by Angel Payne
“Reece-man for the win,” Lydia mutters. “I was just going to say ‘cuckoo-ville.’”
“Cuckoo!” From over our heads, Lux repeats it like a joyful war cry. “I have cuckoo, Dada! Like a birdie!”
Foley moves to stand next to me. “Well, this is going to make training more interesting.”
“It’s going to make everything more interesting.” As my wife utters it, she pins me with her stare. It’s not necessary. I already peg a lot of what she means because it’s everything racing for precedence in my mind too.
Racing fast.
Officially, our son’s abilities have surpassed ours—not such a tough issue while he’s obedient and adoring of us. But what will happen once he hits a rebellious stage? And since that’s going to happen sooner rather than later…
“Shit,” I mumble beneath my breath. Shit, shit, shit.
Yet right now, “sooner rather than later” has to be given another connotation. A much more pressing one—leading me to pivot back toward ’Dia and demand, “When exactly did this happen?”
“Just now,” she supplies. “In the middle of the quake.”
“Shit.” I’m spitting it now—and longing to add some choice profanities, though there’s no time for that luxury. “That means close to twenty people were up-close eyewitnesses to this kid going airborne down the hallway.”
I expect Foley to join me in the growl I twist on the end of that. Instead, he’s grunting in satisfaction while peering down at his phone. If the bastard actually expects me to approve of him taking or keeping any video footage of this shit…
But the guy beats me to the preparedness punch. By a really long shot.
“Text from Neeta,” he explains. “Before the Lightning Kid decided to zip his way down the hall, I told her to yank up an e-version of a nondisclosure pact. Wade’s helping her monitor the door, and they’re having everyone sign off before they leave.”
“Tell her thank you.” Emma’s expression already conveys how little the words really communicate on our behalf. But she doesn’t cling at her thinning composure for too long. I watch, admiring and adoring her even more, as she slathers on another layer of fortitude from the inside out. It instantly shores her posture and steels her face, giving her enough strength to shout, “Lux Mitchell Tycin, put your feet on the floor this instant.”
“But Mama!” Our kid’s voice is part cackle and part whine. “Look what I can do. Looooook!”
The triple barrel roll with a donut-twisty finish yanks a couple of impressed rumbles from Foley and me before they’re tromped by a glare from Emma so frosty, she really does resemble the iconic ice princess from the Disney cartoons.
“Well, shit,” Foley grumbles.
“Stole that one out of my mouth,” I return.
“She does that look as good as her sister.”
“And you’re surprised?”
“No.” Foley shifts from foot to foot. “I’m scared.”
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, a foot gets shoved into it—royally clocking his maw in a kids’ size three and a half.
“Not sure you’re the one who should be scared,” I offer past a chuckle while reaching up and snatching the ankle attached to the canvas emblazoned with grinning Minions. “Okay, my dude,” I charge to my petulant son. “Before you take out something more valuable than Uncle Sawyer’s face, you’re grounded.”
Sawyer narrows his eyes. “What the hell is more valuable than my face?”
But his jest is wasted. Emma’s tension remains ice-princess cold as soon as Lux squirms with open petulance. “But Dada! Whhhyyy?”
“It’s not forever, son.” I lower him to the floor but align myself to his level by taking a knee. “But you remember the other rule we have about superpowers, yeah?”
With the ease of experience, the kid juts out his lower lip. “Limits mean love.”
I nod and then grit out a smile. His iteration, full of such concentration and sincerity, is like a fist to my heart—made of pure star fire. I swear, if I earned a dollar for every occasion, on every day, when this kid makes me want to burst into tears…inside a year, I’d be handing over enough liquid cash to buy three new Richards Resorts properties. On the beach. In Abu Dhabi.
“Yeah,” I manage to rasp back, reassuringly rubbing Lux’s back. “Good job, buddy. Limits mean love—because love should be our first goal, right?”
He pouts harder. I can see the conflicting wheels turning for him. Agree with me and accept the no-fly zone for now or push the limits and zoom back down the hall again.
In the end, he jabs a fist against one of his tired eyes and then reaches out his other hand to palm my face. “I love you, Dada.”
I smack an affectionate kiss to the center of his precious little hand. “As I love you, son.”
But I’m only given a couple of precious seconds to cherish the perfection of the moment. Both Lux and I start when everything rattles around us again, rolling through a sizable aftershock to the tremblor that’s less than five minutes old. But the pulse spike is like a warm-up shot to the arrows of adrenaline that hit when my back pocket starts beeping. Loudly. Incessantly. The tonal alert is as shrill as a tsunami siren because it’s meant to be heeded the same way. It’s been assigned to one entity alone—the Brocade’s executive offices—to notify me of one message alone.
Drop everything.
Come now.
We have an emergency.
A big emergency.
Chapter One
Emma
Three screaming orgasms.
Two rolling earthquakes.
One airborne son.
And that’s just in the last ten minutes.
As I race to follow my husband to the Hotel Brocade’s private penthouse elevator, the universe itself answers my mental gawk about the whole situation. Welcome to being a superheroine, chica. You asked for this, remember?
I’m damn sure I’ll never forget. Becoming solar-powered Flare was never an easy road, from my first feelings of helplessness during Reece’s “adventures” to the second I told the Team Bolt techs to hook their equipment to a giant bank of solar panels and then divert that power to my bloodstream. So now I’ve got everything I wished for. I’m my husband’s equal, and we’re responding to an urgent emergency hail as a team.
Except…
Except…
Well, shit. I may as well admit it.
There’s a huge part of me that just wants to go back and be the charming engagement party hostess, superhero spouse, and doting mama to the world’s most perfect little boy.
Doting mama.
Words I never thought would actually describe me have become everything to me.
Maybe that’s why it feels fine to see my amazing son clamoring up my husband’s back, wrapping his small but mighty arms around my husband’s neck, and squealing in joy as the lift doors open. Despite the danger ahead, I’ve never felt more joyous hearing my son’s laugh as he swoops to hang upside down from Reece’s neck. I’ve never felt more at peace as we prepare to help right some kind of gigantic wrong.
At least that’s what my instincts are blaring as we disembark from the elevator and then sprint through the executive office’s glass doors. As we leave behind the last signs of our shiny, pristine, private world, the insight bellows even louder inside me.
That maybe our not-so-small shaker wasn’t a gift from the Elysian Park Fault System, after all.
It’s the same feeling I experienced the last time that distinct alarm beeped from Reece’s pocket—when Kane Alighieri had become a human hurricane tearing across downtown Los Angeles. Everything bound by Pico Boulevard, the 110, and the river bed was in danger of being flattened—and a lot of it was. Now, two years later, structures have begun taking form from that rubble. Some went up fast and are nearly ready for occupation, their advance sales offices doing brisk business. Others proceed at slower paces, with underground infrastructure systems needing repair before they can go vertical.
“Dear God.” I can’t help spewing it as we’re confronted full-force by the grim grit of the real world. Where I wonder if Godzilla might really be a thing. Or Rasputin. Or Thanos. Or maybe Kane has simply earned himself a posthumous copycat city wrecker.
Or…
Or this grisly scene is courtesy of a new city wrecker, controlled once again by Faline.
Faline.
Another concept my brain forces itself to grasp—all over again.
The woman. The witch. The enemy.
And no, the bitch hasn’t been that far from my mind. She still haunts all of Reece’s and my nightmares—and neither of us has succumbed to the mistake of assuming she’s slunk away forever—but it has been a beautiful break not surrendering every moment of idle mental time worrying, wondering, and pondering where the hell she’s gone to elude us.
Unless I see proof otherwise, that stress has no place in the here and now.
When reality is giving us a hotel lobby full of suffering people.
Deeply suffering.
The marble floor is smeared with tracked blood. People in various states of injury and shock fill the furniture. The check-in desk is stacked high with bandages, ointment tubes, clean blankets, boxes of gauze, miles of rolled tape, and electrolyte drinks. Next to the desk is a woman who was probably Florence Nightingale in another life. Her hair is twisted in a prim Victorian bun, but her face is fixed in don’t-fuck-with-me firmness. There’s a smartpad in her grasp, and she’s dutifully notating every new arrival.
What we do know is this. Someone approved the Brocade as a rudimentary crisis command center, and first responders—who are here in just as many numbers as the victims—are bringing people with minor and surface injuries.
But injuries from what?
That’s what we don’t know yet—and might not anytime soon.
If it sounded like an earthquake and felt like an earthquake, chances are it was an earthquake. Yes, an earthquake is an earthquake, but this looks like a lot of collateral damage in an area where most buildings in the area have been quake retrofitted.
And if Mother Nature’s not really to blame, then there’s only one conclusion to be gleaned right now.
Faline’s back in town.
Not just back in it but fucking with it.
Every new development of this situation feels like it. Stinks like it.
Reeks of her special brand of wickedness.
Before I can utter either the obvious question or the ones that send a massive ice storm through my nervous system, the main guest tower elevators open. Angelique and ’Dia step out, along with the party attendees who accompanied them down. As Lydia hugs her farewells to everyone in the throng, a few of them direct knowing winks at Lux. Thank God for Neeta and her fast thinking with the NDA forms. With all the blatant human suffering in here, people should be willing to forget a flying toddler. Sugar highs can be deceiving fuckery, after all—but I don’t think a single one of them has forgotten the show they just got from my son. Not one.
They can’t talk—and they won’t. So now you need to forget them and move the hell on.
Though it’s sheer hell, I accomplish just that. The curious whispers about my kid are pushed to a distant back burner as Fern Pettigrew, the Brocade’s new night manager, hurries forward. “Mr. Richards!” The freckles across her nose, which have always made her look friendly and open, seem to emphasize her glaring inexperience with a mass dilemma like this. “Oh, thank God you’re here. I—I mean they—well, they all started stumbling in, and we had no idea what to do.”
“The right thing.” I speak it at once while sweeping my stare across the lobby again. “That’s what you did, Fern,” I assure. “And what Neeta or I would have done if we were still in your shoes.”
As Fern exhales in relief, another wave of the injured stumbles past our departing guests. And, thank God, the partygoers finally have concerned stares for what’s going on around them instead of amused gawks at my son.
The only new arrivals not looking shell-shocked are the firemen, dressed in full uniforms, boots, and shield-covered helmets. One of them breaks away and sets a course toward Reece and me. As he gets closer, I’m able to discern the meaning of the gold medallion on the front of his helmet. He’s the battalion chief.
He stops and drops a respectful nod. “Mr. Richards.”
Since there are a thousand ways in which the man already knows who Reece is, neither of us interrupts his flow with so much as a blink, and I hold my breath, waiting for the fireman to continue.
“Chief…Davidson, I presume?” Reece returns the nod after reading the name on the chief’s helmet. “It’s good to meet you. Thank you for your service to our city.”
Davidson’s answering smile is more like a facial tick. “Looks like I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
“Doubtful, but my building and its staff are at your service.” Reece sweeps a commanding stare across all the areas of our impromptu crisis center. “What do you need? Some ground floor guest rooms for triage? Access to the roof, fire escapes, or basement?”
Davidson props his hands on his hips, covered in thick yellow pants that have become nearly brown by dirt and soot. “Actually, none of the above.”
As the man looks up and studies Reece with half of a grimace, the ice in my veins throbs more painfully. I flick a glance toward Angie, hoping her electronic Spidey senses have told her if Faline’s really crept back into the area. My whole torso gets the popsicle treatment when Angelique winces and shrugs, giving the answer that isn’t an answer. Her mental Je ne sais pas turns my nerve endings into complete stalactites.
“None of the above?” Reece gives Davidson’s assertion a dark scowl. “I don’t understand.”
“Well.” The chief purses his lips while tracking a glance around the lobby, cranking his neutral expression into a look of undisguised fury. “What we really need is…you.”
Reece rocks back on one foot. Nods with reluctant understanding. “Oh. Now I do see.”
I flick a puzzled glance between him and Davidson. “You do?” Only to feel myself stepping back as well, since I’m now the subject of the fire chief’s urgent perusal.
“We’ll need you too, Mrs. Richards.”
“Huh?” Only then does my own comprehension kick in—which doesn’t do a thing for easing my intuition about all of this tying back to Faline somehow. I hate that my mind automatically reverts to her in times like this—though with my eighteen-month-old son standing five feet away, I’ve never been more grateful for my mama-lion instincts. None of this is about simply saving Reece or myself anymore. It’s all about the little boy with the skies in his eyes and the universe in his smile. “Let me clarify,” I direct toward Davidson. “You mean that you’re in need of Bolt and Flare, yes?”
Davidson actually exposes a full grin beneath his Tom Selleck-sized mustache. “Flare?” he barks. “That’s the alter-ego moniker, eh?” And then jogs his chin at both of us. “Yeah. Flare. That’s a good one. It fits.”
While I’m elated about the fire chief’s seal of approval—and even make a mental note to have him up to the penthouse to weigh in on logo designs—I assert past a tight smile, “This matter you need our help with… What is it? What’s going on?”
Blurting out the words feels like asking a nurse to go ahead and draw blood. This could be either a tiny prick or the gouge of a rolling vein. A run-of-the-mill city emergency—if there are such things—or the grand resurgence of Faline freaking Garand.
“The quake—or whatever it was—occurred because of a fault directly under downtown,” Davidson explains. “As you can probably tell.”
Reece folds his arms. Motions me over so our conversation with the chief isn’t so available to prying ears. “What the hell do you mean, ‘whatever it was’?”
Another grunt from Davidson, more pronounced than before. “Exactly what I mean—at this point,” he supplies. “Because until I know exactly what’s happening down the
re, I’m not about to go out to the press and tell them all that the US Geological Service has only reported one minor quake in the last twelve hours across the Elysian Park grid.”
The icicles in my veins just grew into a Superman-sized ice castle.
I’m stunned to watch Reece’s face remain damn near neutral. “And that’s why you’ve come looking for Emma and me.”
Davidson’s mustache slopes downward along with his scowling lips. “I’d sing you a fun version of ‘Bingo,’ but there’s no time.”
“Crap,” I mutter.
“Damn,” Reece spits at the same time.
“Can you tell us anything about what you have learned so far?” I go on. “Did something collapse or explode—or implode? Do they know how many victims and where?”
Davidson’s mustache droops farther as he steps back, called by the squawk of his radio. He still has time to let us know one thing, though. “We’ve got a pretty crazy situation with the Biltmore.”
“Oh, shit.”
I whirl to see that the soft exclamation has come from my sister. I had no idea ’Dia was still standing there, but I’m glad she is. As this situation gets more twisted, I’m feeling further and further out of my element. Her face is my needed boost of strength at the most perfect moment, though I feel crappy that she overheard this news. Few others are as enraptured with the hotel, located two blocks away, than my sister—though there are few in the world who won’t recognize it. The place, built in 1923, has been featured in nearly two hundred movies and television shows—though the ornate interiors for which it was widely popular took a ton of direct damage during Kane’s famous rampage two years ago. The owners have committed to restoring the property’s grandeur, but the age of the building has made the process a slow one.
Now, it sounds like they’ve hit another snag—for which I should have more concerned emotions, damn it—but they’ll have to wait until after I bathe in my flood of sheer relief. Judging by the continuation of Davidson’s no-bullshit demeanor, what we’re dealing with is normal helping-the-human-race stuff, not anything in the holy-crap-Faline’s-back department.