Strikeforce (Book 4): Day's End

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Yeah, as long as he’s got a gun to his head,” he grumbled. “You hated Detroit UnPowered just as much as anyone. He’s still that guy.”

  I shrugged. “He is. But nobody likes being made a fool of, and Killjoy and the Giannotti family definitely did that. He’s taking it personally.”

  “Plus he likes you,” Ryan said.

  I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrow at him.

  “That’s not jealousy or anything like that. It’s a fact. And you even said you guys started a little something before we knew who he was. So he likes you as a person. As he should.”

  I laughed. “Nice save. I thought I was going to have to smack you for a minute there.”

  He shook his head. “Fine. Go on. I’ll just stay here. Alone,” he said with an exaggerated sigh, and I planted a quick kiss on his lips before heading for the door. “That was supposed to convince you to stay,” he called as he flopped down on my couch.

  “Ooh. You’ll have to try harder next time, huh? See you later,” I called, and I heard him laugh as I closed the door behind me.

  Chapter Two

  When I got down to the training room, Max (code name: Monster) was there, but he was pulling on his mask and gloves.

  “I thought we were training today,” I said.

  “We were supposed to. I have to go out with Portia, because the new girl backed out again.”

  I scrunched up my face, thinking. “The new girl? Which one?”

  “The one you and Caine brought in from the university that time,” he said. He finished pulling his gloves on and started walking toward the central tower.

  “The fire starter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why does she keep backing out?”

  “She’s still not sure she wants to use her powers,” he said. “It freaks her out every time she uses them, despite the training Portia’s giving her.”

  “I’ll talk to her. If she doesn’t want to be here, she shouldn’t be. But that needs to get straightened out.”

  “She’s nice. I hope she stays,” he said. I glanced over at him.

  “Nice, huh?”

  “Don’t start, Faraday,” Max muttered. “None of that matchmaking shit. Don’t think I don’t see what you’re up to with Jenson and Beta.”

  “They totally want it, too. They just need a little push.”

  Max shook his head. “You read too many romances.”

  “Maybe you don’t read enough,” I told him. “So, what, now you’re going out to patrol with Portia?”

  “I guess so.”

  I glanced around. “I want to go.”

  “Nope.”

  “Come on. I’m dying in here. Even Portia wishes I went out more.”

  “She wishes it, but she knows it’s a stupid idea,” Max argued.

  “I can wear all of the fancy tech Beta made for me. Cloaking, tracking, all that good shit. Portia and I were already talking about this. I should go.”

  Max stopped and turned to face me. I couldn’t see his face behind his mask, but I’d have bet he was doing his usual furrowed forehead glare of frustration at me. He did that a lot. “Did Portia specifically say, ‘Yes, Daystar, go out on patrol while the Tribunal is after your ass and the Mafia is shooting up random shit hoping to hit you’? Did she say that?”

  “You are no fun. At all.”

  He was about to answer when I saw Portia walking toward us.

  “I want to go,” I said before she could say anything. “I’m so sick of this place.” Chance walked past, giving us a quick wave as she passed us, and I waved back. “Come on.”

  “I think this is a bad idea,” Max said, and I shushed him.

  “I don’t know, Jolene,” Portia said, shaking her head. “The heat’s just starting to die down a bit. Just give it a couple more weeks. Let things settle down.”

  “Now we both know you’re full of shit. It’s not settling down at all. They hate me as much as ever, and those freaking anti-powers zealots are adding fuel to the fire. I can’t hide out here for the rest of my life.”

  Portia looked up at the ceiling and blew out a breath.

  “And you need me. Unless you want to keep running double or triple patrol shifts every day in addition to actually, you know, running the team and stuff.”

  “Wear all of that tech Beta designed for you,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I really don’t—”

  I shushed Max again and saluted Portia.

  “And you better make it very clear to anyone who’s gonna be pissed about you going out that this was your idea, Faraday,” she added. “Understand? I don’t want anyone knocking on my door bitching about how you shouldn’t be out there.”

  “It’s on me. I promise.”

  “Fine. Go. Be careful and for Christ sake, don’t get yourself caught. Try to be inconspicuous.”

  “That’s me. Inconspicuous,” I said with a grin.

  Portia exchanged a glance with Max.

  “We’re fucked,” he said, and she nodded before giving me another stern look and walking away. “I swear to god, I will kick your blond ass if you get yourself caught,” Max said to me as we started walking toward David’s lab. “I mean. I’ll try to, anyway.” I laughed, and he shook his head. “I’m gonna have a fucking ulcer dealing with this shit.”

  “Poor baby,” I murmured, and he flipped me the bird.

  “Seriously. Keep your ass in the mini jet and behave.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  He muttered a few choice curse words at my back as we walked into David’s lab, where I got to hear the whole lecture plus some from David and Jenson, and then they obsessively checked the cameras and tracking devices on my uniform after I put it on.

  “Okay. We have to go,” I said. “I need to get the hell out of here and hit something.”

  “No goddamn hitting things,” Jenson shouted after us as we left the lab. On the flight deck, I was greeted with fist bumps and way too many “are you sure about this?” queries from the flight crew. Luckily, within a couple of minutes, we were off, soaring into the sky over Detroit. It felt good, just to leave the building, to be in my uniform, working, the way I was supposed to be.

  I never in a million years would have thought anything like that in my former life. The idea of suiting up and going out to sacrifice and fight for people who hated me? I would have laughed myself silly at the notion during my burglary days. I still wondered, a lot of the time, why I did it.

  I glanced down as we circled around Command. Just as there had been every day since news broke about Render’s death, swarms of protesters filled the courtyard and the area near the front entrance of our building. Many of them were protesting powered people in general, saying we were too dangerous to live among normal people, that we were monsters, abominations. But a good number of them were there because they wanted my head, because of all of the “heroes,” I’d been the one to cross the line. I’d killed someone, and it made it very hard for non-powered people to sleep at night. I understood. Those who protect them are supposed to be above that. We’re supposed to be benevolent. Safe. And I’m not. I understand their point of view. I just think it’s stupid.

  I mean, really. They think their lives would be better if all of the super teams just packed up and went home? What did they think would happen if we weren’t there, standing between them and assholes like Killjoy, and Render, and Raider, and the other super villains around the world? The villains outnumbered us badly, and in the time since the first Confluence, there had been far too many lives lost, thanks to the actions of super villain types.

  I kept my eyes on the ground below as Max flew the jet. We patrolled in silence for quite a while, the silence only broken by Max doing his periodic check-ins with Command, and, once, Ryan telling me over my comm to watch my ass. I could hear in his voice that he was stressing out, but it was one of the things I adored about him: he never asked me to be anything other than what I was. He knew it drove me nuts to sit and
try to play it safe. He’d probably been expecting me to do this for weeks now. He handled it much better than I would have, if our situations were reversed.

  If it was him in the plane, and he was wanted by a bunch of powerful assholes, I would have dragged him back to Command and chained him up myself.

  That thought immediately took my mind in an entirely different direction, and I sat in my seat in the plane and just went with it for a while. We hadn’t taken that step yet, not because we didn’t want to, but because he was giving me time. I’d asked for time, and he gave it to me. I’d believed that I couldn’t be what he needed, but it was turning out that, somehow, we were turning out to be just what each of us needed. It didn’t make any sense, but I wasn’t interested in fighting it anymore.

  Unfortunately, by the time he was done with triple patrol shifts and I was done doing anything I could in Command to help out, we were too tired and pissed off to do much more than hold each other when we finally had a chance to just be alone.

  Soon, I promised myself and my impatient libido. Someday, we’d have some privacy and more than five minutes in which we could count on no one knocking on our door or contacting us over our comms. So far, it just hadn’t worked out that way.

  I was shaken out of my daydreams by someone soaring past the plane, flying so quickly they were nothing but a blur.

  “What the hell was that?” Max asked. He sounded shaken.

  “Relax. Just keep flying, and let’s keep an eye out.”

  Whoever it was buzzed us again, flying across the windshield in front of Max. Max pulled up.

  “This isn’t right. Whoever this is is deliberately fucking with us,” he said.

  The next instant, something crashed into the side of the mini jet, and Max yanked the steering yoke to get us righted again.

  “We’re under attack. Some dipshit is flying at us and crashing into the plane,” Max said over his comm. “Can’t identify. They’re moving too fast.”

  “We’re on our way. Do not land,” Portia said over our comms.

  “Roger that,” Max said.

  The thing, person, whatever, crashed into the side of the plane, and all I saw was a streak of black as it flew away.

  A knot formed in my stomach.

  “Tell Caine not to come,” I said into the comm.

  “Daystar, he’s heading to the flight deck now—”

  “Call him back,” I said. “Don’t let him come out here.”

  “Daystar—”

  “Do it!” I shouted. The person flew past, then, in the next second, crashed into us again so hard my head hit the side of the plane. The glass burst open from the impact, and I heard Max shout something as the wind whipped around us.

  The plane started falling.

  “Unbuckle!” I shouted.

  He did, and I grabbed him and we flew away from the falling wreckage of what had been our plane. I set him on the roof of a nearby apartment building, then zipped back, glancing around, and got under the plane, maneuvering it to an area where it could fall without hurting anyone.

  The thing zipped over me just as I was setting the destroyed mini jet down, and I cursed and rose into the air.

  And that was when I saw Max hurtling toward the ground, screaming.

  “Goddamnit,” I breathed. I flew at top speed, determined to get to him, hoping I’d guessed the distance right, hoping I’d get there before my assigned partner was nothing more than a splat on the concrete at the base of the building.

  I put on a final burst of speed and managed to get under Max when he was about thirty feet up. I caught him with an “oof.”

  I was pretty sure he was praying.

  We were almost to the ground when the person flew at us, right into me. Max went flying out of my arms under the impact, but I knew he’d be okay this close to the ground, probably.

  I, on the other hand, went hurtling back, slamming into the brick facade of the apartment building Max had been standing on while I’d dealt with the plane.

  The person knocked into me again, and I fell, then jumped back up, determined to be ready for their next attack.

  “We’re inbound. We see the plane,” Portia said. “Just hold on.”

  I saw the person flying at me again, and I steeled myself, then rose up into the air and met them him head-on.

  He shouted a string of curses when I hit him, and a chill went down my spine.

  I’d know that particular Scottish brogue anywhere.

  “Fucking Killjoy,” I shouted. I flew at him, and someone else flew at me from the side, knocking me away from my target.

  “Come on, you cowardly piece of shit,” I yelled, stalking toward where he’d fallen after I’d hit him. “Come on. Don’t send your fucking flunkies to protect you. You came after me. Fucking idiot,” I sneered. His other flying friend flew at me, and I knocked whoever it was aside. They went hurtling into a nearby light pole and then were still. I kept stalking toward Killjoy.

  “You come here. After me. Seriously? Who told you I was out?”

  I heard him start laughing, and it just pissed me off more. There was a large steel bike rack chained to the light post, and I picked it up, hearing the chain snap as I did. I hurled it at him as hard as I could. He got up to get out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The bike rack slammed into him and both he and it went flying back.

  “Come on!” I kept stalking toward him. I noticed his friend starting to move, and I flew over and punched him, knocking him back out. “I’m sure you have more help coming. This is you. You’re a coward. What’s the matter, Killjoy? You wanted me, right?” I spread my arms out. “I’m right here.”

  He got up. He was wearing his red and black Mayhem uniform. Like my StrikeForce uniform, the mask on his covered his face completely.

  He moved toward me, and that was when I noticed his right arm hanging limply.

  “Aw. Does Killjoy have a boo-boo?” I cooed. “Here. Lemme fix that for you.”

  “You’re fucking insane, you know that? You act like I’m the crazy one. You’re out of your damn mind,” he growled.

  “Did you expect any different when you came after me? Who told you I was out?”

  He laughed again, and I flew at him. He disappeared the instant before I reached him, and when I turned around to look for him, I saw that his buddy was gone as well. I also saw a StrikeForce mini jet nearby, Portia and Ryan talking to Max as the three of them walked toward me.

  “Jo, we gotta go. Now,” Ryan said.

  “They might still be around here—”

  “Now, Jo. Don’t make me carry you, because I will.”

  “What—” I stopped in mid-sentence as a squadron of soldiers from the Tribunal landed around us, surrounding the four of us as, of course, the news helicopters circled overhead. The head of the Tribunal, Eve, was at the front, and she started walking toward me. I tensed, ready to fight, still high on adrenaline from my too-short face off against Killjoy.

  “Daystar, stand down. Not here,” Portia ordered.

  Then she turned to Eve. “Not a chance in hell,” Portia said to her, stepping between Eve and me. And then she teleported us away.

  In the next instant, all of us were back in Command. When we got there, Portia stalked away. “Goddamn, I need to start drinking or something,” she muttered.

  “That sounds like a plan,” Max called. “I’ve got a bottle if you want to share, boss.”

  Portia shook her head as she walked away, and Max excused himself, leaving me and Ryan standing in the corridor in the residence wing.

  “Did you really expect me to stay behind?” he asked, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I knew you were going to say that.” I walked over to the elevator and hit the button.

  “The woman I’m pretty sure I want to spend the rest of my life with is out there getting attacked by a psycho. Yeah, I’m gonna say ‘yes dear, I’ll just stay right the fuck here?’ Not a chance.”

  I stared at him as the elevator doors clo
sed behind us.

  “Don’t look so surprised. You know I want you forever. It’s not gonna be enough time.”

  I just kept staring at him. My heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest.

  “Either you’re really happy or you’re getting ready to run,” he said. “Your heart rate is going nuts.”

  “I’m not running. I didn’t know you felt that way.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Oh. Well good.”

  He laughed.

  “I want you forever too,” I told him.

  “Thanks.”

  I looked down, not knowing what else to say but grinning like an absolute fool behind my mask.

  “Do you really have to meet with that dickhead now?” he asked me.

  “I really do. And be nice. He’s currently the only one saying positive things about us and trying to calm everyone the fuck down.”

  “I’ll be nice to the dickhead. It’s more than he deserves after all of the shit he said about you before.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not like he was the only one saying it. I really don’t care anymore. They’re saying so much about me that at this point, I really don’t give a shit. There are seriously a handful of people in the entire world whose opinions matter to me. I know the PR stuff matters for the team and the city in general. But what people who don’t even know me decide to say doesn’t matter to me at all.”

  The elevator stopped on my floor and he leaned toward me. I pulled my mask off, and he laid the type of kiss on me that makes you forget just about anything else in the world, the kind of kiss that says “I want you forever” and you know damn well that it’s the truth.

  When he pulled away, his eyes stayed locked on mine, and then he lowered his lips to mine again, and I melted in his arms, against his big body; I felt my tension and anger over my confrontation with Killjoy falling away, replaced by something so much better.

  We finally came up for air, he rested his forehead against mine. “I have another shift in an hour,” he said.

  “I’ll probably be passed out by the time you’re done, but you should come by later anyway.”

  “I bet I can wake you up,” he said.