by Dunne, Lexie
“You caught me off guard!”
“Off guard means dead.” She grabbed my ear like she actually was a violent old schoolmarm. “You allow somebody to get the drop on you, it’s over. How do you not understand this? Merciful heavens, they really grow them thick these days. When I was your age—”
“You rode a triceratops to school?”
Rita tried to cuff me again. I blocked her and wrestled her off my ear. “I am trying to heal,” I said, stepping back. “What part of that do you not understand? My health is practically the only thing I have. Stop hitting me!”
Rita harrumphed. “Fight me off for once, and it won’t be a problem.”
“You’re a psychopath.”
“They never proved that, actually.”
We entered one of the sparring rooms. Rita swung, trying to drive me back with a haymaker.
The first lesson Angélica had put me through at Davenport had been the doorway test. Open the door, receive fist to the face. I’d been suspicious of doorways ever since, so Rita’s fist met nothing but air. I threw myself to the side and did a handspring away to avoid the kick aimed at the center of my back.
She set in on me from above, dive-bombing me and flying out of my range. These surprise ambushes were one of her favorite tactics, and I had no idea why. I just focused on fighting her off, blocking the flurries of hard punches and sudden kicks. When she dove at me for the fifth time, I dodged another cloud of pepper, knocked back her right cross, and she hit me in the face with something out of a little purple squirt bottle.
My face erupted into flame.
I stumbled back as what felt like fire ants crawled into my eyes. Tears welled up. “What the—what is that?” I asked, reaching for my face to wipe my eyes clear.
Rita’s talons grasped my wrists. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said cheerfully. “Capsaicin hurts even worse when you get it everywhere.”
“Capsai—you pepper-sprayed me?” It felt—and smelled—like somebody had poured straight bourbon right onto my eyeballs and lit a match. I yanked my arms out of her grip, mouth wide open as I tried to suck in gasping breaths. My nose was streaming even more than my eyes, but I didn’t dare touch that either. My throat had begun to ache just like the rest of my face. I sniffled miserably, which only made things worse. “Why? Why would you do this?”
“Eh,” Rita said.
I needed to find the exit. I needed to go stick my head into the coldest bucket of ice water imaginable. But when I tried to squeeze my eyes open a millimeter, it felt like napalm applied directly to my corneas. I stumbled toward what I hoped was the door.
Rita had other ideas. She cuffed me upside the head yet again.
“Hey!” I swiped blindly and met nothing but air, of course. “Knock it off!”
“Make me.” She tagged my shoulder this time, hard enough to bruise.
“What the—I can’t even see you.”
“You’ve got other senses.” I could practically hear her shrug. Her voice was coming from somewhere behind me. “Something wrong with those?”
Considering I couldn’t see or smell a damn thing but the capsaicin? I turned angrily in her direction. “What,” I said as calmly as possible, “will it take to get you to leave me alone?”
“Hit me.”
With pleasure, I thought, fury growing and making my ears burn. Irritation raging through my eyes, nose, and throat, but it seemed to lessen when I focused. I had to take her down with one good hit. One hit, then I could go pound my head into a wall and knock myself unconscious.
She tagged me a few more times, all taunting hits. My knees, my thigh. My elbow. Nothing designed to take me out, but they stung. I clipped her once as she flew by. Patience had been the first thing Angélica had tried to teach me, and I used it now, gritting my teeth, keeping my stance ready.
I heard her flying, just a whisp to my left. I put everything I had into the spin-kick. The blade of my foot connected with a grimly satisfying crunch, and then Rita’s curse filled the air. I forced my eyes open again, just a sliver. They hurt, but it was a tolerable pain compared to the agony of before.
Rita skidded to a stop a few feet away. Blood gushed from her nose and over her hand.
“You deserved that,” I said.
“Go wash your face, you’re an unseemly mess, and I’m tired of looking at you.”
“Same goes,” I said, limping toward the door.
“I’d use milk unless you want to be up all night crying. Or will you be doing that anyway?”
“Screw you,” I said, stalking to the door. She didn’t stop me.
By the time I made it to the cafeteria to request the biggest container of milk they had, my eyes barely hurt anymore. They were still a frightening shade of red, though. It appeared the Mobium hadn’t liked the capsaicin any more than the rest of me had.
My eyes were still red and irritated, but I could blink freely by the time Raze came to find me for dinner. She studied my face for a minute. “Rita?” she asked.
“Who else would pepper-spray me in the face in the middle of a sparring match?” I asked, and immediately her face fell. “I mean besides you, obviously.”
“Sometimes I feel like you don’t respect me as a villain.”
“Trust me, you’re a great villain.” I sighed and pulled up my shirt to show off a purplish scar just above the waistband of my stretchy prison uniform pants. “See this?”
“Looks nasty.”
“All you.”
“Really?” Raze blinked a few times in quick succession, which always looked a bit creepy thanks to her overlarge eyes. “I did that?”
“Three years ago. That time you kidnapped me in Wrigleyville, remember? You hit me with that blast-ray gun. Hurt for weeks.”
“You always know how to cheer me up.” Raze hummed the rest of the way to the dining room, even skipping a couple of steps. “I miss that gun, though.”
“I’m sure you’ll create a newer, scarier one the minute you get out of here.”
“Thanks, Girl. It’s nice that you have that kind of faith in me. Want to go to the bar for dinner instead of the dining room? I heard they’re doing fondue.”
I thought about it. Detmer did indeed have a bar, but since I was still banned from alcohol—it had been Angélica’s rule and in my mind, she was the only one that could lift it—I’d only been once. It was a beautiful bar, equipped with a pleasure garden and a waterfall and everything. You just had to cross through three security checkpoints and four separate vault doors to reach it. And as good as fondue sounded, I really just wanted a big meal. Picking up the cheese pot and slurping it all down sounded like a faux pas that even the villains wouldn’t be willing to overlook.
“Can we not?” I asked. “I don’t really want to go through all of the rigmarole. Maybe tomorrow?”
Raze pouted. “I like fondue,” she said, but she went back to humming and skipping.
The call of fondue was apparently a strong one, as the dining room was mostly empty. It made me grateful I’d chosen to skip the bar. I could feel the malaise growing every day that passed without any word from the outside about what had happened. I didn’t know what was going on with my friends, I didn’t have the first idea how to find out who had framed me, and with Rita’s constant bullying, I felt helpless and useless.
The last thing I wanted was to be surrounded by the drunk and the evil.
“Ooh,” Raze said, as we sat down at what was becoming our usual table. She reached for the centerpiece, broke the white rose off at the stem, and tossed the whole bud in her mouth. She chewed with her mouth gaping open as usual, but I’d made my peace with that already.
“Don’t let Venus catch you doing that,” I said as I studied the menu. Venus von Trapp’s all-meat diet freaked me out a little bit, but it wasn’t as terrifying as the look on her face if you
dared to eat a vegetable in her presence. I was beginning to wonder if Lady Danger’s vampiric pallor wasn’t intentional.
“Duh,” Raze said. She picked up the other rose and held it out. “Want?”
I stared at the flower. For four years of waking up in the hospital, there had been a similar white rose on my bedside every time. This one lacked the green ribbon Guy had always wrapped around the stem, though.
I missed him.
“No, that’s okay. You eat it,” I said.
She bit it off the stem. “Fanks,” she said, her mouth full. She chewed and swallowed. “Hey, have you picked a color yet?”
“For what?”
“For your hero outfit, duh. I was thinking we could coordinate. Not too matchy-matchy or anything, but just complementing each other, you know? I know I’ve got the yellow and the purple right now, but you look like you have a yellow undertone to your skin, so maybe that’s not a good combination for you. What do you think about—oh, you could be green like your boy, and maybe we could do a green-and-pink thing?”
“Raze,” I said. “What are you talking about? I’m in here for a long time. At this rate, there will never be a ‘hero outfit.’ I’m not getting out of here.”
“Not with that attitude, you’re not.” Raze snorted, and when the waiter came over, she waved at him. “My usual, Carmichael, and she’ll take one of everything on the menu.”
“Hey,” I said, but it wasn’t far from my order. I shook my head. “Yeah, I guess what she said.”
“You’re going to have to stop being so passive if we’re going to be enemies on the outside,” Raze said, frowning in disapproval. “Well, what do you think?”
“About what?”
She rolled her eyes at how slow I was being. “The green and pink. I’m willing to change it over and go for something in that general ballpark, even if it does mean paying homage to your weird boyf—oh, hey, Tabitha.”
Guards didn’t normally come into the dining room. I had to figure they were happiest when we were all eating, as we were the waitstaff’s responsibility then. Proving me right, Tabitha’s smile was stretched to its fullest, terror-filled capacity right then. “Razor,” she said, giving Raze a little nod. “Gail, I wanted to let you know that there’s been a temporary lift on your ban from having visitors.”
I immediately perked up. “Is Blaze here?”
“Your doctor from Davenport has been granted permission to visit you, because of the severity of your medical condition.”
Confusion and defeat hit at the same time. The severity of my medical condition? I’d healed up surprisingly well from that fight in the mall. In fact, I would have been better if only Rita wasn’t beating on me the whole time. The first couple of nights had been a little worrying, as I knew that I had to keep myself reasonably fit to beat back the leukemia. But that was over now, wasn’t it?
And the fact that it wasn’t Guy coming to see me was crushing, but I swallowed hard past that.
“Kiki’s coming back?” I asked, as she was one of my physicians at Davenport.
Tabitha’s headshake was tight and controlled, as though she feared the consequences of ever having to use it. “The memo I was handed lists a Dr. Cooper. I’m sorry. He’ll be here first thing in the morning. I’ll come to collect you.”
“Thank you,” I said, and Tabitha practically ran out of the dining room. I turned back to Raze. “How many antacids do you think she takes every day?”
“How come you’ve got a doctor? Are you sick?”
“Well, I got pepper-sprayed today, so there’s always that.” With a renewed appetite, I dug into the appetizers that Carmichael the waiter brought over. I would have preferred one of my friends, but surely Cooper would have news, and maybe he could shine a light on some of the mysteries surrounding my imprisonment. I looked up and caught Raze frowning. “Don’t worry, I’m not that sick. If Rita’s Villain Syndrome fixation doesn’t kill me, I’ll be alive to be your archnemesis. Maybe. And we’ll meet up after a battle and have a drink or something.”
“If you say so. But Mind the Boom’s expensive, you’ll have to buy.”
“Deal,” I said, though I had no idea what Mind the Boom was. I didn’t care. Tomorrow, I would have a visitor, and I would finally have some answers. Then I could start focusing on a strategy to get myself out of Detmer, no matter how long it took.
It turned out the answer to that was “not long at all” because hours later, I woke up in the semidarkness to find Rita standing over my bunk with a ghoulish smile.
“Time to go, Girlie,” she said, and grabbed the front of my tunic.
CHAPTER SIX
Rita jerked me upright before my eyes were even fully open. I didn’t even get a chance to flail before we were airborne.
I’d been flying before. When your personal superhero is a flying type and regularly snatches you from above vats of acid, volcanoes, and robotically modified sharks, you grow accustomed to the feeling of flight. But Blaze had never grabbed me by the shirt and taken off like a shot. Not like Rita did now.
My head snapped back on my neck, my stomach dropped, and we were aloft. I couldn’t shout. Rita bulleted through the air, through our open cell door, and down the hall. My body flew like a rag doll.
The prison just blurred right by.
“Hope you weren’t planning on sleeping much tonight,” Rita called.
“What possible reason can your shriveled little mind have for wanting to train in the middle of the night?” I shouted, trying to struggle free.
“Who said anything about training?” Rita said, yanking me around a corner, and I realized it: we had streaked right by the gym nearly three turns before. We were heading into some part of the prison I had never visited before.
“Stop struggling! You crash into a wall at this speed, even you won’t survive it.”
Well, when she put it that way. I fought the force to raise my arms and lock my hands around Rita’s wrist. Outside of the main area where all of the inmates lived, Detmer looked a great deal more like what you would expect from a maximum security prison. Cinder-block walls and flickering lights dashed past as we flew.
“Solitary!” Rita said, her voice one tiny step away from a cackle. “You don’t want to meet any of these yahoos.”
We whipped around another corner, my body snapping behind her like a Gail-shaped flag. Abruptly, Rita dropped to ground, skidding the last few feet on her old-lady corrective shoes. I saw the ground rushing toward my face and instinctively curled, rolling until I slammed into a wall. It knocked the breath out of me.
“Graceful,” said a new voice, and I looked up to see Raze standing over me. She sighed and pulled me to my feet even as I coughed and looked around. Rita had chucked me to the ground at the end of a long, dimly lit hallway.
Still coughing, I looked from her to Rita. “Either one of you feel like telling me what’s going on?”
“You’ll catch on soon enough,” Rita said.
I looked at my supposed archnemesis. Raze’s helmet had been buffed to a high shine, its silly little antennae bobbing with every move. She’d fashioned a little half cape out of prison shirts that had been cut up and untidily sewn together. It should have looked absurd, but it instantly brought to mind the half dozen attacks she had relentlessly laid on me on the way home from work. Several weapons had been clipped to the waistband of her pants. A gun-shaped firearm looked like it had been composed of cannibalized bits of her IRS work computer and a couple of the silver forks from the dining room. How she’d lifted the latter, I had no idea, as the serving staff watched over their cutlery like hawks. Another device looked like she had stolen one of the showerheads to make it work. What it sprayed, I really did not want to know.
I had a strong feeling I was about to find out, though.
“Cool, huh?” she said, noticing where my gaze rested. “I d
idn’t have much time to whip ’em up, but they’re going to be impressive. Hold still.”
She pulled out what looked like a set of metal pincers with deathly sharp tips.
I instantly backed up. “What are those?”
“It’ll only hurt for a second, I promise.”
“Get away from me, I am serious—”
Arms wrapped around me from behind, squeezing tight. When I struggled, Rita looped an arm around my neck instead. My vision started going dark almost immediately. “Hold still,” she said, her voice wavering in and out like a bad radio. “You’re making things unnecessarily difficult, per usual.”
In response, I gurgled. The choke hold had left me too weak to do anything, though, so when Raze dug the pincers into the flesh where my shoulder met my neck, I gritted my teeth through the pain. Rita’s arm muffled my scream.
“Got it.” Raze held up a bloody bit of metal, and Rita let me go, letting me stagger into the wall.
I clutched my shoulder. “What did you just yank out of me?”
“Your tracker. You’re welcome.”
“What?”
Rita checked her watch as I put pressure on the wound on my shoulder. Why weren’t they removing their own trackers? It was obvious to anybody with eyes that this was some kind of prison break, and while I wasn’t sure why it was happening, I wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity. But even I could see there were several things not adding up.
“One minute,” Rita said. “I nearly forgot: did you get it?”
“Tabitha says you owe her.” Raze reached under her half cape and pulled out a little radio, which she passed to Rita. “Double the usual fee for the last-minute nature, you understand.”
“She’s getting greedy,” Rita said with a sigh.
“Tabitha?” I asked. “Perky Tabitha who never stops smiling like we’re going to kill her at any second gave you a radio?”
“Never underestimate the value of capitalism,” Rita said. I held still while she clipped a two-way radio to my collar, luckily avoiding the bleeding shoulder. Maybe that was my value in this escape. I was supposed to be the lookout.
