by Angel Payne
“Airplane?” Her comment whams me with so much adrenaline, even I’m able to surge to my feet in two seconds. “Holy shit, Dee Dee. I think you’re right.” I’m close enough to read the small print from several of the boxes. “HF antenna. Landing lights. Engine sync switch. Spoiler lever.” I look back to her, unsure what to do with my new recognition. “So…”
“They’ve got us stowed at an airport,” she finishes, dropping into one of the spare seats. “Likely Teterboro, which is why we don’t hear anything. They have a noise abatement rule in the middle of the night.”
I drop into the seat opposite her. “Says the girl who paid attention to pillow talk when she was bonking a pilot.”
She twists her bow-shaped lips, which are still a flawless shade of some bold red. “You and Reece are determined to give me the squeebs about the pillow talk thing tonight, aren’t you?”
As soon as his name leaves her lips, my chest twists more painfully than barbed wire on a zombie hunter’s bat. I don’t even try to hide the resulting wince. “Right now, I’d give both my nipples for a chance to share any pillow talk with him again.”
She draws in a harsh breath. “Sorry, baby girl. I didn’t mean to…”
“I know you didn’t,” I return. “But if you really want me to start talking, then that means bringing him up, doesn’t it?”
She replies with a stretch of silence—unless the gears whirring in her head can count as legitimate sound. That hum is followed by the click of inevitable conclusions notching into place.
“So,” she finally utters, already sounding stunned. “He really does have”—she shakes her head, eyes bulging wide—“superpowers.”
I let my head fall back again. The headrest of the old seat is a hell of a lot better than the wall, though that doesn’t make this part any easier. “Yeah. He’s really and truly…enhanced.”
“Enhanced?” she laugh-sputters. “Em, your boyfriend shot lightning out of his fingertips and took down seven bad guys by himself. He’s…he’s like Voldemort, with a nose. A really nice nose. And better biceps. And that hair…”
“Behave.” I stab out a finger but keep my head lolled.
“But honey, his hair needs its own Snapchat.”
“You want the whole story or not?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She pushes her knees together and digs one stiletto heel into the floor, biting her bottom lip in an expression that’s uniquely hers. At least I don’t know anyone else who can say I’m sorry and fuck you with the same glance.
After a long inhalation, I finally lift my head and fully meet her gaze. “So the story we’ve been telling the world isn’t exactly true.”
My sister’s nod is swift but accepting. “Meaning there’s no Richards Research that’s exploring energy displacement and maneuverability?”
“Well, there is a Richards Research. And all the bio-electric theories are part of its research.” I lean forward a little, copying her compressed knees, beyond thankful that it helps pacify the bull sitting on my bladder.
“Only that’s not everything they do.”
She says it with another serious nod, and once more I emulate her. “The company provides a front for what Reece is really up to.”
“Which has something to do with that bitch in the bad frock and her nasty-ass goons?”
I groan, dropping my head, as we dissolve into mutual giggles. “Speaking of bitches, nothing south of my waist agrees to speak to you again.”
“And I care about that part of you why?” Before I can summon a decent comeback, she prods, “All right. Moving on. So…Reece and these assholes have some unfinished business…”
At first, I field that by teeter-tottering my head. “Depends on who you ask.”
Her gaze narrows. “But Reece has formed an entirely new company and put a false story over on the whole world, just to cover his connection to this group.”
“‘Connection’ isn’t quite how I’d phrase it.”
“Okay. Enlighten me.” Only my sister could lean back like that, still in cuffs, and look as breezy as if she’s asking me about the bad sandwich again. “How would you phrase it?”
A perfect answer bursts at once to my mind, but I take another beat to really consider it. Realizing my first instinct was right, I give up just one syllable.
“War.”
Well, that succeeds in melting Lydia’s chillax. She sits forward, her gaze turning the dark Atlantic blue that at once tells any observer about the depths of her concentration. My sister can don a lampshade and nail a night of beer pong with the best of them, but when she decides it’s time to get war-room serious, Pentagon generals would probably tell her to lighten up.
“War,” she repeats, her tone just as businesslike. I can’t say the same for the heavy rush of a breath she pushes out after that, as if she just ate the bad sandwich and is about to be sick from it. “Because…these are the bastards who made him that way?”
I spare her the doleful nod. She reads it in my gaze already, in the awesome way sisters have of doing those things. “They call themselves the Consortium. It sounds daunting because it is. Though on paper they’re just a bunch of scientists with some crazy ideas about the next stage of human evolution, their devotion to it is nothing short of religious zeal.”
Her nose wrinkles. “You mean like a cult?”
“I mean like a bunch of genius lunatics with a lot of effing money to play with.”
She gulps. “So, a dangerous cult.”
Once again, I debate the information I should share with her—until realizing what she already knows is a giant slab of holy shit. Adding some catsup to that order isn’t going to change the weight of the patty. “You remember, almost a couple of years ago now, when Reece went on that party boy bender for a few months? How he was seemingly at every rager from Ibiza to London, even when the travel details didn’t make sense?”
Lydia shrugs. “Don’t know anyone on the planet who wouldn’t. It was a little surreal.”
“Because it was,” I fill in. “Surreal, I mean. Actually, it was unreal. All of it.”
“Huh?” But after I supply the rest of the story, about how the Consortium manipulated existing images of Reece and then fed them to the press to create the illusion that the world’s favorite bad boy was sowing wilder oats than usual, all while they were pouring liquid electricity into his veins, the expression on my sister’s face quickly mutates. Confusion. Astonishment. Shock. Horror. Then outright fury. “Holy. Fuck,” she finally murmurs. “No wonder Reece wants his ten pounds of flesh from those monsters.”
Heavy sigh. “If only it were that simple.” I jog my chin up, trying to find at least a little sarcasm to work into all this. “Vendettas can be mellowed with a few trips to a good therapist.”
Lydia’s stare intensifies. “But there’s more?” Then her eyes bug wide again. “Holy shit. There really is more, isn’t there? The ones who didn’t make it out, like him. Wait.” She keeps the gawk wide. “How did he make it out? Wait.” And, unbelievably, she stares with more awe. “Crap, crap, crap. He escaped somehow, didn’t he? And Maleficent and her crew did not like that. And now they want him back.”
The whole time she speaks, I do nothing to dispute her. Now, after a long sigh, I finally answer with a knowing nod. “Now you know why I called it war.”
With terrifying timing, the word on my lips acts like an ignition switch on the air.
At once, every inch of concrete around us seems to tremble from a distant blast. Then a not-so-distant one. Even through the thick walls, we can hear shouts, bellows, and the thunder of hustling feet. Lydia and I add our own frantic steps to the mix, jerking out of the seats as if we synchronized the move.
“Shit.” Fear drenches her voice again.
“About says it all.” My attempt at a deadpan is a miserable failure.
“Wh-What’s going on?”
I shake my head, indicating I’m just as clueless, but keep the rest of my assumption to myself.
/> This is either really good or really bad.
When the beep of a key card precedes the sudden sweep of the storage room’s door, I hate how my mind takes a turn for the latter—and how that instinct is confirmed when the Salma Hayek doppelgänger strides back in, her old lady gown replaced by a black turtleneck, skintight pants, and red thigh-high boots. She looks over us both from head to toe. After a second, she sniffs and jogs her head. I’m baffled about what that means, other than the fact that I now, officially, feel like a slab of meat.
“Follow me,” she commands. “It is time for you to serve your purpose.”
As ’Dia and I huddle together, jabbed forward by the barrels of her henchmen’s rifles, my sister rasps frantically, “What the hell does that mean?”
I manage a quick shrug but again keep quiet about the follow-throughs. Because the truth is, I have a pretty good idea of what she means.
We’re being used as bait.
And now, as the bitch has anticipated, Reece has arrived to bite on it…
A scenario that, no matter how many different ways I run it in my head, is going to end up with somebody getting hurt.
Somebody I love.
War isn’t hell.
It’s worse.
REECE
“Well, that’s one way of saying hello.”
Foley’s derogatory drawl has edges as sharp as the glass doors I’ve just blasted apart with the sweep of my hand, removing the barrier between the lobby of the Teterboro luxury jet company and its adjoining hangar. I roll a glare his way, but only for a second. “Did you honestly think we could Zero Dark Thirty this? You told me yourself that locking down Emma’s phone was painfully easy. Now we’re here, with this place lit up so bright everyone on fucking Mars can see it.”
From the front seat, Big Guy Kane twists his head with a deep grunt—the first sound he’s made since his muttered greeting when we first got into the truck. “Sorry, Folic. Point goes to Bolt on this one.” He swivels his sights back to the front window. “These bastards all but rolled out the red carpet.”
Foley fumes to the point of being audible about it. “So we’re supposed to take them up on it, then? Give them exactly what they want?”
“What they want is me,” I counter while retightening the straps of my vest one more time. “And if that’s what it’ll take to get Emma and Lydia out of their hands…” I meet his gaze steady and straight-on. “Then yeah, we give them what they want.”
A grating noise comes from the radio wedged into the console between the front seats. With our secure line still open, I feel confident that every man in the other vehicle has just clearly heard my directive—for the ninth time. Nevertheless, Runway’s voice crackles over the line, “Roger the prime objective. That being said, are we cleared to take first position?”
Colton, Kane, and myself swing our gazes to Foley. He nods, flashing me a fast glance of appreciation for the respect, before barking, “Affirmative. Time for the pretty boys to break out the ugly sticks.”
Before he’s finished with the direction, Archer has surged out of his Escalade, along with the two impressive soldiers from the back seat, whom I now know as Mitch and Alex. They take up defensive positions, automatic rifles on shoulders, behind the truck’s big doors. Through the open channel, we can hear their newly roughened breaths. They remain like that for the better part of a minute, deceivingly still. We’re close enough that I can observe the minute ticks of their heads while studying every inch of the building before us.
Like them, it’s a ruse of calm. I know it so completely because I can feel it. Because I know it. I feel and know her.
“She’s here.” I declare both syllables like I’ll die for them, because I will. I don’t stop to question the surety of it, pausing for just half a second to consider what it truly means. Two years ago, I’d go to movie premieres where pretty heads on big screens spouted this kind of shit, and I’d laugh in derision while secretly checking my texts. Now, I know I may not leave this airport alive—and I’ll willingly pay that price if it means Emmalina lives. “She’s here,” I repeat after several seconds’ worth of Foley’s inaction. “And she’s freezing. And furious. And terrified.” And yes, I’m as sure of all that as the breath I use to testify it. “And I’m going to go get her.”
The last line leaves me as a command from which I do not plan on backing down. I just pray to God—and yeah, I take a second to really follow through—that Foley and his wall of belligerence are ready to get on board with the plan.
“I’m coming as your cover. Kane, you’re with us too.”
Well, what about that. Prayers sometimes do make things better.
The three of us swing out of the car and fall naturally into a walking triangle, me at the top with Sawyer at the left corner and Kane on the right. With measured but quick steps, I lead the way toward the blasted-out lobby.
Halfway there, I’m hit by a fresh flood of sensations. Bone-chilling cold. Logic-stealing dread.
And heart-halting panic.
Fuck.
“Velvet,” I utter. “I’m on my way.”
My steps turn to stomps as I accelerate to a full run. I’m not above sending up another prayer, this time in gratitude, for the two men who keep pace with me without question, their feet making simultaneous crunches across the field of glass, until we’re all the way inside the building.
But there’s not a sliver of movement to greet us in the lobby either. The desks, all sleek white marble and custom steel accents, are all empty and tidy. A smooth jazz track plays through hidden speakers, glossy saxes and synthesizers backed by ocean waves.
New deception.
But coupled with a new hit of connection to Emma, it’s not amusing anymore.
It’s beginning to just piss me off.
“Faline!”
I push so much of myself into the roar, the air shudders.
In my periphery, Kane’s balance falters by a couple of inches. “Well, damn,” the guy murmurs.
“Now you know why I said he didn’t need a gun,” Foley utters.
There’s another long pause of cool sax and ocean sounds before a woman’s voice—her voice—singsongs through the air. “Darling! You made it!”
I roll my head and shoulders, releasing sparks of tension down through my arms and legs. Though the ends of my fingers start pulsing with blue light in time to my heartbeat, inciting more terse profanity from Kane, I’m not lighting up the night like normal. The drain of putting down the thieves at the gala, along with the terror of realizing my worst enemies abducted the love of my life, have turned my glow sticks into blue fireflies.
And if anyone should know that with glowing clarity, it’s the bitch who laughs softly at us from…
Where?
Faline’s provocative chuckle is everywhere and nowhere, seeming to dance on the air molecules themselves, taunting like we’ve blown on her giant, wicked dandelion. I show her exactly what I think of her poisoned spores by huffing hard at the shit and barreling forward, only to be stopped short by iron grips around both my biceps.
“Goddamnit.” I wrestle against Foley and Kane, unable to stop despite knowing the insanity. My battery’s already low, and I need the remaining charge for Emma.
Emma.
The second that truth—my only truth—sinks in, I sag and fall back. Then howl again, in place of zapping them both back out to the trucks. “I’ve had enough of this witch’s games!”
“So have I, man.” Foley wheels around, probably guessing my craving from the overall rise in my temperature, even through my leathers. “Believe me, so have I. But tearing half-cocked into a place this size would be an exercise in stupidity, even if you were operating at full juice.” He gives my arm a brutal shake, ordering from between his teeth, “You already know this, damn it.” He eases off on the hold as soon as I let my head plummet, abhorring the scraps we’re being made to follow like starving dogs, including how I can scent Emma’s dread on the air with freakishly
canine sensitivity.
Until the poisoned spore laugh floats out through the air again—interrupting itself only to croon, “Half-cocked? Oh, no, no, no. We cannot have that kind of nonsense, can we, Reece Richards?” Another noxious giggle. “You were always my full-cock man.”
“Shut up!”
As soon as Emma’s scream slices the air, I jerk free from Foley’s hold. “Emma!” I thunder back, using that same hook in my heart to be guided toward a door behind the check-in desk. Locked. Like that fucking matters. With a swipe of one hand, I whomp the whole thing off its hinges and stomp across the slab before it’s even done falling into the hallway beyond. I barely register Foley’s frustrated mutter and Kane’s impressed growl, all my senses consumed with the growing heat of her in all my fibers. The rising certainty of her in my psyche. The swelling connection to her in my spirit…
Including her terror.
“Reece!”
The same shit her cry is dunked in now.
“Emma?”
I clear the long passage in two seconds. At the end, there’s another door. I blow it clear without bothering to check the lock. Just beyond, a wide stairway—but unpassable due to the pile of discarded plane parts stacked on top of it.
“The fuck?” Kane skids to a stop at my right shoulder. “Who uses a stairwell as storage?”
“They don’t.” Foley, leaning over from my left, shakes his head. “This was put here on purpose—to slow you or to test you.”
“Makes sense.” Kane takes in the heap of tangled metal piled at least five feet high by twenty feet long. “Can’t see any cameras, but that doesn’t mean they’re not watching.”
I grunt, acknowledging what they’re both trying to say. No matter how it’s phrased, the end result isn’t changed. We’re still rats in the maze—and the cheese is still on the other side of this fucking mess.
I ball my fingers into fists and the heat builds beneath them, straining my veins and shrieking through my muscles, until the pressure pops and sizzles and ignites. When I extend the digits again, they’ve become electric blowtorches.
