Super Powereds: Year 3 (36 page)

But, just as Jill punched, Vince moved. It was a small step to the side, but it was enough to take his shoulder out of her range. She had just enough time to wonder how he’d reacted so quickly before Jill noticed Vince's hand resting on her forearm. A moment later, the screens in front of her eyes went dark. She reached out to her suit, trying to uncover what had gone wrong. Understanding dawned in the darkness as she realized that her suit, the ingenious invention that Will had spent days, if not weeks, working on, had gone dead. With a single touch, Vince had drained every drop of power it had, leaving her imprisoned in her own armor.

All Adam saw was Jill miss her punch and freeze. He kept expecting the techno-armored girl to move as he drew close, but she remained as lifeless as a politician’s conscience. He redirected himself, spinning around her, using the still suit as a barrier so he could come at Vince’s other side. Adam had skills: he was adaptable, trained, and talented, especially at melee fighting. What he didn’t have, however, was nearly three months of recent experience against a merciless opponent.

Just as he rounded Jill’s frozen form, Adam felt Vince’s boot deposit itself in his stomach. The kick had been fast, aiming for the precise moment when he’d have to shift from turning to charging. Adam coughed loudly, but stayed standing. He hadn’t made it through two years of HCP training to be undone by a single kick.

The bolt of electricity, on the other hand, was more than enough to do him in. Adam collapsed on the ground, and Vince stepped over his body.

From across the circle, Thomas felt the opportunity as much as he saw it. There was an instant, a single second between blasting Adam and shifting his focus, when Vince was totally vulnerable. One focused blast would be enough to take the silver-haired student out of the fight. There wasn’t even a need to feel guilty; two out of three opponents was a fine showing. It was the perfect opportunity for Thomas to seize a win. He focused his power, lined up the shot . . .

And froze.

The feeling, the horrible, sickening feeling of losing the energy that was as much a part of him as his beating heart was all that Thomas could focus on. If he fired, Vince might drain it again. All rationale, the knowledge that it had been a different Vince, fluttered out of Thomas’s head. It could happen. He could get drained again. That thought alone roared through his mind, deafening all other possible responses.

The bolt of electricity hit Thomas dead in the shoulder, sending him reeling to the ground. As he fell, his terror was replaced with shame. Not just about the blown opportunity, but about what he felt when he collapsed to the concrete. Even though he’d been burned by the bolt and bruised by the impact, Thomas was overwhelmed with relief. At least he hadn’t been drained.

“Winner, Vince Reynolds,” Professor Fletcher announced.

“Told you,” Chad said, back in the observation room. “The deciding factor in this match was fear.”

66.

Alice decided not to overdress for her date. She was tempted to; a very real desire burned in her to pull out all the stops and show up at her date’s door looking so good she literally struck him mute. Had it been Nick, Alice would have charged forward with the plan at full tilt. She would have taken a special, lovingly malicious glee in forcing him to spend the whole night playing it cool while pretending like he wasn’t paying attention to her dazzling form. But she wasn’t going out with Nick. She was going out with Nicholas, and he simply didn’t fill her with the same playful joy she would have gotten from spending a night with Nick.

That thought rested heavily on her mind as she pulled her car into a parking space outside Nicholas’s apartment. Alice pulled down the mirror and checked her makeup once more. It was fine, as always, subtle and well-applied, the perfect complement to her pastel green dress. For Nick, she would have chosen something bolder. Then again, she wouldn’t have had to ask Jill to dig through records to get Nick’s address, either. The two of them could have just left from Melbrook, enduring sappy advice from Vince, stern warnings from Mary, and good-natured teasing from Hershel or Roy. None of that was happening, though. Instead, the others were helping Chad get moved in to Nick’s old room, and Alice was chasing the ghost of her feelings by going out with the quasi-stranger who had inherited Nick’s body.

She stepped out of her car, straightened the skirt of her dress, and put her game-face on. This was still something. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was better than the ache of missing Nick that she’d been dealing with for the last several months. Nicholas had become Nick once. There was always the chance that he could eventually grow into him again. If that possibility existed, she wanted to nurture it along, and she damn sure wanted to be there when it came to fruition.

This wasn’t perfect, but she still chose it over nothing.

*              *              *

Eliza let out a soft whistle as she stared out the window of Nicholas’s apartment. The gentleman of the hour stood in the bathroom, door ajar, as he carefully inspected himself one last time. Despite his knowledge that the purpose of this evening was information gathering, that damned memory Nick had slipped him kept popping up, unbidden, in his head. Each time it did, an accompanying sensation of anxiousness and excitement materialized as well, which drove him to the current state of fastidiousness regarding his appearance.

“Not too bad,” Eliza called back to him. “And she looks a far sight higher-class than the girls you always hound in the casinos. What the hell does she see in you?”

“I am known for being charming,” Nicholas replied, emerging from the bathroom. Jerome sat on the couch silently, watching Nicholas as he passed. Ordinarily, Nicholas would have preferred to ready himself in solitude; however, the extenuating circumstances of his situation had demanded he call in Ms. Pips tag-alongs. “Are you two suitably prepared?”

“For the fifth time, yes,” Eliza said, rolling her eyes. “We wait five minutes, then follow the tracker you’ve got on you. Jerome and I hang back, stay out of sight, and only emerge if Nathaniel makes a move.”

“And if the tracker should go dead?” Nicholas prodded.

“Call immediately, get your current location, and stay as close as necessary to ensure you both are watched over,” Eliza quickly replied. “Jerome and I know the plan; this isn’t our first covert bodyguard job. What’s got you so on edge? For all Nathaniel knows, you’re just after some tail; there’s no reason to think he’ll definitely make a move.”

If Nicholas answered honestly, he’d have told them he wasn’t entirely sure what had him so nervous, but he suspected it was predominantly due to the fact that he had feelings for this girl. That meant he cared about her safety, and the idea of exposing her to danger twisted a part of his stomach he hadn’t even known existed. Nick could have told him what that part was; unfortunately, Nick’s counsel was not so easily obtained.

“The girl is the daughter of a very wealthy, powerful man,” Nicholas informed Eliza. “Endangering her could lead to extremely severe consequences, both for myself and for our Family. Her safety is paramount in this evening’s outing, higher priority than my own.”

Eliza cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure we’re permitted to make that sort of prioritization.”

Nicholas readied himself to defend the decision, but Jerome came to his aid before it was necessary.

“Nicholas is right,” Jerome agreed. “Though it was unnecessarily risky for him to make a date with someone so connected while in this situation, we should put the girl’s safety first. No one of us is more important than protecting the Family as a whole. Injury to her could impact all of us; something bad to Nicholas will only affect him, as well as possibly you and I.”

“Great, so now she’s more important than all three of us,” Eliza sighed.

Nicholas pointedly avoided commenting on how important Alice was. That was information they didn’t need to know—plus, he wasn’t entirely sure of it himself. One memory didn’t mean everything. There were certainly countless others that would shine different lights on the relationship he’d once had with this girl. Surely some of them would quiet the uncertainty whispering in his mind. Since it seemed the only way to access those was to push forward, Nicholas steeled his resolve and prepared for the date.

A single chime echoed through the apartment—the sound of a doorbell. Eliza and Jerome slipped soundlessly into the back room, Eliza touching one finger to the watch on her wrist to assure him she was keeping an eye on the time. Nicholas waited the few seconds it took for them to vanish, then pulled open the front door to greet his guest.

*              *              *

In the parking lot below, a man who had been elbow-deep in the engine of his truck only moments before was making a greasy-fingered phone call while hunched in the shadows.

“Yeah, the apartment you told me to watch. Someone new just showed up. It’s a girl. No, a different one. Blonde, tall, green dress. She’s not going in. It looks like they're talking in the doorway. Wait, hang on, now the guy’s coming out and locking the door. They’re going somewhere.”

The man paused, listening intently to the voice on the other end of the call.

“I can do that. Just tell Nathaniel to make sure the cash is ready.” He closed the phone quickly, then produced a new tool from the open box at his feet and headed back to the truck’s exposed engine. It was as perfect a camouflage in a college parking lot as a white coat in a snow bank. As the blonde in the green dress and the young man got into her car and drove off, they did so under the man’s watchful eye. Only when he was sure they were gone did he wipe off his hands and set about his next task.

67.

“So, what made you pick a horror movie?” Nicholas asked as Alice’s car sped quickly through a yellow light, barely passing the other side before it turned red. If she noticed or cared about the crime nearly-committed, nothing on her face gave it away.

“You liked horror movies,” she replied truthfully. “I can barely think of a single gathering you didn’t try to hijack and fill with a low-budget gore-fest.”

“If that’s true, it still doesn’t account for why you chose one as our evening’s destination,” Nicholas pointed out. “Something more suited to your own tastes might have been more enjoyable.”

“I . . . I don’t think I want to answer that question just yet,” Alice said, after a slight pause. Maybe, if things went well, she’d tell him why she’d decided to sit through a terrible horror movie rather than take in a piece with actual artistic or entertainment value. Maybe, but not yet. That bit of truth would have to be earned.

“All right then, let’s change topics,” Nicholas said graciously. “Why risk speaking to me at all? Surely you’re worried I could blow your secret identity and get you tossed from the program. After all, you’ve revealed yourself as an HCP student to someone outside the program.”

Alice actually laughed at that idea, a muffled sound from under her breath. “You know, I thought about that when I decided to come find you. I even felt a little afraid of the possibility for about half a second. Then I realized that there was no way you’d risk doing something like that.”

“Risk? There is no risk at all on my part,” Nicholas pointed out. “There are no consequences to outing an HCP student.”

“None from the program or the school, sure,” Alice agreed. “But you and I spent two years together, none of which you remember. Now, I’m sure you’ve got some way to recompile information or something—that sounds like classic Nick—however, what you probably didn’t record are all the secrets I gleaned about you during that time. You don’t know how much I know, so there’s no way you’d risk pissing me off and finding out if it’s enough to get you in trouble with your people back home.”

“Valiant attempt at a bluff,” Nicholas informed her. “Unfortunately, you failed to create a believable scenario. No version of myself would ever betray secrets dire enough to put me in jeopardy.”

“Maybe not intentionally, but you seem to forget that you lived under the same roof as a telepath for two years. One who has no scruples about constantly listening to our idle thoughts. One who is my best friend in the world, and who will happily give me dirt for vengeance, if it’s called for,” Alice pointed out, taking a smooth left at speeds bordering on unsafe. If not for her exceptional handling of the vehicle, Nicholas might have found himself fearing a wreck. Instead, his terror was reserved for the possibility of what Mary might have overheard during his years residing with her.

“I accounted for that risk,” Nicholas lied lamely.

“Sure you did,” Alice replied, tone confident and even. Will might currently be the best in Subtlety, and Nick had surely held the crown before him, but no one could accuse Alice Adair of slacking off in her efforts. “And just so we’re clear, you should never use yourself as a litmus test for what Nick would have done. He did things that you would never consider viable options. Nick was closer to one of us than one of you.”

“Such high praise. You must have been quite taken with him,” Nicholas said, keeping his own voice calm. For some reason, being verbally accosted by Alice did not leave a pleasant taste in his mouth.

“I think I spent more time hating, distrusting, being annoyed at, or outright loathing Nick than anyone else in our group,” Alice admitted. “Yes, I was taken with him. He was an outright unapologetic ass more times than anyone has a right to be, but he was one of us. When it mattered, he was one of us.” The car made a light squeal as Alice accelerated into the parking lot and quickly located a space.