There’s a pause but not quite a silent pause. I can make out some background noise, the incoherent buzz of conversation, and the sound of someone, presumably Astrid, breathing into the phone.
“How did I —? Oh. Sorry,” she says, her voice oddly thick, her speech plodding. “I called the wrong person. I was trying to call Bart. You’re not Bart.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m...yeah. Hey. You drive.” I think that was supposed to be a question. “I need you to come get us. I am...waaayyyyy too drunk to get behind the wheel.”
Meg nudges me and raises her eyebrows, a silent inquiry. I cover my phone and whisper, “Astrid drunk-dialed me to ask for a ride home.”
“Oh. Where is she?”
I relay the question. “The Irish pub on Main Street,” Astrid says. “Don’t take too long.”
“I didn’t say I’d come get you,” I say, but she’s already hung up on me.
“We’re going to get her,” Meg says. “Come on.”
So much for a drama-free night.
***
McKenzie’s is a nice-looking place as bars go — or so I assume. I’ve never been in a bar before, so it’s not like I can compare it to anything, but it’s clean and well lit.
“Hold on,” the bouncer says, stopping Meg and me before we get two feet inside. “Let me see some ID.”
“We’re just here to pick up our friend Astrid,” Meg says. “She’s had too much to drink and called us for a ride home.”
“Oh, you’re Astrid’s friend?” He steps aside. “She’s in the back. Make it fast.”
We head to the back of the bar, and why am I not surprised that Astrid managed to find the darkest corner in the place? What is surprising, however, is her companion.
“Natalie?” I say. Natalie glances at me with bloodshot eyes and a miserable expression then returns to staring at the empty glass in front of her. An equally empty bottle of tequila sits in the center of the table.
“Hey, there you are. Awesome. Let’s roll,” Astrid says. She stands up too quickly and promptly falls back into her seat. “Give me a minute.”
“Natalie? Hey,” I say, giving her a gentle shake. She moans pathetically, shrugs my hand off her shoulder, and turns away to face the wall like a child in time out.
“Leave her be. She’s had a hard day — hence the hard drinking,” Astrid says, holding up the bottle. Yes, because getting hammered magically solves all problems. “Let’s get her up.”
“We’ll get her up. I don’t want you dropping her.”
She sneers but doesn’t argue. Good call, Astrid — maybe your first good call of the night since I suspect this whole drinking yourself stupid thing was your idea.
Meg and I each grab an arm and pull Natalie to her feet. Oof, she’s heavier than she looks. She doesn’t resist, but she doesn’t help us either. She stays upright well enough that we’re not dragging her outside. Astrid stumbles on ahead and leads us to the parking lot across the street. All the while Natalie mumbles to herself, cursing someone without naming him or her — and I do mean cursing. Sober Natalie has a salty mouth. Drunk Natalie is a profanity elemental, a being made purely of R-rated vocabulary. Whatever the story is behind this bender, it must be truly epic.
We load Natalie into the back of Meg’s car. Astrid slides in next to her. Natalie slumps onto Astrid’s shoulder and starts to cry, which chills me to the bone. Natalie is, hands down, the toughest person I know, physically and emotionally. I always thought of her as unbreakable. Seeing her so completely broken shakes me to the core.
Meg drives us to Astrid’s place, a second-story apartment located over the New Age shop she owns. Meg and I wrangle Natalie upstairs and deposit her on Astrid’s couch. She mutters a string of curses, curls into a ball, and promptly falls asleep — or passes out, which seems more likely.
“I’ll take care of her,” Astrid says. I have a hard time believing her considering she’s swaying on her feet like a willow tree in a stiff wind. “I got this. Go.”
I linger for a moment, waiting for a word or two of gratitude for our taxi services, but it quickly becomes clear that isn’t going to happen. Once back in the car, Meg and I release simultaneous sighs.
“That was profoundly uncomfortable,” Meg says.
“Yeah it was. And I want to be angry at Astrid for ruining out night out, but...”
“No, I get that.” She takes my hand. “It’s only a little after ten. Not too late to salvage the evening,” she says with an implied wink.
I smile. “Let’s go.”
***
I awake to the tune of “Black Magic Woman,” and I swear to God, if I hadn’t just bought a new phone I’d throw the freakin’ thing out the window.
“What?” I grumble.
“Do you have my car?” Astrid croaks. Oh, she sounds rough.
“No, we left it in the parking lot across from the bar.”
She grunts. “You busy?”
“I was sleeping.”
“Come pick me up so I can get my car.”
“Anything else I can do for you?”
“Pick up some white bread, American cheese, and a package of bacon. I’ll pay you back when you get here.”
“That was sarcasm!” I shout at the phone, but Astrid isn’t there anymore. Goodbye to you too, bitch.
With a sigh I roll out of bed, get dressed, grab my car keys, head downstairs, get in my car, and drive over to Astrid’s, making one stop along the way to grab the stuff on her shopping list. Why I do any of this, I don’t know. I’ve never cared for Astrid, and she’s certainly not giving me any reason to reconsider my disdain.
I arrive to find a Post-It Note stuck on the door leading upstairs to Astrid’s apartment. UNLOCKED is written on it in an unsteady hand. Because I’m in a mood, I pull the note off, crumple it up, stick it in my pocket, and ring the doorbell anyway. A minute later, heavy footsteps clump down the stairs. Astrid, dressed in a black Ramones T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, opens the door and glares at me, her eyes so pink they’re almost red. I admit, grudgingly, that Astrid is a painfully beautiful woman. On a scale of one to ten, she defaults to a nine, and when she goes all-out on hair, makeup, and clothing, she’s easily an eleven. On bad days she’s a seven at worst, but today she’s — okay, she’s a seven, but it’s a hot mess of a seven. No one should be allowed to make flyaway hair and dark circles under the eyes look so fetching.
“The note said it was unlocked,” she says.
“I didn’t see a note,” I say innocently. She looks at the door, frowns, then turns to lead me upstairs. I allow myself a grin rich with schadenfreude.
My moment of petty, spite-driven triumph turns to shame when I see Natalie sitting on the couch under a blanket, hugging her knees to her chest. I completely forgot she’d stayed the night.
“Hey,” I say gently. She glances at me. Her eyes, glassy and bloodshot, move in slow motion. Her face is all blotchy. Crusted snot cakes her upper lip. She looks away without saying a word. “I have your groceries,” I say to Astrid.
“Do you know how to make bacon?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know how to make grilled cheese sandwiches?”
“Yeah...”
“There’s the kitchen,” Astrid says, pointing. “I need some grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches. And make some coffee.” I glare at her. She mistakes my indignation for curiosity. “The sandwiches will help with Natalie’s hangover. Trick I learned when I spent a couple months in London.”
She turns away to attend to Natalie, who is the only reason I’m not throwing this bag of groceries in Astrid’s face and storming out.
I put on a pot of coffee and get to work. Within minutes the tiny kitchen fills with the yummy smells of fresh coffee and frying bacon. They’re familiar, comforting aromas. After moving in with Carrie and her mom, I assumed the role of breakfast cook so I could feel useful. I turned out to be quite skilled in the breakfast-making arts, and the kitchen in t
he morning has become one of my safe spaces. I slip into — a trance isn’t the right word, but I definitely enter a state of Zen. I cook without thinking about it and often lose track of time in the process. Such is the case here. Before I know it, I have a small stack of hot sandwiches piled onto a plate, ready for serving.
“About time,” Astrid says. She grabs the plate and heads back into the living room.
“You’re welcome,” I mumble as I set about making a sandwich for myself.
Astrid sticks her head back in and says, “We need more coffee. And make sure you clean up when you’re done.”
That does it.
“Very good, madam!” I snap. “And when I finish in the kitchen, shall I go make the bed or shall I attend to the day’s laundry?”
Astrid’s eyes narrow to dark slits. She bares her teeth, ready to lay into me for my insolence. Yeah, bring it. I’m ready for you.
And then her expression softens. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m in a bad headspace. I shouldn’t be dumping on you. You’re helping me. I’m sorry.”
She slumps against the doorframe and lets out a long, exhausted sigh. I resist the impulse to reach out to comfort her. She hasn’t earned it. Not yet.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Natalie’s boyfriend broke up with her,” she says in a half whisper.
“What?” I gasp. “Why? I thought they were doing all right.”
“So did I. So did she,” Astrid says with a nod toward Natalie, “right up until two days ago. Derek announced he’d enrolled in grad school out in California and didn’t want Natalie going with him. He apparently has ‘a very specific vision’ for his future, and that vision didn’t include her.”
“Oh, God. Poor Natalie.”
“Yeah.”
“Is there anything we can do for her?”
Astrid’s face tightens. She shakes her head. “My best friend,” she says through clenched teeth, “and I can’t do anything to stop her pain.”
This time, I reach out.
Astrid gives me a crooked smile. “I’m not doing such a hot job of being a positive role model, am I?”
“For what it’s worth, I never considered you a role model.”
I mean it as a joke. Honestly.
Astrid takes my comment as intended. “Smart move.”
“You can stop whispering,” Natalie says, her voice coarse, raw. “I can hear you.”
“Sorry, babe,” Astrid says. “Didn’t want to disturb you.”
Natalie grunts. I join her on the couch. She takes a listless bite of her sandwich.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Natalie shrugs. “Want me to call Matt? Beating him up always makes you feel better.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t deal with people today.”
“If there’s anything I can do —”
“There isn’t.” She tosses the half-eaten sandwich toward the plate on the coffee table. She misses the plate entirely.
In situations like this, there really is nothing else to say, nothing that will do any real good. The sense of despair is so powerful it smothers you, crushes the will to fight back right out of you, and all you can do is ride it out and retain enough presence of mind to let the people who love you try to help — even if that help is ultimately useless.
Trust me on this one. Speaking from experience here.
“If there’s anything I can do,” I repeat, “you call me.”
She responds with the tiniest of nods.
Astrid gently pushes Natalie to finish her sandwich. When she finishes eating, she flops over and pulls her blanket over her head. Astrid brings her a glass of water, tells her to drink it, and then grabs her car keys.
“I’ll be back in a half-hour or so,” she says.
“Uh-huh,” Natalie grunts.
Astrid closes the door as quietly as possible then slumps against the wall. “I appreciate this.”
“Sure,” I say.
“Seriously, Sara, I appreciate everything you’ve done. I know I’m not your favorite person.”
“I did it for Natalie,” I say, which does nothing to dispel the awkward tension between us.
Astrid nods. “What’s your problem with me, anyway?”
Are we really doing this? All right, then.
“I don’t think you’re a good person. The very second I met you, I felt a...” I fumble for the right word. “I felt a darkness radiating off you.”
“I am half-demon,” she points out.
“I’m aware, but that’s not why you act like you do. That’s just your convenient excuse whenever someone calls you out on your behavior.”
Astrid fidgets. Her eyes wander away.
“And that isn’t why I think you’re a bad person,” I say. “Sure, every once in a while you tell us all how guilty you feel about being a lying, manipulative...”
“Go ahead and say it. A lying, manipulative bitch.”
“Yeah. But it’s all a show. You’ve fooled everyone else into believing there’s something good in you fighting to get out, but not me. You don’t feel guilty, you’re not sorry — you embrace who and what you are, and that’s why I don’t like you.”
Astrid grimaces. “You’re wrong. I don’t embrace what I am; I’ve come to terms with it. Completely different. And I do feel guilty about some of the things I’ve done.”
“But only some,” I counter.
“Yeah. Only some.”
“If you’re trying to convince me I’m wrong about you, you’re doing a lousy job of it.”
“You’re not wrong about me.” She leans in. “I am a bad person. And you should never trust me.”
“...What?”
“Never trust me. Ever. I don’t.”
Astrid brushes past me and heads downstairs. I stand there for a minute, my mouth hanging open in stunned silence. What just happened?
I follow Astrid down, and we climb into my car. As I’m pulling out of my space, my phone goes off. I put the call on speakerphone.
“Hey,” I say.
“Where are you?” Matt asks.
“I’m driving Astrid into town to get her car.”
“Meet us at HQ as soon as you’re done. We got a lead on a group of Byrne escapees.”
Ah, the great Byrne Penitentiary jailbreak — the gift that keeps on giving. During his too-brief stay there, the King of Pain engineered the prison’s first and, thank God, only mass breakout. Out of forty-one prisoners who made it past the outer wall, two dozen avoided immediate recapture and escaped into the world. We’ve grabbed fugitives here and there, but we’ve never had the time to dedicate to a proper manhunt. Silly little things like our personal lives and a small-scale alien invasion kept getting in the way.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I say.
“Make it quick, because we have to haul ass to New Hampshire ASAP,” Matt says.
“New Hampshire? Isn’t there anyone more local who can handle it?”
“Trust me, we want this one for ourselves.”
He hangs up without offering an explanation.
“Sounds important,” Astrid says. “Want an extra hand?”
“We got it covered.”
“You sure?”
“If you’re too hungover to teleport into town to pick up your car, you’re too hungover to be useful in a fight.”
“Good point.”
“Plus, I don’t trust you.”
Astrid nods. “Good girl.”
***
Matt was right; this op is definitely personal.
After suiting up, we pile into Matt’s car for the long drive north, during which he brings the team up to speed. We learn that the New England super-hero community has been surprisingly effective in rounding up Byrne escapees and has, in the year since the breakout, collectively whittled the list of fugitives down to four. Imagine that: people other than the Protectorate and the Squad are out there stopping bad guys and keeping the world safe.
The last names
on the fugitive list are uncomfortably familiar; they’re all former members of Buzzkill Joy’s little gang of superhuman delinquents — which means they’re all children of Project Moreau, the same secret government program that created Missy. Another blast from the past.
“Kurt Martens. Enhanced strength, speed, and senses on-par with Missy’s,” Matt says. “Ivy Bergen, typical tank. Not quite Stuart-level, but close.”
“Fact,” Stuart says. He’d know; Ivy went toe-to-toe with him and, for a little while, held her own.
“Wyatt Jules, who can generate electrical charges capable of incapacitating a person,” Matt continues.
“Like Meg?” Missy says.
“Thankfully, no. His powers are contact-based so he can’t throw lightning or anything scary like that. However, Nadia Pires is a full-blown elemental. She’s the one we’ll really have to look out for.”
“Where were they spotted?” I ask.
“They weren’t; Kurt was.”
At approximately six-thirty this morning, Matt says, Kurt got into a fight with someone in a café in Manchester. One of the other customers caught the tail end of the scuffle on video, the highlight of which is Kurt hurling some guy through a plate glass window from halfway across the shop. Based on that piece of evidence, the police marked the incident as involving a potential superhuman and, as per standard protocol for most New England police departments, notified the Protectorate. Matt happened to be at HQ filing his report from the bank robbery when the alert came in. He reviewed the video, recognized Kurt, and called the rest of us.
“So for all we know, Kurt’s alone,” I say. “There’s nothing to suggest the rest of Joy’s crew is with him?”
“No, but they don’t have anyone else to turn to,” Matt says. "Sticking together would be the smart thing to do.”
“I wouldn’t call any of Joy’s boys smart, dude,” Stuart says. “She was the brains of that outfit.”
“They’ve been smart enough to avoid getting caught for a whole year,” Missy says.
“Or lucky enough.”
“Smart, lucky, whatever. It’s a moot point,” Matt says. “What matters now is tracking Kurt down before he disappears again.”
Action Figures - Issue Six: Power Play Page 31