Super Powereds: Year 3 (120 page)

           
      
Roy and Chad stepped into the common area first, with Camille right on their heels. Vince didn’t even need to ask about what they’d been up to. Bad as he might be at understanding what the color of a rug meant in terms of a protagonist’s emotions, he was easily as adept at recognizing anything related to combat. Both young men had the drained expressions and slightly shuffling gait of having had the hell beaten out of them, only to be healed back to normal. Camille could take away all the physical damage in the world, but she couldn’t undo the mental strain that came with it. Were Vince the betting sort, he’d have put down a heavy wager that within ten minutes, both of his friends would be passed out.

           
      
“Hey,” Roy mumbled. He didn’t break stride, continuing right on to the boys’ side of the dorm and the bed contained therein. Chad only gave a small nod and kept following after Roy.

           
      
“Afternoon,” Vince replied. He watched both of them walk through the steel door, and then turned to Camille. “What the heck did those two do? Roy has stamina for days, and I’ve never seen Chad get that worn down before.”

           
      
“Roy wanted to see whether he was better with his fists or a bat.” Camille headed the rest of the way in and took a seat in a chair near, but not next, to Vince. “The end of the year is coming up, after all. He has to make a decision about what he’ll try to major in.”

           
      
Vince nodded, though it wasn’t a struggle he had to deal with. From the beginning, he’d essentially known that he would be in Close Combat. It was where he excelled physically, and allowed a great amount of use for his abilities. “Did he get an answer?”

           
      
“Oh yeah, I’d say he got a very definitive answer. I haven’t seen every match that’s ever taken place, but I think Roy just became the person in our class closest to actually scoring a win against Chad.”

           
      
“That is . . . impressive.” Vince felt something inside him buck at that idea. Not that he doubted Roy was capable of such a feat, rather that he wished he had been there, testing how well he stacked up against them too. Sadly, that was impossible as things stood. The sons of Titan and Intra could have a friendly match, and it didn’t matter; the sons of Globe and Intra would be another matter altogether.

           
      
“It really was. But you and I have more pressing matters to deal with,” Camille said.

           
      
“We do?”

           
      
“That’s right.” Camille resisted the urge to flee from the subject like she had so many times before. She could do this. It was just dating. “We’re both off work tonight, and I think it’s high time you quit dragging your feet and took me out to dinner. Doesn’t have to be nice or fancy, but I want it to be just us.”

           
      
“I see.” Camille worked very hard to hide the amusement that bubbled in her as, for once, she got to be the one seeing Vince with a slight blush rising in his cheeks. She didn’t know why he was moving so slowly, being more careful with her than he had been when dating Sasha, but she’d decided it was time to get things moving along. For a moment, Camille was afraid he was going to chicken out, or come up with an excuse. Instead, Vince swallowed hard and looked her in the eye.

           
      
“What are your thoughts on Italian?”

*         
      
*         
      
*

           
      
“Nick would understand.” Mary lay on Alice’s bed, watching her friend crimp, tease, and style her hair until it looked much the same as usual, only more accentuated. “That’s one of the perks of dating someone who is in on all this stuff with us. If you tell him you went on a dream adventure, discovered secrets about your family, and were informed there’s the potential for a nightmarish hell future on the horizon, I bet he’d let you reschedule.”

           
      
“I’m sure he would,” Alice agreed. She laid down the hair straightener and turned her attention toward choosing a set of earrings. She’d expected to have to force all these actions after the ordeal she’d been through, but oddly, the act of getting ready for her date was putting her more at ease. Perhaps she was just getting used to dealing with these sorts of events.

           
      
“But that’s the thing, Mary. There’s always some hidden threat, or recent trauma, or mental wipe, or blah blah blah. We don’t have normal lives. That’s a choice we made, and I don’t regret it. Well, most of the time, I don’t. It does mean that we have to accept the fact that our lives are rarely in peaceful, ideal situations though, and if we really want something, we have to learn to go after it despite all the complications. So yes, Nick would let me reschedule, because obviously, this is a good reason, and I’d let him next time, when he was attacked by mutant ducks or something, and we’d keep on going like that until it’s graduation and we’re going off to different places without ever getting so much as a single date squeezed in.”

           
      
“I’m not sure if I’m more amazed at how determined you are about this, or depressed about the fact that you’re right,” Mary admitted. “Guess Hershel and I were lucky we started dating before things got quite so crazy.”

           
      
“Right, you two began courting when we were being pitted against each other in ranking matches, after being abandoned on a mountain by our two supposed guardians.”

           
      
“Point made.” Mary slid off the bed and stretched—her back was sore from all the time spent incapacitated during the afternoon. “One thing I should say before I leave you to your primping though: I know you don’t want to talk about what we saw, your thoughts are crystal clear on that, but sooner or later, we probably need to.”

           
      
“There’s nothing to say. We were shown what might be, but without any guidance or idea of what causes what future, there’s nothing we can do.”

           
      
“We can be mindful of the impact our actions have,” Mary replied. “And we can make sure that we represent former Powereds in a positive light.”

           
      
“Of the five people chosen for the test batch, one has been expelled for supposedly trying to kill other students, and another is the son of one of the most wanted former Heroes in the nation,” Alice said. “We’re off to a great start.”

222.

               “Someone knows how to clean up well,” Nick said. This was a cardinal sin of understatement, as Alice could have caused a wreck if she strode through an intersection looking the way she appeared when stepping out of her car. Pink dress, high heels, and styled hair, along with actual makeup, had transformed a woman who was already beautiful into something truly spectacular. It helped that Alice carried herself with the sort of confidence owned only by the brilliant, the bold, and the battle-hardened.

           
      
She smiled at Nick, admiring how well the suit he wore hung off his lean frame. He grinned back at her, and for just a moment, they were simply two stupid college kids excited about testing the romantic waters of something new.

           
      
“You know, you start this date with one strike already, since I had to pick you up,” Alice pointed out.

           
      
“I thought we all agreed that me keeping my distance from Melbrook was for the best,” Nick countered.

           
      
Alice walked across the parking lot and gave him a hug of greeting, one that lingered a bit longer than their normal embraces. “So what? You’re Nick Fucking Campbell; don’t tell me you couldn’t have come up with some way to pull it off if you really needed to.”

           
      
“Maybe, but then you’d have had to hide in the bushes and signal me with a flashlight, and I think we both know there’s no way the princess is willing to dirty her shoes for little old me.”

           
      
“Ah, our first date has barely started, and you’re already being a dick.” Alice wrapped her arms around one of his and leaned against his suit-covered body. She let herself take a second and enjoy the sensation of leaning against him, of letting her mental armor down for a few moments.

           
      
“Alice . . . is everything okay?”

           
      
“Not really. I had a very long afternoon, and there’s more stuff on my plate because of it, but I don’t want to think about that right now.” Alice begrudgingly pulled herself away from him, though she kept his arm ensnared by hers even as she straightened her posture.

           
      
“Anything I can do?”

           
      
“Just keep being a douche,” Alice replied. “Right now, I need to laugh or I’m going to dwell. Besides, I’ve waited a long time for this date. I expect to be wowed.”

           
      
“That much I can certainly promise,” Nick said. “How do you feel about strip clubs and steak buffets?”

           
      
“Like you’ll be getting kicked in the junk.”

           
      
Nick chuckled, though he took the threat somewhat seriously. “I suppose I do have a backup plan, or two . . .”

*         
      
*         
      
*

           
      
The date wasn’t actually all that different than how things were when they normally hung out. Vince was not a person with a great many layers, after all. It wasn’t in him to change who he was or how he acted just because the social context of their time together had changed. That was, in fact, one of the many things that Camille loved about him.

           
      
Italian might have been a bit of a stretch when Vince described where they were going; pizza and spaghetti hit the mark much closer than the word that conjured ideas of fancy pastas and white tablecloths. The food was good though, and after the first few minutes, Camille realized she was glad that Vince had picked such a casual place. It made her feel more comfortable and at ease, whereas, if they’d gone somewhere upscale, she’d have felt all the more pressure about the fact that she was out, on a date, with Vince.

           
      
He was nervous too, that much was apparent, but it was the sweet kind of nervous that led to him knocking over a parmesan shaker and stumbling over his words a bit. Even that faded after the first hour they spent together. The two of them had been friends for some time, and once the jitters went away, they remembered that they knew perfectly well how to be around, and enjoy, each other.

           
      
The date wasn’t actually all that different than how things were when they normally hung out, and Camille wouldn’t have changed that fact for any price in the world. After all, she loved how Vince normally was. She didn’t want some overly careful or suave version of him.

           
      
She simply wanted to spend dinner with the man she loved.

*         
      
*         
      
*

           
      
“Mr. Evers?” The large man was covered in muscle and tattoos, yet the slightest quiver of fear entered his voice as he stood in the doorway and interrupted his boss. It wasn’t Nathaniel himself that scared him, though those orange eyes were certainly more than a little disconcerting. It was what he represented, and who he was connected to, that truly put this mountain of a man ill at ease. He’d worked for dangerous people before, jobs where he knew he put his life on the line just by showing up. The people Nathaniel had aligned himself with weren’t like that. They’d never be so kind as to simply kill him.

           
      
“What is it?” Nathaniel didn’t even bother looking up from the laptop he was studying intently, his eerie eyes darting across the screen.

           
      
“It’s just that you wanted us to tell you whenever Nicholas Campbell or one of those kids from the dorms was out in the open. He and the blonde left his apartment a few minutes ago, and the silver-haired guy was seen riding somewhere with the short girl that hangs out there a lot.”

           
      
“Brazen.” Nathaniel spat the word like a curse, barely concealing the snarl that lingered upon his face. “I set the last place he went to have fun on fire, and he decides to go on a date. Even after everything he’s seen, all the clues I’ve left for him, Nicholas Campbell still refuses to take me seriously.”