Scarred

ERICA HAYES

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2015

Copyright © Erica Hayes 2015

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover design by HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

Erica Hayes asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780007594627

Version 2015-11-23

Praise for Erica Hayes

‘I haven’t read such a good book in a long time…if you’re looking for something gritty, exciting, and fresh with complex and interesting characters, then Scorched is the book for you’

Book Chick City

‘Action packed and riveting’

A World of Books

‘Superherog‌eekaliciou‌sextrabadassocious…if you like superheroes in all their glittery glory, complex heroes and sympathetic villains, then definitely check this book out!’

The Demon Librarian

‘Well written dialogue, atmospheric settings and vivid action make this a gripping read’

Jane Hunt Writer Book Reviews

‘I swear I turned pages on my Kindle so fast smoke was flying off them. I also think that anybody who buys this book to read should be provided with their very own Augmented Superhero costume to wear whilst reading it. Because this book was a FUN RIDE and I wanted some of the action!'

Booklover Catlady Reviews

Once upon a time, in a flaming iron-forged forest, a brave and weary traveler came upon a fork in the road. One trail led to truth and salvation, the other to damnation and lies…

But which?

You were there. You pointed her towards a path. She chose, and strode on through the fire.

Does the story end there? Did she get the prince, or the tiger?

No, don't answer. Let me tell you what you're thinking: did I plan this all along?

Wrong question. Better to ask: did you?

And what if prince and tiger are the same?

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Erica Hayes

~ 1 ~

~ 2 ~

~ 3 ~

~ 4 ~

~ 5 ~

~ 6 ~

~ 7 ~

~ 8 ~

~ 9 ~

~ 10 ~

~ 11 ~

~ 12 ~

~ 13 ~

~ 14 ~

~ 15 ~

~ 16 ~

~ 17 ~

~ 18 ~

~ 19 ~

~ 20 ~

~ 21 ~

~ 22 ~

~ 23 ~

~ 24 ~

~ 25 ~

~ 26 ~

~ 27 ~

~ 28 ~

~29 ~

~ 30 ~

~ 31 ~

~ 32 ~

~ 33 ~

~ 34 ~

~ 35 ~

~ 36 ~

~ 37 ~

~ 38 ~

~ 39 ~

Also by Erica Hayes …

Erica Hayes

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

~ 1 ~

Come out, you dirty rat-fink villain. I know you're in here.

I crouched in a shadowy corner of the museum, lactic acid and impatience eating at my thigh muscles. Moonlight sprinkled through the curved glass clerestory, falling like stardust over shining glass cases filled with jewels, ancient treasures, dusty artifacts of old. In the case beside my hidey-hole, a glittering diamond-studded figurine winked at me, whispering Take me! Take me!

Not me. I'm one of the good guys. Verity Fortune, crime-fighter to the unsubtle, beating holes in things my specialty. I couldn't see the thief I'd come to catch. But I could feel him with my augmented senses, like tiny fairy lights glittering beneath my skin…

There. Across the room, the darkness dipped and swirled. I knew it. My mindmuscle itched, eager to kick some villainous butt.

Still, “villain” is relative in Sapphire City. It wasn't as if this dude was planning genocide or world domination. If my tip-off was for real—and I needed a break, the way things had gone for me lately—this was just a greedy little art heist.

Audacious, all the same. Sapphire City Museum—read “swanky art fortress”—is tricked out with the latest in invisible laser steal-me-and-I'll-fuck-you-up technology. But for the Gallery—the gang of super-powered lunatics who terrorize our city, led by a lurid pyromaniac arch-psycho called Razorfire—the threat of loot and the promise of violent death are just a turn-on. They pride their cruel, lonely asses on doing impossible things.

Bring it, you thieving Gallery turdball. Whoever this guy was, he'd be no match for me.

My nose twitched, and my secret senses tingled with the sherbety spritz of augment… and like a cocky-ass specter, the thief strolled right through the minefield.

Holy crap. He wasn't invisible. Just… un-solid. A glittery, translucent man-shape. His tiny particles danced and shimmered in the silvery moonlight. Glowing with strange inner energy. Eerily beautiful.

For an instant, a foreign gleam knifed through him at waist height. Light scattered in rainbows. The laser system. I winced, bracing for the alarm…

Nothing. No shrieking, no electric shocks, no tiny LED flashing in the corner.

Dude was below the dust threshold. That particle transition dissipated his body heat—which meant no infra-red signature—and reduced his reflective cross-section to negligible. Like a stealth bomber, skipping past radar. The museum's state-of-the-art security system saw nothing but dirty air.

Honestly. How is that fair?

Inwardly, I cursed, sweating inside my shiny gunmetal leather coat. I'm a masked telekinetic crime-fighter, not a Las Vegas stage magician. I'd crawled in here along the ceiling, clinging like a big-ass spider with fingernails and talent, and this dark corner was as far as I could get without alerting security. But this guy could cut to dust any time he wanted and flee, leaving me in laser-surveillance hell.

I couldn't beat him. Could I?

Fact was, I needed this victory. And not only to uphold the law (right, because the law's done so well by me lately) or keep the museum's shiny junk collection intact (rather than spend the money on something useful, like food for poor people) or even just out of principle, because thwarting Gallery villains in their mission of terror and mayhem is what we Fortunes do.

No, I had to prove to Adonis—my righteous prick of a brother and the boss of our crime-fighting outfit, whom I love to death and would happily strangle if it wouldn't prove him right—that I wasn't a liability. That he could trust me again, the way he used to, before… well, before I unwittingly betrayed us all by consorting with our archenemy. If beating some impossibly clever vanishing guy was what it took? Bring it on.

But the thought of clever vanishing guys just made me wince. Don't even talk to me about Glimmer. Glimmer isn't a Fortune, but he's the finest of us, and he had been my best friend. Now…

Golden particles glittered, on the move. Mr. Sparkly strode quietly yet confidently, casting no shadow. His ghostly footfalls made no sound. I couldn't even smell him, beyond a tart whiff of the weed he'd been smoking, and that bothered me, too.

See, stinky villains are generally easy game. When you're a gibbering power-mad paranoid with pretensions to world domination? Personal hygiene isn't high on your must-do list. You're too busy going bonkers to care what people think.

It's the clean ones like Sparkly who worry me. The ones who make time for fashion and good grooming. Body-conscious means they're at least planning ahead. Vain, unfortunately, can mean they've got more brain space than you. If a villain has great hair and smells dreamy? Run. Trust me. Because I didn't run, and I got a dead father, a family in exile and months of screaming nightmares for my trouble.

I flexed my mindmuscle, determined to focus. The sinister glittery thief drifted past another glass case, into a pool of bluish shadow. Damn. I'd lost sight of him. I blinked rapidly. Had he vanished? Beamed up to his starship, or something?

My augmented senses sharpened, directional, and homed in. Oh, right. There he was, sparkly again, flitting from shadow to shadow, rematerializing for a few seconds each time he was out of sight. As if his glittery powers didn't last very long and he was recharging.

Whatever. He could be the Energizer Bunny and it wouldn't help him once I got my hands on his thieving Gallery ass. He strolled past a case full of ancient parchments, another stuffed with jeweled funerary ornaments from eighteenth-dynasty Egypt, yet another of antique ivory figurines. In the middle of the room, before a cylindrical glass case, he halted.

Tiny spotlights glared on the item inside. I squinted, trying to get a glimpse.

Looked like… a rock. Lumpy-shaped, like a fossilized seashell, a rusty red-brown color. Was this what he'd come for?

My belly warmed, in anticipation of feeding my hungry power at last. He flexed one glittery hand. Reached for the inch-thick hardened glass… and slipped his hand clean through it. Elbow on one side, hand on the other. Like the glass wasn't even there.

I gulped. That was totally cool.

So how did he not fall through the floor? Gravity isn't advisory-only, even for Gallery show ponies. Could this dude fly as well as sparkle? And how did he make his clothes do that trick? It didn't make sense. Maybe his secret villain name was Logicfail. Why did no one ever worry about these things?

Still, no time to puzzle it now. He'd already grabbed the funny rock—and nothing happened. I grinned. Logicfail, my ass. Can't turn that to glitter, can you? You're stuck, like honey-stuffed Winnie the Pooh. Now what's your plan, smart-ass?

I stretched my mindmuscle, a feline pleasure-yawn, and leapt. Whee! Up like a bouncing rubber ball.

He clenched his sparkling fist around the treasure, and yanked.

Kapow! Glass exploded, and the thief materialized in a puff of angry gang boy. Young Latino dude, jeans and black tank top, studded dog collar, shaven scalp crawling with prison tattoos. Fist still clenched, gym-built forearm bloody to his elbow and dripping red puddles onto the floor.

I hurtled through the air, slingshotted on a rubber band of mind energy. Tough guy, eh? DNA all over the place, broadcasting his true identity to anyone with twenty minutes and a spectrometer. I liked his attitude.

Umph! I crashed into him and we hit the floor. Fighting, rolling, limbs flailing.

And now the alarms went bugfuck.

A siren whooped. Blinding white lights flashed on. Steel security grilles ground down over the exits, crunch-grr-slam! We struggled. I aimed a swift punch of force, banging his skull into the floor.

"Goatfucker," he snarled, and scattered into particles beneath me.

I fell through him. Slammed into the floor face-first. Shit. The treasure-rock clattered across the tiles into a corner.

His particles swept around me, tingling—steady on, tiger, we only just met—and he coalesced. On his feet, hulking with rage, sweat spraying from his shaven head. "Asshole," he growled, and kicked at my ribs.

I rolled away, grabbing his foot with my power. He fell on his ass, cursing in Spanish. I caught something about an impossible (at least for me) feat of bestial eroticism, and grinned. At least “asshole” and “goatfucker” improved on “bitch” or “whore”, this season's must-have snappy put-downs for the discerning sexist-pig villain. Gotta love an equal-opportunity insult. And he wasn't afraid to fight a girl. I could learn to like this guy.

But I'd no time to flirt. Any second now, rent-a-cops with guns would blunder in. I needed to be history when that happened. I grappled for his throat, ready to knock him insensible.

And a third person appeared right next to us, and kicked me in the face.

Not arrived, or coalesced. Appeared. From nowhere, eureka! with a rush of displaced breeze.

My head whiplashed sideways. A broken tooth crunched, and I tasted copper. But no time to care. I was too busy skidding across the floor, and my body slammed into a display case. Doinng! The glass and my skull both thrummed with the impact. I blinked, groggy. Who the fuck was that?

A skinny teenage girl, blue dreadlocks straggling to her shoulders. She wore a threadbare camisole top and jeans patched with scraps of plaid. A knotted string bracelet hung on her wrist, the kind of friendship pledge that grade-school kids wear. Her eyes were deep-set, bruised, her pimpled face sickly like a shopping-mall zombie.

And she had a sidekick. An equally scrawny boy, his gangly overgrown legs encased in black jeans. Jagged black-dyed hair with blond roots flopped over his cheek. Wispy unshaven chin, bitten black fingernails. His Yoda t-shirt read DO OR DO NOT – THERE IS NO “TRY”. He wore eye pencil, for God's sake. I smelled cigarettes, alcopops, cheap spray cologne.

Just kids. So far as I could tell, they weren't even high. What the hell?

Mr. Sparkly swore and scattered. But Blue Dreads Girl was quicker. And she pulled the very same trick. Dissolved into a metallic cloud of sparks.

I gaped. Impossible. No two augments were exactly the same. Not even Harriet and Eb, my twin cousins, had identical powers… But I had to believe my eyes. Didn't I?

Tornado-like, she chased him, wrapping herself around him, twisting into him, through him. The two tangled, buzzing like angry wasp swarms… but Sparkly tired first. He dragged himself free, and slumped to the floor in human form, drained. And the remaining particles swirled into a coiling funnel and remade themselves into Blue Dreads. She laughed and kicked him with her scruffy lace-up boot.

In the meantime, Guyliner had retrieved the treasure and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. I scrambled up, ignoring my aching face. I needed to win that rock. To prove I could still do this, that my lurid sojourn into temporary insanity hadn't crippled me.

But Blue Dreads just grinned. Gleeful, a cruel little girl. "Too slow, hero," she gloated, and she and her emo BFF vanished.

Snap! Air slammed into the empty spaces. Gone. Ka-poof. May the Force be with you.

Just like that, I lose.

Shit.

Inwardly, I cringed. I'd wasted my chance. Still, no point crying about it. Sparkly groaned on the floor, limp, and I stumbled over to spend a few precious seconds finding out why Razorfire—because it had to be a Gallery heist, right?—had ordered him to steal a rock. At least that info would be something… and I skidded to a halt, waving my arms for balance.

Twin red laser dots bloomed on Sparkly's chest.

Uh-oh. I glanced down. Another two red dots, hovering over my sternum. Nice steady shots, too, barely flickering.

Well, fuckity do-dah.

The loudspeaker started blaring witty commands. "On the fucking floor NOW! Drop your weapons! Hands where I can see 'em!"

Right. Good luck with that. Stupid rent-a-cops, late to the party as usual.

Sparkly tried to rise, but only vomited. Blue Dreads had given him a right good thrashing. I sighed, frustrated. Sparkly, we're just not working out. It's not me, baby; it's you.

I coiled my power around one fist and fired myself at the glass ceiling like a silver-streaked cannonball.

~ 2 ~

Whizz! So far, so good, right?

Wrong. A little Verity-fact that just loomed kind of large: I can't fly.

I'm called the Seeker. I'm telekinetic, which might sound like some kind of psychic horror-film ooga-booga, but forcebending augments like mine are more physics than magic. Sure, I can fling myself through windows, but to do that, I rely on boring everyday things like inertia and centripetal force and the difference between up and down. When falling time comes? All I can do is hold on, and hope.

On the way up, I pulled my pistol—d'you think I blunder around unarmed? I'm augmented, not stupid—and put two quick shots into the giant clerestory window. Crack-crack! Twin starbursts erupted in the glass. I barely had time to stuff the weapon back under my coat before I smashed in, shoulder first.

Boom! The damaged glass shattered. Splinters stung my face, clinging to my hair and all over my clothes. And I hurtled out into the chilly October night.

Skyscrapers, traffic lights, virtual advertising flashing amid swirling searchlights and smoke. Sirens wailed, and distant weapons cracked, a spurt of gunfire. Just another night in Sapphire City: choose your weapon, watch your back, and check your civil rights at the door. That's what you get for electing Razorfire to City Hall. Yeah. Nice one. Hooray for democracy.

I grabbed an exposed metal strut with my power, and pulled. My elastic grip stretched, and contracted like an angry bungee cord, and slammed me sideways into the outside wall.

My breath crushed to a whimper, and for a moment I dangled there, gasping, sixty feet above nothing.

Gradually, I found my breath. Climbed down, hand over hand, along rain gutters and metal joints. Jumped the last twenty feet, landed on my own invisible bouncy castle of force and hop-skip-stumbled to the ground.

Paved garden courtyard, prissy fountain bubbling in the center, iron fence at the far end, and beyond it, the street. Inside, alarms still shrieked, but this part of the wall was opaque. The goons couldn't see me. Heh. Catch ya later, goons. Nice messing with you.

I dusted rueful hands on my swallow-tailed coat. Well, that was a bust. Villains: 1, Verity: nil.

But my nerves tingled eagerly, and my muscles hurt with that pleasant ache you get after some tough exercise, or really great sex. I wriggled my thighs, ready for another round. Damn, it felt amazing to use my power again. Adonis didn't let me out alone much anymore, and since that little fiasco a few months back atop the old FortuneCorp skyscraper, Adonis's word was law. I didn't get a say in it. Boy, was he gonna tear strips off me when I got home.

I shuddered. I'm not afraid of Adonis. Not exactly. Too much fond sibling contempt between us for that. Doesn't mean his furious ice-emperor act is something I look forward to.

A homeless guy in an old Nazi trench coat squatted by the fountain on a cardboard sheet. Pigeons pecked for crumbs on the paving around him. He peered at me, scratching his greasy head. "Fuck was that? You a goddamn alien?"

I flipped him a live-long-and-prosper salute. "I come in peace, earthling! You seen my spaceship? Thought I parked it around here someplace."

The old dude shook his head sagely. "Nuh-uh. Prob'ly they towed it. Goddamn penny-pinching assholes."

"Too right," I said, but he'd already fallen asleep.

I wiped blood from my chin, spat out a shard of broken tooth, and sucked on my injured tongue. Ouch. Those two mouthy tweens would pay for this.

If I ever saw them again, that was. If I could even figure out who Blue Dreads and Guyliner were. These days, new villains sprouted all over Sapphire City like warts, egged on or chased from hiding or just plain pissed off by our esteemed new mayor's crackdown on the augmented. Insects, most of 'em. Vermin, not worth breaking a sweat over. But these grungy kids with their oddly identical powers bothered me. They drifted in my head, the ghostly remnants of a bad dream.

Especially the girl. Those hollow cheekbones and bruised zombie eyes. Something about her felt wrong.

I spared a brief thought for Sparkly, probably cuffed in talent-draining augmentium alloy with blood running from his ears right now. I'd appreciated his talent, his hubris, his glitter-quick reflexes. Our side could've used more guys like him. I even felt a twinge of shame that I'd abandoned a fellow augment to face the heat, even if he was Gallery. Like me, he was just making a living.

But inwardly, I shrugged, his defeat both salty and sweet in my mouth. Shared adversity doesn't make us pals. You make your bed, you die in it, you black-hearted Gallery shitweed.

I peeled off my black leather mask and stowed it in my trouser pocket. Dipped my hands in the fountain, splashed my bloodied face clean. Shook the drips back into my ponytailed hair, and strolled out onto the street.

Cool nighttime air refreshed me. It was late, but traffic still streaked by: silent yellow electric cabs, smart cars, SUVs, a golden stretch Humvee. A kid whistled past me on a scooter. A trolley car rattled along its tracks, lights flickering over the few passengers inside. Late-working office jockeys strode the sidewalk, briefcases and tablets tucked under their arms. A homeless guy wearing a tattered football jersey rattled a paper cup for change beside pasted bills for theatre shows and “occupy” demonstrations and a splurt of all-too-familiar crimson spray-painted graffiti.

BURN IT ALL

Dizziness waltzed in my skull, the giddy specter of half-forgotten fever. Razorfire's catchphrase. What would he think of me now? I'd screwed up the simplest job, been taken unawares by a pair of joy-riding boy- band fans. I cringed. Jeez, how humiliating…

Mentally, I smacked myself upside the head. Verity, the only thing he'd care about is that you attacked one of his crew. He's your enemy. He will peel your skin off. Forget him.

Forget him.

Right.

Razorfire's gorgeous scent dizzies me, mint and fire and dark delight, and I can't help but inhale. Swallow, gulp for more, my body yearning to drink him in. His flame licks my bruised cheek, both threat and promise. I flush, mortified. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve him…

Fiercely, I blinked, and the memory splintered and whirled away, leaving only fresh-sliced pain in my temples. Fuck it. The flashbacks of my evil ex-lover—yeah, long and gruesome story—were growing less frequent, easier to banish. But the guilty twist in my guts didn't ease.

Wanna know a secret? It never does. Not for one goddamn second.

Sure, Razorfire tricked me, playing twisted psychological games until my mind snapped. That didn't excuse how I'd acted, or the suffering my twisted infatuation had caused. Adonis had tried to have me treated and it badly backfired. My father and sister were dead, my family in hiding. I had a lot to make up for.

I glanced about for Sentinels, those sneaky augment-detecting gadgets that were bolted to every lamp post in the city these days, or so it seemed. Razorfire's plan since he'd been elected mayor had been inscrutable, to say the least.

In his public persona, he was all keep the streets safe and prosecute to the full extent of the law and no tolerance for violent criminals. Yet every once in a while, he'd climb into his crimson silk archvillain suit and mask, and burn some neighborhood to a smoking ruin. Post threatening videos on the internet. Ratchet the tension higher, let the police department and the district attorney's office take the heat (heh) and generally stir up a furious hornet's nest of violence and fear.

Look, there was a Sentinel: a smug silvery cylinder mounted ten feet up on a building's corner, silently blinking its incriminating red light at me. I flipped it the bird. Detect this, you metal moron.

Across the sidewalk, an office worker in a slim-cut suit did a double-take, and made a move inside his jacket. Sigh. Seriously: a gun? Are they arming metrosexuals now? Stop, or I'll order decaf!

I didn't pause. I just pointed into his face as I walked by, and gave him my best Dirty Harry impression. "You really wanna test me, punk?"

He scuttled backwards, dropping his computer case, hands raised in peace. Heh. Must have my angry face on today.

In my pocket, my phone's message tone chimed. Whatever. Probably Adonis wondering where the hell I was. Or Glimmer, texting me a dose of the guilts because he imagined I was drinking myself horny in some seedy Castro Street bar, and of course he'd never do anything so grotesquely banal and ordinary as get drunk and laid, because he was Glimmer and he was too damn perfect and jeez, when did I turn into such a jealous little worm?

I sighed, rubbing the dented scar on my cheekbone. A headache swelled like a tumor deep in my skull, threatening murder. Hell, I wanted a drink and a cigarette, even though I'd never been much of a drinker and I didn't like the smell of tobacco smoke. What I needed was food and sleep. I should go home, as far as “home” went these days, now that FortuneCorp were in hiding and Glimmer's secret techno-lair was a crispy barbecue and Sentinels mined half the city's streets into a no-hero zone.

But I needed to salvage something from tonight. Prove I hadn't simply screwed up, hadn't let those villains escape out of carelessness, that my power was reliable and strong. Or hell, I might as well rock on down to Castro Street right now and order a triple brainfuck with a twist of sordid.

Belligerent, I squared my shoulders. I didn't give a moldy fart for Sentinels or cops or vigilante office boys. What were they gonna do, shoot me? I'd survived that before. Anyway, my altercation with Sparkly and the twin tweens had set off every alarm in that building. The entire world already knew I was here.

So I strolled across the courtyard to the museum's main entrance, and kicked the door in.

Crash! Boot mixed with mindmuscle, unstoppable. The revolving door buckled like a crushed beer can. I cracked my neck, satisfied. Damn. Someone fetch me that cigarette.

I hurled the wreckage aside and strode into the tiled lobby, where a weird marble statue resembling a gigantic pink horse turd squatted on a pillar.

A black-uniformed security guard challenged me. I flung up one hand and hurled him against the wall, pinning him under the chin with an invisible grip. His handgun clattered to the tiles. The mega-turd teetered and crashed to the floor, a clatter of broken marble. Oops. Performance art.

"Where's the CCTV, idiot?" Blood pounded in my temples, nearly drowning out the sound of my voice. I was in the clear, unmasked. I didn't care. Let the world look at my scars. Let them see me as I truly am.

Glimmer once told me his mask was his true face. That it wasn't a disguise, but a confession. For me, it's the other way around. My mask is unsullied, fit for public consumption. The face underneath… on my bad days? Not so much. And the physical scars—my souvenir of that hellhole of an asylum, courtesy of my well-meaning asshole of a brother—are the pretty part.

The security guy wasn't dumb enough to play the hero. He jerked his head towards a locked door, his throat bobbing as he tried to swallow.

I let him fall undamaged and stepped over him as he gurgled for breath. Heh. Dumb enough to play the hero. There's a lesson we could all learn.

I smashed the security office door open. Old-school video screens, surveillance-camera footage of darkened museum rooms and corridors. In the room where I'd fought the tweens, a battalion of guards and cops and rented heavies were arresting Sparkly and reading him what was left of his rights. From the black-and-bloodied look of his face, they'd left out the “we can't beat the snot out of you while you're restrained” part.

I leveled my pistol at the only guard inside the CCTV room. Chesty young blond, biceps like turnips stuffed up his shirtsleeves. His sidearm lay on the bench. Bad choice, Turnip Man.

His ice-chip eyes widened, and one hand strayed to the can of pepper spray at his belt.

I thumbed the safety off, pulling three pounds on a four-pound trigger. My hands were shaking as badly as my voice. I was weary, hungry, pissed off. "Just try me, moron. See what happened to that window? Imagine what I can do to your skull. We understand each other?"

Turnip Man nodded, otherwise perfectly still, fingers splayed to show he'd surrendered. They weren't paying him enough to die. Sweat trickled down his neatly shaven cheek, and in that moment I hated him utterly.

For being young, ordinary, carefree. For having a regular job, where you went home after work, dumb and happy with your sixteen twenty-five an hour in your pocket, and thought about something else.

For living such a goddamn simple life.

"Good. Then you know what I want." I jerked my bruised chin towards the bank of screens and digital recording equipment. "So get on with it."

Forty seconds later, I was gone.

~ 3 ~

By the time I reached the new FortuneCorp HQ, I was wet, sore and angry, and I reeked of shit.

Sentinels, see. The old ones you could fool with augmentium, the alloy that's resistant to augmented powers. Razorfire strutted around in public for weeks wearing a wristwatch forged from the stuff and no one was the wiser. These improved models? Nuh-uh. At least, not for us. His Archvillain-ness is still getting away with it. Somehow. Fuck him.

Hmm. Right. Moving on from that thought…

Since that night a few months ago, when we lost out to Razorfire big time—he sabotaged his own superweapon, became the city's hero, got himself elected mayor and declared us Fortunes public enemies; if that isn't irony, can me up and call me a sardine—we don't want him knowing where we're holing up. We need to move about out of sight, and a lot of the time that means underground. Sapphire City's sewers date from before the fire at the turn of last century, and they smell like it: greasy brick tunnels, calf-deep in foul flushwater, floating with fat globules and dead rats and discarded baby wipes, and crusted with decades of slimy dripping God-knows-what.

I carried my coat rolled up under one arm, and let my boots take the brunt of it, but by the time I levered up the rusted grate and climbed blinking like a mole into the deserted parking lot by the waterworks, it was two in the morning, I stank like a mediaeval train toilet and my mood didn't smell much better.

Times like this, I wished I could fly. Or turn invisible. Or make decent coffee. Or do anything, pretty much, that was useful to anyone anymore.

I slipped unseen into the forest surrounding the parking lot. Fog curled among the tall eucalypts, luminous in the moonlight, wreathing smelly old me with the leaves' disinfectant scent. The city noise faded to a cool murmur. I squeezed stinking water from my trouser cuffs and strode up the hill into the dark. Leaves and soil crunched under my boots. Somewhere a wildcat yowled. A few charred tree trunks lay in my path, black shapes darker than the shadows, and I hopped wearily over them.

At the top of the hill, no lights shone. But I knew the path, and my tongue tingled with the candy-sweet flavor of augment. I picked my way through stumps and fallen branches towards our hideout: the derelict asylum.

I'd spent months trapped in here at Adonis's behest, while doctors tried to “cure” me of my little misdirected affection problem. Naturally, I'd escaped and set the place on fire. The concrete-block building was now partly a blackened ruin, but at one end, roof and walls still stood, two stories high.

Had I freaked out when we first came here? Fuck, yes. I'd stalked around with a loaded fistful of power, unleashing on ghosts, jumping at every noise. I was okay with it now. It no longer looked much like the place where I'd been tortured… but sometimes, in the night, I still woke alone in my cold ex-cell to the phantom smells of stewed apple and puke and singed hair, the bright buzz of electroshock, unseen screams grating in my ears.

And Glimmer wondered why I frequented late bars.

I eased the unlocked basement door open, quiet as I could. Inside, a row of caged light bulbs hung, just one in the middle switched on. The old food hall: a stainless-steel serving hatch, steel tables bolted to the green linoleum floor, barred gates to keep the crazies in. No alarm on the door. Glimmer hadn't gotten around to installing one yet. Too busy hacking our cell phones so they couldn't be tracked (good job) and repairing his surveillance kit (from what was left of it, which was pretty much zilch) and rebuilding the data-mining algorithms he'd lost when Razorfire torched his lair.

But my teenage cousin Ebenezer was on watch. Slouched in a plastic chair, playing a game on his tablet. Lank brown hair in need of a wash, dusty trench coat over safety-pinned jeans. His lame left leg was stretched out, still a mite crooked despite endless iterations of surgery and traction, back when the Fortune family were still respectable and Uncle Mike's money could buy that sort of thing. I think Eb secretly likes it that he limps. All part of the package.

Some defects you just can't fix.

Eb blinked at me, short-sighted. One watery blue eye, one brown. "Well, you look like you just crawled from a sack of hungry rat corpses."

"Thanks, man. No, really."

"Always here to help." A rare grin, inept, like he didn't care to practice it much. On his lopsided face, it had a kind of evil leprechaun charm.

Eb was the weirdest sibling from a branch of the Fortune family that wasn't exactly noted for being normal, and it wasn't just the limp or the oddball eyes. When he unleashed—which he did more often than was strictly necessary or appropriate—people pissed themselves and cowered into gibbering blobs of oh-god-let-me-die.

He'd taken the secret name Bloodshock from a serial-killer character he played on some screwed-up online RPG, and it stuck. He might look like an escapee from the aftermath of the teenage nerd apocalypse, but you do not want to mess with cousin Eb.

I believe that allegiance is nurture, not nature. Good versus evil is a choice we all make. But if anyone on our side was born to be a villain, it's this guy.

"You'll go blind looking at that stuff." I ruffled his hair, dodging a punch. What with my Miss Universe face and bubbly personality—and growing up with Adonis and Chance for brothers—I knew how it felt to be the unpopular one. I'd made an effort with Eb ever since I'd forced us all into this charming little camping vacation, and I sort of like the guy. Even if he sometimes makes me want to brandish a crucifix in his direction. "Get a girlfriend. Oh, wait. That'd involve talking to a real girl."

"This isn't interactive porn," Eb insisted. "I'm honing my reflexes."

"Right. When the big-breasted virgin schoolgirl zombies attack, you'll be the first guy I call. Any dinner left?" On cue, my stomach grumbled. My dead appetite had reanimated, at least in part, since my rat-happy sewer jaunt, and I hadn't consumed anything except high-caffeine cola and a candy bar since this morning.

Yesterday morning, that is. Jeez, what am I, twelve? No wonder I'm such a wreck.

Eb nodded towards the darkened kitchen's serving hatch. "Peggy made lasagna."

I rolled my eyes. Of course she did. Adonis's new lady friend was perky, red-headed, domesticated. "Did she bake cupcakes, too? Wearing a frilly apron?"

"Mee-yeow." Eb mimed a cat scratch. "You'd eat it if a certain person made it."

"Did I say I wouldn't eat it?" But I dragged the tray towards me a little too hard, spilling tomato sauce on the counter. Glimmer baked the best lasagna on the planet, no exceptions. Glimmer did most things better than everyone else. Especially me.

To be fair, Peggy did everything she could to help out, despite not really being one of us, and her cooking sure tasted nice. Everything about Peg was nice. Probably what Adonis said after he fucked her. That's nice, dear.

Okay, now I really had no appetite. I pushed the tray away. "Maybe later."

"Whatevs." Eb didn't look up.

I slunk upstairs to the second floor, where our bedrooms—read rusty ex-torture cells, and yay for that—were. On the landing, Uncle Mike's latest stray cat adoptee hissed at me with a suspicious yellow glare. Poor little bugger looked hungry. "Whatevs," I mimicked as I went by. "You wound me with your disdain, kitty. Lasagna's on the table. My treat."

The dim corridor smelled of old smoke and rust. Steel cell doors lined each wall, stretching into the distance, where the roof had collapsed in the fire and damp moonlight misted in. Light wind whistled through the twisted corrugated iron, whoo! whoo!

Electric light leaked from a single door that lay ajar on my right. I tiptoed, trying to creep by unnoticed.

"Where have you been?"

Fail. I stopped, folding my arms on a sigh. "Like you don't know."

Adonis leaned in his doorway. Unshaven, his blue eyes bloodshot. His shirt was creased, formerly an extinction-level event for my big brother, who'd spent his life wearing custom suits and diamond cufflinks, wading through rivers of adoring girls on his way to corporate board meetings and glittering charity balls. They write romance novels about guys like Adonis. He's what ordinary women think of as a hot date, and life has gifted him with what you might call a healthy ego. I wouldn't label him vain, exactly—he's too pragmatic for that—but let's just say his secret name isn't Narcissus without reason.

His blond hair was ragged, in need of a cut. It made him look a little crazy. And the bruises under his eyes shone darker than usual. He'd been losing sleep. We all had.

"Fine." His voice was hoarse, fatigued. "I know where you've been. So what the hell were you doing?"

"Stopping a crime in progress, since you ask. That okay with you?" But my chest hurt inside, and my hostility lost its luster. My brother, questioning my good intentions. My fucking brother.

He just eyed me, glitter-blue. Accusing.

Christ, I'd no energy to fight with him tonight. "I'm tired, Ad. Can we just get some sleep?"

"Vee…" He touched my arm.

I halted again. "What?"

"We've talked about this. You're not well. You shouldn't go off by yourself and—"

"And what? Do my job? We're crime-fighters, aren't we? How about we fight crime?"

My words bounced off the walls. He frowned, a finger to his lips. Of course, my phone pinged again in my pocket, over-loud.

Shit. I fumbled it to silent to make it shut up. "What?" I whispered fiercely. "Am I gonna wake up the Stepford wife?"

"I'm working. Peg's in her own room." A defiant edge. He knew I didn't like Peggy. I'd never liked any of his long-term—read longer than two weeks—girlfriends. None of 'em were worthy of him. It was a brother–sister thing. And ever since I'd murdered our father, and Adonis locked me in the nut house, and I dropped a ceiling on our elder sister, and Adonis shot me and hurled me out a fifty-sixth-story window? Brother–sister things had become a little complicated.

"Sleeping alone? So sad. Does she snore? Or are you just tired of her already?"

"You can talk."

That gloss of disgust took a hacksaw to my nerves. "Screw you, okay? I am so over you judging me. At least I tell mine they're losers as soon as I'm done."

An incredulous laugh. "Jesus, Vee. Last day to cash in this month's bitch credits?"

I swallowed, ashamed. Truth was? Seeing him like this broke my heart. He hadn't asked for what had happened to us, any more than the rest of our family had. None of it was his fault.

No. No, it was mine.

"She cooked a nice dinner," I allowed grudgingly. He didn't need to know I hadn't eaten any. "And hell, she seems to like Oreos and Bruce Lee movies. I guess there's hope for her."

He rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. "She tries, okay? Give her a chance. It's not her fault she's—"

"Adonis? Everything okay?" A sleepy female voice drifted from the half-closed door.

Adonis sighed, resting his head on the doorframe.

I choked. She was in his damn room. He'd lied.

My face burned. Ugly, poison words crawled up my throat. Before I could spit them out, I clamped my teeth and marched away. He didn't call after me. I heard his door click shut. I kept walking, though I itched all over, an army of rabid ants nipping furiously beneath my skin.

I stormed past more rooms: Jeremiah, Ebenezer, Harriet, Peggy, the rest of the stray augments we'd adopted like some stupid special-needs homeless shelter since we holed up here. Jem was coughing, a horrid throat-savaging beast that no doubt we'd all catch before the week was out. I could hear Uncle Mike snoring. Mike, Dad's kid brother, who'd been as civil to me as was humanly possible, considering I got Dad killed.

They don't forgive you, hissed one of the incarnations of me that rattled around in my skull. Since the asylum, I'm like a range of Barbie dolls in there. This one was Nasty Verity, like the ghost of my dead sister Equity with a double shot of spite. They'll never forgive you. They're just humoring you, until they think of a way to get rid of you quietly, with no fuss. One day, you'll have a tragic accident…

Viciously, I kicked at the dead leaves littering the floor. Shut your face, Nasty. If Adonis was pissed at me for disobeying him? Fine. That was his right. I didn't care. I didn't even care that my precious big brother was sticking his dick in the world's most boring woman and apparently liked it enough to let her sleep in his bed, for fuck's sake.

I cared that he trusted her more than he trusted me.

He'd known Peg a few lousy weeks, and I was the one he lied to.

Fuck.

A silent scream hollowed my chest, and my mindmuscle burned. I felt like tearing down the broken ceiling to crush us all. The fact that I'd earned his mistrust a dozen times over only made it hurt more.

I reached the door to my room—dark, cold, empty—and hesitated, restless. My muscles watered with exhaustion, my eyes smarted with grit. I needed to crash. But my thoughts howled in wild circles, my power pacing like a caged beast in my belly. My senses had graduated from tingling through prickling to a malicious stinging cloud that wouldn't be silent. Sleep seemed about as likely as a lightning strike.

And I still had business tonight. The memory of those teenage hooligans—y'know, the ones with identical, improbable powers who'd whipped my ass?—wouldn't leave me alone. Who were they working for? What was the artifact they'd taken, and why did they want it?

More to the point: had Razorfire really deployed them against his own guy? And why?

Sure, maybe I was paranoid. Seeing archvillain conspiracies lurking under every rock, every breath of wind and rustle of leaves part of an elaborate plot against me.

Wouldn't be the first time it'd turned out to be true.

I crept to the cell next to mine and pushed on the unlocked door. "You awake?" I whispered.

Dim green glow filtered from a computer screen, throwing the tiny cell into shadows. A cursor blinked solemnly from a window brimming with wingdings code. Schematics and circuit diagrams were stuck to the whitewashed walls with tape and gum. The crumpled bed had disappeared under a heap of silicon hardware, cables, parts of phones; more of the same cluttered the desk, next to coffee mugs and empty cola cans and two unwashed dinner plates.

Glimmer lay asleep at his desk, green light rinsing his face. Head pillowed on one arm, dark hair with an albino splash in front tumbling onto the keyboard. His warm vanilla-spice scent drifted, both comfort and accusation. I inhaled more deeply, like I did sometimes when he wasn't watching. Oyy. Even working nineteen hours a day in a grubby cell deep in the ruins of a sadist's hellhole, he managed to smell like this. If Glimmer were a villain—if he'd even a breath of badness in him, which he didn't—you'd flee from that scent alone.

He looked exhausted, dark stubble stark against his too-pale face. Time was, he'd worn his mask twenty-four-seven around me. No longer. He'd nothing to hide, except that he was young and talented and didn't deserve the shitty deal Razorfire had hurled his way.

I bit my lip. Once upon a time, Glimmer had been my friend. God, I longed to talk the way we used to. Trade insults, give him crap about his hair product. Say, dude, you'll never believe what happened to me tonight and have him scoff at me, charm me with his grin and his wise-ass wit. I wanted to be dazzled by his white-knight geekboy brilliance, and hunt criminals together safe in the knowledge that he'd never betray me, never give up. Hell, the jealous part of me wanted to smack his pretty face for being so much better at it all than I.

Compelled, I drifted my palm over his cheek, just a twitch from touching. His breath warmed my hand, and my pulse quickened, shame and loneliness and some deeper compulsion I didn't understand mingling like inks in my blood. I could wake him. Stroke that velvety hair from his eyes, take heart from his sweet, crooked smile…

But if I touched him, he might look at me.

Instead, I stuffed my hand into my inside pocket and yanked out the DVD of security footage I'd taken from Turnip Man at the museum. Unearthed a pad of yellow sticky notes from the mess on the desk, and stuck one onto the plastic case.

Check out 12:57 am. Who the fuck are these clowns?

xox

V.

P.S. Your lasagna is better.

Quietly, I set the DVD by his keyboard, where he'd see it when he woke. Like he didn't already have enough work to do.

Glimmer's lashes fluttered, and he murmured, immersed in some unwelcome dream. My throat ached. My rude thoughts about him earlier in the night seemed petty and stupid. All his bad opinions of me? They were justified. He was strong, steadfast, a proper hero. Whereas I was unreliable, weak, indecisive, confused about the simplest decisions.

Maybe part of me resented him for making me feel inferior. And okay, maybe another, secret, blushing-girly part would've liked it if he were a bit more jealous about the whole drunk-and-laid thing. He was smart, cute, had a heart of unblemished gold. Any woman would want him.

But mostly, I just wanted my friend back.

I could wake him right now. Tell him how sorry I am for being such a screw-up. Beg him to help me get through this, to be there for me, the way he'd always been since the moment we met…

Bzzz-bzzz.

My phone, vibrating on silent. Shit. It wouldn't give up.

Swiftly, I backed off, and shielded the screen's light with my curled hand. That message I'd ignored a few hours ago, after I'd escaped from the museum guards…

My nerves crackled, ice and fire. The bright letters telescoped, and all else, including time, slipped away.

Confused, firebird?

Let's talk. You know the place.

R.

My throat swelled, throttling me.

Memory swamped me, nightmares of pleasure and passion and utter conviction, both delight and torture. It was unique, singular, terrifying. And I adored it.

I gasped, shivering. I was sweating, my mouth sticky. My hands shook. A junkie denied a fix.

Oh, God.

Keep it down, urged Common-Sense Verity, the sensible and incredulous me who still lurked somewhere inside. It's not what it seems. It's just a learned response. You know that. Fight it!

Glimmer stirred, a fragrant shadow amongst shadows. "Verity?" he mumbled, slurring. "Whassup?"

My guts hollowed, desperation swimming against a warm velvety undercurrent of desire. Glimmer could help me. I knew he could. Fight it!

But I didn't want to.

“Nothing,” I murmured, oddly calm. So calm, it should’ve terrified me. But I was already beyond fear. “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.” And I pocketed my phone and walked out.

~ 4 ~

On the bridge across the gateway to the bay, fog spiraled in slow motion, weaving intricate ghostly shapes around the soaring suspension cables. Damp pre-dawn crept chilly fingers up my coat sleeves. Piquant sea air stung my face. To landward, the white halogen spotlights of newly refurbished Rock Island Prison glistened faintly through the mist. Somewhere below me swirled the dark, invisible sea.

I'd walked here, confident, flitting coolly across darkened parklands and Sentinel-free streets. But now, crab-clawed nerves gripped my guts. Damn, I needed to pee. My fingers shook. My lungs wouldn't take in enough air. At my back, a car whooshed by, and I jumped like a startled frog, ribbit!

Fuck. My sweaty palms slicked the railing, ripe with fear and anticipation. My senses fizzed, and I glanced over my shoulder, certain I was being watched. But I saw no one.

Deep in the rusty cells of my mind, Common-Sense Verity kicked at the walls and screamed what the hell are you doing? The rest of me just felt like a high-school girl on prom night. I hadn't seen him in person for weeks. Suddenly, it seemed so unbearably long.

This was our place. Always had been, since that very first night, when I'd wept and screamed into uncaring darkness, and he'd come for me. Not my father, not my brothers, but him, alone, when no one else would.

And he wasn't here.

My knees watered, like they did when I was small and my father scolded me for some thoughtless mistake. Oh, God. I was too late. He'd already left. I should've picked up that message as soon as it chimed. If I'd displeased him…

Feathers of flame teased the back of my neck. "Hello, firebird."

I whirled, my heart pounding.

And there he stood. Vincent Caine, richest guy in town, lately CEO of Iridium Industries, genius inventor of the Sentinel (among other flashy, ubiquitous bits of kit) and mayor of Sapphire City.

Razorfire.

Not wearing his crimson silken coat, or the rust-blood metal mask that had become the watchword for terror; not even the slate-grey suit and red tie (always red, or plum, or scarlet, jeez, it was like he was telling everyone) that he affected in his day job. Just a crisp black shirt and jeans, but still the vision of him swallowed me, a vortex of time and space, and I couldn't breathe.

He isn't superlatively good-looking, not really. More like a sharp, interesting face. No, what Vincent has is presence. A cool, effortless composure that flirts with elegant and handsome as it sashays by on its way to magnificent. And after so long apart, it hit me with redoubled force.

But always, it's his eyes that get me. Unholy storm-cloud grey, the cleverest and most dangerous eyes you'll ever see. When he's angry, they're black. When he's utterly furious, they burn. Breeze fingered his short bronze hair, wreathed him in mist and dark enchantment. Calm, invincible, untouchable. The perfect picture of power.

They write novels about guys like Vincent, too. The ones featuring mental disintegration and toxic passion that leads to murder.

The awfulicious prospect of his displeasure made me shudder. To be honest, my memory of those heady days was still fuzzy, drunken, trapped in that dark half-world between truth and nightmare. I didn't rightly remember everything that ever happened between us… but I hadn't forgotten his exquisite way with lessons. No, I most certainly hadn't.

Suddenly, I was ultra-aware of the dirt smearing my clothes, the stink in my untidy hair. The scar on my dented cheekbone burned. I should've showered, dressed nicely, fixed myself up for him.

Or not.

I swallowed, parched. "I, er, meant to come sooner. It's just…" Shit. Wrong approach. Never make excuses. Never apologize, firebird. It's always a lie. If you don't mean it, don't do it in the first place…

But he just shrugged, fluid. "I know how it is. Museums to rob, chaos to wreak. The diary's always so full." A weaponized smile, loaded as a demon's promise. You can poison small creatures with Vincent's smile. "Oh, and thieves to humiliate. That was entertaining. Seriously. I'm diverted."

The way his lips shaped the word diverted made me want to fidget and blush, and mentally I kicked myself in the ass. Keep it down, Verity. You're here for information. This is a temporary ceasefire, not a date.

Goddamn it. I'd been doing fine. I'd barely thought of him in weeks, if you could call four or five times an hour barely. Barely dreamed of him, either, unless you count the breathless ones where I shudder in firelit darkness and he… well, never you mind. Point is, I was doing okay. Then the bastard flips me a casual text—one damn text—and I'm all Stockholm Syndrome. Christ on a cracker.

Stubbornly, I took a step back. "That's sweet and everything, Vincent, but what do you want?" His name tasted minty, faintly chemical on my tongue. I wished I hadn't said it. It made me think of flames. But the question lingered: why had he asked me here? He never did anything without a plan. What new trick was this?

"Well, if you insist on making it all about me…" He slid hands into pockets, a cunning caricature of casual. "I'm just dying to hear what you thought of your new friends at the museum. Did you enjoy them?"

My pulse throbbed, a hot warning. I knew those tweens' shenanigans were no accident. Vincent was toying with me. Feeding me lies. I shouldn't play his games…

Then again, I knew them for what they were, didn't I? Lies. Misdirection. If I fell for his bullshit anyway, I'd no one to blame but myself. Right?

Seductive warmth whispered on my skin. I wanted to dive in, revel in the battle, relish his clever traps and gambits. Say to hell with it and go with him right now… but part of me shrank like a kiss from maggots at the thought of listening to his toxic words for a moment longer.

I folded my arms, defensive. Like it could shield me from the memory of his quickflame gaze, his strange mint-fresh warmth, his fingers as they clenched between mine…

Keep it business. Find out what he knows, and leave.

"They were surprising, I'll give 'em that," I offered. "Twin augments. I've never seen the like."

"I know! Delightful, isn't it? I confess, I get bored with the same old tricks."

He leaned his elbows on the railing beside me, sleeves rolled up. He has precise, elegant hands. Artist's hands. Lover's hands. His wrist was arrogantly bare, no augmentium wristwatch to shield him tonight. No disguise at all. He really didn't give a damn.

I brushed aside a tendril of treacherous appreciation. Sure, his courage would be admirable, if he wasn't a genocidal psychopath who rated the rest of the human race lower than maggots, except for a happy few of his augmented Gallery minions, and even they weren't worth speaking to most of the time.

He'd had a power-crazed supervillain BFF (of sorts) named Iceclaw, a chuckling maniac with long greasy hair and saber teeth, who froze people's skin for fun. But Iceclaw was dead. I'd dropped him from a forty-foot ceiling and stabbed him in the throat with a shard of broken glass. I still wasn't certain how Vincent felt about that.

I grinned weakly. "Yours, then, are they?"

Great. More Gallery weirdoes to contend with. But my mind stumbled, lost in the fog. By deploying Sentinels, he was dropping his own gang in the shit. Making them feel betrayed and indignant. What was his game? He was manipulating me, I knew that much for sure. But to what end?

Vincent quirked one neat bronze brow. "I'm offended you'd think so. The building was still standing, last I noticed. Wasting such lovely tricks, just to re-home an overpriced rock? And blue dreadlocks? Must be taking style tips from your glimmery puppy dog." He laughed, a starlit ripple of wrongness. "I assure you, Verity, that girl's no child of mine."

Sickly, I envied him his certainty. The way he knew without a flicker of doubt what was important. I envied him a lot of things, I guess. I could admit that now. Once, I too had worn that unshakeable confidence. The simple way: just jettison your conscience. No more dilemmas. No more problem.

But those days were gone. I was cured now. I hated the Verity I'd been with him… but I hated it more that in the dark before dawn, when I lay restless and sweating in my cold ex-lunatic's cell, I still burned for what he'd meant to me.

I shivered, hugging myself. "Look, it's nice to see you and all, but I really have to—"

"The girl calls herself 'Sophron'." He studied his perfect nails. "The boy goes by 'Flash'. You saw some of what they can do. From the way they work together, I'd say they're old friends." A twist of sarcasm. Like he could possibly understand what old friend meant. "That's enough, I think. It's no fun if I give you all the answers."

Which didn't mean he knew anything. Didn't mean he didn't, either. "Sophron," I mused, intrigued in spite of myself. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"They'll make troublesome enemies, firebird. Dare I suggest caution?"

I snorted, pleased to have caught him in error. "Now why would you use a stupid word like 'caution'? Going soft?"

Fire kindled in his gaze. I didn't see him move, but somehow he was closer, too close, his strange possessive heat mercilessly invading my space and conquering it. Involuntarily, I gasped, and his mint-fire flavor tingled my tongue, sparkling all the way down inside me and resurrecting memories that were better off buried.

"I knew it," he whispered on a smile. "Look me in the eye and make me believe you've changed. I dare you."

Fuck. It wasn't an error. It was bait. And I'd swallowed it whole.

This was what he'd wanted, the reason he'd lured me here. I wanted to punch him and scream get away from me! I wanted to fight, to unleash on him, jeez, what a futile effort that'd be. I'd no defense against him, and he knew it. Fucking damn him.

"Come back to me." Insistent, dark with command. "Tonight. Now. Forget this charade."

"No." A whisper, all the denial I could muster. "I can't."

"You must. You know you belong to me."

"You're wrong, okay? I don't belong to anyone." My sanity stretched thin, a sheet of rubber yanked too tight. Hit him. Kiss him. Kiss him, then hit him. What I couldn't do was back away… because I was too afraid of what he might say.

Even after everything that had happened, I was still terrified he'd think me a coward. That I was a coward, for rejecting him. For rejecting us. And that frightened me most of all.

"I understand that you're scared. I actually thought I was, too, at first." A besotted smile, almost bashful. "Me, afraid. Can you imagine that?"

Actually, I couldn't, but I wasn't about to let him know that. His unshakeable belief in every insane word he uttered made me cringe. But it melted me, too, deep inside, where I'd locked everything delicious and forbidden I'd felt for him into a rusted little box marked DO NOT OPEN.

See, one thing villains always have over the rest of us is the freedom to follow their convictions. Presuming, of course, that those convictions aren't very nice. For Vincent, emotion—like everything else—is about power, and he exerts it ruthlessly. He offers you every dark and despicable thing you've ever secretly longed for, and watches while you struggle to resist.

I knew all that. And still I couldn't say no.

"The way you've gotten to me, Verity, it's… well, it's maddening, really. But we have to face it. We can use it to make us stronger. You can't hide from me forever."

Couldn't I, just? "No, it's over. We're over. I have a different life now. I have friends to look out for me." My lips stung. I couldn't stop staring at his mouth. God, I wanted so badly to kiss him. Just once. Just one more time…

"Your 'friends' despise you. Not the same thing." He drifted close enough to touch—close enough for those impossible flames of his to wrap our fingers together as one. I held my breath, dying for that explosive heat, the revelation of his body against mine. Almost. Not quite. Goddamn it.

"Come back to me, firebird," he whispered. "You know you want to."

My pulse stumbled. I scrambled for a rational response, when all I wanted to do was roll over and surrender. Whisper his name, let him do whatever he pleased with me. I will keep cool. I won't lose control. I won't…

"Vincent, listen," I insisted, shaking. Good start. But what the hell could I say? How do you crack unbreakable conviction like his? "This is all a mistake. Whatever you think there is between us…"

"Whatever I think?" His eyes flashed a dangerous gold, and his grip tightened on my wrist, a bright edge of malice. "Shall I show you? Must we cover those lessons again? You know what happens when you disappoint me."

Oh, God, did I.

I trembled, lost. What was I thinking? Reasoning with him was pointless. The magnetism between us was beyond thought, beyond common sense. Oldest story in the book.

I'd loved him. And in his warped way, he'd loved me. How could anyone reason with that?

I felt him laugh, a frisson of unhinged delight at the game. His whisper scorched my earlobe, challenging. "Oh, this is precious. Do you surrender? Or must I subdue you all over again?"

I shuddered, and fled.

He didn't follow. Just let me run.

The fog swallowed me, cold and heartless. I didn't stop until I'd passed the end of the bridge, where the fishing pier's lights struggled through curling mist, and sprinted across the freeway into the park.

I collapsed, panting, against a tree trunk. My heartbeat galloped. My skin itched all over, like deathworms wriggled in my living flesh, and I doubled over and spewed my non-existent dinner into the dirt.

My eyes poured and I choked on burning bile. What the hell had I expected? He was merciless, insidious, every move a cunning gambit to kill me or trap me or make me do something I dreaded, all just to prove he was superior. To prove he still owned me.

I knew that was how he operated. So why had I agreed to meet him? Why didn't I just delete his damn text and go to bed like a normal person?

But I already knew the answer.

We'd been lovers, sure, and that part was incredible. Unprecedented. I could admit that. Still, I'm not a slave to that kind of lust. Sex is great, but it's just sex.

But all the common sense in the world didn't change the awful truth that I'd liked how he'd made me feel. Giddy, alive, free from crippling self-doubt and eager to take on the world. Loving Vincent had made me happy.

I wiped my acid-ripped mouth. I already had a splitting headache, like I'd cracked a machete through my skull, levering the bones apart to let all those black and ugly secrets ooze out. Now my guts hurt, too. I wanted to crawl into a hole, pull dirt over my head and sleep forever.

But I knew how to escape from too much thinking. Temporarily, at least… and my nerves twanged bad banjo tunes as I imagined Glimmer's disappointment. Glimmer never said anything, never scolded me outright. He just looked at me, with those warm starlit eyes, and lately, I'd been unable to meet his gaze.

Your friends despise you. Vincent's accusation pierced my skull with hot needles and popped my guilt like a bubble.

Fuck it. I yanked my mask from my pocket and tied it on. My damp fingers smeared the leather, and I wiped the sweat away. Vincent was right: my family already scorned me. And so did Glimmer. What did I care if I gave them one more reason?

Because it's always just one more reason. Then another. And another, until the little reasons pile up so high, they smother you. That's how villains are made.

What the fuck ever.

Ten minutes later, I stalked down a narrow street in Castro towards a place I knew, an underground dive where masks were just one way people hid from each other. Rats snickered in the garbage at my feet, and I kicked them aside. Down greasy steps, through the rusted door.

Inside, dark shapes hunkered in dim blue light, a snatch of meaningless sounds: music, groans, sobs, vacant laughter. Chains hung from the ceiling in drifting smoke. I inhaled, let the stinking air numb my senses, stumbled up to the bar.

Triple brainfuck with a twist of sordid, thanks, and keep the change.

The guy on the next stool—thin, his once-proud muscles wasting, nice clothes but old and unwashed—clinked his glass against mine, and we drank. Like Glimmer, he bore scars on the inside of his wrist. Unlike Glimmer, he looked ready to try it all over again. Search human disintegration and you'll get a picture of this guy.

His phone lay beside him on the bar. One of Vincent's creations, an obsolete model with cracked glass. He wore his wedding ring with that wishful air that bespoke failure and tragedy. Probably carried pics of his estranged kids in his wallet, or on that ancient phone. Too young, I thought as I gulped harsh alcohol, to be so broken.

Aren't we all?

I banged the empty glass down. "Rough day?"

He lit a cigarette, ash flaring. "Fuckin' A."

"Same shit, different year."

"Sing it, sister." He offered me his smoke. Not one from the pack. I took it. What the hell, right? If this was his pick-up routine, I was about the best he could expect.

I inhaled, relishing the horrid gritty flavor, and let my special senses sparkle. I didn't taste augment. Only sour despair. He met my gaze, the wide brown eyes of an animal caught in a trap.

Was that what Vincent saw when he looked at me: prey? An inferior creature, fit only to be exploited or consumed?

I passed the cigarette back. Glimmer's eyes aren't brown, I thought mistily, alcohol already muddling my underfed brain. They're blue. Darkest midnight blue, the shade of the sky beyond stars. I didn't even know Glimmer's real name.

And that was relevant how?

The guy pointed at my glass and signaled to the barkeep for another. He took in my mask, my scarred cheek, let his gaze wander down to my chest. "You got real superpowers?"

Augments, idiot. I didn’t bother to correct him. I just grabbed his throat with an invisible fist of force, and dragged him in. “What do you think?”

~ 5 ~

By the time I got home, orange dawn slanted through the trees, and I was wide-eyed and popping out of my skin after a gutful of drink and a couple of hours of muttering sleep. I hadn't been followed, or detected by Sentinels. I was pretty confident of that. I was remorseful, disgusted, so furious at myself I could scream, but that didn't make me an idiot.

That guy from the bar—I'd filed his name under too much information—had been sweet, and totally on board with my sordid-brainfuck plan, but by the time we'd gotten down to business, he was too drunk to finish, and I'd been too restless. He wept on my shoulder. I threw up in his bathtub. Altogether a fitting experience. I should be satisfied.

But I wasn't.

Birds chortled and trilled as I stomped through the forest, and I scowled up at them with half a mind to tear their tree down. "What in hell are you so happy about?"

They didn't answer. Typical. The world's divided into two kinds: happy people, who don't need a reason, and the rest of us, who can't find a reason to save ourselves.

I slouched into the refectory, where the family Fortune (plus assorted hangers-on) were getting stuck into breakfast. Uncle Mike was sitting straight-backed at a table, munching peanut-butter toast and thumbing through messages on his Glimmer-hacked Blackberry. He waved at me, a wry grin on his lined face.

I shrugged, and Mike shook his head in mock scolding. My uncle looked as I imagined Adonis would in thirty years' time: weathered and wise but still handsome, a mesh of silver through his blond hair, his eyes clear with nary a blue twinkle faded. One of those hip older dudes who has to fight off ambitious young tarts with a scythe, if Mike was into that sort of thing, which he wasn't, and for good reason.

Silver anti-conducting don't-kill-everyone bracelets glinted around my uncle's wrists. Static electricity crackled over the pale metal, his latent power battling to escape. It's tricky to be a playboy when you're such a lethal weapon.

Mike can fire lightning bolts. He's a menace, really, and it was only good luck for Sapphire City that all those years ago he and Dad decided to fight crime, not commit it. Blackstrike and Illuminatus, merciless scourge of Gallery villains from Oakland to the Bay.

Dad was the eldest, and with his power over shadows and darkness, he'd always been the thinker in their ass-kicking double act. These days, Mike was content just to give advice and let Adonis take charge. One of those rare, lucky people who managed to sustain both an augment and a life, or at least he did, before all this happened.

I wondered if Razorfire had ever tried to recruit Mike, and snorted. Good luck with that. Dad had a dark streak—no pun intended—but Mike is one of life's genuine good guys. Not a saint. Just a profoundly sensible man, who instinctively understood the difference between right and wrong.

But as I looked at him, my heart twisted. Mike looked so much like Dad. Except Dad would've speared me on his shadow-licked blue stare, and made some cutting remark about how some of his children—he meant Adonis, who aside from failing to marry some “nice girl” and crank out a brood of grandkids could do no wrong in Dad's eyes—could party all night and still show up in time for work.

Dad had loved me. In his distant way, he'd loved us all. Didn't mean he'd put up with our shit.

Thankfully, Adonis hadn't yet made an appearance at breakfast. The smell of baked tomatoes and French toast churned my abused stomach, but it watered my mouth, too, and when Peggy—cooking, of course, apron and oven mitts and all—offered me a plate, I steeled myself and took one.

"Thanks," I muttered, dredging up a watery smile. "You're a champion."

Truth was, my vision still blurred and my head hurt like someone had mistaken my brain for a hockey puck. Peg's existence was particularly infuriating this morning. But aside from a few extra throbs in my temples, politeness cost me nothing.

"You're welcome," Peg chirruped, like she meant it. Perky as usual, in cargo pants and a clean t-shirt, her ginger hair pulled into a cute ponytail. She was one of those stray augments who'd run to us for protection when Vincent got elected mayor, and it took Adonis about five minutes and a flirty smile to latch onto her. Dad would've approved of Peg. A “nice girl”. Pretty face, I admitted. Good cook. One of those happy people.

But this was all I knew about her. I frowned. Who was this chirpy cartoon housewife who was screwing my brother? What was her augment, even: baking the perfect soufflé? Did Adonis know? Had he even asked?

Still, unwanted sympathy nibbled my toes. Adonis had high standards, and I couldn't help wondering if she'd heard what he'd said about her last night. Give her a chance. It's not her fault she's…

Dumb? Boring? A lousy lay?

She'd definitely heard the part about the Stepford wife. I hadn't exactly been keeping my voice down, and besides, subtlety was never my specialty. She already knew what I thought of her. And sure, Adonis had lowered his girlfriend bar lately. He wasn't exactly dating celebrities and models right now, the way things were… but still, as I glanced sidelong at Peg again, my senses stung with nameless warning.

I found a seat on a table with Ebenezer (pasty-faced, greasy; situation normal) and Jeremiah (skinny and blond, coughing as he hunched over his coffee; looked like shit, in fact, damp and shivering like a waxed yeti) and plonked down my plate, reaching for the ketchup.

"Nice of you to join us." Eb shoved a clean knife and fork at me. "Get it out of your system?"

"Screw you, zombie boobs." I squirted ketchup onto my French toast and forked a slice into my mouth. Didn't look like Eb had moved since last night, except to pop a few pimples and swap his dirty tablet game for scrambled eggs. Dude could use a shower.

So could I, for that matter. My shirt was good and crusty, to say the least, and my trousers were probably a biohazard. I sniffed the fug around me and winced. I stank of… well, we all knew what I stank of. Better attend to that, before…

Flushing, I shrank into my seat. Too late.

Glimmer, fresh from the bath. Black jeans, plain black t-shirt, same as every day. Even after only a few hours’ sleep at his desk, he still managed to look great. He sat across from me—damn, why hadn't I picked a table without spare seats?—and gulped from a bottle of spring water. "Morning, all."

"Hi," I muttered. Munched another eggy mouthful. Waited for him to say, Jesus, Verity, you look like hell or what's that God-awful stink? or wow, here I was thinking you couldn't sink any lower but somehow you manage.

But he just drank his water, then cracked a can of high-caffeine cola. The white stripe in his hair poked up like a skunk's tail, and he ruffled it with a tired but cheerful yawn.

Goddamn it. He never said anything. Never judged me, at least not aloud.

I pushed my plate aside, appetite MIA all over again. He didn't need to judge. I did enough of that myself. Did that make it better, or worse?

Jem wheezed and barked a cough into cupped hands, ash-blond hair flopping wet over his sharp cheekbones. I grimaced in sympathy. He sounded like a sick Saint Bernard. His pale eyes were running, and his pointy face glowed pink underneath, like he was coming down with the creeping plague.

Glimmer pushed the water bottle toward him. "That sounds nasty. Take it easy, man. Rehydrate."

Jem twitched, and disappeared. Jem's secret name is Phantasm, and he's a lightbender, a trickster of the eye. Disappearing is what he does, and he does it more often when he's angry or confused or feeling just plain contrary. Uncle Mike's kids aren't exactly a well-adjusted bunch, but who am I to point fingers?

Glimmer eyed the shimmering Jem-space archly. "No goodbye? The manners of kids these days."

Ebenezer snickered, ratlike, and gulped coffee. "You spooked him, dude. You know he can't drink that water. He'll freak out unless he counts all the bottles in the shrink wrap first."

"What for?" I contributed, ever-helpful. "There are always twenty-four."

"He knows that," said Eb cheerfully, "but he counts them anyway. Why'd you think he's so antsy?" He leaned towards his big brother and raised his voice. "Hey, you: obsessive-compulsive. I can see your twitchy ass. Try harder."

The Jem-shaped shimmer cuffed Eb over the head, making him duck and wince and grab at his greasy hair, and then it slouched away, coughing.

Glimmer ate his Peg-fried tomatoes thoughtfully. "Hey, I saw that thing you brought me last night."

His voice was low and rough, yet sweet, like old bourbon. It took me a second to realize he was talking to me. "Oh, right. The museum. What a bust, eh?"

"Looked like a rough fight. You okay?"

"Sure." Automatic response. "Um… thanks for asking," I added belatedly, amid a searing rush of gratitude peppered with shame. What a bitch. I'd no right to be angry with him just because my own stupid antics embarrassed me.

I checked a sigh. Damn him for being the best friend in the world, when I was such a lousy one in return.

He winked, and I found a smile. Everything was okay. Well, as okay as it'd ever be.

"Haven't had time to do much digging," Glimmer added, "but I know the Latino guy with the glitter. Calls himself El Espectro."

"Specter," I supplied. "Nice brand. Unimaginative, but it definitely says villain."

"Pain in the ass is what it says. He jumped me once in some mansion's bedroom in Ocean Heights, long time ago. Cocky. Typical Gallery sticky-fingers."

"Yeah? What were you doing in the bedroom of a mansion in Ocean Heights, young man?"

"Nothing."

"Right. Same nothing he was intending, presumably. Thought you were above ordinary break and enter."

"Who said I wasn't invited?"

"Eww." I mimed sticking a finger down my throat. "I'm not even gonna ask. So did those storm troopers arrest this Espectro character last night, or just beat him to death?"

Glimmer finished his tomatoes and started on the eggs. He has this enviable ability to munch down food at any hour of the day. "Option A, bless 'em," he said with his mouth full. "They've got him in restraints. He's not going anywhere."

The PD had augmentium cuffs now, courtesy of Razorfire's City Hall. Perfect for banging up your discerning augmented crook. "Did you get a real name?"

"Arrest report says Jesus J. Flores, priors a mile long. Odd one to claim if it's false."

Gallery villains were notorious for taking a beating, pretending to give in and then giving the cops patently false information and smart-ass aliases, like Sawney Beane the short-order cook, or Dougal O'Pooball who works at the sewerage farm. They liked to play games. Still, you had to admire their intestinal fortitude. Sapphire City PD didn't exactly do Miranda warnings by the book these days.

But as usual, Glimmer had squeezed out the good oil. "You naughty boy," I said. "Thought your data-stealing gear was broken."

"It is." A piratical grin. "Depends on your definition of 'broken'. Still a few fakements I can pull."

I reached for coffee, but the jug was empty. Instead, I drank from Glimmer's water bottle. A faint curl of his vanilla-spice scent sweetened my mouth. "How goes the salvage mission?"

When we'd first met, Glimmer was Mr. Techno Nerd, with a secret underground lair full of shiny kit that would make Big Brother jealous. But a few months back, Razorfire torched the place and nearly killed him, and most of Glimmer's stuff was destroyed. He'd begged, borrowed and nicked mismatched bits of gear and had started rewriting his black-art search algorithms, but—a bit like retconning your memories of a time when you did bad things and liked it—the rebuild took time.

"Slowly," Glimmer admitted. "It's a big job. But Harriet's helping."

Just me, or a knot of frustration in that?

I snorted, glad to have something to tease Glimmer about. Harriet was Ebenezer's twin, smart but haughty, her life a teenage melodrama of galactic proportions. "Helping, is she? Or just pouting at you and playing with her hair?"

He tossed crumbs at me. "Whatever, wise-ass. She's good with code."

"Doesn't mean she hasn't got a crush on you."

"She does not."

"Does so."

"Does not… Fine, have it your way. She's a kid. I can take it." He shrugged, and ate his eggs, but I wasn't fooled.

For such a chick magnet, Glimmer is cute and awkward with girls. All I knew was that he used to be married—with a kid, no less—but his wife believed Razorfire's bullshit and broke Glimmer's gallant heart. He wasn't in a hooking-up mood. Maybe he never would be. But I'd bet he was too much a gentleman to embarrass Harriet by saying anything.

Well, I'd never had that problem. Time to have a word with Little Miss Lolita-zilla, before she mistook his refusal to engage for encouragement and started sexting him, or tagging him on naked selfies, or whatever hormone-crazed teens did these days.

I decided to have mercy on Glimmer, for now. "So, what about Huey and Duey at the museum? Seen them before?"

"Nope." Glimmer swallowed his cola. He hadn't shaved, and his olive-tinted throat was dark with stubble. As I'd frequently observed: it was a good look. He passed me the half-empty can. "You?"

I gulped, relishing the sweet fizz. "Never. I, uh, did a bit of digging myself," I added casually, making sure I met his gaze. "They go by Sophron—that's with a P-H—and Flash."

Sickly, I waited for him to call me out, ask me where the hell I'd found that out when he couldn't. I'd have to tell him everything, and I'd cringe and blush and then at last it'd be out there, and no longer this wretched silence between us, the kind where you talk all the time but don't ever speak what needs to be spoken…

"Okay," Glimmer said mildly. "I'll see what I can find."

Damn. Thank fucking God. But damn. I swallowed, warm. I still didn't get why Vincent had told me their names. Even supposing he wasn't making it all up to amuse himself… what if I was leading us all into his trap? "Did you see 'em teleport?"

"Yeah. Nice. Why can't I do that? No more waiting at traffic lights, no more splashing through rat-infested sewers…"

I snickered. "Missing the point, Sherlock. They both teleported, at the same time. Didn't you see? Slam, blam, no more emo teenagers. Beam me up, Scotty."

"Two people with the same augment? Not possible."

"That's what I thought."

He considered. "Maybe one of them teleported and took the other along for the ride."

"I don't see how. They were on opposite sides of the room. That's one hell of a forcebend."

"Or, they didn't teleport at all. Maybe they just obfuscated and made it look like they teleported to confuse everyone." Glimmer knew his subject. An illusionist himself, he could pull the best mindfuck tricks ever. It still gave me the creeps when he did that watch-me thing, even when I knew he was on my side.

But I'd felt the breeze last night in the museum. I'd heard air whooshing to fill the vacuum. They'd moved, and fast. "Or maybe we're looking at something new…"

A commotion across the room jerked me to my feet. My thighs hit the table. Plates clattered, and the cola can spilled, along with Jeremiah's half-finished coffee.

Jem thrashed like a grounded trout on the floor, eyes bulging. Drool frothed on his chin, and he shimmered in and out of view, like he'd lost control of his lightbend. The air around him rippled and stung, a malignant haze of augment gone wild.

"Jem, talk to me." Frantic, Uncle Mike dropped to his knees at Jem's side. Jeez. I grimaced in sympathy. His kid was having a fit, choking for air, and what could he do? Not a damn thing.

It's the irony we live with every day. I never met an augment who could heal the sick or feed the hungry or bring on world peace. All the special powers in the world can't hide the fact that when it comes to the crunch all we can do is destroy.

People fidgeted, wondering what to do. Peg darted forwards with a blanket, and Mike eased it beneath Jem's head so the kid wouldn't hurt himself. He cradled Jem's half-invisible face, stroking the pale hair as it shimmered alarmingly, now-you-see-me-now-you-don't. "It's okay, son. Take it easy."

"What the hell's wrong with him?" I muttered, aside. "Thought he had the flu."

Glimmer bit his lip. Ebenezer wore an odd expression, like he wanted to feel something but didn't know what. Times like this, I envied him his cluelessness.

Gradually, Jem's convulsions subsided and he fell limp, his breath shallow and fast. Sweat slicked his cheeks. His eyeballs had rolled back, sick pearls shot with crimson. One was leaking blood.

This wasn't any flu I'd ever seen.

"Someone give me a hand." Mike started to lift the boy. Glimmer jumped in and they carried Jem upstairs.

They must have passed Adonis on the way up, because my brother emerged from the stairwell glancing over his shoulder. He looked faded, somehow, his vibrancy rinsed thin. Another sleepless night? He'd looked like that a lot lately. Somehow, I didn't think it was Peg keeping him awake.

"That's not good," Ad said unnecessarily. "Anyone see Jem take anything?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"He was eating breakfast and he disappeared and then he fell," I rattled off. "Could be that God-awful cold he's got. Or he's finally popped a sanity valve."

Ebenezer opened his mouth and shut it again.

Adonis fired him the ice-blue stare of doom he'd inherited from Dad. That part, at least, hadn't faded. "What?"

Eb just grinned his mad-leprechaun grin, because he was socially challenged and had no idea how to show remorse. "We smoked a pipe last night. But I had some too. It can't have been bad stuff."

"Jesus." Adonis yanked his hair at the back of his head, frustrated. "One, you're an idiot. Two, don't ever do that shit in my place again. Three, where did you get it and who gave it to you?"

"No one," insisted Eb. "Some guy. It was just a score—"

"Nothing is 'just a score' anymore." Adonis dragged up a chair and sat. Quietly, Peg brought him coffee and a smile. He had the grace to smile back and whisper thanks. "Don't you get it, Eb?" he added wearily. "Anything could be a trap. Everything. It's all just…" He took a long swallow of his coffee—I'd bet on triple-shot latte, three sugars, just how he liked it—and waved a long-suffering hand. "You know what? Fuck it. I don't care. Just buy your sugar candy from Wal-Mart next time, okay? Get a receipt."

Eb flipped him a bug-eyed salute. I swallowed a guffaw.

"Goes for you, too," Ad muttered, too softly for anyone else to hear.

I blanched, guilty. He knew I didn't do drugs, beyond alcohol and caffeine and the occasional sugar binge.

What does he mean? He doesn't know. He can't possibly. None of them can… but the ghost of that forbidden fire-mint scent sprang from its grave, crawling along my skin to make me shiver, and I couldn't help but enjoy it.

Vincent was my drug. And I was a hopeless addict. Hi, I'm Verity, and I crave being BAD… Like any prohibited substance, the more it was forbidden, the harder I wanted it, and the more intense my delight when I tasted it at last.

I cracked my neck, resigned. No point crying over what's done. I can't change who I used to be. The important thing was what I did now.

I could resist. Go cold turkey, sweat it out, face the heat. Or, I could die. Simple as that.

Simple, my friends, is not the same thing as easy.

I shoved hands in gritty pockets. "Well, I'm for the shower—"

"Thank Christ for that," whispered Eb. "You stink like a frontier whorehouse. Who the fuck are you: Calamity Jane?"

I flipped Eb and his slippery grin the finger. "And then let's talk, Ad. We have a situation. Glimmer, you want to fill him in?"

Glimmer shrugged. "Sure. Breakfast in my room, boss?"

I snickered. He always called Adonis boss. Partly to annoy him. Partly because he meant it. The two of them had reached a workable truce in the months since I'd dragged Glimmer into our family problems. Glimmer thought Adonis was a talented but corruptible asshole; Ad thought Glimmer a useful if frustratingly honorable idealist. Ad respected Glimmer's opinion; Glimmer respected Ad's authority. Working relationship: go.

Adonis drained his latte. "Thought you'd never ask. When are you going to stop calling me 'boss'?"

"How about the day you aren't giving the orders?" Glimmer arched dark brows. "But don't think it's because I fall for your bullshit charm. I know you only want me for my data."

"Likewise," said Ad. "Those smoky bedroom eyes cut no ice with me, boyfriend. If you drop crumbs in the bed? We are so over."

I grinned—they were so cute together—and stomped upstairs to grab shampoo and a towel.

The bathroom, an ugly stainless-steel jail of a place. We'd put up some stalls for privacy, but to me it still stank of ice baths and suffocation and bad memories. I showered with my eyes squeezed shut.

But it did feel great. Hot soapy water sloshed the stains from my body, rinsed my gritty hair, washed away the smells of despair and disgust and shameful deeds in the dark.

If only it were that easy.

Afterwards, I wiped the fogged mirror and dragged a comb through my knots. The roughened scar tissue curling over my cheekbone was reddened, angry. The other eye wore a dark raccoon ring. I looked like I could use a good feed and about a hundred hours of sleep. Situation normal.

Back in my room, I re-dressed in my costume coat—somehow it had escaped the worst of last night's excesses—and fresh jeans, plus my lace-up boots. My only clean t-shirt sported a photo of a gigantic green cactus that wore a scribbled sign reading FREE HUGS. I felt better already. My headache was in retreat to a distant battlefield, if not entirely vanquished. Another of Glimmer's caffeine colas and I'd be set. I pocketed my mask and grabbed a banana from my stash (stinky, black and withered, but hey: potassium is potassium) on the way out.

And crashed into cousin Harriet.

Just when I was starting to feel good.

~ 6 ~

"Watch where you're going, can't you?" Harriet bounced moussed locks over one shoulder. She wore an ass-hugging skirt, a stretchy top and bra that made her boobs defy gravity, and enough make-up to blind a badger.

The opposite of me when I was her age. I'd been the angry tough girl in jeans and Doc Martens, and I'd spent most of my time sporting black eyes, getting kicked out of class for swearing, and beating up on a succession of Adonis's snotty queen-bee girlfriends. Yeah, them was the days.

I glanced at Glimmer's cell. Door closed. I sidled closer to Harriet, surreptitious. Heh. I should mysteriously flick my coat open and whisper behind my hand: Psst! Wanna buy a 'W'? "Listen, can we have a word?"

Harriet looked at me like I'd suggested we get married. "Right. Because we have so much to talk about."

I endured my usual itch to punch Harriet in the face. Skinny, bad-tempered, always ready to fling me an unnecessary put-down, she reminded me of my dead sister, Equity, whom I'd also wanted to deck on a regular basis. Aside from the tragic fashion sense, that is. My sister and I both inherited our late mother's coloring, and Equity had too closely resembled me to ever be beautiful, but at least she'd known how not to look like a cut-rate hooker.

To be fair, Harriet wasn't awash in role models. She'd had no mother since she was a toddler, and like most fathers—fathers who weren't mine, that is—Uncle Mike was a total pushover when it came to his baby girl.

I sighed. "It's about Glimmer."

Harriet scowled, harpy-like. "That's none of your business."

"Is too. He's my friend, and he's not interested in you." I winced. Wow, that came out all gentle and caring. "Look, I don't mean that you're—"

"You know nothing about me, Verity. Where do you get off telling me what to do?" Harriet stared me down, furious, but she kept her voice low. She knew what happened if she got a bit too loud. Warping metal, shattering glass, people screeching and bleeding from the earholes. Not a pretty picture.

"It's not about you, okay?" I whispered fiercely. I couldn't voice-whip glass; I just didn't want Glimmer to hear. "There's a time and a place, that's all. He's trying to work and the way you flirt with him all the time makes him uncomfortable. One, he's too old for you—"

"I'm seventeen, Mom." She widened sardonic eyes at me. "I can do what I want."

My mom was dead, too. I sympathized. That didn't mean Harriet could give me lip. "And two," I persisted, "he's got stuff in his past that means he's not interested in hooking up." With a horny, smart-mouthed infant like you, I added silently. Zingg! Take that.

"Yeah? Like what?" A defiant chin-tilt.

I could've invented something. His last girlfriend was a serial killer, or dude, he's gay, can't you tell? or even just sorry, but he asked me not to tell anyone. But my indignation on his behalf was as gratifying as it was maddening, and my temper flashed like a flintlock. "That's none of yours. Just let him be."

"Right. Just because you're too pig ugly for him."

My powermuscle flexed with rage, and I had to bite my tongue. What the fuck did you say, you vicious little brat? But the scar on my face stung. I knew how I looked. Everyone knew. Didn't mean we had to trade insults about it.

I gritted my teeth, a salty tang of blood. "Come again?"

"I knew it. You're jealous. And you're, like, old. It's so pathetic." Harriet laughed, and it sliced a shrill edge on my nerves like a paper cut.

Oh, honey. Was that a threat? "That's bullshit," I said tightly.

"Everyone knows you want him for yourself. Too bad he likes me better. So sad. I win." She pouted, and raised her chin, triumphant. She didn't even know she was doing it. Just one of those teenage-girl things.

But it flared my belligerence afresh, a hot breeze over coals. Keep it down, Verity, don't do something you'll regret…

I clenched a fist behind my back and stepped closer, trapping her in my shadow. I was taller, and I made sure she knew it. I hulked. I menaced. I loomed. "Grow the fuck up, Harriet."

She edged backwards. "You're not my mother, Verity. I don't have to do what you—"

"Shut your trap for once, and listen. Real life isn't a TV bitch drama, okay? Guys aren't prizes you can play for. And real people? They don't have these little contests where they lie and cheat and screw each other over for kicks." Not strictly true in the augmented world, I guess, but my point stood. "So back the fuck off from him, or I'll make you."

"Whatever." She fixed a sneer on her face, but her chin trembled.

She was afraid of me. I liked that.

And I grinned, so she'd know. "Think before you mess with me, girlfriend," I murmured, silk over thorns. "I went bonkers for a while, remember? Madder than a cut snake. Utterly off my rocker. Maybe I still am. If I hear you've been bothering him again… well, who knows what I might do?"

Harriet's jaw tightened, mutinous. "Bitch," she muttered—back to boring insults, were we? I had more respect for “goatfucker”—and flounced away.

I popped my neck, satisfied. Hmm. Perhaps I'd handled that poorly?

Whatever. Harriet could have the last word if it made her feel good. So long as she left Glimmer alone.

But her taunt—everyone knows you want him for yourself—coated my skin like the guilty stink of a sewer.

I scratched my forearms, irritated. It wasn't true. He was my best friend. I was just looking out for him. Anything else was bullshit. Besides, we all needed to get back to fighting villains—which meant we wanted Glimmer to get on with rewriting his algorithms and fixing his hardware config and praying to the geekboy gods of the dark net. Not wasting time avoiding the advances of an oversexed teenage drama queen.

And even if what she'd said were true—which it wasn't—even if in some twisted mirror universe, I might occasionally wonder what it'd be like to bathe in that delicious vanilla-spice scent, wrap my hands in his glossy hair and pull his mouth to mine—which I didn't—it was still bullshit.

Because he was Glimmer, the white knight. Gallant, courageous, everyone's idea of a hero. I, on the other hand, had murdered innocents. Used my power selfishly. Tried to poison the city to impress a power-crazed maniac.

Glimmer was… well, he was Glimmer. And I was me.

What the fuck ever.

But my bones shivered with delightful dread, and I swallowed warm brine. It wasn't embarrassment that Harriet had caught me looking. It wasn't even that Glimmer was so far above me that the idea of us together like that was so ridiculous, it bruised some hidden soft spot deep in my heart.

It was what Vincent might say if he got even a whiff that I might be looking sideways at another man. The things he might do to me. Oh, my. All those breathless, exquisite, excruciating punishments…

I cursed, sweating. Jeez. And if that didn't just prove my point. There was my Vincent, and then there was normality, the world where he was our archenemy and deserved to die. For my sanity's sake, I had to keep the two sides separated.

I rapped two knuckles on Glimmer's door and walked in without waiting for permission. The lights were on—make that light, a single bluish bulb on a cord. My gaze glued itself to that swinging bulb, back-forth, back-forth…

Memories swamped me, that horrid metal chair cutting into the backs of my thighs, that piss-stinking hospital gown, that weighty augmentium helmet bolted around my skull. Electroshock, muscles jerking, fingers clenching and unclenching, the brown stench of singed hair…

I shook myself, dizzy. Was this even my old cell? No clue. No need to freak out.

The museum's fuzzy security footage played on the largest of four computer screens. And my boys: Glimmer, munching on an apple, a long lean shadow in his chair, one foot on the desk; and Adonis, slouching on the cluttered bed, back against the peeling brick wall.

My brother beckoned me in. "About time."

"Shit, did I miss the trailers? Shove over. Where's the popcorn?" I squeezed my butt in beside Ad and peeled my banana, waving it in his direction. Glimmer snickered.

"Gross." Ad made a face. "You really gonna eat that?"

"Bananas are a superfood. It said so on the internet." On the screen, my ex-boyfriend Sparkly—Espectro—was doing his glass-smashing thing, the stolen rock in his bleeding fist.

"Red wine is a superfood," Adonis said. "Smoked oysters in barbecue sauce are a superfood. Bananas are fucking fungus in disguise… Oh, nice trick," he added, nodding at the screen. "Okay, who the hell are these two…? Holy shit. Where'd they go? What's that, a lightbend?"

"Mwash 'gain," I suggested, stuffing my mouth with overripe banana.

"Jesus, Vee, how old are you?"

I swallowed, and burped. "Watch again," I repeated. "Look at the glass splinters on the floor, from the broken display case."

Glimmer skipped the footage back to the instant before the two teen villains vanished. Paused. Played it again in frame-by-frame slow-mo.

One frame, there they were. The next, an elongated blur across the screen, from left to right. Then, gone… and where they'd been standing, the glass debris scattered and swirled into a tiny spiral, as if caught in a little two-teen tornado.

"The air moved inwards." Adonis spoke slowly, trying to take it in. "It's a forcebend… are you telling me they teleported?"

I mimed pulling a pistol trigger. "Watch 'em and weep."

"Both of them?" Adonis clicked his tongue. "I'm impressed."

Glimmer teetered his chair on two legs. "The blue-haired one is Sophron. The boy is Flash. Pretty much all we know so far." He didn't mention where he'd learned that little tidbit, God love him. Didn't prompt Adonis to ask how I knew.

"Gallery?"

Glimmer shrugged. "Seems reasonable."

"Or not," I argued. "Doesn't seem right to me. Why sabotage Espectro's heist, if they're all working for the same outfit?"

"Rivals?" Glimmer suggested. "Fighting over the loot to impress the big man. Who knows what the hell Gallery clowns do for kicks these days? Maybe whoever menaces the most rent-a-cops each month wins a set of steak knives."

Adonis snorted. "Or they're just crazy assholes. These people don't need reasons. And if they're not Gallery, who are they?"

"Well, I think they're something new." I flipped my banana peel at the bin, and missed.

Glimmer binned it for me. "You are so lame. If I were telekinetic, I'd at least make sure I could hit the side of a barn."

"Gee, thanks, Mom." But Vincent's words tickled my memory, persuasive. That girl's no child of mine.

In my stomach, the blind worms of my foolishness writhed and stretched their little mouths. I knew it was stupid. God knows, I'd fallen for Vincent's line of bullshit before. I should forget it. Move on.

But I couldn't silence this muttering itch at the back of my brain. The suspicion that while Vincent might lie to beat the devil when he chose? He hadn't lied about this.

And that wasn't just my dark fascination talking. No, what clinched it was the snark about the clothes and the bad hair. Razorfire wouldn't stand for that, not in his house. An issue of style. Even saber-toothed Iceclaw in his greasy leather duds, or snickering Weasel with his scraggly moustaches and rodent incisors: they owned a kind of sicko villain's panache. Sophron and Flash were just… scruffy. Unwashed.

Vulgar.

Not his type at all.

From the way they work together, I'd say they're old friends… It's no fun if I give you all the answers… Wasting tricks like those, just to re-home an overpriced rock…

Adonis shoved me, and I nearly fell off the bed. "Whah?"

"There's no audio," Ad repeated, impatient. "What did Sophron say to you, a few frames back?"

"Right after she whipped my ass?" I mocked her whining tones. "'Too slow, hero'. Just getting her gloat on. Listen, what is that rock, anyway?"

"Was wondering that." Glimmer flicked up a fresh browser window showing an art auctioneer's website. "Lot seven-two-nine, 'trans-state granite artifact', whatever that means. Purchased by the museum in an auction… let's see. Nine months ago, for a six-figure sum."

"From who?" Adonis and I spoke together.

Glimmer zoomed in on the text.

"Fortune Corporation?" I snorted. "Dad owned a six-figure rock? Please."

Adonis looked as mystified as I. "So whatever it is, we sold it while Equity was in charge. What the hell does 'trans-state' mean? You sure it's just a rock?"

"Looked like one to me. Jeez, did I miss the part where Dad collected crappy art?" But my nerves crawled. Our big sister had sold off Dad's stuff? What for? Wasn't like she'd needed the money. Overpriced, Vincent had called it. Like he knew what the museum had paid, and why…

Ad shrugged. "Smells fishy to me. But all our corporate records are cactus, at least until Glimmer can get them back. If he can."

"With your alleged 'encryption'?" Glimmer scoffed. "Spare me. But I gotta scrape the goo off the blacktop first. Someone really did a job on your servers."

Vincent, he meant. Or some slobbering IT savant whom Vincent kept chained to his dungeon wall. These days, he was probably too busy to wreak all the destruction by himself. Outsourced the boring bits.

"Michael might know something about this rock, too." Ad was thinking aloud. "He and Dad were inseparable back in the day."

"Or Espectro," Glimmer added. "He tried to steal it. Maybe he knows what it really is."

"Could be just the six figures Espectro wanted. Still, it's a thought."

"Either way, he's shit outa luck. And so are we." I glared at the video screen, where the spaces that used to be Sophron and Flash cackled at me, triumphant. "Scumbags stole my rock," I muttered. "Not happy."

"So what do we do?" Glimmer grounded his chair and flicked the screen blank. "Write these kids off as Gallery nitwits? Or are we facing a new threat?"

"What, another one?" I echoed glumly, but secretly part of me was delighted at the prospect of fresh asses to kick. "That's a relief. I was afraid we might actually have to stop panicking for a few hours."

Adonis tugged his hair, considering. "Glimmer, can you trawl for more info? Priors, alliances, ideology, anything you can find. Even 'they're just crazy kids' would be useful. I want to know what we're dealing with."

Glimmer flipped him a salute. "Sure thing, boss."

Ad shot him an ironic eye-cross and heaved himself off the bed. "I'll talk to Michael, see what he knows. I don't care what that damn rock is, it's mine, and I want it back."

"That's the spirit." I jumped up, wiping banana-whiffy hands on my coat. I felt good, considering. Rested. Ready for action. "What about me?"

A hard blue-eyed challenge. "You can take it easy."

"What? C'mon, aren't we past this?" But sickness had washed back into my stomach, with added warm seawater, and I knew it was hopeless.

"This, as in, the way you've been acting these last few weeks? Breaking things, shouting at people? Not eating properly, drinking yourself blind and playing pick up the loser?" Adonis laughed, hollow. "No, Vee. We are very far from 'past this'. You're lucky I don't lock you in your fucking room."

My rage-muscle clenched. It filled me with that slick, tense heat, the kind that groaned and demanded to be satisfied. Oh, God. I held on, tried to breathe slowly, searched desperately for a fiber of calm. I wouldn't lose my temper this time. No, I would not.

"Look," I protested, sweating, "the only reason we know anything about these grunge-metal idiots is because of me. Let me be useful. I can help."

"You're right, you can. Go help Peg with the dishes." Adonis walked out, not looking back.

I opened my mouth. Shut it again. Gritted my teeth, and slammed a rage-stuffed fist of power into the brick wall.

Crunch! Mortar crumbled. I'd pulled my punch at the last second, instead of smashing the fucking wall to smithereens. I'd done the right thing. It didn't make me feel better.

My eyes swelled with unshed tears. I wanted to run after him and beg him to forgive me. But I feared he never would.

"Goddamn it," I hissed into the silence.

"Hey." Glimmer's voice draped a cool blanket on my skin. "Let him be. He doesn't mean anything…"

"He does mean something." Even Glimmer was taking Ad's side, now? "Can't you see? He's determined never to trust me again. How am I ever supposed to prove myself if—"

BOOM! Something above us exploded, and flung me flat on my face.

~ 7 ~

The building quaked. Glimmer dived on top of me, shielding me from anything that might fall… and all the lights in the room popped out. Bulb, computers, everything.

The echo subsided, and together we scrambled up. My ears still rang. I dusted myself off and spat grit. "Okay?"

Glimmer coughed, waving his hands to clear the dust cloud. "Awesome. You?"

"What the hell was that? Lightning strike?"

"With no storm? Not likely." Glimmer grabbed his go kit—pistol, phone, tablet, flash drive—and headed for the door. Dust eddied in his wake.

I trailed after him, but my heart squelched into my throat to strangle me.

Shit. Had Vincent followed me home? Jeez, had I let my guard slip? Gotten distracted by his tricks and given us away? How would I ever live that down?

A confused crowd milled in the darkened corridor. Harriet emerged, wide-eyed like a scolded dog. She knew that crash wasn't lightning.

"Okay?" I asked.

Harriet just tossed her hair. "What's going on?"

"Nothing friendly. Stay close." Glimmer was already halfway down the stairs.

In the refectory, dust clogged my nostrils. Peg was directing traffic, making everyone sit down and stay calm, and I was grateful. Most of those we'd taken in were ordinary folk who'd never fought a day in their lives.

Not crime-fighters. Just people who didn't fit in, minding their own business, who happened to have a little something strange or wrong about them. And then one day, they found themselves running and hiding for their lives with a genocidal archvillain in disguise for mayor. Hell, most of 'em probably voted for him. Nearly everyone did.

Peg, on the other hand, had kept her composure. Like she was accustomed to taking charge. Good for her—and right now, good for us, too. But I made a mental note to ask Ad about her later. He wouldn't appreciate my interference. I didn't give a fuck. We were family. She was just an interloper.

Ebenezer, who was sweeping broken window glass into a frosted pile, tossed me an ironic eye-roll. Eb was a scary bastard, but short of a pitched battle? His augment was kind of useless. Mike and Jem, our more conventional warriors, lurked nowhere to be seen. Probably still upstairs, waiting for Jem to revive. Great. Like that'd be any time soon.

"Where's Adonis?" I demanded.

Peg pointed outside. Her cheeks shone pale with worry. "Be careful, Verity. It's not safe."

A distant glaze in her eyes sprang bumps on my arms. Huh? What was her augment, again? But no time to figure her out now.

Glimmer and I ran to the door. He motioned with his pistol, and his silent presence slipped into my head, a sweet-feathered tickle. Me first. You take the left. I'll cover you.

I nodded, flushing—gotta admit, I kind of like it when he does that—and eased the door open.

He danced out and I followed, back to the wall. Particles swirled on the breeze. I sniffed, and sneezed on dust. Definitely not smoke. But what…

A skewed metal strut caught the corner of my eye, and I gaped.

The entire eastern end of the asylum had been crushed. Pulverized, like an enormous bare foot had descended from on high and stamped the concrete under its massive heel. All that remained of the last twenty feet of the building was crushed concrete, splintered wood and twisted steel reinforcers, with a garnish of shatter-bright glass.

My stomach tightened. Jesus on a jet ski. Could've been people in there. Maybe had been. Maybe Mike and Jem… but my concern was eclipsed by a guilty flush of relief.

At least it wasn't burning.

Disembodied laughter echoed from trees dappled in shadow. Shrill, hollow laughter, straight from an evil fairytale. I shivered. Villains. Nothing if not theatrical.

I spotted Adonis crouched by the kitchen, and he beckoned to me. "Verity!"

I scuttled over to hunker beside him. "What's that God-awful noise? Who does this idiot think they are, the Joker?"

Swiftly, Glimmer checked around the corner, leading with his weapon. He dropped down beside us. "No one. Whoever it is, they're not keen on being seen."

After the museum, and Vincent, and Adonis' implied scolding, I was itching for a fight. "Damn coward. Why are they hiding? Why don't you come out and face us, you lunatic?" I yelled the last part, bristling inside.

"Maybe they're shy." Glimmer checked his pistol, a snap of metal slide. "A hit and run, just to piss us off. Make us jumpy."

"Or lure us out," I added. "Do we even know anyone who could do this? Besides, y'know, me on steroids?"

Adonis grimaced. "We need Jem to do a recce."

"He's in no shape."

"Agreed. Glimmer?"

Glimmer tucked his pistol away. "I can give it a shot. Can't guarantee they won't blast my head off. As if you'd be sorry, you heartbreaker."

"And just when we were falling in love." Adonis clapped Glimmer's shoulder and gave me a chilly stare of command. "Vee, stay here."

"But I can help…" I protested weakly, trailing off. Why did I even bother? Adonis could've just unleashed on me, bent me to his will with a wink and a smile. At least he was giving me that much credit.

Like that's supposed to make my house arrest any less frustrating.

Glimmer flicked me an apologetic glance and crept along to the corner, footprints light in the dust. My heart clenched in trepidation, but I resisted the temptation to go all Peg on him. Be careful, honey. Don't be out too late.

Glimmer can't make himself invisible, not the way Jem can, by bending light. Glimmer just makes you think he's invisible. Which makes him one dangerous mindfuck dude, but it also means he needs to catch your attention first. I've seen him hurl his illusions across a room, a shimmering shockwave of huh?—but that was hit-and-miss. His mojo worked best when he gazed into your eyes. Watch me, he'd whisper, and next thing you knew…

Not that I'd ever let him unleash on me, not like that. No way. Sad fact is, Glimmer's too much a saint to make me cluck like a chicken, or shave my own eyebrows off, or any of that bad-taste stuff the rest of us would do if we got the chance to hypnotize someone. More likely, he'd pull some do-gooder hypnotherapy moves to suggest I quit drinking, clean up my act and get a steady boyfriend who isn't a power-mad pyromaniac.

Not for the first time, I wondered how far into your brain Glimmer's augment could dig. Could he, for instance, erase memories? Implant new ones? Break my conditioning? Do a bit of sly Vincent aversion therapy?

But the idea of stripping my failings bare like that just lined my guts with cold grease. Glimmer didn't need to see the slimy things that wallowed in the cesspit of my mind. It'd… dirty him. Smear him unclean. Tarnish him, somehow.

And that I would not have. Not on my watch, sister.

Glimmer eased his lean frame around the corner. Can't see 'em, he murmured in my head. Just wait…

Grrrr-ack! The monstrous groan of timber splitting. Leaves rustled en masse… and Glimmer dived back around the corner and thudded into the dust.

A massive tree trunk speared into the brick wall six feet away from us. Boom! The earth shook. Leaves and sticks flew, a cloud of dirt and ripped bark.

Adonis and I scrambled backwards as one. "Creeping Jesus," I panted as the dust settled. "Who throws a tree at people?"

"It's Blue Dreads." Glimmer coughed, spitting dust. "Sophron. Saw her in the forest."

"What about the other one?"

"Flash? No, I didn't—"

That laughter snaked out again, coiling around us. "Now we're getting someplace," the girl called. Her hollow, high-pitched voice rasped, alien. "Miss me, Verity Fortune? Come out and show yourselves, you—"

The rest was obliterated by another tree crashing into the building. Glass exploded, windows shattering.

"How the hell did she find us?" Ad glanced my way, suspicious.

"I wasn't followed," I insisted. "Sewers and shadows, all the way." It hurt that he suspected me, though he'd every right. But a chill clawed beneath my skin, one of Eb's hungry corpse rats chewing on my flesh.

What if Vincent lied? What if Sophron truly was his creature, and in my rank stupidity, I'd led her straight to us?

That's ridiculous, Common-Sense Verity scolded in my head. If Vincent knows where you're hiding, why doesn't he just burn the lot of you to ash? Why construct this elaborate deception?

I snorted. Right. You're talking about a man who left me trapped in a lunatic asylum for nine months to get my memory wiped, then pretended not to know me while I fell for him all over again, then tricked me into not only exposing my own augmented family in front of the entire world, but also convincing the city to overlook the fact that he's a hate-drenched maniac and elect him mayor.

Such a man would surely never construct an elaborate deception. What a ludicrous notion. Shut the fuck up, Common-Sense. You know nothing.

But on the heels of that thought nipped another, a rabid little rodent with sharp teeth: it's because he doesn't want to kill you.

So what did he want?

But I knew, of course. And it sickened my stomach and tingled my thighs at the same time. You belong to me, he'd whispered. Come back to me. You know you want to…

"Vee, you with us?" Adonis tugged my arm, yanking me back to reality. Sticks and branches rained on our heads, and we ducked under the cover of the narrow eaves. "Go fetch Michael, tell him we've got a situation here. Ebenezer, too…"

But lightning forked, a rich-smelling boommm! of thunder. Mike was already here. Standing by the crushed brickwork, wrapped in an aura of crackling white fire.

Just a small old guy, but he sure looked bad-ass. He wasn't wearing his reflective Illuminatus suit—the one that really made him light up like a blowtorch—but he could've been naked and wrapped in adult diapers and you still didn't fuck with Uncle Mike.

I shook my head like a wet dog to dislodge the clanging in my ears. And that was just a little one.

Razorfire has the flashiest augment in town, naturally. He wouldn't allow it any other way, and until you've watched him slice an office complex in two with a flick of his wrist, leaving a smoking crater of scorched earth and corpses, you ain't seen weapon of mass destruction.

But for sheer coolness factor? Mike's gotta run a close second. Lightning bolts, people. Fuck, yeah.

Sophron's cackle danced from the forest's shadows. "Come over here and say that, electric. Bring that thing closer and see what happens."

Mike let rip with another bolt. Ker-ackk!! A tree split in half and erupted into flame. The stink of smoke and ozone and wet wood showered, and while the explosion still rang, Glimmer dashed over to Adonis and me, and the three of us crouched together. Adonis glanced at me. I glanced at Glimmer. Glimmer nodded. I nodded too.

And as one, we leapt up and sprinted for Mike.

Glass shattered. Concrete crumbled behind us, blam! blam! blam! as Sophron slammed the walls with her giant invisible crunching foot, or whatever it was. We dived for cover amongst the rubble.

Smack! I banged my elbow on a broken lump of concrete as I fell, and gasped like a grounded swampfish while the funnies hit my bones.

Mike ducked behind the broken wall with us. He rubbed his silver bracelets together, like a defibrillator, and current arced bright blue, snap-crackle-pop! "Jem's sick," he filled us in shortly. "He can't fight. Gotta get rid of these fuckers now and worry about what they want later."

"Agreed." Adonis shot me another dark glance, like everything was my fault. Hell, maybe it was, inadvertently. Didn't mean he had to keep on about it.

"Plan?" Glimmer popped his pistol's magazine and checked the chamber. Sure, some augments are bulletproof, or can dodge, or deflect, or whatever. I'm convinced Razorfire evades gunfire on the strength of pure ego. But most can't. So long as you get in quickly? A bullet is still a ninety-five percent solution.

But Glimmer's magazine was half empty. We were running short. Even Glimmer can't conjure more ammo from nothing, and you can't legally buy firearms or rounds in this state without ID. It's black market or nothing, and these days gunrunning in Sapphire City is strictly Gallery.

Me? I'd left my pistol upstairs. Nice move, Verity. A Boy Scout, I ain't.

"Well, we still don't know precisely what their augments are." Adonis grimaced. "And we don't have all day. I say let's shock-and-awe these assholes and find out what they've got."

Like we were free to disagree, or something. Glimmer didn't even bother to speak.

I shrugged. "Sure."

Harriet crawled from the ruins to crouch beside Mike. "Me, too." A mascara-lashed glance at Glimmer. "I want to help Jem."

Mike nodded brusquely. "Okay, I'm in. Just be careful, sweetheart." He ruffled Harriet's hair, making her dodge and scowl.

Happy champagne tingles popped in my heart. Most dads would tear their own skin off before they let their daughter walk into danger. But Mike's no ordinary dad, and Harriet isn't a regular daughter. My family are special, and though I might grumble and snipe and bicker, I love 'em all to death.

Well, maybe not Harriet. But even she's worth a thousand of those normal assholes who hate us and want us kept under control, but scream to us for help when their safe little bubble pops…

Very good, whispered Villain Verity, that scaly, black-twisted snake coiling in my heart. Nurture that hatred. Feed it. It's what he'd want…

"Where's Eb?" Adonis breathed deeply and stretched his spine, wincing as the joints popped. My brother's charisma augment works more reliably when he's feeling calm and Zen. When he gets worked up… well, let's just say there's a fine line between an obliging little crush and the sort of obsession that kills.

"He's sneaking around the back." Harriet smirked. Apparently, she liked the idea of Eb leaping out from behind a tree and scaring the living crap out of these idiots.

Come to think of it, so did I.

"Okay." Adonis spoke rapidly, the way he did when he was making shit up as he went along. "Michael, you first, let's flush 'em out. The forest is wet, it shouldn't catch fire, but aim for the ground, not the canopy. Let's keep this covert if we can. When we can see them—presuming we can see them—the rest of us pick 'em off. Glimmer, help Harriet. And everyone watch out for Eb's arc of fire; you know what happens when he gets his hard-on. When you pin one down, yell, and I'll shut them the fuck up. If we can get 'em alive, great. If not? Do whatever. I really don't care. We've got civilians to protect. Verity, you're on shield duty. Just don't tear the fucking building down."

"Screw you." I meant it, too. Why'd everyone have to keep on about that? It wasn't like I'd torn any buildings down lately.

Adonis ignored me. "Suggestions, questions, gripes?"

"Yeah. Screw you."

"I'm good." Mike flexed his fingers, testing a sizzle of voltage. For an old dude, he was totally cool. "You," he added, flicking a blue ball of static at Glimmer that made his skunk stripe crackle on end, "with the hair and the face. Make yourself useful and look after my daughter. If she breaks a nail? I'm gonna come looking for you."

"Yes, sir." Glimmer scruffled at his electrified hair, but it only stuck up more.

Harriet blushed a gratifying beetroot shade. "Jeez, Dad, you're such a nerd."

Glimmer waved a questioning finger at Adonis. "What about the others, boss? What if the building gets crushed?"

"Peg's taking care of them."

"And what if Peg's on their side?" I retorted, with more bitterness than was really warranted. I was so over being blamed for everything. So I wasn't perfect. God knows, Adonis had made his own mistakes that stormy night at FortuneCorp. Remind me: who almost let the city get drenched in poison gas because he tried to drop Razorfire from a fifty-six-story rooftop? Not this scar-faced bad girl.

And—lately, this question had niggled at me, though I couldn't quite finger why—if Adonis was such a golden boy, why had Dad left the company to Equity, instead of to Adonis, whom everyone knew was his favorite son? Had they fallen out? What had Dad known that we didn't?

I didn't say any of that. No one ever asked those questions. Truth was? I didn't want the answers. But for whatever reason, Peg raised my hackles, and I ignored raised hackles at my peril. I'd learned that lesson the painful, bloody way.

"That's ridiculous." A glacial Adonis stare.

"You know what's ridiculous, Ad? Trusting some person you've known for five minutes with our lives."

Glimmer touched my arm, forever the voice of reason and calm-the-fuck-down. "Verity, let it be."

"What if Peg's a spy?" I persisted. "We've just taken her word for everything. What if she turns traitor? Ever consider that? Or are you too busy thinking with your hard-on?"

Adonis ignored me. "Anything else? Fine. Let's do it. Good luck."

Mike wasn't a subtle fighter. He didn't need to be. He just flicked his wrist and hurled a sheet of lightning.

Ksh-mack! The forest lit up, dazzling sunflash. A tree exploded and fell in a hail of flame.

I jumped up and flung out an invisible wall of force… just in time to intercept another whirling tree trunk. Bangggg! It slammed into my shield, jarring my bones right down to my toes. But my eager mindmuscle flexed, and the wall held. I flung the tree trunk harmlessly aside.

I grinned. So far, so fine. But we'd revealed our position now. Attacks would thicken, quicken and slicken. Heh. Good luck with that. They were facing one determined ugly chick. For more reasons than our safety, I needed to get this right.

"Again," Mike murmured calmly, and on a silent count of two I dropped the shield. Crrrack! Another sheet of lightning. I dragged the shield back up again. We walked forward.

From the forest, Sophron's laughter echoed louder. Shadows darted in the light of burning foliage.

Silently, I exulted. The stormy ozone tang invigorated me; the thunder thrilled power into my veins. Static from Mike's augment crackled like fireworks in my hair, over my arms. Damn, it felt good to be on the job again. A warm, sweet pain, like stretching muscles that had languished too long. Like massaging a roaring headache into bliss. Oh, my. I totally needed to get out more—but I wouldn't trade this for anything. Was it wrong that this was better than sex?

"You're doing fine," murmured Mike. His face glistened, electric-lit sweat, and his pale eyes glittered with power. "Your brother'll come around. Just take it easy."

"Easy, my ass," I scoffed, but I shot him a grateful glance.

Behind us, Glimmer whispered to Harriet. "How's your aim?"

"Good as yours," came her reply.

"You better believe it, sister. Let's kick some ass, okay?"

Jeez, don't encourage her. I would've rolled my eyes if I didn't know he meant it honestly. People absorbed confidence from Glimmer's trust, his quiet conviction and humble smile. All they ever absorbed from me was aggravation.

I lowered my shield again. Mike lashed out, a glowing spear. Zzzzap! Flickering blue light illuminated Sophron. She was crouching by a peeling eucalyptus trunk. Same patched jeans and ragged camisole, the strap hanging off one bony shoulder. The fire flickered around her, close enough to make her sweat. Her ghostly eyes shone, those blue dreadlocks shaking around her cheeks as she laughed.

Icy wire threaded my bones. She was utterly unhinged. Fruit cake packed with nuts. Madder than a shit-house rat.

Her sidekick, Flash, stood behind, one black-nailed hand on her shoulder. Jagged emo haircut plastered to one cheek, dark eyes aglitter. He didn't laugh. Just stared, empty. So Sophron was the master in this little love story, was she? And Flash was just the faithful dog?

Glimmer darted forwards, flinging out one hand. A hemispherical shimmer of confusion erupted, sheeting silently towards the forest like a dome of rippled glass. Discombobulate! I wanted to cry out, like a magic word of power. Would it affect Sophron? The stronger your own augment, the more likely you'll be resistant to attack. She seemed pretty powerful. I guess we'd see.

Beside me, Harriet gripped Glimmer's hand to help direct her aim. I covered my ears, just in case she hadn't improved, and Harriet opened her mouth to scream.

Ka-BOOM! A lightning fork stabbed the earth. The ground quaked. Radiant heat sizzled my cheeks, and the tips of my fingers singed and stung. Fuck, that was close…

Oh, shit.

Harriet staggered back, whimpering, clutching her sensitive ears. Blood oozed on her fingers. Glimmer was on his knees, slapping at his burning hair. Mike lay in the dirt. Not bleeding. Not breathing. Hard to do either, when…

I choked on the stink of carnage. Visions of charred flesh and bones. Holy Jesus.

Mike hadn't fired that lightning bolt. Sophron had. And Mike wasn't moving. Or, should I say, what was left of Mike.

Harriet shrieked, unfettered.

My eardrums stretched, a spike of agony jamming crosswise through my skull. I yowled, grabbing at my temples. Sounds were muffled, distant, bleeding. Like some erratic silent movie, I saw Adonis—who hadn't even had the chance to do his love-me thing—shake Harriet, yell at her, force a hand wreathed with golden sparkles of persuasion over her mouth.

Sophron laughed again. I could feel it in my bones, a serpent roiling beneath the earth, ready to burst out and swallow us. Frantic, I tried to crack off my shellshock, force my legs to move, run for her and give her what she deserved… but I just staggered, reeling like a drunken sailor.

My brother cursed, blistering, and unleashed, a fury-blackened cloud of emotional fuck-you-up that swarmed through the trees, searching for prey.

But too late. Sophron grabbed Flash's hand, and they vanished. Ker-snap! Just empty space and fire.

Well, fuckity do-dah.

Dizzy, I wilted. My muscles were unwilling, my guts shriveling with grief and ultrasonic nausea. Time stretched like lumpy rubber, disjointed. Adonis had Harriet under control, and now she wept in his embrace. Firelight flickered, monstrous shadows danced, the sun seemed far away and gone.

Ebenezer hobbled up, his face sheet-white. He scrambled into the dirt beside Glimmer, who knelt at Mike's side, hands everywhere, trying to do something, anything. Eb's lips moved, imploring his father to stay with him, breathe, open his eyes.

But Mike was gone. One of the few truly good people I knew, who never harmed an innocent or let a villain go unpunished, and never made me feel lower than a worm because I'd failed to do the same.

My eyes burned. I wanted to howl. Sophron had killed him, as easily as she'd swat a mosquito. And then she'd fled, snickering like a naughty little girl… or a coward. Fight unfinished. Score unsettled. Rage unsatisfied.

And somehow, it would be my fault. I was certain of it. My culpability was inevitable, like a storm or an earthquake or the sun one day going supernova. I was responsible for this. And I'd not let it go unanswered. No, I most definitely would not.

My vision swam. Somehow I’d fallen to my knees in the wet soil. I’d been sick. I didn’t remember it. I clawed the dirt, forcing it under my nails until they stung and bled. Tilted my face to the uncaring sky, and vowed ugly vengeance.

~ 8 ~

"Verity."

I didn't listen. Didn't want to hear their accusations. The wet ground had soaked into my trousers. My ears rang. Had I been slumped here a minute? An hour?

"Verity." Insistent, a bloodstained hand on my shoulder. "Gotta go."

Dully, I shrugged Glimmer off. "How did she even do that? The lightning, I mean. I've never seen anyone but Mike do that. And the other one can smash concrete. Brilliant."

Acid guilt bubbled and smoked inside my chest. Vincent said he didn't know them. He said so. So what did I do? Did I argue, keep it above the waist, think for myself for a change?

No, I went right ahead and believed him. Christ on a cheesy cracker, I'm so fucking stupid. And now Mike's dead.

"An electric bad guy." Numbly, I giggled, salt and bubbles. "Awesome. Razorfire will be so pleased. Because, y'know, I would be, if I was a lying archvillain son of a bitch."

"Keep it quiet," Glimmer hissed. He pulled me to my feet, shook my shoulders. "Get it together. They're back. Can't you hear?"

"Wha…?" The crush of concrete filtered in, dragging me back to my senses. The ground vibrated. Sophron and Flash were pummeling our building again. Crash! Another wall fell, coughing up a dust cloud. "Shit. More?"

Adonis strode over. "C'mon, ladies. We can't stay here."

He'd handed Harriet over to Ebenezer, who held his twin's hand, bafflement blanking his pimply face. Eb was wet, I noticed dimly, his clothes stained like he'd sweated a river or tripped over into a puddle. He looked green. Perhaps he'd been sick. Harriet's chin trembled, her eyes dark pools of despair and disbelief. My heart ached, and I wanted to hug her. Cactus. FREE HUGS. Damn it.

Together, we stumbled for cover, one fewer than we'd been when we came out.

We halted at the asylum's far end, beneath low-hanging branches that hid us from view, at least for now. Harriet and Eb leaned on each other, foreheads and fingertips touching, lank dark hair mingling with blond. A single tear shone on Eb's cheek. The twins weren't close. Didn't seem to matter right now.

Behind us, thunder rolled, and another wall exploded, a rain of rubble. Hot metal stink assaulted me, and Sophron's monstrous laughter slithered through the trees, a venomous asp aiming to kill us all.

They weren't gone. Just hiding.

I pulled my hungry mindmuscle taut and ready. "What now, Ad?"

My brother yanked his hair with both hands, smearing it with black dust. "We'll find Peg and the others."

"But this is our home," I argued. I'd been eager for battle before. Now, I thirsted for it. My flesh itched uncontrollably. I wanted to rake my face, scratch my skin raw, let my talent explode. "We can't just let that vicious cow—"

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.