Page 71 of All Superheroes Need PR
Vanessa’s surprise registers, but only for a second before resolve hardens her features. She grabs my hand with vigor, just as the flame in my fingers goes out. She hasn’t commented on my claws yet, even though they’re already pointy, having grown out at an alarming rate throughout last night. I’m gonna have to talk to Nessa about it—a conversation I’m dreading—though to be fair, any conversation is better than the one we’re having now.
“Good day, Mr. Singkham.” Vanessa grips my hand harder and tosses Mr. Singkham an angry glare that’s frankly adorable. Still, it has the intended effect.
“Now, wait a minute. If you think you can simply walk right out of the door after having made such allegations, then you are grossly mistaken ...”
Mr. Singkham is trying to die. I turn to face his desk and take a single step toward him without releasing Vanessa’s hand. My eyes flare orange. I can feel the heat they generate, unlike when the white color periodically shines in my gaze, which feels blessedly cool.
“You mistake my participation in your little program for something else, Mr. Singkham.” Our eyes have locked. He’s holding firm, but I can see the displeased twitch of his mouth. “You threaten her again, and I won’t play your little games anymore.”
Mr. Singkham straightens and runs his hand down the front of his deep-blue suit. He was already in his office when we arrived, having caught up with a delegation from the COE’s Germany branch. Mr. Singkham did not enjoy our interruption, or the adulation the German delegation gave me and Nessa. She didn’t let them take her photo, though, and I didn’t like the reason why. The bruises on her face are still visible.
“You either talk to her with the respect she deserves, or I will kill you.” Vanessa squeaks and tries to pull her hand out of mine, but I don’t let her. “I may be a hero, but I’m only a hero for her. For you, I can be a villain just fine.”
Mr. Singkham gawks at me and is still gawking as I show him my back.
“Let’s go. We’ll see you next week. Vanessa is taking the rest of the week off after her ordeal, and I’m not coming in for any pretty pictures until she’s healed.”
“Monika’s going to be pissed,” Nessa hisses as I wheel her around and nudge her toward the door of Mr. Singkham’s office.
We stop just before reaching it. “We know of six others,” he says.
A feeling unfamiliar to me creeps up the back of my neck. Ice. My skin aches with a cold burn, and a wholly inhuman spasm shoots from my nape to my low back. I can feel my flesh shift, like there’s something pressing at the underside of my skin. My skin is a cage not made for it.
“What?” Nessa whispers, moving to stand beside me, a little closer to Mr. Singkham than I’m comfortable with. “Six ... You mean there weren’t forty-eight? There were fifty-four?”
“I haven’t been given full access to their files from the SDD, but yes. There were six additional carrier pods that fell from the sky ...”
“You just said that the Forty-Eight were recorded falling at the same time,” I bark, annoyed. Smoke wafts out on my breath.
Mr. Singkham has a harder time meeting my gaze now than he did. “They were. But the six arrived two weeks before.”
“Two weeks?” Vanessa and I balk in the same breath. We share a glance, and it feels ... conspiratorial. Like the way she looks at her siblings sometimes, so much depth passing through a look alone. I feel like smiling all of a sudden, even though it’s not the time or place for that. I feel like kissing her until she’s out of breath and passes the fuck out in my arms. Ain’t the place for that either. Soon though ...
“They arrived staggered but in groups. Six were recovered. Contact was made with some of the children who came from the pods, but it wasn’t the same as with the Forty-Eight who arrived two weeks afterward. These children were ... violent. They attacked.
“Defense forces in the countries where they were found were successful in containing them for a short time, but they were ...shocking in their abilities. Not only their gifts, which were impressive enough, but they could and were willing to fight. Children who looked as young as seven and eight fighting grown men and women with the intent to kill. And our forces had a harder time with that. Killing children wasn’t ... isn’t ...” He sighs, rubs his face, and shrugs.
“When I took over as president of the COE, the SDD only gave me so much information about the origins of the Forty-Eight—and the additional six, who haven’t been seen since they landed and fought the ground forces of the nations they arrived in. We don’t know where they went. So while I want to believe you, your account of what happened just doesn’t make sense, Ms. Theriot. I’m sorry for my hostility. I mean no disrespect.”
“Why doesn’t it make sense?” she says.
“There were only six others. Their powers were never properly documented, but even from the transcripts from the soldiers who engaged with them all over the world, not one suggested that any of the children they came across could teleport. What you saw—experienced ...” He shakes his head, his hair never falling out of its perfectly gelled coif even though his face looks like it’s aged a decade or more in the past several minutes. “I don’t know what to tell you, Ms. Theriot. It’s just not possible.”
I’m about to bite his head off—no, I can’t do that. I don’t have fangs. But I do have claws. I’m about to shove my fist through his chin and tear out his tongue—when Nessa intervenes. She takes my hand, holds it, squeezes it, needing me in a way that keeps Mr. Singkham’s head where it is.
“Mr. Singkham, they called Roland Sixty-Two,” she says softly.
“It’s not possible.”
“If six escaped detection so easily and if others have powers we don’t even understand, it stands to reason there could have been more. Not just six, but eight more than that too. Maybe even more.”
“Fourteen aliens is entirely unreasonable. Someone would have seen these fourteen by now. Or they themselves would have come forward. They were children—”
“Children who could fight. You just said so yourself.”
“Weak—” Mr. Singkham says, trying to speak over her.
Vanessa stands up, lifts her sweatshirt, and peels away a bandage on her hip for Mr. Singkham to see. And he does see. “No. They aren’t. And I know what I saw, what I felt.”
