’m shocked into silence as he pours a clear, foul-smelling alcohol into his coffee, shaking the flask a few times to ensure it is empty. “I received a memo from Aurora this morning.”
“She’s taking your job?” I ask.
He spins around in his chair, facing the blank wall as it comes alive, displaying his messages. A lump forms in my throat as I read Aurora’s message to Pepper, sent less than an hour ago.
My Dearest Apprentice,
Please clear all personal belongings from the lower levels of my studio. When I arrive, I will take no offense if you choose to live elsewhere for the duration of my stay. Should you be there to greet me, you may find yourself in a place of questionable legality. Your loyalties to me, above all else, are expected. You have never failed me and I trust that you will not do so now.
Yours,
Aurora
I snort. “That’s the most cryptic thing I’ve ever read. She’s a crackpot.”
“Her studio,” Pepper mocks, his back still facing me as he looks up at the wall screen. “Fifty years here and she still considers it hers.”
“It’ll be okay,” I assure him.
“I’m worthless. I have nothing to live for.”
“That’s not true,” I snap on reflex. Pepper gives me an annoyed look, a look that says really? That’s the best you can do? “In a few hours, Aurora will kick me out of my own studio—my own home. I will have precisely nothing to live for.”
“You have tons to live for!”
Pepper’s lips form a flat line. “Name one.”
Deafening silence fills the space between us as I close my mouth. I have no answer for him. All of my knee-jerk replies are nothing but empty words and excuses, like a dime store sympathy card meant to make someone feel better. There are no cleverly worded poems or historical quotes that can make him feel better; nothing that can change his situation. I’ve been in Pepper’s shoes before. I’m there right now.
If I’m not a Hero, I have no reason to live.
Pepper was born to design suits. He wakes up every morning, puts on a fitted shirt with matching cufflinks and a belt so that he can look as passionate as he feels about his job. He dedicates his entire life to designing each suit to be better than the last. This isn’t his hobby; it is his life. This is when I realize that Pepper and I are very much alike.
It’s me who grabs his shoulders this time.
“You’re right.” I stare him in the eyes with my jaw set and watch his own purple eyes swell with tears as his bottom lip quivers.
“You’re absolutely right. You have nothing to live for if you aren’t here, doing what you were born to do.” I swallow, knowing my speech isn’t just for him. It’s for me too. “So, isn’t that worth fighting for?”
Jake doesn’t look happy to see me even though his first words are, “Thank god, I found you.”
“Technically I found you.” When I left Pepper’s and didn’t find Jake waiting outside for me, I walked halfway home before I came across him, sitting slumped against the wall in the tunnels. He was convinced that he was on a one-way trip to be depowered once my dad discovered he had failed to escort me home. It took all of my Hero-negotiation skills to convince him that he technically could still walk me home and no one would know about the detour.
We look to the left as a terrifying noise echoes through the tunnel, growing louder as it nears us. It isn’t the screeching of a KAPOW pod in need of a tune-up. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s a scream. Not a high-pitched, Wilhelm scream from horror movies, but a low, guttural lash of desperation. A single word.
“No.”
The next sound is more frightening than the one before it. Static screeches through the air as a computerized female voice echoes through the tunnels in Central. “All Supers are in Lockdown. Proceed to shelter and do not leave until notice is given. Do not use communication devices. All Supers are in Lockdown.”
A weight falls to the bottom of my stomach and my skin turns to ice. My eyes lock with Jake’s and he gives me a look that I know I will never forget: This isn’t a drill.
He doesn’t even glance at the door to my house, which is only a step or two away from me. He doesn’t try to force me and my brown paper bag through the door and into safety. Guess he finally figured out there’s no use in trying to argue with me.
I leap into a sprint and he’s trailing after me half a second later. There’s shouting and desperate pleading, sobbing and more shouting echoing through the tunnels as I follow the two different voices. I refuse to believe what logic and my short-term memory is telling me.
That the male voice I hear begging and crying is Pepper.
Behind me, Jake pants for breath as his footsteps lag behind me. He calls out for me to wait up, bargains that he’ll give me anything if I please just let him escort me. I smell the sweat rolling off him, hear it splash onto the concrete, but as I turn the second to last corner to Pepper’s studio, I don’t slow down and I don’t look back.