Hero (Gone 9)

Dekka didn’t have to be asked twice. “Shade! Malik! Cruz! Francis! Retreat, retreat, retreat!”

Even now she knew she shouldn’t order Armo, but he got the idea anyway, and together they pelted down the stairs. Shade zoomed past carrying Cruz in her arms as Cruz dribbled out another bag of sugar.

“This way!” Simone yelled.

They burst through the doors out onto Forty-Second Street, shaking, panting, all of them terrified. And they kept running until they had put many blocks between themselves and Grand Central Terminal.

It was a mile back to the armory, and they ran the first half of it before slowing down. Panic. There was no better word for it. Dekka was leading a panicked army in full retreat.

Defeat. Again.

Simone had caught a brief glance at Detective Williams in the early stages of Vector’s terrible attack. She’d had a much closer view of the person roped atop the information booth.

Maybe she could have tried to excuse Williams as a panic move, an instant reaction by her father when he found himself surrounded and under attack. Maybe.

INT: Grand Central Terminal. Evening. Move in on a creature writhing in torment. Slowly we reveal that this is a human being.

But there was no possible rationalization to explain doing horrifying things and then putting them on display. It was barbaric. It was inhuman. No, that wasn’t right, it was very human, the worst of humanity. It was very human cruelty. It was human vanity and human contempt and very human greed for power.

It was very human evil.

She flew along now, not wanting to be down with the others where she had to interact, where she had to hear their careful efforts not to offend her by saying something harsh about her father.

Her father: a monster.

Simone felt as if her body was filled with a poison, as if she were contaminated, as if she were one of those touched by Vector’s revenge. His acts had rubbed off on her. How could they not? It was his DNA as well as her mother’s that had designed and built Simone in utero. She was his child. She was the child of a man she had once admired, relied on . . . loved. She had known her father was a predator, but had assumed that his greed extended only to money. But now . . .

Her strength failed, and she had to drop to her feet and lean against a stoplight post as stifling rage built inside her.

Montage: life events where Markovic had been present. Cut to Simone crying.

Simone was breathing in sobs, sharp noises on each inhalation, the opening notes in a symphony of despair and self-loathing. She felt a hand on her arm, and through eyes she only now realized had filled with tears, she saw Dekka.

Simone tried to talk, but the words were strangled in her throat.

“It’s hard,” Dekka said. “You have to give it time.”

“Hard?” Simone managed to ask, her mouth in an ugly sneer.

“Yes. It’s hard seeing bad things. It’s in your head, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it being engraved on your memory.”

“Jesus Christ, he’s my father! He’s my father! That . . . that . . . filthy, murdering . . . he’s my father! What he did . . .” A sound came from her that was almost a laugh, a tumble of words tinged with hysteria. “That bastard! How did I . . . God damn him, I hope there’s a God, I hope that’s real, I hope hell is real, I hope he burns. . . .”

Without willing it, Simone found herself wrapped in strong arms. Human arms: Dekka de-morphed, a big black girl who had never struck Simone as a hugger. And to her own amazement, Simone buried her face in the crook of Dekka’s neck and heaved sobs.

After a while Dekka gently disengaged and started Simone moving again. “We have to keep moving. He may come after us.”

“Ask me again,” Simone said, her voice like gravel.

“I don’t know what—”

“Ask me again,” Simone said, voice now savage. “Ask me again if I’ll kill him. Go on, ask me again!”

Dekka did not.

Fade to black.

CHAPTER 31