The Powers That Be by Amy Laurens

Author:Amy Laurens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: superhero romance with strong female leads, superhero romance stories set in the future, superhero short stories, armageddon and the four horsemen of the apocalypse, end of the world romance short stories
Publisher: Inkprint Press
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Carefully, Rordan examined himself for injuries. He still ached, but not so badly as he had done, and he found he could sit up without getting dizzy this time.

Was there any point, though? Was there anything to go out to, anything he could actually do? Or was he better off just lying here, ignoring it all, hoping it would go away?

Deep inside, the instinct that had made him a good reporter in the first place told him he had to move. The story was paramount, after all.

Carefully, he stripped the needles from his veins, sealing the tape back over the pricks of blood that welled. He cast around for his clothing, found his jacket and jeans but no shirt or underwear. It’d have to do.

Behind his curtain he shimmied into his clothing, rough against his still-raw skin, then headed out into the corridor. It was only when he saw a nurse rushing in the other direction that he realised his feet were cold because he had no shoes.

He wound his way through the corridors with less idea where he was going than energy to go, and as his chest heaved and his lungs strained, he realised that that was even less than he’d thought. Perhaps he’d need to have a break, risk sitting down for a moment to catch his breath.

Maybe around the next corner. Just one more. One more wouldn’t kill him.

A security guard. The reporter’s voice in the back of his head niggled at him, whispering ideas. He tilted his head and stared at the door behind the guard. A guard in a hospital. Hmm. It might be. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. He was in the right hospital, after all.

He moved towards the guard, wondering if this constituted a new low in his flagrant disregard for his own safety, or if perhaps this was his subconscious’s way of trying to land him back in bed.

The guard ignored him.

A set up, then? And if he touched the swinging door, alarms would sound, the guard would wrestle him to the ground?

Holding his breath, he took a step closer, fingers outstretched.

Still the guard ignored him.

Heart pounding like he’d just survived a beating, been unconscious in bed for two, maybe three days, and was now contemplating breaking into the hospital room of the nearly-dead, last-remaining Power of the world, Rordan touched the door.

Nothing.

He blinked once for surprise, once for suspicion, then remembered the sacred motto of good journalism: Never look the gift horse in its mouth.

He opened the door, and looked into the face of the last remaining Power.

For a moment Rordan’s breath caught, but then he remembered the guard and slipped into Simon Baker’s isolation room, patting down his pockets instinctively for a pen and pad of paper.

Finding neither, he grasped with fists at empty air a few times, ran his hands over his head, licked his lips, and eventually sat down in the chair by Mr Baker’s bed.

“Mr Baker?” he ventured, softly at first, a murmur like the falling of perfect snowflakes, then again louder.

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