The Light of Redemption

by Natalie Damschroder

  Clothing dealt with, a condom miraculously produced from somewhere, and he slid into me with a groan and a grip so tight on my hips that I almost came there and then, from the joy of giving him this moment, this pleasure. He pushed upward and gasped along with me. I tightened against the rising orgasm, not wanting it to take me over so soon, but Conn reached to stroke the pad of his thumb over one nipple, and I was lost. I rose and up slammed back down, crying out at the rush through my body. I hadn’t taken in any light since releasing it all in the storeroom the night before, but every cell seemed filled with it anyway, bright and hot and burning with pleasure.

  I couldn’t move. Conn took over, strong enough even without his superpowers to raise me up and give him room, and then he thrust upward, filling me, the angle perfect to cause a drag over my clit with every stroke. It built and built and I squeezed, yelling his name as he shouted and pulsed into me, the swirl and burst of light inside me taking over everything, eliminating thought and breath and the whole world except for Connor Parsons.

  My first thought when it faded was holy shit, I’m done for. I found myself curled on his chest, still filled with him, my face tucked into his neck, his arms tightly wrapped around me. We panted in unison, and even with the real world filtering back in, I felt connected to him. It was never like this before, no matter how intense the attraction when we started, the few times I had someone to do this with. I was afraid to stare at that truth too long, afraid I’d put too much on it, expect too much, want too much.

  Conn might not stay, and I could never go.

  Shut up, Harmony. Just enjoy the moment.

  And then Conn said, “Holy shit,” and all hope of holding back flew out the window.

  But we didn’t discuss it. We lay together for a few silent moments, until my phone rang again and we had no choice but to move on.

  While I talked to Simon and then called Angie, Conn took a shower. We exchanged stiff smiles as we swapped places, and I cursed myself through lathering up and rinsing off. It shouldn’t be so awkward, should it? Not after what had happened. There’d been more in that encounter than a typical hookup—hadn’t there? But taking the time to talk about it felt selfishly indulgent. We had a long priorities list, and this was low.

  I braided my hair and got dressed, thinking, but when I left the room, I still didn’t know what I was going to say.

  Conn met me with a steaming mug of coffee and a much better smile. He handed me the mug and bent to kiss me sweetly, taking me off guard.

  “We have a lot to talk about, but we’ll shelve it until this is resolved, okay?”

  I nodded. “Thank you for the coffee.” I sipped, and somehow, it was exactly how I liked it. “Mmm.”

  Conn nodded, too, as if satisfied at my reaction, and went to look out the front window, hands sliding into pockets. “What did Simon say?” His voice was tense, his arms tight.

  “He said Julie’s close.” I walked over and checked his forearm, running my finger down the open laceration. It was ugly, but still, thank God, not showing signs of infection. And it didn’t seem to have suffered from our . . . activities.

  “Close with . . . ?” He seemed afraid to say it.

  “The antidote for you. To get your powers back. She thinks it’s a suppression formula, with some ingredients that linger in the bloodstream. So it may not be permanent anyway, but if she can neutralize those specific elements, we can get you back to normal faster.”

  His shoulders relaxed, his arm loosening. “Thanks.”

  “They’ll be here soon. She has to pick up some things and then they’re bringing it all over here. More space than at Simon’s apartment.”

  “Okay.” He turned to retrieve another mug from the coffee table. I thought he’d sit, but he moved to lean against the mantel. His fingers tapped against the mug, and his gaze had unfocused.

  “Come on.” I opened the front door. “Let’s walk and talk.”

  He shoved off the hearth and was out the door in half a second. We strolled the perimeter of the clearing, and the fresh air, chirping birds, and sunshine clearly helped ease Conn’s restlessness.

  “So the main goal has to be finding The Chaser, right?” I pinched a couple of dead flowers off a plant and tossed them to the back of the garden. “Which means figuring out who he is.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t even have a place to start. Evan’s certain he’s a guy, but that’s it. We don’t have ethnicity, height, size, voice, nothing.”

  “We know he’s new to town, but you’re the only new guy people have been talking about.”

  He nudged me with his shoulder. “You know the way things work here. Theories?”

  “He’s not staying here, or we’d have noticed. We’re interested in the people who become part of the community.”

  “Is that what you call it?” He laughed when I bumped him off course.

  “Yes. We care about our neighbors, and you have to get to know them to do that. But people pass through daily, hourly, even, and no one pays as much attention to them. So he’s probably staying somewhere outside of town and lurking in the shadows.”

  We reached the carport section, and Conn stopped in his tracks. “That’s a horse.”

  Delphi swung her head over the door and nickered, tossing her mane when I reached to stroke her. “Hey, sweetheart. You look happy to see us.”

  Conn stepped next to me and flattened his palm. She nibbled, snuffling.

  “Sorry, no sugar. What a doll you are.” He fondled her ear and stroked her nose, peering into the stall. “She looks fed, straw’s clean.”

  “Yeah, the owners have someone taking care of her.”

  His eyebrows went up. “It’s supposed to be a safe house.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “Evan knew she was here?”

  “I don’t think he had a lot of options. The caretaker is an old friend of the couple who owns the house, according to the binder.”

  He didn’t look any happier. “I don’t think the guy who feeds the horse is a threat. I think the guy who feeds the horse might talk about the people staying in the house where he’s taking care of a horse.”

  “Do we care?” I tossed my hands in the air. “My anonymity is shot. I might be about to lose my job. And we have people trying to turn Pilton into a smuggler’s haven. It’s not like we’re going to turn our backs on any of that to hide out here, right?”

  One side of his mouth quirked up. “You have some points.”

  I sighed. “And speaking of points, once we know who The Chaser is, what do we do about it? He’s a telekinetic. That sounds to me like he’d be impossible to capture, or hold on to, or keep behind bars.”

  He rubbed Delphi’s head one more time, and we continued walking. “It depends on how it works, I guess. If he needs line of sight or use of his hands, it might be possible. But if it’s all mental . . .”

  What were the odds that he had limitations and that we could figure out what they were before he pulverized us? I shoved that aside and went back to who he was. “You know, there’s one person who probably knows exactly who and where he is.”

  He shifted his mug to his other hand and slipped his fingers between mine. I hid a smile, determined not to look like a giddy teenager, but warm light swooped inside me.

  “You mean that woman? Olivia, or whatever? From the library last night?”

  “Yeah, Olive.”

  “You think she’ll tell you where he is?”

  “Not a chance. But I have an idea.”

  Tires crackled on stone and dirt and we turned to see Simon coming down the lane. He parked close to the porch, and we went to help haul in a shocking amount of stuff.

  “Where did all this come from?” I squeezed sideways through the front door, dragging half a dozen shopping bags in e
ach hand.

  Julie threw out her arms and spun, grinning at the piles we’d all made around the main room. Simon set a couple of canvas bags on the kitchen counter.

  “Isn’t it exciting? I really didn’t think I’d be able to find everything I needed, but that huuuuuge store outside of town is just beyond words.” She flung the lid off her big bin and started assembling equipment. “Conn, I’m, like, two hours away from your counter-serum. Hang in there, buddy.”

  He looked amused and quirked a brow at me, as if to say How’m I doin’?

  “Thank you, Julie. I really appreciate your help.”

  She began humming and pushed some stray hair back toward her ponytail, shoving it behind her ear when it wouldn’t stay in place.

  I went to help Simon unload groceries. “What’s this for?” I held up a pound of hamburger.

  He shrugged. “We have no idea how long this is going to take, right? So we need fuel, and it made sense to get it while we were shopping.”

  “Thank you.” I put the meat on a shelf and added cold cuts and sliced cheeses to the drawer. “We’re trying to figure out how we’re going to neutralize The Chaser.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “Not yet. I think I know how to find him. But he’s telekinetic. That’s a whole new level of challenge for me.”

  Simon’s eyes widened. “Julie, you didn’t tell them the best part.”

  She gasped and flung her hands over her mouth. “I can’t believe it. I was so focused on . . . Okay.” She dashed around the bin to grab a bright yellow legal pad that was fluffy with use, all the pages filled with what looked like equations. She waggled it. “Guess what I can do?”

  We all stared at her. She just beamed, waiting.

  “I don’t know, pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time?” I suggested, heavy on the sarcasm.

  “Yes!” She pointed the pad at me. “I can do that! But no. That’s not what I’m talking about. I told you I could fix Conn, right?” She spun to point the corner of the pad at him, then spun back. “I can also reverse engineer the formula to make it work on The Chaser!”

  Silence rang in the wake of her announcement. My mind spun. “You mean, you can take away his powers?”

  Her wattage dimmed by about half. “Well, temporarily.”

  “How temporarily?”

  She shrugged and dropped the pad on the table. “Long enough to make him someone else’s problem, right? Conn’s still suppressed. So at least twenty-four hours, I would think. Normally, we’d keep checking his blood and testing his strength and stuff to determine how long its effects last. But we don’t have that kind of time. My solution should neutralize the compound in his system. Then if I can do to The Chaser what he did to Conn, you’ll be able to capture him and take him in.”

  I grabbed her and hugged her. “You are freaking amazing.”

  She patted my back and nudged me off, diving back into her toys. “Well, the chemist they’re using to make this stuff is amazing. I’m not working from scratch here. Not that I’m a fan or anything,” she hurried to add, glancing at Conn.

  “Could it be Kyle or Wig?” I asked Simon, who had done all that research on them.

  He shook his head. “Nothing I found indicated either of them has any kind of science background.”

  “Maybe The Chaser is a chemist and a telekinetic,” I said skeptically. Something bothered me about chemistry and Kyle and Wig. They’d been squatting in the building where the ingredients were. Maybe they were following instructions to put it together? That would mean they were working with someone else, which wasn’t an impressive deduction, but . . . Hadn’t they mentioned someone by name when I was hiding from them in the warehouse? I couldn’t remember.

  Conn went back to capturing The Chaser. “We’ll need to contact Evan and get his task force in place so they can transfer him right away when we’ve captured him. But I suspect what you can do isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

  “Well, no.” Julie paused in unpacking her bin and wrinkled her face. “We need his blood.”

  Simon made a noise. “Angie told me what happened yesterday. He fought you from a distance. How are you going to get close enough to get his blood?”

  “Leave that to me,” said Conn, but his jaw was tight.

  “No. To us,” I corrected. “I still have my powers. You’ll need my help.”

  He folded his arms and ground his teeth, but he didn’t argue. Good. I could have told him he needed to stay here and let me do it, but even though that was logical, it was wrong. He needed this. Needed to defeat The Chaser, take him off the board and maybe drain some of CASE’s mojo along with it.

  I caught Simon eyeing me. It was a look of approval and respect, something I hadn’t seen before. I couldn’t take much pride in it, though. Maybe he was seeing me in a new light because of discovering that I was Eclipse. Or maybe he was seeing Eclipse differently now that she was out in the open. I just . . . didn’t think it mattered anymore. Not what he thought, or what CASE or Olive or the people in town thought.

  It was about time.

  “I have to admit,” I said after several seconds of no one speaking. “It’s nice to work with a team.”

  “It’s a damned good thing you didn’t say that until I got here,” Angie said from the front door. “I was the first one on the team, for cripes sake!”

  I went over and hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re here. Are you okay? You were exhausted last night.”

  She squeezed me and shook her head when I released her. “I’m fine. Just some short-staffing issues, and my voice got a bigger workout than usual yesterday, trying to get information.” She shook her head at our expectancy. “I got nothin’, guys, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” I swung around. “I’ve got a plan.”

  Chapter 16

  Conn and I walked into the police station and up to the front desk. I only vaguely knew the man on duty there. He wasn’t a library patron, and he seemed to mostly work days, so I hadn’t encountered him as Eclipse. His nametag said Shirazi.

  “Help you?” he asked disinterestedly, after raking his eyes over us.

  “I’m here to report an assault.” Conn raised his lacerated arm.

  Shirazi straightened. “When was this?”

  “Last night.”

  “Hold on.” He lifted the phone and pressed a few buttons. “Need you up front to take a report,” he told whoever answered.

  To my relief, a few minutes later, Sark walked out of a hallway. He halted when he saw it was us, then motioned us to join him. Shirazi bent to press something under the counter. The gate to the right buzzed and clicked, and Conn pushed through. We followed Sark back to a set of four cubicles, where Smith spotted us and stood.

  “What’s going on?”

  Sark jerked his head toward a meeting room and held the door as we filed in. It was kind of like a conference room, with a wood-laminate table and padded chairs, but the yellow cinderblock walls kept the atmosphere firmly in police station territory.

  “What’s this about?” Sark asked after he shut the door. We sat, me and Conn on one side, Smith on the other, but Sark stood against the wall, arms folded.

  “Harmony said she told you CASE is in town,” Conn said. “Did Evan Forgeron talk to you?”

  Sark nodded. “He left town pretty quickly after he got here, though.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him but bit my tongue. When I told him everything last night, he hadn’t mentioned that he already knew at least some of it. He gave me a straight, unrepentant look, and I tried not to be disgruntled. He didn’t owe me anything.

  I told them, “One of their high-value targets attacked Conn last night.”

  Sark straightened and Smith slid over a clipboard as Conn started to describe t
he fight. I explained what Simon had found out about Hameldon and Wiggins, Emeraud and the field, and then filled them in about my confrontation with Kyle and Wig, how they got my blood, and about the compounds Julie was analyzing and developing.

  Smith shoved his chair back a couple of inches, the scrape of metal on concrete rough and jarring. “Look, Harmony. Eclipse. Whatever. You shouldn’t be involved in any of this. It’s for law enforcement.”

  But he said it too forcefully, and he kept flicking his thumbnail against his other fingernails. Sark had leaned away from the wall, feet braced, and stood like a sentinel. Neither one of them had any clue how to handle this.

  “You have no grounds to do anything,” I reminded him. “You can’t tie Olive to the jewelry store explosion, and you didn’t even know The Chaser existed until now. Hameldon and Wiggins are untouchable at this point. All you could do is take our reports.”

  “We have her jacket,” Sark reminded me.

  “And is that circumstantial evidence enough to arraign her?” I already knew it wasn’t. “If I withdraw the charges from last night, you’ll have to let her go, right?”

  Sark relaxed his arms and braced his hands on his equipment belt. “So that’s your plan. Follow Olive to this chaser guy.”

  I knew he was a smart cop. Really glad he wasn’t a dirty one. “He’s telekinetic. We have a way to neutralize him. Then Evan’s task force can take him in. That will eliminate the threat to Pilton.” And to me and Conn. But to the cops, Pilton was the important victim. “We’ll still need to block Hameldon and Wiggins with the field, but that’s a future concern.”