“Why this bozo?” I ask, not lowering my voice. Paulson should know I don’t trust him.
“He’s got a vendetta against you, which makes him perfect for throwing off suspicion that he’s helping. He was also part of your death, and we want as few people as possible to know you’re still around.”
Right on all counts. Still, I wish Carter had brought in some other Vigilante. Any other Vigilante.
Sam taps the pad to bring up the screen. “Now if I had to guess, either these supposedly dead Vigilantes are together somewhere, or they’ve all gone on missions.”
“No telling what Sutherland is using them for, but if it’s anything like with Klaus, it isn’t good,” I say. “How the hell are we supposed to find invisible, off-grid, supposedly dead Vigilantes?”
“We’re looking for slipups,” Sam says. “And we might have found one in Germany.” He swipes at the screen. “A Vigilante killing. By another Vigilante.”
I narrow my eyes. “Where’s Jovana?” The last time a Vigilante died by Vigilante hands, she was there. And convincing me to make the kill.
I want to strangle her.
Sam swipes at his forehead. “Jovana’s off grid.”
“But I saw her in Nashville.”
“She’s a special. Specials aren’t tracked.”
“Did they find Klaus after I dropped him at the fight?”
Sam turns to me. “He was there?”
“He was the one who poisoned me. Mia didn’t tell you?”
Sam rubs his eyes. “She was a little panicked trying to get you an antidote.”
“So Klaus is still out there.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
I shake my head. “Too much Vigilante blood on my hands already.”
“You’re creating enemies,” Sam says.
“They can wait in line.”
Paulson turns around to us. “We’ve got a network-wide bulletin coming up,” he says. “You probably want to see this.”
We lean forward to look at his dash screen. Sutherland comes on. He looks concerned, his gray hair neatly combed, a military-style jacket on. He’s trying to convey authority, right down to the strategy map behind him.
He clears his throat. “Earlier today, a German Vigilante by the name of Mars Bronson killed one of his fellow countrymen.” Sutherland’s face is grim. “And just an hour ago, two more Vigilante executions within the network were reported in Russia and China.”
He walks to the strategy map. “We have reports of blackouts here and here.” He taps North Korea and Afghanistan, then turns to face the camera with a somber expression. “We have some sort of uprising within the network.”
He walks back to a chair. The camera zooms in on his face.
“This feels rigged,” I say to Sam.
He nods. “Agreed.”
Sutherland goes on. “But we have a solution. After one of our own operatives went rogue last year, we were able to implement correctional initiatives to stem the damage.”
Sam elbows me. “You required correctional initiatives.”
Paulson grunts. “Still does.”
Sutherland continues, “We are sending our finest minds to these other networks to share our strategies so that we can uphold the integrity and safety of humanity.”
“That’s a lot of ten-dollar words,” Sam mutters.
I sit back. “He has no intention of sharing strategies,” I say.
Paulson turns around. “What’s he up to, then?”
I look out the window at the trees blowing past. “This is a takeover.”
6: Mia
I’m alive.
My awareness comes back in stages. The car stopping. A door slamming. Footsteps. Voices. I try to open my eyes. Light barely makes it through the fabric. I’m still covered by the tarp.
Still bound to the seat of the Acura.
My door opens and the tarp comes off. The brightness is so intense that my skull feels like it might explode. I just want to go back to sleep.
“She’s a beauty,” a male voice says.
“She’s drugged. Do what you want with her,” Jovana snaps.
This jolts me fully awake. I squint and look at the man staring at me. He has short curly hair and merry eyes. “I think she’s up,” he says. His smile tells me he has no intention of doing anything Jovana says.
“You want me to untie her?” he asks.
“Be careful,” Jovana says. “Look what she did to the car.”
The man looks past me at the damage I inflicted to the dash. “Too bad. These are nice vehicles. For civilians, anyway.”
“This car is toast due to the little wretch.” Jovana has her hip stuck out, standing behind the man.
“I don’t think she’s going to fight me as we move to the other car.” He meets my eyes. “Are you now, love?”
His endearment makes Jovana press her lips together in displeasure.
I look him over. White button-down shirt, rolled up at the cuffs. Khakis. He has a laid-back air that doesn’t fit any of the Vigilantes I’ve met so far. But he’s wearing their signature watch. He must be one.
“I’ll be fine,” I manage to squeak out. My throat is raw. I’m terribly thirsty. I wonder what harm all these drugs might be doing to me. I have to get away from Jovana.
Or take her out somehow.
“I’m Mark,” the man says. “Part of the network. Friend of Jovana.”
I want to tell him that he’s no friend of mine, then, but his merry eyes keep me silent. I guess even evil bitches can have nice friends.
Or maybe he’s putting on a big show. I seem to remember Jax talking about mood-enhanced speech, early on, when he still thought I was the enemy.
God, how much things have changed in the week since I met him.
How much I’ve changed.
But I know such a training exists. So I’m wary.
“I’m going to untie you,” Mark says. “So we can move you to a new car. You’re not going to fight us, are you?”
Jovana shoves her head over his shoulder. “I hope you do, because then I’ll stick you with another dart,” she says.
Ugh. I want to punch her. I look away and stare at Mark. “I’ll be good,” I say.
“Excellent,” he says. He looks over the ropes. “Geez, Jovana, did you use every knot in the book?”
“No,” I say. “She stuck to grade-school versions. A mix of binding knots and a few pointless splicers. The only thing they have going for them is that there are so many.”
Mark raises his eyebrows and cracks a wide smile. “She’s a wily one, Jove,” he says over his shoulder.
“So she knows a few knots,” Jovana says. “Isn’t going to help her if I snuff-dart her.”
Mark starts plucking at the knots. “Did you see the update on Jax?” he asks her.
“I’ve been in a civilian car,” Jovana says. “I don’t know anything.”
“He got snuffed. Tennessee silo, about two hours ago.”
A searing pain bolts through me. What do they mean by snuffed? Dead?
“Good,” Jovana says. “About time they caught him.” She sneers at me. “I’m sure this one calling into the network on an open line is what did him in. Did you know she left my own watch in her car? Like tracking a teenager on Snapchat, it was. Took less than ninety seconds to find her.”
I’m still trying to understand what has happened. “Are you saying Jax is dead?” My voice betrays me, warbling and unsteady.
Mark gives up on untying the knots and flicks his wrist, dropping a knife from a holster. He cuts through the first set. “Yes, love. Alan Carter administered the dart himself. They broadcast the video of him going down.”
My stomach drops. It can’t be true. Jax can get out of any situation, anywhere. He isn’t dead. I won’t believe it.
I want to throw up. My belly heaves. I don’t even care if Mark cuts me loose or not. This is my fault. I called Sam. They found us because of me.
“Don’t fret, love,
” Mark says. “He wasn’t a very good man.”
I want to hit him. “Yes, he was.”
“Oh, look, the girl has fallen in love with the master of women,” Jovana says. She leans over Mark again. “Let me give you a clue, girl. Jax didn’t care about anybody. A woman was an object he could dress up in Armond’s lavish creations to be more entertaining when he poked her hole.”
Tears blur my eyes, but I will them away. I don’t answer her. Obviously anything she says is tainted by whatever went down last year.
But this is my time to get information out of her. If I do anything in these last days, it will be exonerating Jax. And I no longer care at all if I die doing it. I have nothing left to lose.
Buck up, baby. Don’t think about Jax. Just do your job.
“So why did you spend so much time with him, then?” I ask her.
Mark pulls the last rope from my arm, and I rub my skin where it is marked and bruised. I revel in the pain. It will keep me sharp. I want this evil woman to pay, and for Jax to be remembered for the Vigilante he was before her.
“All part of the plan, Mia dear. All part of the plan.” Jovana lets out a sardonic laugh.
Mark holds out a hand to me. I refuse to take it.
“I want to see the video,” I say.
“Ho ho! She wants to see Jax die,” Jovana says. “Maybe she’s not the ninny that I thought!”
“She doesn’t believe it,” Mark says softly. “She needs to see it with her own eyes.”
His kindness makes me tear up again. He extends his hand once more, and this time I take it.
“I’m down with watching that,” Jovana says. “Let’s get to the car so we can get to D.C.”
I stand up stiffly, my muscles protesting the movement. Everything hurts. Not just the rope burns. But my joints. My head. My heart.
I refuse to believe that Jax is dead. I just can’t.
We’re in a field in the middle of nowhere. A dirt road leads out to the spot. There might have been a barn or something here before. There’s a clearing where we stand. The tall brown grasses undulate in the breeze. It’s chilly and I shiver despite my leather jacket.
Mark leads us to a sleek gray sports car. “You ladies can take the front,” he says.
“Oh, no,” Jovana says. “This little troublemaker is sitting in the back with a laser harness.”
Mark looks at me with compassion. “It’s more comfortable than the ropes,” he says.
I have no idea what they are talking about. Mark opens the back door of the car. I slide onto the seat.
Jovana opens the front. “You drive,” she says to Mark. “I have to figure out what Sutherland is up to.” She tosses my backpack onto the floor. I wonder if everything is still in it. The ring. My nightie. The weapons and phone. I slowly try to reach for it, trying to avoid getting their attention.
“The alert went out,” Mark says as he takes the wheel. “Everything has gone according to plan.”
“So Bronson took the fall?” Jovana asks.
“According to the transmission. You want to see it?” Mark punches at the dash.
“Get the girl secure,” Jovana says. “And make sure we are cloaked. I don’t want anyone following our path.”
My fingers brush the strap of the backpack.
“You don’t even want the network to see?” Mark asks.
“Not unless we’re forced to.” Jovana glances back at me. “I want to keep this girl with me and they might intercept.”
My hand closes on the bag. I wonder why they would do that. I guess because I’m a special. Jovana must know that.
The bag is closed up, but I pull it next to me on the seat.
Mark glances back at me apologetically. “As long as you don’t make any sudden movements, the grid restraint shouldn’t be too uncomfortable,” he says.
He notices the bag. “Is she supposed to have that?” he asks Jovana.
“I took the weapons and tech,” she says and turns to fix her stare at me. “I left you your tawdry underwear and that tacky ring.”
I glance at the bag. At least I have a couple things of my own.
“You’ll want to buckle up,” Mark says. “It will help you stay still.”
I look around for a seat belt, but don’t see anything. Then Mark must hit a button, because one slides out from between a gap in the cushions. I tug it around me and snap it into the other side. A red light on the face of the buckle shifts to green.
Instantly, a hundred yellow lines appear across the seat, marking my body with their grid. They flash for a second, then go red.
“What is it?” I ask. I lift my arm and feel a little jolt, a gentle burn.
“Laser restraint,” he says. “If you make any sudden movements, it will zap you.”
My heart hammers. I move a finger slightly and feel a warm buzz on my skin. That’s not too bad.
“It’s like this,” Jovana says, and tosses a paper wrapper to the back.
It immediately incinerates in a flash. The smell of smoke chokes me.
“That would be considered a fast movement,” Mark says.
“Got it,” I manage to cough out.
Mark shakes his head as we pull away from the clearing. He turns on a fan that sucks the smoke under the dash.
“Let’s see that transmission,” Jovana says.
Mark taps his screen as he navigates the dirt road. I guess auto-drive doesn’t work in places like this. Even Vigilante tech can’t manage the deep country.
The terrible, awful thought of Jax being dead creeps in on me again. A tear slides out of my eye and rolls down my face. I feel a warmth from the laser catching the movement and warning me with a shot of heat.
Why has Jovana taken me, anyway? I don’t know what good I am. Maybe as a bargaining chip. It does seem Sutherland has been blowing her off. But here’s another Vigilante, perfectly willing to help and using all the tech that would register in the network surveillance. He’s not trying to hide anything.
His car’s dash voice is a commanding male voice. “Identify your prisoner.”
Mark glances over at Jovana. “I’m not sure I can avoid a scan on her,” he says. “What’s the situation?”
“She’s a special,” Jovana says. “They won’t get anything on her. Let them scan. The cloak will keep it from actually transmitting until we go back on grid.”
Mark punches at the screen. The laser lines turn off. I think I should make a lunge for the door, but Mark quickly says, “The beam can burn you too. Hold still.”
I wait for the line to pass over me, too scared to even breathe. When it’s finished, the laser grid flashes back into place.
Jovana busts out with a laugh. “That girl believes anything.”
My face burns. I guess the beam wasn’t dangerous after all.
Mark watches the screen. “She’s just unfamiliar with all the tech. It’s a year’s worth of training.”
Jovana’s face contorts in anger. I guess she doesn’t like Mark defending me.
The screen flashes with only my name, like it did in the silo with Jax. No wonder she didn’t recognize me in the parking lot. Until I showed up in the car with her watch, she didn’t know who I was.
Mark whistles. “They don’t even have a last known location on her,” he says. “She’s up there in the pecking order. That’s good, as it means it won’t transmit our location.”
Mark clicks away my screen. The male voice says, “Prisoner identified. Special is not to be harmed.”
He looks over at Jovana. “I assume you’re not planning to hurt her?” he asks.
Jovana rolls her eyes. “Whatever. By tomorrow, everything will have changed. The committee meets tonight over the Bronson thing, and Sutherland will have global command by morning.” She gestures over her shoulder at me. “First thing, I’ll have her special status revoked and we can finish her off.”
I don’t even react to her wanting to kill me. I want her to talk more about this plan of Sutherland’s. It
sounds like something big is going down.
“Show me the video now,” Jovana says.
“Right,” Mark answers. The screen on the dash shows a list, and he clicks on one option.
The gray-haired man who scanned Colette in her car a week ago comes onscreen. Sutherland again. I want to shrink back from his penetrating eyes, but this is just a recording. He isn’t actually looking at us. I wonder how you know which is which — a one-way message or a video conversation.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be trained to find out.
Jovana is rapt as she listens. When he soberly mentions that Mars Bronson has killed a Vigilante in Germany, she claps her hands. “It’s all going perfectly,” she says with excitement.
But when Sutherland goes on to talk about two other killings, she frowns. “That wasn’t supposed to happen yet. There was a timeline. He’s rushing it.”
The recording ends and the screen returns to a map with red pulsing points.
“What do you think that means?” Mark asks.
“That means something is going wrong,” Jovana says.
“You want to contact him?”
Jovana doesn’t answer, and I know it’s because she doesn’t want to admit that Sutherland isn’t answering her calls.
“I don’t want to blow our cloak,” Jovana says.
She’s adamant about that. She must be in some sort of trouble and doesn’t want anyone she doesn’t trust to know where she is.
“You’re not cutting me out of the deal, right?” Mark asks. “I’m expecting to be brought in.”
Jovana reaches out to caress his shoulder. “Of course you will be,” she says. “I won’t let the people who help me get left behind.”
Mark looks into the mirror and meets my gaze. I hold it steady. I already know what I have to do. If it’s so critical that Jovana stay hidden, then I have to blow the cloak. But first I have to know if the car will recognize me, like Jax’s did.
These cars are smart and can tell the difference between ordinary conversation and commands that are intended for it. I think it has to do with the forcefulness of your voice, the direction you’re speaking, and using command language.
It’s worth a shot.
“Find the nearest bathroom,” I say, as if it’s to them. But the sharply drawn breath makes the laser grid zap my chest. The front of Armond’s lovely leather jacket is marred with an etching.
The Vigilante's Lover #4 (Volume 4) Page 3