After the Golden Age (Golden Age 1)

“My bag—my attaché case, you have to find it, it’s got some information about a lab Sito used to work at ages ago. Do you know he worked for West Corp, for my grandfather? I can’t lose it, I have to show Dad—”

He gave her an odd look, like he thought it was the concussion talking. “We’ll find it, Celia. Don’t worry. I’ll look for it myself, but you must sit.”

She let him lead her to a quiet curb and a blanket. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

“They’re helping with the injured. There were forty people on that bus.”

The emergency crew was spraying fire retardant foam everywhere, and dozens of stretchers carried away the wounded. So many of them. No one had gotten out of there unscathed.

“They’d all be dead if it weren’t for you,” Arthur said helpfully.

Celia gripped his arm in a sudden panic. “The baby, is the baby okay? There was this baby, it was screaming, and I think we all wanted to throttle it … is it okay?”

He pointed. The mother was sitting on a stretcher while an EMT dabbed at a cut on her forehead. She held the baby in her arms, smiling and cooing at it. It was still crying, but the sobs were reduced to tired whimpers.

Celia continued holding Arthur’s arm, because it steadied her. The world was still moving at eighty miles an hour. “I killed the driver.”

“I know. You did what you had to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’re a hero.”

She started to laugh, but it hurt, so she stopped. “I just didn’t want to die.”

He gave her a wry smile. “That’s good to hear.”

She looked down, saw her hand on his sleeve, resting on his arm. “Thanks. You’re always there for me when the shit hits the fan, pulling me out of the Destructor’s clutches, or just … just keeping me sane. So thanks.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

Her gaze focused for a moment, and her breath stopped. He had blue eyes. She felt them looking back at her, felt them, through her eyes and into her mind, and they told her that what he’d said was more than a social nicety.

He never showed emotion. He kept such tight control over himself. But for a moment, that guard dropped, and she saw … everything. The look in his eyes left her gut feeling warm.

He glanced away, lips slipping into a frown. He squeezed her hand and stood as an EMT took his place beside her on the curb. Calmly as ever, he walked away to join the rest of the rescue effort.

* * *

The medical powers that be wanted to keep her in the hospital overnight for observation. She didn’t mind. She lay in bed, between nice clean sheets, and enjoyed the feeling of not moving. They’d even given her a private room. She didn’t have to face anything but the walls if she didn’t want to.

She had her eyes closed when she heard footsteps approach, then stop in the doorway. Not bothering to lift her head from the pillow, she looked. Blinked, looked again. There he stood, a familiar form in his overcoat, slouching sheepishly. Mark, bringing flowers. He gripped a vase of roses in both hands.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t look convinced. Probably because of the thick bandage around her forehead. A cut, eight stitches. She hadn’t even felt it. She supposed she ought to be milking this for all the sympathy it was worth.

“Can I come in?”

She could tell him off or let it go. Letting it go made her less tired right now. “Sure.”

He tried to find a place for the vase of roses, but all the tables were filled, as well as the floor along the wall with the window. He slipped it in between another vase and a teddy bear holding a balloon.

“Popular girl,” he said, standing a little ways off from the bed.

A dozen families of passengers on the bus had sent her flowers; two dozen random people she’d never heard of with no connection to the accident sent her flowers. All because she lacked any compunctions about crawling up to a man with a gun and strangling him from behind. It weirded her out, even more than all the bad press after her testimony. She’d deserved the bad press. All the news stations had carried live breaking reports of the bus hijacking. Once her name had come up, the reporters grabbed it and ran record-breaking sprints. The second time in a week she’d made the news, and the only thing reporters liked better than a hero was a hero redeeming a dark past.