Baking in the new heat, Nico turned just as a man entered the room.
No. Not a man. An asshole in a costume. White with a red pair of boots and gloves and mask. A red starburst or flare or something on his chest. Some kind of folding material under his arms that clearly functioned as gliding wings. Heat came off the guy in waves. He had those opaque eye coverings that always freaked her out, made it impossible to know if the person in the mask was looking at you. But when the asshole swiveled his head in her direction, she had no doubt. Chase would probably know who he was—the Pride’s files on the city’s costumed class were extensive, and he had been studying them—but Nico drew a blank.
“I have no idea who you are or how the hell you found us—” she began.
“Found you? From the looks of you, kid, nobody’s looking.”
Nico had one hand behind her back. She drew out the small, sharp blade she kept sheathed there and pressed its edge against the skin of her left forearm. A quick cut, and the Staff of One would emerge.
“That’s just hurtful,” she said, pressing the blade to her flesh.
The asshole threw up his hands, and a flash filled the room, so bright that Nico cried out and turned away, covering her eyes. She staggered backward, bumped the sofa, and fell over it. Groaning from the pain in her eyes, she scrambled along the floor, taking cover behind the furniture. Shielding her eyes with a hand, she opened them to find the glare had died down, but that her vision blurred and everything had turned into washed-out, ghostly hues around her. A flicker of panic went through her as she wondered if the damage to her eyes would be permanent, but now wasn’t the time.
Her Scandinavian crime novel lay on the floor in front of the sofa, and now she was really pissed. The jackass had made her lose her page.
Heat cooked the room, so insufferable now that the air seared her lungs as she breathed in, but that bright flare had faded. Still blinking, squinting, eyes hurting, she poked her head around the sofa and saw that the man was gone. He’d left behind a massive hole in the floor, its edges melted and scorched, and flickering with little bits of ragged flame.
The subbasement. Maybe he hadn’t come for them at all. Maybe he wanted something in the old S.H.I.E.L.D./Hydra base down there. Trouble was, it wasn’t just dusty old tech stored far beneath her feet.
Gert and Chase were down there.
Nico glanced around, vision clearing, and spotted her little knife. She snatched it up and sliced a cut into her arm. That was all it took for her power to manifest, for her magic to come out. A little bloodletting, and the Staff of One slid out of her body, another sliver of impossibility in a world where the impossible happened every day. She drew the staff out of her chest like Arthur drawing the sword from the stone.
More bright light flared at the back of the room, from the same corridor where the asshole had emerged, but this light danced and swirled in a vivid carnival of colors, and Nico felt a surge of relief. Whatever happened next, she wouldn’t face it alone.
Karolina flew into the room with Molly in her arms. Molly was already complaining that she wanted to be put down, that she wasn’t a baby or something. Karolina obliged, and the two stood side by side, staring first at the hole melted in the floor and then at Nico.
“I’m guessing he came this way,” Karolina said.
Molly rolled her eyes. “What gave it away?”
Nico marched over to the edge of the hole, blood dripping from her arm. “I suppose if I’m the leader of this team now, I should have some quips like they do on TV. But I’m not a girl who quips.”
“So let’s go kick his butt before he hurts our friends,” Molly said, pounding a fist into her opposite palm to demonstrate. It should’ve looked silly, but there was nothing amusing about it at all. Not with the power behind that fist.
“Good plan,” Nico replied. “One less asshole.”
Gertrude Yorkes liked being kissed. More precisely, she liked being kissed by Chase. All her life, she’d had too many thoughts crowding her head. That had been true even before the crazy twists her life had taken, and it was truer than ever now. She worried about the future. Hell, she worried about tonight. How long could they stay in this base? What would happen if they ran out of food? She worried about the police. More than anything, though, she worried about what would happen now that the Pride were no longer controlling the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. Their deaths had left a power vacuum, and everything she and the others had learned recently indicated that dozens of criminal organizations were rushing in to try to fill that vacuum. People were killing each other to try to take control of the L.A. dark side, and in a way, Gert and the other Runaways were to blame. She worried that they all felt they had to do something about it, and she worried that they weren’t up to the task.
But when Chase was kissing her, Gert didn’t worry about anything at all.
His lips were softer than she’d imagined. And she had imagined them, more than once. Every time he kissed her, she was surprised, as if it were the first time. She wanted to be the kind of girl who could be relaxed with her boyfriend. She wanted to reveal that sweet, soft part of her heart, and tell him about the way his lips surprised her. She wanted to be cool enough and confident enough to throw that information out as if it meant nothing, or as if it meant everything.
But Gert didn’t have the courage. She could stand up to street thugs or Super Villains or frickin’ alien invaders, but she couldn’t share her secret heart with a guy she just might be in love with. That worried her, too.
Fortunately, Chase kept kissing her, and the worries went away for a little while. His hand slid along her hip, and she pushed her fingers through his hair then started laughing softly against his mouth. He pulled away, staring stupidly at her.
“I’m on the verge of being offended.”
Gert pushed herself onto an elbow, sliding out from underneath him so they were side by side on one of the reclined seats inside the Leapfrog, the ship they used to get around the city. Still snickering, she shook her head.
“Don’t be offended. Okay, maybe be offended. I was just thinking about the mean jokes I used to make about your hair. Behind your back, of course.”
Chase grinned. “What’s wrong with my hair? You love my hair. My hair is sexy.”
“Your hair is absolutely not sexy. It’s long and a mess. It’s like somebody murdered you, took your perfectly good skull, and dragged it over the branches and grass and leaves around the crime scene.”
Feigning shock, Chase reached out and messed up Gert’s own purple hair.
“First of all, in this scenario are you the one murdering me? And second of all, I prefer the word ‘tousled’ to describe this mess on top of my head. At least I shower every day.”
Gert sniffed and adjusted her glasses. “I don’t need to shower every day. Also, yes, I’ll murder you. But only if you ask nicely.”
He let out a laugh and then pouted. “Not sexy, huh?”
“No.” She reached out and pushed her fingers through his hair again. Cupping the back of his skull, she drew him toward her. “But adorable.”
“And ‘adorable’ is your type?”
Gert kissed him, banishing her worries again. The Leapfrog wasn’t the most comfortable place to fool around, but it was the most likely place to find Chase. Whenever he wasn’t eating or sleeping, he could nearly always be found working on the Frog, trying to find a permanent fix for the frequently malfunctioning stealth mode or teaching himself how to maintain its systems properly. His tech-genius parents had built it, and Chase had to reverse-engineer anything he wanted to understand. He might seem kind of a mess, with that tornado-swept hair and a fashion style that always looked like an unmade bed, but he had a keen eye for how things worked.
You’d think a guy like that could work the snap on a bra with one hand, but nope.
She started snickering again, and then it turned into giggles. Laughing in disbelief, Chase sat up and moved over to the next seat.
“All right, look, I like a laugh as much as the next guy, but you keep this up and I’m gonna need therapy to repair the damage you’re doing to my self-image.”
“No, no…” she started. But the look on his face got her giggling again, laughing in a way she couldn’t remember doing since she and Janey Portis had a giggle fit in seventh-grade social studies.
Chase exhaled, a serene sort of smile on his face. He gazed at her so adoringly in that moment that it killed her giggles instantly.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s just nice, Gert. I mean…I’ve known you most of my life. Yeah, we saw each other once a year, and then all the stuff with our parents came out. In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you laugh like that. I feel like I’ve never seen you actually happy before.”
The words closed her down. Somehow here in the Leapfrog, kissing Chase, she could pretend that none of the horrible stuff had ever happened. Like they were back at Alex Wilder’s house and had snuck off together and hidden in Mr. Wilder’s car in the garage just so they could be alone. That had never happened, but as much as she’d have denied it—as often as she’d wanted to punch Chase in his stupid face—Gert had wished for it.
“I’m not supposed to be happy?” she said, sitting up and crossing her arms. She had all her clothes on—she wanted to take things slow, and Chase wouldn’t dare push her—but still she felt naked.
Chase frowned. “Where did you get that? I literally just said how great it is to see you like this. Or…like that, I guess. ’Cause you definitely do not look happy right now. What’d I say?”
She stared at him, wishing she had an answer. Wishing she could explain the things that triggered her, the parents who’d always seemed so disappointed with her, even when they said all the things parents were supposed to say. Time-traveler-from-the-future parents, though she didn’t know it at the time.
“Gert,” he said, reaching for her hand.
“I’m fine.” She shifted on the seat, avoiding his touch. “I think I’m just tired. And hungry. You want to get something to eat?”
“Don’t I always?” Chase replied. He gave her his trademark goofy expression, but she knew him well enough now to see the haunted cast of his eyes and knew she was responsible. He had just as many issues as she did. They were both broken people. Hell, all of the Runaways were.
Gert reached out and took his hand. Who was she kidding? Everyone she’d ever met was broken in some way. Wasn’t that the whole circle of life, spending your days trying to repair the parts that were broken?
Listen to yourself, she thought. Wise beyond your years. Seriously, what do you know?
Oh, the conversations she had with herself because she didn’t dare say the scary things out loud.
“Come on, goofball,” she said, and together they moved to the Leapfrog’s hatch. It was a weird little ship with robotic legs powerful enough to launch it into the air, where it could glide but not technically fly. Gert thought it was the stupidest conveyance she’d ever seen. If Chase’s parents were such geniuses, they’d have built something less absurd. Of course, she’d never tell Chase that.
She pulled the release lever, and the hatch hissed open. She started to climb out of the Frog, hesitated, and turned back to give Chase a kiss, just to let him know things were okay between them. But Chase wasn’t looking at her. He was looking past her, with fear in his eyes.
She turned, saw the white-and-red-costumed guy with fire in his hands, and she swore.
“It’s Sunstroke,” Chase said.
“Who the hell is—” Gert started.
Chase grabbed her around the waist and dragged her with him as he jumped back into the Leapfrog, just as it was enveloped by a blast of fire. Alarms sounded inside the vehicle as the hatch slid closed so swiftly she was glad they hadn’t been caught in the way. Seats caught fire and started to melt. Gert scrambled up into the cockpit with Chase, mostly to get away from burning things.
“Fire! Do you not see the fire?” she snapped as he flicked switches on the control panel.
Nozzles appeared in the ceiling. With a hiss, white mist sprayed down on the flames, coating the seats and everything around them in a foam that looked like shaving cream. With a puff of smoke and the acrid odor of burning plastic, the flames went out.
“Did you—”
“Automatic. My boy protects himself,” Chase said, but by then he had the wheel of the Leapfrog in his hands and the engine whining. “Strap in!”
“Fine, but spill the details. Sunstroke is who, now?”
The Frog rocked to one side. Fans blew cold air into Gert’s face, but the flame buffeting the outer hull made the inside of the vehicle feel like an oven. Alarms kept screaming inside as she latched her seat belt.
“Last week we stopped those two idiots in costumes robbing the All-Nite Diner—”
“Yeah. Kids with no powers playing Super Villain. This guy definitely has powers.”
“Don’t you remember? They said the Crimson Cowl was in L.A. putting together a new Masters of Evil.”
“Right,” Gert said. “They thought they were auditioning or something.”
The alarms were giving her a headache. She had spent enough time inside the Leapfrog by now and glanced around at the dashboard instruments that were flashing, took half a second to figure out which one controlled the alarms, and reached out to punch the button. The inside of the Frog fell silent.
“Thank you!” Chase said as the Frog surged upward onto its legs.
But other alarms were going off outside the vehicle. The dim industrial lights in the base had shut down, but the whole place strobed with white and blue emergency lighting. Claxons blared as if in warning of an imminent attack, but the attack wasn’t imminent. It was here.
“You think Sunstroke’s part of this new Masters of Evil?” Gert asked.
“One of the All-Nite Diner morons said he’d heard a few names. Whirlwind. Scorpion. Sunstroke. All rumor, but here’s Sunstroke. Seems like a big coincidence.”
Chase turned the Frog around. A wave of fire crashed over them, blasting the windshield with such force that Gert pressed herself back into her seat. The heat seals held, but the seams around the fireproof glass started to smoke.
“Damn it!” Chase said. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”
“What about the others?” Gert said, heart hammering in her chest. “We can’t just leave them.”
“They’re all upstairs. Either we get up there to help them—”
“Or he went through them to get to us and they’re beyond help.”
Chase shot her a frightened look, his face going pale. “Let’s go.”
“What about Old Lace? She’s still locked up down below. I can’t—”
“We’ll come back for her as soon as we’ve checked on the others. If we don’t go now, Sunstroke’s going to melt the Frog, and us with it!”
Gert nodded and scanned the controls again. Only three days ago, Chase had shown her how he’d routed some of the vital controls for their new base into the Leapfrog’s systems. Nodding as the memory came back, she tapped a dash screen, entered a command code, and then sat back to wait for the overhead hangar door to slide open. The mental hospital had a shaft right down its center so a typical S.H.I.E.L.D. craft could ascend or descend—or in the Frog’s case, jump—through.
The door didn’t open.
“Chase—”
“I know.” He sighed, sweat beading up on his face. “Lasers it is.”
Flipping the toggle on the steering column, Chase opened fire. Through the fire and smoke, Gert could see the white-and-red silhouette of the intruder. The lasers tore up the floor in front of him, and Sunstroke leaped out of the way, gliding on the strange fabric wings under his arms. Heat shimmered off the floor beneath him, and he alighted a dozen feet farther back from the Leapfrog. Around him, sofas and chairs that they’d dragged into the base’s hangar bay ignited in flames from the heat of his prese
nce alone.
“Give me audio,” Gert said, “and then blast him again.”
Chase didn’t ask why, just hit a button to open the audio channel to the outside speakers, and then fired the lasers at Sunstroke again, ripping up more concrete. The guy dodged again and then spun, a ball of fire beginning to form above his right hand, like he was forging a baby sun.
“Dial it back a second, Sunstroke,” Gert said, her voice echoing throughout the hangar bay.
Sunstroke started walking toward the Leapfrog. He thrust out his arms, hurling fresh fire at them. The windshield started smoking—not just the seams, but the glass itself.
“That means cease fire, you clown!” Gert shouted.
“What are you doing?” Chase asked. “Does he look like a guy who ceases fire?”
“I just wanna know if he’s after us or if he’s looking for something. Guy’s a Super Villain, right? This used to be a Hydra base, before S.H.I.E.L.D.—”
“You know I can hear you, right?” Sunstroke said.
Gert and Chase looked at each other, and then Gert stared out the windshield. Sunstroke stood fifteen feet in front of the Leapfrog—where Chase could not have missed him if he used the lasers now.
“Yeah. Of course we know that,” Gert said. “So what the hell’s your crisis? Because if you came hunting us, we have no problem keeping this cross fire going. But if you’re working for the Crimson Cowl, maybe we can do business.”
Chase arched a curious eyebrow, but he didn’t interrupt her. The Leapfrog’s shields couldn’t take much more, and they both knew it.
“I don’t know who you are,” Sunstroke said, the voice almost spooky coming from behind a mask that covered his mouth. “But you’re telling me you want in on the new Masters of Evil?”
Gert cringed. Masters of Evil was such a stupid name.
“We wanted to claim this place for the Crimson Cowl,” she said, thinking fast. “A lot of power players are making a move in L.A. right now, and she’s going to come out on top. We figured if we gift wrapped this base for her and handed it over, we could make a good impression.”
Runaways Page 2
