Page 66 of All Superheroes Need PR
“Shit. I forgot.” I lick my lips, able to taste fresh blood. “Fuck. You’re cut.”
“Oh. I ... it’s ...”
I slip my finger under her chin, forcing her gaze to mine. She blinks, this look on her face ... this fucking look ... and whispers, “You’re right. I just ... needed that.” And then she does the damnedest thing.
She smiles.
“You ready?” My voice sounds like gravel. I’m gonna puke. I’m so in love with this woman, it’s absolutely petrifying.
Because they took her, dragged her out here to torture her, and punched my woman in the fucking face.
Whoever they are, I’m going to find them and do terrible, terrible things ...
“I’m ready. Now.”
I’m ready.
Now.
It feels like she’s saying so much more, but I don’t have the strength to ask. I don’t have the strength for much at the moment other than clutching her to me with every bit of hope that I have. I take off into the sky with her gaze still locked on my face, staring at me with rapture and wonder.
Chapter TwentyVanessa
My head hurts and my stomach hurts, but my chest feels lighter than smoke as I stand at the window and watch the scene below unfold. The unbelievable scene.
The Wyvern—theWyvern—is playing basketball with my youngest three brothers. Him and Luca against David and Emmanuel. I’m in my childhood home, my fingers playing with the same pale-pink curtains that have been here ever since I moved from my previous short-term foster house. I moved between three of them before the caseworker assigned to me brought me here. It was only supposed to be temporary, too, so for the longest time I didn’t let myself get my hopes up.
The place I lived in before all that—the one the Wyvern just burned to dust—was in the unincorporated township outside of Sundale. It’s mostly abandoned now. I’d never been back. I’d never even Google Mapped it. But seeing it burn to the ground made me wonder why I hadn’t done that already. I made okay money right out of college. I could have afforded a few boxes of lighter fluid ...
But would it have been epic, though? Because being there with the Wyvern was surreal.
Not just because he burned it so efficiently, but because it was as if he took a branding rod to a wound that was raw and open andfull of pus, and scarred it over instantly. The blackened earth looked incredible from the sky. Flying with him, feeling his arms smooth and steely around me, was ... impossible. And just right.
And now, standing in my childhood bedroom—my real childhood bedroom—watching his insanely muscled body on the basketball court below, I can’t help but feel like he loaned me a little bit of his strength out there on those abandoned country roads. Maybe more than that. He gifted it to me, if I was being honest with myself, and it felt happily given.
I’ve never liked asking people for things. I dislike the feeling that I’m forcing someone to do something they otherwise wouldn’t want to do. But I don’t get that feeling with Rollo. I never get the sense that he’s doing a chore, being with me, doing things with me, taking me on dates, being here, playing basketball with my brothers—burning down my house. He seemed like he enjoyed that and like he’s enjoying this too.
“This is fucked up!” Mani shouts. He curses a long string of Spanish words, half of which are muffled through the glass, but I still laugh as he gets all up in Rollo’s face and Luca—Luca, of all people—shoves him off. Mani turns his ire on Luca then and takes off his backward baseball hat, throws it on the ground. It takes me to then to realize that he’s dripping with sweat. All my brothers are. And Rollo doesn’t seem to be sweating at all.
“They seem to be having fun, don’t they?” Elena’s voice is soft and doesn’t make me jump. I don’t know where she got the ability, but she can enter any room, even one she hasn’t been invited into, and make everyone within it feel warm and welcome. I think that’s what made mefirstrealize that I could live here. Stay here. And be a part of this family that was already so muchfamilywithout feeling totally like an outsider.
I half turn to face her, not willing to relinquish sight of the scene unfolding as David tries to cut between Mani and Luca. Meanwhile, Rollo doesn’t seem to be helping matters. He seems to be instigating things, egging Luca on.
“He’s just as bad as they are,” I say, laughing a little.
Elena grunts. “A perfect addition.” She moves to stand next to me and looks out the window until I turn my attention to her more fully. “You slept most of the day, niña.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Roland was worried.” Elena gives me a look.
I give her a tight smile. “Thanks for letting him sleep in the bed with me last night.”
Elena rolls her eyes. “I didn’t. Your father couldn’t pry him off with a crowbar. And he tried.” She takes my hand. I notice she has a mug in the other. She slips it into my fingers, and it doesn’t escape me that she’s looking at my face with concern scrawled over hers.
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were out of it when he brought you in. I managed to get you changed and bandaged up the best I could, but I’d like to double-check my work.”
