I threw my stuff into the back of the stolen car and slid into the driver's side. I'd picked up Nishelle's keys on the way. The keyfob had the address written on it; a good thing since I'd never been there. You won't for much longer. When we figure out how to get rid of you, we're going to blast you to kingdom come. And then I'll have a nice, quiet life that doesn't involve any of this drama.
Sounds incredibly boring. I thought you Blitzers liked the spicy life. Didn't you crave to be a superhero like Mommy and Daddy, Cassie? Didn't you want to try to prove something with it?
I told myself it was better to ignore her. Adam was fast asleep in the back of the car and I just needed to get to the address on the keys. Once that happened, Nate would join us in short order. Everything would be fine.
You know I can just tell Scribe what you're doing right after you leave, right?
Scowling, I tapped the wires together and got the car to start. If you were going to do that, you wouldn't warn me about it first.
And that was the end of Allison's taunting. I'd taken a moment to switch license plates with Nate, making the car a little more inconspicuous. Still, there weren't many like it. I kept my lights off and used the street lights to navigate until we got out of Yarborough proper and into Renfield. Then I popped on the lights and floored it.
I'm not the best driver in the world. I haven't exactly gone on a car-wrecking spree, but I've totaled enough that I'm happy to let everyone else drive when they want to. Thankfully, there were few people on the roads and fewer that were awake in their homes. Almost every house we passed was dark, the occupants unaware of our passing. I tried to shake the willies out of my mind, but they were cemented there pretty well.
The problem was, I pulled up to a penthouse apartment thing that looked as if my grandparents couldn't have afforded it. I checked my phone, but it said I was in the right place. I double-checked the keys and they, too, confirmed that I was where I should have been. I didn't believe it until Nishelle came out into the darkness, Edwin in hot pursuit behind her. He pulled open the back door and helped Adam out and into the building.
Which just left me with Ember. The last time we'd spoken had been... heated. She wasn't sure if she could cope with me dating the guys and her. I wasn't sure if she gave a shit about me anymore because of it. We'd gotten into a fight and I'd ended up underneath Nate, moaning and writhing, trying to forget all about her and everything we'd been.
"You need a hand with those bags, Strikes?" Nishelle asked me, peeking in my window.
I reached out and untwisted the strap of her tanktop. Then I sighed up at her. "I knew that Allison had funneled a lot of money through your accounts, but this is craziness."
"This isn't all her. I've been doing a lot of work on the side the past little while. People just love it if you can scorch someone's face off. Get up, get out. I'll help you with everything. James knows you're here."
My heart twitched to life. It was like I'd been holding my breath the entire way to the apartment. I was out of Scribe's reach, at least for that night. So was everyone I loved, except for Nate and, sometimes, my parents. Together, we hauled everything out of the car and upstairs on a single go. Adam had only brought two bags, most of it contained in one, big bugout bag.
I wasn't that person. I'd brought five.
Sue me. I was tired of losing everything that made me who I was. How many times did I have to lose the only place I considered home before I gave up and learned how to take everything important with me? It was a sensible, rational move, and I'd hear no argument against it.
Nishelle still looked at me like I'd lost my mind when she saw what was in the trunk. She took Adam's stuff. I stubbed my toe on the car's tire and had no issue bringing up my bags on my own.
You can take a wild guess what her apartment looked like. The thing was massive, enough to fit twenty of our little squad if she'd had to. Hell, she probably could have hosted most of the Yarborough Alliance if there was an emergency.
"Take it easy with my face," Adam grumbled from the bathroom.
Edwin sighed. "You're an absolute disaster. I'm being as gentle as I can. Close your eyes and hold your breath. This alcohol isn't going to feel great."
Adam let out a scream and there was a substantial thud right after it. I dropped my bags and went to the door to tap on it. "What happened?"
"I think he didn't like what I did to him. He shoved me up against the sink but I'm fine," Edwin said. His head popped out of the bathroom and looked me over. "You don't look too good yourself, Cassie. Did you really steal that old clunker?"
I leaned against the door frame. "I had to get him back to the building and then I had to get us out. What do you think?"
"That you stole that old car and left it parked out front. Where're the keys, Cassie? I'll take it somewhere else," Nishelle said, holding out her hand.
Missing that entirely, I kicked myself. I'd gotten lucky to get us to the apartment and I'd been stupid enough to leave the vehicle out front. I may as well have put up a sign that pointed Yarborough PD straight to Nishelle's door. I tossed her the keys and left the hall, threw myself on the couch, and passed out before I heard Nishelle go outside.
The dreams Allison gave me were no more real than the one she'd trapped us in, but they seemed as though they were.
I was barren, married to an Adam that begged for us to join our houses. The whole setup looked like it belonged in the middle ages and it took me far too long to realize we were in some terrible Romeo and Juliet rip-off.
"For soothery," Adam said, his voice bold and strong; as if he were projecting it so a nearby crowd could hear. "We should make babies and totally calm down this whole family rivalry stuff. It's the whole root of this problem, did you know that?"
Okay, maybe it was more like the Romeo and Juliet movie remake.
Though I had no interest in speaking, the words poured from my lips. "It is not for us to discover a settlement to the bullshit our ancestors got us into."
Quaint. I sighed at the entire scene, watching it play out exactly as one might expect. I died dramatically, to my credit.
Are you finished, yet?
My dead cousin growled at me in return, though she didn't actually say anything. I waited until she released me back to dreams of the horrors she'd inflicted on me and some that I'd done to myself over the years. Nothing said that I had to be polite to someone invading my mind and, to be honest, outside of the Dream she just wasn't all that scary.
No, what worried me was the fact that Scribe knew us all so well. If he was the problem from the start; and I wasn't certain that he was, it made sense to assume that the reasons why we had all struggled so much directly rested on his shoulders. He had spent years trying to make sure we rarely left Yarborough and, all the more rare, spoke with our fellow superheroes.
Instead, we were sometimes transferred out of nowhere. Or we ended up dead.
I thought back to all the people Edwin had told me were dead. Five terribly long years in prison, but was it that common to see so many people dead at work? Yes, we were in a dangerous line of said work, but construction workers were, too. They didn't see that many of their co-workers drop to their deaths in that same five-year period.
And how many were gone? The Yarborough Alliance building wasn't nearly as well-staffed as it had been before I'd ended up in prison.
The sun struck me square in the face. I squinted up at Nishelle as she wrenched the curtains open. "Get up. We have to report in. Scribe's already saying that we abandoned our posting. Worse, he sent Logan the recording from the news last night."
"If we don't want to be arrested, we better show up fast?" I asked.
She grunted in response and I dragged myself out of the couch. It attempted to keep me there, but alas, I was stronger. Cassie 1, Couch 0. It's the little victories that matter most.
Breakfast was quick; a nearly expired cereal bar, and then we were off to a strange land with familiar trappings. Thomaston's PTB Alliance building
had the same skyscraper appearance that ours did, but the area was less crime-y. There was gold inlaid around the edges of the door and the whole thing felt somehow cleaner than back home. I wrinkled my nose at it and looked over at Nishelle. "Kinda showy, aren't they?"
"We're no better," she shrugged.
She parked the stolen car out on the street, right in front of a fire hydrant. I glanced at her but she didn't seem to notice. Together, we hauled Adam out of the back and headed up the stairs. Edwin had decided to stay behind to guard the apartment against anyone trying to sneak in and check up on us.
The doors opened without any fuss. I frowned, but Nishelle shook her head. "They use the same system that we do back home. There's a bunch of them that are connected up together to make it easier for visiting superheroes."
"But we rarely go anywhere. Why hook up with us?" I asked.
An extra pair of hands caught Adam under the middle and gently lifted him from our grasp. The helper was a stout, bespeckled man just about five years older than me. His dark hair was shot with gray, though most of it had retained its original color. He gave me the warmest smile I'd had since I'd gotten out of prison. "Because it's important for any superhero currently working with the Alliance to have access to this place as a place of safety at all times. I'd think you'd know that, Cassie."
"James," I sighed, relieved. "Is Mr. Patterson here somewhere? We really need to sit down and talk with him before things get worse."
"He's in his office. Let me get Adam into the infirmary and we'll see what we can do for all of you."
It was like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. I watched as Adam passed through those gleaming doors, then Nishelle, but when I tried to follow my feet wouldn't lift. I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to push back whatever it was that Allison was doing.
It isn't me this time. It's him. He doesn't want you in there.
My brows knitted. Who?
Patterson. You're havoc unchained and he has a polite superhero business to run. There's no place for someone like you inside Thomaston's Alliance. She paused, then added a bit more as an afterthought. He certainly never wanted me there.
One foot lifted, then the other. I forced my way through, supposedly, Logan Patterson's control and grabbed the front door with both hands. I shoved it open and followed it inside. The miles-high ceiling stood above my head, a chandelier threatening to crash down upon me.
I ignored it all, I even managed to ignore Allison, and I took my first steps into the building.
Where I was immediately swarmed with uniformed police officers, all of them drawing their guns. I sighed and sank to my knees, putting my hands behind my head. "I didn't do anything, gentlemen."
"You're to have a police escort to the head office. Don't try any superhero bullshit, Strikeout. We're well aware what you can do," the officer to my left snarled.
I turned my head to look at him and scowled. He couldn't have been more than a few years younger than me, but he seemed so much more whole than I was. In short order, they shoved me to the ground and handcuffed me. It was far from the first time I'd been cuffed, especially when I'd been working without my supersuit. Cops usually overlooked us when we were in uniform, unless we'd done something so off the charts that we had to be taken in.
But when I was a teenager, I'd gotten into the terrible habit of punching villains in the face without the look to match my status. I couldn't count how many times I'd been arrested for doing my typical civic duty.
Idly, I wondered if that's why they'd been so hard on me when I'd turned up for Nishelle's murder, no matter that it'd been accidental.
Though I had to admit, I wasn't expecting it when they jammed a hood over my head and yanked it tight around my neck. I could still breathe, but the sudden darkness shot a spike of adrenaline through me that I fought to contain. And I failed; immediately, I failed in that heartbeat second where I could have proved that I had control of myself. The chain between the handcuffs snapped and my arms pulled around in front of me automatically; where they belonged.
It was a natural reaction, but the cops took it as aggression. I ripped the hood off of my head just in time to see the boot crash into my face. My right eye went black in that instant and I panicked. How long had I had my powers back? Not long enough to deal with something like that in a rational manner. I fought back as best I could, trying not to hurt them, but tasers came out after I whipped one into a desk. I hadn't meant it.
But it's impossible to argue with an officer at the other end of a taser. I got hit with several nodes at once and the world was, blissfully, quiet.
Chapter 5
I returned home from work to find that the Alliance building was a little different than it usually was.
Whether it was the armed guards checking the identification of superheroes and superheroines outside the front door, or if it was the fact that they were turning away families, it was difficult to say. Maybe it was the fact that the PTB letters had been removed from the front and dropped to the ground, left to rot away in the upcoming storm.
Given that I wasn't about to be assaulted to enter my home, I walked past the guards and ignored them when they tried to apprehend me. A hand shot out, wrapped around my wrist, and fell away as the troublesome digits couldn't adjust to grip a wolf's leg fast enough. I shook them off and took off at a trot down the hallway to the elevator as the leg became human once more.
Perhaps it's the animal within me. I'm a little faster than most people, lighter on my feet and more agile. They shouted at me but I continued to ignore them, likely infuriating their tiny minds. The elevator came, clanged open, and I stepped inside and hammered the door close button. They swung shut a second before I heard their steps and I ran my hands the length of the keyboard. Every single one lit up. Good.
I slipped out of the elevator on the 3rd floor and popped into the second elevator there, hoping they would follow the first. I poked the button for Scribe's office and sighed when it didn't light up.
"Of course he doesn't want to be bothered," I muttered. "Too bad for him."
Snatching my key card out of my wallet, I ran it through the mechanism on the side of the keypad. There were only a few Yarborough superheroes who were issued cards like mine and the others? I assumed the others would never flinch at supporting whatever the hell was going on. Most of them were dying for bloodbaths. I just wanted life to quiet down. I'd had an amazing time with Cassie, but we hadn't really had time to consider where it would lead.
...If it led anywhere. I was still recovering from what had happened between Lexi and I. We'd spent a decade or so together and to just see it all fall apart so suddenly was rough.
I hit Scribe's elevator key again and gripped the silver handholds lining the interior as the elevator shuddered to life again. Had the guards been worth their salt, they would have gotten into the keyboard in the other and frozen the entire shaft with the emergency button. Instead-
My elevator ground to a halt. The emergency lights came on and a cheerful ping-ping-ping! noise came through the speakers, followed by a voice. "We apologize for this inconvenience. An emergency response team will be with you shortly. Please do not attempt to escape the elevator. It is safer within the interior of your vehicle."
"Well, at least he's paying for someone worth something," I sighed.
Then I did precisely what the elevator told me not to. I pulled myself up on the handrail, gripped the ceiling tiles with claws extended from my nails, and began to pry the emergency evacuation hatch open. The damned thing was rusted to beat all hell and I had to practically beat it open, but it eventually gave in. Out I went, sliding onto the filthy roof.
Surprisingly, it was only the fifth or sixth one I'd had to climb out of. I looked around me, familiarizing myself with the roof. There were plenty of places to step that would result in my hurting myself; plenty of hard bolts and areas to trip. The gaping abyss on the sides of the car were plenty to make me hold on to the wire and or
ient myself.
It would have been so much easier to fly to the top of the shaft, but then what would I do? As a bird, I couldn't force the doors open. I'd plummet and end up smashed against the car's roof, even if I managed to shapeshift in mid-air and slow my fall a little.
The door of the floor above me rattled. I narrowed my eyes at it and thought a little faster. I could fly up, land on the wire, and pull open Scribe's floor doors that way, but it left me completely exposed. Finally, I gave in and grabbed the wire, allowing my hands and feet to shift. My shoes clattered onto the roof as they changed into ape's paws.
People don't really recognize how different our extremities are from our closest cousins. Indeed, we can type on computers. They can climb faster than we give them credit for. I raced along the cable, willing myself to stay attached to the weird ape-human hybrid I'd created in my mind.
I was five floors above them when they opened fire into a pitch-black elevator shaft. Clinging to the wire, I held my breath and hoped the shots would miss me.
Allied: A Superhero Reverse Harem Romance (The PTB Alliance Book 3) Page 4