“What gave me away?” Kiara’s voice carried across the clearing I was in a second before a shock of wind blew my hair out to either side of my face and she appeared at my side.
“I sensed you about a minute ago,” I squinted as I focused on shredding the thin waxy sheaths of the pine needles, keeping them steady while their tops disintegrated. “Something about your size moving at over three hundred miles an hour is kind of a give-away, to be honest.”
She nodded. “I’m sure you aren’t going to like hearing this, but you look really cute when you’re concentrating.”
“Just what every guy likes to hear.”
“We’ve been over this. You aren’t a guy anymore.”
“Maybe not.” I shrugged and dropped my hand to my side, leaving the pine needles to dip momentarily before they floated to a stop near my navel. “But I’m also not a teenage girl.”
“Fair point.” She leaned forward and ran her fingers over my cheek. “I’m pretty sure teenagers aren’t allowed to have skin this smooth anyway. If you’re using a moisturizer, hook me up.”
“So, what’s up?” I glanced at her as I turned to trace my path back through the woods toward the cabin. “I’m guessing you didn’t run all the way here for a social call?”
She bit her lower lip as she followed next to me. “I did want to see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Right.” She paused. Her gaze flickered from the pine needles still floating in front of me to my eyes, then she frowned. “Has anyone told you yet? I mean, your eyes turned purple before when you used your powers, but now...”
“What is it?”
“They’re just way brighter now.” She studied me closer. “Must be because your powers are stronger.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged and continued toward the cabin.
“Well, I also wanted to tell you, you’re cleared for work, so whenever you feel ready, we can get back into things.”
I smiled. “Is there any way we could get put on the Syndicate investigation?”
“Well, we are due to change over from first response, and investigative services is on the docket. But...”
“But?”
She took in a deep breath. “Look, if it were up to me, I’d say yes, in a heartbeat. I mean, you have more reason than most to want to bring them in. But administration doesn’t want to see you anywhere near the Syndicate for the near future.”
“Because of the mind smith?”
“We do have to get you trained up on your mental defenses,” she muttered. “But that’s not it. There’ve just been one too many coincidences between you and the Syndicate. It has a lot of really important people worried.”
“I guess that’s fair.” I let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “So, has your techie finished resizing my suit?”
“It should be done by our next shift, why?”
“I was wondering.” I narrowed an eye as I turned back to her. “Do you think I could ask for a few minor modifications?”
“What’d you have in mind?”
I grinned as I met her gaze.
I dropped Kiara off at her place several hours later before returning home just after midnight. I had called Jake as soon as I was back in cell service, so I wasn’t surprised to find him waiting for me in the kitchen when I came in through the garage. I was surprised, though, at his reaction when I told him about my attempt to push the limits of my power.
“Are you crazy?!” He stood up and paced around the kitchen. “Amber, when I was Gravita, I could break the fabric of spacetime. You know what that means, right?”
“What, you could make black holes, or something?”
“Yes, exactly. Have you ever done some of the math around those sorts of energies? A black hole the size of a grain of salt would have enough force to pull in everything within five hundred miles. Not to mention the sort of energy and radiation that would be pouring out of the accretion disk. Even with just the energy you were messing with, if you had made just a single mistake, the fallout would have been enough to obliterate the Midwest.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, my face ashen. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”
“No, it’s really my fault. I should have warned you. I just thought it would take you longer to get to that level. It took me until my mid-twenties before I hit that threshold.”
I studied him as he settled back into his chair with a sigh, watched him bury his face in his hands. Something stirred in me as I found myself staring unabashedly between the stubble on his face and the muscular angles of his arms. After only seconds, I couldn’t contain myself anymore.
“So, not to change subjects, but I think I have a much finer control of my powers now too.”
“What do you meaaah!” He stopped short from looking up at me, his head snapping down to his lap in alarm. A moment later he looked back at me with his eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“Sorry.” I shrugged and tried to keep a grin off my face as I got up and walked toward the stairs. “Couldn’t help myself. I’m just getting used to all these teenage hormones, you know? On a completely... unrelated note, I think there are one or two new experiments I’d like to try out with my powers. But I have a problem.”
“Oh?” He got up and followed me out of the room. “What’s that?”
I turned around and leaned against his chest, then looked up to meet his gaze. “I need a practice partner.” I bit my lower lip as I watched for his reaction.
“Well...”
He tried to take in a steady breath, though the way he trembled under my touch belied his effort. I just barely kept myself from smiling. It was so laughably easy now to seduce Jake. Had I been this easy to seduce before, when I was a man? I found it hard to imagine that being the case, but I knew the reality was that I probably had been. Well, that didn’t much matter. I could enjoy the changed dynamic now regardless.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I whispered into his ear, then kissed him gently on the neck. “What I said a few days ago was true. It’s like I’m going through puberty all over again, except the rules are all flipped on their head. One thing hasn’t changed, though. I can barely think about anything other than...”
I trailed into silence as I traced my hands down his front. He shivered as I leaned against him again and rested my head on his chest. I smiled as his heartbeat filled my ear, speeding up faster by the second.
“I hope it’s okay if we end up having a little more sex than usual for a while.” I gave him a coy smile, and he gulped. “I just...I don’t know if I can stop myself, to be honest.”
“I... I think I can keep up with that,” he stammered.
I stood back from him for a moment, aware that his gaze was taking in every inch of me, and I couldn’t stop the warmth that crept over my skin at the realization. There was no use denying it to myself. There were plenty of downsides to being a woman, but this was an undeniable improvement. I liked being the one in control now—the one with the power, at virtually any time, to turn any moment between the two of us into whatever I wanted it to be. We both knew it, but we would never admit it aloud to the other. It was just one more rule to the game we played together, the same one we had started from the moment we met all those years before. We wouldn’t stop playing, no matter what, even as we came up with more subtle and elaborate rules with each passing year.
I turned and led the way up the stairs, and a smile crept onto my face as I heard Jake trip over his feet following on my heels.
17
I PLANTED MY FEET ON the asphalt, my eyes forward as the sedan came barreling toward me. It was travelling recklessly fast on the road that still had a thin layer of slush from the morning’s snowstorm, and from the wild expression on the driver’s face, I guessed he had no intention of stopping for me.
With a shrug, I held my hand out and snapped a field of increased gravity around the car. It only took a second or two of a ten-G field to cause the driver to black
out, though the passenger seemed to hold together a little better. With another flick of power, I brought the car to a halt a few feet away from me.
Fear flitted across the passenger’s face as she raised a gun from her lap and pointed it at me.
“Don’t do it,” I whispered.
I saw the muscles in her face tighten, the only warning I had that she was steeling herself to shoot. With only a fraction of a second to act, I reached out to the spacetime around the pistol and, with a clench of my fist, crumpled the metal into a globule of scraps.
The woman dropped the gun onto the ground, her eyes wide, as the door on her side of the car ripped open.
“Evelyn Marquez?” I announced as I stepped to the side of the car. “You’re under arrest.”
The black band I held in my open palm floated up and snapped around her forehead, effectively nullifying her powers. Before she had the chance to remove it, I grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her from the car. After handcuffing her, I took another minute to put both a power-nullifying clamp and handcuffs on the driver, who was only starting to stir from his blackout. From the information we had, he wasn’t prime, but I wasn’t about to take any unnecessary chances.
“I got her.” I tapped the side of my helmet to transmit to Kiara. “And a clean-up crew is on its way. How are things going in there?”
“I got Perez and Sanchez.” Kiara’s voice was muffled by a crash in the background. “There are a few more small fries here, but by the time you get back, it’s all probably going to be wrapped up, so just sit tight for that crew.”
“Right.” I sighed and tapped my helmet again to kill the radio link.
“I have information on the Syndicate.” Evelyn spoke in a hushed tone as I turned to look at her.
“What sort of information?” I didn’t even try to hide the doubt tinting my voice. “Were you laundering money for them?”
“Of course we were. But you already knew that. That’s the only reason you’d care about our little operation in the first place. We couldn’t function without the Syndicate’s support. They run the underground prime market in Chicago.”
Her brazen admission surprised me. If she was freely acknowledging that sort of connection, she was either completely desperate or she genuinely thought the knowledge she had was valuable enough to barter with. More than likely it was the former, but I couldn’t help but be intrigued. I decided to play along, at least for a bit.
I nodded her way. “Our labs have been analyzing the synthetics you’ve been putting on the street. Pretty elaborate stuff. Not potent enough to be very dangerous, but addictive enough that anyone would get hooked after trying more than once. Your group doesn’t have access to any techie or mattermancer who could’ve made it.”
She tilted her head to the side. “The Syndicate sent us a mattermancer who makes the stuff. There’s no trafficking, no black markets. Just direct sales to our customers. We’re not hurting anyone. Just giving people a break from reality every once in a while. It’s a victimless crime.”
“There’s no such thing. How many people have turned criminal to get their hands on more of your drug? How many homes, families, lives, have been destroyed because your ‘customers’ have been turned into addicts? There are always victims.”
“It was their choice.” She gave me an ugly smile. “But that’s not really what you’re worried about, is it? At least, it shouldn’t be. You know, the Syndicate has a lot of interest in you.”
“I wouldn’t be the person to talk to about that.” I folded my arms over my chest.
“Yes, you are.” She bit her lower lip and glanced around the narrow alley we were in. “Don’t you wonder why they shot you up with that serum three weeks ago? Why they wanted to augment your powers?”
“You don’t know why they did that.” I held up a hand as I heard confirmation from Kiara that she had finished rounding up the remaining gangsters and rogues in the warehouse.
“I tried to find out.” She sounded urgent as the sound of an approaching engine filled the alley.
“And?”
“They’ve got some big plans for you. Doctor Quantum took down that hotel to lure you in. That’s why he used gravity waves to bring it down, and why he made sure your husband was under it when it went down. Figured it would attract your attention. When the Syndicate raided that lab a month ago, they were after his plans, and they got them.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m not stupid.” Her eyes bored into mine with a surprising sense of urgency, even as an SUV came swerving around the far corner of the alley and sped our way. “You think I was running from you? I was running from them. I know too much. This goes so far beyond anything they’ve ever done before. They’ve infiltrated the arbiter program. Do you get that? That’s how they knew where Doctor Quantum’s lab equipment was being held, and it’s how they broke out that energy caster you and Cherub busted a month and a half ago. I’m as good as dead now.”
“You’re going to be safe—”
“This isn’t about you, or me. I don’t care about dying. I care about stopping them.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You should. If the Syndicate has its way, our country isn’t going to exist anymore.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” She pushed herself to her feet and stepped toward me, even as the car skidded to a stop and a pair of men got out. “I didn’t get that far before they found me out. But they need your powers. It’s something about gravity, or anti-gravity. They need it, somehow.”
“Don’t trust anyone!” she shouted, struggling against the man that was leading her to the back of the SUV. “Not even your fellow arbiters. You have to stop them!”
I tried to process what she had told me, but it was hard to take the word of a gang leader at face value, especially one that seemed so desperate.
“You awake?” Kiara’s voice, rather than coming from my radio, sounded from behind me.
“What are you doing here?” I turned to look at her.
“Warehouse cleanup was finished, so I thought I’d check and see how you were doing.”
“I’ll—”
My words were interrupted by an explosion from the far end of the alley. Without a thought, I turned and rocketed into the air in the direction of the explosion. Within a second, I came to the end of the alley and the site of destruction.
From the scene in front of me, it looked like someone had planted explosives on the SUV that had picked up Evelyn and her driver. Scraps of metal, plastic, and glass littered the ground around the car, which was smoldering on the side of the street, half-embedded in a snow bank. From the blown-out side paneling and doors in the back of the car, it looked like the explosives had been put under the back seat.
Numbness stole over me as I worked with Kiara to try and salvage the wreckage of the vehicle. From the outset, I knew there weren’t going to be any survivors. I had by then seen this too many times to not recognize what would await us as we cleared the site.
After such violent confirmation of what Evelyn had told me, I decided against reporting the full transcript of our conversation to the administrators on our debriefing later that afternoon. I knew if it was found out I wasn’t disclosing everything that had happened, I would be facing severe consequences, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to believe Evelyn was right. The implications were too troubling to consider if the Syndicate had somehow managed to infiltrate the arbiter program. And yet, I couldn’t explain how the SUV had been seeded with that explosive, and from the look of things, I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for answers from the higher-ups in the program.
“Hey.” Kiara shook me by my shoulders as she sat down on the bench next to me. “You doing okay? You seem really out of it today.”
“It’s this stomach bug.” I settled on the lie that was closest to the truth that I could muster, then stood up and readjusted the towel around me before turning to m
y locker.
“Okay.” She stood up too and leaned against one of the lockers with her arms folded over her chest. Her tone told me quite clearly she believed my lie about as much as I did. “You know, you’ve been complaining about that for three days. You should really get it checked out.”
“Maybe I will.”
“There’s a clinic on site here,” she muttered and pulled out her phone. “Oh, and it looks like there’s an open slot in five minutes.”
“Great.” I tried not to grit my teeth as I spun my bra around to the front and pulled its straps up over my shoulders.
“Mind if I tag along?”
“Why not?” I bunched up my tee shirt to fish it over my head.
“Wow, Amber!” She looked flabbergasted as she spied the pair of jeans I was squeezing into. “I didn’t take you as the type to wear skinny jeans.”
“Overalls are more my style.” I nodded as I leaned down to lace up my shoes. “Unfortunately, though, the reality is that I look like a teenager now. And, in public, sometimes I guess it’s better to try and blend in. It was either this, or shredded short-shorts.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining.” She held up her hands. “You know I’m always a fan of you getting in touch with your feminine side. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
A few minutes later, I found myself sitting in an exam room, talking with Kiara about denim booty shorts while a nurse took a vial of blood.
“Come on.” Kiara slapped my knee, even as I shoved her away. “We could get you some high-top Converses and a pair of Ray-Bans to complete the look. Jake would love it.”
“Stop.” I tried and failed to keep myself from laughing, even as the doctor came into the room and dropped down onto the stool in front of the computer.
“Mrs. Grayson?” The man held out a hand, which I shook. “I’m Dr. Graff. What brings you in today?”
He nodded politely as I explained how, only that past Monday, I had woken up feeling nauseous and run down. As we had eaten out the night before, I didn’t think much of it, but now, two days later, I was still feeling under the weather.
Prime Identity Page 21
