by Lexie Dunne
I knew that much. I’d once gone into Mind the Boom and had told the barkeep that I wanted to take over Raze’s territory. Raze hadn’t held it against me when she’d gotten out of prison, either. Instead, she’d been flattered that I’d thought of her. Some days, I wasn’t sure Raze was looking for an enemy. But she also didn’t seem to have the word friend in her vocabulary, so we made do with our strange little relationship. She twisted her fingers through her ponytail and tilted her head to the side, waiting for me to answer.
“It’s a pretty long shot that anybody in there will know anything,” I said. “And are we sure about this? I mean, supervillain bar. We know my history with them.”
Guy squeezed my hand. “Mind the Boom’s supposed to be neutral territory, or so I’ve heard.”
“Where did you hear that?” I asked, eyes wide.
He jerked a shoulder. “I may have met a couple villains for drinks here to negotiate terms of handing over hostages.”
Raze was now studying him, either like he was an idiot or like she was trying to figure out which mask he wore. Honestly, it was obvious: he was over six feet tall, green-eyed, and hanging out with Hostage Girl. But then, nobody had seen Blaze for months, so maybe it wasn’t as obvious as I thought.
“Wait a second,” I said, blinking several times. “Your plan is really to wait for bad guys to show? That’s it?”
“Neutral territory,” Guy said.
“Yesterday villains wanted Br—Chelsea back, so they tried to blow up Union Station. For a minor slight against them,” I said, giving him a look. “This is about a drug that takes out superpowers. Do you think neutral territory is really going to matter?”
Raze snorted as she shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her frame. I really wished she would wear warmer clothing. It was November. “I hope the villains get the drug. Better than Davenport getting it.”
Guy and I gave her baffled looks.
She rolled her eyes. “Do-gooders, ugh. I’m cold. I’m going inside.”
I followed close on her heels. “What do you mean by that?” I asked as we stepped inside.
“I mean you do good.” She flicked her fingers at me.
“No, not that. What do you mean you don’t want Davenport to have it?”
“Oh, yes,” Raze said, “let’s give the all-encompassing evil eye corporation the ability to decide who does and doesn’t get to keep their powers. That sounds smart.”
Come to think of it, she had a point. I rolled the idea over in my brain as I followed her into the bar. If the Demobilizer was as effective as it appeared to be, Davenport having ample access to it—and possibly being able to replicate it—was beyond game changing. Instead of sending people to Detmer, they could simply remove their powers and send them back into the world. They already wielded too much influence and domination over the superhero community. If they had the ability to nullify powers at will, what sort of offenses would they deem the Demobilizer appropriate for? I’d already stared down the barrel of their justice system and had been sent to prison for a crime I hadn’t committed. If they’d had the Demobilizer then, would I even have powers now? The thought was a sobering one as I took a seat at the bar between Raze and Guy.
The nautical decorations—fake fishermen’s nets, some weathered buoys, cheesy plastic trout caught in the netting—hadn’t gotten any better in the months since I’d been there last. In addition, the bar seemed really empty for Sunday around lunchtime. It had been mostly empty the last time I’d visited, too, so maybe having supervillain clientele wasn’t all that lucrative. They probably tried to pay by holding the bartender at death-ray-point. Or maybe there was an honor code among villains that they treated their watering hole with respect. After all, the bar had far fewer scorch marks than I would expect from an evildoer gathering place.
Guy shook his head at Raze, leaning around me to make his point. “Tamara Diesel and her lot would only use it to destroy heroes and then they would take over the world,” he said.
“So they shouldn’t have it, either,” Raze said, looking bored as she pulled out a butterfly knife and began to flip it around. Guy reached for it and I grabbed his wrist in case he didn’t remember he wasn’t impervious to sharp blades anymore. “Maybe nobody should have it.”
“This is the very definition of a Pandora’s box,” I said, my brow wrinkling.
“Probably,” Raze said. She flipped the blade over. I pretended that it coming within millimeters of my skin was an accident. She perked up. “Actually, I changed my mind. I should have it.”
“No,” Guy and I said.
Raze sighed like we were being unreasonable. “No, really, I should. My IQ is through the roof. I’d make all the best choices about who gets powers and who doesn’t based on how much I like them. This is brilliant. It’s a fair system unless I don’t like you.”
“Not happening,” I said.
Raze shook her head regretfully. “I need a better nemesis. You’re a depressing stick in the mud, Girl.”
Guy looked at me sideways. I’d explained Raze’s logic to him time and again, but she needed to be experienced to be believed. “I keep telling you the same thing,” I said to her.
But Raze shook her head. “I have invested far too much into this enemy-ship to let it go now. Oh, hey, Sal.”
Since I hadn’t heard the bartender and I usually heard everything, I jerked hard enough to hit my elbow on the bar, narrowly missing the flick of Raze’s butterfly knife just above said elbow. I thought I saw Sal the bartender pause momentarily in the doorway to the back room, her gaze on us, but it could have been an illusion through the sudden tears of pain. I blinked those away and shook out my elbow. I’d hit my funny bone perfectly. It was a talent, really.
“Hostage Girl,” Sal said, flicking up her eye patch so that her bionic eye swept over me in a scan. “You’re looking a little less like a fugitive this time.” The bionic eye scanned Guy, who looked a bit awkward folded over onto the bar stool. “Who’s this? Another villain?”
“Not exactly,” Guy said.
“Uh-huh.” Sal turned and gave Raze a high five. “Don’t usually see you on Sundays.”
“Her idea.” Raze jerked the blade at me. “She’s looking into that power-sucking stuff.”
“Uh-huh. What’s your poison?” Sal asked her, and I worried that it was literal.
“Lemon juice. Five shots, straight, neat. Sour as you can get it.” Raze looked at me. “And I’m not sharing with either of you do-gooders. You can get your own sour squeeze.”
Sal looked from Raze to me, face switching to decided amusement. A line of scarring traced the skin around her eye patch. I figured it had to do with the reason she had a bionic eye in the first place. “You want to know about the power-draining juice, too? And you thought you’d just ask around here? Are you some kind of junior gumshoe?”
“My friend got hit,” I said. I didn’t look at Guy. “Two of them did. One’s more upset about it than the other.”
Sal rested both hands on the bar top and regarded me. Only me, though. Raze and Guy she ignored. It was unnerving having that one eye focused on me. “You’re also friends with Chelsea.”
I blinked at that. “What? Not exactly.” Belatedly, I realized I should have denied any connection to Brook a great deal more vehemently. From the way Guy went tense next to me, he seemed to agree. “Wait, how do you know that?”
“I run Mind the Boom,” Sal said, giving me a look that pointed out how much she disliked me for making her state the obvious. “She was spotted for the first time in months at Union Station. And so, Hostage Girl, were you.”
Damn Toadicus, I thought. Next time I saw him I was kicking him extra hard in the gizzard or whatever frog parts he really had. If he hadn’t messed up my mask, I wouldn’t be in this much trouble.
“Dangerous peop
le are looking for Chelsea,” Sal said. “I don’t want them finding her at my bar.”
“It’s not like I brought her with me. She’s not here,” I said.
“I can see that. Is that going to change?”
I squinted at her. “Why do you want to know?”
“It’s not important. Just know that if she ever shows her face here, your drink gets replaced with arsenic.”
“I think I’d be able to tell if it was arsenic,” I said.
Sal raised an eyebrow. “Would you?” She set a drink in front of me: an Irish car bomb. I’d ordered one the last time I’d been in the bar, so it was a little scary that she had that kind of memory.
“Uh.” Guy held his hands up in a time-out. “How about we not threaten to poison the clientele?”
Sal didn’t look at him. She set a shot glass full of lemon juice in front of Raze, who happily sucked away at it. “Who’s the stiff?” she asked me.
I bristled. “My boyfriend.”
“He’s too tall for you.” Sal refilled Raze’s glass. Raze downed that, made a face, and waved her hand in a keep ’em coming gesture. Sal shrugged to herself and poured another shot of straight lemon juice.
I exchanged a look with Guy. This was just bizarre. “Do you . . . have some kind of problem with me?” Guy asked.
Sal straightened abruptly. “No,” she said. “Raze, I’m cutting you off.”
“But that’s only three!”
“And last time you had more than that, I had to peel you off the ceiling. You’re done.” She looked over my shoulder. “Looks like your one o’clock appointment is here, Hostage Girl.”
“What are you . . . ?” I trailed off, my insides going cold. I hadn’t heard a thing, which could only mean that something very, very bad was going on behind me and things were probably about to go to hell in a handbasket.
Sure enough, I turned, and standing there in the main part of the bar, right next to the wall full of Hostage Girl selfies, was Tamara Diesel.
For a second, I could have heard a pin drop.
And then Tamara strode forward so quickly that I didn’t have time to react, and grabbed me by the throat. “Hostage Girl,” she said. “Just who I was looking for.”
Oh, crap.
CHAPTER 12
Tamara Diesel, unsurprisingly, was even more terrifying up close.
For example, being a block away from her in the fight at Union Station hadn’t impressed upon me how cold, flinty, and ruthless the woman’s eyes truly were. Or the fact that the metal spikes on her leather vest happened to be splattered with something that smelled suspiciously like human blood. The left half of her head was shaved—save for a very short star-shaped patch of hair—the other half in cornrows that followed the contours of her scalp. She had a scar bisecting her lip and a sneer that put Angélica’s to shame.
Fear made my heart actively stutter as her hand tightened around my throat. This close, I could smell her chapstick. I put up a hand to stop Guy from leaping at her, just in case he’d forgotten that he was a great deal squishier than usual.
“Uh,” I said as Raze looked over with interest. “I don’t think we’ve formally met.”
Her teeth were very white when she sneered. “You know who I am.”
“I’m out.” Sal tossed her dishrag down and raised her hands in the air. “You want to fight, I’ll give you the name of my insurance company. Good luck paying the premiums.”
I wondered if they still sold Hostage Girl insurance. It was a strange and almost absurd thing to think when a woman literally had a hand around my neck, but the thought did go through my mind. Thankfully, she wasn’t cutting off my oxygen or trying to hold me up by the neck. I had no desire to find out up close just how strong Tamara really was.
“I’m not here to fight,” Tamara said, looking me up and down.
“I hope you don’t feel the same way about being sassed,” I said. “Because with me that’s pretty much what you get.”
One corner of her mouth tilted downward. Tamara Diesel didn’t have a sense of humor? That was almost worse than that time she’d decided five boroughs in New York City was two too many. At least she wasn’t actively choking me, but her hand was around my throat and that was a problem. Also, why did she have to be six inches taller than me? Would it kill them to send me a supervillain that I could meet at eye-level?
“Either way, it appears you’ve got me,” I said, trying to change the subject before Tamara started squeezing. “Literally. What exactly do you want?”
“I need a moment of your time,” she said, studying my face. Abruptly, she let me go and I put a hand to my throat, massaging the skin there. I tried to remember if “has a grip like a hydraulic press” was listed among the known superpowers for her because wow. “Over here. My companions will keep your friends company.”
On cue, Toadicus and Stretchy McGee stepped into Mind the Boom. I looked around for Scorch, but apparently my fire-nemesis was nowhere to be found. Tamara jerked her head at them and they stepped over to flank Guy and Raze.
My hands closed into fists. Reassuringly, Guy touched my elbow. “Looks like I’ve got a new drinking buddy,” he said, jerking his head at Stretchy. “Go on. I’ll get acquainted with my new pal. We’ll learn each other’s life stories, we’ll laugh, we’ll joke. It’ll be fun.”
Apparently losing his powers made him a little more of a smart-ass. It was a good look on him, actually.
Raze scoffed. “I have no intentions of bonding with this—” she looked Toadicus up and down “—reptile.”
She said it like she clearly didn’t feel he was worthy of such a title. I didn’t bother to point out the error.
“Try not to shoot anyone,” I said, since I didn’t feel like starting something I wasn’t sure we could finish. I grabbed my Irish car bomb, useless by this point because it was meant to be chugged, and pushed myself to my feet. It wasn’t easy, especially since my knees had mysteriously turned to goo, but I kept my spine straight and walked across the warped wooden flooring to have a one-on-one meeting with a top-ranked villain.
Tamara pulled a chair back for herself. It scraped extra loudly in the stillness and tension of the bar. “Hostage Girl,” she said, inclining her head as she sat.
I took a seat across from her, staying on the edge of my chair and trying to ignore the panic jack-rabbiting through my veins. “Ms. Diesel. Or is it Mrs.? Is there, like, a Mr. or another Mrs. Diesel?”
Again, her lips curved downward. This conversation really was not going to go well.
“Ms., it is. I got it,” I said. “I can work with that.”
She pulled out a ridiculously oversized gun and placed it on the table between us. The gun was massive. It looked like it could blow a few fist-shaped holes in me. A frigid drop of sweat slid from my hairline and into my body armor, which I knew from personal experience had the ability to withstand a bullet or three. But would it hold up against this monster of a gun? And why did somebody as powerful as Tamara need a gun, anyway? “I can’t say I was expecting to see you out in public. Somebody with a better survival instinct might have stayed indoors and out of trouble.”
I lifted my glass and took a sip. It tasted particularly foul, but I smacked my lips. “I got thirsty.”
“In a supervillain bar.”
“I like the ambience. Reminds me of a Jimmy Buffett song.” I plucked at the shirt I’d borrowed from Jessie. “My other shirt’s at the cleaners, but it’s Hawaiian print.”
Guy’s snort as he tried not to laugh was almost deafening in the quiet.
“At least he thinks I’m funny,” I said, since Tamara’s face never lost its stony countenance.
“I want to know everything you know about the Demobilizer.”
“It’s blue,” I said. The fact that she knew its name meant she’d apparently been a
recipient of the kidnapper’s video. I wondered if her email had the word villain in the domain. “It kind of smells like apricots.”
There was a pause. She expected me to go on, evidently. “That’s it?”
“That’s everything I really definitively know,” I said, since self-preservation instincts were apparently for chumps. “The rest is all conjecture.”
“You think you’re cute.”
“I’m less than five-two and ninety percent of my friends are, like, a foot taller than me. By those standards, I’m adorable.”
Tamara Diesel moved fast, I’ll hand her that. In a blink she had me by the collar. My shirt wasn’t sturdy enough to bear my weight, so I heard a ripping noise. Jessie was going to be annoyed about that. “I don’t find you cute,” Tamara said. “I think you’re an idiot.”
“I like you, too,” I said.
“Tell me about the Demobilizer.” She shook me a little.
“It’s an invention of a really vain man who insists on putting some form of his name on everything he creates,” I said. “I’m not a scientist. I couldn’t tell you how it works, except that it’s probably bad news and the last person who should have it is you.”
I braced myself for a hit that never came. Tamara breathed out through her nose. “You were right,” she said over my shoulder at Stretchy. “She does know something. Use the beanpole. Sounds like she could use some motivation.”
“Wait, what?” I blinked and in an instant Stretchy had an arm wrapped around Guy, circling him twice. He struggled, but his superstrength had been sapped by the Demobilizer.
“Guy!” I tried to rip away from Tamara, but she was too strong.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Kind of tickles, actually.”
He was lying: his face was rapidly turning red, and frustration was evident in his eyes. But he smiled.
“Start talking or I squeeze harder,” Stretchy said, and Guy grunted.
“Let him go.” Anger made its way up through my chest, nudging aside the fear. I might be scared out of my mind for Guy, who was so incredibly breakable now that it almost made me feel light-headed, but I’d been in his shoes over and over again for four years. And I hated bullies. I slid my fingers under my shirt at my waist, hoping that Tamara Diesel wasn’t paying close attention. We were so screwed. “Let him go or you’ll regret it.”
