by R. M. Walker
If I had my power, I’d have crushed his mind by now and left him a drooling mess on the concrete slab flooring. Or a cooling corpse—I could never be sure what I’d do until I’d done it. Whoops, I didn’t mean to kill him, was a regular phrase of mine.
But I didn’t have my powers, so I just lifted my wire-bound wrists, giving the guard a pitiful look. What can I do to you really? the look asked. It’s just a glass of water, what harm can it do?
The guard gave me a long piercing look, during which I made my teary eyes plead with him, trapping my quivering lip between my teeth as if to stop it, as if trying to be brave. In reality, I was drawing attention to it, that trembling sign of my apparent fear. I wasn’t overly surprised when the Hero sighed and yanked me out of the procession. I gave Arris a wink as I passed him and ignored Thomas’s warning look.
Gripping my wrists a bit looser, the Hero guard doubled back to a break room we’d passed—the open door left the room behind it visible, and I already had a rough idea of the layout from when we’d passed it thirty seconds ago. It was empty, which made sense. Most people would have been gathered in the trial room to watch the proceedings. To watch the death sentences handed down to us. I shied away from the thought, pulling the mask of Deadly Damsel around myself like a cloak.
“Here.” The guard eyed me warily as he poured water in a paper cup and handed it to me. I drank it down in long gulps, not having to force it after three weeks with nothing but sips. My stomach roiled, fuller than it had been in a long time, but I clamped my lips together and refused to vomit it up.
“Thank you so much,” I crooned, shuffling closer to the guard and noticing a nick of a scar up close, a paler mark on his dark cheek. I bit my lip, glancing shyly at him. “I have—I have another request.”
“No,” he responded gruffly, seeming to remember his duties—and the protocols he was meant to follow.
“I know—” I let my next breath shudder out. “I know they’re going to kill me. But I … I just want to know what it feels like. Before I die.”
“What what feels like?” he barked, glaring down at me—but there was a crack of curiosity in the wariness. He really was unfortunately handsome, all rugged and muscular. I tried not to picture him naked—that wouldn’t help me at all right now.
“To … to be with a man.” I swallowed, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth. “Sorry. It was a silly thing to ask for—”
Fingers skimmed my cheek. Sucker. “You’re a virgin?” he breathed.
I glanced at the floor, thinking of every embarrassing thing that had ever happened to me until I felt my cheeks grow hot.
“Stay here,” he said—softer.
I glanced through my eyelashes as he went to the door—to raise the alarm, I thought, and panicked. But he just shut it softly and said, “We have three minutes tops. It won’t be romantic but … I can show you what it feels like before your trial.”
Perfect. I tried not to grin as my pulse slowed. Luckily, it would never get to the having sex stage—where there’d surely be an awkward moment when he realized my hymen was long gone—but he didn’t need to know that.
“W-what,” I stammered. “What should I do?”
Hunger showed through the guard’s wariness. That’s it, I silently coached, let your guard down, big guy. He prowled across the break room, and I expected him to shove me down on one of the plush sofas. Instead he took my hand gently, pressing it to the bulge in his pants with unexpected patience. Damn, he was big, and hard. It would be a shame not to ride him into oblivion, but sacrifices had to be made.
I hesitantly brushed his cock, playing at the shy virgin, and he groaned. The sound had the unfortunate effect of going straight to my core; my clit throbbed. Not now, vagina. Slowly, I moved for his belt, tentatively unbuckling it and pulling it from the loops of his uniform trousers. Poor guy didn’t know what hit him when I whipped it around his throat and pulled tight.
His eyes bulged, betrayal and exasperation—at himself?—flashing in his eyes. It really was a shame; he was built like a Greek god, and I could feel the rippling muscles under his guard uniform. That coupled with his handsome face, his thick cock, and how easy he was to manipulate … I was having a hard time fighting the impulse to release the belt and plunge down on that hard length.
But his eyes rolled back and he sagged, unconscious, before I could renege on suffocating him. I checked his pulse—thrumming but slowing—and pilfered the stun gun, wire braces, and security badge from his person. I was a second away from searching the lockers on the back wall for a uniform in my size when the door flung open.
Guards spilled in, some of them—like the guard I’d knocked out—Heroes. I felt their powers thumping in their blood streams and groaned. “Fucking perfect.”
A stun gun discharged and knocked me out before I could lift my own, and I fell into the black of unconsciousness.
Chapter Four
“…Complete and blatant disregard for authority, utter disrespect of the justice system, not to mention she shows no signs of remorse for her actions.”
“I stole one jewel,” I muttered, coming around to find a court—packed full of people—and a jury glaring at me.
“Oh, hi guys.” I grinned, rubbing sleep out of my eyes and giving a little wave. “Just took a little nap. Stun gun, you know how it is.”
“Someone shut her up,” the judge barked, which wasn’t very judge-ly if you asked me. Weren’t they meant to be upstanding citizens?
A Hero—I sensed his crackling power like ice crystals brushing my skin—touched the Perspex box I’d been dumped inside and I knew whatever I said now, no one outside would hear me until the judge deigned to allow it.
“With a criminal record that includes murder, accessory to murder, grievous bodily harm, arson, taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent—”
“Thomas stole that bus, not me,” I muttered. “And the ambulance wasn’t even my idea, so don’t put that on me, either.”
“Assault, affray,” the judge continued, “and crimes of a Villainous nature.”
“That’s not even a charge,” I complained. “You Hero bastards made it up.” Hanging around the street corner could get you arrested for crimes of a Villainous nature if you were found to have an ability and weren’t on the Hero register. Either you were a Hero—a universally recognised good guy—or you were a Villain. There was no in between in Satellite City. And since I’d been born with a mind compulsion ability … yeah, there was no way they’d accept me on the Hero register.
“As Deadly Damsel, real name unknown, has shown no remorse for her actions—”
I never found out what my sentence was going to be, although we all knew it’d probably be beheading. Heroes were big on beheading, since only one super had managed to come back from it. Funny that as many people were killed by ‘Villainous’ crimes as were killed by the Heroes’ death sentencing.
The room started to shake—really fucking shake—and I flailed against the Perspex walls of the witness box as people in the benches in front of me went berserk. The whole courtroom was covered in metal veins to suppress our power but as the walls cracked and fractures raced from the doors at the far end of the court up the aisle towards me, I realised that if those branches of metal happened to break…
I grinned as the world went to hell around me.
Chapter Five
“Holy burning hell,” I breathed, watching as the door exploded into splinters to reveal ... Thomas.
There was a fucking crater in the atrium behind him. He’d … he’d punched into the floor to create the cracks rupturing the courtroom. He’d caused the quakes upending the benches and judge’s box, and now he thundered into the room and attacked the metal-veined walls. I saw that he was taking care to hit the spaces of marble between the metal veins in the second before the room went dark.
I laughed, whooping with joy as black smoke swept in and shut out all light in the trial room. Sable Scythe, AKA Lewin McGrath, the mi
ssing link of our team was here.
I was still locked in the Perspex box but with freedom so close to touch, and the chance that I wouldn’t lose my head today, that I’d make it out alive because Lewin had come for us, my bottom lip wobbled dangerously.
“Dee-Dee, hold tight,” Thomas shouted. Even though I wanted to snarl at him for using the awful nickname instead of my full alias, I gripped the seat beneath me with white knuckles and ducked my head, sensing what he was about to do—shatter the witness box like he’d shattered the walls. I couldn’t see fuck all, thanks to Lewin, so I flinched at the boom of the Perspex smashing. Shards of it rained down on my head, nicking my hands where they covered my face, but I was free.
Well, as free as I could be with power-dampening wire wound around my wrists. But Thom … had he pried the metal off somehow? How could he use his power? And what about Arris, my Falconfire?
“Come on.” Thomas’s hands sought me blindly through the dark, grabbing onto my shoulders and squeezing. The reassurance of it went straight into my bones and had tears filling my eyes. But unlike faking it for the Hero guard earlier, this was real.
I wanted to be a tough bitch but this close to execution … I’d accepted it, I realised, and had come to terms with the fact I’d be sentenced, killed, and never see my friends, my team, again. And now freedom was so close, the emotion hit me with all the force of a train wreck.
But I wasn’t out of danger yet. And I needed to pull myself together, needed to be the Deadly Damsel.
People were shouting, the judge yelling orders and the Heroes barking back at him, but I grabbed onto Thomas and said over the din, “How are you Valhalla?”
“Not now,” he replied gruffly, settling his hand on my lower back and guiding me forward. I jabbed Thom with an elbow. Hard. Not now? I was still blocked from accessing my power. I was still choking on the absence of it even as he led me through the aisle towards freedom, and he said not now?
A bright spark of fire split the complete dark, distracting me from my panic and frustration, and I tipped my head back to watch a bird the size of a small car made entirely of orange and red flames soar overhead, screaming his rage. His wings flapped, a boom of sound accompanying each beat, and fire rained down on the aisles of benches and the judge’s box, illuminating the chaos around us.
And allowing the Hero bastards to see exactly where we were.
“You better have another weapon, Valhalla,” I said, “and you better put it in my hand right this damn second.”
With a flick of a look that told me Thom wasn’t happy about my attitude, he unhooked a long dagger from his belt and pressed it into my palm. Armed, I felt a thousand times better. Felt like the Deadly Damsel even if I didn’t have my power back. Yet.
The benches burned in the corner of my eye as we started to run, as ordinary smoke twined among the black, life-draining smoke of Sable Scythe, the grim reaper come to life. In this moment I was glad the Heroes seemed preoccupied with assisting the jury and civilians to safety.
The illumination of Arris’s wings allowed me to see Thom for the first time since we’d broken free. There were messy splatters of bright red scarring on Thomas’s wrists, where the metal had been. I swallowed hard.
We made it to the atrium, and Thom led us left, deeper into the building and back into pitch darkness. I dragged on his massive arm but I might as well have been trying to move a deep-rooted tree. “Are you mad? The exit’s that way!”
“So are the Heroes, and the guards, not to mention a tactical team with stun guns, wire bracers, and one of those foul nets they hit us with in Puerto Rico,” answered a new voice—not Thomas. A familiar voice sharpened by panic but exasperated as ever.
A bubble of light opened around us, the black shadow receding—but still, I knew, blocking us from sight.
And there he was, dressed in heavy-duty boots, tough leather pants, and a reinforced jacket that zipped at an angle, dark hood pulled over his pure white hair. It was always a surprise to see Lewin looking like such a badass when I knew him as a total geek. His normal look consisted of holey jeans and oversized jumpers with the sleeves pulled over his hands. But here … he looked dangerous, and wickedly capable. I could just about see the flash of his hazel eyes, the thin slant of his mouth, beneath the hood. My heart stuttered.
Uncaring of the people spilling out of the trial room just down the hall, and of Arris flying overhead in glorious Falconfire form, I launched myself across the space between me and Lewin, throwing my arms around his neck and squeezing him tight.
He stumbled back a step but groaned and hugged me for a second before prying me off. It was more than he usually allowed, and I knew he must have been really shaken. “Come on. There’s an exit in this direction and I have a car waiting.”
“What about this?” I lifted my wrists, firelight catching on the metal.
But Lewin had already begun rushing down the corridor, and I had no choice but to follow him. Everyone else was free, but me…
Lewin glanced over his shoulder, a lock of white hair falling into his eyes. “Trust me,” he said, and even though my heart beat fast with panic, I did. So I tightened my grip on the dagger I hadn’t yet needed to use and followed him, my bare feet cold on the marble floor. Thomas’s big hand settled on my lower back as Arris swooped low, brushing my shoulder with a feather-soft wing. Though his flames could burn, he never hurt me and the warmth was a comfort.
Lewin swung open a door set into the exterior wall and my breath caught at the blue sky, the fluffy clouds chasing across it. The taste of air—real, clean air—burst across my tongue, flooded my lungs, and I had to press my lips together to stop them wobbling again.
A van idled right in front of the door and the side of it swung open to reveal Goldmine and Nightingale, two members of another Villain team. Two friends of ours. Which explained the scarring on Thomas’s wrist—Goldmine must have used his power over metal to melt the wire right off his skin. Nightingale was here, I supposed, to heal us all as we made our escape.
“In,” Lewin said, as if we weren’t already rushing into the back of the white van. Ironically, the side of the van said HEROES FOR HIRE. WE DO BIRTHDAYS, CHRISTENINGS, B’NAI MITZVAH, AND FUNERALS. Nice. Hiding in plain sight as the enemy.
I jumped into the van, sunk onto a tattered leather seat, and helped pull Arris—now returned to his human form—inside as Thom clambered in and slammed the door shut. Another slam echoed through the van as Lewin climbed into the driver’s seat and floored it. We soared out of the alley and into the city beyond.
Free. I was free.
Chapter Six
I shut off the hot spray of water, huffing a frustrated breath. I’d thought a shower would stop my shaking, the way it always helped me burn off the adrenaline after a job, but my whole body still rocked with tremors. My teeth chattered with it, but whatever emotions were rattling my body, I was numb to them. Shock, I figured.
I wasn’t overly surprised when I stepped out of the shower into a big, fluffy towel already waiting for me, or when I was bound up into Thom’s strong arms. I sighed, letting my head fall on his chest.
“We’re alright,” Arris murmured, moving around Thom to run a smaller towel through my hair. “We’re free now.”
“You’re welcome for the rescue,” Lewin said softly, hovering a few steps away, dressed in his usual ensemble of ragged jeans and oversized jumper, his white-blonde hair hanging messily around his face. Despite his words, there was no humour in his voice.
I blinked back the burning in my eyes, point blank refusing to cry, and let myself melt into Thomas’s secure embrace. His hands swept up and down my back, the towel ruching under his touch as he comforted me and chased off my body-wide shakes. The feeling of Arris brushing the towel over my hair was another sort of the comfort, the touch of both of them … I came perilously close to a sob, flattening my lips together to trap it.
“Sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Lewin said, finally inching closer. His h
azel eyes were dark with misery, big puppy dog eyes, and he reached for my hand slowly, as if expecting me to snatch it away from him.
I sagged fully against Thomas as Lewin’s hand wrapped around mine, warm and dry. A comfort he so rarely bestowed, it was somehow more powerful than it would have been if he’d kissed me.
“You came,” I said, trying to muster a smile. “That’s what matters to me.”
“And me,” Thomas agreed, the words rumbling into my ribcage.
“To all of us,” Arris confirmed, and I heard the smile in his voice. He was always like this—fiercely happy in the face of shadows when the rest of us would brood and snarl. I suspected he did it to defy the darkness and not let it win.
“You should go to bed,” Lewin said, back to his normal bossy, exasperated tone in an instant, though he didn’t take his hand from mine. “You’ve showered and eaten.” He’d made sure we all had, cooking the biggest meal I’d seen in my life and watching us like hawks until we finished our plates, washing them down with giant glasses of water. “But you need to sleep.”
I met his eyes, the tension around them betraying his worry, and then tipped my head back to look at Thomas, his expression tender as his gaze met mine, at odds with his usual unfriendly glare. “Come with me?” I looked over my shoulder at Arris as he discarded the towel and began running his fingers through my damp hair. “All of you?”
Relief shone in his eyes, a wider smile dimpling his angular bronze face. “Whatever you need, darlin’.”
I swallowed, gratitude threatening to weaken my bones as I turned to Thom and he nodded, skimming my bare shoulders with a calloused fingertip.
“I’ll watch,” Lewin offered before I could ask him, twisting his hands in front of himself. I knew he wouldn’t fuck me, but I felt a pang of disappointment that he wouldn’t even touch me. Although … having him watch while Arris and Thom took me made my heart pound faster.
