We Can Be Heroes

by Kyrie McCauley

  Saw the moment she accepted it.

  “Fine. Quickly. And please don’t break your goddamn neck.”

  They secured the lines to the railing, and Vivian helped Beck climb over it to the other side. There was nothing behind Beck but a sheer drop into water, and she felt the start of panic in her chest.

  She pushed that down, too.

  Later.

  Grieve later.

  Panic later.

  And there was something else driving Beck. Beyond grief, straight into this recklessness. The bruises on Cassie’s neck were visible again. The more visible Cassie became to them, the more obvious her pain. Cassie was cold. She’d told them that, out by the sunflower field. Beck fixated on that.

  Cassie was cold, and it was their job to help her.

  But it was more than that. It was the thing that Beck had held inside all this time. Scared that saying it out loud would somehow hurt even worse than keeping the secret.

  The last time Beck had taken things into her own hands, she’d gotten Cassie killed.

  Beck remembered dropping Cassie at the hospital the day Nico went after her. Telling Vivian to stay in the waiting room, to wait for Cass. To call Beck if they needed a ride. And then she drove to Nico Bell’s home. She parked Betty outside their gate, and climbed the wall, throwing her baseball bat over first.

  She found Nico’s car. It was new and sleek and stupid expensive.

  Beck didn’t care what kind of car it was. She cared that it was Nico’s.

  Beck smashed the windshield first, then the windows. She dented the sides and pulled out her keys to stab each of the car’s tires. He came outside on the last tire, screaming. His whole face was red. Beck ran, slamming into the gate, and it opened enough for her to slip out just as Nico caught up to her. She wondered, as she ran, if this was the anger that Cassie had faced from him. If so, then the car hadn’t been enough. She should have taken the bat to Nico himself.

  But it was his words, as she ran back to Betty—his words screamed at Beck that haunted her now.

  Even more than Cassie’s ghost.

  I warned you to stay out of this. I’ll kill you.

  And that’s what Beck had lived with for five months. Maybe he would have done it anyway. But Beck would always wonder if she’d been that breaking point. She’d wonder if he was looking for her that day at school.

  And it was why Beck wouldn’t—couldn’t—stop until she finished this.

  Beck stepped over the wall. She walked down it, one foot planted and then the next, moving backward. About ten feet down, she stopped. She saw the drawing in her mind, down to every last mark, and then she let her instinct guide her hands and form the first bold arcs on the wall. She painted Cassie’s hair in curls tied on top of her head. Painted her eyes with the boldest blue paint Beck could find. Painted them fixated on the horizon, waiting for ships.

  This was what Beck knew. The memory of Cassie’s face. Her smile. She painted a flower in Cassie’s hair. Finally, all that was left were the words. The same ones she’d painted onto every mural. Collige Virgo Rosas.

  Beck reached for the last can of black paint. She had to move one of the ropes, and when she did she felt a tug, and dropped a few inches down the wall.

  She looked up in the dark, her eyes adjusting to make out the railing above.

  It was bending.

  Vivian saw it at the same moment, reached for the rope that tethered Beck to the wall.

  But the railing gave out before she got there.

  Beck plummeted to the water below.

  The water wasn’t deep.

  Beck knew that because she cracked her head against the bottom of the levee when she hit it.

  And then it felt like time stopped, and she was moving in slow motion. She knew it was bad. Knew she’d drown. But it already felt so far away, like it was happening to someone else.

  Like she was watching a movie, black and white and crackling.

  And then everything was illuminated.

  Bright lights pierced the water, and she could see the long strands of her red hair fanning out all around her. Her hand was reaching for the surface, but it might as well have been a hundred feet instead of three.

  Her vision was going dark—cloudy with the pain. Cloudy with the muddy redness filling the water around her.

  Not her hair, after all.

  Blood.

  But those lights were still on her—from somewhere up above.

  They were coming for her.

  Not Vivian or Cass, but someone she’d waited for her whole life.

  Those bright lights could only be otherworldly. Something she had looked for in the night sky, again and again, wishing to be stolen away and taken to some other galaxy, some other life.

  And here they were.

  Coming for her.

  Finally.

  Vivian

  VIVIAN RAN DOWN THE SIDE OF the levee, screaming for Beck as she went.

  “Cass, lights! I need light.”

  The headlights of the van flickered on, illuminating the surface of the water.

  She could see the shape of Beck in the water.

  Vivian jumped in. She swam for the spot she’d seen Beck a moment ago, diving in, arms outstretched.

  There. Vivian’s fingers tangled in Beck’s hair, and she dove farther, wrapping her arms around Beck and dragging her back to the surface. Vivian pulled her to the side of the levee, out of the water. Beck wasn’t breathing. Vivian started CPR. She’d done this before, a hundred times, in training, and in emergencies. She’d brought people back before, and goddammit, she would do it again.

  She counted. Breathed for Beck. Did a chest compression. Began again.

  It couldn’t have been more than a minute, though it felt like an eternity to Vivian.

  Beck sputtered, choked. Began to cough up the water.

  When Vivian sat back to give her space, she tugged her own hair out of the way, and realized then that her hands were covered in blood.

  Beck’s head was bleeding. A lot.

  Vivian needed help.

  She managed to get Beck up to her feet. She couldn’t hold her weight entirely, but with Beck leaning against her and her arm wrapped around Vivian, they stumbled up to the van.

  Vivian moved Beck into the middle seat, lying down, and immediately grabbed a sweatshirt from the seat to apply pressure to the wound on Beck’s head.

  She looked at Beck’s blood all over her hands, and suddenly Vivian was back in that classroom. Three gunshots and it was over. Cassie was gone before Vivian even registered what was happening. Vivian’s hands were covered in blood.

  Vivian hadn’t known she’d been shot, too, until someone tried to figure out how to tie a tourniquet on her leg. They were doing it wrong. They weren’t tying it tight enough.

  Vivian talked them through it, staring down at her hands the whole time. It wasn’t her blood. It was Cassie’s. Vivian remembered waking in the hospital after Cassie died. It felt like the world had ended. As far as Vivian was concerned, the world did end that day. And then everyone acted like it was a normal thing, to lose someone you love to a bullet at school. And Vivian had been full of anger from that moment on. Anger that this was a version of the world she was expected to accept and live with. To not be consumed by her loss. To not think that their lives were worth the battle—against Bell, against the company, against anyone who didn’t know who Cassie was. So she’d fought.

  But tonight took her back to that day, only this time it wasn’t Cassie’s blood on her hands, it was Beck’s.

  And Vivian couldn’t breathe.

  Not her, too, was all she could think. Not Beck, too.

  Vivian was frozen in place, but she felt the hum of the engine starting. She looked up and found Cassie in the driver’s seat.

  That snapped her out of it a bit.

  “Cassie,” Vivian started. “Can you—”

  “I think so,” Cass said. “I can feel the pedals. I can feel the wheel. Wher
e do we go?”

  “We need Matteo. He’s not working tonight. Go to his house. I’ll call him on the way.”

  Cassie pulled the gear shift, and the van started to move. Vivian stayed where she was, her chest tight with fear and shock, her hands slick with the wetness of blood as she tried to stop the bleeding from the gash on Beck’s head. Beck was quiet, but conscious. She kept squeezing Vivian’s hand in reassurance.

  “Hurry,” Vivian said, a whispered plea.

  The van surged forward, and Cassie’s hands slipped right through the steering wheel. It began to veer off course, heading for the ditch on the side of the road, but Cassie swore under her breath, and put her hands back in place.

  She grabbed the steering wheel, corrected course.

  And then they were driving.

  Cassie drove them back through Bell.

  It was late, and there was no one else out on the streets.

  Cassie picked up speed on the next turn. They weren’t far from Vivian’s home. They turned onto the street.

  And then Cassie’s hands slipped through the wheel again, and Betty turned hard and fast, veering sharply right. The tree line was too close.

  And once again it felt like the world was ending.

  Vivian sat in Matteo’s kitchen with Beck’s head on her lap.

  He’d heard the tires screech when Cassie slammed on the brakes, trying to stop in time. But she couldn’t, and Betty had bounced off a tree before rolling to a stop on the side of the road.

  Matteo had come outside at the noise and sprang into action. He had ushered Vivian into his house, carrying Beck.

  They’d worked at his family’s kitchen table, using his first aid kit to stitch up Beck’s head. Vivian held her even after Matteo was done and started to clean up.

  Beck began to stir, her eyelashes fluttering. “I’m here,” Vivian whispered. “You’ll be okay. You scared the hell out of me, Tribeca Jones.”

  Beck’s eyes opened, narrowed on her.

  “Don’t call me that,” she said. She looked around the kitchen. “So no aliens?”

  “What?” Vivian asked.

  “She might need that hospital visit, Vivian,” Matteo said from the doorway. Vivian glanced up at him. He leaned on the doorframe, not forcing the issue, just suggesting the idea.

  “S’a joke,” Beck murmured. “Aliens. Joke.”

  Beck started to sit up, and Vivian helped her.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Cassie crashed your van,” Vivian said. “It’s outside, a little beat-up.”

  “And Cass?”

  “Still there,” Vivian said. “But I don’t think for long.”

  “I know,” Beck said. “We need to get back to her.”

  “Your head okay?” Matteo stepped forward, checking Beck’s stitches.

  “Barely even hurts,” Beck said.

  “Liar.” Matteo laughed. “Let’s go see what damage that hideous van of yours suffered. See if we can get you out of here before someone calls the cops and this whole thing blows up in our faces.”

  Vivian helped Beck stand, and then she and Matteo both looped arms around her, but Beck shook her head, pushed them off.

  Insisted she could walk on her own.

  “I told you we should have just burned something down.”

  Vivian laughed softly. Beck had said that, right at the start.

  “Well, when you’re right, you’re right,” Vivian said. “That would have been easier.”

  It was enough. Tonight was enough to make Vivian understand that they’d hit the limit of what they could do on their own to fight Bell. And Cassie knew it, too. She’d been trying to tell them, and it was Vivian who had refused to listen. She’d been selfish, now holding on to Cassie just because she couldn’t say goodbye.

  But it was time.

  Time to say goodbye to Cass before someone else got hurt.

  Cassie

  Beck’s hands are

  covered in paint,

  Vivian’s are

  covered in blood.

  Vivian limps,

  and Beck leans

  against Matteo.

  I feel a deep,

  guttural

  thud

  in my chest

  right where my

  heart used to be

  at the sight of Beck,

  conscious,

  alive.

  There was a moment,

  after she fell

  and was lying

  at the bottom of the levee,

  underwater.

  The moment Vivian

  dragged her out

  and looked up

  at Betty and me

  and when our

  eyes met

  I knew beyond a doubt

  we thought the same thing:

  Not Beck, too.

  We won’t finish

  the Helen mural

  but I think that’s okay.

  I think we can say

  we did our best.

  I know I can say

  my friends fought for me.

  Matteo leans in,

  whispers something

  to them just outside

  and Vivian looks up

  startled,

  but she nods.

  Matteo approaches

  the van alone

  and climbs into

  the passenger seat.

  He doesn’t turn around

  when he talks.

  Hey, Cass, he says.

  My name catches

  and he clears his

  throat, roughly.

  V and Beck, well,

  they say you are here,

  sort of trapped?

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know

  what I believe

  anymore, he says.

  I move into the middle seat

  so I’m hovering just behind him.

  Beck’s phone is on the floor

  and I reach down

  to push a button

  and it lights up

  It’s Beck’s first mural

  filling the screen.

  Cassandra, who saw the future.

  That mural always

  makes me think the same thing.

  If only seeing it coming had

  been enough to stop it.

  Oh, hey there, Matteo says,

  looking down at the phone.

  Was that you?

  He smiles when

  I press the button

  once more.

  Cass, here’s the thing,

  he says. I miss you—

  I know it was new,

  not gonna pretend

  I had any claim on you.

  I smile at the words

  said so easily.

  If only all boys

  could be more like Matteo

  and less like Nico.

  But I know what claim

  you had on me.

  And I’ll spend forever

  thinking, If only.

  If only I’d gotten

  to her first.

  I think you being here,

  if you’re really here,

  Matteo says, shifting

  in his seat,

  peering back,

  right through me,

  is the closest thing

  to a miracle

  I’ll ever see.

  The three of you—

  well, you’re fucking crazy,

  you know that, right?

  But you’re also my heroes.

  It’s making a difference,

  the murals, this town,

  everyone is talking

  about you, about guns,

  about how it got that far.

  But Beck could have died tonight

  and the police—

  they’re gonna find them,

  eventually.

  If they don’t get hurt,

  they’ll be arrested.

  Matteo
opens the door,

  and it protests loudly,

  having just been crashed

  against a tree.

  Then he pops his head

  back in through the window,

  goofy smile on his face.

  Love you, Cass.

  I should have said that

  when you were here,

  but I’m glad

  I can tell you now.

  Goodbye, Matteo, I say.

  But of course,

  he doesn’t hear me.

  Matteo didn’t have

  to tell me

  what I had already

  figured out for myself,

  standing at the edge of the

  sunflower fields

  feeling the tug and pull.

  It calls me.

  And then tonight,

  watching, helpless to stop it,

  when Beck slipped and fell.

  Matteo only said out loud

  what I had known

  for some time.

  But sometimes

  you need to hear it.

  As long as I am here,

  they’ll never stop.

  We Can Be Heroes

  Season 2: Episode 20

  “The CEO”

  MERIT: I’m glad you could make it to We Can Be Heroes, Mr. Bell. I’ve been looking forward to having you on here for a long time.

  BELL: And I hope this marks the conclusion of your series on Bell, Ms. Logan. I’m sure you’re ready to move on to bigger things than our little town.

  MERIT: With the coverage it’s getting, there is nothing bigger than this town right now. But why don’t we back up a little first. Tell me about Cassie.

  BELL: She was a troubled girl. An actress. Dramatic. She was always starting fights with Nico. We—my wife and I—tried to get Nico to break it off, but those kids were in too deep. It was a volatile relationship.

  MERIT: Volatile. As in violent?

  BELL: As in unstable.

  MERIT: Then why push back on the protection order? It would have distanced them, at least.

  BELL: With my son at fault. That was unacceptable.

  MERIT: Is that why you went to the hospital to keep Cassie from filing? To protect Nico?

  BELL: What?

  MERIT: You went with Sheriff Thomas to the hospital on March thirteenth.

  [Extended silence]

  MERIT: Mr. Bell?

  BELL: . . . You don’t have proof of that.

  MERIT: You don’t know that.

  BELL: It doesn’t matter. She filed her paperwork. She got the order. In the end, none of that mattered.