You may have heard drama across the interwebs about a new batch of super LOSERS in Chicago who are straight up WASTING their powers committing a bunch of super-basic crimes. Well, I’ve decided to call them the Anti-Heroes because I am already OVER their dumb games. They seem to be part of this crazy siege that’s going down that I hope flames out IMMEDIATELY on account of being total bs.
Thanks to WarNat intel, I’ve determined there are at least 3 of these Anti-Hero idiots:
- Fungi
- BlazeBoy
- Lazerous
Gross. So far they’ve been spotted lurking off the beaten paths, not even brave enough to fully assert their stupid faces in the public eye, WHICH IS LAME. If you’re gonna be bad, COMMIT. God. Why would anyone use their superpowers for crime? It’s pathetic.
JUST STAY AWAY FROM MY VAPORIZER! HE’S MINE!
BROKEN. MY RIGHT HAND IS BROKEN.
Sitting in the emergency room in Warrior Nation HQ, Matt and I stare at the X-ray of my hand, the bluish-white glow of my fractured bones casting a haunted haze over us both. I’ve been in the medical unit countless times with Matt, as both of us have needed the kind of quick, discreet care only Warrior doctors can provide. I’ve endured black eyes and bruises, gashes and scars, but nothing compares to this. We sit in silence as a team comes to set my cast, wrapping my fingers, wrist, and forearm in plaster. It finally happened: This relationship broke me.
When the chair got kicked over, I’d been trying to reposition where the rope was touching my skin. The girl I was tied to kept squirming, causing too much friction. Now a wrist burn is the least of my problems.
The hand I make art with is broken.
Matt sits in a corner, his white Vaporizer costume taking on a gray hue in the dimmed room. He keeps balling up his mask in a tight fist, then letting it dangle toward the floor, his dark, messy hair following a similar cascade over his drooped head. The nurses and doctors pay him no attention. They don’t ask what happened, and they don’t need to. This scene has played out many times.
“Six weeks,” the doctor says, regarding my recovery. Six weeks. Nearly two months of figuring out how to be left-handed, of taking double the amount of time to do daily ordinary tasks. Six weeks of not being able to work on my portfolio, which I’m supposed to present to Dean Hucksley at the end of the summer. I promised myself I would spend these months cutting and shaping the most intricate paper art CAC has ever seen, making an elaborate pop-up book with each page plunging to depths so detailed and captivating, they’d have no choice but to include me in the Spring Showcase.
What am I supposed to do now?
The doctor hands me a prescription for painkillers, should I need them, and leaves Matt and me alone in the curtained-off space. Matt continues staring down at the linoleum; I don’t think he’s looked me in the eyes once. In the hallway, a team rushes by with another patient—looks like Earthquake took a pretty bad hit—calling for various treatments. Usually Matt can’t help but watch a big commotion like this, wanting to be part of the action somehow, but he still doesn’t budge.
“I want to go home,” I say quietly from my perch on the table. He glances up, and the pain on his face is palpable. From my slightly elevated position, he looks so small, definitely not the powerful man plastered on posters all over the city. All of his bravado and confidence are gone, leaving him with nothing but tight-fitting insecurity. Yet I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the emptiness I feel right now.
“Okay,” he says, equally timid. “I’ll get your stuff and we can—”
“No. I don’t want you to come.”
His face twists in confusion. “What?”
“I’m going home by myself.”
“But you’re hurt—”
“I need to take care of myself.”
He takes a beat before shaking his head. “Bridge, this night got way out of control, but I got to you as soon as I could, and I’m not leaving you now.”
“My hand is broken.”
“I realize that.”
“Do you?” I ask, trying to stay calm, although I’m pretty sure my eyes will betray me any second now. “I can’t create, I can’t do anything for almost two months. Do you know what a loss that is for me?”