The question knocks all calm out of me.
Did I really kill all those people?
It occurs to me that I have yet to sit her down and debrief to her all the things I’m out there doing every day. All this time she’s been in the dark about it all and now, now she hears the news declaim me as a mass murderer.
My chest tightens, shrinks so it's too small for the beating heart within it. My palm begins to sweat so I take it out of hers, she doesn’t like that. She stares at me with a look that tells all.
She’s horrified.
Promptly sitting up straight on the bed, not minding the splitting pain that craves through my shoulder as I do. I open my mouth to speak, to respond to her question, to tell her that I am not a killer, that I am not the mass murderer the news has been screaming about.
But I can’t, the words refuse to come out of me. Looking at her, sitting there expectant and patient, even reaching out for my hand again, and I can’t say anything. So I sigh and shut my mouth.
“So it’s true then...what the police, the news is saying...you’re the Kneecapper? You’re a villain?”
It takes courage to look up at her again, courage I don’t have. So my head hangs down in shame, disgrace and rage. Rage. Questioning my rage, what I find is curdling indignation at her for making me feel wrong about protecting myself, protecting Rex and Austin, protecting Paige.
Furious my head rises to face her, I breathe out with confidence, “I did it for you, I had to, they gave me no choice! This is the only way we can be safe, the only way we can survive in Xoxia.”
That look is back. Mortified, she screams, “By killing people? There’s always, always a choice, Vern!”
Before I know it I’m biting back, “Not when they threaten you, not when they want to take it all away!”
“The Police don’t want to kill you,” she continues outraged, stepping away from the bed and taking her hand with her, “They want to keep you safe, they want to clean the city of illegal things, like gangs, like drugs, like trafficking all which you are now a part of!”
She starts pacing, a hand on her forehead and the other on her lower back, “How did we get here Vern?” She gasps, fighting tears, “How did you end up on the news as a Meta-Villain, wanted by the police for murder and aggravated assault and none of this is false? How? How!”
“It’s not like I wanted to do any of this, I needed to.” I explain, “They would have taken us all in, Austin wasn’t going to back down and Rex finally grew some balls to join in. Someone was going to die if I didn’t interfere.”
She swerves, hands akimbo, “So you interfered and killed several police officers instead?”
“I didn’t do it intentionally!" I panic. This is getting out of hand.
"I shot them in the knee and elbows to keep them down, b-but things got out of hand when that man started moving. He’s the one who shot me, he’s the one who caused all the chaos, if it weren’t for him I would have disabled them all and left peacefully!”
“Are you even hearing yourself, Vern!” Her hands are flung onto her head, hovering aggressively, ready to pull out hair, “Did you listen to the news? Several of the people you shot bled out, they died a cold, scary death! Does any of that sound remotely peaceful to you?”
Staring at her, the room void of anything else to look at, Austin has long gone and Rex nowhere to be found. Only she remains, and for the first time in many, many years, I don’t want to look at her any longer.
I turn away, staring instead at anything that I can find. The long green couch in front of the TV, or the coffee machine that sits on a table with our guns.
And the silence of it all eats away at me, the fact that I can’t summon an answer other than the one I dread to speak now grinds my heart away. After all, this would be the wrongest time to tell her the main, driving reason for all my madness, for all my willingness to kneecap people, is that - I love her.
Already, I can tell how that would go if I were to dare utter it, already I could predict her words to me.
'That’s no excuse.' 'I can't love you, not after this.' 'If you did you wouldn’t have done it.'
And in the deafening silence, I ponder these responses. Is love truly not an excuse? Can I not love her to the point of outright murder? This thought sickens me for a moment, but in another I find that my throbbing heart is calm and I realize, disgusted as I am at the thought, I agree with it.
In further reflection, I know that she is the only thing keeping me pressing forward. That day when Steve took me out there, it was Paige that made me survive. It was Paige that made me strive to survive, it was her.
Without her, I would've given up on living long ago.
Resolved, I look back up at her at last, “I’d do it again.”
This is not the response she waited so patiently for, she begins to stutter and sputter incoherent words all over the place but I break in to explain. “They would have taken me away, deposited me with the Suppressors and killed Austin and Rex for resisting. Now let’s say I didn’t give so much as a fuck about either of them, that’d still leave me locked up and away from you. I can’t stand that possibility, I just can’t.”
Her mouth clamps shut, she sighs and walks closer, standing at the edge of the bed once again, “You know I travel forward in time all the time right? There’s always going to be a time where we won’t be together, Vern, in fact-”
Breaking in I say, “No, that’s different. Whenever you travel you always make it back to me, you always do.”
Her look softens at last and pursing her lips she says, “Let’s leave Xoxia then, together. If you stay here...you’re going to...kill someone else because you can’t get caught. So let's leave.”
That’s a lot easier said than done.
“And how are we going to do that?”
She smiles and folds her arms across her chest, “You just became a wanted villain protecting Rey and his interests, I say that buys us some leverage with them.”
Right...let’s hope this doesn’t blow up then.
***
If Steve doesn’t know I’m alive, well, and presumably a dangerous and powerful meta-human by now, then he must be dead himself.
The Captain kept to his word, he spread my image everywhere, any place you looked had a flyer with my sketched face on it. The fast and decisive action by the Police on this matter is not something I at all expected, after all, this is the Xoxia city police.
Crime reports from victims of gang operations were usually the lightest things happening with them. The Police are satisfied with their position as the Suppressor’s thralls, hunting and kidnapping meta’s under the guise of arrest. It's basically all they ever did in the city.
They are just another tool of the Suppressor’s agenda and thirst for meta-humans. To keep a steady handle on the Mayor’s only real threatening percentage of the population.
As of now, I can’t understand the Captain. It's a dilemma as he could be a righteous crime-fighter within the rather corrupt police force as Austin implied, or the man who like the rest of the force, see metas as a means to gain power within the city.
Years eating the breadcrumbs off of Steve’s table have taught me something of judging one's intentions, a man like the Captain is clear to the plain eye as ambitious.
Whichever sort of man he is, I can’t help clapping as he pulls the Force together to put a curb on crime, even if that crime is me.
Unfortunately for me, this means I have two relentless men breathing down my neck. Steve is not one to let go of loose ties, preferring to prune out the possible rats within his midsts rather than entertain them in any way, even if it presents itself as being able to feed his enemies false information.
And the Captain is a zealous glory or justice seeker.
Even before coming to this realization, I knew the moment Paige asked to leave the city, I knew it would be a fruitless task, a pointless effort. And yet I can’t help but hope against hope that the lone star above Xoxia grants our wish and lets us out.
It takes three days for the stitches in my shoulder removed - as a meta-human I have an accelerated healing factor - within this time and two more days added, it takes Rey pulling in a couple of favours and bribing people to sort out a reliable way out of the city.
Between my face plastered on the walls of the city and the crossing gang wars, it’s more of an inconvenience to move a person of interest out of the city.
Within the gangs of Xoxia, I am already marked as a prize and rising in value every day. This simply means, sooner or later, some meta criminal is going to come after me as a way to prove might and superiority within the circle of gangs.
It happens all the time and is one of the main inciters of gang wars.
And within the Police, I have a crazy man after me. It’s an ironic position of comradery between the Police and the gangs. One that nonetheless, we have hurdled over.
Disgracefully, within the days of my healing, I could not prevent Paige from investing herself within these circles. Meeting each and every contact of Rey’s, following him around, as stubborn as a mewl despite our protests.
But in a way, it gives me some hope for her still. Maybe if she exposes herself to the elements as training, she won’t faint when they begin to go off. Maybe it can get her over her trauma.
It may be nought but a prayer to the lone star, but I have seen her complexion improve after each visit in the past days. Maybe my prayers are being answered.
Five days since she said it to me, five days since I became a fugitive, with all preparations made, all bags packed and set to go, I stand out at a scene that quite doesn’t make much sense to me.
“Wow, could you ever believe it?” She gasps in awe marvelling at the scene. We’re all dressed for the significant drop in temperature, our best coats on and double scarved, I even have some gloves on, black leather.
Xoxia, the city dusted in frost by some crazy powerful Supervillain, has always been rumoured to be coldest at its centre, a place that I've always expected to be frozen over in glacials.
Turns out the rumours are false. It is anything but cold and frozen over. It’s warm, soft, the softest air I’ve ever had in fact and the fuzziest grass I’ve ever seen, smelled or felt. And most shockingly there’s a lake.
At the edge of the round, somewhat circular body of water are flowers, actual flowers, wafting a scent I’ve yet to adapt to.
The scene is, in fact, an unbelievable image.
“No, no I don’t think I could,” I say to Paige, marvelling as well.
The environment is such an unbelievable thing that it has of course been monetized, profits made off of the booming chill spot for the rich.
Paige and I dress as best as we can to fit the part but we still get some odd looks. Could either be because our clothes are subpar at best or because my arm is in a sling. I’m betting on the latter.
Still, we move undetected through lines until we get to the ticketer. And here I am handing the ticket to the man and not wrapping my head over the fact that I’m boarding a ship.
The journey on which we would cross the lake to the other side of the city, a part of the city where the cold persists but the overbearing presence of the Police and Suppressors are thin and worn out. Where ironically, through the battlefield of the gang wars is the quickest and safest way to get to our last bus stop and finally out of Xoxia.
Rey’s contact and our guide through high society - likely paid a small fortune for the service - waits ahead, behind the ticketer just in case he needs to step in and slip a few credits into his hand or turn us in to save his hide.
But nothing happens and we’re both let through. A collective sigh of relief is shared and before long we find our cabin, separate from our guide. Paige and I sit through ten more minutes of tension, both of us bearing some small worry that the Police will come running through and apprehend us.
But at the end a message comes through the PA system, the captain speaking something about condiments on the ship, after which the engine kicks and we begin to move.
Sharing a look with her as we drift on the waters, I can tell she tingles as I do. In excitement at our possible freedom.
Now we only need to get through whatever’s waiting on the other side.
