But there was no other way to keep everyone safe and bring the group back together. She had to keep running, charge ahead into the battlefield and take potshots until the path was clear for the others.
Constantine spread his hands slowly. “I think I’ve been forthcoming enough for the moment. Let’s talk about what you can do for me now.”
“I can see where this is going,” Luca muttered, disgust laced through every syllable.
“All of us do, I guess.” Wisp lowered the gun and took a step back. “So, that’s it then? You’ll let Hannah go if I dance on your strings?”
“Wisp,” Max interjected in a low, breathy voice. “Don’t do this. Just … don’t.”
Sara watched her brother with teary eyes. “But if she doesn’t, those people are going to kill Hannah.”
“I’ll handle it, okay?” Wisp said, doing her best to sound more reassuring than she felt. Turning back to Constantine, she said, “Why now, though? You were about to kick me out a few minutes ago. And now you want me on your team?”
Constantine pointed a thick, ring-adorned finger at her. “You have the killer instinct all Evolved share, though most who realize the potential are a little older than you. No, don’t deny it. I want to see you put it to use.”
“I don’t kill people,” she said.
Hannah’s orb, still frozen in midair before her eyes, taunted her with its red glow.
He’d said the Conglomerate wanted to have a chat with her. Her fingers curled into fists. It’s not a chat if she’s half dead…
“Killing shouldn’t be necessary,” Constantine said. “If you’re smart, you’ll find ways to be of use without pulling the trigger. Or whatever it is you do.”
“And why me?” She still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. “Don’t you already have an Evolved pawn to do your bidding?”
His face hardened. “The men of my inner-circle don’t concern you. I’ll stop by with your orders later in the day, so you’d best be prepared.”
Wisp met his eyes without flinching. “I’m not going to do anything for you if you don’t let Hannah go.”
After a moment of hesitation, he nodded. His expression was as unreadable as a slate slab. “Fine, but remember not to fuck this up. You aren’t the biggest game in town anymore. I suspect you never were.” He gave the floating orb a dubious look.
“Nici,” Luca said in a warning tone, but it was one she chose to ignore.
“Okay,” she said, her pulse pounding in every vein. “You release Hannah, and I’ll do one thing for you. Something that doesn’t involve killing people.”
“Excellent.” He picked his fork back up. “We’ll tell you the when, where, and how of your task tomorrow night. Now get the fuck out.”
CHAPTER 4
“I know what you’re thinking, Andrey. What’s wrong with people? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with people. Powers and an asshole in Brazil telling them they’re gods. It’s mind poison.” -Rune, to Radiant
Wisp felt the weight of her companion’s gazes on her. “We’re leaving,” she said, reclaiming Hannah’s orb with a flick of her finger. Its color shifted to orange-tinted yellow when it fell in behind her, attuned to her own fate once more.
Having no more use for the remaining three lights she had scattered across the room, she let them trail behind her as an additional safeguard while she headed for the door. Her companions followed with heavy, dissonant footsteps, Luca lagging a short distance behind to secure the retreat from the building.
The tension between them was raw and powerful. No one said a word until they were well out of earshot of the campus.
When the group turned into a darkened alley, Luca caught and grabbed Wisp’s arm, stopping her. “You know what his deal is,” he said, rubbing at his neck as if it ached. “You aren’t stupid. So … why? Why did you walk right into his trap?”
“He didn’t leave us with much of a choice, did he?” Max muttered.
“No, he didn’t.” Narrowing her eyes, Wisp glanced at the night sky and the shadowy buildings framing it. “Let’s save this talk for when we get back, okay? I don’t see any Smog ghosts around, but you never know. Constantine probably wants to keep an eye on us right now.”
“Makes sense.” Luca turned away from her, his eyes glazed and distant.
Wisp avoided looking at his face because she knew what she would find there. The detachment in his voice already stung enough. She couldn’t bring herself to blame him for his uncompromising attitude. As the one gang member who knew Luca and his background better than anyone else, she understood his reasons for refusing to cooperate with the bad guys. His father had been one of them. A local drug dealer who had gotten his mother hooked on heroin, then systematically exploited everyone close to him, and destroyed any semblance of a family life. Luca had spent the majority of his childhood finding excuses not to go home and protecting his younger brother from the worst of it.
The group walked the rest of the way to their base in uncomfortable silence. When the plaza surrounding their tower came into view, Wisp felt warm, soft fingers close tight around hers. Surprised, she turned to see Sara walking beside her.
“I believe in you,” the girl whispered. Her smile was small and sympathetic.
“Thank you,” Wisp said, squeezing Sara’s hand before releasing it. The unexpected reassurance spurred her on, so the final hundred meters passed in an instant. Once the museum door slid shut behind her, she stopped, leaning against the information desk for support as the group’s pent-up worries rained down on her.
Max scratched his cheek. “You’ve got a plan this time, right? If so, I think right now would be a good time to fill us in.”
“I do,” she said, lifting her chin to meet Luca’s reproachful gaze. “The plan is to get Hannah back and you guys out of here. Yeah, okay, it’s not much of a plan, but you know me. I always make things work out in the end.”
“You did when we were dealing with looters and a cold winter.” Max spread his hands to indicate the Survivors around him. “What’s happening to us right now is a little bigger than that.”
“There really isn’t much we can do as a team.” Wisp set her sphere on an orbiting course around her finger, watching it with a glare. “We can’t fight the Conglomerate. They have bigger guns and guys who know how to use them, and my small potato powers aren’t keeping the bullies off our turf anymore. You all understand this, don’t you?”
“I do,” Luca said. “The thing is, we have a goal. A goal isn’t a plan. You handed yourself over to the boss bully, and he isn’t just going to let you walk away with Hannah.” He sank against the display case behind him, his olive features cast in shadows.
Wisp resisted the urge to move over and bonk his curly-haired head. “I know it wasn’t a team decision, Luca.” She flicked her yellow-orange ball of light toward him, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders. “It was my own shitty idea, and I’m going to deal with the shitty consequences. This is my responsibility. Hannah is my responsibility. You guys have nothing to do with this. You just stay alive and think about how you’re going to live a normal life someplace normal.”
Putting her thoughts into words didn’t relieve her heavy heart. On the contrary, they made her realize just how much she appreciated this crazy, completely abnormal existence and the relationships she had forged within it. The idea of cutting herself loose from Luca, who had been her friend since the two of them baked sand cookies on the local playground, created an almost visceral stab of pain. None of this changed what was right or what had to be done.
“Wait, stop.” Max threw up a hand in protest. “How is this not a team decision? There’s four of us. Look around.” He lowered his hand to wave it in front of her face.
She swatted it away. “I’m not blind, gramps. Look at your light, then look at mine. What do you see?”
All three of them glanced at the small orbs she’d assigned to them. Their lights reflected identical danger levels: pale yellow
with a touch of green. In contrast, hers resembled a warning beacon for emergency vehicles, more orange than not.
“It’s been like this for days,” she said. “There wasn’t much difference at first, but now anyone can see it. I was already caught up in this before we even talked to Constantine. You guys are still fine, you can still get out.”
“Why? What does this mean?” Sara asked.
Wisp shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe Constantine’s new boss has an interest in me for some reason. It doesn’t explain what happened to Hannah, but–”
“New boss? You mean the Conglomerate,” Luca said and spat the last word out.
“Right. Those guys.” Wisp pulled a face. “I’m not sure I’d get out of this by running away, but that’s beside the point. I’m not leaving Hannah behind. Plus, you’ve seen the population boom up north, right? No villain group, not even a resourceful one like the Conglomerate, would invest this much in a city that’s literally dead. Not unless there’s something in it for them, and I need to know if whatever it is poses a threat to the world out there. We already know it is bigger than Constantine’s narcissistic dick.”
Sara nervously tittered. “Wisp, you’re talking like your dad again! If your Grandma knew, she’d give you a smack and a scolding.”
“Yeah, I guess I am,” Wisp muttered, directing her words at the silent, empty hallway. A sudden pang of melancholy tugged at her heart. “Sorry, Grandma. I’m back to the plushy vocabulary now. Scout’s honor.” She ended with a decidedly goofy salute.
No one grinned. Not even a little bit. The oppressive atmosphere snuffed the joke out before it could take root.
Max harrumphed. “We all want Hannah back. No one likes the idea of you doing a job for the big Cs, like Constantine or the Conglomerate, whatever. But if you honestly believe it’s our only option, I’ve got your back. You already know my one condition.”
“Thanks, Max,” Wisp said. “I’ll make sure Sara makes it through this without getting hurt. That’s been my promise from the start.”
Luca pushed off the display case he’d been leaning against and gave Wisp a long, hard look. “Come with me,” he said.
“What’s up?” Sara’s head whipped from Luca to Wisp, her eyebrows scrunched.
Luca smiled. “Sorry, guys. This is something between Wisp and me. We’ll just be gone a minute.”
Here comes the lecture. Wisp sighed, sleep deprivation making itself felt in her bones. She had a good hunch what Luca was going to say, and she knew he would be right as usual. When Luca strode off in the direction of the main chamber, Wisp turned to face Max and Sara. “You guys might want to have a chat, too. About maybe leaving the city, and what all of this means for you. Just know that if you want to leave right away, I’m perfectly fine with it. No hard feelings.” She hurried after Luca, not giving herself the time to consider how she’d keep herself from falling apart if two abandoned her.
Luca waited beneath the church vestibule’s high windows, his lean silhouette illuminated by sparse moonlight and the floating light she had assigned to him. He spoke without looking at her. “Are you going to tell Max what this really means? The consequences of your ‘plan’? I don’t think he gets it.”
“Do I have to?” she replied, feeling miserable. “I mean, this is only going to affect me. You guys are in the clear.”
“We’re still a team, Wisp.”
She crossed both arms over her chest. “You can’t pretend this isn’t our breaking point. Villains are moving into our city, and I’m not the kind of comic book heroine who can take on an army alone. We’re done as a gang.”
Truth was, she didn’t trust herself to keep everyone safe under these circumstances. A strategic retreat seemed like the only option.
“I know we can’t stay here,” Luca said. “Fact is, you’re throwing your future away. If Constantine makes you do something that gets public attention, you’ll get slapped with the villain label, and you know what that means.”
An automatic execution order issued by the UNEOA. Wisp rubbed her face with both hands. Sure, the age of heroes was coming to an end and the ones who were left had their hands full. Still, a villain label would never go away. Sooner or later, someone would come after her, and she’d never be able to transition back into normal civilian life. Mass media had broken the illusion of costumes and secret identities long ago.
“I know,” she said, annoyed by the frailty of her voice. “Maybe they believe I’d ask for protection from the Conglomerate. I wouldn’t though. Not in a million years.”
Stepping closer, Luca studied her face in the moonlight. There was a hardness to his mouth and eyes. He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around so she was facing him fully. Then the harshness melted away, swept from his face by whatever it was he had read from her expression. His fingers loosened his grip on her shoulder.
“I believe you,” he said softly. “But you better have a plan B.”
“Not yet,” she admitted. “I’m going to snoop around a bit before the Smog creeps back up. If Hannah was really looking into C’s warehouses, I bet she had a good reason. Maybe she found out why a huge international villain group is interested in this sad excuse of a city all of a sudden.”
Luca nodded. “It’s possible.”
“So,” she went on, “this is about Hannah and our city, too. I’d really hate to see it become more poisonous than it already is. I’m going to figure out what’s going on, look around, and come up with a slightly less bum-smacking plan. Besides, I want to go home for a bit, dig around and see if there’s anything useful I’d completely forgotten about.”
He tilted his head, and she could tell it took a moment for the penny to drop. ‘Home’ was, after all, a touchy subject she didn’t bring up often. Understanding dawned in his eyes, and he lifted a finger to gently tap the turtle charm she wore underneath her shirt. “If you need a shell to pull over your head, you know you can always come to me.”
Warmth blossomed beneath his touch. “Appreciated,” she said. “How do you feel about leaving?”
The question wasn’t as casual as she made it sound. Whenever he had that faraway look, the one she was seeing now, she was suspicious that the bonds tying him to this city were even stronger and more relentless than her own.
“I’m not sure.” He dropped his gaze. “I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m never going to find Luciano alive. Still, it’s hard to give up on the idea of closure. Of finding anything at all.”
“I know.” Wisp shuffled one foot on the floor. “Sometimes I still believe Dad is going to land a chopper on the church square and pick me up. I dream about it, too. Stupid, right?”
He huffed a humorless chuckle that sent another tingle of warmth across her skin.
This guy is the closest thing to family I have left. Melancholy fluttered in her chest, and she held back the sigh that was trying to escape. If it ever comes down to choosing between him and Hannah, can I make the right call? The thought burned in her mind, so she picked a question as an excuse to shove it out of her awareness.
“Back at Constantine’s place, you said that the Traveler’s teleportation powers popped up in Europe. Is it true?”
“Yeah, we heard it on the news. The EU hero team has a teleporter now, or so Radio Berlin claims.”
“Huh.” Wisp blinked at him. “And the new guy can plop around the world with a pop, just like the Traveler before he got shot?”
Luca smirked. “You’re trying too hard.”
She pointed a finger in his face. “Guess what, it worked. You’re smiling! Sort of, anyway. Soooo … can he? Or she?”
“Sort of,” he echoed, capturing her hand with his own. “Less range, apparently, but it sounds like he can still cross oceans with a single jump. And the best part is that he can take other people along.”
“Huh. That’s major.” After thinking about it for a moment, another idea occurred to her. “Wait. With that kind of mobility? They can go anywhere. We c
ould invite them here!”
“Problem is, even if Rune’s team wanted to come, the European authorities might not let them. Not while our half of the city is under lockdown.”
Wisp deflated a little. “True.”
“Second, how would we go about contacting them? We could buy fifteen minutes of Internet access from the border folk, but our message would just drown in the spam heroes receive every day.”
She furrowed her brows. “I bet the right phone number would do the trick, if we could find it. Not on the Internet, though, and not in fifteen minutes.”
Luca squeezed her hand before releasing it. “Let’s keep all of this in mind and head back to the others. It’s going to be a long night for everyone.”
“Wait.” She grabbed his arm, stopping him before he could turn away. “Are you … okay with it, then? What I said I’m going to do?”
There it was again, that faraway look she disliked more than anything else about him. He was staring at her without actually seeing her, his dark eyes cool and out of focus.
“You said you were going to look around,” he said in a flat voice. “Get some ideas, figure out a better plan. I know I can trust you to be careful.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she let go of his arm. “Right. I’m always careful.”
Before she could process the sudden shift in demeanor and evasive wording, he walked through the doorway with brisk, determined strides. Watching him go made her feel cold inside. Somehow, she couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter what she did and which way the wheels of fate turned, her friendship with Luca would be among the first casualties in the upcoming conflict. The premonition of loss ripped through Wisp’s heart. She staggered. She wanted to cry.
In the end, though, she pulled herself together and trudged back toward the others. Max and Sara still sat on the floor near the main entrance, an inseparable whole. Family.
Luca was gone.
Sara looked up at her with a deep, sorrowful frown. “Hey, boss, you okay?”
Gift of Light_A Powered Destinies stand-alone novel Page 7
