This was interesting.
“Are you suddenly shy?” Michelle asked.
Jocelyn nodded her head meekly, still staring down at the ground. Michelle walked towards the girl, feeling in power, feeling emboldened. She knew why Jocelyn liked to dominate. That sense of having complete power over another human, it was a rush.
And this was complete power.
Michelle felt like a predator surveying her prey as she circled the meek and naked Jocelyn. She grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled it down to expose her breasts. As Jocelyn’s body vibrated with nerves, Michelle grabbed the girl’s nipples and squeezed.
Jocelyn’s body flinched, but she continued to stare down at the ground.
“Look at me,” Michelle commanded.
Jocelyn obeyed. Raising her head, their eyes met. Michelle tightened her grip on Jocelyn’s breasts. She saw the pain in the girl’s eyes. But her lips remained sealed as she suffered in silence.
“Who do you belong to?”
“…you,” came the response. “I belong to you, Michelle,” Jocelyn whispered.
Michelle let go of Jocelyn’s nipples. As the blood rushed back in, Jocelyn let out a groan. But she did nothing to ease her pain. She remained standing at attention like a good slave.
It had worked.
Michelle felt her chest thumping.
It had worked.
And there were no noticeable side effects. She felt perfectly great, perfectly normal. Now, all she needed to do was find a few strong Supers to control and she would be ready to attack Vengeance.
She could do it all on her own too, with Lucas being none the wiser.
Chapter 16
An hour later, Michelle was executing stage two of her plan. She’d gotten Jocelyn to name the location of a few Supers, powerful ones that had already pledged their allegiance to either Carnage of Trident. But with both of those Supers now out of the game thanks to Vengeance, Michelle planned to grab their followers and make them her own before Vengeance did.
The Super they were driving towards now had named himself Spikes.
It wasn’t the most conventional of Super names.
Spikes didn’t exactly inspire fear into people.
The name was more associated with annoyances.
Like hedgehogs.
Or thorn bushes.
His power was to shoot out spikes from all across his body. Like a bomb. He could be really useful if they were surrounded by a large number of enemies.
“What if Vengeance has already gotten to him?” Jocelyn asked, her voice quiet, timid. She sat with her knees pressed against her chest, her arms hugging her lower limbs.
“We’ve talked about this, Jocelyn,” Michelle said. “We chose Spikes for a reason. He isn’t the most powerful of Supers about. Vengeance won’t go after him straight away.”
“But what if he’s turned?”
“Turned?” Michelle asked. “They’re not fucking vampires,” she added. “You’re not a vampire.”
Jocelyn persisted still. “What if he’s been injected though?”
“Then we fight him, and if we have to kill him, we do,” Michelle said.
Staring at the road ahead, Michelle could still see Jocelyn from the corner of her eye. She was afraid. This wasn’t the Jocelyn of old, the Jocelyn that took on Lucas, not worrying at all about the consequences of being fired at, at having bombs thrown at her.
Had the serum done that to her? Had it turned her into a coward?
Michelle felt a sinking feeling deep inside her. She knew injecting someone with the serum was morally wrong. Taking control of their life, literally owning them in a way that took away their power, of course it was wrong.
But in this world, you had to do some wrong. And she figured she would never abuse the power. Jocelyn would be fine so long as she behaved, didn’t try and stab them in the back.
It wasn’t supposed to change her mentally…
* * *
“This it?” Michelle asked.
Jocelyn nodded.
Michelle walked up the path. Standing by the door, she turned and looked back. “Are you coming?”
“Yes… yes, of course,” Jocelyn hurried to join Michelle, her face pale, her lips quivering.
“What the hell happened to you?” Michelle hissed. “Why are you so afraid?”
“Because we could die?” Jocelyn muttered. “I don’t want to die.”
“You weren’t like this before. What’s gotten into you?”
“I’ve never wanted to die,” Jocelyn protested. “Which idiot wants to die?”
“But you used to be brave,” Michelle muttered. “I remember the way you charged at Lucas. Didn’t seem to care much about dying back then.”
“Had I known Normies could be as frightening as Lucas, I would never have run after him,” Jocelyn hissed.
Michelle, who was about to knock on the door, completely forgot about that as she stared at Jocelyn.
The serum hadn’t changed her mentally.
She had always been a coward.
When she attacked Lucas, she did it because he was a Normie, and in her eyes, Normies weren’t to be afraid of because they were weak and pitiful.
“You’re something else, you know that?” Michelle said. “Like, seriously… you’re a horrible Super.”
“Oh, and you’re a fucking angel, aren’t you? You just injected me with the serum. You made me your slave.”
“I wouldn’t have done it to you if you weren’t such a fucking bitch. You’d backstab us the first chance you get,” Michelle huffed.
“Oh, fuck you. You’re not better than me,” Jocelyn raged.
In her anger, she raised her only hand and held it open. A black hole began to appear in her palm. Any second now and a spike would shoot out from it.
But Jocelyn’s hand began to waver. And then, she retracted it and lowered her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she said, now staring at her feet.
The girl still had her anger and her high and mightiness. “The serum hasn’t changed who you are,” Michelle observed.
“I think it might have some,” Jocelyn murmured. “I still have my pride but… there’s a desire in me to please you. And it seems to be growing stronger… I’m sorry about earlier,” she said quickly. “I wasn’t going to attack you.”
“I wasn’t worried,” came Michelle’s curt response. “I can handle you with ease.”
Jocelyn nodded, a glazed look in her eyes. “Yes… you can, can’t you?”
It was as if the girl was having an epiphany, suddenly realising that Michelle was the stronger Super. If the serum had the effect of removing a person’s ego from clouding their judgement, so the better.
Michelle turned to face the door and knocked on the wood.
She didn’t have a plan on how to proceed once she met with Spikes. She could catch him by surprise, stab him with the syringe the second he opened the door? That would be the safest thing to do. But could she do it?
There was every chance he wasn’t an asshole. Maybe he would join her side voluntarily?
The door opened surprisingly quickly and a head popped out through the gap. “I was wondering when you girls would finish your arguing and get on to the pressing matter of knocking on my door.”
“You heard all of that?” Michelle asked, her face beginning to pale as her mind raced to remember her conversation with Jocelyn. Had she given away what she was here for? Had she mentioned the serum, and if so, in what context?
“I did,” the guy said. “I thought you two would battle it out.” His gaze fell on Jocelyn and her missing arm. “I can see why you didn’t though. Fuck me girl, you’re a disabled Super,” he roared out a laugh. “Well, come on in then.”
He left the door open and disappeared down the corridor.
Chapter 17
Lucas stood in the basement of his home on the outskirts of Buxworth Town with his hands resting on his waist. He felt some sadness rise within him. He’d spent a lot of t
ime in this room, working through his problems by not really working through them and instead punching a bag, or running really fast. It was probably unhealthy in the long term, mentally, at least. It was fantastic physically.
He was going to miss this place.
This wouldn’t be the first time he’d moved away from this house. He’d taken refuge in a safe house in Buxworth before, when the Red Heads gang broke his front door and kidnapped Jenny and Anika.
He’d managed to deal with the Red Heads and return to this house. This home.
He’d found this place a week after the death of his dad. Although his father had never been in this house, Lucas somehow felt it connected to him. Maybe it was the longevity. This house had been the most constant thing in his life since The Strikes. It was a formidable house of brick and mortar. It had a large garden and a basement full of weapons.
His dad had always seemed formidable to Lucas. He was a big burly man. The strongest in the world, in Lucas’s eyes.
Until the Super Mayor Carcass punched him to death in a single strike.
Lucas felt a tear bubble in his left eye. He brushed it away and focused on the weapons before him. As he handled the assault rifle, he wondered if he was losing his touch.
He imagined, not so long ago, he would have questioned Michelle’s motives when she showed concern for him. He was wearing a bullet proof coat. And more than that, he was a Super. Of sorts. He’d survived a literal hole being torn through his chest.
He should have doubted her motives some when she fussed over him, when she pulled his coat off, when she stared at the minor bruises on his chest, and then still called the girls down, announcing he had been shot again.
Again.
It wasn’t like he got shot a lot.
And now, she was gone. Along with Jocelyn, the Mercedes car, and three pairs of the serum.
Lucas checked his coat pocket as soon as he realised she had dashed off. He knew why. She was going to use the serums. Why had she taken Jocelyn with her? Was she going to use the serum on the Super, or was she going to use Jocelyn’s knowledge to find more Supers to turn to her side?
It was a desperate act.
But after today, Lucas was finding the idea of forcing Supers to join their group a little less controversial. Vengeance had changed the rules of the game.
Lucas pointed the rifle towards the boxing bag and stared through the scope. He really hoped Michelle knew what the hell she was doing.
* * *
Michelle sat in Spikes living room, a drink in hand, she held it awkwardly as the Super sat opposite her on a stool.
A foot away.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back.
He didn’t have a great smile.
She felt uneasy.
“Well, go on then,” Spikes said. “What are you here for?”
Down to business.
Finally, Michelle thought. “Right, so, we were wondering if you would like to join myself, Jocelyn, and a few other Supers in supporting me running for Mayor of this town.” God, she would have made a terrible salesperson, if that were still a thing.
“You and how many others?” Spikes asked.
“A few,” Michelle said. Truth was, so far, she had one other Super not including Jocelyn.
“How many?” Spikes persisted.
“Five,” Michelle lied.
“That’s it?” Spikes frowned. “You want to go up against Vengeance with five Supers? Do you know how many he has on his side?”
Michelle shook her head.
“More than twenty!”
Fuck. That was a lot. “We’ve got some very capable… Normies… on our side too,” Michelle said.
She hated that word.
Normies.
It had a bad connation to it.
Negative.
“Normies?” Spikes asked. He glanced at Jocelyn as his lips spread into a wide smile. “She’s fucking kidding me, right?”
Jocelyn shook her head. “One of them is pretty capable,” she said, her voice begrudging. “His name’s Lucas. He killed Mayor Carcass.”
“The guy from the poster?” Spikes asked. “He’s for real?” and when Michelle nodded, Spikes rubbed his palms together. “Well fuck me, I’d love to meet Michelle. A hottie like that… they don’t come around every day.”
Michelle felt her cheeks begin to colour. “I’m Michelle.”
Spikes frowned. “You don’t look anything like the girl from the picture.”
“No girl looks like that girl in the picture,” Michelle hissed. “Women don’t just have arses that big, legs that long and tits that size!”
Spikes, who had been sitting pretty close to her on his stool, leaned back a little, his lips curled, he frowned. “There are some girls about that look like that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have drawn it, would he? He had to have seen it somewhere.”
You’re a fucking idiot, Michelle thought as she glared at him. “Are you going to join us or what?”
“I don’t got a choice, do I?” Spikes replied. “It’s either join you or be a mindless slave to Vengeance. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but he’s got some kind of serum that turns Supers into his slaves.”
“We’ve heard,” Michelle muttered. But then she smiled brightly. “Great to you have you on the team.”
Spikes raised his drink. “Cheers to that,” he said.
Michelle clinked her glass against his and took a sip of her drink. It tasted like mulled wine. A little thick. Like something else had been mixed in it.
“What is this?” she asked, as she raised the glass to her lips for another sip.
“Wine,” Spikes said. “But it’s got a drug in it that’s going to knock you out soon.”
“What?”
Spikes nodded and moved back. “I’m already on Vengeance’s side.”
The glass fell out of Michelle’s hand and hit the carpet. She climbed to her feet, her hands blazed blue, she felt good, not affected yet.
“I- I don’t f-feel to good,” Jocelyn said. Her eyes lolled as she tipped onto her side and fell back onto the sofa.
“You’re going to pay for this,” Michelle growled.
Raising her blue fists, she made a thrusting motion in Spikes’ direction.
Normally, a ball of blue would have shot forward and struck him on the chest, sending him flying back, crashing into the wall with such force, his body would have felt like it had just been through a compactor.
A blue ball did shoot out from her hand.
But it only made it a foot from where she stood before it hit the ground weakly, leaving a dark mark on the carpet.
“No… no…” Michelle whispered. “This isn’t happening.”
Spikes climbed to his feet. At five and a half feet, he wasn’t exactly a tall guy. But as Michelle felt her head spin, as her legs weakened and she fell back, he suddenly seemed to tower over her.
The last thing she saw before her eyes closed to welcome the darkness was Jocelyn.
The girl was on the floor where she lay on her side facing Michelle. Her eyes were open but there was no one home.
Chapter 18
Lucas stood at the front of his house, staring down the driveway. He’d been standing there for the past half hour, not out of a genuine hope or expectation. More because he didn’t know what else to do. Michelle had driven off with the large SUV, leaving behind a battered BMW that had its roof crushed thanks to being tipped over. They weren’t going to move many items in that thing.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Hannah said, as she appeared by the front door.
Lucas knew as much. Every second they stayed here increased the risk of Vengeance arriving with a large force.
“How do you want to do this?” Lucas asked as he stared at the BMW.
It seemed to look worse everything he laid eyes on it.
“We could cut the roof off?” Hannah suggested. “That’ll let us carry more things.”
It was something Lucas ha
d already considered doing, and then ruled out. “It would look suspicious. We need to be discreet. We don’t know how many people might be keeping an eye out for us.”
Vengeance had after all distributed all those wanted posters of himself and Michelle. Whilst her image didn’t bear much resemblance, his was pretty accurate.
Hannah nodded her understanding. “What’s the plan then?”
“Let’s move you girls out,” Lucas said. Jenny and Lucy weren’t cut out for this sort of life, battling Supers and gangs. With the possibility of Vengeance making an appearance at any moment, the girls needed to be shifted to the safe house immediately. “I’ll come back for the stuff.”
With that decided, Hannah went back inside to let the girls know they were to get ready to move. Lucas turned his attention back towards the trees that grew on either side of the road that led out of the property.
“Where the hell are you?” he muttered.
* * *
There was a brief scramble to sit in the front seat of the car, a scramble surprisingly won by Hannah and not Anika. The redhead was becoming more assertive whilst Anika it seemed, was losing a little of her dominant edge.
With three girls squashed into the back of a battered car, Lucas put his foot down. He reached their destination in Buxworth Town in record time. As he pulled the car up on the side of the road, a small part of him hoped to see the Mercedes SUV already parked there.
But there was no sign of the car, or of Michelle and Jocelyn as they entered the house. As the girls explored the terraced property, Lucas carried the luggage from the boot. Most of the contents in the bags were personal belongings, but there were a few weapons too.
Lucas left the bags in the corridor and headed back towards their former home on the outskirts of town. As he drove, his mind began to wander.
Michelle had been gone for close to six hours now. The sun was beginning to set. It was always riskier being out and about during the hours of dark in Buxworth. Though Michelle was a capable Super, one of the strongest about, she still had some of that village girl naivety about her.
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