"Well?" Matthew asked. "Are you going to tell us about her?"
"I...I don't know much about Mom. She died in a car crash when I was a baby." Roman's eyes bugged out as if in panic. "I...I have to go."
He fled into the bathroom and locked the door with a click. Matthew and Jim looked at each other. "Something must have gone wrong for Tatiana Kevan," said Matthew. "Otherwise, Roman wouldn't have..."
"I know," said Jim. "Roman is seventeen years old. The ICA shut down Marine Defenders International...a little under twenty years ago? That could have had something to do with it."
"Let me guess. She lost her calling in life and decided to drink her sorrows away?" Matthew shook his head. That's appalling, he thought. She ruined her son's life before he was even born. Instead of doing what a boy his age was supposed to do, he was stuck reading comic books and struggling with elementary school math.
"Probably," Jim admitted. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I'm sad for that boy," Matthew confessed. "He could have been so much more if his mother hadn't done what she did."
The bathroom door opened a crack. Roman's wide brown eyes peeked through, then he stepped out. He seemed not to be as scrawny as when Matthew had first met him. If not for the timid gentleness in his eyes, he might have looked quite formidable. "I'm not sad. Why are you sad, sir?" he asked.
"I need to talk to your dad, kid," said Matthew. "Why don't I drive you home tonight?"
Roman nodded. "My phone's dead. You'll have to text him and let him know."
When it came time to leave, Roman followed Matthew out to his car without a word of protest. He was so trusting, Matthew thought. It made him easy prey. More than slightly disgusted with himself, Matthew stared out the windshield for a long moment before starting the car.
"Is something wrong, sir?" Roman asked.
"No, not at all," he lied. "Think your dad will be home from work?"
"Yeah," said Roman. "He'll be there."
Matthew drove on in silence. Roman stared at the window, entranced by the sights outside. Eventually, he broke the hush. "I want to drive a car someday."
"Drive a car, huh?" Matthew chuckled. "It's not as fun as it looks."
"The motorcycle was fun." Roman broke into a grin. "Dad said I couldn't do it, but Fiver taught me how. I drove it twice!"
Matthew slammed the brakes as the light turned red. "You drove a motorcycle? That's not..."
"Safe?" Roman giggled. "No, it wasn't!"
Matthew smiled. When they pulled up to the apartment complex, Dr. Faustus was waiting outside. "Hey bud!" he called.
Roman ran over and hugged his father. "I did all my math with Tegan!"
"Great job, Roman," said Gregor. "The neighbors upstairs wanted to know if you'd help them clean up a little. Said they'd pay you. You too tired?"
"Nope. I'm on it." Roman waved to Matthew. "Thanks for the ride, sir." Once he disappeared through the door, Gregor looked at Matthew warily.
"I did want to talk," said Matthew. He pulled up the photo. "What do you know about this group? According to every database I've checked, all of these people are either dead or nonexistent."
"Interesting." Greg zoomed in on a few people in the photo. "These folks are Marine Defenders International. Ghost Squad, to be specific. I have this photo on my desk. It's the only picture I still have of Tatiana."
"Who was she?" Matthew asked.
"Roman's mother," said Greg. "She was a Defender before they got shut down. I didn't know her back then, but she told me all about it. When she lost her job, she lost pretty much everything. When I met her, she was selling her body on the streets to support an alcohol habit. I picked her up, but not for her services. I wanted to know how the hell she'd ended up where she did.
"I paid for her to go to rehab, after which she got a job and raised enough to rent an apartment right next door to mine in the shabby complex where Jim lives now. Things were going well. We became good friends, and before we knew it, we were dating.
"Her pregnancy was unexpected. I don't know what happened, but she relapsed while she was pregnant. When Roman came, he was premature and affected by his mother's drinking. After he was born, she told me she was sorry, and that she wanted nothing more than for her son to be a hero like she had once been. She wanted him to join WOHLF when he was old enough.
"Shortly afterwards, she died in a drunk driving accident." Gregor stared at the ground, looking troubled. "I took the boy. How could I give him up? He's seventeen now, and I sincerely believe he's made me a better man."
"A heavy burden to bear," said Matthew, "but are you certain she's gone?"
Gregor gave him a confused look. "What are you suggesting?"
"You're sure she didn't...?"
"She sure as hell didn't put on a mask and start calling herself Ice Five, if that's what you're about to ask. I saw them unmasked the night they were attacked while freeing my son, and they might as well have had no face at all." Gregor shuddered a little at the memory. "Why do you want to know all this so badly, anyway?"
Matthew faltered. He couldn't let the truth out too soon. Not to a man who had sold his soul to the masked devil who had murdered Jonathan. "I...I wanted to know if we could contact any of them for help. And honestly, who doesn't want to know Ice Five's real name?"
Gregor narrowed his eyes in a way that screamed, I'm watching you. "Well," he said, "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
.........
Long after everyone else had left, Ice Five sat at the table, rapping their fingers against its surface to break the silence. Even Linda was gone, having closed the shop for the night. The quiet was oppressive, choking, like the fumes wafting from a smashed bottle of cologne. Unease quickened in Fiver's mind with every passing second.
They could not stop thinking about the photograph. Jim had told them Matthew had it. Why did he have it, though? They had only met earlier that evening. Where could he have gotten it? Did he know that Ice Five was in that picture, unmasked and smiling?
That didn't trouble them as much as all the others in that picture. They were all gone, some having parted ways, others dead. Worse, Fiver had never even gotten a chance to say goodbye. A deep, gut-wrenching fear fell upon them. What if they died without getting to say goodbye to the pack?
They thought about it for a long, silent moment. Finally, the idea came to them. Fiver grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from the back room, tore off a sheet, and started writing.
IF WE WIN, I'll break these out myself. IF I FALL, have someone distribute these. This message is for all of you. There is also a letter for each individual. Yes, I'm writing one for EVERYONE. Even you, Jim.
First of all, I would like to say that my real name is
The sound of a door slamming upstairs startled them mid-sentence. Fiver stood up and grabbed their knife from its sheath. Footsteps thudded overhead. Suspecting a robbery, Fiver crept up the stairs and into the EMPLOYEES ONLY closet above. Sure enough, the sound of someone opening the cash register came next.
Calmly, quietly, they cracked the door open and peered out. A burglar in a ski mask was busy emptying the cash register, and remained blissfully oblivious as Ice Five crept up behind them, knife drawn and ready. The burglar stopped, perhaps hearing the sound of Fiver's breathing. When they turned around and saw the WOHLF leader standing over them, a look of pure horror filled their eyes.
"Take the mask off," Fiver ordered.
The intruder did as commanded, revealing a petrified-looking man with a disproportionately large nose and a mustache resembling a hairy caterpillar. "Ice Five?"
They nodded.
The man's frightful expression melted into a devious grin. "I suspected you'd be here."
"What do you want?" Fiver lowered the knife a little. "I know it's not the spare change."
"What I want," he said, "is the bounty on your head. And to see your face."
Fiver growled beneath their mask. "Fair enough."
The intruder swung his fist at Fiver's head. They ducked at the last second, boots squealing on the tiled floor. The intruder lunged at Fiver again, locking an arm around them and yanking their mask off with the other hand. "So you are a human being." The man smiled in a way that made Fiver's skin crawl. "That means you aren't immortal after all."
With a scream, Fiver plunged the knife into the assailant's gut. "Neither are you!"
The man slumped against the counter, looked up at the front window, and started laughing. Confused and somewhat frightened, Fiver opened their backpack and reached for the black box. The intruder kept laughing, stopping only when the needle jabbed into their neck. His terror returned as he grasped fully what was happening. A second later, he collapsed, shuddering as the opioid pulled him under.
A moment of quiet passed before Fiver realized why the intruder had been laughing. The entire time, someone had been standing outside the window, filming the whole thing. Fiver ran for the door and tried to pursue them, but they were gone before they could even get the door open.
Panic surged through them. They dialed Linda's number and held the phone up to their ear, pleading for her to pick it up. It rang for a solid minute before she picked up. "Hello?"
"Hey...it's Ice Five. Sorry to bother you so late," they said.
"What's goin' on?" she grumbled.
"There's no way to put this lightly," said Fiver, "but someone broke into the store and started emptying the cash register. He threatened me, and then I...I killed him. And someone was outside filming me while I did it."
A long, uneasy silence followed. Finally, Linda shouted at them. "I can't believe you sometimes, Fiver. You imbecile! Exercise some restraint, damn it! Do you have any idea how much I've been riskin', lettin' yous guys hide out in the basement? You're goin' to need a new place now. You ain't safe in your hole anymore."
"I'm sorry," said Fiver.
"Me too," said Linda. "Now get the dead body outta there before tomorrow mornin'."
She hung up after that. Fiver retrieved their mask and stared down at it for a moment. For all most knew, the mask was their face. The person beneath might not have existed anymore. No one remembered the veterinarian. No one remembered the Defender.
No one remembered Alex Payne.
No had ever even known them.