Monster (Gone 7)

Justin shook his head slowly, thinking, not interested in her impotent anger. “They never really deal with this in the movies. In the movies Tony Stark has his mansion, and Spider-Man has his aunt May and his secret identity. The closest to this is probably Hulk, he’s always on the run—”

“Jesus Christ, Justin!” Erin snapped. “Are you aware that this is not a comic book? This is real life. The real FBI is after us! They have our names, for God’s sake, they know who we are! Every credit card, any access to a bank, any time we have to go through the TSA . . . hell, any random cop who pulls us over for a busted taillight!”

“What are they gonna do?” Justin asked with weary irritation. “They can’t stop me. At least not with bullets, I’m pretty sure. I mean, if I can cut through metal . . .”

“It’s all some big male fantasy for you, isn’t it?”

Justin laughed derisively. “You know, Erin, you talk tough about being on the edge, but really you’re just a little rich bitch playacting.”

“Yeah, you got me, Justin.” She held up her hands in mock surrender. “I confess: I don’t like being a hunted animal. I don’t . . .” She tensed and fell silent. In the rearview mirror she spotted a park ranger’s white-and-green SUV driving slowly past, going up the hill.

“They don’t have the prison that can hold me,” Justin boasted.

“Well, they have one that’ll hold me. And I am not bulletproof.”

“I can protect you,” Justin said gruffly, trying to sound older than he was, wishing he could access his morphed voice, that ground-vibrating growl.

“Uh-huh. Sure you can.”

“Gotta go balls out,” Justin said.

“Here we go,” Erin said with vicious sarcasm. “Balls out. The whole array of male fantasy, here it comes, ‘balls out.’ What does that even mean, ‘balls out’?”

“It means I am what I am,” Justin said, pouting in the face of her withering sarcasm. “It means things are what they are, what’s done is done.”

“Any more clichés you’d like to spout? You know, a penny saved is a penny earned? A stitch in time saves nine?”

“Too late for a secret identity,” Justin said, more to himself than to her. “The whole world is out to get me. Us. What choice do I have but to go balls . . . to just stick it in their faces, you know? Be the monster. Play the role to the hilt.”

“Meaning what, exactly? I mean, setting aside your ‘stick it in their faces,’ ‘balls out’ crap, what do we do?” She glared at him, like it was all his fault.

“It’s not me,” Justin said, a crafty smile taking shape.

“Don’t be cryptic, okay? Not in the mood.”

“The thing I become, the monster—it’s not me. Hulk and Bruce Banner.”

“I swear to God I will drive this mommy wagon right over this cliff!” A few feet of gravel and a symbolic but useless cable fence were all that separated them from a long plunge down the nearly vertical cliff face to the rocks and the waters below.

“Bruce Banner becomes Hulk, but Hulk is not Bruce Banner. Legally. Listen to me, Erin: it wasn’t me, it was him. He cut up the plane. Him. My alter ego. Legally, I’m not responsible, so how are they going to arrest me and try me and throw me in prison?”

He saw her processing this, saw anger and fear soften, just a little. Her eyes were shrewd now, calculating. “What about me? I don’t have that excuse.”

Justin shrugged. “The monster kidnapped you.”

Erin nodded, but the nod of assent became a shake of negation. “You don’t think the FBI has thought about that? They’ll shoot on sight and claim we were attacking them. Problem solved.” But then, another reversal. She snapped her fingers. “We need to make our case. We need to make this very public.”

“I’m listening.”

“Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all of it. We put it out there. Pictures, videos . . . we put you and the monster out there. It’ll trend like crazy. If we do a video, it’ll be viral in ten seconds.” In her mounting excitement she twisted to face him. “Your Lump thing, what was it? The comic book thing?”

“Hulk?”

“Hulk, yeah. People know that, right? I mean, normal people, not just nerds? If we use that as our example, people have to get it.”

“People will get it,” Justin assured her. “Maybe not your snotty art gallery crowd, but regular people.”

The part of Erin O’Day that was all about publicity and fashion and the latest thing was thinking out loud now and Justin nodded along, feeling the possibilities. “We say we just want to be left alone. We’ll get away, you know, stay away from people, from civilization, find a place in the mountains . . . tell people we just want to keep the monster from hurting anyone.”