Chương 56: The Worst

My eyes never left my hand. The blood soaked on it, bright and red with a glint from the sun. My gaze didn't leave it even when it went from that beautiful crimson to a worn-down, brownish shade. Everything else in my senses changed. The ground below me, voices around me, the feeling of a roof over my head, but I couldn't stop watching it. The voices were varied in tone and topic, about logistics and morals and timeframes until one voice broke above the rest.

"You really did it, huh?" Tancred. That's the one that pulled my eyes from my hand, up towards the agent who got me into this mess in the first place. His sunglasses were off, those irises so dark they were like a doll's eyes examining me like I was some cut of meat he was checking for mold. A cat would feel more welcome at a dog park than I did in that moment.

"Your first is the worst. That blood's gonna wash off, but you'll be seeing it the rest of your life," he added on. The rest of the world started taking form around me. I was in some sort of doctor's office, sitting in a chair. The soreness of my muscles, my skin, everything was on fire. The only thing that didn't hurt was my ears, and even they were still being irritated by the rolling hum of the lights in the ceiling.

"What, nothing?" he asked. I shook my head, before the words rolled out from the motion.

"Wasn't trying to do it." The agent nodded, hands in his pockets.

"Never said you were, kid. We didn't know until it was too late. The agents mentioned people being fused with wood, but by the time we pieced together that it meant some of those tree things could have people in them... you were already in deep and dark waters."

"Where I fucked up and killed someone, and didn't even stop the fucking villain," I shot out, my head falling into my hands because my neck just couldn't keep it up anymore.

"And I got four other people killed and May crippled, and they're going to send me to the Firmament because I fucking killed someone-" I couldn't even finish the sentence. My throat just hitched. My tonsils felt like they were fit to burst; I could feel my ears in my eyes. Couldn't remember the last time I cried. Might be because of whatever took the rest of my memories. The same whatever that took that man's life. Might have been a terrorist, but it might have been a random victim too.

There were kids in those roots. Gleditsia said they targeted kids too. I might have killed a ki-"You're not going to the Firmament, Leo," Tancred barked out firmly, forcing my gaze to move back up to him.

"I killed a guy with my powers. And I already had the other charges on me from before you recruited me. They're gonna throw me in the fucking Firmament because I screwed up," I choked out. He shook his head, his eyes closing.

"No, Leo. Those charges were pardoned when you signed on. Joining The New Sentinels and enrolling in college were the listed terms for your pardon. The old charges cannot apply those to you."

"I still killed someone, Tancred. The police chief said I-" A click of his tongue sat in the air for a few seconds before he finally privileged me with a response.

"I already spoke to her. We're reviewing the case closely and we can likely get away with a probation without even dealing with a hearing. That means the good news is you'll walk free." The- "The good news?" My words interrupted my thoughts, already realizing what that choice of words meant. You don't pick up a pair of shoes without expecting to see one of them drop.

"Yeah. Means there's bad news too, bud. Charlottesville PD's SWAT had to come in to aid with retrieval. While Charlottesville's normal police don't have them yet due to budget limits, SWAT got their equipment from Chesapeake during their police pioneering program. Meaning they had body cameras." The words vomited out of me.

"Body cam-" He cut me off.

"Footage of you, covered in blood, looming over that thing with visible human flesh in it, has already leaked onto the internet. We're actively scrubbing it and working on clarifying the narrative to commoners. But it means Hercules, as a hero, needs to go quiet for a little while as we work on rehabilitating your image until Hercules can come back with some better PR." That meant- "You're firing me." Tancred threw his hands up defensively.

"Jesus, no. You're not getting fired or anything. Treat it like a vacation, or disability I guess. You need to focus on your studies, and Eliza's gonna be doing some therapy sessions with you. You were supposed to be getting psych evals but everything going loopy changed scheduling. We're going to be a bit more hard-enforcing on them now."

"But that's not going to fix my brain thing," the words crawled out past my lips. I didn't want to admit it, but I had to. There was no point in hiding it.

"Therapy can't fix that."

"We're working twofold on that. Sam will be dealing with neurological exams, and this is unfortunately the worst-case scenario. That means I'm going to bring the one guy who actually understands superpowers in the Super Commission on, my former mentor Agent Casney. He's going to help you figure it out from a superhuman perspective, and coach you on actually working with them."

"Why can't you help with that?"

"I can't help with it because, despite the fact I'm an Auditor, my focus is operational. I don't need to figure out super bullcrap, I just need to make sure it's legal and any attempts to break the law are appropriately dealt with. You don't go to the engineer for dentistry, kid." The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The room sat silent for a little while. I wasn't tracking the time.

My focus was there; I just didn't care to follow the time down further into Hell. The world was dragging me there by the heels anyway. Footsteps. Tancred's. He was walking to the door. Pausing at the knob, he let his voice carry in the room again, shortly.

"Going to let Christian in. He wants to talk to you. Nothing bad. Just hear him out, okay?" The auditor didn't wait for an answer, opening the door and pulling it shut in one smooth motion. A short while later, Christian stepped through, dressed in normal clothes instead of the same kind of clown outfit I had on.

"Hey, Leo," he started.

"Out with it," I retorted, head fallen back into my hands. It was at that point texture returned to me, and I realized my mask was off. I had no idea where it was. For the best, the damn thing got me here in the first place. There was silence with that retort. He had taken a moment to actually find the words, it seemed.

"Look, I get what you're dealing with right now. I swear, I really do-""I know you do. You killed the guy who killed your sister." More silence, like what I said sucked all the air out of his lungs. A few more words trickled out, like a mouse peeking around the corner.

"How did you know that?"

"Sam told me. Probably shouldn't even tell you that. Doesn't really matter now, I think." A sharp exhale came from him, before a squealing noise could be heard. Chair legs against the linoleum. He was pulling up a seat. Didn't even see there were other seats here. Felt like I was losing my ability to even read my own environment. Chris spoke after he sat down.

"It's... it's fine. I trust she had good reason to tell you. Did she tell you the whole story?"

"A shooter came to your sister's school, she was hit, and that killed her. You confessed to doing it on purpose in court. Tancred offered you a plea deal by helping form the team." My gaze finally moved up to him. His hands were clasped, and his body sat leaning forward. He shook his head, red hair waving about from the motion.

"That's only the basic stuff. There's one thing I didn't tell Sam. I'll tell you, maybe it'll help. Maybe not."

"What would that be?"

"He surrendered first." My skin went cold.

"What do you mean?"

"He dropped the gun. Told me he was sorry, that he would let the police take him in. Something like that, he wasn't speaking very clearly since he had bit off a portion of his tongue and was missing a few teeth." Despite me physically seeing him completely upright, in my eyes the world felt upside down for just a moment.

"I kept approaching. He realized I wasn't going to stop hurting him, so he picked the gun back up. I turned the barrel towards his own head and that was it." His stare was empty, looking past me. Part of me was thankful he didn't have May's powers at that moment.

"There was so much anger in me. That girl didn't deserve that. No one in that school did. What did he think gave him the right to have what he took from all of them?"

"Same thing we all think," I muttered out.

"Fear of death."

"I don't have one. Haven't had one since I lost Lily. But that doesn't mean what I did was okay. I gave in, let sin do the decision making, instead of doing the Godly thing of offering mercy. My confession in court wasn't my first confession. I had already confessed to God, and told Him I would make it right. That was my corporate confession, in that court. Tancred showing up was a sign that God wanted me to prove it." Christian was no longer watching the wall. His eyes were dead set on me.

Not a single twitch of his pupils. For once, this man had made my blood truly turn to ice.

"What are you telling me, Chris?"

"I'm telling you that taking someone's life isn't the end of yours. Yes, it's sinful, but if man were incapable of sin we would not be here. What matters is atonement. Redemption. It won't be exclusively your own work. The Commission is going to try and exonerate you, because clearly this wasn't something you wanted to do. But it can only get all the way there if you yourself want to atone."

"You think I never wanted to atone? What the Hell are you talking about, Chris? I'm the only fucking guy in that group who was doing good without Tancred asking me first-""You were crippling drug dealers in a ghetto, Leo. You think wanting to just hurt bad people is doing good? Just because a rat spreads disease doesn't mean the cat is eating it out of moral duty. Doing good is not just punishing the wicked. That's only one brick that builds the whole church." I looked away from him, my eyes focused on the door.

"I'm not going to church; that's not going to suddenly un-fuck whatever's wrong with me, Chris."

"I'm not saying go to church," Chris retorted.

"The church isn't for everyone. Some are better off focusing on themselves without an institution, virtue is not born from masonry. I'm telling you that you need to take this time to really understand what 'good' is. You're not going to be able to hide from it by just slugging out bad guys for a while. This is your chance to learn." There wasn't a response I could put out to that. Nothing worth saying. He kept going.

"You don't need to come to service with me or anything, but take those patrol days and just... walk around. Maybe research some other superheroes. You can't keep relying on your own interpretations of things, especially since you've hit the ground running." Still nothing worth saying. In my head I knew he was wrong in some way, I just didn't know how to word it. Like his words made this lasso that tied my brain up.

"I think you can get through this, Leo. Out of all of us, I think you have the odds of being the most... superheroic, I guess is the good word for it. Yeah, that raid didn't go perfectly, but you did a lot that I don't think me or Jairo or May could have done. May's alive because of you. That guy would've wiped the floor with all of us besides you. You stood your ground and kept someone alive." A finger prodded my shoulder. His finger.

"That's what a superhero does, Leo." His stern face turned into a smiling one. It seemed real, but I still didn't trust it. He then backed away, moving towards the door.

"Everyone else is here. Jairo, Sam, Eliza, Perry. May's still recovering, but I bet she'd want to talk to you if she had the chance. Do you wanna talk to any of them? I could let them know if you just wanna take some more time for yourself or if you want to talk to anyone. They're not gonna lecture you like I did, promise." All I could do was shake my head. He gave a nod, seeming to recognize that I was tired of hearing voices as he quietly exited the room and left me to my thoughts.

I had to calm down, but I couldn't stop processing everything. Some of it was rich and clear, that vision sat in my head rent-free. The start of the fight, everything was also clear. The end was the clearest. Everything else is... physical sensations. Getting hurt, bark cracking against my hands, things like that. If I had thoughts, I had no idea what they were. All I knew was I fucked up, direly.