Chapter Five: Slugs

Song Selection: I couldn't find a song that fit, forgive me, friend.

Avery Jackson is not a religious man. Last time he prayed was in the glow of the televangelist channel, the night his wife stormed out of his life.

But when the call arrives from Officer Malone that his daughter's been shot,  Avery drops to his knees in the middle of his cherished library. Ms. Stanley whacks her ceiling below him, but instead of running downstairs like he usually does, he ignores her. Everything, the musty damp-paper smell of the books, the stains in the trim, the bulb that needs to be replaced, it all fades to the staccato of his thoughts. Frantic whispering that his daughter's pain is some punishment for not being a good enough father or husband, for putting his work before his family. He presses his hands together so tightly all the blood leaves his palms. Fighting sobs, he prays silent, frantic words.

Shotgun rounds, once through her smallest rib, three times through her spinal cord, Malone had said when Jackson asked him what she was shot with, where. Avery Jackson has only hunted once for a story. And he remembers how big and long the rounds were, compressed metal thicker than his thumb, index, and forefinger pressed together. He stood there in the middle of his library, shivering. Bile rising from the back of his throat. "No," he said, "please, no—"

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Jackson. That she's alive is a miracle."

She should be dead. His only daughter should be dead, a victim of unspeakable violence. Once in the chest. Three times in the back. Slugs, maybe five inches in length. He swallowed, tried to calm his rattling heart. The reporter was not the hysterical type, but the image, the thought of someone hurting his daughter that way... He closed his eyes and inhaled a long, shuddering breath. "Thank you." His voice was hoarse and clipped.

"I can't promise you that she'll make it through the night. I'm...I'm sorry."

"I'll come," he said. And then, with an exchange of goodbyes, the journalist fell to his knees in prayer.

Minutes pass.

Then he calms his voice, calls his daughter's best friends and girlfriend, tells them that his little girl may be dying, and I'm sorry it's so late, but I know she'd want you with her if...she...passes. I'll talk to your parents. I'll pick you up.

Passes.

His daughter might die tonight, he tells himself, over and over until it feels real, so horribly real. This isn't supposed to happen. Not in the comic books, not in the movies. But he remembers that night he caught her fighting Max in the apartment, her arm crooked and creaking back together with slow click-click-clicks. He remembers her gasping on the floor through lungs full of blood because her ribs were broken. Monet is not indestructible. He knows her body can heal, but not fast, not fast enough. Not fast enough to save her, he thinks.

After he finds the strength to stand, this is how Mr. Jackon ends up driving three crying kids to the hospital at 1:13 in the morning. Aside from blaming himself for his daughter getting shot so many times, he hasn't broken yet. Not a single tear. Stars winks off the windshield, wounds of light against encapsulating darkness. He keeps a calm facade for the kids, but he clenches the wheel so tightly his knuckles burn. Silently, he's repeating an article he read about how even the best doctors can't "reverse the process of dying" sometimes.

Reverse the process of dying. How clinical, how cold, how inevitable. That dying isn't a thing that happens all at once, it's something slow. Something happening to his daughter.

Avery Jackson holds it together. He holds it together all the way to the hospital. He holds it together when he's stumbling toward the door and realizes he isn't wearing any shoes, and that Kai's not even wearing a shirt—just a blue blazer over a bare chest, and he wants to ruffle the boy's hair and calm him as if he was his own, because the shivering teen might as well be Monet's brother. Finn's not doing much better, wide-eyed, mute. Shocked. And Percy's babbling between sharp sobs. "She's a superhero. She took out a gunman by shoving his face between her legs. Well, not that way. Not the way it sounds. But like in a scissors? Wrestling thing? She broke her arm a thousand wrong ways, and-and she saved me, Mr. Jackson, and she can't die, she's indestructible. A hero."

Avery Jackson nods. "I know, Percy, I know." And he holds it together. He smiles weakly at her. "I think that's what she would want you to think." And he holds it together, breathing in slow draws, blank face, shoulders back, eyes focused ahead at the desk and the receptionist behind it.

"I need to see Onyx."

The woman crosses her arms over the counter, eyes narrowing as they flick over him. "Of all the nerve. Trying to get a scoop while a young woman is fighting for her life."

"You don't understand." He keeps his voice calm. False identity be damned, she wasn't fooling anyone, anyway. "I'm her father."

The nurse's crinkled eyes widen under delicate blonde lashes. Then they narrow again, tracing over every curve of his body, the wrinkled khakis, the rumpled dress shirt and open collar. He doesn't blame her suspicions. Though he and Monet share the same wide, square facial structure, the same lean features, the same cool manerisms when speaking, the doctors didn't see that. They saw the one feature Avery and his daughter don't share; Monet has her mother's eyes.

He holds it together, unshed tears searing his eyes, but he holds it together. He can't blame the woman for keeping him away. Those bastards from the tabloids needed a story that would generate sales as badly as the bastards at the journal did. The only difference? They don't heed the code of proper journalism ethics. If they had a reporter that looked like a certain superhero's father, maybe they'd send him in to lie and report back a story. Outlandish, but horrifyingly plausible, and his fists curled at the throught.

"I'm sorry sir, but I don't have proof—"

A hand lands heavily on his shoulder. "She's in surgery," booms a woman's voice Avery has heard at least a thousand times. So soft, usually, and so sweet, now fused with iron. Jackson's fists uncurl. Though a part of him resents the woman for seeing his daughter before him while he waits helplessly, it's a small part easily squashed.

Percy makes a little nervous titter. "Mo—I mean, Red Comet?"

Red Comet, or Mrs.-Call-Me-Anna Jaimson, has to stand on her tiptoes to reach Avery's shoulder. The receptionist watches the interaction, eyes big, fluttering between them.

"I can't see her." Avery Jackson glances down at Red. It's remarkable how easily a mask and a skin-tight suit can hide one's identity. She's Red Comet right now, not the woman in the loose-fitting blouse and joggers, leaned back in her favorite lawn chair as she lavishes details about her childhood and what it was like, training to use her powers. The woman he's come to respect as a client and a friend.

She looks him in the eye, employing frank, honest terms, with a voice that is soft and sympathetic. "Her internal organs are severely damaged, beyond medical reproach."

Avery Jackson remembers the buck he'd shot, the wounds he'd left in the creature. She doesn't mean 'severely damaged,' she means 'obliterated.' She means his little girl has been hunted down like prey.

"But she's hanging on. Her lungs and heart were spared. The doctors believe if they keep everything structured correctly, then her powers will have a chance of healing her." The hero's hand clasps around her daughter's shoulder, as if out of instinct. Percy presses her face into her mother's chest and cries softly while her mother runs her hands through the girl's hair. "You can see her after the surgery. And I'll be there and the heroes will be there, and if there's family you need to gather you should call them."

He can't hold it together. Avery Jackson whips around to face the boys who might as well be his. Kai, squeezing Finn's hand, Finn staring up pleadingly at the man, his glasses fogged. Avery Jackson inhales sharply, giving both boys a pat on the shoulder. "I don't want to leave you alone at a time like this."

"It's okay," Finn says. This is the first time Avery Jackson has seen the kid without his beanie, and his blonde-white curls race down his neck and shoulders in tangles. "You need to make some calls."

No, the man thinks, I need to cry.

Hold it together, just for a few more minutes, hold it together until you make it to the chapel, then the vending machine alcove, the men's room, anywhere. This is what it means to be an adult. Keep strong for the kids, take long breaths and don't think, don't think.

Avery Jackson makes it to the hospital chapel. It's a white room with fluorescent lights hissing from the ceiling, oak pews from the door to the wall with the wooden cross. He's alone here, pawing desperately through a battered bible. He doesn't know what he's looking for, just that he's looking, and his hands are trembling, and he can't see straight anymore, his vision a kaleidoscope of smudged ink and polished crosses. He draws in a sharp breath, the pew cold under his thumping legs. He pulls out his phone, stares at the contact page of Monet's mother. He needs to tell her to come, but he can only stare for a long moment.

It's a current picture. She's smiling, reclined in an old leather chair, slender hands curled over a book. An engagement ring flashes on a manicured finger. All the air escapes his lungs, and it's like his head is full of smoke, and the little chapel is spinning all around him, and all he wants is for it to stop. Minutes pass. He doesn't notice her until her shadow spreads over him, cold on the back of his neck and shoulders. He curls his hand around his phone, until the muscles under his skin quiver. She sits down, leaning her arms over the pew in front of them. "I don't know what it's like to lose a little girl, but I love Monet. There's no one else I would want dating my daughter."

"Did the doctors let you see her?"

The hero nods.

"What were the size of the slugs?"

"Avery," she says, never looking at him. But his voice is rising.

"Three inches? Five?"

"That doesn't matter—"

"Tell me." His voice falls back into a whisper. He doesn't look up from his clenched hands.

"I don't know," she says. The silence blooms between them, broken only by the hum of the lights and the squeak of wheels jostling outside the shut door. "I saw her on the stretcher before they rushed her into surgery. They're doing their best."

He glances over, and even in costume, the superhero looks oddly human. The sleeves of her red super-suit bunch at her elbows, kinks of ginger hair dangle outside her ponytail, and an accidental zig-zag is combed into her part.

"I know they are." He closes his eyes, thinking back to a month, no, a couple weeks ago. It's really only been that long since his world flipped. "She said something, when she was fired for following the man...something about the mayor being 'in on' the hero disappearance. I know I'm being paranoid, but..."

The mayor's home. Shotgun slugs. The wounds, in the back, through the ribs...

"I think Mayor Preston tried to kill my daughter."