Peppermint

Chapter 18 - We Got The Beat

***ALEX***

The second Josh and I get to the hotel room where he and his dad are staying, he eyeballs the bed and jumps onto it. With a loud yawn, he snuggles into his pillow and says, "I soooooo gotta crash." Ahmad and Firdaus look like they want to do the same, so they sink into chairs on one side of the room. They don't nod off, though. Judging from the way they're looking around the large, opulent room - the same way AK and I are looking around - this is their first time in this fancy-ass suite.

AK sits next to Firdaus, and together with Ahmad, they start to talk. I'm about to join in, but I change my mind because Josh is calling to me. Not for real, not out loud or even telepathically. But I see him lying on his side, tensed up like he's ready to jump into action at any second.

Not unlike me, I don't think.

I sit by him, on the floor so he looks down on me. "What's up, doc?" he asks in a truly terrible Bugs Bunny voice. Not sure what that accent is, but I'm pretty sure Bugs was meant to sound like he was from New York, not Chicago.

"Nothing but me wanting to shoot ice at the walls," I say.

"Just don't stare at 'em too long, Kingpin." I look at him blankly, and then he adds, "You know, the big bad guy from Daredevil?"

It only clicks in my mind because I've seen a different incarnation of the same guy in Ultimate Spider-Man comics. "I haven't seen Daredevil," I admit.

"You haven't? What kind of Marvel fanboy are you?"

"The kind with no Netflix at home and all my friends don't have it either."

"I have it," AK says with a raised hand. "When we get out of this shit, I'll give you my password. Just don't try and get on after midnight, 'cause that's when I chill with myself and Oliver Queen. Deal?"

"Deal," I say offhandedly before turning back to Josh. "Let me guess - you're the kind of guy who unwinds to good music too?"

"How'd you guess?"

I fish my phone from my pocket and go to Pandora, putting on one of my many 80s stations. "Great minds think alike. Though I'm guessing you're neurotypical, unlike me."

"I didn't have that terminology growing up..." Josh's voice trails off for a second as he bobs his head to the classic synthpop. "I've done my research. As far as I know, I'm neurotypical. But then I've never been officially diagnosed with anything."

"Self-identifying's no less valid," I say. "Look at me. They told me I've got a disorder called hyperlexia, but they never said anything about autism. I had to figure that part out on my own." I look up again and see him letting go of his pillow. My eyes follow his hands, locating large scars on his palms.

Stigmata.

They exist.

"They're not as ugly as they look at first glance," Josh says reassuringly. "They've gotten a little less obtrusive with time, you know?" He pokes at his left-palm scar, a quarter-sized spot of dark red showing prominently against his skin, especially since his palms are lighter in tone than the rest of his skin. More in line with my color.

I feel more than a bit of revulsion, though, at the thought of how he got those scars. "Bloody Romans."

He wrings his hands, hiding the scars on his palms, but not the ones on the other sides of his hands. These are smaller, but darker. "Yeah...there's a reason why, even to this day, you still see so many bad guys looking like Romans. Especially futuristic Romans."

"The epitome of decadence." I look around the hotel room. This is far from Romanesque, but it's still one of the richest places I've ever been in. Even Balthazar, though it's a boarding school, has a certain starkness to its architecture. A little more like an Ionic column than the Corinthian one that is this place.