Page 77 of All Superheroes Need PR
Darkness wallops me, but it doesn’t last long. Because in its stead come images, pictures, sounds ... memories of a life that was once mine from a world far, far away from this one, and I remember ... everything.
Who I am.
What I was.
Why I’m here and the horrors I’m meant to cause.
Chapter Twenty-FourVanessa
I’m soreeverywhere. The bruises on my hips feel so minor now compared to everything else. I smile into my pillow. It’s a good sore, though.
His warm breath on my cheek this morning, smelling of smoke and desire.Gonna fuck you again, baby.He didn’t wait for my answer. I just arched into the fullness of him as he slipped inside of me. I was a mess, but that didn’t seem to matter. He came so quickly, and so did I. I thought that, after last night, I’d have been well stretched, but when he slid into me, he felt even fuller than he had the last time. A twinge of pain was all I felt, though, before pleasure exploded through me, cutting with all its claws. I kept my eyes closed through all of it. I didn’t want him smelling my morning breath, sure, but it also felt so fucking incredible, a dark fantasy I’ve never explored, an incubus coming for me in the darkness before dawn.
I stretch my limbs, reaching for the space on my right, then on my left. Disoriented, I lift my head from the bed and call out, “Rollo?”
But ... he doesn’t answer.
I pad to the bathroom, planning on grabbing an ibuprofen after I go pee and before I shower off, but the minute I flip on the lights, my heart slingshots up my throat. Broken glass litters the floor, shards of my own shocked reflection refracted back to me from a thousand angryangles. Did he ... Did someone ... My brain fires down different paths, but those paths wind and twist and merge together like a knot of hair without arriving at any conclusions.
Was it me? Did I do something to piss him off? And so he just ... left?
Maybe, he’s downstairs ... Yeah. This must have been an accident. He’s probably downstairs trying to find a broom ... maybe.
What the fuck happened?
I close my eyes, recognizing that I’m being stupid, but the logic doesn’t shake the heavy feeling weighing down my chest like an anvil. I make my way to the bedroom and find my phone. I find the guest bathroom downstairs and, while sitting on the toilet, shaking, scroll through my contacts and find Roland.
The phone rings once and then goes to voicemail. A generic bot taunts me. I scroll through my contacts again and again, calling Roland on every second pass. Finally, on the third try, the call goes straight to voicemail without ringing once.
And then a very, very dark thought comes to me. Number Three ...What if they took him?
My doorbell rings, and I jump, startled. I glance at my phone app, fear striking me hard even though I know it’s not Three. Three would never have knocked.
Instead, I find Luca and Charlie on my stoop, looking annoyed. They both glance down at my outfit as I throw open the front door wearing a fluffy bathrobe way too warm for the encroaching summer heat.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Charlie balks.
Luca makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “What do you think happened to her? Smells like sex in here. Augh!”
“Cabrón,” Charlie hisses, pushing past Luca and me and into my house. “Where is he? I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
“We are two consenting adults, and wait—Charlie!” But Charlie’s already up three steps. I have to practically leap to grab the back of his T-shirt and keep him from going upstairs to the scene of thecrime—crimes, if you’re counting both the bedroomandwhatever happened in the bathroom. “What are you even doing here?”
Charlie stops and turns to look at me with his eyebrows drawn. “I was heading into town and Mamá wanted me to go check on you on my way, and see if you and Roland were coming to family brunch tomorrow. Luca was bored.”
I wince at his words and Charlie’s expression becomes even more severe as I confess, “I don’t know where he is.”
“He dined and dashed?” Luca guffaws.
I wrinkle my nose. “That is horrifying. And no. Yes. I don’t know, maybe. But I think something’s wrong. The mirror in the bathroom is totally shattered, like there was a fight. I think he might have been taken ...”
“Taken? The god of fire was fucking taken?” Charlie says.
“Does that make you Liam Neeson?” Luca points at my chest.
I shake my head, pulling up my phone and dialing the COE offices—which go straight to static. “I need to find him, and I can’t get through to anyone.” I scroll through my contacts looking for Margerie while Luca gets on his own phone, dialing my other brothers, and Charlie steps back down the stairs, landing right in front of me.
“I think I can help. Where’s your computer?”
