by Lexie Dunne
“Well, when he gets loose, watch out for tornadoes.”
“Gotcha.”
“That leaves Raptor and Sharkbait on the near side,” Angélica said. “You focus on them. Can you sense Kiki at all?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t even sure how to intentionally use my mental powers, but it felt like only me inside my head. Kiki would’ve been keeping a mental ear out for me, wouldn’t she? All it told me was that they’d probably given her the Demobilizer.
“Of course it couldn’t be that easy,” Angélica said, grumbling. “Blaze, you good on your end?”
Guy shrugged. His part of the plan involved laying low, waiting for Sam to get his powers back, and bursting in when all hell broke loose. I squeezed his hand as I pushed myself back away from the edge of the building. If I was going to hit that window without making a sound, I needed a running start. Angélica, much more used to her powers, merely trotted to the side of the building, took a readying breath, and phased right over. She hit the sill perfectly, balancing on the toes of those ridiculous red boots, and disappeared into the building without a backward glance. Once she was out of sight, I rolled my shoulders, bounced up on my toes a few times, and sprinted as hard as I could for the side of the building. I jumped and threw my weight forward, phasing and praying.
I miscalculated. I miscalculated badly.
Instead of landing as lightly as Angélica had, I missed the windowsill completely and phased right through the window, hurtling into the building. Daylight changed abruptly to darkness. I gritted my teeth and hoped whatever I slammed into had at least a little give.
Arms wrapped around my torso. Before I understood what was happening, I was phasing again, this time not under my own power. Angélica landed impossibly lightly atop the next set of shelves over.
Carefully, she set me down as I tried to get my breathing under control. She put her finger to her lips and began to creep along the shelves. Mercifully, they didn’t groan under our weight, but my every sense remained on high alert. We were literally sneaking into a den full of supervillains. Somehow, this had become my life. It made me want to laugh a bit hysterically, but I swallowed that feeling down and followed her. The center of the warehouse was laid out in an open bay, but there were four rows of shelves to crawl across. We hopped lightly from row to row. Or rather, Angélica hopped lightly and caught me, as there was no way I could be accurate enough not to alert everybody within eight blocks that we were there. The smell of dust and mold made me want to sneeze, so I held my breath as best I could. Knowing my luck, I was bound to knock something over before we even made it halfway through the warehouse. At any second, some supervillain sentry could come soaring around the corner and see us in our bright bronze and red uniforms. Every shelf brought us closer and closer to danger. Every tiny noise we made was a gamble.
When the cages came into sight, I felt Angélica gasp, likely at seeing Kiki. She lay in the fifth cage, the back of her head pillowed on her hands, her feet crossed at the ankle. Completely relaxed. The rest of the heroes either paced or sat, arms folded over their chests. Jessie, in her Raptor gear, sat in a full lotus, eyes closed. She might actually be meditating, I realized. The cages didn’t look enhanced—just good old steel and padlocks—so it was safe to say they’d been given the Demobilizer. Spotlights over each cage would make sneaking up all but impossible. We just had to hope for silence and luck.
Toward the back of the warehouse, I could see a couple of folding tables, one covered in snacks and a coffeemaker whose steam curled up into the air. Several men and women in dark clothing sat at the table beside it, hunched over in the cold, glaring at cards in their gloved hands. I didn’t see Tamara Diesel or Elwin Lucas among them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
Angélica gestured at the shelves on the other side of the cages and then at herself. I gave her a thumbs-up. “Wish me luck,” she whispered, barely making a sound, and jumped.
One blink later, she was perched on the shelves above Kiki’s cage. I gave her a little salute and began to climb down, ducking back among the crates to stay out of sight. The top two shelves proved a cinch, but right as I arrived near the bottom shelf, my boot scuffled off a loose board.
I watched it fall toward Shark-Man’s cage in horror.
For as much as we made fun of the man in gray who protected San Francisco, he definitely had superior reflexes. He stuck his arm out of the cage and caught the board before it could clatter to the ground. His eyes, an unnatural shade of red, looked up and met mine where I was dangling from a shelf ten feet up.
Neither of us breathed.
A villain in an oversized blue parka threw his cards down on the table. Across the shelves, I could see Angélica gawking at us. Shark-Man’s movement had drawn the attention of Windrider, Sam, and Kiki, too. Jessie continued to meditate. I waved frantically at the others and they did their best to resume acting naturally.
“I fold,” the villain said, and all of the heroes in the cages and I let out a breath as one.
Shark-Man carefully set the board down as I scurried to the bottom level. “Who’re you?” he hissed, turning back around to face forward.
“Not important. Take this.” I shoved the first vial of the antidote through the bars.
“I’m not drinking something from a stranger,” he said.
“As nice as it is to see lessons learned in kindergarten stuck, do you want your powers back or not?” I asked, watching the poker game and waiting for one of them to look up and notice me skulking behind the cage.
Shark-Man’s entire body jolted. Eagerly, he turned and reached for the vial.
“Not yet,” I said, though I handed it over. “Wait for the distraction.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of red by Sam’s cage that had to be Angélica sneaking away, too. Sam, in the original War Hammer armor—apparently he’d kept it, after all—tilted his head back and swigged the antidote in one gulp.
Unfortunately, our luck ran out at that precise moment. As he lowered the vial, Tamara Diesel rounded the corner. She drew up short. “Where did you get that? What is it?”
A yank of her hand and the vial flew across the space, landing in her palm.
Sam stared defiantly at her for all of a split second before he collapsed onto the floor of his cage, coughing and convulsing the way Guy had. Angélica decided this was a moment to take advantage of: she sprang at Tamara.
“On second thought,” I said to Shark-Man, “new plan. Drink it now.”
“But—” He waved at Sam, who was writhing at the bottom of his cage. He had a point, but I was a little distracted by the poker players surging to their feet.
“Just do it!” I jumped off the shelf, ran across the top of Shark-Man’s cage, and launched myself after Angélica. The fighting wasn’t supposed to begin until Sam’s powers were back, but there wasn’t any way I was letting Angélica face Tamara and her goons alone.
I landed on the balls of my feet and rolled, trying to jump up and knock Tamara’s feet out from under her. She swept out an arm, flicking me away like a particularly annoying gnat. The telekinetic force sent me sliding toward the rent-a-villains racing at us. I scrambled to my feet. Crap. I hadn’t even delivered the antidote to Jessie and I was supposed to be finding and rescuing Elwin Lucas, not fighting off lower-tier henchmen. But needs must, I supposed.
They piled on, trying to overwhelm me with sheer numbers. I knocked the first man over with a jab to the solar plexus before he could get his arms around me, kicked the second in the crotch, and phased, smashing my elbow into the third one’s neck, all within the space of a few heartbeats. Unfortunately, the fourth fighter proved faster than I had anticipated. Her haymaker caught me on the chin. I stumbled back, head ringing and my chin a white-hot point of pain.
She swung again at the same time as an invisible force shoved
against my side, flinging me across the open space in the center of the warehouse. My back slammed solidly into the bars of Jessie’s cage. Tamara Diesel, who’d hit me, started to advance on me, only to be knocked to the side by a red blur. She let out a roar and chased after Angélica.
A second later, I felt something tug on the utility pouch at my hip and Jessie yanked out a small gray disc no bigger than a quarter. She slapped it over the lock on her cage. “Perfect, just what I needed. Much obliged.”
I blinked at her in a daze. The reek of burning metal filled the air. “So you like the uniform?” she asked.
“Wh-what?” I asked.
“Looks like Audra got your measurements right. Also, you might want to duck,” she said.
I obeyed. My opponent howled as his fist clanged solidly into the bars of the cage, and I used the distraction to drive my shoulder into his stomach, tackling him back. We toppled to the ground and I grappled for purchase. Just one solid punch and I could end this problem, I knew, but that was easier said than done when he was fighting back just as hard.
I could see a red blur darting around the edges of my vision, no doubt Angélica attempting to draw Tamara’s fire and distract her from the fact that Sam, Kiki, and Windrider were all coughing as the antidote worked away. I risked a glance at Shark-Man: he lay in a gray ball on the bottom of his cage.
My opponent seized the opportunity and tried to lever his hands around my neck. I blocked him with my elbow and kneed him hard in the balls. When he curled up like a shrimp, I finally landed the punch that knocked him out.
An instant later, a pop shook the floor around me and sparks skittered at the edge of my vision. I gaped at the smoking remains of Jessie’s cage door. “Thanks for the assist,” she said, shoving it open. She grabbed the pouch from my belt and hooked it to her own. “Now get the hell out. I’ll handle Diesel.”
I scrabbled for the vial still in the slot in my sleeve. “Wait—the antidote—”
“I’ll be fine. Go.” She ran to join Angélica as the door burst open and a green-and-black blur sped inside, followed by Scorch, who spewed flame every which way. No wonder Guy hadn’t shown up on cue. I could see Sam rising to his feet, the coughing spell over and his powers obviously returned, which meant I had other priorities. Angélica would assist Jessie and spirit Kiki away to safety, but my priority was to find Elwin Lucas.
Seeing no sign of him, I decided my best bet was the way I’d seen Tamara enter. She had to be coming from somewhere. Hopefully it wasn’t the bathroom. I phased my way across the open space to avoid getting hit by any of the heroes and villains crowding on the dance floor. The sound of explosions followed me, which told me Jessie was having a blast.
Tamara had emerged from a door that led down a set of stairs to some kind of basement beneath the warehouse. Instantly, foreboding set in. The walls were scratched and dirty with age and neglect, giving the whole thing a very horror-movie feel. I crept down a rickety set of wooden stairs lit by a single uncovered bulb with a flickering yellow filament. Fighting upstairs rattled the floor, covering any sound that anybody would make. Dampness clung persistently to the air and it smelled of rot. But underneath that was a very familiar scent that I wouldn’t be able to smell ever again without thinking of Vicki’s stricken look as the last of her fire died.
Apricots.
Whatever was down here, it was chock-full of Demobilizer.
“This is just awesome,” I said, thinking of the lair under the business park where Elwin had kept Mobius captive. I reached the bottom step and found a long cinder block hallway awaiting me. It reminded me of something from one of Jeremy’s video games, which he’d cheerfully liked to call “the creepy-ass murder hallway.”
Overhead, something boomed, shaking the floor and sending little curls of dirt raining down from the ceiling. I headed down the hallway at a faster clip. It occurred to me that with the battle for good and evil going on over my head, I was in as much danger from the ceiling caving in as I was from whatever lay ahead. What a cheerful thought.
I reached the end of the hallway and leaned around the blind corner to check. I got the impression of a mad scientist lab: desks full of complicated machines, beakers with bright multicolored liquid, chalkboards full of formulae, an operating table.
Brook.
She stood in the middle of the room, wearing the clothes I’d last seen her in. She spotted me and her eyes went wide. Before I could lunge, though, something on my left moved. I felt a sharp prick of pain in the side of my neck and thought, Oh, shit.
CHAPTER 22
The stab to my neck felt like a needle—I’d had far too much experience with those over the years not to recognize one right away—so I jumped back immediately. Before it even connected that I’d just been dosed with something, I was already mid-punch. My fist drove right into cartilage and flesh.
I heard an enraged yowl. Elwin Lucas hopped back, dropping a syringe on the ground. Blood gushed past the hands he’d slapped over his nose. I grabbed him by the collar of his lab coat and yanked him down to my level. “What did you just do to me?” I asked.
He looked absolutely terrified for a split second. The blood dripping off of his jaw and onto his polo shirt helped sell the impression. Until my fingers began to tingle. It spread like wildfire, racing up my arms, pinpricks that covered my chest and neck, gathering behind my cheeks and my forehead. Everything in the room promptly lost all sense of permanence, melting and warping together into some kind of nightmare. Nausea sprang up to tango with the dizziness.
“What the hell?” I asked. When I tried to step forward, I lurched and hit the wall, pain singing up my arm. “What’s happening to—”
Far too late I realized it: Elwin had given me something that even the Mobium couldn’t combat. It was the last clear thought I had before an empty gray haze swept in over the limbs-falling-asleep sensation covering every inch of my body. The last clear image I had was of Brook.
And the reinforced shackle chaining her to the workbench behind her.
Being the once and future Hostage Girl meant I’d woken up in a lot of strange places, usually in various states of debilitating pain and confusion. On operating tables, roped to lightning rods atop skyscrapers, dangling over pits of acid. There’d been one time with an active volcano that I wasn’t in any hurry to repeat ever.
But never on a street corner, and barely ever standing on my own two feet. Never standing on my own unassisted, at any rate. And sunshine was rare, too. Even though it was cold—and by that I meant cold. Suddenly I could experience every bit of November in Chicago that I hadn’t felt all month. I knew this should feel strange, but I didn’t know why.
I opened my eyes and immediately looked down at my hands. They shook with the cold, but there were no shackles.
The same could not be said for Brook.
Still confused and not sure why, I drank in the details: she stood in front of me, her hands bound together with regular handcuffs—something felt wrong about that, but I didn’t know what—and I was standing outside on a street corner I recognized downtown. There was slush and partially melted ice beneath my boots, and I was still in uniform. People walked by me as though this was completely normal.
I tried to speak, but all that emerged were slurred syllables that definitely weren’t English.
“One moment,” a voice behind me said. “I need to pay the driver.”
I turned my head, which seemed to sap most of my energy, and saw Elwin Lucas handing a few bills through the passenger window of a cab.
When I turned back, Brook was glaring at me. “His serum counteracts the Mobium. You’ll never be able to fight him off. Not without passing out.”
Shit. Brook took a step back as Elwin took his change from the cabbie. The driver shot me a strange look and pulled away from the curb. Elwin Lucas, who’d ditched his lab coat and
whose nose looked red and puffy, stepped over to Brook and me. Something inside me struggled, like I wanted to fight him, but my body stood there uselessly. I could taste a pervasive sense of wrongness. Whatever Elwin had given me, it overpowered everything else. I felt like a mindless drone, trapped in syrup.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Elwin said. He looked at Brook, whose jaw had clenched even tighter. Her dark eyes were promising a great deal more murder than I found comfortable, given my proximity and the fact that my limbs did not seem interested in cooperating with the rest of me.
“Go to hell,” I said, surprised the words came out coherently.
Elwin grabbed my elbow, giving me no choice but to begin walking, though the very action alone made me dizzy. We were heading toward the Willis Tower, I realized vaguely. The chemical in my blood counteracting the Mobium made it difficult to stay on my feet, much less try to talk, but Elwin pulled me along at a good clip, Brook following behind us. My teeth began to chatter.
Elwin pulled me into the lobby and to the bank of elevator bays, flashing a white badge at the security guards. Though there were people around, he yanked me close to his side and I smelled the faint remnants of the apricot scent on him under a healthy layer of fear-sweat. Whatever he was doing right now, he was almost out of his mind with terror.
In the elevator, he pressed the button for the forty-seventh floor. He was marching me directly into Davenport. Well, that took a certain amount of nerve.
The three of us had the elevator to ourselves. Elwin turned the front of his body away from the security camera in the corner and subtly lifted up the corner of his shirt. I saw the matte-black flash of gun handle and wanted to close my eyes. “You’re a returning hero bringing back a prisoner and a scientist you captured,” he said. “Deviate from the plan or try to signal anybody, and I shoot Ms. Gianelli. I’m very fast, you know. I spent a lot of time in the Lodi gun range.”
I wanted to despair. All my superpowers, and I was being brought down by a gun.
