One More Day (10 page)

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Darla,” she said after a moment. “And I’m mad at you. Why’d you come after me?”

“Because if I hadn’t, you would have died in there, crushed under what’s left of your house. Is that what you wanted?”

She didn’t answer.

“Is it?” I asked more forcefully.

“No.”

“Okay. I didn’t want that either. I got you out because it’s what we do. We try to help people.”

“My daddy says you’re not very good at it.”

“Well, your daddy’s an a— ”

Jenson cleared her throat loudly.

“Your daddy’s an astute man,” I said, glancing at Jenson, who was shaking her head. “Sometimes, we’re not. But today, we got you out and that’s what matters. And we are not locking you up, and even if they planned on it, I wouldn’t let them. Can you trust me?”

“You promise?” she asked.

“Promise.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Mrs. Johnson,” Portia said to Darla’s mother, “we’ll take her to Command now. Do you want to travel with us, or meet us there?”

“Travel with you? Meaning?”

“Either have Daystar fly you or teleport with us,” Portia explained.

Mrs. Johnson looked a little bit green at the prospect. “I’ll just drive over, thanks,” she said. “I want to bring her father with me anyway. We’ll be there soon.”

Portia nodded, then thanked the officers and firemen on the scene. The two police officers each shook my hand, and the firefighting crew asked if I’d take a picture with them. I was about to argue when Jenson said “sure she will. Here. I’ll take it.” There was a crowd of bystanders around now, a good couple dozen or so. They’d pulled up in cars and on bikes. I was starting to get used to that, to the crowds and phones and stupid questions, social media feeds filled with pictures of us, bloggers and live streamers following every possible aspect of our lives. I stood and waited for Jenson to take the stupid picture.

The firefighters thanked her and gathered around me as Jenson stepped back and pointed the firefighter’s phone at us. “Smile!” she said, and they did, leaning in, giving the camera the thumbs-up. I stood stock still, glaring at Jenson through my mask. She couldn’t see it, of course, but by now she knew me well enough to know that I was giving her a death stare.

“There you go,” Jenson said, finishing up and handing the phone back to the firefighter.

“Marry me, Daystar,” one of the firefighters called, and the others whistled.

“You must have a deathwish, man,” I muttered, and the firefighters laughed. “Can we go now?” I asked Portia. She seemed to be hiding a smile, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“Sure. Let’s get back to Command.”

“Wait! Daystar, Bill Johnson from the News. I just have a quick question.”

I rolled my eyes and gestured to Portia to get on with getting us out of there.

“I’ve noticed since your fight against Maddoc that your powers seem different. With all due respect, you seem weaker,” the reporter continued.

“Do I?” I asked sarcastically. Portia stood beside me with her hand on Darla’s arm.

“Yes. I’m not the only one to have noticed. You don’t punch the way you used to. It’s like you’re just throwing yourself at your opponents. The theory is that you sustained lasting damage against Maddoc and we’re wondering, quite frankly, how you’re supposed to protect us if you aren’t one hundred percent.”

Portia started to talk and I held my and up, and she want silent. “I actually do have something to say to that, Mr. Greenberg.”

He held his phone out to capture my comment, and I raised each of my middle fingers at him, then raised them a little higher for emphasis, glaring through my mask.

I heard Portia sigh beside me, and she waved at the onlookers, then, in the next moment, she, Jenson, Amy, Darla, and I were standing in the detention facility at Command.

“Nice, Daystar. That was just lovely,” she muttered when we reappeared.

“Oh, come on,” I said when I realized where we were.

“Just for now. Until we figure this out and her parents get here,” Portia said.

“Told you they were gonna lock me up,” Darla told me.

“They are not.”

“We’re not,” Portia said forcefully. “We’re going to put you in one of these cells to talk to you while we try to figure this out. Okay?”

Darla just rolled her eyes. I was about to say something when Portia gave me a sharp look. I clamped my mouth shut. Even if I did feel like continuing to argue with her, what was there to say? “Oh, just let the cute little firestarter kid go. It’ll be fine.” Even I knew how ridiculous that sounded.

“You won’t be alone in there, okay? One of us will stay with you until your parents get here. Okay?” I said to Darla, and she nodded.

I watched Portia and Amy take Darla toward the women’s wing and was about to follow when Marie came running out of the men’s wing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“That Maddoc asshole. He’s got his hands loose. His feet are still secured, but none of us feel safe going in there to secure him. Portia’s not answering her comm— ”

“She’s busy with something. What about Caine or Beta?”

“They just left for patrol. Caine was filling in for Monica today, so he just took off with Beta,” she said.

I took a breath, trying to ease the way my stomach twisted. “Okay. I’ll deal with it,” I said.

I walked into the men’s wing, Marie at my side. Three other prison guards were there, looking into the cell at the end of the hall. They were hanging back, looking more than a little worried.

“He’s almost got one of his ankles free. He’s angry, but he’s also pretty pleased with himself right now,” one of the men said. Bob, or Rob, or something like that. Low-level empath, which means he is able to pick up what others are feeling, but there’s not a damn thing he can actually do with that information. It seems like a really frustrating power to have, and from what I’d heard, he’d been caught more than a few times drinking on the job.

I could hardly blame him. I’m not an empath in any way, shape, or form, but I sometimes want to drink on the job, too.

I walked past the guards, continuing down the corridor toward the cell on the end. The end cells are reinforced, for those with special powers. Maddoc inhabited it in this wing, and, when I’d been a prisoner, I’d inhabited the same cell in the women’s wing. I kept walking, even though it felt like I was walking through mud. My stomach was churning, and all I really wanted to do was run.

My nightmares, when they weren’t about things like my mother finding out what a fraud I am or being outed as a thief to the world, were nothing more than re-enactments of the last time I’d had to face Maddoc. Looking at him now, it all came slamming back to me. His enormous hands worked at the shackles around his ankle, and his bulging muscles strained under the effort. Veins stood out under his skin. He looked monstrous, and the cold, empty look in his eyes was one I wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon.

He glanced up and saw me coming toward him. He paused in trying to free his ankle, and sat up straight, looking casual and at ease.

“Daystar,” he said, loud enough that his voice echoed through the prison wing.

“Who turned his mic on?” I muttered.

“Rob did. He thought it would help us to hear what he was doing,” Marie said.

“Did it?”

She shook her head. “It’s not like we could do anything about it anyway.”

“Stay back,” I told her. “But be ready when I call you. Apparently, he’s still pretty strong, even with the dampener on.”

She nodded, and I kept moving forward, alone.

“You’ve been scarce here in the prison, Daystar. All your other teammates check in on us. Not you, though. Wonder why that is,” he said, crossing his arms, watching me with a smirk on his face. “You’re not scared, are you?”

I didn’t answer. Because yes, to be honest, I was fucking terrified. I could feel his hands on my throat, strangling the life out of me. At the same time, I was enraged. I was missing parts of who I was supposed to be, because of him. I had nightmares every night, because of him. I still had headaches, and my body refused to work the way it should, especially when I was tired. All because of him.

“You want to play again, Daystar?” he taunted.

I didn’t bother answering. I was thinking. Mostly, I was wondering if there was anyone else I could hand this particular shitty task off to. Since it seemed to be down to me, I had to figure out how to get him knocked out and restrained again without getting too close to him.

“Is Dani around?” I asked, pressing my comm.

“She is. What’s going on down there, Daystar?” Jenson asked.

“Oh, nothing much. Just Maddoc, with two hands free, trying to break out of the rest of his shackles.”

“Shit. Okay, I’ll send Dani down to you. Do you want me to call David or Caine back in?”

“I got it. Just send Dani.”

“Okay.”

I turned and looked back at Maddoc, who was still sitting in the same position, looking smug.

“Too scared to come in, Daystar?”

“I just don’t feel like dealing with your shit right now,” I said.

“Right,” he said with a smirk. “Come on in. Tie me down. Tell me what a bad boy I’ve been. You know you want to.”

“Well, there goes my breakfast,” I said in disgust.

“It’s okay. We’ll have plenty of time to play after my boss gets a hold of you.”

“As if he has a chance in hell of doing that.”

He smiled, an oily, slimy-looking smile. “I wouldn’t write him off just yet. He’s not like me. I get all impatient and ragey. Lose control. He’s not like that. He won’t make a mistake. But you will.” Then he laughed. “You already have. You have no idea.”

“What are you talking— ” At that second, Maddoc kicked out, hard, and I heard the shackle on his leg snap. He was down to one, and that one was looking pretty bad.

Where the hell was Dani?

He was bent over pulling at the shackle around his ankle, and I glanced around.

“Daystar, his dampener is malfunctioning,” Jenson said in my ear. Her normally calm voice sounded tense, stressed. “Do not go in there.”

And then the final shackle snapped, and he gave a triumphant shout.

“Get someone else down here, now,” I said. I ran forward, as fast as my clumsy legs would take me, and I met him at the door of his cell, which he was wrenching open from the inside. This. This is when the damage I sustained in my fight against him last time really hurt. I knew I was stronger than him, even when he wasn’t dampened. The difference was, his reflexes were normal and mine were shit. A fight against Maddoc right now, an actual hand-to-hand fight, which was clearly what he wanted, just wasn’t going to go my way no matter how bad I wanted to hurt him. I had to ignore my urge to try to make him pay. At least for now. This was about keeping him contained and away from everyone he could hurt if he got free.

I pushed hard against my side of the sliding door that separated his cell from the main corridor, trying to keep it pushed in the “closed” position, as he pushed in the opposite direction from his side. His face, up close through the shatterproof glass pane between us, turned red as he fought to open it.

“I am going to kill you when I get out of here,” he shouted. “Fuck what the boss says.”

I tried to ignore him, focusing all of my power on keeping the door closed. Every once in a while, he’d push harder and I’d lose some ground, the door slipping beneath my palms, but then I’d push harder and gain it back again.

“You’ll die with my hands around your neck. Your eyes’ll bulge, and your face’ll turn purple— ”

I tried to tune him out, even though his words made me flash back to that day. I’d tried, so many times, to insult or cajole myself into just “getting over it,” to try to force myself to forget what it felt like. It’s impossible to explain unless you’ve been there, unless you’ve felt yourself slipping away, how completely horrifying it is. And I’ve always prided myself on not being easy to scare, but those eternal moments, and the helplessness I felt as my lungs screamed for air and my chest exploded in pain, as my limbs went numb… I can’t forget it.

“Your body lost control last time,” he shouted. “Pissed yourself like a baby, you know that?” And then he laughed and pushed harder.

I felt the door start to creak, bending under the weight of the force we were putting on it. Reinforced steel, giving way under opposing sources of super-powered strength.

I heard footsteps behind me, running.

“We’re here,” I heard Jenson say.

“Dani?”

“I’m here.”

“Do your thing. Knock this fucker out.”

“It’ll get you too, though,” she said in a panicky tone.

“Better than him getting out and I’m starting to lose ground here. Do it!”

Dani went to the edge of the door, which was just starting to open as Maddoc pushed it open from his side. She opened her mouth wide, and everyone in the prison wing, myself included, was hit with a screeching blast of sound that felt like repeated stabs to the brain. I kept my eyes on Maddoc as I tried to ignore the agony. She’d been right next to his ear, ensuring that he got the worst of it, and he fell to the ground. I guess he was screaming, but I sure the hell wasn’t able to hear it over Dani’s eardrum shattering screech. He fell, hands to his ears, and I noted with some satisfaction that his ears were bleeding. As soon as he was down, I shoved the door open. Dani handed me a new dampener she’d brought with her as I walked past, and I nodded my thanks. I quickly fastened it around Maddoc’s throat, clicking the latch on it shut tightly, which activated its dampening powers.

I gave Dani a weak thumbs-up, and the horrendous noise ended. She helped me get Maddoc (who was unconscious by this point, and, from the looks of it, most of those in the prison wing had succumbed as well) into a chair in the next cell over. We secured him with the manacles, and Jenson came back with a second dampener.

“Just in case,” she said as she slipped it over his head and activated it. Her face was grim, angry, even. “How the hell could this happen?” she asked, and I wasn’t sure if she was asking me or just venting out loud. I sure the hell didn’t know how his dampener had managed to fail.