Chapter 10 #3
“Deus, we need to get out of here so I can find someplace dry to read,” Landon shouts as he wades toward the doorway right before the water swells with a vengeance, engulfing all of us.
Landon blows a hole in the wall and the water pours out, sweeping us out with it. I hang on to my hostage while he splutters and cries and flails.
There’s absolutely no way he’s the man who attacked Ellison. His abilities are abysmal at best.
“It’s okay, guys, we can still do this,” August says before he picks Landon’s waterlogged body off the ground. It’s a bit limp as he pouts.
“August… I didn’t want to get wet.”
“Those fuckers got my rifle wet,” I grumble. “I will—”
I cock my head when I see something the others don’t quite notice yet. We’ve found ourselves near the food court and I can see the hostages crowded on the ground, hands over their heads.
I throw the crying man to the ground, already bored of him, and dash forward on silent feet.
But with the least silent crew ever created behind me, the man I’m heading toward quickly turns from where he’s standing over a villain who is quite dead, judging from the amount of blood outside their body.
He’s all in black with a hood that hides his face. He cocks his head when he sees me, and I immediately know that this is the man who cut Ellison open.
I lift my gun and pull the trigger, but the water must have damaged it because the weapon doesn’t fire properly. I shove my rifle at Ellison and turn invisible as I rush the man. He seems to know that I’m coming and hurriedly slips down an employee hallway.
I race after him, confident this man isn’t going to get away from me.
But as I turn the corner, I slam right into one of Ellison’s illusions so hard that I’m flung backward and only manage to keep myself from hitting the ground by grabbing onto the wall.
I understand that Ellison can’t see me when I’m invisible, but did his illusion have to be so damn solid?
“Shit, sorry,” Ellison says.
“It’s fine.” I rush past the illusion and reach the end of the hallway, where I realize that I don’t know where he went. There are three paths and I know the longer I take to assess each one, the farther away he’ll get. I drop my invisibility as Landon and Ellison catch up to me.
“August and Lex stayed behind to take care of the remaining villains. Why don’t I go straight, Ellison, you go right, and Deus, you take left?” Landon suggests.
I hate not being able to go in all three directions, which will leave them vulnerable, but I have to trust that they’ll be able to handle themselves.
“Okay,” I say, wondering if I can place trust in them to not fuck up. They hurry off and I head left, throwing my invisibility on again. But as I make my way down the hallway, I get a bad feeling and look behind me. I’m nervous the others are going to get hurt or even killed without me there.
“Let’s go,” Ellison’s illusion says as he reappears next to me. “Stay focused.”
Right. I’m not focused.
“Look at them. Look at them, both dead because she cared too much. If she hadn’t gone back to help her, they would have both lived. You cannot let feelings into your life, do you understand?”
“Where do you go when you get that far-off look in your eyes?” Ellison asks through his illusion.
“Just thinking too much.”
“Does thinking cause so much work that your whole body shuts down?”
“The second you go to sleep tonight, I’m going to eat Doritos on your white couch.”
“Who said you were invited back into the house? I think I’m healed just fine and no longer need your assistance.”
“I think you need to loosen up a bit. Even your illusions look stuffy,” I say as I reach over to grab his tie.
He smacks my hand away and I realize that I’m not focused… again.
When we reach the end of the hallway, I see multiple doors, all closed. I head to the right because the left would take me deeper into the building, and I have to assume the person in question is wanting to get closer to the exit.
Ellison swiftly checks the rooms I don’t go to before returning. “Do we know what this man’s power is?”
“Being a pain in my ass,” I quip before I slow and hold an arm out. “I hear someone.”
I hear the toilet flush before a man waltzes out as he wipes his hands off on his pants. “Hey, buddy!” he says, waving wildly like I might not notice his lumbering figure.
“Ah, Landon’s strangest brother. Good day. Have you seen a man around here?”
Brandon appears elated. “I have! Right in front of me. Haha. I’m so funny.”
“Hilarious. Another man.”
“Oh… I don’t know. How recent? I really don’t think so. What are you all doing here?”
“Do you even realize that the building is under lockdown with everyone inside taken as hostages?” Ellison asks.
Brandon looks shocked. “No way! That’s so cool!”
“It’s not ‘cool.’”
“I don’t know! I took a hostage once, but he was so much fun we became friends. He asked me for like a thousand bucks since he felt so close to me. Told me he’d pay me back because he’s a real good guy… he’s been so busy he hasn’t returned any of my texts, though…”
“This is a waste of time,” Ellison says. “If you see anyone, let us know.”
“Nope. Haven’t seen anyone. I guess you could ask the guy I helped through the window in the bathroom. He couldn’t reach the tiny window up top. But he came from this way, so maybe he saw someone.”
Ellison and I both stare at Brandon for far too long. A part of me is going, “The longer you stare, the farther away the man gets,” but another part of me is like, “I have misheard something.”
I rush into the bathroom and sure enough, the window has been busted out. “Brandon, help me through.”
“Are you going to fit through that tiny window?” Ellison asks.
“Are you saying my ass is too voluptuous?”
“Shove him through with full force,” Ellison demands, so Brandon picks me up and practically yeets me at the window like I’m a fucking football.
The only thing that keeps me from busting my head on the windowsill is my fast reflexes.
I use my sleeves to keep from cutting myself on the broken glass as I stuff myself through a second before I look up and see Valerie towering over me, since the window lets out at ground level.
“Someone alerted me that there was a person escaping through the window and it’s just you.”
“The man in question already escaped through the window, so use your siren abilities and find him,” I say.
“My what?” she shrieks as she puts a foot on my face. It allows me to see under her skirt, which is the absolute last thing I would ever want. It’s even worse than the shoe on my face and should only be used as a last resort torture technique.
“Use your siren screech to find him and stop using it on me.”
She grinds her foot into my face a bit more while I wallow and claw my way free. Finally, I’m up and scanning the area, much to Valerie’s distaste, but the man has disappeared into the crowd.
“Tell the others I’ll be back,” I say, and off I run about two feet before Ellison’s illusion hooks me around the throat.
“You are not going alone.”
“Your ability to frustrate me is quite exquisite… and a little sexy,” I inform him.
“Funny,” he says, disappearing a moment before the others join me.
“Any luck?” Landon asks.
“Your brother helped him through the window so he could escape,” I explain. “And then the siren screeched loud enough that it delayed me.”
“Valerie tends to do that,” Landon says, understanding who I meant immediately.
“The police came in and took over guarding the villains, though Lex stayed on hand to help. The hostages should be free to go… I’m a bit confused, though.
So the guy who killed one of the villains was the one who attacked Ellison, right?
So… if he’s a bad guy… why did he kill another bad guy? ”
“Fuck if I know, but what I do know is I’m going to murder first and ask questions later.”
“That sounds like a horrible idea.”
“Perfect,” I say, and I bolt off until Landon uses his telekinesis to throw a car in front of me.
“NO! Down, boy! Stay!” Landon yells. I leap up onto the car as the siren herself comes screeching after me.
“Stop running off alone! If you are going to be part of Superheroes United, you are to work as a team with your team. Do you understand? Of course you don’t because your head is filled with rocks! Fucking rocks!” she yells.
The door of the car I’m standing on opens and a shaky reporter slowly oozes out.
“Whoops,” Landon says.
“Thank you so much for allowing us the use of your vehicle during our time of need,” August tells her as he flashes his superhero smile at her, which makes her smile in return.
It’s fascinating how a smile can erase all trauma when August is involved.
Whenever I smile at my victims, they sure don’t seem to forget what I’m doing.
“Y-You’re welcome,” the woman says, leaning against the car in the strangest pose I’ve ever seen. I can’t tell whether she’s trying to look sexy or is airing out her undercarriage.
“Get a rooooom,” Landon shouts.
Valerie and Ellison are both staring at us like we’re children that they’ve given up all hope on when I’m the only one trying to catch the bad guy.
“Why would we just stand here?” I ask, genuinely curious and confused. “My number one advice for pursuing someone who must be murdered is that they rarely, if ever, turn around and come back to you to be murdered. It’s only happened once for me.”
“You don’t even know which direction he went, do you?” Ellison asks.
“It doesn’t matter because I know he’s not here. I can pick any direction, and I’d have a better chance of finding him than standing here,” I say as I jump off the roof of the car.
“You let him get away. Your lack of skills has put everyone in danger. When they die it’s on you.”
I try to push away the dark thoughts invading my mind.
I look up and notice Ellison is staring at me while still holding my poor waterlogged rifle, so I give him a wink. “You look rather fine with that gun. Want me to show you how to shoot it?”
“No. I am more than good, thank you very much,” he says as his phone beeps. He pushes the gun at me and takes his phone out before scowling at it. I have to assume he’d wear the same expression if someone sent him a text detailing some blackmail.
“I have to go. When I get back, we will discuss our next course of action. I would like to lay out our plans with explicit details, understood?” Ellison asks.
“Is he talking to us?” Landon asks. “Explicit… ooh, does he mean sexy explicit? I can get behind that. I’ve been saying for so many years that if August was naked when he took down villains, more villains would hand themselves over.”
“We haven’t even been dating for ‘so many years,’” August says.
“He spooned his August doll a lot,” Brandon calls out from where he’s stuck with his body partway through the broken window. There is no possible way he thought he was fitting through that window, but it looks like he still chose to try.
“Brandon, you are not allowed to speak. I’ve heard that if you tell stories about your favorite brother, your penis will shrink.”
“Gasp! Do you think that’s why it’s so small? But I really never say stories about Nolan.”
“What the fuck! You put me through hell and back and I’m not your favorite? You used my toothbrush. You slept in my bed naked.”
“Yeah. I also crawled into bed with August naked one time. Do you think you could help me? I think I’m stuck.”
“Excuse me, what?” Landon asks, obviously struggling to comprehend this. “I’m sorry… excuse me, what?”
August has pulled out his superhero stance and smile.
And Ellison is so interested in hearing about this that he stops heading away from us.
“The couch was just so uncomfortable, and you were reading and weren’t using the other half of the bed. I didn’t see why I couldn’t use it. Landon, please, I’m stuck.”
“August… did you… did you spoon my brother?”
August promptly shakes his head. “I did not! I immediately jumped out of the bed and ran to you, but… when I looked you in the eyes… I couldn’t… I couldn’t repeat what happened.”
“I’m leaving,” Ellison declares.
“You’re not leaving alone,” I say.
“I’m fine. I’m just going to my mother’s. I will be going alone.”
And off he goes.
“Are you going to stalk him?” Landon asks.
“I’m very much going to stalk him. But I need a car and my ferret,” I say as I hold my hand out.
Wyatt comes over and deposits the ferret in my hand, looking oddly glad to get rid of her, and Landon deposits some keys in my other hand.
“Take Valerie’s car. She doesn’t mind. She actually likes it when you take it without asking,” Landon says.
“Landon… please… heeeelp,” Brandon calls, which Landon continues to ignore.
“Where the fuck…” Valerie pats her pockets. “You little shit!”
“Thank you for your sacrifice,” I tell her.
“I’m not… I need that car!”
I turn invisible but the only problem is I can’t turn Pocket Lint the Third, Esquire invisible, so she floats beside me while I run for Valerie’s vehicle with the sound of Brandon’s pleas trailing after me.