Super Powereds: Year 3 (38 page)

In that moment, as Nicholas took in her words and watched her fly, bursting through the light fog that had settled in the parking lot, he understood why Nick could have fallen for this girl.

Nathaniel had nearly recovered from the initial shock of being hurled from the ground when Alice appeared, floating with graceful ease as she circled him. She was almost close enough for him to reach into her mind once more when an unexpected new force exerted itself on him, sending him into a rapid spin. He stayed put as he twirled in place, but the speed increased continually, and within a few moments, his dinner had exited through the entrance.

“What’s wrong?” Alice called, close enough to be heard, but still out of physical reach. “Having trouble focusing that mental power in a spin cycle?”

A quick retort was washed away in another burst of vomit that emerged as soon as Nathaniel dared to open his mouth. Mercifully, the spin slowed, and Nathaniel found himself merely floating at a deadly height and horribly dizzy, which spoke to how bad the previous situation had been, if this was an improvement.

“Or, heck, maybe you’re smarter than you look,” Alice theorized. “Maybe you’ve realized the only thing stopping you from plummeting to the ground is me, and you aren’t certain if I’ll continue to be so gracious once I’m stuck in a hallucination.” In the back of her mind, she could practically hear Professor Pendleton’s advice: “
Never use idle threats when intimidating someone
,
use rational outcomes
.”

Nathaniel hadn’t actually considered such a possibility; however, he was keenly aware of the point she raised as soon as the words left Alice’s mouth. With his ability rendered useless, Nathaniel decided to attack the girl through another venue.

“Do you have any idea who you’re trifling with? I am Nathaniel Evers, member of one of the most powerful crime families in all of the Northwest. If you beg me for forgiveness, slowly, I might be willing to overlook your idiotic antics this evening.” Nathaniel waited for her to pale and tremble at the realization that she’d inadvertently bitten off a feud with real criminals.

Instead, Alice threw back her head and laughed. Long, giggling peals of laughter that filled Nathaniel with a burning ember of hatred.

“A gang? Or, sorry, mafia? That’s what you threaten me with? Motherfucker, my father keeps an entire private army on speed-dial, and he is not shy about using that button. You think I don’t know what I’m messing with? I could make three calls and have you bankrupt by morning. But I won’t do any of that, because I don’t need someone else to fight my battles. See, Nathaniel, you seem to think that this is a fluke, that you lost this one out of sheer bad luck.”

Alice extended her hands, showing off the manicured, painted nails at the tips. “Not even a chip. That’s how little effort you are to me, Nathaniel Evers of the mafia; you didn’t even require me to chip a nail.”

Nathaniel’s body began to spin again, but this time, it was a slow, deliberate movement. Alice matched his rotation, eyes gleaming in the moonlight as she stared at him.

“Do you know why I had a strategy prepared specifically to incapacitate someone who induced hallucinations? Do you know why your shitty illusion couldn’t keep me fooled for more than a few seconds? Do you know why you have been so amazingly, miserably ineffective? Because, while I’m sure you’re hot shit in Vegas, this town is out of your league. While you steal, and plot, and do whatever it is that criminals do, I’m training. While you sleep, I’m training. While you obsess unhealthily over Nicholas Campbell, I’m already miles ahead of him, because I was training. You think your power makes you unstoppable, but that’s because you’ve only used it around humans or unskilled Supers. You’re like an idiot with a knife, one who kills unarmed people and thinks himself invincible. But you left your little town where you were so scary, and in this place, you won’t find such easy prey.”

Alice was only a few feet away from him now. She exerted a gravitational field that pinned his arms to his sides, then leaned in, pressing her hand to his chest. Her lips continued forward, until they were only an inch away from his ear. She whispered to him, breath warm and words cold, filling Nathaniel with the sort of uncertain terror he hadn’t experienced since childhood.

“Welcome to Lander. Here, there be monsters.”

Alice pushed, sending Nathaniel in a downward arc to the ground. She took care with his descent; he would land in a nearby dumpster hard enough to bruise and perhaps break a bone or two, but nothing that would kill or permanently maim him. Alice had certain ethical standards to uphold.

After all, she was training to be a Hero.

70.

“Well shit,” Alice sighed. “That does put kind of a damper on things, doesn’t it?”

It had taken nearly an hour, but Nicholas had finally regained enough motor control to talk, and the first thing he’d told her with his rediscovered eloquence was the vital piece of information he’d tried to impart during the battle.

“I would say it puts far more than ‘a damper’ on things,” Nicholas huffed. “Nathaniel is a student of Lander and lives in town. He is eligible to turn you in, informed enough to know about it, and spiteful enough to do it. Your entire HCP career could be gone by tomorrow morning.”

Alice nodded, her hair somewhat tangled from the high winds she’d flown through. “Yeah, that would really suck.”

The two were parked a few streets from Nicholas’s apartment, illuminated by the bright safety lights of a nearby gas station. Currently, they were waiting for word from Eliza that the area was safe to enter and that there were no more bombs waiting to be detonated.

It seemed Alice and Nicholas weren’t the only ones who’d had a surprising evening. Nathaniel had spared no expense in contracting out local muscle to try and take down Nicholas’s guards/keepers. A car bomb had mildly winded Jerome, whose ability kept him safe from such things, but the armed thugs had presented a somewhat more time-consuming challenge, especially since they’d had to be dealt with out of sight from the police. Between them, cell phone jammers, and having to sweep for bombs, Nathaniel had succeeded in taking them temporarily out of the equation, though he’d surely have preferred if they were killed. Still, if he’d wanted that outcome, he should have hired far more or far stronger people. In Vegas, reputations like Jerome’s were earned for a reason.

“Forgive me, but you appear to be strikingly apathetic about your precarious situation,” Nicholas observed.

“I don’t want to get kicked out of the Hero Certification Program,” Alice said, turning toward him. “My friends are there, I’ve got a potential future ahead of me, and then there’s family stuff . . . . For a multitude of reasons, I don’t want it to happen. But it is what it is. I have no regrets about what I did tonight. What was my other option, let that psycho have his way with us? Hell fucking no.”

“You could have run,” Nicholas pointed out.

“Still would have used my power,” Alice countered.

“Yes, but he wouldn’t have cared. You could have gotten away to safety and never risked your life or HCP standing.”

“And all I would have had to do was leave a friend behind,” Alice surmised.

“I’m not Nick. Your friend, all the memories and thoughts that comprised him, they’re all gone. I am a different person, and you owe me no such obligations.”

“You know, Nick once convinced me to run away,” Alice said. She turned her eyes back out the window, staring into her memory rather than taking in the scenery. “It was during our freshman year, the labyrinth trial. He got me to leave Mary alone with Chad, convincing me that it was more prudent for us to stay out of her way. He wasn’t wrong, in a way, but I’ve never forgotten that feeling. How gut-wrenchingly awful it was to leave someone I cared about to an uncertain fate, while I scampered away to safety. That feeling, more than any other bit of motivation people have tried giving me, is what drove me to work so hard at getting stronger. I’m not leaving a friend behind, not ever again.”

Nicholas considered a retort, but then thought better of it. “Sounds like Nick was quite convincing when he needed to be.”

“He had his moments,” Alice agreed. She let out a soft, awkward cough, and changed the subject. “You’re sure your friend will be okay?”

“Jerome is nothing if not durable,” Nicholas assured her. “We were fortunate that Eliza was not in the blast, though. Her power doesn’t afford such protections. As for the goons, they never stood a chance. No, the goal of that operation was to make me temporarily vulnerable. I’ll have to step up security measures so that Nathaniel doesn’t catch us unaware again.”

“After the scare I gave him, I bet he’s already halfway to Vegas.” Alice chuckled.

Nicholas let out a small laugh too, but inside, he felt far from humorous. It would take more than Alice’s gentle threats to dissuade Nathaniel Evers from a course of action.

*              *              *

Across town, in a luxury hotel room, Nathaniel had just finished putting away his laptop. All his research pointed to a single, inevitable conclusion: Alice was in the HCP. There was no other explanation for her level of power, skill, and combat proficiency. Nathaniel wondered if Nicholas realized he’d bagged one of the rare hidden treasures on campus. It was doubtful: Nicholas rarely cared for anything more than surface attractiveness, which Alice certainly had in spades.

The orange-eyed young man sat at the desk in his hotel room, moving his long limbs into a triumphant stretch. The bruises from his landing were still sore, but the magic of revenge was already soothing the pain. In the morning, he would expose this girl as having used her powers, and she’d be tossed out. There were many darker, slower revenges Nathaniel might have utilized if given the chance, however, it was more prudent to take the sure-shot against someone of her capabilities.

He’d just finished stretching when he felt a firm grip settle on both sides of his Adam’s apple. The door had not opened, and he’d heard no footsteps, so whoever was clutching his throat was undoubtedly a Super. He tried to stay calm and not allow memories of the night’s earlier defeat to cloud his judgment.

“I am not some twenty-one-year-old trainee,” said a voice behind Nathaniel, presumably connected to the hand tightly holding his throat. It was male, spoken in a harsh whisper that would make it difficult to identify. “The second I sense any mental fuckery, see a single sign of an illusion being cast, I will tear your throat out. Gulp once, if you understand.”

Nathaniel gulped, not that he needed much prompting. Growing up as he and Nicholas had, they were both acclimated to people of less-than-upstanding morals. That included the wetwork personnel, individuals whose entire occupation was predicated on their willingness to do things that had to be done, no matter the circumstances. Nathaniel had sat in with them before, and he noticed that, to a man, each had had the same demeanor when dealing with someone whose life hinged on their next words. They were not cruel, nor angry, nor forceful. They were perfectly calm, as though any of the potential outcomes would suit them fine; all that remained to be seen was which one occurred. Blood or compliance, there was no difference to those calm-voiced men.

The voice behind him spoke in exactly such a measured, detached tone.

“I know you’re thinking about paying the girl back for your loss by outing her. You aren’t going to do that. You’re going to forget all about her. Her name, what she looked like, that she had any powers at all. If she gets outed, by anyone, at any time, I will assume you had a hand in it, and I will kill you. Make sure you are clear on that. Alice gets outed, you die. Take all the precautions you like, but that is the sequence of events that will play out. Gulp once, if you understand.”

Nathaniel gulped.

“Good boy. Whatever you and Nick have going on, keep the girl out of it. She has far more dangerous friends than you do. If you see her, run. I don’t have to tell you what happens if you test me on this, do I?”

Nathaniel gulped, this time unintentionally.

“Glad we understand one another.”

Then, just like that, the pressure was gone, and Nathaniel was free. He jumped from his seat and scanned the room, unsurprised to find it empty. He took a deep breath, an action rendered somewhat painful by the bruises forming on his throat, and reconsidered his plan of action.

Alice had warned him she was connected. At the time, Nathaniel had taken it as bluster, but it seemed there was some truth to her words. Better not chance it, at least not until things with Nicholas were settled.

71.

Alice rose early Saturday morning, so early, in fact, that she interrupted Mr. Numbers and Mary playing their usual game of chess. By the time she’d gotten in the night before, everyone was sleeping, so there’d been no opportunity to give anyone a run-down of what had transpired on her date. Even a year ago, she might have kept the incident to herself, but after everything with Vince, she’d decided that keeping the higher-ups abreast of what had happened was for the best. She gave Mr. Numbers a complete account of the night’s activities, not bothering to ask Mary to leave, since the telepath would pick it up anyway.

Mr. Numbers listened attentively, asking questions only when necessary, and otherwise letting Alice tell her account. Once she was done, he walked briskly to the apartment he shared with Mr. Transport, roused his sleeping friend, and escorted Alice to see Dean Blaine. He paused briefly to inform Mary that he remembered exactly where the pieces on the board were, and that he’d know if she moved them around. Mary swore an oath of chess-based morality, and then the two men in suits vanished, taking the still bed-headed blonde girl with them.