Hero

Начало книги

As quickly as it starts, it’s over: a flash of snowy screen and a brash assault of noise that sounds the way ripping off a Band-Aid feels. Then, a video plays.

Frida and I lean forward at the same moment, our heads tilted and our bodies at the couch’s edge. The onscreen figure is shadowy, but I can just make out the signature charcoal-colored armor that’s the rubbery second skin of a towering, powerful frame. At his boots kneels a silver-haired man, his brown skin lined with experience. Despite the man’s age, he is solid and sturdy, even with his hands knotted behind his rigid back. He lifts his face skyward, and where fear should be, there is only defiance.

There have been impostors before, but there’s no mistaking who commands him to his knees. Even in the haze of falling dusk and grainy footage, Hero is raw. His movements are deliberate and calculated as he closes a merciless hand around the man’s neck. I’ve never watched a man die, but I know that’s what I’m seeing. Life seeps away in dreamlike slow motion, his struggling and bound body growing slack.

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