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When Roxanne turned 12, she kicked her soccer ball into a tree at the edge of the park. She’d done this many times before, because her aim was shit, which was probably why she never made the soccer team at her school. But this tree was different -- it had a hornet’s nest on the back.
Roxanne had never actually seen a hornet before that day. Never in her life had she heard a sound more ominous, more terrifying than the buzz of hundreds of them, bigger than her thumb, rising like a dark cloud from behind the tree.
She didn’t think. She just ran.
And the whole world changed.
It was like the entire city became a game of freeze tag or red light/green light. The entire population stood still while she dodged between them. And not just people. Cars stood still on the street, birds stopped mid flight in the air, a stream of pee froze between a dog and a fire hydrant.
Maybe it was more accurate to say that the world became a photograph and only she could move around in it.
When she stopped, out of breath at her stoop, the world jumped back into motion again.
Her power gave her freedom beyond anything she ever imagined as a child, and so she kept it a tightly guarded secret against her well meaning but overprotective parents.
The loss of it now was excruciating. Her body moved like a drunk snail, even worse with her injuries. The world crawled by at an agonizing pace. And she became so acutely aware of how helpless she was without it as she sat in the backseat of a car, blindfolded and trussed up like a pig at a luau, waiting to be delivered into the hands of her worst enemy.
The Past
The first time they met, the biggest worry she had was completing her anatomy project. The deadline followed her like a shark’s fin, complete with the Jaws theme that played in her head. Any minute now the panic of her procrastination was going to rise from the depths and chomp her in half.
Which was how she found herself walking home from the public library far later than usual, guided only by dim streetlights. Normally she would just run home -- the distance from her front door to the library took fifteen seconds when she used her super speed. But the sooner she got home, the sooner she had to start on her project, so tonight Roxanne took the normal, slow way back.
Halfway home, a figure stumbled from an alleyway, colliding into her. Before she could right her balance, he quickly shoved her off of him, almost tumbling her into the street.
“Hey!” she snapped, but he paid no attention to her, running crookedly down the sidewalk.
He was probably drunk, trying to sneak home before his wife found out. Or maybe he was late for the subway train. Or maybe he was just an asshole.
The next streetlamp revealed a bloody hand print on her shoulder where he had pushed her. Alarm seized her, kept her frozen for long, excruciating seconds.
Oh shit.
Oh shit .
The revving of a car motor snapped her out of her panic induced haze. Roxanne lurched forward, becoming too fast for the human eye to track. The man had disappeared from the sidewalk, so she ducked into bodegas and side streets until she found him propped up behind a dumpster.
Hiding.
She crouched down before him.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Which was a stupid question to ask; the answer was a glaringly obvious no. But she always rambled when she got nervous, which was why her presentations always went way over time.
The man slurred something in response. She couldn’t understand a word of it. It didn’t sound like the kind of drunk slurring she heard at her friends’ parties. Maybe he’d been drugged. Did someone try to kidnap him?
“Where are you bleeding?” she asked again. “Can you point for me?”
He tried to wave her off, the hand in her face covered in blood from a cut on his upper forearm. There could be more, but he probably wasn’t even in his right mind to understand her.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she told him, pulling out her phone.
He mumbled something at that, sounding panicked. It sounded like no .
“It’s okay,” she soothed. “They will take care of you. I’ll even go with you so you’re not alone.”
His slicked, bloody hand wrapped around her wrist , squeezing hard .
NO
She heard it and didn’t. The word echoed -- screamed -- around her, like the word of God. It blasted in her head. She felt it in her chest.
He was Powered. That definitely complicated things, especially if he was unregistered like her.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “No hospitals. No cops. But I can’t leave you here, so . . .I guess you’re coming with me.”
Before he could scream-think at her again, Roxanne pulled him up by his shirt and leaned him against the wall. He could barely stand. With some maneuvering and a few extra tries,s he managed to get him on her back. Then she blurred home.
Thank God it was only a couple blocks away. He was heavy.
The Present
She didn’t need her blindfold off to tell where they had stopped. The ocean lapping close by, the echo of pigeons above her, the smell of rust and dirt. The freezing cold air.
An empty warehouse by the docks.
They had to carry her like a sack of potatoes because of how tightly they bound her legs and dropped her roughly onto a chair.
“This is ridiculous,” she pouted. “I came willingly.”
“Our boss always made it clear never to take any chances with you,” replied one of the men with a snort.
Well, she couldn’t blame him for that. Over the years, she’d been responsible for breaking a lot of his power in the city underworld and losing him a lot of money. Like a lot .
Not to mention she needed the shadow that her power’s reputation cast to last as long as possible. Once the truth got out she was toast.
He could have made her wait in that freezing warehouse as her limbs went slowly numb just to be a dick. She fully expected it.
Instead, she heard the rumble of another car pull up just when her finger tips started to feel tingly. Then came the distinct sound of his slow, sure footsteps in his Italian leather loafers.
“An abandoned warehouse by the docks?” she complained. “Could you get any more cliched?”
“If it works, it works,” he replied. “I don’t try to reinvent the wheel.”
He stopped in front of her and she could feel the smirk on his face.
“I should take a picture to immortalize this moment. I never thought I would see the Rocket so . . .still.”
She’d squirm if she could move. Panic kicked at her chest like a wild horse. It took all her effort to contain it.
Cool fingers pulled down the blindfold and her gaze met his dark eyes and yes, his smirk.
“Hello, Roxanne.”
“Hello John,” she countered.
“Please, I’m dying to know -- what on Earth drove you to offer yourself to me so . . .” he trailed off, his smirk disintegrating into shock.
She could barely feel him this time. He glided into her mind like a canoe on a glassy river.
“Oh Roxanne,” he breathed. “You are in trouble.”
The Past
Roxanne had a moment of panic when she dragged them both through the door because the living room furniture was white . Which was a stupid, ridiculous choice for a defense lawyer and a forensic analyst. If anyone should know how often body fluids become outside the body when it’s not supposed to be, it would be them.
There was no way she could get blood off a white couch before they got home next week. She dumped him into the kitchen chair, which he slid out of like pudding, and she wasn’t putting a strange man in her bedroom. Eventually she took him into the bathroom and propped him against the tub.
By this point, the man faded in and out of consciousness. He felt as limp as her plushie collection as she pulled out the first aid kit and began cleaning the cut on his arm. Not even hydrogen peroxide made him flinch.
The harsh bathroom lighting revealed what dark alleys kept hidden: that he had barely a couple of years on her, if any, that his baggy clothes hid a sharp, bony frame, that shadows lived under his dark eyes. She lifted his shirt up long enough to look for other injuries. So far, the cut on his arm remained the only one. Of course, if he had any bruising, it wouldn’t show up for a few more hours.
After she finished with his injuries, she took all the dark colored blankets and towels she could find and covered the couch in them before staggering him onto it. He slept so soundly she had to do the spoon test to check his breathing.
Definitely drugged, then. Even blackout drunks had some kind of cognizance. Roxanne curled up on the arm chair beside the sofa, got a glass of water ready, and waited.
She woke up to a hand on her throat and a knife in her face, the boy standing over her chair with a glare that could be its own superpower. Overnight, a magnificent black eye appeared.
“Who are you?” he said in slow, measured tones. “Where am I? How long have I been here?”
In a second she had flashed from his grip in the chair to the kitchen doorway, his knife in her hand. His eyes grew wide with new panic.
“Calm down, you’re safe here.” She tried to sound calm and soothing, but her heart roared in her ears. Jesus, no one had ever pulled a knife on her before. “My name’s Roxanne. This is my house. I found you last night.”
“What agency do you work with?” he demanded.
“None of them,” she replied. “Dude, I’m still in high school.”
His eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t mean anything. They recruit young.”
“So do a lot of gangs,” she retorted. “Which one are you in?”
He set his mouth in a firm line and pointedly didn’t answer.
“Are you registered?” he asked instead.
“No.” It was risky to admit it, but she had a feeling he wasn’t either, and maybe the solidarity would ease his paranoia.
Her hunch proved correct when the tension in his shoulders eased.
“What about your parents?”
“They’re at a conference in France. They won’t be back until next week.”
His eyebrows raised slightly at that. “You’re telling a strange man you don’t know anything about that you’re a teenage girl home alone for several days?”
She rolled her eyes. “You can’t hurt me. One -- you’re too injured. And two -- in the time it would take you to raise your fist, I could have you gift wrapped at the police station.”
“Who says I deal in physical threats?”
Too late she remembered the no he screamed inside her head. What else could he do with her mind? Are her reflexes fast enough to outrun a power like that?
“Are you going to?” The handle of the knife felt slippery in her hand.
“That depends. Are you going to sell me out?”
“Why would I drag your very heavy body all the way here and risk getting grounded for life by putting you on my mom’s white couch just so I could call the police? Not to mention that I have a project due in two days that’s worth like a third of my grade.”
He took a long, hard look at her. At the edge of her thoughts she felt something indescribably strange. A weird pressure. Like maybe her ears needed to pop.
“Your mind goes too fast for me to read. It’s like trying to catch a fucking eel,” he said, sounding both frustrated and fascinated by it.
She shrugged. “It’s the ADHD.”
He snorted at that, the ghost of a smile haunting the corner of his mouth. “So why did you take me home like a starving little alley cat if you aren’t looking to gain something?”
“Do you remember anything about last night?”
“Not really. Definitely nothing about you.”
Well. That explained his extreme reaction to waking up.
“You ran into me when I was walking home from the library. You left a bloody handprint so I freaked out and followed you to see if you were okay. When I found you, you could barely move or talk. I think someone drugged you. So I brought you here. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You didn’t think to take me to a hospital?”
“You didn’t want to go to a hospital. You made that very clear,” she added, muttering.
He continued to scrutinize her, as if trying to figure out if he’s going to believe her or not.
“I still have the shirt, if you want to see for yourself. It’s in my laundry hamper.”
She blurred her way to her bedroom and fished the shirt out of the hamper in the time it took for him to blink. He jerked back at her sudden appearance in front of him, face twisting in pain.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “Maybe you should sit back down again.”
He glared at her and snatched the shirt from her hands. Smeared across the area of her left shoulder was his blood. He looked over at his palm, blood still etched in the life lines.
“What happened to you?” she asked softly.
“I don’t remember.”
Pity twinged in her gut. How scary that must be, to have someone walking around out there who tried to kill you and you have no idea who they were.
“Is there anyone you want to call? Your parents or grandparents or something?”
He laughed at that, a bitter, hollow sound that only increased the discomfort in her. “No.”
“You should stay here, then, at least until my parents get home. You need to rest. I think your ribs are bruised.”
Again that intense stare, that strange ear-popping pressure.
“You want me to stay?” he asked. “You don’t know anything about me. I pulled a knife on you. You get nothing out of this except risk.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know who you’ve been hanging out with, but you know some people do nice things because they should be done. Some people help others because they need the help. Not everybody in the world is a self serving asshole.”
“That’s not been my experience,” he murmured. “But . . . I don’t have any better option than you.”
“You can stay if you promise me two things,” she said, crossing her arms. “One: the couch has to stay pristine. My mother is rabid about it. You can’t eat on it and you can’t bleed on it. Two: no more knives .”
He put his hands up in mock surrender. “Yes ma’am.”
“That’s not a promise.”
“What are we -- five?”
“ Promise me .”
With a roll of his eyes he says, “Yes, fuck. I promise not to bleed on your precious white couch or threaten you with a knife again.”
“Thank you,” she says primly. “Now, are you hungry? I can cook . . .cereal?”
The Present
Trouble couldn’t begin to explain it. Not that she needed to. John could take all the details from her mind in seconds. She braced herself for that barely perceptible presence of his again.
Instead he pulled out a switchblade.
She swallowed against a spike of panic. John had never killed (or had someone killed) impulsively. But then again, she had been busting up his operations and power grabs for the better part of fifteen years. Anyone else would be stupid not to take advantage of her vulnerability.
“You made a promise, remember?” she joked weakly.
He smiled and stepped behind her. “I’ve always been a man of my word.”
The hair on the back of her neck rose, his presence behind her like a tangible aura. She closed her eyes and waited.
His fingers slid down her arms and cut the ropes. Then he stepped back around and knelt in front of her. The sight of him between her knees as he freed her ankles --
A jolt of longing sparked through her. She shook it from her head before he could pick up on it. Judging by the smirk as he stood, she wasn’t quick enough.
“Come,” he said, folding the knife away. “We have much to discuss. I won’t do it here.”
The seats in John’s car were leather and heated. She sank into the gratefully, sitting on her freezing hands to warm them up faster. Despite being a hot shot politician, rising all the way up to senator, he had no driver but himself.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
“Like you don’t already know.”
“I would rather hear it from you.”
The memory flashed in her head, bright and painful. She still couldn’t quite believe in it. “Someone I trusted stabbed me with a needle and now I can’t blur anymore.”
He gave her a side-eyed glare.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“What else is there to say?”
“You know damn well what else there is to say.”
“Am I not being detailed enough for you? God, I wonder what that must be like, wanting more information and not getting it. Sounds frustrating.”
“You’ve had fifteen years and you’re picking now to be petty about my childhood trust issues?”
Well, when he put it like that, she sounded ridiculous and childish.
“Better late than never,” she muttered, reveling in her pettiness.
“Enjoy your pettiness while it lasts,” he said, infuriatingly calm. “You’re at my mercy now.”
She swallowed thickly at that and leaned the seat back. The road became brighter as they headed from the outskirts into the heart of the city. Neon lights and street lamps blurred together into a mesmerizing trance of color and she let her mind slip in it.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked hazily.
“Home,” he replied, and offered nothing else.
The Past
After breakfast, at which he inhaled three bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the time it took her to savor one, the boy crashed on the couch again. He refused to reveal his name or his age or any other personal details. She struggled to get even his clothing sizes so she could raid her father’s closet. The only thing she can tell on her own is that he was of east Asian descent and he was older than her. But not by much.
Once their truce was finalized, a strange awkwardness settled over them. In many ways he was a guest and the etiquette rules her mother hardwired into her pressured her to offer him food and drink and entertainment. The first two were accomplished easily enough, but then the rest of the weekend stretched out before her and she had no idea how to entertain someone like him.
She was deeply grateful for how long he slept so she could figure it out. By the time he stirred again, she had pulled up the TiVo menu and hooked up the Game Cube from her room.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as he slowly sat up with a wince.
“Like shit,” he said. She had left a bottle of Tylenol on the table with a bottle of water and he immediately reached for both.
“Do you play video games?” she asked tentatively. “I have Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat?”
He grimaced. “No. I’ve never played video games.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’ve never played a video game? Not any ? How is that possible?”
The boy threw her a deeply disgusted, judgemental look. “The cost of one game could feed me for almost a month. Don’t even get me started on what the console costs or a TV. Not to mention how easy and popular all three of those things are to steal and resell. Having one in your home is like painting a target on your back.”
Roxanne could feel the hot flush travel from her cheeks to her ears.
“Right,” she mumbled, wishing she could slap herself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to -- to upset you.”
The hint of a smirk tugged at his mouth. “You don’t know any poor people, do you?”
“I -- what? You think I’m rich ?”
He gestured around the living room. “You live in a brownstone .”
“We inherited it from my grandparents!” she protested, feeling oddly defensive.
“Your parents are conferencing in France . What were their jobs again?”
“A defense attorney and a forensic . . .analyst,” she mumbled, realization dawning on her.
He barked out that sharp, bitter laugh again. “A lawyer and a scientist. I rest my case.”
“It’s not like I’m in a penthouse suite on 5th avenue,” she said, but the battle was lost. She had no real defense.
“So you’re not obscenely wealthy. That doesn’t make you poor. If I had any money to bet with, you’ve never had to pick between food and electricity. You’ve never had to super glue the soles back on your shoes, and you’ve never taken a cold shower in the dark.”
“ . . .no I haven’t,” she admitted softly.
Shame squatted in her chest. Her mother represented the poor and desperate more often than not. For every one slimy scum bag she dealt with, there were five people driven to desperate measures and she did the best she could for them. She made sure Roxanne knew how often the system was stacked against people.
But Roxanne’s parents also kept her away from it. She grew up cocooned in their protection, thinking her life was perfectly average.
Apparently it was not so average.
She ended up taking him into her father’s library to teach him chess. Her dad taught her years ago in hopes that she might compete like he did as a kid. But though she didn’t suck at chess, tournaments and their ultra strict rules sucked all the fun out of it.
The boy, on the other hand, loved it immediately. At first she kept feeling that weird pressure in her head as he pretended to mull over his next move.
“You’re not trying to cheat, are you?” she had asked sternly.
He just smirked at her over the chessboard. But the pressure stopped and after a few games he began to beat her -- first by a narrow margin, and then soundly. It was embarrassing. Thank God her dad wasn’t here to witness it.
“You know, if you won’t tell me your name, I’ll have to make one up for you,” she said on their latest match.
He ignored her and continued to ponder his opening move.
“I’m thinking . . Bob?”
Nothing. Not even a twitch. She’d have to try harder.
“No. That’s too boring. What about . . .Harold?
“If you’re trying to trick me up, it’s not going to work,” he murmured.
“I would never try to cheat -- unlike some people,” she said primly. “What about Cornelius? It makes you sound like a wizard.”
He moved his rook. “You are not calling me Cornelius.”
“Fun sucker.” Another ridiculous name struck her. Oh! Jehoshaphat! That’s a name you don't hear very often.”
That superpower glare came back to play. “I change my mind -- I’ll be a wizard.”
She grinned at him as she took his rook. “So what all can you do with your mind, wizard boy?”
He gave her a cautious look. “What can you do, speed demon?”
“I can run a mile in three seconds.”
She couldn’t help but brag -- it killed her every day to keep this secret, with no one to share it with. His eyebrows shot up and he looked at her with new respect.
“What is it like? What does the world look like? Is it blurry?”
His hand fell away from the chess board, game forgotten. All his focus narrowed to her. Even without the pressure of his mind trying to butt against hers, it felt intense.
“It's like . . . someone pushed pause on a movie. Everything is still except for me. But only when I’m moving. When I stop, the world starts back up again.”
“You could do so much with that.”
The raw, unfiltered longing in his voice sent a spike of deep discomfort in her. She could only imagine how that ability might look to someone living on the streets, someone preyed upon and powerless. She used it for fun, for silly pranks, because she had nothing to worry about.
“I’m not very good at it,” she said lamely, as if this could make up for it. “It takes a lot of concentration and I’m shit at that even with my meds. What’s it like for you?”
“You want me to explain what a person’s mind is like? I’m not sure I can.”
She pouted. “Please? Please? Don’t be boring -- I shared mine!”
He held her stare, completely unmoved, until she sighed and looked away.
“Fine,” she huffed. “Keep your secrets, Gandalf.”
“Is that another Wizard name you pulled out of your ass?” he asked.
She gaped at him. “Are you serious? Have you never seen Lord of the Rings ?”
His blank stare was all the answer she needed.
“Do you want to fix that?”
The Past
Home meant pulling into the underground parking garage of a towering stone apartment complex in SoHo. It had a doorman and a private elevator. It had lush carpet and beautiful dark wood paneling and a carved mahogany ceiling.
It made her parent’s brownstone look like an off-road motel.
She knew over the years that John had accumulated some serious wealth -- sometimes legitimately, most of the time not. But this was positively obscene .
The front hall opened up into a spacious living room with cream colored furniture paired with dark wood. Windows lined the entire south wall. He led her to the couch, gesturing for her to sit, before padding over to the nearby kitchen.
The couch enveloped her like a cloud. The apartment sat on the top floor -- the road noise of the city reduced to almost nothing. In the sudden quiet, it didn’t matter if the sense of security was false. Roxanne’s adrenaline finally ran out. Her entire body began to shake, causing the pain from her earlier injuries to flare back to life. Her head throbbed in time with her roaring heartbeat.
Roxanne didn’t win every fight. Her powers had limitations just like anyone else. She’d been in a scrape or two over her time.
But nothing like this. Never before could she not have the option of running away.
“Roxanne.”
Her name sounded small and far away. She kept her eyes squeezed tight, trying to sort out her erratic breathing.
This was a panic attack.
“Roxanne.” John’s voice came firmer and with a gentle shake of her shoulders.
She didn’t want to face him yet.
Roxanne.
His voice whispered in her head, quiet but unavoidable. Un-ignorable.
Her eyes snapped open. “What?” she demanded, but her voice came out like a little squeak.
“Take this and drink this.”
He held out a glass of water, two white pills sitting in his other hand.
She shrank back against the couch. “What is that?”
“Water,” he said with an eye roll. “And Ibuprofen 800s. I’m not going to poison you,” he added. “It seems someone else beat me to it.”
Even if it was poison, it wasn’t like the situation could get any worse. Roxanne took the pills and slowly drained the entire glass. Water sloshed over the sides of her mouth because her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
She wiped it off with her sleeve, feeling like a child, before placing her hand back on the couch. Too late she realized she had smeared blood from her bleeding lip onto the pristine cream fabric beneath her.
“Oh shit,” she said, jumping up and then wincing as pain lanced across her ribs. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
John pushed her back down with firm but gentle hands on her shoulders.
“It’s alright. You can bleed on this white couch. I’m coming back with a first aid kit. Don’t move.”
If she still had her powers, Roxane would have blurred to his bathroom and stuck his toothbrush in his toilet and swirled it around a good bit before returning to her exact position. Just out of spite. Out of pure stubborn pigheadedness against the thought that he could just order her around.
Now the thought of moving at all made her feel sick. The desire for spite paled against the comfort of the marshmallow couch. (Maybe if she didn't move, she could pretend she didn’t lose anything.)
John returned shortly after with a steel box and a damp, warm washcloth. He perched himself on the coffee table, the first aid kit next to him, and cradled her face in his hands. With unbearable tenderness, he wiped away the blood from under her nose and lower lip. He found a cut on her scalp and wiped away the blood that dripped onto the shell of her ear. He cleaned her scraped knuckles.
The strange intimacy of such a gentle, methodical touch made her stomach swoop dizzingly. She didn’t expect this level of care. Or any care really. She could have done all this herself in the bathroom.
“I’m feeling a bit of deja vu,” she murmured.
“I wasn’t cognizant for whatever care you gave me,” he responded, setting the washcloth on the open lid of the kit. “So you will have to inform me of what it entailed.”
“I definitely wasn’t this calm. Or gentle.”
“I imagine you were moments away from completely freaking out. Like you are now.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“You can’t stop shaking.” He held up her trembling hand as proof.
She glared at him.
You can’t hide from me any longer, Roxanne his voice breathed in her mind. She shivered. It felt like the deepest intimacy, having his presence in her own head. Being naked wouldn’t make her feel this exposed.
“Speaking of being naked,” he said with a hint of a smirk, “I’m going to draw you a bath. Take as long as you like; the water stays heated. When you are finished, I will bandage what I can and give you one of the spare bedrooms.”
“You’re very bossy,” she said, fighting the flush spreading on her cheeks. She’s going to have to start filtering her thoughts.
“Of course I am. You’re in my territory now.”
The Past
Roxanne fielded the nightly check in call from her parents right after dinner, hiding in her own room just in case Cornelius made any random unexplained noises. He inhaled two cartons of sesame chicken by himself.
Like he hadn’t eaten in a while.
That night he had slept in the spare bedroom across the hall. She heard the click of the lock the moment he shut the door. It was a little insulting -- did he think she was going to mess with him in his sleep? But then she reminded herself that this was a stranger’s house to him.
And boy did he have some major trust issues.
She did not sleep well that night, listening to every creak and groan and faint siren from the city. Sometime around two the desperate need to pee roused her from the bed and she found Cornelius standing in the living room like a ghost, gazing out one of the windows.
“Can’t sleep either?” she asked.
“No,” he said softly. “I keep . . .expecting someone to show up.”
“If anybody did, I’d have them tied up in the dumpster in ten seconds flat. No one is going after you while I’m here.”
He snorted at that. “You’re fast -- you’re not invincible. Have you ever even been in a fight before?”
“ . . .No. But I don’t plan on fighting anyone,” she added, crossing her arms. “There are other ways to take care of a threat.”
“You only think that because you’ve never been threatened.”
She couldn’t really argue with his experience, whatever that was, and she didn’t want to. It started to irritate her, his insistence that she was a naive little girl living in a bubble world. Her parents, both working in the criminal justice field, never sheltered her from the truth of the world, even if she didn’t have to experience it directly.
“You want to play some chess?” she asked instead.
They played more rounds than she could keep track of, until the birds chirped and his hand shook her shoulder, telling her to go to bed.
The Present
The bathtub practically needed a step ladder just to get in. They had to pass through his bedroom to get to it and he had to gently push her forward to the bathroom because she wouldn’t stop staring, compiling the color of the walls (dark green) or the types of pillow cases (silk) as if that would reveal anything about him.
“I will leave you to it,” he said in the doorway. “Try not to linger in the bedroom on your way out.”
“If you have any embarrassing baby pictures, now would be the time to hide them,” she sang.
“If only so you wouldn’t steal them,” he retorted as he shut the door.
Steam wafted up from the water. A pile of fresh clothes sat on the sink counter. Roxanne didn’t even bother locking the door before immediately and painstakingly shedding her clothes. Everything ached, even after the pain relievers. When she finally sank down into the water, she almost cried from the relief.
“I am never leaving this tub,” she whispered to herself. “I live here now.”
She nestled back against the padded head rest, pressed the jets on low, and basked.
Cornelius had come a long, long way from the scrappy kid she had dragged off the street. When he first disappeared, she used to dash around the area she found him in, searching for him. She had no game plan in mind if she ever did find him. But the thought of him going back into the world that made him so jaded and paranoid broke her heart. She just needed to see him, to know he made it out somehow.
After four years of radio silence, Roxanne saw him again on the news, for winning a big chess competition in a huge upset against an established champion. And maybe he had won on his own merit -- he soundly beat her several times -- but she had no doubt that he cheated. For a hot second she debated exposing him but she had no proof and well --He that was a lot of prize money for someone who had nothing. He needed it more.
Now armed with a name -- John Park -- she followed his career. He lost just often enough to lose suspicion, but usually had an epic come back that netted him a lot of money.
After a while she got too busy to keep track of him. She finally came clean to her parents, got registered, graduated with a criminology degree and ended up joining the Agency of Powered Heroes. She stayed small time -- her powers worked better for investigative work and rescue rather than full on offensive fights. She got a cover job working as a cameraman/crew person for a daily political talk show.
She never forgot Cornelius. He prickled the back of her mind like an itch. All the hints and half-formed pieces of his life she could put together painted a dark picture in the city’s underbelly. A predatory, fucked up picture. And while her co-workers fought major villains, she decided to spend her nights looking into a rising gang slowly taking over the poorest neighborhoods in the city. The type of gang that preyed on kids exactly like Cornelius.
Usually whenever a member of the APH stepped in, whatever loyalty that drove the alleged criminals would crumple like wet cardboard. They’d sell out their own grandmother in order to avoid trouble. Also, the Agency could provide protection against retaliation in a way no other law enforcement could.
But these guys. . . .nothing made them talk. Not threats, not bribery, not promises. A billion dollar winning lottery ticket wouldn’t open their mouths. The only thing she got out of them, consistently, was that the shadowy figure running this gang knew everything about everybody. Things no one else could possibly know. And when he sniffed disloyalty, his retribution was swift and brutal. No one could trick him or lie to him and no one wanted to cross him.
It sounded uncomfortably, disturbingly familiar. Her gut knew exactly who ran this gang, but she had no proof. Despite her best efforts, he stayed firmly in the shadows. Other people took the fall for him and he stayed a ghost. She lost hope of ever seeing him again.
And then he ran for fucking mayor.
When Roxanne’s hands started to resemble her grandmother’s, she reluctantly crawled out of the tub and into the soft clothes left for her -- sweatpants and a dark t-shirt. Both felt buttery, sinfully soft against her skin. She used the brush by the sink and combed her wet hair into a single braid before stepping out.
The combination of the hot bath and the pain killers made her sleepy and relaxed. She hurt still, but it was a distant echo of the pain she had earlier. Roxanne could think again, beyond the blind panic and excruciating pain.
And that was a problem because the last thing she wanted to do right now was think about all the implications of what happened to her.
John waited for her in the living room, reading on one of the arm chairs. Dressed out of his suit and in soft pants and a henley (they almost matched), he looked so painfully domestic, so terribly innocent.
Her traitorous heart squeezed in her chest, as it did so many times when she watched him through the camera lens. He breezed through her work many times after he won the mayor race and then, more recently, the senate race.
And every time the sight of him ignited a blistering cocktail of rage at what he allowed himself to become: this master manipulator who lied as often as he breathed, putting on a wholesome face when he ran the criminal underground, and a persistent longing that she couldn’t shake off. Like deep down she still thought she could save him.
Which was stupid and unhealthy but it wouldn’t leave her.
Looking at him now, bathed in the soft glow of the lamp beside him, reading the exact kind of cheesy sci-fi book her father had in his library, she couldn’t shake the feeling that underneath the darkness he cultivated to survive was someone good, someone worthy of care.
He jerked his gaze up from his book.
“I was beginning to wonder if you had drowned,” he said idly.
If he heard her thoughts about him, he didn’t show it.
“That would solve a lot of problems for you if I did.”
“Yes, having the dead body of an Agency Hero in my bathtub definitely solves problems for me. Come here.”
He opened the first aid kit and took out gauze, medical tape, antibiotic cream and bandages. Roxanne found herself stepping forward to obey without even thinking of it. A thread of unease wound through her. Had he expanded his powers to actual mind control?
“I can only powerfully suggest what you think you want to do anyway,” he said.
“It’s so fucking creepy when you do that,” she complained as she settled next to him.
“My apologies,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “It’s hard to stay out after being blocked for so long.”
“I can’t even feel you in there anymore.”
“That’s the goal.”
He took her left hand in his and dabbed Neosporin on it with a Q-tip, his touch still impossibly gentle. The intimacy of it made her squirm, stomach twisting.. She could almost believe in this moment that he might have some humanity still left in him.
It was a dangerous, stupid thought.
“What's going to happen to me,” she asked softly, “now that you’ve got me right where you want me?”
He placed a bandage on top of her knuckles and began wrapping the gauze tape around it.
“ . . .This is not where I want you.”
She snorted. “Really? Me powerless and vulnerable and at your total mercy is not what you’ve dreamed of for years?”
He said nothing for a long moment, focusing on securing the bandage tight and taping it down before moving onto the next hand.
“If I told you where I actually wanted you, it might scare you away,” he murmured finally.
“Please tell me this penthouse apartment doesn’t come with a torture dungeon,” she joked, hoping to God it was just a joke.
“I keep my torture dungeons at the docks in old warehouses.”
“We’re not going to make a surprise return trip are we?”
Pointed silence followed her question as he put intense focus on wrapping her other hand. He was messing with her, right? He had to be. Why the bath, the tender medical care, why take her home if he only intended to hurt her later?
His fingers slid gently into her hair, turning her head to the left as he searched for the cut above her ear.
“If you’re so worried about what I might do to you, why did you come to me?”
Roxanne swallowed, her gaze darting away.
“You’re a mind reader,” she said, stiffening. “You should know the answer.”
“I want to hear you say it out loud.”
She hissed as his fingers brushed over the cut in her hair. He leaned forward, lifting her hair to get a closer look. The woodsy, spicy scent of his cologne, which probably cost more per ounce than her electric bill, danced just under her nose. She could turn her head and kiss him.
“I didn’t have anyone else I could trust,” she whispered.
He chuckled, a low rumble. “Since when do you trust me?”
“I didn’t because you were an enemy of the Agency. But now I can’t trust the Agency.”
“And,” he prompted.
“And . . .I thought I would be safe with you.”
Admitting it felt like handing him a knife and offering her throat. The possibility that he would hurt her had always occurred to her. And logically, that’s what she expected. But something in her gut told her that he wouldn’t and it went against all reason.
He dabbed more Neosporin on his finger and pressed it gently over the cut.
“I was safe with you, all those years ago. You will be safe with me now.”
She believed him.
The spare bedroom sat tucked away behind the library. Roxanne glanced around just enough to note the dark jewel tone colors of the decor before collapsing into the bed and passing out.
She didn’t stir for fourteen hours. When she did finally rise, she felt like a zombie digging out of their own grave. Everything hurt. Everything.
“Finally. I was about to do the spoon test.”
John appeared in the doorway. The smell of something divine wafted from the open door.
“Is that . . .coffee?” she croaked.
“It could be. You should get up and find out.”
She did so with a groan, hobbling out through the study and into the kitchen like someone’s grandma. The weight of his gaze followed her long before his footsteps. The kitchen had a bar with tall swivel chairs that she slowly clambered into.
“Take these first,” he said, pushing the bottle of Ibuprofen and a glass of water over to her. “How do you like your coffee?”
“Right now I like that it exists,” she said.
“Excellent. You can have as much as you want -- after you tell me everything that happened last night.”
“Are you seriously bribing me with coffee?”
“No. I’m holding the coffee hostage until I get information.”
He took a long, pointed sip from his own mug. Her mouth fell open.
“You’re diabolical,” she hissed.
“And you’re stalling.”
“Is this another power trip just to hear me say what you could read for yourself?”
He pinned her down with a stare that made her feel like sitting in the principal’s office.
“You refuse to think about it and I find it tedious to sift through the myriad random thoughts that run through your mind just to find answers you should be giving me yourself. Now quit being childish and tell me everything .”
It spilled from her in spurts and false starts. It was humiliating to admit how blindly she had trusted Erik, a fellow agent and friend, when he asked to meet with her that evening long after everyone else had gone home. She didn’t even think to question him when he took her into the service elevator -- the one with no cameras.
Hell, her first thought when he plunged the syringe into her wasn’t even betrayal. It could have been a vaccine to something from a powered villain. It wasn’t until she felt a strange, heavy exhaustion flood her limbs that something felt wrong. When the elevator doors opened to the basement, she tried to blur away and fell to her knees instead.
“Did he attack you?” John asked, voice slow and deadly.
“I attacked him first. I thought he was some kind of shape shifter, targeting heroes one on one. Even then I didn’t think it was -- him .”
“And then he hurt you.”
“ . . yeah.”
She swallowed, eyes burning. It was made painfully clear just how much she depended on her powers to fight when he beat her soundly and in seconds -- head thrown against the wall, kicked in the ribs, kneed in the mouth and nose.
“He left me there and walked out like nothing happened.”
To her horror, tears slipped out the corners of her eyes. She pressed the hells of her hands against them, as if she could stem them from that alone.
“I know you think I’m naive and stupid,” she said shakily. “But I don’t understand why .”
He pulled her hands gently away from her face. “You are naive, but you’re not stupid. You worked with him for years, you had no reason not to trust him. Tell me, what is his Agent name?”
“Why? Do you want to send him a thank you card?”
“No. I want to kill him .”
The look in his eyes was downright terrifying. She had only seen John’s public face, the one that won him so many elections. The winsome, handsome, boyish smile with perfect white teeth. This reminded her of the John she first met, half feral and ready to stab anyone in the face.
Of course, he only got his wealth and his elections from his power. If he lost that, well . . . .He’d be worse off than her. No wonder he looked so pissed.
“Shadow.”
John’s mouth thinned into a tight, grim line. Erik patrolled at night due to his ability to travel through darkness. Undoubtable that they had run ins before. Roxanne wasn’t the only one on the quest to dismantle John’s underground organizations.
“Did he say anything to you before he left?”
The memory was hazy from pain, but she thought hard.
“Something like . . .that I wasn’t cut out for this work. That he was doing me a favor.”
“I see.”
“I don’t know if he was working alone or if it was really even him or if the Agency told him to do it. I don’t know anything and I don't know how to find out without telling the whole freaking world that I’m a sitting duck!”
Her voice started cracking at the end and she bit the inside of her cheek hard to stop herself from breaking down. John waited her out quietly, his expression hard as stone.
“Can I have my coffee now?” she asked after a few minutes, throat tight.
His eyes softened into something that looked dangerously like pity.
“Yes.”
John had stayed home with her today and while he may have been happy to putter around the house, washing dishes (which was weird as hell, watching him be domestic), it was killing her to sit and do nothing while Erik got to prance around scott free.
He offered her chess, which she rejected by laughing in his face.
“Like I’m going to play with a known cheater,” she said.
“You don’t think I can win on my own merit?” he asked, sounding almost offended.
“Oh probably. But you won’t. You can’t seem to stay out of my head.”
That fact should bother her more than it did. But part of her felt weirdly flattered that he considered her mind so fascinating. She had no dark past or juicy secrets or scandalous hobbies. Super speed was the only interesting thing about her and now she didn’t even have that anymore.
That evening after dinner she watched him grab his coat and keys. A spark of excitement flared to life.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “Did you find something out? You should let me borrow a jacket.”
He paused at the door, eyebrows raised. “We? We are not going anywhere.”
“Well you’re certainly going somewhere.”
“Yes. Without you.”
“ What ?”
He gave her a sharp look.“Let me make something very clear to you: there is no we . I am handling this. You are staying here and you are not to leave until I get this sorted out.”
Her mouth fell open. “You can’t just -- hold me hostage like you kidnapped me!” she sputtered
“I did kidnap you. If the armed guards, rope, and empty warehouse didn’t clue you into that, I’m not sure what else could.”
“I -- that’s not -- what ?”
“There is only one elevator that goes to the top floor,” he continued, ignoring her, “and it is heavily guarded by people who know your face and reputation.”
“I’m more than just fast you know,” she scoffed. “I could find a way out of here that doesn't use the elevator.”
“I’m sure you’d be reckless and stupid enough to try. Which is why great harm will come to those guards and their loved ones if you go missing from this apartment for any length of time. And their pain will rest on your shoulders.”
“That’s fucked up .”
“And also effective.” He flipped the collar up on his coat. “Be a good girl and stay here and nothing bad should happen.”
“I’ve never been a good girl a day in my life ,” she spat, trying to regain some of her dignity.
He smirked. “You were the biggest teacher’s pet of your grade, Roxanne. Nice try.”
“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”
“Read a book,” he said with a shrug and opened the door.
Oh she read a book all right. The book of his underwear drawer. And the storage totes under his bed. And the collection of worn old t-shirts in a forgotten zip up bag in the closet. And every framed photo and painting in the house, one of which contained a picture of him and the crew at her work the first time he was interviewed.
She remembered how insistent he was about getting it, glad-handing the caterers and gaffers and camera crew while she floundered between staring at him in awe of finally seeing him again after all these years, and sending him death glares just to let him know that she knew he was full of shit.
He made sure she stood next to him in the photo but otherwise did not recognize her. Or at least he pretended not to. She still wasn’t sure of that first time, even after all these years.
Interesting that he kept the photo framed in his bedroom. There were no pictures of family or friends. He looked so warm and friendly in that photo and yet had no evidence that he actually had anyone to be warm and friendly to outside of politics.
The library contained an immaculately carved stone chess set along with shelves of books. John mostly curated biographies, self help books (of the learn how to manipulate people variety), historical fiction, classics. Books meant to impress people. Only a small lower shelf by the couch contained well thumbed pulp sci-fi paperbacks, like the kind her dad collected.
She picked one up and read until she fell asleep on the couch.
John did not come back that night.
By the time he reappeared, over 24 hours later, Roxanne was moments away from going full crazy town banana pants. Nothing distracted her from her racing thoughts, not the books, not the TV with every streaming service known to man, not the heated outdoor pool on the rooftop terrace or second deliciously long hot bath in his tub.
“Fucking finally!” she cried as he stepped through the door and toed his shoes off. “What the hell took so long!”
“I would tell you but that might make you an accessory to murder,” he said.
She froze, stomach plummeting. “That’s a joke, right?”
“Have you eaten yet?” he asked instead.
“Don’t change the subject! Where the hell were you? What did you do ?”
“I’ll tell you one thing I didn’t do and that was eat.”
He made his way to the kitchen and she marched after him, an annoying and persistent little gnat.
“Did you find anything out?”
He opened the freezer and pulled out a frozen lasagna.
“Preheat the oven to four fifty,” he said.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” she said, viciously punching the number into his ridiculous touch screen oven.
“I’m trying to gauge how much more you will hate me after I tell you.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t hate you. I might want to strangle you a lot and see you in an orange jumpsuit for a little while, but I don’t hate you.”
He looked at her, cautious and solemn, reminding her powerfully of when she first met him. “You might start.”
A knot twisted in her gut. “You killed Erik, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes. With great pleasure.”
It almost didn’t sink in. Her mind tried desperately to deny it, crying liar at him, because he lied all the time, why not about this? But he didn’t even try to hide it.
“ Why ?”
“He stole from me and he used it to hurt you. Both were unforgivable.”
The admission that someone hurting her felt unforgivable to him sent her brain into overdrive trying to figure out the implications. It took her a moment to catch on to the the first part of what he said.
“What do you mean stole ? What did he steal?”
He leaned across the counter, arms crossed, face impassive. Ready for a fight.
“The serum he used to take your powers -- I had it created some years ago. He took it from my labs to use against you.”
She felt dizzy, suddenly. Her pulse roared in her ears. “You made it?” she asked faintly.
He just looked at her.
“ . . .You. It came from you .”
God damn it, she really was as stupid and naive as he thought. She took shelter with him, thinking she knew the risks, because he was the one person not associated with the Agency or potentially in their pocket. He didn’t need them to have his own power. And yeah, he would definitely take advantage of her vulnerability for his own gain; she expected that.
She didn’t think he would be the cause of it.
How much of this was an elaborate mind game? Did he pay Erik to do this to take her out of commission? Did he kill Erik to keep his anonymity? Did he hedge his bets that she would seek him out for help rather than go on the run on her own?
How long did he intend to hold her hostage here? Was he going to kill her the moment she had her guard fully down, the moment after everyone reported her missing and assumed dead?
“Roxanne,” he said, taking a slow cautious step towards her. “That serum was not made for you. It was never intended for you. I did not set this up as a scheme to kill you.”
“It sounds exactly like something you would do,” she hissed, throat tight with unshed tears.
“I can’t deny that. But I had this serum for five years. Why would I wait until now to use it? Why would I embed myself in the Agency to do it when any of your fellow camera crew could have done the job? Think, Roxanne. I am a bastard, but I’m not stupid. This was a stupid, reckless plan.”
He made sense. He spoke logic. But that didn’t make it true. He had gotten his power through knowing exactly what to say to people to get what he wanted.
She wanted, very badly, for it to be true.
He took another step closer and the kitchen felt suddenly claustrophobic.
“Don’t,” she said, voice strangled. “Stay away! I just -- I need some air.”
She turned and ran.
In mid January the rooftop terrace was frigid. She had no coat. The cold air felt bracing, though, and it calmed her feverish thoughts. It brought clarity.
She could not hide from the fact that she might not love John, but she wanted to. She could, if she let herself. That she felt tied to him, responsible for him, all this time. That she understood why he clawed his way into a sense of power and safety through any means necessary even if she didn’t approve of them. She could not cast the first stone because she would probably not be any different in his shoes.
The thought that he had betrayed her like this felt unbearable. It literally made her sick, like her entire body rejected the idea. She forced herself to confront the possibility anyway. Because as much as she did care for John, she really couldn’t trust him to do anything that conflicted with his best interests.
And it was in his best interest to keep her powerless.
Of course, the real problem was that if he did betray her, there was fuck all she could do about it. He could be bluffing about hurting his own guards and their families, but she would never risk it. He lived on the top story of the building, so she couldn’t sneak her way down. If he had the money and ability to bribe Erik, who else in the Agency did he have in his pocket? She had no one else with resources to help her and she didn’t know who she could trust.
She had to give him the benefit of the doubt.
She had no other choice.
His soft footsteps crunched over the gravel path. She didn’t look up from her huddled form on the deck chair. A blanket dropped over her shoulders, smelling powerfully of his soap.
“Did you ever find out why he did it,” she asked softly.
“Will you believe me if I tell you?”
“I don’t know what else to do. You’re all I have right now.”
“It’s terrifying , isn’t it? Having to trust the unknown.”
He sat down on the chair next to her, legs stretched out.
“You are eating this role reversal up, aren’t you?”
He paused for a moment. “I don’t like seeing you this way. I much prefer you obnoxious and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
She snorted at that.
“For someone so active in the Agency, your arrest record is relatively small. The criminals you catch serve community service hours or house arrest or time in mental hospitals and rehab centers more than jail. Why is that?”
She looked up at him finally, brow furrowed. What did that have to do with anything?
“Just answer the question,” he said softly.
“My mom,” she answered. “You know she was a defense attorney. She always told me that the systems we have help a select few and hurt the rest. She saw more people trapped and desperate, people who never stood a chance, than people who were just malicious. I never forgot that. And I never forgot you. You were living proof of that. At least, until you became this.”
She waved a hand over his designer clothes and at the penthouse terrace.
“That’s what he hated,” John told her. “He considered you unfit because you were too soft. Crime would only increase under you because you never made an example of anyone. They didn’t fear you. He acted on his own to solve the problem because the Agency refused to hear his concerns. I won’t get into the particulars of how he discovered my serum. But rest assured it won’t happen again, by him or anyone else.”
“That fucking bastard,” she whispered.
He had been the loudest voice about civilian safety, cleaning up neighborhoods, fighting gang activity. Sometimes it bordered on the insensitive, the oblivious and childish idea of black and white morality. She never thought he would stoop to this.
“He still should have had a trial,” she said, but the bitter part of her heart didn’t believe it anymore.
“I can’t have anyone else knowing what I created. I don’t feel guilty about it.”
“If it's such a risk, why the hell did you even make it? As far as I know, I’m the first Agent to get hit with it. You could have dismantled the whole Agency. Or sold it to the highest bidder who would do the same.”
“You love your power. I can tell how lost you are without it even without reading your mind. I depend on mine and it protects me. But there are people who have powers that do nothing but cause them misery. People whose powers make them a target everywhere they go. People who can’t hide. I made it for them.”
“Oh.”
It sounded too magnanimous to be true.
“They pay for it,” he assured her. “A favor for a favor.”
That sounded more like him.
“Can it . . .be reversed?” She forced herself to ask it. The answer terrified her.
“Theoretically. I have an antidote. It’s just never been tested before. It will be here tomorrow.”
Hope exploded, bright and overwhelming, in her chest.
“Are you serious?” she squealed. “ Tomorrow? ”
She launched herself at him, crawling in his lap and wrapping her arms around him, with a force strong enough to push them both back against the chair. He made a small oomph beneath her, arms flailing awkwardly at his side. Her ribs protested painfully but she didn’t care. She pressed her face in the juncture of his shoulder and neck and squeezed him.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said grimly. “There’s no guarantee it will work. We may have to experiment with it. You may need to stay at the lab for a while.”
“I don’t care! Oh my God !”
She pulled back enough to look down at him. He could still be lying. It could still be a trick. But she decided to choose hope instead.
Slowly, ever so slowly, his arms came up to cradle her back. His hands bled warm through the thin t-shirt. She realized, suddenly, that she was almost straddling him. Face growing hot, she started to get up when his hands tightened their grip.
His gaze bore into her, dark and inscrutable. John Park was an untrustworthy, manipulative selfish bastard and she wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss him.
“You should do it,” he whispered.
She didn’t need any further encouragement. Her hands fisted in the front of his shirt and she kissed him fiercely. To her surprise, he kissed her back with equal enthusiasm, rising up to meet her. His hands slid up her spine to cup the back of her head, fingers tangling into her hair. She nipped at his bottom lip, grinning against his mouth when she felt his fingers tighten in her hair.
For years, Roxanne never saw John without his mask fixed perfectly in place. He was always collected, always in control, always unaffected. He walked into every interaction holding all the cards and he knew it.
Which was why every hitched breath, every beat of his thundering pulse under her roaming fingers, every bold, desperate slide of his tongue, felt like a victory. In the court of desire, it was undeniable proof that he felt something back. Every scrap of her yearning, attraction, fascination with him burned through her blood as pure, unfiltered need and he matched her with equal ferocity.
His hand crept under her shirt (his shirt), the feather light trace of his fingertips up her spine at odds with the sharp, sting of his lips sucking a bruise in her neck. His teeth dragged up the column of her throat to latch around her earlobe. A whine tore from her throat.
“This, Roxanne,” he breathed against her ear, “ this is where I want you: fierce and needy and begging for me to touch you.”
He brushed over her ribs like a gentle breeze and she shuddered against him.
“Just like that.”
His other hand caressed up her thigh, stopping just short of its apex, and squeezed. She bit back a protesting groan.
“Can I have you, Roxanne?”
It sounded almost innocent, like she was a lollipop he plucked at the check out register. Except for the ragged edge of his voice, as if his self control was moments from slipping through his grasp. Or for the way his fingers swirled infuriatingly against her inner thigh, just the barest inch away from where she needed them most.
Her fingers clenched in his shirt. She had never been more turned on in her life . “Yes. Yes . Oh my God, please .”
A long time later, as she drifted in and out of sleep against his chest, he whispered something to her.
“What?” she murmured.
“It’s Ji-won,” he repeated.
“What is?”
“My name. My birth name.”
“Ji-Won,” she repeated, smiling sleepily against his chest.
The Past
Halfway through dinner, Roxanne dropped her fork and shouted,
“Oh shit !”
Cornelius jerked to his feet, gaze darting around.
“What?” he demanded, hand wrapped around his steak knife.
“ My project ,” she shrieked. “I forgot all about it! It’s due tomorrow and it’s almost my bedtime!”
“ . . .okay? What’s the big deal? Can’t you type that out in like thirty seconds?”
He slowly sat back down, glowering at her. She probably gave him a heart attack. And she’d be a little sympathetic to that if she wasn’t harboring her own heart attack right now.
“Yeah but I don’t think fast. I still have to finish the research, organize everything, get all the labels . . .”
The weight of all that work felt crushing. She thought she’d have two days -- not a few hours!
“Then skip school.”
She gasped, horrified. “I’ve never skipped school in my life .”
“Why am I not surprised?” he muttered. “Guess you’re pulling an all-nighter.”
She groaned, fingers threading nervously through her hair.“I’m not a night owl. I’ll crash by midnight, no matter what. I’ve never even seen the ball drop for New Years.”
“How old are you -- five ?”
“Shut up, Cornelius. Having a consistent sleep schedule is good for you.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“Yeah that much is obvious from the raccoon eyes you always have.” She fought the urge to cry. “Dude, I am so screwed. This is worth so much of my grade!”
Silence stretched out taut as a bow string between them. Then Cornelius sighed and stood up with his plate in his hand.
“No you’re not. I’ll help you. Finish your dinner and let's get this over with.”
Roxanne tried her best to hold out, but even with coffee she found herself nodding off just before one AM. Eventually she woke up to a hand gently shaking her shoulder.
“Go to bed,” came Cornelius’s voice softly by her ear.
“I can’t,” she mumbled. “I have to finish . . .the . . .thing.”
“It is finished.”
That jerked her awake. “What?”
She lifted her head off the kitchen table and peered around. While she slept, Cornelius had painstakingly drawn and labeled the majority of her project. It stretched out beautifully on the poster board, looking like it came from a professional.
“You did all that?” she gasped.
“Who else?”
“It’s gorgeous! You should be an artist!”
“You don’t have to pander to me to say thank you,” he said, arms crossed tightly against his chest.
“I’m not!” She leaned in to get a closer look at the poster. “This is detailed and so neat. Seriously, you should go to art school!”
He let out a bark of bitter laughter. “Yeah, okay.”
Her smile faded as she straightened back up. “Well, what is your grand plan, Cornelius? If art school is out of the question, what are you going to do with yourself?”
“If I tell you that, you’ll probably become an accessory to a crime.”
“I’m serious,” she said.
“So am I.” He gave her a half-hearted smirk. “Don’t worry about what I’m going to do. Worry about yourself. You clearly need to,” he added, gesturing to the poster board.
“How can I not worry about you?” she demanded. “You know, I could talk to my parents. We have that spare bedroom, we could --”
“Don’t even go there,” he said. “Your family is not going to adopt me or take me or what the fuck ever.”
“Yes, they would! My mom is a defense attorney -- she meets kids like you all the time. And you’re like, what, a senior by now? We could get you enrolled in my school; they have credit recovery programs and --”
He stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around her wrists. The sudden proximity, the pressure of the pads of his thumbs resting right against her pulse, the dark wells of his eyes, caught her voice in her throat.
“It’s very . . .kind of you to think about that,” he said stiltedly. “No one’s ever . . .but it’s not possible. It’s just not possible.
She swallowed, trying to find what would break through his thick, edge-lord, I Have To Suffer skull.
“It’s possible, you know. Lots of things are possible for you. You just have to let yourself believe you can have it.”
“Maybe for you. Not so much for me.”
She yanked her hands from his grip. “And why not? Lots of people who were born poor go to art school! Or law school. Or whatever else they want.”
“It’s not just about being poor, Roxanne.” He looked at her as if she was so painfully naive. “ I’ve already made certain choices, started down certain paths. There is no going back. There is no do-over.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. The world is the way it is regardless.”
“It’s not fair,” she cried, petulant, like a little child.
“Life is never about being fair. Whoever told you that lied.”
“Well, I hate it.” Her throat grew tight, eyes stinging. “You deserve to have everything I have. Better, even. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it.”
A stray tear fell, and then another. Roxanne bit her lip against them, feeling every bit the naive kindergartner in a PBS cartoon. Her parents never told her the world was fair. They knew it wasn’t. But it felt different, now, when she could see it in front of her, instead of just hearing about a statistic on the news.
Cornelius slowly cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs swiping away a stray tear.
“Go to bed, Roxanne,” he murmured. “And stop worrying so much about me. I will have the future I want. And I will be okay.”
The Present
The next morning she woke up alone. The Ibuprofen and a glass of water were on the nightstand next to her. But his side of the bed was tidy, the covers made up. There was no sign of him in the apartment.
Unease stirred in her gut as she wandered the rooms. Last night was an impulsive, reckless, stupid decision that would cause unnecessary complications, but she didn’t regret it. He wanted it as much as she did, a fact that continued to surprise her.
Unless, of course, he didn’t.
Unless, of course, he distracted her with it and then snuck off to do something . . .nefarious. She didn’t know what. But trusting him these last few days felt like walking on cracked ice. She hoped with every fiber in her body that it would hold up, but if she sunk through, it would be no one’s fault but her own.
Everything depended on him right now and it scared the shit out of her. Now she realized why he had acted so feral and wary of her when she rescued him. It was hard to be in someone’s debt when they could ruin you in an instant.
He kept her suspended in gut twisting suspense for the better part of that day. When he finally stepped through the front door, she was moments away from climbing the walls.
“Where the hell did you go?” she demanded. “You didn’t leave a note, you’ve been gone for hours!”
He said nothing as he hung his coat up. She felt like a hysterical house-wife, sizing him up for an affair. Ridiculous.
He continued to say nothing as he walked towards the living room, small briefcase in hand, and set it on the coffee table. It clicked open to reveal a padded inside, with space for a needle and a vial of dark liquid.
Roxanne felt like all the air had been punched from her chest.
“Is that . . .it?” she dared to ask.
“Yes. I didn’t trust it to be delivered, so I secured it myself.”
She stepped forward, taking the vial out with great care. Hope crested like a sunrise in her chest --
They pay for it of course. A favor for a favor.
And reality bloomed like a dark cloud.
“What do I owe you for this?” she asked, turning to him.
He looked at her with that same inscrutable expression from last night. “Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Bullshit. You never do something out of the kindness of your heart. A favor for a favor, right?”
“I’m not doing it out of kindness .”
The realization hit her like a flash of lightning. “You still think you owe me.”
It was a relief as much as a disappointment. Because of course this strange connection between them was nothing more than transactional for him. And what did that make last night -- an indulgence? A debt?
“Of course I owe you,” he said. “You saved my life. I wouldn’t be where I am without you. But I’ve repaid that debt many, many times without you ever knowing it.”
“What do you mean?” A pit grew in her stomach.
“I know your birth name. I know you were illegally unregistered as a teenager. I know where your parents live and what they do. I have more connections and contacts than you could ever uncover. Do you have any idea how easy it would have been to stop you from your investigations, your attempts to dethrone me? And this is before I had the neutralizing serum created.”
She swallowed thickly, feeling sick. “So all my victories against you only happened because you let me win?”
God, she couldn’t even look at him. All these years thinking she had made some kind of difference, some kind of impact, and he was just toying with her. A cat with a mouse.
“No, you earned those.”
He stepped closer to her, tilting her chin up. She reluctantly met his gaze, too afraid to believe the sincerity in it.
“I’ve put in considerable resources to get you to stop. But I didn’t put them all in. If I had focused all of my efforts into stopping you, you would not have been able to withstand it. But I never did so and that is because I owed you.”
“So what is this?” She shoved the vial against his chest. “No more mind games, John. I need to know where we stand.”
“This . . .” He placed the vial back in her palm and closed her fingers around it. “This is because the world needs people like you because it makes people like me. This is because you are the only person who ever wanted anything better for me. This is because I want to.”
Again, the fear of trusting him beat in her chest. It sounded too good for truth. John did not make himself vulnerable to anyone. He learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago and she didn’t really blame him for it. But if she added all these pieces together, it only presented one solution.
“ . . . Do you love me?”
His gaze did not shy away from hers. “Do you think I would ever admit it if I did?”
“I think . . .” She squeezed the vial. “I think you already have.”
“Then you have your answer.”
The Past
When she came home from school, the burden of her project finally lifted, the place was empty. She called for Cornelius but he wasn’t in the library or the living room or the kitchen. None of the bathroom doors were shut. Panic growing, she looked around the apartment for signs of struggle -- what if he had been kidnapped? But the place was clean -- cleaner than when she left that morning. Dishes had been washed, trash taken out, the towels and blankets from the couch in the laundry room.
The only sign of him she ever found was a note, scribbled on a ripped piece of printer paper, under her pillow.
Thank you
I owe you .