by Angel Payne
Recognitions that would have me shitting a pile of purple Ding Dongs right now if I didn’t already have a damn strong theory about how that happened.
But that’s bullshit for the back burner for the moment. Number-one priority: ensuring every single person here that they’ll never have to return to their cell again. I fight to vow it to them with the force of my embrace, the commiseration in my eyes, the confidence in my steps. But despite my efforts, they’re not biting on the cookie of hope yet. I don’t begrudge them. If I were in their skin, being dangled the big Chips Ahoy of freedom, I’d also be looking at the baker with a shitload of suspicion.
Everyone does perk up as Emma takes her second round through the complex, making sure the digital lock box on every cell is turned into a blob of melted wall art. But they’re all back to open cynicism the moment I dig into a supply closet, finding boxes of freshly laundered lab scrubs. I don’t push anyone to accept them. It’s all I can do not to behold the uniforms and liken them to Gestapo greens. Not a fair comparison by half, but as I start my mental action plan list for reacclimating everyone back to the world in which they’re now free, the first item is contracting a topnotch post-trauma recovery team. Every single soul in this room has survived a fucking war.
The trauma counselors are already on top of a rapidly growing list, including my commitment that they’ll all be housed at the Brocade until we help them find new homes of their own or paths back to the loved ones they knew. It’s an amazing feeling—no, a miraculous recognition—to realize I won’t be tackling the tasks alone. I grasp the recognition with all the certainty in my soul from the moment Emma reenters the main gathering area—an intake waiting room, from the looks of it—with stress stamped on her face but devotion shimmering in her eyes. Doesn’t take me more than two seconds to read what she’s telling me.
Team Richards, baby. All the way.
God in heaven, I love the fuck out of this woman.
I fight the craving to flash-pulse my way across the room and kiss her until her knees buckle. Damn, damn, damn, I don’t deserve her. Clearly this experience has extracted its pound of emotional flesh from her, and I ache deeply about that. Yeah, despite knowing she would’ve speared my balls and chomped them for breakfast had I ordered her back up the elevator shaft with the others. But at least she’d still be spared from this tableau of suffering—a shock she’s valiantly trying to play down but isn’t succeeding at very well. In many ways, it’s not fair. A huge part of me was ready for my hellhole homecoming from the second we started clearing the cave-in, but she’s only been prepared with the few details I’ve recounted about this place—and I held back a lot of them on purpose.
A confession that leads to deeper truths.
Not ones I’m proud of admitting.
I kept glossing over the grittier details for Emma because secretly, I never thought she’d have to go through this. Because very secretly, I was letting my own cookie of hope crumble between my fingers. As month after month dragged by without any new intel about the Source’s location, even with the Team Bolt command center churning nonstop, I’d started bracing my spirit for defeat. Telling my soul to accept that I got away and no one else did. Ordering my heart to honor the victims of the Consortium’s torture by making at least one city safer and happier to live in.
I’d been preparing to let Faline win this round.
But this time, in this improbable place and this incredible moment, we’ve beaten the bitch. Soundly.
A triumph I share with my woman via the lingering look we lavish on each other.
Just before there’s a commotion near the mound of quake rubble.
And the only person I want to share the victory with more than Emma comes tromping in like an amalgam of Chuck Norris, Chris Hemsworth, and Han Solo’s long-lost blond bastard.
“Ballsy fucker.” I chuckle while striding through the crowd, which has parted like a petrified Red Sea. Instead of attempting a litany of reassurance, I show them Foley’s worth by hauling him into a hearty hug, not holding back on the fierce back slaps.
“Said the crazy-ass pot to the ballsy kettle?” But only Foley’s words are flippant. There’s a fragility to his aura as he looks around, putting on the same brave show as Emma but barely succeeding at keeping his shit tight. “Jesus crapped a fucking load,” he finally rumbles. “This never gets easier.”
“It’s supposed to?”
“Valid point, lightning king.” At once, to my relief, his profile tautens. The Chuck Norris chunk of him wins out for composure. “I just…don’t. Fucking. Understand. It’s here. Right here. How could we have been so off this whole time?”
“Because I told you all that I escaped and finally made it back to Barcelona on foot?”
A gaunt but striking woman, with a bald skull similar to Angelique’s, inches toward us. “And I was taken from a modeling shoot near Milan.”
A man—no, a boy, probably not out of his teens—steps from behind her. His gaze is gilded brilliance. His teeth are gleaming squares. His spun-gold hair stands up vertically from his head. “I was seduced at a rock music festival near Denver. My band had just opened for Arctic Monkeys.”
Others come forward, adding their testaments to the story.
“…on vacation in Greece…”
“…in a field near Stonehenge…”
“…after seeing Hamilton in Puerto Rico…”
“…during BUDS training in Virginia…”
The Consortium hasn’t missed a corner of the globe or a segment of society. Big and small, young and old, every color and ethnicity there is…and yet none of it matters. We’re the mutant version of the Small World ride—except without the laughter, hopes, and smiles parts.
“So how is this all possible?” But there is a golden sun, brilliant and beautiful, tucking herself against my side after giving Foley a ferocious hug. “I’m assuming Faline doesn’t have an actual X-15 conveniently tucked in her back pocket?”
“Which still wouldn’t explain how I got lucky enough to make it out of here and immediately found myself in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.”
“Bolt-amatic makes a sound point,” Foley comments.
There’s a fresh frisson of tension through Emma’s body. “Unless the witch mastered her portal powers much longer ago than we thought.”
Foley narrows his gaze, shifting to government ghost-man mode. “Or someone else had them locked and loaded first.”
I crunch my scowl tighter. “A partner? But who? And how could all our research have missed that?”
“Not a partner.” The objection is inserted by the young musician with the gold porcupine hair. His gaze matches the radiance of his teeth as he steps over, despite at least three of the others attempting to hold him back. “A slave.”
Just when I thought my gut couldn’t be a worse ball of bile. “Who’s still under her thumb? Now?” I almost issue it all as basic statements instead of questions. The answers are already evident in the fear-sharpened stares across the throng. I acknowledge them with an understanding nod, but it’s truncated. Focusing on my rock-star friend, who seems to be the only one eager to hand over a new plate of Faline’s evil shit pile, is more important at the moment. “And is he…down here somewhere?”
So much for the shit pile. The stuff starts flying, in the form of screams and roars and outcries, as soon as my query leaves my lips.
“Don’t answer him, Alpha Eighty!”
“Don’t you dare show it to him, you showy asswipe!”
“If you do it, we’ll all pay!”
Alpha Eighty whirls around, throwing his arms wide. Webs of fiery energy spread up and down his eye-poppingly ripped arms. “And none of you think we won’t be paying already?”
“Nobody’s paying for anything.” I twist so much vehemence into the command, I’m at risk of becoming the gruesome villain on this soundtrack. But the savagery serves its purpose. I’ve wrangled their attention again. “I swear this to you on my own son’s life,” I bell
ow. “Nobody’s paying Faline Garand a drop more of their blood, their body, or their sanity, today or any other day. I’m not leaving this hell hive until every last one of you has—meaning if that harpy is stupid enough to return and stick around, her carotid is going to have a fun little visit from my stormy squad.” I raise my right hand as if there’s a baseball in it, which allows the bright-blue arcs in my tips to cavort with each other. “Snap crackle pop, motherfuckers.”
I swear the walls tremble from the collective blare of triumph that answers me. I turn toward Alpha Eighty, who motions for me to follow him down a long side hall that stops at a dead end.
Or does it?
Eighty swipes his hand across part of the wall to his left, and I’m not as surprised as I should be when the panel before us comes alive, changing into the outline of an electric travel portal. The inside of the large square consists of nothing but mingling mists. I assume it’s because there’s no destination given for the portal right now.
For a long pause, I stand and stupidly stare at the thing. And I mean stupid. It’s wasted time we don’t have. Tick tock. My blood beats out the message, driven by an instinct that says our Faline-free time might be waning fast.
“Welcome to the Consortium’s birthing channel.” Eighty chuffs at his grim humor. “The bitch that pushed us all out into this new life.”
I absorb his statement with a tightening jaw—matched by the tension in my stomach. “Pushed…out,” I finally echo. “But there’s no way to…go back in? To leap back thr—”
“You don’t think any of us has tried?” He chuffs. “Especially after the news got out that it was even here.”
“Which was when?”
“The day after you escaped through it.”
As my brain shoots to the inevitable conclusion from that, my middle becomes a morass of pain. “And then she made it impossible for anyone else to do the same.”
“Bitch locked down that shit faster than Jimi Hendrix nailing ‘Machine Gun’ at the Fillmore.”
“Points for the metaphor,” I growl, feeling like a million bucks when he grins gratefully for the praise. But neither of us dwells on the moment. I need the whole truth here, and he needs to know that not every compliment will end up in physical torture. “So what happens if someone tries it now?”
His smile fades. “They’re transported directly to the retraining center.”
So much for the million bucks. From the two pennies left in my spirit, I manage to mutter, “Fuck.”
“Wh-What’s the retraining center?” Emma’s mumble is barely audible.
“No idea.” My answer is sincere. “But I’m damn sure I don’t want to know.” In the world of Faline Garand, retraining could mean everything from running laps on a treadmill to electric worms feasting on one’s brain for a day. Or a week. Or a month. And after that, getting assigned “missions” like morphing into a superhero’s brother…or taking down half the LA skyline.
I toss back my head and squeeze my eyes closed, allowing my grief for Tyce and Kane—and Mitch and Dad, and even Laurel Crist, as we once knew her—to spear every cell of my senses for one terrible torch of a moment.
But only one.
Tick tock.
I realign my posture, but accomplishing the same for my thoughts isn’t as simple. “Fuck,” I grate once more. “Fuck.” And then jerk Eighty in close, using him as proxy for every soul in the unnerved throng down the hall. “I’m sorry,” I mutter fervently. “I’m so damn sorry.”
The guy shoves me away as if I’m trying to take responsibility for gravity. “You’re also fucking weird. What the hell, man?”
I stare back as if he’s the inventor of gravity. “If I hadn’t broken out, everyone’s lives would’ve been a hell of a lot easier.”
He barks out a laugh. A loud one. “You really believe that, don’t you?” Then rolls his gaze at the ceiling, which brings back a bit of my smile. The kid hasn’t said goodbye to all of his teenage quirks. “You do know that if you hadn’t broken out, we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation?”
I whoosh out a full breath, despite the anvil of guilt still parked on my chest. “Okay, slick. You get the point on that one too.”
“Damn straight I do.” He cocks his head, taking his own turn at channeling General Solo. “But I’m even sharper after a beer and a plate of wings.” But his gaze widens as if he’s blastered his foot off. “Shit. Please tell me wings are still a thing.”
“In any flavor you want.” I clap him on the shoulder. “As soon as we get every one of you out of here.”
His face lights up as if I’ve told him there’s a side of sexy cheerleaders with those wings—only to dive back into pessimism the very next second. “Just tell me your plan doesn’t include hotwiring this fucker.” He jabs a thumb over at the portal. “Because if this activation hasn’t already revved Faline’s broomstick, messing with the default settings will absolutely fire those cylinders.”
I add my grip to his other shoulder. “Wave buh-bye to the spawn subway now, buddy. You’re never going to look at it again.”
Eighty hums with meaning before uttering, “Oh, I’ve said all I fucking want to that thing.”
I don’t make him elaborate on that. He doesn’t have to. Something tells me the kid is well acquainted with the portal to nowhere, and not just from one attempt to clear it. “Good,” I say instead. “Because I’ll need a third lieutenant to make this exodus happen as fast as possible.”
“Then I’m your solid.”
Beneath my hands, the boulders of his shoulders emulate his determined expression.
“Out-fucking-standing.” I issue my approval with my tighter grip, though end the move with half a wince. “But there is just one thing…”
“Huh?” Eighty retorts. “What?”
I turn the wince into a steady stare so he knows how serious I am now. “What’s your real name, Eighty?”
He grins. It’s radiant. The light spreads across his entire face. “It’s Kainalu,” he offers. “I’m an islander. Well, I was.” An uncomfortable shrug. “But my friends call me Kain.” And another. “You can just do that if you want.”
“Yeah, that’s cool.”
No, it’s way fucking better. It’s like a message in the sky from the universe itself—and the big hulk up there somewhere, joining Mitch, Tyce, and Dad to look out for me in all these amazing ways. I flash a quick glance upward, giving the original Kane my heartfelt gratitude, before focusing on the one I can actually save this time.
“Hey, Kain?”
“Yeah?”
I lock down his stare with an extra strong dose of conviction. “They’re going to be calling you that again. Very soon.”
I finish it with a full smile of my own, which explodes into a dazzled laugh as the kid switches up his light yet again. No. He’s turning it up. His eyes turn into gold and white rocket flames that rise through his irises and then stretch up over his forehead. Once the energy reaches his hairline, every stiff strand on his head ignites into a sight similar to a nuclear-charged fiber optic, transforming his whole head into a bursting firework. I don’t share the comparison with him, though. Something tells me he’d prefer something like “charging bull of brightness” instead of “pretty pretty boom boom.”
But even if the guy insisted I call him Lord High Ruler of Light, I wouldn’t care. Nothing can change the fulfillment he deals to my spirit with his victorious haka pose and his I’m-all-in grin. “Ready to do this when you are, Lightning Man.”
“Lead the way, Hundred-Watt Hedgehog.”
His gaze narrows. “You know if you weren’t saving my ass, I might have to kick yours, right?”
I snicker softly. “Yeah, man. I know.”
“Then you also know that I’m probably going to steal that as the name of my new band, right?”
The elation of my heart scoots aside a little, welcoming the completion of my soul.
“I’m counting on it, kid.”
&nb
sp; Chapter Five
Emma
“Uno!”
Lux’s exuberant shout is followed by giggles in stereo. The sound has Lydia, Angie, and me trading huge grins and soft chuckles over our lunch plates, ordered from Lux’s favorite Italian place up in Hollywood. Normally, we all go and enjoy a meal inside the restaurant, where Lux joins the waiters in singing Italian love ballads, but it’s been only three days since Mis and Ira got their first-ever exposure to the world beyond their underground prison, and it’s been clear we’ll have to go slow in their introduction to everything outside the strictures of Faline Garand’s rule.
Three days.
In which I feel like I’ve been to hell and back three dozen times.
Every time, one of those precious girls returns there too—in the horrors that have been fused into their minds and spirits.
Some of the incidents, we can predict—nightmares at two a.m., screams from passing sirens, duck-and-cover drills when we turn on the TV—but others are surprises that go from amusing to wrenching. I’ll forever treasure the experience of singing them their first lullaby, despite how my gut churned as they clutched their stuffed animals like refugees with life rings. And it’ll be tough to forget the trial-and-error process of discovering foods that won’t send them into agonized screams. In the end, I distilled the freak-out factor to two main points. If it’s in a bowl and remotely resembles gruel, it’s on the blacklist. So popsicles, yes. But ice cream? A hard no. Same with french fries versus potato soup and a plate of pasta versus a bowl of SpaghettiOs.
And that leads back to the joy of now. Lux never met a plate of Miceli’s rigatoni that he didn’t like, proved by his hands-on approach with the stuff in this whimsical moment. I look down the dining table in time to watch my imp of a kid raising all ten fingers, dripping with sauce-drenched tubes, crooning a self-composed song about his “pasta paintbrushes.”
As Ira and Mis laugh harder, clapping at his antics, I park my head in a hand and quietly groan. “You’re not helping,” I chastise Lydia and Angie, who join them. Lux, cranked by all the motivation, swirls his hands in and out of each other. “Great,” I grumble. “He’s got choreography now.”
