I found myself at the Harper Hilden Cemetery. It was where they buried all the businessmen and politicians. The whole world was going to Hell and I was standing before what I assumed was an empty grave. There were still bits of cinder and ash falling from the red sky, but the beauty was lost on me. Beauty was gone. I should be happy that I didn’t kill Steven. It was my biggest accomplishment and my biggest failure and I couldn’t figure out which was the biggest. This erased that. I hadn’t killed him, I hadn’t saved the world. But I also hadn’t become the murderer I thought I was. I wasn’t a hero or a villain anymore, I was just another crook again. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“All the chaos and you come here?” Dana’s voice asked.
It was the voice I least wanted to hear in the whole world. I could kill her right here and now for what she did. She lied. She made me think I’d killed her son when I didn’t and she’d made my life harder than it should be. I joined her team to save the world and she’d used me since the beginning. Hadassa may be a monster, but at least he knows he’s a monster. Dana was the monster you never feared because she was just a bureaucrat, an Upper East Side princess. It never dawned on me that after redemption, or while in redemption, you never really change. Some people can’t change. She’s a bitch, a true blue bitch and she has so many secrets. I didn’t care to know any more of them. I didn’t care to look at her.
“To lose a child…”
“Shut up.” I said coldly.
“What?” came an appalled question.
“You just lie and lie and then you want people to feel sorry for you. I don’t.” I chuckled angrily, “You kept this from us. You kept this important fact from us!”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Dana said, “If they…if anyone knew…”
“I can understand a mother wanting to keep her son alive. I can even understand some of the secrecy, but I’m the closet person to him. You made me feel like a criminal for killing him.” I said through gritted teeth.
“But you are a criminal.”
“Not for murder. You made me feel like I was soulless and downright bad for something I didn’t do.” I whipped around at her, “Even if I had killed him, it wasn’t my fault. It was never my fault, it was yours.”
She looked as if she was about to show actual emotion. Then she was about to speak.
“You brought him to Medusa. You raised him to be that man. My love made him a better man…your love made him a monster.” I said quickly, “And I can’t blame him because you’re a monster and how else could he be?”
“Perhaps. But that’s not relevant. He’s gone rogue. He’s become head of Medusa and is causing all of this!” Dana said, gesturing at the city, “It doesn’t matter if he died or not, you tried to kill him.”
“If I had, if you would have let go, we wouldn’t be standing in the ruins of our city, awaiting an alien invasion.” I chuckled angrily, “You have all this wealth and power and brains but underneath it all you’re insecure and frankly, stupid.”
“I am sorry for everything I’ve done, but my faults can be dealt with later.” Dana frowned, “The world is more important than this.”
“I’m just a criminal.” I said, turning back to the headstone, “If the world mattered to me, if any of this mattered to me, wouldn’t I be trying to save it right now?”
“You do not fool me. You’re a good criminal,” she said quickly, “But you are a great superhero.”
She was right. I am a good criminal. The question was obvious: Did I want to be a great superhero? Was I really cut out for that? I’d never thought so before, what changed now? Why, all of a sudden, did everything seem so unclear? As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. I did care. I cared very much. I didn’t want to see the world end in fire. But how badly did I want to see it continue? All the lies you tell yourself just to wake up, just to go on…and when you’re confront with the truth…it’s never how you envision it. These lies kept us alive. But I couldn’t lie about this. I couldn’t lie to myself about saving the world. This was too important. I found myself wondering who is possessing my thoughts. I‘m not a guy hung up on saving the world, that’s David’s thing. But I wasn’t a guy that was going to stand by and let this happen. Crap! I’m the bad guy with a heart of gold. So much wrong with that.
“Where do we start? Can we even still save the world?” I asked.
Dana cleared her throat, “The team. You’ve faced my son before, but they haven’t.”
“The team doesn’t even like me.” I said with an unbelieving clutter in my voice.
“That may be true,” Dana said clearly, “But they need you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? He was a bastard and a dick but I loved him.” I said, “I killed him to save him.”
“Exactly. You don’t know a mother’s love.” Dana said, “It’s stronger than that, it drives you to do things that you know you shouldn’t do.”
I stared at her.
“My husband, God rest his soul, was a good man. He fell to his dark side during the end of his life, he backed Medusa. Loving him, I went along with him. I loved him with my whole heart and I would have followed him into the depths of Hell.” Dana stopped with a bated breath. She quickly regained herself, “David was never like my husband. He is good and honorable. Steven is honorable but there’s always been darkness to him. The fact that he loved you…never quite struck me. It didn’t register. Not until…”
I coughed at the ash falling, “What exactly is the plan?” I asked.
“We save him.”
I chuckled, “You think he wants to be saved? I want to save him badly, but I know the only way is to—“
“If it comes to that, I will help you. But we need to reach him.” Dana said solemnly.