by Katie Allen
“It’s so fucking funny when shit gets thrown at my head,” Ari grumbled as he took her arm and tugged her toward three empty chairs on the end of the table closest to the fireplace. “I’d like to see how funny you think it is when you assholes have shit thrown at you.”
Apparently, they thought it’d be pretty hilarious, judging by the laughter that broke free from almost everyone else at the table. Lauren was even smirking as she headed toward the door to the kitchen with Calvin in tow. They emerged carrying pans of lasagna that smelled amazing. Daphne felt her mouth start to water.
“This one,” Lauren held up the pan she was carrying, “is spinach and zucchini, and that one,” she jerked her head toward Cal’s pan, “is sausage for all you whiny, nutrient-deficient, non-veggie eaters.”
Once they’d put the pans on the table, they retrieved garlic bread and big bowls of salad before taking their seats.
“I love Lauren’s night to cook,” Darwin said, digging out a big serving of the sausage lasagna. “Can we vote to have Lauren take Ed’s cooking night, too?”
Ed shrugged. “Fine with me.”
“I try to help,” Claire said mournfully, “but it’s like he’s cooking-challenged. Everything he touches turns to carbon.”
Lauren shook her head, mock-fighting Cal for a piece of garlic bread. “No way. I like Ed having a night. Makes you guys appreciate me.”
“Can’t really appreciate you if we’re dead from food poisoning.” Darwin sent a pointed glance at Ed, who just shrugged again, not seeming to care too much about the disparagement of his cooking skills.
As the others talked, Ari was filling both his and Daphne’s plates. Distracted by the conversation, she didn’t realize how much food he’d given her until she glanced down and saw her heaping portions.
“That’s too much,” she protested, but A just shook his head.
“I’ll finish what you don’t,” he said. Benjy, on her other side, reached over and snagged a piece of garlic bread from her plate. He ate half of it in a single bite and grinned at her, telling her without words that he’d help her with clean-plate patrol too.
She rolled her eyes and smacked Ari’s hand as he reached for her other piece of garlic bread. “Let me eat something before you start taking food off my plate.”
He pouted. It was a manly pout, but definitely a pout. “You let B take a piece.”
“That’s because I actually like Benjy.”
When the whole table laughed, Daphne realized everyone had been listening to their conversation. She blushed.
“You seem like you’re...ah, feeling better,” the guy sitting next to Darwin said. “Better than this morning, I mean.”
He offered her a sweet smile that showed off his dimples, and she blinked at him, struck for a moment by how pretty he was. She jumped when Ari poked her. When she looked at him in surprise, he was glowering at her.
“What was that for?” she asked, rubbing her arm, but he just continued to frown.
Rolling her eyes, she turned back to Dimples. “I am, thanks. I’m still hoping to catch a ride back to Denver though.” When she looked around the table, everyone dropped their gazes, staring at their plates as if the lasagna was fascinating. She sighed and took a bite of bread.
She had to hold back a moan of pleasure. The garlic bread tasted amazing. She suddenly regretted letting Benjy steal a piece.
“Tom’s taken,” Ari muttered in her ear. “And gay.”
Still caught up in the wonderful food filling her mouth, she said, “What?” She was immediately embarrassed by the food-muffled word. She might not be at this table willingly, but that was no excuse for disgusting manners. She swallowed and tried again, this time with her mouth food-free. “What?”
“Tom.” He tipped his head toward Dimples as Darwin grinned and stretched an arm over the other man’s shoulders. “Taken and gay.”
“He sure is,” Darwin said with smug satisfaction. “And he sure is.”
“Tom.” She finally made the connection. “Darwin’s boyfriend.”
“Exactly,” Ari muttered. He chewed as if he was mad at his food.
She grinned at D. “Nice.”
While A snarled to her left and Tom turned bright red, Darwin burst out laughing. “Agreed.”
Looking around the table, she confirmed the other match. “So you and Cal?” she asked Lauren, who nodded. Claire had already said she was with Ed, so Daphne didn’t need to ask.
“How long have you all been here?” she asked between bites. Despite some of their quirks, everyone seemed so nice—well, everyone except crabby-faced Ari. Sitting around the table with them, eating delicious food, it was hard for her to remember she wasn’t a willing guest.
“Ari and B bought the place—what? Almost four months ago now?” Darwin explained, helping himself to more lasagna. “The rest of us are pretty recent transplants. We were spread around the country, but we all came running here when everything started crashing down on our heads.”
Daphne gave him a curious look, wanting to know more.
“The lab assholes tracked us down, one by one,” Cal offered. “Ed got his picture on the news, and Darwin’s fucking prints were run in NCIC.”
Although her voice was sugary sweet, Lauren’s grin was full of mischief. “Sweetie-pie, you didn’t mention how they found you.”
Calvin’s glare made Daphne shrink back in her seat, and it wasn’t even directed at her. All Lauren did was laugh. When Daphne looked around the table, she saw everyone else was grinning, except for quiet Ed, and even he looked amused in a poker-faced kind of way.
“I’m going to share if you don’t,” Lauren told a glowering Cal. When he didn’t break his sullen silence, she shrugged and turned to Daphne. “His picture—”
Cal clapped a hand over Lauren’s mouth, and the rest of her words became a muffled mumble. “My picture was on the website of the company where we worked.”
“And why was your picture on the site?” Darwin asked innocently, although Daphne could tell by his expression that he’d already heard the details of this story.
“Fuck off, D.”
Lauren managed to pry Cal’s hand far enough away from her mouth to rush out the words “He was employee of the month!” before his hand covered her lips again.
“Just wait ’til I get you alone tonight,” he growled.
His fingers muffled whatever she said in response, but Daphne was guessing it was something sexy, judging by the way his expression heated and softened at the same time. She watched the two of them as Cal replaced his hand with his lips, giving her a short but super-hot-looking kiss.
Looking back on her relationship with Brett, she felt really stupid. They’d never had that kind of chemistry—or any kind, really. She’d thought that he was being a gentleman by never taking things past kissing, but now she realized how naïve she’d been. He’d been handsome and charming and attentive, but she’d never felt a pressing desire to take things further with him. Judging by the way they were staring at each other, Cal and Lauren had probably not gotten past their first date without tearing off each other’s clothes. She sighed, wondering if any man would ever feel that way about her—like he’d die if he didn’t get into her pants immediately.
Shaking off her dreary thoughts, she noticed everyone was looking at her. “What?”
“I just asked what your specialization was.” Claire shot Ari a pointed look, similar to the many she’d sent his way during their time in the lab that afternoon. “Aristotle didn’t share his research into your background.”
Daphne opened her mouth to answer the question, but then something Claire said belatedly registered. “Your name is Aristotle?”
He shrugged. “I wanted to go with Adam, but the guys thought Aristotle was funnier.”
“Oh.” With
a shake of her head, she looked at Claire. “Most of my patients are recent stroke victims.”
“Really?” Claire leaned forward, her eyes alight. “Do you think B stopped talking because of physical trauma? Because I...” She trailed off when Benjy put his water glass down with a hard thunk, splashing a little over the side. “Sorry, B.” She made an apologetic face and shrugged. “I got excited. You know I can’t help myself once I start babbling about these things. Science talk is my kryptonite.”
His hard gaze softened as he lifted his chin slightly in apparent acceptance of her apology. Daphne watched him, her curiosity engaged. What was keeping Benjy silent? He met her gaze and smiled just a little, mischief lighting his hazel eyes. He held her captive with just a look, and she felt herself start blushing for some reason that she didn’t want to define. When she finally was able to tear her eyes from his, she dropped her gaze to her plate, flustered.
The rest of her last piece of garlic bread was missing.
“Thief!” she gasped, her head whipping back around in time to see the entire piece of her garlic bread disappearing into Benjy’s grinning mouth. She lifted her fork threateningly and he leaped out of his chair, darting behind her and putting Ari between them.
“Don’t expect me to save you,” Ari grumbled. “That was my piece of garlic bread.”
“No, it was mine!” Daphne lunged around A with the fork upraised, heading for a silently laughing Benjy, who was still chewing his contraband. Ari’s arm caught her around the middle, pulling her into his body until she was trapped in his lap, her back against his chest. He gently yet firmly de-forked her.
“Bloodthirsty wench,” Darwin said admiringly. “I like it.”
Claire was eyeing her thoughtfully. “You’re really forgiving,” she said, although not in a judgmental way. “I think I’m angrier at A than you are.”
Realizing that she’d relaxed against Ari, Daphne stiffened and tried to stand. Two arms of steel held her in place. She twisted her head so she could look pointedly at Ari and then down at his constraining arms. He smirked and glanced at Benjy, who’d returned to his chair.
“Let me go. I won’t hurt him...much,” she amended when she remembered just how good that garlic bread had tasted.
With an amused snort, Ari loosened his grip. She escaped his hold, hoping that the others would attribute her red cheeks to exertion and anger, instead of the odd feelings that had washed over her while she’d sat in A’s lap. She took her seat and fussed with her napkin just to have something to do with her hands.
“I know I’m not a very good kidnapping victim,” she said, responding belatedly to Claire’s comment. “It’s just really hard to not like you guys. Even him.” She jerked her head in Ari’s direction without looking at him.
“They’re stupidly irresistible, aren’t they?” Lauren asked, sending a sideways glance at Cal, who reached over and squeezed her thigh.
“Although I don’t agree with kidnapping people willy-nilly—”
“Willy-nilly?” Ari interrupted, looking offended. “There was no willy-nilly. You were the only one I took.”
“I do understand that your intentions were good,” she said as if Ari hadn’t spoken. “The problem is that I don’t have the resources here to do my job. Without medical and psychological tests, I don’t even know if I’m the right person to help Benjy. If I can’t help him, I’m really no use to you all. I’d end up helping Claire blow up things in the lab.”
Claire’s face lit with excitement. “That’d be great! We could—” She broke off when Ed leaned in and said a few quiet words in her ear. Whatever he said to her made her lip slide out into a pout. “Well, shoot. It would’ve been fun to have a partner in explosives. Lauren tried, but...” She made a face and then shot an apologetic look at Lauren.
“I was useless,” Lauren freely admitted. “I almost killed us several times, and Claire wasn’t even working on anything explosive—anything that should have blown up, anyway. I’ve been banned from the lab.”
“What if we sent you back to Denver?” Darwin held up a hand when Ari started to stand, obviously about to protest. “We could get you the MRIs you need, you could consult with the doctors you need to consult, and then you could come here afterward to work with B?”
Ari opened his mouth, but Cal spoke before he could. “That’s a shit plan. Having Daphne drive here, what—a couple times a week? It’d be too easy for someone to follow her. Besides, it’s a long-ass drive.”
“I don’t want MRIs of B’s head floating around a herd of doctors out there either,” Ari said.
“MRIs are just a small piece of the puzzle,” Daphne objected. “He needs a full medical workup, psych tests, language tests—why can’t you bring him to Denver?”
“Cameras.” Everyone looked at Ed when he spoke.
“He’s right,” Ari said when it was clear that Ed wasn’t going to elaborate on his one-word contribution to the discussion. “Multiple trips into Denver every week—that’s like sending the lab assholes a fucking map with a big red X stamped on our location.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do about that?” Daphne asked.
All the faces around the table were blank with confusion until Darwin finally said, “About what?”
“The evil villains chasing you,” she said, a little frustrated by this conversation that seemed to go around and around, getting nowhere. “Can’t you expose them or stop them somehow? Why are they able to keep you against your will and experiment on you?”
Lauren bumped Calvin’s shoulder with her fist. “See? Even the new girl wants a long-term plan.” She turned to Daphne. “We’re trying to figure out a way to end this—the running and hiding and all that—without exposing what the guys can do. We don’t want to get rid of one threat and end up with ten new ones, all wanting to use the guys’ superpowers.”
Cal rolled his eyes. “They’re not fucking superpowers, Laur.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes right back at him. “Your Bionic Man abilities, then.”
“But wouldn’t exposure help you?” Daphne asked. “If people know about you, wouldn’t it make it harder for these lab guys to make you disappear?”
Lauren nodded. “Sure, but if everyone knew what these men can do, they’d all want a piece of the Wonder Boys.”
Cal winced. “Worst fucking nickname ever, babe.”
“What if,” Daphne said thoughtfully, “you could get rid of the lab guys without exposing what the Wonder Boys could do?”
“No.”
Everyone looked at Calvin.
“That’s not going to happen. We’re not going to be called the mother-humping Wonder Boys. Laur, I fucking blame you for this.”
She just grinned at him and patted his leg. “Stay on track, sweet pea. What were you thinking, Daphne?”
“Sorry, but I don’t really have a solid plan.” She made a self-deprecating face. “I’m kind of talking as I think.”
“We could blow up the lab,” Ari said, and Daphne sent him a sidelong look. He sounded a little too excited about possible carnage and flying body parts.
Darwin shook his head. “We’d just be popping the zit on the nose, rather than blowing off the entire face.”
“What?” Tom was staring at him with a look of disgusted fascination. “And gross.”
“I think you got a little mixed-up in your metaphor,” Claire told Darwin before looking thoughtful. “Or would that be an analogy?”
Ari groaned. “It’s like trying to herd a bunch of fucking feral ADHD cats with you people. Explain the zit thing, D.”
“The big players don’t hang out at the lab. Even Dr. K spent most of her time elsewhere. All we’d accomplish by blowing it up would be to maybe make them backtrack a little. The research is backed up remotely, scientists are a dime a dozen—sorry
, Claire—”
She shrugged. “It’s pretty much true. Too many of us are amoral bastards, too.”
Darwin snorted a laugh before he continued, “And the equipment can be replaced. The only thing they can’t replace is us.”
“Why not?” Daphne asked.
There was silence as everyone stared at her in dawning horror.
“A and Benjy were in that lab for over two years,” Darwin finally said slowly, carefully, as if he were feeling his way with words. “Cal was there for nearly that long. They wouldn’t want to start from scratch if there’s a chance they can bring us back. Too much time and money have been invested in us.”
“If the shitheads already picked up a new bunch of lab rats, why would they be chasing us so fucking hard?” Calvin asked.
“Maybe they’re plan B? The new bunch of lab rats, I mean,” Lauren suggested timidly.
“If that’s true, if there are more guys getting their heads fucked with, we have to get them out of there,” Ed said, once again bringing everyone’s attention to him when he broke his habitual silence.
“Whoa.” Ari lifted his hands, palms out in a “stop” gesture. “Hold up. We don’t even know if they brought anyone else into the lab after we left. We need to stick with what we know are facts.”
“It’s something to consider though,” Darwin said. “We have to make sure those assholes are stopped. We’re free—well, free-ish—but I couldn’t sleep at night knowing some other poor bastard has taken my place in that hellhole.”
Ed gave a short nod, his clenched fists relaxing a little as Claire stroked his arm.
“So how do we shut those bastards down for good?” Cal was up and pacing the long side of the table.
“Take away the money,” Claire suggested. “If the funding’s gone, that’ll kill the whole project.”
Darwin frowned. “Not to be a Debbie Downer here, but if we cut off one source of money, it won’t be hard for them to find another. Think about it—not only would people want to use us, they’d want to be us. How many people wouldn’t pay a fortune to have superpowers?”
