Villainous

by Brand, Kristen

  Agent Lagarde looked at me carefully. “I need to make a call.”

  “There’s a waiting room down the hall and to the left,” Dave said helpfully.

  “I’ll do that—use that. I’ll go to that room and be right back.” Agent Lagarde’s voice was ever so slightly higher-pitched than usual, and she stood still for just a little too long. “Thank you.” She walked briskly from the room, not having looked directly at Dave once.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “She’s a White Knight fan. Dave, offer to autograph something for her when she comes back. You have to. I want to see the look on her face.”

  “Don’t be mean,” he warned.

  “I’m not mean. I just want to see if she’s physically capable of smiling. I’m worried she might have some kind of medical condition.”

  Julio’s mouth twisted. “You got her into a lot of trouble, you know.”

  I blinked. “Did I?”

  “You’re her responsibility, but you went off without informing us, and—” He gestured at the hospital room. “—this happened. The chief put the acting director on speaker phone so both of them could chew her out at once.”

  “I know that’s supposed to make me feel bad, but it’s having the opposite effect.”

  Julio bit back his reply. His thoughts were impressively rude, though. Good for him.

  “She’s just doing her job, Val,” Dave said.

  Now I had to bite back my own rude reply. He was siding with the DSA now of all times? “And I was doing mine. My job is to keep you out of jail by getting them their evidence, but they weren’t letting me do that.”

  “I know.” He rubbed my upper arm comfortingly. “But you should take that anger out on Walter and the upper brass, not Agent Lagarde.”

  “I’ll take it out on anyone I please, up to and including you.”

  “I cower from your wrath, dear.”

  “Bring me breakfast as tribute, and I’ll consider sparing you.”

  He smirked and maneuvered to the other side of the room, where a plastic grocery bag waited. Julio watched him, his brows tight. This is the first time he’s seen us together, I realized. Julio had worked with Dave for years, and he’d spent a day getting to know me, but he’d never seen us interact as a married couple.

  Agent Lagarde walked back in, looked at Julio, and said. “We need to go.” Then she turned to me. “You’ve done your part. Now sit tight. For real this time.”

  “She’s not going anywhere until the doctor gives the okay,” Dave said. “You have my word on that.”

  “Right.” She still avoided looking at him. “Thanks.”

  She left, and Julio hesitated before following.

  “Watch your back out there,” Dave told him.

  Julio nodded, his face lighting up adorably.

  Dave’s gaze lingered on the empty doorway for a moment after he’d gone. Then he returned to my bedside and handed me a granola bar.

  “I didn’t say anything off, did I?” I asked once I was sure Julio and Agent Lagarde were gone.

  “No,” Dave assured me. “You were fine. The doctor… She said memory lapses aren’t uncommon right after a seizure—if a seizure is even what you had. But there’s a good chance it won’t happen again. We’ll know more after the scan.”

  I tugged halfheartedly at the wrapper’s edge to open it. His words were hopeful and comforting, but just speculation. We didn’t know anything yet.

  “Val…” He took the granola bar and tore the wrapper open effortlessly before handing it back to me. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

  “Your fault? Dave, please, let’s not play the guilt game. I’d win. The only reason you’re—” I stopped myself. No use going there. Instead, I reached out and touched the side of his face. “I won’t lose you.”

  He placed his hand gently atop mine. “I’m pretty sure that’s my line.”

  “Well, I guess I just stole it, then.”

  “Eat your breakfast, thief.”

  I took a bite and had a thought mid-chew. “Have you had anything for breakfast? Did you even go home last night?”

  “I had a granola bar, too, and you can’t expect me to leave you here alone.”

  “Oh, Dave. You didn’t sleep in that chair, did you? You’re going to murder your back.”

  “I slept in the bed right there.” He gestured to the bed closer to the window. The room was designed to hold two patients, but luckily, it wasn’t full at the moment. If the hospital staff tried to give me a roommate, I’d be forced to resort to mind-control. “The nurses were kind enough to make it up for me.”

  Of course they were. I could just picture it: my handsome, tormented Dave looking for a way to stay by the side of his ill, beloved wife. The nurses would’ve given him anything he asked for.

  “And you have a fresh set of clothes.” I turned to Irma, who’d been sitting quietly in the corner and had no doubt brought him an overnight bag. “Enabler.”

  Irma glared right back at me. “Don’t blame me. It’s easier to argue with a cat than with him. And you’ve made it clear on multiple occasions that you don’t want me to kill or maim him, so what do you expect me to do?”

  What, indeed. Sometimes you couldn’t accomplish anything without killing someone.

  I wondered if Mary would survive the DSA’s attempt to arrest her, or if she’d get gunned down. Either way, it was out of my hands now. I’d put the forces into motion, and now I could only wait for them to collide.

  I wouldn’t feel guilty. She hadn’t given me any other choice.

  Chapter 13

  That evening, Eddy brought dinner to the hospital. My scan had been done that afternoon, but we were still waiting for the results. Eddy’s ridiculously elaborate dinner (mango chicken and grilled peppers over rice, plus chocolate chip cannoli for dessert) helped distract me from what I imagined were holes in my brain like a wall someone had emptied a semi-automatic into. We ate off paper plates, everyone squeezed into the small room, while Irma told a story about a cheating attempt within the group of old ladies she played poker with every week. Nurses and patients stopped by periodically, drawn by the delicious smell, and Eddy sent them off with plates of leftovers, preening like a debutante at their compliments. It was nice. Or it would have been nice if the scan results weren’t looming over us like a specter.

  Eventually, Dave helped Eddy take all the Tupperware back to the car, and Irma excused herself to visit the gift shop after I gave her a telepathic hint. That left me with only Elisa in the room, her sitting on the vacant bed and staring at the TV even though she’d never shown any interest in the evening news before. Trying to distract herself from the overpowering thoughts filling the hospital, or from worry about her mother’s condition?

  I found the remote and hit the mute button. “We still haven’t talked about your little excursion yesterday.”

  Elisa’s head ducked, and her shoulders hunched. “Dad already talked to me,” she said. “So did Irma. And Eddy. Everybody talked to me. I’m not allowed to even think about helping again, or I’ll be grounded until my own funeral. I get it.” I’m only good for getting kidnapped.

  I hadn’t meant to hear that last thought. I made it a general rule not to read my daughter’s mind; that was a slippery slope that I had no intention of starting to slide down. But between getting dosed with psyc and spending the past twenty hours in a hospital, the walls around my mind had started cracking. I’d worry about my control after I finished worrying about Elisa’s mental state. Because that was the thing about mind-reading. I didn’t just hear her thoughts; I felt the dejection and self-loathing that went with them.

  “I wish you could see how wonderful you are,” I said.

  Elisa made a face. “Mom.”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “You’re smart, funny, beautiful, and you make my life—and your father’s life—a hundred times better just by being here. You don’t need to infiltrate a drug ring to prove your worth.”

  “But I could.
I could have done it.”

  There was a strange intensity in the way she spoke. Did she think I thought she couldn’t? Was that the problem?

  “Of course you could. You’re my daughter.” I gave her a pointed smile. “You could run the drug ring. But do you think that’s what I want for you? A life dodging jail time and people trying to kill you? I want you to get a doctorate in music theory. Or spend a year backpacking through Asia. Or buy a house in the country and take up beekeeping. Find something that makes you happy and do that. Don’t feel like you have to do the same stupid, dangerous things I did.”

  Elisa looked down, her right hand fiddling with the edge of the mattress. Hopefully, she was thinking it over.

  “Anyway,” I said, “Did your father decide how long you’re grounded for?”

  “No. He said he had to talk to you about it first.”

  “Then I’ll talk to him.” I watched her face carefully in anticipation. “But I’m thinking we can reduce your sentence, seeing as you saved my life.”

  Her hand stopped, and she swung up her gaze, a question in her eyes. “What do you—”

  “When the psyc hit me, I was lost in a storm of minds. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t have enough of a sense of self to know I was even a person. What brought me back was you. Now maybe that was the power of love.” I winked at her. “Or maybe you’re getting the hang of telepathy after all that practicing. Either way, I’d be in a coma right now if it wasn’t for you. So thank you.”

  Her cheeks were red, but she wore a small, private smile. It was good to see any kind of smile on her face again. She hadn’t needed to prove anything to me, but evidently she’d needed to prove something to herself. Maybe now that she had, she could start feeling better.

  “If that’s the case, then I don’t think you should ground me at all?” She had probably meant for that to be a statement, not a question.

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  She pouted, but it was superficial. “I’m just saying.”

  “And I’m just—oh, that was fast.”

  Mary was on TV. She had her hands cuffed behind her back, and a police officer was shoving her into the back of a squad car. The caption along the bottom of the screen read, “Supervillain Arrest in Miami.” I snatched up the remote and turned the sound back on.

  “—earlier this afternoon. Authorities are declining to comment, but witnesses say Freezefire—”

  The video quality wasn’t great, but the anger behind Mary’s leather mask was easy to see. I was surprised they’d taken her alive. She’d probably surrendered in order to survive and get revenge on me.

  “So…” Elisa said. “Aunt Mary’s going to jail, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do we have to visit her?”

  “Definitely not.”

  Someone stepped through the door, and my heartbeat stuttered, as for a moment, I was afraid it was the doctor. I needed to know the scan results, but at the same time, if the doctor never spoke to me, I could play the no-news-is-good-news con on myself. But I’d panicked for nothing. It was Julio.

  “You didn’t need to visit me twice in one day,” I scolded. “But since you did, you should have brought more flowers.”

  He didn’t return my smile or look embarrassed. He just stood in the doorway, staring at me, his chest rising and falling slowly with each breath. Something was wrong. I dove into his mind, and—

  Mary. Mary was in his mind.

  The temperature in the room plummeted like a car that just drove off a bridge. I gasped and coughed, the air too cold for my lungs. The sheet on my bed and thin hospital gown didn’t shield me. The cold went straight through my skin. It hurt.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” Elisa shouted.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Mary’s sneer looked wrong on Julio’s face. “Payback.”

  “For what?” I stumbled out of bed, my body reeling from the shock. My fingers and feet hurt the worst, like they’d been plunged into buckets of ice. “Did you pull a muscle when you beat me senseless and locked me in your trunk?”

  Shivering violently, I scanned Julio’s mind, looking for how she was controlling him, how I could break him free. But I couldn’t sense him at all.

  “Don’t play dumb,” Mary said through him. “I don’t know how you did it, but I know you’re the reason my warehouse burned to the ground—and the reason the DSA found me.”

  “Now if only they hadn’t screwed it up,” I muttered. I blinked rapidly, my eyes burning. They felt like they were about to freeze solid. Julio looked unaffected, but my muscles were going numb. I wouldn’t be able to fight him physically like this. Why couldn’t I break Mary’s mental control?

  She smirked with his mouth. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I’m right here.”

  I couldn’t move my legs. The cold was so intense, it seemed to burn. Mary was here? What did that… Oh, no. She wasn’t mind-controlling him. She was possessing him, like our father used to be able to do. She could do that? Since when?

  Gravity dragged me to my knees, but I had to do something. Elisa was here… I had to…

  Warmth. The room started warming up. The cold lingered in my bones, but I felt heat against my skin. Had someone stopped Mary? No, she was still standing right there in Julio’s body.

  “On second thought,” she said, “freezing to death is too good for you. I’d rather roast you alive like a slab of beef.”

  The air felt almost too hot to breathe. I tried to stand, but my legs trembled.

  “A slab of beef?” Elisa’s voice was almost a shriek. She swayed as she rose from the bed, her skin sickly pale. “What the hell is wrong with you? Who says stuff like that? Nobody says stuff like that. That’s seriously messed up.”

  The heat flared, and I swore I could feel the tiny hairs on my arms start to singe.

  “Shut up, Elisa. And you’re supposed to be the heir?” Julio’s upper lip curled. “I don’t know why Dad thinks you’re so special. The only thing special about you is how you managed to grow up in this family and still be so naive. Once you’re gone, I’ll—”

  Dave, still in his wheelchair, slammed into her from behind. She fell, and Dave put his arm around Julio’s neck in a chokehold. The scorching heat vanished.

  “Get out of his mind,” Dave growled. “Now.”

  “Gladly,” she coughed out.

  Look out! I thought, but it was too late. Julio went limp, and Dave seized. Mary had jumped into his body instead.

  No…

  Dave—Mary pushed Julio aside and lurched up.

  I stood, and my legs were trembling now for an entirely different reason. I was standing a few feet away from one of the deadliest people on the planet. The Black Valentine had fought White Knight before, of course. But he was holding back. He was always holding back. Mary would have none of his control. Forget killing me; she could bring the whole building crumbling to the ground.

  Then she limped forward, and my horrified open mouth turned into a scowl. I’d spent the last month making sure Dave stayed off his knee so it would heal, and now Mary was going to ruin all that progress.

  Mary lunged. I danced aside, and she hit the bed—completely demolishing it. Wait, maybe I could do this. Dave’s weakness was that with his injuries, he couldn’t move as fast as he used to. That would be compounded by Mary still getting the hang of using his body. I just had to stay out of her reach as I assaulted her telepathically. Could I do that? Could I force her out of Dave’s body? I spread out my senses, and it was as if Dave wasn’t even there.

  I hit Mary with my freshest memory of pain: the awful cold drilling into every inch of my skin. She stumbled back, bumped into the wall, and cracked the plaster. I reached for her thoughts but couldn’t grasp anything. My telepathy had felt fuzzy ever since the psyc had been injected, but was I really so weak?

  “This time when I beat you, no hospital in the world is going to be able to put you back together again.” Mary charged me, and I bent my knees, p
reparing to dodge left.

  Elisa grabbed Dave’s wrist and pulled Mary back. “Stop it, Aunt Mary. Just stop, okay? If I have to beat up Dad because you’re possessing him to kill Mom then—then you’re going to have to pay my therapy bills.”

  Mary threw a punch at her head. Elisa blocked it, but Mary followed up with a blow to the stomach. Elisa bent over double, and Mary drove Dave’s knee into her face. It knocked Elisa back into the second bed, and the metal frame snapped beneath her. Mary swore, clutching the knee she’d just smashed into Elisa’s face. Elisa didn’t move.

  I lit Mary’s pain receptors on fire.

  She screamed, and it was awful, because it sounded like Dave screaming. But I didn’t let up. She stumbled and clawed at his head, and I backed up so I wouldn’t get hit by her pained thrashing. Let him go, I commanded. I won’t stop until you leave him.

  Elisa pushed herself to her feet, and my rage abetted for a moment to make way for relief. She wiped blood from her nose, clenched her hands into fists, and squeaked, “Sorry, Dad.” Then she punched Mary in the jaw so hard that she knocked her straight off Dave’s feet.

  That’s my girl.

  Back away, I warned her. She might jump into your body next.

  Elisa scrambled back toward the wall. Mary lay on the floor and groaned. I approached her cautiously, poking and probing her mind. How could I force her out? My father had never been forced out of a body, not as far as I knew. He left them to return to his own after whatever murder or self-mutilation he used them for was complete. And where was Mary’s original body? If I forced her out of Dave, and there was nowhere for her to go, would her consciousness just disappear? I could kill her. Was I ready to do that?

  “What’s going on? Is everyone all right?” A nurse rushed through the door.

  You have something urgent to do somewhere else, I told her. She turned around and left.

  I looked back down at Dave—at Mary. I had one more thing to worry about. If I ripped her out of Dave’s mind, would it damage his brain? Breaking someone out of mind-control could do that if you weren’t careful. I was careful, but I’d never dealt with possession before and didn’t want Dave to be my first trial run. But I had to do something. Once she got up, she’d probably snap my spine with his strength and then walk him to the bottom of a river and leave his body to drown.