Page 43 of All Superheroes Need PR
“Gotta go back. Left one kid.”
He disappears, and this timeFemastops Monika from following as their workers enter the tunnels the Wyvern has excavated to put up supports and bolsters to prevent the cave from collapsing again. While I’m grateful for the additional security they’re providing him, it means we’re just left to watch coverage of the injured as they’re cared for and assessed and loaded into the emergency medical helicopters. Many of them are in critical condition. One ... a young man ... isn’t breathing.
It takes an hour for the medics on-site to pronounce the boy dead. Still the Wyvern hasn’t returned. The sky outside is starting to lighten. My brothers stand up to leave. “I’ll drive Mani,” Luca says, giving his older brother a heavy clap on the shoulder, startling him awake.
“And I’ll take this one back to her place.” Charlie scoops Margerie up off her dining room chair. I hadn’t realized she was completely passed out, draped over her laptop. I’d stopped fielding photos and checking our social accounts. Monika isn’t sending many photos through now anyway. She’s getting pictures of the young kids lying on long gurneys, but I’m not going to post any of those. I don’t want any of them to seethe light of day. They’re so tragic. The kids are eighteen to twenty—college age—but they look like babies, their skin all blue, their teeth all chattering.And Roland saved them.
“Thanks, Charlie.”
Charlie stops behind the couch while Margerie grumbles sleepily in his grip. “Put me down,” she says.
He just chuckles and shushes her. “Go to sleep. I’ll get you home once you give me your address.”
She mumbles that too. “Sleep, Vanessa,” she slurs.
“Sleep, Vanny,” my brothers all repeat in turn. Emmanuel stumbles over to me, rubbing his eyes. He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “He’s gonna be all right, Vanny. Don’t worry. You’ll see him soon.”
I shouldn’t want to, but I do. I have the strangest pinching in my chest—it resembles guilt—that makes me think he might, just maybe, be doing this because of me. And if he gets hurt, I’m not going to ... I just ... can’t even think about that. So, ignoring the advice from my siblings and Margerie, I stay awake and stare at the screen like I’m stuck inA Clockwork Orange, until ...
“And wait—I’m hearing that we might have some movement from below.” The female reporter is back, looking somewhat well rested; that makes one of us. The camera pans to the mouth of the tunnel where rescue workers are moving in and out until, finally, the reporter cries out, “And here he is! The Wyvern has returned, and he’s not alone! He’s successfully saved the last student skier trapped between the vehicles. The young man had been trying to get help and had gotten lost along the way. His friends, those well enough to speak to us earlier, stated that he was the best equipped among them to survive this, and thanks to the Wyvern, the world’s newest Champion, it appears that he has.”
Roland staggers up into the mouth of the tunnel, bolstered on both sides byFemarescuers, and there’s lightness enough in the sky now to see just how rough he looks. He’s got scrapes all over his skin; he’s got deep, dark purple bruises under his eyes. His eyes are blazing orange, and he’s carrying, with what looks like great difficulty, a young skierdressed in thick, thick clothing. He’s only a couple inches shorter than the Wyvern and, in so much clothing, looks nearly as broad. He’s falling all over the Wyvern’s arms, but his head is bobbing. He tries to look up and manages to look directly into the camera beforeFemamedical staff swarm him and the Wyvern too.
The camera pans back to the reporter. Her cheeks are flushed. “In all my years, this is one of the greatest acts of heroism I’ve ever seen. The COE was absolutely right in its choice to enlist the Wyvern to the Champions. Even now, his body appears to be close to giving out after a night of saving lives through the use of hard muscle, grit, and incredible power, but he’s insisting on going back in to help excavate some of the hotels and cabins.Femastaff is working tirelessly on that front, having already excavated and evacuated the largest hotel while the Wyvern was at work. I believeFemaas well as his team may be encouraging him to rest ...
“Yes, it appears the Wyvern will rest for a few hours, but he will stay on-site and help evacuation teams over the course of the next day to ensure all hotel and rental guests are able to safely evacuate. Wow. This is truly something. I certainly hope all of you at home understand the condition the Wyvern is in and the fact that he is not immortal. He is suffering, but he’s determined to stay to help. Now, let’s speak toFema’s medical director about the state of the boy who was just brought in ...”
I stay and watch for a few more hours before finally shutting the blinds and laying my head on my pillow. I send off a few additional instructions to the relief team, but they don’t need it. Margerie had already sent them a thorough brief before she passed out on my table. Charlie texts me to let me know she got home okay. I’m grateful. I stare at the text and then exit out of Charlie’s messages. I go to draft a new one.
Please take a break.I stare at it as I find Roland’s contact. He’s listed in my phone as a client. Roland Casteel, COE.
I can’t help but think about what he said.How the hell do you get close to anybody if you never open up?
And what I said.Maybe I don’t.I wince. I haven’t forgotten what he called me. Or what I called him. I hope he didn’t mean it. But I don’t know that I didn’t. He was an asshole. A control freak. A jerk.
But I’m not sure I was any better.
I was scared. Am scared.I don’t need a boyfriend, not even a fake one.
That’s true ... but ... do Iwantone? Fake or ... not?
I delete the message and type another. I hit send before I can chicken out ... and immediately regret it. It was too forward, too much, not at all in consideration of our past fight. It was weird and stalkery—exactly what I accused him of. It was just ... too much.
But I don’t unsend it. I don’t edit it either. Instead, I panic about it until my phone slips from my fingers and I slip into dreams of snow and heat.
Chapter ThirteenRoland
My whole damn body is a bruise. I’ve been working for almost two goddamn days straight, and after the first hour, I’d already started to regret this shit. I waded further into regret with every additional step I took into the snow piles. Hauling that shit with my arms was intense goddamn work, even with my powers helping. I couldn’t burn through with full intensity. I had to go slow to make sure the walls and roof of the tunnel I cleared stayed intact. Once, I tried to move faster, burning rather than hauling, and that shit backfired right quick. Thank fuck theFemaworkers later managed to bracket the tunnels and keep them up. Fighting my way out of the snow with weaker human bodies to protect sucked.
I can’t say I didn’tcareI had saved people. I did care. I do. But none of their thanks, none of the congratulations I got from the people in red running all around me, none of it meant anything compared to the text I got from her.
You’re my hero.
My heart is in my mouth. No. It’s somewhere else, but that’s not something I want to focus on in front of all these people. There’s a spaceblanket on my shoulders that’s really fucking stupid considering I am heat incarnate, but I guess they feel like they gotta help me by more than just staring at me while two people work on stitching me up.
I got cut up on the cars. My hands are burning but not anywhere near as badly as the pinging in my chest. That itchy spot I felt when she breathed on me,trusting and needing me,hurts. I can’t stay here.
“What? Sir?” TheFemamedical staff member is looking up at me confused as hell. He’s stitching up my knee while his colleague stitches a gash in my shoulder. I’ve got scratches all over my face, bandages covering most of them by now. My hair and beard are completely mangled, but none of that’s gonna stop me from getting the fuck out of here.
