A New Day (StrikeForce #1) (14 page)

“Really? You think that’s enough to keep a girl interested?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

He laughed and started walking away. “It seems to be working so far,” he said. I watched him walk away from me, taking in the sight of his broad shoulders and the way his pants hung. I’d had no idea how mesmerizing male asses could be until that moment. I shook my head and walked into my building, throwing one last glance toward where he’d been walking. He was already long gone, and I wondered what his powers were, exactly.

I climbed the stairs to my apartment and flopped onto the couch, aware that I had a stupid smile on my face. I flipped on the television. They’d have no news about me, but I always watched to see what Damian was up to. With his new super villain team, there was always some kind of news.

And lately, a lot of it was centered on wondering why we even have something like StrikeForce, if they can’t even manage to catch petty criminals like the burglar.

Well, that kind of hurts when they said it like that. I mean,
petty
? Really?

I waited through the commercials and then the eleven o’clock news started.

“Our top story tonight, the super villain known as Virus has been apprehended, according to StrikeForce representatives.”

I sat up, turned the volume up.

“Early reports indicate that the super villain known as Virus was captured perhaps an hour ago outside of a bank in Birmingham, where police and StrikeForce both assume he was planning his next heist. He was immediately taken to StrikeForce Command, which, as we know by now, is the most advanced containment center in the U.S. for those with powers.”

There were few interviews about how glad people were that he was off the streets. Some questions about why nobody was with him, but I knew he often did site appraisals on his own.

I stood up and paced.

I wasn’t leaving him there. He knew too much, and I still didn’t quite trust that he would keep it to himself.

Damn it. This was what I got for accepting a partner. Despite just spilling my guts to the guy in the mask, I had this sense that he’d never breathe a word of it to anyone. Damian, though? Damian was unpredictable. And he was, ultimately, all about saving his own ass.

Shit.

How hard could it be? Just another heist, really.

By all reports, the southwest tower of Command was the detention facility. Bust in, bust him out, fly away.

I put the scarf and gloves on. It was maybe a ten-minute flight from where I was. I forced myself to be careful. To take a bus, to chat with people on the bus, to play the part of the nice young woman. I wore a navy coat over my hoodie and scarf, gloves shoved in my pockets. When I got off the bus near Wayne State University’s downtown campus, I could have been any college girl, going to classes.

I ducked behind one of the libraries, near the loading dock, and I shrugged the coat off, pulled up my hood, wrapped my face. I pulled my gloves on, dropped my coat on the roof, and flew toward the river.

Toward the building known as StrikeForce Command. Or, more generally, Command.

I flew, and it came into sight in what felt like seconds. I got my bearings, focused on the layout of the buildings. The structure was basically five towers, one large main tower that was about thirty stories tall, four smaller, maybe fifteen story towers surrounding that one.

He was in the southwest tower, one of the smaller ones, which was where the detention facility was. Of course, I had no idea which floor, but it wouldn’t be hard to find him.

I’d just break shit until I managed it.

I knew I was being stupid, but I’d also seen StrikeForce in action. They were chaos. They could get the jump on me, maybe, but I knew I out-powered them when it came down to sheer strength. It would just have to be enough.

All that kept going through my mind was that he could be telling them everything about me, right then. About my mother. Luther. If it would save his ass, Damian likely would rat out his own mother if he had one.

All I really wanted was to get him out, away from them, where he couldn't blab any of my secrets in exchange for his freedom. Part of me wanted to believe he wouldn’t, but I couldn’t rely on hopes. I’d hope, after I had him away from StrikeForce.

I flew, and veered in, down toward the base of the detention tower. I heard my phone ringing in my pocket, and I ignored it. Probably Mama.

This tower, which had once been glass, had been reinforced with steel.

As if that could stop me.

I plowed into the side of the tower, heard it snapping, creaking, crashing around me as my fists met the wall. And then I was in, and everything was steel and glass. Sirens and alarms screamed.

“Got her,” I heard a female voice call out, and before I could even spin, there was a soft hand on my neck, and the next thing I knew, everything was black.

Chapter Eleven

Bright lights. An antiseptic smell.

I couldn’t move.

I blinked my eyes, trying to clear my vision. Eventually, everything came into view.

And I remembered.

StrikeForce. I was in a tiny room. Slick metal walls, maybe six feet square. I was strapped into a chair, my wrists secured to the armrests with thick steel cuffs. My ankles were secured the same way. I started moving, seeing if I could shake my way free. Even the steel shouldn’t have been enough to keep me there. I struggled harder, feeling panic creeping up on me.

The door made a whooshing sound, and I stopped struggling, refusing to let them see me panic. I watched as the StrikeForce leader, Alpha, walked in. The door whooshed shut behind him, and he stood there, in his full dark gray and black uniform, and crossed his arms. I’d only ever seen him in his mask, but he had it pulled down.

He looked like an overgrown Ken doll.

I clamped my mouth shut, looked away as if I was bored.

“Well. I didn’t expect quite that much damage to my building when we lured you here. You’re freakishly strong. I mean, I knew that already, but really. I’ve never seen anyone Hulk out like that.”

I keep looking at the wall. The door whooshed opened again, and another guy walked in, this one with dark hair.

“This is Nightbane,” Alpha said. “He runs the team for me. My interests fall elsewhere, and he’s better at it than I am. I’ll leave you two to get acquainted now.” And with that, he walked out and the door closed behind him, leaving me with Nightbane.

“You should have answered your phone,” Nightbane said in an unpleasant tone. “I guess this must be him. We found the phone he called from, crushed and tossed into a sewer grate in Detroit. He figured it out, though,” he said. He held up my phone and hit a button.

“Hey, it’s me. They’re lying. They don’t have me. Okay? Damn it, pick up, Jolene. They don’t have me. I’m gonna lay low until whatever this is dies down, but don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

My gut twisted with the realization that I’d walked right the hell into a trap. Nightbane set the phone down on the narrow ledge that ran along the door side of the cell. He looked back at me, a smug look on his face.

“I have to confess, I wasn’t sure it would work. The two of you seemed to have parted ways. Loyalty, huh?”

I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them.

“It’ll make a lot of people sleep better at night, knowing you’re off the street. It’ll make our job easier.”

I knew he was trying to get me to talk, to argue.

Nightbane sighed. “I’m all for locking you up and throwing away the key. You’re trash, Jolene Faraday. Always have been, always will be. “

I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.

“That was a dirty little trick you played that night, Faraday,” he said, leaning over me, looming. Big man now that I couldn’t get to him.

“Did you see how many hits that video got on Youtube?” I asked, forcing myself to give him a smirk. “I bet you heard about that for a while. Of course, you all still thought I was a dude back then. How does it feel to know a woman whupped you?”

He glared at me, and I laughed again.

“You—“ he began, pointing at me, voice raised. The door whooshed again, and another uniformed person walked in. Woman, this time. She had dark brown skin, a thick rope of long braids pulled over her shoulder. Tall and thin.

“I got it, Nightbane. Take a break,” she said in a calm voice that, I had a feeling, was meant to calm him.

“Thanks, Portia,” he snarled. He nodded at her, threw another dirty look over his shoulder at me, and I made a kissy face at him, laughed as he stormed out.

“Well, it’s lovely that you’ve retained your sense of humor,” the woman, Portia, said after the doors closed behind Nightbane.

I just watched her, and, after a moment, she shook her head. “You should know that everyone on this team, except me, maybe, wants to throw you in a cell somewhere and forget you ever existed. The only reason Alpha isn’t going along with Nightbane’s plan to lock you up is because I pushed hard for this.”

She paced a little. “Thing is, I’ve been doing some poking around about you since we brought you in and verified your identity, Jolene. You have your own code of honor, messed up though it is. You’ve never caused an injury. You give to charity, and every single one of your neighbors adores you and swears that you’re the kindest person they know. Your mother is proud of the woman you’ve become. She also clearly knows nothing about your powers,” she added, watching me. I kept my face blank. How had they moved so fast? How long had I been out? And what would they do to Mama now?

“You’ve been here for a little over sixteen hours now,” she said. “We printed you, did a DNA and facial recognition scan. Jolene Marie Faraday, resident of Warren, Michigan, born February 12th, 1991. Salutatorian, Warren Fitzgerald High School, BA in sociology , University of Detroit Mercy, last year. Former part-time library assistant, though you were recently left that position. Full-time thief.”

I didn’t respond, even though I was beginning to panic. They knew every fucking thing.

“Our team didn’t think you’d come. Didn’t think you’d fall for the ruse. But that night you fought Nightbane a few months back… I watched the footage of that over and over again. One thing became clear: you cared more about protecting Virus than you did about yourself. Is it love, I wonder?” she asked, watching me. “Or are you just that loyal to those you let in? If it’s loyalty, it’s another trait to be proud of. There’s not much of that in the world, really.”

How little she knew. And how ironic that the only reason I’d been so intent on saving him was to protect myself from this exact thing. My life was just one laugh after another.

We stayed in silence for what felt like an eternity. She leaned against the wall, crossed her arms over her chest. After it became clear that I had nothing to say, she crouched down, resting her forearms on her knees.

“Faraday,” she said, and I looked at her. “Like I said. They all want to make you disappear. Everyone. There are precisely two people in your corner right now. One isn’t on this team, so his word doesn’t mean anything. The other is me. I think you can do a hell of a lot of good. I think you can be redeemed. It’s not too late.”

I tried not to react, tried not to let her see how her words hit awfully close to my own recent identity crisis.

I studied her, and then I let out a short laugh. “You all are tired of getting overpowered, huh?”

She stood up. “Pretty much. And your former partner’s team is a much bigger concern than even you ever were. We realized pretty quickly that you weren’t hurting anyone. Them, though?” she shook her head. “He’s not as careful about picking his associates as you are.”

I didn’t want to talk about Damian.

“Don’t you even want to know who the other person was who recommended another option for you?” she asked. I gave her a look and shrugged.

“You’ve run into Killjoy,” she said, and, after a moment, I nodded. She’d just verified what I already kind of knew about my masked stranger. I tried to pretend that just the sound of his name wasn’t enough to make me blush. “He believes in you. More than I do. I don’t know everything he sees in you, and if my team knew I was agreeing with him on anything, they’d have my head examined. But I agree with him, and he’s never come to me for a favor until he heard we had you. There’s good in you. You’ve been given a gift. Don’t waste it making the world a worse place. Or waste it rotting away for the rest of your life in a cell here.”

“You’re recruiting me?” I asked. And then I laughed, closed my eyes and shook my head.

“I’m giving you a choice. Imprisonment, or service. It’s all I can offer.”

“So no shot at freedom, huh?”

“You should have thought about how much you loved freedom before you started using your powers to rob banks,” she said, her voice still cool, calm. “Right now, all I can offer you are those two choices: a cell here, or join up.”

I was silent, and eventually, she left, and I was left alone in the surgical-feeling room. Join up? Was she freaking kidding me? Join up with assholes like Nightbane? Join up with people who pretty much hated me?

But…

Serving them would give me a chance to start planning an escape. I had no chance of escaping if they kept me locked up. Whatever the manacles they had on my wrists and ankles were made of, they were standing up really well to how hard I was struggling against them. Or was it me? How had they knocked me out in the first place?