“You hurt the son of a bitch, with what you did, didn’t you?” she whispered.
‘I did.”
“You’re going to hurt him more, aren’t you?”
“Dani. I’m going to destroy the bastard. I promise.”
She took a breath, and I saw some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Thank you. If there’s ever anything you need, I’ll do it. I want him and everyone working with him to pay for what they did.”
“They will.”
She nodded, and I hugged her again. As the service broke up, I headed out. I had to meet Justin at the house (I was trying to stop referring to it as Mama’s house) to give him the last of the money I owed him for the repairs he’d done. They were finished now, and Jenson had gotten the StrikeForce legal department moving on transferring the deed. I took the bus, needing the extra time to think and be still.
There were about a million thoughts crowding my mind. Killjoy would lay low for a while and lick his wounds, but I didn’t doubt that he’d come after me again, and probably sooner rather than later. Aside from that, there was the increase we were seeing in super human disappearances. Part of me wanted to think that was Killjoy, but kidnapping and imprisonment wasn’t really his style. He just destroyed, then took what he wanted. There was also the issue Death had alluded to, about the formula being unstable and that being the cause of the low success rate of his tests. Killjoy was the only test subject to successfully integrate the formula into his body. What did that mean for him? I mean, hopefully it meant that eventually his body would painfully reject the formula, or it would wear off, or something like that. But I was getting used to the idea that things only get worse. I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for him to just kind of fade away.
There was something still nagging me about the day Killjoy’s people got into Command. They had Damian/Virus, which made it easy for them to get doors open and things like that, because he just manipulated the circuits. But something struck me the day we had watched the security feeds from that day. The security cameras outside the building went off about five minutes before it happened, as did the ones at the main entrance, which was where they’d come in. There were no guards at the front entry, which is where we usually put our best people. They both said they’d responded to an alarm on the lower level. When I checked the video feed from that area to see what it was, I’d found that the cameras in that area were — surprise, surprise — also mysteriously not working.
So, yeah. Maybe Virus’s powers somehow messed up only the cameras in three strategic positions. But they’d wanted to be seen. They wanted us to see how easy they did it. Christ, Maddoc had even waved and taunted me through one of the cameras.
It pointed to something I really didn’t want to think about too closely, which was the possibility that one of our own had helped them get in so easily.
I closed my eyes and listened to the various sounds on the bus. The usual, quiet conversation, the faint, tinny sound of music coming from someone’s headphones. When I opened my eyes again, I glanced down at my phone and noticed that there was a new message. Unknown number. I hit play and held it close to my ear.
“Bet you thought that was cute, huh Jolene?”
My stomach twisted. Because of course, it would be him.
“I said some things the other night that I didn’t mean.” I stared at my phone in disbelief. “I should have known better. Going after your mother was a terrible idea, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” He was quiet, and I could hear him breathing. “I went too far. I lost sight of some things. You made me see that. Because I’ve lost you completely now, haven’t I?”
Uh, obviously. “Jackass,” I muttered, and the woman sitting a couple seats over looked at me. “Not you. Sorry,” I said, and she nodded.
He was still talking. “I just don’t think you understand what I was trying to do, Jolene. I’m not trying to destroy anything, or rule the world or any shit like that. I’m trying to save it. I’ll make you see. I’ll be seeing you around.”
The message ended, and a chill went down my spine. He was really freaking delusional. I mean, just out of his goddamn mind.
And I hadn’t seen it.
How do you miss something so obvious? And it wasn’t just me. I knew that Ryan was dealing with his own frustration over not seeing Killjoy for what he was, for encouraging me to trust him. Maybe the formula had done something to him. I kind of wanted to believe that, just so I could think that maybe I wasn’t really that blind. But the fact was that he’d been emailing Alpha about his plan before he’d even met me, and long before Death had come up with an even remotely successful injection to give anyone.
It struck me, then, that he might have left a trail of bodies in his wake. Not just Mama, and Death… but all the traveling he did. All those reports about him helping out in different areas of the world, being a “public hero” as he’d called it. I wondered now, what he was really doing there.
It was something to look into.
I wanted to delete his message, but I kept it. I kind of wanted Jenson to hear it. I don’t know why. Maybe so I wasn’t the only one having to hear how nuts he sounded.
The bus rolled up to my stop and I got off and walked the six blocks to the house. It was sunny, and warm for winter in Detroit. I had my hands stuffed into my jacket pockets, clenched tightly as I turned onto the block with the house I’d bought. I made it up the steps and onto the porch without falling apart, even though I kept picturing the porch swing I’d intended to buy for Mama, because I could just see her sitting and reading out there in summer. I pushed it away and let myself in. Justin’s truck was parked in the street, so I knew he was already there.
“Hey, Jolene,” he said when I walked in. He was wiping down the kitchen counter.
“You clean, too?” I joked, and he grinned.
“Not for everyone.”
I nodded, and pulled the check I had for him out of my pocket. “Here’s what I owe you.”
He took it, searching out my eyes. I looked away.
“I hope your mom likes it,” he said, and I took a deep breath.
“My mom passed away,” I told him, forcing myself to look up. He stared at me in stunned silence, then recovered himself.
“I’m so sorry. Holy shit. What happened?”
I shook my head, blinking to keep myself from crying. He reached out and took my hand, and I gently pulled it away.
“Besides that… what happened last time…” I shrugged.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t plan to.”
“I know. And if it makes you feel better, it was a hell of a kiss. But I’m just not in the right place to even think about anything like that.”
“Not even just being friends?”
I met his eyes. “You seriously wouldn’t be wondering about kissing again? Or maybe more? Because I would be.”
“You think men and women can’t be friends?” he asked.
“I know they can. I have several male friends, who are just friends. But we both know that’s not what’s going on here and it’s stupid and disrespectful to both of us to pretend otherwise. Right?”
He took a breath, then nodded. “You’re right.” Then he looked around. “I really am sorry to hear about your mom, though. I almost felt like I knew her from hearing you talk about her.”
I nodded. “She would have loved this place. You did an amazing job.”
“So, what now? Are you going to live here?”
I shook my head. “I can’t. And I can’t sell it, either. I’m donating it.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. My mom would have approved. So I donated it to StrikeForce.”
He furrowed his brow. “To… StrikeForce? Really?”
I nodded. “They sometimes need houses, for those times when things get out of hand and people are unable to go back to their old houses for whatever reason.”
“Uh huh,” he said, with a kind of pained expression on his face.
/>
“And my mom was a big fan of the team. She just loved them,” I said quickly, because I really didn’t want to hear him say anything bad about my teammates, and I had a feeling that that was where he was going. The team has no lack of haters, and I guess he was one of them.
Admittedly, we probably deserve at least some of the dislike. Losing record, lots of property damage. I understand. I just didn’t feel like listening to it.
“Well, that’s good. It’ll make a nice home for someone,” he said, and I was glad he let it drop. We walked out the front door, and he locked up and handed me the spare key he’d been using. “Um. You still have my number. If you ever want to talk, or get together or whatever, I hope you’ll call.”
I looked up at him and met his eyes. “Thanks. Take care, okay?”
“You too.” He stayed there for a moment, his eyes locked with mine, and then he sort of seemed to shake himself and turned and walked down the stairs. I watched him get into his truck and drive down the street.
I skipped down the stairs. Ah, well. It never would have worked, even without me grieving over my mom and dealing with my psychotic super villain ex-whatever-he-was. He was too nice. Too normal.
And I have that whole “terrible judge of character” issue. So… yeah.
I ended up walking for a long time, bypassing several bus stops as I made my way back toward Command. I felt lighter, but also emptier. I had the feeling that as much as everything hurt now, I was still not quite over the shock of losing Mama. I wondered how long I could hold onto burning rage, because I wasn’t especially looking forward to the crushing sadness phase of mourning.
Chapter Twenty
Two Weeks Later
I flew.
Detroit sprawled far below, like a crazy quilt of concrete and grass, a border of blue where the river cut the land, separating Detroit from Windsor.
I flew north, finding myself, eventually, over the neighborhood where our trailer was. The trailer park came into view, glimpses of the roofs of the trailers between the gray clouds below me. My eyes were drawn to the end of Perdition Lane, the little yellow and white trailer. There was a ratty old car in the driveway, but it was the wrong one. Not Mama’s. Someone else lived there now. The world had moved on, but it felt like I never would.
I circled around twice, three times. There were thirteen trailers on Perdition Lane. Four roads intersected the trailer park. Three blocks down, there was a church with two steeples.
Goddamnit. Now even the counting was starting to stress me out.
I closed my eyes and flew. I let the air soothe me, let the silence of being hundreds of feet above everyone else numb me, just for a little while.
After a while, I ended up at the cemetery. Mama’s grave with its newly-installed enormous limestone angel loomed below. I came in for a landing, and sat on the grass near her grave. I rested my chin on my knees, wrapped my arms around my legs. I never understood people who went to the cemetery to “visit” with loved ones. But I’d found myself coming a couple times per week since the day of the funeral, to sit here and talk. I guess I wanted to believe that Mama was somewhere where she could hear me, see me. That she wasn’t really gone, because that was a little too much to handle. I had to believe in a heaven of some kind, for now, at least. It comforted me when nothing else could.
I had to believe she was looking down at me. So I came, and I talked. And, sometimes, I even felt a little better afterward.
“He killed you… at least part of why he killed you was because he believed you were what was keeping me ‘good.’ Because I was doing the hero thing, trying to make you proud.” I paused, looking at her headstone without seeing it. “At first, I was a hero because they forced me to be. And then I played the hero because I thought it was a way to fool them into letting me out. Then, after Maddoc, I did it thinking you’d be proud, that maybe I could leave my old self in the past and you’d never find out about her. But, after a while…” I took a breath. “I started doing it for me. Which is probably selfish. I mean, I should want to be a hero for everyone else. To save them or some lofty shit like that. Sorry,” I said automatically, as if she was even there to raise her eyebrows at me the way she usually did. “But I do it for me. Because it makes me feel alive and like something I’m doing matters. Even though we’re so bad at it.” I rested my chin on my knees again. “He thought that, now that you’re gone, I wouldn’t have any reason to try to be a hero. But he doesn’t realize that by taking you away, he did the one thing StrikeForce never managed to do. He made me decide, fully, to do this hero thing. I’m probably not going to be the hero most people want me to be. But I think, if you happen to be looking down from where you are… I think you’ll be proud.”
I sat there for a long time, not seeing anything, my mind a million miles away. Memories, mostly. Mama teaching me how to ride a bike. Mama comforting me with a warm hug and my favorite chocolate ice cream after a rough day at school. Mama, telling me she was proud.
I heard a rustling sound behind me and turned around. Jenson, David, Ryan, and Dani were there, and Dani held up a brown paper bag. “Tonight, we drink in memory of your mom and those we’ve lost,” she said. They came and sat with me, fanning out around Mama’s grave. Dani passed me the bottle, and I took a gulp, passed it to Jenson.
“And tomorrow, I make the bastard pay,” I said.
“We have your back, Jolene,” Jenson said. “You get that, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
“Seeing what they had planned… we were talking about some things,” David said quietly.
“What things?”
“I think we all understand here that the things that need to be done to end this… they’re not things we can do wearing official superhero costumes,” Jenson said. “You proved that with the lab. If we want this over, if we want him stopped, for good, and if we want to save people without messing around asking the tribunal if it’s okay first, sometimes it’s just not possible to do it the way Portia wants to. And I know you’re already thinking this, but I’m telling you that you’re not alone.”
“This is my fight,” I said.
“It’s all our fight. You’re not the only one who lost people because of him,” Dani said.
“You are superheroes. Keep being that.”
“We will. But for once, we get to decide what that means,” Ryan said. I met his eyes, and neither of us said anything for a few moments. “I choose this. I’ll put on the StrikeForce uniform and do what this city needs me to do. And other times, I’m fine with doing the things nice people don’t want to think about any of us doing.”
“We all know this is going to get worse before it gets better. StrikeForce needs to have a strong public image to reassure people that everything is okay. That they’re safe. That’s why it’s important. That’s why we all keep wearing the black and gray,” David said. “But the fact is, no one will really be safe unless those behind this shit are taken care of. I think we all know he’s somewhere licking his wounds. And I think we all know he’s not done.”
“And there are other issues too, which StrikeForce has been afraid or unable to touch, which I think will come back to bite us if we continue to ignore them,” Jenson said.
“Such as?”
“Super powered people going missing. Including one that went missing when Killjoy and his people were fighting our team and infiltrating our base. Which suggests to me that the disappearances aren’t him.”
I nodded.
“You already knew about the missing heroes,” she said quietly, a note of surprise in her voice.
“I wanted to believe it was him. Still could be,” I said, and she shrugged.
“Maybe. But it’s something that needs to be looked at, and nobody’s doing it.”
We sat in silence for a while. I hadn’t planned on this. On having them with me for this, but even I had to admit that having David and Jenson’s smarts and tech skills and Ryan’s recon and sniper abilities would make i
t all a lot more straightforward. I didn’t quite know how Dani’s screaming powers fit into secret ops missions, but I also knew that I had no business turning her away, not when she’d lost a loved one as well. I nodded, slowly. Jenson took a swig from the bottle and handed it back to me, and I took another drink.
“We’ll get him,” Dani said.
I nodded, and the five of us passed the bottle and sat there late into the night. After everything that had happened, it made me a little queasy to think about putting my trust in anyone, and I didn’t know if I’d fully be able to do so. I knew that Jenson, David, and Ryan had been with me through the worst, even if I didn’t understand why. Dani was someone I’d once saved and we now shared a common enemy. For now, I’d see how it all played out, but I doubted I’d be able to fully trust them, and that was one more thing to hate Killjoy for.
But for now, they were here with me, and it meant a lot. It meant that I wasn’t alone and I’d never realized before how much that could mean to me.
I looked back up at the angel over Mama’s grave. Ryan bumped his shoulder against mine.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Not yet. But I will be.”
It was all I knew how to be. If there was one thing I learned from my mother, from watching her support me on her own and keep us both clothed and fed, it was that you never let anything keep you down. You get up, and you make yourself do better. You don’t stop fighting for those you love, not until you take your last breath.
I could wish all I wanted that I’d had just one more day, but in reality, that’s something that isn’t guaranteed for any of us. All we can do is make the most of what we have.
And what I have… all I have right now, is a hell of a lot of rage. That, and friends who are willing to face the darkness by my side.
One More Day (StrikeForce Book 2) Page 20