Hero (32 page)

I tried to look deeper, but the crystal got brighter the farther down it went. I held up my hand to shield my eyes, but Mom tugged my hand away, and I felt her breath in my ear.

"Look closer," she said. "What do you see?"

I strained my eyes and looked as far as I could stand to, and suddenly I noticed something that was out of place. Something that twinkled a different color light.

Something purple.

"The ring." I said, excited by what I saw.

"Must be right where that thing's heart was, where your father lost his hand. When the force of the explosion demolished the Wilson Tower, the only person Justice had time to rescue from the nova blast was your father. If he'd been a split-second later, your father would have lost more than his hand. You know the rest, about all the casualties, more than we'd lost in several wars. I tried to protect you from that when you were a little boy, but how do you keep world events on that scale from your child?"

She wasn't really asking me. She was trying to apologize for being a shitty mother. Or justify her actions. I didn't care that she couldn't keep it from me when I was little. I cared that she left.

"Mom, why are we here?"

A flamethrower floated in front of me. I saw the shoulder strap reach around the space where Mom's neck would have been.

I stared down at the endless chasms of jagged crystal edges, impossibly sharp, that lay beneath the smooth surface.

"You're the only one who can get it back." She lit the tip of the flamethrower.

Me? I managed to form a few sentences of protest.

The last question I asked—"But why do you want it back?"—received a response that ended the discussion.

"No judgments," my mother reminded me. "Remember?"

I peered into the crevices below the polished surface; their sharp edges glittered back up at me like razor blades. No human could make his way down there. Fractured corners threatened to slice through my flesh like a ripe tomato every millimeter of the way.

"I'll slice my arm off. If I hit a major vein, I'll die within minutes."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Mom said. "I know you get that from me, but it's not one of my finer points. Haven't you ever thought about using your powers on yourself?"

Actually, up until that point, I hadn't. It made me wonder how long she'd been watching before she revealed herself to me. How much did she know about what I could and couldn't do?

FWOOSH! The flamethrower shot a jet stream of fire and melted a broad opening through the smooth surface, exposing the deadly crevices below.

"Here, this should help," Mom said as she sprayed fire liberally and melted a few of the sharp edges near the top. "If you get cut, it'll be sterile, minimize the risk of infection."

I couldn't believe I was really going to do this. "What if someone comes?" I asked.

A welder's mask descended on top of Mom's invisible head, and she cranked up the juice on the flamethrower.

"Don't dillydally."

As I crawled down into the cavern of jagged edges, sharper than a giant cheese grater, a skin-shredding coral reef, I tried to review how I got here. A searing pain shot up through my leg. I pushed back on my heel for better leverage, and I was pretty sure I severed my Achilles tendon. There's no limit in life to the things you'll do for your mother.

I zigzagged slowly through the crystal crevice, but not carefully enough to avoid the slices. I practiced biofeedback breathing and felt my skin get fire-hot as my power began to heal my shredded flesh. I ignored the blood, which gave the path a rosy glow as it dripped down toward my purple destination.

I imagined what my father must have felt as the flesh melted away on his hand when that creature exploded. Did his life pass before his eyes? Did he think about me, the son he'd never get a chance to have? When did he first look down to see that his hand had melted away to a clump of scarred flesh? And when did the thought finally strike him that his wedding ring was gone forever? I stretched and strained and ripped my skin as I pressed on. Mom was right. I could heal myself. I didn't want to get too cocky about it, though. No reason to test my abilities on a severed carotid artery.

Sweat beaded up on my forehead, and I reached to wipe it off before it dripped into my eyes. I looked at my fingers, crimson-stained and wet with blood. I told myself over and over the story of my father proposing to my mother as I crept lower. I thought about the depth of Mom's love for Dad, and how it was beautiful and sweet, if a little unhinged, that she still wanted the ring, the perfect symbol of their perfect love.

I stretched my hands as far as they could go, my fingers shaking; and ignoring the slices to my knuckles, I hooked my middle finger around the ring and pulled it back. I heard Mom shout praise and encouragement down the crystal chasm.

Mom was waiting at the mouth of the crevice with enough gauze to mummify me. But I was getting good with my powers. I barely bled at all.

Exhausted from burning up so much power, I handed her the ring and fell on the floor to rest. I felt almost as drained as I had when I'd gone back to the oncology ward to get Scarlett's purse. I thought I saw Mom's hand tremble as she held the ring, but in a moment she'd disappeared. I sat up on the floot and held my head between my knees to catch my breath and get my bearings.

Mom tried to wipe a cut on my forehead with the bandage, but I jerked away. I wasn't sure why I didn't want her to touch me. She took the hint and backed off.

"Your father was a good person; he didn't deserve all the shit that happened to him." The ring slid down a long string of leather and the two ends lifted into the air.

I didn't like to hear my mother use crude language. She'd never been this coarse when I was young, at least not around me. I didn't care what she'd been through since she'd left; she was still my mom, and my mom didn't talk like a truck driver.

"He shouldn't have taken it out on me, though," she said.

I didn't want to ask, but I had to know. "Did he hurt you?"

"Of course he hurt me." She was quick to say it. "But not the way you're thinking. He never laid a finger on me. You can't let your problems eat you up from the inside like that without it affecting other people in your life. He couldn't take all his anger and frustration out on the world around him, so he took it out on me. You, too."

I was so mad I thought I was going to explode. I wanted to hurt her.

"So you left me with him. Alone."

I shook my head, disgusted by her selfishness.

"You can't run away from your problems, either," I said. I spit some blood on the crystal.

It was a long while before we said anything else.

"Why'd you leave?" I asked again.

Mom sighed a deep breath. "Because I loved him."

That didn't make any sense. "You left because you loved Dad?"

"No." What she said next echoed in the crystal abyss. "I left because I loved Justice."

I felt just a sliver of the dread my father must have felt when he found out.

"I couldn't have picked someone who would have hurt your father more if I tried." She paused. "But sometimes you don't pick these things, sometimes they pick you."

What a crock of shit.

I grabbed her hands and pretended to hold them to comfort her, and I rubbed her fingers. I felt kinda shitty for doing it, but I had to know. I felt around her knuckles for it, but it wasn't there.

"What happened to your ring?" I asked.

"It disappeared," Mom said, and pulled her hands away. "That happens when you're invisible all the time; you lose things."

I didn't buy that. At least not all of it, and I told her so.

"I took it off the first night I moved in with Justice," she said. "And then I couldn't find it by the sink the next morning. I never saw it again." I could tell by the echo of her voice that Mom had turned to the wall when she told me that, ashamed to look me in the eye.

"Are you and Justice still, you know—?"

"God, no." She laughed the kind of laugh you give when you encounter someone who doesn't know anything about life.

She took a swig from her flask. "We had one Christmas together before it ended." She got lost in her own memory for a few moments, and then started to tie the loose ends of the leather string together. "Some things you lose are gone forever."

She pulled the knot tight. The necklace hovered above my head for a moment.

"You'll do better than I did. You won't end up like this."

I thought I heard her sniffle back a tear. She knew I heard her, and she coughed and tried to cover it up.

"Damn it," she said. "I think I'm finally getting some of that crud that's been going around lately."

Then I felt her hands on my shoulders as the leather necklace settled around my neck. The ring rested perfectly in the middle of my chest.

I heard Mom wipe away something on her face, and I felt the warm, tiny remnants of a tear land on my cheek.

"You have to promise me one thing, Thorn. No matter what."

"Sure," I said. It hurt me deeply to see her in pain.

"You can't tell anyone about this."

I looked up and tried to make sense out of what she was saying. "Not about me, not about the ring, not about anything. You can't tell your friends, you can't tell your teammates, and you can't tell your father." She cleared her throat and added, "Especially not your father. Promise me."

"Okay," I said.

"You can't even think about it. Understand?"

"I promise," I said.

"I mean it," she said louder. "You'll know what to do when the time is right." I felt her fingers stroke my cheek. "That's my boy, my dear, sweet boy. Now, promise me."

That I'll know what to do? About what?

"Okay," I said. "I promise." I held out my pinky for her. "I pinky-swear it."

I waited for a beat, but I never felt her pinky grab mine like we did so much when I was a boy.

I reached out to grab her hand, but in my heart I knew she was already gone.

I clutched the ring and slipped it in under my shirt. I'd keep her secret for her, but I decided it was time to make some changes. I stood up and felt for the piece of paper—the official termination notice from the League—in my. back pocket. I took it out and folded it into a paper airplane and sailed it down the crevice into the abyss.

Time to take control.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I STOLE THE BALL from the half-court line and drove it all the way to hoop. I was on fire.

Goran had been in the middle of a scrimmage with his team, the Gary Coleman look-alike included. I guess Goran had figured this was a safe place for his team to play now that I was gone. I snatched the ball during a fast break and challenged Goran to a one-on-one. The Gary Coleman guy snickered. The rest of the team looked on with delight when I pulled two twenties out of my pocket and held them in my hand.

"Don't worry," I told his teammates. "This won't take long."

I played better than I'd ever played in my life. I got to twenty before he even made it to double digits.

"Why are you doing this?" Goran whispered when we scrambled for a rebound.  He was imploring, not asking. I didn't even give him the courtesy of looking him in the eye.

On my last two points I threw him an elbow to his gut before sinking a jump shot from the top of the foul line.  I walked out of the gym with the rest of Goran's team laughing. The jeers and the names were obvious. They were laughing at Goran's expense. It was worse than losing to a girl. He'd been beaten by the town faggot.

I left the rec center—this time I promised myself it would be the last time ever—and I passed Goran's little brother in his karate uniform at the drink machine. He was fighting to get his quarters back.

He gave the machine a good thwack and then he saw me. "Hey, you're—"

Yeah, yeah, yeah, even the little kids had seen me on the news. I'd reached a new high: taunted by a second grader. My adrenaline was still pumping from the game, and I found myself restraining an urge to tell the kid off.

Then he finished his sentence.

"You're my brother's friend."

I turned around and looked at him.

"What did you say?"

"You're Thorn," he said, delighted to be talking to one of the big kids. "He talks about you all the time." He punched the ancient drink machine, then swung around and gave it a good kick. "I'm gonna be a hero one day, like my brother."

Not a very good one, I thought. He'd dented the side of the machine, but his drink was still lodged inside. I rubbed my hands together and placed them on each side of the machine.

"My mom and dad were soldiers," he said.

Okay. Not really sure what to do with that information, but thanks.

"They're dead." He smacked the machine hard.

I shook the machine as hard as I could, heard some clunking around inside, and an orange drink dropped into the recep-tacle I handed it to the boy.

"Cool!" he said. "Thanks."

And then with a high kick into the air, he scampered off to the basketball court to find his big brother.

Sometime soon I'd have to think through what Goran's brother said, but I didn't have time right then. It would have been particularly bad form to be late to a meeting I had called myself. Especially when I wasn't even officially a member anymore.

I began a swift jog out of the parking lot and glanced down at my watch. If I picked up the pace and skipped the shampoo in the shower, I could arrive at least fifteen minutes before my teammates.

Two high-top sneakers dropped from the sky and landed on the pavement in front of me. I looked up and saw that the shoes were attached to Goran. He'd leaped out from behind a row of cars.

He stood very straight, his chin held high, and stared into my eyes. I tried to move past him, but he jumped in front of me and blocked my way. I felt his shoulder crash into my collarbone. I ducked to move past him on the other side, but he pushed me back. My body trembled with fury, ready to fight, but all I could do for the moment was stare back at him.

Then he touched me again, but not to fight.