Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) (38 page)

And Joss.

Just as I was about to get up, tackle Nathan
and stomp on him until he told me, I heard feet pounding up metal
stairs and then Corey bounded into the room.

“Everything go okay?”

That was Marco’s voice. I shifted as quietly
as I could until I could see the glowing tip of his cigarette in
the shadows. He got up from where he was sitting and swaggered
forward.

“Yeah, boss. It’s all good. She stayed out
the whole time just like Sleepy said she would.”

From somewhere else in the gloom, someone
grumbled something I couldn’t understand. Must have been that kid.
The last thing I remembered was being caught by Marco. Corey held
me while Marco beat on me a little. And for Marco, I mean a little.
Not nearly his full power, but just enough to really hurt. Then
this kid they called Curtis came running up and Marco told him to
knock me out. Curtis reached up, grabbed me by the throat and told
me go to sleep. And then everything went dark.

“Good. At least someone around here can do
their job.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“I meant Curtis,” Marco sneered. “Trina got
things under control? I’m letting her have her way because it’s
what Tony would have wanted, but if she fucks it up, she’s gonna
answer to me.”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s got it. Made me haul Joss
up to the second floor and we got her chained up tight. She’s not
getting out of there.”

“Where is she?” It was out of my mouth
before I knew I was gonna say anything.
So much for the element
of surprise.

“Well look who’s awake. Man, he said her
name once and you’re all up and at ’em,” Marco laughed. “Are you
tuned in or what?”

“Yeah,” Nathan added, “‘what’s the
frequency, Kenneth?’”

“What the hell? Did the bitch give you brain
damage?” Marco tossed down his cigarette and ground it out while he
went for a new one.

“It’s from a song. R.E.M.”

“Actually, the lyrics come from an incident
involving an assault on Dan Ra—”

“Hey, Dick Clark,” Marco interrupted Curtis,
“do I look like someone who gives a shit? Jesus.”

“Where the hell is Joss?” I ground out.

“You know, buddy, you don’t even need to
worry about Joss anymore.” Marco strolled over to me. I braced,
waiting for him to kick me, but he grabbed my arm and yanked me to
my feet. He pushed me up against the wall, made a little show of
brushing off my sleeves. “Because really, neither of you are going
to be around much longer. So let’s just not talk about your skag
and enjoy the time we have.”

I kept my eyes on the floor and concentrated
on trying to still the shaking. All I could see was Marco touching
Joss. A sense of brutality welled up inside me. I didn’t know what
kind of plan he had, and I almost didn’t care. I just wanted to
take him down with me.

I wanted to kill him.

“Come here,” he said, jerking me away from
the wall. “I want to show you something.” He was pulling me across
the room and I just went with him. There didn’t seem to be any
point in resisting. Corey shadowed us, like maybe he thought I was
going to make a break for it. Or maybe he knew that Marco’s plan
involved him holding me down again.

Marco pushed me up against a metal railing
but his quick grip on the back of my neck kept me from going over.
Below us, walls of concrete that were stained with rust, and green
with something that grows in the dank, reached down into darkness,
nothing.

“How deep you think that is?”

I didn’t answer.

He took a drag on his cigarette and then
flicked it over the edge. But of course we couldn’t see it for long
in the gloom. “I picked this place because of that tank. I’ve got
no idea how deep it is, but we threw some trash down there and I
know the bottom’s solid and it’s a long way down. So what I’ve been
wondering is, when I throw you over this railing, how long are we
gonna hear you scream before you hit the bottom?”

“That’s your big revenge plan? Throw me off
a ledge?”

“No, the plan was to throw your girlfriend
off the ledge, after I was done with her, and then throw you over
after her.”

It flashed through my mind to say something,
something involving the word ‘limp’ maybe. But then in my head I
saw the way he’d jerked Jeff’s head, heard the crack, remembered
how Jeff lay still with his eyes staring at nothing.

“I can’t believe you just fucking killed
Jeff,” I heard myself saying.

Marco shrugged. “He had it coming.”

“He was your friend. Almost as long as I
was. And you just reached out and fucking ended him. Over something
he
said
.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever? Really? Is that what your crew
can expect from you now? He was loyal to you.”

“Just shut the fuck up. You don’t get to
talk to me about loyalty. You know who was loyal to me? Tony. He
was my fucking cousin, man. My family. And now he’s fucking dead.
And that’s because of you. The Syndicate went after Tony because
someone ratted Vivian out to the cops. You think I don’t kn—”

“Actually…”

A shot rang out as we were turning toward
the voice. It echoed in the cavernous, concrete room as Nathan slid
sideways from the stool. Blood pooled on the floor beneath his head
while we all stood frozen, looking from him to Mr. Dobbs who was
standing at the top of the stairs clutching a gun in both shaking
hands.

“What. The.
Fuck?
” Marco rasped,
almost in a whisper, as full of disbelief as everyone else looked.
Dobbs pointed the gun at him and he threw up his hands, took an
automatic step back and was caught by the railing. Light from one
of the lanterns caught Dobbs at just the right angle that it
bounced off his glasses and I couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t tell
if they were fixed on Marco or darting around at everyone else in
the room.

“Well I couldn’t very well threaten you
without getting rid of the kid who could turn the gun into dust,
could I, Marco?”

“How…how did you know that?” Corey
asked.

“You would be amazed at the things I know,
Corey. For example, I know that you can walk through walls. And
since I don’t want you running off…”

The gun went off again. Since my eyes were
kind of glued to it, the muzzle flare in the dark burned an after
image that floated over Corey as I watched him crumple to the
floor.

None of us said anything and it was Dobbs
who broke the silence. “I wondered if he’d be able to…how would you
put it? Phase out? I wondered if he’d be able to do that before the
bullet got there.” He shrugged. “Guess not.”

Still, none of us said anything. Curtis was
standing against a wall and he kind of turned into it, huddled into
himself, like he could make himself a smaller target or maybe he
was trying to convince himself he wasn’t really seeing any of this
happen. He was crying.

Marco came out of his shock and grabbed me,
yanked me in front of him like a shield. “What do you want?”

“Marco, I gather that you and Dylan have
been, shall we say, on the outs lately, but is that any way to
treat a friend? First of all, I think I need to clear up a little
misconception. While your deduction that the Syndicate killed your
cousin in retaliation for the arrest of their associates makes
sense, the fact is that I’m the one who killed Tony
D’Attaviano.”

“Why?”

“The same reason I’m going to kill you and
the rest of your friends: because you ruined my life!”

“Look, man,” Marco said from behind me, “you
got it all wrong. I’m not the one who turned your girlfriend into
the cops.”

“So you knew. About Vivian and myself.”

“Well, yeah, man, everyone knew.” Dobbs
mouth firmed and so did his grip on the gun and Marco’s grip on me.
“I mean, it was cool, you know? Hey, any time a regular guy gets
with a hot piece of a—I mean, with a beautiful woman like that,
hell, you want to shake his hand or something. But look, why would
I turn her in to the cops? I’m the
last
person who’d want to
see that happen. I’m not your guy. If I had my way, she’d still be
here and you guys could be together right now.”

“Is that what you think this is about? You
think I’m mourning the loss of that…Jezebel? I’m talking about
NIAC! The loss of my position! And don’t bother acting like you
didn’t know. She must have known. It’s why she pursued a
relationship with me. And if she knew, you knew. NIAC fired me
because of our…involvement, not only because I was involved with an
unregistered ability-affected individual, but because I had an
association with a known Syndicate operative. I’m the one who’s
supposed to be finding these people, turning them in, and here I
was dating one!”

“Hey, you and me, we both want to know who
fingered that bitch, right? They ruined both our lives. We’re on
the same side.”

“We’re
not!
You think I’d ever side
with Talent scum like you?”

“Look, I don’t know where you’re getting
your information—”

“Just…shut up. Let me think… Maybe if I
could find a few ability kids to give them, they’d give me another
chance.” He swung toward Curtis. “You must have an ability. What do
you do?”

“N-nothing. I swear!”

“He can put people to sleep,” I told Dobbs.
If he came around to thinking he could trade information on Talents
to get his job back, it might at least keep Curtis from getting
shot right now. He might end up in State School, but hey, the kid
had been working for Marco, knocked out me and Joss when we might
have escaped. I didn’t owe him anything.

“No! That’s not true!”

“Interesting, Dylan. That was a test. To see
if anyone here would be honest with me. Now tell me about your
girlfriend.”

I’d broken into Dobbs’s house, seen his Joss
file. If he knew anything for sure, it would have been there. I
hoped. “You’ve been suspicious of her, right? She told me about
some of the talks you’ve had. Now that I know what your real job
is, that all makes sense. But Joss is just a regular girl. And
she’s in trouble, Mr. Dobbs. Tony’s girlfriend, Trina—she has a
Talent for manipulating dreams—she hates Joss. And she’s crazy over
Tony’s death. She’s got Joss somewhere, I don’t know where, but we
need to get to her. Help her.”

“Do we?”

“Yeah, we do. I mean, this is what it’s all
about, isn’t it? Being part of NIAC? It’s about protecting
people—innocent,
normal
people—from these people who have
abilities. Who have this unfair advantage. From Talent scum like
Marco. Look, he’s super-strong—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Marco hissed.

“—and he’s still got my hands bound behind
my back. And he’s using me as a human shield! Before you got here
he was threatening to throw me over the edge.”

“Which I’m going to do just as soon as I
don’t need you anymore. Shut up before I break both your arms.”

Like you’d chance that right now.

“Let him go, Marco.”

“No way. No way I’m just letting you shoot
me. Are you really buying this? You think him and Joss are just
normal kids? This guy can turn invisible.”

“Yeah, sure, invisible,” I scoffed. “Guy
walks in and starts shooting and I’m just standing here. If I could
turn invisible—if I could do anything—wouldn’t I have done it a
long time ago?”

“Let him go, Marco. Don’t make me tell you
again or I’m going to shoot the last of your associates,” Dobbs
waved the gun at Curtis who whimpered pitifully, “and then I’m
coming after you. And while it will be somewhat regrettable if
Dylan gets caught in the crossfire, I’m ready to consider him
collateral damage. Turn him loose and we may be able to discuss
turning you in to NIAC instead of your immediate execution.”

“To Hell with you, I’ll take my
chances.”

“Very well. Unfortunate news for you,
Curtis.”

I phased out as I kicked Marco hard in the
knee. When his foot flew back under the railing and off the edge
and he reflexively reached out for the railing to catch himself, I
bolted forward and tackled Dobbs.

The gun went off. I wasn’t sure if it was
before or after I connected with him or where it was pointed. All I
knew was that it cracked so loud in my ear that it wouldn’t
surprise me if I’d been the one shot. Dobbs and I hit the floor and
the gun spun away, bumping up against Nathan’s body. With my hands
bound there wasn’t much I could do. I rolled away from Dobbs right
before Marco grabbed him up off the floor.

I ran to Curtis who had sunk to the floor
but wasn’t bleeding anywhere that I could see.

“Get up!” I told him. I didn’t have time to
be decent about it. I kicked him in the ribs and said it again. He
tried and fell, catching himself on his hands near a pile of loot
from the Army/Navy store. “Get one of those knives. Do it now!” I
phased back and crouched down beside him. “I need you to cut me
free. I just saved your life. You owe me.”

He darted a glance at Marco, who was
smashing his fist into Dobbs’s face and not paying attention to us.
“You ratted me out and almost got me killed,” he gritted out, but
he had a knife and was pulling it from its packaging.

“Whatever.” I turned my back to him and held
out my wrists. Marco yanked Dobbs’s limp body off the floor. He was
back at the rail in a few, quick strides. Before I could decide if
I should do anything to stop him, he raised Dobbs over his head and
threw him over the railing.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said to
Curtis, giving him a shove toward the stairs.

“All right, that was a good practice run.”
Marco rolled his shoulders. “Felt good. Distraction over. Your
turn, buddy.”

I phased out again as Curtis and I darted
toward the stairs. But Marco was faster, blocking them before we
got there. I peeled off to the side, but Curtis tried to skid to a
stop and bumped into Marco who caught him by the shoulders.