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

by Brittany Oldroyd

I scream.

  Zane

  “Project Two seems incapable of deciphering what is real and what is fake.”

  -Dr. Pelletier’s notes

  Fifty-Eight

  I stop.

  Shudder. Feel the chills run down my backs. Try to ignore it.

  Not real, not real, not real.

  But it feels real. And it’s such an agonized kind of scream. And it only gets worse.

  “ZANE! ZANE! ZANE!”

  No, no, no. She’s dead. You saw her body. You held it. She’s gone. Not coming back. You’re hallucinating.

  But hallucination or not, that sound is my destruction.

  I step back, turn, run. Listen to those screams. They keep going, relentless. They echo through the steel walls, cold. I shudder.

  “Zane!”

  Something between a scream and a sob. Fueling my need to reach it, my desire to make it stop.

  With the screams still ringing in my too sensitive ears and the hallucinations continuing, I stop. There, maybe real, maybe not. Dalton with a bloody knife. Holding a girl to a ground.

  He drives the knife across her arm, holding her wrists down with his knees, grabbing a fistful of hair in his free hand.

  She screams again.

  I don’t care if it’s not real. I don’t care if she’s a hallucination. I don’t care if there’s anyone in front of me.

  I lunge forward, transforming, growling, throwing my wolf self at the possible hallucination of Dalton Knight.

  He doesn’t disappear.

  Kate

  “The Black Kat has done it again. Five more dangerous criminals put behind bars. Meanwhile, the Gray Assassin has been spotted. Avoid it all costs.”

  -Newspaper article, “Vigilantes and Heroes”

  Fifty-Nine

  A single word written across my bleeding arm, covering every inch of skin, painting my entire arm like a red tattoo.

  Mine.

  I look up, cradling my arm, kneeling on cold steel floor, and stare at the monster of a man now struggling with the black wolf. The insanity of Dalton Knight, evidently, is very theatrical, very dramatic.

  Dalton throws himself back. And lunges for me.

  The black wolf throws himself between him and me, bites Dalton’s hand. Lowers his head, snarls.

  Dalton gets the message. He steps back, glaring at the wolf, before smirking at me. “I’ll see you around.” He grins. “Remember, mine.”

  He runs off and the wolf grows still, changes. And now there’s Zane right there, right in front of me. Getting to his feet, staring at me with a kind of terror I’ve never seen before. Right here.

  I throw myself into his arms, make him stumble back to catch me, slip my uninjured arm around his neck, bury my face in his chest.

  Alive.

  “Tell me this is real,” he whispers. “Tell me I don’t have to accept reality.”

  I love his voice. Low, strong, just as entrancing as everything else about him.

  I slip my hand around his neck, pull him down, kiss him. “This is reality.”

  “I saw your dead body. You’re dead.”

  I level with him. “Never.”

  And then I kiss him again. Harder, stronger, more intensely. Because I am real, I am alive, I am his.

  He breaks the kiss, grabs my face in his hands, stares at me. Afraid. Hopeful.

  “It’s really me, Zane. I’m here.”

  Silence.

  “Zane—”

  He lifts me off my feet, crushes me against his body. And I hug him back, throw my arms around him. And now he’s kissing me.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  Words whispered past relieved kisses.

  And then he sets me down, puts something in my hand, closes my fingers around it.

  I look down at the black fabric in my hand. My mask. I laugh, give him my most mischievous smile.

  “Do you want to start a war with me?”

  Sixty

  Zane chuckles. “Sounds like a date.”

  I’m smiling, ready to move, ready to speak, ready to fight. But three figures have appeared in the hallway. The first of which is Zandra Glass.

  She stares at me for a moment. Seeing a ghost, seeing a corpse, seeing her hero reincarnated. And then she steps forward and gives me a hug.

  “Wow, Zandra,” Zane teases. “That’s the most affection I’ve seen you give anyone.”

  Zandra scowls at him. “Don’t make me electrocute you.”

  I’m smiling as I look at the two figures that have accompanied her. And my smile grows. Tatyana and Jayden.

  “You came.”

  Tatyana sighs. “Not soon enough apparently.” She pauses. “What happened to your arm?”

  I pull down my sleeve. “Glass’s Invincible happened. He’s sort of obsessed with me.” I shake my head. “We need to get out of here. Soldiers will be coming.”

  Zandra nods, leading the way down the hall. I grab Zane’s arm. “I will meet you outside. There’s one more thing I have to do.”

  He grabs my chin. “I am not letting you out of my sight.”

  Exasperation. “I’ll be fine. Please, Zane. It’s important.”

  Conflicted eyes. He sighs. “If you let anything happen to yourself, I will never forgive you.”

  “Nor would I ever forgive myself.”

  I step back, turn, sprint up into glass hallways. Into the first floor of the building.

  It’s time to show Glass just how unbreakable I am.

  I search, looking, feeling along to the wall. Find the power. And throw a kick at the box as hard as I can.

  Shattering, sparking, it goes out and all the lights go out. I pull a card out of my boot, tuck my signature on top of the box.

  War has begun.

  Sixty-One

  “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it?”

  We’re surrounded in the darkness of Alec’s basement, whispering in the corner of the room.

  Everyone else is asleep and Alec is upstairs. I already explained everything to him, I already listened to him lecture me about being late, about nearly giving him a heart attack.

  Zane and I sit close, backs to the wall, both crossing arms, both resting those crossed arms on bent knees. We’re close enough that our elbows touch.

  “What is?” I whisper.

  “We’ve spent months locked up in a cage together and I don’t know the first thing about you.” He laughs. “All I know is you’re stubborn and hard-headed.”

  I punch his arm.

  He laughs again.

  “All I know about you is that you’re a spy.”

  “And we’re both a little crazy.”

  “Not a lot to go on.”

  “No, not really.” He smiles. “Doesn’t change anything though.” He touches my arm with light fingertips. “I still love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Contented smiles. I loop my arm through his, rest my head on his shoulder. I am calmest here in the darkness with him at my side. There’s a kind of peace I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. Easy and happy and unworried.

  “We were so focused on making sure I learned how to fight,” I say. “There wasn’t much time for anything else.”

  “We could try again.” His voice is soft, quiet, gentle. Entrancing. He grabs my hands, slipping his fingers in the spaces between mine. “It’s so sappy.” He laughs. “But I want to know everything about you.”

  “That is sappy.”

  “I thought you were fascinating from the moment we met.”

  “Oh, so now you’re a scientist. I sound like something you were studying.”

  “Well, I did go undercover as a geneticist for a while.” Solemnity touches his brow. “But I was being serious.”

  A softer smile. “I know what you mean. When I first saw you, I thought you were so entrancing.”

  He slips an arm around my waist, yanks me against him. “And now?”

  “I want to be the person that knows you better
than anyone else.”

  He kisses my forehead. “How about this? We play a game. You can ask me anything, about being a spy, about growing up, anything. But that means I can ask you anything in return.”

  I smile. “Okay, shoot.”

  “Favorite color.”

  I laugh. “What does that have to do with anything?” A short pause “It’s green.”

  Zane grins. “It has to do with everything. If you had said pink, I would think you were either bright and happy or a dumb blonde. If you said black, I would think you liked darkness a little too much. Color is very important.”

  “Careful, Zane,” I tease. “Your inner spy is showing.”

  He laughs.

  “Okay, my turn.” I turn, face him. “What’s it like being a spy?”

  Zane taps two fingers against the floor. “Liberating. Exciting. Very dangerous.” He grins. “I imagine it’s a lot like being a superhero.”

  “Probably.”

  A long pause.

  Zane grabs my chin, serious now, tilts my head, makes me look at him. “I didn’t say it before but I am unbelievably proud of you. What you’ve done, forcing criminals to turn themselves in, it’s incredible. I’ve never heard of anything so effective.”

  “It was Alec’s idea, actually. He’s a bit of a comic book nerd.”

  Zane laughs. “And so he created his own fantasy where he got to be the best friend of a superhero.”

  “Crime fighter.”

  “No, my dear,” he argues. “Superhero.”

  I roll my eyes. Grow serious. “I think I needed to be the Black Kat. I didn’t realize how much I needed some kind of purpose until I was wearing this black outfit and chasing bad guys.”

  Zane smiles. “Okay, here’s my question: Why don’t you just drag the criminals to the police yourself? Why give them a chance to turn themselves in? It’s time consuming.”

  “It’s also very powerful,” I say. “When the crime world started to learn about their friends running to the police and jail for protection, they started to turn themselves in without a visit from me. Fear is very powerful.”

  “So, you use your reputation to fight crime.” He shakes his head. “My organization would love you. They’ve been trying to figure out to bring down crime rates here for years.”

  His organization. My father’s creation. The Dragon.

  “Zane? Why did you become a spy in the first place?”

  He sighs. A bad question. A hard answer. “I had a twin brother,” he says slowly, looking down, studying his hands. “He was killed in 9/11.”

  Oh.

  My lips are frozen and I don’t know how to speak and I don’t know that I want to.

  I squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “That was a bad question.”

  “No. I’m glad you know. The only other person I’ve told was…” He sighs, closes his eyes, clenches his jaw.

  “It was her, wasn’t it? The girl Glass killed. Your girlfriend.”

  He looks at me and I think my heart is shattering into ice. He looks so sad, so guilty, so alone.

  I lean close, wrap myself around him, rest my chin on his shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me about her, Zane. She is a part of your past, not mine.”

  He sighs. Grateful. “Thank you.”

  “I do have another serious question.”

  “Oh?”

  “Why did you start talking again?”

  Zane smiles. Runs his fingers down my arms. Looks me in the eye. “I told you once that you are just like me.”

  “You said it was uncanny.”

  “It was a bit of an epiphany, I suppose. You reminded me to be brave. You reminded me what it’s like to be fearless. And I decided I wasn’t going to be afraid of myself anymore. That was the reason for my silence in the first place.”

  I touch his cheek, run a finger across his lips. “I’m glad.” Mischief in my eyes. “You have a nice voice.”

  He laughs. Really laughs.

  “You seem very happy tonight.”

  “That’s because I’m out of the cage and with you. It’s not often that the people you love come back from the dead. I feel more like myself than I have in a long time.”

  I smile. Because I like this Zane, I like his sense of humor, his giddy teasing, his playful laughter. It’s like meeting a new man, one that never watched monsters be made, never saw women die, never hid himself behind silence.

  “I love you.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  He smiles, leans forward, kisses me. “Yeah? Is that you asking me to stop?”

  I close the distance between us. “Nope.”

  Kissing, wrapping ourselves close, breathlessly gasping. A perfect moment.

  Don’t let go, I think. Never let go.

  Our lips part and Zane presses his forehead against mine, looking down, smiling a breathless smile. “So, you never asked what my favorite color was.”

  I laugh, push him back. “What’s your favorite color?”

  He grins. His eyes lock with mine with an intensity that surprises me. And his smile softens as he answers my question.

  “Gold.”

  Sixty-Two

  I wake up alone.

  After hours of talking and laughing and kissing, Zane and I both fell asleep on the floor. He must have already gone upstairs.

  I groan, just realizing that someone is shaking my shoulder. Violently.

  “What?” I growl.

  Alec steps back as I pull myself into an upright position, scowling at him. “What is it?”

  Silent, he holds his phone out to me. A picture. Red and orange and black. Exploding with heat. Our old high school.

  Lincoln Park High School is on fire.

  “This is happening right now?”

  He nods. “There are people trapped inside, Kate.”

  I pick up my shirt, throw it on over my tank top. “Looks like I’ve got a job to do.”

  “What about the others?”

  I pause. The others. Experiments just as powerful as me. People willing to wage a war with me.

  Do I dare ask for their help, dare ask them to join me, dare ask them to put their lives in danger?

  I think I have to.

  “I won’t be able to save many people alone. That building can’t have much time.” I rub my neck. “I’m going to need help.”

  I lead the way upstairs, running into the kitchen. All eyes are on me very suddenly. There’s something about true speed that draws attention.

  “Look,” I say, clearing my throat. “A school has caught fire and people are trapped inside. As the Black Kat, I mostly deal with criminals but these people need help.” A deep breath. “I need help.”

  “Well, obviously, I’m in,” Zane says, winking. “Burning buildings? Sounds like a party to me.”

  Two of us now.

  I roll my eyes. “If you start to annoy me with theatrics, I’m taking back what I said last night.”

  Zandra cuts in. “I’m in too,” she says. “I’ve wanted to help you for a long time.”

  Three of us.

  You did. You saved me.

  “I’ll come,” Jayden says with a smile, “If you stop calling me Jayden and start calling me Jay.”

  Four of us.

  A wry smile. “I can understand being picky about names. No one gets to call me Katherine. No matter how serious things get.”

  Tatyana rolls her eyes. “You are both ridiculous.” She shakes her head. “I will do it,” she says. “I’m tired of being a...” She stops, thinks, struggles with her English. “Pretty face.”

  Five of us.

  We’ve got a team.

  Sixty-Three

  “So, where is this unfortunate building?”

  I glance at Zane. “Lincoln Park High School. A couple miles north of here.” Pause. “I’ll meet you guys there.”

  “Where are you going?” Tatyana asks.

  Grin. Wink. “Same place you are. Just a little faster.”

&
nbsp; And, as if to prove my point, I take off running down the street, mask on, claws out, racing down empty streets. Within seconds, I’m there.

  I take a moment to assess the situation, to watch the burning building, to figure out the best way to go about this.

  I’m not accustomed to saving people. Just knocking the bad guys senseless. Not a wise course of action when the bad guy is fire.

  Five minutes to myself and the others show up.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” I say, taking charge without a thought. My crusade against crime, my plan.

  “Tatyana, Jay, go in the front doors. Find anyone inside and help them out.” A glance Zane’s direction. “I assume your nose is as good as your ears.”

  He grins. “Better.”

  “You and Zandra go through the back and work your way up. Help anyone trapped inside.”

  Zandra frowns. “What about you?”

  “I’ll be heading in from the top floor. Meet back here once you’ve cleared your area. Deal?”

  Nods of agreement all around.

  “Hurry,” I say, turning to the wall. “This building isn’t going to last.”

  I start to scale the wall, push myself past bricks, avoiding hot spots, watching for any possible explosions. I don’t stop until I’m outside the top floor.

  And then I swing my body in, crashing through the window legs first. Practice has made me good at breaking through windows.

  Use all your senses.

  My eyes burn from the smoke. Ignore it. Focus on the flames. Someone could be trapped, someone could be burning, someone could be hidden beneath fire.

  I take a step forward, sniff the air. Smoke, burning wood, and

  body odor.

  Low to the ground, in a crouch, I sniff the air, follow the scent. Zane’s not the only one with good senses.

  I find it. Her. An unconscious girl under a pile of wood. Left to burn.

  I pat her cheek hard, almost slap her, and she starts. Opens her eyes. Coughs. “You’re—”

  “The Black Kat, obviously.” I pull her up. “Let’s go.”

  Putting an arm around her, carrying most her weight, I lead the way down the hall.

  Flames rise high, licking the walls, burning with an intensity that whispers of destruction, that calls for us to join it, that screams with the wood.