Page 86 of A Hero in Hiding

“What was that?” she asks.

“What was what?” I ask as I look around like I’m confused.

“Whatwasthat?”

“I don’t know what that means,” I assure her.

Her eyes narrow as she tries to assess what’s happening. The whole thing couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but it was clearly long enough for her to notice.

“I can recite every single thing that happened, if you’d prefer that? I’d probably have to start with the super awesome superhero academy that I was thrust into because they thought that I was so skilled, like I was the best—”

“How about we fill these out and go from there?” the officer says, clearly irritated with us at this point.

I take the paper and lean into August as I fill it out as unhelpfully as I can.

The moment my phone beeps, I glance down and see that Deus has sent a group text out.

Deus: The package has been thrust into the hole.

Lex: Why’s it sound so perverted?

Deus: Because you’re a simple man. Hold it. The package is stuck. The hole is too small. He’s trying a different hole.

Ellison: For fuck’s sake. Just stay on him.

Deus: If I got any closer, I’d be inside him.

Ellison: For fuck’s sake.

I nod so he’s aware we’re making our grand escape. Smacking the paper down, I turn to August who is looking at the atrocities being sent through the group message.

“I thought you said you got mugged and they took your phone,” I say.

“I thought you were the one who was mugged,” August says.

“Huh.”

The woman is near rage as she points at the door. “Out.”

“Okay… sheesh. Innocent mistake.”

I hurry out the door with August by my side and down the road to where the car is parked far away from where any cameras will pick up anything. I watch as a very bound Ned is stuffed into the back seat by an invisible force. I get in the front with Lex as August and Deus climb into the back with Ned between them. He’s blindfolded so he can’t see us, but he’s well aware that something is going on.

“W-Who are you?” he asks.

We remain silent for the entire drive to not give ourselves away, and when we get near the Superheroes United facility Nolan is held at, Ellison pulls off on the side of the road across from a cornfield. Once outside the vehicle, we set to work. There’s a fence that’s not only electrified but will send an alert if jostled, which means that we will have to only touch it when August has time frozen so we don’t set off any alarms.

Ellison has chosen to stay back and keep an eye on security using a device that’s allowing him to see what the security cameras do. How he got it, I have absolutely no idea but I’m quickly learning that even if Ellison is by the book, he also knows how to find loopholes to get his way.

August, who is the strongest of us, pulls Ned along with ease, even as the man struggles and begs for help. Once we get within sight of the cameras, August freezes time so only he and I are still animated. Then August, the sexy man he is, lifts me with ease.

“The electric fence can’t hurt you with time frozen,” he assures me as I tentatively reach out to it on the off chance that August is wrong and it’s going to fucking hurt. But when I grip onto it, it feels like a regular fence. Trying to be quick and careful, I climb the fence that would shock the absolute shit out of me if August were to start time up again.

“This would be a really good trick if you were ever mad at me,” I say. “‘Oh, Landon, my love. Climb this fence. I promise I won’t start up time again.’”

August laughs. “That’s just horribly evil. I would never do that.”

“Never say never. We’re not even at a year yet. Who knows what our forty-year anniversary will look like.”

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