Podcast of a Teenage Super-Villian

Chapter Five: Slugs

Song Selection: I couldn't find a song that fit, forgive me, friend. 

Avery Jackson is not a religious man. Last time he prayed was in the glow of the televangelist channel, the night his wife stormed out of his life.

But when the call arrives from Officer Malone that his daughter's been shot,  Avery drops to his knees in the middle of his cherished library. Ms. Stanley whacks her ceiling below him, but instead of running downstairs like he usually does, he ignores her. Everything, the musty damp-paper smell of the books, the stains in the trim, the bulb that needs to be replaced, it all fades to the staccato of his thoughts. Frantic whispering that his daughter's pain is some punishment for not being a good enough father or husband, for putting his work before his family. He presses his hands together so tightly all the blood leaves his palms. Fighting sobs, he prays silent, frantic words.

Shotgun rounds, once through her smallest rib, three times through her spinal cord, Malone had said when Jackson asked him what she was shot with, where. Avery Jackson has only hunted once for a story. And he remembers how big and long the rounds were, compressed metal thicker than his thumb, index, and forefinger pressed together. He stood there in the middle of his library, shivering. Bile rising from the back of his throat. "No," he said, "please, no—"

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Jackson. That she's alive is a miracle."

She should be dead. His only daughter should be dead, a victim of unspeakable violence. Once in the chest. Three times in the back. Slugs, maybe five inches in length. He swallowed, tried to calm his rattling heart. The reporter was not the hysterical type, but the image, the thought of someone hurting his daughter that way... He closed his eyes and inhaled a long, shuddering breath. "Thank you." His voice was hoarse and clipped.

"I can't promise you that she'll make it through the night. I'm...I'm sorry."

"I'll come," he said. And then, with an exchange of goodbyes, the journalist fell to his knees in prayer.

Minutes pass.

Then he calms his voice, calls his daughter's best friends and girlfriend, tells them that his little girl may be dying, and I'm sorry it's so late, but I know she'd want you with her if...she...passes. I'll talk to your parents. I'll pick you up.

Passes.

His daughter might die tonight, he tells himself, over and over until it feels real, so horribly real. This isn't supposed to happen. Not in the comic books, not in the movies. But he remembers that night he caught her fighting Max in the apartment, her arm crooked and creaking back together with slow click-click-clicks. He remembers her gasping on the floor through lungs full of blood because her ribs were broken. Monet is not indestructible. He knows her body can heal, but not fast, not fast enough. Not fast enough to save her, he thinks.

After he finds the strength to stand, this is how Mr. Jackon ends up driving three crying kids to the hospital at 1:13 in the morning. Aside from blaming himself for his daughter getting shot so many times, he hasn't broken yet. Not a single tear. Stars winks off the windshield, wounds of light against encapsulating darkness. He keeps a calm facade for the kids, but he clenches the wheel so tightly his knuckles burn. Silently, he's repeating an article he read about how even the best doctors can't "reverse the process of dying" sometimes.

Reverse the process of dying. How clinical, how cold, how inevitable. That dying isn't a thing that happens all at once, it's something slow. Something happening to his daughter.

Avery Jackson holds it together. He holds it together all the way to the hospital. He holds it together when he's stumbling toward the door and realizes he isn't wearing any shoes, and that Kai's not even wearing a shirt—just a blue blazer over a bare chest, and he wants to ruffle the boy's hair and calm him as if he was his own, because the shivering teen might as well be Monet's brother. Finn's not doing much better, wide-eyed, mute. Shocked. And Percy's babbling between sharp sobs. "She's a superhero. She took out a gunman by shoving his face between her legs. Well, not that way. Not the way it sounds. But like in a scissors? Wrestling thing? She broke her arm a thousand wrong ways, and-and she saved me, Mr. Jackson, and she can't die, she's indestructible. A hero."