Darkest Day (StrikeForce #3) (10 page)

I blushed a little, nodding.

“You had watermelon recently. I can still smell it in the air.”

“Two days ago,” I said in disbelief.

“You must sleep with this blanket on you every night. It smells strongly of you.”

“I do.” I smiled at him. “Now I feel sorry for you when we’re in the mini jet together after I’ve been chasing some asshole down. Sweaty Jolene must not be a great scent.”

“That’s pretty much the last thing I’m thinking about when we’re together,” he said, and then he took a gulp of his coffee.

“Right.” Because he was actually focusing on flying the jet, not worrying about how I smell. “So you learned to kind of filter everything out?”

He nodded. “It took a long time. I still wasn’t all that great at it, even when I came to work here. Sometimes, I’m still not.”

I studied him, remembering something else he’d told me about his powers that first day. “And, the x-ray vision thing?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“It’s not the way most people think it is. It’s not automatic. I have to focus pretty hard to make it work. And it’s not like actually seeing the thing, but the general shapes of things.” He met my eyes. “People always think it’s like that scene in the old
Superman
movie when Lois asks just how much Superman can see.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t bother asking you what color underwear I’m wearing?” I asked.

He glanced away. “All I would be able to tell you was if you were wearing them or not. And no, I haven’t tried to look.”

“I didn’t think you would have,” I said quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not a jerk,” I said. “And if you really are, and this is all an act, I really don’t want to know right now.”

His eyes locked onto mine. “I don’t think I’d make a very good actor.”

I nodded, and we both looked away.

“We can watch something else if you want,” I said. “Unless you were planning to leave?”

“Not unless you’re kicking me out,” he said. “And this is fine.”

We settled in, finishing off the carafe of coffee and demolishing the baked goods he’d brought while watching baking competition shows on Food Network. We didn’t say much, and again, I was grateful that I didn’t feel like I needed to chatter constantly with Ryan. I leaned back into my corner of the couch and had to admit that I was glad he’d showed up. It shouldn’t have made any difference, having him there with me, but I was finding that, just as I relied on him to have my back when we were out on patrol, I was beginning to get used to the idea of him having my back at other times as well.

I woke up with bright sunlight falling over my face. I grimaced and put my arm over my head. And then I realized that I must have dozed off on Ryan.

I also realized that I was snuggled under my afghan, the top of it pulled up to my chin.

When I opened my eyes. I realized I was still on the couch, and the TV was still on Food Network. My apartment had that nice, warm, cheery glow it always had in the morning, sunlight flowing in through the windows and across the hardwood floors.

Which meant…

I glanced at the clock.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered. It was fifteen minutes past our patrol time and Ryan was probably waiting for me so we could get going. I swung my legs off the couch, and my gaze wandered across the coffee table. The carafe and bakery box were gone, but there was a bottle of water there with a folded piece of paper propped up against it.

I grabbed it and stood up, unfolding the note as I headed toward my bedroom.

I swapped patrols with Dani and Portia for today, so we’re on at one. Get some sleep, and I’ll see you later. R.

I read it again, sending a mental thank you to my partner. I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep, but I wanted a long hot shower and a lot of coffee, and I definitely didn’t feel like dealing with super-powered assholes just yet. I’d made it through a day I’d been dreading for the past couple of weeks by focusing on work, and the night thanks to my awesome patrol partner and plentiful coffee and baked goods. I hadn’t fallen apart, which was the thing I definitely didn’t want to do. I was tired of feeling weak and lost, and now I was just grateful that one more heartbreaking milestone was behind me.

Chapter Six

After doing my patrol shift with Ryan, I was too on edge to just sit around and do nothing. There had been another shift between us, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. He’d been there when I’d needed someone, even though I hadn’t been willing to admit it until he showed up. He hadn’t tried to make me talk or cheer me up or anything. It was a weird kind of respect, that he could just leave me alone while being in the same room. I appreciated it, probably more than I’d ever be able to express. Still, I felt weird around him now, and I wasn’t overly fond of feeling that way.

So instead of sitting around, I volunteered to take Chance’s shift, and she seemed surprised for a moment, and then said, “knock yourself out. Thanks.” And then she’d gone wherever it is that Chance goes when she’s not with the rest of us. She kept to herself a lot. I think part of it was that she was sort of friends with Crystal, who we locked up with Alpha and Nightbane when we’d overthrown Alpha. I wondered sometimes if Chance had been involved in the rest of it, but Portia said she was just quiet. Besides that, Chance didn’t really feel like her powers fit in on the team, but Alpha had brought her on board anyway. The way I’d heard it, she had the ability to affect the probability of something happening. So, say someone was either going to turn left or right, for example, she could make them turn left. Admittedly, it wasn’t really the kind of power that seemed very useful when it came to fighting. She seemed to make up for it by training almost endlessly. She knew several styles of martial arts. If I wasn’t so slow, I probably would have been begging her to show me a few things. She was about my age, maybe a little younger. We probably should have been friends, but I just didn’t have it in me to try to socialize with anyone else and she didn’t especially seem like she was interested in making friends. Jenson, Dani, David, and Ryan were more than enough for me as far as socializing was concerned.

So I took Chance’s shift, which was mostly uneventful other than the constant sight of phones lifted to capture images of me and Amy during our time out. Amy thought it was funny, but I was less than amused.

When I got back, I ate quickly in the dining hall, doing my best to not bump into Ryan, and ended up in David’s lab, sitting around while he worked on some of the surveillance equipment he wanted to use when I went out. As usual, while we sat around, Jenson was doing seventeen things at once. Literally. She had split herself up again. One Jenson was monitoring the closed circuit traffic feeds and security cameras we were tapped into, one was listening to the police band, one was testing out equipment for David, and another was sitting with me.

“So how much of you is here when you do this?” I asked her. She grinned, and the other three Jensons did the same thing.

“That is creepy as fuck,” I muttered, and David laughed.

“It’s hard to explain. It’s all me. I’m a natural multi-tasker, so the other Jensons are just as focused on their tasks as I am on sitting here talking to you.”

“Is there any difference between you and the multiples?”

She shrugged. “All of my emotions, as far as I know, are in the original me. They have my knowledge and skills, and they do a good job of seeming normal, but if you watch them for a while, you can tell they’re not me. They’re a little stiff, smiles are clearly kind of plastered on. But it’s good enough.”

“So what if one of your multiples got hurt?” I asked.

“I’d feel it. Just as strongly as if it was happening to me, because it is. I lost one of my multiples once,” she said quietly.

“Lost?”

“She was killed,” she said.

“Holy shit,” David said, setting down the sensor he’d been messing with. “You never told me that.”

“It was a long time ago. I still kind of feel a weird emptiness. I don’t want that to happen again, for sure.”

I stared at Jenson. “So you feel what they feel. And you felt the actual death?”

She nodded. “Nightmare fodder, for sure, feeling yourself, or one of yourselves, die.”

David and I exchanged a glance he was about to say something when camera-monitor Jenson spoke up.

“I’m pretty sure this is Maddoc,” she said, pointing at one of the feeds. Real-Jenson and I stood up and went over to her.

“That’s him,” I said. He was outside of Damian, A.K.A. Virus’s house, which we’d been monitoring since I joined the team, hoping to catch any of them around. Maddoc had pulled up in the driveway, and I watched as he came out carrying what looked like a large garbage bag, then a few other bulky things. Boxes, a rug.

“I’m going,” I said.

“Extra uniform is there,” David said. “I’ll go too.”

“No, you guys stay here,” I said, going to a closet and pulling the extra black uniform out of the garment bag he had it stored in. “I can handle him, and I want to follow him a bit and see where he goes. Might lead us to Killjoy or somebody else who can lead us to him.”

Jenson sighed. “Just be careful. Keep your comm and body cam on, okay?”

I nodded, finished pulling up my uniform, then pulled on my boots, gloves, and, finally my mask.

“Everything working?” I asked David, and he shook his head. “This one’s on the fritz. That’s why I had it stored away.”

“Damn it, David,” Jenson said, glaring at him.

“I didn’t think we’d need it right away,” he answered.

“You should go up and get your other armor. The one you used the other night,” Jenson said.

“Maddoc is on the move, heading East on Jefferson,” the Jenson monitoring the cameras told us.

“It’s fine,” I said. I didn’t want to risk losing him. Jenson told me to be careful and I nodded, then headed out and made my way quickly to a flight deck and took off.

Within minutes I was flying over Jefferson, eyes on the traffic below.

It didn’t take long to spot the big black SUV speeding through traffic. It was just like Maddoc to totally ignore the speed limit.

I kept my eyes on his car as I flew far overhead. My heart was pounding, energy sizzling through my body. I was almost giddy with it. There was a point in time when Maddoc was my biggest nightmare, literally. I couldn’t even recall how much sleep I’d lost due to the nightmares I’d suffered from after the face off with him, the one that had almost killed me.

Now, my nightmares were so much worse, and he was nothing but a meaningless piece of shit, a tool to use to get what I wanted. I’d check out the contents of the car later. What mattered now was making him understand what pain really felt like. Oh, and getting answers. Of course.

I watched the SUV, barely blinking, determined not to lose it.

This. This was what I needed right now. This was simple. Easy. There were no complications here. The only thing I’d have to figure out would be how much I’d hurt him before I took him back to Command. That would depend a lot on how much he spilled about Killjoy, and how quickly.

Maddoc drove a while longer down Jefferson, then pulled into a driveway at a house on Grand River. Big old houses. Once upon a time, the area had been a neighborhood full of doctors and lawyers. Now, most of the big houses were subdivided and leased as apartments. I had the feeling Maddoc didn’t live in an apartment. He seemed like the type who wanted the big house, the big car.

Overcompensating much? I wondered.

I watched as he pulled into the garage. His yard had a nice high wall around it, which would make my life easier. Less likely some concerned neighbor would try to call for help or anything like that. He stepped out of the garage, and I landed, hard, a few feet away from him. There was something satisfying about the way the concrete cracked beneath my feet under the impact, the way the earth shook.

The tiny fraction of a second of fear on his face.

He opened his mouth to talk, and I sent a blast of power at him, sending him flying back into the brick wall of the garage.

Again.

Again.

“Come on, Maddoc. Don’t you want to fight me?” I asked. My voice was cool. Calm. It matched everything I was feeling inside. “Don’t you want to show me what a big scary man you are?” I asked in a sarcastic voice.

He got up and started charging for me. I toyed with him, letting him think he was getting close, and then I sent another push out at him and sent him flying.

“What’s the matter? Too much for you?” I asked, stalking toward him. He leapt up with a snarl and charged me again. He was big and stupid, and all I had to do was step aside, then turn around and hit him again as he ran past me. He fell back against the wall again with a groan and I stalked over to him.

“Come on, bitch,” I said. “What was it you said that day you broke out? That you’d see me later. I got tired of waiting for you.” I held my hands up. “Here I am.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” he muttered, swiping the blood away from his mouth.

“Wonder how the fuck that happened,” I said. And I punched him.