Page 86 of All Superheroes Need PR
“Arnold, what the fuck?” Vinny yells. “¡Cabrón! Everybody get the fuck down! David, get her!”
I look to my left only to see Arnold wielding a gun—I don’t know guns, but it looks like a fucking cannon—and he’s pointing it at the hangar as the sand is advancing on us, a single being striding out of the hangar just before it. A creature I recognize.
“Careful of that one! That’s Three!”
“Don’t worry! I’ve got more bullets!” Margerie starts firing.
“Margerie, put the goddamn gun down!” Charlie tackles Margerie at the same time that Three disappears and Arnold starts firing.
“Vanny, get down!” David launches himself toward the concrete.
“I have to go!” I yell, taking a wide arc as I try to run as fast as my wobbly ankle will carry me toward the hangar. I can’t feel the residual pain in my ankle. My adrenaline is roaring as loud as the clanging going on inside the old airport. I have the most uncanny feeling thatthat’swhere I need to be. Right in the thick of the carnage.
“Vanny! Fuck!” David is shouting, but I’m on a mission. A suicide mission? Perhaps. But a mission nonetheless.
I am not a sporty person, and my lungs are on fire. The smoke is thick, and even though my brain reminds me that Rollo will be fine with smoke and heat, that doesn’t assuage my panic when a pained roar echoes from within the historic airport. I run faster.
The sand wall moves out away from the entrance at the same time that a figure appears on the other side of the tarmac, right next to Arnold. “Arnold, look out!” I try, but Arnold is screaming bloody murder. I clap my hands on either side of my head, terrified ...
Arnold is there one minute, gone the next. And then I hear a scream in the helicopter overhead. It’s coming down. “Everybody, move!” I scream at the top of my lungs, but Charlie and Vinny, Margerie and Luca—who are closest to the falling helicopter—seem to have noticed it at the same time I did. They’re running across the tarmac toward me, David hauling ass with them. I feel relief, and then I feel it again when I see four parachutes dotting the sky. And then panic moves to overshadow all that precious relief when I see Three standing near Arnold’s abandoned gun. They’re moving behind the cannon, preparing to do something terrible. I’ve got to do something first.
“Hey!” I shout. “Three!”
Three’s head jerks as their gaze struggles to find me in the chaos, and when it does, they smile. “Oh fuck!” I take off at a sprint toward the hangar, only to realize it’s being blocked by a sand wall.
“She needs cover!” Luca shouts. Suddenly a gun pops off, and then another, and then a higher-pitched sound that has to be Margerie’s insane weapon, and then the sand wall surges forward toward one of my family members, and in the gap it leaves behind, I’ve got no other choice but to take the opening my people sacrificed to give me and try for it.
I sprint toward the hangar, but I’ve barely got a foot off the ground when hands close around my elbows, tightening them to my sides. “This time,” a familiar voice hisses in my ear, “I’m not going to be nice. I’m going to drop you off the edge of this miserable fucking planet ...”
I hear it ... the growl. It’s coming from inside the hangar, and it’s a pained sound. “Rollo ...” I gasp.
“In due time. Right now one of my friends is having some fun with your boyfriend. This might take a while.”
Rage comes for me, and I jerk in Three’s hold. It wouldn’t have had any effect if, at the same time, I hadn’t heard the loud pop of a gun going off, followed by Three’s shocked grunt. Three buckles, their hold loosening from around my limbs. I turn around, and without any idea what I’m doing, I hurl a punch at them.
My fist cracks against their nose, blood pouring over their lips. “You’re a dick!” I shout, and Three staggers back, collapsing onto their knees and shooting me the most bewildered look.
“Vanny, go!” Vinny shouts at the same time David says, “We got this!”
I look up and, for the briefest moment, allow myself to absorb the scene before me. One I will never forget. My five brothers, most of my C-suite, and my best friend standing on the tarmac in front of the gaping, blazing mouth of the hangar, squaring off against two wounded aliens and a wall made out of rock, debris, and sand, the Sundale skyline looking gloriously unaffected behind them.
Vinny and David are working to get Arnold’s dropped gun propped back up. Margerie’s waving her little pistol around at the brunette who’s gotten back up and is doingsomethingthat seems to have Meron, Mani, Jeremy, and Dan wandering in circles and shouting like they’re lost in a corn maze.
Luca wields a broken helicopter blade like a spear as he charges the sand wall. Charlie uses a shield made from broken helicopter hull and follows him. The smoke and fire from three destroyed helicopters make up the backdrop behind them, all framed by large banners that fall from the ruined hangar and say,Welcome, Forty-Eight! And thanks for your service!
Three grabs for my leg when I take a step toward the hangar. A gun goes off, and Three turns back to face Vinny, vanishing without a trace. “Vanny, go!” And so I go, disappearing into the smoke to find my alien boyfriend.
Darkness washes over me the moment I step inside, despite the fact that the roof doors are still open. It’s hotter than hell in here, too, andthe smoke is thick but clearing as I move forward. “Rollo!” I shout at the top of my lungs, trying to beat the smoke out of my eyes. The farther I wade into the dark hangar, the more it clears, until I’m finally able to make shapes out of the carnage. I don’t like what I see.
A youthful-looking male stands at the hangar’s entrance with his hands up, sand swirling around him, lifting his black hair. He isn’t looking at me but is focused on his task as wind and bits of helicopter crash through the air and then smash their way out of the hangar.
“You traitor!” a second male shouts. He’s got white hair and dark skin and wild, angry eyes that are turned toward something I can’t see behind a huge pile of wrecked airplane parts.
Rollo ...
Panic and determination fueling me, I reach for the first thing I see lying on the ground: a long, thin helicopter part that has a huge flat blade with notches cut into one side and a terribly precise point. It weighs almost nothing. “Leave Rollo alone!” I shout, drawing the attention of the two males.
I lift the weapon like a baseball bat. As a kid, I played softball for six days before Elena took pity on me and pulled me from that team, and every other team my sports-loving family had signed me up for, so I know I’m not much of a threat. Yet the look the males give me now makes me think otherwise.
