The Taste Of Night

9

When I’d first learned about my troop’s superhero hideout, a.k.a. the sanctuary, the only image I had to compare it to was the Batcave, a subterranean grotto filled with all the things a hero needed to become strong and super and invincible; unusual weapons and eccentric instructors and a diet that most likely consisted of Wheaties. I thought of a place of respite, a haven where agents could rejuvenate, train, and return refreshed to mortal reality, ready once again to face off against the Shadows.

And would you believe I was mostly right? See, that’s the thing: most of the superhero stories are true, though when presented as fiction in a form most widely read by children, they’re often dismissed as nothing more than some nerdy writer’s fanciful imagination. And that’s key. Skepticism is a far more effective deterrent to the determinedly curious than the best effort at concealing the truth. Nobody really thinks a man who dresses as an oversized bat is going to live beneath a mansion in a damp, high-tech cave.

And nobody thinks an entire troop of superheroes fighting to save Las Vegas from evils worse than Donald Trump’s arrival actually bide beneath a glorified junkyard, their sanctuary accessed by the giant heel of a dilapidated silver slipper.

I intended to head straight to the fifteen-foot slipper, slide from the heel directly into the toe-and the chute leading to the sanctuary below-and take up with Chandra the issues I had with vehicular manslaughter. I wore a mask to shield my Shadow side from getting fried by the light when entering the sanctuary, and was already fixing this over my eyes when I heard the laughter. Dropping it and my battered belongings next to a giant letter G, I followed shouts of encouragement and genial chatter to the center of the boneyard. As I peered around a rusted star, my mouth dropped open.

There, where I’d last seen the carcasses of the original sands sign and a handful of truck-sized silver dollars, was a garden of stone walls. From my slightly higher vantage they created an intricate pattern, like one of those fabled English mazes made of tangled hedges and turf. This one, however, was made of concrete slabs, six feet high and about as long, with gaps of about a half a foot in between.

In front of this strange garden was the entire Zodiac troop, as well as a young girl I didn’t know, and a half-dozen children sitting off to the side. On second glance, I saw Warren was missing, and so was Tekla, but Micah was there-which meant this was important enough to pull him from his precious lab-and so was Gregor, my errant cabdriver. Chandra was next to him. She’d replaced the murderous look on her face with one of perplexed innocence, shrugging as she explained something to Vanessa, our Leo of the Zodiac, and Felix, the Capricorn. They shot one another a questioning look, and my gut tightened in response. She was clearly talking about me. Saying I’d missed the crossing, perhaps, or that I hadn’t shown up at all.

“Bitch,” I muttered, and was about to step forward when Hunter strode into view, passing out an armful of guns.

“All right, guys. Warren wants this done before full dark, so let’s get started. Losers exit the game immediately. If there’s no winner declared tonight, the game will resume tomorrow.”

“Why can’t we finish it in the dark?” This question came from Riddick, a troop member almost as new as I. Built like a diver, all sinewy muscle packed tightly together, he came from a long line of accomplished Aquarians, and had taken up the sign after his aunt died of supernatural causes the previous fall. Eager to prove himself, he was a welcome member to the strengthening Zodiac.

The only less experienced member was the petite woman next to him. Jewell had unexpectedly inherited her star sign when her older sister was killed last winter after the sanctuary had been infiltrated by a mole. Jewell had lived her entire life within the confines of the sanctuary and believed she always would. Until her sister’s death, she’d operated as a sort of glorified valet for her stronger sibling, and she still hadn’t seemed to have reconciled herself to this new fate-that she was a heroine, expected to succeed where her sister had failed-but here she was all the same, the troop’s new Gemini.

“Because the object isn’t to stumble about until you happen to run into somebody, that’s why,” Hunter replied coolly, handing him a weapon. Riddick swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath his ginger goatee. “The idea is to make it to the center of the labyrinth without detection, or at least without being struck by anyone else.”

“Yes, but why?” Micah asked, sounding like a petulant five-year-old. It was that question, however-perpetually asked-that made him such a damned good scientist. “What does a game have to do with battling Shadows?”

“The Tulpa, if you haven’t noticed, is extremely fond of games, especially puzzles. Particularly those on a grand scale.” Hunter replied, handing Micah a gun. “We’ve found blueprints of such a maze, and we think it may be located in his troop’s hideout.”

“And at the center of this labyrinth is…?” Gregor trailed off, accepting his own weapon with his good arm. The new girl, beside him, took her gun from Hunter with a nod of her dark, bobbing curls.

“Some say that’s where the Tulpa sleeps at night, where he gathers enough energy around himself to reanimate the following day. Others claim there’s an object those seeking the Tulpa’s destruction would covet, which we most certainly do.”

“The original manual?” Felix asked, cocking his weapon with a loud snap.

Hunter shrugged in reply. “The only thing known for certain is the Tulpa holds this place, and whatever it contains dear to his nonexistent heart. No one has lain eyes on its core before, and if he’s hiding it that thoroughly, you can be sure we want whatever’s in there.”

“Meanwhile, I’m assuming the maze is rather complex,” Micah put in.

Hunter smiled coolly. “That’s an understatement. And it is deadly to the player who enters, but does not exit, in less than twenty-four hours.” Hunter motioned to two of the children, who’d apparently been waiting for his signal. Clamoring down from a giant genie’s lamp, a boy of around eleven rushed to Hunter’s side, followed by a girl. He handed them both a gun, and positioned them back-to-back. “Our version, however, won’t be quite as fatal.”

In a maneuver they’d obviously practiced for this demonstration, the two children counted off ten paces, and froze. Hunter snapped his fingers, and they pivoted, turning the weapons on one another. It was unclear what happened to the boy’s shot. He’d obviously fired, but let out a startled yelp, eyes winging from his opponent to the gun in his hand. He took her shot, clean and true, directly in his midsection. Day-Glo green spread from his core like a poison, color seeping through every pore, up his neck, coloring his face all the way to the roots of his spiked hair like a baby Hulk.

The girl who’d won the contest began to point and laugh, as did the other children, hooting from the sidelines, and calling down from their perches atop the nearby signs. Green Boy held his arms out in front of him, studying his hands and palms, flipping them back and forth, before he looked to his friends and shot them a wide grin of blinding Day-Glo teeth.

“Okay, Landon. Elena,” Hunter said, nodding to the children. “Show them how to exit the game.”

Roaring, the boy dropped his weapon to the ground, bent his knees, and was suddenly arcing through the air, arms cycling wildly as he directed his descent to land directly in front of his victorious enemy. Once down, he growled again. Elena squealed, dropped her own gun, and bounded to the top of the Slipper in an impressively elegant leap, ducking for cover behind her ward mother’s robes. I watched the horseplay and smiled. At least some things were normal around here.

“How long does that shit last?” Riddick asked, meaning the paint. The jump was something we all could do, and yeah, it came in handy.

“Twenty-four hours,” Micah answered, confirming my suspicions as to the paint’s origins.

Hunter crossed to the front of the concrete maze. “I’ll sit out so we have an even number of players-”

“Chicken,” Felix said, shooting him a boyish grin. Vanessa supplied the clucking sounds.

“Another piece of advice,” Hunter said, ignoring them both. “And this direct from Tekla. Sight is actually the least valuable sense here, so use your hearing, your sense of smell for tracking, but most importantly, use your sixth sense. That’s the only way to get out of this alive.

“As this is the first time running this, Warren wants to know operative times and where we all place, so remember the purpose of this exercise. There’s a way to get to the center of this maze in seconds, without detection. The Tulpa knows it, and he’s mastered it, which means you must as well.”

I looked at Riddick and Jewell, and could practically see nervous energy rising off them in waves. Riddick’s knuckles were white as they gripped the butt of his gun, and Jewell had hers pressed against her heart. They had yet to encounter even a Shadow agent, so the mention of the Tulpa had gained their full attention. Then again, I’d run headfirst into the Tulpa, and the memory still had me waking up in cold sweats.

“Now, the guns won’t fire until I press this button, and in order to give you each time to spread out, I won’t do that for sixty seconds from…” Here he looked at his watch. “Now.”

They all stared at him.

Hunter stared back. “That means go.”

They scattered, pushing into one another, scrambling in effort to be the first into the maze, and looking less like a troop of superheroes than a gang of unruly schoolyard kids.

“Bang! Bang, bang, bang!”

I whirled, heart in my throat, to find two sets of fingers pointed like guns and trained on my midsection. I lifted a brow.

Little Marcus raised his own six-year-old brow in response. “We got her, mother Rena!”

How embarrassing. Caught snooping by a couple of rugrats. Linus, the one who’d shot me with his index finger, waved me out from behind the busted star, and into the clearing where I could be seen by Hunter and Rena, the only adults left in the boneyard.

“Someone wants to talk to you,” Linus said, maintaining his tough-guy stance, legs spread the way he’d seen the agents stand thousands of times before. “And she doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Yeah,” Marcus said, clearly not wishing to be left out. “So we can do this the easy way or the hard way. It’s up to you.” They looked up at me expectantly, and for a moment I saw twenty years into the future when these two would take up star signs and hunt Shadows. Then, keeping one hand trained on me, Linus reached down and yanked up his drooping pants.

My lips twitched. “Uh…the easy way, please.”

“All right,” Marcus said, like he was doing me a grave favor. “But take it slow, sister. Any sudden moves and we’ll drop you like a used-up ho on the corner of Fifth and Bridger.”

“Marcus!” Rena chided from her spot in the clearing. She was standing now, head tilted our way, though her eyes weren’t trained on us. Probably because she didn’t have any. “I heard that!”

“Shit,” Marcus muttered.

“She probably heard that too,” I said, grinning at him.

“Silence, prisoner!”

“Gentlemen,” came another voice, this one as deep as they were imitating, and I reluctantly shifted to face Hunter. He nodded at me, then at the boys. My two guards trembled in their Keds. My knees were often weak in Hunter’s presence too, though not usually from awe. “What do we have here?”

“An intruder, sir!” Linus answered, prodding me forward with his gun finger. I stumbled a bit, and snickering erupted behind me.

“I see,” Hunter said, giving my disarrayed state a quick once-over. “And how did she get inside the compound unnoticed?”

“We don’t know,” Marcus admitted, but quickly put the troubling question behind him. “Should we kill her?”

Hunter did smile at that. “Not just yet.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, and heard Rena laugh from her perch on the Slipper. She might not be able to see, but her other senses were razor-sharp.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Hunter said, before turning back to my captors. “I propose we throw her into the game with our brave and noble agents, see how she fares against the finest of the Light. Hand her over to me now, and I’ll make sure she receives due justice.”

By giving them a choice, Hunter had made them co-conspirators in determining my fate, and the two boys looked at each other like they could hardly believe their luck. Besides, there was only so much more they could do. Their fingers weren’t really loaded.

“Into the maze with her!”

“Yeah, let the agents of Light have their way with her!” And Marcus’s face began to glow, literally, like a globe lit from within. Hunter and I turned away as rays of light began to shoot from his face. Once I was secured at Hunter’s side, the boys went whooping and hollering back to Rena, who congratulated them on their catch and got Marcus to stop glowing like an oversized firefly so they could all settle in to watch the competition.

“Do I even dare ask what happened to you?” he said, plucking a chunk of cement from my hair.

I winced as it came free. “I’d rather you not.”

“Chandra said you didn’t make it over,” he said, leading me to the playing field. I shot him an irritated glance, knowing he found my ongoing spat with her amusing.

“She was wrong,” I said shortly. No way was I going to let him know I’d nearly gotten stranded at the Peppermill, run down by Gregor’s cab, and trapped in a brick wall. So I waved at the block maze instead. “When did this get here?”

“The museum cleared the space to make room for some new signage. It hasn’t arrived yet, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to run some outdoor drills.”

Opportunity, I thought, inhaling deeply. I located Chandra easily. She was left of the center of the maze, deep in the thick of it. Pulling my conduit from my waistband, I headed that way.

“Hold on,” Hunter said, and yanked my bow from my hand, replacing it with a bright plastic squirt gun. “No missiles more deadly than the paintballs.”

“I wasn’t really going to kill her. Just scare her.”

“The look on your face alone should do it.”

“Fine.” I cocked a fist on my hip, trying to look tough despite the toy in my other hand. “Any other rules?”

“One. You have twenty seconds.” He pumped a cartridge into another gun’s chamber, and his eyes narrowed meaningfully on mine. “Then I’m coming after you myself.”

Linus and Marcus began to yell enthusiastically from the side. No questioning who their favorite superhero was.

“You said you were sitting out,” I said, shooting them a nasty look.

“That was to keep the numbers even.” He flashed me that feral grin. “With the two of us they’re still even.”

“But the rest of them have had an entire minute to spread throughout the labyrinth.”

“And you have the element of surprise on your side.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Nineteen, eighteen…”

“Asshole.” I yanked off my other shoe and entered the maze on the run. And as I pulled back the safety on my gun, I momentarily forgot Joaquin and Regan and my evil, murderous father. It’d almost be worth getting run down by Chandra…if I could run her down in the end.

My heart was slamming against my ribs by the time I’d counted off the final fifteen seconds, and I knew if I didn’t settle my nerves soon Hunter would scent me out before I’d gone another twenty paces. I slammed into a dead end and was forced to turn around, which made me think I could double back and surprise him, though he might anticipate that. No, I wanted my shot at Chandra before taking on the troop’s weapons master…and before anyone else could get to her.

Of course, I tended to be a little single-minded when it came to vengeance, and Hunter might anticipate this as well, enabling him to plow through the rest of the unsuspecting players like a bull through Pamplona. But that, I thought, smiling to myself, could be to my advantage. Find a hidey-hole and simply let Hunter clear the way.

I squinted through a slat between two of the erected walls. No wonder Hunter had said not to rely on sight. Every so often a player could be spotted fleeing two or three rows away, but you had to stop moving entirely to see it, and still had to reach them once you did. Besides, the slats were too thin to point the gun nozzles through, so shooting between them was also out, though I was willing to bet little Jasmine could have squeezed through them in Gumby-girl mode. All I could do was be alert. And creative. I thought about climbing over the walls, but then I’d be a target from all sides. I didn’t want to leave here green.

I glanced at the sky and hitched my gun higher. Full dark was another fifteen minutes away, give or take. So how did the Tulpa manage to get to the center of the maze in mere seconds? Could I be lucky enough that the ability was hereditary? Because that would be the way to do it. Get to the center, win the game first, and battle my way out from within.

Right now I just had to concentrate on avoiding Hunter, and so I moved quickly, silently, and took calculated risks in charging around corners. Finally I scented a mild thread of warming honey on burned toast. Keeping low, I turned the next corner…and nearly bumped into Jewell.

“Wha…where-?” She was green before she could finish the sentence.

“Sorry,” I said. The whites of her eyes tinted over as she rolled them. A second later she shot upward and out of the maze. One down, eight more to go.

There was a grunt, then an outraged howl from my left, approximately three feet away, and Felix jumped into the air, though it was more instinctive than any sort of attempt to leave the maze. I used the intervening seconds to whip around two corners in quick succession, and ducked into a pocket of darkness that had already bloomed with the night. A second later Micah yelped in surprise, and turned to glare at me. Felix sauntered around the corner as I straightened, and gave me a grin as green as the grass in springtime.

“How’s it feel to get a dose of your own medicine, you green fuck?” Felix said, giving Micah a semiplayful shove. Micah shoved back, and they both vaulted into the air, Felix calling out behind him, “Good job, Olivia!”

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered as cries of “Olivia?” and “Olivia’s here?” went up around the maze. So much for the element of surprise. Refocusing, I settled my energy back into myself and stepped forward, not a second too soon. A paintball splatted right where my head had been. I rolled and dodged two more pellets in quick succession, then aimed without sighting, and fired behind me. Hunter lunged back into hiding, and I squeezed off another shot before fleeing around the corner.

I needed distance. Hunter was right on top of me, but I might be able to lose him if I made a few right choices…and if I got lucky. Sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I again tried to relax. I was about to let the air out through my mouth when I had a thought. Holding the thought-one of Hunter-and breath in my mouth, I turned to the wall I was pressed against and pushed the air out through the slats, sending my pheromones, my nervous energy, and my thoughts of him out with it. I pressed my eye against the slat, and within seconds saw a figure skulking through the shadows. Smiling, I headed in the opposite direction, deeper into the yawning maze. Closer to Chandra.

Three more times I blew through the slats, and three more times I sent agents on meandering chases. I doubled back twice to make little green men out of Gregor and Riddick. Vanessa got away, though a half minute later I heard her cry out, and up she went, a green blur of cursing fury. Quickly, silently, I counted the players who’d exited the game. Seven. And none of them Hunter, I thought, setting my teeth, which meant he was still somewhere behind me…and only Chandra remained ahead.

I was getting closer to the core of the maze. The zigzagging paths were getting shorter, even the dead ends. I still got stuck; for every corner I turned I had to navigate two dead ends, and I finally gave up trying to retain even a remote sense of direction and just concentrated on moving quickly. I stumbled, falling to my hands, and though I barely made a sound, it sounded like a cannonball to my ears. Picking up a rock, I catapulted it over the nearest wall, into the next row, where it clattered loudly, hoping that’d alleviate some of the damage.

And then my diligence was rewarded.

She’d been heading my way, and pulled up as the sight of my gun landed between her eyes. “Next time you try to run someone over,” I said, backing her up, “check the rearview mirror to make sure they’re down for good.”

I motioned with my head for her to throw her own weapon down. She did, and it clattered harmlessly to the ground. “Go to hell.”

“You’ll go first, and you’ll go green.”

“Just get it over with, Malibu Barbie.”

But I backed away instead. She frowned, watching me with mistrust. “It wasn’t really fair that you didn’t know I was here, so I’ll give you another chance to get as far away as possible. On my count. One…”

She didn’t have to be asked twice. She readied herself to run.

“Two,” I said. Knees bent, she rocked on her tiptoes, waiting for my final count. I shot her. Then I smiled. “Three.”

“Bitch,” she spat, and green-tinted saliva landed on my bare foot. It refreshed the image of a cab hurtling toward me, so I shot her again, not just twice, but four times, nailing her the last time on the fly as she vaulted into the air just to get away from me. She wobbled mid-air, and I smiled as she disappeared.

The smile dropped as a muzzle settled cool and firm on the back of my neck. “Should have saved one of those for me.”

Oops. At this range I’d be green for a week. I shifted, knowing I’d been bested, but still wondered how much distance I could get between myself and the gun if I took off now.

“Uh-uh,” Hunter said, grasping my shoulder with his free hand. “Throw your weapon down, and make sure it’s out of reach.”

My gun skittered away and was quickly eaten by the shadows creeping up from the dirt floor. It was almost full dark now. Outside, the voices of the disqualified players rose and fell in muted chatter, but we were deep in the labyrinth, well out of their sight line. Hunter turned me into him and backed me against the wall, so I was pressed against the cool concrete on one side and the hot warmth of his body on the other. He paused to look me over.

“Better hurry. A few more seconds and you’ll have to call game.” I tried to breathe easily, trying not to reveal fear or intimidation, trying especially not to reveal that it came from the nearness of his body and not the gun pointed loosely at my side. I am not afraid, I repeated over and over in my mind, but it was a lie. I was trembling in my Wonderbra.

“Well that’s the thing about being the one to make the rules,” Hunter said, his voice low and filled with something that alarmed me even more. “You get to break them any time you want.”

Even with night settling around us, this close to mine his face was clearly defined. His brown eyes pooled with depth, his black hair was slick with shadows, and his breath was like the stream blowing in off the gulf. Desire usually smelled earthy, but Hunter’s was dense, musky with heat. He smelled dangerous…and I liked my men dangerous.

“Break the rules?” I asked, meeting his gaze directly. “Or change them to meet your needs?”

“Same difference.” His eyes traveled down to my lips, then back again.

My eyes did the same. “You’re complicating things.”

His brows quirked philosophically. “Life tends to be complicated.”

“So we should just consider this a training exercise, then?” I asked, swallowing hard. “For life, I mean?”

He hummed in the back of his throat, inching closer. “Not all life lessons are unpleasant.”

I leaned into him, my eyes fluttering shut. Even humans reacted to pheromones, though they were unaware of it, but when you could smell them-really scent every molecule and particle making up a particular chemical compound-well, it was like walking into a hothouse on a blustery winter day. It flooded the senses…and made you want to undress. Blood raced to places in my body that weren’t supposed to have a pulse. I groaned, releasing my own pheromones into the air, and pushed his weapon aside so nothing lay between us.

Hunter closed the gap with his body.

We’d kissed once before. I’d possessed the aureole that first time, and in order to keep him safe I’d passed it along to him, exhaling the power of temporary immortality into his mouth, a chaste kiss turned torrid as his body responded to it, to me, even while unconscious. Unfortunately a bit of my soul or essence or something had been passed into Hunter as well-and we now knew things about each other no other person alive knew. He had lost his parents to the Shadows, I my sister. He had a child he’d die to protect; I had one I didn’t even acknowledge. I blamed our sense of shared intimacy on this bartered knowledge, just as I blamed this moment on the circumstances, telling myself that any woman would have to be dead not to feel a modicum of sexual attraction to a six-foot-three, rock-hard superhero. And while that first kiss had been a gift given out of duty rather than passion, it wasn’t until now that I realized I’d stored the taste of him inside me.

It was shocking to find a gentle, restful place on his warrior’s body, and I slipped my tongue along the edges of his lips-only a quick taste, I thought-just to experience the vitality behind all that softness. His immediate response flooded me, my brain numbing as his lips pressed against mine so that I was unable to process scent and taste, thought and reason, longing and touch, all at the same time. That kiss was like swollen storm clouds ready to erupt, and when he moaned into my mouth it was dewy and thunderous and zinging with ozone.

“What the hell is going on in there?”

We broke the kiss, both of us pulling back at the same time, and I blinked hard to get my bearings, to stop my head from spinning and my heart from slamming in my breast. Hunter called time, his voice so hoarse and deep it could set off car alarms, and I glanced up to find that not only had it grown full dark, but the sky above the maze was roiling with cloud cover. The haze was thick and low like an orchard of vaporous hanging fruit, laced in mist, sweet and ripe in the moist heat. I swallowed hard.

So this was what happened when two superheroes made things complicated.

And goddammit, it was too much. I felt like I’d just gorged on something rich and fine, and now-even after only a swift taste-I felt weighed down, like I was buried beneath boulders. Being this open and vulnerable felt like I was digging my own grave. I didn’t want any more pain squeezing at my heart. I’d had enough for one lifetime.

And that was what truly made Hunter dangerous, I thought, wiping a hand across my mouth. He made me forget he could hurt me.

I shifted my gaze, breath shaky, to find him regarding me just as warily. I cursed inwardly as his powerful aura snapped white and gold sparks around him, like he was a sparkler on the Fourth of July, and I was the darkness. It reminded me of the differences between us; male to female, his pure, unadulterated Light to my half Shadow, but instead of that complementing me, it made me feel bereft and lacking. But then I glanced at his lips again before I could stop myself. They were parted and still moist from my kiss.

Stop it, Jo, I told myself, slamming down the mental shields that would keep my secrets even from myself. And so I did.

The gun was lolling in his fingers, and I moved swiftly, firing downward so the pellet struck somewhere in the buttocks, or perhaps the thigh. He jolted, grinding closer, making me immediately wish I’d chosen another tactic, and remaining too close, he didn’t release me. And he didn’t turn green because he’d already called time. In fact, he didn’t turn anything but mad.

“You set me up,” I said as his eyes flashed betrayal. “You sent me in here knowing the others would either take each other out or be too surprised to see me to react. You followed because you wanted this.”

I ignored the fact that I’d wanted it, too. Because of our once-shared power he knew I hungered for him, and that one kiss was enough to leave me raw and aching and vulnerable. So I refused to feel guilty under the weight of that steady stare. He’d made this happen, even knowing there was a place inside me he couldn’t touch, a bruised spot already occupied and fiercely guarded where Ben lived, and always would. That wouldn’t change just because Hunter lured me into straying mazes, made storm clouds roil above my head…and caused my heart to pound like the thunder fueling it all.

“You’re treacherous,” Hunter whispered, giving me the space I wanted, the jaw I’d just been caressing clenched hard in the dying light.

“You’re an opportunist,” I replied, letting Ben’s image fuel my indignation.

Hunter shook his head and gave a mirthless laugh as he turned away. “I’m just a man,” he said, and the soft vulnerability shocked me into silence. I swallowed down the lump that’d suddenly grown in my throat, and resumed breathing as I watched him leave, thunder rumbling along the already thinning clouds above. Once alone, I slumped against the wall, and let the cool concrete seep into my skin. I remained there until the sky was again arching and wide, spread out above me like a blank slate. Then I went to join the others like nothing had happened. As if I was fine.

As if storm clouds and superheroes weren’t complicated, treacherous, tempting things.