by Angel Payne
Certified in full as he casts off two more of Reece’s strongest electric punches.
As he spreads a smile as eerie as Faline’s most gloating mien.
As he says, with her same purring inflection, “There’s never enough cream in the tea, darling.”
Right before he reaches in, aiming his huge hand toward the direction of Reece’s neck…
“Noooooo!” Trixie leaps up as she shrieks it—though not loud enough. I hear every awful octave of Reece’s strained chokes. I feel, even across the fifty miles between us, the ribbons of electrons stretching around his throat and then up around his ears, behind his eyes, across his frontal lobe.
I share his torment as everything on the feed looks like it’s shot from the back of a flipped apple cart, followed by his pained grunt as his knees hit the roof. As I crumple too, my legs the texture of dry twigs as I slump all the way off the couch, my terrified moan takes over my chest, my throat, my heart, and this whole bunker.
But I can’t look away.
I refuse to.
The video feed turns to snow again, leaving us only with the audio of a long growl that, while resonant with Kane’s bass, is all Faline in its gloating ferocity. The sound taunts every corner of my psyche, making me curl into myself, preparing to deal with the agony of a world without Reece Richards in it.
Who the hell am I kidding?
I can’t.
I’m already lost and destroyed and desolate and empty—and hunching over to rasp a plea that mixes with the splash of my tears on the floor.
“Please. Out there. Anywhere. Dear God. Dear anyone or anything who’ll listen. Please. I can’t. I…can’t…”
But the fuzz on the monitor continues, a perfect depiction of the air in my lungs. An electric freeze, endless and unforgiving. I only attempt to breathe because I have to.
A chore I’m suddenly thankful for as soon as the news station feed blips for a second, switching to another view.
Their intrepid camera crew has actually gotten to the roof.
And yes, Reece is still on his knees.
Only now, he’s straddling Kane’s broad chest, his hands on the guy’s thick neck.
“What…on…earth?” I stammer.
“How the hell…” Trixie inserts.
“Triple layer cake,” Lydia declares before hauling me back to my feet with dizzying speed. Thank God she maintains her steady clutch, because my emotions are whirling with equal velocity. And as epic as it feels to burst the piñata of destiny and learn the light of my existence isn’t about to be snuffed, there’s nothing joyous about watching him in a position to take someone else’s life—yes, even if the tables were turned the other direction just a few seconds ago. Kane is someone I know. A person I value.
Someone I knew?
And as for value…
I wince as my gut wrenches—and my mind whirls. In the last year, I’ve been able to accept that the man I love was kidnapped by crazy scientists, kept hidden from the world for six months, and then transformed into an electric super being, while a global crime cartel funded the effort. But this is somehow harder to grasp, despite knowing that Kane took up with the Scorpios with the full understanding that he might end up in the hive, locked in the Faline Fun House of Horrors.
But did Kane expect it all to go this far? Would he have launched his plan to avenge Mitch if he’d known he’d be Faline’s instrument of biblical destruction over Los Angeles? Responsible for a swath of civilian deaths and turned into the bait to draw Reece into this treacherous showdown? Or did he sign up for this gig with full consent, offering himself to the bitch as her ready and willing mutant for hire?
Holy shit.
Could that really be possible?
Did Faline talk Kane into liking his Consortium-style lightning jolt so he could have this chance to kick Reece’s ass—or worse? Does Kane hold Reece responsible for Mitch’s death?
He did let us all think he’d gone off to Tibet, when he was actually launching a solo campaign to take down the Consortium. His heart and mind could have really been so twisted and vulnerable, they might have truly become the putty of Faline’s psycho treachery. In fully turning Kane against us, she’ll have delivered a double blow to Reece…to the entire team. The physical defeat that Kane looks more than ready to mete. The emotional crush of his angry retribution.
Of knowing our former teammate has been driven to this.
Of realizing that in so many ways, we won’t even be able to blame him.
How is this happening? How is this right?
I’m unable to answer that except with the words that do tumble out, riding the waves of my disbelief, anguish, and confusion.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
Chapter Two
Reece
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I grit it out while whipping my hands away from Kane’s neck, though I already know the image will be branded on my memory for a long time to come. My fingers locked beneath his ears. My thumbs aligned atop his windpipe.
My instinct, raw and raging and unthinking, telling me to crush it.
To kill a guy who helped me save the love of my life. Who watched the love of his life die in the name of our cause.
Who, because of that, may or may not turn around and try the same goddamned move on me.
Thoughts best left for another time. As in, perhaps, the next second.
“Fuck!” I’m on my ass now, dragging a quaking hand through my hair as I stare out over the city that’s come to call me its own, with streets and stores and windows that should be bustling and sundrenched, now dismal with smoke, screams, sirens, and destruction.
But I freeze as terror yanks me down like sand in a riptide. As I fully comprehend just how deep Kane’s brain has been fucked over by Faline—and what all the implications of that could be. As clearly as if it’s happening in front of me…
I see the top of our ridge, drenched in darker smoke than all of the shit surrounding me. Then I see the pile of rubble into which Faline has turned our home. Then I see the harpy herself, accompanied by her goons, discovering the bunker under the command center. I watch them blasting back the door and then dragging out Joany, Mom, and—
“Fuck.”
With hardly a shout of warning, I lurch off my ass and launch myself like a Mack truck shot out of a hurricane at Kane. Somewhere during the strike, I’m conscious of raucous whoops off to my right, too damn close for comfort. Already knowing it’s a mistake, I look up and over and try not to be even more incensed at whatever dumbshit let that news crew up here.
“Yeeeaaah!” One of them pumps a fist as I smack Kane back down. “Get him, Bolt Man!”
The guy next to him, with the camera on his shoulder, cheers, “Way to go, big guy!”
“Feed that fucker his own dick!” And there’s the real kicker. Not many days—as in none—can I claim hearing that line from the mouth of a pink-haired pixie in full Lolita regalia. Next to her, the pseudo-preppy anchorwoman simply adds an eager nod, her face betraying the thousand-and-one questions she’s already got pulled up on her tablet.
Kane doesn’t give me another second to be concerned about them. He connects a punch to my jaw that I feel in every hair follicle. Christ on a cracker. Either the fucker’s been holding back on me in sparring practice or part of his stay at the Consortium Spa included some finesse on his close-quarters battle work.
Which, despite the Tweety Bird light show still circling in my senses, hones my thoughts back in on the curiosities that do matter here.
What the hell is going on with Alighieri? Has Kane been “inspired” to do all this—or compelled?
Is he following Faline’s orders—or acting beneath her control?
Needing those answers isn’t an opt-out clause. So yeah, pancaking the big guy back down to prone position doesn’t just serve my wrath—though that’s a damn good start, especially when my imagination feeds me the rest of my nightmare on a custom platter.
And
in my mind, I’m right back at the ridge again. Witnessing it all, helpless and motionless, again.
With the house still burning, Faline makes Mom and Emma watch while her guys cart the others away, bound for their journey to Spain and the Source’s torture chambers. Or maybe they won’t bother with the effort and simply execute everyone. But the two most important women in my life will be spared, at least for a little while. Faline will want to play with her food first.
And I know firsthand what that bitch considers “playtime.”
My roar doesn’t stay confined to my chest. I punctuate the burst with intentional snarls as the frustration and fury become an electric fever, burning my nerves and empowering my muscles. With a satisfied grunt, I lodge my knees into the crooks of Kane’s elbows. With an equal economy of motion, I lodge one hand at the center of his throat. At the same time, I part my lips to expose the full snarl of my determination. The extra intensity will be needed if the guy opens his eyes back up…
And looks exactly like this.
“Christ,” I mutter, despite expecting it. Despite being prepared to face him like this, all but wired to detonate on impact, with his locked and seething teeth, wide and pumping nostrils, and eyes…
Shit.
His eyes have gone fluorescent white, glowing like a pair of nuclear reactors. The irises pulse neon purple and blue. His lashes have turned into iridescent LED strands.
“My friend.” I need to say it, to confirm that I still see it. Even just faintly. I have to know he’s still in there somewhere. To know that in a different time and place, all of this might even be comical. I’d tease him about how pretty he is. Goddamnit, Mitch would even be jealous that he was the one to get all the good bling.
In a different time and place.
Much different.
But in this one, all I can do is grate it out again. “My friend.” And then utter, barely pushing breath beneath it, “What the hell has she done to you?”
And yeah, I realize that, because he’s the robot being worked by Faline’s joystick, she may even have just heard me ask that. Weirdly, there’s a part of me that hopes she has. If the bitch really is playing with her fun Kane-bot, maybe she’s not focusing on destroying everything out at the ridge.
With that damn fine motivation, I fight her even harder.
By fighting him even harder.
I shove my knees down harder and twist my hand tighter. There’s a gurgle of breath in the windpipe I compress, but I’m not stopping. Goddamnit. You have to stop. But as a long, savoring laugh makes its way around my hold, Kane’s proud bass raped by Faline’s salient purr, I’m filled with nothing but the drive to shut it off. To shut her down.
No. You’re better than this. You’re better than her.
On a vicious bellow, I ease back on the choke but fortify the lock of my knees, expecting Kane to cough from the infusion of air. When he barely gets out a wheeze, I’m surprised for all of two seconds. If the bitch really is controlling him somehow, this is exactly what I expect from her. What I should never stop expecting—especially as Kane’s eyes glow brighter and his rough gasp gives way to a gloating laugh.
“What’s she done to me?” he finally drawls, sounding like his throat is lined with two inches of nicotine. “Not half of what she still wants to do to you, man. What she’s damned and determined to do with you, Alpha Two.”
Straw. Camel’s back. My conscience. My control.
My hand, which I willfully close back in while savoring the vengeance I’ve dreamed about for so long. The chance to break those bastards’ bonds. To squeeze the lifeblood out of them the same way they drained it from me and replaced it with a mutant monster. Alpha Two.
No, damn it!
Better. Than. This.
Better. Than. Her.
But there’s nothing left of the better me to listen. Nothing inside but an animal that’s grabbed the keys to the cage, breaking out and breaking down, seething and snarling. “How do you like your Alpha goddamned Two now, you bitch?”
Beneath my hand, Kane’s veins pulse brighter shades of purple and blue. Airways work to swallow and breathe, but I don’t let them, cutting my clutch deeper into them. And holy fuck, does it feel good. Better and better with every passing second.
Yes. Yes. I’m really going to do it.
Until suddenly, an epiphany blares.
No. It’s the fucking fireworks show of epiphanies.
I’m not Alpha Two anymore.
I am Bolt.
I have a city to protect. A code to follow. A whole damn backup team.
A team.
Including the man I’ve nearly strangled.
The man who, even with waning air and a weakening body, blinks hard up at me—with eyelashes that have returned to their normal texture. In his purposeful gaze, the pupils are back to being nearly black, just like always.
With a stunned grunt, I slacken my clutch—only to have Kane hiss so loud in protest that I freeze. “Goddamnit, Richards,” he rasps. “D-Don’t l-let up!”
I bug out my glare. Or funnel it in. I’m not sure of anything, especially the order I’ve just been given. “You’ve… You’ve been deprived of air, man. You don’t know—”
“I know damn f-fucking well what I’m asking!”
I stare harder. Yeah, definitely going for bugged-out. “But I’m killing you.”
“N-N-No. You’ve brought me…b-back.”
Riding a surge of comprehension, I squeeze my hand back in. “Shit.” Sure enough, the luster of his eyes strengthens as the air in his throat thins. “You’re right.”
He smirks. Only a little. A look completely worthy of the real Kane Alighieri. “Usually…am.”
I want to laugh. I can tell he wants to as well. He’s as freaked about this conundrum as I am. Letting him physically live will keep him bound by Faline’s shackles. But setting him free means—
“Damn it.”
Appropriate. I really am damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
“Richards!” Even as he croak-bellows it, I know I’ve vacillated too long. Like a superhero suit in reverse, the shell of the bitch’s control snaps back over his huge body and his formidable face. His stare is back to silver; his smirk is back to a prurient preen.
Fuck.
Faline’s back in.
“Are we having fun yet?” She’s enjoying every second of the thrill, even pulsing the glow of Kane’s eyelashes in time to the strains of some frothy pop song that’s burst out along the streets below. The voice of the artist, a throaty alto who’s crooning about dancing all night long in her killer shoes, is distorted into a ghostly moan that mixes in with the nonstop siren wails along the empty city streets. “You know that girls just want to have fun, Richards. Why can’t boys do the same?”
I drop my head. “Fuck me.”
“Hmmm. I’d rather not. Though I wouldn’t rule it out at this point. Our darling does enjoy embracing her inner voyeur, doesn’t she?” While he weaves a relishing chuckle atop my exploding grimace that’s a confusing mix of his Kane husk with a Faline lilt, he wastes no more than two seconds on it. At once, his gaze is determined atomic light aimed directly at me. “Though at the moment, she’s more interested in penetration of a different sort…”
And what the living fuck does that mean?
Though I’m hardly finished processing the words in my mind, let alone worried about churning them out to my lips, Kane’s already acting on cues that have clearly come somehow from Faline. With one eye-popping sweep, he’s got a hand buried in my hair and my head jerked around to the side. And though my hands are still fitted around his neck, he’s the one who may as well have my goddamned balls in his palm.
The next moment, I wish that were the case.
He wrenches my head back harder so my jaw and ear are facing the sky.
Clearly preparing to invade some part of me with the item in his other hand.
It’s sure as hell not my balls.
“Holy. Fuck.”
“Hold still for me, sweet Reecey. It doesn’t hurt. Much.”
“Wh-What…”
As if I’m even going to finish that. As if he’d answer me if I did. All I can do is watch the squirming thing, which looks like a bright-red electric Mexican jumping bean with the worm half-escaped, as Kane lifts it closer to my ear. Then brighter and brighter, the little tongue squirming faster and faster, as that fucking thing nears my canal.
“Kane! No! Goddamnit!”
“Almost…”
“Alighieri! You don’t have to do this! Break free, man. Break—”
But then, I’m only capable of a scream. Hot, hostile, horrified.
My own.
The fucker is pouring magma from the fucking River Styx into my head. Which, upon further thought—using the three cells that are still functioning in my brain—might just actually be the gift from fate that I need.
At once, the agony ignites every circuit of strength in my blood. I twist my head free from Kane’s grip in time to watch the electric worm in its death throes next to my right knee—as I pin the guy down by both elbows again.
As I rewrap my hands around his throat.
Squeezing tighter. Tighter.
But as the authentic Kane breaks out and shows himself again, I’m unsure whether to roar in relief or sob in remorse.
One look at the guy’s face and I already see which option he’d urge me to. “Hey,” he gurgles and even attempts a wan smile.
I flash a tortured grimace. “Hey.”
“Th-That’s good, Richards. K-K-Keep going. Come on. Keep going. It’s— It’s all right.”
I flash a new glower. “It’s all right?” Out of every puddle of surreal bullshit I’ve had to slog through over the last two years, this has to be one of the deepest. “There isn’t one thing ‘all right’ about this situation, you fucking cretin.”