“Sounds good.” I pulled up a crate and sat down, peering out of a slot at the building across from us. It was a nondescript three-story brick building, not in the best of conditions, but definitely operable. I wondered if this was Dementrix’s headquarters.
For the first half hour Amy and I sat in tense silence, quietly watching for signs of life to enter or exit. No such luck. In fact, there was no one to be seen anywhere around. I could have sworn I saw a tumbleweed roll by. It also didn’t help that it was hotter than hell in here, and getting hotter by the minute.
I fidgeted on the crate, the wooden planks starting to dig into my butt. I shifted in my seat. “This waiting sucks,” I whispered to her.
Amy snickered. “Yeah, no one ever tells you the downside to fighting crime. It’s not all kicking ass and taking names. Sometimes you have to wait. And wait. And wait. This may feel like the worst part, but it’s much better than jumping head-first into certain death.”
“You make a good point,” I replied.
She looked over at me. “If you’re going to be a superhero now, you need to keep these things in mind. Planning is always preferred to dying.”
I nodded, trying to push down my feelings of irritation. I knew she was right, but I hated being lectured to. “Yes, I’ll keep it in mind.”
The sun was beating down overhead, and the garage’s air was stifling. There was absolutely no circulation at all, and I was starting to sweat in every crack in my body. It had to be well over ninety degrees in here already.
I glanced at my watch. It was only half past noon.
My stomach growled loudly, and Amy shot me a quick glance, her eyes asking me to quiet my stomach. Like that could happen. Sorry, but I didn’t have the power to turn my hunger on and off.
“Do you have a candy bar in your car?” I asked her. At this point, I’d even take a Tic Tac to tide the grumbling edge of hunger taking over.
She raised an eyebrow, not answering.
I took that as a no. Amy wasn’t the snacker I was, but still, she didn’t need to be snotty about it.
A few more minutes passed with absolutely no action. “This doesn’t seem right,” I muttered under my breath at Amy. “Maybe your connection is wrong. We should sneak over and check the building out.” Sitting in this building felt like crouching in a broiler.
Inner Demon: Just run over and bust through the front door. You can shut the power off, and Amy can fry them all.
Inner Angel: But how will you get information from them if they’re charred?
Inner Demon: We’ll pick it off their bodies.
I shuddered. Man, I was a bit messed up in the head sometimes.
“He’s never wrong,” Amy whispered back, irritation in her voice. Obviously she didn’t like being second-guessed. “Now chill. We need to be patient. Oh, look,” she said, pointing with her index finger to the road to our left, “there’s something coming.”
A wave of sickness washed over me as a silver supercar rolled into the driveway in front of the building. Mason’s car. Did they already let him out of jail?
I made a mental note to write my congressman a sternly worded letter about the state of our justice system. If someone who had confessed to being a bad guy could get cut loose so quickly, what did that say about the state of our society? And furthermore—
The passenger-side door opened, interrupting my thoughts, and a pair of pale green legs thrust out, followed by the rest of Carrie’s body, still clad in her teeny tiny outfit.
Bingo. You are so busted, bitch.
I bit back a self-satisfied smile and elbowed Amy in the ribs in excitement. “Okay, I take that back about your connection. He’s totally awesome. We should buy him a fruit basket in thanks.”
The driver’s side door flew open, as well. Rowena, dressed as Rapida, stepped out of the car, slamming the door closed.
Amy and I both gasped at the same time.
“How did she know about this place?” I asked, wiping a dribble of sweat off the back of my neck. “And why did she bring Carrie here instead of the police station?”
Amy shook her head silently and kept peering ahead, confusion written across her face.
Maybe Rowena was doing a search of the joint. “We should go help her out,” I said, standing.
And then sank back down when I saw Rowena throw her head back and laugh hard, slapping Carrie on the back.
The passenger-side seat pressed forward, and Dementrix slid out of the back, closing the door. She had a quiver full of golden arrows strapped to her back. Carrie unlocked the building, and all three slipped inside.
“Oh, no,” Amy whispered, her face falling.
This was not good.
“What’s going on here?” Rivulets of sweat rolled down my spine, stopping at the elastic of my underwear as I perched on the edge of the wooden crate to sort this out.
Rowena, Carrie, and Dementrix were all working together. That meant—
“Oh, God,” I said in horror.
So Mason didn’t head up the ambush at the barn. It was Rowena, who knew Mason was going to be there. And Dementrix, with her deadly golden arrows, killed those superheroes in the other league.
My stomach turned over, my nausea aggravated by the heat. It was all starting to make sense now. Rowena must have found out about Mason’s under-the-table dealings with SummerTech and tipped Dementrix off so she could pressure him into continuing the project once she assumed control of the company. And she sent Dementrix and Carrie to wipe all of us out and bring the crystal to her.
“We need to get out of here,” Amy said in an insistent voice, pulling on my arm.
“What? But they’re right here, all three of them. This is the perfect time to capture them.” I started at the building’s door, trying to plan the best way to break in. It wasn’t an electric lock, so we’d need to bust the window.
She shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking, but this was a scouting mission. We’re not ready to fight them yet, and especially not with them all together like this.”
Aw, crap. She was right, as usual. It was three against two, and one of those two was totally new at this gig. With a reluctant nod I slipped into the car and tried to cool off my overheated body in the A/C, my mind reeling from what I’d just discovered.
Nothing made sense anymore. What I thought was a clear-cut case turned out to be more convoluted and scary than I’d realized. The people I’d thought were the good guys turned out to be bad.
Maybe Vigilante could offer a better perspective on things. I needed to talk to him about this, now.
* * *
Amy dropped me off at my apartment, heading back to her place so she could get started on our plan. We need help to take these three women down, and she said she knew just the people to lend a hand.
I headed directly to Vigilante’s place, gunning it the whole way there. Ever since hanging out with superheroes, I seemed to live life in the fast lane—literally. I used to be boring old Jenna Peterson, who rarely went five miles over the speed limit. But no longer.
Now, I was The Tangler, a superhero who thrived on excitement.
Actually, that moniker was gonna have to go. Vigilante had dubbed it when he was irritated with me, but I needed a fabulous new name to go with the persona.
I brainstormed a few names in my head. Electro-Gal? Patty Power? The Zapper?
Wow, the more I thought about it, the worse the names got. Maybe I could look up some ideas to see what’s taken already.
I pulled into Vigilante’s driveway, throwing my car into park and leaping out of the car. His garage door was open, and his bike rested in the center of the room. Good, at least he was home.
I entered the garage and knocked on the door leading to the kitchen. A thumping of dog steps clomped over to the door, and Corey barked at me as I waited.
“Hi, Corey,” I said through the door.
A minute passed, and I got no answer. I knocked again, harder.
“Hold on
, I’m coming,” I heard him say in an irritated voice as he stomped through the kitchen to the door. “I wasn’t expecting you to get here so fast.”
Who was he expecting to arrive? Obviously, it wasn’t me. My heart paused its beating momentarily, thunking in my chest.
“Hi,” I said in an uneasy voice when the door flung open.
“Oh, it’s you.” Vigilante’s eyes were wide. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I see that.” I stood on the step, watching him.
He watched me back, his face a total blank of emotion. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I wasn’t getting an overwhelming sense that he wanted me around right now.
Disappointment flooded me. “I’ll just come back later,” I said.
Vigilante moved out of the doorway, opening the door wide. “No, it’s okay,” he said. “Come on in.” He glanced at his watch. “We have a little time to talk. What’s going on?”
I followed him into the living room, feeling awkward and a bit unwanted. Maybe I was putting that on myself, since he did invite me in, but he was waiting on someone else to arrive.
Who was it? In the whole time we’d been together, I’d never seen him hang out with anyone else. So my curiosity was naturally piqued.
I sat on the edge of the beige couch and took in a deep breath. “Well, I found out some terrible news. Turns out, Carrie and Dementrix aren’t the only bad guys we need to take down.”
“What do you mean?” he asked warily, slipping into the seat across from me.
“I mean, Rowena is working with Dementrix and Carrie. I think they set Mason up to take the blame for them. He’s a bad guy, to be sure, but I don’t think he’s behind all the deception and villainous activities going on.”
Vigilante stared at me in silence, his gaze hooded. He shook his head. “Not possible.”
“What are you talking about? I just saw all three of them together.”
“There’s no way they’re working together. I know Rowena. She’s not a bad person. You must have misread something in what you saw.”
Wow, did he sound defensive. “I know what I saw,” I said, a swirl of anger twisting through my gut. “They were definitely buddy-buddy.” Then, I caught on to something he said. I slitted my eyes and looked at him. “How well do you know Rowena, anyway?”
I had a sudden vision of him and Rowena, together. Were they lovers? Please tell me he didn’t do something like that. Please.
He crossed his arms, glaring at me. “No, it’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like? What’s going on here?”
Vigilante settled back in the seat. He rubbed his brow, pinching the skin above the bridge of his nose. “Rowena isn’t bad. I know, because I’m working with her.”
The only thing that could have shocked me more at that moment would have been for him to lean me over and clock me in the nose. In fact, that’s exactly what his statement felt like to me.
I sat stiffly on the couch, my heart disbelieving what my ears just heard.
Vigilante fiddled with the edge of his shirt as he continued. “I’ve known from the beginning that Mason was doing something underhanded with SummerTech, but I didn’t know what. And I didn’t have the proof to convince the council to arrest him.”
“So what does that have to do with me?” I asked.
“Well, after you got the bracelets mixed up, and Rowena figured out he was sleeping with your cousin, she called me, crying her eyes out.”
A twinge of guilt ran through me at mention of the bracelets. So Vigilante knew I was indirectly involved in Mason’s cheating, then. He must have been pretty disgusted with me when he realized who I was. No wonder he was so cool at the beginning.
Vigilante continued. “We quickly realized the best way to uncover Mason’s activities was to have me be your bodyguard. This gave us the opportunity to ensure the crystal’s protection as well, so it was a win-win for everyone.”
“Except you blatantly used me to get information on Mason,” I spat out. Fury rippled through me, fierce and powerful. I couldn’t believe it. The man I’d fallen in love with saw me as nothing more than the means to an end.
Vigilante stood. “Hey, that’s not fair. You and I knew from the start this was meant to be a business relationship. I didn’t mean to—” He stopped himself.
“To what, have sex with me?” I said. My cheeks flamed with mortification.
I saw him swallow. “No. Well, yes. I don’t know.” He rubbed his head again, frowning hard. “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Oh, you didn’t,” I said as strongly as possible. I’d die before telling him how badly I felt about all of this.
How stupid could I be? Why didn’t I see this before? All the clues danced around me, taunting me. His desire to get a detailed tour around the office. The suggestion to snoop through Mason’s lab. His willingness to help me file paperwork.
I glanced at my purse, remembering when it had supposedly fallen over and he was cleaning it up.
“Did you look through my purse that one day at my apartment?” I asked him.
His jaw tightened, and he looked away, giving me a small nod. “I was hoping some proof about Mason might be in there, like what he was doing with that large of a deposit. I saw you take the bank receipt. It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” I said in a shrill voice, horrified. This was unreal.
Another awful, sickening realization hit me. If Vigilante was working with Rowena this whole time, he knew she was a villain.
Then maybe he was a villain too.
Oh my God, I was sleeping with the enemy. And what’s worse, I fell for him. Stupid Jenna! As much as I berated Britney for her bad decisions, I was no better than her. She was right about me. I was a judgmental bitch.
I needed to get out of there, now. I stood, slinging my purse on my shoulder. “I have to go.” I turned and headed toward his kitchen.
Vigilante grabbed my left hand, and the action about did me in.
I closed my eyes to try to shut out his face. I didn’t trust myself to look at him right now, to be close to him. My stupid body would betray me, even if my heart was breaking and my head screamed over and over that he wasn’t who I thought he was.
I fought back the wave of tears that threatened to spill out of my eyes. “Let me go, please.”
“Wait—”
“I’ve heard enough.” With whatever scrap of dignity and self-preservation was left in me, I withdrew my hand and left.
Chapter 20
“Why are men so stupid?” Britney said, shoveling a big spoonful of Chubby Hubby ice cream into her mouth.
I shrugged half-heartedly, depressed beyond anything I’d ever experienced before in my pathetic life. “Because God hates us, that’s why.”
I sat on my couch beside Britney, the two of us consoling our troubles with our two favorite guys—Ben and Jerry. God bless those men for all the comfort they’ve given women throughout the years.
She and I just finished watching Lady Snowblood, one of my favorite Japanese man-hater movies, where the heroine exacts revenge on the people who wronged her mother. My kind of flick right now.
I spooned a bite of Chunky Monkey in my mouth and sighed. When I’d gotten home a couple of hours ago, red-eyed and depressed, Britney had asked me what was wrong. All I had to say were two words: Man trouble. And she instantly piled me back in the car and insisted we drive down to the corner store to pick up some essentials.
Which included a typical list of eat-and-cry-your-way-through-depression items: ice cream, a large box of tissues, a big variety box of chocolates, and string cheese. That last one had nothing to do with man depression—Britney just wanted some more.
“So,” she asked hesitantly, looking at me through the corners of her eyes, “did you two, like, break up? You were so cute together, and I really liked him.”
I shook my head, a bitter taste rising in the back of my throat. “
Vigilante and I were never an item. He just used me to get what he wanted.”
Britney scoffed. “Yeah, right. I saw the way he looked at you. The guy had it bad for you, too.”
“What?” I put the spoon in the container. “Where do you get that? No, you’re wrong.” Sure we’d grown closer, but I obviously didn’t know anything about him. For all I knew, his dog Corey wasn’t even his, just to make me think he was something he’s not.
She rolled her eyes. “Hardly. Girl, you’re so blind, it hurts. Did you two even try to talk it out?”
“No, there wasn’t anything else to say. He even admitted to using me,” I protested.
Wait, I didn’t have to defend myself to her. I was the wronged one here. I’d been open and honest with him about everything, and he just kept telling me what I wanted to hear so he could get the dirt on Mason. Plus, he was working for Rowena, when we totally knew she was bad. Though something in my gut told me he wasn’t evil
“Whatever. Just seems a bit hasty to me.” She inhaled another large bit of ice cream and moaned. “Man, this is so totally good. I’d better enjoy it now while I can still hold food down.”
“So you decided to have the baby?” I asked, eager to change the subject and get out of the hot seat.
“You know, I’m not sure yet.” She leaned back on the couch, patting her still-flat lower belly. “I still have time to decide what to do. I need to think it through, thoroughly. Making a rash decision of this magnitude because The Machine is, like, a total jerkoff isn’t a good idea for anyone.”
“Wow, that’s quite possibly the most intelligent thing you’ve said in ages,” I teased. “Pregnancy must be increasing your brain capacity.”
Britney slugged me hard in the shoulder, then got up and headed toward the stereo. “Shut up, sassy mouth. Let’s rock out to some Maroon 5. Now there are some bitter people. We’ll feel right at home.”
* * *
The next day I dragged my sorry ass out of bed, threw on my superhero ensemble and drove to Amy’s place, a strong coffee on hand to help me wake up fast. We’d decided yesterday, when leaving the garage, that we’d have a rendezvous at her place today and figure out our plan to bring down Rowena, Carrie and Dementrix.
Super Zero Page 17
