Sighing, Celia looked around, taking in the shattered windows, the injured bodies, the exhausted, shadowed expressions. “Take him to Elroy Asylum. Let them decide what to do with him.”
Teia, Lew, and Teddy were standing a little ways off. All here, all safe, if a little ragged looking and beat up.
“What are they saying about Sam?” Lew asked. “Is he okay?” The glint in his eyes had turned shadowed, and his shoulders slumped.
“He’s in the hospital,” Anna said. “Nobody will tell me how he is.”
They were all so quiet. None of that strutting confidence they’d had during their practices in the park. Everything they’d done before this was just a game.
“I hope he’s okay,” Teia said softly.
They watched for a few more minutes, the comings and goings, bad guys arrested, the bomb squad taking charge of the detonator. Anna thought the four of them might be arrested for their vigilantism, but no one said anything.
“Thanks,” Anna said. “Thanks for coming to help get my mom. We couldn’t have saved her without you.”
“Hey, teamwork,” Teia said, her smile lopsided. Anna wiped away a stray tear. Exhaustion, that was all. But Teia caught her up in a hug, and she felt Lew’s and Teddy’s hands on her shoulders, and she started to think that everything really would be all right.
Night had fallen by the time they finally made it back to street level in front of the cordoned-off building. Analise, Teia, and Lew went home after giving statements to the police. The West clan was about to do likewise. Eliot had vanished. Anna focused and found him hanging around outside Elroy Asylum, where they’d taken his father. Not doing anything but watching, the way his presence remained stationary.
“You need a ride home?” Anna asked Teddy. They walked a little ways out by themselves while they waited for Tom to bring the car. Mom and Dad were still talking to the police. Mom had just spent ten minutes on the phone with Bethy, reassuring her that everything was fine. Except that she was sick. She told Bethy about that part. Celia’d left her wig back in the office. Bethy was going to be shocked at how she looked.
“My folks are going to kill me,” Teddy said, sighing. “I didn’t tell them where I was going.”
“Maybe my folks can talk to them.”
“Maybe I’ll just put up with being grounded for a while.”
She giggled. Walked a few more steps. The streetlights and twilight shadows made the skyscrapers look like towering monoliths. Who knew what secrets they all held?
Teddy said, “Hey, Anna?”
“Yeah?”
“Is this a bad time to ask you if you still want to go to prom with me?”
Maybe that warm flush in her gut was postbattle adrenaline. But she didn’t think so. She didn’t have to think about how to answer this time.
“No. I mean, no it’s not a bad time. Yes, I’ll go to prom with you.”
“Okay. Yeah. Cool.” He had such a goofy, great smile.
She grabbed his hand, touched his face to steady herself, and kissed him. His arms wrapping around her told her that yes, that had been the right call, too.
TWENTY-FIVE
NEWS outlets the next day were filled with stories of the shocking nervous breakdown of Delta businessman Danton Majors, who’d collected his own team of superhuman mercenaries, captured beloved Commerce City icon Celia West, and held her hostage for the outrageous ransom of West Corp itself. That wasn’t exactly what happened, of course, but that was the favorite spin. That was the sequence of events compressed into a simple, repeatable narrative. Even better were the tales of the heroic actions of Commerce City’s own selfless superhuman vigilantes who came to her rescue: Dr. Mentis, of course, but also the Trinity, the two-member team known as Espionage, and a new hero the police had dubbed Weasel. Spark, had emerged from retirement to save her granddaughters and become injured with a cracked femur in the process. The hospital had to ask people to stop sending flowers. And there was even, the Commerce Eye reported, a brief reappearance by the legendary Typhoon, who had often helped rescue Celia in the past. Few believed the accuracy of that rumor. The epic battle and its aftermath would keep a city full of reporters busy for a week. The Rooftop Watch site crashed its servers.
Despite all the news cameras that had shown up at Horizon Tower, the dozens of citizens who’d snapped cell phone pictures, the images that had been grabbed from traffic and security cameras, the only photos that appeared on any of the stories were generic shots of the building, of the glass-strewn street after the windows on the top floors had shattered, the swarm of police cars, and the aftermath: the Delta supers being led away morose and in handcuffs, Majors himself strapped to a gurney, taken away in an ambulance. Dr. Mentis gave a statement, and pictures of him appeared along with the usual quotes about Commerce City being safe once again. People observed that he was no longer the intense young man who’d been a member of the Olympiad back in the day. He was middle-aged, tired, and most concerned, he stated, with returning Celia West to her daughters.
The Trinity and Espionage remained as mysterious as ever, and some reporters murmured that police Captain Mark Paulson had a hand in that. Rumors said that unlike his predecessors, he might be working closely with the young superhumans, who might even be a new, secret arm of the police force. The idea intrigued many, who agreed that with villains like Danton Majors, the Executive, in the world, these new young superhumans might do well to protect their identities.
Majors spent a month at Elroy Asylum being treated by some of the best doctors in the world, specialists in various personality disorders related to megalomania and narcissism. Prosecutors brought charges against him and his entire team. The four members of his team, however, escaped prison when Monica Brooks—aka Sonic—shattered the walls of the city jail with her hypersonic power, freed her colleagues, and vanished. Notably, they did not try to rescue Danton Majors. Presumably, they fled back to Delta. Warrants for their arrest were issued, but no news was forthcoming.
Horizon Tower was disarmed, condemned, and torn down to make way for the city’s new development plan, recently voted on unanimously by the planning committee and spearheaded by West Corp.
Life in Commerce City goes on.
Anna steadied herself before entering Sam’s hospital room. She’d been told what to expect. She knew the sight of him would shock her, no matter how much she prepared, no matter how much she thought she knew what she was going to see.
Celia came with her and kept a hand on Anna’s arm, a comforting pressure. Anna thought about asking her mother to wait. Then she thought better of it.
“Ready?” Celia asked softly, and Anna nodded.
His parents, George and Melissa Stowe, were there, sitting near the bed, talking quietly. They looked up, blinked in confusion that never really went away, even when recognition dawned.
“Is it all right if we come in?” Celia said, courteous, always so deft in these awkward situations. She always knew exactly what to say. She’d replaced the wig and looked almost normal right now. Except that she was losing weight—Anna could see her growing skeletal. The Stowes wouldn’t notice it.
Sam’s father quickly invited them in, reached to shake Celia’s hand, thanked them for coming, et cetera. Anna drifted to the bedside.
“He’s getting better,” Mrs. Stowe said. Her smile was taut and her eyes red from sleeplessness and crying. “The ventilator came out yesterday. He’s woken up a few times since then. Now he just has to heal.”
Lew and Eliot had saved him, had cushioned his thirty-story fall enough so that it didn’t kill him. But he’d crashed into the side of the building on the way down, collapsed to the concrete below with too much force, even with Eliot breaking the fall. Eliot had been strong enough only to slow him down and catch himself, not stop them both.