Ex-Heroes, Peter Clines [reading like a writer txt] 📗

above her left eye and another one through her right cheek made half of her face sag.

He reached up, grabbed the axle of a Civic, and tugged. He braced himself and gave another hard pull. The Civic shifted back a foot with a shriek of metal. “They’re in tight,” he shouted over his shoulder.

He walked back to Big Red and checked the exes on the ground. Two were decapitated. One large male had his skull shattered. Gunshot wounds decorated the rest.

“They all down?” asked Lady Bee as she scanned the bodies.

He nodded. “We got an alternate route from here, Luke?”

The driver glanced up the cross street. “We can try going up Normandie,” he said. “Haven’t used it anytime recently, though. It’s a narrow street. If someone blocked this, they could block that, easy.”

“Also seems like that’s just what we’d be expected to do at this point,” said Cerberus. She’d turned up the volume of her speakers and her voice echoed.

“Then we go through.” St. George looked up at her. “Can you clear it?”

The steel skull turned to the overpass. “You want it done fast or quiet?”

“A little of both, maybe?”

She nodded. “Give me ten minutes.” Big Red trembled as she moved back to the lift gate.

“A couple exes coming up the road behind us,” said Luke with a glance at his mirrors. “One’s pretty close.”

“You guys got ’em?”

The two men riding the lift gate down with the battlesuit gave St. George a quick thumbs-up. “Not a problem,” said Jarvis.

Cerberus stomped across the open road to the overpass. One armored arm swung up, seized the Civic axle, and yanked. The compact car flew out of the stack and skittered across the street. Her metal fingers clamped on the squad car’s rear end and dragged it free of the tangle of vehicles.

“You think it’s the Seventeens?” asked Luke.

“Can’t think of anyone else it could be,” said the hero. “Although this is the biggest thing I’ve seen them try so far.”

“Fire in the hole,” called someone. A rifle cracked from the back of the truck. Half a block back an ex slumped to the pavement.

Cerberus dragged another car out with a squeal of metal on metal. She swung her arms and tossed it to the side of the road with a crunch. She’d dismantled half the roadblock already.

“Movement,” said Lady Bee. “I’ve got three more exes coming from the south, two from the north.”

“We’ve got two more behind us, too,” said Jarvis.

Lady Bee did another sweep with her binoculars. “I count nine, all within two blocks. More past them. We’ve got five minutes, tops.”

“We’re moving in less than five,” said St. George. “Let’s not start wasting ammo yet.”

Big Red’s engine rumbled.

Cerberus shoved a blue Prius up onto the curb and kicked the last motorcycle away with a spray of sparks. A few blinks inside her helmet switched on the armor’s night-vision scopes, and she examined the shadowy underside of the freeway overpass. Some jagged, green graffiti spelled out PEASY RULES. Nothing else.

Her footsteps echoed on the concrete pillars. Another set of blinks brought up the long-range lenses. She studied Melrose as far as she could see for signs of life or ex-life.

Nothing.

She plodded back under the bridge and into the sunlight again. “Clock’s ticking,” shouted St. George from the truck. “Everything okay?”

She gave him a heavy nod. “How’s that look?” she bellowed back with a wave at the overpass.

Luke gave her a thumbs-up from the cab and Big Red rolled forward. St. George walked alongside until they reached the overpass. Cerberus was still gazing down Melrose. He rapped her on the arm. “Something wrong?”

Her head shook. “I don’t know. Something feels wrong.”

“How so?”

The suit swept its gaze back and forth across the overpass. “Not sure,” she said. She shrugged her massive shoulders.

“Mount up for now. We’ll figure it out.” He hopped past her as she rode the lift gate back up. “You okay for power?”

“I’ve got another ninety-one minutes at peak, three hours of idling.” She dipped her head at Barry, a fetal ball in the blankets. “Let him sleep. It’s not like he gets to that often.”

The lift gate locked into position and St. George leaped to the roof of the cab. Lady Bee gave him a wink and settled back on her pillow.

There was a gas station at Vermont, drained dry three months back by an earlier expedition. They were turning onto Vermont when Lynne, the teenager, stumbled to the front of the swaying truck. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You guys are the only heroes left, right? I mean, you and the ones back at the Mount.”

“As far as we know, yeah,” said St. George. “We know some are dead and a few are exes.”

“Were there any supervillains? You know, like in the movies?”

“Not that we know of.”

“So who stacked up the cars like that?”

“We think it was the SS. The South Seventeens. They were one of the gangs from the Koreatown area, like the XV3s. There are other survivors in LA, but they’re not all quite as civic-minded as us.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean how’d they do it? How’d they cram them all under the bridge?”

THE THIRD PUNK met my eyes and froze in midswing. I held his gaze, drained him until he dropped the baseball bat, then let my goggles snap shut. The little fuck fell over, twitched once, and whined like a hurt dog.

When my eyes first started to change, a few days after I got the blood transfusion from that creepy old woman in Greece, I thought it was kind of useless as superpowers went. Then I realized people couldn’t fight me without looking at me. And that changed my view on things.

After stumbling into this night job about seven months ago, I had a solid routine down. Work at the agency by day. Grab dinner or hit the gym to work out, socialize a bit, and convince everyone I have a life outside work. Leave early because I say