by Wyatt Kane
“I have your pretty friend,” he said, and it was exactly as Tempest had described. The loathsome monster was grinning, almost laughing as he said it, as if it was all a big joke. “Your deerkin. Such a fine splice job, if you go for that sort of thing. If I’d known she was so pretty, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time on your boyfriend.”
The vile man sneered as he spoke, and Ty, not normally a violent person at all, wanted to pound his face with his fists. There was something about Bane that inspired hate and revulsion, and it came through over the hologram just as powerfully as it did in person.
“Prove it,” came Tempest’s voice. To Ty, she sounded both defiant and strong. There was no fear in her voice at all.
Yet Bane was up to the challenge. He laughed out loud, then turned and barked an order to someone off-screen. Moments later, he faced the camera again. “Here is your proof, woman!” With that, he hauled Dinah into view.
It was as Tempest had said. Beautiful Dinah, her hair in disarray and her eyes glowing with defiance and terror. Bane’s massive hand was about her throat, and Ty knew that the brute could have snapped her neck in an instant.
Ty had never known such instant rage combined with helplessness. He understood at that moment something he hadn’t thought about before. He had known Dinah for only a day and a half, yet she had become precious to him in ways he couldn’t express. She was his family, just as Tempest was, and he would do anything he could to protect her.
He would have dived through the hologram then and there if he could, and fought Bane one-on-one with everything he had. Anything to get Dinah back.
The hologram wasn’t finished.
“Dinah!” came Tempest’s recorded voice.
But the monstrous villain gave them no time to talk. With casual cruelty, he cast Dinah roughly aside and filled the holographic screen with his own brutal face. He was grinning as if he knew he had won.
“You will not hurt her!” Tempest said. Her voice was hard, flat, and filled with such threats and loathing that Ty knew she felt the same as he did.
Bane just gave a mocking laugh. “I will do whatever I wish!”
“If Dinah is not returned to us unharmed, I swear I’ll remove your head from your shoulders!” Tempest raged. And perhaps the threat got through. Bane was monstrously powerful, a beast of a man who had nothing to fear from most others. But Tempest wasn’t most others. She was powerful as well, and was perhaps the only person alive who could actually carry out her threat.
And Ty knew that if it came down to it, he would help her. Even though the only person he’d ever consciously hurt until then was the intruder at his apartment.
In any event, the monstrous man relented somewhat. “I will not hurt her. You have my word.” Yet his superior smirk remained firmly in place. “But you will have to give me something in return.”
“What do you want?” Tempest said.
“Your devices. Of course.”
The recording of Tempest snorted. “Unacceptable. The devices can’t come off while we live.”
Bane laughed into the camera. “Think about it,” he sneered. “I could have killed your pretty friend already and given her device to someone with a more useful potential. I know where you live. How do you think you and your puny boyfriend would fare against me and a second powerful device-wearer?”
The thought alone was enough to make Ty’s heart lurch in his chest. Bane was right. He could do exactly what he said.
Why had he not?
“Instead, I’m giving you this chance to live.” Bane’s snarl became a brief grimace and Ty couldn’t help but feel that maybe Bane wasn’t acting out of choice. Letting them live seemed to go against his core nature.
As if the conversation was no longer fun, Bane brought it to a close. “This is the deal. In exchange for your pretty friend’s life, you and your boyfriend will meet me at a time and place of my choosing, where I will remove your devices before letting you crawl away to whatever miserable existence you can scavenge for yourselves. If you fail to show, I will return your pretty friend to you one piece at a time. You will hear from me.”
And that was it. Bane broke the connection and the holographic image returned to the communication menu page.
Tempest shut off the display and looked at Ty with a distraught expression. Ty was beyond horrified. To see Dinah under Bane’s control was like a knife to his own heart. It was barely tolerable.
“I’ll do it. I’ll give him my device if it will get Dinah back,” he blurted.
But Tempest shook her head. “It won’t be that easy,” she said.
“Huh?”
“We can’t trust Bane. No matter what he said, Dinah’s life is in terrible danger.”
Ty knew she was probably right, but he didn’t want to believe it. “Then why would he bother to go through all this?” he asked. “You heard him. He could kill her, take her device, give it to someone else and attack us before we knew what was happening.”
“I don’t know,” Tempest replied.
But Ty thought he did. “He has to be taking orders from someone,” he said.
Tempest looked at him. For a moment, she seemed uncertain. Then she nodded. “Yes. That makes sense.” Then her expression hardened. “But that doesn’t mean he’s any less of a monster. We can’t trust him.”
She was right. Ty took a deep breath and let it out all at once. He looked around, seeking inspiration about what to do, and a worrying thought occurred. “Are we safe here?” he asked.
He could see Tempest’s mind working. “Bane knows where we are.” She shrugged. “He could have been waiting for us.”
Ty nodded. Again, she was right. But that didn’t mean they could relax.
“I could rig up some sort of security devices. But not quickly.” Ty frowned and stopped talking, aware that security wasn’t the priority right at that moment. Dinah was.
All at once, he knew what he had to do. Abruptly, he stood. “I have to start work,” he muttered.
Tempest looked at him in confusion. “You can’t be thinking of going back to the Club now?” she said.
“No. Not the Club. Downstairs, to the workshop.”
She still didn’t understand what he was saying.
“Look, we know what Bane is after, and we know that we can’t trust him. His actions are therefore predictable. Am I right?” Ty didn’t wait for her to respond. “He is preparing to face us. To face you. But he still doesn’t know what I can do.”
For the first time since receiving Bane’s message, Tempest gave a tentative smile.
But Ty hadn’t finished. “If I do nothing except wait for him to tell us where to go, I might as well be as powerless as I was a couple of days ago. But I’m not powerless. I can do things that can help, and right now I’m wasting time.”
“What are you going to do?” Tempest asked.
It was Ty’s turn to grin. “I have a couple of ideas that might help,” he said.
Tempest’s smile grew broader. She might not have understood exactly what Ty had in mind, but she trusted him. “Then let’s get to it,” she said.
31: Preparations
Ty and Tempest worked long into the night. Ty had a plan but had to make several things to have any hope of pulling it off.
It wasn’t easy. When he made his mesh suit and adapted his blaster, he had been largely relaxed, enjoying the process with Tempest and Dinah by his side. This time he was under more pressure. Bane could contact Tempest at any moment. They might have to drop everything and go.
If that happened, all Ty’s planning would come to nothing. He needed to finish what he was working on if they were to have any chance.
Of course, there were no guarantees even then. Bane could negate everything Ty was doing if he just thought to meet in a Faraday cage. Yet Bane didn’t know that Ty could work magic with technology. The monster had no inkling that a Faraday cage would be useful.
By the time he found out, Ty promised himself, it would be too la
te.
At some point during the night, Gremlin wandered into the workshop. Even she seemed to sense Ty’s mood of desperation and worry. She sat on the workbench in among holographic images, but instead of playing with them as if they were real, she just watched Ty and Tempest work with a concerned expression.
Ordinarily, Ty would have taken time out to comfort her. To scratch behind her ears and tell her everything was fine. But he was sweating. He needed to get this done. He couldn’t afford to think of anything else.
Tempest was a godsend. Although she didn’t have the same understanding as Ty did, she was willing and just as determined as he. Whenever he needed a hand, she stepped in and did whatever he asked.
And, finally, at about the same time Ty might have finished his shift and started walking home, he was done.
“Fabricate,” Ty said, and the last piece of the puzzle took shape before him. It was no more than a simple sensor, as big as his smallest fingernail and connected to nothing. Yet it was the key to everything. It was a remote control, and it was the most important part of his plan.
“What if they take it from you?” Tempest asked.
Ty had thought of this. He didn’t expect to get anywhere near Bane without being searched.
“They won’t find it,” he replied. With that, he reached for one of the tools he had set out earlier. It was a scalpel. As Tempest saw what he had in mind, she drew a sharp breath. But she also understood and didn’t try to stop him.
Moving swiftly so that he wouldn’t second-guess himself, Ty pushed his shirt sleeve and the sleeve of his mesh suit up as high as they could easily go, exposing his arm up to the elbow. Then he sliced open the skin on his forearm, back from the device on his wrist. It hurt far more than he expected and blood started to seep.
Ty gritted his teeth against the pain, placed the scalpel back on the table, and dabbed the area with a cloth. Then he picked up the sensor.
“Wait,” Tempest said. Ty looked at her. “We have a medical kit. There is a spray that acts as an anesthetic.”
Ty gaped at her. He hadn’t even thought of using anything like that.
“Yeah, that would be good,” he said, grinning foolishly. He had been so single-minded in what he was doing that his own discomfort had never entered the equation.
Tempest disappeared for a few minutes before returning with the medical kit. Ty’s forearm was starting to throb, so it was a relief when Tempest found the spray and applied it liberally to the area. Almost at once, his arm became comfortably numb.
“Thank you,” Ty said, then turned back to his task.
It still wasn’t pleasant. He had to make a sort of pocket under his skin for the sensor to fit in. It was messy and uncomfortable even with the anesthetic, but he finally got it done. The sensor was in, and it wouldn’t come out without effort. He dabbed the blood away again, then took a Band-Aid and covered the cut over.
“Done,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Now what?”
Bane still hadn’t made contact. Tempest looked tired, drawn, and stressed beyond measure. Ty fully expected that he looked the same. Yet in his mind, there was nothing more they could do.
“Now we try to get some sleep,” Tempest said. “We don’t want to face Bane at less than our peak.”
Ty was wired, yet he could feel the edges of exhaustion as well. Sleep would be welcome.
“Here?” he asked.
Tempest hesitated. “No. Somewhere Bane doesn’t know about. The safe house. Where I took you after Zach died.”
Ty nodded. “Right. Let’s go.”
There was little to pack. Tempest was already carrying one of the items Ty had worked on, and the others all fit neatly into his backpack. When he’d gathered them up, he checked the workshop one last time to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything and nodded, satisfied.
He patted Gremlin on the head. “Look after the place, will you Furball?” he said. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
As he said it, he wondered if it was true.
<<<>>>
They reached the safe house within a few minutes. It was just as he remembered it, a dull, windowless room with little more than a bed, a couple of chairs and a side table, with an adjoining bathroom off to one side. It was an okay place to stay for a while, but a massive step down from the penthouse Ty was already growing used to.
As he lowered his backpack to the floor, Ty promised himself that he would figure out a way to protect Tempest’s home from any further attack once they had Dinah back with them.
Assuming that everything worked out with Bane, of course.
It was either very late at night or very early in the morning, and there wasn’t much left to do than go to bed. Nor was there any of the playfulness and laughter of the previous night. Yet despite everything that had happened, Ty couldn’t help but watch as Tempest peeled off her clothes.
In moments, she stood in front of him in all her naked glory. As before, he found the sight of her perfection mesmerizing. The breath caught in his throat and all thoughts fled from his mind.
Tempest didn’t smile, but she acknowledged Ty’s appreciative stare by raising her hands high above her head and turning slowly around so he could see every inch of her, just as she’d done the first time, on top of the boulder in the lake.
Ty swallowed hard. He would have watched her do that forever. But once she’d completed a full revolution, she stopped, lowered her arms and tilted her head to the side while staring at him.
“Your turn,” she said. Already, it had become a sort of ritual between them.
Despite the lack of playfulness in the air, Ty still felt a powerful connection to Tempest. It was like there were sparks between them, perhaps not dancing, but vibrating with energy. Somehow, the drab little room had gained an aura of magic, and it was all to do with how Ty felt about this woman.
He had to remember to breathe. Tempest kept looking at him, expecting him to follow her lead, and when at last his neurons started firing again, he did so.
Ty took off his shoes, his shirt, and his trousers and socks, leaving his mesh onesie exposed. He stripped that off as well, and his undershirt next, and faced Tempest in nothing but his boxers.
Her eyes lingered there and he knew she could see his arousal. With his heart starting to pound and his rate of breathing increasing, he removed the last piece of his modesty and stood naked and exposed before her.
She studied him closely but didn’t move from where she stood. “Turn around,” she said.
Ty did so, raising his arms as she had done, and feeling the cool air all over his body. It made his skin start to shiver and raised his excitement to a new level. He could barely contain himself by the time he reached the end of his revolution, but through sheer force of will, he made himself stand in place.
Tempest took a deep breath. Ty could see a hint of color on her cheeks, and her nipples were hard. For what felt like forever, they stood there, separated by no more than a few feet of space, and just looked at each other.
Then Tempest swallowed. “Well? What are you waiting for?” she said.
It was all Ty needed. In a heartbeat, he crossed the distance between them and crushed her against him, lifting her up off the floor. He kissed her hard on the lips, decided it wasn’t enough and threw her onto the bed. An instant later he was on top of her, his arms wrapped around her slim form as he squeezed her tight with everything he had.
The next few minutes passed in a frenzy of kisses, bites, and desperate groping, and Ty didn’t limit his attention to any one part of her body. There was still none of the playfulness of their previous encounters. Instead, they were rough with each other, grim and desperate, with each of them clinging to the other to express their need.
Nor did the initial frenzy last long. Ty found Tempest’s legs wrapped around his hips and there seemed little point in delay. He pushed himself into her, gently at first, but Tempest had no patience for that. She used the strength of her legs to pull him i
n all the way and press him tightly against her.
For a moment they stayed there, clenched together, unmoving, each of them holding the other tight, and Tempest let out a moan of pleasure that sounded like relief.
“Like that,” she murmured. “You won’t break me.”
Then Ty started to move back and forth. He took her at her word and used all his strength, and she clung to him fiercely.
It was the most intense, passionate experience of his life. At some point, he found himself growling, and the bed started to thump against the wall to their rhythm. Tempest changed her grip from his shoulders to his butt and seemed intent on letting her animal out. She gasped and panted and started to snarl, then all at once she flipped him over without disconnecting so that she was on top.
Then it was all Ty could do to hold on as Tempest expressed herself. She was a wild thing, a storm given flesh, and she rode him like a champion rodeo rider, holding him down and grinding against him with passion and strength.
Ty held on with everything he had, even then caught in the spell of her beauty and physical perfection. In the back of his mind, he felt bereft that Dinah wasn’t with them, and he promised that next time, she would be. Other than that, he let himself go and reveled in their passion.
It was violent and loud, and it went on for what felt like a long time. Finally, Ty could hold on no longer. With an animal shout, he found his release at the same time as Tempest reached her climax.
Then she collapsed on top of him, panting and spent. Yet instead of the warm, comfortable glow that accompanied their previous sessions, this time there was too much sadness in the air.
Tempest lay on his chest and started to cry.
“It’s all right,” Ty murmured as he held her close. “We’ll get her back. Everything will be okay.”
32: Wake Up Call
Bane’s call came in at the time between early and mid-morning. Ty and Tempest were still sleeping, and the alert on Tempest’s device was enough to jerk them both awake. Tempest hastily grabbed her top from the where she led left it on the floor and pulled it on before she answered.
