Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened like she wanted to protest. “But... but... you’re a hero. You saved us. All of us. Even the girls who didn’t know. Some of them didn’t believe you until you brought them on board and they saw us. They still thought they were there for a modeling job or something stupid like that.”
I wanted to argue with her; modeling wasn’t stupid. But it wasn’t my job to change people’s opinions on anything.
It was my job to kill bad guys.
My phone vibrated.
Boat is ready. Water taxi will pick you up in five minutes, starboard side. It will drop you off in Ladyville where I rented a boat for you. -Krisan
Everything good? I typed.
Yeah. Eating room service and catching up on my Telenovela. Marie is about to marry a man her family doesn’t approve of!
I didn’t even bother responding, just stuffed the phone back in my pocket.
“Good luck...” I realized I didn’t know her name.
“Cary. Cary Ann,” she said, holding out her hand.
I looked down at it for a moment like it was a snake then took it, remembering for a second, what it was like to be a normal person.
“Don’t forget,” I said. “Just the Wraith.”
“I might add the angel of death part,” she said with a smile.
I liked that. “Do it. It couldn’t hurt.”
I gave her a nod and went to the starboard side. I was a little under gunned, having lost my rifle, one grenade, and my C4, but I was sure I could make it work. Whatever was going on, it was time I shed some light on it. Or bullets. Yeah, bullets might be easier.
CHAPTER 18
Istill had hours before the sun would come up, which was nice considering my powers worked best when there was no light. Shadows could work, but darkness was best.
The boat Krisan rented was a larger version of my abandoned Zodiac. Two Honda ten horsepower engines outfitted for river use. I could sleep on the thing if I wanted to, but it wouldn’t be comfortable in the least bit.
At least it had a seat to drive in and a windshield of sorts that made it easier to navigate. I didn’t need lights, of course, since I could see better in the dark than a bat.
“What’s your plan?” Spice asked me from the back seat. There were four seats total; two at the controls and two by the engine. I presumed for fishing or sightseeing.
“Scout the area out, see what their defenses are like, if they have any, figure out how to dismantle them, sneak in, kill the bad people,” I said over my shoulder.
“I like the killing part,” she replied. “Can’t you just jump to that?”
I let out a short, sharp laugh. “No. That’s not a plan. More like suicide. You want me to die?”
When she didn’t respond right away I looked over my shoulder to see if she was still there.
She was.
With a shrug, she said, “I’m thinking it over.” Then she smiled and I hoped she was joking.
“Riiight.” I shook my head. “Listen, Spice, you know the deal. You give me powers, I kill people. Don’t go thinking that means I kill anyone and everyone. Bad people only. It’s not like there aren’t enough of those floating around to keep you fed—or whatever it is you do—for the next thousand years.”
“You’d be surprised at how quick I burn through energy. The power I grant you is a fraction of what I once had.” For a second, her eyes blazed, not blue like mine, but red, like a fire. “I could burn a man down with a thought.” Then the fire was gone and she seemed... diminished. “Those were the days,” she said with longing. If anyone else could see her, she would look like a bored teen with her feet up on the side of the boat relaxing... in the middle of the night in anaconda infested waters.
“You need to tell me about that someday,” I said, turning back to focus on the river. The last thing I needed to do was crash into a log or another boat.
“Give it a decade or two. I have a feeling you and I are going to be together for a very, very long time.”
Then she was gone—like she was never there. I wondered about that. Was she a hallucination? If she was, how did she know things that I didn’t know? If she was in my head, how come she didn’t know my thoughts?
So many questions, so few answers.
The facility was still two hours away. I let the roar of the engines and the splash of the water dull my thoughts and drove. Maybe I would need a better plan when I got there, but my brain needed a rest, even if my body didn’t.
The muddy water seeped far into the banks, past the massive trees whose roots dug deep into the rain forest floor. The water of the river disappeared, flowing under and through the trees.
It was quite a sight, and with my Wraith vision it was even better. I could see the life present everywhere. It was almost blinding.
Finally, my GPS beeped to let me know I was there. The little boat slowed and rocked as its wake caught up with it. I let it drift over to the south side of the river and touch the bank.
I tied the small line off to the nearest branch; hopefully, it would be here when I got back... I hated using that word, but sometimes hope was all I had.
I hopped off and made my way through the thick jungle. Sweat beaded under my clothes and dripped off my brow. Even at night, it was still unbearably hot and humid. Eighty-five degrees at least.
I pulled my scarf off and wrapped it around my forehead to keep my eyes clear. From the coordinates Alvarez gave me, the facility they were shipping the girls to wasn’t far from the river. They used boats to transport the women up here because no one would notice another boat. Plus the jungle grew so fast it would cover up any signs of disturbance within a day or two.
The jungle floor itself was wet and muddy; I had to be careful where I stepped, especially since I didn’t want to trigger any alarms or booby traps. I took a second to make sure my boots were securely tied on and the Velcro strap was tight.
I set a location in my phone so I would know where I’d parked the boat. The last thing I wanted was to come out of this place and have to walk back to town. Fifty miles in the jungle wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded... and it didn’t sound easy at all.
Once I was ready, I made my way toward the marked location. Phones sure made everything easier, from GPS to communications. Even out in the jungle, I still had a signal.
I moved slowly, keeping my eyes and brain alert as I pushed through the overgrown foliage. The heat cause sweat to drip down, flowing on the crevices and valleys of my skin, pooling wherever it could.
After an hour of pushing through, I had to stop for a minute to take a drink from my water bottle. This was ridiculous. I guess if Alvarez somehow managed to lie to me, then he really pulled one over, because if I was lost, this would be the death of me.
“Somethings wrong,” Spice said from behind me. I jumped a little as she manifested. I glanced back at her; she was in far more serious clothes than before. She looked like a little soldier on patrol in jungle fatigues.
“What do you know?” I asked her in a whisper.
She shook her head... Was that fear in her eyes?
“Madi, turn back. Right now, please.”
Shock rolled through me. The Wraith, the little psycho who was always urging me to kill, wanted me to turn back from the killing?
In a blink, I had my pistol out, loaded and ready as I backed up. If Spice was freaking out then—
The fist came from nowhere. I didn’t see it or feel it until it shattered my jaw in a blow that sent me spinning through the jungle. The ear-splitting roar that followed was impossible to miss.
“Get up!” Spice yelled.
My hands grasped handfuls of dirt as I tried to force my arms to work. The ground shook as something landed beside me. Its enormous foot hit me in the ribs and I felt every single one of them break as I flew through the air then slammed into a tree and to the ground.
I coughed up a gallon of blood as I pulled myself up the wet tree. The thud of something heavy ru
shed toward me. The jungle parted, but my vision was so fuzzy from the blow I couldn’t make out anything more than a giant gorilla-like form as it struck me.
Then I couldn’t see anything at all as it slammed its massive fist against my face.
CHAPTER 19
“A
m I dead?” I wondered out loud. It was dark—pitch black to be exact. I couldn’t feel, hear, or see anything. Even when I spoke, I only heard the words in my head.
A feeble light approached me in the vast darkness. It coalesced and then Spice was there with me. Wherever there was.
“You’re not dead, but you may soon wish you were.”
I laughed. “You do remember the swamp, right? I can take whatever this is.”
She wasn’t laughing or smiling. She simply shook her head, her hair, dreadlocks to match my own, shook around her shoulders.
“No Madi, you can’t.”
That’s when the pain started.
I screamed, the world coming into sharp focus in an instant of mind-shattering pain. I was in a room, no—a lab—strapped down to a metal bench with my arms and legs spread out as far as the would go. Metal straps held my neck, waist, wrists, and ankles so tight the circulation had stopped long before I was regained consciousness.
The source of the pain was a laser on an articulating arm, burning through my right side, vaporizing skin and tissue while it cut part of my ribs away. Then it stopped to move to a different angle, and I sucked in huge gulps of breath.
Three men in lab coats, masks, and goggles stood in front of machines as they worked. A fourth figure, a woman, supervised the operation. I blinked several times but the monitors displayed a language I didn’t know, nor could I even guess at what it was. The computers themselves didn’t look like anything I had ever seen, in real life or otherwise.
“What are you doing?” I asked between gasps.
They didn’t respond. The laser arm whined for a moment and I knew what was coming. Red light lit up my side again as it drilled into me. The scream that came out of me was unreal. I couldn’t breathe through the pain; it was like someone reached into me and pulled my insides out.
“I’m sorry Madi. I’m doing everything I can to limit the pain, but burns are really hard to heal. They take twice as much power and time to fix. I can’t start until I know they’re done, or we could run out of power and then you would die— and I can’t let that happen, not here,” Spice said.
She was next to me, one cool hand on my forehead helped, a little. She certainly looked concerned.
“What... do... you mean, not here?” I grunted through the pain, trying to hyperventilate myself to deal with it.
“You’ll know soon enough.”
The laser shut off. I gasped, letting out all my air and starting over. The articulating arm whirred as it moved to another location over my left arm.
“Spice?” I said. My heart was slamming inside my chest. I struggled against the restraints, but they didn’t budge. I reached down in me and tried to teleport, but nothing. The bright overhead lights looked almost like sun lamps, which would mean no shadows to step out from or into.
I thrashed against the restraints.
“Madi, calm down and try and think through the fear. No matter what happens here, if you live, you will be okay,” she said.
“If I liv—” I was interrupted by the laser firing again and my words turned into a scream as the beam cut through my arm.
Thankfully, I passed out. My last thought wasn’t If I would wake up, or even what would happen to Spice, but how the hell I was going to kill these bastards with one arm.
CHAPTER 20
Ifully expected to wake up screaming in more agony, and was pleasantly surprised when I jerked awake and slammed into the padded wall behind me. It took a second for my eyes to clear but when they did, I was no longer in the horror room, but a legit padded cell.
The walls were covered in thick white fabric that bulged from the padding underneath. The only space in the entire room that wasn’t padded was the small recessed window on the cell door. I couldn’t tell where the light came from, but the whole room was lit up like the sun. Not a single patch of shadow or darkness.
As for me, I was wearing a straight jacket; all white with buckles and belts strapped around me, holding my one arm in place behind my back.
My one arm.
Panic flooded through me. They’d cut off my arm. MY ARM! I leaped to my feet, stumbling toward the door. I had bare feet and what felt like cotton pajamas on. I hit the door with my shoulder, trying to force it.
Dizziness washed over me and I slid down the door. I felt weak. Helpless. Like I felt when my family was killed. Like when I woke up from my coma.
“Spice?” I mumbled through a dry mouth. Now that the surge of adrenaline passed, it was obvious they had pumped me full of drugs. It was hard to stand, so I didn’t. I just slumped against the floor, trying to think through the fog.
“I’m sorry Madi. If I thought you could stop them I would have let you, but you couldn’t, not then,” Spice said.
I nodded, not really understanding anything she was saying because everything felt so far away.
So very far away.
“When?” I managed to ask.
“When what?”
“When will you let me stop them?”
She shrugged. “The only reason you’re still alive is they think you have superpowers. I think they want to know what you have, what you can do, so they can try and replicate it,” she said.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” I was no expert, but I did remember two things from school about superpowers. One, it was against international law to experiment on people for the purpose of imbuing them with powers. And two... while it had worked a few times after World War Two, the vast majority of the attempts ended in death for the subjects.
I shook my head trying to clear it. “Can you get rid of these drugs?” I asked her.
“Sorry, no. The only way you’re going to get out of this is if, when the moment comes, I give you everything I have, every bit of stored power plus some I don’t have. Even that might not be enough.”
I nodded, still not understanding. Everything was too fuzzy, too indistinct.
“Rest, Madi. If there is a chance in hell, I’ll make it happen. If there isn’t, I’ll do my best to keep you from suffering,” she said. Listening to her was like hearing a train through a tunnel far, far away.
Then everything went black again.
CHAPTER 21
“G
et her up,” a rough voice said. Even rougher hands grabbed my neck and pulled me up. I opened my eyes, partially blinded by the light as I went from total sleep to wide awake in a second.
Four men, big men with crew cut hair and overdeveloped muscles, surrounded me. They weren’t wearing uniforms, but their white military-style clothing smacked of them. The one holding me, a big African brother, grinned when he saw my eyes had opened.
“Too bad she didn’t have powers after all. I would have had some fun with this one,” he said to his comrades as if I weren’t even there.
“It’s weird, right? All that death and destruction she caused and no powers, not a one,” the one on my left said.
“Hey, they say take her to holding, we take her to holding. I don’t know what they’re going to do with a one-armed test subject, but the quicker we get her there, the quicker we get to lunch. Let’s go.”
They shoved me toward the door and they weren’t gentle about it. Each man had to weight close to three hundred pounds of solid muscle. A normal person, even a well-trained combatant, wouldn’t stand a chance, even with the element of surprise.
What do they mean, no powers?
They shoved me out into the hall, two behind me, two in front. When I didn’t walk fast enough, they shoved a stick into my back. Pain burned through me like fire, lighting up my nerves and causing me to drop to one knee.
“You like that? Then take your time, otherwise...�
� he shoved it against my back again. I gritted my teeth, refusing to scream on command, even though it hurt almost as bad as that damned laser.
I struggled to my feet, trying to keep up with the two in front of me. Despite my training, the fear of that pain lent strength to my legs.
Doors lined the hall every ten feet, each one with a small window and nothing else. I guessed feeding their prisoners wasn’t high on their priority list, especially since my own stomach growled from how empty it was.
“Where are we?” I managed to ask.
The stick hit me again. I stumbled as the pain struck, but it wasn’t as bad as before. It actually... helped. My head cleared a little, the fuzz went away and I was able to think—as if the pain had burned the drugs out of my system.
“Shut your pie hole. You do as you’re told and maybe you get out of this with your life,” the one behind me said.
Somehow, I didn’t believe him. We reached an elevator and they shoved me against the wall while we waited. The doors opened and they pushed me inside. I stumbled to the back wall and face planted on it. The metal box was like every other elevator I’d ever been in.
They crowded inside with me. The four of them could barely fit as the doors closed.
We went down; I could tell from the way my stomach felt. They ignored me, the four of them suddenly going silent as eight eyeballs looked at the floor indicator above the door.
Ah, the power of social pressure. I blinked a couple of times and looked up at the ceiling. Unlike my room, I could see where the light was coming from. A pair of fluorescent bulbs behind a Plexiglas shield.
“Spice?” I asked.
“I thought I told you to shut it,” the one with the pain-stick said. He turned around and jammed the thing into my stomach. I didn’t fight it, I just dropped to the floor, then pushed off the back wall, inching forward like a worm.
“Are you sure?” she asked from the corner. It was a step in the right direction. Maybe she would trust me... one day. I nodded.
Superhero By Night (Book 3): The Wraith [Guerrilla Warfare] Page 8
