"If everyone could stop acting like an idiot for ten seconds, I think we could satisfy this entire situation," Edwin said, his voice radiating with anger.
The room fell silent as one and I found my respect for my sweet Edwin raise a few pegs.
You know, if we couldn't have Scribe, maybe we could have him instead. It was just a thought; I had no idea how Edwin would react to the offering of running the Yarborough PTB, but if it came to it? I could certainly suggest it. That was assuming I lived, of course, but hey. There's nothing wrong with being positive, right?
Right.
Edwin put Lexi back in her chair and sat the table upright again. He didn't sit back down, instead pacing around us. "None of us can claim innocence. Not even those of us who just run support. We all know of bad situations or bad parts of town; places where we could do good but we don't. We just don't have the resources. I think Nishelle was misguided. I think she should have come to us immediately with the information, but how could she? She was still stuck under Allison's guidance when it happened, right?"
"Right," Nishelle said. "Or enough under her that I wasn't thinking clearly. Everything in my head was a disaster and there wasn't a lot that I could puzzle out. I wanted to make sure I wasn't a villain before I turned up trying to talk to all of you, or trying to get Cassie back, or even trying to make sure that I was still in good standing with the Alliance."
"Sensible," Edwin told her. Then he turned to the rest of us. "She hasn't done anything underhanded. She hasn't pushed for some sort of problematic policy. If anything, all she's done is bleed for the rest of us. Allison put her in the Dream the same as the rest of us. If the enemy, whoever that is at this point, is against her? I say that she's one of us."
Adam nodded. "But if she screws up, she's stuck out in the cold. That's okay, right? It's like some kind of probation."
I stood up to protest but Nishelle shook her head at me. "That's fine with me. But if I prove myself, by whatever means you deem necessary, I'm off of it. Right? None of this goalpost moving bullshit where I do something decent and you say it's not enough or that it doesn't show that I'm actually a team player. Because if fair is fair, then I deserve to be treated like everyone else if I manage it."
"If that's fine with everyone else, that's good with me," Adam said.
Lexi looked mutinous, but the rest of the table was nodding right along with the pair of them. Nate was visibly relieved. He bent down and began to pick up the remnants of breakfast. I scooped up a dozen plates and helped. Two of the others, Izzy and Lexi, left to hunt down a vacuum cleaner to take care of the rest of the ruin.
Nate nudged his hip against mine as we started in on the dishes. "That was smart, not chiming in. Lexi would have twisted whatever you said to suit her ideals. You knew it. You outmaneuvered her. Not a lot of people can say that about Wreckless."
"I don't know," I said, pulling on a pair of dishwashing gloves. The soap always made my arms break out. "She was acting like an idiot. I almost suggested we have James poke around in her head and make sure she was all right. I didn't think she was capable of spite like that."
"She probably thought she was intervening on your behalf and trying to help you out."
I dropped the plate I was holding. "What?"
"Yeah, Cassie, she doesn't always make a lot of sense but her heart is generally in the right place." Nate picked up the dish and scrubbed it down.
Given who it was coming from, I took it with a grain of salt. Mind you, he'd just congratulated me for doing the exact opposite of what he was doing; advocating for someone near to us to someone who maybe wasn't quite so inclined to believe that they were acting in good faith. It was difficult to comprehend, but some people really never lost that sparkle for their significant other; no matter how much they were in love with someone else.
Yeah, I definitely couldn't understand that at all.
"You guys don't mind that I added Nishelle to the group, right? We talked about it, but I'm double-checking, here," I whispered.
Nate smiled. "We've talked about it before. The verdict was a definite yes. No one minds and she's certainly welcome to come mingle with the rest of us whenever she wants."
"I don't know if that will happen. She's never been very into men, but there was that one guy that one time-"
"Is this a juicy story that I need to hear?" he asked.
I sniffed. "It's a juicy story that you can ask me to hear and if you're very, very good, you'll get to. It's sultry and wicked and all those things the romance books say on their covers at Wal-Mart."
"And how would you know about those?"
I grinned up at him but didn't answer. Let his mind run wild and see what kind of fun I could have with it later on that night. Assuming we had a later on that night to come back to.
Chapter 11
Most of the day passed by quietly. We spent it in separate groups or settling into board games. I thrashed everyone who dared face me in Monopoly, largely due to cheating. But you come to expect that from the person playing the Banker. Maybe you don't as a kid; but then you realize why your parents always won and you're out for blood.
Just after dinner, there was a soft knock on the door. I heard it but most of the others didn't. A second knock came just before I opened it, much louder than before. I grabbed the knob, twisted, and peered out at a handful of assembled people, all in supersuits, and Logan. He, of course, only had on his rather dashing suit. He was too old for me, but I mean, there's nothing wrong with looking at variety now and then.
"If I might intrude on you for a small portion of your evening?" he asked.
I moved to the side. "It's your building, sir. We're just annoying you."
He smiled at me, a thousand times friendlier than he'd been yesterday, and led the others inside. Two women, four men, but they all followed the first guy. I recognized him almost immediately. Starseer was a Flyer from Yarborough. He was a decade my senior and I hadn't had any idea where he'd ended up when he transferred shortly before my court case. Adam ran to embrace him. It'd been Starseer who had helped him work out most of the basics of flight with his gravity powers.
"I didn't know you were here!" Adam cried out.
Starseer, I think his real name was Chris, hugged him right back. "Have to admit it's the same here. Logan didn't warn us we'd be meeting up with all of you; though as the news tells it, you've all flipped villain."
"Of course we haven't," I sighed. "Though it'd be a hell of a lot easier if we had. At least there wouldn't be all this grey area to mess with."
The older superhero rounded on me and frowned. "Nothing's easy as a villain, Strikeout. You know that. And it's foolish to think otherwise." He looked back at Adam. "Is she all right? Did she catch a bad blow to the head? If she's unstable, her cousin can look after her. James is a wonder with medicine."
"If she needs medical treatment, Starseer, she's got a medic waiting in the wings," Nate said, frowning at the man.
Starseer took a step back from Nate, which said a hell of a lot more than it didn't. "Next thing you'll tell me is she's got Melody with her."
Izzy cleared her throat from the back of the room and raised her hand. Poor Starseer looked like his heart was about to give out and some part of me enjoyed that a little too much. Logan clapped his hands together and we gave him the attention he deserved.
"We'll get into strategy in a moment, but I've brought the backup you asked for. Starseer is a veteran of both your streets and ours. We've had word from our medical staff that Creed has been under surveillance for stress during his flights. We thought a Flyer was necessary. If he would be so kind as to introduce the others?" Logan asked.
Chris was in his element. He smiled and walked forward, drawing a woman in red and gold with him. "Kharmia is a Presto, one of our best. She has nineteen years in service and wanted to come out to help you." He offered his hand to the girl, barely of legal age, in amber. "Vyrah is a-"
I stopped listening about there. These people
were willing to come and die for us and I just didn't have the time to get to know them. They would be back in Thomaston before terribly long and, I hoped, safe and sound. I knew it was a bitch thing to do, but I couldn't have their lives on my conscience, too. Already I was leading my lovers and their loved ones, Lexi excluded, into a war I didn't think we could win.
Bluntly, I hoped that it would hurt less if I didn't know the new team. If they died, they would be just more faces in the Hall back home, or in whatever served as the Hall here in Thomaston.
Edwin nudged me when Chris finished and I looked up, a little lost. "Yes?"
"Did you hear anything that came out of my mouth in the past ten minutes?"
"Yes."
He jerked his thumb at a tall man in white. "What's his name?"
I sucked my lower lip into my mouth and glanced over at Nate, who shook his head at me. I wasn't getting any help out of him. Great. The next person I checked with was Nishelle, who merely looked amused at my plight. Fuck her. Adam, however, was busily spelling out the guy's name in block letters with his hands. I got I, C, and another I before Isabella slapped his hands away and entered a whispering scoldfest with her brother.
"Mmm...Icicle?" I guessed.
The guy shrugged. "Good guess. Maybe she was listening?"
Logan shook his head. "We aren't here to irritated the refugees. Spend the evening together. Get to know one another. It's the best idea I have for you at the moment. Team, if there's an alert, ignore it. There are plenty of others who haven't picked up a nice bonus in a while."
And with that, the man left and shut the door behind himself. I found myself frowning. "Bonuses?"
"You know, triple pay for going out on active duty and fighting threats," Starseer said. "Quadruple if you get hurt, of course."
Those of us from Yarborough stared at him. I could feel their eyes boring through me, saw their locked gaze reflected in his. A look of concern slowly worked its way across his features.
"You... do get bonuses, don't you?"
Nishelle snorted. "If I got a bonus for being dead, I'd have even more cash than I already do. None of us get a damn thing for getting our asses kicked all over the street. Are you kiddin' me?"
"You get four times the pay if you get hurt?" Isabella whispered, her eyes as wide as plates. "Four whole times? Adam, you could get a real car with that. I could buy all the bird toys I ever wanted."
Adam's jaw was somewhere on the floor. I gently pushed his gaping mouth closed. He pulled away and shivered. "Most of us can barely afford to make ends meet when there's not constant action. We get a little more if our personal belongings get damaged and our hospital bills are paid, but that's it. We don't really get much off of our merchandise, either. Do you?"
"75% of profits," said Kharmia. "And that's minimum. Some of us get better once we're more established. You should all re-negotiate your contracts. How long have you been in?"
"Almost as long as you have, some of us longer," I said, immediately.
Pity stole on to the faces of the Thomaston group. It was like we were the poor country cousins of the biggest city show-offs and I didn't like it. I squirmed back against Nate, putting my shoulders against him and knowing he would protect me from the judgment.
Kharmia shook her head. "Things will change. After we get finished with all of this, it has to change for the better for all of you. I'm so sorry. Maybe we can arrange some kind of backpay, too. Let all of you get the money you deserve. We've seen what it's like to be over there in Yarborough. Too few resources for such an active city, but Scribe's always telling us everything is in great shape and that you don't need reinforcements."
I turned the words over in my head. We'd had offers of help. Plentiful offers, if the Presto was to be believed. I tried not to be angry about it, not to imagine how many fewer bruises and cuts I would have had. How many times had I gone into a situation alone, knowing that it was what I had to do to protect people?
But maybe it hadn't been. Maybe we could have all had the backup we deserved when the stakes were their highest.
And maybe the moon was going to fall into my lap. It'd be made of cheese and I could spread it on some Townhouse crackers.
I figured they had about the same chances of happening.
"Don't worry about it," I said, finally. "Patterson said he was going to talk strategy later on? He's coming back at some point, then?"
"We always sit down and plan out a strategy when we're dealing with something like this," Starseer said, sitting down at the kitchen table, feet resting on the spotless floor.
I sat down next to him. "What's it like? Obviously, plans sometimes go to pieces, but-"
"They do," he admitted. "But not very often, and we're able to pivot easily if that happens due to the planning. We're rarely unprepared these days. Logan is a genius with strategy and tactics. He spent ten years in the Army, most of it in Special Forces-"
"Where he killed a bunch of people, no doubt," I muttered.
He stared at me. "You don't like the military?"
"I respect the individuals. I don't like the whole orders to kill thing," I said. "Look at the situation we're in right now. Power gets too easily used in bad ways."
His teeth ground against one another and, for a brief moment, I was pretty certain he was going to slap me. It would be a terrible move. I had more people here to defend me than he did and slapping a Blitzer was like a jogger playing chicken with a car. You were bound to get run over if you that dumb; but he decided against it at the last moment. His fists clenched and unclenched, then he let out a quiet sigh.
"You're lucky you're pretty."
"You're lucky you didn't do that," I said, flicking at finger at one of his fists. "Or did you forget that I'm a Blitzer? One good slap is enough for me to take your head off and deliver it to your boss."
"He's your boss right now, too, sweetheart."
I wrinkled my nose. "I'm not your sweetheart. I'm not your -anything-. And this conversation is over. Feel free to join one of the board games in progress or go fuck yourself. Whatever you want."
Leaving the table, I felt him reach out for me but by the time I'd turned around Kharmia was already between him and me. Her back was to me and his wrist was clenched in one of her hands. Whatever she said was in a language, probably some spoken cipher, that I didn't understand. I wandered back toward my people, the superheroes of Yarborough. And Edwin.
Nishelle drew me down into the group, who had decided to huddle in a corner while I was making new friends. I tucked my head against her and enjoyed it as my men slowly cocooned me from view.
"Guy seems like an asshole up close," Edwin muttered. "Too bad, really. He's always got amazing PR on television."
Izzy sniffed. "Yes, well. Some people are just better spoken when it's all planned out rather than on the spot. I'm sure he didn't do anything particularly offensive."
"Threatened me, very briefly. Remembered I could throw him out a window," I said, then chuckled. "Guess it doesn't matter so much for a Flyer, but still. Adam could've grounded his ass."
Adam kissed the top of my head and ran his big bear paws over my back. "Adam doesn't intend to do anything of the sort. It'll just be really sad for him if he decides to put a hand on you."
"Be really sad for him if he decides to put a hand on any of us. I don't need protecting any much more than the rest of you. But I damn sure ain't about to lay down for Starboy over there," I grumbled.
I buried my head against Adam a moment later and sighed. It wasn't worth fighting about, but I didn't like being treated like I was a weakling. Without his ability to fly, Chris wouldn't even be one of us. And I could still throw his stupid ass through a wall if I wanted to.
The night dragged on, our groups never really mixing. Isabella went over to talk with them twice, but they'd settled at the kitchen table around a chessboard and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Maybe we weren't the best group in any Alliance building, but we had heart. And we had each othe
r.
Eventually, Kharmia came over and sat down next to us. "I'm sorry about Starseer. He's been having trouble with his boyfriend and their girlfriend. It's been a mess and he's been biting everyone around him for the past few weeks. We're about sick of it. I'm trying to talk him into a better mood."
It was Edwin who spoke up first. "He's in a multi-person relationship?"
"Something like that. I don't know if they're all actually involved with each other or what's really going on. It's not like I interview my co-workers about their personal lives."
I stared at her. I couldn't imagine a time when I wasn't bothering other superheroes about themselves. It was common knowledge that anything said to another superhero would probably reach the ears of every single one of us by the end of the day. Which, of course, is why all this secrecy was hitting us at such a strange angle. It had been very few times that I'd seen real secrets kept back in Yarborough for more than a week, much less years.
Allied: A Superhero Reverse Harem Romance (The PTB Alliance Book 3) Page 10