A Hero’s Will

“I want to die.”

Sometimes the words just shoot out of my mouth like a damn catchphrase. It’s not like I sit around all the time thinking about how shitty my life is -- not that it isn’t. Plus, it’s not like it’s my fault either way. I can’t stop looking out the window. If I don’t look out the window I have to look at my brother, Jay, and his disgusting, ratty, old sports car that smells like fast food and moldy cheese.

“Hey, Case, did you remember Dad’s old rifles?” Damn this sucks.

“Was I supposed to?”

“No, I asked because I got ‘em. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?”

Jay doesn’t know how to shut up, so I learned how to tune him out a while ago. He just goes on and on and on about how those guns bring him good luck. Not that they even work right anymore. After about reason number two million and fifty why I’m a screw-up, we pull up to a snazzy-looking hotel.

“Lucky number 13 this time, you got this one?” He slams the door, pulls a briefcase out of the truck, and chucks it to me.
“Why, you too chicken or something?”
“Yeah, that’s gotta be it.” He tosses a gray orb in the air and catches it like the showy jerk he is.

I know I should have just jumped out of the hovercar when I had the chance. The world would be a better place at least.

The hotel is bright, elegant, and rich assholes sway around reeking of too much perfume and money. Jay is a different breed though. There’s always some kind of security at the front of these sorts of “business gatherings”, but Jay just struts past them like he’s their friggin’ king and they should probably go home bragging to their family that they got to hold a door open for Jay (king of the condescending pricks). I’m always stuck with wearing his old hand-me-downs too, while he gets to wear clothes from at least this decade. My damn shirt smells like Jay’s car.

I get to be an eyewitness to my brother’s ego for the millionth time this week. He marches right up to the counter and starts sweet-talking the only non-android there, who happens to be a woman covered in blue, gooey scales, of course. We operate like we always do: one of us distracts everyone at the entrance, and while they are all thinking he’s robbing the cashier, the other goes to do what we came here for: knocking off whoever is next on the list. The extra cash from the register is always a nice touch though.

When no one notices, Jay slides his gray orb behind the counter and I make my way to the elevator. It’s only after the elevator door’s shut that I hear the orb rip, explode, and presumably cover the entire lobby in smoke.

Lucky number 13. I don’t know what it is. Unlucky things always bring me luck. I mean, I don’t go opening my umbrella in small spaces intentionally or anything, but it’s not like anything like that ever lets me down. One time when I was about 6-ish, I opened an umbrella inside, and when I went out there was a stray black cat. I had that cat for 10 years before Jay accidentally (on purpose) ran it over.

I don’t realize I’ve been humming the entire time until the doors open and some folks start staring weirdly at me. Well, maybe it’s because of my clothes. There is a small hole in my T-shirt’s collar, but at least my coat is almost new looking.

It’s extremely bizarre that the fire alarm hasn’t gone off by now, or some kind of alarm. I guess they’re still in shock or something. This place is massive, but the 13th floor has only the most important executives on account of the view. They say the entire city looks like a carnival from there. It’s supposed to be the perfect place to watch the city lights since it was just above the city but not tall enough to get into the smog that covers the sky.  When I was a kid I used to dream about living in a place like this. I could watch over the whole city like some kind of hero. I guess I missed my mark just a bit on that one.

Instead of moving in here, I pull my hood over my head, break down the door of room number 1313, and pull out a concealed 2147 negatron gun that I had adjusted to lethal before I tucked it under my hoodie this morning. Except when I open the door the senator I was paid to take out isn’t there at all. The room smells like cigarettes, and guards skulk around in the looming shadow of the sky smog.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

I freak out and scramble down the hall. The guards continue to shoot at me with, well, I don’t even know what sort of weapon. Everything they shoot has the bad habit of blowing up in my face. Literally. The lights in the halls flicker and I can feel their shots burning at my ankles.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Not like this! I don’t want to,” I don’t mean to yell. I hear the roar of hover car engines from outside the window.

Bang.

I don’t even think, I just slam myself into the window closest to me and tumble out. My guts fly into my throat, and the feeling of lead replaces anything in my abdomen that resembles an organ. This whole thing is a real shitty idea. Wind numbly scrapes at my flesh, and suddenly the idea of dying seems vastly less like a solution. The proverbial lead is like a weight anchoring me to my stupid ass wish. Then it stops. I squint an eye open through my fingers to make sure I’m not in a million pieces on the ground.

“Hey there! I hope you weren’t planning on killing yourself today.” Comes a man’s voice, whose large, gray aero-van’s tractor beam I’m caught in.“Hey kid! I don’t gotta ‘nough gas to teleport you in. Can you just, like, wiggle your way over here?” Says the gruff human van driver, who isn’t that much older than me, probably in his mid-twenties, but younger than Jay.

I can hear aero-cars’ horns going off, signaling a pissed-off line of folks who probably would be more than happy to see me splat on the ground so long as it meant they get where they’re going quicker. I grow sick to my stomach from hovering in what seems like a tractor-light coming from the headlights of his car.

“Seriously?” Does this guy have divinely bad luck, or what? “Get over here before I run out of gas.” The guy swings his door open and yanks me in by the ankle.

“Ouch!” I rub my sore butt after his meaty hand all but threw me on his passenger seat.

“Well, you wouldn’t have this problem if you just listened to me when I told you to get in.” He shrugs as if he’s given me all the damn time in the world. “Name’s Will by the way.”

I just stare at him. I don’t need manners, I just need to get as far away from that hotel as this guy is willing to get me without suspicion.

“And...you are?” I avoid eye contact. I’ve always hated looking people in the eyes, they always look like they’re expecting something or someone else. I never expected anything from anyone else, and I don’t want anyone to expect anything from me. No matter what it is you’re just gonna be let down. “Talkative, I see. Holy shit.”

Will does a double take and holds the wheel with one hand and grips my arm with the other. “Did that happen when you jumped?” He gazes back and forth from my now blood-soaked arm to the air traffic.

“Oh, I didn’t notice…”

“How the hell…? Okay. Okay, let m just drive you to the hospital.”

“No!” I almost scream, pulling my arm back -- the second choice today I regretted immediately.  “I can’t go there! I’d rather jump out of the car! Besides, I don’t even have insurance.”

“Whoa, whoa, don’t make it worse there. Listen, I’ve got a friend who can patch you up. I’ll take you to them if you tell me your name. Oh, and keep pressure on that.” He must think he’s being playful, charming, or whatever. Gross.

“Case…,” I mumble.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“Casey.” I press my face into the window.

“Well, then Casey, hold on to the OSB.”

“What’s an OSB?”

“Oh shit bar.” He taps the handlebar above his door.

“Wait, what?”

It’s way too late, he shifts the car into the fast lane and punches it into turbo before completely veering off the sky road altogether. By the time we reach the beat-up old shed I almost completely forget that my bleeding arm is the most likely thing to kill me.  The place almost looks like a real house, except it’s really small and the roof and siding are starting to fall off.

“You sure your friend lives here, and this isn’t where you take people to be serial killed?” I shiver. Not that I exactly have any room to talk but still.

“Eh, I’m like 78.2% positive.”

“Oh gee, I feel so much better now, thanks.” It’s probably a lot safer than his driving.

We park on the home’s small, individually hovering island, and he swaggers up to the door without even looking back to make sure I haven’t bled to death. I have to admit though, he’s a lot nicer to me than my brother ever has been. Jay would’ve let me fall to my death just for shits and giggles. Probably. One less mouth to feed after all.

An odd-looking gray humanoid covered in oozing bubbles opens the door. I’d never seen a Non-Earthen like this one. Most folks were of Quagnar, a race of blue-scaled folk, or Ioan, a yellow race of all slug ladies, and everyone else was usually some kinda solid at least. This person, creature, thing... whatever, I don’t know what’s keeping ‘em up. Their relatively human shape jiggles when they move and their feet drag just a bit too much behind them with every step.

“Will, get out of my face. You’re not dying. You don’t have cancer. I don’t have money for you.” The gray person starts to close the door when Will sticks the entire upper half of his body in.

“I don’t need any of that stuff right now… Well, I do have a suspicious mole…” He shakes his head. “I’ve got a real favor to ask you this time.”

The gray humanoid quirks what I think might be an eyebrow, so I figure that’s probably my cue. I step up and wave a bloody hand at them. After that, the humanoid practically shoves us inside their kitchen, rips my ruined jacket off of me, and tosses it in the trash incinerator. I liked that jacket, too. Will goes over to the living room and turns on the holo screen.

“So, uh, you’re not from this system, right?” I mumble, awkwardly eyeing Will for some help. The bastard could’ve warned me first. Jesus. The gray person laughs. I guess they can tell flushing my face is getting from the awkward silence outside of Will’s mindless channel surfing.

“Rixx is from Raff. It’s like out past Sirius or some shit.” Will just about yells despite the open setup.

“We don’t raise our voices in this house,” Rixx says while guiding me by the shoulders to a bar stool.

“I didn’t mean to be rude.” I avoided their slimy eyes and manage to squeak out a weak “I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter what you intend to do if you end up doing it anyway.” They sighed. “I won’t blame you for not knowing better. Most folks around here have never been out very far, but I did grow up here. Ignore Will. He doesn’t know how to do anything but beg for money.”

“I’m sorry,” I say audibly this time.

“It’s fine, if you know something is wrong, then just don’t do it again. This is gonna sting a bit though, Honey.” They smell like honey. It flips my stomach every time I get a waft. Rixx takes my exposed arm in their boneless, gray hand, and their oozy bubbles start to seep into my wound and harden as they clean it off. I have to hold back my gagging.

“That isn’t, you know, gonna infect anything, or…” I croak out.

“Don’t worry, hun, I’m an RN. It’s a… How in the world did you get this wound exactly?” Rixx asks, slapping on more goo.

“She jumped out a window,” Will yells over, even though you could probably talk quietly and be heard anywhere in the house.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re involved in Will’s business.” Rixx shakes their head.

“Uhh…” I look at Will “What’s Will’s business, exactly?” I smack my lips and try to find the words that won’t make me seem like I need any more of their help, but lose my train of thought and jump when Rixx pricks my arm with something.

“Bounty hunting,” Will sighs, “you gotta put food on the table.”

“Will’s family has 7 children,” Rixx whispers to me.

I attempt to keep my jaw from dropping. Most people could barely afford one child. That’s how me and Jay only ended up where we are.

“I can still hear you!” Will yells like a petty bitch.

“Good for you, sweetheart. See, I thought he was going deaf, but I guess it’s just an option.” Rixx pulls a small silver bead from my arm. I can barely even see it. “Nano spiders? How the—”

“Shhh! Shh! Shh! Shut up!”  Will yells, crouching over and blasting the holo news channel like a caveman.

“We are here live out front of Holy View Resorts where terrorist James J. Lawrence was apprehended earlier upon suspicion of being an accessory to the attempted attack on galactic Chairperson, Senator Fissari, at 10 O’Clock this morning. The alleged culprit of the attempted attack has yet to be confirmed as of this afternoon. His bail has been posted at about 60 million xios.” The reporter announces. It’s utter bullshit. The only person Jay ever terrorized was me. The picture of his face that flashes on and off the screen though: beaten, blistered, bruised...it probably could give anyone watching nightmares. but it brings a smile to my face. At least the cops didn’t kill him yet. A pang of guilt pricks my stomach. Maybe they’re doing worse than killing him. I doubt he got that messed up from the Senator inviting him to tea. The story quickly swipes away and another about a bounty hunter being mistaken as an accessory and killed begins before Will shuts it off.

Will lets out a deep breath and blinks a few times before looking back at us. 60 million was almost an unheard-of amount, it’s a wonder they bothered posting bail at all, and if my brother’s bail was that high, I don’t even want to see the price on my head. My heart starts pounding in my ears. I want to scream and run as far away as possible from these people. Why couldn’t it have been a gardener that saved me? Or better yet, I just could have gone splat on the ground. I feel like I’m falling again. Like the world is pulled out from under me.

“Hey kid, you alright? You don’t look so good.” Will waddles over to us. I can’t look at him, I can’t make eye contact, and it’s not even because I don’t want to. I just can’t. If I’m wanted dead or alive, but probably very dead, then I could be looking at my killer. The one who possibly just saved my life will kill me, and I can do absolutely nothing about it. I don’t know, somehow it just feels like I would be the one doing him wrong by dirtying his hands with my blood.

“I’m okay.”

“Hey, I gotta go home, Ri. Kid, you got someplace to go?” He turns to me with those expecting eyes that everyone has. I’m sure he expects me to tell him where I live, but the hotel me and Jay were staying at is probably swarmed with cops by now. With my arm all patched up, I could probably wander the city all night without too much trouble if I hadn’t lost my gun when I jumped.

“Yeah.” I force a smile. If I can get one of these guys to get me a rail pass I could be off the planet in a few hours.

“Alright, I’ll take you there. I got a sister your age. Ain’t no way I can let you go on your own.” Will starts, then takes a deep breath. “Thanks, Rixx, I’ll pay you back next week after I catch the idiot who tried to kill the senator.” He laughs.

“Yeah, yeah. Go play hero.” Rixx waves off. I get up and follow Will to the door, only before I think better and turn back to Rixx.

“Uh…Thank you.”

“No problem, Sweetie.” They smile, and then I do something I hadn’t done since I was a toddler. I hug Rixx. Which is honestly, the only thing I don’t regret doing all day, and Rixx hugs me back. Rixx is just the right amount of squishy.

“C’mon, I gotta get home by dinner!” Will calls from the car. I nod to Rixx, and before I know it we’re off again.

“So kid, where ya off to?”

“Well, I’d get on the lunar rail if I could, but I kind of didn’t bring anything with me when I was falling to my death.”

“Whoa, it can speak up! See, isn’t that so much better than grumbling to yourself?” I was going to say something snarky, but my mouth doesn’t let me. The man is right, it is a lot better than just grumbling at everyone who isn’t my brother. “Alright, so the rail isn’t an option today.” My heart stops.

“Huh? Why? How come it isn’t?” I cringe at my voice jumping up an octave. The moon was the only sanctuary I could think of.

“Whoa, calm down. Neither of us got the cash for interplanetary travel. Unless you decided you were going to go out with 60 xios?” I hang my head, he’s right again. “Wait until I get home, I think my Dad has a phone with enough connection to send a message to your family to come get you or something. You know, now that I think about it there might be a teleport at his work...”

Will rambles on about his family, and his day on the ride. Turns out, he wants to be an architect. That’s close enough to being a gardener, I guess. He and his sister are the only siblings old enough to work, and all of his little brothers only know how to slay virtual ogres and eat all day. His dad is a businessman, but his mother is a police chief for a surrounding neighborhood. After a while, I start to wonder if this guy just likes the sound of his voice or if I just have one of those faces that force people to tell me their life stories. In which case, I might just need to turn myself in and use the reward money to get facial reconstruction before I’m executed: I’d just rather not have to spend my last moments hearing about my executioner’s wife and kids. Maybe the silence just drives Will nuts since I couldn’t hold against his yakking if I tried.

When we get back to his place, I can see why someone would want to gush about that kind of life. I’d never really thought about it long enough to get jealous before. I’d never felt so welcomed before. The house isn’t big but bigger than I expected and definitely in cleaner shape than Rixx’s despite the walls being cluttered with pictures and cheesy “live, laugh, love” decals. I step on blocks coming in the door but all the kids laugh so much that I don’t think deeply about it at all. I don’t see his parents, but their presence isn’t too different from the way Rixx’s honey scent could fill a room. I’m so glad the place doesn’t smell like honey though.

“Wow, lady, how’d you get your hair that red?” One of the kids asks later at dinner. I rubbed my cemented-up arm over my head.

“It’s natural.” The kids and Michayla laugh, but Will seems uneasy throughout the evening. Not that I can blame him, it astounds me that anyone would be insane enough to let a stranger into their home for the night (plus laugh at said stranger’s morbidly bad jokes that are vague references to children’s bugger jokes).

Even the kitchen area is decorated with angel statues and trinkets with phrases about life, love, and family. These sorts of things normally make me gag. Yet weirdly enough, they don’t this time. Hell, even the outside was white like a cloud, and though the house is planted firmly on the ground, there’s something sweet and otherworldly about it. At least, that’s comparing it to the world I’ve spent the last 18 years of my life in. It’s an odd sensation, for a moment in all the goofing around, it feels like I don’t have any bit of me that wants to die anymore. If I could have a family like this — if I could stop taking this from other people — maybe I could have this kind of thing, a home, a place to belong, too. I don’t know who I’m kidding. Jay and I have been on numerous missions, and I barely remember probably 1/3 of the people I killed. I don’t deserve a proper family and all that. I don’t deserve anything. I —

“Hey, are you alright, Casey?” Will’s sister, Michayla, asks. She seriously looks like a pixie. I envy her. She spends half the time either complaining about the house or apologizing for it. It’s a shame. It was a fun ride.

I spend an hour after dinner calling scam numbers Jay gave me for cons. I think about calling some of Jay’s contacts for a moment, but there isn’t a single one that isn’t a snake.

“Just say in my room with me,” Michayla shrugs like it’s nothing, “Dad can take you back in through the teleport in the morning.”

“Oh, I couldn’t —“ I get a whiff of my nervous sweat.

“Come on, what other choice is there?” Will leans back in his chair before clumsily falling backward and sending the younger boys into a roar of giggles before they scatter to their toys again.

Michayla helps me set up a port-o-bed on her floor. It’s springy and uncomfortable, but it’s a bed and I’m grateful. After I’m situated I can hear the will put the kids to bed, and Michayla invites me back out to the living room so the three of us can play virtual reality games until it’s late enough that we head to bed, too. I never knew how fun it was to kill something that wasn’t actually alive for a change. Nevertheless, after I’m sure Michayla and the others are all asleep, I rummage through her drawer and bookshelves until I find a holo screen and quietly power it on before leaving a note:

Thank you all so much. I mean it. Thank you all so much for everything, and I hope you have great lives.

  I know the note sounds awkward, but I’m proud of doing something genuine for once. I scurry out of her room and to the kitchen window to try to jiggle it open. Luckily none of their windows are automatic. Unluckily, I hear heavy footsteps coming down the hall. I curse myself for figuring it’d be plenty safe to get out now before I pass out from exhaustion, even if I didn’t hear their parents come home yet. Besides, I probably don’t have much before my picture is projected on every surface all over the city, since there’s no way Jay hadn’t sold me out the second he was captured. Jay is truly the biggest douche. I jiggle the pane again. Still, no luck with the window.

“Couldn’t sleep, either?” Will thumps out from the shadows.

“I needed some air,” I say. Will, shirtless, pries the window open for me.

“You can sit, Casey. You probably had a longer day than I did.” I nod and sit down at their table. There’s no dining room here, and not even enough chairs for everyone in the large family to sit at once. Will sits across from me, and I notice the smell of spices Michayla used at dinner lingering in the air. It’s almost sweet.  “Do you wanna talk about it?” He asks, to which I just shake my head “no”. That isn’t true though, I do want to talk about it. So badly, but what do I say? How can you just spill your guts to someone? I’ve never had that before.

“I, well, you know what it’s like being controlled by circumstances.” I blurt.

“That I do.” His figure is wide, looming like a mountain in the distance. I feel like I’m in a fun house mirror looking back at myself. Maybe if I’d had a different life, I could’ve been like him.

“You wanted to be an architect, right?” Not the point, but this riddling anxiety, that I didn’t know I was capable of until now, shakes my guts.

“What’d you want to be?” I can’t help but laugh bitterly at his question. I’ve never had much time for dreaming.

“Uh, when I was little I wanted to be a superhero, I guess.” His laugh is more real, freer from bitterness than mine like a deep church bell.

“Seriously?”

“It’s not funny.”

“No, no, here, look.” He flashes his smartwatch up, across the screen dances the pages of old comic books. “I think all kids wanna be heroes. You just get more realistic dreams at some point. Like eating and paying bills.” He leans over as if to pat my shoulder, but I slump in my chair. I don’t want to be touched. “Why’d you do it, Case?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why’d you jump? Really.”

“It’s not like I lied or anything. I just — I was scared. I didn’t want to be controlled anymore, you know?” Oh no, my voice cracked, “it was the only decision I got to make. Maybe ever.”

“Ever? That seems a bit dramatic.” He’s surprised, but he shouldn’t be. If the world wasn’t so messed up he’d be out of a job. I can’t say that out loud, I don’t have the guts, but I wish I did. Will sighs. “Look, if the folks you’re trying to get back to aren’t treating you right, you could always just hang here until you’re on your feet. We could always go catch all the bad guys together.”

“So now you think you’re a hero?” I snort reflexively.

“Ah, no one needs heroes anymore .”

“Is that why you keep helping me?” He jumps a little in his chair on that one.

“What? No, it’s just... I could’ve been you if the circumstances were different. Does that make sense?”

No, he could never have been like me. Will would’ve probably let more people go, people who didn’t need to die, but then again who needs to die? Not by my hand anyway. He’s easily a better person than me. Hell, maybe he wouldn’t have been able to take as much as me and just clocked out. The guy probably can’t even shoot to stun.

“Yeah, I get you.” I take a deep breath.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“My jacket’s on the back of your chair if you wanna pass it here.” He smiles as if nothing’s wrong, but I guess to him it’s not. I grab his jacket but get up and walk over to him to hand it over. Will raises an eyebrow but takes it anyway and shoves it on. For the first time since I began my “career”, if that’s what you’d call it, I hesitate.

“Goodnight, Will.” I hug him quickly pulling his collar tight around his throat in the right places until he’s passed out with his head down on the table, giving me enough time to slip out the window he opened only minutes ago.

I walk until 11 AM without taking a break to sit. I make it somewhere close to the outskirts of the city, but getting out of it completely would probably be impossible on foot. No matter where I go I can see that damn hotel, too. I feel like it’s haunting me, but I don’t think buildings actually do that. I’m probably just sleepy. It’s not fair, I didn’t even kill anyone this time.

Then BAM just like that, holograms of my wanted poster pop up on every poll in the city. I run, I don’t know where I’m even running to, but I close my eyes and I will my legs to move. I don’t need to see where I’m going anymore. There aren’t any cars on the ground street to hit me, and all the people seem too preoccupied with their networking or games on their various devices to notice me staring them in the face everywhere they go.

My legs burn, my lungs don’t want to work anymore, and my stomach is seriously threatening to show me my dinner again. I can’t move anymore, and I’m not sure who I’m even running from, to begin with. Everyone? Everything? The cops? Will? Jay? Myself? I have no friggin’ idea. I just need to sit down soon. That’s when I realize where I am again. In this maze of a city and all the places I could go and hide, I end up right back at the Holy View Resort. It’s sunset. How many hours was I running for?

The alarms of police sirens started ringing in my ear, but I’m sure they’d been going off for a while and I didn’t even notice. I look up to see a few various people of all sorts photographing me on their phones, portable robots, and other accessories. One prick even has the guts to start filming a vlog. So I take off down a nearby ally way. It’s dark and dank and smells like I’m not the only one to die there today. I crane my stiff neck down to watch where I’m going but my shoeless feet are already bloody.

I scramble up the hotel’s fire escape, my feet feeling a lot like they would just peel back and yell “nope, I’m done!” at me any second. So here I am again: lucky number 13, sweating and wheezing my brains out. The smog is just overhead, but the lights of the city reflect on it like I’d imagine stars would look like. “Carnival lights” my ass. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that the first time. I mean, I’d never left Earth before, and what I’ve seen of Earth wasn’t much either.

“I want to live.” I cry, I don’t want them to find me. I want to just sit here and look at the city. From up here, it looks like so much fun to live. My head is pounding, and my legs quickly give out under the weight of all the stress. The whistles and sirens only get louder, and the click of a gun snaps behind me.

“Hey, kid.” Will crawls up the fire escape behind me, a negatron gun like my own clicks again in his hand.

“Hey Will.” I laugh and cry at the same time. I’m gonna die, but at least it’s by Will’s hand. His family could use that reward money. They could move, and live a better life. His parents could be home, and spend time with the kids they work so hard to give decent lives to. Maybe in my next life, I could have parents like that. Ones that wanted their kids would be a nice change.

“C’mon, if you go to the cops now everything will be fine. Turn yourself in.”

“That’s shit and you know it.” Cops never let anyone live, and if we go down together I don’t think Will would get to either.

I look down the 13 stories. Various newscasters and authorities crowd around the bottom of the fire escape. Then, I see them. The sea of people pushing to try to get in the alley from either side only to be pushed back by police and crime scene electric fences, people poking their heads out of windows from every direction, others who I can see through windows watching me on their holo-screens: all watching, waiting, ogling -- all starving to find out what would happen next. That’s when I realize that in their eyes I’m some kind of horrible bad guy. Which, I guess, in retrospect should have been obvious. Why would they bother to try and understand me, right? I was trying to live, just like them. I mean, not in a way I could be proud of or wanted to, but still. I stand up and climb the railing.

“Whoa there, calm down, kid. It’s gonna be okay. Hell, you’re not even armed.”

“It doesn’t matter, Will. You and I both know the second I get down there they’re just gonna shoot anyway.”

He goes silent for a second, and I can hear the cheers from the crowd begging him to kill me, stab me, and various other cheers through my throbbing headache.

“Hey, Will....” He looks up at me with glassy eyes “You know, what happens when there’s a supervillain?”

“Like from a comic book?”

“Yeah. Like from a comic book.”

“No, I don’t want to. We were gonna be heroes together, remember? Now, get away from the ledge, Case. I’m sure we can work something out.”

“A hero rises to take the bad guy down: to kill them. To purge the world of evil, and show them that the good guys always win.”

“Don’t do this, Case. Please.” He sobbed.

“And you know what that hero gives the world, Will?”

“No, stop it. Come over here NOW.”

“Hope... But we’re no real superheroes. We’re human, how could we ever be more? But that’s what they think, you know? They think I’m a terrorist, and I hated myself for it too, for a while. The funny thing is, Will, for the first time — the first time, I fucking swear to you. You made me want to live, and that’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a hero.”

“Case!”

“Thank you, Will. Now go be their hero.”

I fall. I feel like I’m spiraling down through the air. That must be what flying feels like. I stick my arms out in front of me, and I’m greeted by the increasing noise of the cheering crowd. A crowd, for once, in some way, cheering for me. The ground smells like honey.