Villainous

by Brand, Kristen

  I dove into her mind, and reading her thoughts was as easy as breathing. I saw it all: the drop-off point was a parking lot behind an abandoned strip mall, and there was a truck that brought the psyc and rules about how many men she was allowed to bring. This was the information I needed, but it wouldn’t mean a damn thing if I couldn’t get back to my body to make use of it. Where was I? The passenger seat was empty in Mary’s peripheral vision, and she had no sense of someone lying in the back seat.

  She’d put me in the trunk.

  That bitch.

  I tried to connect with my body but still couldn’t feel anything. What if I couldn’t make it back? What if there was no way to? Psyc had lethal side effects. This could be how it killed people.

  No. Screw that. If there was no way back, then I’d make my own. I imagined what my body must feel like. It would be hot in the trunk, stuffy, and my arms and legs would be cramped. My skin would be sticky with sweat, and if Mary had tied me up, something would be digging into my wrists. Come on. How hard could this be? I knew my body. It wasn’t as young as it used to be, but it was strong and sexy, and most importantly, it was mine.

  I fell. Or it felt like I fell, but it was like falling in a dream. When I hit the earth, I woke up, jerked, and hit my head on the top of the trunk.

  My head pounded. Lots of parts of my body pounded. Or ached. Or felt a stabbing pain. My ribs, chest, and back hurt every time I breathed. Mary had really vented some aggression on me. It was almost enough to make me wish I hadn’t made it back to my body, after all. And to add insult to injury, I could still hear the sound of her off-key singing, muffled but audible from the front of the car. It made me want to dislocate her jaw.

  Plan revenge later. Get out of the trunk now.

  I opened my eyes, but darkness met me. Fine. Trunks were dark. And even hotter and stuffier than in my imagination. My arms were tingly and numb, but I could move them. She hadn’t tied me up, which was terribly careless of her. I reached out telepathically—

  “Aw, shit!”

  I grabbed the sides of my head and squeezed my eyes shut. My headache had gone from painful to excruciating in the space of an instant. I curled up and sucked in breath through my clenched teeth, but there was nothing to do but ride it out. Eventually, the pain subsided, leaving me panting. So no telepathy for a while. This day was turning out to be all sorts of fun.

  I groped around, my fingers searching the edge of the trunk for a handle or lever. If Mary’s car was new enough, it would have some kind of release designed for people trapped inside; it was the law. But after a minute of running my hands over every available surface and feeling nothing even remotely handle-like, I gave up. Mary might be careless enough to leave me untied, but evidently, she wasn’t stupid enough to leave me an easy way out. Too bad.

  I leaned my head back against the rough carpet, letting my body rest for a moment as I caught my breath. Sweat dripped down my forehead and cheeks, and my skirt stuck to my damp legs. I’d pay a million dollars to feel a cool breeze on my face just for a second. Was there any way for fresh air to get in here? It felt so hot and stuffy. How long before I used up all the oxygen and got carbon monoxide poisoning? Or would I get heat stroke first? Mary sure would feel stupid when she finally opened the trunk and found that I’d died on the way to wherever she was taking me. Yep, that would show her.

  I rolled over and pushed myself up on my elbows. Okay, so there was no convenient latch. That wasn’t the only way out of a trunk. I could focus on the back seat. The car might have seats that folded down for access to the trunk. But even if I managed to push or pry it open, I’d be awkwardly climbing out less than a foot behind Mary. She was bound to notice, and she’d probably just shoot me in the face. No, my best bet was to pop the trunk when the car was slowed or stopped, and make a run for it before Mary could get out and follow.

  That meant I needed to find the release cable. Unless Mary’s car was embarrassingly old, it would have a switch or button near the front seat that opened the trunk. There would be a cable running from that switch, and if I could get to it, I could pull it and open the trunk myself. (What? These are things you need to know in my former line of work.)

  I felt along the driver’s side edge where the carpet met the wall and dug in my fingernails. I had to pry up the carpet. It hurt. I pulled and clawed at the stubby carpet until it felt as if I’d rip my fingernails right off. Would it have killed Mary to leave a few tools in the trunk? Maybe a pair of pliers? Hold on. Something ripped. I yanked on the small bit of carpet, and it was hard to get leverage in my cramped position, but the need to survive strengthened my arms. Success. I shoved my fingers into the small hole I’d created, felt around, and…yes. There. That definitely felt like a cable.

  Survival instincts were handy sometimes, but right now, they were urging me to pull the cable and open the trunk immediately. Not such a good idea, considering it felt as though the car was going at least fifty miles per hour. Patience: it was a virtue not many supervillains had. Or else they had too much of it, spending months crafting convoluted plots that were thwarted at first contact with a costumed hero. If I waited too long, I’d suffocate. If I didn’t wait long enough, I’d ruin my one and only chance to get out of here alive.

  My hair clung to my sweaty neck, and my ribs were painfully objecting to the way I was lying on my stomach. Mary’s singing still came from the other side of the back seat, mocking me. Once I got out of here, I was going to punch her in the throat and then dislocate her jaw. But the noise did have one benefit. Assuming the average pop song lasted about three minutes, it gave me a way to estimate how long I was waiting. She had to hit a red light or a stop sign at some point, right? I shifted my legs and flexed my feet, trying to work some feeling into my cramped limbs to prepare them for when I made a break for it.

  Two songs later, the car finally slowed. Go time. I pulled the cable, and the trunk opened with a pop.

  Wind whipped my hair around, and the influx of sunlight made me cringe. Mary would have heard the trunk open. I had to move fast. The car hadn’t completely stopped yet, but I rose onto my knees and squinted through the bright light. I was in the right lane of a road in the middle of nowhere, and the shoulder looked as grassy and soft as it would ever get. I jumped.

  I hit the ground hard and rolled. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I tumbled until I hit something wet. A roadside ditch filled with water. And with my luck, there were probably snakes.

  Even though I’d stopped rolling, it felt like the world was still spinning. Actually, it felt more like the whole world had just sucker-punched me. I had to move, but first, I had to breathe. Mary’s brakes screeched as she stopped somewhere ahead, and if I had any breath, I would’ve used it to swear. And me without my gun. Beyond the ditch, there were palmetto trees and not much else. I might be able to hide. I tried to sit up, but my body felt as if it weighed a ton and was a thousand miles away from my brain.

  A car door slammed, and feet stomped over the pavement. If I didn’t move in the next three seconds, it was over. My lungs finally accepted air again, and I used my arms to push myself up. But I was slow, dizzy, and everything hurt. I twisted my head in the direction of the footsteps, and there she was, gun in hand.

  A gunshot went off—but Mary hadn’t aimed at me yet. I saw her flinch and look past me down the road. A car was barreling toward us, and oh, Eddy, you were my favorite person in the world right now. He had his right hand on the steering wheel and his left around a pistol he was firing out the side window. Granted, he wasn’t doing either action particularly well. The car was swerving between lanes, and none of the shots hit Mary. But my sister was standing out in the open, and Eddy didn’t need to hit her with a bullet; he just needed to hit her with the car.

  Mary must have realized that, too, because she beat it. She ran back to her own car and managed to take off just in time to avoid Eddy’s attempt to ram her. I climbed shakily out of the ditch, and Eddy U-turned, ignoring all traf
fic laws as he pulled up in front of me. Mary’s car grew smaller and smaller in the distance until it disappeared from sight.

  “Christ, kiddo.” Eddy jumped out of the car and ran up to me. “You okay?”

  “Been better.” I leaned on him because I was happy to see him, not because I could barely stand. “You should answer Irma’s calls. Everybody at home is worried sick.”

  Eddy supported me as we walked to the car, and I looked around. Why had Mary slowed down earlier? She had definitely decelerated the car before I’d jumped out of the trunk, but there were no stop signs or traffic lights out here. There was nothing out here at all…except something small on the road ahead. I squinted at it then chuckled as Eddy helped me into the back seat.

  “Could you move that turtle out of the road before another car hits it?” I asked him. “I’m pretty sure I owe it my life.”

  Chapter 12

  I hated hospitals. I really did. But the MRI wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow, and the doctors wanted to keep me overnight for observation. Considering it was close to two a.m. when they finally finished with me, overnight wasn’t as long as it could have been. And it could have been worse. I didn’t show any signs of internal bleeding, and whatever the psyc had done to me, it muffled the usual roar of a hospital’s emotions to a low static. See? Look how optimistic I was being. I wasn’t sulking at all.

  “You underestimated her,” Irma said. We were alone in my room for the moment. Dave had wheeled out into the hallway to dutifully update Agent Lagarde on what had happened, and Eddy had left on a mission with Elisa to find me something other than hospital food to eat. (Actually, Eddy was avoiding Irma after she’d torn into him for leaving his phone on silent earlier. And he was taking Elisa because the hour she’d spent in the hospital was already overwhelming her telepathy. But if anyone asked, no, those weren’t the real reasons.)

  “Did I?” I asked sleepily.

  Irma folded her hands in her lap, looking deceptively calm. “Mary went through the same training you, Sonia, and Bianca did, except you had each other for support. She did it alone.”

  “I know. I just thought… I hoped we could make a deal.”

  “You can’t afford to be soft on her. You know she won’t show you the same courtesy.”

  Which translated to, “You’re going to have to kill her. Accept that before she kills you first.”

  I would have sunk back in frustration, but the two thick pillows stacked beneath my head were so hard, it would take super-strength to sink into them. “Where’s my phone?”

  Irma pulled it out of my purse and handed it to me. “What are you going to do?”

  “Give Jean-Baptiste the address of the warehouse where Mary’s storing psyc. I have a plan.”

  Irma gave me a look as though I’d just started speaking in Chinese.

  “You’re right,” I explained. “Mary isn’t going to go easy on me. She thinks she has to kill me to prove herself to Dad. I have to strike back, but why do it myself when Jean-Baptiste will—”

  “You already sent that email.”

  I looked up from the phone screen. “What?”

  Irma knitted her brows and gazed at me like she was trying to see past my skull and into my brain.“You emailed the Prophet King half an hour ago.”

  I didn’t remember doing that. My stomach tried briefly to turn itself inside out, and I opened my sent folder. Irma was right; the email was right there at the top. The first line was, “I hope this makes up for earlier…”

  “I’m going to have a word with your doctor,” Irma said softly.

  My hand dropped to the mattress, still clutching my phone. Short-term memory loss. That was…shit. I remembered seeing myself having some sort of seizure through Mary’s eyes after she’d injected me, but I hadn’t thought… I mean, I felt fine. Well, not fine. I felt like I’d been beaten up and thrown into a car trunk, but that was nothing new. I’d survived worse. But this…

  My mind was my greatest weapon. How was I supposed to beat Mary if I couldn’t depend on it?

  Dave came through the door, and one look at his face was enough to see that Irma had told him what had happened. I looked away and steeled myself. Alone, I could be strong, but with him… He was too comforting. It would be easy to break down, secure in the certainty that he would be there for me.

  Dave came up to my bedside, and I tried to stop myself from tensing, because it did nothing other than inflame my sore muscles. But he didn’t say anything. He just took my hand.

  It was infinitely better than being alone.

  • • •

  The next thing I knew, Irma was waking me up. When had I fallen asleep? Judging by the sunlight on the other side of the window’s blinds, I’d been out all night. It didn’t feel nearly long enough. I started to sit up and immediately regretted moving. But the good news was, when I went to read Irma’s mind to find out why she’d snatched me from sweet, blissful unconsciousness, I had no pain. So at least I could use my telepathy again, even if my memory was on the fritz. Apparently, I had morning visitors: Agent Lagarde and Julio. They were waiting in the hallway to see me.

  I groaned. “Toothbrush first. Interrogation second.”

  As I stood over the sink, I had Irma summarize everything that had happened last night to make sure I hadn’t forgotten any of it. She told me nothing I didn’t already know, which was a relief, but it felt hollow. Maybe my memory loss was only a temporary after-effect, but it was too soon to know for sure, and worst of all, I’d never be able to know on my own. I’d need someone else to catch it like Irma had last night.

  I eased back into bed, and Irma opened the door for Agent Lagarde and Julio, allowing them entrance like petitioners seeking an audience from the queen. Julio brought flowers; Agent Lagarde brought her usual frown. Dave came in after them, found my gaze, and gave me a smile that made waking up this morning instantly worthwhile.

  “Julio, you’re the sweetest,” I said. “Irma, could you find a place for those?”

  Irma took the flowers, and Julio looked at me as if I was a grandmother someone had pushed down a flight of stairs. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’ll be fine. It’s just a few bruises. I’ve had worse.”

  Did Agent Lagarde’s frown mean she’d seen through the lie, or was I projecting? Curse her incredibly controlled facial muscles.

  “How come you didn’t bring me flowers, Agent Lagarde?” I asked. “I don’t even see a get-well-soon card.”

  “The flowers are from both of us,” she said in a perfect deadpan.

  “Is that true, Julio?”

  He glanced at Agent Lagarde. “Yyyess. Yes, it is.”

  “Then thank you, Agent Lagarde. That was very sweet. Unless you’re just going to expense the cost later, in which case—”

  “Funny how you nearly got killed after I explicitly told you to sit tight until I got approval for you to keep investigating,” she said.

  I felt compelled to make exaggerated eyebrow motions to make up for her complete lack of expression. “It is quite funny. And who said I was investigating? Maybe I was just paying my sister a friendly visit.”

  Dave gave me an exasperated look. Julio watched Agent Lagarde for her reaction, but she just looked at me steadily.

  “Is this the part where you yell at me for being a loose cannon who refuses to play by the rules?” I asked. Because if it was, I was going to order breakfast.

  “You’re a supervillain. I don’t expect you to play by the rules. But when you break them, I expect you to get results. It looks like the only thing you got was your ass handed to you.”

  Touché, Agent Lagarde. The delivery wasn’t quite on Lee’s level, but it was close.

  “Actually, I got the information you need to bust She-Devil. She-Devil’s the one behind it, by the way, in case you haven’t figured out which of my sisters it is yet. There’s only one problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “The DSA is having second-thoughts about worki
ng with me. I’m not sure if they even want my information.”

  Agent Lagarde was rolling her eyes at me behind her glasses. No doubt about it. “We want it,” she said.

  “And you’ll drop the charges against Dave for it?”

  “We will.”

  A meaningless verbal agreement, but I still had the signed written one in my lawyer’s safekeeping. Plus, Irma was recording this whole conversation. It wouldn’t be admissible in court, but it could sway the jury if it were leaked to the press.

  Irma handed me a pad and pen in response to my telepathic request. I started writing down an address. “I don’t think the psyc is coming from out of the country. It’s being shipped via truck, not boat. The drop-off point is here.” I tore off the paper and handed it to Agent Lagarde. “She-Devil always goes personally, so you won’t be arresting low-level minions or small-time punks this time. You’ll nab a supervillain, if you don’t screw it up.”

  “We’ll handle it. Assuming this intel is good.”

  “It’s good.” Or at least I hoped it was. I’d learned it when I’d read Mary’s mind during my out-of-body experience, but my thoughts and memories weren’t exactly trustworthy at the moment. “And if I were you, I’d put the place under surveillance ASAP,” I added. “I have a feeling Mary’s going to need more inventory soon.”

  “A feeling,” she repeated flatly.

  I grinned. “Maybe I’ve got a bit of precognition along with the telepathy.”

  Yeah, I could see the future, all right. Jean-Baptiste wanted payback against the crew selling psyc in his territory, and I’d emailed him the address of their entire stock of the drug. He wasn’t going to sit on the information. He’d steal or destroy Mary’s entire inventory of psyc, if he hadn’t done so already. She would need to get more fast to keep her profit flowing in, so she’d call her supplier and arrange another shipment, which would send her straight to the drop-off point the DSA would be staking out. Game, set, and match. Victory: The Black Valentine.