Building a Hero: The Complete Trilogy

by Tasha Black

  Cordelia stifled a giggle.

  “Looks like we better go,” she said.

  She slipped by him and headed briskly toward the elevator, buttoning her shirt and smoothing her hair as she went.

  Peter trailed behind a few seconds after her. He was clearly still reeling.

  They rode down to the lobby in silence.

  When they arrived, the whole lobby was full of people milling about.

  Dalton stepped right up to them.

  “False alarm, Mr. Watson,” he said respectfully, then turned to address the crowd. “Sorry, folks. This seems to be some kind of malfunction. We should have it straightened out soon.”

  “Thank you,” Cordelia whispered, slipping him the recording.

  Peter stood, surveying the growing crowd, a mixture of confusion and annoyance marring his handsome features.

  “I’m going to get some air,” Cordelia announced, heading through the crowd and out the front door before he had a chance to reply.

  42

  West looked across his own dining room table at Gary from Legal.

  Technically, Gary no longer worked for West in the capacity of corporate legal advisor. But West had offered him a handsome hourly rate for a special consultation.

  Gary pushed a surprisingly thin stack of papers toward West.

  But he withheld the pen.

  “You’re sure about this?” Gary asked.

  “Positive,” West nodded.

  “You realize this will leave you without a penny to your name?” Gary asked, still holding onto the pen.

  “I am aware,” West said with a half-smile. “I did the math myself. A few times.”

  He looked around the room, appreciating the strangeness of having the conversation here under the opulent splendor of the vaulted ceiling and multiple commissioned metalwork fixtures, sitting at a mahogany table that would seat thirty for dinner. Gazing out the window, West saw the buildings of Glacier City disappear toward the Scar and the fog beyond.

  He turned and gestured for the pen.

  Gary sighed and handed it to him.

  “Don’t worry, your check is already in the mail,” West joked as he scrawled his signature on the necessary lines.

  “It’s not me I’m worried about,” Gary said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Maybe I’ll get a job,” West replied.

  His phone buzzed.

  He quickly signed the last paper and handed the stack back to Gary.

  Gary smiled sadly.

  West nodded and looked down at his phone.

  No. No, no, no.

  West leapt up quickly, knocking his chair over in the process.

  “I’ve got to go, just let yourself out,” he yelled back to Gary, already lifting the phone to his ear.

  It rang, and rang. He was in the parking area and getting on the Vyrus before she picked up.

  “Mallory,” he barked. “I need to know where Jess is. Now.”

  “I’m not at my computer,” she told him. “We’re having some kind of evacuation.”

  The bike roared to life under him. It was ready to fly, but he had nowhere to aim it.

  “Mallory,” he begged. “I need your help. Please.”

  “I’m on it,” she said. “Give me two minutes.”

  He heard her yelling for Dalton as the connection broke.

  Running a hand through his hair in fury, he flicked back to his texts.

  There was one word from Jess.

  Help.

  The sight of it had his blood boiling. He stuck the phone in his pocket and put on his helmet with communication on.

  He revved the engine and took off through the garage and out into the street.

  He had no idea where he was going, but he knew he couldn’t sit still for two minutes.

  He was basically driving in circles when Mallory’s voice came through his headset.

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Send it over,” he replied.

  “I can see you’re already ignoring the posted speed limit,” she told him. “Please don’t try to look at your phone. I’ll guide you in.”

  Mallory’s voice steadied him somewhat as he followed her directions to the shopping center. When he arrived, there was already a police cruiser at the edge of the parking lot.

  Waiting for backup.

  Screw that.

  West gunned the engine and sailed past the cop car, shifting his vision to infrared and scanning the storefronts.

  “I see her,” he said. “Find Cordelia.”

  43

  Jess had never been so scared.

  These guys obviously didn’t know what they were doing, which made them unpredictable. And the one with the gun was getting twitchy, like he was long overdue for a fix, which made him very dangerous.

  “Everybody get down on the floor,” Twitchy yelled to the customers.

  “You heard him, get down!” Ponytail repeated.

  Everyone got on the floor, even the pharmacy girl.

  Everyone except Pan.

  Twitchy turned to her furiously.

  “Seriously, dude?” Pan asked, gesturing at Jess in the chair.

  For a second he looked confused.

  “Fine,” he conceded. “She can stay there, but you get down on the floor.”

  Pan lay down right next to the wheelchair.

  Twitchy waved at Jess with his gun, the barrel like a black hole, threatening to suck her in.

  “You better not try anything stupid.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  The two men consulted with one another.

  “What are we going to do with all these people?” Twitchy asked.

  “We might need them to get ourselves out of here,” Ponytail retorted. “Thanks to you and your stupid gun.”

  Twitchy looked down at his hand, like he’d forgotten all about it.

  “I’ll clean out the registers, and get the pills. At least we won’t leave empty handed,” Ponytail said impatiently. “You go check for cops.”

  Twitchy headed straight for the front window and peeked out, not bothering to conceal himself at all.

  The guy clearly didn’t watch a lot of police shows. In a hostage situation-

  Holy crap. I’m in a hostage situation.

  -the police would have snipers trained on the large front window.

  She waited for the shot.

  Nothing.

  “I see one car, but it’s all the way across the parking lot,” Twitchy called to Ponytail.

  “Probably waiting for backup,” Ponytail explained. “We’ll be long gone before that happens.”

  The way Twitchy kept putting his finger on the trigger of his gun worried Jess. He didn’t seem like he was a hundred-percent on board with the get while the getting’s good part of the plan.

  “But all these people have seen our faces. They could ID us,” Twitchy worried aloud.

  There it was.

  Surely, he must have known their faces were also all over the in-store security system footage. Plus the parking lot and traffic cams.

  They hadn’t bothered with masks, or even gloves. The place would be covered in prints by now.

  Jess watched his finger stroke the trigger. He wasn’t looking for logic.

  He was looking for an excuse.

  “Just shut up and keep an eye on that cop car,” Ponytail spat.

  Twitchy turned back to his task, gun held close, like a baby.

  “Holy shit,” he yelled.

  Jess saw it happen in slow motion.

  The window imploded as a motorcycle crashed through, sending Twitchy sprawling in a shower of glass.

  Westley Worthington leaped off, as the bike skidded across the floor and crashed into one of the registers.

  West didn’t miss a beat. He tucked and rolled, coming up to his feet almost effortlessly, and bolted straight for Ponytail.

  With a surprised yelp, Ponytail pulled a pistol out of his pants and fired three quick shots at West
before ducking behind the pharmacy counter.

  At least two of the shots had connected.

  And West was wearing street clothes, so he didn’t have the protection of the Kevlar backing she’d painstakingly chosen for the chest of his costume.

  She waited for him to collapse, her heart already broken.

  West didn’t even break his stride.

  44

  West felt the bullets tear into him, but they seemed far away.

  Unimportant.

  The first man was down. This man behind the counter was all that mattered right now. West had to stop him, before he decided to use that gun on someone else.

  West let his vision shift until he was able to see the thermal outline of the man hiding behind the pharmacy counter, and aiming the gun at the opening above. He clearly expected West to come through that way, and he was ready.

  West had other ideas.

  He bent low, grabbed the bottom of the counter, and lifted with all his strength.

  His joints protested, but the structure groaned and finally came free of its moorings. A heartbeat later it toppled, pinning the man, and his gun, beneath.

  The threat was neutralized.

  Jess was safe.

  She would be traumatized, but once they got her to Cord and calmed down, he could apologize to her for his behavior that night in the lab. And he could be honest with Cord now about giving up his limbs, because her sister was safe.

  He turned to go to her.

  But his legs wouldn’t work.

  Jess looked up at him, confused.

  The goth looking girl on the floor next to her got up and hugged her.

  People started running out the front door.

  Knowing it would be to no avail, West tried again to move.

  Nothing.

  This wasn’t like any other glitch.

  He wasn’t numb.

  An icy pain spread from his limbs into his core.

  Lifting the counter had been the final straw.

  Movement in front of him caught his eye, cutting through the haze of pain.

  The man from the front window crawled out of the debris, bits of glass shimmering in his hair.

  Clutching his shotgun.

  West tried again to command his limbs through the waves of icy agony.

  He couldn’t move anything, not even a finger of his good hand.

  The man stood slowly, leveling the gun at West, as he staggered forward.

  West stood, completely paralyzed.

  He tried to look sideways at Jess, but his upgraded eye went dark, and he couldn’t see her anymore.

  Please let her have gotten out. Please don’t let her see this.

  What was left of his normal vision narrowed to a tunnel. Everything else dropped away. There was no store, there were no screams. There was only the battered, broken man, aiming his gun at West’s head.

  This is how it all ends.

  West the spoiled child.

  West the tyrant.

  West the redeemed.

  West the hero.

  Bring down the curtain, the play is over.

  He should be afraid. He knew it, he waited for it even, during that slow motion eternity as the man with diamonds of glass in his hair approached.

  But the fear never came, only gratitude.

  Because Jess was safe.

  And Cordelia had loved him.

  And thanks to that sheaf of papers he’d signed, something good would survive him.

  The pain told him that the end was inevitable now anyway.

  The man with the gun was doing him a favor.

  West felt at peace as the icy torment closed around his heart.

  He smiled as the man took another step.

  The world went black, and West was embraced by infinity.

  The last sounds he heard were a gunshot.

  And a scream.

  45

  Cordelia ran.

  The sound of the sirens and the rush of the chatter in the parking lot blurred into nothing. All she could hear was the pounding of her own heart.

  Helplessly, she scanned the faces.

  Jess.

  The girl looked younger than ever, her long red hair falling around her shoulders, half-covering her tear streaked face.

  “Jess,” Cord cried, falling on her knees gratefully to wrap her little sister in her arms.

  “West,” Jess sobbed into Cordelia’s hair.

  Cordelia felt her heart breaking.

  Jess peeled her off and indicted the ambulance parked in front of the broken window.

  No flashing lights. They weren’t even in a hurry.

  Two paramedics were securing an unmoving body to a stretcher.

  Cordelia rose and went to him.

  West was pale. He looked small somehow, and so young. No hint of movement. Not even the steady rise and fall of his chest.

  “Get out of my way,” a familiar voice shouted from behind.

  Cordelia turned to see Mallory fighting her way through the crowd with what looked like a contractor’s tool bag.

  As Cordelia watched, Mallory strode up to the EMTs.

  “You, hop in and get ready to drive like your entire career depends on it,” she told one of them, then turned to the other. “You, get him in the back and start him on something strong. Those limbs need to come off. Now.”

  “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m afraid he’s already—”

  “No, he’s not,” she interrupted. “Now are you going to help, or do I have to do this myself?”

  “But, why would you…?” Cordelia began to ask.

  Mallory turned to Cordelia.

  “Because the limbs are killing him.”

  “What do you mean?” Cordelia asked, reeling.

  “They’ve been failing for a while now,” Mallory shouted as she helped the EMTs hoist him into the back. “His nervous system is in a complete shutdown. If I don’t get them off, he’ll be dead before we even get to the hospital.”

  Before Cordelia could take in this new information, Mallory had hopped into the back and reached into her bag.

  She produced a small electric saw and pushed the button. There was a cruel whir as the blade came to life. The sound hit Cordelia like she’d been kicked in the gut.

  “Let’s go,” Mallory yelled. “And turn on that goddamn light.”

  “We’ll meet you there,” Cord said, but the doors were already slamming shut.

  The siren wailed as the ambulance sped off, kicking up gravel.

  Cordelia turned back to Jess and was surprised to see she was two feet away. She must have quietly made her way through the crowd to join her. How much had she heard?

  It didn’t matter.

  Whatever she had missed, Cordelia would quickly fill her in on. There had been too many secrets. And what good had they done?

  All she wanted was for Jess to come home.

  She wondered how to ask her if she was ready.

  “What are we waiting for? We need to be there when he comes out of it,” Jess said impatiently, as if Cordelia were dilly-dallying. “So I can punch him for scaring the crap out of me.”

  That settled that.

  Jess looked over at the dark-haired girl Cordelia didn’t know. Judging from Jess’s borrowed clothes, this must be the friend she’d been staying with. Cordelia resisted the urge to scold them both.

  “Can you come with us?” Jess asked her.

  “It sounds like you need to be with your family,” the girl replied. “Besides, I think there’s something I need to get rid of, before anyone realizes exactly what just happened.”

  She leaned down to grab her bag from Jess’s lap, and paused, looking into her eyes.

  “What you did in there was amazing. You are the bravest, most beautiful person I have ever met, Jessica Cross.”

  Jess opened her mouth to respond, but the girl cut her off by leaning in and kissing her.

  That was new.

  She lingered for a moment, then quickly s
traightened up and turned to Cordelia.

  “Sorry about all the trouble, Miss Cross,” she said earnestly. “Don’t be mad at Jess. It was all my idea.”

  Before Cordelia could formulate an answer, the girl slipped away and disappeared into the gathering crowd.

  Cordelia turned her attention to Jess, who was studying her thoughtfully. The hint of a smile was threatening to creep onto her tear-streaked face.

  “Let’s go,” Cordelia said, trying to hold back a smile of her own, despite the gravity of the situation. “We can talk about it later.”

  They headed for her van. Cordelia gazed at the sky, wondering if this was the happiest moment she would have, being here with her sister with hope in her heart that Mallory could save West.

  Her reverie was quickly interrupted. A police officer stepped in front of them, blocking their way.

  He was a real officer at least. This district hadn’t been consumed by Alpha Division. Yet.

  Cord recognized him as the officer West talked to that night they ran from the zoo.

  It seemed like a million years ago. She remembered how nervous she’d been about getting in trouble - which seemed ridiculous at this point- and how the officer had fallen all over himself to be nice to West.

  She remembered the thrill of clutching West’s warm chest as he drove the motorcycle through the night. How had she not realized that feeling meant something, that it was the most important thing?

  “I’m sorry, you can’t go anywhere until we get a statement from you,” the officer said kindly to Jess.

  It was certainly much harder to vanish into the crowd when you were pushing a wheelchair.

  “Hello Jerry,” Cordelia said sunnily. “How are Denise and the twins?”

  “I… They’re good,” he replied, looking confused.

  “Listen, Jerry,” she said in a tone of confidence she didn’t feel. “Westley Worthington is in the back of that ambulance that just pulled away. We’re going to the hospital, so we can be there for him if—when he wakes up. If you want to stop us from doing that, you’re going to have to arrest both of us.”

  Jerry looked over his shoulder. More police cars were already arriving.

  “How about I get your statement at the hospital, after you follow me there?” he asked.