Free Web NovelChapter 29: CH 28: Lunutty
Gwen didn’t waste a single second looking up.
Forty-five seconds left on the bridge’s bomb timer. Maybe less.
She spun around, pain shooting through every inch of her body, and locked eyes on the real problem. A single train carriage sat stalled right in the middle of the bridge.
’No pressure.’ Gwen thought, ’Just me, a ticking bridge, and some hostages whose lives depend on me.’
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Right as Veritas blasted off into the clear sky, the stream that had hijacked every screen stopped as well.
But it didn’t mean everything was over yet because the bombs were still ticking.
High above the bridge, rotor blades chopped through the sunny New York sky. A police helicopter and a bright Channel 7 news chopper swung in close. Broadcasting the footage live.
What they saw made the whole city hold its breath.
There was Spider-Woman—bent forward like she was pulling a mountain.
Her pink-white-and-black suit was torn and scorched, her arms shaking, ribs screaming with every breath.
Her spider-webs stretched from her callused hands to the front of a single train carriage. She was dragging the whole thing, one painful step at a time, away from the middle of the bridge.
On the roof of the carriage, three hostages lay tied together. They were Sarah, Mary, and Robbert. Some part of them felt embarrassed lying down like that, but right now their lives were more important than their grace.
Inside the carriage, the rest were just as still. They couldn’t move, couldn’t run away on their own... the bombs would turn everything into fireworks otherwise.
That’s why she couldn’t just swing them to safety. She had to pull the entire carriage off the exploding bridge.
A deep BOOM shook the bridge behind them. The carriage was already clear of the blast zone, but the explosion ripped a support pillar clean off. Ten seconds later another pillar exploded into dust.
"Hahhhhhhhhh!" Gwen roared, leaning so far forward that her mask was halfway to touching the tracks. The webs bit into her hands. The heavy carriage was rolling, just a little, but it was moving.
The news camera zoomed in tight. The reporter’s voice came through the chopper speakers, steady, her throat was already choking with emotion:
"We are live at the East River Bridge near Harlem. Veritas has fled, leaving Spider-Woman and these hostages to die on a collapsing bridge. Two pillars are already gone. Experts say three more explosions and the whole thing comes down. But look at her... she’s giving everything she has left to drag that carriage to safety. All we can do is pray she makes it." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Another explosion hit. The bridge tilted a few degrees with a horrible metal groan.
Gwen didn’t even look back.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" she yelled, pulling harder. The carriage picked up speed, wheels clacking faster now.
All across New York, people watching on their phones and TVs started cheering without even realizing they were doing it.
"Come on, Spider-Woman!"
"You got this! Just a little more!"
"Pull! Pull!"
The police helicopter swung around to the open end of the bridge. Two officers fast-roped down and sprinted toward her.
"Spider-Woman! We got you!" one shouted, grabbing a web line beside her. The other braced against the carriage side and started pushing.
Gwen shot them a quick, exhausted glance, "Thanks, officers!"
Gwen’s super-strength, plus two determined officers, made the carriage roll faster. Another blast went off behind them, close enough that the bridge shuddered hard, but they were almost at the edge now.
The reporter’s voice cracked with relief and pride:
"Two officers have joined Spider-Woman. They’re pulling together. The bridge is falling apart around them, but these heroes are not stopping. The hostages are still holding perfectly still... come on, come on..."
With one last, desperate pull from Gwen and a final shove from the cops, the carriage rumbled off the bridge onto solid ground. The moment the last wheel cleared the edge, the central section of the bridge gave way behind them in a thunderous collapse of steel and concrete.
They made it.
Gwen dropped to her knees, chest heaving, webs still clutched in her burned hands.
"They’ve made it. Spider-Woman, the vigilante hero of New York, along with brave officers of the NYPD have saved every single hostage from the collapsing bridge. Bomb Squad is already moving inside the carriage to defuse the bombs still attached to the hostages. Even after everything Veritas did today, the spirit of New York burns like an inferno."
The reporter narrated the events with the exact emotions that people loved.
She wasn’t a star performer of Channel 7 for nothing after all.
"We... did it," Gwen panted.
"Yes, that we did Spider-Woman. Now, why don’t you surrender as well?" George Stacy, Captain of the NYPD, father of Gwen Stacy, said as he stepped forward and took out metal restraints for Spider-Woman. He had arrived just now.
She gave a nervous giggle and then bolted from the place real quick.
And George Stacy looked at her swing away. It didn’t seem like he was going to order his officers to pursue. He just stood there with a small, barely noticeable grateful smile on his face.
Above them, the news helicopter hovered close, the camera pulled back from the exhausted trio and slowly panned across the river toward the bridge they had just escaped.
"I... I don’t even know how to say this." The reporter’s voice came back, softer now, stunned and heavy.
"The bridge... the collapse in the center... it’s shaped like a ’V.’ It might just be how the bombs hit and how everything fell — basic physics doing what physics does. Could be a total coincidence. But if it wasn’t..."
She swallowed, her tone turning serious. "If Veritas did that on purpose... then this wasn’t just an attack. It was a signature. And that’s terrifying."
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Later that night, about four hours after the East River Bridge went boom and splash, Luke slipped back into his hideout.
He triple-checked the safety, made sure no one had followed him, then peeled off the plain surgical mask he’d been wearing as a civilian disguise.
He flopped onto a lumpy mattress, springs poking his back. "Ah, luxury," he muttered to a water-stained ceiling. "Five stars. Would recommend to other supervillains. If they don’t laugh at me for being so poor..."
Today’s fight had been way more intense than the last one, but weirdly, he wasn’t nearly as wiped out. His stamina was definitely improving as a side effect of increasing the quirk mastery.
For some reason, got the urge to chat with his father. He pulled out his phone and dialed his dad. Phil picked up before the second ring.
"Luke, buddy! How’d your freelance demo go? Did you wow ’em with your creative genius?"
Luke grinned. ’Ah, yes, the cover story.’
He’d told his parents he was staying away from home to work on a small freelance week-long web app demo that he had to present to the clients in person—a totally fine reason to vanish for days and blow up a bridge on day four.
He still had three more days before he’d "finish the project" and go home. Three days to lay low in this garage, rotating between two other backup hideouts he’d scouted, just to keep things safe.
He planned to find a separate place for himself in the future once his finances were a little better. Because damn, the world isn’t cheap at all. No choice but to leech off his parents ration and home for now.
"Dad, it went fine," Luke said, trying to sound like a tired but satisfied freelancer. "Long hours, lots of revisions, you know how it is. Clients always want something bigger. It’s just like real estate, you know."
Phil chuckled. "As the top Realtor, I get what you mean. Well, don’t work yourself to death. Hey, did you see that terrorist’s live stream today? About the bridge?"
Luke’s eyebrows rose. "Yeah, I caught it. Crazy stuff." He paused, then added, "That terrorist’s father was a real monster, though. I mean, from what he said."
"Exactly!" Phil sounded like he’d just connected dots that didn’t exist. "His father definitely was the one who made the guy so lunutty. You know, troubled upbringing, bad parenting."
Luke’s mouth twitched. Lunutty. A beautiful new word.
He barely held back a snort. "Yeah, Dad. Top-tier lunutty. I’m lucky, though, you’re a great dad."
Phil couldn’t stop himself from almost tearing up....
They chatted a few more minutes about normal things, then Luke hung up feeling warm inside. His dad was a goof, but a good goof.
He let out a long sigh and sat up on the mattress. "Alright," he said to the empty garage, stretching his arms. "Time to check the harvest’s yield."
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