Hero

47

“Try it.”

Cataline’s entire body flinches, and she looks over her shoulder at me. On the kitchen counter sits her half-eaten sandwich and a glass of milk. It’s some time after midnight, hours since Norman cleaned her and took her upstairs.

“Go ahead,” I say.

She reaches out tentatively and touches the back door’s handle. Even from where I stand, I feel the increase of her heartbeat as she turns the knob. The door opens when she pushes it, but she looks back at me again.

I step into the kitchen. “You’re not my prisoner. I brought you here so you could heal.”

“Heal? How can I . . . after all this? I bit a man’s leg today. And then I,” she hesitates, “killed someone. A person.”

“You survived.”

“I didn’t even think about it,” she says to herself. “I just did it. One second he was coming toward me and the next he was on the ground. I aimed for his heart.”

“That’s not what I wanted for you, but it’s done. You did what you had to do.”

Her posture falls, and she looks out into the night. “I wouldn’t even know what to do out there. You could still find me.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“Do you want me to want to?” My feet are drawn toward her, stopping only once I’m staring down at the top of her hair. “You could stay.”

Her head snaps up. The bandage on her cheek wrinkles.

“Stay because you want to,” I say. “Because I want you to.”

I break eye contact to pull my sweater over my head and hand it to her. I wait as she takes my cue and puts it on. My hand slips quietly around hers. “Come.”

At this hour, the outside air is still. Only the moon illuminates our path as I lead her through the yard’s labyrinth of rosebushes. “My parents bought this land before I was born. My father helped build the house. My mother designed the interior and the garden. Roses were her favorite flower. When they moved to Fenndale, they kept the house because there was no question they’d return one day.

“I inherited enough money from their death to start my own business. I picked media because it would give me some control over my image. I knew that would be crucial to maintaining two identities. I don’t need all this,” I say, gesturing at the house, “but it allows me the privacy and security that I do need.”

“Do you miss your parents?” she asks.

“Yes. I wish they could’ve seen their creation come to life.”

“Do you think they’d be proud?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, I think I lost sight of what they wanted.”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted to make the world a better place, starting with the city they loved. I don’t know what I was supposed to be. An answer, I guess. For my grandmother’s death—until it became greater than that.”

“What’s it like to be a hero?”

I glance down at her. “I don’t know. I don’t think of myself that way.”

“Why do you do it, Calvin? Really?”

“I can’t put into words how it feels to save a life. Nor can I describe how it feels to take one. Nothing compares to that kind of power. In the beginning I did it for my parents. Now I could never walk away. I’d be abandoning millions of people. That, and . . . I care about this city. It’s the only thing I ever cared about.”

Her expression softens. “The only thing?”

“What do you want to hear?” I ask. “That I care about you? I fucking killed for you today. I put everything on the line.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that. I never asked for any of this.”

“No, you didn’t. But you got it. I can’t explain why it’s you, how you feel like mine. If you could see what I’ve seen and all the evil in people—” I swallow through gritted teeth, “you’d understand. I want to protect you from that because it’s my fault you have no one else. And because . . . ”

“Because what?”

I sigh and shake my head. “Never mind.”

After a few moments of walking in silence, she asks, “What were they like, your parents?”

“I told you. Extremely smart and kind-hearted.”

“But what else?”

“They never gave up on anything. Or anyone.”

She bites her bottom lip. “Do you think they maybe asked too much of a sixteen-year-old boy?”

“No,” I say. “They gave me a gift.”

“What happens if you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“The injections.”

“I don’t know. Why would I?”

She stops walking and turns to me. “You said it’s the K-36 that makes you this way. This—I don’t know. Aggressive. Cruel.”

“They amplify my human urges. Anything bad, any darkness in me becomes worse. But it also makes me strong and capable.”

“Could you stop if you wanted to?”

“Yes, but I have no reason to.”

I release her hand, and she glances down. “Was I wrong about Hero?” she asks.

“What did you think?”

“That he was good. He’s a hero because he can’t be anything else.”

She’s still my little bird, a delicate flower in my hands. I’ve closed my fist around her and crushed her so many times. “You weren’t wrong.”

“Am I wrong about you, Calvin?”

“No.”

“How can that be? How can you be two opposite people in the same body?” She gets right under my chin. “It makes you this way.”

“What?”

“K-36. It’s a drug.”

I blink slowly at her and raise my eyebrows. “Drug?”

“That’s what your injections are. Drugs. You get high just like any other junkie.”

“They make me better,” I snap. “Without the ‘drugs,’ I’m nothing. I’m a criminal, just like them. That ‘drug’ is what saved you today. They’re what make it possible for me to protect what needs protecting.”

“Fine,” she says. “I don’t even know why I care.”

She turns, but I grasp her arm and pull her back. “We’re not finished. Don’t walk away from me.”

“There’s the Calvin I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know that other guy, the version of you who holds my hand and tells the truth. The one who saves the world. But this man,” she says, looking at my hand on her, “this one I know.”

“You think because I put on a mask you don’t know me? That’s bullshit.” My grip loosens, and I take a deep breath. “Look, Cataline, the truth isn’t pretty. It’s fucked up. But that doesn’t change what we’ve been through. The other night you said,” I pause on the verge of unknown territory, “you said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” she says immediately. Whatever’s coursing through my veins, I don’t recognize it. I think I smile, but I’m not even sure because it’s been so long since anything has made me happy. That’s when she says, “But I don’t anymore.”