TITAN

Eric lay in the middle of the sidewalk. He was covered in glass and cringing through a blinding headache. He noticed three things at once: One, Jim McNulty didn’t look like he used to. He was taller and well-muscled. While military school might have made him more fit, it wouldn’t makeyou taller. Also, some aspect of Jim was missing. It was not necessarily a physical thing, but Jim was only seventy percent there.

What did they do to him?

Two, Rose was too close to all of this. She backed away from the table, her eyes darting between Jim, the human leviathan, and Eric lying on the sidewalk, squirming to sit up. And three, peculiarly, Eric saw that his clothes were ripped and torn. They were ruined. He wasn’t sure why this occurred to him.

“Get up!” Jim barked. His frame filled the opening that Eric’s body had made in the restaurant window. His voice was deranged. “Come with me or I’m gonna break you in two.”

What the hell? Eric stood up and saw Jim’s eyes, yellow and bloodshot. Eric couldn’t process it. “Are you with them now? The people who killed your family?”

Jim swept the table at which Eric and Rose had been sitting against the interior wall, smashing it like particle board. Rose slipped out of the way. She was on all fours, watching the surreal confrontation unfold. Jim pointed at Eric, “Don’t youdare use them! They’re dead because of you! I can still save Beth if you come with me now.”

Beth’s alive?! Eric gulped back his surprise. He looked for anything to help him get a grip. He found it in Rose’s frightened face as she was crouched in the upturned restaurant behind Jim and the broken plate glass window. “I can’t go with you, Jim. Whoever you’re helping… they killed Sarah. They killed your parents. What do you think they’ll do with you? And Beth?”

Jim stepped out of the restaurant window and loomed over Eric. He stared down at his old friend with rage boiling in his eyes. Eric didn’t react fast enough when Jim snagged him by the shirt. Before Eric could think, Jim flexed his arms and Eric hurtled across the street. He crashed against the brick storefront of a trinkets boutique and the brick wall trembled with the force of Eric’s body. He peeled off of the storefront and fell onto the sidewalk. A line of blood traced down the side of Eric’s head into his collar and beneath his shirt. To Eric’s surprise, he was only dazed—not unconscious or dead like you would expect someone to be after smashing into a brick wall at 60 MPH.

A crowd of pedestrians watched with gape-jawed surprise. Some of them backpedaled and ran away west on King Street or east towards the river. Traffic stopped at the corner.

Jim stormed across the street with long strides. A big pickup truck coming up from the river bore down on him, but he saw it out of his periphery and threw his shoulder into the grill, slamming the vehicle to an immediate stop. The truck’s back end squawked into the air as Jim wrapped his hands under the bumper and rolled the truck back towards the north side of the street. A pack of young people, roughly Eric’s age, passed in front and moved too slow. The truck caught them mid-stride and pinned them against the pavement. The few that survived the truck landing on them cried for help. The fleeing rabble ignored them and ran past. A father in a business suit slipped between the flipped truck and the car beside it, holding two young children, one in each arm, without missing a step. Those who couldn’t run quickened their gait to escape unnoticed. The cool, calm evening was over.

One of the police cars on patrol nearby stopped at the south end of King Street and an officer stepped out with his gun drawn and his body positioned behind the open driver’s side door. Jim saw him and snarled a curse under his breath. He lifted a Prius parked beside him onto his shoulder and bounced it end over end at the cop. The small car caromed across several vehicles and collided with the side of the police car, which in turn rolled over on top of the officer. The cop had not been able to process the fact that a car had been thrown at him. He tried to dodge a moment too late.

“JIM!” Eric climbed to his feet, woozy. “You’re killing these people!”

Jim sneered. “No. You’re killing these people by being the same selfish fuck you always were. If you’d just come with me, it’d be over.”

“And you’d be dead along with Beth and my parents,” Eric said. “I can’t believe this, Jim. We’re friends! Brothers. How can you just… just do this?”

Jim lurched toward Eric, but he didn’t budge. Jim grabbed Eric by his tattered shirt again. “I’ll show you.”

Eric gripped Jim’s wrists and wrenched them loose from his shirt. Both Eric and Jim became aware of the other’s strength in that moment. Jim didn’t feel like a mannequin like Tim and Simon did; his strength and weight were palpable and immense. If hurling cars hadn’t convinced Eric, prying Jim’s arms away from him did.

Jim realized, too, that Eric was light, but solid. With his strength being countered, Jim hesitated, allowing Eric to plant a two-handed shove right into Jim’s broad chest. Jim reeled across the street and connected with the side of a panel van that was parked near the Italian restaurant. The van’s side dimpled as Jim impacted with it and the vehicle rolled onto its side, taking Jim along with the force of the blow. Jim ended up in a heap on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant where Eric had been minutes before.

Rose exploded out of the front door of the restaurant, her hair waving behind her head like gorgeous flames. She weaved around Jim, who was climbing back on his feet, and grabbed Eric’s shoulder. He caught her in one arm with a spare eye on Jim.

“Eric! Jesus,” Rose panted. “Let’s go!”

“I can’t!” Eric shouted over the din of screaming people and distant police sirens. “That’s Jim. Something’s wrong with him.”

Rose snorted. “Fuck­yeah there is! He’s trying to kill you!”

Jim charged, his eyes fixed on Eric, set to kill. In the instant of time Eric had to react, he could only do two things: shove Rose clear and wrap his arms around Jim as the freight-train son of a bitch carried him into the wall behind him and through it like a supercharged NFL tackle.

The next few moments were a tangle of bricks, debris, and fists. Eric felt the sensation of hitting the wall as a moment of heavy pressure between Jim’s incredible force and the brick wall’s stubborn refusal to break. When it did, the old wood floor inside the store broke beneath them as they crashed into it.

A glassy-eyed doll stared at Eric from a metal rack tilted on an angle from the collapse of the wall. He rolled onto his stomach over the brick pile and scrambled away from Jim, who was getting his second wind. The store owner, a slight old woman, sprinted faster than Eric thought possible out of the real door and into the street filled with panicked passers-by.

It was just Eric and Jim now.

It was time.

Eric felt his bones run magma hot. His muscles pumped fresh blood. His fists clenched with the tide of force within him and pin-like needles shot through his pores and snapped into tight weaves faster than his eyes could track. It was like a wave of liquid metal surged over his skin and coated him in a steel shell. The sharp, embossed “T” etched into his chest last as Eric leveled new, sharper eyes at Jim. He rose out of the bricks and broken planks of wood. His muscles breathed strength. His blood pumped power.

When Jim saw Eric bearing Titan’s armor, it wasn’t fear or awe he felt—it was hate. The Shadow Man was right. Eric had been lying. He had killed Jim’s family to hide this secret. Now Eric was rubbing it in his face, proving the smiling shadow bastard right with every action.

“You lying shit!” Jim spat. Dark blood oozed from his wounds. His lacerations healed in moments, but the blood remained, staining Jim with its brackish ichor. “That bastard was right about you! About everything!”

“Who was right?” Eric asked. “Who’s doing this, Jim? Who did this to you?”

Jim stepped toward Eric, crashing through the bricks as if they weren’t there. He growled. “YOU DID THIS!”

Jim came at Eric, leading with a right arm that Eric countered with his left—a whip crack snap and Jim’s arm dropped mid-swing. Eric leveled a flat-footed kick right into Jim’s center of mass. Jim’s eyes bugged out and the air went out of him as he flew backwards through the shop window and clattered across the roof of a sedan parked along the street.

Eric moved through the hole in the wall and around the car to find Jim ready to pounce. Jim’s fist shot up like a piston and caught Eric under the chin, jerking his head back like a bobble. Titan’s armor hardened around Eric’s face in response, but he still saw stars and staggered, but he didn’t lose his footing. Jim raged out of control with fists flying fast. Few landed, but the ones that did rattled Eric and sharpened the ringing in his head. Jim’s face was so twisted with blood and rage he didn’t look human.

“It’s nice to see you’re getting back on the horse!” Jim barked. “Dating and having fun. I’m glad you’re so broken up about your best buddy getting the shitkicked out of him and about killing my family! What a pal!” Jim landed a piston blast into Eric’s side, doubling him over. “Where is your slut, anyway?”

In the brief instant Jim feigned looking for Rose, Eric slipped in close and hooked a cross into Jim’s cheek, sending him sideways. Before Jim could recover, Eric grabbed his shirt, pulled him down to his level, and head-butted him with an iron-plated mask.

The raging behemoth staggered and fell on his ass, clutching his head. He wore a look of surprise when he pulled his hand away from his face and a piece of skin and flesh dangled between his fingers. The gushing blood running down his face blinded him. Eric, too, stopped and flinched. A chunk of Jim’s forehead was gone, flowing with blood, down to bare skull. His solid, pasty white bone looked queer under the yellow streetlights.

Eric reacted like a little kid who hurt another and didn’t want to get caught. “Oh God! Jim, I’m sorry!”

Jim’s response sounded something like, “Reeaahhhggg!” He was on his feet in a blink. Jim moved in a limping stagger toward Eric. His face was a mess of blood, sweat, and ruined flesh. Even though Jim was alive, Eric was struck by how much he looked like a zombie, covered in blood and lusting for death. Eric didn’t stop Jim when his bloody hands gripped his shoulders. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!”

Eric was shocked by Jim’s wound and didn’t react fast enough when Jim threw him down King Street toward the river. Eric flew through the air long enough to think about what he was experiencing. His arms waved and his legs kicked. He was helpless.

I should think about a cape like Batman; maybe I could glide?

It was too late now and Eric was too inexperienced. Jim had a good arm. Eric glanced off the corner of the Torpedo Factory, more than a block away from liftoff, and dovetailed into the street beside the entrance to the pier. Hard, stiff pain radiated through Eric like hate raged through Jim. Every inch of his body ached and it was hard for him to breathe. However, the part of Eric’s brain that was not telling him how much it hurt was musing that if this had happened a month ago, he’d be splattered all over the street.

Some people who had fled Jim’s initial attack were huddled behind the large, brick column outside the entrance to the Torpedo Factory building trying to call for help or film the fight on their smartphones. A young man and woman came out from behind the column and rushed to Eric’s side.

“Jesus, buddy! How the hell’re you still in one piece?” The man sounded vaguely northeastern. Eric wished he was Spider-Man; if he had been, maybe he would have had a clever retort. Instead, his response was a pained grunt.

When Eric tried to push up from the ground, the girl squeaked, “No! Stay down. You’re hurt!”

Eric shook his head; every movement stung him. “I… have to stop him…”

“You think you’re Superman or something? Dressed like that?” the girl said. “You just got thrown like a mile!”

Eric struggled to his feet and he found Jim racing toward him at an all-out sprint. Their eyes locked. The friendly tourists steadied Eric with a helping hand.

“Well, good luck to ya, man,” the man backpedaled as he saw Jim approach. “But that dude’s a fuckin’ truck.”

Eric smiled beneath the mask. The metal fibers attached to his skin pulled at the exterior showing the Good Samaritans his reaction. “Thanks for the pep talk. And ‘man’ ain’t my name.”

“Oh yeah? What is it?” The man asked.

“Titan.”

Saying it out loud made it feel real.

“Well, I’m Neil. Don’t getcha face busted.”

Eric turned and faced Jim, leaving Neil and his lady friend to flee. Eric took Neil’s advice to heart and ran, too. Eric and Jim met in the center of the street in a sickening clap of meat, bone, and metal. Jim swung blistering haymakers at Eric, who slipped and dodged what he could and gritted his teeth through what he couldn’t. Eric crept in tight so Jim couldn’t get a good shot. It forced Jim to backpedal, which put him off balance.

Eric took advantage. Jim was enhanced with strength like Eric’s. But whatever procedure they used required adding heft and size, which made him slow. It also reduced his maneuverability. Eric had comparable strength and he was agile, though woozy with pain. He worked inside Jim’s powerhouse blows, taking a few dead on and feelingthem, but hitting Jim in the middle.

Eric couldn’t help but hear Rocky quotes from his trainers, “The body, the body, the body! Chop him down!”

Jim’s staggered with every shot Eric gave him. Landing the blows gave Eric the determination to throw another and another. Before long, Jim wasn’t dropping bombs; he was backing away trying to protect himself. Each shot sapped Jim’s energy, but they also fueled his anger. Eric knew that if he let up, Jim would go nuts.

As if he hadn’t already.

With a desperate explosion of energy, Jim pushed ahead, running through Eric, giving him breathing room. Eric was knocked on his knees, but he quickly found his feet again. Jim looked terrible. The chunk of his missing forehead was still draining blood and the rest of Jim’s body was a red mess. Some of Eric’s body shots had exposed new wounds, but if Jim was in pain from these wounds, he didn’t show it.

“You pussy,” Jim spat. “Hiding in your suit. You wanna know what they did to me? Do you really? They gave me injections from it. But mine’s better! I’m stronger than you!”

Where’d they get it from?

Sarah. They injected Jim with what they took from Sarah. Little Sarah, who was barely minutes old when they mutilated her.

“You dumb fuck!” Eric screamed. “Do you know where they got it from? HUH? From Sarah! Remember her? That’s why she was like she was. They took her when she was a baby and... They took her life away, Jim! THESE are the people you’re with!”

A flicker of something resembling humanity ignited in Jim for the space of a second. He remembered Sarah. Whenever he went to Eric’s house for a sleepover or just to hang out, Sarah was there on the couch, watching… forced to sit or lay forever… but she’s dead…

…like my parents!

“NO! More lies! You kept this from me all those years. From ME! I was your friend. Your BEST FRIEND!Now look at me!” Jim’s cries were laced with something closer to humanity than his bitter roars. Something close to regret. Something close to tears. “Now all I have left is to take you back to save Beth!”

Jim’s glimmer of humanity disappeared and he roared ahead. He was little more than a super-powered bone machine, slick with blood. Eric was afraid that if they kept things up in the middle of the street, some of the people, like good ol’ Neil, would get hurt in the collateral damage.

Eric sidestepped Jim’s charge, snagged his arm, and used the momentum to swing Jim around, up, and over the Torpedo Factory roof toward the pier. Eric’s throw didn’t have the mustard that Jim’s did, but Jim went where Eric meant him to go.

Toward the water.

Eric wasn’t sure why, but something told him getting Jim to the water was a good idea. He was learning that listening to that “something” inside was a good idea. It didn’t ever give him definite directions, but in broad strokes it guided him to positive ends. Though, he wasn’t sure what could be very positive about the end coming up here. Eric imagined that whatever end was coming, it wasn’t one he wanted to be a part of. It was likely that Jim was going to die or he was. But he didn’t intend to hurl Jim out there to go and get killed himself.

Despite exhaustion and the pain plaguing every step, Eric sprinted after Jim. He didn’t move as lightly as he had when out with his dad, but he hadn’t flown a hundred yards without wings before doing that. Eric’s mind, still mostly based in the world he thought he knew, couldn’t wrap itself around this situation. He was wearing a super suit and fighting his best friend, who was now a monster. So he wasn’t thinking; he was just doing. Doing what needed to be done.

He heard his father’s voice in his mind: A man has to do some things he may not want to. But he does ‘em anyway. That’s why he’s a man. Tim had said that, but Eric heard more than a little bit of Art in the message as well.

Eric operated on spontaneous programming for the time being. His inner connection or whatever it was nudged him here and there. He wasn’t sure if he could trust it completely yet, but beggars can’t be choosers and it brought him this far.

Jim landed beside an ice cream stand about fifty yards from the pier’s edge. He felt the skin on his chest slide down his muscles and pool in his shirt like jelly. He was so consumed with hate that he barely processed the injuries as pain. Regardless, Jim’s working mind was aware that he was falling apart. But Jim didn’t feel hurt. He felt mad. Eric had gotten in some good shots and slowed him, but Jim felt powerful. He wouldn’t have even known he’d been injured if it hadn’t been for the blood and his peeling skin.

The people on the pier in line at the ice cream stand were understandably surprised when Jim landed beside them. Tentative looky-loos approached until Jim pushed himself up with a grunt and they got a good look at him. He snarled and they fled.

Jim ripped his shirt off and a sheet of mangled, jellied skin came with it. His bared bones were thick, bulging, and overflowing with lithe muscle that pulsed like a beating heart. This wasn’t everywhere; his arms had retained their skin and most of his face was still intact.

Eric ran along the back of the Torpedo Factory. His dull silver suit was pocked and torn. A smear of blood ran from the bottom of the face mask down his neck and looked like it was part of the suit. The fight was taking a toll on him. If Jim could get just a couple of shots… Eric skidded to a stop about ten feet away. Jim couldn’t read Eric’s expression through his mask, but he sensed Eric was disgusted…

…sorrowful… he’s your best friend… do you think he’s happy about this?

YES. He did this. I’m ripped to pieces and my sister’s a hostage because of him! But not for long.

As Jim’s last vestiges of conscience and emotion, struggled to surface against the tide of his surging rage, Eric spoke. It was a plea. The final one.

“Jim… God, look at you… Let me get you to a hospital. We can still make this right. Tell me where Beth is and I’ll find her. I can save her, Jim,” Eric said.

“I’m gonna save her. Because whether or not I get you, he’ll get you,” Jim said. “But I’m going to.” Jim stepped forward.

“Jim, wait! No!” Eric braced himself and then sidestepped Jim again. But this time, Jim’s boulder-like arm flicked out and caught Eric like a clothesline. Eric spun in the air and came down on his chest, the air exploding from his lungs in a great cough. Eric tried to roll away, still coughing, but Jim whirled on him and kicked him down the dock. Eric skidded into a heap near the steakhouse near the water’s edge. More pedestrians screamed and ran. Jim ignored them. His attention was fixed.

Something felt broken inside Eric. He wasn’t sure what exactly, but his stomach stabbed him with a piercing ache he had never felt before. A broken rib, maybe?

Wow, I’ve never broken a bone before…

It sucks.

As Jim approached—his twisted, bloody grin growing—Eric realized that his head would get broken if he didn’t do something. He concentrated on his arm. He felt its place, attached to his shoulder, and focused on his elbow, his forearm, and his hand. He remembered the sensation of an appendage extending outward from his hand. A long beam, more solid and focused than what he had made before, slid from his palm. It was a silvery piece of rebar with a sharp point. Eric rolled onto his back and hurled it at Jim. The spear cut the air.

Jim reached to snag it in midair and did. Kind of. His large hand, sloppy with blood and jellied flesh, slipped the grip and the spear shot through his palm and pinned his hand to his chest. Half of the spear disappeared into Jim’s chest. He staggered, mewling in pain or frustration—probably both.

Eric knew that this was his last chance. The pain in his lower torso was blinding and every hit from Jim was like a jackhammer; he couldn’t take anymore. He grinded onto his feet and ran to Jim. He gripped the spear and shoved it deeper, effectively taking Jim’s right arm out of the fight. Jim screamed and struck with his left arm, but it was a sweep of blind defense and Eric dodged. Eric threw two hard body blows into Jim’s stomach, doubling him over, and then connected with a knee to Jim’s head. A spray of blood and skin splashed over Eric as Jim fell back, mewling blood-choked hate.

But Jim wasn’t done yet. He tore the spear from his chest using the hand that it was impaled through. Then he ripped it out of his palm and stepped into a batter’s swing. The rod caught Eric in the upper chest and lifted him up and out like a pop fly. This time he was too blindsided to marvel at soaring through the air.

Eric landed on the railing at the edge of the dock with a terrible crack and splashed into the murky water below. He floundered for a few moments before dipping under the brown-green current and into darkness.

Jim smiled with satisfaction. He took one step before falling on his face. He tried to push himself up, but he only made it halfway before thundering back to the deck. Figures in dark clothes appeared from nearby and swarmed over Jim. One of them moved at his own pace. A streetlight illuminated the man’s aged face and revealed the familiar grin of the Shadow Man. He was most at home in darkness and lithely moved against the backdrop of queer light cast by the rising moon and pier lamps.

Jim’s writhing body was lifted into the air on the backs of dark shoulders. One of the men not carrying Jim motioned to the pier’s edge and said, “What about the target, sir?”

The sirens that had been distant long ago were now right on top of them as squad cars wheeled around the side of the Torpedo Factory, within sight. The Shadow Man tilted his head toward the commotion and his smile dimmed. “We’re out of time. Leave him for now. If he’s dead, we’ll get him out of the morgue. If not, he’ll be too weak to fight back when we come for him. For now, get Bone to the van. We’ll get lost in the confusion. Move.” Slipping along the dark crevices behind the factory, bathed in the shadows cast under the moon, the Shadow Man and his men disappeared into the night.

* * *

Eric had never tasted piss, but the Potomac River probably tasted just like it. The cold river water shocked him awake. He broke the river’s surface with a gasp. He had some sense of where he had landed and he could tell that he must have drifted down river. It only took a few weak kicks and paddles to bring him to the edge of the lower pier on the riverside of the steak place. With reserves of energy Eric didn’t know he had, he pulled himself onto the pier and lay there in a pool of polluted, muddy river water coughing.

Titan was gone. Jim’s “homerun” blast must have knocked it right back into his bones. He felt like a massive bleeding wound. His head had a knot on it the size of Greece, his bottom lip was split and bleeding, and at least two of his ribs were broken. On top of all that, every foul pollutant in the Potomac River had commingled with his blood. When he tried to sit up, lightning bolts of pain settled him on his back again. He swore he could feel the broken edges of his ribs rubbing against each other. Before today, Eric had never broken a bone. Now he had a few of them, at least.

Jim! Where’s Jim?! The thought flooded into his mind with the force of a hurricane. Pain or no pain, he scrambled to his feet feeling warm blood dance over his tongue.

Jim was gone and so were most of the people. Loud sirens and the faint red and blue flicker of police lights sharpened his senses. He had to leave. Now. It wouldn’t take long to put two and two together to figure out that Titan had been knocked into the river and Eric Steele came out. Also, he didn’t want a cop to see him and insist on getting him to a hospital. One trip per year was enough. Every step was a serrated dagger of pain in his side, but he gritted through it and made his way to Union Street, which crossed in front of the Torpedo Factory. People were clustered together and milling around as police officers waded among them trying to put order to the mobs.

God… if they don’t see me, they’ll smell me…

Everyone was so preoccupied with telling each other what they had seen or heard that Eric slipped through unnoticed. The hobbling, teenage kid skulking into the shadows was able to wade through without incident. He leaned on a building to catch his breath when he realized that he’d forgotten where he was going. I gotta get to my car!But there was something else…

Rose.

While absorbing pile drivers from Jim, Eric had lost track of Rose. The last time he remembered seeing her was when he shoved her out of Jim’s way. He never even saw where that shove had landed her.

Damn… think, think…

Eric reached into his pocket and came out with his cell phone and a splash of water. The phone was cracked and smashed.

“Damn…” He knew where his car was, but every step was a battle. Eric wasn’t sure if it was just night blindness, but things were becoming hazy. His head was swimming and the pain in his side was blinding. His mind became gripped with horror as all things lost light at the edges of his sight—they became black like walls… like in the room…

­…where Sarah waited…

“No… no…” Eric stumbled on a slice of raised sidewalk, but he kept moving. He traveled in a deliberate semi-circle around the crowds and the police. He had no idea how far he’d gone or where he was until he slammed into the side of his car.

“Eric?!” a familiar voice called from far away. He wasn’t sure he had actually heard it until a sweet smell wafted into his nostrils and he recognized Rose’s perfume. He managed to smell it over the rank river sludge that soaked him through. When he saw her, a wave of black washed over him. When his awareness returned, he was lying on the sidewalk with Rose looking down at him.

“Eric, please wake up!” Rose said while shaking him. Her ear hovered over his mouth and his breathing was shallow.

His eyes opened into little slits. “Memorable first date, huh?”

Rose laughed nervously and brushed clotted blood and debris out of Eric’s eyes. “You’re getting negative feedback on OKCupid for sure, but you can make it up to me. First, we have to get you to a hospital.”

“No…” Eric shook his head—or thought he did; agony rose into the back of his throat just below his ears made him think so. “Just… I gotta get home… gotta get you home… I’m so sorry…”

Rose leaned close. Her scent brought Eric out of his haze if only for a moment. “Eric… I… did I see what I thought I did?” Eric nodded absently. Rose’s heart skipped a beat and her mind wrestled with asking the next, final question: “And… that man… the guy in the suit… was that you?”

Eric’s eyes opened and he looked at her. She was shivering. Her eyes were red and her chest pulsed with pounding heart beats. Eric wanted to tell her. He didn’t want to live a secret that only his parents knew—that was too lonely for his tastes. His dad had never told him, specifically, that he couldn’t reveal who he was to others. But the reasons against it were obvious. Especially where this enemy was concerned. They didn’t care who they hurt or how; they only cared about getting Titan.

But… I trust her…

It was as simple as that. There were some people that engendered trust. There were individuals who were open, honest people. Eric sensed that quality in Rose. He’d already told her so much.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Eric said before he disappeared again into the black.

* * *

Eric wasn’t going to wake up any time soon. Surprised that he had even made it as far as he did, Rose set about getting him home like he had asked. She found his car keys in one of his pockets and allowed a brief smile at the condom in his left front pocket.

Wishful thinking?

Eric’s wallet was in his back pocket. Rose found his driver’s license and address inside. She remembered seeing a power cable that wasn’t for a cell phone in the cup holder of Eric’s car; after some searching, she came up with a GPS in his glove compartment. The “Home” button was programmed with Eric’s address.

Getting Eric into the car was the hard part. He was dead weight. But after some heaving, pulling, and pushing, Rose guided him into the backseat. His right arm dangled over the side onto the floor like an upside down metronome. She considered that she might have been hurting him by moving him, but Eric’s last wish was to go home. Rose felt like she should honor that.

The drive to Eric’s house was fairly uneventful, though it gave her time to go over everything that had happened. Not everything was easily processed, of course. Coming to grips with people tackling other people through walls and hurling them down city streets wasn’t so easy. And Eric’s display of strength and thatsuit…

…with his muscles tightly outlined…

Rose skirted out of Old Town along the same back roads Eric had used to get there. She was afraid the police would close down the nearby roads, but they must have still been getting a handle on the pandemonium that had erupted during the fight, not to mention dealing with the dead cop.

And what about that guy, Jim? Eric talked about him in his story about his ex. You had seen him. Eric didn’t just tell you. You lived the story with him.

Everything happened so fast after Eric shared his story about Melanie that Rose couldn’t process what she had experienced. She had actually seen what Eric had described—she had been in the story with him, seeing what he had seen, and feeling what he had felt. She had felt his emotions, both in the moments of the past and as he told the story. Rose experienced an up swell of butterflies in her stomach, like Eric had, when he first kissed Melanie and she sensed his feelings of regret and longing as he relived the memory. She sensed, too, his selfishness and cruelty as he broke Melanie down so she would cry. Rose sensed how, as he did it, he knew it was wrong, but he did it anyway. She sensed how much he loved her all the same. At the time, she had been so caught up in reliving the memory with him that she couldn’t react or fully process how extraordinary—and scary—the experience was of actually sharing another person’s memories. One person’s emotions and thoughts were complex enough without processing another’s.

He touched me. Eric touched my hand.

Rose remembered now. Eric had touched her hand as he began to talk and he pulled his hand away when it was over. In the moment that Eric touched her hand, a connection bridged between their minds. She lost the emotions and the visuals that had filled her up as soon as their hands separated. In that moment of separation, Rose felt drained and exhausted just like after a good, hard cry. It made sense. She had experienced the emotions of three people at once: Eric then, Eric now, and her own reactions.

Rose glanced at Eric in the rearview mirror as though she could find answers by looking at him.

How is that possible? How could I have seen his memories?

What tickled her most was that she was all wrapped up in trying to figure out how it was possible for her to have shared Eric’s memories and she was ignoring the fact that Eric had become someone else. She hadn’t seen him transform, but he went through the wall of the store and when Jim came flying out, the other one walked through the rubble onto the street. And here Eric was now, all beaten to hell, just like the man in the silver suit had been—the man in the form-fitting silver suit.

How is this even a question? That was Eric. Somehow, Eric became that man. Somehow Eric shared his memories. What the hell have I gotten myself into? Who IS this guy?

Rose had felt something special about Eric when they met, but how could she have ever translated that to mean: Oh, of course, this guy is a telepathic superhero! She was scared and excited. It was a secret only she knew. Besides that, Eric had shared his most private memories and emotions with her.

Rose had felt Eric’s loneliness at the end of the story, when they passed through the memories of Jim leaving. Eric and Jim were best friends. They had grown up together and knew each other like only best friends can. But what had happened back there in Old Town? That was a story Rose didn’t know.

All she did know was that Jim was Eric’s best friend—or used to be. Rose had seen Jim enter the restaurant. He looked right at Eric, his eyes yellow with feral anger. And when those eyes had passed over her, she felt cold inside. Eric must have thought she was reacting to his story. Glancing back over her shoulder at Eric lying on the backseat, twisted and broken, Rose regretted not acting. She should have said something sooner. The scene had been so surreal, though, and she had been so overwhelmed.

God, I hope his parents are home.

Eric looked like he was sleeping, but his breathing was shallow. Rose was terrified that he would die in the backseat before she could get him help. Her mind was wrestling between the reality that she used to know, where men didn’t flip cars with their bare hands, and this new improbable one.

But then again, he was really strong and had that suit. It looked like leather, spandex, and sheet metal had a baby.

Who cares? He’ll die!

Rose came close to wheeling the car around and speeding to the nearest hospital. But she didn’t. Eric stirred in the backseat, making sounds that were maybe attempts at words but made no sense. At least no sense she could intuit. At least he was still alive; it convinced her to keep going. He wanted to go home and that’s where she’d take him.

Hell of a first date. I’d be better off with one of Constance’s ass-pinching freaks.

Rose knew she didn’t believe that. She had thought Eric was special before. Now she knew it. That was enough to keep driving.

* * *

Tim saw Eric’s car speed up the street toward the house from the dining room window. He got a feeling—that feeling—something was wrong. His senses weren’t as pronounced as Eric’s, but he had intuition like anyone else. But this was stronger. The sight of the car barreling up the street vibrated though his bones like an electric shaver running up his spine. It never occurred to him that maybe it was simply his sense as a father. And when the pretty girl with red hair jumped out of the car and ran toward the house, Tim ran to the front door.

He pulled the door open and before he could say anything, the young girl started talking. “My name’s Rose. I was on a date with Eric when he was attacked. He’s hurt real bad and he said to bring him home.”

Tim almost stepped through Rose. “He’s in the car?”

“Yeah.”

Tim leaned into the house for a moment and called out, “Nancy, get some blankets and the first aid kit!”

“What? What’s going on?” Nancy asked from somewhere else inside.

“Dammit, Nance… just do it!” Tim ran to Eric’s car with Rose on his heels.

As Tim got to the door, Rose tried to warn him. “He was in the river, so he smells kinda…”

Tim’s nostrils flared when he pulled the back door open. The sickly sour brine smell of the Potomac River washed over him. But it lasted only a moment; his son was hurt. He looked back at Rose and examined her expression. Whoever she was, she cared enough to find out where Eric lived and drive him home. Damn brave. “’Rose,’ you said?”

She nodded. Her eyes were wide and red.

“Help me with him. Can you get his feet?” Tim asked, though it sounded more like an order.

“Of course.” She stood beside Tim as he dragged Eric out by his leg. Tim guided Eric’s legs to Rose’s hands. She took them while Tim lifted the rest of Eric’s broken form in his arms. He cradled Eric’s head with his chest and held him beneath his shoulders.

They hauled Eric into the house and Tim led Rose to the couch in the living room. They laid Eric out, one leg hanging over the side, while Tim guided a pillow under his neck. Nancy brought out an old, tin first aid kit from down the hall. She hesitated at the sight of Eric on the couch, but she called upon some secret reserve of strength to move ahead.

Tim gestured to Rose. “Nancy, this is Rose. Rose, could you shut the front door?” His voice was calm but urgent.

Rose was in her own world, staring at Eric lying still on the couch, and almost didn’t hear him. “O-oh. Yes. Sure.” She walked back and slid the door into place, almost thankful to be out of the living room where she didn’t feel that she belonged. She was an outsider. But she cared about Eric and wanted to know if he was okay.

“Rose.” Eric’s dad called her name and it made her jump. Anything that tied her to this weird reality was a shock.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me exactly what happened.” Tim asked as he was checking Eric’s limbs and torso. When he pressed Eric’s side, Eric stirred with a groan but remained passed out.

Rose didn’t tell them about the shared memory. She wasn’t sure why. Besides, it didn’t really impact what had happened to Eric afterward. She told them everything else.

Tim nodded as he examined Eric’s wounds. Nancy stroked his hair and wiped the dirt and blood off of his face with a washcloth. “What happened to Jim?”

Rose nibbled her fingernails and clutched her side with her other arm. “I thought he was on drugs… and I didn’t see what happened to him. He ran after Eric when he threw him. There were so many people running and screaming I got caught up in the crowd…”

“It’s okay,” Nancy put her arm around Rose’s shoulders. “You got him home.”

Rose decided that she was already halfway in; she might as well dive in. “What did I see? How could Eric do those things? And the other guy…?”

Tim dabbed Eric’s knuckles with hydrogen peroxide and wiped the blood off them with cotton swabs. He smirked, but Rose didn’t know if it was amusement or not. “It’s not a brief explanation. But the short version is that Eric is special. He’s got something that some bad people want. I dunno what they did to Jim, but…” He shook his head. “Jim is… was… Eric’s best friend. I don’t know how they got him into this.”

“Beth…” Eric muttered. His lips were dry and cracked. His eyes remained closed, but he was awake. His hand touched his dad’s arm. “Beth isn’t dead. They…” His closed eyes clenched tighter, responding to some stinging pain inside. “They have her…”

“Christ…” Nancy breathed. “Timmy, who are these people?” Her hand covered her mouth as thoughts of her daughter swirled. Imagining the kind of life Sarah might have had plagued Nancy as it always did. But now these bastards were hurting other people, too. All in order to get Titan. For something they could manipulate into a weapon… a fucking weapon…

Tim said nothing. How do you fight men you can’t find? Men whose lives are dedicated to knowing everything about you. Men who have no qualms about hurting or killing people to get what they want. Tim felt old rage well up inside his heart. He believed the only way to beat these guys was to get down in the gutter with them.

Eric won’t do that, though. He’s not made that way. Superpowers or no, he’s got a heart. He’s not a murderer… he’s not me…

Tim wrapped the last bandage and stood up. “Thanks for bringing him home, Rose. He’ll be okay.” Rose stared at Eric and nodded. Her eyes lifted up at Tim and he saw fear, worry, and about a hundred other things that flash across her face. He gestured to Eric. “He heals fast. He’ll be up and around tomorrow.”

“Could I see him?” Rose asked.

“Sure,” Tim nodded. “Now let me take you home.”

“Okay.” Nancy guided her to the front door. They all walked outside into the night, illuminated by the porch light.

“Rose… I hope you won’t tell anyone about this,” Tim said. “Eric’s in a lot of danger.”

“I won’t. I wouldn’t. He saved me. I’ll keep his secret,” Rose said. She looked Tim and Nancy in the eyes, moving between them.

“I thought so,” Tim said. Rose followed Tim to his truck and they hopped in. Nancy watched them disappear up the street.

* * *

A Mercedes, much like the one that was usually parked in the driveway next door to the Steele residence, was parked in the neighboring garage. The two men inside the car observed Rose pull up. They had also watched Tim and Rose carry the limp body of Eric Steele into the house.

They radioed this information to their base, which retransmitted it to the nondescript van that was circling out of Old Town with Jim McNulty smuggled in the back. The message transmitted back was: “If you see an opening, take him. The father will be a problem, so kill him in his sleep.”

As Tim and Rose disappeared around the corner, the two men slipped their goggles and masks on. Before they got out of the car, they cocked their guns.