The Super Jerk Trilogy (Now 3-in-1)

20. Just Let Me Cry

{Zachary}

I think there comes a point in everyone's life where their worldview changes entirely, and it's impossible to get the old one back. For me, it was after I took away Dad's powers. I never thought I would, firstly, and secondly, I never thought I would have to. Someone told me he had it coming to him. Maybe it was Sky Scraper.

   Supernova restrains him as we go about letting everyone back inside. The shield went down when Dad's powers left, so it's much easier to get them all with relatively no risk. Cam'll need some medical attention, and so will Kaelie, but otherwise we can get it done. It's only much later, when we've all been carted off to the hospital for one form of injury or another, that I hear about the death toll. Jaws. Squidink. And the most surprising, Vermillion. I'm practically stunned, my eyes glued to the television screen without really seeing it. Apparently one of Dad's robots threw an incendiary bomb where she was trying to get some kids out, and the entire building exploded.

   "Zach?" Sarah's voice brings me back into the present. I look up and I swear my heart ripped. Her face and eyes are red and puffy from crying, and it looks like she's barely contained herself just to come find me.

   "Hey," I say, but that's as far as I get. She collapses next to me and buries her face in my shoulder, sobs that make no noise shaking her. I wrap my arms around her and pull her close, resting my chin on top of her head. I'd only met Vermillion once, but even then she'd seemed so confident, self-assured, like she knew what she was doing. She was a role model for all the girls out there who were supers. Even Kaelie seemed to respect her.

   Then I see Jocelyn, wandering out into the waiting room looking a little lost. Now that she's not wearing her mask, I can see the bruises on her face and the split across her cheekbone and over the bridge of her nose. It's butterfly-bandaged, but I know that'll be a black eye. Or two. I notice she's limping a little too, favoring her left leg.

   "I...I should go..." Sarah says finally, after a deep ragged breath. "See how Ellis is holding up..."

   That's right. I'd completely forgotten that Vermillion was his mentor. I give her cheek a kiss as she stands, and that gets a small smile from her. She brushes mine with the backs of her fingers, and then she's gone again. Then I stand too, approaching Jocelyn at the window. She's looking down at the street, apparently without seeing it.

   "Jocelyn?" I say when I've stopped right next to her.

   "Zach," she answers, pushing one hand through her hair.

   "Doing okay?"

   She sighs. "Physically? Yes. Bit sore, but otherwise I'm fine."

   "Same, actually." I feel a smile tug at my mouth. We're all wrecks, me, her, Cam, Kaelie, Ellis. Dad had told me once that supers manifest their power out of pain. It didn't matter if that was physical or psychological. It just sort of happens, over a matter of years. "How about mentally?"

   "Watching the Red Knight beat his son..." She shakes her head, rakes both hands through her hair this time. "It was awful. I'd never seen anything like that."

   "Yeah," I say, but I can't think of anything else. Cam did all of that for family. Maybe even to put the broken pieces of it back together. It worked, but I think it took something else away. Possibly something they won't ever get back.

   "You're brave, for choosing to be good when your father was evil," she says after a while. The waiting room is surprisingly quiet, almost completely unoccupied except for us. "I'm sorry for accusing you earlier of spying for him. I just assumed, you being a Green and everything..."