I needed to be quick with my next decision.
Guess it was time to shake things up. As long as I did my job to get connected to the system, their focus on me would only help the others get inside.
Figuring now was the best time, I walked down the stairs to ground level and then strutted straight into the grassy area. No one had noticed me yet, and I was curious if they even would.
I made it about twenty feet from the building when someone finally paid attention.
“Stop right there.” A man who was built like a body builder, with blond hair, was holding a gun in my direction. The whole courtyard went silent.
Here we go.
My grin grew wide, and I gave them the most innocent look I had in my repertoire.
“This isn’t the bathroom!” I laughed as two men approached me, both ready to take me down and zip tie my hands.
“My panties got all wet under this suit, and I just needed to take them off, think anyone could help me undo my suit?” I turned around slowly and pulled at the string that kept everything tight. Feeling the men closing in to restrain me, and guessing the others were slightly distracted as I untied the knot, my body moved back into a flip then turned as I landed to kick the gun out of the man’s hands.
“Oopsies.” I made a face that said sorry-not-sorry, enjoying his shocked expression as I jumped back into another somersault, kicking his face as I twirled over my head.
The men were scrambling to get to me or their weapons when I made it to the door.
“Ahh.” A smaller man was running at me with his arms ready to tackle me when the door opened. I moved out of the way slightly and the running man tackled the guy who opened the door instead. Well done.
Then the bullets came. I went inside and closed the door. It didn’t have a lock on it, but a large wooden piece to hang across the back to keep it from opening.
I don’t think they really thought this location through. Sure, it was hidden, but it had nothing else going for it. The room was filled with the banging on the door then a lightning bolt shot through a window.
Shit.
Moving my feet as swiftly as I could, I started my search for their computer room.
Chapter Thirty
Leon
“I’m in!” AJ shouted and went to work on his laptop. I watched him work for a few seconds before turning my eyes toward the gate. We needed it open now. We’d heard gunfire for the past three minutes, and I had to make sure Lilith was okay.
She loved me.
Her whisper was like a shout in my head. I didn’t know what to think about it, honestly, but what I did know is that I wanted to kiss the crazy out of her.
“AJ, what’s going on?” Draco asked calmly.
I felt anything but calm right now.
“She’s locked herself in a jail cell,” he said, staring at his computer with a weird look on his face. Jail cell?
“Okay, the gate is opening,” he alerted us and then Draco gunned the speed on the boat. Thank God we were ready for it, otherwise someone could have flown out the back.
“Outside defenses are down for now, but the ones on the second floor of the building I can’t crack right now. I need some more time. Lilith is in the last cell in the fourth room of the first floor. Medical lab is the whole second floor. Still lots of bad guys around, some with powers and some without, as far as I can see from the live video feed,” AJ instructed.
Draco was driving us up to the beach instead of the dock next to Emanuel’s boat.
“Is he there?” Phillip asked, and AJ nodded.
“Second floor. But it looks like they are packing up stuff to abandon ship again. So you need to hurry,” he added as we closed in on the island.
“Plan?” I looked at all of them, feeling anxious to go get Lilith out of the jail cell she locked herself in.
“Take down Emanuel; try not to kill people if it can be avoided?” Rose broke the silence with a question, but Draco answered both of us.
“Leon, run fast, take down as many as you can, and get Lilith out of the cell so she can help fight. Rose, making another person help us would be good. Phillip, you do what you do that makes this turn out for the best, AJ, you are our eyes and ears. Communicate and let us know what you think we need to know. I’m heading for Emanuel. I’m the only one equipped to handle him. Gotta atone for the past.”The last bit he said more for himself than for us, but his directions were solid.
“You’re not alone anymore, Draco.” Rose put her hand on his shoulder, and he nodded.
I grabbed Lilith’s bag, so she could change. I had already gotten into my gear as soon as I was out of the water.
The hull made a soft rubbing sound as the bow glided into the sand.
Go time.
“Let’s go, team.” AJ raised his fist to the air, with his eyes glued to his laptop.
I jumped off the boat and ran to the fort wall. The main gate wasn’t open so I gave it a kick and it fell down with a loud thud. Hopefully we had a Hero Society fund to fix the things we break. Gunfire and what looked like lightning came flying toward me. The guy that Lilith attacked on my boat must still be around, if the electricity is being thrown at us. My body was on the move instantly, dodging the bullets, and bursting through the door to the building. There were a few men yelling in the back. That must be where Lilith was holed up. I was there in seconds. Four men were trying to open what looked like a giant safe beside old jail cells. Maybe that was where they held people with powers.
“I’m going to need you guys to move out of my way,” I told them, and they all came at me. None of them had powers, as far as I could tell. Until one of the men disappeared. Clothes and all. Well, shit.
Using the training I had learned, I was able to use my speed to deflect the three men I could see. Pain shot up into my temples as the invisible man landed a punch to my head. I started swinging in the direction I thought he was, but then he got me with a big blow to my right side.
“Honey bun! I can help if you let me out.” Lilith was looking at us from a little window in the metal door.
She waved at me, and I shook my head at her calmness in the situation. Dropping down, I spun my leg around to kick the others off their feet, then moved over to Lilith. Gripping the handle, I pulled it with enough strength to get it off the hinges, but not lose control and knock out the wall behind me.
“Thanks, Star.” Lilith kissed my cheek as she slid out from the cell and immediately blocked a knife that was inches from my face.
“That’s not very nice,” she tsked to the invisible man with the knife.
“Man, screw this.” One of the men that stood behind the others went for his gun and held it up. They weren’t fucking around at all. I was done with this. Before they could even blink, I dropped the door and had put each one in a chokehold to knock them out. Lilith patted air by her knee close to the wall.
“Sleep tight, buddy.” She looked down, and I realized she must have been talking to the invisible man.
There was fighting, and gunfire popping from outside the walls of the building. We needed to get out there to help the others.
“I’ll get dressed; you go,” Lilith told me and then started stripping.
“Can you do that in there?” I asked her while nodding toward the cell. That way no one would see her body. That was for my eyes only.
“Aw, my Star is all protective of my virtue. There is hope for us yet!” She grinned big and took her bag into the cell to change.
I waited until I heard the zipper of her pants zip up before racing out to see Draco walking down the hall to the stairs in the back.
“I’m coming with you,” I told him, and he just nodded. Lilith walked out of the room a few seconds later wearing black pants, her combat boots, and nothing but her bulletproof vest covering her chest.
“You’re going to freeze to death. Jesus.” I rubbed my hands down my face and turned around to follow Draco, ignoring her bright fucking smile at me stressing over her. She
was a grown woman; she knew what she was doing. I guess.
At least that was what I kept telling myself as Draco and I ascended the stairs to the second floor.
There wasn’t a door at the top, but one man that stood in the way of the chaos that was happening in the large room before us.
Emanuel looked at Draco, then me, and gave us a polite nod.
“I do hope you won’t find me rude for cutting out of here and not sitting to chat. But we are running out of time.” He nodded toward the table on the right by a window.
There was a small box with numbers lit up. They were counting down.
“Yes. It’s a bomb. But like I said, I have to run, busy schedule and all. Julian will see to it that you are kept entertained.” Emanuel’s politeness was very dickish to me, and I knew all about that. There was nothing in the room right now except for computers and some metal tables with wires. It looked like they had been doing the experiments, like Rose had told me about. But there wasn’t anyone here right now. Just Emanuel, this big dude in front of us, and an empty medical room.
“Leon.” Draco looked at me, and I read what he wanted in his eyes. Big dude was mine. I looked the man over, from his boot-covered toes, up his bodybuilder-like chest, to his black hair and mean face.
“Roger,” I told him, and faster than he could have seen, pulled my hand back and fired a punch right to his face. But it connected with nothing but air. What the fuck?
Chapter Thirty-One
Leon
The dude in front of me was there, but it was like his body had taken on a lightness to it that made him like air.
Shit.
Draco didn’t waste time, moving past the guy while his mean eyes were on me.
“There’s still time to change your mind, Emanuel. We can be in this together, right the wrongs of our past.” Draco stopped a few feet away from him.
“Time to die, punk,” big dude whispered in a deep voice to me. Then I felt like I was being squeezed by intense air pressure. I grunted from the tightness around my chest.
I pulled my arms out and tried to grasp his arms, hoping I could toss his form down the stairs, but my fingers felt nothing but air. How was I supposed to fight essentially a ghost?
Draco and Emanuel were staring at each other with serious looks, and neither had moved toward the other to fight. It was a standoff.
“We both know I won’t be dying tonight, so let’s just get on with this. I’ve still got three minutes to get out of here.” Emanuel shrugged off his suit jacket and rolled up his crisp, white sleeves.
Just as they clashed in a fight of fists, I was thrown back into the wall behind me. Shit, I had forgotten about the man of air.
“You can’t beat me.” His voice was turning into more of a hiss, and his body was fading more, almost unrecognizable as human.
“I’ll figure it out.” I jumped out of the wall that I’d been stuck in and ran fast at him, but instead of trying to grab him, I decided to see if maybe I could disperse him like air being spun in a fan.
“How’s that beautiful flower of yours? She looked like she was having a blast the other night at the club. I do love her spirit.” Emanuel was screwing with Draco, and I prayed he was staying a lot calmer than I was feeling. Rose was sweet and part of a family I never had. I didn’t like him talking about her.
I felt the man of air slowly start to dissipate, and hoped it was working how it was in my head.
Draco’s body crashed into mine, making us both fly back to the ground in a heap of heavy bodies.
“Shit!” I cursed, looking back to see if the man of air was gone, and he was. But that’s because he was standing next to Emanuel, who also had turned into a man of air.
“Double shit.” I looked at Draco to see if he had a quick plan.
“Get the others out of here; we’ve only got a minute left.” Draco pushed me toward the stairs. I didn’t want to leave him, but he was right. We were running out of time. I raced down the stairs and saw that all the bad guys were gone, and so was my team.
Running to the boat, I saw that everyone was getting inside.
“Phillip warned everyone, and they must have known the plan, because they all left in the tour boat. Come on!” Rose waved me over to join them.
“Draco’s still inside. We can’t leave him.” I shook my head. I know he was immortal, but still, I don’t think he wanted to be inside an explosion.
“He survives no matter what, Leon. There are chances that you won’t make it out if you go back.” Phillip gave me a warning look along with his words. I looked to Lilith, and saw her give me a grin. She knew I was going to go, and she wasn’t mad at me, or try to make me choose between my life and what was the right thing to do.
“I’ll get him back; get away from the island,” I told them and turned back toward the fort. Probably only had about thirty seconds now.
Draco was holding his own against the two men, even though it wasn’t a fair fight. When he saw me he shook his head.
The men took advantage of his distraction and tossed him right into me.
“Fire is the only thing that will kill them in this state. It’ll burn all the oxygen out of their system. They won’t survive it. We have to hold them into the explosion and get out at the last minute.” I understood his words, and with ten seconds left on the ticking bomb, there was no way I could second-guess it. I just crossed my fingers in my head that this was going to work, and I didn’t die.
“Last chance to turn over a new leaf,” Draco stood and told the men, who both laughed, a very hissy sound.
They started heading toward the window to escape. That wasn’t going to happen. Running as fast as I could, I started running around them to keep the air inside my little speed tornado.
Five seconds.
A large form jumped away from me and fell on the floor with a loud thud.
Three seconds.
“But I wasn’t supposed to die,” Emanuel said softly, and then the whole room felt charged.
Time’s up.
Shit. The whole building shuddered, and then the explosion started to burst through the room. I left the man of air, knowing he was as good as gone and lifted Draco up and carried him out of the room as fast as I could, not knowing if I could out-run an explosion, but I would try to get us out if I could.
I felt fire caressing me, but didn’t stop until we hit the water.
The salt burned like hell against my back, letting me know I’d been burned, but we had survived.
I let go of Draco, and we both swam up to get some air.
Both of us stared at the blazing island before us.
“Wow.” It was all I could say. I literally ran faster than an explosion. Now that was something that would have never crossed my mind to think.
“I wouldn’t have died. But being in fire, no matter how many times, still sucks,” Draco commented and then turned to find the boat.
Right, the boat. I couldn’t help but look askance at Draco and wonder how many explosions he must have been through, how many situations that mortal people would have died in?
“Over here!” Rose’s voice called out, and then they were coming in through the gate toward us. I felt my whole body relax seeing them. I may have burned my back to some degree, but everyone was fine, and we stopped the bad guy.
“I saw you try with Emanuel,” I said to him before the boat reached us. He kept his eyes on Rose, but commented so only I could hear.
“Sometimes even the darkest of souls can see the light. If they are willing.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lilith
Everyone was tired and hurting when we left that island.
But it was done.
My arms were wrapped around Leon, careful not to hurt his back, while his hand was holding onto my arm, keeping it there.
“You are a star,” I whispered into his ear, and he chuckled.
Without Leon, this whole operation wouldn’t have been possible. We all played our
parts, sure, but wouldn’t have been a success if he had turned down being a part of something great.
“We always used to get pizza after soccer games when I was younger. Anyone up for pizza after hero victories?” AJ suggested, and it made everyone laugh. My little adopted teenager was so cute it was funny.
“I vote shower, clean clothes, pizza, and chill for the rest of the day,” Rose sighed, and I nodded. That sounded good to me.
Everyone split up to do their thing. I went back to my place after a quick kiss to Leon’s cheek, and he went to his temporary apartment.
The shower was nice after taking a dip in the bay. I didn’t stay in the spray long, eager to get back to the restaurant and celebrate with my people.
After putting on a creamy-colored sweater, a short, high-waisted black skirt, black stockings, and some boots, I looked around my home and really didn’t feel like I belonged there anymore. I smiled, thinking about Leon holding my arm on the boat. He wanted to be with me. I could feel it, even if he hadn’t said anything. But I would bring it up tonight. My phone beeped on the counter.
Leon- I’m going to go pick up Charles then I’ll meet you at the restaurant.
My sweet man. Having his best friend in the Society with him was the best thing that could have ever happened.
I walked over to the Society in the brisk breeze without any interruptions.
Rose, Draco, Phillip, and AJ had just ordered their drinks when I walked in.
Rose smiled at me, and I went to sit next to her, opposite side of Draco.
“Leon’s getting Charles,” I announced and looked over the menu, even though I knew what I wanted on my pizza already.
“That’ll be nice; we can tell him how awesome his tech worked.” Rose smiled and accepted her drink from the waiter’s hand.
Putting the menu down, I looked at our little group. They did great today, and no one was hurt.
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