Just as the last drug dealer raised his pistol toward me, I jumped into the cab of the truck and knocked it right out of his hand. He instantly shifted from trying to fight me to trying to get out of the truck, but I grabbed him by the collar, jerked him backward, and then locked him into a chokehold.
“You weren’t actually gonna try to shoot me, were you?” I sighed.
“Don’t you know who I am?”
“D-Dynamo, please!” the man begged.
I almost had a change of heart and decided to call the cops, but I knew that wasn’t my mission tonight. Hell, the drug dealers weren’t even my real mission. I was just supposed to cause a big enough scene that the Maniac would figure out I was here, since that psychopath was my real target.
I didn’t say anything. I just adjusted my hold on his neck until he stopped talking, so I knew that he couldn’t breathe. I held my position until he went limp in my arms, and then there was just one thing left to do to make sure I got the Maniac’s attention.
I pushed the man into the backseat, scooted the dead driver over, and wiggled my way into the driver’s seat. As soon as I reversed the truck a dozen feet, I shifted it back into drive and started to drive toward the water’s edge.
The river was about a hundred yards away, so I navigated around a few shipping containers until I found a clear path to the water. Then I slammed on the gas and got ready to jump the fuck out as soon as it was time.
I waited until I was sure that the truck would keep going into the water, and then I scrambled back across the seat and jumped out the open
passenger door. I tucked my knees toward my chest and rolled when I hit the ground to protect myself from any real injuries.
When I came out of my roll, I hopped back up to my feet and turned to watch just as the truck rolled forward into the river. It just floated there for a second, but as the water poured in through the open door, it slowly pulled the vehicle underwater until it completely disappeared under the surface with one final big-ass bubble.
I put my hands on my hips and took a deep breath. That had been easier than I thought, but now the real question was whether or not the Maniac had seen or heard me here. If not, I would have to find some other bad guys to beat up until he finally showed his pale creepy face wherever I was.
I turned to head back to the rest of the bodies where I had left them.
It was dark and quiet enough now that the whole shipyard seemed almost like a fucking cemetery, only instead of graves, there were huge shipping containers that could hide any number of enemies behind or even inside them.
I wanted to tell Miles that I’d been successful, just like I wanted to ask him to repeat whatever he’d said earlier, but first, I wanted just a minute of silence to see if I could hear any traces of the Maniac nearby.
The psychopathic supervillain did not disappoint.
A soft cackle started from somewhere up ahead of me, but it was so quiet that I decided to act like I hadn’t heard it. I kept moving until I reached the dead drug dealers, and the moment I stopped beside the SUV, I heard a few muffled footsteps on the gravel behind one of the shipping containers around me.
“Dynamo, are you there?” Miles asked. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“I cleared the drug deal,” I whispered as I reached up to scratch my head so I could hide the movement of my mouth, “and I think he’s coming, so I’m gonna go quiet.”
“Didn’t you hear me earlier?” Miles demanded. “We figured out the Maniac’s plan! He’s gonna use the choppers to release the gas.”
Another soft footfall came from around the corner of one of the shipping containers, so I knelt down by one of the bodies and pretended to look at something so I could hide my mouth again and muffle my words.
“Too late,” I said. “He’s already here. Just hurry up and come kill the bastard.”
“We’re on our way,” Miles said. “And Elizabeth… just hang in there.”
Everything went silent, but I knew that Miles would still be able to hear whatever happened next. This was not exactly the plan, but I would just have to try to channel my billionaire boyfriend and improvise the best that I could.
At least we knew how the Maniac planned to release the gas.
That meant Miles would find a way to try to take over the helicopters before they could actually release the toxic hallucinogen, but at the same time, he would be on his way to help me against the Maniac.
I briefly wondered how I would do in a one-on-one fight against the Maniac, but I knew there wasn’t much time to think about it now. I would try my best to kill him, especially now that we knew his plan involved all the helicopters above the city, but I was prepared for the fact that I might lose against him.
After all, even if that happened, and this psychopath captured me, Miles had a tracker and an earpiece on me, so he would find me as soon as he reached the shipyard. And if the Maniac did capture me, then I would just try to find out as much other information from him as I could until Miles and Aileen showed up, like if the choppers were definitely the only way that the Maniac planned to release the gas into the city.
I sure as shit didn’t want him to have some secret backup plan that involved the sewers or anything else. Besides, he might even tell me which choppers contained the hallucinogen and which ones didn’t, and even that little bit of information would help Miles stop the Maniac’s plan that much sooner.
But who knew? Maybe I’d have better luck against the Maniac than I thought, and I’d be able to kill him right here and now. Either way, the sooner we stopped him, the sooner the citizens of Grayville would be safe again.
I stood up from where I had pretended to examine the body and then glanced around like I just wanted to make sure there were no other drug dealers in the area. When I didn’t see anybody or hear any other noises, I turned to head back toward where I had left the armored car, and I started to wonder if I had just imagined the sound of laughter or footsteps that I thought I’d heard.
Even though I knew this was the plan, my heart suddenly started to pound like I had no idea what was about to happen. I knew that the Maniac was here and that I hadn’t just imagined things, but now that the shipyard had gone so quiet, I was beginning to doubt everything.
Maybe he had somehow figured out our plan to bait him, so he had just decided to leave. Or maybe he had figured everything out and now just
waited for me in the shadows, and at just the right moment, he would kill me… or worse… instead of just capturing me and waiting to brag about it to Miles.
I forced myself to take one step after another as I moved back toward the armored car, but I had the very definite feeling that someone was watching me. Normally, I would have whirled around and charged into the shadows to see who was trying to sneak up on me, but I didn’t want the Maniac to think that I knew he was there… at least not yet.
As my heart pounded a little faster, I reached the door of the armored car and grasped the handle. I glanced around again like I had heard something, even though I definitely hadn’t, but when nothing else stopped me, I just shrugged and pulled open the door.
Before I could slide into the driver’s seat, another little cackle sounded from the darkness, but now it came from close behind me. I tightened my right hand into a fist so I could start swinging as soon as I turned around, but then I heard the gravel crunch directly behind me.
I whirled around, but the Maniac was already right on top of me.
Just as I saw the angular corners of his mouth turn up into a terrifying grin, smoke filled the air around us, and I felt half a second of panic before I remembered the gas mask on my face. But even though I didn’t pass out
from the gas, it hid the Maniac from my view, so I had to duck and roll away from the car to try to find him.
“Lovely Dynamo,” the psychopath cackled from somewhere behind the smoke. “I like the face mask addition to your suit, but it won’t help you.”
I lunged toward the sound of his v
oice, but even though my reflexes were one of my strongest powers, the Maniac had already moved by the time I dashed through the smoke. A soft footstep against the gravel behind me told me where he was, but then he grabbed my wrist and tried to twist it behind my back, so I just slammed my elbow back toward his face.
He moved out of the way before I could hit him, but in order for him to dodge my elbow, he had to release his grip on my wrist. As I spun around to face him, I raised my knee to slam it into his stomach, but the supervillain just stepped to the side and then kept dodging one blow after another that I threw at him.
I knew what his power was, but it was a whole different story to actually experience it in action. His ability to know what I was about to do made it impossible to land a solid hit on him, especially since all of his attention was on me. Maybe if there were other people around, he might have been distracted for half a second, and that would have been all the opening that I needed.
Instead, it was just me and him.
Maybe that was one of the reasons that the Maniac had been so fond of the Shadow Knight. After all, Slade was so jealous and possessive of the psychopathic supervillain that he hardly ever let anyone else talk about the Maniac, let alone actually fight him.
I just had to hold out until Miles got here, and until then, I needed to try to find out as much as I could from this asshole, so I could do everything in my power to save the citizens of Grayville.
The Maniac released another smoke bomb, and I stumbled back toward the armored car as I tried to blink through the thick fog. I hated smoke and mirrors, but it made sense that the Maniac would use them against me. I would much rather face someone head-on in a fight with no tricks or secrets, just me versus them in a test of speed and strength.
Then again, nobody ever said that the Maniac played fair.
Electric blue light crackled from somewhere in the middle of the smoke before it went dark again, but it had given me just enough light to see the Maniac’s pale, creepy grin behind all the smoke. Even though I couldn’t tell exactly where he was now, I knew that the electric sparks had to be from a taser, and that meant I needed to move my ass.
I dropped to my stomach beside the armored car and then rolled away underneath it in the wild hope that I would be able to get to the other side and sneak up on the Maniac before he could react or try to use his taser on me.
Of course, the super suit that Miles had designed would protect me from the taser, but there was always a chance that this psychopath might be able to tase me somewhere on my exposed skin or, even worse, that an electric shock to the suit might fuck with the tracking devide that Miles had sewn into it. Miles might have planned for that, just like he planned for everything, but since I hadn’t actually asked him to make sure, I didn’t want to take any chances.
As soon as I finished rolling to the other side of the car, I jumped to my feet and ran forward a few steps like I might just flee the scene. When I was far enough away to get a running start, I pivoted around and dashed back toward the armored car to slide across the hood.
The smoke evaporated just as I skidded across the hood, and for one glorious second, it looked like my boots would slam into the Maniac’s chest just like I wanted. But then, just before my heels rammed into him, the supervillain jumped out of the way and pointed his taser at me again.
I felt an electric jolt shudder through my body so fast that I couldn’t even tell where he had hit me at first. Instead, I just felt my body melt down
to the gravel, just before a second wave of electricity shot through my muscles and made all my limbs feel like fucking jelly.
I told myself that I just needed to stand up, and my regenerative powers would shake off the electric shock in just a few seconds, but every time I tried to push myself up, another blast of electricity hit me.
Finally, I decided that this would just have to be my last stand. I had wanted to make our fight last a little longer, but since I had always planned for the Maniac to capture me, it might as well be now. At least then, I could save a little of my strength for later because even though I knew that Miles and the others were on their way, I still had a feeling that I would need as much strength as I could get.
After all, even when Miles showed up, we would still all have to fight the Maniac together.
I let myself lie still against the gravel so that the Maniac would think I was either unconscious or that I had given up. The electric crackle of the taser stopped, but it took every ounce of willpower that I had not to fight back when I felt the supervillain kneel down beside me and tie my hands behind my back. His clammy little fingers pulled off my mask next, and then he gripped my hair and jerked me upward.
“On your feet, Dynamo,” the supervillain said. “I know you’re not unconscious, but if you don’t cooperate, I’ll use one of my special new gases on you to make you a little more… compliant.”
“Just give me a second,” I said through gritted teeth. “It feels like you just sent me to the electric chair.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” the Maniac chuckled. “Trust me when I say that you’ll know when I send you to the electric chair.”
He jerked back on my hair again, and this time, I managed to push myself to my feet beside him. I stumbled along as he pushed me forward, and then I glanced over to see that the supervillain was fidgeting with something in his other hand.
Half a second later, I found out what it was when he pulled a dark hood over my face so I couldn’t see where we were headed. I took deep, even breaths to keep myself calm, but the only real thing that kept me from losing my goddamn shit was the knowledge that Miles was on his way.
His tracking device would lead my billionaire boyfriend right to me, so it was okay that I didn’t know where the Maniac forced me to walk right now. I just needed to let this psychopath think that he was in control, so once he got me back to his hideout, he would start to brag and tell me all the details of his plan.
Then once Miles showed up, we would kill this asshole together, stop the gas from being released, and save all the citizens of Grayville before the Wardens could get here and fuck things up for us.
It sounded easy enough, but the longer we walked, the more panicked my heart started to beat until I felt like it would just throb its way out of my fucking chest.
“No need to be so alarmed, dear Dynamo,” the Maniac cackled after we had walked for easily five minutes. “I sense your panic, but there’s no need for you to worry yourself quite yet.”
“That’s comforting,” I growled, “but you’ll forgive me if I don’t exactly believe you.”
The supervillain suddenly pulled me to a halt, and then I heard him fumble with a set of keys before a creaky door opened in front of us. He pushed me forward again, closed the door, and then half-dragged and half-pushed me deeper inside the building until he shoved me down into a chair.
“No, I mean it,” the Maniac said, as he grabbed each of my ankles and tied them to the legs of the chair. “You see, I won’t touch you until Miles Nelson shows up to watch, so for the moment, you have nothing to fear from me.”
I couldn’t believe that I was actually comforted by this psychopath’s words, but since I could tell when people were lying, I knew that the Maniac meant what he said. It wasn’t exactly the most reassuring thing that I had ever heard, but it made me feel like I could relax just enough to try to get a better idea of my surroundings.
I just needed to stay calm, so when Miles did get here, I would be ready to help him kill this bastard.
“I guess I should say thanks for that?” I muttered.
“Oh, you can say whatever you want,” the Maniac chuckled as he fidgeted with something behind my back now. “I’m just so delighted that you decided to show up and play my little game.”
His clammy hands moved away from my wrists, and then a second later, he ripped the hood off my head so I could see the hideout where he had brought me.
It was smaller than his usual abandoned warehouses, but
since it was bigger than the inside of a shipping container, I knew that he hadn’t just walked me in circles and then stuffed me inside one of the containers at the shipyard. There were only a handful of warehouses at the shipyard, so this had to be one of them.
There were half-empty rows of metal shelves on every side of us, but I didn’t see any stairs or second level to the warehouse. Instead, the shelves just seemed to go all the way up to the ceiling, and I wondered if that meant there was a forklift or something around here for people to get all the way up to the top shelves.
When the Maniac pulled up a chair to sit across from me, I forced myself to look at his sickly pale face, even though the sight of his creepy grin was enough to turn my stomach. He leaned back in his chair and pulled out a phone, but just as he began to twirl it between his long fingers, he stopped.
He tilted his head to the side like he wanted to check my restraints, and then he hopped to his feet, adjusted something behind my back, and returned to his chair across from me.
That was when the beeping started.
“We almost had a slight malfunction there,” the Maniac chuckled,
“but not to worry, it’s alright for now.”
I craned my head over my shoulder to see what was beeping behind my back, and I immediately realized just how clever this psychopath really was.
Of course, this motherfucker had hooked me up to a bomb.
I took a deep breath and twisted back around to look at the Maniac, while I hoped that Miles could hear the beeping and guess what it was. A bomb was bad, but when Miles got here, I knew that I could easily break free from my restraints and get away from the bomb before it exploded… at least as long as it wasn’t packed with enough power to blow up the whole shipyard.
I flexed my wrists behind my back just to test the strength of the restraints, but the moment I shifted in my chair, the Maniac clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“Now, my sweet Dynamo, we can’t have any of that,” the psychopath said. “I’ve captured you, fair and square, and that means you’re mine until Miles shows up. Well, then you’ll still be mine… anyway, the point is that there’s no use trying to escape.”
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