One More Day (26 page)

“Are you going to keep it?”

I shook my head. “I had an idea about that. Can we transfer the deed to StrikeForce? Like, make it look like Jolene Faraday donated it to the team? I mean, that’s what I want to do, kind of.”

“I don’t think that would be too much trouble. I can get legal on it if you want.”

I nodded.

“Why, though?”

“Remember Darla and her family?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re dragging their feet about picking out a house for me to buy them. I think they feel weird accepting help. But what if StirkeForce just happened to have this house, specifically for this type of reason, where a super powered person needed it for a while? They couldn’t possibly feel weird about using something that already exists for that purpose, right?”

She studied me. “I think that’s a great idea. And a good way to honor your mother’s memory. Her house will end up being a haven for people who need it.”

“I thought she might like that. I just wish she could have lived there for a while.”

We parted ways once I got to my room, and I let myself in and fell into bed. I could shower later.

I was in the workout room, blissfully alone. I’d had the early morning patrol shift, and then I’d come here, just as I had for the past five days since my face-off against Killjoy. The rest of my teammates seemed to understand that what I really needed right now was to be left alone, and, for the most part, they kept their distance.

Most of my spare moments, I spent in the training room.

I was still wearing my uniform; I hadn’t bothered changing out of it after my shift. I stood in front of a heavy punching bag. It was black, hung from the ceiling with thick chains that clanked in a satisfying way when you hit the bag. I tried a couple of regular punches. Slow and pathetic, just as they’d been before. It was starting to become clear that I was never getting that part of myself back. And, honestly, it was the least important thing I’d lost, considering.

I could still hit hard, but I was so slow that unless the person didn’t see it coming, I didn’t have a chance in hell of actually hitting anyone.

I patted the bag, then stepped away, counting the steps it took to get me to the other side of the room. Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven steps took me to the edge of the sparring area. There were six concrete pillars spaced throughout the room, thirty-six recessed lights. Four weight machines; twenty-two sets of hand and free weights.

The counting is something I’d started doing the morning after Mama died. I’d listened to the heat kick on four times, counted the birds that flew by outside my bedroom window. I guess it was a way of coping, a way to keep from thinking about everything. I’d take it. It was stupid, but I’d take it.

Once I reached the other side of the room, I turned and looked back at the punching bag. It was easy to picture it as Killjoy (I refused to think of him as a person named Connor anymore), clad in black just as he always was. I took a breath, focused, and let loose an energy punch. It hit the bag with a satisfying “thump,” and the bag shook, just a little, on its chains. I did it again, and again, and again, picturing Killjoy’s death-black armor, hearing his voice in my head.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The bag started swinging wildly after each impact.

Again.

So easy.

All I had to do was toss a few nice words and an ugly pair of socks I bought on clearance at Kmart in your direction.

Pathetic.

I let out a loud growl and sent another energy punch. It impacted the bag, hard, and the chain holding the bag snapped. The bag went flying across the room, crashing into a weight bench and knocking it over before finally coming to rest.

“I’ll tell Portia to order another one,” I heard Jenson say behind me, and I turned to look at her. Her arms were crossed, and she was watching me. “Feel any better?”

“No.”

She walked in and sat on one of the benches along the wall, crossed her legs.

“Nobody found Death’s body,” she said softly.

“So he might have made it,” I said.

“Or his people grabbed the body when they disappeared, not knowing if he was alive or dead. You said Killjoy stabbed him through the chest. I doubt he survived that.”

I nodded. “I hope he didn’t.”

“Yeah.” She started to say something, closed her mouth, then opened it again as if she was trying to figure out how to say something.

“What is it? Spit it out,” I said, and she gave me a small smile.

“You know… if Death somehow had died at your hand, I wouldn’t judge you badly for it,” she finally said.

“You think I killed him?”

“I don’t know. Chance was asking if maybe you’d actually done him in, and I said as far as anyone knew, it was Killjoy.”

I took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill him,” I told her. “I wanted to. God, how I wanted to. When I first grabbed him in his apartment, I was so close to doing it, Jenson. But it wasn’t me.”

She nodded. “Okay. I figured that. And… when we finally come up against Killjoy again? Will you let him live?”

I met her eyes. “I can’t make any promises there,” I answered in a low voice.

“Fair enough,” she said. Then she sighed. “Killjoy. I still can’t believe it.”

“That makes two of us,” I said quietly.

The next day, I attended the small memorial service Portia had organized for Monica, Marie, and the rest of the people we’d lost when Killjoy’s people had pulled their little jail break. Portia, being Portia, had insisted on keeping it light, on celebrating their lives instead of focusing on how they’d died. I watched Dani closely throughout. I had to give Portia credit: it seemed to be exactly what she’d needed. I hugged her at the end of the service, and Dani hugged me back hard, then pulled back and looked at me intensely.

“You hurt the son of a bitch, with what you did, didn’t you?” she whispered.

‘I did.”

“You’re going to hurt him more, aren’t you?”

“Dani. I’m going to destroy the bastard. I promise.”

She took a breath, and I saw some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Thank you. If there’s ever anything you need, I’ll do it. I want him and everyone working with him to pay for what they did.”

“They will.”

She nodded, and I hugged her again. As the service broke up, I headed out. I had to meet Justin at the house (I was trying to stop referring to it as Mama’s house) to give him the last of the money I owed him for the repairs he’d done. They were finished now, and Jenson had gotten the StrikeForce legal department moving on transferring the deed. I took the bus, needing the extra time to think and be still.

There were about a million thoughts crowding my mind. Killjoy would lay low for a while and lick his wounds, but I didn’t doubt that he’d come after me again, and probably sooner rather than later. Aside from that, there was the increase we were seeing in super human disappearances. Part of me wanted to think that was Killjoy, but kidnapping and imprisonment wasn’t really his style. He just destroyed, then took what he wanted. There was also the issue Death had alluded to, about the formula being unstable and that being the cause of the low success rate of his tests. Killjoy was the only test subject to successfully integrate the formula into his body. What did that mean for him? I mean, hopefully it meant that eventually his body would painfully reject the formula, or it would wear off, or something like that. But I was getting used to the idea that things only get worse. I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for him to just kind of fade away.

There was something still nagging me about the day Killjoy’s people got into Command. They had Damian/Virus, which made it easy for them to get doors open and things like that, because he just manipulated the circuits. But something struck me the day we had watched the security feeds from that day. The security cameras outside the building went off about five minutes before it happened, as did the ones at the main entrance, which was where they’d come in. There were no guards at the front entry, which is where we usually put our best people. They both said they’d responded to an alarm on the lower level. When I checked the video feed from that area to see what it was, I’d found that the cameras in that area were — surprise, surprise — also mysteriously not working.

So, yeah. Maybe Virus’s powers somehow messed up only the cameras in three strategic positions. But they’d wanted to be seen. They wanted us to see how easy they did it. Christ, Maddoc had even waved and taunted me through one of the cameras.

It pointed to something I really didn’t want to think about too closely, which was the possibility that one of our own had helped them get in so easily.

I closed my eyes and listened to the various sounds on the bus. The usual, quiet conversation, the faint, tinny sound of music coming from someone’s headphones. When I opened my eyes again, I glanced down at my phone and noticed that there was a new message. Unknown number. I hit play and held it close to my ear.

“Bet you thought that was cute, huh Jolene?”

My stomach twisted. Because of course, it would be him.

“I said some things the other night that I didn’t mean.” I stared at my phone in disbelief. “I should have known better. Going after your mother was a terrible idea, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” He was quiet, and I could hear him breathing. “I went too far. I lost sight of some things. You made me see that. Because I’ve lost you completely now, haven’t I?”

Uh, obviously. “Jackass,” I muttered, and the woman sitting a couple seats over looked at me. “Not you. Sorry,” I said, and she nodded.

He was still talking. “I just don’t think you understand what I was trying to do, Jolene. I’m not trying to destroy anything, or rule the world or any shit like that. I’m trying to save it. I’ll make you see. I’ll be seeing you around.”

The message ended, and a chill went down my spine. He was really freaking delusional. I mean, just out of his goddamn mind.

And I hadn’t seen it.

How do you miss something so obvious? And it wasn’t just me. I knew that Ryan was dealing with his own frustration over not seeing Killjoy for what he was, for encouraging me to trust him. Maybe the formula had done something to him. I kind of wanted to believe that, just so I could think that maybe I wasn’t really that blind. But the fact was that he’d been emailing Alpha about his plan before he’d even met me, and long before Death had come up with an even remotely successful injection to give anyone.

It struck me, then, that he might have left a trail of bodies in his wake. Not just Mama, and Death… but all the traveling he did. All those reports about him helping out in different areas of the world, being a “public hero” as he’d called it. I wondered now, what he was really doing there.

It was something to look into.

I wanted to delete his message, but I kept it. I kind of wanted Jenson to hear it. I don’t know why. Maybe so I wasn’t the only one having to hear how nuts he sounded.

The bus rolled up to my stop and I got off and walked the six blocks to the house. It was sunny, and warm for winter in Detroit. I had my hands stuffed into my jacket pockets, clenched tightly as I turned onto the block with the house I’d bought. I made it up the steps and onto the porch without falling apart, even though I kept picturing the porch swing I’d intended to buy for Mama, because I could just see her sitting and reading out there in summer. I pushed it away and let myself in. Justin’s truck was parked in the street, so I knew he was already there.

“Hey, Jolene,” he said when I walked in. He was wiping down the kitchen counter.

“You clean, too?” I joked, and he grinned.

“Not for everyone.”

I nodded, and pulled the check I had for him out of my pocket. “Here’s what I owe you.”

He took it, searching out my eyes. I looked away.

“I hope your mom likes it,” he said, and I took a deep breath.

“My mom passed away,” I told him, forcing myself to look up. He stared at me in stunned silence, then recovered himself.

“I’m so sorry. Holy shit. What happened?”

I shook my head, blinking to keep myself from crying. He reached out and took my hand, and I gently pulled it away.

“Besides that… what happened last time…” I shrugged.

“Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t plan to.”

“I know. And if it makes you feel better, it was a hell of a kiss. But I’m just not in the right place to even think about anything like that.”

“Not even just being friends?”

I met his eyes. “You seriously wouldn’t be wondering about kissing again? Or maybe more? Because I would be.”

“You think men and women can’t be friends?” he asked.

“I know they can. I have several male friends, who are just friends. But we both know that’s not what’s going on here and it’s stupid and disrespectful to both of us to pretend otherwise. Right?”

He took a breath, then nodded. “You’re right.” Then he looked around. “I really am sorry to hear about your mom, though. I almost felt like I knew her from hearing you talk about her.”

I nodded. “She would have loved this place. You did an amazing job.”

“So, what now? Are you going to live here?”

I shook my head. “I can’t. And I can’t sell it, either. I’m donating it.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. My mom would have approved. So I donated it to StrikeForce.”

He furrowed his brow. “To… StrikeForce? Really?”

I nodded. “They sometimes need houses, for those times when things get out of hand and people are unable to go back to their old houses for whatever reason.”

“Uh huh,” he said, with a kind of pained expression on his face.

“And my mom was a big fan of the team. She just loved them,” I said quickly, because I really didn’t want to hear him say anything bad about my teammates, and I had a feeling that that was where he was going. The team has no lack of haters, and I guess he was one of them.

Admittedly, we probably deserve at least some of the dislike. Losing record, lots of property damage. I understand. I just didn’t feel like listening to it.

“Well, that’s good. It’ll make a nice home for someone,” he said, and I was glad he let it drop. We walked out the front door, and he locked up and handed me the spare key he’d been using. “Um. You still have my number. If you ever want to talk, or get together or whatever, I hope you’ll call.”