He shuffled his foot a little closer. She raised her eyebrow as she waited. He had no demands, nor did he seem like he was in any hurry to begin beating her.
“Normally people torture to get information.”
“Not this time.”
She had misgauged the man. She expected him to be the big brother of the group. The defender, the righteous one. She had no idea why, but for some reason, for a man who could sling lightning like a baseball, she just assumed he’d be the stoic member of their team. She paused at the thought.
She looked down to his foot. Inches away, the water pooling under her chair worked its way toward the human battery. She looked up, her face showing the first bit of panic.
He smiled.
“What do you want?”
“Revenge.”
As the water touched his foot, the sparks flew, rippling along the surface of the water. The electricity jumped from one small river to the next until it reached the water running down her bare legs. She clenched her eyes shut as the first jolt touched her skin.
Jasmine screamed.
Chapter Eighteen
May 19th, 2032 9:22PM
“I could start breaking her limbs.”
Even though the girl was speaking, Jasmine never broke eye contact with the man in front of her. The girl was more talk than not, her mouth her second most dangerous weapon. He didn’t speak at first, letting his sister do the talking for both of them. Instead, he locked her stare, his face showing no emotion.
He kneeled in front of the captive, making sure there was no point of contact between them. “If we were going to resort to torture, Skits, I’m sure I could find a way to make her scream.”
Jasmine relaxed her muscles as they continued twitching. She tried to ignore the pain still radiating throughout her body or the darkened burn marks along her legs. He had proved a point.
“She smells like she pissed herself.”
Dwayne continued staring at the woman. His straight face gave way to a slight grin. She knew underneath the calm exterior he was far more dangerous than she initially thought. He was more than willing to take whatever measures were necessary to get a job done.
Skits stopped talking to watch the exchange between her brother and the woman. She had no idea what was going on, but she caught the Paladin’s eye. The soldier was scared.
“What do you want from me?” asked Jasmine, exhausted and tired of playing games.
“Who’s asking the questions?” Skits barked.
Dwayne waved his sister off. He stood in front of the woman, looking down at their prisoner. “You’re the infamous powered Paladin. We haven’t been properly introduced. We’re the Nighthawks, Children just like you.”
“Like me? You’re nothing like me. You’re vigilantes. You think you’re above the law. You killed—”
“You’ve sold out your own kind,” Alyssa said, stepping into the room. The Middle Eastern woman walked closer to the others. Jasmine was still unsure what her gifts were. “You’ve hunted us like dogs. You are not above us, Paladin.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes.
“Bitch,” Alyssa said, punching her.
Jasmine turned with the blow and looked back at the girl. “Savages,” she said. She spit blood onto the floor and flexed her wrists, feeling the plastic continue to cut into her skin. She had already felt the fury of the Middle Eastern girl; she could only assume what the two girls would do if left alone with her. She had a feeling they wouldn’t be as controlled as their male counterpart had been.
He leaned in, bringing his face closer to hers. “My sister wants nothing more than to light up her hand till it’s red hot. Then she’ll take it and slide it along your skin, peeling the flesh from your bones. You’ll wish you were dead, but it’ll cauterize your wounds almost instantly. You’ll live until your heart gives out. So do not test me, Paladin.”
She didn’t reply.
“I think we understand one another.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Why were you after us?”
“I was given orders. I’m a soldier. I do not disobey my orders.”
“You came with a jet and two mechs for backup. Nothing about that seems like protocol.”
“Humans can’t enter the Danger Zone.”
“And the mechs?”
She started to talk and stopped, pondering the situation after the fact. It was standard procedure for her to have mech backup if she went into the Danger Zone. Their intel had revealed there was a massive firefight. They had even seen the angel on their surveillance. Even if her entire team had gone, they would also have taken half a dozen mechs. Her cockiness had prevented her from asking why she was underequipped for the mission.
“I…I don’t know.”
“How long before they come for you?”
She thought about the laser trying to bore through her back. The muscles ached as she thought about them. “I was set up for termination.” As she said it out loud, she wanted to scream. If her throat hadn’t already been sore, she would have begun yelling. The general had sent her in with obsolete tech. The military had never intended for her to walk out. She had been a sacrifice, tossed to the wolves to show their capabilities.
“I’d terminate you,” Skits mocked.
Conthan strolled through the door. As he stepped to the side, Jasmine could see the Angel of the Outlands. She was smaller than expected, almost appearing dainty compared to the others. Jasmine wondered how much of her demeanor was real and how much was the angel affecting her brain.
“She’s telling the truth. They were going to kill her.”
“Telepath,” Jasmine hissed.
“You were sent to be killed,” Vanessa explained. “The question is, why? Why not just reach into your head, pull the kill switch, and destroy your brain?”
Jasmine flinched at the obvious reading of her thoughts. “Stay out of my head, telepath.”
“Try not thinking so loudly,” Vanessa replied, her eyes almost as intense as the man’s. “Why not just kill you?”
Jasmine thought about it. At any point they could have pulled the trigger. Even with her powers imprinting the densest material on her skin, her brain was still vulnerable. She played back the battle and tried to think of what would have made them rely on the mechs instead of the small bomb at the base of her skull.
“Me,” Dwayne said.
“What?”
“I hit you with enough electricity to light up the city. What if the trigger broke?” The comment about electrocution didn’t escape her.
He made sense. The general would have fried her the first opportunity he got. He supported her as long as she served his purposes. However, he made it well known that he would kill her the moment she got out of line. Jasmine avoiding meeting the man’s eyes. The irony was not lost on her. The same Child who saved her life was the one threatening to end it.
“The general giving the orders, he sent me on the mission. He’s the one who would have controlled what mechs went with me. He’s also the first person to offer to kill me. His scientists want to open me up and see what makes me tick.
They all looked at Vanessa. “She’s telling the truth.”
“What do we do with her?” Skits asked.
“Cut her free.”
Skits’s arms went up, stopping everybody in the room. The girl put herself between the prisoner and the rest of the people in the room. “She tried to kill us! What’s to say she’s not going to turn around and try to do it again?”
“The enemy of my enemy,” Vanessa said. “I believe Jasmine has every intention of surviving. I also believe she has every intention of killing the man who set her up to die.”
“Stay out of my head, witch,” Jasmine growled.
“We’re her best chance of survival and we’re her best chance of revenge,” Vanessa said. “Right now there is an entire army wanting her dead. We’ve been at this longer, she needs us.”
“To hell with you.” Jasmine s
pat more blood from her mouth.
Vanessa stepped up close to Jasmine, who recoiled as she reached out. Jasmine struggled against the restraints. Vanessa grabbed both sides of her head, leaned in, and stared into the Paladin’s eyes.
“Out of my head,” Jasmine snarled. She recalled the training manual on dealing with telepaths. She tried to fill her mind with useless information. She thought back to math classes and science equations. Without warning her mind turned to the girl from earlier in the day.
Jasmine watched as the girl ran crying down the hallway. The cosmos had played a cruel joke on the child, and now she was an outlaw. Jasmine thought about the general in her ear at that moment, knowing everything that had been said. Her mind turned to the girl, how she should have stayed and escorted her to safety. Now, she would never know if the girl would survive puberty.
Vanessa let go of her head. Jasmine could see the smile in the eyes of the telepath. “That’s why you’re with us, Jasmine. Each of us has a past filled with questionable moments, but each of them have a common purpose. Somewhere underneath your need to survive, you’ve found your humanity again.”
Vanessa stepped back, ignoring the tears beginning to well up in the soldier’s eyes. Vanessa thought of the small girl she had saved. She wondered if there had been anybody in Jasmine’s life who tried to save her. Vanessa turned and walked out of the room. “Free her, then meet me in the bar.”
Conthan stepped away from the telepath as she passed by, storming out the door.
***
Conthan chased after Vanessa and emerged in the lobby of the hotel. He followed her through the once elegant space and caught the door as she moved at a brisk pace. “What did you do to her?
He had seen her assert her powers, but she had never been so direct in manipulating another person. He knew this was a war and there would be casualties. Somehow this intrusion seemed far crueler than killing another person. He looked at the soldier as she tried to rebuild the walls protecting herself from her own emotions. He couldn’t help but think maybe God’s creations were not the innocent cherubs he once believed they were.
Vanessa spun around and stared at him. “I do what has to be done. I do what nobody else can do. If that means violating the most sacred of private thoughts, then so be it. My job is to keep those in my ward safe.”
He was impressed with her anger. It was the first real emotion she had shown. She had been cryptic, reserved, and even deceitful with her feelings, but this was real. He held up his hands to show his surrender.
“I didn’t ask why,” he said. “I asked, what did you do?”
Her wings appeared out of nowhere and her skin began to turn a sickly green. He observed, but pushed thoughts from his mind, trying to hide his shock from the telepath. He couldn’t ignore it. He could hear her taking deep breaths and as fast as her image shifted, it returned to the golden-haired woman. She could see him staring and it didn’t require powers to know what he was thinking. “Conthan…”
“What did you do to her?” he asked, again keeping to the subject.
“She’s angry, so filled with rage. I can still feel it in the pit of my stomach. It lingers on me like the smell of cheap cigars. She wants blood.” Her muscles relaxed as a calm washed over her body again. She straightened her back and let out a breath, imagining the negativity leaving her lungs. “But it has nothing to do with us. Somebody she tried to help didn’t make it.”
“That made her break down?”
“She’s been forced to hunt her own. Her cause, once righteous, has been twisted until the powers that be buried her so deep she was forced to be a puppet. It was kill or be killed, and the weight of every decision just came bubbling to the surface.”
“Harsh.”
She turned around and continued to the bar. “This is war.”
***
The man stepped up, pulling out a blade. Jasmine flinched as he crouched before her legs, cutting the rope. He made sure the blade didn’t touch her skin. Next he stepped behind her and dragged the blade along the rope binding her wrists. It wasn’t an hour ago he attempted to kill her. Now, with a simple command from the telepath, he submitted to her words, she thought to herself.
“You do whatever she says?”
Dwayne stopped cutting. “We don’t follow her blindly, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“How do you know she’s not controlling you?”
Skits scowled. Jasmine imagined the anger, the heat she carried, was almost as intense as the plasma she could create. She looked at the other girl and was surprised to see she was calm.
“I owe Vanessa my life,” Alyssa said bluntly.
“How?”
“She saved me from slavers,” Alyssa said. “If it wasn’t for her, I’d be a whore for some rich man.”
Jasmine had never encountered people who peddled in Children of Nostradamus, but the military was well aware they existed. Jasmine was impressed with her fighting, but she wasn’t sure how that would make her a target for prostitution. She studied the young girl, her skin an off-white. “You’re from the Middle East?”
Alyssa nodded. “And I would have been forced to use my powers to adapt to some pimp. So right now, I follow Vanessa. She’s done nothing that makes me question her.”
“How do you adapt?”
“Visual stimuli.”
Jasmine processed the information. She finally understood how the woman was such a keen fighter and why she hadn’t been prepared for their first encounter. She must have learned new fighting methods between battles. She might not be able to wield lightning, but the gift was impressive.
Jasmine’s hands were free. Her first instinct was to assault the man with the lightning. He wouldn’t be able to use it in such a small room with the others present. He would come at her with the knife. The wound it’d make would be a small price to let the metal touch her skin and alter her density. The fighter wouldn’t be able to move in the space. Her close-quarters combat skills may prove difficult to overcome on the field, but here, a single hit would quiet her.
Then there was the other girl. Jasmine could already see her hands were glowing blue. “I would kill you before you had the chance to move.”
The teen was looking for an excuse to kill her. Jasmine wasn’t surprised there was animosity, but the sheer anger in her face was startling. She remembered harboring hatred like that, disgusted with the world for the hand fate dealt. She wanted to be mad, but even the man sending shocks through her body was attempting to protect his people. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be a member of the community, but until she got revenge on the people who tried to kill her, she would bite her tongue.
“Truce,” Jasmine said.
“So you think.”
Dwayne held up his hands. “Skits, back down.”
His voice had a commanding tone. Jasmine had witnessed him come full circle in the last hour. He had been willing to trade in his humanity to force secrets from her lips. He had been the lapdog to the telepath, and now, he was the keeper of peace. She was beginning to see this group was far more complex than the military had ever considered. Jasmine eyed the man and the youngest girl and the similarities were obvious. “Siblings?”
Dwayne nodded. “My one and only.”
Jasmine continued to think of the general. What she wanted was to see him and his band of scientists nailed to crosses. She rubbed her wrists as she dwelled on how difficult it would be to break into a military base and target one man. They would have revoked her access already, considering her a threat to national security. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it might as well be. In front of her, she had the tools to make it happen. The telepath, the teleporter, the heavy hitter and the stealth—between the entire group, they could achieve it. At that moment, she realized why they worked so well together.
“My gear?” she asked.
Dwayne shook his head. “We brought you something a little less…” he pointed to the rags on the small table “…tactical. We appre
ciate the change of mind, but nobody calls us fools.”
Jasmine was discovering this operation wasn’t filled with mindless, rogue Children of Nostradamus. She began to wonder how the group had been brought together. It was unusual for so many to gather in one location, let alone stay together. Up to this point the largest “nest” had been four. The small troupe had spent more time fighting amongst themselves than the Paladins. This group, however, seemed to be a delicate balance of personalities and abilities.
Alyssa opened the door out of the basement. “Study us all you want, Paladin. You’re getting your free pass. Next time you cross us, we’ll kill you.”
Jasmine was sure they’d try. “We all adapt,” she warned.
She pulled the sweatpants over her jumper and then the hoodie. There was no material on the clothing for her to sync with her powers. Dwayne tossed some sandals on the floor. “Welcome to New England.”
She slid the sandals on her feet and tucked her hands into the pouch of her hoodie. The stairs led to a small office and then the lobby of an old hotel. She was surprised to see the interior was in relatively good condition. Outside of the building the street wasn’t nearly as well kept. Cars were littered about, flipped over, all of them scorched reminders of the many fires that broke out in the city. Solitude wrapped around her. The sense of emptiness was palpable in the air, tasting of sorrow and loss.
“You live here?”
“The Danger Zone is the only place humans can’t follow us. For now, at least.”
“Mechs?”
Dwayne pointed down the street. A solitary mech stood there, its legs severed, looking like they were sliced with a hot knife. She could see the scorch marks across its body. She was impressed with the constant defense these Children must be employing to stay alive. “Frequent?”
“Not anymore,” he said. “We assume they realized they were sending them to be destroyed and the government couldn’t accept the cost anymore.”
Nighthawks (Children of Nostradamus Book 1) Page 20