“Well, Chelsea made it sound like Amy had murdered her little sister. I knew that was insane. It’s easy to see how much Amy cares about Susan. But I stumbled across this picture one time I was babysitting Sue and tidying the house a bit. Amy and her siblings were dressed up for Halloween, and Justin was holding a little blonde baby. I figured she was the girl Chelsea had ranted about. I never asked Amy, though. She has the right to keep whatever happened to her sister private, and she doesn’t need you accusing her of murder.”
Jessie was building up steam and making him feel like scum. “All right, all right. You’re right. I’ll let it go.”
“I’m always right,” Jessie smirked. “Now, if you’re done emotionally exploding all over the place, want to join me for Netflix?” She patted the bed beside her.
Charles shot her a longing look. He’d rather Netflix and chill with Jessie over pretty much anything else in the entire world, but Amy and Zack needed to know about Alex, and he couldn’t risk the shock of them seeing it on social media. “Maybe in a minute. I really have to talk to Amy.”
“Good for you.” Jessie brushed her fingers against his arm and held his gaze with a warm look. “You’re a great guy, you know that?” Electricity shot through him at her touch. Jessie was magic. She flopped onto her bed with her laptop blaring Friends.
Charles opened the bathroom door with mingled trepidation and regret. Maybe Amy would be too busy puking to absorb the news, and he’d have to tell her after a couple hours of snuggling a newly single Jessie. Thank you, Ken!
Amy was crouched on the floor, hugging the toilet like it was her only friend. Zack sat behind her, holding her hair. “Hey, Cinderella.”
Charles made a face. “Quit calling me that. What happened to her?”
Zack’s brows drew together in a guilty frown. “It’s my fault. She never drinks, so I encouraged her a bit. I didn’t know she’d go all out.”
“I’m never drinking again,” Amy wailed into the depths of the porcelain bowl.
“Look, guys, I have news and it’s bad. Alex escaped.”
His words hung in the air, suspended by shock and the truth of what this meant. The trio had been responsible for Alex’s arrest. They were now the top targets in a psycho’s free world.
“What?” Zack’s bellow ripped through the shock. “He was at a maximum-security prison. How could they let this happen?”
Charles grimaced and shook his head. His human friends had no concept of Alex’s terrifying supernatural power.
“Alex is out?” Amy leaned away from the toilet, her face pale and scared. “He’s in Toronto with Sue. I have to call her!” She dumped out her purse in search of her phone.
“I took this, remember?” Zack held her iPhone 8 aloft. Its case was flashy and silver, a birthday gift from Jessie. “You were threatening to call Max and scream at him.” Amy made a grab for it. Zack stood and shoved it into his pocket. “It’s late, let her sleep. I’m sure the Toronto police can handle it.”
Charles closed his eyes and cradled his head in his hands. He was equally sure the human police could not handle a Dark.
Ten
DIM FLORESCENT LIGHT filtered through the plate glass door of Alex Cardelle’s prison cell. It did little to brighten the small, utilitarian space, but he had always found peace in the dark. Darkness was protection, a hiding place and a weapon.
Alex was being held in New Haven, a maximum-security prison several miles from Toronto. He was classified as high-risk, which meant he had to be kept under close supervision at all times. The guards had no way of knowing this would spell their downfall. He tapped the toe of his tennis shoe against the wall, keeping time with the seconds he counted in his head. Any moment now she would come. Any moment now, he would be free.
Alex yawned and stretched his arms straight up above his head. He had to lie diagonally across his bunk because the bed was too short for his tall frame. A massive family fortune and the best lawyer in the world had done nothing to improve the conditions he had had to live with for the last two years. Money and manipulation only went so far when all your friends and all your enemies teamed up to put you behind bars. Alex hadn’t had a single visitor since he had been arrested. Pain sizzled just below the surface of his rage at this injustice. He was willing to bet his right arm that Peter had had at least one. He’d have to visit her once he had escaped and his business had been taken care of.
Distant yells echoed off the concrete walls. Approximately fifty feet of concrete corridor separated him from the guys in I Unit. These inmates spent their days starting brutal fights to gain control of what few resources they had access to. Convicts squabbled over everything. Food, makeshift weapons, medication. Whatever one had, everyone else wanted. Alex would have ruled I Unit if the guards had ever given him the chance.
His section of the prison, J Unit, housed habitually violent offenders. It was an environment in which Alex thrived because, even as gloomy as it was, J Unit, or Gladiator School as the guards called it, had been a welcome distraction from his sentence. Alex had failed the Blood Moon, a vindictive supernatural entity who had cursed him with eternal torture. This torment took the beautiful form of his dead girlfriend, who appeared to him over and over and beg him to save her life. When he failed, as he always did, he was forced to watch her die. And so, Alex ruled Gladiator School with a ferocity that matched his pain.
He rolled over on his thin, lumpy mattress and prayed for his servant to come. Disgusted self-loathing churned in his gut. His entire escape rested on the shoulders of one pathetic, human woman. How had it come to this? Alex clenched his jaw. The answer to that question made his blood boil. He would have escaped on his own if he still had his powers. And he would have had his powers if it hadn’t been for The Dark.
Alex was a powerful super, arguably the most powerful type of super in the world. He was a Dark with more strength in his little finger than a thousand sniveling humans possessed during the course of their entire miserable lives. Prison ought to have been a minor inconvenience rather than a two year stay in hell. He had counted on an easy escape while he’d been out kidnapping children and murdering cops. But soon after he had been arrested, The Dark, queen of the supernatural world herself, had paid him an unpleasant visit. She had stolen his ability to wield the darkness, an intangible force that allowed him to cut, burn, shape shift, and more. This punishment had stripped him of all his power, rendering him as helpless as the humans he loathed. If The Dark’s word meant anything, she would grant him access to the darkness again once he escaped his hellhole. Alex glowered at his cell door. The Dark had never expected him to succeed. He greatly looked forward to proving her wrong.
Light footsteps signaled his servant’s arrival. Alex propped himself on an elbow and spied her haggard figure slinking through the gloom. Angelina Vasquez had been pretty once. Substance abuse and a hard life had robbed her of her good looks. The twenty-something Latina dressed in baggy guard uniforms that did nothing to flatter her bony frame and scraped her boring brown hair into a ponytail that hung limply from the back of her head. She was pathetic, to be sure, but by far her saddest feature was her chocolate brown eyes. They were sunken and tired, lonely windows into her beaten down soul. Alex had to make a concerted effort to avoid eye contact because the innocence in those eyes made him feel things he would rather not feel. They also reminded him of someone he had been trying for years to forget, a long-ago loss that was entirely his fault.
But inconvenient emotions aside, Angelina had presented a chance that was far too good to pass up. Alex had seen an opportunity where the rest had only seen a guard. Alex had seen someone in pain where the others only saw how she inflicted it. He had always been good at making key people feel special. From cheerleaders to principals, they always gave him what he wanted. Angelina had been no exception. He had been charming. He had been kind. He had blown her naïve, little mind. When an inmate talked back to her, Alex made him wish he hadn’t. If she wanted order, he forced every
one to behave. Years of disciplining hardened criminals, and then him. She hadn’t stood a chance. Angelina had been lost and alone, and now he was her whole world.
She had transferred to New Haven two months ago, and Alex had had her eating out of his hand within a week. A week after that, they had begun planning his escape. Playing with her emotions was pitifully easy, like taking food from a puppy with only three legs. The starved-for-attention human was convinced he loved her. He scoffed at the thought. As if.
“Alex.” She whispered his name so as not to wake his sleeping cellmate. Her reverence made him cringe. Only one woman had ever been allowed to speak his name with such familiar intimacy. Blades of grief twisted in his gut, slowly but surely cutting him to pieces. Time neither dulled their edges nor allowed his wounds to heal. The traitorous dagger of memory could never be removed. But he had grown used to bleeding internally.
“You got the keycard?” he asked, his tone cold as ice.
“Yes.” She nodded vigorously, her limp ponytail swishing in agreement. “I also got his uniform and, oh, Alex, this is really going to work!”
He gritted his teeth at her incessant gushing. “Then let’s get going.” He snatched the uniform and pulled it on.
Alex plucked the keycard from Angelina’s hand and led the way toward I Unit. Passing through there was the only way to reach the catwalk and gain access to the control room. After that, the rest of the security checkpoints would be a walk in the park. The CCTV cameras and thirty-foot razor wire fence were easily dealt with. The unpredictable volatility of I Unit was much more of a concern.
He held his breath as they stole through the gloom. I Unit was as dimly lit as the passage in front of his cell. It housed approximately ninety inmates, all of whom had mental disorders. If one woke, he would wake the others with his screams. The bunker-like atmosphere encouraged mental instability, even among the most sane. Alex had often lain awake in his cell and wondered just how long it would be before he joined them. He shook his head to dislodge his grim thoughts and crept forward with extreme care. The slightest misstep could wake an inmate, and the smallest thing out of the ordinary tended to set them off and send the guards running to investigate. He gritted his teeth as the inmate next to him shifted in his sleep. Why was it, exactly, that a bunch of mental cases provided the best alarm system in a maximum-security prison? No wonder human society was in such shambles.
“Phew.” Angelina exhaled loudly as they tiptoed across the catwalk to the control room. They swiped their keycards, and the doors slid apart with a soft electronic whir.
A correction officer lay slumped on the white tiled floor. Alex rewarded Angelina with a tight-lipped smile. “You killed him. Good work.”
“N-no. Bob’s a good guy. His kids⸻” She faltered as Alex snatched her pistol. He screwed on the silencer and shot the officer from point-blank range.
“His kids will miss him very much.” He smirked. She goggled at him with her mouth hanging unattractively open. “What good are the CCTV cameras if no one is around to monitor them?” She gaped at the dead body. Alex shook her shoulders. “Move.” She scrambled to obey.
They slipped through the rest of the security checkpoints without one single hiccup. The prison was understaffed, especially at night. Its employees had far more pressing worries than co-workers in uniform marching purposefully about the compound.
Cool night air hit him full in the face. It smelled of rain and fresh-cut grass. Alex breathed in deep, relishing in his first taste of freedom. They strolled past the exercise yard and across the prison parking lot, every step a spring-loaded leap toward his escape.
Angelina halted in front of a 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser. It sat splat in the middle of an otherwise semirespectable line of vehicles. The cruiser sported styles of the forties mashed with the proportions of a front-wheel-drive station wagon. Retro done shamefully wrong. Car-obsessed Amy Evans would never be caught dead in such a disgrace to the name of automobile. Alex smiled to himself, imagining the irony of shooting her in the back seat. She would literally be caught dead in it.
Angelina started the engine and inched up to the gate. Her face was taut with tension, her hands shaking with nerves. She inserted her keycard into the slot by her window and was rewarded with a satisfying beep.
“Bit early to be heading home, ‘aint it?” The male voice made Alex jump.
Angelina handled it beautifully. “Myers called me in early today. It’s a quiet night in there, so he let me cut out a couple hours before my shift was up. I’m just givin’ Bob here a ride home and then I’m gonna get some shut-eye.” She scanned the dead guard’s keycard to verify her story.
“Good on ya.” Alex finally located a plastic speaker next to the keycard slot. “Have a nice night, eh?”
The imposing metal gate opened with a clang and a loud mechanical whir. They rolled straight through the exit. Alex held in a whoop of triumph. Two years behind bars, and now sweet freedom. They stuck to deserted back roads until they reached the highway. With every mile rolling out behind them, Alex’s elation mounted, and his concerns fell away. He had done it! He had escaped a maximum-security prison with nothing more than his own brilliant wit.
“We did it!” Angelina said, her chocolate eyes shining with joy.
Alex looked at her with something close to pity in his stormy blue eyes. His first order of business was to get rid of her. “Let’s drive into the city. I’ve been meaning to pay some friends of mine a visit.”
She pouted her lips. “Alex, we talked about this. You said all you’d do when you escaped was love me. I let you kill Bob, but no more. You’re a changed man, remember? I changed you.” She ended her speech on a self-satisfied simper.
Alex fought his gag reflex. He waited until they had cleared city limits before turning to her with a smile that failed to reach his eyes. “Let’s take a walk.”
She smiled softly and took the next exit, a willing lamb headed to the slaughter. Alex grasped her hand and led her a short distance into the trees. He drew her revolver without emotion.
Her eyes grew as large as saucers. “What? No, no you can’t. You said⸻No, please, Alex.”
He held her at arm’s length and examined her with indifference. Baggy uniform, premature facial lines, limp brown hair. He preferred blondes. But the deer-in-the-headlights look in those chocolate brown eyes had him lowering the weapon. Pathetic or not, she had done everything he asked of her. He would reward her devotion. He cracked the gun into her skull. She crumpled to the ground, unconscious instead of dead. She would wake up in disgrace, but at least she would wake up.
“I see you’re learning, albeit slowly.” The Dark’s girlish laughter echoed through the forest.
He turned to face her, his movements slow and wary. Fading moonlight illuminated her petite, elfin features. Her raven hair flowed down her back in a velvet curtain of veiled mystery. Her illustrious sapphire blue eyes gleamed with centuries of untold secrets. She wore a sleeveless black silk gown with a tight waist and flared skirt and a sapphire locket on a fine silver chain. The Queen of the Darks was exactly as he remembered her, a freaking beautiful pain in the butt.
“Have you come to return what belongs to me?” His words, meant to be strong and self-righteous, instead came out petulant and scared.
“All in due time.”
He skewered her with a look of purest hate. “I got out. I improvised and struggled and learned my stupid lesson. I met your demands, so give me back my powers!” He had begun speaking in a measured tone but wound up screaming at her.
She giggled. “You are so much fun to provoke. Unlike you, I keep my promises.”
A delicious rush of energy surged through his veins. His powers had returned with an electric flood of strength. Joy exploded within him like a whirling winter blizzard. He raised his hand and felled a tree. Angelina’s ugly cruiser soared above their heads and crashed into an oak. The windscreen shattered, and birds scattered in all directions. Alex pumped his fist.
“Of course, I would be remiss if I failed to impart some words of wisdom before I left.”
“You, impart words of wisdom?” Now it was Alex’s turn to laugh. The Dark had a reputation for speaking phrases of insanity. Words of wisdom were far from her forte.
She took a measured breath, anger glinting beneath the calm sapphire of her eyes. “You were burned by the Blood Moon once. Do not let it happen again. It has taken much from you, and it will continue to take until its curse is broken. The Blood Moon grows stronger with every sacrifice you make. You are feeding the curse you should be struggling to break.” She vanished in a cloud of darkness.
“What curse?” Alex demanded of empty air. “I am not cursed! You are as delusional as I remember. Who goes around speaking limericks of doom?”
“Am I a curse, or am I a blessing? Who can tell, really?” The sweet voice of the girl he had once loved whispered to him on the gentle dawn breeze.
Eleven
BRIGHT SUNSHINE PIERCED Peter’s eyelids. He opened them and peered around, sleepily disorientated at waking somewhere new. He and Damien had moved into a tiny apartment on the third floor of a UBC residence hall. Their studio was four hundred square feet of expertly designed space and had a beautiful view of some dumpsters. It was palatial after their tiny prison cell. The apartment was unfurnished except for two double beds across the room from each other. Each bed rested below a large, rectangular window, through which the sunlight streamed.
Peter hit the light switch on his way to the bathroom. Damien groaned and buried his head in his blanket. He had stumbled back from a party at 1 A.M. “Come on, man.” Peter opened the blinds above Damien’s bed. “Rise and shine.”
Damien hurled a pillow at his head. Peter chuckled and left him in peace. He grabbed clothes and a towel and hopped in the shower. A thunderous rap on their door cut it short.
He switched off the shower and yelled through the bathroom door. “Damien? You gonna get that?” His question was met with thick, sleepy silence. Peter swore and grabbed his towel.
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