The Last Superhero (46 page)

“
Noooooo!”
I'm not the only one shouting it while we rush to the beast that is
going under so fast it's halfway in already.

We're
digging. Hands and paws digging him out, but it's not quick enough.

“
Ross!”
I'm crying his name, trying to feel for any part of him through the
sand.

Jake
and Frances's robot grab hold of the dragon's legs, but it's no use.

Suárez
jumps over the dragon, pulling out a bow and arrow. “Keep
digging!” he says, but I know he's heard or seen something.

He
must be near.

He
must be the one pushing us down. Controlling gravity.

Because
the sand's up to my waist now.

Bury
my arms as if it were water and find it. A hand. “I've got
him.”

The
dragon squirms as the sand almost covers it.

The
hand is pulling me. I'm pulling back, but it's too strong.

It
won't let go.

The
sand's up to my face and the hand tugs harder.

Taking
me with him.

50

I'm
buried and then I'm not.

Try
and see, but there's too much light and it's hot. Too damn hot.

Next
to me lays Ross not as a wizard but dressed in a suit. He rolls,
waking up.

A
glance around and we're surrounded by fire.

“
ROSS!”
I shake him to see we're inside a burning building.

Where's
everyone else though?

“
Ross!
We've gotta get out of here!”

He
opens his eyes, see what's going on around us, and leaps to his feet.
“Tiffany!”

Uh-oh.

“
Audrey!
Veronica!”

Oh
fuck.

“
Ross!
No, this isn't...”

He
pushes me aside, seeking desperately for a way through the fire that
is growing stronger by the minute.

“
Daddy!”
Some tiny voice reaches us and Ross jumps over the flames to get to
it.

I
run behind him, trying to stop him, but he's determined to get to
where the voice is coming from. Through hallways, up a staircase
where a burning beam almost falls on us, through another hallway.

“
Ross!
This isn't real!”

“
Daddy!”

We
enter through a door and I can't see due to the heavy smoke.

“
We've
got to get out, Ross!”

“
DADDY!”

Try
and see and there's a woman standing in the middle of a living room,
two frightened girls clutched to her hips.

“
Tiffany!”
There's a line of tall flames separating us from them.

“
Sir!”
Powell appears behind us in his space soldier suit.

“
I
can't shake him off it!” I cry his way and see Dad's lion form
right behind him. Switch to Ross searching for a way to get to this
past version of his wife and daughters. “This isn't real,
Ross!”

“
Not
if you want it to be real.” The voice thunders as Salvatore Jr.
materializes next to the scared trio. “Do you, Agent Ross?”

“
Steven,
please, save them!” Ross cries.

“
And
why would I do that?”

This
isn't... No... He told me he'd saved them. Steven saved them.

“
Please.
Save them. You know we're on your side.”

Can
I conjure a hose or something?!

As
I'm thinking of some way to stop this, I don't notice Salvatore Jr.
has locked his eyes on me.

“
You
know nothing about me,” he tells me, his sneer so powerful I
feel my body going cold even when I'm surrounded by fire.

“
This
is a nightmare,” my voice quivers. “This isn't real.”

“
And
who are you to tell what's real and what's not?”

“
You
saved them!”

“
Did
I?!” he screams, pointing at the mother and children and, in an
instant, they're set on fire.

“
NOOOOOOOO!”
Ross jumps into the flames to reach them as Salvatore flees the
scene.

I
pounce on Ross, hooking my arm around his waist before he can reach
them and throwing us both backwards to then force him to roll, but
he's too caught up in the nightmare.

I
find a cushion nearby and keep hitting him with it until Powell comes
in and shoots water at him.

Dad
comes from behind and bites into my armor, dragging me out of the
apartment when the situation hits me and I'm starting to choke on the
smoke and the heat.

Yet
the place is changing before our eyes.

And
the building isn't the same one anymore and the fire's gone, changing
to another kind of fire.

“
Captain!”
A soldier rushes into where we are, “we're under attack!”

BOOM
.
The whole place shakes.

“
Jackson?”
Hear Powell's answer.

See
he's lost the suit and is now wearing fatigues.

Shit.

“
Sir!”
The younger soldier pushes. “We're outnumbered!”

Ratatatatatatatatatatatatatat
.

We've
got to get the hell out of here!

Try
and pull Ross to his feet, but he won't react.

Dad's
nowhere to be seen now.

A
bullet that comes out of nowhere and blows up the young soldier's
head.

“
Powell!”
I shout at him. “It's a nightmare!”

He
kneels before the dead body with the blood gushing out.

“
He
died. They all died.”

BOOM
.
More shaking, concrete ceiling dust falling on us.

He
turns his sight slowly to me. “Not. Real. Soldier! This is not
real!” Then gets up and pulls his rifle up and shoots a round
as he shouts at the top of his lungs, “Come out, you
motherfucker!!!”

He's
flipping out on me!

But
before I can do anything about it we're back on the sand.

“
What
the fuck happened?!” Wyatt's long braids of dark hair sway
above me.

“
Ross?”

Wyatt
lends me his hand and I find Ross face down on the sand in his
charred suit.

“
He's
not responding.” Daphne's beside him, licking his face. “He's
not dead, but he's not responding.”

Movement.
Heaving. He's bursting into tears.

“
He's
wanting to die right now,” I sigh.

“
What
happened?” Suárez kneels beside Powell, who’s
sitting nearby.

I'm
asking myself that same question.

“
We
were in two nightmares. One for each.” I point with my head at
Ross, then Powell. “At least he was strong enough to fight it.”

“
I
did,” Powell says through his heavy breathing. “I did
fight it.”

“
At
least the sand stopped trying to suck us in,” Frances comments.
“It stopped the moment you four went in.”

Glance
to my side and see Dad, in human form, staring into the distance.

“
Anything
else changed?”

“
Nope,”
Jake answers. “Everything else still the same.”

Look
again and Dad's still staring.

“
Dad?”

Doesn't
respond.

Go
to him.

See
what he's seeing.

See
it. Decipher it.

Oh
shit.

51

“
Hey!
Dad!” I'm nudging him to snap out of it, but the cliff's edge
is too real to be ignored.

“
Kill
me!” Ross pleads in the background.

“
Put
him out of his misery,” Dad blurts. “Give him at least
that.”

“
This
is only a nightmare, Dad.”

He
turns slowly to me, “Have some mercy.”

I
follow him as he gets closer to the edge.

Try
and hold him, but he shakes my hand off.

It's
then that I see it. The dot so small yet undeniable on the
precipice's skirt.

“
Juliana.”
The whisper travels through the air carrying uttermost despair.

“
Dad.
This isn't real. We're in a nightmare.”

His
eyes are filled with tears, his body frozen on the spot. “I
loved her, Giana, I loved her so fucking much,” he says,
raising a hand to point at something else near Mom's dead body.
“You've got to get him.”

I
look down in time to see Salvatore Jr. standing next to her, glancing
up at us from below.

Dad's
hands grab my shoulders. “Get him.” And he's pushing me
off the cliff.

Fuuuuuuuuck!

I'm
sliding down the wall of rocks, trying to hold onto something,
anything, with no luck.

It's
a nightmare, remember?

Bounce.
That I can do. Bounce and, somehow, land on my feet next to the
lifeless body I refuse to acknowledge and chase him through the
mountain landscape spread in front of us.

I
feel my feet being lifted from the ground and it's Daphne who's
toppled me to ride on her back so we can go faster.

Jake
and Frances speed up and manage to get close enough to Salvatore Jr.,
using an arm as a whip made of metal vertebrae that lassos the man
who falls flat on his face on the dirt.