Darkest Day (StrikeForce #3) (2 page)

I lifted it, got under it, trying to get a decent grip, and then rose into the air. I knew there were plenty of farms and fields to the southeast, so I started in that general direction.

“Jo, you have a fucker on your six,” Ryan said over my comm.

I couldn’t answer him, which I knew he realized. All I could do was fly faster, my body screaming under the strain of lifting what was turning out to be a ridiculous amount of weight. Note to self: Zambonis are even heavier than they look, and they look pretty goddamn heavy. The fog was still seeping from it, and all I could hope was that I wasn’t making it worse by moving it, possibly affecting more people.

But one hundred thousand plus, all in one place? I couldn’t just leave it there.

“Jo, she’s almost to you,” Ryan said over the comm. He sounded out of breath, straining, and I was pretty sure I heard screaming in the background.

There. A field lay ahead of me, and I pushed myself harder and stared coming in for a landing.

At that moment, something struck the side of the Zamboni, making it teeter and roll. A quick glance down told me we were still over a neighborhood. If it fell now, someone was getting hurt.

I tightened my grip on it, and whoever was flying at me hit it again.

I grimaced and did my best to maneuver the Zamboni, get it under control. I dropped it when I was about ten feet up, then fell to the ground myself.

“Whatsa matter?’ Tired?” a female voice said, and then she flew at me, knocking me down.

I was shaking. Exhausted. My already screwed-up reflexes were always even worse when I was tired. She flew, hit me again, and I stumbled back, falling into a fence post.

“You aren’t so tough,” she said. I pushed myself up again, just in time to catch the yellow blur that was hurtling at me from the sky. I gathered my power and threw everything I could manage at her.

It was… well. It was a lot. Her speed, plus the wall of power I threw at her resulted in her seeming to crash into nothing in midair and then drop to the ground, limp.

“Once upon a time, I used to worry about hurting people too badly,” I muttered as I made my way over to her. “Have to say, I hope you’re in a hell of a lot of pain when you wake up.”

I crouched down over her still form and felt for a pulse. Slow, but there, and still fairly strong. I dug a collar out of one of the pouches on my belt and affixed it around her neck, then pressed the clasp in back to tighten and activate it.

I stood up and look down at her.

“You all are predictable, though,” I muttered. “For example,” I put my hands out and stood firmly on her legs. Sure enough, after about a count of five, I felt someone trying to tug her away from me, and I sent a punch out in the direction I thought the tug was coming from.

“Fuck!” Brianne shouted. We knew her too well by now. She’d spent weeks foiling our attempts to get at several of our Detroit super villains, and we’d finally taken her in only to have her busted out of Command by Killjoy’s people. She moved, and I sent another blast of power at her. My punches and blasts were getting feeble. Still too tired, body shaking from the strain of carrying the Zamboni, plus my fight with the flying bitch. She struggled up again, and I was relieved to suddenly see Portia and Ryan standing beside me.

“You’re done,” Ryan said, lifting the stun gun toward Brianne and taking the shot. I could tell she was gathering her power to jump again, and it would take her long. The transporter was fast.

Lucky, Ryan was faster, at least when it came to shooting things.

I stepped off of the flying chick, who was still out. “Thanks,” I said to them.

“Yeah, it’s clear you needed our help pretty bad,” Ryan said, taking in the Zamboni, the downed villain at my feet, and the small crater I’d caused when I’d landed. “Such a damsel in distress,” he said wryly, and I shook my head.

“How are things at the stadium?” I asked.

“Better. Jenson and Beta are working with local law enforcement to get the crowd back under control. It looks like whichever villains were in attendance split after the Zamboni was deployed,” he said. We all turned to look at the Zamboni, Portia joining us after collaring and cuffing Brianne.

“It’s ticking,” Ryan said after a moment. He took my arm in his hand and pulled me away. “Now.” He said. I shrugged him off and bent to pick up the flyer, and he went to pick up Brianne. He threw a small disk that Beta had developed toward it, and it landed on top of the Zamboni. After a moment, it expanded, seeming to encompass the enormous machine in a clear bubble. Portia teleported us near one of the farmhouses, and, seconds later, the Zamboni exploded, shaking the ground around us.

Portia pressed her comm. “This is Portia. Send a cleanup crew to our current coordinates.” I exchanged a glance with Ryan, noting the humor in his eyes. This was Portia’s own personal little mission, making sure we cleaned up after ourselves. “I’ll take these two back to the detention center. Do you need me to port you or can you fly back to the stadium?” she asked me.

“I can get us back,” I said, and she gave me a nod, then grabbed the flyer and Brianne, and in the next moment, they were gone.

“Ready?” I asked.

Ryan shook his head. “We can wait a second. Rest up a little more.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure. Because you ordinarily carry around five thousand pounds of chemical-laden bomb while fighting in midair. Of course.”

“Psh. That’s nothing,” I said.

“Uh huh.”

“I could do that in my sleep,” I said, walking toward the bubble with its mass of burning, twisted metal inside. That would have killed just about everyone in the stadium, without a doubt. And whoever was left probably would have had some pretty nasty issues I was glad we weren’t going to have to deal with.

“I’m pretty sure I just snore when I’m asleep,” he said, and I turned to look at him, then quickly glanced away. There had been a subtle shift between us since Mama’s funeral and the closeness I’d felt with him then as he’d mourned my mother with me. We still worked perfectly together, just as comfortable and in tune as ever. We had picked up our training a couple times a week, Ryan teaching me how to subdue my opponents in ways other than just trying to hit the hell out of them. We met with Jenson, David, and Dani to plot our next move against Killjoy. All of it was the same, but… not. He’d had my back when I was going through all of that, and, shocking even to me, I’d let myself lean on him. I didn’t do that. Ever. There was that new aspect to our partnership now, and it kind of unsettled me. Other than Jenson, I haven’t let myself get close to any of my fellow StrikeForce members. And yet, here he was.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

“So that was Raider,” he said. “Wonder why she’s involved in this shit. She’s always been more focused on destroying Britain.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, debating whether I wanted to tell him the last bit of stupidity involving Connor… Killjoy, that I’d kept to myself.

“Um. Because she was married to Killjoy before.”

He stared at me. “She was married to the original Raider.”

“Yep.”

He watched at me for a bit, thinking. “The swords,” he murmured, obviously remembering the day we’d faced off against Killjoy and his crew. He’d had the same deadly-looking swords we had all seen in photos of Raider, who was one of the original super villains following the first Confluence. And Ryan had fought him back in the day. I’ve seen the photos and news footage.

He shook his head.

“I felt like an idiot. He told me…” I blew out a breath. “He told me who he’d been before, and that was why I stopped seeing him.”

Ryan didn’t answer. “Does anyone else know?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t you think they probably should? Considering he’s number one on our most wanted list and information like that might help?”

I nodded. Ryan using his reasonable, kind of dry voice is not my favorite. I want him to get pissed off. At least that, I know how to deal with. He doesn’t get mad, usually.

“Pretty stupid, huh?” I finally asked.

“No. Not stupid,” he said.

I crossed my arms.

“I get why you didn’t say anything. At first, you probably figured he changed, even if he was kind of an asshole. And by the time you knew better, who he used to be just didn’t seem all that important. Am I close?”

“Yeah. But it was still stupid. Keeping shit from you guys.”

“If you want to beat yourself up over it, fine. But I’m not going to pile it on.”

“You should. I lied to you guys.”

He turned to me, and now he had that look in his eyes. He was getting irritated. “Why the hell are you trying to fight with me?” he asked.

“I don’t know. A bit of a reaction, maybe, would be good.”

“What reaction? Get mad at you so you can be pissed off at me and decide to avoid me? Is that what you were hoping for?”

I crossed my arms and looked away.

“You do enough of a good job beating up on yourself without my help,” he said.

“Let’s just go,” I said. “Are you ready?”

“Sure. We’ll just not talk about any of this,” he said coolly.

“Sounds like a plan,” I muttered. I went behind him and grabbed him under his arms, and then we rose into the air and I flew us back the few miles to the arena. The crowd was mostly back in their seats, and to my shock, they’d continued the game after the chaos had died down. I set Ryan down and spotted Jenson nearby.

“Nice job,” she murmured to me. “Portia gave us an update. No sign of any of the others returning. I think that was their plan: set it off and leave.”

I nodded. “Powers of the other baddies?” I asked her.

“One guy who caused illness. Lots of puking in that section over there,” she said, pointing out a section that was now mostly empty. “A guy who used some kind of illusion to make it look like their biggest enemy was standing in front of them, set them off fighting,” she continued, and I shook my head. “One guy put a bunch of people to sleep. And then there was Raider, and the flyer you got, and Brianne.”

“Who she also got. Again,” Ryan said from where he stood behind me, watching the crowd.

“You got her down,” I said.

“Yeah. You owe me lunch now,” he said.

I rolled my eyes and focused on the crowd again.

“Portia sent a clean up crew to collect what was left of the Zamboni,” I said. “Hopefully Beta can find something we can trace somehow.”

She nodded.

We stood around for the rest of the game, and stayed until the crowd cleared. The manager of the arena came up to us and thanked us for preventing a disaster, and said he was a huge fan.

Which was really nice. Usually when we leave someplace, there are at least a few people bitching us out for breaking shit.

Once we were finished, we got into the mini jets, Jenson and David in one, Ryan and I in ours. We flew most of the way home in silence.

“I wasn’t kidding about lunch,” he finally said. “My turn.”

“That didn’t count. That wasn’t a normal patrol.”

“That wasn’t in the rules,” he said, and I could hear that he was smiling.

“Hm. That’s what happens when you deal with former super villains. Never quite know if we’re being honest or not,” I said.

“Mmhmm. Except that you’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m very good at lying.”

“You’re good at keeping secrets. That’s not the same as lying.”

“Yes it is.”

“No, it’s really not.”

“I fooled plenty of people when I need to.”

“Can’t fool me, though. Hard to lie to someone successfully when they can hear your heart beat.”

“Ugh, super senses,” I said.

He laughed then. “I know you don’t need to hear it, but you did good today. Did you know you could carry the Zamboni?”

“I hoped I could. I almost didn’t manage it. And then that flying bitch started divebombing me.”

“I know. I was trying to watch you while dealing with the craziness in the crowd. Are you hurt at all?” he asked.

“I’m sore. Everything hurts right now. Muscles are all stiffening up on me. All I want is a really hot shower and to fall into bed and not move for hours and hours.”

“You saved thousands of lives today. None of us could have managed that.”

“If we’d used the containment disk on it, it would have been okay.”

“Somewhat. We felt the impact from it exploding and we were, what? About a half mile away? Anyone within the vicinity would have been killed by that, even with it in the containment bubble.”

I didn’t answer. That little voice inside me, the one that liked to point out all of my mistakes, reminded me that I hadn’t managed to save Mama, though. As if I could possibly forget.

“I’m tired.”

“Me too,” he said after a moment. We rode the rest of the way home in silence, and after we got in, we debriefed Portia and I went into my room and fell into bed after stripping my uniform off.

The shower could wait until after I slept, assuming I could even move. I was getting more achey with each passing moment. Finding a decent sleeping position, one that didn’t have some part of my aching body screaming in one way or another, was nearly impossible, but I ended up dropping off to sleep anyway, only to get overtaken by the nightmares that just seemed to lie in wait for the moment I finally drifted off. Mama dying, Maddoc ending me. Killjoy telling me over and over again how weak and pathetic I was. All of it on repeat, the second I closed my eyes.

Chapter Two