Hero (33 page)

McCormick is a weak substitute for Carter. I’ve employed him as my driver for years, but the possibility that Carter betrayed me has deepened the fissure of mistrust I carry with me. I watch him closely as we drive. He has one command: get Cataline to safety with or without me.

Overgrown weeds lick at my boots and dirt crunches beneath them as I approach the shithole where I’ve been directed. I’m still in full uniform, though I’m not sure it’s necessary. Part of me hopes seeing me this way will restore some of Cataline’s faith in her hero.

There’s a small crowd of men out front, some I recognize, others I don’t. What links them all is their ink. To send a message, I grab the nearest Cartel member and shove him in the dirt. My boot flies into his ribcage, sending him onto his back. “Take me to Riviera.”

The only one who doesn’t step back flicks his cigarette on the ground and stamps it out. “This way.”

I throw my shoulders back and follow him inside, my eyes scanning the space around me. My body locks into a tense knot when I’m led into a room with seven men. As if on cue, they simultaneously raise their guns. Carlos Riviera stands center, his arms crossed and his chin raised.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“She’s safe,” he says. “Play nice, and she can go when we’re done with her.”

“Let her go now, and maybe I’ll kill you with mercy.” I step forward and a chorus of gun hammers sound.

“
Espera
. Wait,” Carlos says, holding out his hand to them. “This kill is mine.” He rips the gun from the hands of the man nearest him, but as I anticipate the shot, he calls out, “Get her.”

One of the men pounds on a side door, and Cataline comes hurling through it. Her hands are cuffed in front of her, her mouth is gagged with fabric, and the clothing she left the mansion in is covered in dirt. But it’s her undone pants that blind me with a white-hot rage. The thought of Carlos’s hands on her ignites a burning in me that only his blood will extinguish. When she sees me, her eyes widen and she whimpers.

Riviera’s head snaps to the boy who comes in after her, and under his breath, he asks, “
¿
Qué pasó—dónde está el gringo
?”

The boy shrugs. “
No sé. Se fue
.”

“He left?” Carlos asks. “Stupid motherfucker.” He yanks Cataline’s upper arm and places the gun against her temple as his eyes dart off the walls and back to me. “We fuck her while you watch. Hope you taught her right, ‘cause if she’s good, we keep her. If not, she dies. Then we kill you.” Cataline’s lashes glisten with fresh tears, and her eyes are heavy with resignation.

“This doesn’t involve her anymore. You got me where you want me, now let her go.”

“Don’t tell me what the fuck to do.” He grabs the hair at the back of Cataline’s head. “Get down,” he says, pushing her to her knees.

My feet are moving across the floor, but I stop when Carlos grinds the gun’s muzzle into her cheek. “Either you watch as she blows me and my crew, or I put a bullet in her head right now.” Without taking his eyes from me, he says, “Untie it.” The man next to her sets down his gun to remove the gag. Cataline’s shoulders quake as Carlos traces his barrel down her cheek.

“Stop,” I say, but I barely hear it because my heart pounds furiously in my ears.

Carlos wrenches her head back and looks directly at her when he says, “Open your mouth, bitch.”

She swallows, and her effort to avoid my eyes is obvious. My skin is so hot it would burn anyone who touches it. Carlos hands his gun off and undoes his pants. Her skin pulls taut across her face, but I can still see her grimace through it.

“You can have whatever, I’ll go wherever you want,” I say. “Just stop.”

“Calvin,” Cataline whispers.

“Did you hear that?” Carlos asks her, his voice eerily low. “Hero’s going to trade his life for yours. He’s going to sacrifice an entire city for you, leaving them unprotected. Did you know about his
obsesión
?”

This unfamiliar impotence unnerves me in a way I can barely contain, and I know I’m going to erupt if he doesn’t let her go within seconds. Cataline looks at me finally, and the resignation from before has vanished. In its place is something wild I recognize from the night she cut herself open. She has nothing left to lose. Her message is clear: she’s going to fight back.

My first step lands heavy on the concrete, upsetting a cloud of dust. As Carlos looks up, Cataline buries her head in his thigh. I lunge forward just as he cries out and throws her to the ground by her hair.

Men are coming at me, but I only have eyes for Carlos. I just dodge a bullet as I tackle him, but Cataline’s scream shatters my focus. Two men are dragging her from the room with a knife pressed into her cheek. Its blade is red with the reflection of her blood. I leap to my feet, ignoring the shot that burns into my calf. The man drops the knife and runs, so I swipe it as someone jumps on my back. I turn, grabbing behind me, and throw a man across the room.

When another shot rings out, my muscles tense, but nothing hits me. Carlos runs, and I pounce, catching him by the back of his shirt and hurling him. He collides with a wall, where I pin him with my forearm on his neck.

“What are you?” he wheezes.

“I’m a predator,” I say, my voice unnaturally deep. “I target, and I kill. You mistook me for a hero. I can’t be outrun. Nobody can escape me. Nobody can hide.” I spear the knife into his chest, pull it out just as quickly, and drop it. He grunts an inhuman noise. “Now you know my secret,” I tell him. “I cannot be defeated. And nobody touches what’s mine.” His mouth moves in a silent plea, his eyes round when I drive my fist in the wound. My hand wraps around his thumping heart, and I rip it out. It’s seconds before he collapses.

I turn to find another body slumped over feet from Cataline. Her ashen face is a canvas for silently streaming tears as she stares at the man she shot. Her cuffed arms are taut and trembling. The gun in her hands remains raised.

“Cataline.”

She jumps and aims it at me. A man’s life drips over my clenched fist as our eyes lock for a few static seconds.

“What now?” she whispers.

“I’m taking you to the mansion.”

“I’m not going back there.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Blood, some of it hers, is sprayed and smeared across her skin. I want to lick it all away, clean her beautiful face, and then keep her forever so I can protect her. My ache to be near her is oppressive in its urgency. She’s frozen still as I cross the room. I walk until the gun’s barrel is jammed into my rubbery armor, right over my heart. “Do it,” I say.

“It wouldn’t matter. You said yourself nobody can escape. Nobody can hide. You can’t be defeated.”

“Maybe it will be the one bullet that kills me.”

I search the strangled depths of her eyes—blue like the air, grey like the sky. I sense the twitch of her index finger near the trigger. Finally her hands open at the same moment, and the gun clatters to the ground. She heaves like she’s going to vomit and falls into a squat, dropping her head between her knees.

More Cartel members enter the room. They look from the bleeding bodies to me to Cataline. I throw the red pulp of a heart on the floor and make short work of killing each and every one of them.

“Try it.”

Cataline’s entire body flinches, and she looks over her shoulder at me. On the kitchen counter sits her half-eaten sandwich and a glass of milk. It’s some time after midnight, hours since Norman cleaned her and took her upstairs.

“Go ahead,” I say.

She reaches out tentatively and touches the back door’s handle. Even from where I stand, I feel the increase of her heartbeat as she turns the knob. The door opens when she pushes it, but she looks back at me again.

I step into the kitchen. “You’re not my prisoner. I brought you here so you could heal.”

“Heal? How can I . . . after all this? I bit a man’s leg today. And then I,” she hesitates, “
killed
someone. A
person
.”

“You survived.”

“I didn’t even think about it,” she says to herself. “I just did it. One second he was coming toward me and the next he was on the ground. I aimed for his heart.”

“That’s not what I wanted for you, but it’s done. You did what you had to do.”

Her posture falls, and she looks out into the night. “I wouldn’t even know what to do out there. You could still find me.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“Do you want me to want to?” My feet are drawn toward her, stopping only once I’m staring down at the top of her hair. “You could stay.”

Her head snaps up. The bandage on her cheek wrinkles.

“Stay because you want to,” I say. “Because
I
want you to.”

I break eye contact to pull my sweater over my head and hand it to her. I wait as she takes my cue and puts it on. My hand slips quietly around hers. “Come.”

At this hour, the outside air is still. Only the moon illuminates our path as I lead her through the yard’s labyrinth of rosebushes. “My parents bought this land before I was born. My father helped build the house. My mother designed the interior and the garden. Roses were her favorite flower. When they moved to Fenndale, they kept the house because there was no question they’d return one day.

“I inherited enough money from their death to start my own business. I picked media because it would give me some control over my image. I knew that would be crucial to maintaining two identities. I don’t need all this,” I say, gesturing at the house, “but it allows me the privacy and security that I do need.”

“Do you miss your parents?” she asks.

“Yes. I wish they could’ve seen their creation come to life.”

“Do you think they’d be proud?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, I think I lost sight of what they wanted.”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted to make the world a better place, starting with the city they loved. I don’t know what I was supposed to be. An answer, I guess. For my grandmother’s death—until it became greater than that.”

“What’s it like to be a hero?”

I glance down at her. “I don’t know. I don’t think of myself that way.”

“Why do you do it, Calvin? Really?”

“I can’t put into words how it feels to save a life. Nor can I describe how it feels to take one. Nothing compares to that kind of power. In the beginning I did it for my parents. Now I could never walk away. I’d be abandoning millions of people. That, and . . . I care about this city. It’s the only thing I ever cared about.”

Her expression softens. “The only thing?”

“What do you want to hear?” I ask. “That I care about you? I fucking killed for you today. I put everything on the line.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that. I never asked for any of this.”

“No, you didn’t. But you got it. I can’t explain why it’s you, how you feel like mine. If you could see what I’ve seen and all the evil in people—” I swallow through gritted teeth, “you’d understand. I want to protect you from that because it’s my fault you have no one else. And because . . . ”

“Because what?”

I sigh and shake my head. “Never mind.”

After a few moments of walking in silence, she asks, “What were they like, your parents?”

“I told you. Extremely smart and kind-hearted.”

“But what else?”

“They never gave up on anything. Or anyone.”

She bites her bottom lip. “Do you think they maybe asked too much of a sixteen-year-old boy?”

“No,” I say. “They gave me a gift.”

“What happens if you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“The injections.”

“I don’t know. Why would I?”

She stops walking and turns to me. “You said it’s the K-36 that makes you this way. This—I don’t know. Aggressive. Cruel.”

“They amplify my
human
urges. Anything bad, any darkness in me becomes worse. But it also makes me strong and capable.”

“Could you stop if you wanted to?”

“Yes, but I have no reason to.”

I release her hand, and she glances down. “Was I wrong about Hero?” she asks.

“What did you think?”

“That he was good. He’s a hero because he can’t be anything else.”

She’s still my little bird, a delicate flower in my hands. I’ve closed my fist around her and crushed her so many times. “You weren’t wrong.”

“Am I wrong about you, Calvin?”

“No.”

“How can that be? How can you be two opposite people in the same body?” She gets right under my chin. “It makes you this way.”

“What?”

“K-36. It’s a drug.”

I blink slowly at her and raise my eyebrows. “Drug?”

“That’s what your injections are. Drugs. You get high just like any other junkie.”

“They make me better,” I snap. “Without the ‘drugs,’ I’m nothing. I’m a criminal, just like them. That ‘drug’ is what saved you today. They’re what make it possible for me to protect what needs protecting.”

“Fine,” she says. “I don’t even know why I care.”

She turns, but I grasp her arm and pull her back. “We’re not finished. Don’t walk away from me.”

“There’s the Calvin I know.”