Apex

by Robert J. Crane

  So, I used Reed’s money. And that was totally cool and only slightly driving me nuts.

  “Next stop, Waffle House,” Harry said, pulling the car out of the parking lot as I turned around and sat back down. My stomach gave a low rumble. He looked sidelong at me. “Way to turn around your own intemperate response, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” I said, the only buffer between me and a rather extreme headache being the ibuprofen he’d given me earlier. I kept from snapping at him, though. “No alcohol on Sundays? What kind of bullshit is that, Harry?”

  “Uh, that’d be the law in many states,” he said. “Including your own, until recently.”

  “What?” I frowned. After a moment’s reflection, I realized … yeah, that could have been true. It wasn’t like I had ever really gone out to buy booze on Sundays when I lived in Minnesota. “Maybe,” I finally conceded.

  As the car pulled back out onto the highway, rolling through Ardmore, it made me think of how things had been back then, when I’d lived a normal life, unencumbered by countless law enforcement agencies hunting me, and I’d had all the power in the world.

  It was almost like another life, one I could only look back on now through a dark prism I called Scotland. If everything in my world could be divided into “Before” and “After,” there was a giant black smudge in the middle marking the space between, and staining everything that had come after.

  Though, really … I wasn’t sure quite where to demarcate the end of “Before.” Maybe it wasn’t in Scotland. Maybe it was when I’d exploded in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, killing a whole heap ton of meta prisoners that had meant to kill me (and scared a ton of reporters out of their damned skins, turning them against me) that I’d lost my freedom. When I’d had to start running, like I was Dr. Richard Kimble, but with superhuman powers. And pretty. I thought I’d hit rock bottom after that.

  But then … Scotland. Where I’d lost … everything I had left.

  I put those thoughts out of my head, shaking them off. Before? After? None of it really mattered. My life was in the state it was in, and reflecting over the wreckage didn’t seem too prudent. It was like looking back at the road behind. What the hell was the point? Other than a farewell view of Ardmore—and maybe a glimpse of Cassidy now that she was peppy or Eilish as she stuffed her face with junk food—there was nothing behind me that I could change. Nothing that would make the present better.

  But as I stared out at the road ahead, I had to wonder if there was anything I could change before me, either? Before, when I’d had power, the ability to influence the outcome of a situation like this was never in doubt. But now …

  Was there even any hope?

  Or was it all darkness, from here to the horizon, more grim surprises that would only be revealed and do further damage to my life as I came upon them?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Did you pick that gas station knowing I couldn’t buy alcohol there?” I asked once we were a little further down the road.

  Harry chuckled. “Even I don’t control the blue laws of the states we’re passing through. It’s a statewide thing.”

  “Yeah, but you took us through this particular state–”

  “We’re actually in Tennessee now. Ardmore is on the border.”

  “Whatever, you chose this entire path,” I chucked a thumb behind me, toward the service station where I couldn’t buy malt liquor at 5 AM on Sunday. “We were supposed to go through Florida and Georgia.”

  He grunted. “Well, if you wanted this trip to end up with a visit to the federal pen, you should have said so.” He smiled thinly. “I thought you wanted me to get you to this bad guy you’re chasing.” He inclined his head back, indicating Cassidy. “You know—totally for her and not at all for yourself.”

  I didn’t know how to take that. “Uh.”

  “Classic repartee,” Cassidy said. “But I think I see where he’s going with this.”

  “Oh, uh … where’s that?” Eilish asked. “I mean—no, I totally see it, too,” when Cassidy cast her a frown.

  “Where I’m going with this, Eilish, is here,” and Harry looked back at me. “If Cassidy hadn’t knocked at your door, you’d still be sitting in Florida, glued to the television screen, watching all this unfold on the pixels.”

  “Actually, I’d be sleeping at this hour,” I said. Harry gave me a knowing little smile, and I felt compelled to answer. Sort of. “Yeah, I’d still be in Florida, enjoying a nice boozy vacation from—y’know, fighting villains and running from the law. Most people call that a vacation. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Most people don’t consume entire production runs of scotch in one sitting,” Eilish said, mostly under her breath. Or possibly around a Twinkie. “Gyah. This is not to my taste.” And she spat whatever it was back in the plastic bag. “Do you Americans not have Jaffa Cakes?”

  “Never heard of them,” I said. “Listen, Harry—I get where you’re going with this, but come on, man. I’m a liability to any sort of metahuman response at this point. I bring down more John Laws than—”

  “Than a hooker on Saturday night,” Cassidy said, and she flushed when I looked back at her. “Sorry. I’m trying out my own repartee.”

  “Work harder at it,” I said, and turned back to a smirking Harry. “I’m not—”

  “You’re on vacation,” Harry said like he understood, but I caught a faint trace of mocking embedded in his tone.

  “Yeah,” I said. “And a liability. There are teams that handle this sort of thing. Reed runs them.” I flipped my hair out of the way, because wearing it down was annoying.

  “Is that how you felt about it before you went to Scotland?” Harry asked, slipping that dagger between my ribs.

  I let that one sink in for a second, and started to open my mouth to argue when Harry said, “Waffle House!” and started to pull off on the next exit.

  “Oh, good, waffles,” Eilish said, “because I’m totally famished right now.”

  “How?” Cassidy asked, a little pointedly.

  “Because I don’t know what this is,” she said, throwing a partially eaten Snickers into the bag, “but it’s not the Snickers I’m used to. When you lot said ‘road trip,’ I got all excited, because last time—when Sienna and I went through Scotland with Diana—there wasn’t a chance to properly stock up on road trip food. I figured this time would be different, but then I try all your American snack food and—ugh. None of it hits the spot like Walker’s Crisps. None. I’m left to wonder how you people eat the way you do.”

  “Try the Cheetos,” I said, folding my arms as we slid up the offramp and onto the road, then into the parking lot of a Waffle House. The big yellow sign hung overhead, and I kept my sullen silence as Harry parked the car and we all got out.

  The Waffle House was a brick building with glass windows that stretched all the way around. Crowned with a short, triangular roof, it had a look about it that said it had been here for a while, situated at this prime piece of real estate since maybe before it had even been a prime piece of real estate. Now it was directly off a freeway ramp, which guaranteed traffic.

  As I walked up to the door, Harry opened it and held it for me. I caught a twinkle of mischief in his eye as I frowned and walked in, grabbing a seat at the counter while the others filed in around me and filled in the spaces next to me. Harry seated himself on the other side of Eilish, who took the spot to my left. Cassidy plopped down to my right, setting her laptop in front of her. I stole a glance at her screen, and it looked like she’d been watching video of Jamie Barton’s fight as filmed on a cell phone from the deck of a passing ferry or something.

  “Hey, what can I get for you?” A guy with a little too much pep in his step for this time of morning came sauntering up in an apron with a name tag that identified him as “Mike!” (I added the exclamation point because, honestly, it fit this guy.) “Coffee? Juice? Water?”

  “Coffee,” I said, before anyone else could answer.

  “Orange jui
ce,” Cassidy said.

  “Do you have any tea?” Eilish asked.

  “Sure!” Mike! said. “And for you, sir?” he asked Harry.

  “Eilish,” Harry said, staring at the menu, “you’re not going to like that tea. It’s sweet tea.”

  “So it’s got honey in it? Sugar?” Eilish asked, frowning at him.

  Harry looked like he was holding in a smile. “Well, it’s got sugar.”

  “That’s fine,” Eilish said, completely disregarding him. “I like my tea sweet.”

  That twinkle was back in Harry’s eye, and he looked for a moment like he wanted to say something else, but held it in. “I’ll take a coffee, too,” he said instead. “Black.”

  “I’m a flagrant racist, so I would like mine with lots of cream and sugar,” I said. Mike! didn’t seem to know what to make of that, so he just sort of forced a smile.

  “Coming right up,” he said, and turned from the counter to walk on down to where a fridge waited. Almost the entire kitchen was open for us to see, right there behind the counter in front of us, but it tapered into a slightly more private area to our right, where on our side of the counter it led to the bathrooms.

  “What are you going to order?” Cassidy asked, perusing the menu.

  “A waffle, of course,” I said, and when she gave me a curious look: “It’s Waffle House. How can I go wrong ordering that?”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” she said, and I got the feeling she was dismissing it out of hand. “What should I get?”

  I looked over her skinny, rail-like frame. “Everything on the menu, girl. The fattier, the better.”

  She looked up, worked through that for a second, then looked back down, frowning. “Oh, ha ha. Because I’m skinny.”

  “I should probably do the same,” I said, “but since my tendency usually leans toward the more rubenesque framing, I’m gonna hit that waffle and call it quits.”

  “Well, this is all fascinating, ladies,” Harry said, standing up, “but if you’ll pardon me, I’ve got to go see a man about a horse.” And off he went, toward the bathroom, disappearing down the short hallway and into the bathroom.

  “You know, he’s quite a handsome one,” Eilish said, watching him go. Mike! brought the drinks, setting her tea in front of her, and Eilish picked it up.

  “Don’t waste your time, Irish,” Cassidy said, still staring at the menu. “He’s only got eyes for Sienna.”

  I felt like someone had just delivered a shock down my spine that made my head come up hard. “What the—no, he doesn’t!” I looked over at Cassidy, who was still staring at her menu. “What the hell are you talking about, Cassidy?”

  “I’m sitting in the back seat and I’m not blind,” she said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  Eilish did a spit take next to me, and for a moment I thought she was going to argue with Cassidy. Instead, she said, “This tea is terrible!” Harry strikes again.

  I turned back to Cassidy, rolling my eyes at the clear absurdity of her idea about Harry. Her super-powered calculator of a brain knew nil about human emotion. “I know you’re really smart when it comes to numbers, but in this, Cassidy, you don’t know a damned thing. He’s just—”

  The bell behind me rung over the door, and I turned, catching sight of a stiff, straitlaced black man as he walked in. He was over six feet tall and wearing a coat that reached to his knees. He scanned the room quickly, target-seeking, and when his eyes alighted on me, he paused, then came right for me with slow strides.

  I didn’t wait more than a few steps before I stood, spinning off my stool to rise and greet him. “Howdy,” I said, any quibbles with Cassidy forgotten as he made a slow beeline for me, nothing else in the place getting so much as a glance from him.

  “Hello, Sienna,” he said, in a low, scratchy voice, a baritone that would have been damned near perfect for creating the scariest sort of ominous voice with just a little digital synth. His face was broad and flat, and there was menace in his eyes as he stopped just outside my reach. He didn’t smile, didn’t blink, and I could tell just by looking at him—oh, and the fact that he’d walked right in here and called me by name—that things on this road trip were about to take a turn for the worse.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Excuse me, sir,” Eilish said, “would you kindly—”

  Eilish didn’t even get that much out before the man lashed out with a lightning fast kick and kicked her stool from beneath her so hard that it ricocheted off the counter, Eilish still on it. She didn’t stay on it for long, though, because after it cracked her, knee-first, into the counter, she came spinning back and into a waiting fist. The big guy leveled Eilish with that one punch,

  and her stool flew free from beneath her, over the booth behind and out the plate-glass window to smash into the windshield of an old Cadillac in the parking lot.

  Eilish landed in a heap on the floor, eyes already closed. There was a mad scramble of the few other customers, dishware clattering, as they either froze in place or went for the door.

  My eyes widened as Cassidy let out a little scream and hopped back, taking her computer with her and cradling it in her arms like she was protecting her baby.

  “That … was so totally unnecessary,” I said.

  “Being charmed by a Siren isn’t within my mission parameters,” he rasped, his dark eyes watching me for any hint of aggression. He was standing off, waiting for me to make a move that he could counter. I knew the posture because I’d adopted it myself more than a few times.

  Unfortunately, he had me backed against the counter, which didn’t give me a lot of room to maneuver without doing a flip or something, getting over it, which was going to be slow and kinda risky given he’d just moved lightning fast. There seemed to be a kind of shadowy smoke rolling off him, something I’d never seen before. It had allowed him to kick out at Eilish so quickly that I’d barely seen the movement. It wasn’t what it looked like when a speedster moved, and it wasn’t like a shadow-melding meta I’d fought down in St. Thomas, either.

  This … was something new. And new tended to be scary, especially when it took down one of your team with such alacrity.

  “‘Mission parameters,’ huh?” I cracked. “Sounds like Skynet finally got pissed off enough at me to send the Terminator.”

  He was slightly hunched over, in a ready stance, waiting for me to make a move that I wasn’t going to be making—yet. I couldn’t believe I’d been dumb enough to sit with my back to the door, first of all, but second—

  Shit, how long had it been since I’d trained?

  London. Months ago. That was how long. Before …

  Well, before.

  As a succubus, I was fast. But this guy? He was in a class of his own. Speed wasn’t going to win, even if I’d been operating at top form.

  “I’m not here to terminate you,” he said, finally replying to my joke. “If you come quietly, no harm will come to you, and your friends can leave.”

  “Tempting offer,” I said. “Where would I be going?”

  “That’s classified,” he said, completely straitlaced, the same way he’d replied to my Terminator riff. Like he didn’t get the joke or he just didn’t care because he was so focused on what he wanted to do—namely, bring me in.

  “I’ve hit my bag and drag quota for the last few months, thanks,” I said, taking a half step away from him. I meant it to look like I was moving my stance, readying myself for a stronger defense in case he decided to come at me. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave so that I can have my waffle in peace. Otherwise, things are about to get … feisty.”

  “You’ve been warned,” he said, and his shoulders swayed, that shadow-smoke rolling off them, telling me that whatever his power was, he was about to employ it in spectacular fashion. “This is your last chance to comply.”

  “Yeah, you’re totally not the Terminator with that sense of gravitas,” I muttered. I bent my knees slightly, using the opportunity to hoo
k my rear foot on the stool I’d been sitting on moments before, back when I had a hope of a tasty waffle, laden with butter and syrup.

  “You have no idea who I am,” he said.

  “I know who you are,” I said. “You’re the man with a giant crease down the middle of his face.”

  I shifted my weight as he paused, looking at me suspiciously. Bringing the stool forward with my own version of shocking speed, I made it skitter across the floor, rattling as it moved. His eyes went low at the distractionary noise as I hucked the stool at him—

  And he punched it, sending it roaring right back at me.

  I dodged it by about a quarter inch—but only because I had a feeling that Mr. Blurry-with-speed was going to do something like that. I tilted sideways to do it, and it left me slightly off balance, but I’d already thrown myself into a spin, using my left foot as traction to execute a pirouette. A lot of speed came down to stance, and in this case, I knew I couldn’t match this guy for quickness.

  Instead, I pushed all my chips onto “Catching him by surprise.” There was little to no chance that my opening gambit of throwing the stool was going to do that, which was why I had a backup plan. Wheels within wheels, ya know.

  As I spun, I tilted and came low, wobbling. I brought my right leg up as I came around, trying to sweep his feet from beneath him.

  My foot made contact with the side of his leg, and I realized my error immediately. Stupid, really.

  He was anchored to the ground like a tree, having seen what I was doing a mile off. It was a clumsy, desperation maneuver that he’d probably picked out the moment I went into my spin. I’d hoped it look like I was—I dunno, breakdancing or something, but he figured it out.

  I kicked his leg and he didn’t so much as cringe. Upon impact, my spin stopped, and all I had to show for my desperation maneuver was a mild ache across my instep where I’d caught him in the back of the knee, where—dammit—he should have been vulnerable to being knocked off balance.

  Instead, I was the one off balance, and still wobbly as my kick bounced off. If it pained him at all, he didn’t show it. He was perfectly poised, low enough with his center of gravity that even if I’d knocked one of his legs from beneath him, he could have recovered.