The Last Hero (Book 2): Rise of the Ultras (18 page)

I
stood
by my dad’s hospital bed and held his hand.

I still couldn’t take in the news I’d received half an hour ago.

Dad was in a private room off the main ward. Sure, I could still hear the footsteps tapping along the corridor outside, the beeping of the hospital equipment in the other rooms, the chatter and laughter of staff, patients, everyone.

But there was nothing in this room. Nothing.

I just held on to my dad’s hand.

My dad held on to my hand.

We were silent.

My dad looked in bad shape. There was a scar on his head. He had an oxygen mask over his mouth. He also had some sore-looking burns down his right side, but the doctor was convinced that he was going to be okay and out in a few days. And I wanted to be happy about that. Of course I did. I’m sure Dad wanted to be happy and relieved about it too.

But how could we feel anything at all when we’d just learned that Mom hadn’t made it?

What were we going to do without Mom?

Every time I thought about the last time I’d seen her—being wheeled out of my burning house and into the back of that ambulance—the more I wanted to break down and cry. I should’ve been there. I should’ve saved her. I should’ve stopped this. Instead, I’d been away fighting a battle that wasn’t even mine.

Mom had died. Mom had died, and I’d let her die.

Dad coughed, spluttering a little. I held on to his hand. As much as I wanted to be far, far away from everyone, from anyone, I knew I had to be here for him right now. I knew I had to be by his side. Mom was his rock. They’d been high school sweethearts right from the first day they’d met. They’d always been by each other’s sides, through good and through bad.

Mom was gone.

Mom was gone, forever.

It still hadn’t sunk in properly. Still hadn’t hit me. I felt lost, in a dazed trance that I wasn’t sure I’d ever break out of.

“It’s okay,” I said, holding Dad’s hand tighter. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Dad pulled aside his oxygen mask. Coughed some more.

“You need to keep that on,” I said, trying to pull it back over his mouth.

He raised a hand. Shot a glance that told me not to even bother trying to reapply the mask. He didn’t want it. He’d made his decision.

I stood there by his bed longer. I thought of Mom as I’d known her. Always smiling. Always trying to do right by Dad, by me, by everyone. Even after Cassie died, Mom was the one who brought the family back to its feet. She was the one who held Dad together—as much as she could.

And now she was gone.

My heart pounded. I couldn’t breathe properly. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get away. I needed to—

“It’s okay,” I said, tightening my hand harder around Dad’s. I tasted salt on my lips from the tears I’d cried when the news was first broke to me. I expected them to flow. Expected myself to break down in hysterics.

But all I felt was emptiness. All I felt was a hole widening in my life.

“I’m here,” I said.

“You can’t be.”

I looked at Dad. What did he mean by that? I had to be here. It was my duty to be here. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You have a responsibility,” Dad said, his breath wheezy. “A responsibility to the people. A responsibility to everyone. You can’t be here.”

A responsibility to people? To everyone?

“What do you—”

“The CCTV footage. At the garage. You don’t have to pretend anymore, son.”

My stomach dropped out of my body. I looked my dad in the eyes and he looked back at me.

“You know,” I said.

“I’m not that stupid,” he said. “Coulda figured it out without the CCTV.”

My hand loosened. I backed away from the bed. “You can’t know. Nobody can—”

“Well I do,” he said. His voice had dropped to a whisper now. “I’ve seen what you can do. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. I’ve seen you look evil in the eye and take it down all because you care about people.”

I still couldn’t believe it. I felt like I was in some horrible nightmare. Mom was gone. Dad knew I was an ULTRA.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I could’ve saved Mom. If I’d been there, I could’ve—”

“No,” Dad said. He coughed after he spoke. Tears built up. “No, you can’t believe that. None of us can believe that. Believing that’s the shortcut to insanity. For now you… you just have to focus on moving forward. We both do.”

I sat by the side of Dad’s bed. My head ached with a combination of
everything
that’d happened. It was hard to believe a life could change so dramatically in a matter of seconds, and mine had changed several times already today. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” I said, finally, exasperated and desperate.

Dad reached over. Took my hand in his. He shuffled around so he was looking right into my eyes. “You are what you are. And you have a responsibility to embrace what you are. It might not feel nice. It might not feel good. But look around you. Look at what’s happened. Not just to Mom, but to others. To people all around the world. You have the capability to put a change to that.
You
have it in you to stop it. And you’re just gonna stick around here and feel sorry for yourself?”

I was surprised with how hard Dad was talking to me, especially after we’d both learned that Mom was gone. But I supposed grief had a way of affecting everyone differently. “I’m scared.”

“Well that’s just tough, son,” Dad said. “That’s just damned tough. We’re all scared. We’re all scared to grow up. To leave home. To get a house of our own. We’re all scared about bills to pay. About retirement. About putting food on the table for our kids. We’re all scared about somethin’. But we find a way. Because it’s what we have to do. It’s what
you
have to do. Right now.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt more sick, more awful, more horrified and gripped by shock than I did right now.

But Dad’s words spoke to me. They spoke to the part of my soul that wanted to give up. The part of my soul that wanted to walk away from my life as an ULTRA for good.

“You go and do what you have to do, son. Do it for Mom. Do it for me. Do it for everyone.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. I stood. Leaned over and kissed my dad on the cheek.

“I’ll come back for you,” I said, tears streaming down my face now.

My dad half-smiled at me, his eyes red and bloodshot. “I know you will.” His voice was shaky, on the verge of breaking completely.

I wanted to stay here by his side forever. I didn’t want to leave him again.

But I knew I had a responsibility.

I had a duty.

I had to grow up, right now.

I walked away from Dad’s bed. I looked around at the CCTV in the room, focused on it. Then I snapped the camera away from its stand using nothing more than the power of thought, honed and powerful with all the grief and anger and rage and sorrow I felt inside.

“I’ll come back for you,” I repeated.

“I love you,” Dad said.

I sniffed. Felt more tears on my lips. “I love you too.”

I closed my eyes and focused on the one place I needed to be right now. Because whether I liked it or not, I knew what I had to do.

I knew what I had to
be
.

“I love you,” I said, the picture of Mom in my mind, standing by the front door, smiling as I walked off to see Damon and Avi, like she always did no matter how old I’d got. “I love you.”

I took a deep breath.

Disappeared.

I knew what I had to do.

I
sat
in Avi’s bedroom and prepared to say the hardest things I’d said in my life so far.

There was a rare silence to Avi’s house. No video games on his massive new television, which he’d afforded with his part-time job at McDonalds. No smell of pizza in the air, which was particularly weird. Just me, him, Damon and Ellicia, all sat in his bedroom, all quiet.

I knew why they were quiet. They were quiet because of me. After all, what did you say to someone who’d just lost their mom? Whose dad was seriously hurt in hospital?

I didn’t know what I’d say if I were in their shoes. There probably wasn’t anything
to
say.

But there was something I did need to say. Something I knew exactly how to say.

It wasn’t going to be easy. But I was going to have to do it. For the good of my friends, for the good of my girlfriend.

“I just… I don’t know how to tell you this,” I said, my voice cracking, my mind still not able to process the events of the day—of what had happened to my mom.

“In your own time,” Ellicia said. She grabbed my cold hands between her warm fingers. Smiled at me, that made me feel at ease inside. I wished I could sit there and hold her hand forever. I wished I could look into her eyes for the rest of my life. I wished I could be Kyle Peters.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t be Kyle Peters because it was too dangerous to be Kyle Peters.

“My dad and I,” I said, trying to get the words out. “When he gets outta hospital. Which shouldn’t be too far off. We’re going… we’re going away for a while.”

I heard the silence of the room change. A shift in understanding, as Damon, Avi, and Ellicia all looked at me differently.

“Away where?” Damon asked.

I kept my focus on Ellicia. I hated having to tell this lie. I hated having to do this at all. But what else could I do? What other choice did I have? “Just across the country. For a while. Staying with family over in California.”

“California?” Avi asked, exasperation in his voice. “Man, can I come with you?”

I could tell he was trying to be light and humorous. But there was no humor about the room anymore. Ellicia’s rosy cheeks had gone pale. She saw what this was. I was leaving her. I was leaving home.

But there were two things she didn’t know.

One, I wasn’t going to California at all.

Two, where I was going, I wasn’t coming back. Ever.

I stood up. I didn’t want to make this linger any longer than I had to. I wasn’t good with goodbyes. Plus, my friends and girlfriend didn’t know exactly what kind of a goodbye this really was. They’d see soon that I’d lied. They’d see Dad was still home and start to ask questions. But I’d cross that bridge. I’d cross that bridge when the time was right. “Anyway. Should get back to Dad. Need to get planning this trip.”

“You’re leaving, like, soon?” Damon asked.

I hadn’t expected Damon to be the one asking the questions, the one looking so… upset, about all this. I was stupid for that, though. I’d known Damon a long time. He was my best friend. And I was turning my back on him. Walking away.

For the good of humanity, sure. And for the good of Damon himself, too. Maybe one day he’d realize that. Maybe when I was on my deathbed, I could tell him everything—who I was, what I’d done. I could picture him, seventy years old, awe and amazement in his eyes as he learned all about everything his best friend had done, everything he was capable of.

For now, though, that was a long time away.

Right now, I had to do those things I wanted him to be in awe of.

I walked up to Avi. Gave him a hug, and tried to stop the tears building.

And then I stepped over to Damon. He looked at me with those big, watery eyes, like an upset puppy.

“Gonna miss you, man.”

I stepped towards him and he gave me a big, tight bear hug. This time, I couldn’t keep the tears in.

“I’ll miss you too,” I said.

As we held on to one another, I thought about the times Damon had my back over the years. The times he’d picked me up when the bullying at school got rough. The times he’d made me smile when I didn’t think it was possible.

“You’ve made me what I am,” I whispered.

Damon pulled away. Wiped his eyes. “Huh?”

“Nothing,” I said, smiling. “It… it doesn’t matter.”

Damon flicked me in the arm. “You keep in touch with us, yeah?”

“’Course I will,” I said, knowing damn well that was a lie. It was too dangerous to keep in touch with them. I saw that clearly now. “I’ll wanna know all about Avi’s dating stories.”

“And I’ll wanna know all ’bout them California girls!” Avi said, laughing. “That book’s down to a 4.3 on Goodreads now. But man, it’s still fire.”

I laughed in return. It felt good to laugh. Made me feel a little better again.

I walked away from Damon and Avi and stood opposite Ellicia.

She hadn’t said a word since I’d said I was leaving. She’d just stood there, pale-faced, a glassy-eyed look about her.

Where did I start? What did I possibly say? I had the girl of my dreams. I had her, as me, Kyle Peters, and I was walking away from her.

What was I doing?

What the hell was I—

“You go be where you need to be right now,” she said, softly. “I’ll wait for you. I promise.”

I felt a knot tightening in my stomach as I leaned towards Ellicia, as I kissed her soft, velvety lips.

“I love you, Kyle,” she whispered.

My heart fluttered with both warmth and sorrow. “I love you too.”

We kissed again. And then I walked away. Walked across Avi’s room to the bedroom door. I saw all his posters. His Halo posters. His stacks of video games. Games I’d played in here time and time again. I saw old pizza boxes. I saw that damned online dating guide he claimed was so effective.

I saw all of it as if for the first time, even though I knew it was for the last time.

“See you soon, man,” Damon said.

I forced a smile, but I couldn’t turn and look at them. Not again. Not the way the tears were flowing down my face.

“See you soon,” I whispered.

Then I walked away, out of Avi’s room, away from my best friends for the very final time.

Away from my life for the very last time.

I undid the top button of my shirt. Felt the Glacies outfit rubbing against my skin.

There was someone else I had to be right now.

Another life I had to live.

Forever.