That's when I realized they were shooting down, not up. Where the hell did they think I was going? Confidence regained; a bullet might hit the wall and smash into me but the chances were low, I continued my climb. The gunfire was agonizingly loud, every animal within me begging not to have to listen to it anymore, but I tried to let that wash over me.
I reached the top of the shaft and wrapped my legs around the cable, digging those powerful fingers into the crease of the door. With every bit of strength I had in me, I pulled until I couldn't pull any harder. Finally, the doors gave and popped open with another little ping!
Fuck. I looked down and saw a pair of helmeted heads turn from their current position and directly up to mine. I threw myself through the doors as they lifted their weapons as one, aiming them for my head. The first shot grazed my leg, but the rest fell on an empty shaft that left them looking like idiots.
I landed on my back and breathed a sigh of relief. The hallway was empty. Perhaps they'd thought I'd go find Izzy, since she'd been sort of part of our little group for a whole two days, give or take a little bit.
No. I wanted answers from the boss himself. I allowed my hands and feet to go back to normal and peeled myself off the tiles. The giant double doors that opened into Scribe's office were already cracked apart. I slid through them, tense and ready for anything that might go down.
Scribe put a gun to my head the second that I stepped foot inside. I sighed at him. "That's a really bad idea, boss. You, more than anyone, are perfectly aware of what I'm capable of when I'm pushed to it."
"You aren't going to shred me," he said, all self-assurance and comfortable. "You're just here as a distraction while the others run off to..."
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. "You really think I'm going to tell you?"
"I'll find out eventually, whether you do or not. I'm not going down in some blaze of glory just because my powers were ripped apart."
Ah. I turned to face him, slowly but surely. Few people were willing to gun down someone that was looking them eye to eye. Scribe was one of those that I thought likely to do so, but if he were about to kill me I wanted to make sure he saw me go. I wanted to haunt him until he left this worthless world, too. "Is Allison telling you that shit? Is she scaring you? Because you're the one who got the Zaps banned, not her. And no one is going to take you away from the job you love so much if you don't scream it to the world."
He thumbed the hammer back and rested his finger on the trigger. That wasn't good gun safety. I surged forward to let him know it, cutting off whatever it was he was about to say. My elbow caught him on the chin, tipping his body back and away from me. The gun went off at a deafening distance, my ears ringing as they tried to restore themselves.
I didn't have time to be deaf. Scribe recovered quickly enough, making me resort to a low blow that had the old man drop to a knee. I disarmed him in an instant and it occurred to me just how old he was. A part of me felt bad for hurting him, but he'd been willing to kill me. And I had to keep that in mind.
The gun fit well in my hand. I aimed it at his chest. Sometimes people lived through chest shots and I didn't want to be the person who killed our mentor, though it certainly looked like it was coming to that. "Talk me through this and I'll leave peacefully. Cross my heart. Because you and I don't have problems like this, boss. You putting a gun to my head is a step too far."
"Pull the trigger. Be a real man about it," he snarled. "You've done it a thousand times before. I'm no different."
I held the gun on him for another moment before I let it drop, then I slung it across the room. Fuck that, it wasn't right. Even if he'd blown my brains across the room, he was the reason I was the man I'd become. And, despite all the blood staining my hands, I liked who I was.
Scribe was on me in an instant, slinging me into a wall and coming at me with both fists clenched together, clearly intent on breaking my neck. I kept him turning, not striking out but trying to exhaust him. "Boss, I don't know what's wrong with you, but Thomaston can fix it. They have a full medical facility. They can make it better."
Trying to keep your voice casual as someone hurls their body at you is difficult, to say the least. He caught me across the jaw with a wild punch but I sent the others away from me. He was panting, gasping for air, his lips darkening. I slid up inside his blows and drove my knee into his diaphragm, trying to deprive him of oxygen. It was possible that he'd just pass out, collapse on the floor and be no more a threat than I was.
He didn't. Instead, he fell into me and clawed at my face. I raised my hands to defend myself and jumped as a shriek pierced the air, rattling books from the shelves and breaking glass around me. I moved back, clapping those same hands to my ears as I tried to hold out that horrible noise.
Isabella walked past me, singing that note at the top of her lungs. My knees were weak against that horrible power and I fell to the ground, curling into a ball, and wishing it would stop. My bestial sides screamed right along with her, like a dog listening to a tornado siren. There was nothing I could do to keep her from inside my head, just cringe like a terrified child and hope that she was after him, not me.
As it turned out, she was. Her powers shifted from the pair of us to directly on Scribe as she bore down on him. His skin flattened, ripples appearing in the veins. Scribe passed out and I grabbed her wrist as tightly as I could, giving it a squeeze.
The note stopped. Isabella cleared her throat. "Is there a problem? Or were you stopping me to thank me?"
"That's enough. He's got a daughter at home."
My voice was a weak croak against the melody of, well, Melody. She glared at me but I didn't dare threaten her or try to manipulate her. I'd seen how capable she was when Allison had hold of her mind, not knowing the extent of her powers. Isabella had been born like that and had practiced since she was a child. I had no doubt that she was perfectly able to rip me apart at a molecular level if she wanted to.
She looked back at Scribe and poked him with the toe of her Mary Janes. "Assuming that he doesn't do jail time for what's going on, anyway. You need to get to Cassie, don't you?"
"I wanted to try to talk Scribe out of this before I went," I sighed. "Looks like another failure on my part."
"What else is new?" she asked.
Izzy walked to Scribe's desk, yelled at the locked section of it, and popped out with a tiny box. I frowned at it, then her, slowly dragging myself to my feet. "You came all the way up here for a little box?"
"He took my car keys. If we're going after Adam, I needed them."
It was like someone had punched me in the gut. I shook my head at her. "You're not going anywhere. We need you to stay here, to deal with all of this. Of everyone involved, you're the only one who has any sense about the public relations needed to settle these problems down."
She paused, fingering her keys. Then she shook her head. "PR isn't important. We need to save people, not images."
Had I not known how important the situation was before, that would have cemented it for me. I'd given her an out, a way to ignore whatever duties she had and go hide in an office somewhere.
Maybe our little songbird was braver than I thought.
Izzy had always been about how we appeared to the rest of the world, sinking into the public's general consciousness as a good thing. For her to abandon it in a prime moment, to really throw in with us? I slid an arm around her and watched her back as we left the room.
"Lexi's locked in her room, by the way. We need to get her before we leave."
I snorted. "She's got food, water, and a place to go potty. She'll be a good girl until someone else buys her loyalty."
"She's my girlfriend," Izzy said, giving me a level look. "I'm not leaving without her. And if she were still yours, you'd feel the same way."
"But she's not," I said, moving away from her. "And did you know, I almost forgot that you had her cheating on me behind my back. Isn't it strange the allies we make when the world is on fire?"
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br /> Her lip raised in a sneer. "You weren't enough for her. That isn't my fault. You were never there for her, never did anything with her; anyone neglected like that eventually gives up and finds someone who wants to be with them."
I scowled at her, but I didn't argue. Just because Lexi had wanted to go places I didn't did not mean that she had a license to cheat on me. If I hadn't been enough for her, we could have talked it out. Instead, she started fucking Isabella and plotting world domination that, almost certainly, had come from Allison.
She didn't say another word. She just headed for the nearby stairs and started down them. Lexi had decided to stay in our old apartment after she'd been pulled out of the Dream by Cassie's parents. I hesitated for a moment, then followed Isabella, glaring. It was fair to save Lexi.
It didn't mean that I wanted to be involved with it, damn it.
We made our way down to my old apartment and I caught Lexi's scent at the door. It was an intoxicating blend of spice and pumpkin, not too unlike that latte that's so popular in the fall. Izzy moved to the side and I sighed. One of the things that every EMT needs to know how to do is to get through a door. You run into a lot of domestic violence situations, unfortunately, where someone has been hurt and the other partner is intent on trying to make the pain stick. Sometimes, they even want to kill them.
That meant that I had plenty of experience in how to correctly bust a locked door from its moorings. But I wanted to take the easier approach. I shifted into the body of a bear and lumbered forward. One massive paw rested against the wood and I just pressed inward until it gave, the crunch audible for thirty miles or so.
The door fell in and Izzy stepped over it. Lexi sat on the couch, staring into a television that wasn't on. I didn't follow, instead sitting quietly and slowly reshaping myself into the body of a wolf; much easier on Isabella's car than trying to shove a bear in it.
Whatever she said, it worked. Lexi looked over at me and shivered, but Izzy wrapped a blanket around her and towed her out of the room. The three of us made our way down to the parking garage, the halls worryingly empty. I climbed into the back seat and laid down upon the leather. And wow, who had the money to afford a leather interior? Izzy must have gotten paid far more than the rest of us did.
"Hang on tight," Izzy ordered, the car turning over.
Lexi clung to the blanket and pulled it over her head. Izzy had to fasten her seatbelt for her. She slammed the door and I sank my claws into that expensive upholstery with a little extra relish. Isabella had stolen my future, for all she may have been under Allison's exposure at the time.
It felt good to take a little something of hers, too.
We peeled out into the night, leaving a dark, silent Alliance building in our wake.
Chapter 6
I may not have been close with Nishelle any longer, but I had to admit; she had one hell of a sense of taste.
Stretching out on her couch, I grabbed the remote with one hand and dug into the bowl of popcorn with the other. A billion channels and everything was on. I never got time off like this and, despite the circumstances, I was relishing it. I wiggled my sock-covered toes, tossed a piece of popcorn into the air, and caught it as the opening blare of some late-night talk show rerun kicked on.
My phone rang and I jerked. The popcorn smacked off my nose and went flying across the room. I tossed my handful back into the bowl, turned the television on mute, and sighed at the unknown name, unknown number callback information. Damn it.
"Edwin Noll," I answered.
There was a brief pause before he spoke up. "Mr. Noll, you're head of support and technology at the Yarborough center, aren't you?"
The world crashed in around me all at once. I knew that voice, having overheard it so many times during announcement videos. My stomach fell to my ankles and I did everything I could to remain calm. Logan Patterson was not a man to toy with.
"Yes, sir. That's me," I said, teeth chattering. So much for calm.
I could almost hear his nod. "We have three of your cohorts here at the Thomaston center, if you would be so kind as to attend it yourself. We are aware that you are in the area."
Subtext: This is not a request. We know where you are and we know how to get to you. We're giving you the option to give yourself up peacefully. Say no, and the boys with the battering ram will be there shortly.
"If you don't mind giving me enough time to grab a shower and a shave, I'll be there."
Logan chuckled. "One hour."
And then he hung up.
The phone flopped onto my chest and I closed my eyes, pinching my nose. "Okay, Edwin. You have an hour to get the fuck out of Thomaston or go save your friends. You're not the smashy sort. You're not even really good at it. The one time you participated in one of these superhero fuck-fests, you got your ass handed to you. Cassie and the others could save themselves. Nishelle could light the whole damn building on fire."
I had all the excuses in the world, but none of them made it right. Even as I struggled to find more ways to excuse myself, to tell myself that Cassie would want me to run, I knew I couldn't do it. So I did what anyone would do. I smashed a bunch of popcorn in my face and stomped off to the bathroom to shave. Not that I really needed it, but I felt better going there looking as presentable as possible.
Even butchers wash off sheep before they slaughter them.
The door smashed open just as I was finishing the last stroke of my razor. I sliced the fuck out of myself and grabbed a nearby towel, gritting my teeth and trying to stay as quiet as I could. There was a window and a 20-foot drop outside of it. If I had to, I'd slip out and hope I didn't break my stupid legs.
But there was no tromp of boots, no whispers that promised terror. Clutching that towel, I stuck my head out to look around the interior of the apartment.
"How the hell did you do that to yourself?"
Nate dropped his bag, dug into it, and produced a first aid kit in seconds. I stared at him, my head cocking to one side. "How'd you get here? And what the fuck are Izzy and Lexi doing here?"
"We came to help," Izzy said, tossing her bag on the couch. "Always nice to be wanted. Where's everyone else?"
"Does that translate to 'where's Adam and what have the others done with him'?" I asked, scathing.
Nate pulled my hands away and hissed in sympathy. "Stop grouching at her and keep your mouth shut. This needs to be disinfected before you catch your death. You do know that they make razors with guards on them, right?"
"I prefer a straight razor," I sniffed, then shut up and let Nate do his thing. You don't tell a medical professional that you know what you need against their expertise. The cut would have stopped bleeding eventually, but it was better to let him get his nerves out on me.
His hands trembled as he worked on me, even as Izzy rounded on me to bitch some more. "It is -not- just about Adam, thank you very much. Sosie's in trouble and so is everybody else, and it's at least partially because of Adam so I'm just trying to do my best."
"You could give her a break," Lexi said. "She's just trying to help."
I flapped my hand at her and more or less ignored the both of them. It wasn't like I could smart off until Nate got me all fixed up. Though the idea of Izzy trying to help worried me more than anything else. Trouble followed her as much as it did Cassie, but she seemed to be predisposed to this horrible talent of making it a hundred times worse.
All patched up, Nate slapped me on the shoulder, washed up, and repacked his kit. Then he moved out of the way and went to assault my popcorn.
"The only break I want to give either of you starts with my fist and your noses," I growled, throwing down the towel and walking out to meet them. "You've caused more trouble than you're worth."
Isabella sank onto the couch and gave me the saddest look she could. "I didn't mean to do it, Edwin. I'm sorry. But you've felt what the Dream is like, you can't fight your way out of it. And sometimes, you have no idea what's real. I never knew Allison like I thought I did.
I thought she loved me and that just opened me up to everything."
"That doesn't excuse you pulling the shit you did."
"How doesn't it? It wasn't me. I didn't do anything wrong and the moment I was free of her, I came back to support all of you." Isabella saw my eyes drift to the popcorn. She stole the bowl away from Nate and offered it out to me.
I ignored it. "After all this, I don't trust either of you."
"That's fair," Izzy said.
The bowl remained thrust at me. I took it and sat down on the coffee table across from them. "Logan wants me at the Alliance building here within the next half hour or so. Nate, you up for it?"
"We all are," Lexi answered. "You'll go with a full escort. If they get around all of us, you were fucked from the beginning."
Allied: A Superhero Reverse Harem Romance (The PTB Alliance Book 3) Page 5