A New Day (StrikeForce #1)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Through stealing,” Portia said.

  “Yep.”

  She shook her head. “You get how messed up that is. You can’t just do that. It’s not okay.”

  “Says who?”

  “Um, God, for one.”

  I waved it off. “And money lenders are sinners, and left-handed people are of the devil, yet they’re all still walking around just fine. God can tell me how awful I was after I’m dead.”

  She spluttered. “But it’s not right. Right, wrong. Morals? You’ve heard of those, yeah?”

  “Morals? Like following the orders of a man who tells you to let innocent people die? Those kinds of morals?” I asked, and she clamped her mouth shut and looked away. Toxxin stayed silent, standing near the door. I knew I was edging toward bitch territory, but I kept going. “You believe in God? You think you ended up with these powers to imprison and/or kill people who are having trouble dealing with what they are? How moral is that?”

  The cell was so silent you could hear a pin drop. Which meant that my fellow inmates were listening, too.

  “Enjoy the socks, Faraday,” Portia said, abruptly getting up and walking out without looking back. Toxxin waited around until the guard came and reattached my manacles, then she gave me a quick wave and left.

  Shortly after, my girls started singing some song about a bitch who better have my money or something like that. I wasn’t familiar with it, but I appreciated the intent. I let out a short laugh, and glanced at Killjoy’s gift, then I closed my eyes and worked at my manacles a little more.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At least two weeks went by, as far as I could tell. Toxxin, Jenson, and Portia all came to see me almost every day in my cell. Caine and Beta both visited a few times, and even Forge, who seemed really quiet for the most part, stopped by. Jenson sat with me for a long time a few times, talking about her life before StrikeForce. She’d been a cop (and I was rather pleased with myself that I’d pegged her so perfectly) until her powers manifested. It happened during a tense situation. She lost control and projected five versions of herself at the crime scene. She’d ended up shot as a result, and forced to leave the department.

  She told me with a laugh that she’d been called to the scene of more than a few of my old jobs. I couldn’t help but reflect on how odd it was that one of the people whose company I enjoyed most would have pretty much been my nemesis in any other place.

  When Jenson and Portia walked into my cell after dinner one day, I assumed they were there for another visit.

  Until I saw my uniform in Portia’s hands.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked. Then I really looked at both of them. They looked stressed, upset. Freaked out. “What’s wrong?”

  “Daystar…it’s not good,” Portia said.

  “What happened?”

  “Jenson overheard some chatter over the stuff she monitors about someone building a contraption that would simulate the Confluence, to give people powers. So we figured we should probably check it out, because that would be bad.”

  “Those who were building it heard we were coming. And rather than face us, they turned their machine on near Wayne State.”

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  “It killed thirty-seven people.”

  Dread settled into my body. “Who?”

  Please don’t be—

  “Mayhem. Virus was there, along with Maddoc, Dr. Death, and Daemon. And some blond chick, probably the one you came across that night.”

  I wanted to puke.

  “Virus wouldn’t hurt anyone,” I argued.

  “Is that his code? Or yours?” Jenson asked. I didn’t answer.

  “Daystar. I know you don’t want to do this. I know you don’t want to give him a reason to expose you. Okay? I get it. But this was bad.” Portia pleaded.

  I closed my eyes, took a breath. “Give me the suit,” I said.

  “We’ll all go in together. Everyone except Alpha and Crystal are suiting up, and Jenson will be our eyes and ears here,” Portia said.

  “We know where they are?”

  “Big house in Indian Village. I have a feeling you might know the place,” Jenson said.

  Damn.

  Twenty minutes later, we appeared in the back yard of the huge mansion I’d tried to rob what felt like a lifetime ago. The back door opened immediately, and Damian stalked out, followed closely by his team.

  His eyes were narrowed, his complexion even paler than usual.

  “You really want to do this, Daystar?” he shouted, saying my codename as if it was some kind of foul curse. “You want to do this now?” It was a subtle thing, but I knew him well enough from working with him that I knew the difference in his tone between stress and anger. Sure, he was angry. But a look at his eyes, at the way his hands shook, told me he was more freaked out than anything. And at least as angry at himself as he was at me.

  Unless that was something I was reading into it in an effort to believe that someone I kind of, sort of, maybe considered to be a friend hadn’t officially gone to the dark side.

  “You killed people,” I said calmly.

  “I never would have partnered with them if it wasn’t for you,” he said. “They’re fucking psychotic.”

  “I tried to tell you that. But, no, why listen to me about something like who to trust to come into your life. It’s not like I know a damn thing about that, right?” My stomach turned as it fully hit me, that whether he’d meant for any of it to happen or not, he’d done this thing, and there was no going back from that. It was a long leap from burglar to supervillain/murderer, and he’d crossed it. “And, at some point you have to stop blaming everyone else for every fucking problem in your life. You killed thirty-seven people. Do you even care?”

  “Why should he?” a deep voice said, and I looked to Damian’s left, where Daemon stood. He was tall, with olive skin, dark hair and nearly-black eyes. “Does anyone truly care about any of us? They’d love to see every single one of us dead, and you know it,” he said, specifically to me. “We all know what we truly are. Super humans are a better, stronger, more advanced level of humanity. Why the hell should we cave to their every whim?”

  “Because we have the advantage. We’re already better off. Why make their lives worse?”

  “God, she’s even more naive than you,” Daemon said to Damian. Damian didn’t respond. StrikeForce was arrayed around me, and I heard Jenson in my ear.

  “Now.”

  We charged at them, and there were shouts, curses. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of blond hair.

  “They’re going to take off,” I shouted, just as Damian, Daemon, Dr. Death, and whoever the blond was disappeared. Nightbane started bitching about how incompetent everyone was when Maddoc came launching out of the house, picked up the iron patio table outside the back door, and hurled it at us.

  “Come and get me, StupidForce,” he shouted, and took off running.

  “Did he seriously just call us that?” Toxxin asked as we started running.

  “He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed,” I muttered. “You know he’s probably leading us into a trap or something right?”

  “Yep,” Portia said. “Just keep running, and we’ll get him before he gets to where he’s trying to lead us.”

  “In pursuit on Mack,” I said into my comm. “Would really like to be undampened so I can actually catch this bastard.”

  “Negative, Daystar. The rest of the squad is there to help you,” Alpha said over my comm.

  “Stupid bastard,” I said.

  “Your comm is still on,” he said, an ugly edge to his voice.

  “I know it is.” I glanced back. Toxxin, Nightbane, and Caine were all within a few steps of me. Maddoc was big. Not fast, generally. We’d catch up with him soon.

  “Our best hope is for Toxxin to touch him,” I gasped, keeping Maddoc in my sights. “Don’t screw around. The second you can get a hand on him, do it.”

  “I can take him,” Nigh
tbane said.

  “Oh, fuck off,” I muttered. “If you could, you would have the last four times you had the chance to take him.”

  I ran harder, faster, determined not to let Maddoc get the slip on us, or get to his teleporter friend or anyone else in his crew. We’d barely be able to subdue Maddoc, if we’d manage at all. There wasn’t a chance in hell we’d be able to take down all of them. Not with me dampened and the rest of the team tired from running. Except for Nightbane, who took to the air like the dickhead he is.

  If I wasn’t dampened, it would be another story. But apparently, I was in the service of morons. I’d have to hope for the best. I was gaining on him, and he was shouting unintelligibly over his shoulder at me. It’s really a good thing he wasn’t very smart. Looking back is a sure way to slow yourself down.

  I put on a final burst of speed, feeling like my lungs were about to burst. My legs ached, and I wasn’t the best runner to begin with, but all of the time spent in the chair in my cell had made me even slower. Nightbane flew past me, charging into Maddoc first. Maddoc spun, swung, and Nightbane fell, knocked out cold from Maddoc’s punch.

  I guessed this was why Nightbane had never managed to catch up with Maddoc before. Self-preservation.

  Then Maddoc laughed and charged at us. He hit Toxxin before I was able to reach him, and she fell to the ground. Portia teleported herself right behind him and wrapped her arms tightly around his throat from behind. He whipped, bucked, trying to get her off of him, but she held tight. I charged over to them, and he saw me coming and ducked the punch I aimed for his face, which gave me a chance to kick him square in the nuts.

  When in doubt, always go for the nuts. It was like, a rule or something.

  “Can you get him to Command?” I asked Portia as she desperately tried to keep her hold on him.

  She shook her head. It was the first time I’d ever seen that look of resignation in her eyes. It went against the confident leader-type I knew her as, and it kind of pissed me off, that she’d been pushed to that point, all because Alpha wouldn’t swallow his pride and deactivate my stupid dampener.

  She was just too tired. She’d made too many jumps already, between the original situation earlier that day and now this. All she could do was hold on and hope that, somehow, between the two of us, we could bring him down.

  I did have to wonder where the hell Killjoy was. This would have been a great time for a strong, crazy, vigilante to show up. Because even I had to admit that Portia and I were severely outpowered the way things were. Still, she held on, and I kept punching and kicking.

  Maddoc straightened once he’d gotten over the initial pain from my first kick, and hit out at me easily, as if he didn’t have a woman on his back. I ducked away, got ready to hit, and then he went charging toward a large brick building nearby. I realized what he was going to do before he did it.

  “Portia, let go!” I shouted.

  Too late. He spun at the last moment, and his momentum and size worked against Portia. He slammed her back into the brick wall, then stepped away, not bothering to look back as Portia slumped to the ground.

  “Just you and me, Daystar,” he said. “Come on. I’ve been waiting for this since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

  And then he struck out. I ducked, lunged, managed to jab him in the kidneys before dancing away. I ducked again, scrambled, and pressed my comm.

  “Backup needed,” I said. “Or I need to be undampened. Team’s down,” I said.

  Maddoc hit me, then, and I finally realized why cartoons show people seeing stars when they get hit. It was like a bright flash of pain lit up everything for an instant, and I tried to shake it off, ducking away just as he leveled another punch toward my face.

  “Little help here, dickhead,” I muttered as I pressed my comm, then punched out at Maddoc’s face. He wasn’t fast enough to dodge it, and I heard his nose crunch under my fist.

  It didn’t seem to faze him at all. I jumped back, and he came at me, nose gushing red, fists raised. I ducked away, and ended up getting clipped on the side of my head by one of his fists. Tried to fly.

  Still dampened.

  I dodged again, kicked out, and he grabbed my ankle. He lifted, making me fall back onto my back, and he lunged. I rolled out of the way, jumped up, spun as he got up and grabbed for me again.

  “Virus told me to avoid you. You don’t seem so scary,” Maddoc said, a feral grin on his face.

  I couldn’t do this. Not dampened. He just got stronger the more I hurt him, and I was getting weaker, slower.

  I also couldn’t just leave them there. Could I?

  I glanced around at my fallen squad mates. I didn’t give a shit about Nightbane, but Toxxin and Portia…

  Would get rescued. Right?

  I started to run away.

  “Nah. I don’t feel like chasing you,” I heard him call. “I’ll just stay here and play with them.”

  I stopped, turned, watched as he approached Toxxin’s prone form. He lifted his foot over her head, as if he was going to stomp her, and I ran back, barreling into him.

  He laughed, and raised his fist, and before I could react or try to figure out how to move out from under him, I felt his fist connect with my face.

  And then again.

  And he laughed.

  Toxxin was next to me, still unconscious on the ground. Her hand was near my shoulder. I wriggled away from Maddoc, and his next punch hit the ground where my head had been.

  I could barely see. My face hurt.

  I pulled Toxxin’s glove off, moved my head aside, struggling, took another punch to the face.

  And then he put his hand around my throat. Tightened his grip. I lost hold of Toxxin’s arm for a second in my panic. I felt my vision going black.

  I vaguely heard voices on my comm. It sounded like Jenson, telling someone off. Beta, Caine shouting.

  All I wanted was to be able to breathe.

  I felt around, got a hold of Toxxin’s arm again. I had no idea if it worked if she was unconscious.

  I pressed her bare hand against Maddoc's arm.

  For a moment, all I felt was his hand tightening on my throat, my body starting to fail due to loss of oxygen, a burning, excruciating pain in my chest and down my arms.

  My vision went dark.

  And I felt dead weight on top of me before everything went black.

  Chapter Twenty

  Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Click. Click.

  Whirring sounds. The sound of footsteps.

  I wanted to open my eyes, but nothing got brighter. It was like I’d forgotten how to even do that much.

  And it hurt. Jesus, it hurt.

  I lay there, aware that I was somewhere soft.

  It started coming back to me. Maddoc. Maddoc’s fists. Maddoc’s hands around my throat.

  I swallowed, and it hurt. I started coughing, my throat spasming.

  “Jolene, sweetie,” I heard my mother say, and then I finally did manage to force my eyes open before the coughing fit started again.

  She lifted a cup of water to my lips, held my head up, urging me to drink, slowly. I did, and eventually the coughing subsided, even though my throat hurt so bad it brought tears to my eyes.

  “Mama,” I said, and even to my ears, it sounded pathetic.

  “I’m here, baby. I’m here,” she said, and I hated seeing the tears in her eyes. “Jolene, why didn’t you tell me?”

  I reached my hand out, and she took it. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “I’m proud of you, Jolene Faraday. I always have been.”

  “I'm a--.”

  She shook her head. “A hero. That’s what the new job was,” she said, shaking her head. “That fight was on the news. It wasn’t until the end of that fight… he hit you so hard your mask flew off.”

  I hadn’t even noticed at the time. I blinked my eyes in response. Couldn’t even imagine nodding, not the way my head and throat ached.

  “My heart stopped when it hap
pened, when I realized what I was seeing. And I raced here, and I caused a fuss until the lady at the front desk let me in. I had to hear it from Jenson…” she trailed off, then clasped my hand in hers, lifted it to her face and held my hand against her cheek. Her eyes were bright with tears. “I wish you would have told me, Jolene. It’s amazing.”

  “I was freaked out, and then things got… things got nuts,” I said. Was it possible that Jenson hadn’t told her the whole story? It seemed like it, maybe. If my mother knew about the burglary stuff, I would have been getting a lecture, no matter how beat up I was. “You would have wanted me to stop,” I added.

  “Damn right I would have. Your life was in danger every time you went out to fight one of these villain types. Why in the world would you sign on for something like this?”

  Why, indeed.

  I sighed, and it hurt. I wondered if I had a few broken ribs or something, the way my chest ached. “I wanted to. It felt right. I know it doesn’t make sense. It made me feel alive,” I finished in a whisper, and I wasn’t sure anymore whether I was talking about thieving or fighting.

  She kissed my hand, and then set my hand back on the mattress beside me. She was about to say something when a woman in a white coat walked in.

  “And, she’s up. You gave us a few scary moments, Daystar,” she said.

  “Where am I?”

  “At Command. Hospital wing,” she said, and I blinked in acknowledgment. She put a stethoscope to my chest, shined a bright light in my eyes. It hurt.

  “Do you remember what happened to you?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes.” Yes, I sure the hell did. And Alpha better hope it took me a while to get up and around again.

  “Okay. You suffered severe loss of oxygen from your altercation with Maddoc—“

  “Did they take him in? At least tell me we got him.”

  “They did. He’s in confinement now.”

  I felt some of the tension go out of my body. “What about Toxxin and Portia? Are they okay?”

  “They’ve fully recovered. They’re actually both outside waiting to see you, if you’re up to it. They’re fine.”