That had been Edwin's lifeblood for the vast majority of his professional career.
I don't think I could have picked a better leader for us if I'd been asked to.
"You gonna let us come back?" I asked, trying to smile and failing; but it was a close thing. "I think most of us want to return, at least part-time. Especially since there haven't been any more Kipa sightings since Scribe fell."
Edwin gave me an appraising look. "I don't know. Who are you? What's your record like? Powers or smarts?"
"Edwin."
He tapped his chin. "And the big guy beside you. What is he? A fly boy?"
"Edwin."
The chuckle he gave made the room light up. "I'll get it passed with everyone else, but I can't see it being a problem. None of you have done anything illegal. I guess we could talk about the whole Allison thing with you, Adam, but I don't see the point. So many people were hurt during this, or killed, that the trials are backed up for years. She's gone, she tortured the hell out of us, and I think we would have had to kill her in the end, anyway."
"I can deal with that, I think," Adam said, his hold tightening on me a little bit more.
"In that case, I'd better get going. Dinner's at 7?" Edwin asked. I nodded and he returned the gesture. "I'll make sure I'm back for it."
He rose, spun the chair back to its proper position, and left Adam and I alone once more. Nishelle was busy out gathering groceries for dinner that night, Nate had an EMT shift, and that left the two of us at odd ends. He settled in to hold me and we ended up on the couch, after a while, with all the birds lined up behind us as we watched some old Disney movie to try to quiet our nerves.
Time wore on and I fell asleep against him. I was doing that a lot these days, finding myself too tired to sit through an entire television show or even most of a movie. I needed time to rest, recuperate, and to just... figure myself out.
I spoke to my mother once in between all of the funerals and misery. She reminded me that my biological clock was ticking and I hated that. It wasn't even true; there were plenty of women having their first babies older than I was. I'd put it mostly out of my mind.
But after all of what we'd been through, it kept creeping back in. It was harder to pick myself back up after a fight, it was tougher to keep going all day, every day, and still come home with a little pep in my step. I stopped a robbery one night before the funerals and took a punch to the gut that had hurt for the next several days.
It wasn't as if I was certain my days were numbered. Just... it felt like something or someone was trying to make me realize that maybe they were.
There's a point in your life when you realize that you aren't as immortal as you once believed yourself to be. Everyone tells you that, but you're certain that they're wrong; you will be around as long as you want to be. Fuck the haters.
That isn't true. One day, you're not going to wake up but everyone else will. They'll find you gone or they'll already know you're dead because you did it in some terribly public way. The thing that matters most is what you do with that time that you still have before that day comes.
And I had no idea what I wanted to do with it. Worse, I wasn't certain what my group of lovers wanted, either. I didn't think we were involved in something casual; they loved me and I was pretty sure that Nate and Adam might have a side thing going on, too. Maybe even Adam and Edwin, though that seemed to be very much on Edwin's terms. I wasn't surprised; Adam had the sort of charisma that dragged people to him and kept them there.
But what about me? What was I going to do? And did it involve all of them?
Those questions swam in my head as I chopped carrots for dinner; something that felt as though it was a bit out of place for a superhero to do. But today was my day off; something that was being enforced now as a mandatory order. Before, we'd had a "day off" every now and then, but we'd inevitably been dragged into work for this alarm or that on the vast majority of them.
Now, when you were off your phone's alert system was de-activated in the system back at the Alliance building; meaning that you couldn't get an alarm or a call if you tried. If you were emotionally attached to another superhero, they might get called in on your day off but that was just something you had to live with.
Still, Edwin had made sure to give all of us the day off; all of us but him. But he had a staff, all of which had made it through the nightmare of Scribe's takeover. His hours were a set and done deal and when he left for the day, he was done. It didn't matter what happened.
Part of me wished that Izzy had lived to see that. She would have been the perfect person to take over nights or days or whatever for him, but that was it. What was done was done. As far as I knew, there was no way to bring people back from the dead.
Nishelle wrapped her arms around me. "Groceries are in the car. You give me a hand with'em?"
"Yeah, give me just a second." I forced myself into a Blitz for just a second, snapping through the carrots in record time. Then I followed her out to bring in bag after bag.
I didn't blame her or anything like that. We were feeding a very small army, when it came down to it. Adam could eat half a horse by himself, and Nate and I were no lightweights. After a couple of nights cooking for the group, we'd upgraded our little 2 gallon stockpot to one of the industrial 10 gallon ones. Sometimes, we even had leftovers.
Dinner went off without a hitch, though Nate turned up a little bit late. He yawned as he walked in, rubbing his hair down after pulling off his cap. "Terrible car accident up on I-9. Had to finish the paperwork before I left. You?"
When he asked, he meant all of us. Adam shrugged, but Nishelle stretched her legs out and answered. "A single Kipa's body was found in some mad scientist's lab. Looked like they were trying to revive it, but they weren't having a lot of luck. It's been taken in by the military, per usual."
"Where we hope that they'll never decide to go nuts with it or that no one will break down their fences and steal their shit," I said, plopping a huge pot of chicken and dumplings on the table. The legs shivered, but held. "Next thing we're buying is a stronger table."
"You didn't answer," Nate said, ladling his bowl full.
I paused and looked up at him. "It gets kind of heavy. I don't know if it's really what anyone would consider dinner conversation."
Those around the table went silent and I rubbed the back of my neck, looking anywhere but them. Even after all this time, I wasn't used to people dropping everything to just listen to me. And the eyes staring at me made me uncomfortable. Prison wasn't that distant of a memory, though I dearly wished it would be.
"I don't know quite where things are going or what I want to do," I started, then grew bolder. "It's confusing. I got out of prison not so long ago and the world literally turned itself upside down in that little bit of time. I'd have never dreamt that Scribe would turn on us or that Allison was Emma's mom or-"
"Or that I was alive?" Nishelle asked.
I nodded. "Or that. Or so much else. It's been such a twisted, turny place and I... I don't want space, or a break," I said, sinking into my chair. "I don't want anyone to go away or leave me alone. But I talked to my mom after everything went down and she brought something up."
"Did she do the Mom-thing and tell you your clock is ticking and that you'd better get a move on deciding what you want to do? That 30 is the new 50?" Adam frowned. "Because that's what my aunt used to do to me all the time. She's got no idea I'm dating you, by the way. That should be a fun conversation."
I snorted at him and picked up the ladle, too. "I can imagine. But, sort of. And I don't really know where any of you guys stand on that." I tipped the ladle out and plopped it back in the pot, then frowned. "Well. That's not true. I have a good idea of where Nishelle stands on most of these things. We'd talked about a lot of them before you passed away."
"And maybe some of my opinions changed," Nishelle said. "But not most of them. Not enough to have any real impact. I intend to work until I can't, then retire and growl
at all the new little Pyros that show up. Standard superhero gig since I have a heart that doesn't try to kill me."
Edwin shrugged. "You know what I'm doing. It's usually a lifetime position, unless you quit. And it comes with risks, for all of you. Running the Alliance isn't for the faint of heart."
Adam and Nate looked at each other, but it was Nate who spoke up. "We're pretty open."
"We're?" I asked, brows raising.
Adam cleared his throat. "We're just friends, Cassie. Technically."
"Technically." I smiled. "Look, if any of you guys want secondary relationships with each other, that's fine. Just... let me know? I don't want to be in the dark like that."
"You're more than enough effort for me," Nishelle said, flicking a dumpling at my head.
I caught it easily enough and plopped it into my bowl. That ended the seriousness of the conversation and the light, quiet chatter kicked up again. I watched and relaxed in my chair, letting the white noise fill me, soothe me, and reassure me that I had a home. I was safe. That what mattered could be decided in the morning.
And that was just super for me.
Epilogue
The years passed too quickly for me.
I still felt like it was Scribe's office, not mine. Sometimes, I half-expected him to walk in when I wasn't looking. I had demanded that we keep his book for selfish reasons. It was filled with decisions, scribbles, thoughts about the job; the sorts of things that would be of no use to anyone but me. Emma certainly wasn't old enough to understand her father's choices or what had plagued him.
It had turned out that he had wanted to pay us more, to treat us better, but he just hadn't been able to figure out the funding. Scribe had been an outstanding writer, but numbers seemed to be his weak spot. I honestly feel as though, had Allison left Izzy's mind alone, we likely would still be working under Scribe.
Though it meant that our existence would be... lesser, there was a comforting thought that we really hadn't been the factor that had brought him down.
The clocks chimed behind me and I waited for it. The coo-coo bird shot out of the old, Germanic clock and made its terrible racket. You can't tell a dignitary from another country that you don't want their gift, and every time I spoke with him he'd made sure to ask how it was working for me. That meant pictures, happy comments, and the little white lies that corporate and political America ran on.
There were bigger fish to fry than a tiny, annoying hanging on my wall.
Like the fact that my wife was having trouble marrying her wife because of some ridiculous legislation; and the fact that we still hadn't been able to get Nishelle's paperwork completely cleared. It turned out that fixing the status of someone who was actually alive, not dead, was incredibly complicated. There were people in that system for over a decade, desperately trying to regain their personhood.
My writs only meant so much to those in charge. I had verified it was her time and time again, but they were hesitant to allow her back into society. Dead meant dead. She'd had no heartbeat, she'd been gutted on an operating table; she was dead.
The thing is, we'd been able to verify that the poor person who had been vivisected had been someone four years older than her; and Arabic. Nishelle's fingerprints hadn't matched and, had we been allowed that information, it was entirely possible that we would have died to Izzy's attacks on that lonesome street.
Because we would have gone after Nishelle. And she would have run from us. That meant she would have never turned up to save our asses as Ardent.
Despite my protests, I'd loved the name Ardent and the costume, she'd gone back to her old Ember motif and namesake. I supposed it worked better for a Pyro, but what did I know? It was her choice and the marketing team agreed with her.
I glanced at my notes for tomorrow's meeting and rolled my eyes. There was still an enormous debate between the merchants and those who manufactured our promotional junk; the action figures, the ice cream bars, that kind of stuff. At least the superheroes were making more off of those profits after I'd brokered a deal that gave them 35% of the profits.
Though I had to admit, I'd wanted more than that. After so many years of getting almost nothing, the surge in cash had enabled most of our superhero families to move out of the Alliance building. They were buying homes, cars, better lives for their kids; the whole American dream, thing.
With them managing that, we'd been able to offer rooms to the needy within the Alliance building. We were finding more people than ever that had powers, thousands of them avoiding the rest of society because they didn't want to hurt anyone. Cassie's class had been almost all older superhero families.
These people were the sorts who had never had so much as a whiff of superhero lineage in their family tree; oddities that had sprung from nothing and been treated like they were the worst among us. I was happy to help them; and so was everyone else.
I expected the alarm to go off at some point today, I expected the clocks to chime again and annoy me. I hadn't expected my phone to ring. I frowned at the unknown number and paused. The last time I'd answered one of those, it'd been bad news on the other end of it. Sure, I sometimes got those robocalls like everyone else does, but they usually used a fake number.
People who blocked their ID only did it for one reason; they didn't want to be responsible or tracked down. I let the call fall off to my voice mail.
Only for it to immediately ring through again. I sighed and sat back down, picking up the phone and answering it. "Noll."
"Surprised you haven't changed your number after all this time."
"Wreckless?" My frown deepened. I'd been able to keep tabs on Lexi, more or less, since Logan and I were friendly. But I hadn't thought she'd call me after so long.
She chuckled. "On my good days. You and Nate and all of them still with Cassie?"
"Of course." How could she ask? I couldn't imagine a life without my Blitzer making it interesting.
"Mmm. I know I've been out of touch. And I wasn't a very good friend very often-"
"You only seethed at us constantly," I said. "I didn't know you counted all of us among your friends."
Lexi paused, then coughed. "Yeah. Well. Things were bad, okay? I wasn't in a good place and I wasn't thinking very clearly. It's been a while. I've changed. I'm sure you've all changed."
"Not particularly. Nate's still a cat-wolf-bear thing. I still shuffle paperwork. Adam still gets nosebleeds. Nishelle almost blew up the kitchen once trying to light the gas stove. Cassie still puts people through walls."
The gas stove thing had been a problem. As soon as we'd finishing paying off the house, collectively, we'd replaced it with an electric number and gotten rid of all the gas fittings. Nishelle was the best Pyro I'd ever seen and had plenty of control, but accidents happened. And that bit with the stove had scared us all into realizing that maybe explosive gas wasn't the best idea in a house with a Blitzer who could accidentally throw herself through the walls and a Pyro who might ignite something by snapping her fingers idly.
"Regardless. I'm getting married and I wanted to know if any of you wanted to come."
I blinked. Several times. "Congratulations?"
"Don't sound so shocked."
"I'm... Well. I'm not exactly shocked. Just. Who's the lucky person?"
"Kharmia."
That threw me. I'd seen that woman's body laying on the floor of my office, then Scribe's. I'd known she was dead, apologized to her parents when I'd been named my mentor's successor. My mouth worked for a few minutes, then I pulled the phone away from my ear and hit the speaker option. "Uh. Congratulations?"
"You already said that."
"You just said that you're marrying a dead person," I told her.
A laugh sounded across the line. "Cassie's trying to do the same thing and all I see on the news is you supporting her. You got a problem with me marrying a dead girl, too?"
"This is way too creepy. What's going on?"
There was a long, sweet pause in which I
didn't have to hear Lexi laughing at me. Then Kharmia, the superheroine who'd lost her life trying to help us, sighed through the receiver. "It seems that I wasn't dead enough to be dead. James was doodling one day and I just sort of sprang back into existence. As far as I know, he's the only person with Scribe's powers in the world."
"Scribe could have brought people back from the dead?"
Lexi called from somewhere in the distance behind Kharmia. "It seems like he did. Cassie probably actually did kill Nishelle. He just wrote her heartbeat back and brought her back around. It's the only thing we can figure out over here."
My eyes drifted to the book that lay on my desk. I glanced sideways at the pen sitting in my inkwell. Don't look at me like that. Ballpoints are fine for typical day-to-day use. I want something fancier when I'm writing to the mayor or trying to set certain acts into motion. A man is only as good as his stationary and I wanted to be the best. Nothing wrong with that.
Allied: A Superhero Reverse Harem Romance (The PTB Alliance Book 3) Page 18