Page 44 of All Superheroes Need PR
“I gotta get back.” I stand up. The medical staff falls away from me, landing on their asses even though I haven’t touched them.
“We’re not finished!” The guy on the ground points at my thigh, and I see that there’s a needle dangling from my leg. I take a step. My right knee gives out. Shit.
Several people rush forward to catch me, and I feel embarrassed, but damn, I’m fucking exhausted. “Need a plane.” I’m not gonna be able to fly out of here.
“We’re planning on one ...” My COE handler is on-site, along with two COE security guards and a journalist from Vanessa’s agency. She’s a damn beast. She slept when I did—only four hours, maybe fewer than that—and she’s been up ever since. Her face looks haggard and insane, brown skin drained of almost all color. Her lips are blue-tinted, and I’ve seen her a few times putting her camera down and dipping her fingers in warm water. She doesn’t wear gloves. Can’t imagine how cold she is. She’s still on me now, never too far. I look at her and give her a tip of my chin. “Let’s go.”
She nods without hesitating, and I notice her waver on her feet as she rises to stand up fully.
I look to my handler, a middle-aged Black guy who’s built like a tank. When I first saw him, I thought he was one of the security guardsuntil I realized he wasn’t wearing white or carrying a big gun. His was smaller and buckled to his belt. “Get us out of here.”
“Where should we take you?” He’s already on the phone. I appreciate that.
“Back ...” To my girl.She doesn’t want to see me. I had them put a hold on moving my shit, the little of it that there is from my empty-ass apartment. But now, standing here shaky as I am, I don’t want to go back to that. I don’t want to go to a generic hotel either. “Take me to my girl. Anybody asks, tell them I did this for her.”
Chapter FourteenVanessa
It’s Saturday evening. I’ve ordered takeout—again—and even though my foot’s already feeling a lot better, I’m still trying to keep up with the doctor’s suggestion and not do too much. So I’ve only been doing what I do best: working. The news cycle has been mental. It’s been so hard to keep up with. And worse, a lot of news outlets want to hear fromme,Vanessa the Wyvern’s girlfriend, not Ms. Theriot, head of The Riot Creative. I’ve had to issue statements, but they’ve been strange to issue—especially from behind the safety of my own computer and especially because they all come from a place of absolute truth.
He’s my hero, and I’m so proud of him. I hope the world is too.
When my doorbell rings, I answer it on a wobbly leg and thank the man who hands the food over. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to recognize me in the slightest, despite the fact that Luca’s pictures of me have been plastered all over the place. Outlets have homed in on them, coupling pictures of my nervous, hopeful face with images of Roland looking like a snow god emerging from the mountain. He recovered all the kids and all the trapped medical staff. Five are in critical condition. Two ... didn’t make it. Sixteen more had significant injuries but are already out of intensive care or out of the hospital, and the rest made it out withbumps and scrapes and nightmares that I’m sure will haunt them for a while. But it’s thanks to Roland that they made it out at all.
I did it for her.That’s what media outlets are reporting he said toFemastaff, but nobody caught it on camera, and I ... definitely don’t believe it. It’s been hours since his plane left Washington. He was helicoptered off-site this morning after almost two days of helping people nonstop. It was ... insane. I’ve been glued to the TV this whole time—and to my phone, since Monika is also a nutjob and is clearly already in need of a raise. The photographs we’ve sold so far have almost paid her entire salary for theyear. It’s ... crazy.
Half finished with my sushi, I get distracted by some of the latest pictures Monika sent through. The last one before she signed off shows the Wyvern trying to sleep in the helicopter to the airport. Oh my god, he looks untamed, positively feral.
He’s covered in bloody scrapes and scratches, bruises that have already begun purpling. His head is lolling uncomfortably on his neck, making me wish I could reach through the still frame and hold up his head against the metal backing behind him. He just looks so exhausted. I feel so guilty. I glance down at my phone for about the billionth time since I texted him last night, wishing I hadn’t sent it. But he’s seen it. It’s too late to take it back.
And he didn’t answer.
The doorbell rings, and I swallow my next bite of sushi and wash it down with sparkling water. I’m dragging a little bit from too little sleep and too much adrenaline and worry pumping through my veins at present, but I tell myself it’s nothing compared to what Roland’s been going through or what Monika’s feeling after using a strength bordering on supernatural to keep up with him. And she’s supposedly human. I don’t believe it.
Thinking it’s Elena coming to check on me, as she’s been threatening to do for the past three days—forget the fact that she alreadydidcome by this morning—I stagger up to my cherry-red painted front door without bothering to look at what I’m wearing. If I’d taken anextra second to put on a sweater, or a bra, I might have avoided what happened next.
And if I’d taken an extra second to put on that sweater, I might have avoided what happened next ... and regretted it.
I wrench the door open wide without checking the peephole to find Roland on my front step, leaning heavily against my doorframe. His lips are slightly parted as if he’s about to speak, but he looks almost as shocked as I feel to see him standing here, which is strange;hecame tome. And then I recognize that he’s not actually looking at me but at my chest. My thin-strapped tank top is white, and even though it’s baggy, it’s almost see-through, and my nipples instantly perk at the first whiff I get of his scent.
“Rol—oh ...” I gasp. I take a half step back on my brace-wrapped leg.
His gaze lifts back to my face. He takes a half step to counter mine, and before I can do or say or think anything more, Rollo’s stepping fully into my space—so close that his still bare scratch- and scrape- and suture-covered abdomen brushes my chest.
I look up at the same time that he dips down. His fingers are so, so soft against my chin and cheek. They flutter; the same hands that wrenched bodies out of the snow with brutality and ferocity, they flutter now. Almost ... trembling. And I no longer remember that we’re in a fight when his lips alight on mine so, so softly.
They’re warm and dry and full beyond belief. He tastes like he smells, like a bonfire. The scratch of his beard on my face is rough, but I still feel myself lifting my bandaged leg while leaning forward onto the ball of my good foot and then onto my tiptoes. But just as my tongue leaves the safety of my lips to taste him ... just a little taste ... he retreats.
He clears his throat, and I fall forward like an idiot and catch myself on his pecs and abdomen before I can place any weight on my bum foot. My fingers scrape over his rough stitches, and I struggle to prop myself back up. “Ohh. Sorry, Rollo. I didn’t ... I’m sorry.” Embarrassmentsweeps my chest, and if I were a lighter shade of brown, the heat there would no doubt be visible.
Rollo’s hands are gentle as they cradle my waist and push me up. He leans back down and kisses my temple, and then, as if he isn’t even paying attention, like he’s caught in the dream, he wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me into his chest. I stumble again, straight into his heat, and as he holds me, I don’t have a choice—not because he’s so much stronger than I am but because I can feel just how badly heneedsthis—I hug him back. I wrap my arms around his middle and squeeze as hard as I can until he releases a muffled grunt.
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling nearly dizzy with emotion. “Are you all right?”
“No.” He chuckles. His hands are on my jaw and neck again. He’s cuffing my neck gently, but it feels ... good. I can’t help the weight that suddenly falls into my lower abdomen ... and then lower than that. “But I feel better after that.”
I give him a little swat to his stomach, not enough to hurt him but enough for him to release me. My cheeks pinch with the restraint it takes me to withhold my grin. “You, um ...”
“I know I shouldn’t have come by, but I didn’t want to crash at a hotel. Can I ...”
