by Angel Payne
“I mean, come on.” Wade stabs chopsticks into his ramen and twirls the noodles in emphasis. “The Hagakure ramen bar today and Sandwich Heaven last Friday? Fresh flowers on all the tables in here?”
Fershan cocks a brow. “Flowers are what you notice? We both got instant cash bonuses for positive guest satisfaction.”
“Which were whose idea to begin with?” I use the line while sliding between them to grab an edamame pod from the bowl they’re sharing.
Fershan chuckles. “I officially bow to the queen of good ideas.”
“Bows not necessary.” I swipe a few more of the pods. “Just more of these, please.” I moan while sucking out another of the tender green beans from their warm casing. “Damn. So good.”
“Fine,” Wade says. “Props to Em for the bonuses. But the rest of these bennies?” He swirls an empty chopstick in the air before stabbing it toward the hotel’s main tower. “I’m sticking to my theory. Methinks, my friends, the weird one in yon gilded tower has been dipping his golden wick with blissful frequency.”
“Ew.” It’s a fast way to disguise my furious blush, which I hide further by turning for the ramen bar. Though I could make a meal out of the edamame alone, I force myself to mull over the sauce choices while regaining my composure. Reece’s little “gifts” for the team, sprinkled with care throughout the last two weeks, have meant more to me than jewelry, candy, or stuffed animals. As for the flowers? He’s made sure they’re part of my world every day—even here in the basement break room.
My hero. Sweeping me off my feet…in all the ways that matter.
“Forsooth.” Fershan snickers while adding on to his friend’s theory. “Methinks I doth agree with you. Our prince must be wooing a lady fair and extending his happiness to his people.”
Wade groans. “Wooing? What the hell is that, man? Wooing?”
I toss a scowl over my shoulder. “A lot better than ‘dipping his golden wick,’ that’s what.”
“Whoa.”
“Wade, the man’s ‘wick’ is none of our—”
“No. I mean whoa.”
The stab of shock in Wade’s voice is a compulsion, causing me to pivot around as he snatches the remote to the break room’s TV. As he scrolls the volume up, a heart-halting image consumes the screen. A muscled figure in black leather is leaping through the air like rockets are powering him.
Holy wow.
“Our dude’s up and at it again,” Wade exclaims. “Literally.”
Fershan rises, dropping his chopsticks in favor of hoisting a hearty geek fist. “Oh, snap it up!” His eyes go wide. “Wait. Is that the power plant out at El Segundo?”
“Duh.” Wade snorts.
“By the gods. What is he doing there?”
“Kicking ass, power-pulsing dickheads, and saving the city.” Wade’s tone implies the second duh.
“Indeed.” Fershan skirts the table, intensifying the whoop-whoop fist. “Bolt, my man!”
Actually… I slip into a chair at the table behind theirs, smirking like a loon, as they both spin into fanboy mode. He’s my man.
But in instances like this, I don’t mind sharing. Not one bit. The only thing I do mind is throwing my own mask on. And, in many ways, I don a whole outfit to go with it. The guise is invisible but in place as blatantly as Reece’s leathers and eye cover—a façade that allows me to oooohh and ahhhh along with everyone else but hold back the rest of what I feel when watching him jump, spin, battle, and bash with the body I’ve come to know, desire, and cherish.
And love.
Oh God, how I love him.
And oh God, are there moments when it sucks harder to mask that fact. Like right now.
“Fucking badass,” Wade exclaims.
“He’s rocking it!” Fershan adds.
“You should see him with a finger vibe and some lube.” My barely audible utterance is absorbed by the guys’ excitement.
“He’s rocking this shit.”
“Rocking it out loud.”
I smirk a little wider—and squirm a little more. My boyfriend’s rocking this shit. Out loud. That means he’ll have a lot of extra voltage to fry off tonight…
Lucky, lucky, lucky me.
But first, there’s getting to watch him—how did Wade phrase it?—kick ass, power-pulse some bad guys, and save the city.
There’s just one thing missing about that theory. Big-time.
I notice it at the same moment Wade and Fershan do.
“Where are…all the dickheads?” Fershan leans forward, asking it first.
Wade stands up. “He doesn’t have any dickheads.”
Fershan rises too. “Just a dick…girl?”
As I push to my feet, my heart plummets the opposite direction. It thuds in my stomach, exploding like a bad cold fusion science project, spreading shards of terror throughout my body. “N-Not a girl.”
“Huh?”
I hardly hear Wade’s comeback.
“Em? Are you all right?”
Or Fershan’s anxious probe.
“Not. A. Girl.” I seethe the words this time through my gritted teeth. “A bitch.” I compel my feet to move, stumbling in front of them both. “A bitch he needs to kill.”
I’ve never spoken such words before. But I’ve never been captive to such ruthless terror, which is worsening as the scene on the TV plays out even more. Only it’s not a “scene.” It’s the truth, happening beyond my control and despite my horror.
The news station, only able to carry an aerial feed, shows Reece in full Bolt mode, dashing across ducts and roofs at the huge power plant across town, next to the ocean. Sure enough, it looks like he’s chasing absolutely nothing, until the cameras pan to show another figure sprinting—with cascading blond hair, the legs of a stripper, and the boobs of a porn star. The whole damn world now knows this, thanks to Angelique’s leather corset, matching mini skirt, and bloodred hip boots. Any shred of doubt I’ve had about her identity is erased by the sight of her upper back, where a red and black tattoo of angel’s wings spreads from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.
Frankly, I don’t care if the woman is sporting a tramp stamp and a genie girl outfit. She’s throwing down one-on-one with the man I love on behalf of the criminals who kidnapped him, held him prisoner, and hijacked his bloodstream in the name of their higher science. They took his life—only to return now, ready to end it.
I don’t know how else to interpret what I see Angelique doing to him.
For every energy pulse Reece throws, she has a comeback in the form of a giant shield, somehow connected to the force of the station itself, deflecting and then reflecting the punches. In strategic places, she stops to throw her weight on massive levers, unleashing smaller versions of what seem like electromagnetic pulses. As lights flicker, steam billows, and alarms blare, Reece crumples to the ground like a dog hit with a silent whistle. As soon as the pulse finishes, he gets back up, though he is visibly weakened by the smackdown.
My heart shoots to my throat. My mouth erupts with a terrified moan. I grab the edge of the table, the only thing preventing my knees from crumpling. But what good will that do? What good can I do at all? I can’t be there next to him, as my soul yearns. I can’t run to him, help him, be there for him. I can’t even yell at him to get up, as Wade and Fershan can. What if I lose my shit and spill his name? I can only watch, clutched by the same mortification as the rest of the city, as a female dressed like a Santa Monica hooker and moving like a million-dollar action star keeps driving their superhero to his knees.
After the fourth electromagnetic pulse, Reece can no longer struggle to his feet. He unfurls from the fetal position and rolls to his back, dusty and defeated. I stagger closer to the TV, unable to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks and the air from pounding in my lungs, despite my attention being fixed on someone else’s chest… On any sign of life from the man I love, still sprawled on the ground in a hailstorm of power station sparks, fighting to accept he has, at last, been defeated.
I sense it even as I watch him from this distance, through this impartial lens. Hell, maybe the news cameras make me see it better, sense it deeper. It’s as if I’m soaring in there next to him. I almost know what he’s thinking just by watching him…
He’s giving up.
“No,” I rasp.
Preparing himself for the inevitable.
“No!”
Defeat is written in the rigid set of his head. The fists formed at the ends of both arms. The pallor of his skin, noticeable even from the altitude at which the helicopter hovers.
“No!”
Any moment now, Angelique will appear at his side, gloating like a triumphant Deneuve, missing only her Balenciaga tote and her fancy French cigarette. Doubtful she’ll be toting a glass of water for her new captive either.
Unless…
The glass of water finds a way to the party anyway.
Unless…
The miracle for which I’ve just given up hope is delivered by the angels themselves, in the form of mist that turns to rain. Inside a minute, the concrete slab under Reece becomes a solid wet sheen.
And then one of the loose power lines flies over, touches down, and ignites the slab with blinding ribbons of electricity.
Shooting the man I love straight into the dark sky.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
“Fuccckkkker!” Wade shouts.
“Booooyaaaahhh!” Fershan yelps.
“Reece!” It detonates from me in the same instant. I’m beyond caring. I can only spin and race to where I dropped my purse, diving into the thing for my cell. Once it’s in my grip, I can’t get to the speed-dial list fast enough. Tears blur my vision, and I cuss as I tap on the wrong window. Calling the dry cleaners for a rush job right now is the last thing on my mind. Summoning Zalkon for the same thing? As Reece would say—Bingo.
Reece.
His name is the only thing I allow into my mind. The only thrum of importance. The only thought that matters. And yeah, that includes how my two coworkers follow every inch of my movements like kittens after a laser, finally finding their opening in the forever it seems to take Z to pick up my call.
“The hell?” Wade blurts.
“Krishna’s balls,” Fershan gasps.
“Not now,” I snap at them both.
“But—”
“But—”
“Not. Now.” I leave the room with the phone locked to my ear. The second Z picks up, a smartass one-liner prepped to fling through the line, I interrupt him too. “Reece needs us. Don’t bother with getting me at the front of the hotel. I’ll meet you at the employee entrance. Hurry!”
REECE
“Wh-What the hell?” I mutter. “Where the hell—”
“Ssshhh.”
In the chaos I used to call my senses, this woman’s voice is the only thing of worthy clarity. It cuts through the raging voltage in my blood, the flooded capacitors of my muscles, the torched circuits of my brain. “Emma?”
“Sssshhh.”
“Fuck.” I fight to push up. “C-Can’t stop, Velvet. Not now. Angelique—”
“Is gone.” She says it simply, but there’s a terrified wobble beneath it. Her fear isn’t ribbons. It’s gigantic ropes, holding her back. No. Holding her in. She’s keeping her shit together. For me? Why?
I stow that question in favor of the easier one to answer.
“Dead?” I’m not proud of how much hope I punch into the word. Angelique told me enough about her life that I believed, and still do, in some kind of good tucked deeply inside her. More than that, I’m an asshole, not a murderer. But with so much of my system fried, my filters have gotten tossed into the fire too.
“No.” Her voice trembles. “M-Maybe. We don’t know.” I barely hear the last of it as a huge truck rumbles by. I gather enough of my senses to realize I’m lying in two inches of mud in a shallow ditch halfway between the power station and the road.
“Holy shit,” I mutter.
“No kidding.” The interjection belongs to Zalkon, hovering a few feet away. His tie is loose, mud spatters his black suit, and freaked-the-hell-out is written all over his swarthy face.
“There was an electrical burst.” Dots of mist outline Emma’s profile as she eyes the power station, now crawling with police, firemen, and energy company reps. “A live power line came down on the wet cement, and—”
“I remember. At least I think I do…” It’s hard to think straight. My brain is a ball of pain. The careening lights of the emergency crews are red and blue lances on my throbbing gray matter.
“The impact threw you all the way over the fence,” she supplies.
“Fuck.” Yeah. Okay. Now I do remember.
Her fingertips shake against my skin as she smooths a chunk of hair back from my forehead. “Do you remember anything else? What happened before that?”
“Yeah.” It’s dark, and my head still whirls with dizziness, but I fumble a hand up and grasp hers. “I got a ping on my police scanner and couldn’t ignore it. They said there was a break-in at the plant. Some person was packing serious heat, looking like they were going to fuck with the city’s power grid.”
Emma stiffens. “And it was her.”
“Yeah.”
“Knowing exactly how she could fuck with you in that environment.”
“Yeah.” I feel like a bigger asshole when she shivers, right before her composure breaks on a messy sob. Desperately, I pull her down, absorbing the flood of her grief with my shoulder. “Hey. Hey, beauty, it’s okay.”
She twists a hand into my hair and detonates a new sob against my neck. “It’s not okay!”
“Emma?” Z steps back over.
I shoot him a thank-you-but-stay-away look, soothing my protective caveman but screwing my reformed douchebag. I have no right to be holding her like this. Fuck, I hardly can hold her like this. My arms feel like noodles. My brain’s still filled with excruciating fuzz.
While I know the drain on my system is temporary, the implications in my life aren’t. Never has a moment been more symbolic of that truth than now. She should be at home tonight with a man like—well, like Z. A good guy in a nice suit, with a steady job and ready humor. Someone who will always be there for her, not a drained sap in a ditch, offering her nothing but agony, tears, and mud.
“I’m fine.” Her protest is watery but determined. She pushes up, squaring her shoulders. “I’m fine. But I swear to God, if Angelique La Salle ever thinks she can come near you again—”
I cut into her rant with a hard squeeze to her forearm. “Then I’ll be more prepared than I was tonight.”
“Who’s Angelique La Salle?”
“Bet your hot ass you’ll be prepared.” Emma rocks her head with more swagger than a rapper, stabbing her free hand into the air. “You’ll be prepared with me at your side, ready to show her bad pleather and hip waders with heels only work on desperate johns in Santa Monica.”
Z goes silent. Clearly, he’s not sure whether to laugh, growl, or high-five my girl. I’m in the same boat—technically, mired in the same ditch—only with one more available option, which I readily grasp.
I kiss her.
Then again.
Then a third time, letting our lips linger longer, taste deeper, twine tighter. I groan hard, drinking in her strength like a damn vampire, especially as the force of her passion works its way into the electrons of my blood, the power cells of my spirit, the fiber of my muscles.
And in that moment, I know.
I’ll never be able to live without her.
Which is why I must live without her.
Never has a decision felt more right—or more shitty—in my life. It hits my heart like a sea change and moves mountain ranges in my mind. It feels catastrophic and cataclysmic but destined…and determined. When I figure out why, I bark out a soft laugh.
I’ve just made a life-changing choice that doesn’t involve a shred of my own needs.
Meaning that maybe the woman was right ab
out me all along. Have I truly been a good person hiding behind a douchebag façade? Was I so afraid about embracing the real hero inside that I pretended to be one on the outside? Bringing all these bad guys to justice… Was it my way of trying to bring myself to the same reckoning?
The reckoning…of now.
“Reece?” My reaction hasn’t been lost on Emma. No surprise there—though I feel the energy slowly returning, along with the need to beat myself up, as her anxiety clearly skyrockets. As she touches my face, she furtively utters, “What is it?”
“You mean,” Z cuts in, his jaw struggling to form words, “other than the fact that h-he’s…”
“Ready to fire on torpedo bay one?” I laugh again, waving my glow stick digits as if to zap him. “Guess the boss is a fun guy now, huh?”
An easy grin replaces Z’s bewilderment. “Just tell me where the Death Star is, and we’ll blast off, sir.”
I roll to my feet. The strength is regenerating faster now, zooming through me like a squadron of fighters zooming at their own Death Star, enabling me to sprint toward the Mercedes. “Good idea,” I return to the guy. “But now that you know the classified shit, I’ll have to kill you.”
Z, keeping pace with me until now, halts in the sludge with a loud slup. “Errr—”
“Kidding.”
“Thank fuck,” he mutters.
“Thank God,” Emma rasps at the same time. In the second I take to frown down at her, standing in the space between the car’s door and back seat, she darts a nervous glance up through her lashes. “Because I might have been a little stressed when the news outlets broadcasted your showdown with Angelique…”
“And?” I prompt.
“And…I might have told Wade and Fershan about you too.”
Zalkon, standing next to the driver’s door, snickers. “Which, in those guys’ minds, really did turn you into the coolest boss on the planet.”
Emma giggles. “No argument here.”
I lean down, kissing the playful tilt on her lips. “Even if I decide they have to be killed too?”