Super Powereds: Year 3 (111 page)

           
      
“All things considered, I think they came out pretty nicely.” Alice’s voice reached him, and Nick realized he’d let himself get lost in scanning the crowd. He quickly turned around to find her and Camille heading back over to him, a large rectangle of low-quality photos clutched in her hand. The pink from her nose and shoulders had vanished, and if Camille ever needed to give someone the light burn of skin damage, she now had a bit more in her arsenal.

           
      
Alice could scarcely hide her joy at being suddenly pain free, and Nick had to work to keep from openly appreciating how beautiful she was when she let herself be unabashedly cheerful. Alice had always been good-looking, but as she grew into adulthood and gained a solid amount of confidence, she had become absolutely stunning. He was grateful for the sunglasses, because it meant he could look at her a little more without tipping his hand.

           
      
“Come on, Camille and I talked while we were in there, and we decided to do the roller coaster first.” Alice grabbed Nick by the arm and began pulling him down the boardwalk.

           
      
“You mean that wooden, rickety thing that looks like it’s two days away from being condemned?”

           
      
“Exactly. We want to hit it before anyone actually has a chance to tear it down.” Alice tugged him along, keeping her grip on his arm firm and forceful. “Besides, you and I need to have a chat, anyway.”

           
      
“Is it about the proper way to treat another person’s arm? Because I can feel mine coming out of its socket.”

           
      
“No, it’s about how we settle our bet.” Alice kept moving forward, purposely facing away from Nick as she talked. Not the most courageous way to breach the subject neither of them had mentioned since the night of the Cowgirl Rodeo, but she was still getting it done. Nick had to give her credit for that.

           
      
“Since it was interrupted, I think we have to call it a draw,” Nick said. “There’s no way to know how it would have gone down.”

           
      
“Maybe I’m not okay with that.” Alice slowed her pace, and loosened her grip on Nick’s arm. “No, I’m definitely not okay with that.” She turned around to face him, meeting his sunglass-shielded eyes with her bright green ones. “I’m tired of the dancing, and the excuses, and the cute reasoning. Even Vince and Camille can admit they like each other, and I refuse to be more emotionally stunted than those two. I like you, Nick. God only knows why, but I do. If you like me, then take me out on a damn date already. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it can’t be bullshit either. Are you in or not?”

           
      
“God only knows why you like me?” Nick said, studying her face carefully.

           
      
“I don’t know; I’d just assume omnipotence means figuring out the impossible stuff too, but maybe I’m giving him too much credit.” The pink in her nose had been replaced by a bit of red in her cheeks, and yet Alice refused to yield even as Nick attempted to turn things into humor. Faced with a situation where he couldn’t use his charm of obfuscation, Nick was only left with the most desperate of tactics in his arsenal: the truth.

           
      
“Alice, I do have feelings for you, but you understand that my world is complicated, right? Nathaniel is only a small piece of what I come from.”

           
      
“Well, I kicked the shit out of him pretty easily; I imagine I can handle the rest, too.”

           
      
“I mean—”

           
      
“I know what you mean, but we’re not getting married here, just seeing if things can actually work when we stop being such chickenshits and put in a little effort,” Alice said. “Besides, you may have the most colorful past, but at this point, all of our worlds are pretty fucked up. A few more issues on the pile aren’t going to make or break me.”

           
      
“If that’s really how you feel . . .” Nick paused, an inner debate raging within. He should keep her at a distance, he should minimize how deeply he was connected with her, he should be separate and safe. All of that was what Ms. Pips had taught him, had trained into him. But somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he could hear Gerry’s voice, and that one was telling him to quit being such a coward and go for it. Nick didn’t know which voice was actually right, but he certainly knew which one he wanted to listen to.

           
      
“Then, I guess we need to start bickering about where I’ll be taking you. Heaven forbid, I should choose an establishment not up to the princess’s standards, after all.”

206.

               Though their afternoon at the boardwalk amusement park was filled with screams, for once, none of them were from genuine terror or rage. The screams that rose up from Asprin Beach that day were of excitement, cheer, and the momentary adrenaline rush that a steep dive on a roller coaster can miraculously conjure. By the time they had ridden their fill, Vince was on the verge of being sick, and Alice’s thick hair had been so swept and tangled by the wind that she had conceded defeat and bound it all into a ponytail.

           
      
After a drive that was thankfully long enough for Vince to settle his stomach, the group arrived at a small restaurant that specialized in heartily portioned Italian meals. The students were seated around a large wooden table topped with a massive plastic tablecloth, and before the waiter even asked for their drink orders, he dropped off three baskets of steaming bread, which many of the hungry young people fell upon like locusts.

           
      
“Bread before the order; now that shit is classy.” Angela held up a hand to stop the spray of crumbs that were unstoppably escaping her mouth as she spoke. “Find this place online?”

           
      
“No.” Chad hesitated for a moment, a rare event that Angela mentally filed away. “My mother and I had been up to visit Lander in the past. This was one of the restaurants we enjoyed stopping at.”

           
      
“Well, if the food is as good as the bread, I’m going to text your mom and tell her she picks good spots.” Angela grinned as she watched Chad’s eyes widen in a moment of uncontrolled panic, only to shift back to normal as he realized she was screwing with him. It had taken a long while to get used to reading the carefully controlled blond Super, but after years of practice, she’d finally gotten something of a feel for it. Unless she caught him by surprise, the biggest tell that Chad had was in what he didn’t say; the looks he didn’t give, and the words he never let past his lips, those were the things he was afraid of, things that would allow emotion to override his careful system of mental control.

           
      
“Your jests are not as funny as you seem to believe.” Chad met her eyes, but she was pretty sure she saw a twinkle of humor in his stoic expression.

           
      
“Guess I’m just pretty enough to get away with them all, then.” Angela reached over and grabbed another roll, noting that a different waiter was already in route with more baskets. She liked this place. “So, how was your Pinocchio day? Live up to all your expectations?”

           
      
“I don’t . . . ah, Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy. That one was actually a bit clever,” Chad said. He gave Angela a genuine smile, one of the rare few that were a result of sentiment rather than a commanding of his muscles. Those, for some reason, she’d always been able to tell apart. “It was quite fun. I can’t say I completely understand the appeal of all of these activities; however, it was interesting to experience them. I don’t regret the choices I made on how I spent my youth, but it is fascinating to see things from the other side.”

           
      
“I used to have to sneak out to do this kind of stuff,” Angela said. She put her roll down, and cast her eyes around the table. Most of the others were absorbed in their small discussions; Shane and Hershel were debating between two action stars from the eighties, trying to decide which would win in a real fight. It was nice to see her little brother pissing his time away for once.

           
      
“Shane did mention that you both had a rather strict upbringing,” Chad said, shaking Angela from her thoughts.

           
      
“Oh, that’s putting it mildly. Training, drills, tests, conditioning, and sweet Jesus only knows how many rounds of sparring. As a kid, it was sort of fun, like this long game we were playing with our grandfather. Then I got old enough to realize how screwed up it all was, and I resented him for stealing my time. Of course, I then got even older and realized what he was actually trying to do, and I loved the old bastard for it. Still played hooky on occasion, mind you, but I respected him while I did it.”

           
      
Chad nodded his head somberly. “He wanted to help you both excel.”

           
      
“No, Chad, he wanted to help us not die. Graham DeSoto has lived a very long life, and in his career, that makes him quite the rarity. He’s buried too many people not to let it drive him a little insane, and that crazy manifested in trying to make sure that at least his grandchildren would see him in the ground, rather than vice versa. We didn’t get much of a childhood, but that’s because he wanted us to have more time as adults.”

           
      
“Shane seems to feel that the effort your grandfather demanded from you had more to do with the family legacy than with concerns for your safety,” Chad replied. He was unfazed by her declaration, and she hadn’t expected anything different. That was one of the things she liked most about Chad: he was going into this with his eyes open. So many of the HCP students she’d known had aggrandized ideals of what lay ahead of them. Chad had a grave instead of a father; he understood the danger standing in the path to their future.

           
      
“There’s no denying that the legacy is a big factor too. Ultimately, we both took what we took from the training. Skill, techniques, and impressions of our grandfather; it’s all set in there now, and there’s no changing it. Sometimes, I wish that stubborn kid would have come with me to do things like this when we were kids, though. He might not be quite so tightly wound if he’d let himself cut loose on occasion.”

           
      
“For what it’s worth, I think Shane turned out perfectly fine. He’s the first person I ever managed to become friends with, and I suspect that speaks deeply to his patience and understanding, rather than to any budding social acumen on my part.”

           
      
“Maybe you’re right,” Angela said. She turned to her menu and began perusing the options, purposely avoiding a continuance of this line of discussion. It was a nice day, and she didn’t have the heart to tell Chad that the reason he and Shane had become friends was simply because they were both similar shades of fucked up. That was inevitable in the HCP. Normal, emotionally healthy people didn’t go in for this sort of work. The Heroes of the world were a rainbow of dysfunction, and the closest relationships were formed from those of a similar hue.

           
      
All of that was much too depressing to bring up, though, so Angela didn’t. She didn’t have many days left at Lander, and certainly not many carefree ones like this. She saw no reason to spoil one of them with something as pointless as the truth.

207.

               The bang of the door echoed through the warehouse, causing several of its inhabitants to jump in surprise and one to quietly ready himself for bloodshed. In the end, all of it was unnecessary, as the cause for the slammed door quickly made herself known.

           
      
“Sorry!” Joan yelled, her words following after the bang of the door. “I keep forgetting that thing is so touchy.”

           
      
“Please watch it,” Persephone said, stepping out of the makeshift gym to greet her fellow fugitive. “If I know George, he’s probably got a laser canon fully extended and is just waiting for an excuse to use it.”

           
      
“It was a thermal blaster.” George stepped out of the small room where he spent most of his waking, and sleeping, moments. For once, he was in his human form, no doubt taking a break from the computer work to deal with his biological necessities.

           
      
“I said I was sorry,” Joan repeated. She hefted up her arms, which were laden with at least a dozen sacks that were near to bursting. “You try easing the thing open when you’re weighed down by this many groceries.”