The Last Superhero (24 page)

Authors: Astrid 'Artistikem' Cruz

Tags: #superhero

BOOK: The Last Superhero

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“
What
a pathetic man you've become!” Michelangelo shouts and it's as
if his voice has the power to make everyone around, including me,
bow.

Salvatore manages to
scramble to his feet and send Michelangelo head first into the water.

I run after him and I don't
know why I'm doing it, only the fact that there's this horrible
impulse pushing me to save him from drowning.

But I'm stopped by an arm
I've come to know too well.

Only it's not Steven's but
Salvatore's halting my progress.

“
Not
you too,” I hear him whisper into my ear before he uses his
power to part the waters on the shore and reveal a drenched and
almost drowned Michelangelo underneath. His wings too heavy for him
to walk out, his heaving too violent for him to get on his feet,
Salvatore drags him to the sand and leaves him there to dry.

A glimpse to my right
reveals his sword lying not too far away. Nevertheless, Salvatore's
quick to pick it up and drop it next to the man gasping for air.

“
Brothers
by blood, enemies by choice,” a voice comes from behind me.

In time for me to turn and
see Steven holding a gun that he fires and hits me right where the
knife got stuck before.

I'm locked in Steven's
bathroom and no matter what I tell him he's pulling his hair out
about what just happened.

I tell him I'm fine. I tell
him I'm okay.

He can't take that for an
answer.

He feels he's failed me by
falling asleep again.

I removed myself from his
bedroom and got in here because I couldn't keep arguing with this
pain in my chest.

Then the moment I got in, I
coughed and a copper taste invaded my mouth and I knew he could never
know about that.

Never.

“
Giana.”
There he is again standing on the other side of the door.

“
I'm
okay!” I cry, a little too irritated.

Wash my hands, open the
door.

Be found by two arms that
wrap themselves around you.

“
This
is all my fault.”

“
Steven,
we had awesome sex, it's normal to fall asleep afterward if only for
a bit.”

“
No,
that wasn't...” Break. Pause. Breath. “We should talk.”

“
We
can talk over breakfast.”

He nods, leads the way to
the kitchen where he's started on the coffee that he serves and I
take a huge gulp of to down the aftertaste of blood lingering in my
tongue.

We sit to have the breakfast
that's become brunch.

The baguette gets cut, so
does the cheese and we eat and we think and we ponder on how to go
about this.

I'd prefer not to talk, but
I know we must.

“
Giana,
I don't know what happened while we were making love, but, for a
moment, I thought I'd lost control of myself.”

That would be a wonderful
statement to hear from the man you've just had sex with if the
situation wasn't so fucked up.

“
I
saw it.”

“
You
did, didn't you?”

“
It
only lasted a couple of seconds though.”

“
I
managed to reel my mind back.” He's nibbling on his bread and I
can tell he's distressed.

“
It's
okay, Steven, it's not like you hurt me.” His eyes land on my
neck and I'm reminded of what happened. “Did you mark me?”

And there's this terrible
expression in his face, almost painful, while my hand wanders to the
spot as if I had eyes on my fingertips.

“
I'm
sorry.”

“
Hey.
That's not bad.”

“
Of
course it is.”

He's not a twenty-something
boy who doesn't care what people say about him.

“
I
can easily cover it with makeup and, hey, I'm a fan of scarves.”
Touch his hand over the breakfast bar, but he's too into his thoughts
of oh-so-dramatic guilt to react. “You didn't hurt me.”

“
It'll
come the time when I will and I can't have that.”

“
This
nightmare was different.”

“
I
felt it. It felt different. Although I still hurt you. I know I hurt
you.”

“
I
saw you as a boy, Steven.” His eyes shoot up and find mine,
pleading. “I saw you with your mother, I saw how much she loved
you.” The eyes turn down and his face shows how much it hurts
to remember. “And I saw how bad your father treated her, and I
think I saw how sad, angry, and confused you felt about him hurting
her.”

“
He'd
beat her then go into the study and drink himself to sleep. So I'd
wander into her room and find her weeping and all I could do to ease
her pain was give her fantasies. Fucking fantasies that in no way
could undo what he'd done to her.”

My hand has traveled up to
his face and he's pressing his cheek against my palm.

“
Steven,”
I whisper.

“
It
wasn't her fault. She was not to be blamed for what had happened. My
father loved his brother and having to kill Michelangelo killed him
as well. A battle of epic proportions, the papers said.”

I saw that in the nightmare.
The end of that battle.

And that scene at the dock.
Salvatore in no way wanted to harm Michelangelo.

“
I
saw you there. On that building. You were standing on the ledge, your
father still holding Michelangelo's sword and the wings drenched in
blood.”

“
He
used my uncle's sword to cut off his wings yet it wasn't his
intention for him to throw himself off that building. All he wanted
was to take him into custody and have him spend the rest of his life
secluded, but Michelangelo's ego was too big for that.”

“
He
did have other powers apart from his wings, didn't he? He had the
fantasy thing you have?”

“
His
was more powerful than mine since he had the power of attraction,
some kind of animal magnetism that drove people to him, mostly women,
and then, when they touched him, he'd let the fantasy project itself
onto the person's brain while he had his way with them.”

Now that's fucked up!

“
Had
his way?”

“
Whatever
he wanted to do to them.”

“
Oh
fuck.”

“
For
me to do what I do accurately I have to touch the person's head, the
closer to the brain the better. All he needed was skin to skin
contact and they were all his.”

Nasty bugger.

No wonder Salvatore stopped
me.

Wait.

“
Your
father, he said something.” Sip the last of my coffee before it
goes stale. “At one point in your nightmare your father threw
your uncle into a body of water and I felt the urge to go after him
and save him.”

“
He
could drive humans to sympathize with him, part of his magnetism.”

Sympathy for the devil much?

“
Thing
was, your father stopped me, saying 'not you too.'”

Steven goes silent and
blinks more times than normal before recollecting himself and
standing, taking our empty plates to the sink, where he pauses to
look out the window into the trees that surround the house.

“
People
like me, like us, with exceptional abilities, used to keep a close
circle. Not only our identities were compromised but our powers,
since every time they married normal humans the powers transferred to
the children were diminished. It was what led us to extinction in the
end. It was a threat. That my father decided to marry a human wasn't
taken lightly, being the last reproductively enabled superhero, even
though there weren't women with abilities available. My grandparents
would've preferred it all ended with Salvatore and Michelangelo.”

He's talking with his back
to me and I don't move from my post because I know this is taking
some effort for him to recall.

“
Michelangelo
couldn't reproduce?”

“
The
same mutation that gave him his wings made him infertile.”

“
Oh.”
Damn.

“
My
mother loved my father dearly and he loved her, so he fought against
that. Then my grandparents died and there was only Michelangelo to
remind him of it. The lengths he'd go to prove his point were
sickening.”

Do I really want to hear
this?”

“
He
seduced my mother just to make my father jealous. To make him see
that humans were not to be trusted.”

“
Fucker.”

Now he turns to me although
his eyes are lost on a tile at his feet.

“
All
he had to do was let her touch him and she was his to do his will. My
father, although he loved her and forgave her because he knew it
wasn't completely her fault, still felt angry about it. Then the
whole battle started and he had to do the last thing he wanted to do:
kill his own brother. It was the tipping point for him.”

“
I'm
so sorry.”

“
No
need to be sorry.” Walk over to the bar and peer into my eyes.
“That's a past that shouldn't burden you, Giana. And I hate
that my nightmares are bringing it up.”

“
It's
given me a glimpse into your heart, Steven. Stuff I wouldn't know
otherwise.”

“
But
I always end up hurting you in them. What did I do this time?”

Lie to the face that is
begging me not to?

Avert the eyes. “Shot
me. You said 'brothers by blood, enemies by choice' and then pulled
the trigger and it hit me in the same spot you stuck the knife.”

He takes a hand to my chest
and sets it between my breasts.

“
Does
it hurt?”

Lie, this time. “No.”

“
Are
you sure?”

Don't make me lie again!
“Only a bit, as if it were sore from, I don't know, doing bench
presses or some type of exercise.”

His face drops.

“
This
can't go on. If that means that we can't have sex then so be it.”

Well, that's not fair!

“
Come
on, Steven. No sex?!”

“
I
told you I felt a loss of control during it that I can't afford.”

Harrumph.

“
Then
we'll do the sweet and soft don't-break-a-sweat kind.”