Page 84 of All Superheroes Need PR
“Do you hear that?” Sixty-Nine says, interrupting my thoughts.
I think for a moment that he’s attempting to distract me, but then I hear it. The wings of a helicopter.
“Fuck. Must be the COE. They must have tracked him already.”
“But they were distracted. Fifty-Five and Sixty-Eight were there, and I left my illusion with them. How could they have failed? Two of ours should have easily leveled the whole block, the whole city!” Thirty-Eight snarls, curls swirling around her face, turning momentarily to snakes in my mind’s eye.
“Open the roof. Take them quickly, and in the meantime, I’ll restrain theWyvern,” Twenty says slowly. “Unless you’ve come to your senses and you remember your mission.”
“You think I’m your commander ready to lead the army to vanquish the planet. This planet and the people on it think I’m their superhero sent to save them.” I shake my head and laugh, brandishing my claws and funneling flame through my horns to illuminate the darkness. “Sometimes superheroes don’t give a fuck about the world. Sometimes they just want the girl.”
“I told you he was corrupted!” Three shouts.
Sixty-Nine throws open the metal roof in a burst of dust and sand. It clangs violently as it opens, and the sound only grows more deafening when three helicopters appear in sight and—bloody hell. It isn’t the COE at all. Is this ... a rescue?
With my improved hearing, I can hear Vanessa’s idiot brothers shouting at one another over the chaos. “Fuck,” I hiss at the same time that a sense of urgency pulls my attention across the room to an old model helicopter.
I start to run toward it, trying to outpace the weight of all four Tratharine warriors hurling their gifts at my back, because Vanessa is in one of the helicopters circling overhead, and I’m going to need that weapon to save her life.
And I’ve found it.
Chapter Twenty-SixVanessa
“Fucking hell, we’re going down!” Vinny shouts over the intercom in our headsets. I make eyes at Margerie sitting across from me next to Charlie, who’s already standing up, reaching for some scary-looking yellow pouch affixed to the roof of the helicopter. I have a suspicion, which I don’t want confirmed, of exactly what’s inside it.
I look at Margerie and see that her gaze has followed mine to Charlie. “Fuck,” she mouths, though I can’t hear her over the angry blast of the helicopter’s propellers—wings? I should have paid more attention when Vinny explained this shit to me.
I’m strapped into my helicopter seat, clutching it with all the force in my arms, wondering what in the high heavens I was thinking when I bitched long and loudly enough that my brothers consented to let me onto Vinny’s chopper. I’m even wearing his sweatshirt with a helicopter on the front and the slogan, “I’m a psycHotic helicopter pilot.”
Vinny’s adrenaline junkie buddies Arnold and Meron are flying the other two helicopters. When they found out why Vinny needed to borrow a couple choppers for the day, they bulldozed their way into this plan, and the worst part is, it’s not even a plan!
We agreed that we’d scope out the airport and only touch down on the empty tarmac if it was safe. Our plan didn’t involve us staging a fullsiege of the damn Old Sundale Airport, but when the hangar opened roof-first and a dirt and sand tornado engulfed Meron’s helicopter and our helicopter started to drop from the sky, Arnold, a gun nut in possession of a machine gun—becauseAmurkah—opened fire.
We regained altitude, but only for a second. “The main rotor is jammed!” Vinny yells. “Everybody grab a chute! And a gun!”
“A chute? You mean aparachute?” I screech.
But Vinny’s abandoned his seat. My stomach is up in my throat. He’s charging at me, pulling me out of my seat belt while the helicopter does a funny dance that I’m pretty sure is reserved for drunken prom dates and cowboys shooting at each other’s feet.
“I’ve got my gun!” Margerie shouts, brandishing the tiniest gun I’ve ever seen as Charlie pushes her right up to the helicopter’s dangerous edge and shoves her arms into the straps of a parachute before taking one for himself.
“Should I jump?” Margerie shouts.
Vinny grabs two parachutes for us, and as I pull my parachute over my shoulders and yank on the straps to tighten the apparatus to my back, I scream, “Where did you get that gun?”
But before I can hear her response, Vinny’s grabbing me and throwing the group of us out of the side of the helicopter.
I scream. I scream my head off. I scream louder than I’ve ever screamed in my life. My body falls and then jerks as Vinnykicksme in the stomach and pulls down on the latch for my parachute at the same time. The brutality makes sense when I see the helicopter cut between us like the blade of a guillotine. The jerking in my back and shoulders is painful as I glance around, panic in my chest making my heart thud like a drum, only to find Charlie and Vinny and Margerie happily floating thirty feet away from me, Margerie wildly waiving her gun. Every time it passes in his direction, Charlie winces back and holds up his arms.
I shout across the empty space, the tarmac looking appallingly far away even though we must be only a hundred or so feet up at this point. “Margerie! Put that thing down! That’s dangerous!”
Margerie scoffs. “Thisis dangerous? Have you seen the ground?”
She’s waving her gun, gesturing wildly at the world below as we slowly float toward the airport. Through the open roof doors of the hangar, I see that the entire place is ablaze.
“Your boyfriend must be down there!” Vinny shouts. “Use your handholds to steer yourself away from the hangar, Vanny! Head toward the tarmac!”
I glance at the holds hovering by my shoulders, reach up, and grab them. I mimic the motions Vinny makes and wonkily manage to steer myself away from the flames. Roland’shere. I can’t believe it. The last functioning helicopter of the trio is still flying in slow circles above the open door to hell. There’s something chaotic happening within the building because I can hear things catching on fire, loud banging, things exploding.
