The Last Superhero (13 page)

Awwwweee that grin, good god
all mighty sending thunder from the heavens above.

Satisfied starts with the
same letter as... Stuffed.

Either from the food or from
that romantic air swirling around us.

Really? Giana Armstrong,
really? Normally I would've been puking at the sight of myself being
so giddy and stupid, but this man makes me feel all tingly and
excited.

And nice.

And safe.

And warm.

And right.

Everything's right with the
world as I stand here, in the middle of his library because he won't
let me near the dirty dishes.

Not that doing the dishes is
an activity I'm fond of, anyway.

I run my fingers through
some shelves, trying to guess how all these books are arranged, if
cataloged in any certain way. They seem to be, yes. So many subjects,
so many titles, so many pages to dive into.

Oooh, surprise surprise.
Franz Anton Mesmer's treaty on animal magnetism.

And there's Sigmund Freud.
And some Phineas Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy, and Pierre Janet.

I've been reading about
those on the Internet since Mr. I Can Rape Your Mind appeared.
Society's approach to superpowers has varied since the last of the
Waldorf Trio faked his own death. Which I know now thanks to the fact
that he's standing right behind me and his hands are slithering
around my ribcage.

“
Looking
for something?”

“
I
see you've got some interesting titles here.”

“
You
can borrow any you like.”

“
Is
there some kind of card for this particular library?”

Twirl me like I'm a rag doll
and peer into my eyes.

“
No
card, although late fees are, indeed, collected.”

Kiss my lips and take me
over to the divan, but not before you've plucked a book and taken it
with you.

I let him push me gently
down and settle himself flushed next to me, one arm around me, the
other holding the book in front of our faces, snuggled together, and
he starts reading poetry over my shoulder.

Utter. Extreme. Total.
Surreal bliss.

Goddammit.

His voice is silky and
devilish and makes me want to do things to him that I know can't be
done on a full stomach.

His breath tickling that
sensitive skin on my neck, the one he's uncovered by brushing my hair
away.

And I cuddle against his
chest, inside his arms, and this is what happens when you eat a heavy
meal before you give yourself over to the Sandman.

12

The air's suddenly cold. So
fucking cold.

Look around.

Where the hell am I?

It's dark and the sky's
filled with clouds although the rain has subsided.

Did Steven kick me out in
the middle of the night? I'm so going to kill him for that.

Wait. No. This isn't
Steven's house.

Is that someone there?

Agh.

Adjust my eyes.

A dirt path. Great. And some
force telling me it's the way to go.

Go on, stupid girl, and
check if there's a rabbit hole while you're at it.

Oh, now the rain decides to
start again.

I'm not liking this. Not in
the slightest.

Fuck, it's pouring harder.
Dammit! Run for cover, but where the fuck?

A house, yes, of course. Run
to it and push the door without knocking. Why bother?

Someone or something opens
it for me before my hand's even made contact with the surface and I
land on my face.

Ow
.

Push myself up and...

Ffffffuuuucckkkkk.

Everything's floating
inside. Sofa, chairs, rugs, tables. Hovering above the floor.

SHIT. This doesn't feel
good. I've seen this on those TV shows about paranormal stuff and I
always change the channel because I hate to admit they scare the shit
out of me.

This has got to be some kind
of nightmare.

Something brushes past me to
the front door and I follow it.

Tumble down the front steps
and hit... asphalt?

“
NO!”
A woman's voice cries as I push myself to my feet and take in the
scene.

Night. Street. A man doubled
over, screaming in pain.

And... Is that Steven?

Dirty blond hair, purple
mask, he lifts his open hand over the man and the quivering mass is
levitated from the street only to be pushed down again with extreme
force.

SHIIIIIIT.

The woman's crying, trying
to crawl towards the aching man while Steven, or should I say
Salvatore Jr.?, summons a metal pipe with his power and starts
hitting the man. His teeth are showing through his almost feral grin.

He's dressed in flannel
trousers and a tweed sport coat and they are both drenched in blood.

The woman manages to get a
hold of Steven's ankle. He kicks her and she's sent skidding through
the asphalt until she hits a lamppost, halting her cries.

I'm about to aid the woman
when Steven himself is standing in front of me. The bloodshot eyes
looking down at me through the mask are pitch black and I can't help
how my knees wobble.

He's looking at me. So
young. Staring at me. Oh god. While an outstretched arm and hand are
still pointing at the man lying on the street, writhing in pain, the
same man who starts squealing like a pig as Steven closes his fist
slowly in the air.

I'm frozen, my breath
hitches and I have no idea how to feel while he's... grinning? Can I
call that a grin?

He's savoring killing that
man. Murdering that man. Extinguishing his life.

I can't think as tears start
streaming down my face.

The man stops squealing and
now the hand is coming for me.

All I can do is make an
about-face and run for it.

A glance back and he's still
standing there and the asphalt under us is changing to sand.

And he's raising a hand to
the sky before dropping it all the way to the ground.

((BOOM))

Giant ripples form around
him, expanding at a rapid pace towards me and I'm thrown through the
air, landing on all fours some feet away.

Spit sand, brush my tongue,
my face.

I'm pulled up and dragged by
the back of the collar of my shirt.

I struggle to no avail and
see there's someone struggling beside me.

Another woman, this one in a
red dress, the pearls around her neck strangling her, her fingers
trying to stop the pressure, her dress billowing about her,
thrashing, and the sudden gasps of salty wind that hit us.

I'm dropped, but my
companion is not.

She's pushed to the sand a
few meters from me and wrestles with her captor until a hand is
brought to her forehead and she enters some sort of trance.

The man in the tuxedo
wearing the purple mask is concentrating, hard.

Steven.

The hand on her temple stays
there while the other pushes up her skirt.

Steven, no!

No, no, no!

Grab handfuls of sand and
start throwing them at him.

A force pushes me and I fall
on my back.

I roll to my stomach, get on
my knees, look for something.

Fuck it, wet sand like
snowballs and I hit him square on his back.

He turns his darkened eyes
at me and, for a moment, I see them light up before the hand comes
out from under the skirt to point at me and I'm flying through the
air and landing with a crushing noise on my side.

“
AAAAAHHHH!”

I'm on the floor and
Steven's hauling me up, but I start delivering punches to his chest.

“
Giana,
calm down.”

I pry my eyes open and I'm
in the library, on the floor, having fallen from the divan.

“
Get
the fuck off!” I manage to push him away and start crawling to
the nearest corner.

Can't breathe, can't stop
the tears.

He goes for one of my legs,
but I kick him off.

Let me pull my knees to my
face and rock myself back to normal.

“
Giana.”
He's inching towards me. “Breathe. Calm down. What you just saw
wasn't true.”

“
Then
what the fuck was it?!” I shout and it makes him wince.

His eyes are bright,
sparkling with the moisture of tears forming around his hazel gaze.

Not black anymore.

“
Nightmares,
Giana. I'm sorry. I fell asleep next to you. It won't happen again.”
There's horror in his face. “I'm so sorry you had to see that.”

“
You
were in my head again!”

“
No.
I was not,” he shifts to sit in front of me. “It's not
intentional. I can't control it. It was stupid of me to think I
wouldn't fall asleep so easily.”

He slides closer and I can't
help but stiffen.

“
Nightmares?”

“
Yes.
My nightmares. Not meant to be seen by anyone yet my mind, somehow,
projects them to everyone within reach.” He's looking at me.
He's pleading at me. He's tearing up at me. “They're not true.
They're juxtaposed images between reality and fiction. Giana, you've
got to believe me. It's something I've had to learn to live with.”

He reaches for my hands
clasped together over my knees and his eyes are begging me to trust
him.

So I let him unclasp them. I
let him pull me to rest my head against his chest as he hugs my upper
half to him.

He's shivering.

“
It
will never happen again.”

“
Do
you have them every night?”

“
Yes.
Every night.”

“
How
can you put up with that?”

“
Not
a clue. It was hard in the beginning, but now, somehow, I can rest
even when my mind is at war.”

Have some thunder rumbling
outside to accentuate the mood.

“
Steven,”
I can only whisper as a wave of what feels like horrible spasms rides
through me and I find myself digging my fingers into his back as I
lie cradled in his lap.

13

Fuck any possible government
project, fuck HAARP, fuck conspiracy theorists saying Salvatore Jr.
used to be part of secret military programs.

I've
scraped the web, blog-by-blog, site-by-site, forum-by-forum and it
all
smells
like a stinking pile of bullshit left in the sun.

Steven, ladies and
gentleman, is nothing more than another tortured soul.

And fuck me if I'm not
willing to help him.

After I gain back the
ability to sleep, of course. Not that I'll be doing much of that
until those awful images vacate my mind.

I mean, this man could
create earthquakes and tsunamis if he wanted to.

Ross. He stressed to me the
fact that Steven's a dangerous man yet I can't find any incident in
his history that meant a serious, governments-shitting-their-pants
kind of threat.