“I don’t think that’s the best of our ideas. Sometimes we have good ideas and that’s not one of them,” Lex says. “I never thought I’d be telling Ellison that he has bad ideas.”
“Do you think we can figure out how to force El to meet up with me?” I ask. “Like can you do like mental snail mail or something? Send him this: ‘What’s up, bro, it’s AsmodeusDeath…’ What’s your last name? Just toss that at the end of my name. Anyway, ‘Meet me at seven PM in a cemetery.’”
“Why a cemetery?” Landon asks.
“Because if I don’t make it, you can just roll me into a grave,” I explain.
Ellison does not appreciate my joke in the slightest.
“Ellison, my dear. It was a joke. But now I’m being serious; can you tell him to meet me?”
“No, and I wouldn’t want to even if I could. I want him to stay as far away from you as he possibly can. I don’t want him around any of us. I want him to fucking go away,” Ellison snaps before storming up the stairs.
Pocket Lint gallops after him as I lean back against the wall.
“This… El is going after people in Ellison’s life, right?” I ask.
“Yeah. But I’m not quite sure what to do about it. Like… how do you fight someone you can’t hurt?” Landon asks. “I could throw an entire building on him, but it’s not like it’d hurt him.”
“We have to assume that the next person El would be going after is Ellison’s father, right?” I ask.
“It’s possible,” Nolan says. “Honestly, highly likely.”
“I guess maybe we should find his father?” Landon suggests.
“But we all already know who he is, right?” I ask.
Everyone stares at me blankly.
“Like how do you guys stay alive without me? It’s Calvin Somerset, the preachy asshole from the mall who was on that video. The ‘Let’s destroy all supers’ dude. How did you not realize? They have the same last name!”
“You think I actually pay attention to the last names of my friends? I barely pay any attention to them, let alone their last name!” Landon says.
“Maybe you should.”
“You knew that all along?” Landon asks.
“I know everything about all of you,” I assure him.
“That’s kind of scary, but I guess you have your uses,” Landon says. “Why didn’t Ellison say anything?”
“I mean… do you blame him?” August asks. “Would you have looked over at the guy wanting to murder and control supers and said, ‘Hey! That’s my dad!’”
“If I was El, I’d totally go murder that guy,” I say. “I have an idea that could fix everything.”
Landon looks at me. “Let’s hear it.”
“What if I go murder Ellison’s father now to show El that we can be bros? I could even ask him if he wanted me to help him murder him.”
“How did I end up in prison but you didn’t?” Nolan asks me.
“You gotta be sneakier… and useful,” I say, which makes Nolan’s face scrunch up. “If the law can’t catch you, you will never get caught. Anyway, I’d like to do a few experiments. Come upstairs.” I wave them after me and as they get up to follow me, I notice something around Nolan’s ankles. “You have very fancy anklets on, Nolan.”
“Thank you. They are set to incapacitate me if I try to break them or run away. A stipulation of being ‘free.’”
“Like they snap your ankle?”
He gives me an incredulous look. “What kind of barbarian place do you think I just came from? They inject me with a tranquilizer.”
