by Fiona Zedde
In-house terror only.
Still, I’m not absolutely certain it’s the Redstones.
“Who’s the girl he killed?” Farr asks, although she could easily find the information online. She’s the other one on my team that is most like me in terms of strengths. She manages fire, too, but she can generate the explosiveness of a large bomb, while all I can do is just burn a person from the inside out—plus a few other low-energy tricks. Raised on technology and the internet, she can track anyone with any sort of digital footprint and was able to find Gales with little trouble when the other enforcer team asked for help. When they said “stand-by” to our team, they really should have told us to come in and do all the work.
Not that I can blame them. It’s just that my team is more powerful than any available to run backup right now.
“A college student from an LA suburb. She was here with some human friends and seemed the tastiest of the bunch, so…” I hitch up a shoulder to indicate the murder, feeding, and subsequent regret.
Caleb looks up. “From a connected family?”
“Not that we can tell,” Pascale chimes in. “Just one of us with barely there powers living on campus away from her family. She wanted her freedom.”
That’s not a desire I know about. My family has always been small: me, my sister, our parents, my aunts, plus the half a dozen cousins who floated in and out of the house in Mexico on their way somewhere else. Freedom from the people who love me isn’t something I ever wanted. When my parents died in a car wreck along with one of my aunts, I held on to my sister more tightly than ever. Not that it did me any good.
“He’s heading this way.” Pascale suddenly points down to the street.
The rest of us move over to get a good look with our binoculars.
“The other team has eyes, too, but they’re waiting to corner him in a less crowded place.” Farr rolls to her feet and tucks away her handheld electronic scanner.
Below us, the strip is packed with tourists, business people, marriage mistakes waiting to happen. Gales is in the thick of things, strolling among the glitter and desperation like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Certainly not like he’s got a human bleeding out in a hotel room nearby or a dead Meta teenager on his conscience. But his deliberately nonchalant attitude says something else: It says he knows he fucked up taking the college girl. He knows he’s on the enforcers’ radar and it’s only a matter of time before we reach him. He doesn’t look like a man without a plan.
Among the crush of humans, a flash of dark against dark down below reveals the presence of someone from the other enforcer team. They’re quiet and effective, just as we’re all supposed to be, but that doesn’t mean a thing with this guy. Gales’s power is low grade but effective. Light telekinesis paired with self-healing. If he hadn’t been tested as a child and found mentally unable to handle work as an enforcer, he could’ve been one of us.
Pascale lets loose a curse as the member of the other team falls back from following Gales. “They’re not going to go for him.”
Gales’s hotel is nearby, and there are enforcers everywhere; he has to know that. The other team hasn’t exactly been subtle about their presence. It doesn’t feel like he’s trying to avoid their obvious trap, either. What’s his game?
“What the hell is he up to?” Caleb peers down with his enhanced goggles.
“That’s not for us to think about,” I mutter, but that’s not true. Our place is to find a solution to the Gales problem if the other team doesn’t, and so far they’ve been incompetent as hell in catching this low-powered killer. Obviously, he knows we’re onto him. And he’s up to something.
His suit is designer. His tie a pretty green against the crisp white of his shirt. He’s dressed for someplace nice. He’s not in a rush. He’s… My eyes flicker down the strip ahead of him, on both sides of the street. Hotel. Bar. Casino. Concert hall. Another hotel—
Fuck me.
“Don’t let him get any farther,” I snap over the open communication with the other team. “A couple of blocks down on the left. There’s a Meta family here from out of town. They’re at Club Synergy.” To be sure, I mentally scroll through the list of scheduled movements of the major Meta Families in the area. The Soyinkas. In a show of bad judgment, they have some sort of reunion here. Mandaia Redstone could teach them a thing or two about subtlety and keeping their family safe. They may have more powers than humans, but their bodies are still breakable. “Take him out now!”
“Hell,” Farr growls through clenched teeth. “They won’t do it.”
None of the four members of the other team look close enough or ready enough to do what needs to be done. All night, their communications have been crackling with questions instead of orders, their new sub-commander too indecisive to bring down the hammer when necessary. Not that Farr should’ve been checking in on them, but it pays to be informed.
“Pascale, teleport down there with Caleb and shut this down.” The two men are moving before I finish talking. “Caleb, make sure the humans don’t notice me. Farr, scramble any cameras filming the action.”
Already, I’m running to the edge of the building, the wind rushing against my face. A leap. My fingers catch on the edge, and I throw myself down the side of the building, surfing down the glass toward the street. Caleb’s controlled burst of influence blankets the humans nearby just in case one of them looks up to see a figure in black sliding down a glass building.
Everything is perfectly normal. Caleb’s words flow over the humans in a calming wave. Not a single person looks up.
Moments later, my feet hit the pavement and I slip into the dark, close to Gales. Quickly, I take off the dark mask covering my face, leaving only the facial-distortion disguise. If anyone looks, all they’ll see is a woman wearing some sort of uniform with short hair, a forgettable face, and an attitude of everyday hurry.
Up ahead, Pascale is a few steps behind Gales. Caleb has knockout needles ready. Gales walks with a confident swing to his arms, looking rich and happy, normal enough for Vegas, but it’s an attitude that attracts. Look at me. I just won big. And the humans are watching. Some with envy. Others with the clear intention of robbing him as soon as he steps into a dark corner.
He’s good.
But not good enough.
Just a few feet away and I give Caleb the nod. The needles come out. One goes into Gales’s thigh. He staggers and cries out, eyes darting around him, all the while turning to get away from the unexpected bite of the needle. Instantly, he sees Caleb.
To the humans, we blend in, but Gales knows what an enforcer looks like. Panic twists his face. But it doesn’t stay long. Gales’s power sends a woman’s heavy-looking handbag flying into Caleb’s throat, buckle first. Caleb dodges it, then slips to Gales’s other side and stabs another needle into his back. He stumbles again, and Pascale is there to catch him.
People trip. It’s a mass of confusion. But this is also Vegas; spontaneous theater happens on the streets all the time. People doing crazy things to draw attention and to pick each other’s pockets. Easily ignorable. The other team should’ve known that and gotten to this idiot sooner. We can’t afford to let him get to the club with whatever plans he’s got as a backup.
“There. Into that alley!” But they don’t get the chance to do much with Gales before he recovers again. Right. Self-healing. He sends a metal newspaper box flying. I dodge it, but a human man and his lady friend aren’t so lucky. It smashes into them with a crunch. Bones breaking. Blood flying everywhere.
“End this shit now.” A punch to the kidneys and Gales gasps loud. Instantly, Farr is there to clamp fire hot hands on him while Pascale stands near, ready to rip his body into pieces with his enhanced strength.
“Oh my gawd!” Farr shouts out with an exaggerated (and really bad) Southern accent. “Please excuse my husband. That raw seafood buffet really did him in!” An
d she drags him with Pascale’s help, growling and spitting, into the alley. A pair of humans are already there, and the smell of sex rising from the cramped space tells me all I never want to know about what’s happening between them.
Caleb shoves another needle into Gales on his way to rushing into the alley to roust the lovebirds on their way. They stumble out, one of the men still fumbling to drag up his jeans. Pascale throws Gales at Farr to go be the lookout, and Caleb takes his place.
Seconds later, the perp shivers to awareness, twists, and growls between Caleb and Farr. Caleb slams another needle into his neck. But he doesn’t go down easily. Only a few seconds pass before he’s fully aware again.
Dammit. With every knockout injection, his recovery time gets faster and faster.
“The human police are nearby,” Pascale growls, keeping an eye out from the mouth of the alley. “We need to wrap this up quick.”
But suddenly, a gray mist rises around Gales. Whatever is in it, instantly hits the back of my throat. A chemical burning.
“Poison!”
Like we’ve practiced a thousand times, we slip our masks on. The material used to hide our faces protects us from any poisons in the air as well. But I stumble anyway, knees hitting the concrete with a hard jolt I feel in my teeth.
This is Gales’s plan against the family nearby. Since he already murdered the young girl and is basically a dead man walking, he wants to kill himself and take as many Meta with him as possible. Including the enforcers sent to catch him.
My vision clouds. My legs weaken.
No, no, no! Not the time. Not when I finally have the kind of life I’ve dreamed of for years.
Cursing Gales, I fumble for the cuffs behind my back and manage to get them around his wrists before he can move.
A tap on the controls at my wrist floods my body with a counter-poison inoculation. It hits me like ice, the feeling of frozen air overwhelming my lungs and blood. I shudder as my stomach lurches from the medicine. Gasping, I double over, bracing my gloved palms against the filthy ground. Footsteps race into the alley, and I stagger to my feet, ready to fight or bullshit my way through an explanation of what we’re doing here.
But it’s the other team, the original one that was supposed to stop this idiot in the first place. The four of them rush in like ants, swift and silent.
“Incoming,” Farr growls from behind her mask. She shoves Gales down into the ground, face first, boot landing on his shoulders. He garbles as his nose and mouth land in a pothole full of stagnant water. But the sound of his breathing is weak. The poison he prepared is working almost too well.
If the primary team doesn’t save him, self-healing power or not, he’ll be dead in seconds.
Not our problem.
Farr steps back as the primary team rushes to surround our prisoner. Her spine is ramrod straight, and she looks invincible in her black clothes and behind her mask.
“We can take it from here,” their leader barks.
No shit. With a flick of my wrist, I signal for my team to leave Gales’s side and come to me. But the gas did a number on all of us, and it feels like a Mack truck is sitting on my chest. A vicious headache rings in my skull, and my body aches for water, dry enough to absorb an entire planet of fresh water. We’re slow to regroup, but as soon as we’re close enough to each other, Pascale opens a portal for us to flood through.
Seconds later, I reappear with my team in the room where we started the operation. A locked door. A table and four chairs. An open laptop attached to a projector showing the layout of Gales’s hotel room. Farr collapses into one of the chairs, her head clutched in her hands. Caleb lurches away from the portal and slams into the wall before sliding down it to land on his ass. Pascale’s nose is bleeding.
I manage to make it to the table before sagging back against it, the edge digging into my spine. Not remotely comfortable at all. Giving up on the painful lean, I drop down on the table’s surface, flat on my back and staring up at the white ceiling. The bright lights feel like knives hacking at my eyeballs.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Shit. I thought this was supposed to be easy…” Pascale pants roughly, leaning against the wall, visibly shaking. He pulls off his masks, exposing his shaved head, goatee, and the sharp brown of his eyes.
“That’s when you should’ve realized this whole operation was going to be shit,” Farr mutters, her voice muffled by her hands still covering her face.
Caleb, with his head leaned back against the wall and his eyes closed, doesn’t say a word. But his entire body looks like pain.
They’re all ready to go home. Hell, I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be but Mai’s rich-girl apartment, cuddled on the couch and dissecting what happened tonight at dinner. But we have a job to do. I pull in a deep breath and push it back out.
One by one, the rest of us yank off both sets of masks. Faces emerge, damp and overheated from the job, even Farr. Her close-cut natural hair glistens with sweat at the edges, and her full lips are tight with tension.
With an exhausted movement of his fingers, Caleb settles his thick red hair around his shoulders. A gray eye pops open to look at me.
“We need to find out where Gales got that poison from.” I strip off my gloves, already dreading the time it’s going to take. “It’s not standard issue, and it’s just too powerful to leave out there in the world.”
A chorus of groans greets my announcement, but none of them disagree with me.
It’s going to be a long night.
Chapter 9
I don’t get back to Atlanta until nearly four in the morning.
With my body still cool from the shower I took at headquarters, I tiredly shed my clothes and slip into bed next to Mai. Her skin is warm and smells like the home she has become to me. When I settle under the covers facing her, her eyes stare back into mine.
“Was everything okay out there?” With a sleep-warm finger, Mai traces the damp edge of my hairline, then the whirl of my ear. “I was starting to worry.”
“No reason for you to worry, Mai darling.” I capture her wandering fingers and press them to my lips. “If anything, I was the one worried about leaving you in that house by yourself.”
I feel her entire body flinch. “I wasn’t alone,” Mai says, defensive. “Abi was there.”
That spoiled little flower? She can barely take care of herself with those people. If they ever decide to turn on her, too, she’d only whimper while they cheerfully destroyed her.
But I keep those words to myself.
“How long did you stay?” I ask instead.
“Not long. I left just a little while after you did. They…they really want me to testify for Ethan.” The frown between her eyes looks painful. “It doesn’t make any sense. They were so different before.” She sounds so wounded and lost. My sweet love.
I kiss her fingers one by one as she watches me. “Do you want me to see what’s going on?”
“It wouldn’t make a difference.” She shrugs, and it hurts me to see it, that small motion of resignation. “I don’t know what could be wrong other than the—” A vicious shake of her head. “Anyway, I think Mother just changed her mind. Nothing and no one makes her do anything she doesn’t want to.”
I’m not so sure about that. No one is above influence. No matter how powerful a person seems, there’s always someone out there with more leverage, more power, or less to lose.
“Shh. Don’t think about it anymore tonight. Just rest.” In the small amount of space between us, our fingers link together. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“Or never.”
“Or never,” I echo her words although I know avoidance isn’t an option. Not where the Redstones are concerned. All this is about to come to a head. And very soon.
Chapter 10
“For what he’s done, Ethan Redstone
should die.” The statement leaves my mouth as objectively as I can make it, but the hatred vibrates through my body. I’m sure everyone in the room can feel it.
“Thank you, Commander.” The justiciar, a former enforcer himself, nods once from his place high on top of the bone-white dais, a symbol of enforcer justice, cold and merciless.
Mai sits with her family on one side of the justice box, an imposing and off-putting marble white square where her cousin sits trapped in a stasis field to prevent him from teleporting, his mouth held shut by someone’s power while his eyes burn pure malice at everyone around him. I stand on the other side of the box with the rest of the enforcers who were there when Ethan was caught. They stand in an unbroken line next to me, legs braced apart, their faces covered, and utterly silent.
None of us should be here.
The job is done, and Redstone was caught about to murder his own cousin. He should be long dead by now. But after months of delays, here we are: the enforcers who were officially on the case and me, the one who chased and caught him. My leather gloves creak softly from the strain as I clench my fists.
At the sound, Mai darts a look across the room at me. Our eyes meet. Her distressed thoughts flow into mine. A gently cleared throat pulls Mai’s attention back to the justiciar. Her mother reminding her of her manners and the reason she is here.
The Families have no control over what enforcers do. Justice is supposed to be above politics and power plays. But apparently, I can be naïve as Mai. I should have known that a family as powerful as the Redstones would have a say in what happens to one of their golden boys, even if his sheen has been tarnished.
Dozens of abusers and murderers have died for me to get to Ethan Redstone. Now, he’s right in front of me, but I can’t touch him. The courtroom is small, and there aren’t many of us here, just enough for Ethan Redstone to seem so close yet so very far. I want to tear him apart.
