One More Day

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Secure that bastard,” I said, gesturing toward Daemon as I ran after Dr. Death. I could hear Toxxin behind me, along with Dani.

  “Brianne, now,” I heard Dr. Death say calmly.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, and rose into the air so I could move faster. I threw myself at him, grabbing a hold of his arm just as the blond appeared and whisked him away.

  The only thing was, because I was holding onto him, this time I went with them. Which would end up being either a really great move on my part or one of those many things that I’d wish I’d thought through more carefully.

  Chapter Four

  When we reappeared again, I was still clutching Dr. Death, and we were somewhere along the water. Large houses, mansions, loomed across a road, and we stood on the beach near the water.

  “Rude, to invite oneself along where they aren’t wanted,” Dr. Death murmured, his calm, cultured tone making me want to punch him in the face even more than usual. More quickly than I would have imagined, he wrenched himself out of my grip, but I had just enough time to hit him in the face before he darted away. He bent over, blood dripping from his nose and onto the wet sand near his feet.

  “Get that bitch,” he told his teleporter. Brianne.

  “Where are you?” Jenson asked in a panicky voice in my comm.

  “Jo?” Caine’s voice rumbled over the comm a moment later. Even if I’d wanted to answer him, I didn’t have a chance to as I saw the glint of a gun in the blond’s hand. I lunged, knocking into her. I heard the gun go off, but if she had managed to shoot at me, my uniform had protected me.

  “Not nice. Super villains never have any goddamn manners,” I said as she struggled against me, trying to wrench herself out of my grasp. I held on tighter. She was bigger, bulkier than I am, and she knew how to fight, how to try to maneuver herself out of a situation.

  But she wasn’t as strong as me. It crossed my mind that Connor had been right, that even untrained, my strength worked if I let it work for me this way. It wasn’t as fun as punching, but it would maybe get the job done.

  I felt an impact on my back and realized Dr. Death was kicking me as I wrestled with his teammate. I snarled as he landed another one, right in my ribs. I swore I felt something crack, and I let out a shout.

  “Let go,” he ordered, kicking me again. I winced, but held on, wrestled her as I kicked out at him,

  “Jo, we have your location. They’re on their way,” Caine said in my ear. “Hold on.”

  The blond stopped struggling in my arms, going limp. I didn’t trust her enough to let go. It could have been an act, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was letting her get away. She was the reason, every single time we came up against Mayhem, that they were able to get away from us. Not because we were overpowered or fought badly, necessarily, but because they had this easy getaway, via the blond. Not anymore. The broken ribs would be worth it to make sure she didn’t help Mayhem out anymore.

  I kicked out at Dr. Death again, catching his shin. It was pure luck. I was flailing, just hoping I managed to land a kick. He howled and stepped back.

  “You’re going to pay for this,” he shouted at me, blood from his nose dripping down his face. I kept a hand tangled in the blond’s hair and lunged toward him when it became clear that he wanted to run. He danced out of my reach, and ran off into the night.

  Just then, Portia and the others appeared, and I breathlessly gestured in the direction he’d gone, and everyone except Steel and Jenson took off in pursuit.

  “Take her. We have a dampener?” I asked. Steel nodded and fastened it around the transporter’s neck. I stood up, holding my ribs. I grimaced, then rose into the air in the direction Dr. Death had taken.

  We searched the beach, the water, any docks or boathouses nearby for nearly an hour, but we eventually had to admit that we’d lost any sign of him.

  “You did good, girl,” Monica said as we walked back. I held my ribs again.

  “Not good enough. The fucker got away.”

  “We’re too slow,” Dani said angrily. “We should have been there helping you instead of you having to deal with them yourself.”

  “We’re still new at this shit,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. I should have tried to grab his foot when he was kicking me. And we got two of them,” I said, looking at the scene on the beach, where Portia and Amy were standing over the transporter and Daemon. Both of them wore dampening collars and Daemon was conscious, but seemed out of it, shaking his head.

  “He got away,” I told Portia.

  “We got these two though,” Portia said, putting her fist out, and I bumped mine to it.

  “Daystar got these two,” Dani said, and I shook my head.

  “If you guys hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have gotten to them in time at all,” I said. “I just wish we’d gotten Dr. Death. I can’t believe he took off so fast.”

  “We got his free ride, though,” Jenson said, nodding toward the blond. “That’s only going to make our lives easier.”

  “Yep,” I said. “Any idea who she is?”

  “Running her face through the recognition program now. It takes a while sometimes.”

  “Well, let’s get them back. Steel, I assume you want to be present for their questioning?” Portia asked, and Amy nodded.

  “Me, too,” I said, and nobody disagreed with me. Portia transported us back to Command, directly to the detention facility. My former guard, Marie, was on duty, and she greeted us, helped us get first Daemon and then the transporter, Brianne, into cells. I watched as Marie fastened them into chairs exactly like the one I had spent far too much time in not all that long ago, wrists and ankles shackled to the chair. Later, they’d be fitted with adult diapers, the whole deal. I supposed I should have felt bad for them, having gone through it all myself, but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel anything but satisfaction. Dr. Death and Mayhem had caused the deaths of over thirty people just a few weeks ago when he’d set off some crazy machine in Midtown. At the time, he’d taunted StrikeForce, telling them that the machine would make ordinary people into super powered people, super powered people under his command. Instead, the machine had seemingly fried them from the insides, out. The team had been so desperate, they’d let me out of jail to go after him. He and most of his cronies had gotten away thanks to Brianne, leaving Maddoc behind to deal with me.

  And deal with me, he had. But I had the last laugh, and Maddoc was now rotting here in detention.

  “We have an ID on the transporter,” Jenson said quietly as she approached me. She held her tablet up, and a color photo of the blond was on the screen. A bit younger, with make up on, and her her hair piled luxuriously on top of her head, but her just the same. The name “Brianne Montfort” was on the screen. Born a few years before me in Toronto.

  “She’s been missing for almost ten years. Her parents and fiancee reported her missing, and the authorities never made any progress. There are some mysterious gaps in the file from the investigation, officers who went missing.”

  “Probably officers who learned something,” I said.

  “Exactly. Her parents kept her powers a secret from the police at first, but eventually they realized it would help the investigation. Teleportation, like we figured. Exceptionally quick at it. Portia is great, but we’ve both seen this one in action. It’s scary how little effort it seems to take her,” Jenson continued as we watched Brianne getting strapped into her chair as we stood outside the door of her cell. “We have no idea if she’s been with Mayhem the whole time. We didn’t even know she existed until you saw her that time.”

  I nodded, keeping my eyes on her.

  “And what’s Daemon’s thing again?”

  “A very particular type of mental manipulation. He makes you see, makes you feel like you’re living your worst fears,” Jenson said.

  “Shit.”

  “Indeed. There’s a long list of suicides that have been attributed to Daemon’s influence. From what we understand, he amuses hims
elf greatly pushing people to their deaths.”

  “What are the odds you think Amy will leave us alone in his cell with him?”

  “Why?”

  “So I can hit him really, really hard a few times without her objecting,” I said.

  She shook her head, letting out a short laugh. “I don’t think your chances are great.”

  Marie walked out of the room. “Okay, she’s all secured. The collar is secure, and we added a second for back up, since she’s a high risk prisoner.”

  “Thanks, Marie,” I said.

  “Anytime. She’s all yours.”

  Jenson and I walked into the cell. Amy was already there, sitting in a chair near the door. She nodded at us as we walked in. Portia walked in behind us.

  “The rest of the team are keeping an eye on the other one,” Portia said. Then she turned to Brianne, who was glaring at all of us, but more specifically at me.

  “Don’t be pissed at me. It’s not my fault he insisted on running like a wuss rather than fighting me. If he had any balls at all, you wouldn’t have been involved,” I told her with a shrug.

  “Ms. Montfort, your cooperation here would be helpful, and it will help you as well. It will factor into how long you’re held here, and under what conditions,” Portia began.

  “Screw yourself. I’m not telling you a damn thing,” Brianne said, still glaring at me.

  “How did you get involved with Mayhem?” Portia asked. Brianne rolled her eyes.

  “When did you meet Dr. Death?” she asked, and received nothing but stony silence.

  “I wonder what her super villain name was,” I said, and she looked at me the way people usually look at maggots or cockroaches. It’s not the first time someone’s looked at me that way. Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it pissed me off a little. “Lemme guess. I’m so good at shit like this.” I studied her, and the rest of my teammates stayed quiet. “You’d go with something girly. Princess? Lady Ghost? Sparkletits?”

  I heard a sound behind me that sounded suspiciously like Jenson choking back a laugh. Brianne continued to glare at me.

  “Nah, not that,” I said. “Maybe something more along the lines of ‘Fido.’ Just come when he calls you, like a dog?”

  She moved like she wanted to hit me, and I hid a smile. “That one struck a nerve, huh? Well, you were loyal, I’ll give you that. Dependable. When he called, you came. Impressive, really.” There was no disgust now. Now there was just hatred. “Must sting a little, though. Little rich girl, driving a Porsche through your lakeside neighborhood, and then you find yourself here in Detroit, at some creepy guy’s beck and call.” I stopped talking, let the silence linger. Brianne continued to glare at me.

  “Someone treated me that way, I’d want to see them get their comeuppance,” Portia said quietly. “This would be a good time to save yourself, Ms. Montfort. We have you. We have Daemon. We have Maddoc. Without you out there helping him, it’s just a matter of time until we get Dr. Death and the rest of Mayhem. You help us, and we’ll make sure you don’t spend any more time here than necessary,” Portia said. It was all bullshit of course. There was no pre-determined “necessary” amount of time we kept them in detention. Amy was the representative here on the prisoners’ behalves, and as fair as she wanted to be, she recognized that some of those we took in just shouldn’t be allowed to be free and able to cause pain and chaos. We’d started the process of working with the international super hero community to get our prisoners transferred to a more neutral, better-equipped prison, but it was kind of a long process and we weren’t especially ready to hand Alpha over yet. Not until David and Jenson figured out what he’d been up to. Still, it’s not like Brianne knew that, so we all played along.

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Brianne repeated, and then she closed her eyes and turned her face away from us. Portia and I glanced at one another. We wouldn’t be getting anything out of her, at least not at first. I nodded toward the door, and we all filed out.

  “We’ll try again tomorrow,” Portia said after the door whooshed closed behind us.

  “I’m not expecting much from Daemon,” I said as we walked toward his cell.

  “I hate this guy,” Jenson said as we stood outside his cell door. “He’s creepy and he looks at you like he can see you naked.”

  “Well, he can’t. Not now. He can say shit, but he can’t make us see and feel things the way he usually would,” Portia said. She hit a button, and his cell door opened.

  Like Brianne, Daemon was strapped to the large metal chair in the center of the cylindrical shaped cell. Unlike Brianne, though, he looked at us calmly, a slight smile on his face as he watched us file into his cell. It was impossible to tell his age. He had a sharp, stark looking face, a tall, lanky build, and short dark hair. Narrow dark eyes. He was unnaturally calm for someone in his situation, and my skin crawled just being in the cell with him.

  “Ah, the infamous Daystar,” he said, ignoring everyone else. “Your fears were fun. You were terrified of losing your mother, of disappointing her. Of being helpless.” He smiled. “How is your Mama doing?”

  I lunged toward him, and Amy held me back, her body going to steel, meeting the impact of my strength with strength of her own.

  “He’s strapped down, Daystar,” she said calmly. “Cool it, or I’m going to ask you to leave.”

  I stopped struggling, stopped trying to get to the bastard. I stepped back. “Sorry,” I muttered to Amy, and she patted my shoulder. She turned to Daemon.

  “I’ll tell you this now, mister. I’m here, and I’m here to try to make sure you get a fair shake. But if you piss that one off, there’s not much any of us can do to stop her from getting to you. So I’d watch it.”

  “She’s too weak. She’d never actually do anything to anyone who couldn’t defend himself. Trying to be honorable, when really, there isn’t a noble bone in her body.”

  “You’re right. There’s not,” I said, crossing my arms to keep from trying to throttle him. “You’d be surprised what I’m perfectly okay with doing,” I added, and he kept that same self-satisfied smirk on his face, his eyes on mine. Creepy little shit.

  “We’re here for information. We have you, your transporter, and Maddoc. Mayhem is just about at an end. If you help us clean up some loose ends, we’ll remember that when it comes to your sentencing,” Portia said. “And when it comes to the treatment you receive here. The freedoms you’ll be granted.”

  He just kept looking at me. “You should be afraid, Daystar,” he said in that creepy calm voice. “So much to lose, am I right?”

  I clenched my fists. All of my focus was on keeping my expression blank, on not dropping my gaze, not allowing him even that small victory.

  “So afraid,” he repeated. “All of you are. That Caine asshole. I saw his fears that day, and he’s pathetic. Toxxin, afraid of being alone for the rest of her life because she can’t touch anybody,” he said with a laugh. “It was fun messing with her mind, making her see herself as an old woman, dying alone in squalor. Beta’s terrified of being alone with Alpha, you know that?” He paused, and then he grinned. “Of course, I know all of Dr. Death’s fears, too. Virus’s as well.”

  I kept my face blank again. Virus. Damian. My former burgling partner. He’d joined up with Mayhem after they’d approached him about forming a business relationship, one where he could make a lot more money than he made with me, since I refused to just take everything we could. We hadn’t been the best match in terms of business strategy, I guess. As far as I knew, none of them knew that the woman they’d seen once at Damian’s mansion, his former partner, was also the superhero known as Daystar. Of course, who knew what the hell Damian had told them?

  “I know their fears,” Daemon repeated quietly, still with that creepy little smile on his face. “It’s knowledge I’m willing to share. For a price.”

  “What’s your price?” Portia asked.

  He grinned wider. “My freedom. What else would I want
?”

  Portia shook her head. “That’s just stupid. You know we’re not going to do that.”

  “Then you’re not really all that serious about ending Mayhem and bringing Dr. Death in now, are you? The lives of all those people he killed, they just don’t balance against my life. I should feel special, but mostly I’m disgusted by how pathetic you ‘superheroes’ are.”

  “My god do you ever stop talking?” I asked, and then regretted it when he looked at me again.

  “Why would I do that, when I’m so good at it? Look how I have all of you squirming, even though you’ve dampened my powers. So weak, so afraid. I don’t even need to manipulate you worthless bitches. You’re your own worst enemies, aren’t you?”

  I wanted to hit him. Hard. The thing that pissed me off the most, probably, was that he was right. I hated it when others pointed out my weaknesses. I knew them all too well without anyone spelling them out for me.

  “Telepaths are pretty much the worst,” Jenson said.

  “If you say so. Why don’t you tell me something, Jenson? That’s what you go by? I couldn’t detect a single thing you were afraid of. Why is that?”

  I glanced at Jenson, who, I had to admit, looked a lot calmer than anyone else in the room. She just shrugged. “Maybe you’re not as good as you thought you were.”

  We questioned him for a few more minutes, then gave up when all he gave us was a bunch of bullshit none of us especially wanted to hear. We filed out of his cell, and Portia stopped in the corridor outside. “We’ll keep working on both of them. In the meantime, we work harder to track Dr. Death down. He’s going to stick to the shadows now, which is never a good thing because every time he’s finally left the shadows, something bad has happened. We need to find him, like, yesterday.”

  “I need to meet with David, so I’ll fill him in,” Jenson said, then, without another word, she stepped into the elevator and left.

  “Get some rest. Go to the med wing and have your ribs looked at, Daystar,” Portia said as she headed toward the other elevator.