Nearly everyone was at my side in the chaotic aftermath. Lori, Lizzy, and Rebecca were there. I learned later that Rosie was watching over Alex while his girlfriend attended to me because of my injuries. Braden was given the specific job of watching over the two henchmen that everyone was fighting when I was away. They hadn’t killed them, so it was his job to make sure they were trapped in his shadows, unable to escape until they could be apprehended.

  Val wiped her eyes and nose, trying to compose herself after what she did to McLeod. She knelt next to me and that composure broke. Her tears dripped on my face. “I’m so sorry. There was no other way I could get an opening like that. He had to believe I was on his side.”

  “It’s okay,” I wheezed. Two whole words sent fresh waves of scorching pain through my body. I could live with that. It was all finally over. “Sorry you had to do that.”

  Her mouth turned up in a small, sad smile. “He was the only one I could call a father. There’s a part of me that will always miss that, even if he had to be stopped. All of you have been closer to a true family than he ever has.”

  Lori turned a harsh glare to Val, who sighed.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being fooled by him for so long. I’m sorry for standing by when he killed all those people. I’m sorry I killed your friend. I’m sorry about hurting Ethan in front of you like that.” Val went over to where Lori stood and got on her knees, bowing her head. “I promised you I’d let you kill me if we got to this point. McLeod is dead, so my job is done. I can’t undo what I’ve done. My life is yours.”

  Without hesitation, Lori pulled out the firearm she had holstered at her side, resting the barrel against Val’s forehead. It was like winter hit New York in full force in that moment. The temperature around us had to drop to freezing. There was no way we went through all of that to have Lori shoot the one who killed McLeod in the head in the middle of New York City, their history be damned.

  I started to open my mouth to ask her not to do it, but Rebecca calmly covered it with her hand. She looked down at me and shook her head. I didn’t like it, but I understood why she prevented me from speaking. This was a choice that Lori had to make. I’d seen anger take her over and it wasn’t something I wanted for her anymore. She’d said things to me that attacked my deepest fears and trauma, even if she regretted it right after and apologized. There was an anger—a darkness—inside her that worried me. It wasn’t something I wanted to consume my friend, and I knew she didn’t want it to consume her either. At the end, Val was right about what she promised, and what was unfolding in front of me was between the two of them.

  The seconds that went by were dragging on for an eternity. The cold, unfeeling gun resting against my savior’s forehead felt like it was pressing against my own. I was just waiting for Lori to squeeze the trigger, the deafening blast that followed ending the life of someone I’d gotten to know a little bit better since she had joined us. Val was strong, but getting shot like that would almost certainly kill her.

  Lori sighed and put the gun back in her holster, shaking her head almost like she couldn’t believe what she was doing. I let out a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding, much to the annoyance of my damaged ribs. Lori making the decision to not kill Val didn’t necessarily surprise me, but the hug she gave Val did.

  “The killing that any of us had to do ends with his death.” Even though Lori was nearly at eye level with Val from the latter’s kneeling position, Lori got on her knees too. “Your job isn’t done, by the way. If you truly felt guilt for your past actions, then you need to atone. Work to make this world better. Make it a world where what happened to you doesn’t happen to another innocent girl. You’ve done it so far, even at the expense of my best friend’s sternum, so keep trying to be better than you have been.”

  “Are...are you sure?” Val seemed stunned.

  “I opt to not shoot her in the head, and she asks if I’m sure,” Lori muttered. “Yes, I’m positive. Look, I’ve said things I shouldn’t have to everyone here. I apologize for that. I want to be a better person and use my power for good instead of being a petty, vindictive jerk. This was the end of a chapter in our lives. Maybe it was the end of a whole damn book, I have no idea. I couldn’t say I’ve become a better person if I killed the woman who killed her own father to save us all. Save the world, really.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Val wiped her eyes. I could see that she truly didn’t want to die, which made Lori’s decision so much better.

  Lori shrugged. “You don’t have to say anything, so I will say something instead. For everything I held against you and for how little I trusted you before, I think I’m ready to take the first steps to calling you my friend. But only if you keep doing good. Being angry is exhausting and it sucks. Please don’t make me go back to how things were.”

  Lizzy squealed and nearly tackled Lori with a big, rib-cracking hug. “I’m so happy for you. You’ve grown so much in these few months.”

  Lori rolled her eyes, unable to stop a smile from forming on her lips. From being a shy, nervous girl who was held at gunpoint by my sister to my best friend holding someone else at gunpoint. With my back agonizingly fried and me needing to be peeled off the streets of New York, it was nice to see that everything came full circle eventually, even in the weirdest ways possible.

  The sound of someone running up to us pulled everyone out of their happy bubble. Everyone who still had the energy to do so got ready to fight, but it was just the cop we saw when we arrived in the city. He froze when he saw everyone squared up to make him the next casualty, his shoulders visibly relaxing when everyone realized it was just him and not another superpowered asshole to deal with. He spared one look to McLeod’s body and shook his head.

  “Got pretty bad here, huh?” He frowned and something in his eyes told me that this wasn’t the first horrible thing he’d seen in his life, though it may have been the most unique road to a horrible sight he’d dealt with.

  “Is there anyone else who needs help?” I managed, not that I was in anything near a position to help. I had to ask. I couldn’t do nothing in good conscience.

  “Yeah, you. What the hell happened to you, kid?”

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  “You should see his back,” Rebecca said, a nervous laugh escaping at the end.

  “If that’s what that smell is, I’m good.” He shook his head in bewilderment, looking at me with something like awe or maybe even pride. “No civilian casualties. Just this guy.”

  “There are two more,” I said, pointing toward the direction I fought Heather and Gabriel. “Sorry, not familiar with the city, so I couldn’t tell you where exactly they are, but there are two more bodies. There’s a family hiding away in one of the alleyways too.”

  The officer hesitated. “Did you kill them?”

  “One, yes. The girl. She killed the bald guy.” Should I have admitted to an officer that I killed someone like that? Probably not, but I wasn’t going to lie to the guy. I was too tired.

  He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Can you guys just get out of here? We can take care of everything else, and I don’t feel like being the one to bring in our new heroes in for any questioning. Ending this without any innocent civilians getting harmed is nothing short of remarkable. Consider this as me paying you back, so scram.”

  None of us were going to push our luck with the NYPD.

  And I decided not to focus on the agonizing way they had to literally peel me off the road to get me home. I was thanking every deity I knew for the fact that we all had our spare teleportation stones, which mercifully allowed me to dump my damaged body at Charlie’s feet. As usual, she did a great job healing since she’d been given the chance to regain her strength. I barely had any scarring on my back and my ribs just had a dull ache when she was done with me. Apparently, the healing power Lizzy gave me helped Charlie along too. She was gassed when she was done, but she had enough left in the tank to heal everyone else of their relatively minor injuries.

  When we walked through the front door of my home, Shelly eagerly gave each and every one of us a long hug. We decided we’d all come back to just unwind together and enjoy our shared company. Braden was a few minutes later than everyone else since he had to wait for a teleporter to show up and get McLeod’s two goons, but he joined us as soon as he could.

  Despite what we had just been through together, it was actually awkward. None of us knew what to say. It was the first time we’d all been together and didn’t have an immediate scare on the horizon. For the first time in nearly a year, I was free to just relax for a little while. The weight of McLeod’s presence was finally off my shoulders, and as lame as it may have been, I nearly wanted to break down from the relief that brought me. I said we were going to win handedly and that’s exactly what we did. Everyone at the table was a hero.

  I wasn’t even sure if it was odd that we didn’t get a hero’s welcome when we returned. Sure, I hadn’t been expecting one or anything, but we did stop McLeod without any casualties. That wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t nothing at all. That was just the reality of it. People were more worried about whether they were going to be able to see their parents, siblings, and children than they were cake and confetti to celebrate a job well done. And I was perfectly fine with that. A party would have just made me feel uncomfortable, not to mention how it probably would have made Val feel after everything she went through.

  A knock at the door surprised me. Chloe was aware of the plan and that we were back, but she was watching Megan and Ryan in the event things went south. After her parents came back from their weird silent retreat thing and learned about the dog attack, they promised they were going to be more involved in their kids’ lives. To my surprise, that included Megan, because they were off in the city having a day of fun with Chloe supervising them to make sure they were only moderately misbehaving.

  I wasn’t sure who it could have been with everyone accounted for. A small part of me was scared it was one of McLeod’s fanatics showing up to finish the job their boss couldn’t with us tired. I felt safe with some of the baddest people on Earth (and Clamor) at my dinner table. I gingerly made my way to the door and my eyes widened when I opened it.

  Abigail Carmichael stood in my doorway. “I heard that-”

  It was my turn to nearly tackle someone with a hug. Lizzy’s physical affection exposure therapy turned me into a tried-and-true hugger. We weren’t even that close, but she was there with Lori to explain the whole Luna thing to me. I wouldn’t have my fiancée if I hadn’t met her. My sister wouldn’t have a job worthy of her talents without her. I hadn’t seen her since I’d come back and there was so much going on that I hadn’t been able to find the time to reach out.

  I realized I was lifting the woman in the air—something I wouldn’t have been able to do during our first meeting—and carefully set her down. She tried to keep her stern and composed aura, but it was faltering when she started laughing and fixing her hair. After all she’d been through with her own family, I was thrilled to see her laughing and smiling. I truly hoped the time that passed had allowed her to heal a little.

  “Looks like I heard right,” she said.

  I moved aside to let her in. Everyone but the pjulsen took turns either hugging her or shaking her hand. Lori, who Abigail was always tough on, might have gotten the biggest hug of them all. I didn’t miss the look of pride on her face when hugging my team’s little leader. When she finally realized there were unfamiliar faces—helmets, really—in the room, she cocked her head.

  “These are...my friends. When we were dealing with the Sentinels, I touched the Sphere, and it brought me a different planet. These are natives of Clamor. They helped bring me home and helped stop McLeod.”

  “That’s...a lot to process.” Abigail shook her head before going to shake their hands. “Thank you for your help. This wasn’t your fight, but risking your lives to help an alien species is beyond any commendation I can give.”

  I wasn’t going to tell her that they felt responsible for our Anomaly-related issues because they created the Sphere. There would be ample time to explain that to her if she was sticking around, which I desperately hoped she was. I finally found a group of people who helped ease the loss of my parents and the guilt I felt about holding Shelly back for so long. I finally found a group of people who helped me figure out I didn’t have to be some wandering kid with no plans for my future. I wanted to keep all of them around as long as I could.

  “Will you be staying?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.

  “With your blessing, and hopefully, your forgiveness.” Abigail took a deep breath and stood up as straight as she could. “My irrational decisions put you, and everyone here, in danger on that mountain. I realized I’m no longer fit for a leadership role. Of course, your sister is more than up to the task, and she’s certainly proven that in my absence. That doesn’t change the fact you lost valuable time with your friends and family because of my decision, and I know the consequences of my decision led to them grieving your loss as well.”

  “Uh, it’s okay.” I wanted to shrink down. It was such a formal apology for something I didn’t hold against her at all. She’d only been doing what she thought was best to stop McLeod. No one’s going to make the right call every time.

  “Ethan, what I did was-”

  “It’s okay, really.” I didn’t want to interrupt her, but it just didn’t make sense for her to feel guilty about it. “That experience made me stronger physically and made me realize just how much I love my friends and family. Don’t beat yourself up about it if you can avoid it.”

  It looked like she wanted to protest, but no one in the room held a grudge against her. Finally, she relented and put her hands up. “Understood. Then I have your blessing to return to Luna? Not as a leader, of course. Maybe as a member of a growing community.”

  “You don’t need my permission for that.” I pointed over to Shelly. “You’d probably have to talk to her. She’s not too bad once you get beneath the grouchy exterior. For what it’s worth, I’d like to have you here. And there was something else.”

  “What might that be?” Abigail tilted her head to the side.

  “Would you like to come to my wedding?”