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Chapter Twenty-Four

Vanessa

I’m sore everywhere . The bruises on my hips feel so minor now compared to everything else. I smile into my pillow. It’s a good sore, though.

His warm breath on my cheek this morning, smelling of smoke and desire. Gonna fuck you again, baby. He didn’t wait for my answer. I just arched into the fullness of him as he slipped inside of me. I was a mess, but that didn’t seem to matter. He came so quickly, and so did I. I thought that, after last night, I’d have been well stretched, but when he slid into me, he felt even fuller than he had the last time. A twinge of pain was all I felt, though, before pleasure exploded through me, cutting with all its claws. I kept my eyes closed through all of it. I didn’t want him smelling my morning breath, sure, but it also felt so fucking incredible, a dark fantasy I’ve never explored, an incubus coming for me in the darkness before dawn.

I stretch my limbs, reaching for the space on my right, then on my left. Disoriented, I lift my head from the bed and call out, “Rollo?”

But ... he doesn’t answer.

I pad to the bathroom, planning on grabbing an ibuprofen after I go pee and before I shower off, but the minute I flip on the lights, my heart slingshots up my throat. Broken glass litters the floor, shards of my own shocked reflection refracted back to me from a thousand angry angles. Did he ... Did someone ... My brain fires down different paths, but those paths wind and twist and merge together like a knot of hair without arriving at any conclusions.

Was it me? Did I do something to piss him off? And so he just ... left?

Maybe, he’s downstairs ... Yeah. This must have been an accident. He’s probably downstairs trying to find a broom ... maybe.

What the fuck happened?

I close my eyes, recognizing that I’m being stupid, but the logic doesn’t shake the heavy feeling weighing down my chest like an anvil. I make my way to the bedroom and find my phone. I find the guest bathroom downstairs and, while sitting on the toilet, shaking, scroll through my contacts and find Roland.

The phone rings once and then goes to voicemail. A generic bot taunts me. I scroll through my contacts again and again, calling Roland on every second pass. Finally, on the third try, the call goes straight to voicemail without ringing once.

And then a very, very dark thought comes to me. Number Three ... What if they took him?

My doorbell rings, and I jump, startled. I glance at my phone app, fear striking me hard even though I know it’s not Three. Three would never have knocked.

Instead, I find Luca and Charlie on my stoop, looking annoyed. They both glance down at my outfit as I throw open the front door wearing a fluffy bathrobe way too warm for the encroaching summer heat.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Charlie balks.

Luca makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “What do you think happened to her? Smells like sex in here. Augh!”

“Cabrón,” Charlie hisses, pushing past Luca and me and into my house. “Where is he? I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

“We are two consenting adults, and wait—Charlie!” But Charlie’s already up three steps. I have to practically leap to grab the back of his T-shirt and keep him from going upstairs to the scene of the crime— crimes , if you’re counting both the bedroom and whatever happened in the bathroom. “What are you even doing here?”

Charlie stops and turns to look at me with his eyebrows drawn. “I was heading into town and Mamá wanted me to go check on you on my way, and see if you and Roland were coming to family brunch tomorrow. Luca was bored.”

I wince at his words and Charlie’s expression becomes even more severe as I confess, “I don’t know where he is.”

“He dined and dashed?” Luca guffaws.

I wrinkle my nose. “That is horrifying. And no. Yes. I don’t know, maybe. But I think something’s wrong. The mirror in the bathroom is totally shattered, like there was a fight. I think he might have been taken ...”

“Taken? The god of fire was fucking taken?” Charlie says.

“Does that make you Liam Neeson?” Luca points at my chest.

I shake my head, pulling up my phone and dialing the COE offices—which go straight to static. “I need to find him, and I can’t get through to anyone.” I scroll through my contacts looking for Margerie while Luca gets on his own phone, dialing my other brothers, and Charlie steps back down the stairs, landing right in front of me.

“I think I can help. Where’s your computer?”

I herd my brothers into my living room and unlock my laptop for Charles, who immediately proceeds to log in to some scary looking database. He enters Roland’s phone number into a flashing green search bar.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Charles angles the computer away from me and gives me a good glare. “Are you making your calls?”

“No one’s picking up at the COE headquarters.”

“Isn’t it Saturday?”

“Mr. Singkham works most weekends. He should definitely be in.”

Charlie’s expression mirrors my unease. He glances past me toward the TV. I reach for the remote control, but in my scan of relevant news channels, I don’t see anything alarming. Mostly just shots of the insanely gorgeous Olympian with her glowing dark-brown skin and waist-length black hair.

“ The Olympian celebrates with the mayor of Sundale in advance of the Forty-Eight Hour Festival to commemorate the landing of the Forty-Eight superbeings who decided to make Earth their new home twenty-two years ago ... ”

There’s a loud knock on my front door, followed by the doorbell ringing three times in quick succession. Luca and Charles share a look, and even though I’m first to turn toward the door, Luca beats me there. He reaches for the knob at the same time that it starts to open.

“I cannot believe ... Oh, hi, Luca. Charles—you’re here too. Why are you guys here? Anyway, never mind—the nerve!” Margerie bursts into my house wearing sneakers— sneakers —leggings, and an oversize shirt. Granted, all the labels I see are designer, but this is the first time, maybe the second, I’ve ever seen her in anything close to casual.

“I got a memo saying that the two of you weren’t coming in to work next week? It’s design week, and the Forty-Eight Hour Festival is two weeks away! Shandra is pissed, and so is Monika! She’s been shouting at me in German all morning. Do you know how scary that is?

“The group photo with the other Champions of North America is scheduled for this Thursday! Pele is flying in for this! You can’t snub her, no matter how much amazing alien sex you’re getting!” Her gaze finally drops to me, and her head ticks to the side, her Louis Vuitton tote dropping from her shoulder to her elbow. “You really do look like you’re getting good alien dick, don’t you?”

“Margerie, you may be cute, but I will duct tape your mouth,” Charlie mutters from the computer while Luca shouts, “Gross! Margerie! That’s my sister!”

Margerie’s face transforms slowly into a mask of shock as her gaze pans from Luca to me. “Did you really?”

I blush, my mouth working like a fish’s.

“ You Fucked Roland ?” Her voice could be heard through time with how loud she screams. And then she starts bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. “You fucked the Wyvern! I knew you had it in you! How was it? Smoky? Fiery? Hotter than hell?” She winks at me, but when she finally stops jumping, she must register my expression because her own smile falls. “What is it? Did he hurt you?” She gasps and covers her mouth with both hands as her gaze moves over my face, finally taking in the bruises.

I shake my head and touch my mouth, my tongue sneaking out to taste the edge of my bandage. “No. This wasn’t him. This is why he didn’t want me to come in to work. It happened the day before yesterday, and yesterday we did ... have sex. But he left. I think someone took him.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Start over—no, start backward. He left like a sleazy one-night stand, or he was ‘taken’ like he’s the daughter and you’re Liam Neeson?”

“That’s what I said!” Luca shouts from the front door, where he’s talking on the phone to one of my other brothers.

I confirm. “The latter.”

Her gasp gets even more theatrical. “Who?”

I suck in a breath, hesitate, and then confess everything that has happened in the past forty-eight hours. Well, not everything , but I tell Margerie and my brothers about Three, even though it scares the piss out of me. But with the COE not answering, I don’t know what to do.

“He wasn’t at the office?” I ask.

Margerie shakes her head. “I haven’t been in today. I was at our old offices helping Dan and Jem. The folks holding our old lease agreement are being dicks—you know what? Never mind. I was going to head there, hopefully after grabbing you, so we could meet with design. Shandra wanted to do a final fitting for his new—you know what? This doesn’t matter. Let me try Mrs. Morales’s cell.”

She holds her phone to her ear and, while it dials, says, “You’re serious? You think there really are fourteen more aliens who landed here?”

I nod.

“Bad ones?”

I shrug, then nod again.

Margerie shakes her head. “I’m not getting anything.” She heads to the dining room, where Charlie’s moved with my laptop. Standing over his shoulder, she points at his screen. “Are you trying to track him?”

“Trying to get my buddy at the SDD to locate his phone. I used the cell number to get the sim number. Just need to wait on him to get back.”

“Is that legal, Charlie?” Margerie sasses my brother in a way that makes me tense. Nobody sasses Charles.

But Charlie surprises me by quirking his lips, giving Margerie a heated look—one that I’d hazard to call flirty —and saying, “Nothing you wouldn’t do, I’m sure.”

“I am a law-abiding citizen, sir.”

“And I’m a former marine, ma’am. Nothing but a dedicated servant to this country and the people in it.” He leans back in his chair, his legs and arms both spread as he ogles Margerie in a plain and appreciative assessment from her sneakers to the neat bun on top of her head.

Margerie always has a witty retort. Always. Until now. She swallows and blushes , and when she lowers her forearm without breaking Charlie’s gaze, her purse hits the ground on its side, a cluster of folders cascading out because, like me, she brings her work everywhere with her. As she makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, Luca and I share a look. Luca is gawking , and I’m about to bust out in hysterical laughter, despite the circumstances, when the doorbell rings.

“Good grief, who is it now?” I say as I turn toward the door.

Luca stops me. “You go stop ... whatever that is. I’ll get it.” He heads to the door while I cross the living room and bend down to help Margerie shove her folders back into her purse.

“Please don’t tell me you told Mom or Dad about this,” I call over my shoulder.

“No, but it might be David and Mani.”

There are some loose papers that take longer to arrange back into a pile. Margerie moves to help me. “Why don’t you go shower and get cleaned up? Not that I don’t love this look on you or anything, but you do smell like sex a lot .”

My cheeks burn, and I shoot her a glare.

Her face softens. “I’m sorry about Roland. I’m sure that there’s a reasonable explanation. I mean, how could a superhero get taken ? He’s seriously powerful. I’m sure he’s handling himself, wherever he is. I mean, if Three can teleport, what’s the worst they could do to him? Drop him off in Siberia? He can fly. Granted, it’ll take him a little while to get back to you, but he will. Not a doubt in my mind.”

I smile softly, my lips trembling a little even as her words soothe some of the razor blades in my belly and the thorns around my heart. “Thanks, Margerie.”

She touches my forearm through the soft, puffy sleeve. “You know I’m not just your colleague. I’m your friend. Just so you know, I’ve gotten, like, twelve other job offers since we’ve been working together. I like the work, sure, but the reason I stay is for you.” Her voice is soft. “I thought you knew that, but I want you to know for sure.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like you.”

“Friendship goes both ways, Vanessa, and you were there when I needed you most. I love ya.” She winks, stands up, and offers me her hand.

“I love you too,” I tell her, feeling shy as I say the words out loud. They’re sticky on my tongue and accompanied by a spoonful of guilt because I didn’t get a chance to say those words to Rollo before he left. I can’t decide if I should be glad or sad about that.

I stand and offer her the pile of papers, but as I do, my gaze catches on the one on top. “Margerie, what is this?”

“This?” The paper on top is facing down, but thick, dark lines are still visible through it. As Margerie flips it over, I read the words printed on top at the same time she echoes them aloud. “Old Sundale Airport. For the photo shoot.”

“Yes, but what is this? I’ve seen the blueprints, but this isn’t that ...” I snatch the paper out of her grip and turn it upside down. I tilt my head, my eyes bugging. “Oh my God. These lines. Are these the ...”

“The runways, yeah. I outlined them in Sharpie so I could chart how far he’d be flying and how many cameras we’d need and how best to place them since the runways will be operational for the first time in years. Monika asked for it.”

“This is the map,” I squeak.

“The what?”

“The map!” I’m shouting now, racing for my phone on instinct, though I have no idea who I’d tell. No one is freaking answering! “This is the map! I have to get ahold of Mr. Singkham. Can you try the COE again?” I shout to everyone who can hear me.

“What’s going on?” she says, rifling through her gigantic purse with one hand while the other clutches her phone to her face.

The phone at my ear goes straight to voicemail, and I shout up at the ceiling in frustration, “What is happening?!”

“This is important. I know you’re her brother,” comes shouting from the front door. And then more loudly, “Vanessa! Vanessa, are you here?”

“These guys wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Luca says, annoyed as he leads Dan and Jeremy into the room.

“Oh, thank God,” Dan says, falling over Jeremy as Jeremy comes to a hard stop. “Have you turned on the TV today?” Rushing forward, Dan trips over the foot of the couch, falls onto the footstool stomach-first, grabs the remote from where it’s fallen onto the floor, and just like that, starfishing on my velvet ottoman, he points it up at the TV.

“Uh ... yes?”

“In the last few minutes?”

“No ...” My voice fades out. The news comes on. The same news channel that had been broadcasting happy images of smiling superbeings waving and rocketing up into the sky and doing spins like the dolphins at SeaWorld is now covered in bright-red warning symbols.

“ ... COE headquarters in downtown Sundale is under attack. Local Champions Taranis and the Olympian have arrived on the scene and appear to be battling three suspected members of the VNA; however, one of these beings appears to be causing a strange ... collective hallucination to anyone who stares at the scene directly. As you can see, our camera footage only shows murky images ...”

The footage shows smoke billowing out of the COE tower, not far from where the Marduk attacked Mr. Singkham’s office on the thirtieth floor, only this time the smoke is pink and swirling, too thick to see through, and moving in unusual formations.

The reporter standing in the news studio pans back into focus. “Because of the display, we have yet to ID the villains who attacked the COE, but we stand confident that Taranis and the Olympian will be able to vanquish the villains ...

“COE internal systems are down. Cell phone coverage appears disrupted—our camera crews are having difficulty transmitting—and no one within the building has been reached. We are unsure of the suspected reason for the attack, or if there are any injuries, or worse, but what we did witness only minutes before, recorded by a local coffee shop owner, were two bodies being carried across the street from the COE building into three black SUVs. The Sundale Police Department chief is calling in reinforcements from the Central American Champions’ offices, as well as the US military.

“No demands have been made, and so far the VNA has yet to claim credit for the attack, but this is troubling given the clear signs of escalation from villains such as the Marduk, who attacked the COE offices early last month ...”

My vision goes fuzzy as I watch the footage that flashes onto the screen, recorded from around the edge of a building by a shaky phone camera. I watch a woman in a white lab coat hovering off the ground, suspended by nothing. There’s a figure in the haze of smoke standing by the SUV, but the camera only pans to them temporarily before shifting back to the mouth of the alley, where a second floating figure dressed in dark clothing bobs toward the SUV right after her.

I gasp. “That’s him. That’s Roland.”

“His hood is up,” Jeremy says. “You can’t see his face. How can you tell?”

“I ... bought him that sweatshirt.”

Dan shouts, “We can’t get through to anyone from the COE at all. We don’t have contacts for any of the other Champions networks either. Should I call the police?”

“The police are clearly busy,” Charlie shouts at the TV screen. He turns to me, meets my gaze, sucks in a breath, and says, “My SDD contact traced his phone to I-82, heading southbound near exit 38. The phone hasn’t moved in a while, but since there’s nothing near there, my guy suspects the phone was discarded. What do you want to do, Vanny?”

Margerie gasps, truly a candidate for Broadway. “There’s not nothing near there.” She points at the piece of paper still trapped in my grip. “That’s two exits before the Old Sundale Airport.”

“I have to go.” I shoot up to my feet.

Everyone starts talking simultaneously before Charlie whistles loudly . “Everybody, calm the fuck down. You”—he points at me—“aren’t going anywhere alone. And if he’s been Liam Neeson’s daughter ‘taken,’ and if it’s by Three or any of these other unknown supers, this could be dangerous. I have a couple military contacts who could be here by tonight ...”

I’m already shaking my head. “The police and the COE aren’t going to be able to help. They’re too busy at the COE now. And we can’t get through to anyone to tell them where Roland is; I’m not even sure anybody else has identified that hooded figure as Roland yet. Also ...” I love him. “I love him,” I blurt.

Charlie’s face hardens a little bit, but then he surprises me. “I know, hermanita. Which is why I was gonna suggest my military buddies back us up, and in the meantime, we’ll go scope out the situation, and if there are any openings where we can get him out safely without engaging any of these supers directly, we take it. But only then. Hopefully the SDD will have handled the situation at your HQ by then and can help too.”

“We’re coming with you,” Margerie says.

“The fuck you are,” Charlie says. “Y’all are all civilians, and none of you are armed.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jeremy grunts.

“You carry?” Charlie sounds surprised.

“Don’t you?”

“I’m former Marines. Course I carry. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m a gay man from backcountry Georgia.”

Charlie snorts. “All right, well I guess we got two guns. You can come.”

“You guys can’t come,” I say, voice becoming shrill. “It’s too dangerous. I can’t let you.”

“Can’t let us come?”

“You think I’m letting my baby sister ...”

“You’re going, I’m going ...”

“Who gives a shit how many of them there are ...”

“You don’t even have a gun ...”

My people all start talking over each other, all at once. If I weren’t so close to a panic attack, I might have found it endearing. Instead, I want to strangle all of them.

I try Charlie’s whistle and fail, so I do the only thing I can think of: I get up on my pink ottoman and, in my bathrobe, shove my arms up to the sky. “Everybody, enough!”

The people filling my living room turn, most staring up at me like I’ve grown a fifth limb. I point around at them all. “Fine!” I shout at the top of my lungs. “If you insist on being stubborn, then so be it! But I am the leader of this here outfit, and I say that you are all adults and that anyone who wants to go or stay can decide for themself, but we need to leave ASAP.”

“Well, I’m coming,” Dan says.

“I’ve got the gun ...” Jeremy says.

“We’re all coming,” Margerie asserts, hands on her hips.

Charlie rolls his eyes and gives us all a perfect imitation of our father’s most unimpressed stare. “Fine. Let’s go save your boy.” He lifts his phone to his ear.

Luca snorts. “I think you mean, let’s go save the world.”

And then Margerie crosses her arms over her chest and juts out her hip. She looks me up and down. “I still think you should shower first.”

Luca, Dan, and Jeremy lay the map of the airport flat on the dining room table and start shouting at each other about possible points where someone might be able to sneak in, but I’m more interested in what Charlie’s saying to the person on the other end of the phone.

“Vinny, you still in town? Yeah ... good.” He meets my eye. “Vanny and I need a ride ... Old Sundale Airport. Consider it a sightseeing mission. We’re gonna circle the perimeter, but we’re not going inside ... Just in case, yeah.” He swallows. “Bring the cavalry.”