The Invincibles (Book 1): Trapped: A girl. A monster. A hero.

by Brittany Oldroyd

  The Invincibles

  TRAPPED

  A girl. A monster. A hero.

  Brittany Oldroyd

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Seventy-Eight

  Seventy-Nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-One

  Eighty-Two

  Eighty-Three

  Eighty-Four

  Eighty-Five

  Eighty-Six

  About the Author

  To the supervillains of my life:

  Thank you to those who doubted me.

  You taught me strength.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d first like to thank my family. My mother for supporting my writing from the very beginning, as well as just being my mother. You’re awesome. Thank you, Dad, for encouraging a love of superheroes. I am convinced you are the reason for my geeky love of superheroes. Since you are a superhero. To my siblings, thanks for not thinking too harshly on my isolation from you and others.

  To the best of friends, Naomi, I thank you for always willing to hear the story before you read it. I hope it is still entertaining. And thank you to helping me take my author picture. It’s perfect.

  To those willing to read as a Beta Reader, I thank you, even if you could not finish it on time. I hope you find this final version satisfying. A special thanks to Savy, for finding plot holes I saw and didn’t see. I hope you find this book entertaining and free of at least major plot holes.

  Thanks to Marvel and DC studios, for both your movies and comic books. A special thanks to the casts of Arrow and The Flash. Stephen Amell, Grant Gustin. Thank you for the awesome nights of screaming. The Arrow and the Flash have influenced my thoughts on superheroes indefinitely.

  Thank you for the authors who have ever answered my questions. A special thank you to Brandon Mull, for encouraging me to “write cool stuff.” Thank you to the author of this book. You rock.

  Thank you to anyone and everyone else. Doubters, to you, I say, HA! Supporters and fans, thank you for being you. And to any fan girls, I hope you find this story worthy of a fandom.

  Most of all, an enormous thank you to the character of Kate McCallister, more commonly known as The Black Kat.

  Misti

  “Hacker: Computer genius hired by The Dragon to steal information for field agents. Field Agent: Spy hired by The Dragon to carry out missions.”

  -Manual of The Dragon

  One

  Seven months, one week, and four days, give or take an hour.

  There is no mistaking the numbers. Not a year, not a decade, not a millennium. Just a couple of short months.

  No.

  Forever has passed us by. He is the sun and I am his moon. Timeless. We never met. Because there never was just a Misti, never just a Zane, always together, always connected, always Misti and Zane.

  Yes, it’s not possible. Yes, it’s not logical. Yes, I’ve only known him for seven months.

  It’s easy to forget.

  Because he makes more sense than a sunrise. Because he is gravity, pulling me back down to earth when chaos sends me reeling. He understands me and I understand him. I know him better than old friends, called numbers and equations and logic.

  He’s wild and reckless but he is mine. And nothing he could ever do would surprise me.

  Today must be a special occasion.

  My confusion is train wreck.

  I don’t understand. What does he think he’s doing? I broke into the building’s security system. Every camera in the building is mine to control. He’s running. Past one two three four cameras. Every ten seconds I catch a glimpse of him.

  An overconfident smirk on his lips as he passes a camera.

  He wears it so well. Brave cocky, stupid. Nothing, not even the possibility of being killed, scares him.

  One day, it will undo him. I hope that day is not today.

  “Where is he?”

  I glance and Narcissa stares back at me in the rearview mirror. Taps her finger against the steering wheel one two three times. Impatient, nervous, ready to get out of here. She’s wearing sunglasses but I wonder if there is fear in those expressive eyes of hers.

  We have orders. Find Zane, talk him out, bring him home. While Zane is running through the building that could become his grave, we are sitting in a sleek black sports car.

  We were both sent for specific purposes. Narcissa, the getaway driver. And me, the hacker who can guide Zane to safety.

  Narcissa makes a sound. Clears her throat. Waits for me to answer.

  “He’s still in there.” I’m shaking my head. Frustrated. “I don’t know what he’s doing.”

  Going the wrong way. In, away, deeper into the labyrinth. He knows his way around well enough to know which direction leads out. And Garrett gave him orders too. Orders to abort the mission. Orders he’s ignoring.

  Why isn’t he coming? Doesn’t he realize how dangerous this is?

  I press two fingers to my ear. “Where are you?”

  Silence for one two three minutes. A look at the live footage on my laptop.

  He stops to a jarring standstill. A smirk falls into a frown. Genuine surprise in two blue eyes. My voice is a stranger here. When he’s on a mission as dangerous as this, my voice does not belong in his ears.

  It belongs with the other Hackers in the Labs.

  “Misti?”

  “Yeah, uh, hi.”

  Frustration. He’s thoughtless, impulsive, an idiot. My jaw is tight and my heart is still. Anger is like poison on my tongue.

  I can’t understand him.

  He’s infuriating. His head is abse
nt. His heart is asleep. His pride makes the decisions.

  One a normal day, it wouldn’t matter. On a normal day, it would keep him alive.

  Today is not a normal day. Today, there is too much going on for him to pull something like this. No time for arrogance, no time for idiocy, no time for heroics. We’re all in danger.

  “I know what I’m doing, Misti.”

  Liar.

  His voice is even, cold and smooth and empty. He doesn’t have a clue. He’s making it up as he goes. Impulse before logic, heart before head. His need for a thrill rules his body. As usual.

  “Zane Rothstein, do you have a death wish, or are you just brain dead?”

  “Misti.”

  Ice runs down my spine.

  There is so much power, so much strength, in a confident voice. He’s not afraid of anything. He runs from twenty angry armed men but he is unafraid. They are determined to destroy him but he trusts himself so completely to get the job done. Nothing will stand in his way.

  “You know me better than anyone,” he’s saying. “I can’t run from a fight. Quitting, that’s letting him win. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. I can’t let him keep doing this.”

  I sigh.

  This is a game to him. A game I used to play. Back when the world was black and white. No one would get hurt. No one could get hurt.

  Harmless.

  But those days are gone. And I wish I never played, I wish I refused to play, I wish I quit.

  It’s too late now.

  “Zane—”

  I stop, steal back the words on my lips, bury them in my stomach. Sickening dangerous words that I would sell my life for, if only to speak them, if only to lose them. I want him to have them. I want him to know about the dangers awaiting us. But I can’t, I won’t, I shouldn’t tell him.

  I shake my head. There is so much to say. Join me. Help me. Save me.

  Nothing will convince him to abandon the mission. The rush of a fight controls him. He would do anything to feel the warm embrace of adrenaline, anything to touch the kind of danger that brings him to life.

  “Zane, please,” I whisper, beg, plead. “Get out of there. You’re no use to anyone dead. The Dragon organization needs you.” I stop, falling, spinning, reaching. “I need you.”

  Narcissa snorts. Cynical. “Come on, Misti. Enough with the sap. Get him out of there.”

  I look.

  Sunglasses dip down her nose and she’s giving me a pointed look. An edge to her voice I’ve never heard before.

  She knows. She knows what happened, she knows chaos, she knows about him. It throws her into a world more dangerous, more deadly, than even she is equipped to handle.

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to make him see.

  “Please, Zane.” My heart is in my throat. “For me.”

  “Misti, I…”

  Uncertainty.

  An unsettling feeling. His heart doesn’t know what it is to be afraid. But I’m begging him to ignore his instincts and listen to reason. I would never ask him to do that. Not unless it was the only thing that would save us.

  “Zane. Your life is worth so much more than all this.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Zane—”

  He’s choking, spitting out his words like a deadly poison he has to get rid of.

  “Listen to me. If I leave, we will never get another agent in here. I don’t understand exactly why but he’s changing people. He’s kidnapping them and torturing them until they’re dead or mutated beyond recognition. If I don’t stop him now, he’ll take someone else. He’ll torture them until they become a monster or until they’re dead. I love, you, Misti, but I can’t let him do that.”

  Torment in his voice.

  He doesn’t want to be a part of this game anymore. He hates it. He hates himself and the situation and his own stubbornness. But he has a duty.

  Stop the horrors in that building. It’s torture to stay away from me and it’s torture to leave his mission unfinished.

  “Zane, if they catch you, you’ll be the one tortured into a monster. You can’t avoid them. Not for very long. They know you’re there. They will never let you anywhere near him. He has too many soldiers and he’s expecting you to go for him.”

  “I’ll lay low for a few hours. Wait until they assume I left and they’re searching Chicago. He’ll think he’s safe. I can kill him, stop him from hurting anyone else.”

  I want to tear my hair out.

  One mistake and we’re all dead. One wrong decision and we’re all destroyed. Not just Zane, not just me, not just Narcissa. Our lives are clinging to the side of a cliff and the way I push is the way we fall.

  “Zane…”

  I don’t know what to do or what to say or what the right thing is here.

  I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.

  I have to choose between two villains, the monster maker and the secret stealer. How can I tell him to give up on our one chance to stop the scarring horrors he’s seen? How can I not?

  “Please, darling, don’t ask me to do something you and I both know I can’t.”

  I close my eyes, steady my hands, silence my head.

  Whatever he’s seen in there, it will drive him to finish what he started. Whether it kills him or not.

  “Okay.” My voice is cracking and I’m pushing and I can’t decide if I’m falling off the cliff or back into safety. “Finish the mission.”

  “Misti!”

  A sharp hiss and Narcissa is a rubber band stretched tight.

  I look at her. Pull out my earpiece so Zane won’t hear this conversation. “I can’t make him come.”

  She’s turning in her seat, ripping off her sunglasses, glaring at me. “He has to, Misti. You’re in danger. You’re being blackmailed.” She whispers the last word like it’s the monster under the bed and she’s a frightened child.

  My voice is low. “And if I tell Zane that, that blackmailer will kill him.”

  Narcissa is quiet. “He’ll kill us all if he realizes what we’re planning.”

  Guilt. I shouldn’t have involved her.

  I panicked. I was in danger and Zane was being threatened and I didn’t know who to trust. Narcissa’s name was the only I saw. A friend I could trust when the whole world melted into chaos.

  “You’re his partner, Izzy,” I say, the nickname falling onto my lips like rain in a storm. “Do you honestly believe Zane would ever abort a mission? He never gives up, even when he’s been ordered to. It doesn’t matter what I say. He’s not coming.”

  She sighs, slips her sunglasses back on. “Help him.”

  I nod, slip the ear piece in, pray we’re doing the right thing. “Alright, if you insist on going through with this, I’ll help you. I should be able to make a false trail. His soldiers will think you’ve already left.”

  “Wait.” Traces of panic in his voice. Because he’s about me and my safety and what I’m going to do. “Tell me you’re not here. Tell me you’re not in this building. Tell me you don’t have to be in this building to help me.”

  I wish I could be there with him. I wish I could feel his bravery. I wish there was another way.

  I wish, I wish, I wish.

  “Shh,” I soothe. “Of course not. I’m not a field agent. I can’t fight. I’m just a hacker. I’m safe in a car with Narcissa.”

  He breathes. Relaxed, muscles loose, face smooth. “Narcissa is with you?”

  A look her way and she touches her own ear piece, a smile on her lips. “Hello, idiot.”

  Zane chuckles. “I can always count on your for a couple of insults, Izzy.”

  Narcissa wrinkles her nose. “That’s a terrible nickname.”

  “Then why do you let Misti call you that?”

  “It sounds cute when she says it.”

  I roll my eyes. “Guys? Can we please focus?”

  Narcissa sneaks a smile, her fake disdain falling out of pl
ace. A wink and she’s serious.

  “Right.” Zane shakes himself into the present, focused spy stealing away the teasing boy. “Darling, can you find me somewhere to hide out while you fake my escape?”

  “Already on it.”

  My fingers move, slide, dance across the keyboard. “I’ll pull up the blueprints of the building. There should be some kind of storage unit for you to hide in while I make that fake trail.”

  Minutes are lost sorting the information in their system. One two three four minutes of searching. Five six seven useless files thrown away. Eight nine ten folders of failures.

  “Misti?”

  I’m still typing, still staring into the screen that could hold his rescue. “Hmm?”

  “I love you.”

  I’m smiling. Two sides, two men, live inside Zane. A hard, ruthless fighter rebelling against injustice and, often times, authority. He won’t stand for crime, won’t give up, won’t let anyone stand in his way. This is the side that everyone knows, that few love, that many hate. But there is another man inside him. A soft romantic giving everything, taking nothing. This is the side only I know, only I see.

  “I know.”

  My voice is soft and my heart is high, my lips unsure. I love you are not words I have shared. How can I? How can I give away words that can only be given away to so few? How am I even supposed to know what those words mean? How can I give away something I have never felt before, never understood?

  Still typing, still searching, I glance at Zane in the camera every thirty seconds. No trouble yet. He stands there, shoves his hands in his pockets, whistles casually, pretends he belongs.

  A flash across the screen and I’m grinning. Bingo. A chance to save Zane. Blueprints laid out on my laptop. A bird’s eye view of the building and basement. A storage room, close to an exit, close to Zane. The perfect hideout for a spy with an army behind him.

  “Okay, Zane, I’ve found a storage room for you. Start running north. Make a left turn at the next intersection.”

  He’s running.

  “Misti?” The question on his lips as he makes the turn.

  “About three blocks down, make a right and then another left. There will be a door at the end of the hallway. That’s the storage room. No one is there. I already checked the cameras.”

  Delight.

  Zane laughs. “You’re a fast hacker, aren’t you, darling?”