“It’s okay. Just point us in the right direction. We’ll find him.”
She directed us down a dark hallway where more people took shelter on the floor. Though I wasn’t in uniform, I wondered why no one reacted to Julio until we passed another man in a Freezefire costume. They must all think he was another reenactor.
Private patient rooms held people with worse injuries, and low, pained moans drifted out through the doorways. Traces of cool air lingered in the hallways from when the air-conditioner had been working, but it was only cool in comparison to the heat and humidity outside, and the air carried the faint smell of sweat and bleach. Bright red hurricane lanterns provided bubbles of light, enough to spot a man in a white coat bending over a patient in one of the rooms.
“You the doctor?” I asked.
“Yeah, one second.”
He checked a bloodied bandage wrapped around the leg of a young park employee. Her face was scrunched up in pain, and a coworker in the same uniform held her hand. When the doctor finished, he spoke some reassuring words to her before turning to us.
“What can I—broken hand?”
The doctor took Julio’s hand gently and surveyed it with a frown. He was a short man who looked like he could be anywhere from in his thirties to his fifties, with a shaved head and thick-rimmed glasses.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Bloodbath,” Julio answered shortly.
The doctor grimaced. “Lot of that going around. I can wrap this up and give you something for the pain. You’ll want to get it X-rayed once we get out of here.”
Once we get out of here. Either the man was a spectacular optimist or he was putting on a brave front for his patients.
“Can you get some pain meds for the old man, too?” Julio gestured to me with his thumb. “He got his ass handed to him.”
I gave Julio a look and then mentally shrugged. The kid wasn’t wrong. “Nothing with drowsiness as a side-effect. I need to get back out there.”
“Get back out there?” The doctor made a face. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Probably,” I agreed amiably. “I could use some ice, too, if you’ve got any.”
“The last of the ice melted an hour ago.” The doctor grabbed an ice pack off the counter and held it up as an example. The clear, refreezable plastic pouch was full of liquid.
“Give it here.” Julio held out his uninjured hand, and the doctor passed it to him with a quizzical look. The moment the pack touched Julio’s hand, it froze solid.
The doctor’s reaction was delayed. He stared at the pack for a few seconds longer then jerked back and stared between Julio and me.
“Oh,” he said.
“Bring me the rest, and I’ll freeze them before I go,” Julio said. “Least I can do.”
“Right.” The doctor gaped for a second longer before hurrying from the room.
“So where are we going?” I asked Julio once the doctor was gone. “Did you have a plan beyond ‘fall back’?”
“Nope. My plan was pretty much to keep us from dying.” Julio tossed me the ice pack, and after a moment’s consideration, I placed it against my ribs. Honestly, I needed a dozen of the things to strap all over my body. Or maybe just a bathtub full of ice.
“We should switch targets,” I said. “Since it doesn’t look like we can beat Bloodbath—” Damn, I hated saying that out loud. “—we should focus on Mother Earth. If we can get her to bring down the wall, we can at least get these people out of here.”
Julio thought about it. “Agreed. But look, we need to get something straight.”
He was having trouble looking at me, which was never a good sign. With his broken hand, it was hard to tell whether his grimace was pain, anger, or a bit of both. I shifted the ice pack and waited. “Go on.”
“We’re not White Knight and his sidekick Freezefire anymore.” Julio stopped cradling his injury and rested his arms at his sides as he faced me squarely. “You’re a civilian now. What we do next—and what we do in a fight—is my call, not yours.”
It took a moment for his words to process. Then I stood there, trying to figure out how to respond. Because before I responded, I had to figure out how I felt, and quite honestly, I had no clue. Half a dozen different emotions rushed through me, and I couldn’t even identify them, much less pick one to act off. Luckily, the doctor turned temporary superhero and rescued me from the situation by choosing that moment to walk back through the door.
He tended to Julio’s hand, and by the time he was finished bandaging it, the kid looked like he wore a white mitten. Then the good doctor gave us both painkillers (the non-drowsy kind). He gave some to the girl lying on the bed, too, reminding me that Julio and I had had an audience for our conversation. But that wasn’t important now. We needed to plan our next move.
“You know where the security hub is?” I asked the doctor.
“Uh, yeah. Other side of the park behind the Flight of the Phoenix coaster.”
I turned to Julio. “That place should have camera feeds from all over the park, and it probably has a backup generator to keep them working. I didn’t see Mother Earth during the fight, but she could obviously see us. There’s a good chance she’s there. Even if she’s not, we might be able to use the cameras to find her. It’s as good a place as any to start looking—that is, if you approve.” Crap. I hadn’t meant for that last part to sound so snide. Apparently, one of those emotions I hadn’t been able to process earlier was anger.
“It’s a good plan,” Julio said in an impressively neutral tone. He pulled out the crumpled map we’d used to find the clinic and pointed at Flight of the Phoenix. “But that’s a long way to go out in the open.”
The park was basically a big loop around a man-made lake. We’d have to walk almost half the loop to reach the security hub, and it would take us past the place we’d left Bloodbath. Granted, we could always go the long way around, but that wouldn’t stop Bloodbath from finding us. There weren’t exactly many hiding places in the street.
“You wouldn’t have to take the main route,” the doctor said. “The tunnels could get you most of the way there.”
“Tunnels?” Julio asked.
“For the employees to get around without the guests seeing.”
“There a map of that?” I asked.
The doctor shook his head and gave us directions instead. He said we needed to find a staircase behind the clinic—make that to the side of the clinic; it was really behind the Blue Sparrow ride. We should go right and walk anywhere between twenty and sixty yards before taking the second left—no, the third left. He was pretty sure it was the third left. Maybe the fourth? There was a restroom by the turn, but there were a few restrooms, so we shouldn’t use it as a landmark. We needed to make a right after that, except we wouldn’t really be turning right; the tunnel just sort of bent right. We’d find a staircase at the end of it. Oh, but before that turn, we had to go through some double doors and walk through a stockroom. (Exit the door in the corner of the stockroom, not the one in the middle.) Then we’d find the ramp that came up near the Flight of the Phoenix coaster.
At Julio and my blank stares, the doctor ran a hand over his shaved head and sighed. “Yeah, sorry, I’m terrible at directions. I’d take you there myself, but I can’t leave my patients.”
Fair enough. The doctor could do more good here than with us. Julio and I would have to find our way on our own, or maybe we’d run into another employee who could give better directions. It would be safer for him here, anyway.
“I can take you,” said a soft voice.
We all turned to the two girls whose room we’d overtaken. It was the friend who’d spoken, not the patient with the injured leg. She could only have been nineteen or twenty, with dark hair that fell in tight curls to her shoulders. She had a glittering crystal stud in her nose, and the edges of a tattoo peeked out from under the right sleeve of her uniform polo shirt. Her name badge read “Rosa.”
“Are you crazy?”
snapped her friend on the bed.
Rosa shrugged. “Someone has to do it.”
“But it’s dangerous!”
“It is dangerous,” I said. “We’re trying to avoid Bloodbath, but if he finds us—”
“Oh, I’ll run away.” Rosa smiled brightly, but her tone was dead serious. “Like, the second something looks bad, I’ll abandon you faster than a cheating husband.”
I debated it. With her help, we could get to the security hub faster, and the faster we got there, the more people we could stop Bloodbath and Mother Earth from hurting. But did that justify putting Rosa’s life at risk?
“You’re in,” Julio said. “I’ll hold you to what you said about abandoning us.”
Rosa gave a nervous smile, and I almost protested before biting my tongue. Julio was in charge here, as he’d made perfectly clear.
“Lead the way,” I said instead.
Chapter 8
The tunnels were about as creepy as you’d expect. Julio, Rosa, and I had all managed to scrounge up flashlights at the clinic. The narrow beams of light kept us from walking into a wall but didn’t push the darkness back much further. Not that the tunnels would have been nice to walk through even with the power on. The flashlights showed glimpses of exposed pipes on the ceiling, scuffed floors, and bare walls. Although if we had power, at least there’d be air-conditioning. The place was stuffy and sweltering.
It was a maze, too. Rosa set a cautious pace, pausing only now and then with a defensive, “It looks a lot different in the dark.” She always figured it out quickly and led on, pointing out spots we passed like costuming and the employee lockers. Her quiet remarks echoed eerily through the silent corridors, though “silent” wasn’t exactly the right word. The tunnels creaked and groaned, and every so often, there was a shuffling noise nearby like someone or something moving. I figured it was another employee or employees who’d taken shelter down here, but Rosa looked over her shoulder every time it happened like she expected a zombie to jump out.
“So what do you do in the park?” I asked, trying to take her mind off it.
“Nothing. Just retail.” Silence returned, and after a second, she gave more detail. “I work at the Cape Closet by the entrance. It’s a seasonal job to pay for college.” She glanced back at me. “I think I’ve sold like a million of your T-shirts. Do you get a cut of that?”
“Yeah.” Almost all of it went to charity in my case, but superheroes got royalties when their images were used.
“Huh. That’s nice.” She stared at my face in silence for a few moments, and when I raised my eyebrows expectantly, she laughed and covered her face with her hands. “Sorry. It’s just… It’s really you.”
“Last time I checked, I wasn’t a shapeshifter.”
“I mean, White Knight dropped off the face of the earth for years. Nobody heard anything about you until the news that you’d married the Black Valentine, and—omigosh, are you really married? Is she awesome? I bet she’s awesome.”
Rosa clasped her hands together as if begging to hear confirmation, and I chuckled. “I certainly think so.”
“That’s so cool,” she gushed before clearing her throat and looking away. “I mean, she was pretty famous, right? I remember seeing her on TV. God, I’m thirsty.” She trained her flashlight on a vending machine and patted the pockets of her khakis. “Either of you have singles?”
Relieved to have the topic of conversation shifted away from me and my private life, I checked my wallet. Julio didn’t bother.
“The uniform doesn’t come with pockets,” he said.
The smallest bill I had was a ten, but we were all hot and sweaty, and it’d be embarrassing to get defeated by heatstroke instead of the supervillains. I walked past her, punched a hole in the front of the machine, and tore it wide for easy access to the rows of bottles inside. I could have just as easily forced the vending machine’s door open, but my display was rewarded by an excited gasp and clapping.
“You’re my hero!” Rosa reached in and grabbed a bottled water. “This thing totally ate my dollar last month.”
“Showoff,” Julio muttered, but he took one, too.
We paused to gulp down water, lukewarm but still refreshing, when another shuffling noise came from ahead. This time, it was closer and didn’t stop. Julio and I automatically stepped forward, putting Rosa protectively behind us.
“It might be time to keep your promise about abandoning us,” Julio warned.
Rosa stepped back, legs tensed to run and hand clenched in a death-grip around her water bottle. I picked up my flashlight and pointed it down the tunnel. Three or four golf cart-like vehicles were parked in a row along the right wall, and beyond them, the tunnel gradually sloped upward out of sight. I strained my ears, but the echo made it hard to tell how close the shuffling was. Each beat of my heart made my injuries throb, reminding me just how much of a disadvantage I’d be at if someone attacked.
My flashlight caught movement, and Julio immediately trained his light on the same spot. A figure shambled down the incline toward us. Rosa took three quick steps back as we got a better look. Slim figure, khaki pants that were wet below the knees, and a half-untucked polo shirt. I relaxed as I realized it was a park employee, not a supervillain—then put my guard back up before I could make a stupid rookie mistake. It could be a supervillain in disguise, an illusion, or something I’d never encountered before. I could get us all killed if I wasn’t careful.
As the figure drew closer, the light revealed a thirty-something man. He wore a dazed expression, and he continued his awkward, shuffling gait.
“Hey!” Julio called. “Are you hurt?”
“White Knight,” he said.
I blinked, surprised he’d recognized me out of uniform and in the dark. “Yes?”
He kept approaching. “I need to find White Knight.”
Or maybe he hadn’t recognized me. “Why?” I asked him. “What’s wrong?”
He reached us, but instead of stopping, he kept shambling. Julio and I had to step aside to let him through. “The mistress wants me to find White Knight.”
I felt a chill despite the heat. The man wasn’t hurt and traumatized like I’d first thought. He was under mind-control.
“How many telepaths did the Inferno have locked up?” I asked Julio.
“I don’t know off the top of my head. But any one of them loose in here is an insanely huge threat.”
“It’s probably a trap.” I stared at the man’s back as he continued down the tunnel. “Bloodbath could be using him to draw us out.”
He followed my gaze. “But can we really afford to ignore it?”
“We’ll continue to the security hub like we planned. If the cameras are still running, we can find out what we’re getting into.” I snapped my mouth closed when I realized I was giving orders again. “Or that’s what I’d recommend, anyway.”
Julio’s gaze drifted off as he weighed our options, his brow wrinkling behind his mask. He knew there would be life-altering consequences to whatever he decided, ramifications that would ripple out and affect the thousands of people trapped inside the park. That was the burden of command. It was a crazy thing for us to fight over, honestly.
“We’re going after the telepath,” he said. “We can’t walk away and leave him”—he pointed to the young man stumbling away down the tunnel—“and who knows how many others under mind-control. It’s a clear and present threat.”
He lifted his chin like he expected me to challenge him, but I didn’t argue. It wasn’t the call I would’ve made, but the decision was his. There wasn’t a “right” choice, anyway. Julio was going to help people the best way he knew how, and that was all I could ask of him. That’s what I’d taught him to do.
I nodded at him. Then I turned to the mind-controlled employee walking away.
“Hey, buddy!”
He stopped and turned.
“I’m White Knight,” I said. “Let’s go see what your mistress wants.”
•••
The mind-controlled man was a wordless guide. Once I convinced him that he didn’t have to physically drag me there, he shambled silently ahead of us, looking back every now and then to check that I was still following. His eyes had that creepy, vacant look all mind-control victims did when the telepath wasn’t being subtle about it. Whoever his mistress was, she was a fan of the brute force approach. Then again, with the park cut off from the outside world, there was really no need to be sneaky.
“I know where he’s going,” Rosa whispered after the fourth turn. We’d debated sending her back to the clinic but had decided to find her a hiding place closer to our destination, with the optimistic assumption we’d need her help again after taking care of the telepath. “This tunnel comes up under Heroes of Yesterday and Tomorrow.”
Julio and I let out identical groans.
Rosa looked back and forth between us. “So superheroes don’t like that ride either, huh?”
Julio threw up his hands in exasperation. “Why does it still exist? They should have torn it down and replaced it years ago.”
“Seeing the animatronic White Knight is like looking into the face of my own corpse,” I added with a shudder.
Heroes of Yesterday and Tomorrow was technically a ride, though the boats that carried passengers moved even slower than I did. They brought you past scenes of famous superheroes in action, starting with the Crimson Phoenix in the late 40s. All the heroes, villains, and random civilians were animatronic figures that spouted recorded lines. It may have been the pinnacle of technology forty years ago, but it was creepy as hell no matter what decade you saw it in. The figures’ awkward movements and stilted dialogue made the ride’s reputation a joke, but it was something of a classic (in a so-pitiful-it’s-loveable sort of way), which might explain why it hadn’t been replaced.
A low laugh echoed through the tunnels. Julio, Rosa, and I jerked to a halt, panning our flashlights around to find the source. The mind-controlled man kept lurching on as if he hadn’t heard it. The cackle sounded sinisterly delighted and seemed to be coming from ahead, but our flashlights found nothing. I exchanged a glance with Julio. Neither of us was going to call out “Who’s there?” Our mystery laugher wanted to intimidate us, and we weren’t going to play that game.
The White Knight & Black Valentine Series (Book 3): Almost Invincible Page 6