This wasn’t worth arguing over. “Jillian’s sleeping. Please don’t wake her up, especially for the Danger series.”
Abby smiled a smile of unbelievable affection. “Abby guard Sweetheart. Sweetheart sick. Need Tiger. Tiger.” With her final word, she leaped and transformed in midair, the tiny woman replaced in a fraction of a second by the majestic tiger I’d come to admire. She landed deftly on the runner and padded down the hallway, her flicking tail the last thing I saw as she disappeared into my room.
Somewhat more at ease now that the world’s most effective predator was guarding my sleeping wife, I walked down the stairwell onto the silent first floor. Jillian’s story had started in the guest room, so that’s where I’d start, too. I hadn’t been able to count how many SIM cards Berenice had crushed, but at a glance I could tell that she hadn’t found all of them.
The north wing of the house was dedicated to guest rooms, four in total. Two of them were the unofficial permanent bedrooms of the Rowe twins, who traveled from Bel Alton so often that they kept clothes and toiletries here. Will and Beau had always gotten along famously, while Alysia tagged along and either spent time with my mother or harassed me. Eleanor was too old to care for her, and like most people of our ilk, Alysia had probably sensed that Eleanor was not one to bait.
Will’s guest room door opened without a sound. I flipped on the light and gasped.
Blood was everywhere.
Thick, congealing blood dripped down the sides of the bed, off the sheets, and was even sprayed on the headboard. I had little doubt of whose blood it was. Still laying in bed, his face eternally frozen in wide-eyed shock, lay the mortal remains of William Rowe.
I was no forensic investigator, but his manner of death was simple to deduce from wounds. She’d probably sprinted at him while he was sleeping and stabbed him with—where was it?—the chef’s knife that was now laying on the floor. I counted no less than twenty knife wounds in his abdomen.
I stood over his body for a long minute, searching for words. What was there to say about a man who’d lived his life to deprive others of theirs? He hadn’t even killed, really. He’d taken pleasure in causing suffering. It had been funny to him.
There was nothing to say. Instead, I strode over to the bland portrait of a lighthouse on the far wall and moved it aside, revealing a little alcove in which a small digital camera was hidden. I removed it, popped out the SIM card, then threw the camera at the mirror above the dresser with all my might. My reflection shattered, and I walked out of the room.
Will could rot where he’d died. Maybe a human necromancer would come along and turn him into a puppet for once. Or maybe Beau and Alysia would come home after we’d all left and be greeted to the ripe smell of moldering cadaver wafting from his room. Both possibilities cheered me immensely.
The basement door was still open, since the electromagnetic field that kept it locked had been powered by the shish-kabobed generators. I descended the cement stairwell, taking care to not step on the bloody footprints that marked where Jillian had ascended not two hours before.
The basement was exactly as I remembered it, one long hallway flanked by doors that were now open, pulled back into the wall. The left side of the hallway contained cells, all but one no larger than an average house’s bathroom. The sixth cell was larger, since it contained a tiny mattress intended for sick prisoners.
The right side of the hall contained interrogation rooms. Only the door at the end of the hall remained shut and locked. My grandfather had insisted that it remain unchanged by time, as a memorial to my family’s finest hour.
Jillian’s cell was easy to find. They’d put her in the third cell, and bloody smears still marked the floor. I stepped inside the freezing room and knelt down in the corner, where the bloodstains were the most concentrated. She’d curled up on the floor; I could see where she’d placed her hand after the needles had been applied.
I laid my fingers on the hand print and closed my eyes, hoping that with the gesture, my love for her somehow travel through time and space to that moment.
The Baltimore team had industriously removed every SIM card from the open interrogation rooms, so I didn’t linger in each one and imagine what had happened there. Instead, I headed straight for the final door at the end of the hall. I stared at the padlocked handle.
Lark had rightly been suspicious of the one door that required touching to open. In this house, in this basement, it could’ve been anything. Though I knew what was behind the door, I couldn’t help but smile. At one time, I’d been thwarted by the padlock.
I kicked the door open.
But I’d learned some new skills since leaving home.
The large cement room contained just three items: a projector, a wooden chair, and a projector screen. The chair’s seat was smeared with fresh blood, and handcuffs hung loosely from one of the rungs. Along the far wall, beneath the projector screen, seven faded brown spots marred the cement floor.
Though she hadn’t said as much, Jillian had been brought here before any formal interrogation. I couldn’t imagine a better way to break a person’s spirit than to play the video reel.
I walked over to the projector, adjusted the reel, and pressed play. While the beginning fuzz played, I sat down in the chair and tried to watch the movie as Jillian would’ve seen it.
A young man, no older than eighteen, appeared on the screen. His right eye was swollen shut, and blood poured down his temples from wounds beneath his thick, black hair. He was kneeling in front of the cement wall that now bore the screen, and his hands were bound behind his back.
My grandfather’s voice came from the speakers on each side of the projector screen. I’d never heard his voice in person, because he’d died shortly after this video had been made. “State your name and codename.”
“Alexander Williamson,” the young man rasped. “Aquarius.”
"Any last words?"
Alexander fought tears, then stared straight at the camera. "I love you, Dad."
A man appeared from off camera with a knife in hand, his face cut off from the camera. Without any further ado, he grabbed Alexander’s hair, pulled his head back, and sliced his jugular open.
Anguished cries were audible from elsewhere in the room. Alexander crumpled and fell, his neck pouring out the blood that would eventually cause the faded stain to the far right.
One by one, each of the next five team members were pulled in front of the camera. My grandfather ordered each one to identify themselves and asked if they had any last words.
Ada Dumont, the famous Horizon, stared with tortured longing at one of her teammates, whose low voice told her that he’d be with her soon. I’d never been able to determine which of her male teammates had spoken.
George Yazzie, called Blink, smirked even though he was probably partially blind from eye trauma. “I told you you’d never get me to talk.”
Renee Monroe, who’d fought as Aura, was so dazed that one of her teammates identified her, and she had to be held up by someone else as my grandfather killed her. She probably hadn’t been aware of what was happening.
Katherine Theodorakis, whose code name had been Lyric, jutted her chin up after identifying herself and told my grandfather that she’d see him in hell.
Alan Harris, Spitfire, looked so much like Ember that I covered my mouth in shock. How had I never noticed? Was he her grandfather? A great-uncle? Once the surprise wore off, I let myself be impressed as always by his final words. He merely stared off screen to the final prisoner and said, “It’s been an honor.”
The last teammate landed on her knees with a rough thud. She was in early middle age and of middling stature, with the same swarthy features that she’d passed on to her youngest daughter Gemma, who had herself passed them on to my wife. Yet, the elder Jillian’s eyes were large and shining, so like her grandson’s. Her face shape, more round than long, also hinted at Marco more than my Jillian.
“State your name and code name.”
“What is your position on your team?”
“Commander.”
“Any final words?”
I leaned forward, studying my favorite part of the reel with renewed interest.
Jillian coughed again, and then surprise flitted across her face, quickly replaced by calculation. She gazed up at my grandfather. “Do I have any final words?” she croaked, a malevolent gleam in her eye. “Yeah. See you soon.”
Then she opened up her mouth and let out a diabolical, eardrum-scratching scream.
It seemed that her power had also returned at the eleventh hour.
The footage ended abruptly as the projector fifty years ago had been knocked over. Or maybe the lens had shattered. Dad had never explained the details of what happened afterwards, only that my grandfather had died the next day of massive internal bleeding.
There were seven stains, though, so someone must’ve finished the job. Now that I thought about it, I wondered if my mother had showed the final portion to my wife. As horrific as the first six deaths were, my wife would’ve derived amusement from her grandmother’s attack. I sure as hell did.
I stood up and turned off the projector. The hidden camera was behind a dummy speaker in the wall, and like before, I removed the SIM card and destroyed the camera.
When I came upstairs, I could see that pre-sunrise light lit up the foyer in long gold-and-scarlet beams through the windows, reminding me that our time here could not go on as it had. Ember was no doubt scanning intently for Beau and Alysia, but they would return eventually, and we had to make a decision. Jillian wasn’t in any state to fight.
Where could we go that was safe until she recovered? Jen’s parents’ house was out of the question, as was Saint Catherine. We needed to get far away, preferably somewhere off the grid. Unfortunately, the only place I could think of was Liberty. Clearly we needed to brainstorm and come up with a better option.
Low voices in the living room caught my attention. I peeked around the corner and saw Ember and Reid sitting close together on the couch in front of the fire, as Jillian and I had done not long before.
I was about to leave when Ember called, “Ben, you can come here.”
I dashed to the back of the couch in a second. They were holding hands. “What’s up?”
“We’ve talked,” Ember said, smiling prettily up at me. “We both owe you an apology for how we’ve been acting on the mission. We’re very sorry, and hope you can forgive us.”
Reid looked away, shamefaced.
A small tension unraveled in my chest. These two had been a pillar on our team, and the world wasn’t right when they were apart. “Gladly,” I said, placing my hands on their shoulders. “Are you guys going to be okay now?” I didn’t care how or why they were back together, just that they were.
“We’re getting there,” Ember said, turning her smile back to Reid. “We’ve both gotten some perspective while we’ve been here.”
“That’s excellent.” I gave both their shoulders a light squeeze. I hurried out of the living room to give them privacy, but the soft, feminine pats of hurrying feet made me stop in the hallway.
Ember caught up to me. “I wanted you to know why,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her and chewing on her lips. “It’s because of you. Well, you and Jill.”
Jillian and I had convinced her to forgive him? I was touched, but also confused. I frowned, hoping she wasn’t offended. “How so?”
She winced as she said, “I know you were upset when I sent you away while I helped Jill clean up. But please know, that was by her request. She didn’t want you to see evidence of her injuries. She was sparing you that.” She bowed her head. “The whole time in the bathroom, all she thought of was you and how frantic you must have been since she was taken.”
Another knot of tension unraveled. I had been hurt by Ember’s insistence that she look after my wife, leaving me in the cold hallway. But now that I knew that Jillian had requested it, I understood. “And that helped you with Reid?”
Ember nodded, a deep red blush appearing in her cheeks. “I realized that if she can still think of someone else’s feelings immediately after being tortured for two days, I can think of Reid even if I was scared in Liberty. Jillian loves you, and I love Reid—but I need to start showing it.”
She rubbed the back of her head, her eyes unable to meet mine. “I told him about how frightened I am all the time now, with all the uncertainty about superheroes…” She took a deep breath and finally looked up at me. “And the unavoidable fact that I should’ve been the one in the basement, Ben.” She wiped her eyes. “Jill was the backup option. I…I’ve seen in her head…what…they did…”
I didn’t wait for an invitation. I wrapped my arms around my thin teammate while she wept and held her to my chest, her terror and embarrassment over her relief pricking at the edges of my mind.
She feared my judgment, but her fear was groundless. I didn’t want to be tortured, either. Who would?
“I’m not like the others,” she said after her tears had subsided. “All the other women can kill you with their thumbs, but I’m always relying on someone else to protect me. That gets to you after a while.” She stepped back and made a face. “Oh, Ember’s so pretty. Ember’s so fragile. Ember’s so obviously the token damsel in distress.”
“I’ve seen Ember order dogs to tear chunks out of people’s flesh,” I reminded her. There was no way she was repeating the thoughts of any of us. Yeah, she wasn’t much of a martial artist, but then again, neither was I. Jillian, Reid, and Marco held the telepath in high esteem and had never once complained about watching out for her.
“I need my powers for that,” she said, her tone dark. “And Beau was ready and able to take them away with that poison.” Her gaze unfocused for a second and she laughed under her breath. “Though, you know, in other circumstances, I might welcome that,” she said, more to herself than me. “Nobody would come after me if I were just another civilian.”
“Darling?” Reid turned the corner. “Are you okay?”
She held out her hand to him, her unhappy visage melting into a beautiful smile. “I’m fine. Let’s go back to the fire.”
Reid’s relieved half-grin punctured my heart. Here was a man who’d lost everything and found it again—rather like myself, I supposed.
When they’d wandered hand-in-hand back to the living room, I went upstairs. Berenice’s voice made me pause outside Eleanor’s room, her tone indicating she was on the phone.
“…everything’s fine.” There was a long pause, and then she said, “No, I called to apologize. I kinda freaked out back there and I feel bad. I’m really sorry.” Another pause. “Aw, Jen, please don’t cry. It’s a sore spot and I didn’t think before I spoke. You know I’m a huge jerk and you shouldn’t take anything I say seriously. You’ve been nothing but super nice to me. To all of us.”
Eleanor’s mattress squeaked and Berenice sighed. “Creep One and Creep Two aren’t here, so we’re all relaxing. Lark and Marco are watching this awesome series that we’re watching together when I get back.” She laughed. “Girl, you should see the size of the television they’ve got here. Ember and Reid made up, I think. They’re probably downstairs making out.” There was another long silence. “I think she’s with Jill.”
There was a brief silence, and then, “No, she’s not okay. Neither of them are. I don’t know if either of them will recover from this.” She breathed a laugh. “Well, no, he’s not my favorite person, but I can pity someone whose wife was tortured.” Yet another pause. “She looked like she’d been hit with a baseball bat a few dozen times. She was still walking around, though. But I could’ve told you that she could take a beating. Damn woman never stays down. For Heaven’s sake, she was tortured for two days and all she has at the end of things is a bad hac
k.”
I tiptoed away, shaking my head. I knew with all my heart that if I asked Berenice how she felt about me, she wouldn’t bat an eye as she said that she hated my guts. Jen had been right. There was a, well, not sweet woman underneath the sour exterior, but someone whose bark was slightly worse than her bite. Maybe.
There was only one place I wanted to be for these final few hours before the decision-making had to begin. I knocked softly on my door to alert Abby, then went inside. She was laid out on the carpet by the foot of the bed, her forelegs crossed in recognizable leisure. Her furry head lifted in interest as I walked in, and then the tiger dissolved into the woman.
Abby clambered to her feet and pointed to Jill. “Much water. Need Trent.”
“Gotcha,” I said, grateful for Abby’s attentiveness. Jill would need to drink regularly to replace all the fluids she’d lost, even if my powers could replenish blood cells. I zipped to the rec room and grabbed a bottle of expensive filtered water from the mini fridge—Danger was now embracing the first of many buxom love interests—and was at Jillian’s side just as quickly. I could feel the heat radiating from her body through the duvet.
Abby came up to my side, her eyebrows drawn together in concern. “Why bottle? Water,” she said, as if she were correcting me. She placed a hand on Jillian’s collarbone. “Need no bottle.”
I still had no idea what she meant, but I sensed that it was important. “Abby, please explain to me what you mean like I’m the stupidest person you’ve ever met. Explain it to me like I’m Peter.”
I expected her to either laugh or grimace, but instead she bit her lip as her eyes darted back and forth. “I…hear…water,” she said, the immense difficulty of speaking normally causing visible strain on her face. “In Sweetheart chest.”
My ear was on Jillian’s chest in a second, my own chest rising and falling heavily. Jillian had only been gone for two days. There wasn’t time for her flu to turn into anything more serious.
At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.
I strained to hear the bubbling, crackling sound described in my nursing textbooks…but I could hear nothing, because I was still partially deaf. Mute horror crept over me—Jillian had probably been presenting with the audible symptoms of pneumonia since we found her, but I hadn’t been able to hear them. Without a stethoscope, there was only one person I trusted to maybe offer a reliable description of the sound in her lungs.
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