.”
Instead of handing me the hot, soaking washcloth, he began to dab at my face himself. I sat down on an examination table and let him.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so shocked in my life,” I said, smiling despite myself.
“That makes two of us. That was the worst night of my life, and that’s saying something.”
“As awful as it was… it was important for us to know the truth about each other.” His eyes met mine for a fraction of a second, then he looked away. “I do wish my throat hadn’t been slit, though. That was rough.” I chuckled at the onslaught of memories, one of them surprisingly funny, in a dark kind of way. “Did I ever tell you that I was actually happy that I was going to die like my grandma?”
“No,” Benjamin murmured through stiff lips. “You’ve never told me that.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I was pretty messed up back then. That’s why I didn’t want you to call an ambulance. I wanted to die with some kind of honor like she did. When you healed me, I decided to jump off the bridge because I didn’t think I had any other option besides going home and telling Patrick.”
Benjamin wiped away the blood from my chin. “Would you have told him you were friends with a supervillain?”
“No. I would’ve had to explain the blood on my uniform, though. It would’ve come out that I’d fought you, and that you got away. No matter what, I would’ve been punished for some kind of failure. Jumping off the bridge looked like a better option for a while.”
Benjamin stopped cleaning the blood. “Why didn’t you?”
“I was a superhero,” I said simply. “I’d taken vows to protect the city, and I had responsibilities.”
Benjamin set the washcloth on a little metal table and caressed my cheek with such tenderness that
I shivered. My days of late had been pockmarked with hits, punches, and slaps—but precious few gentle touches.
I bowed my head toward his, and then he was kissing me, his thumb gently massaging my cheek.
I broke away for air. “I’m sorry for calling you that horrible name,” I whispered. “Please forgive me.”
“Yes,” he breathed, and then he kissed me again. After a few seconds, he pulled away and gazed into my eyes. “You are a superhero. Present tense. Never forget that. You decide what that means, not the elders.”
His intensity kindled a small flame in my chest, and I took his hand in mine.
He squeezed my fingers. “Your vows kept you going when you were on the bridge. Let them keep you going now. You have to stay alive.” He swallowed. “You have to, if only just for me.”
I pulled Benjamin so he was standing between my knees. His nearness stirred old desires and passions to the surface, and I drew him into yet another fiery kiss. I imagined that we were in the sick bay of our home in Saint Catherine, that the tribunal had never happened, that I’d never felt Matthew’s sweaty hands on my skin. The memory of Matthew pulsed in my brain like a bruise, pulling me out of the moment. I rested my forehead against Benjamin’s as he caught his breath.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my chest heaving.
“For what?”
“For everything.”
He tilted my chin up. “You’re taking the blame for something you shouldn’t. I know you. You want to carry the world on your shoulders. Whatever it is you think you have to apologize for, you need to let it go, sweetheart.”
How could I “let it go” when I wasn’t even certain what “it” was? Benjamin was right—it was as though the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I’d felt it when I’d passed the memorial to the family that had drowned in Saint Catherine. I felt it when my team fought and argued. It crushed me when I recalled how I’d let Matthew assault me.
I felt responsible for all those things, though in different ways, and though I knew intellectually that I shouldn’t. Perhaps I could alleviate my guilt by taking responsibility for the right things in the future. Responsibility was a fuel to me, keeping me alive when little else would. What was I responsible for now?
My mind drifted back to the school building, in which I’d seen no history books. I had knowledge the citizens of Liberty did not, therefore I had power they did not have. The underlying belief of all superheroes was that our powers gave us the responsibility to protect and serve.
How could I protect and serve the people of Liberty with this type of power?
It occurred to me that in all his explanations of the Sentinels and Liberty, Dean had never once mentioned the federal government. Slavery was illegal, and even though the Westerners would deny it, they were under federal jurisdiction.
Could it be that Dean and the other leaders simply didn’t know they could turn to the law for help?
Benjamin had moved away from me to rinse out the bloody washcloth in the sink. “Benjamin?”
“Yes?” He glanced at me, smiling lightly.
“How do I contact the FBI?”
Benjamin froze, then spun around, open shock and fury written on every line in his face. “Why?”
We stared at each other for several tense seconds.
I hopped off the table. “Is there something you want to share with me?”
Benjamin’s face flushed deep red. “You… why do you want to contact the feds?”
I flinched back from his shout. All I could do was stare at his scared, angry face. “You really think I’m going to turn you in, don’t you?” Benjamin’s fists clenched, and my eyes flickered down toward them, then back up. “Why don’t you trust me?”
He took a step forward. “Why don’t you trust me?”
I took a step back. “Because for once, I’m not the one making fists.”
I turned and strode out of the room.
“No, Jillian, wait! Please!” There was a breeze, and then he grabbed the back of my arm, just beneath my shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” I shoved him away from me into a wall. I massaged my arm where he’d grabbed it. “Don’t ever grab me like that again, do you hear me?” My teeth chattered as clammy sensations oozed through my veins, snaking into each corner of my body. “Or I’ll make you as sorry as I made Matthew.”
Benjamin’s shock morphed into worry. “I’m sorry, I won’t do that again,” he said quickly. “But… but I thought you tortured Matthew because he pretended to be me.”
My heart rate increased. “Yes, that’s true.” I stumbled backwards toward the door now. “I have to go now.”
Benjamin held out a hand. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” I spat.
I wrenched open the door and dashed down the steps into the deep snow drifts. I walked as quickly as I could to our little house. As I approached, furious shouts from within grated against my ears.
“I am not staying one second in this stupid town longer than I have to!” Ember’s voice was louder than I’d ever heard her before.
“What are you going to do, go back to Saint Catherine by yourself?” Reid’s thunderous shouted reply reminded me of Patrick so much that my heart rate increased.
“If I have to, yes! That’s our home, not this hole!”
“Don’t call it that! These are good people!”
“Saint Catherine has good people and you promised to protect them!”
“The Sentinels need me! Why don’t you get that?”
“The Sentinels are nothing more than an armed gang, Reid! They don’t get a pass for murder just because the Westerners are horrible!”
“Nobody else is stopping them!”
“That doesn’t make murder okay!”
“It’s not—”
“Yes, it is!” I’d never heard Ember sound like that. “You do not have the right to pick up a gun and shoot anyone you want to just because you don’t like them! Dean is a murderer! They’re all murderers!”
“It’s not that simple!”
“Then why don’t I just shoot you? Because God knows I don’t like you right now!”
There was a long silence. Finally, Reid said, “You’re too upset for this. We’ll talk later.”
She snorted. “Let me translate that. ‘Shut up, hysterical woman. You’re saying words I don’t like and it’s making me uncomfortable.’”
“Ember…”
“We swore to defend the laws, Tank. The laws are there so people don’t resort to freaking mob justice. How are the Sentinels any different from any other lynch mob?”
“Sweetie, the Westerners are horrible.” Reid’s fire had died down. “If you’d grown up in my camp—”
“I grew up with Patrick Campbell. Don’t you dare lecture me on your hard childhood.”
“Well, there you go,” he shot back. “Jill killed him.”
My stomach clenched.
“As a last resort, dumbass! Or were you not there for that whole sick drama? She gave him multiple chances to surrender. He went crazy and tried to kill everyone, so she put him down like the dog he was.”
“Oh, so now we’re calling each other names? How mature.”
Ember’s cold laugh chilled me to the core. “Mature, Reid? You want to talk about maturity? Okay. ‘Hi, I’m Reid Fischer. I didn’t want Benjamin to join the team because he was an evil, heartless criminal, but I don’t see any problem joining an unauthorized private militia and committing federal crimes. But I’m not a huge hypocrite because I don’t feel like a criminal.’”
I heard Reid’s heavy footsteps as he walked to another part of the house, then the sound of a door slamming.
I collapsed on the front steps. As much as Benjamin claimed I bore undue guilt, I had been the one to rope Reid into joining the Sentinels. I could very easily be the one at whom Ember would yell at next, and she was one of the few people I loved who wasn’t semi-permanently angry at me for so
mething.
I hugged my knees and tried to tune out the unhappiness in the air by thinking about what I’d say to the FBI when I talked to them.
So, I would like you to go after every superhero camp in America and arrest their entire leadership structure because I said so.
Yeah, like that would work. The feds and the camps had been friends for generations. They’d demand proof.
A secret network of antisocial superhumans has been trafficking children from the camps since the Ford administration. Another secret network of superhumans has been rescuing them.
That sounded like the plot of one of the Danger novels. I’d be laughed out of the FBI building.
My father basically sold me to a predator because I dared to stand up to Patrick, another predator. Right after that, I found out my boyfriend had been sold by my elder to evil people who live in whacked-out compounds in the wilderness. The evil people are being hunted by a militia made up entirely of angry men who hate superheroes even though we’re victims, too. On top of it all, for some reason everyone is mad at me.
That sounded like a letter I might read in the advice column of the Saint Catherine Times-Mirror.
I need help and there’s nobody else to turn to.
That was too honest.
While I huddled on the steps, I watched people as they walked up and down the road, attending to various tasks. Few of them were alone—children walked in loud, giggly groups, while women walked in twos and threes, speaking quietly amongst themselves. Sentinels hurried along in packs, their deep voices low rumbles in the distance.
Only one person, Eleanor, was by herself. She walked out of the main building and headed toward Dean’s house. As I watched, she headed partially up his steps, then seemed to chicken out and decide against whatever action she was going to take. She gave her head a little shake and turned around to walk away. She looked up and saw me on the steps.
All the snow on the front of my house’s sloped roof fell on me, crushing me in pounds of wet, freezing ice.
As I lay underneath the suffocating snow, my face pressed into the earth, I heard the faint, muffled sounds of laughter. With a groan, I pushed myself up, shrugging off the snow. I was already shivering uncontrollably. Melting snow leaked down my collar and thermal underwear, and it was already soaking through my socks.
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