“Well, it’s good to know that someone is looking for answers.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let me give you a call once I’ve found it. How can I contact you?”
I began to give him the number for an unused burner phone I had tucked in my room when I heard the hiss of brakes. I paused and turned to my left, at the mouth of the alley, to see a dark-colored van pulling in. Looks like it was time to end this conversation. I quickly rattled off my number.
“Okay. That was 2—” Dana began.
The sound of screaming brakes filled the air. I snapped my head toward the entrance of the alley to see the van careening in our direction. Instinctively, I placed my hands on Dana’s shoulder and yanked us both to the side. The brakes screamed again, and I swear I felt the van brush against my billowing cape as we passed.
Phew. Now there was an injury I didn’t want to have to heal from.
“Not again.” Dana let out a groan.
I heard a click and turned around to see the passenger-side door swing open. A tall woman in a ski mask jumped out. So she wouldn’t feel lonely, the masked driver rolled down his window and pulled out a gun.
And before I had time to ponder, “Gee, that’s two weapons I’ve had pointed at me in the past week. That’s a new record!” the weapon discharged with a deafening bang.
Fortunately for me, aim apparently wasn’t this guy’s strong suit, allowing me to duck and shove Dana out of the way. I pushed him around the back of the van, away from the trigger-happy driver. The image of the back door to the restaurant held steadily in my mind. I needed to get Dana back inside. If he got hurt—
I caught sight of the woman in the mask, now standing between us and our goal. Dammit! Aren’t mindless thugs supposed to be a little more, well, mindless? We skidded to a halt right next to the two swinging doors at the back of the van.
The second we did, one began to swing open.
“No! No more bad guys!” I cried, slamming the door shut with a closed fist.
I could feel the metal crunch beneath my hand. Pulling back, I couldn’t help but notice a not-so-insignificant dent left behind.
I took a couple of steps back. How many other people were in the van? Would it be two enforcers and a driver just like Dana’s kidnapping?
Dana. I needed to get him out of here.
“Go,” I said, turning toward him. “Find help!”
I pushed my new hacker buddy toward the mouth of the alley. He stumbled, but complied, his legs moving as quickly as they could.
It was then that I heard the back door to the van click again. I turned around just in time to watch it open. On the other side was one of the biggest men I had ever seen. His face was covered in a ski mask, his hands gloved, upping the horror factor another notch. The tall woman pulled up next to him, a baseball bat at the ready. The driver, a little guy clearly dwarfed by his companions, stood a ways back and to the left, the gun still in his hand.
I raised my hands as if in surrender.
“Come on guys, can’t we just skip all this?” I asked. “Trust me when I say this really isn’t a good night for me.”
The driver raised the gun and fired.
Fortunately, he must have been a fan of bad cop shows because he discharged his weapon sideways. It jammed, leaving the question “how long does it take for me to recover from a gunshot wound?” for yet another day.
I couldn’t say I was too torn up over it.
The driver frowned and looked at his gun. Figuring that conundrum should keep him occupied for a little while, I turned toward the other two. Given that the large guy from the van had opted for charging at me like a bull, this was probably a good call.
I spun around and kicked him in the chest.
In a movie, the guy would have gone flying backward, right into the conveniently open doors of the van. They would close behind him, trapping him inside. Unfortunately, the lack of wire-work meant he just crashed into the doors. I had held back, of course, not wanting to crush the guy’s chest. I try to avoid potentially crippling injuries. He blinked, then crumbled to the ground.
Speaking of pain.
I felt the air rush out of my lungs as the tall woman with the baseball bat came up on my left and swung like she was going for a home run. On the inside, I was cursing myself for getting distracted by the big guy, but on the outside, it was pretty much, “Oh crap, oh crap, how do I breathe again?” The woman raised the bat over her head for another blow. I lifted my arm to protect my face. The wood hit my wrist instead. I heard a crunch and wasn’t quite sure how much of that came from the bat, and how much came from my now very unhappy wrist.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I stumbled backward. The woman with the baseball bat stalked forward. Her eyes, the only thing not covered by the mask, glinted with a sort of madness that would terrify most sane people, especially ones cradling an injured wrist to their chest.
Fortunately, the injury from the first blow was starting to fade.
The woman raised the bat above her head and swung it downward in what was sure to be another crippling blow. In response, I ducked low.
Keeping that hurt wrist close, I spun in a low sweeping kick, sending my attacker falling backward to the ground. She let out a cry, and I heard the wooden bat tumble onto the pavement.
I paused, taking in a single long breath, and felt relief wash over me as the oxygen came in and out easily again. The pain in my wrist faded from excruciating to just uncomfortable as it began to heal itself. Straightening up, I approached my attacker, who still lay on the ground, the annoyingly effective baseball bat now a couple feet to her left. I reared back and kicked the sporting equipment far away from my broken and bruised body.
I came down on one knee next to the woman, who was gasping in pain. Looked like she had gone down pretty hard.
“The Mistress will never let you get away with this,” she said, wheezing.
“Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint.” I put on my most cheerful smile before smashing the back of her head against the pavement, just hard enough to knock her out and give her one hell of a headache after the paramedics finished with her.
Okay. Two down. That just left the driver. Who was not standing by the van anymore.
Shit.
The sound of fast-moving feet grabbed my attention, and I spun around to see the guy sprinting after Dana, who had finally made his way to the end of the long alley, although he appeared to be coughing up a lung in a process. (Cigarettes? Not a good call for making a quick getaway.) Unfortunately, the driver was clearly in better shape, as he was already at Dana’s side.
So I broke into a run, then leaped.
For a couple of seconds, there was nothing but air beneath my feet.
Then I landed on the guy’s back, tackling him to the ground. He let out a groan beneath me.
“Okay,” I said, moving to my feet. “What the hell is going on?”
Not feeling like chatting with the back of the guy’s head, I flipped him over to make the process easier for both of us.
“Who is this Mistress?”
“I would never betray Her,” the man said, wincing in pain.
“Very honorable. What’s she to you, anyway?”
“Everything,” the man said, the word rushing out in one big breath of air.
I frowned and stood up straight, a thought forming in the back of my mind.
“What does she want with me?” Dana asked.
When the little guy didn’t answer him right away, Dana kicked him in the side. The guy, who probably had a couple of broken ribs by now, responded appropriately.
“Hey,” I said, pushing Dana backward. “We don’t do that.”
“Maybe you don’t—”
“And if you’re with me, you don’t either.” I gave Dana a serious look. “It’s one thing to disarm a threat, and another thing to torture him outright.”
“Ugh, I should have known you’d be one of those types of heroes. Why couldn’t I have gotten the Red
Bandit, or Batman?”
I resisted the urge to remind Dana that Batman (sadly) did not exist, and turned my attention back to the man on the ground.
“So, why do you want him?” I asked, pointing toward Dana.
“The Mistress asked for him,” the guy replied with gritted teeth.
“Does this have anything to do with the Forgers?”
He blinked.
“Who?” he asked.
And then the earth shook. I felt myself stumble slightly. Then I stumbled a bit more as the pavement cracked beneath my feet.
“Faultline,” I whispered.
My head snapped toward the source of the crack on the pavement, which jaggedly led down the entire alleyway. I looked up just in time to see a big guy at the end of it, ducking around the back of the restaurant.
I’d recognize that silhouette anywhere.
Breaking into a run, I jumped into the air, clearing most of the lengthy alleyway in a single leap. I hit the ground once more and jogged around the corner, ready to show that big, hulking monster that I wouldn’t go down so easily this time.
Only, no one was there.
Oh, there were several doors, and even a few windows he could have crept into, but where would I begin?
“Hey!” I heard Dana shout. “HEY!”
Shit. Had the little guy really been as hurt as I thought he had been? Had I just left the person I was supposed to protect with a dangerous kidnapper with a (albeit jammed) gun? I skidded around the corner and squinted down the alley. Dana was still there, but the little guy wasn’t.
“What happened?” I asked as I drew close to Dana, who was rubbing the back of his head.
“Some skinny kid in a ski mask sneaked up on me,” he said, gesturing toward the nearby street. “Took the other guy in some old car.”
Noel. I felt my eyes narrow. I had assumed that Faultline had once more arrived to play the role of big gun. Instead, he had been a distraction to cover their retreat.
I had managed to protect Dana once again, but I was no closer to knowing anything about this Mistress or the Forgers.
And on top of that, I had completely bailed on my date.
12
Alex
“How could you mess this up? The man was right there!”
The thing about anger is that you can usually see it coming. Maybe you pick up on the tension in someone’s neck, shoulders, or jawline. Or the frustration that begins to build up in their eyes. A lot of people don’t notice this, but as someone who’s had a fair amount of experience with it, I can usually recognize the signs.
When it came to Amity, I’m pretty sure you could be deaf and dumb and still have felt it radiating off of her the moment Noel and I stepped into Conference Room B. Amity stood next to the long conference table, her perfectly manicured fingers bent into claws. She glared, focusing all her rage directly at me.
The force of it was so powerful, you could almost miss Calypso, who sat in the chair behind her, hands folded in front of her face, starring off into the distance. I had thought she would turn on me, as she had with Sully, for allowing two of her drones to get snatched by the cops, but she had been silent the entire time. Noel stood close to the door behind me. He stared at the ground, his gaze occasionally creeping up to look Calypso in the face.
“Yeah, and I had three men down, and a Costume in between me and Peterson,” I replied.
“You didn’t seem to have such a hard time with Red and Black last time!”
“Last time, I had body armor and a freaking skyscraper! Neither of which were available to me!”
“Then what are you good for?” She spun toward Calypso. “Callie, I told you we shouldn’t have brought him in on this.”
What? I began to see lights flashing around the corners of my vision. Sure, I had failed, but I had kept two of Calypso’s drones safe, and there was still the chance that Peterson would show up for the benefit. It was a bad situation, but things weren’t any worse than before.
Kind of like my love life.
I had slipped into a basement window to escape the Red and Black Woman, an impressive feat that left me half-covered in cobwebs. After waiting for the coast to clear, it had taken me a few minutes to find my way up through the basement and back into the restaurant. Of course, by the time I made it back to the table, Dawn had already left.
I had to admit, I had been surprised when our annoyingly punctual waiter had told me that Dawn had left only five minutes before. That meant she had waited a good twenty minutes for me. Maybe even longer. And on top of that, while she had been nice enough to leave my food on the table in case I came back, she had paid for both our meals. It was clear she had assumed that I had ditched her.
As you might expect, it had been an embarrassing conversation. The fact that Clark was so goddamn chipper about it made it even worse.
While waiting for Noel to swing back around with my car, I spun out the token bullshit apology text. I had wanted to stay, but there was a family emergency and I was needed at home. She sent back that she understood, but I how was I supposed to know if she was being honest?
This was supposed to be my normal night out, dammit.
“What are your thoughts on the Red and Black Woman?”
I blinked as Calypso spoke up. She was looking straight at me, having regained a bit of her focus.
“We know the broad strokes so far,” she continued. “She is stronger than any person should be, can leap great distances, and, given her recovery from her recent fall, we can assume that she has accelerated healing abilities. You’ve encountered her twice now. Were you able to gain any more information?”
I frowned. I was flattered by the question, but I wasn’t sure how well I could answer it. Sure, I had been boxing for a while now, but I wasn’t an expert or anything. Of course, that didn’t mean I hadn’t picked up on a few things.
“She’s clearly used to being the strongest person in the room,” I replied. “To being able to punch her way through things. So she really just throws her weight around. It’s not like she has a lot of finesse to her style.” I paused, thinking back to how she had taken out that female drone with the low sweeping kick, then added, “Well, most of the time.
“One thing, though. She clearly knows how to use that strength of hers. Marty mentioned that she tore the door off one of our vans. She could be punching right through our men. But instead, she’s hurting them just enough to get them to stay down. Maybe that control is part of her abilities?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Powers don’t work like that,” Amity said with a snort.
“Well, how am I supposed to know that?” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
“Is that how your powers work?”
I frowned. She was right. It had taken me months just to get my abilities under control. And longer than that to figure out how to channel them effectively. But I had never even met another Empowered person until Calypso and Amity. How was I supposed to know there were standards?
“Is there anything else you managed to pick up on?”
“Hmm?” I turned back to Calypso. “Well, she’s really good about keeping her head in the game, or at least acting that way. She remains focused. Pushes through the pain. Keeps her priorities in order.”
Except for when she saw me, I couldn’t help but think. Leaving Dana alone in a potentially bad situation. That was worth noting.
“Where’d she come from, anyway?” I asked. “Had you heard of her before coming to Bailey City?”
Calypso shook her head, but it was Amity who answered, the anger in her voice dialed down to disgust. “She seemed to show up out of nowhere a couple of months ago. She laid low at first. Most people just caught her jumping around rooftops, but in the past couple of weeks she’s been…more overt. Her timing is awful.”
I nodded before speaking. “She has shown up at both Dana Peterson spots, and at the Commerce Center with Arthur Hamilton. Is it all a coincidence, or does she have additional abilitie
s we’re unaware of?”
“We won’t know that unless I get my hands on her,” Amity replied with a scowl.
I opened my mouth to speak, but changed my mind when Calypso rose from her chair. Without saying a word to us, she headed toward the door. Noel stiffened visibly when she approached. She paused in front of him. For a second, I thought she was going to say something. Thank him for his service? Curse him out for following my orders? I had no idea. But instead, she continued past him, heading down the hallway.
Amity murmured something under her breath before exiting the room. I let out a long sigh.
“Well,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I guess we dodged a bullet there.”
“Do you think She’s mad at me?”
I turned back to Noel, not needing to ask which “she” he was talking about.
“I dunno,” I said with a sigh. “I never know what’s going on in that head of hers.”
“But She confides in you?”
“Not really. I mean, she asks for my opinion sometimes, but I don’t think she confides in anyone. Not even Amity.”
Noel was silent for a moment, his eyes on the ground again. Then he looked up at me.
“Why’d you tell me to get Barry?”
It took me a second to realize that Barry had been the drone Noel had picked up and taken away in my car.
“Well, it seemed smarter for me to be a distraction, as my abilities can be used from far away and—”
“No,” Noel said. “Why did you tell me to get Barry instead of Peterson?”
I blinked. Why had I made that call? It had made sense at the time. Barry didn’t deserve to be left there to be picked up by the police, and Calypso had been awful upset about the Martha thing. Not to mention…
“Is it because you didn’t think I could take him?” Noel asked.
Noel raised his chin as he spoke. The aggressive movement looked well…kind of ridiculous on him. I let out a sigh.
“It was a split-second decision in a tense moment. I just—”
“Assumed I was worthless.” Noel spun in place, reaching back to knit his fingers together behind his head. “That I would just get my ass kicked. That I wouldn’t be able to serve Her like I should.”
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