My phone went off, ending the drawn-out silence. The ringtone was Julio’s, otherwise I might have ignored it and called back later. I’d pushed Julio away after I’d been forcibly retired, not wanting him to be tarred with the same brush because he’d been my sidekick. It was only within the past year that we’d reconnected.
“Julio. ¿Cómo te va?”
“Dave. Thank God.” Julio’s voice was low and muffled, which made my stomach spasm. I knew that tone of voice, and it meant trouble.
“Listen, I have to make this quick,” he said. “There’s been a breakout from the Inferno.”
My hand tightened around the phone, and I nearly crushed it. “Who?”
“Dr. Sweet, Bloodbath, Mother Earth—the list goes on. I had to tell you about Sweet, though. I know you have a history.”
That was putting it mildly. Dr. Sweet had kidnapped Elisa for his demented experiments when she was only eleven years old. He’d nearly killed Val several times, and the last time we’d met, he’d shackled me to an operating table before Val managed to kill him—or one of him, anyway. He seemed to have cloned himself somehow. The details were a mystery, but one of that psychopath was more than enough, especially when he seemed to have an unhealthy fascination with my family.
Alone, Dr. Sweet would be bad enough, but Bloodbath had escaped, too? I hadn’t seen him since his trial, months after our encounter in DC and his miraculous survival of the gunshot wound. I’d been perfectly happy when he’d been sentenced to rot in the supermax prison dubbed the Inferno for the rest of his life. The thought of him free among innocent people he could rip apart like those in Washington… It was a good thing I was in a hospital, because suddenly, I struggled to breathe.
“How long ago?” I rasped.
“Late last night. It’s been almost eight hours. He could be anywhere.”
Val stood up, her fair face tinged with a sickly green. She must have been reading my mind during the conversation to hear Julio’s end of it.
“Who organized the breakout?” My mind raced a thousand miles a minute. “How did it happen?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“When you find out—”
“You’ll be the first person I break protocol to tell.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to get ahold of myself. “Listen, Julio. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it. I need to go.”
He hung up, and Val had already pulled her phone out of her purse to call Elisa. She pressed it to her ear like someone was trying to rip it away from her, and with each passing second, her eyes grew wider.
“It went to voicemail.” Val’s voice trembled. “She’s not picking up.”
I stood and ran my fingers through my hair, practically able to feel the ulcer growing in my stomach. “That doesn’t mean anything. She probably didn’t hear it ringing with all the noise. Or she could have stored it in one of the lockers they have at the rollercoasters.”
Val nodded, but her eyes weren’t focused. She dialed a number I belatedly realized was Barbara’s, and I held my breath as it rang.
“No answer.” Val clenched a fist around her phone and met my eyes. “We need to g—ge— We need— Damn it.”
Val had had a drug-induced seizure during the last time we’d fought Dr. Sweet. It had messed with her ability to speak, and while therapy had mostly taken care of the problem, it still resurfaced when she was stressed. She squeezed shut her eyes and exhaled sharply.
“We need to go.” I looked around as if the nurses would choose that exact moment to wheel my mother back inside. “I can’t just leave without telling her.”
“I’ll get us a flight,” Val said, stepping out into the hall as she dialed her travel agent.
Mr. Alfaro had risen from his chair, and over the course of our conversation, his eyebrows had disappeared under the brim of his hat. “What’s wrong?”
“I… There’s been an emergency. My daughter’s in Orlando. We need to go get her ASAP.” I rubbed my face. “This is the worst possible timing.”
“It never rains, but it pours,” Mr. Alfaro quoted.
“More like a damn hurricane,” I muttered.
Ten minutes later, my mother to returned. The alarm on her face made me worry about the test results, but she must have overheard part of Val’s conversation in the hallway. “David. What’s happened?”
I opened my mouth but then glanced at Mr. Alfaro.
“I think I’ll find a vending machine and get myself a Coke.” He tipped his hat to us and strolled out of the room.
I gave my mother a quick recap of what Julio had told me, keeping my voice low so the nurses passing in the hallway couldn’t overhear. I briefly considered the option of having Val go to Orlando while I stayed here with my mother, but I couldn’t stand the possibility of letting them face Dr. Sweet alone. If something happened, and I wasn’t there, I’d never forgive myself. But at the same time, if my mother’s health took a turn for the worse while I was gone…
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I have to—”
“Go,” she said. “And don’t you dare apologize. Take care of my granddaughter. If I was in better shape, I’d go with you and give that—that man a piece of my mind.”
I kissed her on the forehead. “Message me when the doctors have news. I might not be able to answer, but…”
“Go,” she said again.
I glanced over my shoulder one last time and left the room.
Chapter 4
On our way to the airport, Val called Elisa over and over and finally managed to get through. It turned out my theory had been right: Elisa hadn’t heard her phone ring over the noise of the crowd. Presumably, Barbara had suffered from the same problem. Val explained the situation hurriedly and advised Elisa to stay alert and remain in public. We’d pick her up as soon as we could and take her to a safe house. Val stayed on the line for several minutes, murmuring reassurances, and only reluctantly hung up when we parked the car.
We made it through security with fifteen minutes to spare, and thankfully there were no delays before takeoff. Val had bought exorbitantly expensive tickets on the earliest flight that was available, and we sat next to each other in tense silence, my hand clutching hers.
“The warden hasn’t even been retired a month, and already there’s a breakout,” Val muttered. “The new guy’s incompetent.”
“What do you think?” I asked in a low voice. “Did Dr. Sweet arrange it, or did he take advantage of someone else’s plan?” My money was on Sweet.
“Can’t say for sure without a complete list of the escapees. Julio only mentioned Bloodbath and Mother Earth, and neither of them has the connections to pull something like this off. But there could be someone else.” Val pulled her hand from mine and rubbed her temples. “You’re probably right, though, and it’s Sweet.”
Which left the terrifying question of what he’d broken out to do. Would he want revenge on us, or would he set up another lab in some distant part of the world and restart his experiments? I’d always had trouble predicting him, which was part of what made him so dangerous. What if I was wrong? For the first time, it occurred to me that Val and I might be overreacting. Dr. Sweet was on the run. He’d probably prioritize his freedom over risking coming after us. Val and I could take Elisa to a safe house, but she couldn’t spend her whole life hidden away in anticipation of a possible attack.
But better safe than sorry. We’d lie low for a few days or weeks, and if there was no sign of Dr. Sweet, then we could readjust our plans. Until then, I’d stick to my daughter like superglue.
The flight from Miami to Orlando was only an hour and fifteen minutes, but it felt like flying to the other side of the world. I didn’t bother trying to watch any TV on the screen in front of me, too preoccupied with imagining what Dr. Sweet could do to Elisa before we reached her. I accepted a cup of ice water from the flight attendant to alleviate the dry mouth I’d gotten from breathing the stale, recycled air, but I did
n’t have an appetite. The fishy smell of whatever optional lunch someone had purchased—mixed with the stench of chemical cleaners coming from the bathroom a few feet in front of us— nauseated me. The whole experience was hellish.
I checked my watch repeatedly, but the hour-and-fifteen-minute mark came and passed with no change in altitude. Soon it had been an hour and twenty minutes, then twenty-five. Had we gotten caught in a head wind? Val had the window seat, but she was hunched over with her head in her hands, her cup of ginger ale sitting untouched on her tray table. On the other side of her, I saw the city below, dotted with lakes and crossed by highways. That was definitely Orlando. It took me a few more minutes of observation before I figured out what was going on.
“We’re circling,” I said.
Val sat up straight, and her forehead wrinkled in concentration the way it always did when she was using her powers. “There’s some kind of emergency on the ground,” she said. “The pilots don’t have clearance to land yet.”
She pulled out her phone in a flash and deactivated airplane mode, while I kept an eye out the window, hoping to catch sight of the airport below. Then something in the distance caught my eye. It was too massive to be a building. Big and brown, it looked like a plateau in the middle of the city, dwarfing its surroundings like a rock in a sea of pebbles. But that didn’t make sense. This was Central Florida. There were no plateaus here. There were barely any hills. I narrowed my eyes, trying to determine if there was any activity around the formation, but it was too far away to make out.
“Oh God.” Val’s voice was almost a whimper. “It’s the park.”
My gaze darted down to the screen of her phone. The headline read, “Attack at Hero Experience,” and a photo showed a close-up of what I’d seen out the window: an immense wall of solid earth that surrounded the theme park. Val scrolled down quickly, and I caught glimpses of “officials speculate” and “authorities not commenting,” but no real information.
Elisa was trapped in there.
Val had the same thought and called her. Not even three seconds passed before she lowered the phone from her ear, her hand shaking. “It went straight to voicemail.”
I felt woozy, and it seemed strange that the plane was continuing in monotonous silence instead of spiraling out of the air.
I swallowed. “Mother Earth. Have you ever fought her?”
“Never. You?”
I shook my head. “The Illusionist was the one who took her down. But I don’t remember her being powerful enough to do something like this.”
Was she working for Dr. Sweet? Why would he have her entrap the entire park and not just attack Elisa? This didn’t make sense, and it didn’t fit Mother Earth’s MO. She’d gone to jail for destroying a fracking company after her children had gotten sick from drinking tainted water. Call her an eco-terrorist or a distraught parent, but I couldn’t think of her motivation for attacking a theme park. Then again, she’d been in prison for years, and that could change a person.
The captain came over the loudspeaker and told everyone to prepare for landing—finally. Val kept on trying to call Elisa and Barbara, and when the flight attendant came around to collect trash, she spotted the phone.
“Ma’am, I have to ask you to turn off your cell phone until—”
Her eyes glazed over, and she closed her mouth and kept walking as Val telepathically wiped her memory of the incident. It was all for nothing, though, as Val put the phone away with a frustrated hiss a minute later.
I grasped her hand again. “We’ll be on the ground soon. If we can’t figure out a smart plan, I’ll punch the wall until we break through.”
She gave me a fragile smile and squeezed my hand. As we descended, I mentally went over what we’d do once we landed. Neither of us had checked luggage, so we wouldn’t have to waste time at the baggage carousel. We’d head straight to the car rental center and then drive to the Hero Experience. Police would probably have a barricade set up around it, but Val could mind-control them into letting us pass, or I could try my contacts at the Department of Special Affairs. Since Mother Earth was involved, they’d have agents on site. The DSA had jurisdiction over all super-powered crime in the States, and I’d worked for them when I was White Knight.
Eventually, the plane landed, and the moment the seatbelt sign turned off with a ding, Val and I were out of our seats and pushing our way toward the exit. We had to wait a few minutes for them to open the door, then we hurried through the jet bridge to the gate. My knee complained at the brisk movement, but I pushed to keep pace with Val. We rushed through the terminal, and as we passed one of the gates, I spotted a TV screen showing news coverage of the wall around the park. Then the image changed, and I stopped in my tracks.
Val stopped, too, sensing my distress as I joined the small crowd gathered around the screen. The news footage of the wall had been replaced by a shaky, low-quality recording of a man with a buzz cut and black jacket. His square face had aged and grown paler over his years in the Inferno, but I still recognized Randall Nash, better known as Bloodbath. He was standing under the arched, stylized sign for White Knight: Invincible, and the entrance was visible behind him, dead bodies strewn about the metal posts and chain barriers where the line began.
“I want White Knight and Freezefire,” he said, audible over the ambient noise of the airport. Closed captioning displayed his words in white lettering across the bottom of the screen after a two-second delay. “And I’ll kill everyone here unless I get them.”
My skin turned sickly hot despite the air-conditioning, and I felt like everyone in the airport must be staring at me, demanding to know what the hell I was doing here when people needed my help.
“They’re tools of the status quo.” Bloodbath’s arrogant, self-righteous tone was one thing that hadn’t dimmed over the years. “And this country is never going to see real change while they’re around to protect those spineless bureaucrats in Washington.”
He made a motion with his hand, and someone off-screen pushed a bound and gagged man to the ground in front of him. The man wore a White Knight costume, an expensive-looking and almost perfectly accurate one that must mean he was a park employee. He was sobbing and shaking his head.
“If you still call yourselves heroes, come to the park entrance,” Bloodbath said to the camera—to Julio and me. “The wall will open for you. If anyone else tries to break in, I’ll kill hostages. If I see drones or helicopters or Blue Sparrow overhead, I’ll kill hostages. If anything even smells like a government double-cross, I’ll kill hostages. So come quickly, heroes, or there’ll be nobody left in here for you to save.”
He looked down at the White Knight reenactor, and his eyes glowed. The recording abruptly cut off and changed back to the news anchor, but I knew there was a version out there that showed the man’s gruesome end. The text of Bloodbath’s last words, “nobody left in here for you to save,” scrolled across the screen as the anchor began speaking. I didn’t hear a word she said.
This wasn’t what I’d been expecting. Were Bloodbath and Mother Earth even involved with Dr. Sweet? It didn’t look like they were targeting Elisa at all. They’d just chosen the day of the grand reopening to strike, and she’d been caught in it. If only that put Elisa in less danger, but Bloodbath was clearly planning to murder his way across the park. He didn’t know I had a daughter, but if he came across Elisa, he’d attack her like everyone else in his path, and her powers might not be enough to save her. Mine had barely kept me alive when I’d faced him, and I’d had a lot more training and experience than she did.
And this was bigger than Elisa now. How many thousands of people were trapped in that park? They needed White Knight and Freezefire.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Julio. He picked up after one ring.
“I know,” he greeted. “I’ve seen it.”
“I’m in Orlando. Where are you?”
“How did you get here so fast?”
“Elisa’s in the park.”
“Whoever’s in charge, tell them I’ll go in.” I started walking toward the tram to the main terminal, Val eavesdropping telepathically beside me. “I’m on my way to the park now.”
“Damn it. Hold on.” Muffled, he said something to someone on his end of the line. “I need to talk to some people. I’ll call you back.”
He hung up, and I ground my teeth. It was no use being mad now. Val and I would follow the same plan as before: get as close to the park as we could and find a way in, with or without the DSA’s help.
I’d save my anger for Bloodbath.
Chapter 5
Julio called back in a few minutes with instructions on how to get to the DSA’s temporary HQ outside the park. Val and I had cut our travel time in half by flying, but the chaos and traffic near the Hero Experience kept our rental car at a standstill for nearly an hour. Cops were everywhere, directing traffic and shouting at drivers, and people clustered on sidewalks and leaned out car windows to take photos of the massive earthen wall that surrounded the park. It loomed before us, towering over the nearby hotels, restaurants, and shops. Up close, it wasn’t as smooth as it had appeared from a distance. Chunks of concrete were stuck in patchwork dirt and stone, and broken pipes dripped water like grotesque cascades. Mother Earth had made that… It was hard to believe.
Mother Earth had also used localized earthquakes to knock out all the nearby cell towers, so I lost contact with Julio as we got closer. Police officers at the downed traffic lights tried to turn us back as we approached. I should have explained the situation and waited for them to radio the DSA to confirm my identity, but I didn’t try to stop Val when she mind-controlled them into letting us pass. Time was the enemy now—well, one of many enemies. Elisa had already been in there too long. I had to get to her.
The White Knight & Black Valentine Series (Book 3): Almost Invincible Page 3