A New Day (StrikeForce #1) (6 page)

“What are you doing?” he asked, much more calmly than I would have if I’d found someone poking around in my house. He was studying me, and I felt like he was seeing far too much. I hated being seen, even under the best of circumstances. But this? This was a nightmare, and he was too close, and he could undoubtedly give a better description of me than any of my other victims would have been able to. “Well?” he asked. His voice was low, smooth.

“You weren’t supposed to be home right now,” I said quietly.

To my surprise, he let out a short laugh.

“Sorry for messing up your plans,” he said. “Not much worth stealing, is there?”

I didn’t answer. I was trying not to make it obvious that I was looking at my exit options. In this room, I had two: jump out the window, hope I landed in the pool, and try to make a dripping-wet getaway. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to jump from the second floor. That, or shove past him and run like hell.

I really didn’t feel like jumping. I already felt like crap, and if I landed wrong, I could end up incapable of running.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m sure you are. It sucks to get caught,” he said, and I walked toward the door, trying to plan how I’d get past him. Maybe a kick to the nuts? Maybe a quick jab to the face, just enough to distract him so I could run out. I didn’t want to hurt him, though. That was a line I wouldn’t cross, and I’d gone this long without doing so. I’d never even gotten close to having a confrontation with a homeowner during one of my jobs.

How the hell had I gotten myself into this mess?

“You’re the one who’s been doing all of these burglaries, huh?” he asked. He held his hands up when I started to move. I stopped. My heart was pounding and my mouth was so dry my tongue felt stuck to the roof of my mouth. I licked my lips nervously. Something in his eyes, something in that placid expression on his face, creeped me out. Why wasn’t he more pissed? Why wasn’t he reaching for a phone?

“Did you call the cops?” I asked, and he laughed.

“Not likely.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Was he telling the truth? And if not, what was he planning to do?

“The cops think it’s a guy doing these, you know?” he asked. “I was sure of it, too, until you talked. Funny how much a bulky sweatshirt and a scarf can hide, huh?” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb, still blocking me inside the room, but looking a lot more relaxed. “They never even thought it could be a woman.”

“Well. I’m not built in an especially girly way, maybe,” I said.

He shrugged. “Or maybe they just assume it has to be a guy doing this type of thing.”

“Maybe.”

Where the hell was he going with this? What was he going to do? I didn’t plan to stick around to find out.

“I didn’t get anything,” I said.

“I know. I was watching you on the security feed.”

I took a breath. All I could do was blame how crappy I was feeling. How antsy I’d become, sitting around doing nothing in my new, crappy apartment. Either way, I’d been stupid to come out and try to do a job when I felt so off. What was wrong with me?

“Look… I’m really sorry. And I didn’t get anything, and—“

“So you think you can just break into my house and say ‘sorry’ and that’s it?” he asked, still with that calm, smooth voice, but with that unreadable look in his eyes.

“I was hoping,” I said. I started edging toward the window.

“Would you be okay with me breaking into your house?”

“I don’t have anything worth stealing,” I said.

It felt like my heart was about to pound right out of my chest. It was hard to breathe. It felt like I was going to pass out, which would be really bad with creepy rich guy standing right there. And creepy though he was, I still didn’t want to risk hurting him. He didn’t exactly look like the kind of guy who’d take a hit well, kind of pale and drawn-looking. I took another step toward the window overlooking the swimming pool.

“That window doesn’t open,” he said.

“I don’t care,” I answered.

And then I ran, fast, and leapt, taking the impact of hitting the window, knowing I’d pay for it later. My teeth clinked together, and my head ached immediately.

And then I was falling.

And I’d misjudged where the window was in relation to the swimming pool.

The patio stones seemed like they were leaping up to meet me. And there was a shout from the window above.

This was not the way I wanted to die, splattered on some millionaire’s bluestone patio.

And then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t falling.

I was flying toward the pool, which was where I’d hoped to land.

I screamed, despite myself. I almost fell into the pool, but at the last moment, I straightened my body and ended up soaring over it.

Confluence.

Was it even possible?

I was flying toward the trees that surrounded the guy’s property, and I thought of how it looked when things flew on TV. I pulled up, and I started rising.

I let out a whoop of relief and soared higher, higher, over the trees, over the neighborhood. Another shout came from behind me but I had no intention of turning back.

Not when I could fly instead.

I didn’t know how I was doing it. It’s like trying to explain how to breathe or how to make your heart beat. I just
was
. I could feel my body pushing forward through the sky. If I leaned left, I’d go left. If I leaned right, I’d go right.

All super interesting, but I mainly didn’t want to be seen. I had a feeling that would be a really, really stupid scene. And I’d had enough unplanned encounters for one day.

I got my bearings. Okay. I was over Detroit. There was Jefferson. I knew there was a bus stop nearby, because this wasn’t the first house I’d hit in Indian Village. They just didn’t get noticed quite as much, because Indian Village was in the Detroit city limits and for some reason, the media only seemed to think I robbed the suburbs. Apparently, even thieves are supposed to be afraid to cross Eight Mile.

To the left, there was a field, behind the Waldorf school I’d walked past a couple of times while casing the neighborhood.

I’d have to risk it. It was the emptiest place nearby, and I had to figure out how the hell to land now that I was, insane as it was, up in the air.

I got over the back part of the field, glanced around. It was well after school hours, and the sky was mercifully dark. I tried pulling back, and that resulted in slowing down. I tried standing straight up in the air, but it felt weird, wobbly. And I was just kind of… stuck there. Nothing happened. I definitely wasn’t getting any closer to the ground. I felt even more wobbly the longer I stood there, and ended up flailing in a blind panic before righting myself again.

I lifted my legs as if getting ready to jump, seeing if I could kind of force myself down with the help of gravity, but all that did was make me rise further into the air.

My stomach twisted, and the thought flitted through my mind, that what if I was stuck up here now? What if this was it?

It almost made me want to laugh, if I hadn’t been completely terrified. I tried the jumping thing again, and ended a couple feet higher in the air.

What the hell? I pictured every single video game or super hero movie I’ve ever seen. Freaking Superman just lands, all composed, on his feet. It was just my luck that though there were undoubtedly other supers who could fly, I’d never seen any videos of them, or, more specifically, how the fuck they got themselves out of the sky.

I took a breath. Someone was going to see me soon if I didn’t stop floating in midair.

I lunged, flying again, but this time, I maneuvered myself, angling my body down, the way an airplane looks when it lands. Hopefully, I could get my feet beneath me once I got down to the ground.

Hopefully, I’d be able to actually
stay
on the ground. What if I was stuck floating around all the time now?

I shoved the thought aside. I’d panic about that when the time came, if I had to.

As I neared the ground, as it almost felt like it was leaping up to bash me right in the face, I tried to pull back, hoping to land on my feet.

Instead, I faceplanted into the soccer field behind the school, plowing into the earth, hard. Dirt and grass filled my mouth, which I’d stupidly opened to scream again. The impact on my face just made the headache from smashing through Rich Guy’s window pound a little harder. I finally came to a stop and groaned and rolled over onto my back, spitting out clumps of dirt as I did.

At least I was on the ground, and not floating off into the sky, I thought as I lay there and looked up, up to where I’d just been.

And despite myself, despite how much I hurt, I couldn’t help smiling.

I’d just fucking
flown
. I had powers. Maybe a more sane response would have been to be afraid, freaked out. There had been a lot of that with the First Confluence, when powered people first appeared. Suicides, even. I could understand, I guess. It was terrifying, in its way.

Flying.

Then I looked beside where I was, at the long, deep furrow I’d left in the field. An impact like that probably should have killed me, but all I had to show for it was a headache and a mouth full of dirt.

Yeah. It should have scared me. New powers, new strength. It was freaky as hell.

But it also guaranteed that there was not a single thing that represented a physical threat to me now, and my life was never going to be the same.

Chapter Four

I spent the next few days alternately wondering whether I should tell my mother about what had happened to me and figuring out how to fly. I was still shit at landing, but I took off and flew well enough. Of course, that much had been true almost from the start, but it was better than admitting that I’d probably always fall, rather than land.

The other part of my new powers, the strength thing, was proving to be more of a pain in the ass than anything else. Getting back to my apartment that first night, I ended up pulling the knob out of my door, when I’d meant to give it a normal twist and pull. I attributed that to the crappy condition the building was in, but it became pretty clear, that, no, it was me. I was stumbling around, bumping into things, awkward, like I’d forgotten how all my parts are supposed to work together or something. Within a couple hours, two broken handles of things I’d been trying to open, and a severely bruised knee from bumping into things, I was about ready to lock myself in my room and not come out for a long time.

I almost would have done it, too. There was no chance of going back to class, not the way I was bumbling around, having no idea how my new powers even worked.

The news reports had been following up on the storms, which they’d quickly dubbed “Confluence 2.” We’d had twelve lightning strikes in Michigan, which, they hypothesized from what they’d learned after the first Confluence, equaled twelve new powered people. They tracked a lightning strike to Hamtramck. That was me, I guess. One in Grosse Pointe Shores, one in Traverse City, one in Detroit, four in the upper peninsula, three in the thumb area, and one somewhere around the middle of the state. Nineteen other strikes across the U.S. There was some debate about why Michigan had so many, and the theories were everything from all of the lakes around harnessing more energy to a higher proportion of the population having whatever it is in us that makes us turn. It had been true in the first Confluence, too, when six of the known thirty-one powered people were from Michigan. One of them had gone on to create StrikeForce. The other two became North America’s first super villains, Dr. Death and Daemon. No one knew their actual names, and I think that made people fear them even more.

My mind kept going to the guy I’d tried to rob. He’d seen me fly. I’d expected to see something in the newspapers or on the evening news about how the big bad burglar was not only a woman, but apparently a powered person as well. But there was nothing, and all I could do was wonder if maybe he’d forgotten. Maybe he’d written it off as a dream or something. Either way, I was glad to have my anonymity a while longer. I didn’t care so much for me, but I didn’t want Mama to hear about what I was up to. Not that I was ashamed, but because she wouldn’t understand and I didn’t need her stressing out over anything else. God knew she’d done enough of that in her lifetime already.

The worst thing about it all, other than the klutziness, was the restlessness. I wanted to be out, moving. I wanted to hit a few places I’d had under surveillance, sure now that I could get away with no problems at all. I wanted to check in with Luther and find out if she’d managed to pass off that stupid necklace I’d grabbed the last time around. But I couldn’t do any of it, not when it felt like I barely knew how to walk through a room anymore.

I Googled. I read through stories from the first Confluence, and it took a while, but I ended up digging up an old interview with Alpha, who was the leader of StrikeForce. His known powers, as far as I knew, were super strength and an indestructible exterior. Meaning he couldn’t be shot, stabbed, or punched in any way that would actually hurt him. It actually made me wonder a few things. First off, I wondered why he was rarely seen out in the field when the other StrikeForce members were fighting or arresting a powered person. I knew he funded the team and did lots of press conferences and photo ops. Maybe he went out on secret missions or something.