I spotted his phone peeking out of his jacket pocket, and I grabbed it and stuck it in my pouch. “I’ll be back in a bit, and you and I are going to have a little chat. Right now, I have to arrange to bury my mother.”
I took a breath, then I looked toward him again.
“You’re going to pay dearly for that, by the way. Don’t try to get free. I’ll get an alert the second the cuffs pick up any signs of attempted escape, and I if you think you’re in pain now, you’re going to be in absolute agony if I have to come back here before I’m ready. Understand?”
He nodded. Wide-eyed. I watched him in disgust, worthless maggot that he was, and then I walked out the back door and flew back toward Command. I needed to change into normal clothes, and then I needed to make funeral arrangements for Mama.
I didn’t even know where to start.
Chapter Fourteen
I arrived at Command a little while later and made my way down to the team lounge. This time of day, everyone was kind of between shifts, and I had a feeling they’d all been called back after Portia and Jenson had seen me apparently go nuts on Daemon. I walked into the lounge, and they were all there. The quiet chatter stopped, and they all looked at me. Portia was about to say something, when I held my hand up.
“My mother is dead,” I said quietly. Jenson, David, and Ryan stood up.
“What?” Portia asked in a hushed tone, hands at her mouth.
“Four o’clock. The thing that would happen if I didn’t deliver. He murdered my mother at four o’clock today. Put poison in her coffee, then called me. I got to watch her die via video call. By the time I got there, she was already gone.”
I delivered it all in a monotone.
“Oh my god,” Chance whispered. Amy patted her shoulder. Portia still stood there, looking shocked. Jenson came to me and pulled me into her arms.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jolene,” she whispered, holding me tight. I hugged her back.
“So. I need to change. And then I need to go to make arrangements… I don’t even know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing,” I said, and I started to feel my control give way.
“It’s okay. I’ll go with you,” Jenson said. “Okay?”
I looked at her blankly. She had tears in her eyes, and that was when I lost it. I cried in great, heaving gulps, and Jenson held me as I cried. I felt someone pat my shoulder, and then a large, warm hand rubbing my back as David and Ryan tried to comfort me.
I managed to pull myself together, and I patted Jenson’s back and pulled away. “I can’t do this now,” I said, sniffling.
“You have every right to do this now,” Ryan said.
I shook my head. “Not now. Now is for giving my mother a proper burial and bringing her killer to justice.”
“That’s why you were in there with Daemon. Did he tell you anything?” Portia asked.
I thought for a second, then shook my head. “He didn’t know. Did he tell you all anything after I left?”
“Not a word,” Jenson said angrily.
“Okay. So I have work to do. I’m going to go change.”
“I’ll drive. I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten, okay?” Jenson said, and I nodded.
I changed into jeans and a dark gray sweater, hastily ran a brush through my hair, then went down to the lobby, where Jenson was already waiting. For once, she looked less than perfectly put together, as if she’d grabbed the first items she’s put her hands on, which were a rumpled pair of jeans and a faded Navy t-shirt. She put her arm around me, drawing me in for a quick hug before we started walking toward the elevator down to the parking garage. Once we got there, she went to the far side of the area, which was where those of us on the team who kept our own cars for times like this stored them. She unlocked an older model Jeep Wrangler and we got in.
“Which funeral home do you want to have handle this?” she asked as she started it up.
I looked at her blankly. “I have no idea. Um. I think the closest one to where we lived was Pearson’s over by Masonic.”
She glanced at the dashboard clock. “It’s only five thirty. We’ll go over there and see if we can talk to somebody and get things moving. Was she active in church? Do you want a funeral mass or anything like that?”
I shook my head. “She wasn’t really a church person.”
“Okay. So just the funeral home, then.” We drove in silence for a while. “She was a lovely lady. While you were in the medical wing after the Maddoc thing, we chatted quite a bit. And she thought Caine was hot,” she added with a small smile, and I let out a little laugh, which seemed wrong.
“She never mentioned that part,” I said, blinking back tears.
“Something about his backside,” she said, glancing over at me, and I shook my head. She reached over and squeezed my hand, then put both hands back on the wheel.
We drove most of the way to the funeral home in silence, and, when we got there, we were ushered to a quiet office where a solemn little woman took me through the process. I picked out a coffin, gravestone, memorial card. I signed a bunch of stuff, authorizing this or that.
“We’ll have the body transported from Detroit Receiving,” she said. “You’ll need to choose clothing for her to wear.” She glanced at a computer on her desk. “Do you want a day for people to come and visit her here, or just a viewing before the funeral procession.”
“Just on the day of the funeral is fine,” I said. I felt numb.
“So we can plan on it for the day after tomorrow, then,” the woman said. “Is that all right?”
I nodded. I signed more things, and then Jenson and I left.
“If you have family and stuff to contact, I can help with that,” she said after we got into the car. I shook my head. “
It was just us. Her neighbors will want to come, though, and her friends from work if they can manage to get it off.”
“Do you want a wake after the funeral?”
I looked at her blankly.
“A luncheon for everyone to get together afterward,” she said gently.
“Oh, right. I guess we should do that.”
“I have a cousin who owns a restaurant in St. Clair Shores. I’m sure I can work it out with him so we can have it there.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Just give me the go ahead, and I’ll handle that part if you want.”
“You are a lifesaver,” I said, and she shook her head.
“I wish I could do more.”
“You’re here,” I said.
I spent the rest of the night shopping for a burial outfit for Mama and dropping it off at the funeral home, then going to the trailer park and talking to Mama’s neighbors. Just about all of them cried, but I was numb, and I couldn’t shake it. I kept thinking of Dr. Death sitting in that house. It would just have to wait. Right now if he got away, it wasn’t exactly my biggest concern. I’d find him again, and there would be no getting away a second time. If David’s electro cuffs were functioning the way they should be, he hadn’t tried to get away. I hadn’t gotten any alerts, but the component that tracked his pulse and temperature indicated that he was pretty stressed out. Good.
After I finished running around, I called Mama’s department at work and spoke to one of her friends, Marianne, who I’d met a few times. They already knew she was gone, of course, so at least I didn’t have to deal with sobs of shock. I relayed the funeral information, and she told me there were a lot of people who wanted to come. She also took the name of the funeral home.
Jenson stopped by my room to tell me that the wake was all set, and I thanked her. She left, sensing that I wanted to be alone. I sat on the floor in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in my living room, looking over the dark city without seeing it. Part of me wanted to have a chat with Dr. Death right that instant, but I knew that, if I confronted him now, I’d kill him. I’d do it without a second thought, and in the end, it wouldn’t do anything. My mother had died for the stupid injection he was obsessed
with making. She’d died over his power trip, over some insane plan to put his team of villainous assholes in charge. I needed to know how far he’d gotten. I needed to destroy every last piece of what he’d been working toward. I needed to know who was involved, besides the obvious Mayhem assholes, if anyone. I needed to make sure that every last person involved in Mama’s death paid. And while killing him would make me feel a hell of a lot better, it wasn’t nearly punishment enough. Mama would have wanted the world kept safe from whatever his endgame had been. I could do that much, I hoped.
I sat, and I stared, and I thought. I watched the sky darken, then watched it lighten again, going from black to midnight blue, blue to thunderous gray, and then gray gave way to a golden rosiness that seemed out of place.
Eventually, I made myself get up, shower, and pull the uniform on. I looked at my mask, remembering the way Death had tried to attack me the day before. My throat still burned, and my eyes were swollen. I think that was more due to crying, though, than anything Death had tried.
What the hell are you?
I wasn’t anything, other than someone who was so pissed off at the time that I wasn’t about to let anything stop me from getting a hold of him.
I pulled my mask back on, then my boots and gloves, and I made it to the flight bay just in time to catch Ryan. Amy had offered to fill in for me, and I refused. I wanted to work. It was that or sit around until I felt calm enough to confront Death without killing him. Doing something productive would help some in that regard.
So I did my usual patrol route with Ryan, despite everyone telling me to take some time off. We mostly didn’t talk, and I was grateful that he didn’t try to force the issue. I actually considered taking him with me when I talked to Death, to keep me from going too far, but then I realized that this was personal now. It was between Death and me, at least for now, and I wanted the first crack at him. I wanted to hear him tell me what about his stupid little plan had been so important that it had been worth killing an innocent woman for.
When our shift ended, Ryan and I took the elevator together down from the flight bay.
“We’ll all be there tomorrow, you know,” he said quietly.
I glanced over at him. “You guys didn’t know her.”
“Well, we all met her. But even if we hadn’t, we’d be there anyway. You’re one of us,” he added with a shrug. I hadn’t expected any of them to come. Jenson, probably, and maybe David, but the idea that they were all coming was news to me.
“Thanks,” I said, and he gave a short nod.
“You know, if there’s anything you need, I’m here. Right?”
“I know.”
“Give me something to do for you, Jolene,” he said quietly. “Name it.”
I was going to tell him there was nothing, and then I remembered what the woman at the funeral home had mentioned, something I’d tried not to think about too much.
“Actually…”
“What?”
“Um. The funeral home lady said I might want to ask for pallbearers ahead of time. We don’t really have any male family members. It’s okay if you don’t want to— ”
He reached out and took my hand. “I can definitely do that. If you want, I can ask David, too. That will be two of the six, then.”
I nodded. “That would be great. I think with you two and then maybe our old neighbors, that would do it.” I looked up at him. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
“I’m going to go flying for a while, I think. Try to clear my head a little.”
He nodded, and once he got off on his floor, I took the elevator back up to the top flight deck.
I took off toward Midtown, flying in cloudy, gray sky, which fit my mood and state of mind just fine. Time to check and see if I’d scared Dr. Death enough to stay. And, more, if I’d scared him enough to make him talk.
If not, I would just have to try harder.
Chapter Fifteen
I landed in the open field behind where Darla’s family’s burned out house was. I could hear the traffic roaring by on I-94. It was cloudy, and the air carried that heaviness, that oppressive sense of fullness that it always had just before it rained. I ducked between empty houses until I got to the blackened shell of the house I’d stashed Death in. I walked through the back door and he was still there, cuffed, as he had been, to the pillar. The handcuffs had worked the way they were supposed to. I’d have to congratulate David next time I saw him.
He stared up at me, making noises behind the duct tape covering his mouth. I leaned over him and wrenched it off, and he gave a shout of pain. He smelled of piss and sweat.
“Okay. I have to bury my mother tomorrow morning, so I’m really not in the mood to fuck around with you. Don’t tempt me, because if you thought that what I did to you yesterday hurt, you really don’t want to see what happens when I’m in a little more control.”
He was breathing fast, hard, looking up at me in horror.
“So you need to tell me about this formula you were working on. How close is it to being done? Has it been tested on anyone? How is it supposed to work? And why were you so fucking obsessed with me?”
He didn’t answer at first, and I drew my fist back. He flinched.
“Okay! Okay. It was close enough to done, but to be as powerful as we wanted, we needed your sample to incorporate into the formula. It’s nothing to do with you personally. You’re just the strongest super powered person as far as anyone knows, so your sample would have increased the powers of anyone injected.”
“So it was an injection,” I said, reaffirming what David and Jenson had already discovered.
“Yes. I initially wanted something I could distribute as a gas like I did in Midtown, but we all saw how well that worked. That was just a trial. The final product required your sample, and that taught me that it doesn’t work well. As an injection, though…” he gave a nod. “That works.”
“So it has been tested on people?”
“There have been three tests. One was successful. I built from there.” I was somewhat surprised by how openly he was speaking, but then I realized that it fit with what I knew of Dr. Death. He loved to talk about himself. Self-absorbed jackass. And he was probably hoping that it would save him, if he talked. Because I could see in his eyes that he expected me to kill him.
Hell, I expected me to kill him.
“You were working with Alpha,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We had partnerships with high ranking members of many teams. Alpha was just one of them. And I think it’s obvious why: it made it very easy to get a wide range of samples. Yours was the only one we had any trouble with, which is why I was ordered to do what I did.”
I opened my mouth to talk, and then I shook my head. “You are such a fucking weasel. You killed my mother while I watched— ”
“You think that was my idea?” he asked, raising his voice. “How often do you see me do something so publicly? I hate behavior like that. So crass.”
I stared at him, and he laughed. Just shook his head and laughed.
“It’s your team,” I pressed. He was going to take responsibility for this. He wasn’t going to weasel out of it.
“It was never my team,” he sneered. “All I ever wanted was a big payday and the ability to work uninterrupted as often as I wanted. I finally had it. I provided the lab and the intelligence. Mayhem kept the super hero teams busy while we worked on other things. I was more than happy to spend all of my time in my lab. I kept meticulous track of the process. It was beautiful. Notebooks and notebooks worth of it,” he said in a wistful voice.
“Isn’t that kind of archaic? I’m pretty sure most of that happens on computes.”
“Computers can be hacked, as we well know thanks to Virus. And I didn’t trust him in particular. He was too close, too loyal to you.”
“He told you where to find my mother,” I realized.
“No.”
“No?”
<
br /> He shrugged.
I shook my head and tried to re-focus on what I was supposed to be finding out. “Where’s the lab, Death? Where’s the data?”
He opened his mouth, and surprised look came over his face. Then I saw the tip of a sword suddenly poke through his chest. I looked behind him, into the shadows.
“You talk too fuckin’ much,” a too-familiar voice said, rough, just a hint of Scottish brogue. The sword receded, and Connor stepped out of the shadows, dressed, as usual, head-to-toe in black.
I stared as he wiped the blade on Death’s jacket then held the sword at his side. He raised his face, and I knew he was looking at me.
I felt bile rise in my throat.
I’ll try to keep an eye on your mom for you. Words I’d once taken as evidence that he maybe cared for me. That he understood me. My knees wanted to buckle, and all I could do was stare at him.
“I did give you a chance to be a good girl,” he said. For an instant, I wished I could see his face, to make all of this more real. But in the same moment, I realized how that would just make it all worse, somehow. “But I knew you were too stubborn to take advantage of it.”
I tried to shake myself out of the crazy, panicky feeling coursing through me.
He kept talking. “At the same time, we both know that your mother was the only thing keeping you from what you could be, if you’d get your head out of your ass and wake up. So concerned with making your Mama proud,” he said with derision. “You belong by my side. In every way.”
“You….” I couldn’t finish.
“Me,” he said. “I needed your blood. It was the last step toward making my plans a reality.” He looked at Death’s still form. “Now I have to find a new scientist. Fuck,” he said. “See? You make everything so fucking difficult, Jolene.”
“This is my fault?” I asked. I felt like I could hardly breathe.
“I needed your blood. But I need you, too. The two of us, sweetheart. Just think about how much we could do. Nothing could stand against us.”
One More Day Page 16
