“You can’t just come in here and threaten me. I have rights!” alpha moron shouted. Ugh. It’s ridiculous how often we hear that one. It’s like there’s a pre-written script or something with some of these guys.
“And the people in this neighborhood have the right not to listen to your noise and see your garbage all over the place all the time. I’m done talking. I’ll hear about it if you assholes don’t calm down, and I promise you, I will be back. Enough with the loud music, the fighting, the shooting, and the breaking shit.”
“Yeah, I’ll break something, all right,” alpha moron said, and he started coming toward me.
I heaved an exaggerated sigh. Even with my shitty reflexes, I could see his punch coming from about a mile away. He swung at me, and I grabbed his fist and wrenched it down then pulled his arm hard behind his back, twisting it just to the point where he felt like I was about to rip it out of its socket.
Self defense classes. Best hundred bucks I’ve ever spent.
I stood and held his hand behind his back as he shouted at me and called me things I knew Mama would want to hit him in the face with a cast iron frying pan for. The first of his lackeys got brave and took a swing at me and I grabbed his hand in mid-air and squeezed. I could feel the bones in his hand shifting in my grasp, and he screamed.
“Oh. Is that bothering you? Should I stop?” I asked innocently. The alpha moron kept saying rude things to me, and the lackey tried to kick my shin, and I put a little more pressure on both of them.
“Get her, dumbass,” alpha moron said to the third lackey, who came toward me uncertainly.
“Don’t piss me off, man,” I said, and he glanced at his two pals again and backed away.
“Are you going to calm down or should I make it a little worse?” I asked the other two. I pulled alpha moron’s arm back a little more, and he shouted.
“Okay, okay you crazy bitch. You’re gonna rip my arm off!”
I let them both go, and they stood there for a minute, each of them massaging their injuries.
“I’m gonna sue your ass,” alpha moron said.
I laughed. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“Now!” alpha moron said to the other one, and they both launched themselves at me.
I held my hands out, putting a hand over each of their faces and holding them back while they tried desperately to get at me.
“Okay,” I muttered. I lowered my hands to the fronts of their shirts, grabbed the fabric in my fists, and then rose into the air.
I’ve found, in my short time as a super hero, that people don’t like to be dangled from a few dozen feet up in the air. They start screaming, and then they start begging, and usually, there’s peeing involved. And these two were the same way, but I was less than ten feet up into the air when the screaming started.
“So disappointing,” I told them. I rose a little more. I was making a point here, after all.
When we were a good forty feet up, I stopped, letting them dangle, letting them get a good look at the asphalt below.
“So. Boys,” I said. “Are you going to be good, quiet peaceful neighbors, or should I just drop you now and save everyone the trouble?”
“Yes!” alpha moron screamed.
“Yes, I should drop you?” I asked, acting like I was about to let him go.
“No! No, don’t drop me. We’ll be quiet. I swear we’ll be quiet just put me down.”
“What’s the magic word?” I sang.
“You are fucking insane!” alpha moron screamed.
“Now. Was that nice? You could have hurt my feelings, if I had any.” I started to open my hand a little, and he screamed.
“I’m sorry. Sorry. Please. Oh god please just put me back down. I swear.”
“Very well.” I came down for a landing and set them both down. Alpha moron puked at the side of the road and his buddy looked like he was about to do the same. “If I hear about you again, and I will, because I’m letting everyone here know right now that they can contact me anonymously via the StrikeForce hotline, and I’ll come… if I hear about you again, I won’t be nearly as nice. Do we understand each other?”
“Yes,” alpha moron groaned, still hunched over on his hands and knees.
“Lovely.” I glanced around at the neighbors who had assembled to watch the drama. “Have a nice day,” I said, then I rose into the air. I had to grin when I heard applause erupt from below.
I was almost back to Command when Jenson contacted me via my comm. “Did you really have to do the whole dangling them in mid-air thing?” she asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“One of them called to complain.”
“Hm.”
“And seven of your mother’s neighbors called to thank us for caring about them enough to send you.”
“That was nice of them,” I said. “Are we still binging on pizza and movies later?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
Two hours later, I was dressed in my grungy old sweats and t-shirt, heaping pizza and bread sticks from the dining hall onto a plastic tray. I surveyed the tray, then added more pizza. Jenson could put away more food than I’d ever seen anyone manage. I shoved the tray down the line until I got to the drink station, and I grabbed two cans of cream soda and tried to fit them onto the tray. I gave up and shoved one under each of my arms, then picked up the tray and headed for the elevators. I looked at the “up” button with some consternation, then lifted my leg to see if I could tap it with my foot. The second I did that, one of the cans of soda slid out from under my arm.
“Shit.”
“Hold on,” I heard Caine say, and I glanced behind me, where he was coming out of the gym. He bent and picked up the can, then hit the button for me.
“Thanks.”
He nodded. We got onto the elevator and he hit the button for my floor. We rode in silence for a bit.
“So. Hungry?” he asked, looking at the tray while taking the other can of soda out from under my arm.
“It’s not all for me,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows.
“Have you ever seen Jenson eat? Most of this is hers. And she’s in charge of getting the food next time,” I muttered.
He didn’t say anything for a second, and then he let out a low laugh. “So you beat up some bikers today?”
“I barely touched them,” I told him. “It’s amazing how they’re all badass and stuff when faced with a bunch of older ladies and single moms, but you dangle them in the air a little bit and then they’re puking at the side of the road. ‘Please, please stop, oh God,’” I mimicked them in a high tone, and Caine laughed.
The elevator stopped at my floor and he walked me to my room, then took the tray while I put my thumb to the door lock. I pushed the door open and took the tray from him, and he followed me in and set the cans down on my little kitchen counter. I never cooked there. Why cook when there’s a ready supply of anything I’d ever want to eat down in the dining hall?
“Thanks,” I told him, and he nodded. “Um. I would invite you to stay, but we’re watching Jane Austen movies and it’s about to get girly in here. And Jenson has a reputation to uphold, you know.”
He shook his head. “Nah, I’ll leave you to it. Jenson’s secret is safe with me,” he said with a smirk.
“Don’t be smug. I’ll see you bright and early.” He nodded, then let himself out of my suite.
I set the tray of food on the coffee table in the living room, then looked around for napkins since I’d forgotten to grab some from downstairs. As I looked, I contemplating calling Connor, since I had a number to get in touch with him at now, but I was still more than a little pissed over his attitude from earlier. Especially the jealous insinuations, let alone the whole disappearing from my life for over a month. And the stupid thing was, for an instant in the elevator with Caine, I had felt guilty. Not because there was anything even remotely happening there, but because Connor had planted it in my head, just in
those few words on the phone, that spending any time with Caine was somehow wrong.
Screw that. The last thing I need is to start feeling guilty for things I haven’t even done. There are enough real things I should feel guilty about.
Jenson showed up, interrupting my ragey thoughts, and we settled in to eat and watch movies. We were on to Sense and Sensibility when she nudged me with her elbow.
“What?”
“I was thinking.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Kiss my ass, Faraday,” Jenson said, and I laughed. “I was thinking, and I mentioned it to Portia, that it might be fun for us to get together outside of work, outside of here. Like normal people.”
“We’re not normal.”
“But we can pretend to be, just for a little while. And we thought that maybe we could do a girls’ night out thing soon. Let Caine and David be on duty together one night so we can get the hell out of here for a bit.”
I didn’t answer.
“Don’t be too thrilled. Try to restrain your excitement a little bit,” she said, holding her hands up like she was trying to hold me back. Then she grabbed another slice of pizza and bit into it.
“What would we do?”
“Christ, Jolene. Have you ever just hung out with anyone?”
I looked at her, and she rolled her eyes. “Fine. We’d go out to eat. Maybe go catch a movie afterward or hit the casinos if we’re feeling lucky. Just get out of here and the uniforms for a little while. And maybe get to know each other as people and not just co-workers. Maybe it would help some of the problems we’re all having working together.”
“I have no problem working with my partner,” I pointed out.
“That’s because Caine is the most laid-back person I’ve ever known, unless you give him a reason not to be. Anyone else would probably drive you nuts and then there would be threats and ugliness and then we’d have a mess.”
“You know, I requested you as my partner,” I told her.
“Aw. You do care. I wish Portia had gone for that. Amy’s a great lawyer but she’s not a good match with me.”
“It’s the multiple yous that freak her out,” I said.
“Thanks.”
We watched for a little while longer, and then she looked over at me. Then she grabbed the remote and turned it off.
“It was just getting to the good part,” I told her.
She gave me a withering look.
“Rickman was about to get all dreamboaty,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes. “You know men only love women like that in movies, though,” I added, thinking back to Connor and his attitude.
“Focus, Jolene.”
“What?”
“I had to freeze several of Alpha’s accounts today,” she said. “There was money being siphoned out of them that I never approved, and neither did Portia. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”
I didn’t answer, and that was pretty much all the answer Jenson needed.
“Why, Jolene?”
It had taken them longer to figure it out than I’d thought it would when I went to Luther about siphoning funds from some of Alpha’s accounts. Not a lot. Just a little here and there, but nothing at all compared to the enormous amounts of money in the accounts. She’d set it up with one of her nieces, who was a genius at crap like that. We’d moved the money around and eventually deposited some into my accounts, and some into Luther’s. Her fee.
“I hardly think he’s gonna miss it,” I told her.
“That’s not the point. What, are you still robbing houses, too?”
“No.”
“But you’ll steal from StrikeForce.”
“I’m not stealing from StrikeForce. I’m stealing from Alpha, and Alpha is definitely fucking not StrikeForce.”
“You’re splitting hairs,” she said.
“I’m not planning to keep it.”
She gave me a look that told me she wasn’t buying it.
“I’m not.”
“Giving it away to charity doesn’t really count either. It’s still stealing. And then there’s the whole separate issue of wondering if you really think I’m that stupid, that I wouldn’t notice thousands of dollars going missing every week.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid. There are a lot of accounts there. I figured you or Portia would figure it out eventually, but I didn’t think you’d trace it back to me so quickly.”
“I didn’t trace it back to you. It was a hunch,” she said. She turned the movie back on.
“Jenson, what do you think is going to happen to the team once Alpha finally gets transferred to international custody?” The plan was to gather enough evidence to be able to turn him over to the international tribunal that dealt with powered people. There was the obvious, the way he’d kept several of us jailed and dampened to use as his own private army against our will, but Jenson was sure that some encrypted files she’d found after our takeover would prove that there was even more to the story, and David and Jenson were working on cracking them.
“Once he’s in custody, we lose all of this,” I said, gesturing around, indicating StrikeForce Command in general. “No building. No fancy mini jets. We lose access to all of the computers and communications systems in this place, let alone the joy of having people cook and clean for us all the time. What happens to StrikeForce then?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“With no money, and nowhere to operate from, how long do you think this team will stay together? We’re hanging on by a thread here as it is.”
She kept looking at the screen. “So you were stealing from Alpha to try to support StrikeForce?” she asked dubiously.
“Yes. Don’t be so surprised.”
She turned the movie back on and we watched it in silence for a little while. “As a plan, it’s not a terrible one. It’s still stealing, though.”
“Yeah.”
She sighed. “It’s finished now, though. And, I don’t know, maybe trust me enough to tell me when you’re doing something like that?”
“Would you have said ‘yeah, Jolene, go ahead and embezzle money from Alpha. That’s a great idea!’ No. You wouldn’t have.”
“I might have, if you’d explained what you just told me,” she argued. “Have a little damn faith in me. I backed up your plan to overthrow Alpha. I was with you every step of the way, and you still want to hide crap from me.”
“We argue like a married couple,” I muttered.
“No. We argue like friends who should actually give a damn about one another. I felt like an idiot when I realized what was happening, that you did it and didn’t even think twice about me stumbling across it.”
We fell into silence again. “I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Fine. Next time we do a movie night, you’re grabbing Chinese food, though.”
Chapter Two
The next morning, Caine and I made it through our patrol shift without much trouble, and then I spent the afternoon informing Luther (the little old Polish lady who was also the best fence and con woman I’d ever known) that our little game with Alpha’s money was off. She wasn’t entirely thrilled with me.
I was on my way back to Command, replaying a nightmare I’d had the night before, after Jenson had left, about my face-off against Maddoc. In the dream, I was back there again, struggling for my life, Maddoc’s hands around my throat, his face a mask of rage above me, and no matter how hard I struggled, hit, scratched, kicked… no matter what I did, none of it made a difference. Unlike what had actually happened, though, in the dream I wasn’t able to use Toxxin to knock him out, and he just kept strangling me, until I felt my body give up on me. And when it was over, when I was gone and he’d left my body there, I was able to watch and see that life went on without me, as if I’d never been there at all and nobody noticed that I was gone.
I hadn’t been able to fall back asleep afterward. I guessed maybe it was a guilty conscience thing after my talk with Jenson. Whatever it was, I didn’t w
ant to go through it again.
I was about to turn toward downtown when Jenson clicked onto my comm.
“Daystar, what’s your location?”
“I’m near Wayne State. Why?”
“Can you go over by Campus Martius? We’re getting calls about a disturbance over there and everyone else is already out on calls. It’s like everyone decided to go nuts in one night.”
“I’ll head over there now.”
I swerved toward the New Center area. Campus Martius Park eventually came into view, the ice skating rink lit up for evening skaters. Soon, the Christmas tree lighting would happen, and the whole park would be full of twinkling lights. For now though, things looked quiet and calm, and a few skaters took advantage of the ice and the cool weather. I was about to contact Jenson and tell her nothing was going on when I saw a dark shadow moving toward one of the side streets off of Woodward. I came in for a landing, ending up behind a parking garage. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. The second anyone noticed me, I’d be all over social media. I hated that shit.
I walked down the street, taking the same direction the dark shadow I’d noticed had taken. The pavement was slick and oily, and napkins and other debris from the nearby food places stuck to the concrete. The street lights flickered overhead, casting a blue-white glow onto the buildings and parking meters nearby. The only sounds were the roar of traffic from the street and the plinking sound of the heavy raindrops falling on metal awnings and trash dumpsters as icy rain began to fall. I searched for a good ten more minutes without seeing anything. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or annoyed.
I pressed my comm. “Daystar checking in. I’m going to do one more sweep of the area but so far things look okay here. Once I’m done, I’m going for a fly,” I said, glancing up at the sky.
“In this weather?” Jenson asked over the comm, and I smiled.
“Are you going to ask me if I brought my umbrella?”
“Of course not. Your suit is waterproof.”
One More Day Page 2