by Lexie Dunne
But now somebody had Dr. Mobius and knew that somebody at Davenport would be willing to try to save him.
“Did they send this video straight to you?” I asked Kiki.
Angélica, Brook, and Kiki all turned to look at me in surprise.
“Well?” I asked.
Kiki shook her head. “No, to Davenport in general. Eddie brought me in on this one because of my family ties.”
I wrinkled my nose. The CEO of Davenport Industries and I had a few issues with each other. They involved me telling him to go have sex with a goat, and him taking away my rights and sending me to prison. One time I’d puked on his shoes. It had been a highlight.
“Eddie also authorized Brook’s temporary release,” Kiki continued. “She doesn’t have to participate—”
“Let him die,” Brook said. “In fact, find him and I’ll take care of it myself. Hell, I’ll do it for free and then I’ll fly myself back to Detmer for the extended sentence. Happily.”
“What is it with that place?” Guy asked under his breath.
I hadn’t gotten around to telling him that Detmer was more day spa than prison, but now wasn’t the time to get into it.
Kiki cleared her throat. “Lodi was forcing Mobius—”
“I don’t give a damn! He let them do this to me!” Brook said.
“And when he escaped, he took you with him,” Kiki said.
“That doesn’t make up for any of it.”
“They can commute your prison sentence,” Angélica said, her voice neutral. Brook knew I had Mobium—she’d discovered it when I’d proven immune to her angry stinging-bee beams—but she had no idea that Angélica did, too. “Dr. Mobius would be a valuable asset. If you or Gail get sick, he may be the only person who could help.”
“Like I give a damn about Gail getting sick,” Brook said.
“Right back at you,” I said, and Brook glared at me. “But I’ve got the upgraded, more stable version of Mobium he probably didn’t want to give to Lodi. How long before you start breaking down into itty-bitty pieces?”
I didn’t need superhearing to catch the obscenity Brook muttered at me. “That man should die,” she said. “I want no part in saving him.”
“What if I offer a trade?” Guy said, lifting his head.
“There’s nothing you have that I want,” Brook said, shifting her glare from me to him. “Nothing your brother has, either, so don’t even try.”
“Not him,” Guy said, and this time the falling sensation in my stomach came from an entirely new source. I was not, I realized, going to like whatever he was about to say. “But Petra—”
Brook’s hands clenched into fists. Petra Bookman, her best friend from high school and Guy’s older sister, had been missing a year longer than she had. Everybody had thought Brook was dead. Nobody was sure Petra was. Sam had devoted his life to finding Petra, at the expense of Brook, who’d been kidnapped and had wound up at Lodi Corp when Sam had failed to save her. Since Sam had been the reason she’d been in trouble in the first place, I didn’t blame her for hating his guts.
“You want to find her, don’t you?” Guy asked. Brook’s fists began to shake, but Guy’s eyes remained steady on her face.
“Guy,” I said. I really didn’t like where this was going.
“You go along, help us retrieve Mobius, and we can look for her together,” Guy said.
Brook’s face was completely unreadable.
“Can I have a word?” I asked Guy, grabbing his wrist and pulling him to his feet with my not inconsequential strength. “Outside? In the hallway? We’ll just be a minute.”
I figured Kiki and Angélica could handle Brook in her current state. If not, well, we had bigger problems. Luckily, the hallway outside was completely empty of other Davenport staff, including the guards we’d kicked out of the room. I whipped around to look at Guy. “Do you have a death wish?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Guy, that woman has a berserker switch that could go off at any second and it’s definitely tripped by all things Bookman. Isn’t that just a tiny bit disconcerting for you?”
“It’s not exactly something that gives me the warm fuzzies,” Guy said, frowning. “But she wants nothing to do with rescuing Mobius, and we need her.”
“I barely want anything to do with rescuing Mobius,” I said, “and he held her captive for a hell of a lot longer than he did for me. That doesn’t mean you should offer to go on a wild-goose chase.”
“It might not be a wild-goose chase,” Guy said, but he didn’t look like he really believed the words coming out of his mouth.
“Weren’t you telling me Sam lost years of his life looking for Petra?” I asked.
“I’m a lot more levelheaded than my brother,” Guy said. “Are you upset about that or upset I didn’t consult you before making that offer?”
“I can be upset about multiple things,” I said, as that was definitely the truth. “But in this case, I’m a little upset you didn’t mention to me that you were thinking about working with the woman who nearly killed you, and who did in fact kill Angélica for a little while.”
“She needs some closure about Petra,” Guy said, though he looked pained.
“Petra doesn’t even make top ten on Brook’s list of issues, and she might never get closure. You might never get that, either, and on top of disappointing both of you, that could send her around the bend again. You do realize that, right?”
“Trust me, if there’s one thing I do understand, it’s that,” Guy said, and he had a point. He’d had to live with the reality of his missing sibling for all of these years. “But she’s not going to agree any other way.”
“Is that such a bad thing? Dr. Mobius is not a good guy, remember?”
“You’re just going to let a kidnapped man stay kidnapped, Gail?”
I wrinkled my nose because he had a point. People being held captive and ransomed were my own personal hang-up. “Ugh! Why do you have to be right?”
Guy laughed and folded me into a giant hug.
“I’m kicking him in the nuts as soon as we rescue him,” I said.
“Fine by me,” he said.
I leaned back enough so that I could poke him in the chest. “And if you’re going with Brook, I’m going with you. I don’t trust her. Not negotiable.”
He gave me a genuinely surprised look. “I thought you were going to, anyway?”
“Oh,” I said, my shoulders visibly deflating. “Okay, then. Be sensible about it.”
He kissed the side of my head. “Always.”
But before we could go back in, I grabbed his wrist. “Wait, do you even know where to begin searching for Petra?”
Guy looked at the floor, not meeting my eyes. “I may have looked into some things over the years.”
“You don’t have, like, one of those TV show conspiracy boards with the strings and everything, do you?”
“No. Nothing that extreme. Just some files, and having some fresh eyes on those might help. Brook hasn’t agreed yet. I doubt she will, actually.”
I squeezed his wrist. Thankfully, he was pretty much indestructible, as I sometimes had a hard time judging my new strength.
“I’ll do it,” Brook said the second we walked back into the room. Her eyes were suspiciously wet and I noticed that a couple more pieces of the TV had been shattered. Angélica also looked far more annoyed than she had when we’d left.
I pulled up short. “Seriously?”
“I don’t want anything to do with Mobius when we find him. You leave me alone in a room with him, I will kill him.” Her voice stayed deathly calm.
If nothing else, statements like that explained why she was currently in prison.
“Got it,” Kiki said, looking a little weak-kneed with relief. “You won’t have to deal with him. Y
ou just have to help us get him back.”
“In exchange for looking for Petra,” Brook said, glaring at Guy.
“You’ve got my word on that,” he said. He held a hand out to shake and I wanted to roll my eyes at him. Didn’t he understand where Brook’s powers originated?
Luckily, she only shook his hand. “Then let’s do this.”
I had a very bad feeling about this.
But that wasn’t unusual, really. Not with my life.
CHAPTER 4
The worst part about hostage situations—that brief, pants-wetting moment of terror at the beginning aside—wasn’t the threats or even the pain or listening to the villains lose themselves in the poetry of their own terrible soliloquies. No, years and years of dealing with the villains of Chicago had taught me that there was something far worse: waiting.
It was bad enough as a hostage, hanging out and anticipating that moment Blaze would come flying in, fists up and ready to face any number of weapons to come save me. Granted, I’d had my coping methods, which had been primarily daydreaming about all the TV I’d catch up on in the hospital. On the other side of the equation, waiting for the ransom call to come in, it was ten times worse.
“Gail,” Angélica said, and I got the feeling she was laughing at me—because she was; it was one of her favorite things to do. “It’s been less than a day. This is . . . what would you say? Peanuts. This is peanuts compared to what we usually deal with.”
“I know.” I hit the punching bag with a fluttering combination, pulling my punches because I didn’t want to destroy Angélica’s equipment. Her gym, the Power House, was theoretically equipped for Class Cs, but I’d destroyed a punching bag the day she’d opened and she had yet to forgive me. “It’s the lack of information I hate most. Who’s doing this? Why? Where’s Mobius been? Why is this happening now?”
“Mm,” Angélica said.
“And I know—” I hit the bag again, a little harder, and she continued to brace it “—Davenport won’t share any info. The only reason either of us know about this at all is because of Guy.”
“And Kiki, don’t forget.”
I sneaked a glance at my trainer and roommate out of the corner of my eye. If I had complicated feelings about Dr. Mobius, my creator, Angélica’s own thoughts on Kiki had to be a mess. Kiki had been the one to give her the Mobium, in order to save her life. Angélica still had her original powers, but they interacted strangely with the Mobium, and she didn’t use them as much now. I knew it frustrated her, but she never complained. Not to me, anyway. Even though we’d cut ties with Davenport, she still viewed our relationship the way she had while we were there, with the same determination to see me succeed and also to protect me. But how much of that loss did she blame on Kiki? Or did she blame Kiki at all? I’d never been able to tell.
Midafternoon on a Saturday meant the gym was semipacked. Angélica had used some start-up capital to gut an older warehouse not far from our apartment. She’d set up several boxing rings next to speed bags, punching bags, and weight training equipment. She had a room dedicated to treadmills and ellipticals, one I didn’t use as often. Now that I could run for ages, I preferred to be outside, sneakers pounding against the pavement and the wind in my hair. But I made plenty of use of the rest of the gym, particularly the boxing rings. Usually with Angélica herself.
I hit the bag, a one-two punch followed by an uppercut, and danced back. “Seriously, though, why now?”
“I have no idea, Gail,” Angélica said.
“No theories?”
“They’d be theories and nothing more, and not actually all that satisfying.”
I wrinkled my nose at her. “You’re being all Mr. Miyagi levels of inscrutable today.”
“Am I?”
“I’m just saying, you’re maybe taking this mentor thing a little far. Theatrically so.”
“Mm,” Angélica said, and I threw a wild punch at her forehead.
She dodged easily and laughed. “You’re too easy.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Now can we talk about what’s really bothering you?” Angélica asked.
I scowled and hit the bag hard enough to make it swing lazily, even with Angélica bracing it. “I’m worried about Guy. I don’t like him working with Brook. She’s dangerous. And no, before you say anything, I am not jealous that my boyfriend’s working with another woman.”
“Considering his usual crime-fighting partner is an actual supermodel and that never seems to bother you,” Angélica said, “I didn’t think you were. Of course, I might change my mind, since jealousy is the first place your brain went. Are you jealous?”
“No,” I said, jabbing first at the bag and then at her.
She dodged. “You sound a little jealous. Maybe it’s not Brook you’re jealous of, but Guy.”
The idea was so absurd it made me laugh. “What the hell?”
She tried to sweep my legs out from under me. I blocked and made my counterattack, which drove her back a foot. Twenty seconds later, she had me in an armlock. “Hey, I’ve heard what prison roommates sometimes get up to. Just saying.”
“Oh my god, I hope you’re joking.” I tapped out and squared off against her again, waiting for the inevitable attack. Angélica believed in turning any situation into a learning opportunity for sparring, even making scrambled eggs in the kitchen at two in the morning. Admittedly, food had proved to be a good motivator in that case.
Right now, though, she didn’t strike. Instead, she sighed at me. “What are you doing, Gail?”
“Hopefully kicking your ass.”
The snort and the reproachful look really didn’t go well together, but Angélica tried. “You’re a perfectly capable fighter,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and looking down her nose at me. She was only, like, an inch taller than me, so it was an impressive feat to pull off. “You need to be working on something else, and we both know it.”
I scowled and stretched. “I really don’t feel like repeatedly jumping off a roof right now.”
“You landed in a dumpster. That doesn’t inspire you to work on your phasing?”
Phasing was difficult and it felt more impossible to control than ’porting, which I actually could not control at all. To phase, I needed to be in motion to start, and it was a matter of altering my momentum to “throw” me farther and faster than I could move regularly. A skilled phaser like Angélica made it seem like ’porting by moving from one side of a large space to another in the blink of an eye. I kicked the toe of my sneaker against the ground in annoyance. “I’ll get it eventually.”
“Not unless you work on it. Right now would be a good time.”
“Work on what?” said a new voice behind me.
I straightened up to my full height—as paltry as it was—and swiveled on my heel. “Nothing important.”
Jessica Davenport raised an eyebrow at me. “Your trainer doesn’t seem to think it’s ‘nothing important.’ ”
“Thank you,” Angélica said, but I could tell she’d gone stiff, like she was wary.
That made sense. As the daughter of Kurt Davenport, Jessie owned half of Davenport Industries and was therefore one of the richest women in the world. She’d inherited more than money from her father—Kurt Davenport was also the original Raptor. He was dead now, but the mantle had been passed down to the woman picking her way across Angélica’s cramped gym.
If there was anybody in the room to be wary of, it would be her.
“No, really, it’s nothing. I can work on it later,” I said to Jessie. I’d gotten to know her when she’d hunted me down after my escape from Detmer. She’d also rescued me from Cooper—but only after using me as bait to find out what he was up to. Our relationship status on all social media networks remained firmly in the “Complicated” zone. I didn’t consider her an enemy, b
ut we weren’t exactly friends. “What brings you to Chicago? Miss me that much?”
Jessie actually looked partially amused, for once. “I assure you, any day without you is one I consider that much dimmer.”
“Is that Wordsworth?” I asked.
“Not quite.” She turned to look at all of the activity around us. “Audra kicked me out of my base for the morning. She said that I was annoying her, so I thought I might see if you were up for a bit of sparring.”
I squinted at her. “Your assistant has the power to kick you out?”
“It’s never wise to cross the woman who knows your social security number better than you do. You mind?” She nodded at the nearest ring.
I glanced over my shoulder at Angélica, who’d been weirdly silent. She gave me a shrug.
“Sure, I guess,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and hauled myself over the ropes in one easy motion. I’d sparred with Jessie before, the second time she’d dropped by to scope out the Power House. The first time Jessie had dropped by, it had been a shock. After all, Angélica’s gym was small-time, and Jessie was the Raptor, one of the scariest people I knew. I still had no idea what her powers were. At least sparring with her would give me another chance to figure it out.
Angélica surprised me by jumping up on the edge of the ring and grabbing my hoodie, tugging me back to the ropes. “Remember, it’s just sparring. Pull your punches.”
“Yes, Mr. Miyagi.”
She cuffed the back of my head and called me a rude word in Portuguese, but she smiled.
Jessie climbed through the ropes on the other side, movements a little slow. When she didn’t wrap up her hands, I sighed and began to unwrap my own. I preferred gloves on, but Jessie called the shots.
With anybody else, I might have made a crack about the loser buying the beer. I wasn’t nearly that comfortable with the Raptor.
“So what are you avoiding, Ms. Godwin?” Jessie asked.
“You really can just call me Gail, you know. I don’t mind.”
Jessie only gave me a small ghost of a smile.