by Amelia Jade
“Cronin. Treat our guest more gently than that,” J snapped.
“Of course, boss,” Cronin replied deferentially, stepping back and closing the door gently behind her as she slid onto one of the seats inside.
J smiled at her. “Now,” he said, “I understand you have some information for me?”
Shay did her best not to cower in terror. His power seemed to fill the interior of the vehicle, pressing down on her from all sides. It was practically choking her, even though he wasn’t actually touching her. She wanted to scream, to claw her way to safety.
“Yes,” she managed to get out after several tries, her hands gripping the seat on either side of her to try and stop them from shaking so violently.
“No need to be shy!” he said with a shake of his head. “Come on now, let’s hear what you have to say.”
Shay licked her lips, trying to relocate her spine. It had gone missing.
She was going to die here, she thought suddenly. At his hands.
Calm abruptly settled over her as she came to that conclusion. It was as if accepting that her death was imminent meant that there was no reason to fear. Whatever J was, he wasn’t entirely human, and killing her would likely be a footnote in his daily routine. But if she was going to die, then what use was there being afraid, cowering in the corner from him?
Steel flooded her spine and she sat up straight, her eyes narrowing as she looked over at him defiantly. “Yeah, I have some information for you,” she confirmed, shocked at the strength and sarcasm that entered her voice.
“Good, does that mean you’re finally going to tell me?” J said, drumming his fingertips on the armrest in boredom.
Shay smiled and prepared her words.
Then the windows of the vehicle shattered and blew out around them.
Chapter Sixteen
Justin
He watched the feed on his phone, the tiny screen not capturing nearly as much as he wished.
Next to him the rest of his team was all doing the same as they bobbed up and down slightly. The motion made some people sick, but Justin had never had an issue with the constant motion of the sea. Even now, perched on the railing of a little fishing trawler, he almost felt himself rocked to sleep by the soothing motion.
The wetsuit, flippers, and mask perched on his head ensured he wouldn’t actually fall asleep though.
“So, this is your plan?” Josh asked for the seventh time, fiddling with the rubbery material around his crotch. “This thing pinches in the worst places.”
The others chuckled, but nobody disagreed. The truth was, they did pinch, and it was certainly not pleasant. But then again, finding four wetsuits for veritable giants hadn’t been easy to begin with. They were stretched a bit.
Okay, a lot.
The video being relayed to them shook for a second as the person holding the camera moved slightly to get a better position. “Okay, everyone ready?” they asked, the voice stuttering as it came from the four different phones at the same time.
Jared spoke into his throat mic, confirming his team’s readiness.
A split second later the camera panned back, revealing the view of the Shipyard from the street in front of it. The operator swung it to the right, and suddenly there was a speeding short bus in the field of vision. It was barreling down on the steel gate that protected the Coleforn Shipyard.
The boom as the truck hit the gate and disappeared in a massive fireball was audible even from their location, the noise shaking the water and then the boat. Connor was forced to grab for the rail, but the others barely swayed. The camera operator was also thrown back, but they quickly refocused on the scene, and Justin felt his jaw drop.
“It worked,” he said, half-impressed, half-surprised. “I’ll be damned, it worked.”
They had loaded the bus with tons of scrap steel, weighing it down as much as they could, before adding in several big drums of gas and a handful of highly illegal blocks of military-grade explosive that they had been saving to use on the Agency headquarters. Justin had had to argue fiercely with Madison to get her to use them, but in the end the leader of the Underground had relented.
Now, as the fireball born of the gas and explosives cleared, he saw that the thick steel gate was now warped and twisted, the thick metal peeling away from the intense heat of the explosion. In the middle was a gaping hole.
“Time to go,” Jared said.
The four of them tossed the phones down into their gear bags, pulled the masks over their heads, and rolled backward into the harbor waters. Justin took a quick second to orient himself with the others, and then they dove below the surface. Each of them had small metal chambers with compressed air in them. It would provide the big shifters with approximately ten minutes’ worth of air, which would be more than enough to get them to their destination.
As they approached the big cargo ship that had conveniently hidden their approach to within a few hundred feet of the pier where Shay was being held, Justin dove down deeper. They followed the curve of the hull, the reddish-orange material covered in thick-sludge.
The flippers attached to their feet allowed the big shifters to practically fly through the water, their powerful legs propelling them forward with a speed any normal swimmer would have envied. They went through the air faster as well, but it didn’t matter. Less than three minutes after dropping in the water, they were at the pier. They kicked off the flippers and mask in the water.
“Ready?” Jared asked, looking at his team as they got ready to hurl themselves out of the water and onto the concrete fifteen feet above them.
“Affirmative,” Justin replied. He was holding onto a thick rubber wheel that had been fastened to the pier. The others had found similar outcroppings that they could use to exit the water quickly.
“Go.”
His arms were flexing the instant Jared spoke, and he nearly jumped from the water like an exuberant fish. That illusion was dashed as his feet found purchase on the tire and propelled him up even more. He leapt hand-over-foot like a monkey, until he was on top of the tire. A powerful push on his legs and he landed atop the pier a moment or two ahead of everyone else.
The team immediately sprinted for the gate. A crowd of Agents had appeared there, and the Sentinels took them from behind by surprise. Many of them were human, and they went down with ease. Once again Justin was careful to maim, not kill. He ensured they were out of the fight, but he didn’t end their lives.
Before meeting Charles, Shay’s father, he had never thought of the Agents as individuals before. They had been alive, and had been people. But never an individual, with a life story to them. Now he knew better. Part of him knew that most of them couldn’t be saved. They were bad, through to the core.
But until he figured himself out, he couldn’t kill them.
They ran into several Extremis Agents as well, which provided more of a challenge, but just as the enemy lines seemed to be stabilizing, he saw forms appear in the blazing fire of the gate. Seconds later, the newly formed Second Team of the Underground slammed into their enemies from behind.
Madison, Ajax, Arianna, Milos, and Andre caught them completely by surprise.
The battle was fever-pitched as more Agents continued to stream in from the Shipyard. Justin snarled as another Extremis Agent appeared in front of him. He ducked beneath the first blow, then blocked the second with an upraised arm, before driving his fist deep into the Agent’s stomach. The man doubled over and Justin chopped an elbow down at the back of his head. The Agent collapsed and he turned to look for another enemy.
Ajax grunted, and suddenly a metal spike the length of his finger sprouted from his back. Justin’s eyes immediately jerked upward to the walkway that spanned the two buildings on either side of the burning gate. A team of Agents up there had pulled open windows and were beginning to take aim on those below.
“Up!” he roared and darted toward the building nearest him. Footsteps sounded behind him. As he entered the building he spun,
but the person following him was one of his own. Arianna nodded up the stairs and the two of them took them three at a time.
Justin rounded the corner to the walkway, already calling for his bear. The feral animal surged forward, its power rushing into him swiftly. His limbs thickened and sprouted hair as he jogged. The increasing weight of his body forced him down onto all fours as he picked up speed.
The Sentinels hit the Agency team like a freight train, shouldering them aside with abandon. One of them went tumbling out the window he was firing through, his scream cut short as he impacted on the pavement below.
Justin’s bear had far fewer reservations about killing than he did. Its delight at being able to save his companions overwhelmed his human side’s knowledge that he had just sent a man to his death. He spun, claws scrabbling for purchase on the gray metal floor as he turned to survey his destruction. Behind him, Arianna finished off the remnants of his destructive path with an ease that belied her relative newness to this life.
He didn’t envy her having to learn how to exist in his world, and part of him cried out for the innocence she had lost. Shifting back, he took a deep breath to steady himself.
Arianna closed with him, her eyes burning brightly as she glared at him. “Don’t take pity on me,” she growled, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “They were shooting at my man.” With that she shouldered her way by him, taking the stairs down.
Justin stared after her for a second, something about that comment echoing around in his head. Something important had just been said there.
He walked to one of the now-open windows, still contemplating what Arianna had said as he glanced down and then jumped through the window. He fell to a knee upon landing, noting that the battle there was down now, his team doing the final cleanup.
Rising, he turned and looked out over the pier. So far there had been no sign of—
A scream pierced the air, drawing his attention to the end of the pier.
Shay was there he saw, her form distinctive from the others that surrounded her. Behind the little knot of forms, a sleek yacht pulled away, quickly gaining speed as it made a dash for the harbor entrance.
His feet slapped across the pavement as he picked up speed. Around him the Underground teams did the same, until they bore down on the remaining Agency men, a veritable wave of destruction that flung aside anything in its path.
“That’s far enough!”
The voice rang out at the same time the man next to Shay easily hoisted her aloft, his hand around her throat.
Justin growled loudly, but he slid to a halt anyway, seeing red as his woman—yes, she was his if she would have him!—beat her hands uselessly against the arm holding her up, fingers digging into her throat.
As the rest of his team slowed to a stop a half-step behind him, the man put Shay down, though he now gripped the back of her neck instead of the front.
“Let her go,” Justin said, his low, threatening voice easily carrying across the distance.
He recognized the man now. The gray suit had thrown him off, but now that he was close enough to see details, the bald head, bright blue eyes, and big scar revealed to him the man who had knocked him off his bike. It had been only a handful of days earlier, but it felt like a lifetime ago now.
Justin laughed as he realized something about that day.
“You laugh?” the bald man said with a sneer.
“Yes,” he replied. “Because despite the fact that you’re a despicable excuse for a human being, I actually owe you a thank you.”
The scar tightened across his head as the man’s eyes narrowed. “You do?”
Justin nodded, trying to act more relaxed than he felt. “Sure. If it weren’t for you knocking me off my bike, I would never have met her.”
The man laughed, releasing his hold momentarily on Shay’s neck to clap mockingly.
Justin looked at Shay, their eyes meeting for the first time in far too long. He nodded, telling her it was time to make her move.
She brought her hand up to her chest, and then drove it down and back behind her hip, not stopping until it impacted in her captor’s groin. She then turned and ran toward the shipping containers.
Baldy grunted in pain, but his reflexes were good. His backhand caught her in the shoulder, and Justin watched in horror as Shay went flying through the air before tumbling across the ground, where she slammed into one of the containers with a cry.
Justin saw red.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place in his brain. He knew then why he did what he did. Why he would kill. The reasoning was suddenly as clear as day to him as he looked at Shay’s crumpled body.
He would do so, because it was the right thing to do. Because people like Shay, who were strong in personality, were not blessed with the physical skills and abilities that he was. When she could no longer hold up the light to ward off the darkness, it would be Justin who stood next to her, burning bright enough for the both of them. He would shield her in any way that was necessary.
Killing was never something he would enjoy. But right then, he knew that Baldy would die by his hand, and he wouldn’t regret it. Not because Justin wanted to do so, but because he was given no choice. Because people like Shay deserved a champion who could do what they could not.
And more importantly, because Baldy had struck his woman.
Justin’s lips pulled back in a wordless snarl, and he launched himself forward. Behind him he heard his friends, his family, shout their defiance as they charged a split second later.
The men surrounding their leader reacted just as swiftly. Justin immediately noted there were two different groups. Half a dozen normal Extremis Agents were augmented by four others who stood slightly aloof.
Enhanced.
This was going to be a tough fight, but Justin was in full battle mode, and he didn’t care. He collided with the first Agent and drove his head into the man’s nose. Blood exploded everywhere, but he ignored it. His fingers found the man’s eyes and he drove them forward until his target screamed in agony. He was past the man by then, so he reached back over his right shoulder, wrapping his hands around the man’s jaw.
With a grunt he dropped to one knee and pulled, his arms flexing. The Agent resisted, but Justin was too strong. Something tore, then bone snapped and the Agent was suddenly no more than a limp corpse. Justin dropped it and stood as another Agent darted in at him.
He saw the fist coming at him and flung up an arm to block it. It wasn’t until the blow drove him to his knees with its power that he realized it had been thrown by one of the Enhanced, not the standard Extremis Agent.
“Ow,” he grunted, pain reverberating up his arm.
The blow had twisted him as well, until his back was to the water. The end result was to ensure he was facing Shay. Fire stirred within him as he saw her trying to sit up. It burst into an inferno as he saw blood dripping from below her eye.
An inarticulate howl of rage ripped from his throat as he saw the woman he loved in pain.
The Agent threw another blow, but Justin darted aside. He would have to use his superior speed to finish this one. The Agent would overpower him in strength every time, but the Sentinels had discovered early on that the Enhanced versions sacrificed much of their other abilities to have the enhancements.
He slammed the palm of his fist into the Agent’s nose, breaking it as he spun away, avoiding the return blow from his opponent. Justin smiled to himself as he danced back, putting a bit of distance between them.
Around them, he saw his team and the others from the Underground fighting hard. These men were obviously Baldy’s personal guards, and they fought like it. He saw Jared and one of the Enhanced locked in a death grip, each trying to find a fault in the other. The first one to make a mistake would die.
Elsewhere, Ajax and Arianna worked in tandem against a pair of Extremis Agents. The effects of their partnership were clear to see, and he marveled at how well they worked together after such a short period
of time. Ajax grabbed an arm of one foe after dodging the punch and threw him to the ground. The Agent focused on Ajax, entirely missing as Arianna darted in from behind and rained blows on his head until the Agent collapsed.
Justin’s attention swiftly refocused on his opponent as he took a grazing blow to the face. He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the Enhanced Agent, using his weight to unbalance the man.
Then he called his bear and the pair fell over. The Enhanced hit him hard in the side, but it was too late. Two tons of fury appeared over him and Justin’s strong jaw closed around the man’s head, pulling the flesh off it as he yanked. The Agent screamed in pain for several seconds until he ripped out his throat, the metallic tang of blood flooding his senses.
“He’s getting away!” Justin’s bear snapped to see Shay pointing down the pier.
He followed her arm. Baldy had dashed down the pier toward a pair of fast, modern-looking speedboats and was hurriedly undoing one.
Justin roared loudly, making one pass through the brawl. His claws tore huge chunks of flesh as he maimed legs and in one case actually full-on ripped one of the Agent’s arms off. His path of destruction allowed his team to gain the upper hand.
Turning, he raced down the pier after Shay, who was headed for the other speedboat.
“You stay,” he said as he shifted back, leaping down into the other boat. The craft rocked under the impact as he slipped into the driver’s seat.
“Justin Renne, like the damn pasta!” she shouted. “You move your ass over, and you move it over now. I’m bleeding, and I hurt all over. But I’m not dead yet.”
He snarled, turning to face her, but the blazing determination in her eyes actually sent him back a step.
“Better,” she said, jabbing a finger into his sternum.
Without thinking, he swept her up in a kiss. She groaned slightly in pain, but when he tried to back away she pulled him tight.
The other speedboat roared away from the pier, bringing them both back to reality.
Shay slid into the driver’s seat as he sputtered his objection.
