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Celia dropped her soft hand to Roman’s cheek. They stood in a meadow covered in ultraviolet flowers, the sky a starless vacuum of darkness.
“Celia,” he started to say, tears welling in his eyes. Her hair was back, the color had returned to her skin, and she looked healthy, happy.
“Roman,” her voice came as she moved up to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re almost there.”
Roman gasped, his eyes bulging open. He was lying in a puddle of water, his head pounding. He rolled to his side, breathing heavily, not able to fully comprehend what he was seeing.
Coma was going toe-to-toe with Ian, the masked doll dodging his advances, responding with quick punches and kicks. She moved faster than Roman had ever seen her move before, her attacks actually hurting Ian, evident in his grunts and the way he was nursing his ribs.
Roman felt the pressure of a thousand needles pricking into him. His arms and legs were numb, and once he was able to turn and look at his power dial, the realization came to him.
Roman was closer to dying than he’d ever been.
And part of him was fine with this.
Roman had never been a religious man, but seeing Celia in his dream-like stupor made him feel as if he could really go to that place, the meadow of ultraviolet flowers, and be there with her for the rest of eternity.
You’re almost there.
That was what Celia had said to him in his brief vision, and it must have meant something. Had she meant he was almost there—almost reunited with her? Or that he was close to defeating Ian?
Roman spat blood onto the concrete flooring of the warehouse. His entire body pulsed and went numb again, red flashing across his pane of vision.
It was as if his heart was the size of a throbbing watermelon, cracking against his rib cage, bullying his lungs and other organs, shaking his entire body.
Coma cried out as Ian struck her, sending her arching backward.
Now or never.
Animate inanimate objects.
Affect things at their molecular level.
Red is dead.
Roman took the power back from Coma, feeling his breath return to him.
His limbs stopped pulsing, and as Ian brought his foot back to punt Coma across the room, Roman focused on the protrusions jutting out of the man’s body.
Ian stopped moving, a look of discomfort spreading across his face. His protrusions quivered and started to shrink, but they didn’t just grow back into his body—some of them began curving towards his red skin, piercing his hardened epidermis and pressing through.
He doubled over in pain as a giant spike tore out of his back, blood spraying into the air. Ian dropped to his knee, more protrusions reversing their course and cutting into his skin, tearing through his tendons, shattering his bones.
Ian was a bloody mess by the time Roman finished.
He was also dead.
It took Roman a good ten minutes to catch his breath and finally get to his feet. Once he felt he was able, he re-animated Coma, who stood immediately, her head bent forward in an unnatural position as she came back to life.
He opened his hands to her and the masked doll moved to him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist.
“You saved me.”
Coma didn’t respond; she merely hugged him, the incarnation of Roman’s more aggressive side softening in his trembling arms.
He still felt like his energy had been drained from him, and while his power dial showed that he was running close to normal, it certainly didn’t feel that way.
“Thank you,” he said again, nuzzling the top of his chin in her dark hair. She felt human, her skin warm, her shoulders heaving up ever so slightly as she breathed.
It was incredible; she was alive because of him, and Roman was alive because of her.
They remained like that for another touching moment, one Roman would always recall when he recalled this scene.
Eventually, he animated Celia, whose first comment revolved around how disheveled everyone looked. Her second comment was a bit more gruesome. “And he’s dead,” she said, squinting at Ian, who lay in a bloody mess on the floor.
“Let’s finish this,” Roman said. While he caught his breath for a moment longer, Celia and Coma arranged Paris’s arms and legs so they were spread wide.
Roman turned the concrete beneath her wrists and ankles into liquid and sank her hands and feet deep into the concrete, pinning her to the floor. Focusing on her face and her dark hair, he quickly created a concrete band around her neck.
At that point, Roman waited, crouching next to Paris, biding his time before she awoke.
He wanted to know why she’d gone to all this trouble before he killed her, before he buried this part of his life, sealing it away in concrete.
Eventually, she blinked her eyes awake, and as she came to realize she’d been pinned, Paris tried to elongate her torso and break free from Roman’s clasps, slapping her back against the floor in the process and ultimately failing.
“What do you want?” she gasped, the concrete band around her neck tightening.
“I need to know why.”
“Why? What happened to Ian?” she cried, true fear in her eyes.
Her panic was momentary; she soon regained her composure, a trained soldier at heart. The West had more money than the East, less than Centralia and the South, and equal reserves as the North. Paris’s training had been extensive; she knew that any window of opportunity for her to get out of this was quickly dwindling.
“Red man is dead,” said Celia, her weight now tilted to her right hip.
Paris’s throat quivered, her eyes readjusting as she strategized on what might happen next. “And why did you keep me alive?” she finally asked.
“I need to know why.”
Paris tried to read the look on Roman’s face, the meaning behind his action, what he could possibly hold behind his orange eyes. The man she’d met at Heroes Anonymous was not the same man that crouched before her, blood streaked through his white hair, two seemingly innocuous doll-like women standing behind him.
“Why?” she asked, still not comprehending what he wanted to know. “And where did you get this power?”
Roman ignored her last question. “Why are you doing what you do? What are you hoping to get from the Centralian government?”
A million thoughts fired off in Paris’s head, all centered around the fact that she only had one chance to phrase what she said in a way that would appease Roman. She didn’t fancy for a moment that Roman would spare her life; he’d already killed Ian, an impressive feat to say the very least, and nothing about the way he now stood over her, killer instinct written large on his face, told her he’d let her live.
“Healers,” she finally said, going with her current assignment.
“Healers?”
“The Western Province has been ravaged by war for decades, especially in the borderlands. You probably already know this.”
“I do.”
“And we need healers.” Paris tried to laugh, to lighten the situation as best she could. “Sounds crazy, I know. I should clarify: the extent that I’ve been assigned with turning immigration advisors to gather data on healer numbers sounds crazy, not the fact that we need healers—that’s no laughing matter. Centralia doesn’t want refugees, doesn’t allow refugees really, and so we have to do something about those caught in the crosshairs of this war. So, healers. And from what we’ve uncovered, Centralia has killed all the healers.”
“That’s why you chose me? Healers?”
“The plan was more complex than that. It was actually about your officemate, Kevin Blackbook. His brother, of the same name, works in the Centralian Diplomatic Forces, which you probably know.”
“Aware. Kevin’s brother. What’s that have to do with me? Kevin’s dead...”
Paris held her tongue for a moment. If Roman didn’t know, then she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. “Yes, he’s dead. Unfortunate. We wanted to use Kevin as leverage to get his brother to give us the info, which we weren’t able to do because of his death. We found another way, and from what we’ve been able to gather, Centralia has killed all but one healer.”
“I’ve never dealt with paperwork for a healer. Pretty sure Kevin hadn’t either, and if he had, it was years ago.”
“That’s because there are no more healers, like I said. Well, according to what we’ve been able to uncover, there is one, and your government has them.”
“Only one?” Roman immediately thought of Celia and watching her wither away. “Are you saying there is only one healer left in the entire world?”
Paris shrugged as best she could with her neck pinned to the floor. “Could be, or there could be more. This has changed the nature of my operation. What was once an operation to secure more healers to use in the West has now become an operation to uncover what has happened to all the healers.”
Roman glanced to his fists and noticed they were clenched tight. He thought of Celia, the fact that she could have been cured if they’d had a healer. If there’d been a healer available, she’d be with him now, alive, happy.
His knuckles grew red as he squeezed his fists even tighter. Someone was to blame.
“What do you think happened to the other healers?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know,” said Paris, desperation flickering behind her dark eyes, “but if you let me go, we can work together to uncover the truth.”
