Super•Villainous

Epilogue

"Hey." A finger jabbed none too gently into my side. "Nap time's over. Time to wake up."

I groaned, disoriented. "Leigh?"

"Yup," she said to the affirmative in her usual brisk way. "Ren seemed to be under the impression that if his was the first face you saw after waking up you'd claw his eyes out, so here I am, doing his dirty work."

Just like that, my disorientation vanished and I sprung up in my bed so fast I cracked something in my neck. "Where is he?" I raged.

Forced calm pressed down on my fury, doing its best to temper it, and mostly failing. Leigh had more success shoving me back into my pillow. "Lie down!" she snapped. "There will be no eye-clawing, got it? I'm fine. You're fine. Atticus is fine," she stressed. "See? He's right here, look."

She leaned out of the way to reveal a second bed on her opposing side, also occupied, and on it laid Atticus. Breathing. Alive.

Sleeping.

I looked back to Leigh. "I don't... I saw him get shot!"

"You saw what they wanted everyone to see. I don't know all the details yet, so don't ask. Ren promised to explain after you both woke up. You were deemed the safer option for Windless to awaken first." Only then did I notice the Super in question standing vigil by the door, hands primly folded together at her front. "We thought you should be there when we wake Atty. You know... just in case..." her voice trailed off with the implication of what they thought could go wrong where he was concerned. Another lapse in his control, most likely.

"Okay." My words were for the Super at the only exit, ensuring her own path to escape should things go belly-up. I tossed away my sheets and threw my legs off the side of the bed, standing. Thanks to my accelerated healing, I felt none of the soreness owed to me over the last day of turmoil. I also noted, with some embarrassment, that I'd been changed into fresh clothes. Hovering beside Atticus's unconscious form, I took his hand, in case he needed that extra boost of healing for control, and murmured, "Wake him up."

I didn't trust them, regardless of Leigh's sudden inexplicable faith. Too much had happened for trust to flow freely, but Atticus was undeniably in front of me, in opposition to all I thought I'd seen, and I couldn't bear to let him sleep even a moment longer. As his eyes, blue and gold and more familiar to me than my own, fluttered open, I got that final, seemingly impossible confirmation that he was indeed fine.

We both were.

He stared openly up at me, like he couldn't quite believe I was there, like I was the only thing in the room, and I had to physically restrain myself from kissing him right then and there, for Leigh's sake.

She seemed to catch on to my restraint. "Excuse me, while I go vomit."

Ren let himself into the room, circling around Windless to stand at the foot of Atticus's bed. "Likewise. Be grateful you can't read their minds right about now."

Visibly repulsed, she said, "I don't want to think about that." Then, to herself, she muttered, "Seriously, Lil, of all people, my brother..."

The soft smile playing at the edges of Atticus's lips faded, and, tearing his attention away, he said to Ren, "You have one minute to explain what is going on here, or I will make your life very unpleasant."

I doubted he yet had the control to back up such a threat, but it sounded intimidating coming from him, nonetheless. And again, while my guard remained high, the fact that all three of us were still breathing with minimal prohibitory measures taken against us inclined me to give Ren the benefit of the doubt.

For now.

"You might recall a recent conversation we had," Ren said to me, "about secrets, and how they aren't very well kept around me. You might even recall how I mentioned your secrets."