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

let it out by accident. And according to at least three witnesses, it wasn’t smart anymore. It’d gone … I don’t know, feral, I guess? Mindless?”

Christian fell in step on his other side. “Are you sure?” It was the first time he’d heard her voice close to civil.

“It was dead by the time I got there. Bee and Derek Burke put it down. She seems pretty sure it was a regular ex at that point.”

She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. “Pretty sure?”

“I trust her judgment.”

“I see,” said Christian.

Gorgon stopped in the plaza. His knuckles went on his hips. Sheriff pose. He had two inches on Richard, but it was just enough to look down at him. Christian looked him in the eye. A few people walked by and ran their eyes across the impromptu meeting.

Richard twisted his big ring. “It’s just … last night you were saying the smart exes weren’t attacking anyone, then this morning one did.”

“Well, yeah, but it was just a regular ex again.”

“So you think,” said Christian.

“What’s the problem?”

“People are scared and we don’t know what to tell them.”

“Tell them to stay calm. It’s still safe inside the Mount. The walls are solid. The fences are solid. The guards are there. We’re all here.”

“So there’s nothing going on? No need to worry?”

Behind his goggles Gorgon shut his eyes and counted to three. When he opened them, a few people were standing nearby, casually eavesdropping while they looked at a years-old display of photos on the plinth. “These little meetings would go so much faster if you didn’t beat around the bush.”

Richard nodded. “Sorry. It’s just …” He twisted the ring again. “Two of the wall guards say they saw St. George and Stealth leave last night.”

“Leave?”

“Leave the Mount,” Christian said. Her voice had found its cold edge again. “Katie O’Hare was on wall duty and she said she saw them leaving over the physical plant.”

Gorgon tilted his head.

“They didn’t check out. They left between two guard posts. So no one would see them. And no one’s seen St. George today.” She gestured up to the sky with her chin.

“Yeah,” said the hero. “I figured people would notice eventually.”

Richard’s eyes went wide. “So they did leave? They left the Mount?”

“They had a job to do. It’s not that big a deal. He leaves the Mount all the time. Usually at least twice a week on some kind of mission.”

“But she doesn’t,” said Christian. “Why did she leave?”

“Because they had a job to do.”

“That needed both of them?”

“It’s just a mission. They should be back late tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning.”

Christian tilted her head. “Will they?”

He counted to three again and told himself not to open the goggles. When he looked again, four more people had stopped to listen. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a simple question,” she said. “Will they be back?”

“Of course they will.”

“You know what I think?”

“I’m breathless to know.”

“I think they left us. I don’t think they’re coming back.”

Gorgon laughed. “Where the fuck do you get this stuff?”

“I think they discovered the exes were getting smarter and realized we were doomed here. And they decided to take off and find somewhere better.”

Gorgon opened his mouth, stopped, and then tried again. “Honestly, I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“How about the truth?”

“I told you the truth. They’re off on a mission. They’ll be back tonight or tomorrow.”

“A mission about the smart exes?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?” She shook her head. “You know, it was bad enough before when you were all just vigilantes. Now we’re all completely dependent on your kind.”

“My kind?”

Richard’s eyes bugged. “Christian, that’s—”

“Invulnerable, strong, fast—the world’s still pretty safe for all of you.”

Gorgon’s fingernails bit into his palms. “Plenty of my friends are dead, too.”

“We need you to survive, but you don’t need us. Why wouldn’t you all just leave when things get bad?”

He leaned in close. “Because we’re all better people than you.”

Someone let out a quick cough of laughter.

Christian glared at him.

He stepped back and turned to Richard. The older man had tried to sink into the crowd. “Richard, you may want to take Mrs. Nguyen away before I put her in a coma for two or three weeks.”

“I can walk myself,” she spat. The crowd recoiled as she marched through them.

The older man twisted his ring. “I’m sorry. We just wanted answers. I didn’t expect her to just pounce on you like that.”

The hero looked at him. “Oh, come on. How long have you known her?”

“You know what she’s like. It’s like a game to her. She just says thing to piss people off.”

“Yeah,” said Gorgon. He sighed and watched the crowd. Most of them were following Christian as she spewed angry rants. “The things everyone’s thinking.”

“No, no,” insisted Richard. “You know how much we—”

“I know how everyone here feels,” said the hero. He tapped his goggles. “People think because of these I don’t see things. Stealth doesn’t, hiding in her little batcave. St. George doesn’t, flying up in the air. But I see it all, every day. They’re glad I’m here, but don’t try to tell me people love me.”

They slid across the roof. St. George pushed ever so slightly against gravity and skimmed across the bleached-white tar paper. He walked on his fingertips, his toes dipping down to drag every few yards. Another severed head sat there, bobbing up and down as it worked its jaws. He gave it a slap with the back of his hand and it rolled a few feet away.

It took Stealth a minute to catch up to him. She moved silently on her palms like a black spider. As she reached him she shifted her shoulders and let her cloak slide back to the roof. The camera hummed as she photographed the structures from the new vantage point.

A murmur of discontent echoed up and they looked to the street.

Two Seventeens were dragging an older man with tanned skin and silver hair across the intersection from the ivy-covered brick building. He’d been stripped to the waist, his flabby