How to Save the World (4 page)

“Got it,” Kiki said, looking a little weak-­kneed with relief. “You won't have to deal with him. You just have to help us get him back.”

“In exchange for looking for Petra,” Brook said, glaring at Guy.

“You've got my word on that,” he said. He held a hand out to shake and I wanted to roll my eyes at him. Didn't he understand where Brook's powers originated?

Luckily, she only shook his hand. “Then let's do this.”

I had a very bad feeling about this.

But that wasn't unusual, really. Not with my life.

 

CHAPTER 4

T
he worst part about hostage situations—­that brief, pants-­wetting moment of terror at the beginning aside—­wasn't the threats or even the pain or listening to the villains lose themselves in the poetry of their own terrible soliloquies. No, years and years of dealing with the villains of Chicago had taught me that there was something far worse: waiting.

It was bad enough as a hostage, hanging out and anticipating that moment Blaze would come flying in, fists up and ready to face any number of weapons to come save me. Granted, I'd had my coping methods, which had been primarily daydreaming about all the TV I'd catch up on in the hospital. On the other side of the equation, waiting for the ransom call to come in, it was ten times worse.

“Gail,” Angélica said, and I got the feeling she was laughing at me—­because she was; it was one of her favorite things to do. “It's been less than a day. This is . . . what would you say? Peanuts. This is peanuts compared to what we usually deal with.”

“I know.” I hit the punching bag with a fluttering combination, pulling my punches because I didn't want to destroy Angélica's equipment. Her gym, the Power House, was theoretically equipped for Class Cs, but I'd destroyed a punching bag the day she'd opened and she had yet to forgive me. “It's the lack of information I hate most. Who's doing this? Why? Where's Mobius been? Why is this happening now?”

“Mm,” Angélica said.

“And I know—­” I hit the bag again, a little harder, and she continued to brace it “—­Davenport won't share any info. The only reason either of us know about this at all is because of Guy.”

“And Kiki, don't forget.”

I sneaked a glance at my trainer and roommate out of the corner of my eye. If I had complicated feelings about Dr. Mobius, my creator, Angélica's own thoughts on Kiki had to be a mess. Kiki had been the one to give her the Mobium, in order to save her life. Angélica still had her original powers, but they interacted strangely with the Mobium, and she didn't use them as much now. I knew it frustrated her, but she never complained. Not to me, anyway. Even though we'd cut ties with Davenport, she still viewed our relationship the way she had while we were there, with the same determination to see me succeed and also to protect me. But how much of that loss did she blame on Kiki? Or did she blame Kiki at all? I'd never been able to tell.

Midafternoon on a Saturday meant the gym was semipacked. Angélica had used some start-­up capital to gut an older warehouse not far from our apartment. She'd set up several boxing rings next to speed bags, punching bags, and weight training equipment. She had a room dedicated to treadmills and ellipticals, one I didn't use as often. Now that I could run for ages, I preferred to be outside, sneakers pounding against the pavement and the wind in my hair. But I made plenty of use of the rest of the gym, particularly the boxing rings. Usually with Angélica herself.

I hit the bag, a one-­two punch followed by an uppercut, and danced back. “Seriously, though, why now?”

“I have no idea, Gail,” Angélica said.

“No theories?”

“They'd be theories and nothing more, and not actually all that satisfying.”

I wrinkled my nose at her. “You're being all Mr. Miyagi levels of inscrutable today.”

“Am I?”

“I'm just saying, you're maybe taking this mentor thing a little far. Theatrically so.”

“Mm,” Angélica said, and I threw a wild punch at her forehead.

She dodged easily and laughed. “You're too easy.”

“So I've been told.”

“Now can we talk about what's really bothering you?” Angélica asked.

I scowled and hit the bag hard enough to make it swing lazily, even with Angélica bracing it. “I'm worried about Guy. I don't like him working with Brook. She's dangerous. And no, before you say anything, I am not jealous that my boyfriend's working with another woman.”

“Considering his usual crime-­fighting partner is an actual supermodel and that never seems to bother you,” Angélica said, “I didn't think you were. Of course, I might change my mind, since jealousy is the first place your brain went. Are you jealous?”

“No,” I said, jabbing first at the bag and then at her.

She dodged. “You sound a little jealous. Maybe it's not Brook you're jealous of, but Guy.”

The idea was so absurd it made me laugh. “What the hell?”

She tried to sweep my legs out from under me. I blocked and made my counterattack, which drove her back a foot. Twenty seconds later, she had me in an armlock. “Hey, I've heard what prison roommates sometimes get up to. Just saying.”

“Oh my god, I hope you're joking.” I tapped out and squared off against her again, waiting for the inevitable attack. Angélica believed in turning any situation into a learning opportunity for sparring, even making scrambled eggs in the kitchen at two in the morning. Admittedly, food had proved to be a good motivator in that case.

Right now, though, she didn't strike. Instead, she sighed at me. “What are you doing, Gail?”

“Hopefully kicking your ass.”

The snort and the reproachful look really didn't go well together, but Angélica tried. “You're a perfectly capable fighter,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and looking down her nose at me. She was only, like, an inch taller than me, so it was an impressive feat to pull off. “You need to be working on something else, and we both know it.”

I scowled and stretched. “I really don't feel like repeatedly jumping off a roof right now.”

“You landed in a dumpster. That doesn't inspire you to work on your phasing?”

Phasing was difficult and it felt more impossible to control than 'porting, which I actually could not control at all. To phase, I needed to be in motion to start, and it was a matter of altering my momentum to “throw” me farther and faster than I could move regularly. A skilled phaser like Angélica made it seem like 'porting by moving from one side of a large space to another in the blink of an eye. I kicked the toe of my sneaker against the ground in annoyance. “I'll get it eventually.”

“Not unless you work on it. Right now would be a good time.”

“Work on what?” said a new voice behind me.

I straightened up to my full height—­as paltry as it was—­and swiveled on my heel. “Nothing important.”

Jessica Davenport raised an eyebrow at me. “Your trainer doesn't seem to think it's ‘nothing important.' ”

“
Thank
you,” Angélica said, but I could tell she'd gone stiff, like she was wary.

That made sense. As the daughter of Kurt Davenport, Jessie owned half of Davenport Industries and was therefore one of the richest women in the world. She'd inherited more than money from her father—­Kurt Davenport was also the original Raptor. He was dead now, but the mantle had been passed down to the woman picking her way across Angélica's cramped gym.

If there was anybody in the room to be wary of, it would be her.

“No, really, it's nothing. I can work on it later,” I said to Jessie. I'd gotten to know her when she'd hunted me down after my escape from Detmer. She'd also rescued me from Cooper—­but only after using me as bait to find out what he was up to. Our relationship status on all social media networks remained firmly in the “Complicated” zone. I didn't consider her an enemy, but we weren't exactly friends. “What brings you to Chicago? Miss me that much?”

Jessie actually looked partially amused, for once. “I assure you, any day without you is one I consider that much dimmer.”

“Is that Wordsworth?” I asked.

“Not quite.” She turned to look at all of the activity around us. “Audra kicked me out of my base for the morning. She said that I was annoying her, so I thought I might see if you were up for a bit of sparring.”

I squinted at her. “Your assistant has the power to kick you out?”

“It's never wise to cross the woman who knows your social security number better than you do. You mind?” She nodded at the nearest ring.

I glanced over my shoulder at Angélica, who'd been weirdly silent. She gave me a shrug.

“Sure, I guess,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and hauled myself over the ropes in one easy motion. I'd sparred with Jessie before, the second time she'd dropped by to scope out the Power House. The first time Jessie had dropped by, it had been a shock. After all, Angélica's gym was small-­time, and Jessie was the Raptor, one of the scariest ­people I knew. I still had no idea what her powers were. At least sparring with her would give me another chance to figure it out.

Angélica surprised me by jumping up on the edge of the ring and grabbing my hoodie, tugging me back to the ropes. “Remember, it's just sparring. Pull your punches.”

“Yes, Mr. Miyagi.”

She cuffed the back of my head and called me a rude word in Portuguese, but she smiled.

Jessie climbed through the ropes on the other side, movements a little slow. When she didn't wrap up her hands, I sighed and began to unwrap my own. I preferred gloves on, but Jessie called the shots.

With anybody else, I might have made a crack about the loser buying the beer. I wasn't nearly that comfortable with the Raptor.

“So what are you avoiding, Ms. Godwin?” Jessie asked.

“You really can just call me Gail, you know. I don't mind.”

Jessie only gave me a small ghost of a smile.

“I'm avoiding being having to repeatedly jump off a roof for three hours with nothing to show for it but a lot of bruises,” I said, watching her stretch. “It seems the powers I absorb I can only use subconsciously. And maybe that's for the best, really.”

“A warrior never turns down an opportunity to better herself.”

“I'm an assistant editor,” I said. That had been my official job title before my inadvertent hiatus while I'd been in prison, anyway. We hadn't really negotiated the new details.

“Even so.” Jessie folded one hand over the other, clasped in front of her, and bowed shortly at the waist.

I returned the bow, and had to duck very quickly as she attacked almost immediately. I heard the whistle of air over my head as her fist missed me, and then I was too busy dodging and blocking to do much but focus on fighting off the next blow. As ever, she fought in vicious spurts. She laid into me with a flurry of kicks and hits that I blocked (for the most part), then swung out when I tried to jab back at her. In a flash, she yanked the hood of my sweatshirt over my eyes.

“Dammit!”

Her foot snapped into my solar plexus, forcing me back onto the ropes. I didn't bother to shove the hood off my face; my hearing picked her up perfectly as she followed that up with a haymaker. I closed my eyes and sidestepped. I heard her jump back as I tried a roundhouse kick. She landed oddly heavily for a woman who was one of the best martial artists in the world.

When I tried to yank the hood off, it didn't budge.

“What did you do to me?” I asked.

“Evening the odds. No rules in the ring, remember?”

“Stacking the odds, you mean.” I grumbled a few obscenities. It wasn't the first time I'd had to fight blind. Hell. The last person to make me do that—­Jessie's mother, Rita Detmer—­hadn't nearly been this nice about it. I didn't bother trying to fix the hood anymore. It seemed wiser to focus on listening to her.

For a minute or two, I even held my own. But a crackle of static caught me off guard, something slammed into my midsection and zapped hard, and she had me in a headlock.

“Ugh,” I said, reaching out blindly to tap out.

When she released whatever sticking formula she'd used to glue my hood over my face and I could see again, I looked up into her grinning face. “Are you ever going to fight fair?”

“If it gets my ass kicked, no. Are you ever going to stop whining about it?”

“Maybe,” I said, more than a little grumpy. Losing sucked.

Laughter pealed out from the side of the ring, and I looked over to discover that not only had I lost, but I'd had an even bigger audience than I'd thought. I had no idea when Vicki had arrived. Hopefully she hadn't seen too much of me getting my ass handed to me by a woman twice my age. “Nice form, mentee,” Vicki said as I yanked off the whole hoodie. “The hood's a good look for you. Maybe that should be your new uniform.”

“I don't want a uniform,” I said.

Vicki pouted. She wore her own uniform, the black bodysuit that would have enabled Plain Jane to blend in to any shadow if it weren't for the brightness of the white mask currently hooked to her hip. “You should have one, though. You're too witty not to be on the front lines. I could design you something.”

“Get in line,” I said, thinking about Raze.

Vicki turned to grin at Jessie. “Raptor.”

Jessie nodded back. “Plain Jane.”

“Guess Chicago's a happening place today,” Vicki said, leaning over and digging her elbows into the top rope. “What brings you into town? Please tell me it's to humiliate Gail.”

“I had other business, but that was the primary objective, yes.”

I gave Jessie a little bit of a side-­eye, wondering how much truth there was to that statement. Ever since our adventure blowing up the Lodi Corp building together, she'd taken a weird interest in me. This wasn't the first sparring match I'd endured that had some kind of lesson attached. I had no idea
why
, though.

“And you?” Jessie asked, looking at Vicki's uniform.

“Oh, I'm here all the time,” Vicki said. “Sometimes I use my fame for good. Especially to help my friend. If ­people find out Plain Jane works out at the Power House, they're gonna flock to this place.”

I snorted. Vicki liked Angélica okay, but Angélica seemed to find her bothersome.