Day's End (19 page)

He met my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as the plunger lowered. I didn’t respond, just stared at him blankly as the numbness settled over me. Lorne left without another word, and I stood there.

Death settled over me. At least, it felt like death. Nothingness. Emptiness. Coldness. It was good.

I glanced at my closet, used my powers to throw the doors open. I stared at the gray and black StrikeForce uniform without understanding why. All I knew was that I didn’t want to take my eyes off of it. I swore that, if I did, I’d cease to exist.

Clearly, I was losing my fucking mind.

I didn’t sleep. I stared, and I sat in the numbing death, and about four hours later, I felt the first surges of cold rage hit me, along with the memory of Connor pinning me down.

I sat with it. Absorbed it. Held onto it until Lorne came with my morning injection, and then it was gone again and I couldn’t remember anything.

StrikeForce, StrikeForce, StrikeForce,
I found myself thinking, over and over, like a silent mantra, like something I had to remember, the way you repeat address numbers to yourself when you’re looking for a certain house, sure you’ll lose it because you’re distracted.

And then it changed.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Fucking Faraday, Jolene Fucking Faraday.

Daystar, Daystar, Daystar
.

I kept my eyes on the suit.

Connor walked into my room in the late afternoon. I was sitting in the middle of my bed, and a surge of cold satisfaction hit me when I saw that he had two black eyes.

From me.

“Boss,” I said evenly.

“Jolene,” he said, refusing to look at me. “Suit up. We’re going.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Meet me upstairs in ten minutes,” he said, then walked out of my room. “Wear the StrikeForce uniform,” he said over his shoulder.

“Sir?”

He turned and glared at me. “Did I stutter? Wear the StrikeForce uniform. Time to fuck with their minds the way you’ve fucked with mine. Daystar the hero,” he sneered, and then he stormed away.

I turned my head and looked at the uniform.

You don’t deserve to wear that
, that little voice said, and for once, we were in complete agreement about something.

Eight minutes later, I was in Connor’s suite, along with Connor and the rest of his team. Well, other than Eve. I hadn’t seen her in weeks, I realized.

When I walked in, Connor gave a short nod. “I’ll be there with you. I’ll be with Jolene at all times, but I’ll be invisible,” he said. “Your entire goal is to kill them. I know you can. Kill them, make them bleed, make them hurt. Embarrass them. Show the world how weak, how worthless, they are. We’ve taken out everybody else, and we’ve let them sit and watch, waiting, knowing we were working our way up to them. Our time is now!” he finished, and shouts and cheers went up around the room. Chance smirked at me.

“Leave my target to me and Jolene. Other than that, kill whoever you want to,” Connor said. The three Scots grinned, Chance smirked some more, and the other randos who had joined him over the past few weeks laughed and bumped fists.

Connor glanced at me, and the glint in his eyes made me sick. “Let’s go. Our hour of glory, of victory, is at hand. And it’s all thanks to Jolene.”

I heard Chance laugh softly. Connor took my hand.

“Wait! She’s about to have an injection,” Lorne said, running into the room with a syringe in his hand. I practically salivated at the sight, at the promise of relief.

“Not now. Get her when we get back. Can’t have her all fucking confused and forgetful now,” Connor said.

“But—”

“Later, Lorne,” Connor said, and then he grabbed my arm and I felt us zipping toward whatever Connor’s teleporting destination was.

When my feet felt like they were on solid ground again, I realized we were in a large prison facility. Lights were flashing, steel doors were opening, and inmates in yellow and orange jumpsuits were running past us. Some cheered at the sight of Connor in his red and black.

“Where are we?”

“One of the last remaining super powered prisons in America,” Connor said. Then he laughed. “Well. Not anymore,” he said. “The jailbreak began a little while ago, thanks to the Scots and the people they have inside. We’re just here for the after-party.”

I looked at Connor in confusion.

“Showtime, Jolene.”

We walked through a crowd of inmates who were all pushing and shoving, trying to find an escape route. I could see, once we were free of the crowd, why they weren’t finding one. A huge fight was happening at what I guessed was the exit. Inmates clashed with a group of costumed heroes in yellow and blue uniforms.

And then I saw the black and gray in the crowd, and I glanced down at myself.

StrikeForce.

I glanced up at Connor to see him smirking, then he pulled his mask down and shoved me into the fray.

“I love you. Fight. It’s the only thing you’re good at.”

I fought.

It seemed like the heroes in blue, who were closest to us, recognized me right away. They came toward me, not attacking, but with hands out, arms out as if they were calling me to them.

One blast with my power, one perfectly-aimed knife to the throat, and they were gone. I heard screams.

I heard someone calling my name. A deep voice with just a bit of roughness to it. It sent shivers down my spine.

I cut down another blue-uniformed hero, realizing numbly that this was the southeast’s superhero team. Were we in New Orleans? I was fighting heroes, and helping with a jailbreak.

“I love you jolene. Keep killing. Don’t stop until I tell you to,” I heard Connor shout, and then I heard him laugh.

“Daystar,” one of the heroes in blue shouted. “Daystar, let us help y—”

He was dead before he finished the sentence, another victim of the way Connor had taught me to hit, just right, a killing blow that very few could survive.

I moved on.

I could see StrikeForce. They seemed to be trying to fight their way toward me, collaring and subduing the prisoners between them and me. Every once in a while one of them would call my name. I saw the Scots fighting three of the StrikeForce heroes off to the side, their names coming to me as clearly as if I’d just spoken to them that day. Toxxin, Jenson, Steel.

Portia, Monster, Screamer, Beta, and a few others in gray and black fought against the rest of Mayhem and the inmates. Connor still hadn’t joined the fight. I knew he was there, just behind me, still invisible, ready to use my control phrase when it seemed like I was slowing down.

Jenson came toward me. Well, a Jenson. I hesitated a moment before Killjoy said my control phrase again, and then I ran a blade across her throat. Another came running at me, and I did the same to her. I noticed another Jenson, or maybe this was the real one, bent double across the corridor, and she released a keening wail that made my stomach twist.

I mowed down a few more uniformed heroes in my path. A yellow and blue, one wearing dark maroon, one wearing forest green. A mishmash of heroes, all in one place.

The last prison for powered people left. I paused for a moment, realizing where we had to be.

StrikeForce Command.

Someone in gray and black ran toward me. I heard Connor laugh softly.

I got ready to send a blast of power at the StrikeForce person. My hands were up.

And then I saw his eyes, the only features visible under his balaclava.

Warm brown.

I froze.

“Jolene,” he said.

I stared. I’d dreamed those eyes.

“Caine. Fucking kill him so we can get this over with,” Connor hissed in my ear.

I didn’t move.

Caine stood just as still, only stopping to punch out at an inmate who came at him.

“Jolene,” he said again.

“Jolene, I told you to kill this fucker,” Connor hissed.

“Not man enough to fight your own battles, Killjoy? Need an actual power to fight them for you, huh?” Caine said, his brown eyes still focused on me.

I couldn’t breathe.

“I love you. Now fucking kill him,” Connor hissed.

I took a step forward. Threw a punch, even though part of me seemed to be screaming that it was wrong, that all of this was wrong and that I needed to stop.

I punched him again, and he ducked it. Again. He was fast, strong.

“Cut the fucker,” Connor said. I pulled the knives out of my belt.

“Well, that’s new,” Caine said, and his voice was iodine in an open wound.

And I couldn’t stop trying to hit him.

Ryan

Christ, it was her. I smelled her the second Mayhem had appeared. Still the same. Still a mouthwatering mix of vanilla and heady florals that made me re-live breathing her in as she moved over me, as she whispered how much she wanted me.

It was like a punch to the gut, watching from afar as she killed first one, then two, then three of the members of the Southern Honor team that had moved in with us as if they were nothing. She was wearing her old StrikeForce uniform, her old mask. I couldn’t see her face.

Just now, I was glad for it.

The first time she punched out at me, she almost connected, shocked as I was that Jolene would hit me like that.

This isn’t Jolene. Not completely, I had to tell myself.

I knew that no matter what she was, no matter what she tried to do, I wouldn’t hurt her. Not a chance in hell.

And fucking Killjoy knew it. I could hear him laughing. Telling her to attack me. Telling her he loved her.

That last part made me want to kill him, more than I’ve ever wanted to kill anyone in my life.

She was on me, punching, then stabbing, slicing at me like a woman possessed, so fucking strong, so fast, I knew I probably didn’t stand a chance. I’ve never cared that she’s stronger than me.

“Jolene, stop,” I said to her, quietly. “Come on.”

She sliced out at me again.

“I know you’re in there. I know you know me.”

“I don’t know you,” she said, and it hurt worse than any other cut she could have given me.

“You know me,” I said, just barely jumping back from her blades as she slashed at me. “You’re the love of my life. You’re my best friend. You saved my life. You sat by my bedside. You read to me and talked to me.”

Every other word, it seemed, I was ducking or jumping away from her. Blood bloomed on my arms, my shoulders, from when I’d been too slow. I barely noticed it.

“You turned me on to historical romance,” I said, desperate for anything, every memory killing me just a little bit more. “You like it when I kiss that sensitive spot, right under your ear.”

I almost stumbled, ready to jump, when she stopped moving. One of her hands went to the spot I’d just mentioned, that part of her jawline that met her earlobe. I could hear her breath hitch, her heartbeat go nuts.

“Jolene, end this fucker now. Don’t listen to his lies,” Killjoy said. “I love you,” he added and I saw her entire body tense. She gave a tiny shake of her head, but other than that, she didn’t move.

“Might have to fight your own fights there, chief,” I said.

“I love you now kill him,” Killjoy said. He sounded crazy, like a man who’d lost control a long time ago. All I knew was that Jolene was staring at me. I looked back at her.

She dropped her knives.

“Kill him,” Killjoy shrieked. I could feel the rest of StrikeForce and the remainders of the other hero teams pressing toward us, still fighting Mayhem, but coming closer. We knew we were better together, strength in numbers all that.

And they knew I needed all the strength I could get right now.

“I don’t know you,” Jolene repeated, and I knew she was talking to me. “But I wish I did.”

It was then that Killjoy became visible. He’d been standing to Jolene’s right the entire time.

He had his sword in his hand, and he swung it at me with a wild, chilling shriek.

It was so fast, so sudden, he would have had my head off. I was too distracted, too messed up from seeing her. I should have taken myself off of this mission, and I knew it.

I was as good as dead, and then an invisible force seemed to knock Killjoy away, the blade flying out of his hand right before it made contact with my neck. I glanced at Jolene to see her holding her hands up. Killjoy lunged at her. I charged for him.

In the next instant, all of the Mayhem members were gone, and all I had left of Jolene were the blades she’d dropped. I let my head fall forward. The prison was still echoing with the sounds of battle, guards against inmates. I closed my eyes, took a breath, then opened them again and did what I was supposed to do.

My mind was a million miles away, my heart was shredded. All I could do was what my body knew to do. Fight. So, I did.

She was gone again. That was ultimately all that mattered now. I’d had her in my grasp, and I’d let her slip away.

Chapter Twelve

Jolene

Sleeping was useless.

I tossed off my blankets and got out of bed again. It was two days after our confrontation with StrikeForce at the prison, and Connor seemed to be avoiding me again, which was more than fine, as far as I was concerned.