When Gracie Met The Grump

by Mariana Zapata

Unfortunately, running was one of those things anybody could do anywhere, so it was hard to come up with a legitimate excuse to skip going for one that didn’t leave me feeling guilty afterward.

If I ever had to run, I was going to have to run. Not jog. Not sprint. Run like my life depended on it, because it would.

Yeah, that definitely isn’t a cramp. And that couldn’t mean anything good either. The last time it had hurt like this….

Slowly, I turned in another full circle, taking in the trailer sitting in the middle of the five acres that made up the property I’d been renting for the last three years.

Then I listened some more. There wasn’t anything out here. Which was exactly how it should have been. I’d been careful. I was always fucking careful. Cautious might as well have been my middle name. I was just being paranoid.

I didn’t love running at night, but I hated waking up early, and I sure as hell hated running in the heat. Temperatures in New Mexico were no joke.

Even the clouds were hiding the stars, and if there was a member of the Trinity up in the sky creeping on me, I couldn’t see them.

And if that made my chest get a little tight, then it made my chest get a little tight. C’est la fucking vie, right?

All I had to do was choose somewhere. Fucking anywhere, or just about anywhere, as long as it was within the continental U.S.

They’d tried to make moving around as much of a game as they could, at least at the beginning. To be fair, I hadn’t really seen it as too much of a chore until about middle school. Bouncing from town to town had been fun for a really long time. Then, in high school, it had become a necessity. Now, it made my eye twitch.

But I knew I needed to move, and I really was planning on it. It was just easier said than done. Six months ago, I’d told myself I couldn’t leave because I wanted to harvest my garden first. I’d put so much work into it; I couldn’t let it go to waste. Then, I had convinced myself that I should wait until after the holidays. Moving during winter would suck. What if it suddenly snowed? My car wasn’t all-wheel drive, so I needed to take that into consideration too. Then there was the biggest factor: I hadn’t been able to pick a place yet.

It might have not helped that every time I’d sat down to make a decision, I’d done the same thing I had tonight—I spent all of two minutes total looking at the map before I’d come up with something else that needed to be done that was just as important. Like running. Or folding the mound of clean laundry that always seemed to pile up even though I was the only person in the house and I usually wore my pajamas all day unless I had video lessons with my students.

It wasn’t like it mattered where I went. It was time to bounce. It was one of the rules I’d been raised with after all: Don’t stay in one place for too long.

There was no reason for me to believe I needed to panic, get in my car, and peel out of here. It had been a long time since my stomach had done this funny shit. It doesn’t mean anything. It was the cheddar. Or maybe it was a sign that, yes, I needed to get out of here at some point in the very near future.

But just a little longer. A day or two max. No more than three.

“Sir, why would you think it was angels and not a member of the Trinity you saw through your window?”

There was crime here, in the town I lived, like everywhere else, but nothing that kept me up at night.

there were superhumans or whatever the Trinity were,

Most of humanity thought the three superbeings, called the Trinity for that reason, were incredible.

I missed hugs. I missed them a lot. Hugging yourself didn’t release any oxytocin in your body, so it didn’t have the same effect as getting one from another person. I knew that from experience.

If I followed the instructions my grandma had left me, I should have relocated a year ago.

There was always the chance one day I wouldn’t have to. That’s what I kept hoping for. It was just another miracle I could dream of.

If I had to pick, that would be at the top of the list of things I’d want—someone.

A flash of pure purple light through the blinds that had me flinching it was so damn bright.

What in the hell was that? WHAT THE HELL WAS HAPPENING? The interview on the TV suddenly popped up in my head. Was it… an angel? No, no. It wasn’t. Was there a meteor shower tonight? Was a plane falling apart? Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit.

Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Tiny purple fires were scattered across my yard.

I gulped. I turned it off, then turned it back on, thinking I’d imagined it. I hadn’t. I fucking hadn’t. There was a body there. On the ground. In the dirt. A human body. A big one.

A piece of cloth that looked an awful lot like… like… a cape. A cape. Oh shit.

A fucking cape that was torn and tattered, but it was either a tablecloth or that. And it was attached to a half-bared chest by a wish and a prayer.

I recognized the color of the suit that was more than half ripped off the body there. Charcoal. I knew exactly what shade of blue the cape was too. The whole world did. Cobalt fucking blue.

It was…. One of the members of the Trinity. It was…. The Defender. It was The fucking Defender.

The figure, who I was 99.99999 percent sure was the being known to the world as The Defender—holy fucking shit—made another hoarse sound that sounded like clear and total pain. His hand extended out to the side, his fingers sifting through the dirt beneath and around him. He moaned. A deep cough rattled through his body, followed by a brutally pained sound.

What in the hell was going on? How the hell had he made it here? Where the hell had he come from?

I was going to cry. Maybe throw up. Maybe both. The Defender had to have the same kind of invincibility too, shouldn’t he?

All three members of the Trinity were icons of seemingly limitless strength, speed, and a variety of other incredible powers, who remained a mystery even after so many years. That was part of the reason why so many people were obsessed with them. Why any footage of them instantly went viral.

A whole decade went by without any of them ever communicating with anyone; they simply showed up, did what they had to do, and then disappeared.

On the other hand, some people thought they were a danger to mankind. My own grandma had done the sign of the cross any time they were mentioned.

But of the three of them, The Defender was the one people knew the least about. He’d been the last of the Trinity to appear. He never did appearances. Never, ever, spoke to the media. He just… did what he did and disappeared afterward. Drones had tried following him countless times, but every single one abruptly stopped working almost immediately. Footage of him was rare. A good view of his face was an anomaly that I wasn’t sure even existed; the best shot I’d ever seen had been a distant picture of a dark-haired man with a clean, sharp jaw. For whatever reason, every photo and video of him came out distorted. He was the only one of the Trinity that came out like that. Some people speculated they were all capable of it, but he was the only one who did it.

But even without a good view of his face, the rest of him was unmistakable. The man in the shredded suit wasn’t just long and muscular, he was built like a classical statue. What remained of the material was a charcoal gray color, and the cape and boots were dirt-smudged but blue.

Oh boyyyy. This couldn’t be happening.

The man in my yard, surrounded by embers of bright purple fucking fires that were shrinking by the second, groaned again. His fingers stretched and curled, and he arched his neck back, a long, low moan escaping his body in a way that felt so, so wrong. It was him. Normal people didn’t wear capes and boots around. Their bodies didn’t fall from the fucking sky. It was him.

He grunted so quietly that I bare...

Survive had been the last thing my grandma had asked of me. Do whatever you have to do was the unspoken addition that had lingered between us. It was how she’d raised me.

On the ground, The Defender’s fingers raked through the dirt as he gasped again. Shit, shit, shit.

Before the reasonable part of my brain reminded me of why this was an awful idea, of what I had fucking promised, I ran over, skidding to a stop, just barel...

He was struggling. “Oh, fuck me,” I muttered to myself before setting my hand gently on top of his. “Hey.” His skin was so hot it was almost uncomfortable, but I really didn’t like the look on his scrunched face. Much less the state of the rest of him. “Are you okay?”

Broad fingers flexed in mine, almost more convulsively than on purpose, and The Defender tried to take another breath that sounded like a wheeze. I wasn’t even sure he knew I was there.

His face scrunched up, and his eyes squeezed closed. “No… hospital,” The Defender grumbled in a voice that was barely audible. “No… one….”

Oh god, he was talking to me. He was actually talking to me. And I didn’t like what he was saying. “You don’t want me to call anyone?” I tried my best not to shriek. His fingers jerked in mine, and I barely heard him, but I managed to catch just enough to hear him whisper, “No.” His throat bobbed. He gasped, then groaned. “In-inside….”

Inside? My house? This was the last thing I needed. The absolute last thing. There was the last thing, and t...