One More Day (StrikeForce Book 2)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  Chapter Eighteen

  When I woke up, I got up and scrubbed my face. My eyes were still red from crying, but now I felt numb. It was better that way.

  I pulled my hair into a messy bun, blew my bangs out of my eyes. I pulled on a pair of black pants, my old black boots from my burgling days, a black tank top and a black shirt. I looked at myself in the mirror, meeting my eyes in my reflection. This could go badly. Really badly.

  Or it could end up fucking up Connor and all of his plans. Maybe more.

  I pulled a black balaclava I’d picked up. It covered everything except my eyes, and that was exactly what I wanted. I stuffed Dr. Death’s phone in my pocket after unplugging it from its charger, then I grabbed the backpack with the stuff I’d bought from Lola inside and put it on my back.

  I made my way quickly from my room up to the flight bay, doing my best to avoid cameras and our guards. I didn’t want any attention or questions. I made it through, having timed their shift change pretty well, then took off into the sky.

  I flew quickly, the night sky a blur as I focused on where I was going, on following the gps on my phone.

  It took me less than two hours of flying to make it to the little island off the Mexican coast. I never would have guessed that I flew that fast. I circled around twice when I got over the facility I’d seen on the satellite maps David had showed me. I saw two armed guards at the gate, two more at the door to the facility. I pulled the x ray goggles David had been working on down over my eyes, noting thankfully that the building seemed to be empty. I landed near the gate, sending power blasts at both guards before they even realized what happened. I quickly tied them up and flew them to the dock, well away from the building. I made my way to the entrance of the building. I was able to knock one guard out by taking him by surprise, but he second guard started shooting at me immediately. I ducked and dodged his fire, then managed to get a blast in at him when he was trying to aim again. It knocked him back, but not out, and I ended up having to dive at him and knock his ass down. He fell back against the building and I heard his head crack against the brick wall.

  “Don’t be dead,” I muttered, checking for a pulse. When I felt one, I sighed in relief, then tied both of those guards up and flew them to the docks.

  It had taken me about two minutes, all together.

  I pulled out the jammer I’d used so often to disrupt the alarm systems in the mansions I used to rob. I turned it on and smiled to myself. I hadn’t planned on using this ever again. There was an alarm system, as well as a keypad type security system on the door. Within seconds, I had the security code cracked, and, about a minute later, the signal that the alarm system was compromised.

  I made my way in, quietly opening the door. Inside, the lab was lit mostly with fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. Machines and other equipment I didn’t recognize sat covered in dust. I swore under my breath, wondering if Death had been lying to me at the end about where he’d conducted his work. This place didn’t look like anything but an old science junkyard.

  There was a door to the left, and I went there. It was locked, but all it took was a good pull and the doorknob cracked in my hand. I swung the door open and saw that the office beyond was lined with binders, notebooks. Vials were collected neatly on racks, waiting to be used. Microscopes and other equipment were arrayed on countertops around the perimeter. I pulled one binder off of the shelf and looked it over quickly. I didn’t understand most of it, but a few pages in, I started recognizing his notation for certain powers, notes about how he combined them. Several pages about how the formula wasn’t stable, about how it had to be injected immediately, because storage produced irregular results. I put the binder back then rooted through the vials and other stuff in the cabinets. Not a drop of anything. On one wall of the office, I saw another door. I pushed it open and found that it led into a cooler. Along the walls, there was vial after vial of dark liquid, and I realized what I was looking at.

  There were dozens of them. Labeled not with names, but with a number that, I guessed, matched up to the codes Death had kept in his binders. Dozens of vials of super powered blood, the precious samples that Connor wanted so badly that he’d apparently kill for them.

  I nodded, dug one of the boxes I’d bought from Lola out of my bag, and attached it securely to the wall of the cooler with some putty adhesive she’d included with them. I powered it on, checked the signal button, and walked back out.

  I went through the rest of the lab, which looked just as deserted as it had on first glance. All of the important shit, apparently, was in that one corner office.

  I took the other two boxes out and did the same thing, placing one on the back wall and one just outside the office.

  I walked outside, a good distance away from the building. I dug Dr. Death’s phone out of my pocket and opened the video messaging app.

  I dialed Connor and he answered after the first ring. His face came onto the screen, which I held pretty close to my own face. For now.

  “Jolene,” he said. The way he said my name had once made my body warm, my knees weak. Now all it did was make me want to flay him alive.

  “Connor.”

  “I wondered where his phone went,” he said after a moment. “Calling to tell me that you’ve come to your senses, sweetheart?”

  I kept my face expressionless. “I’m not really in the mood for this right now,” I said quietly.

  “Of course. It was a nice funeral, though.”

  My stomach twisted, and I felt bile rising in my throat. That feeling of being watched earlier…. “You were there,” I said.

  “Of course. And you felt me. I saw when you turned around.” He paused, his eyes glinting. “Don’t you see it, sweetheart? How attuned we are? How much we belong together?”

  “You never wanted me. You wanted my blood,” I reminded him.

  “Now we both know that’s bullshit. I want you. I’ve wanted you since the second I laid eyes on you.”

  “You murdered my mother.”

  “Well, now. I gave you my reasons for that. What? Are you going to hold it against me forever? She’s gone, and there’s no changing it now.” He looked into the screen, the cool light from his phone casting his face in harsh light, making his scar stand out even more. “And you still care, or you wouldn’t have bothered calling me. We both know that.”

  “That’s not why I called.”

  “No?”

  I shook my head. “I’m on a little trip,” I said. Then I pulled the phone back so he could see the building behind me. I saw the second he recognized it, and smiled behind my balaclava. “Recognize it?”

  “Big deal. So you found Death’s lab. It’s on international soil. I know how you superhero teams work. Portia will go through all of the proper channels. She’ll get the tribunal involved and they’ll try to get a permit. Which will be denied, by the way, because I have servants in high places.” He paused. “And if they do happen to get there, they’ll find it empty. Do you think I’m stupid enough to leave that shit there? I have a crew en route now.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said.

  “Go on. Try it. Get your search and seizure order and we’ll see how that goes.”

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “I’m starting to think that you never really knew me at all, Connor.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why’s that?”

  “Because if you did, you’d know I’m not that subtle.” I pulled the remote out of my pocket and held it up so he could see it.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ dare, Jolene. Don’t even— ”

  I smiled, and then I hit the button. There was absolute silence for a moment, and then there was a deafening boom and all of the oxygen felt like it was sucked from of the air.

  And then the lab burst into a ball of flame, and Connor started shouting on the phone. At first I couldn’t hear him. Then I could.

  “You fucking bitch. You’ll pay for this. I swear to god I’ll find you and — ”

&nbs
p; “I’m counting on it, asshole,” I said. And then I hung up. I crushed the phone in my hand, turning it to nothing more than powder. I turned and took one last look at the inferno that had been his lab, and then I rose into the sky.

  This didn’t make us even. Not even close. It didn’t avenge Mama. He still had his team and a hell of a lot of power.

  But it set him back quite a bit, destroyed his little super army plan. And it ensured that this time, it was Connor having a bad day instead of me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was just after dawn when I got back to Command. The sky was a mix of aqua and coral in the east, a layer of vibrant yellow on the horizon that made me think of Mama, and I felt a little bit of the suffocating heaviness inside me lift. I landed in the flight bay to see Jenson already there, leaning against the wall.

  I grimaced, readying myself for a lecture about protocol and international incidents and what could have happened if Connor had been there already. I walked toward her, and she watched me, expressionless. I reached her and was about to say something. I saw the corners of her mouth lift, just a little, and then she wordlessly raised her fist, and I bumped it with mine. Then she grinned.

  “I should be pissed off, because I was worried sick about you. But you did it.” She laughed. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Portia’s going to be pissed,” I said, and we started walking toward the elevator.

  “Portia is caught between being pissed that you did what you did and relieved that now she and StrikeForce don’t have to get involved. I don’t think you’re going to hear much about it either way.”

  I glanced over at her, and she continued. “Portia’s very by the book, but even she knows that sometimes you can’t do things that way. As far as she’s concerned, she doesn’t know a damn thing about it,” she explained.

  “I don’t think this is the last time she’s going to have to turn a blind eye to what I’m doing.”

  “And I think she knows that. I think she doesn’t want to hear about any of your plans regarding Killjoy, and the two of you will get along just fine. Those may have been her exact words, and she may or may not have told me to make sure I told you that.”

  I smiled. “Okay. Well. I have plenty to do still.”

  “We do.”

  “We, huh?”

  “Yep. David and I were pretty good at helping you with the technical and intelligence-gathering stuff. Ryan did an amazing job training you to work with what you have, power wise, despite the fact that you didn’t want to do it. I don’t know where you got those devices, though.”

  “And you really, really don’t want to.”

  “I really don’t,” she agreed. “Do you think he knows about it yet?”

  I laughed. “Oh, he knows. I made him watch it happen. Called him via Death’s phone.”

  She shook her head. And then she laughed. “Remind me never ever to piss you off.”

  “Just don’t ever betray me, and we’ll be fine,” I said. We stepped on the elevator, and she pressed the button for our floor.

  “Jolene.”

  “Hm?”

  “I know you probably won’t believe it, and I don’t blame you, given what you’ve been through. But I wouldn’t betray you. Ever.”

  I took a breath.

  “You’re going to play everything close to the chest now, waiting for the next person to turn on you. And I get it. I have been there.” I looked up at Jenson, wondering again what her story was. I knew nothing about her past, other than the barest generalities. She was closed off about anything personal, which was why it had been so surprising that she’d had her cousin host the wake. As far as any of us had known, Jenson didn’t have any family nearby. I didn’t even know if Jenson was her actual name. All I knew was that when we all started calling one another by our real names, she’d still been Jenson.

  “I trust you,” I said. “Until I have reason not to.”

  She smiled. “Sounds fair. So what’s next?”

  “Next, I’m going to take a long shower, and then I’m going to sleep. A lot.” I paused. “I need to clean out Mama’s trailer at some point, but not now. I just can’t deal with it right now.”

  Jenson nodded. “If you want help, you know all you have to do is ask.”

  “Thanks. I also need to pay for the last of the repairs on the house.”

  “Are you going to keep it?”

  I shook my head. “I had an idea about that. Can we transfer the deed to StrikeForce? Like, make it look like Jolene Faraday donated it to the team? I mean, that’s what I want to do, kind of.”

  “I don’t think that would be too much trouble. I can get legal on it if you want.”

  I nodded.

  “Why, though?”

  “Remember Darla and her family?”

  “Yeah?”

  “They’re dragging their feet about picking out a house for me to buy them. I think they feel weird accepting help. But what if StirkeForce just happened to have this house, specifically for this type of reason, where a super powered person needed it for a while? They couldn’t possibly feel weird about using something that already exists for that purpose, right?”

  She studied me. “I think that’s a great idea. And a good way to honor your mother’s memory. Her house will end up being a haven for people who need it.”

  “I thought she might like that. I just wish she could have lived there for a while.”

  We parted ways once I got to my room, and I let myself in and fell into bed. I could shower later.

  I was in the workout room, blissfully alone. I’d had the early morning patrol shift, and then I’d come here, just as I had for the past five days since my face-off against Killjoy. The rest of my teammates seemed to understand that what I really needed right now was to be left alone, and, for the most part, they kept their distance.

  Most of my spare moments, I spent in the training room.

  I was still wearing my uniform; I hadn’t bothered changing out of it after my shift. I stood in front of a heavy punching bag. It was black, hung from the ceiling with thick chains that clanked in a satisfying way when you hit the bag. I tried a couple of regular punches. Slow and pathetic, just as they’d been before. It was starting to become clear that I was never getting that part of myself back. And, honestly, it was the least important thing I’d lost, considering.

  I could still hit hard, but I was so slow that unless the person didn’t see it coming, I didn’t have a chance in hell of actually hitting anyone.

  I patted the bag, then stepped away, counting the steps it took to get me to the other side of the room. Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven steps took me to the edge of the sparring area. There were six concrete pillars spaced throughout the room, thirty-six recessed lights. Four weight machines; twenty-two sets of hand and free weights.

  The counting is something I’d started doing the morning after Mama died. I’d listened to the heat kick on four times, counted the birds that flew by outside my bedroom window. I guess it was a way of coping, a way to keep from thinking about everything. I’d take it. It was stupid, but I’d take it.

  Once I reached the other side of the room, I turned and looked back at the punching bag. It was easy to picture it as Killjoy (I refused to think of him as a person named Connor anymore), clad in black just as he always was. I took a breath, focused, and let loose an energy punch. It hit the bag with a satisfying “thump,” and the bag shook, just a little, on its chains. I did it again, and again, and again, picturing Killjoy’s death-black armor, hearing his voice in my head.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  The bag started swinging wildly after each impact.

  Again.

  So easy.

  All I had to do was toss a few nice words and an ugly pair of socks I bought on clearance at Kmart in your direction.

  Pathetic.

  I let out a loud growl and sent another energy punch. It impacted the bag, hard, and the chain h
olding the bag snapped. The bag went flying across the room, crashing into a weight bench and knocking it over before finally coming to rest.

  “I’ll tell Portia to order another one,” I heard Jenson say behind me, and I turned to look at her. Her arms were crossed, and she was watching me. “Feel any better?”

  “No.”

  She walked in and sat on one of the benches along the wall, crossed her legs.

  “Nobody found Death’s body,” she said softly.

  “So he might have made it,” I said.

  “Or his people grabbed the body when they disappeared, not knowing if he was alive or dead. You said Killjoy stabbed him through the chest. I doubt he survived that.”

  I nodded. “I hope he didn’t.”

  “Yeah.” She started to say something, closed her mouth, then opened it again as if she was trying to figure out how to say something.

  “What is it? Spit it out,” I said, and she gave me a small smile.

  “You know… if Death somehow had died at your hand, I wouldn’t judge you badly for it,” she finally said.

  “You think I killed him?”

  “I don’t know. Chance was asking if maybe you’d actually done him in, and I said as far as anyone knew, it was Killjoy.”

  I took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill him,” I told her. “I wanted to. God, how I wanted to. When I first grabbed him in his apartment, I was so close to doing it, Jenson. But it wasn’t me.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I figured that. And… when we finally come up against Killjoy again? Will you let him live?”

  I met her eyes. “I can’t make any promises there,” I answered in a low voice.

  “Fair enough,” she said. Then she sighed. “Killjoy. I still can’t believe it.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said quietly.

  The next day, I attended the small memorial service Portia had organized for Monica, Marie, and the rest of the people we’d lost when Killjoy’s people had pulled their little jail break. Portia, being Portia, had insisted on keeping it light, on celebrating their lives instead of focusing on how they’d died. I watched Dani closely throughout. I had to give Portia credit: it seemed to be exactly what she’d needed. I hugged her at the end of the service, and Dani hugged me back hard, then pulled back and looked at me intensely.