Arc Angel (24 page)

“Get out of my way!”

“No.”

She raised her hand again, and the sight of the electricity clinging to her skin unnerved and fascinated him as much as it had the first time he’d seen it. Though this time a healthy dose of fear had been added to the mix. Apparently a threat to your life will do that.

“I’m not moving, Miranda.”

She stepped forward, the light of her hand surging even brighter.

“Oh, I think you are, Bryce.”

He did his best to keep his face blank, but he couldn’t control the rest of his body; a tremor ran through him, and his already-weak knees buckled a little.

“You don’t get to run off again. We’re going to finish our conversation.”

“I think you admitting that you’ve been using me this whole time means that we’re done talking.”

Her dark hair twisted and swayed as if caught in an invisible breeze. She was beautiful and intimidating and fragile all at once, just like Arc Angel. No, that wasn’t quite right. Arc Angel was never fragile. That was Miranda. The dichotomy still surprised him, even now.

“No, there are a few more things I need to say.”

The force that swirled through Miranda’s hair seemed to fill the room. The hair on Bryce’s arms and legs twitched. What would happen if she turned it up another notch? Would the friction of his feet on the carpet set off sparks? Maybe he would shock himself. He didn’t know exactly what that would do to his heart, but he didn’t want to risk it. Still, what choice did he have? He had to fix this situation. Had to make her see what he really meant. He’d done some damage this morning, and he needed to make it up to her. He just hoped he’d have the chance.

“Miranda, please try to understand what it’s like for me. It’s tough.”

“You told me your whole sob story downstairs. Sure, it sucks to be you. No sex, boo hoo. Sorry if it’s hard for me to sympathize. I’m going through a few things of my own at the moment, you know.”

The room’s pressure increased, and the hair on his scalp crawled. Not good. Okay, he needed to try harder, really put himself out there. And quickly, before discomfort turned to actual pain.

“It’s not just the sex! I mean, yeah, that’s definitely one of the drawbacks, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about connecting with other people. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Why not? Your mouth and brain still work. Well, at least your mouth does.”

Was her bitter humor a good or bad sign?

“Of course I can still have superficial relationships, maybe even mild friendships. But I don’t have any close relationships anymore. Matthews is as good as it gets, and I pay him quite a nice amount to hang out with me.”

Was he getting through to her? The pressure hadn’t relaxed, but it hadn’t increased either.

“What happened to the friends you had before? Assuming you had some.”

The pressure kicked up a notch, causing his skin to tingle. Okay, apparently the bitter humor was a bad sign.

“I did have friends, yes, and I didn’t even have to pay them. But then I got the WPW diagnosis. At first I tried to pretend it didn’t matter, that nothing had changed. Until one night, a couple of my buddies and I were at a concert, and my heart started picking up the rhythm of the band. They played faster, my heart beat faster, and I passed out. Came to in an ambulance. After that I finally accepted that everything had changed. But I didn’t want to admit my condition to anyone, not even my friends. I know it sounds dumb. If they were truly my friends, they would have understood, right? That’s what all the psych books and magazine articles say, anyway. Well, I didn’t even give them a chance to understand. I pushed them away before they could push me away.”

“You didn’t want them to see you like that.”

It wasn’t a question, just a quiet statement. Her understanding felt like bactine on a wound, stinging and soothing at the same time.

“Exactly. I’d been on top of the world, and then the world crashed and threw me flat on my stomach in the grime. I was too proud to let anyone see me that way. So I withdrew.”

“And now you’re basically a hermit.”

“I always picture hermits as being stooped old men with long white beards,” he joked, “but yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve become. And I hate it. I hate every damn minute of it.”

The humor left his voice completely, and his jaw clenched as he realized just how true those words were.

Miranda’s hand dropped to her side, a tangle of light flashing as it brushed her thigh. Instantly, his scalp relaxed. He exhaled deeply.

She looked up at him, her wide green eyes wary.

“I guess I’m a hermit too, then.”

He tried to smile at her, to reassure her, but couldn’t fight through the sadness that suddenly filled him.

“I think you and I are more alike than we seem. I think we’re both hermits because we both think we don’t deserve any better. I pushed all my friends away because of my pride. Why did you push everyone out of your life?”

“I didn’t…” she started, but trailed off.

“You don’t have to hide anything from me, Miranda. I know you’ve pushed everyone out of your life. Can you tell me why?”

“I… I have anxiety.”

“I know, sweetheart, but why?”

She looked down at her feet and started scuffing at the carpet with one of them.

“God, it sounds so dumb to say it out loud. It seems like such a small thing, but at the time…”

Bryce waited patiently, trying to give her the space she needed.

“I was a freshman in high school. The Homecoming dance was coming up, and I really wanted to go. So when Todd Bartels stopped me in the lunchroom one day and put his arm around my shoulders and asked me to go with him, I thought all my dreams had come true. Of course two seconds later, his girlfriend Julie and all her friends popped out from around the corner and started laughing. Pretty soon everyone else in the lunchroom was laughing too. They’d set the whole thing up as a joke. I thought I would die of embarrassment.”

Her cheeks flushed at the memory. Bryce made a mental note to track down Todd Bartels so he could punch him.

“After that, I tried to blend in as much as possible. Gradually, it got to the point where I could barely speak in front of other people. And the longer I stayed quiet, the harder it was to talk at all. So after a few years, I just… didn’t.”

Bryce couldn’t believe that she’d been so isolated for so long, that no one had stepped in to help her.

“Your parents were ok with you not talking?” he asked.

“They never really noticed. I managed okay with them, and they weren’t around much. And then after I graduated from high school, they moved to Florida. And I moved here. I figured with so many people around, it would be easier to hide, if that makes any sense.”

“Friends? Boyfriends?”

“I never had close friends or any boyfriends. Most people consider talking to be a requirement in a relationship.”

Man, bitter or not, he got quite a kick out of her sense of humor.

“So your silence pushed them away.”

She nodded and looked back down at her feet.

“You aren’t quiet with me.”

She jerked her head back up and met his eyes, but didn’t say anything.

“Why is that, Miranda? Why can you talk to me?”

After a second, she shrugged. “You won’t let me stay quiet.”

“And since I won’t let you use silence to push me away, you’re looking for something else to do the job. Like that.” He pointed to the hand that now rested at her side, still glowing faintly.

“But Miranda, I don’t want you to push me away. And I don’t want to push you away either. You’re the only person I know who knows everything about me and still likes me. Well, at least sort of.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know why. You’re a son of a bitch.”

“You’ve mentioned that a few times.” He held up a hand to ward her off. “I am. I know. I’m ashamed that I’m not what I was, and that makes me a jackass. And that totally sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s in the past. What’s even worse, what makes me act like such a bastard, is the future. What kind of future can I possibly offer another person? All I have are health problems, bitterness and a short life-expectancy. Why would anyone want to sign up for that deal? But I do have something to offer, to you. I can help
you
. With Arc Angel. I’ve got the knowledge and the resources to help you figure out what happened and what you can do to get more control over it.”

Miranda opened her mouth as if to disagree, but closed her lips without making a sound. It was one of the few times that Bryce took her silence as a good thing.

“You can argue a lot of things, but one thing you can’t argue is that we’re connected, Miranda James. I dreamed about you at the moment you became her. We’re linked. Let me help you, Miranda. Please.”

She looked deep into his eyes, studying him, until she came to some inner conclusion and nodded.

“Great,” he said. “And can we start by sitting down somewhere? I had to take the stairs up here, and I’m exhausted.”

That brought a little pink to her cheeks. Nice to know the old Miranda hadn’t completely disappeared.

Chapter 18

“I think it’s time we talked about Arc Angel.”

They sat side-by-side on the queen-sized bed, propped up by a pile of pillows against the headboard. Miranda had dropped her bag and a large chunk of her defenses, but Bryce knew better than to take anything for granted. The electricity could come back in an instant. He didn’t think she’d actually harm him, but he doubted
Miranda
had been the one to fry those goons last night.

“Arc Angel has a power of her own. Not just now, with you, but from the beginning. I’ve always been able to create characters, but it usually took a lot of work and a lot of time to flesh them out enough that they really came to life. But Arc Angel…”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes at the memory.

“When I started drawing her, it all simply appeared in my head, like I’d always known it, and now I just needed to write it down. I knew each and every detail about her, every aspect of her powers and what she could do. The backstory about Karen Crawford took more work—I had to come up with that all on my own—but the character of Arc Angel sprang fully formed out of me like Athena out of Zeus’s head or something. Some of my other characters were like that too, but Arc Angel was the first and the strongest.”

He glanced at Miranda to gauge her reaction, but her features were neutral.

“I know it sounds crazy…”

“Bryce, you’re talking to the woman who became a superhero. Do you really think
I’m
going to doubt
your
sanity?”

That made him smile, and when she smiled back—even if only with a twitch of the left side of her mouth—warmth filled him.

“Good point. But don’t get too comfortable with my mental health just yet.”

He pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them, hunching forward to keep his face out of Miranda’s sight lines. He didn’t want to keep going. He didn’t want to dredge back into the mental state he’d been in right before he met Miranda. But she deserved to know. Needed to know. So he forced himself to keep talking.

“When I got the first diagnosis, and started losing everything, one thing kept me going: Arc Angel. She gave me the motivation to get up in the morning and a reason to try to survive. I became completely focused on her. I was doing two to three issues a month, writing way faster than we could get them published.”

He looked down at his hands, the weight of what he needed to say pushing down on his shoulders until he thought he’d sink right through the bed. He wanted Miranda to touch him, comfort him, but at the same time he couldn’t bear to have her near him as he delved down into the darkest part of himself.

“But the longer my condition went on with no change, no hope, the more I wanted to just give up. Arc Angel stopped being an inspiration and started becoming a reminder of everything I had been and wasn’t anymore. It got to where I couldn’t face her either. And so I knew what had to be done: death. First her… then me.”

Miranda didn’t move a muscle—didn’t even flinch, as he might have when confronted with those words. Tears pushed at the back of his eyes, and he shut his lids to block them. He swallowed over the lump in his throat and pushed on.

“I know I sound like a self-pitying jerk. After all, I have it so much better than so many people. I have money, a job I love, parents who care about me. But none of that kept the darkness at bay. I couldn’t face the idea that I’d be stuck in this messed up body for the rest of my life, so I decided I wanted out.”

He swiped at an errant tear that had squeezed out and started to roll down his cheek.

“So yeah, that’s why I killed Arc Angel. Because I couldn’t bear for her to see what I was about to do.”

And then he waited. What would her reaction be? Disgust? Pity? He didn’t think he could handle either. He wanted to be brave and strong for her. He wanted to be her hero. Instead, he was the one who needed to be saved.

Just when he thought she’d decided to never say another word to him, that she’d been completely appalled by his confession, Miranda stirred.

“What happened? Why didn’t you go through with it?”

Her aggravatingly neutral tone made it impossible to tell what she was thinking. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at her, though he did open his eyes. He focused on the framed picture of fruit hanging on the wall in front of him.

“What happened? You happened. The night I killed Arc Angel? The night I planned to kill myself? Was Thursday. The night of the mugging.”

He felt her start, but she stayed silent.

“I had almost finished the page when I fell asleep at my table. I woke up a few hours later, because I dreamed about you becoming her. And my curiosity about that dream gave me enough of a distraction to put off my plans, at least temporarily.”

“Because you think I can fix you.”

This time her wary tone told him exactly what she was thinking. He slumped back against the pillows and looked over at her, her features still schooled in neutrality. Her eyes seemed to be focused on the same stupid fruit picture he’d been targeting earlier.