With what Zoe had done, it was hard to think of the four of them as a team, and that was without considering the warning that Mister Fist and his group had given them: if they caught Sam and company out superheroing again, they would personally take them to the nearest police station.
Of all the things Sam had been through over the last twelve hours, hanging upside down and being interrogated wasn’t one of the situations he’d spent much time thinking about.
He and Helena were incredibly lucky they hadn’t been dropped off at the police station. Even with Helena’s legal connections, it would have definitely been an uphill battle.
Sam paused in front of the door to the gym, contemplating if he should go in alone or not.
He wanted to talk to Zoe alone, so he eventually let himself in, flicking on the lights, his eyes immediately going to Zoe, bound and seated with a black bag over her head.
Where Helena had gotten the black bag was anyone’s guess, and part of Sam wondered how she’d managed to come up with so many accoutrements so easily, but there was her straight up room of clothing upstairs, which probably had something to do with it.
Sam was about to say something when he noticed Zoe was sleeping, her head bowed forward, her tail sticking out of the back of the chair and limp, completely relaxed.
Taking a few steps closer to her, Sam had just taken off her black bag when Zoe came awake.
Using as much momentum as she could muster, Zoe launched herself forward, where she hit Sam, her nostrils flaring, a noise coming out of her mouth as they lay on the floor. Sam quickly scrambled out from under her before she could get him with her claws.
“Swhaaamm? Swhaaamm!!?” Zoe barked, the tiger girl unable to right herself.
“Yes, it’s me, stop struggling!”
The fact that she was yelling a muffled version of his name made Sam certain that whatever mind control drug Dr. Hamza had given her was likely wearing off. He couldn’t be too certain though, and he wanted to test her before he removed her gag.
He also wanted to avoid her protracted claws.
“Retract your claws,” he instructed her, noticing her forearms were still morphed.
With a grunt, Zoe’s claws began to shrink, her normal hands taking shape. Once Sam was sure she wasn’t going to bring them out again, he righted her.
A mixture of anger, shock and confusion came across Zoe’s face as she realized something her nose had already told her multiple times—she was in Helena’s gym. Sam had no way of reading Zoe’s mind, but had he been able to, he would have found out just how disoriented she’d become once she thought she was at Dr. Hamza’s home while her nose kept telling her she was at Helena’s mansion.
“Before I remove your gag, I have to ask you a few questions to make sure whatever Dr. Hamza gave you has worn off. Okay? Answer ‘yes’ with a nod, ‘no’ with a headshake.”
Zoe nodded.
“Do you know who I am?”
Zoe rolled her eyes.
“That’s not a nod.”
Zoe nodded.
“Do you know where you are?”
Zoe nodded, narrowing her eyes at Sam.
“Well, the attitude is still there…” Sam started to say, and Zoe nodded at this as well.
“Okay, let’s make the questions a little harder.”
Zoe gave him an annoyed look.
“Do you remember how we met?”
Zoe nodded.
“Was it at a cosplay cafe?”
Zoe shook her head.
“Was it at a supermarket?”
Zoe shook her head again.
“Do you still have a crush on me even though we’re broken up?”
Zoe’s eyes went wide for a moment and then she glared at Sam.
“Yep, I believe the mind control serum has worn off. I’m going to remove your gag now. If you try to bite me…” Sam thought for a moment. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
Zoe protested as Sam left the gym, and headed to the study, where he summoned Dinah, who followed him back to the gym.
“If you try to bite me, I’ll have Dinah do something unpleasant to you,” Sam said, pointing his thumb at the blue ghost.
Zoe started to protest by throwing her body back and forth, nearly knocking the chair over. Eventually she stopped, looked up at Sam and nodded.
“Good,” he said as he removed her gag.
“Fuck, Sam, you didn’t have to bring her.”
“Would you rather I bring a wrist guard?”
“And why the hell am I tied up…?” Zoe asked, looking left and right.
“Let’s cut the bullshit. You know why you’re tied up, and you know what you did,” Sam said, working hard to keep a parental sternness in his voice. He didn’t often scold people; it was harder than it looked.
“Oh.”
Zoe looked away from Sam, her brow furrowing.
“You poisoned Ozella and you nearly got all four of us captured by Dr. Hamza. We came for you, which I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, and Dr. Hamza nearly blew off my arm with his wrist guard and I ended up having to bash Ozella’s head in with a brick to make sure Dinah couldn’t attack us. She apparently experiences whatever emotion Ozella is experiencing. Meaning if she is under the influence of a mind control serum, so is Dinah.”
“Where’s Helena?” Zoe asked.
“Sleeping. You cut her the hell up in your fight.”
“We fought?”
“Yes, and by the end of it, she was covered in blood from your damn claws.”
“Did I win?”
“You know what, Zoe? I came here trying to reason with you, and there you are again, your competitive selfish nature on full display.”
Zoe started to say something but stopped, biting her lip instead.
“I’m serious. We would have all been Dr. Hamza’s guinea pigs had it not been for a few sudden actions, and a bit of luck on our part. And look, I get it; I understand why you went there. You wanted a cure, right?”
Zoe swallowed hard.
“Yes or no? You sold Ozella out so you could get a cure? She already told us what happened; she told us you poisoned her. So tell me your side of the story. That’s why I’m here right now.”
“Make Dinah go away, and I will,” Zoe finally said. “She just keeps glaring at me.”
“As she should. And no, Dinah stays.”
The ghostly woman nodded, crossing her arms over her chest.
Zoe took a deep breath in. “You see my face?”
“Yes, it is half-tiger, but damn, Zoe, it’s not as bad as you think it is. It is kind of cute, unique, just like that designer lady who made our uniforms said. You have to stop beating yourself up.”
“I feel so stupid.” Zoe bit back a sob. “And guilty. Stupid and guilty.”
“I’m sure you do. Tell me what happened.”
“You can just use your nose,” she said bitterly.
“No way. Firstly, I’m becoming an expert at mouth-breathing. And besides that, I want to actually know what happened from your perspective. All the details, now.”
Zoe swallowed hard and began her story of going out for a drink, the guys at the bar making fun of her, and drunkenly visiting Dr. Hamza, who was paralyzed.
“Who paralyzed him?” Sam asked, looking over his shoulder at Dinah.
“Not her. That monster woman, Mia, that’s her name. She came after we blew the wall out of his lab and broke his legs.”
“Shit, talk about revenge.”
“I promised that I would find a way to heal him if he was able to cure this,” she said, referring to the tiger side of her face.
“And you used the fact we’d been taken by Mister Fist to drug Ozella and take her to Dr. Hamza’s?”
“I couldn’t get hold of you,” Zoe said. “Believe me, I tried. You must have seen all the mental messages I shot off. I still can’t use a telepath.”
“What good would that have done?”
“I could have warned you…”
Sam looked at the metal collar on her neck, which kept her from calling a telepath or a teleporter. It was the same one Ozella had had on, which Helena had removed with a special tool. “We’ll deal with your collar later. You realize how hard it will be for any of us to ever trust you again, right?”
“Sam, I’m…” Zoe shook her head. “You’re right. You shouldn’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me after doing something like this. Regardless, I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t mean shit, but this isn’t how I hoped or wanted things to go. I like you all, and I like this little group we’ve put together. I seriously fucked up, seriously, and I know there’s not much I can do to make things right now. But I’m sorry, and I understand if the three of you—four of you,” she said, glancing at Dinah, “don’t want to see me again.”
Sam took a long, hard look at Zoe.
“Sam, I’m sorry,” she said, a softness and weakness to her voice he’d never heard from the normally proud woman before. “What I did was inexcusable; I really don’t know what to say next. I’d beg, but I know that doesn’t mean anything. This has all been so sudden, but that’s also not an excuse. I…”
“To be honest,” Sam said, when it became clear Zoe wasn’t going to finish her sentence, “I’m not the one you’re going to need to convince.” Sam bent forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, hugging her. “We’ll just have to see what the others say. In the end, it will be up to them.”
Chapter Fifty: Heart to Bound Heart
(A treaty on the democratic process with literally no hidden ulterior motive.)
Helena Knight sat on her bed, documents spread before her. It was clear to her how this Fang group had rented out Knight Corp’s various ports and shipping facilities, as that was sort of the point of owning them, but what she wanted to know now was how she could prevent them from doing it in the future (aside from completing their contract and not renewing it), and what she could also do to prevent this type of situation from happening again.
Helena’s parents were still alive, but they had handed off the family’s fortune to a board of eleven chaired by Helena. This had happened two years ago after her workaholic father had suffered a stroke.
Her mother and the company spared no expense in paying for a healer to completely remove all signs and aftereffects of the stroke, but Helena’s father was done with everyday operations after that. Now her parents mostly kept to the “country club, vacation destination and occasional meeting with a diplomat” lifestyle, her father trusting that Helena would be able to steer the company with the Board as her shepherd.
And for the most part, it had worked.
The Board of the Knight Corporation was made up of ten men and women, exemplar and non-exemplar, each of whom had their fingers in some of the most lucrative industries in Centralia, from defense to agriculture.
There were a few members she didn’t trust, and a couple Helena didn’t particularly like, but for the most part, they had been cooperative, and they hadn’t treated her like the twenty-two-year-old that she was.
Preventing this type of infraction from ever occurring again would call for a delay in shipping station approvals, which the Board wouldn’t like, as it would likely lead to hiring increases, which of course cost more and required more benefits to be paid out.
Helena would have to be careful how she approached the subject. It could be weeks after Mister Fist took down the last scheduled shipment that she’d be able to produce the necessary data.
In the meantime, they could suspend any new contracts with Fang under the guise that they were revamping their contractual system, and keeping ports and some shipping facilities closed in the meantime.
The Board wouldn’t be behind this either, but they had been talking about revamping the contractual system for some time, so Helena could just put the wheels in motion. This would bring revenue down in the next quarter, but the Knight Corporation had cash reserves on top of cash reserves seeing as they were one of the most successful privately-owned companies in Centralia.
It would have to work for now.
Aside from the intercompany documents on her bed, there was also a schematic of the next Fang drop-off point, the one Helena had told Mister Fist and his crew about.
Helena knew that they weren’t supposed to get involved, and by ‘them’ she didn’t even know if Zoe would be part of the group after today, but she was interested to see how the situation played out, and an abandoned residential project to the left of the shipping facility was the perfect place from which to observe whatever happened next.
Of course, Helena would have to run the idea by Sam, but she had a feeling that her future husband (yes, she still jokingly referred to him as this in her mind) would be all for observing the action.
So that left her with Zoe to deal with, and since she believed fully in the democratic process (like most wealthy Centralians who just so happened to benefit the most from the system of government), there would have to be a vote.
After stretching her arms over her head, Helena started stacking the papers, eventually depositing all of them in a safe cleverly hidden in a framed picture of her family above her nightstand.
She turned to the door, and once she was out in the hallway, she moved to the study where she found Ozella Rose sitting on a leather couch, a cup of tea in her hands.
“Let’s go see Zoe,” Helena said, nodding toward Dinah, who offered her a small grin, the ghost woman’s form the most solid Helena had ever seen her.
“Without Sam?” Ozella asked.
“Let him sleep. Besides, I am nearly certain he’s already paid her a visit.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I told him to,” Helena said, pointing to her eye.
“You hypnotized him?”
Helena shrugged. “Lightly. I just wanted him to have a moment to make peace with her because I don’t plan to be so nice. And I need you to come as well.”
“For support?”
“For your vote, and to heal her if I get angry.” Helena flashed Ozella a smile. “Kidding.”
Ozella stood and smoothed out the front of her schoolgirl uniform. She must have had fifteen different uniforms that all looked similar, which reminded Helena...
With a mental message, she contacted her assistant, Bryan King, and told him that she needed to arrange for dry cleaning with a less than twelve-hour turnaround. She also messaged Marie, the designer of the uniforms, to tell her to make duplicates and to choose a different color scheme.
Figuring she was on a roll, Helena messaged Bryan again and told him to contact the appropriate staff members to suspend any new contracts, starting the very lawyer-heavy process of generating new contractual agreements that would allow Knight Corp more control over what was being imported into their facilities. This, of course, to be done with the utmost secrecy until the Board officially approved.
“Everything okay?” Ozella asked as they entered the gym.
The desire to stretch and start her daily training rose in Helena’s chest, but she ignored it for now, realizing there were bigger issues at hand, including the half-tiger woman who sat strapped to a chair before her, a black hood over her face.
“Helena?” Zoe said meekly.
“How did you know?”
“Not many people move with the same grace you do,” Zoe said, her ears twitching under the black hood.
“I’m here too,” Ozella said, a little too cheerfully for a person who had been poisoned and nearly enslaved last night.
“And Sam isn’t,” Zoe said. “Figures.”
“Sam already paid you a visit,” Helena reminded her.
“Aware.”
Helena removed the black hood covering Zoe’s face, glaring down at her. Zoe wouldn’t look up, her eyes fixed somewhere between Helena’s chest and belly button.
“I have to pee,” Zoe said. “I’ve been tied to this chair for a long time and I have to pee.”
“Then pee,” said Helena.
> “In the gym?” Zoe looked around, still not ready to make eye contact. “This chair is hurting my tail too.”
“This is a bad place to pee,” Ozella started to say, but both women were ignoring her, Helena daring Zoe to look her in the eyes, Zoe looking at anything but Helena’s face.
“It’ll be cleaned up within an hour,” Helena assured her.
“You can’t keep me tied up forever, you know,” Zoe said, squirming a bit, but still tied tightly to the chair.
“You’re right, I can’t. There isn’t much I can do to you aside from banish you from my life. I mean, there are other things I can do, but I’m not a cruel person, and I actually like you, you goddamn idiot, and I don’t want to see you suffer.”
Zoe looked at Helena, a fire flaring behind her eyes and settling.
“You betrayed us, and nearly got all of us captured in your vain attempt to fix your face,” said Helena, her voice growing louder. “If not for chance, we, all of us, would now be Dr. Hamza’s mind slaves, and who knows what he would have done to us. You poisoned Ozella, dammit, the nicest one of all of us!”
“I…” Ozella looked away, blushing. Dinah gave Zoe a firm nod.
“Ozella, no need to talk, I got this,” Helena said as she pointed a finger at Zoe. “You continually get us into trouble with your bullshit. Remember the wind turbine? Whose fault was that? And that wasn’t even a week ago. If you worked for me, I would have fired you so fast that…”
“Then fire me,” Zoe said, lip curling. “Let me loose, figuratively and physically. I’m very well aware of how much I fucked up here. You think I don’t know that?” Zoe asked, tears coming to her eyes, tears she couldn’t wipe away as she normally would have. “I know this is all my fault,” she sniffed, “and I…”
“You’re what?” Helena asked, her finger still pointed at Zoe.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. ‘Sorry’ is just a word. It doesn’t mean anything considering what I’ve done. I could have gotten all of us killed or worse…”
“Enslaved, that would be worse,” Helena said. “Because I’m guessing Dr. Hamza wasn’t too keen on what we did to his lab. Not that I want to die, but being his little mind slave for an extended period of time is the stuff ‘worst case scenarios’ are made of.”
We Could Be Heroes Page 29
