She disappeared behind the wooden doors.
Josh took us all in. “Okay, teams, if you’d follow me, please.” He beckoned for us to follow him down another glassy, bright hallway. “So do you want the short or long speech?”
“Sh—” Marco began.
“Long,” I said. I wanted to know everything about this place.
“Okey-dokey. Bell Enterprises welcomes you to the Josiah Bell National Superservice Medical Center, established 1972. We’re the premiere, and only, hospital and trauma center dedicated solely to the care and service of superheroes.”
He waved his badge in front of a scanner by another set of wooden doors, then pressed his palm against the glass beneath the small red light. The red light turned green, and the door clicked open. “We have one hundred beds, plus fifty dorm beds for well visitors contained in twenty-five suites.” He held out his arm. “The dorm wing.”
The dorm wing was another bright, modern hallway, all glass and angles. Through the glass, I could see an indoor courtyard on my left, while to my right lay the outside. Snow-covered trees hid any view of walls and machine guns. Potted plants with waxy leaves lined the hallway between plain, numbered wooden doors. The whole place smelled vaguely of latex and disinfectant.
Josh stopped at the end of the hallway, where a wide bay of windows overlooked another indoor courtyard, this one containing a large koi pond. He pointed to three rooms. “Ladies, you’re in rooms one and two. You two gentlemen,” he said, indicating Reid and Marco, “are in room three. I believe I overheard that you’re the patient’s husband?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll set you up in her suite as soon as they call us back. In the meantime, you guys can get comfortable. The cafeteria is down the hall to the left, and the rec rooms are across from the cafeteria. There’s a little office at the end of that hall where you can get pajamas in your size, toiletries, that kind of thing. You can go anywhere in the dorm wing.” He gestured to a small red light bulb affixed to the ceiling. “If there’s an emergency or security breach, red lights will flash and the siren will sound. Security personnel will direct you at that time.”
“What about a library?” I asked, thinking back to Jillian’s plan to read her beloved romance novels. I wasn’t going to relax as long as we were within one hundred miles of this spot, but that didn’t mean Jillian couldn’t enjoy a good book while she was stuck in bed.
Josh did a double-take. “Uh…wow, um, nobody’s ever asked for a library before. I’m sorry, but we don’t have one.” He brightened. “Although, there are a few volumes of Leadership and Wisdom in the rec room. I’m sure our permanent residents would love to have some new faces at the nightly readings. Would you like me to tell them that you’re coming tonight?”
Seven unamused pairs of eyes dared him to do it.
The dim thud of helicopter rotors cut through the awkward silence, and then two helicopters flew over the dorm wing, their shadows darkening where we stood for a moment.
Berenice stared up at the glass. “That ceiling doesn’t seem very secure.”
“Don’t worry,” Josh replied with a shrug. “It’s one-way, shatterproof, all that. Patients and visitors reported feeling confined in the old building. This facility is only fifteen years old or so.”
“When can I see my wife?” I asked, a hand on my hip. “If she’s awake and stable—”
“You’ll be notified right away,” Josh said in a practiced, soothing tone, making me wonder how often he answered similar questions. Just then a little black device on his belt beeped, and his eyebrows flew up. “Sorry guys, I gotta go. Busy day around here.”
After he’d run down the hall towards the main hallway, the ladies broke off into pairs, Ember and Lark, and Berenice and Abby. I joined Marco and Reid in their dorm room.
The dorm was spacious, though sparsely decorated. Two twin beds with thick gray comforters were pushed into the far corners, with bedside tables next to them. Between the tables was a curtained window, which overlooked the inner courtyard I’d seen on the way.
A desk and chair stood on one side of the room, while a dresser and couch sat opposite. A bathroom off to the side was identical to any normal household bathroom. There were no television or bookshelf.
Marco sat on one of the beds and bounced a little. “At least the mattress is nice. I wonder what the food is like here.”
Reid sat on the other, while I fell into the desk chair and closed my eyes. “Let’s get serious,” I said, rubbing my eyelids. “Beau and Alysia—”
“Dude, chill out,” Marco snapped.
My eyes flew open. “What?”
“I said chill out. I wasn’t lying in the helicopter. Do you actually think those two are the first people to target this place? Do you have that much confidence in your brother? Because the way I see it, he’s really not that big of a threat.”
At my expression, he rolled his eyes. “Let’s see…he only managed to slice Jill’s neck open because she was high as a kite and, oh yeah, had you to distract me. He couldn’t friggin’ kidnap Ember, an unarmed, untrained woman, even though he allied with the Westerners. He needed three people as backup to grab Jill and still lost someone, and she didn’t even have her powers. And, later, he was stupid enough to fall for Jill’s really obvious lie. Hell, he couldn’t even keep his prisoner under correct surveillance, and he can talk to the cameras. I’m not impressed.”
I chose to not address his allusion to the warehouse. Instead, my mind reeled. This was dangerous overconfidence on Marco’s part. He knew better. How could he just sit there and act like Beau was nothing? He’d kidnapped my wife. He’d allied with the Westerners. He was perfectly comfortable killing innocent people.
And yet, Reid fought a smile as he said, “You know, he has a point. We’re safe here, Ben. I think you need to relax.”
“They’re still out there!” I exclaimed, jumping up so fast the chair fell over. “How can you just—”
“We’ve won,” Reid said, scrubbing his face. “That’s how I can just sit here and say it.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Excuse me? We’ve won?” I threw my hands up. “You both need to either give up what you’re on, or share it with the rest of us.”
Reid and Marco exchanged a questioning glance, and then Reid nodded almost imperceptibly. He looked back at me. “Dial it back a few notches and try to hear what I’m saying.”
I slowly sat down again, and he continued, “The Westerners are in retreat. The camps are falling. Jill is safe. Beau and Alysia are two renegades rushing around trying to find the JM-104, and that’s all. Soon reality will catch up with them, too—probably around the time that the government demands Bell hands over the JM-104. This stupid game between the superheroes, the supervillains, and the government is finally ending. It’s time to just…calm down.” He stood up and stretched. “Let’s go get the ladies and check out the cafeteria.”
My mouth was open. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
I knew he was serious, but I couldn’t believe it. There was no way our mission had ended. It would never be over until the loose ends had been cut off the tapestry of our lives. We would never have any peace until my brother and Alysia were in the ground.
And then there were the rest of the supervillain families, untold hundreds of people working in the darkness of the criminal underground. We’d have to organize with other superheroes, create a coalition, plan, strategize, maybe even get the pretty boy in Colorado on board.
They trooped past me into the hallway, leaving me in the dorm to fume while staring daggers at the door.
We hadn’t won anything, dammit.
Marco poked his head back in. “Stop pouting and come get some food with us.”
With a disgusted sigh, I joined them in the hallway, arms folded over my chest and jaw tense—until Reid knocked on one of the doors and Berenice opened it. Behind her, Abby was jumping back and forth between the beds, and Berenice herself was w
rapped in a thick towel.
“They have bubble bath,” she said by way of greeting. “And Abby’s a little busy. We’ll talk to you guys later.” She shut the door without another word.
Lark and Ember didn’t answer their door. When Reid cracked it open, I saw that the curtain had been pulled, casting the room into darkness, and each bed bore a woman-shaped lump. Tiny flashes of images—a talking cat, Reid, a helicopter—tickled my brain. Ember was dreaming.
“I guess it’s just us men,” Reid said as he quietly closed their door.
Marco nearly skipped down the hall while we walked to the cafeteria, so eager was he to see everything there was to see. If a door was cracked open, he pushed it open a little more to peek inside. He studied every map and directory, and introduced himself to every navy-blue-clad nurse we passed.
I was dimly surprised that all of them greeted us with a friendly handshake and smile. Nothing else related to the camps had ever been so warm.
It was mid-morning, so breakfast was still being served. Thirty or so heads turned when we walked in, some of which were topped with gray hair. The men and women at the tables were a range of ages, some fairly young, but others in advanced middle age. In the corner, two men were absorbed in a game of chess, their breakfasts untouched. A woman of perhaps thirty years was idly flipping through a volume of Leadership and Wisdom. Two young men were arm wrestling.
All of them were clad in bland shirts and pants of neutral grays and blues. The women wore their hair long, except for one woman whose scalp was so badly burned that the hair no longer grew. Instead, she wore a gray bandanna. Another woman sat in a wheelchair. Quite a few people were missing limbs, though their injuries were healed to the point that they didn’t trigger my power. Two men wore eye patches. One of them sat alone at a table, his head in his arms, his good eye staring blankly into space.
“I take it you’re only visiting,” someone said to our left.
An older man in nondescript blue clothes held out a hand to us. It was the only hand he had. He was middle-aged, with softly graying hair and a kind, lined face. I thought I recognized him from somewhere. “I’m Elijah Nussbaum,” he said, the warmth in his voice matching in his eyes. “Welcome to the hospital, though I won’t insult you by assuming that you’re happy to be here. How’s your teammate? Or is it teammates?”
“Our leader has pneumonia. She was just admitted,” I said as I shook his hand. His warm grip was comforting.
In fact, something about Elijah was inherently mollifying, like I was talking to an old, trusted friend. Jillian was going to be okay. I could feel it in my bones. The certainty of this fact trickled through me like syrup as soon as his skin touched mine.
“She?” Elijah repeated, his eyes crinkling in amusement. “Well, things have changed, haven’t they? What’s that like?”
In the back of my mind, I knew I normally would’ve been annoyed by his response, but I couldn’t drag the aggravation to the forefront past the smooth calm. “It’s just fine,” I said, belatedly surprised by my words. “I’m Mercury, by the way. And this is Helios and Tank.”
He held up a hand. “None of that here. We’re all just schmoes now. No masks, no codenames.”
“In that case, this is Benjamin Corsaro,” Reid lied smoothly. “And Marco St. James. I’m Reid Fischer. You’re from Idaho, aren’t you? Did you ever know Esther Nussbaum? That was my mom’s name until she married.”
Reid and Elijah chatted about common acquaintances, but my brain struggled to wrap around what they were saying. I wasn’t tired, but I felt as though the very air itself contained a soporific.
However, when they walked away towards a quartet of easy chairs in a carpeted corner of the room, the feeling lessened slightly.
Marco leaned against the wall, a sleepy smile plastered on his face. “That guy has one heck of a power. I feel like my bones are made of jelly. I wanna be mad at him, but…who cares?” He yawned. “Breakfast?”
Breakfast sounded great.
I practically floated to the food line, which took up an entire wall. Pleasant men and women in white smocks and hats were serving various healthy options: fruit of all sorts, whole-grain breads, lean meats, and juice, milk, and water. Though a small sign on the sneeze guard sternly ordered us to not take more than two slices of ham, the young woman behind the bar slipped me a third with a little wink.
Red-faced, I hurried to an empty table, where Marco joined me. He pulled back the foil on his orange juice and sipped before saying, “Well, if Jill dies, you can choose between her twin Laura or the chick behind the counter…who’s still looking at you, by the way.” He speared my forbidden third slice of ham and put it on his own plate.
The last of the strange peace evaporated at once, hauling up the furor of worry and frustration I’d felt earlier. I stabbed a piece of honeydew. “She’s not going to die.”
“No, I suppose not,” he said, thoughtfully chewing his ham. “That’s not really her style.”
The absurdity of his response made me snort in my own juice, and then we were both laughing.
Several people glared at us for disturbing the quiet murmur of the cafeteria, but I couldn’t stop. Laughing provided a release for pressure that had built up in me for days—weeks, even. If I wasn’t careful, my laughter was going to start leaking out my eyes and I’d have to leave the room.
A furious male voice echoed down the hall and saved me the embarrassment. “No! I’m not going to just sit on my ass while my teammates die! Let me through!”
Elijah jumped up from his chair, but nobody else in the room moved, or even acted as if they’d heard the man.
“Sir, if you would just—”
“Let—go—of—me—”
“There’s no need to be hostile—”
“I’ll kill every one of you—”
Marco and I exchanged a worried look and began to walk towards the hallway, cautious of any sudden outburst of power. As I neared the hallway, the sound of a scuffle and multiple voices made me reach for my baton.
“—let me go, you—”
“Sir, you need to calm down—”
“I will not—”
“Your teammates are—”
Reid was in the doorway with us, and then he gasped and shook his head. Squaring his shoulders, he beckoned for us to follow as he disappeared around the corner. “Edward Yazzie!”
When I turned the corner, I saw “Edward Yazzie” and almost couldn’t contain a grin.
The man in question was tall and handsome, with thick black hair that was slightly mussed from his altercation with no less than four male nurses. As with Emily Begay, my first impression was that he was Native American.
Unlike Emily, his uniform was clearly designed to stand out: his winter tunic was mostly red, but a star-shaped splash of black covered his right shoulder, stretching from front to back. A sporty pair of black sunglasses topped his head, and he bore several knives, though not as many as Jillian did. One of the nurses was industriously disarming him while he fought against the three nurses holding his hands behind his back.
When Edward saw Reid, he stilled, not even noticing when the nurse removed the last of his weapons. “Reid? What are you doing here?”
Reid crossed his arms and sighed, his expression identical to that of a parent who’d just caught his child sneaking out a window. “I could ask the same of you. This had better be good, Ed, because this is embarrassing to watch.”
I felt Elijah before I saw him. Bone-deep contentment seeped into me at the same time the tension melted away from Edward’s face.
Elijah held out his hand to Edward. “Another Idaho boy! What brings you here today?”
The nurses backed away, giving Elijah looks of silent thanks.
“My team was attacked,” Edward said, almost so calmly that it sounded like an afterthought. “A mob of civilians stormed our house. One of them had a machete, and we almost didn’t make it.”
“Oh my God,” Marco said, his mou
th falling open. “That had to be ugly.”
Edward dropped his head. “It was. I hated to fight civilians, and I hate that I’m the only one unharmed even more, because I think they came for me. I should be with my team.”
Elijah put his arm around Edward. “You guys are at the right place. I know you’re upset, but you’re safe here. Why don’t you come and have some breakfast?”
Seeing Elijah in that stance, with his arm around another superhero, dislodged a recent memory. I realized where I’d seen him before: He was one of the young superheroes in the picture from the 1984 bombing, who’d lost all but one teammate in the blast. He must’ve been at the hospital for more than thirty years, and it rapidly becoming clear why he’d never been released into retirement at the Virginia camp.
However, as Elijah guided Edward into the cafeteria and away from us, his power waned and I was able to muddle through something Edward had said.
“A mob stormed their house?” I repeated to Reid and Marco, running a hand through my hair. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”
“Maybe he was like Patrick,” Marco suggested with a shrug. “The people turned against him.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Reid said, leaning against the wall. “At least, I’d be surprised. I’ve known Ed since we were kids. He’s okay. He was always serious about being respectable, kind, diligent…you know, the principles. Since Elder Lloyd’s only kid died back in the nineties, Ed was chosen to be trained for leadership even though he’s not in an elder line.” He snorted. “He never let the rest of us guys forget it.”
Reid’s face softened. “But I hate to think of how scared he must be for his team. A machete, man.” He studied the ceiling in exaggerated thoughtfulness. “It’s really too bad that our ever-so-useful medic is stuck out here. I bet there are a bunch of injured superheroes and a pneumonia patient who’d love a visit from you.”
I was starting to wonder if I really knew Reid Fischer.
Swirling healing energy began to swim in my stomach. “Let’s go see what we can see,” I suggested, pointing towards the patients-only double doors. The need to heal people pulled me toward them like an invisible piece of yarn. The need to be near Jillian pulled me forward like a freight train.
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