by Angel Payne
“I’m trying to save him, damn it!” Her tear-brimmed eyes catch the moon glow, and now I feel like the world’s biggest douche—but only for a second. At this moment, there’s only room for one of us to be taking the terrified and morose path. I’m more than willing to let that be her. “I’m trying to save all of us!”
I plant my hands to my waist, taking advantage of her emotionally induced stall. “Well, you won’t at this pace, in this goddamned darkness.”
Which, just like that, is no longer darkness.
Due to the fact that my wife, using her own terminology, goes full glowworm on me.
Yeah, the whole effect. Her pores are as blinding as Hollywood sky trackers. Her eyes are mixes of blazing blue and gleaming gold. Her hair is like strands of gilded sunlight.
In a word, under any other set of circumstances, fucking gorgeous.
All right, so that’s two words—but I’m not counting the first because it’s basically the modifier for every minute that passes now.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Fuck.” While it feels good to really pop one out, I refrain from succumbing to an adjoining rant. Just the growl is one word too many. I know it after a single flash of a glare from my gorgeous wife.
“Bright enough for you?” She fires it while spinning around and then continuing her possessed pace.
I follow, letting my own stress shatter the confines of my composure, turning my fingers into ten light batons. If she’s that hell-bent on getting home, might as well turn it into a family affair. Focusing less on camouflaging my powers also means I can concentrate more on her. With just half a block until we get back to the safe house, I’m willing to take the risk—
“Holy crap!”
—of something exactly like this happening.
Emma joins me in whipping back around to confront the source of the exclamation.
While dread still pumps through my veins, it’s diluted by at least a few drops of relief. “Cal,” I whoosh out, pivoting toward the gawking guy. While there’s nothing optimal about this intrusion, at least we’re talking to someone with a rational head on his shoulders. Or so I hope. We weren’t at the party long enough to get the details on what that saucy Juliet really is to him. Casual date for the night? We’re in luck. But if they’re at friends-with-benefits or more…
“She’s not with me.” Unsurprisingly, Calvin deciphers my urgent expression. “Juliet,” he clarifies nonetheless. “She’s not with me.”
I nod, instantly understanding, but Emma’s already stomping up with one hand fisted at her side and the other splayed against her stomach. “What do you mean, ‘not with you’? Where the hell did she go? Is she still at Maddie and Mel’s, or did she completely—”
“Okay, whoa. Shit,” Cal rushes out. “She’s still there; I swear. She didn’t poof or anything.” The guy proves his wise mettle once more. Though our wedding reception concluded so bizarrely that many have written it off as a publicity stunt to expose Emma’s superpowers to the world, Cal clearly believes differently—enough to respect Emma’s trepidation and give his answer straight. “She’s asleep in the guest bedroom. Passed out right after you two bugged.”
“Thank God.” Emma’s voice is thick with solace despite her tightly contorted face. She looks down at her middle, which she now covers with both hands. “I know, Bean,” she murmurs. “I know. Just a little while longer.”
She finishes with such a wobbly sigh, I move in without thinking and sweep down to scoop her up. But before I get her knees secured, she’s stepped clear—closer to Cal and his growing gawk.
“Holy crap,” he reiterates, shaking his head. “I seriously can’t—I mean, wow.” His stare keeps raking down to Emma’s bulge. “I—I was freaking out in there, thinking my instincts were all wrong. But my gut kept firing, right and left. The whole time, you two felt so familiar to me—”
“Familiar?” Emma cuts in a split second before I can. “Familiar how?”
Cal waves a hand. “Don’t worry. I think I’m the only one who noticed. Those Bolt-inis were doing their thing on everyone long before you walked in. Both RRO teams are staying at the Lido House hotel so they’re ridesharing back, but Juliet lives in NoHo, and I wanted to stay clear to drive her home. Besides, there’s—” He openly gapes at Emma’s belly. “I mean, how the hell…”
“Same thing we said.” Emma attempts a smile, though it’s clear the stress is still clawing at her.
“Your wedding was just over three months ago.”
“Same thing we said.” I’m the one to restate it while wrapping a protective arm around my wife.
Cal nods again, indicating his commiseration. “So,” he murmurs, still clearly awestricken. “A super baby for the Richards.” He ticks a glance back toward the Makras’ house. “But with super enemies who’d like nothing better than to know that, yeah?”
I clutch his shoulder with my free hand. “Which means we’re now trusting you with some super-level secrecy.” I don’t diminish the force beneath the fingers I keep coiling, ensuring he’ll feel their heat even through his thick wool jacket. All right, now I’m taking the biggest risk of my night. Of my year. There’s no way of discerning how much time he’s actually spent with Juliet before tonight, meaning Faline might have already gotten her paws on his psyche already. “We can do that, can’t we, Cal?” I press. “Because you can probably tell what’s at stake if we can’t.”
Despite the permanent burns I’m searing into his coat, Calvin straightens his shoulders with the pride they’ve always possessed. “I’m a father, man.” In all the important ways, he speaks the truth. The only thing he hasn’t done for his sisters was give them life in the first place. “And thanks to you and RRO, I’m a damn good one.”
He sweeps a hand across his torso before smacking it atop mine with fraternal-style affirmation. For a second, I actually envision Tyce or Chase making the same move and realize how intensely I miss them both. There’s nothing to be done about the ache for Tyce, but I promise myself that Chase is going to get a phone call and a visit as soon as I’m not evading the world’s most persistent mutant bitch.
“As a matter of fact, I wish I could do more for you guys than just keep secrets.” Cal’s comment, issued with sincerity I can practically touch, snaps me fully back to the moment. Not that I was really gone, with my wife still glowing like a Christmas tree topper along Ocean Boulevard. Thank God the weather is more East Coast gloomy than West Coast balmy tonight, resulting in sparse traffic along the road.
“Maybe there is,” I reply, moving back in next to Emma. She’s moving noticeably slower, every step now an unsteady wobble, but I don’t dare go for the stupidity of fully picking her up. When my bunny’s in her let-me-do-it-myself mode, all I can do is stand by and hope to help.
“Shield her from the right side,” I instruct Cal. “If we’re noticed, maybe it’ll just look like we’re walking with a flashlight.”
“Yeah.” Calvin repositions himself, flanking Emma to the right while I wrap an arm around her from the left. “Good idea.”
“I have better ones,” I grumble. “But Miss Tenacity wouldn’t be fond of them.”
“Where do you think I learned it from, Mister Tenacity?” But the second she’s finished with the retort, she comes to a full stop. She groans and grabs my arm with the strength of twenty men.
“Velvet?” I lean over, all the way in her face, inside two seconds. “What is it, baby? Talk to me, damn it.”
“Shut…up.” She spits it back between wheezing breaths. The ferocious breaths keep racking her form as I fling a look to Calvin across her heaving back. The tightness across his burnished features confirms I’ve communicated clearly enough. While Emma’s obstinance is typical behavior, this stall-out isn’t.
“Okay,” Emma finally rasps out. “Forward. But slowly.”
While we start to shuffle again, I stay hunched over. “All right, can you talk to me now?” I prompt. “Please, baby?”
She rolls her head hard enough that I infer the negative answer on that. But a few steps later, she utters, “Just…get me…to the car.”
“The car.” I refrain—barely—from pitching it into a question. Not that the restraint does me any good. “Where the hell do you think we’re going in the—”
“Home.”
Her dictate makes me halt this time. Her inflection already implies the full meaning of her word, but I still try to explain, “We are home, Bunny. Well, nearly. You’ve got only half a block—”
“No.” Emma tears so deeply into my forearm, I’m certain she’ll hit bone and tendons. That doesn’t seize my attention as much as the stark pain denting her features. “You know what I mean. I want to go home, Reece. To our home.”
I gulp hard. And force myself to say it. “To the ridge.”
“To the ridge.” She gives it with the certainty of finality while continuing her hobble down the sidewalk. But she only gets two steps, because I still can’t move. I’m assaulted by memories as clear as they are vicious. Standing in the command center at the ridge—until I had to sit, as Dad’s voice filled my ear. They’ve narrowed down the search. They’re going to find you, Reece…
“No.” I spew it violently enough to shatter the vision, though my payback is watching deeper pain cut into my wife’s brow. “Velvet, you’re not thinking clearly,” I dictate. “I know that all that bullshit with Juliet was stressful—”
“No.” She stops, wincing harder. “All that bullshit was a wakeup call.”
I draw in a harsh breath. “But that doesn’t mean anyone’s got to pick up the line right away, okay?”
“Yes, Reece. That means they do.” She inhales too but takes in her air with chopped-up spurts. Her lips form a pale and taut twist before she amends, “That means we do. If she’s put enough intel together to start activating the Newport Beach-bound Faliniacs for recon missions like Juliet’s, then she’s gotten just as close as her efforts to pinpoint the ridge.”
“‘Faliniacs?’” Calvin pushes in again, shooting a narrowed stare between the two of us. “What the hell does that—whoa.” Just as quickly, his gaze pops wide. “That whackball who runs the Consortium…isn’t her name Faline? Is that what you’re getting—oh, hold up again.” He stabs a hand through his well-pomaded black hair. “Do you think Juliet has something to do with that psycho? Holy shit.”
“We can’t get into it all right now.” An understatement of fact to match the mountain of stress I’m trying to hide with what feels like a hand towel of composure. Every second we linger out here is another opportunity for exposure—because, goddamnit, Emma’s more right than I want to admit. “But cutting to the chase: Faline’s found a way of expediting a mass brainwashing technique. Over the last few months, she’s been quietly gathering more and more followers.”
“The last few months?” Cal ripostes. “Are you serious?”
“As a world domination vendetta,” I confirm.
“But why?” He jerks his head as if trying to shake dirt out of it. “What the hell is her issue?”
As antsy as I am to rush all three of us to safety, I take some extra seconds before replying. Not because I’ve never considered the question but because I have—at least a thousand times already. “Wish I had that answer too,” I counter. “But it’s not as easy as opening the cosmic coloring book and turning to the ‘badly parented kid gone wrong’ page.”
Emma pushes out a little snort. “If it were only that easy.”
I share a commiserating glance with her before going on. “The woman’s a triple threat of enemy force. Obscenely smart, intensely driven, deeply damaged.”
Calvin hikes both brows. “And well-funded.”
Emma manages a short laugh. “Someone was taking notes during your press conference last spring.”
I give the kid a nod of deference before clarifying, “We’ve learned a few things about that since then, though. The relationship with the Scorpios might be taking some…evolutions.”
I’m deliberately sketchy because I have to be. The hunch is all I have to go on right now, but logic is leading me closer to the conclusion each day. The cartel, even with their global muscle, can’t still be Faline’s biggest fans right now. She hasn’t sealed off every crack of the Consortium’s secrets—nicks that we’ve been successfully widening.
“But she’s still amassing a secret army-cult thing.”
“Yeah.” I nod—reluctantly—at Cal’s observation. “There is that.” Goddamnit.
“But why?” he presses then. “What’s her end game?”
Here’s the part where my thousand questions and just as many contemplative hours bear fruit. “She really believes in her ultimate purpose. To her, the human race is permanently broken—and to save it, she has to reboot it. Literally.”
With a clouded gaze, Cal sucks in a harsh breath. “An evolution for the digital age.”
I slowly shake my head. “Sounds like batshit nutso time…”
“Until it doesn’t.” Emma’s the one who fills it in now, finishing with a hitched breath—as she drops her head toward her stomach. I press in over her, kissing tenderly into her hair, sharing as much of her pain as I possibly can—but there’s so much more of it than I imagined.
Irony is a word with which I’m powerfully familiar—but never so much as right now. We’ve been fighting Faline about her mission to alter the human race—even as we’ve accomplished exactly that in creating our perfect bean.
So how do we justify our battle with her now?
Or can we?
And do those answers even matter if Faline finds out about our baby? If that happens…what then? Am I supposed to think the bitch will acknowledge our rights as his parents at all—or just tick out a notation as the kid’s DNA contributors? She values human life so little that she cataloged us inside the Source. To her, in so many ways, I’ll always just be Alpha Two.
So to what lengths will the woman go once she learns about our child? What extremes will she use in the name of creating more super babies?
But even worse: what will she do if those children don’t reach the high bar she’s already set?
But this is a brood meant for a different time and place. And it’ll be ready and waiting once I choose to revisit it.
For now, I have to refocus on a scowling Calvin, his mind clearly churning into a high gear of conclusions. “Okay, so the witch turned her troubled past into an alliance between the Consortium and the Scorpios and let her intellect carry that into dreams of grandeur—which got bigger when the Consortium’s experiments were successful, using human subjects like you”—he stares at me but swiftly sweeps Emma into his regard too—“well, holy shit, now like both of you.”
“Another story for another time.” My rebuttal is in response to the blatant curiosity in his stare—which has probably been waiting to be set free since our wedding day, when he was part of the crowd who witnessed Emma outing herself during the reception that broke the internet. The connection amps my trust in the guy by another notch. As one of the most public faces of RRO, Cal’s likely been approached for hundreds of interviews in the three months since then but hasn’t accepted a single one. “A much different time,” I repeat as soon as my wife stops to double over again. “With much different timing.”
Emma twists her head, looking up to reconnect our stares while dragging her hand the opposite direction. As she pops off several buttons, she grits, “You mean the kind that doesn’t suck ass like this?”
It takes every ounce of my self-control not to scoop her up here and now. Despite the fact that we can count the scales on our holiday-themed mermaid porch mat from here, the woman continues tossing me so much stubborn intention, I know I can only redress with words. “Nothing sucks anything,” I assert. “And look, we’re almost home.”
“No,” Emma retaliates, her lips still tight and her teeth still clenched. “Home is two hours away.” Without waiting for my retaliation, she whips her attention at Cal
vin. “You know how to drive an Audi Q8?”
The guy’s eyes pop wide. “You want me to pay you for the chance?”
“Other way around,” she counters. “We’ll reimburse you for the overtime on your sitter.”
“Jina and Tosca are at a sleepover tonight and then a birthday party tomorrow,” he returns. “And I’ve prepaid for Juliet’s Lyft.” His composure stiffens. “Her roommate can help her get inside once she’s home, because I’m not getting anywhere near that brand of crazy anymore.”
“Smart…guy.” But Emma’s encouragement is more a pair of guttural grunts and then a bunch of heavy breaths. “The keys are hanging from the hook…next to the inside door of the garage.” She bursts with some more winded gusts after we clear the crosswalk in front of the house. Her whole form is trembling from the strain of simply breathing.
“Okay, listen.” The woman can continue to refuse the free ride in my arms, but she’s sure as hell not going to ignore the logic from my lips. “I get that we’ve had some crazy-as-shit times lately, and that tonight was crazier than usual, but we can’t just pick up and leave—”
“You mean the same way we didn’t ‘just pick up and leave’ from the ridge in the first place?” And just like that, she’s accomplished her normal one-two punch of enthralling me and maddening me in the space of one sentence.
“Point to Mrs. Richards,” I concede. “But hardly the match.” As I take a few seconds to enforce the claim by shoring my stance, my opened posture clears the way for more of the searing memories from Dad’s last moments alive. And his desperate words to me…
Faline…she’ll never fucking stop, Reece.
Words that became prophecy.
Because tonight, one of the woman’s minions raised a glass full of Bolt-ini to us…before seeming to see right through us.
Thank fuck she’d passed out drunk a few minutes later. Which has given us the pause button we need to think this shit through.
If only I can get my headstrong wife to track with that program too.
