We Can Be Heroes

by Kyrie McCauley

  She had waited till Grandpa fell asleep and snuck out again. She hated to leave him. Hated to lie to him.

  But there was still a ghost haunting her van. Cassie deserved them seeing this through. And with the way Cassie had been acting—her strange, eerie aloofness—Beck was afraid she’d slip away from them, not moving on, but just trapped forever in this strange limbo of hers.

  Beck felt the ominous ticking of a clock, and she couldn’t ignore it. She started the van before she could dwell on the pit in her stomach, the one that told her that whatever her reasons or justifications were, she was going against her grandfather in this.

  The drive was short—the old mill was just two properties away, diagonal from the Warrens’ largest sunflower fields, and across from the open space on their farm that they let the town use for the annual Sunflower Festival. It was just days away now, and everything was already set up. It was sprawled out much the same as any county fair—the center point was an ancient Ferris wheel that Beck thought looked like a death trap. There were game booths, and the sunflower maze, which had been cut into the field by Mr. Warren.

  Just like every other year.

  Beck considered talking to Vivian about her worries. About Cassie. Her fear of losing her again, too soon. Or about the distance she was creating between them. But it hurt too much, so she said nothing. They quietly lined up the paint cans. Vivian propped up the sketchbook for Beck. But if Beck had inherited anything from her parents, it was avoiding things that should be talked about, and she didn’t even know where to start.

  The moon was only a crescent sliver in the sky, which made painting harder, but also lowered the likelihood of someone noticing them if they drove by.

  “We should work fast tonight,” Vivian said, her mind clearly also on the concept of getting caught. There were patrols out. Not just police, but men in trucks. They’d been interviewed on Channel 6, the local news station. They said they’d find the vandals, catch them, get that reward from Bell.

  There was more danger tonight.

  “It’s simple enough.” Beck began with the island, a large, misshapen black circle. She sprayed blue waves around the island, and made quick work of Circe, tall and graceful, standing watch over the island. She made her look like Cass. And then she surrounded her with the pigs. All of the pigs, so tightly packed that they blended together into a sea of them. She painted the island pink, then added in curves for bellies, triangles for ears, and round little snouts. An hour before, it was just blank, whitewashed, dirty stone. Now it meant something. Beck liked that feeling.

  “This one feels different, doesn’t it?” Vivian asked, stepping back from the wall. “It feels like an accusation.”

  “Circe. And don’t they all?” Beck asked.

  “This isn’t one monster. One vengeful god. One bad man. This is a swarm of them. Men who aren’t entirely evil. They just agreed to go along with the evil things that others did.”

  “They’re still guilty as fuck,” Beck said.

  “I didn’t say they weren’t,” Vivian whispered. Then she craned her neck back farther. “Look at all of them.”

  Beck looked up.

  It was a perfect starry night. It was like the whole universe was out, hanging just over their heads. It made Beck feel small, but powerful. Like being the last little piece in a thousand-part puzzle. Such a tiny thing, but the rest isn’t complete without it.

  The stars always made her feel like that. Like she was home.

  “Do you still want spaceships to come for you?” Vivian asked softly. In any other time, that question would be mocking. It would have an edge to it—a challenge buried in the words. But the longer they spent together now, without Cassie, the fewer barbs made it into their conversations.

  “You know what’s even scarier than aliens existing?” Beck asked, still looking up.

  “What?” Vivian asked, and then there was the softest gasp, an intake of breath, when a pair of shooting stars crossed overhead.

  “Aliens not existing,” Beck said, and Vivian rolled her eyes.

  “No, hear me out,” Beck continued. “Imagine it. Look up at that, and imagine that in all of that vastness, there is no one else. There are a quadrillion stars out there. That is one followed by twenty-four zeros. A number we can barely fathom. Imagine in all of that great, vast, endless space, we are alone.”

  Vivian looked over at Beck then. “You’re right. That is scarier.”

  They began to clean up the paint. Beck ran back to turn on Betty’s headlights, to illuminate the mural for a good photo before they got the hell out of there.

  She turned the keys.

  It rumbled. Didn’t catch.

  Beck tried again.

  It turned over and over.

  Betty’s battery was dead.

  “Shit,” Beck said. “Cassie, the van’s dead.”

  But Cassie was in the far back of the van, looking out at the road.

  “Cassie?” Beck asked.

  “It’s too late anyway,” Cassie said.

  “Why?” Beck turned in the seat, saw what Cassie saw.

  Someone was coming.

  The passenger door opened and Vivian threw the backpack of empty paint cans in. “What the hell, Beck? There’s a car on the road. We’ve got to go.”

  “Betty’s dead,” Beck said. She tried one last time, turning the key. It turned and turned and didn’t catch.

  “So fix it!” Vivian said. “You are an actual, literal mechanic.”

  “She needs a jump,” Beck explained. “It’s the battery. We left the radio on for Cass.”

  “Shit.” Vivian turned in her seat. It was too late. The car had turned toward the mill. It would be there in seconds. “You know the point of having a getaway van is that it has to be able to get away, right?”

  The car pulled up beside them. Not a cop. And then a woman climbed out of the driver’s seat.

  Vivian’s door was still open, and they sat there in anxious silence. They were caught. All that work, and they got caught because of a drained battery.

  “Hey,” the woman said. She smiled at them. “You girls need a jump?”

  An hour later, Beck and Vivian sat in the Loft.

  Betty was parked down the street, this time with a phone playing music for Cass instead of the radio.

  And across from them was Merit Logan.

  It had been a tense few moments when they met, with Beck and Vivian thinking it was someone after the reward, someone there to turn them in. But Merit had jumped the van, offered them her card, and asked if they could go somewhere and talk.

  Beck and Vivian fought the entire drive over.

  “She’s talking about Bell, and gun violence, and the murals,” Vivian said. “She can help us. She’s on our side.”

  “You don’t know that,” Beck countered. She wasn’t used to being the cautious one out of the two of them. But from the start of this, Vivian had just kept leaning further and further into their plans—the murals, taking down Bell—with no thought to the potential ramifications. “You need to be careful, V. Not just for your sake. If you get caught it could fuck up the lawsuit.”

  “Fine. We’ll let Cassie decide,” Vivian said, sinking back into the passenger seat and crossing her arms.

  “Casper?” Beck asked softly.

  Cassie leaned forward, her soft glow illuminating both of them in the front seats. “I think we need to find out what she has to say to us,” Cassie said, and Beck swore under her breath.

  It was one more risk. And they were already risking so much.

  “She’s been talking about the murals,” Cassie said. “Giving our little platform big boosts. She’s the reason the paintings have national attention. The reason Bell is so scared he’s set a reward. I think . . . I think we can trust her. I want to trust her.”

  “Fine,” Beck said, knowing she was outnumbered.

  She would go.

  That didn’t mean she trusted her.

  When Merit sat down, s
he placed a notepad on the table, but left it closed, with her pen resting on top.

  Merit Logan was younger than Beck had realized. Not long out of college. Early- to midtwenties. She had straight black hair, cut to just above her shoulders, and it swung back and forth when she moved her head. She had bright brown eyes, eyes that sparked with something. Excitement, Beck thought. But why?

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Merit said, lifting her hand to run her fingers through her hair. Maybe it was nervousness, not excitement. Either way, Beck’s guard went up at her words, and it must have shown on her face.

  “Not like that,” Merit said. “I’m not going to tell a soul who you are. I really just need some information. For my show.”

  “Why?” Vivian asked.

  “Would you accept that this series I’m covering isn’t exactly what it appears to be?” Merit asked.

  “Well, it’s been pretty clear from the start that you are in favor of gun control,” Beck said. “But that wouldn’t surprise anyone.”

  “Look, I know it’s clear that I have an agenda here,” Merit said. “But it’s not what everyone thinks it is. The gun lobby is massive—bigger than one man, or one company, or even one entire town. If I was going after gun control, I’d be in way over my head. My target is . . . smaller. More focused. And it’s personal. But now I need your help. I need more information.”

  “About what?” Beck asked.

  “About Cassandra,” Merit said.

  Beck scooted her chair back from the table. “I knew it. She just wants the same sordid details that others wanted. Details about Nico.”

  “Wait.” Vivian and Merit spoke at the same time when Beck rose to leave.

  “Stay,” Merit said. “Please.”

  “I want to hear her out,” Vivian said.

  Beck sat back down, and Merit looked around. But it was late for Bell on a Wednesday night. There was no one else there.

  “All I have are the official police reports,” Merit said. “Of course, they don’t mention Mr. Bell, but I need to know—was he involved in any way with how the police responded to Cassie? Was he there? Did they mention him? I need to know what happened when Cassie went to the police.”

  “Which time?” Beck asked.

  She saw the question take Merit by surprise. No one knew that detail. No one knew that when Cassie filed for a protection order in March—two days before Nico killed her—it was her second time going to the police.

  “Those bastards,” Merit said, her dark eyes narrowing. “Okay. The first time, then. Please.”

  “Why should we trust you with Cassie’s secrets?” Vivian asked.

  “Would you trust me with Cassie’s secrets if I told you mine?” Merit asked.

  Vivian and Beck looked to each other, and Beck nodded her agreement.

  “Because I’m going after Steven Bell,” Merit confided. “And I need your help to get to him.”

  It was a bad New Year’s Eve by any measure.

  But Beck getting wasted before nine p.m. wasn’t a great start.

  She’d spent the entire day in the hospital with Grandpa, waiting mostly, while they ran tests. Tests that gave them a prognosis that had sent Beck right over the edge of her self-control. Her self-containment. The doctors had called it nothing else we can do.

  Months, they said. At best.

  They told her to go home and rest, and pick him up the next afternoon.

  When she left the hospital, Beck felt like she was coming apart at the seams. She needed Cassie. Maybe even Vivian, too. So instead of going home, she drove right to the New Year’s Eve party that Nico had invited them to. When she couldn’t find her friends, she started drinking. When drinking didn’t help, she drank more. It’s not like she knew a better way, not then, not before she’d finally gotten a therapist to work through it. Before that it just felt like self-destruction ran in her family. And that was how Vivian found her: stumbling through the Bells’ kitchen, a half-full bottle of vodka in one hand, red Solo cup of beer in the other. Beck didn’t remember the details, really, but she remembered Vivian’s eyes flashing with something dangerous, angry.

  Vivian dragged Beck into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  “Where’s Cass?” Beck drawled out, leaning over the bathroom sink. The room was spinning, and she closed her eyes tight against the wave of dizziness she felt.

  “With Nico.”

  “Of course,” Beck said. Cassie had Nico. And singing. Vivian had college. Vivian would go and do everything she said she was gonna do, Beck knew it.

  And Beck would still be here.

  Worse, she’d be here alone.

  “You drove here, Beck. How were you planning to get home?” she demanded.

  “With you?” Beck asked.

  “Good thing I came tonight. I was going to stay home and—”

  “Study,” they said together.

  Vivian’s glare was terrifying, even by Vivian standards.

  “You could learn something from how hard I study. God knows how your grandpa’s shop is going to survive when you take over.”

  Of course, Vivian didn’t know. She didn’t know he’d been sick. Didn’t know the diagnosis. She definitely didn’t know that Beck had spent the entire day hoping for a miracle and been delivered the worst-case scenario for her grandpa’s cancer.

  So Vivian couldn’t have known that those words would ruin her.

  She collapsed into tears, sinking down onto the bathroom floor.

  “Beck?” Vivian asked. Beck had never cried in front of her before.

  She had never cried in front of anyone.

  Beck blamed the vodka.

  In a moment, Vivian was right there with her, her hands on the back of Beck’s head, her fingers tangling in the mess of Beck’s curls. “Beck? Oh my God, Beck, I’m sorry.”

  “He’s dying, Vivian. He’s sick, and he’s dying, and there’s nothing else we can do. He won’t be here next year. And neither will you. Or Cassie. And I can’t—” Beck broke off, buried her face in her hands.

  Vivian stayed there, crouching on the floor next to Beck. She didn’t rush her or tell her to stop crying.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. And she just stayed there, crouching uncomfortably on the floor, never letting go of Beck while she cried.

  When Beck finally calmed down, Vivian had to carefully extract her fingers so she wouldn’t pull Beck’s hair. She dumped Beck’s beer down the drain, rinsed the cup, and filled it with cold water. She sat next to her, and made Beck drink the whole cup and then another one. She ran her hand over her back in soothing circles.

  “Why are you being nice to me?” Beck asked.

  “Because you annoy the hell out of me. But I love you.”

  That’s when Cassie came flying through the door.

  Beck and Vivian sprang apart like opposing magnets, and Vivian was on her feet a half-second later. “Cass?”

  “I said don’t touch me. We are done!” Cassie screamed, slamming the door and locking it.

  “What the fuck?” Beck had yelled, climbing to her feet. “Cassie?”

  Cassie stepped back from the door, her arms shaking where they were wrapped around her body.

  Her oversized sweater slipped down her arms.

  Beck gasped, reached for Cassie. There were bruises all over Cassie’s upper arms. A bunch of them, forming a half circle, one on each arm, almost like . . .

  “Are those fingerprints?” Vivian said, stepping forward and tracing the blue-and-purple marks, her touch gentle. Cassie still shrank away from it.

  “What the fuck, Cassie,” Beck repeated, and this time the words were a statement, not a question. Beck’s hand went to Cassie, too, her fingers lining up along one of the bruises. She realized that whoever had done this had hands much, much larger than hers.

  A fist began pounding on the door.

  “Cassie!” Nico said through the door, and through what sounded like clenched teeth.

  “Cassandra. Do
not. Run away. From me.” Each phrase was punctuated by a fist slamming on the door, and Cassie moved back a bit more with each thud.

  “Shit,” Vivian said, snapping into action. “We need to get out of here. Now. Step back.”

  Vivian swung the door open and went toe-to-toe with Nico Bell.

  He looked taller than ever to Beck that night. Six three and built lean and strong from all his years of swimming.

  He was huge compared to Cassie. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that before?

  “Get out of my way, Nico,” she said. Her voice was strong, unwavering, and Beck knew that if she wasn’t so drunk it would be her standing where Vivian was, standing up for Cassie. But Beck was too much of a disaster in her own right to do anything but pull Cassie along, tugging her sweater up to cover her bare arms, steering her toward the door.

  Nico must have thought Cassie was alone in the bathroom, because he stepped back in shock, giving Vivian the wide berth she demanded of him.

  “Go away, Nico,” Vivian said, taking another step forward, forcing him to either touch her or step back.

  Nico stepped back.

  Beck didn’t wait. She grabbed Cassie, beelining her through the party to the van outside.

  Vivian caught up to them a moment later, holding out her hand.

  “Keys,” she said, and Beck gave them over.

  Beck climbed into the back seat with Cassie.

  For as long as they’d been friends, it had always been Cassie taking care of Beck. Helping her settle into Bell. Giving her those Cassie hugs. But Beck wrapped her arms tight around Cassie that night.

  Cass didn’t cry the whole drive, she just seemed cold, and distant, and for some reason Beck thought that was worse.

  Vivian drove to the lake.

  She shut off Betty’s engine and leaned her head on the steering wheel for a moment. Then she turned to the back seat.

  “Okay, so. Tonight was a shit show. And we are going to take this one step at a time.”

  Beck and Cassie nodded together.

  “Cassie. Please talk to us. Please tell us what the hell that was back there.”