“Goddamn it. I’m so tired. If you’re going to shatter me, then be a fucking man and do it already.”
“That’s not—”
“Do it, and get out.”
“I don’t want to break you. I want to heal you.”
“You’re not a healer,” she seethes. “You are everything that’s wrong with me, but I still love you. Is that what you want to hear? I love you, even though you’re the worst part of me.”
I push the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I know I am. I know.”
“Finish what you started. Break me for good. Tell me you don’t love me and that you never will.”
My heart pounds inhumanly hard. I want to throw her on the bed, hit her, fuck her, and make love to her all at the same time. “I can’t tell you that,” I say, “when the truth is that I do.”
“No, you don’t,” she says through her teeth. “You want to control me. That’s not the same thing.”
“You’re right. I want to control you. I want to make you love me, own you from the inside out. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you too.”
She stands up and walks straight for me. Two tiny palms connect with my chest as she shoves me backward. “You’re a liar. You don’t love me. Say it. Say you don’t love me.”
I catch her wrists in my hands. “I can’t.”
“God,” she cries up at the ceiling. “Just finish me off. All these years I’ve been clinging to the memory of you, and I can’t do it anymore. I—”
“I can’t take back what I did!” I explode. “You have to deal with it. Wake the fuck up. Deal with the pain, and move on.”
“Get out,” she shrieks, ripping her arms from my grip. I jump out of the way when she picks up a stiletto and launches it in my direction. She sits on the bed and sobs into her hands, and every wounded mewl is an incision in my black heart. I want to go to her, but I know I can’t. Not until I know I can stay as long as she needs me to.
The next day, the wound I’ve torn open is throbbing with need for Cataline. She’s the only thing on my mind. Seeing her again is the first time I’ve felt anything since she left. And I never stopped worrying about her, but today the worry is like an extra limb. She cut herself when I wasn’t there to stop her, to take the pain for her. When I think of another man failing to heal her, I’m indignant at the intrusion on our life.
The smooth control of being in the driver’s seat calms me, so I drive until it’s after midnight and I’m outside Cataline’s apartment. I climb her fire escape, remembering how breeze lifted the white curtains the night before.
Through her open window, moonlight makes her an angel in the dark. Her naked body is outlined by a thin white sheet that drapes over her curves as she lies coiled into herself. She sleeps alone, but even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. Her boyfriend will be debris from the explosion of us soon enough.
I whip my t-shirt off and drop it on the floor. My shoes and everything but my briefs follow. I’m so hard for her it hurts. Only her. From the moment I met the little girl whose life had just been irrevocably changed, Cataline and I were permanently interwoven. I press my front to her back so only the sheet separates me from her warmth.
She awakes with a start, jerking away immediately. When she flips on her back with her hands in fists, I grab her wrists and force them down against her chest. “Shh,” I say. “It’s me. Calvin.”
Her heart beats up against her ribcage, and there’s terror in her eyes. “Calvin,” she repeats as she blinks rapidly.
“I’m here.”
“I didn’t mean what I said,” she whispers suddenly. “You’re not the worst part of me. And you are a healer. You healed everybody but me.” I can barely hear her next words through her cracking voice. “Can you just hold me?”
I release her, and she shifts back onto her side. My arms surround her in a tight embrace, and my face buries in her hair. My leg links with hers over the sheet like it belongs there. I wait to fall asleep until her breathing evens out.
In the morning, she’s in a chair by the window wearing nothing but a white, satin nightie and scrunched wool socks. Her feet are crossed at the ankles as she stares out the window.
I sit up and wait until she looks over at me. “You’re really here.” Absentmindedly, she pulls on the thin strap at her shoulder. She turns her head back, looking at the window. “But I guess you always have been,” she murmurs, “watching me, protecting me.” She sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me what everyone was saying about Hero?”
“There was nothing either of us could do about it.”
“Some called you a freak. They put a huge bounty on your head. People were scared, Calvin. Couldn’t you have prevented it?”
“Maybe. But it was time to give up my title. I’m not anyone’s hero, I just do what I have to do.”
She looks back at me. “You’re a wanted man.”
“Hero is, yes.”
“But there are still Hero sightings.”
“I couldn’t stop. I just had to learn to be even more careful.”
“If I’d known . . .” She pauses, and I watch her fingers glide back and forth along her forearm. “Maybe I would’ve stayed.”
“I wouldn’t have let you stay out of pity.”
She frowns. “Why’d you come back here?”
“Part of me wishes you would move on and be happy with someone else.”
“I have someone else.”
“He can’t put you back together like I can.”
She just stares at me, her expression tired. “No. He can’t.”
“I don’t deserve you, but I won’t let you go. I’m back for what’s mine, what’s always been mine.”
“I don’t want Hero. I want Calvin.”
“You have Calvin.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t be with two different people. It almost killed me the first time.” She looks at her hands, and I get up from the bed. “New Rhone was never your problem,” she says, her eyebrows gathering. “What your parents did to you was unfair.” Her eyes drift up to mine again. “They put the world on your shoulders and left it there when they died. Nobody ever helped you carry it. I’m sorry your childhood was stolen like mine.”
“I wish it were the truth that I do it for them, but it’s not,” I say. “I thrive on it. It’s ingrained in me.”
“What is?”
“All of it. The instinct to kill. The desire to protect innocent people. I don’t just do it because I promised my parents I would. It’s in my blood.”
“You put it in your blood with a syringe. None of this is your responsibility. You can be happy without it. You deserve that.”
“What are you saying?”
“Stop taking the injections. New Rhone is not your burden to carry.” Her hands lace in front of her breasts. “Choose me over the city. Choose us. Choose yourself.”
“I’ve been this way for over half my life. I don’t know what I am without it.”
“You’re just Calvin,” she says. “And I can only love you that way.”
I swallow as I try to find the words. “I’ve already stopped.”
“What?”
“I can’t be the man you deserve while I’m still Hero. I want to be better for you. I made the decision to stop a few weeks ago when I also decided I’d be coming for you.”
She attempts a smile, but her nose wrinkles as if she’s holding in tears. “What about New Rhone?”
“It’ll survive without me. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve been reducing my K-36 dosage each week, and I’ve stopped patrolling completely.”
“Oh, Calvin. What does Norman say?”
I try to hold her gaze, but I can’t. I have to turn around. “He tried to tell me I didn’t have to be this. He said if my parents were alive, they wouldn’t’ve let it get so far. He was right.” I pause to inhale. “You’re both right. My parents—I never even questioned the things they expected of me. I’m only beginning to see the danger in what they created, in how they played with a human life. But Norman always knew.”