Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
LEO
I was doing a terrible job of the whole ‘keep your distance’ thing.
It was the VIA’s fault—they brought Alex back in, they made us work together, they were the catalyst. Except… I was the one who went digging, and now, I was the one standing outside her therapist’s office.
Like a fucking creep.
The building was old, made of brick instead of glass or steel.
I wasn’t familiar with this side of Nightmyre; it was on the opposite end from headquarters, and considered a Variant hot spot.
The population was fascinated with us, but in a petting zoo kind of way.
Great to see in uniform, something to stare at in the grocery store, but as a neighbor?
Well, that made people nervous. Variants tended to cluster together, entire blocks of apartments filled with them, usually in the lower income areas.
It was an effect we’d learned about in school, but at the time it was harder for me to grasp.
When Variants started popping up—before the VIA took control and made us into something from a comic book—those who couldn’t hide their abilities were usually turned away.
Jobs, education, sports, everything. No one trusted us, and the ripple effect began.
Generations of families were impacted by discrimination and poverty.
Only in the past few years did things start evening out, but the hot spots were still active.
Habit was hard to break, and when the world was against you, it was better to stick together.
I leaned against the brick wall, a cigarette hanging out of my mouth as I looked at the black motorcycle parked on the street.
Variants walked by, and even I struggled not to stare.
There were plenty of us in the VIA, but most of us had hidden abilities, ones that only came out when we called them—or lost control.
After standing around for half an hour, I’d already seen three people with skin ranging from scales to fur, six with different kinds of horns, and two with some sort of tail.
I wouldn’t admit it, but when I was younger, I was actually jealous of Variants that had tails.
They were the coolest things to see back then.
Alex was right. I am a fucking weirdo.
“So next week, I’ll be sure to—WHAT THE HELL?!”
A shriek snapped me out of my people watching moment, and the headache was instant.
“You know, I thought we were doing better,” I sighed and stomped out my cigarette before turning to Alex. “Am I really that scary?”
She gawked up at me, her ridiculously oversized bag clutched in front of her chest, and her hair down. It fell in waves around her shoulders, down her back, framing her pale face. With the sun setting over Nightmyre, she was washed in pink, and I was the one gawking now.
Did her eyes always sparkle? Or was I losing my shit?
“When you’re posting up outside my safe house, yeah, for sure, you’re terrifying.” Her mouth curled, and I wasn’t sure if she was frowning or trying not to smile.
“Alex, please don’t refer to my place of practice as a safe house. I’m almost positive that I’m on a VIA watchlist right now,” the woman beside her sighed.
She was a bit taller than Alex, though not by much. Deep tanned skin, with dark eyes and hair. The woman clutched a leather binder at her hip and tilted her chin up as she scanned me with a stone face. There was something about her that made me fidget, as if she could read me from the inside out.
“Ah.” She snapped her fingers. “Leo, I take it. Wonderful to meet you. I’m Minnie.”
I nodded. “The therapist, right?”
Alex scrunched her nose, and I cocked my head. Was that not the right response?
But Minnie let out a soft laugh, and my heart rate went down a bit. “What brings you to our side of town?”
“Maybe you are on a watchlist,” Alex whispered behind her hand. “They definitely weren’t happy with the whole warping-my-paperwork-thing.”
“That was entirely legal,” Minnie pouted.
I watched the two of them go back and forth, making quick quips and snickering like a pair of teenagers. Therapy had never appealed to me, but I was almost certain that this wasn’t how it worked.
“Ah…” I cleared my throat, and the pair snapped their heads up again. “Sorry, but can I borrow Alex for a bit?”
Minnie beamed, glancing at Alex from the side of her eye, before backing away with a small wave. “Of course! We’re done for the day. I’ll see you next week, okay? Have fun and remember what we talked about!”
Alex reached out a hand as if to catch her, but the woman sped off like she was being chased. We stood there for a moment, watching her disappear, before Alex turned around and pursed her lips.
“This is suspicious,” she murmured.
I reared back, and was ready to snap something back, but bit my tongue.
Think before you speak, jackass.
“Your equipment,” I gestured to the small horns that peeked through her black hair. “It hasn’t been upgraded in a while, right?”
“Uh… yeah, I guess you could say that.” She smiled and let out a forced laugh before she rushed out, “Likefouryearsorsomething.”
“What?” I leaned down, positive that I hadn’t heard what I thought I did.
Alex rolled her eyes. “It’s been about four years, or something like that. Maybe five.”
My stomach dropped. “Equipment for Heroes should be updated every six months.”
“Correct.”
“It’s been five years?”
“Give or take.”
Irritating, irrational, irresponsible—
Alex threw up her hands. “Alright, smokey!” I hadn’t realized that my skin had started to steam. “Get to the point before you have a literal meltdown.”
I took a deep breath, making sure I had cooled down, before snatching her wrist. “We’re getting you an upgrade. Now.”
She dug in her heels, and although I could still throw her if I wanted to, she put up more resistance than I would have thought. “On whose dime?!”
My head was pounding. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my wallet and displayed the black card that all first-class Heroes were given.
“Mine.” The face she made gave me some sort of confidence, because I leaned down again and gave her my best shit-eating grin. “Relax, Sweetheart. You drive, I’ll pay. Deal?”
She liked that.
In fact, she liked it too much. By the time we made it to the VIA’s medical department, Alex had run three red lights on her bike, and I had had approximately six heart attacks. The woman was single-handedly decreasing my lifespan.
“Absolutely not.” Alex pressed herself against the edge of the room, inching her way toward the door.
I pressed a thumb against my temple and was ready to ask the doctor to sedate me instead. Every time I tried to do something nice, it ended up in a shitshow. Check up on Alex? Fucking traumatize her. Try to get her new equipment to make this next mission easier? Send her into a damn panic attack.
“With how old these implants are, we’re going to need to remove the entire unit,” the tech mused at the scans displayed for us. “It’s not easy, but it has to be done. Keep going like this, and you’re asking to fry your brain.”
The VIA medical department was the best of the best; from bringing back Heroes from near death, to leading the most innovative tech for reducing backlash to Variant abilities.
The room was a combination of a doctor's office, a surgery room, and an auto shop.
Tools, gears, and scalpels sat on endless trays, with a lifted bed in the center, surrounded by bright white lights.
It had been a week since Alex had gotten information on Splinter, and Dahlia was gearing up to send us to Connecticut.
I wasn’t sure what we’d be facing with Lycean or the Crowns Club, and Alex had stretched herself too thin.
As far as I knew, when she wasn’t at headquarters, she was still working at the hospital and stopping by Nightmyre PD.
She needed an upgrade before she melted her brain with those damn smelling salts.
“They numb you,” I sighed as she continued to tiptoe around us, as if I wasn’t staring right at her. “They’re good, you’ll be fine, and I’ll be right here.”
Her face was pale. “Listen, I appreciate it; I do. But I remember when they put these fuckers in, and I am not doing it again.”
Like the absolute nutcase that she was, Alex made a mad dash for the door.
Unfortunately for her, my legs were longer.
She yelped as I scooped her up and threw her over my shoulder, waltzing her back to the tech who kept frowning at her scans.
Alex pounded on my back as I tugged her knees against my chest and attempted to block out the insults she was throwing my way.
“How long would it take?” I choked out as she whacked me between the shoulder blades.
The tech shrugged. “I looked into her file and already started working on some new units. Removal and re-implantation should take about four hours or so?”
I clenched my teeth—we would be here until midnight. “Recovery time?”
“She should stay here for the night for monitoring, to see how her ability adjusts to the new fit. After that, she should take it easy for a few days, and then keep up with care for the next few weeks. The biggest concern is infection, but that’s fairly low risk if she keeps to the doc’s orders.”
“Hi, hello, I’m Alex,” she drawled as she pushed up on my shoulder, turning to us with a sickeningly sweet smile. “I don’t know if you knew this, but typically, someone has to consent to fucking surgery!”
“Well, technically, I work for the VIA,” he deadpanned. “They’re not exactly consent-based, to be fair.”
Alex balked, and I spun her around, grunting as I settled her in a princess hold. Very Hero-like of me, I would have been proud, except she was staring up at me like a cat who was preparing for a bath.
Lethal.
“You need an upgrade, Sweetheart,” I smiled, attempting to ease the blow.
She sneered. “My body, my choice, motherfucker.”
My eye twitched. “I’d never force you to do anything you don’t want to… within reason.”
“Within reason?”
I nodded. “Yeah, of course. Your body is your choice, all the way. I’m pro-whatever-the-fuck-people-wanna-do, except when it comes to your brain melting from the inside.”
Before she could respond, I pointed to the scans, entirely serious.
“Look at it, Alex. That’s not good, and you know it.
You got a pass for five years, but it’s time.
I’m not letting your skull implode because you’re afraid of surgery.
I will be here. I’ll do whatever you demand, but please use that big brain of yours and focus. ”
Strangely enough, she listened. For the first time since the topic of total removal came up, Alex studied what was in front of us.
Her scans showed her skull from the side, the front, and the top.
Two horns poked out of the bone, and burrowed straight through it.
The problem was that they’d dug too far.
They widened at the base, flaring out and separating from their original anchors.
“The nodes,” she whispered, pointing to thin rods that jutted out from the center of the horns, hovering right above her brain. “They weren’t visible before. They were hidden in the metal.”
“Well, it’s not exactly metal. Your implants are a special blend of plastics and—”
“—yeah, I’ve heard the lecture before; let’s focus on the sharp, pointy things about to assault my brain.”
I placed her back on the ground, trying not to focus on how she tensed and leaned away from the images.
Her cheeks turned pink, and she pulled her lips into her mouth.
Alex was ready to burst into tears, and I couldn’t stand it.
My body moved on its own as I put my hands on her shoulders, tugging her back into my chest. She crossed her arms, but didn’t pull away.
This is fine, I told myself. Joon would be okay with this.
Usually, the mantra was a lie to comfort myself.
This time, though, it was true. Joon wouldn’t have wanted her to be scared; he wouldn’t have wanted her to go through it alone.
I took a deep breath, calming my own racing heart, and turned up the heat a touch.
My body hummed with warmth, and Alex leaned in to me.
Her shoulders dropped, and I swore I heard a sigh escape her lips.
“If we postpone this, you’ll have a year or so before they make contact with any soft tissue.
How has your ability to use been? The equipment itself is outdated, but with the way it's dug in, we’d expect you to be working at twenty-five, thirty percent capacity.
Not sustainable for a Hero.” The tech turned to us, not a care or worry to be seen.
Meanwhile, Alex felt ready to crumble, and my stomach sat in knots.
“Fucking tragic,” she sighed. “Alright… let’s get this over with. Do I get good meds at least?”
He scrunched his nose, gearing up to say ‘no’, but I stared him down while I spoke into her ear. “I’ll get you whatever you need, don’t worry. I’ve got your back.”
She tilted her chin up with a raised brow. “I want a morphine drip.”
Kill me now.