I couldn’t help but smile. It was perfect. I crouched down behind the trees around Beast Queen’s hideout and waited. Once she got here, White Knight would charge in and tear the place apart. And while he was holding Queenie and her minion’s attention, I’d sneak in the back and grab Mary. And as a bonus, I’d get to see Dave again. There was absolutely no downside to this plan.
It probably wasn’t that long of a wait, but crouched in the dirt with a new mosquito bite every minute, it felt like hours. Eventually, a car’s headlights appeared in the distance, growing brighter and closer until wheels crunched the gravel of the driveway. There were two minds inside: one old and mean, and the other young and scared. Beast Queen got out first. The darkness cloaked her, but I knew what she looked like: a blonde, middle-aged woman in a khaki outfit that gave the impression she was about to go on a safari. She pulled a child out of the back seat and slammed the door behind her.
“This is the DSA!” White Knight shouted from behind her. “Put your hands in the air.”
Beast Queen answered him with gunshots, and Mary’s fear turned to terror as the woman nearly pulled her arm out of her socket dragging her inside the house. White Knight followed at a run, tore the front door off its hinges, and disappeared into the house after them. The dark windows lit up with flashes of gunfire, and loud roars erupted from inside. The sound silenced the chirping crickets and hooting owls, leaving the night unnaturally quiet.
Beast Queen could mind-control animals the way I could people, and from the sound of it, she had a whole menagerie in there. DSA agents were moving across the front yard, so I snuck onto the back porch, picked the sorry excuse for a lock, and slipped inside. A stench like a petting zoo hit me, and I gagged. Why didn’t Beast Queen keep her animals outside? Gross. Trying not to breathe, I moved through the kitchen toward the sounds of grunting and roaring. There was a large open foyer with a staircase on one side, the second story overlooking the first. And in the middle of the floor…
White Knight was fighting a bear. And a tiger. He was fighting a bear and a tiger. Well, “fighting” might have been too strong a word. He was trying to pry the mauling bear off of himself as gently as possible while the tiger gnawed on his leg. He was actually much gentler with them than he would have been with human opponents. No, that wasn’t fair. White Knight was always gentle when he fought normal people. He had to be, or he’d kill them.
My mouth opened to say hey, but I stopped myself. I wanted to talk to him, to tease him about his predicament. It felt like some kind of telekinetic force was pulling me toward him. “Longing” was the best word I could think of to describe the feeling, but I didn’t have time to waste on nonsense like that. Where was Beast Queen? She should’ve come past me on her way out the back door. I closed my eyes and expanded my senses, feeling minds upstairs. Upstairs? How was she planning on making her escape from upstairs?
Mary’s terror was easiest to home in on. Her eyes were squeezed shut, a hard wall against her back, and she trembled as she tried to make herself as small as possible. Something growled near her, and while I couldn’t see what it was through her closed eyes, a nightmarish black wolf haunted her thoughts. I tried to reach into Beast Queen’s mind, but it was too well-guarded. All I got was a vague sense of grim determination. But her hired muscle was much easier to read. He felt nauseated to the point of hurling. He didn’t mind watching her animals tear apart men, but a little kid…
My eyes snapped open. Beast Queen wasn’t trying to escape; she was going to kill Mary. She knew she’d been caught, so she wanted to hurt Mr. Lucifer. More than that, she wanted everyone to know she’d hurt Mr. Lucifer before she was sent to the Inferno. It was the only victory she had left.
Don’t kill her.
I ignored subtlety and assaulted her mind with the full force of my power. Shock met me, but her walls didn’t fall. All I’d done was let her know I was here. She’d have the wolf attack Mary any second now, and I couldn’t stop her.
The hired muscle. I found a voice that matched his conscience and put fast, frantic thoughts in his head. This is wrong. You can’t let her do this to a kid. He tried to look away from Mary cowering in the corner of the bedroom, but I forced his gaze back. You’re no saint, but only a monster would do something like this. Beast Queen’s gone too far.
He swallowed, staring as the wolf slowly approached Mary. Beast Queen had her arms crossed, a red-painted fingernail tapping impatiently against her bicep. The wolf’s ears twitched as she urged it to go faster.
Do you really want to be a part of this? You’re her accomplice. Do you think the judge will go easy on a child-killer?
The thought scared him enough to make him brave. He grabbed a lamp off the dresser and clubbed Beast Queen over the head with it.
The blow sent a jolt up his arm, and she hit the floor. The wolf paused and whined in confusion as her control over it vanished. The hired muscle sucked in a shallow breath, feeling a rush of terrified accomplishment. The cord dangled from the lamp still clutched in his hand.
Finish the job, I told him, but it was too late. The blow hadn’t knocked out Beast Queen. She rolled over, clutching her head, and her rose red lips pulled back in a silent snarl. The wolf’s snarl was louder, and the hired muscle tripped over his own feet as he backed away. Fear swallowed his mind. A black blur slammed into his stomach. It knocked the wind out of him, and his back hit the carpeted floor. He saw the ceiling, then a mouth full of sharp teeth—
I pulled out of his mind so fast that I stumbled back, hit the kitchen table, and knocked a glass to the floor. The man’s scream came from upstairs, and I touched my face, reassuring myself that the skin was still smooth and whole. Then I ran. A sane person would have run out of the house, but I was a supervillain. I wore a fancy mask and leather costume and shot bullets at heroes who I knew had unbreakable skin. Sanity wasn’t in the job description, so I ran past White Knight and rushed up the stairs.
I found Mary’s mind again, her fear overflowing like a gallon of liquid poured into a teacup. She was still curled up in the corner, too scared to move.
Run, I ordered. It kick-started her fight-or-flight response, and she dashed for the bedroom door. Beast Queen grabbed for her, but Mary’s fear-fueled speed was too much. She slipped past the woman and escaped into the open hall, where I finally saw her with my own eyes: a tiny girl in cute denim overalls, her face shining with tears. For a dizzying moment, I was looking at myself through her eyes at the same time I was looking at her through mine, but I quickly cut the telepathic connection.
Then the wolf burst out of the door behind her, and Mary screamed.
Chapter 11
I had pretty good instincts. If I didn’t, I’d be rotting in an extremely expensive coffin by now. Before I had time to complete a full thought, I’d drawn my gun and put two bullets in the wolf. The animal dropped with a thump, and Mary’s scream cut off. For a moment, there was silence. Then the wolf whined pathetically, and I felt a rush of guilt. My only choices had been to shoot it or let it maul Mary, so I couldn’t have done anything different, but still. It wasn’t the wolf’s fault Beast Queen had been controlling it.
I should put my next bullet in Beast Queen. That would make me feel better.
Mary looked at me, her young face scrunching up as if she was going to burst into tears, but she stopped herself. She was afraid to cry, afraid to draw attention to herself, afraid to do anything to make the strange woman in black angry the way the beast lady had gotten angry. Yeah, I was definitely going to empty my gun into Beast Queen. But first, I went down on one knee and gave Mary a gentle smile.
“It’s okay. I’m here to take you home.”
Mary let out a choked sob and ran into my open arms. I picked her up and nearly lost my balance. For such a small kid, she was heavy. I struggled to hold her with my left arm while not dropping the gun in my right. She buried her face in my shoulder, and that’s when I noticed Beast Queen crouched beside the wolf, her hand resting tenderl
y on its back. Her posture drooped in a way you wouldn’t expect from an ice-cold murderer. She turned her head, and our gazes met, emotions clashing like armies.
I fired off a shot a split-second after she dove back into the bedroom. Damn it. I needed cover. I ducked into the nearest room just as she returned fire. Too close. Had I been hit? Had Mary been hit? It didn’t feel like it, but sometimes adrenaline made it hard to tell. What now? The room I’d ducked into was a narrow bathroom. No other doors, and the window over the shower was too small for even Mary to climb through. I had to deal with Beast Queen, and I couldn’t get into a shootout while holding a six-year-old.
The bathtub. It wouldn’t stop bullets, but it was better than no cover at all. I reached it in three quick strides and set Mary down. But she didn’t let go of my neck. I grabbed one of her arms with my free hand, off-balance as I bent over the edge of the tub.
“Let go and stay here.”
She whimpered and clutched me tighter. This was costing too much time.
I used mind-control to make her release me and crouch down. Then I jerked up. Someone was behind me. I spun, gun in hand, knowing it was already too late. Beast Queen stood in the doorway, a smirk on her lips. She had her gun aimed at me.
Then the tiger hit.
It slammed into Beast Queen’s back and knocked her face first to the tile floor. Holy crap. She wasn’t getting back up after that. There had to be almost five hundred pounds of tiger on her. I tensed, waiting for the cat to get back up, but it didn’t move. Was it dead? No, it was breathing. A low, purring sound came from deep within its chest.
“Val!” White Knight shouted from the first floor. “Are you okay?”
I looked out the open doorway to see broken pieces from the wooden railing on the edge of the hall floor.
I stared. “Did—did you just throw a tiger?”
“Yes. Are you hurt? Is the girl hurt?” His footsteps pounded up the stairs.
Right. No big deal. White Knight must defeat his enemies with big cats all the time.
“We’re fine.” I nudged Beast Queen’s head with my foot. No reaction. “I think Beast Queen’s dead, though.”
White Knight didn’t reply, and I immediately regretted saying anything. He was the type of person who agonized over killing someone, even if that someone had just tried to feed a little girl to an animal. Speaking of which, I walked back to the tub where Mary was hiding. She was curled up in a ball, her arms clenched around her legs so tightly that the tendons jutted out.
“Hey there,” I said softy.
She looked up, and her dark, haunted eyes were like the ones I saw in the mirror every morning. I crouched down in front of her and smiled.
“Beast lady’s not going to bother you anymore. How about we get out of here, huh?”
She hesitated but couldn’t resist the first person to show her kindness in days. Sniffing, she held out her arms in the universal signal for “pick me up.” I holstered my gun and obeyed. By the time I’d stood and turned around, White Knight had reached us. He looked me quickly up and down, checking that I was telling the truth when I’d said I was fine. (Oh, all right, he was checking for weapons, too. But concern for my safety was first.) His gaze softened when he saw Mary, and when he looked back at my face, there was a slight question in his eyes.
“So I’m good with kids,” I said. “You don’t know everything about me.”
“Apparently not.” He sounded impressed. Typical. The poor man was all mixed up. The time I’d broken into Buckingham Palace and stolen the queen’s hat collection? Now that was impressive. Rescuing a little girl was so easy, a superhero could do it.
“By the way, I’m pretty sure tigers are endangered.” I climbed over the sleeping cat and Beast Queen’s body, taking the hand he offered to help. “There are probably laws against chucking them like footballs. And you knocked the poor thing out.”
“Actually, that was the tranquilizer dart.”
“Those things take forever to work, don’t they?”
“Longest five minutes of my life.”
Ah, the banter. I loved the banter. It was a shame it never lasted long. I made it over the bodies and out of the bathroom, and White Knight held out his arms. “I’ll take her from here.” He glanced at Mary.
I shifted, angling my body between him and her. “No, you won’t. I’m taking her home to her family.”
“You really think a visit to Mr. Lucifer is what she needs right now?”
So he knew who she was and why she’d been kidnapped. That saved me some explaining. “He’s her father. Who are you to stop me from taking her to him?”
“Nobody. I’m just some guy in a silly costume. The man from Child Protective Services outside is the one who gets to decide that.” His glare couldn’t quite stay entrenched on his face the way he wanted it to, and his voice softened. “I’d rather not fight you on this.”
“I’m not making you fight me. She’s my sister, Dave. I’m not going to let anything happen to her. Go check Beast Queen’s pulse or something, and I’ll leave.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
I spread out my senses. “You mean you wo—”
Screams came from the DSA agents on the front lawn. Then gunfire. White Knight’s whole stance changed. “Can you tell what’s going on?” he asked sharply.
“Seems Beast Queen had a panther, too. It’s not happy.” I tried not to sound too smug. “So you can waste time with me, or you can go save your backup from getting mauled.”
His jaw clenched. He was so cute when he was angry.
“I’m sure they’ve got it under control.” I put my hand to my chin thoughtfully. “How many minutes does it take for tranquilizer darts to work again?”
He dashed past me, and I waited until he’d made it out the front door before running down the stairs and heading for the back. Mary felt heavier than ever. I wouldn’t make it far on foot while carrying her. New plan: find the nearest car and get the heck out of here. It wouldn’t be long before White Knight figured out that there was no panther, and I’d just fooled the agents’ minds into seeing one. Then he was going to be really angry.
The thought made me smile as I vanished into the night.
• • •
I remembered.
Back in the here and now, I remembered who I was. I remembered Mary. I remembered everything. But I couldn’t do anything to help myself. Elisa wanted to know the address of Mary’s apartment, but telling her and Dave would be pointless. My sister would have moved me by now. But to where? Where was I? I was everywhere. I could feel every mind in the city, every thought, and it was as if someone had ripped off my eyelids and forced me to stare at the sun. It was wonderful and terrible and—
—and the cash register drawer popped open with a ding. Seriously, who paid for a ninety-nine-cent bag of chips with a hundred-dollar bill. I was running low on twenties—
—head against the lumpy pillow. I’d been so tired earlier, but now my thoughts just wouldn’t stop coming. Why—”
—beat pounded in my ears, and I downed the shot of tequila—
—kissed me, his lips—
No. Focus. I wasn’t them. I was me. I was Valentina Belmonte. But where was I? I couldn’t feel my body. Other people’s thoughts and emotions pulled at me from every side. I felt like a plume of smoke trying to stay together in the wind. If I didn’t make it back to myself soon, I’d be just another comatose telepath. Even if they found my body, Dave would have to make the decision to take me off life support.
Dave.
He was in the living room, watching Elisa pace back and forth as Irma tried Eddy’s phone again and again. Dave tried to stay still, but his right leg was twitching, his heel going up and down several times each second. His hands were in his lap because he’d break the arms of his wheelchair if he touched them, and though he was breathing steadily, the air didn’t seem to be filling his lungs. If something had happened to me… He imagined squeezing Mary’s arm until
her bones snapped, then stopped himself, disgusted with his thoughts.
He could be so romantic sometimes.
He gasped and looked around, squinting as though he was trying to see the air itself. “Val?” he whispered.
It’s me, I replied.
“Where are you?”
Not sure. Working on that.
“Mom?” Elisa asked.
Her emotions swung from worry to relief and back to worry again. Irma’s thoughts were more controlled as she looked around, drawing conclusions on what it meant that I was speaking telepathically when I wasn’t here. But anxiety came from all of them as though they shared a hive-mind, anxiety, hope, and dread. And then there was love, love for me at the root of all their current thoughts and feelings. It was so tempting to stay here with them, someplace warm and familiar. But I wasn’t here, not really, and if I wanted to be with them for real, then I needed to reconnect with my body.
“Wait,” Dave said.
I’ll be right back.
I forced myself away and tried not to get pulled under the sea of minds that bombarded me. The avalanche of countless emotions would have taken my breath away, if I could still feel myself breathing. (I really hoped I was still breathing, wherever I was.) I clung to what I’d felt with Dave, Elisa, and Irma, used my sense of self as a shield against the chaos of alien thoughts. I could do this. I’d trained to control my telepathy since I was a teenager. I wasn’t going to lose it now just because Mary had stuck me with a needle.
Mary. Amidst the ocean of minds, I sensed someone familiar. I reached for it, and suddenly, I was somewhere else. In a car. Mary was driving, a cherry-shaped air freshener dangling from her rearview mirror. Every fiber of her body buzzed with satisfaction, and she sang along with the catchy pop song playing over the radio. She tapped her fingers atop the steering wheel in time with the beat, her voice making up for in enthusiasm what it lacked in pitch. She was driving me somewhere. Where?
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