Remember Jamie Baker (4 page)

Sadly, he was right. It had been embarrassingly easy for them to grab me when the playing field was even. But it’s not like having superstrength automatically makes someone a ninja. I’d never been in a battle before.

“Excuse me for not being a trained fighter.”

Laughing, the man reached up with his gloved hand and ran a finger down the side of my face. “Did you miss me, gorgeous? Maybe now that I’m as strong as you, we should have a little fun before I take you back.”

I jerked my face away from his finger.

A gun cocked. Motel Guy stood behind the counter, with a pistol pointed at my captors. “Let go of her!”

In the blink of an eye, one of the men had disabled the weapon and was holding the confused man in his arms. The poor guy was going to get hurt for trying to help me. I couldn’t let that happen. “Touch him, and I’ll kill you.”

All three of the strangers laughed at my threat.

I tried again to break free of the man holding me, but failed. He tightened his grip so hard that he started to crush my chest. I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out in pain.

The man standing in front of me watched my struggle with a sick sort of amusement. “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, balling up his hand. The rubber of his glove squeaked as he tightened his fist. His knuckles may have been padded because of the electricity-proof gloves, but I had no doubt it would still hurt when he punched me.

“Lorenz,” the man holding me warned. “What are you doing? You know Donovan will go ballistic if you do any unnecessary damage to her.”

I knew the name Donovan. James Donovan was head of Visticorp. Tony had told me a lot about him and the kinds of things he’d done to us in the labs. That meant these guys were with Visticorp.

“I owe her a shattered knee,” Lorenz growled to his companion.

He only took his eyes off me for a second, but it was just the distraction I needed. Thanks to my captor holding me so tightly around my upper body, I was able to pick up both of my feet and kick them straight out into my would-be assailant’s chest before he could dodge it. I landed the kick with so much force that Lorenz went flying backward right through what was left of the front of the motel.

The impact of my kick also knocked the guy holding me off his feet and we crashed to the ground. I broke free from his hold. He snagged me again, but couldn’t grab both of my arms before I got a grip on his hair.

“You really should have made a mask or a helmet to go with your nifty suit,” I said as I let my energy break loose. I was so amped up that I might have overdone it just a tad with the voltage as I roasted the guy. His entire body locked up so tight that he couldn’t even scream.

Motel Guy’s mystified gasp snapped me out of my rage, and I realized that if I didn’t let go of the man soon I would kill him. I was tempted—it was self-defense, and he deserved it—but I wasn’t a killer.

When I dropped him, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out. I barely had time to catch my breath before the third guy threw Motel Guy across the room and tackled me. He moved so fast I didn’t even have time to brace myself for the hit.

He pounded me into the ground so hard that my head made an indent in the concrete pad beneath the linoleum floor. Pain shot through my whole body, making things go black for a moment. When I came to my senses, the man was on top of me with his gloved hands wrapped around my neck.

“I don’t care if Donovan wants you alive,” he said as he choked the life out of me with his superstrong fingers. “You are too dangerous. He’s a fool to think he’ll ever be able to control you.”

My lungs were on fire. I clawed at his hands, but I was too weak from hitting my head so hard to do any damage. I reached for the man’s face next—if I could just come into contact with his skin—but he was twice my size, and it was like he had gorilla arms. I couldn’t reach him.

There was only one more thing I could think to do. If I accomplished it, I would kill the man. I didn’t want to take a life, but at this point it was him or me, and I wasn’t in the mood to die right then.

Just as I can manipulate the electricity in the atmosphere around me, I can direct the energy in my body. When I build up enough of it, I can release it in the form of lightning bolts. It is seriously a cool power to have. I’ve always been envious of Tony’s telekinesis, but I wouldn’t trade my lightning for it.

I didn’t want to use my lightning right now, but I had no other choice. I was dying. The superfreak was strangling me to death. My vision started to blur into darkness and my arm felt as heavy as a freight train, but I lifted it and aimed my hand at the only part of my attacker that was not covered by his special suit—his head. I pushed all the energy in my body to my arm, until my palm was practically on fire.

Just before I released a bolt of lightning into the man’s face, he fell to the floor with a thud, completely unconscious. I sucked in a breath, welcoming the sting of air as it filled my lungs. As I coughed and tried to regain my wits, a boy suddenly appeared standing over the unconscious man, holding a tranquilizer gun in his hands and wearing a smile the size of Texas. “Hey, Angel. Long time no see.”

I must have hit my head
harder than I thought, because I swear the boy had just appeared out of thin air. Like,
poof
and he was there. I say
boy
, because that’s what he was. Sort of. He couldn’t be more than sixteen. He was a little stocky with brown hair, brown eyes, and a light dusting of freckles. “Neat trick, eh?” he said as he nudged the unconscious man with his foot. He sounded like Hugh Jackman—or rather, Hugh Jackman if the Australian native were going through puberty.

He checked the pulse of the first guy I’d zapped into unconsciousness, then shot a tranquilizer dart into his neck. “Better safe than sorry,” he explained with another grin. “These are horse tranquilizers. He’ll be out for hours.”

“There was one more,” I croaked, my throat burning from the effort to speak.

“Your friend outside? Nah, I got him first. You made it easy for me, though. He was still out cold on the front sidewalk when we drove up. Nice job.” He glanced over his shoulder and shouted, “We’re clear!”

Before I could ask any questions, a whole team of soldiers in full body armor carrying assault rifles flooded the motel. Even though these guys had just helped me, they looked like military. I didn’t want to be captured by the government any more than I wanted to be taken by Visticorp. I needed to get out of here.

I started to sit up, fighting against the raging headache of my first superconcussion, and was gently pushed back down by one of the soldiers. I would have fought him, but there was no point. The second I moved, my stomach rolled with a wave of nausea, and my vision clouded over with dark spots. I groaned and let my eyes fall shut. I was either going to throw up or pass out or both.

“Hang on, Sunshine. The medic’s coming.”

Startled by the intimate way the stranger spoke to me, I forced my eyes back open to get a look at the guy helping me. Move over Chris Evans, I’d just found my new poster child for
gorgeous
. The guy was about my own age, and well built with broad shoulders. He had golden blond hair and big, beautiful blue eyes that I instantly found myself lost in. It wasn’t just that they were the color of a clear sky; it was the way they drank in the sight of me, as if they’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“Who are you?”

The younger boy popped into my vision over Mr. Beautiful’s shoulder. “We’re the ACEs,” he chirped. “This guy with the dopey smile on his face is Ryan Miller.”

Ryan Miller. My gaze snapped back to Ryan, and when we made eye contact, the look on his face changed from concern to one that turned my stomach inside out. He stared at me as if I were the goddess Aphrodite and I had just magically enslaved his heart for all eternity. The longing in his expression was truly startling. “Hi,” he breathed. He sounded as if he’d had the air knocked out of his lungs.

“Um…hi?” This guy was seriously throwing me off with his intensity. It was hard to think with him looking at me like that.

“He also answers to Loverboy, Romeo, or Goldilocks,” the teenage boy continued to explain as Ryan and I stared at one another. “And I’m Tyson, a.k.a. Invisidude.”

That pulled my gaze from Ryan’s beautiful baby blues back to the boy. “Invisidude? Seriously?”

“Yeah, as in ‘now you see me…’” He vanished right before my eyes and called out from the open air, “And now you don’t.”

That’s when I realized how he’d simply appeared before; he’d been invisible. He was like me. He had powers. “What?” I gasped. “You’re… How…?”

Before they could explain, another man knelt down in front of me and shined a flashlight into my eyes. “Are you dizzy?” he asked while another guy began probing my head.

I’d have rolled my eyes at the idiotic question if my head didn’t hurt so badly. “I just got slammed through a concrete floor. What do you think?”

I glared at the other guy, who kept pushing on my head. “There’s a thing called personal space, buddy, and you’re totally abusing it. Touch me again, and you’ll learn what a microwave dinner feels like.”

Both medics immediately backed off, and rightfully so. I am one scary woman when I’m really pissed off. I wasn’t bluffing, either. If that guy pushed on one more bruise, I’d have fried him.

Ryan didn’t move, though. He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t back away. He wasn’t scared of me at all. In fact, he chuckled at my threat. It was annoying, and considering my current mood, I was tempted to zap the grin off his face no matter how nice his smile was. He grinned at my scowl. “They’re paramedics, Angel. They’re just trying to make sure you’re okay.”

Ryan moved toward me again and I thrust my hand out, ready to use my electricity if I needed to. “I don’t care who any of you are. Don’t come any closer.”

Unexplainable hurt flashed across Ryan’s face that was so genuine I actually felt guilty, but I didn’t have time to try and figure out what his deal was. I scanned the room and turned my attention to the man I deemed the leader. The harsh-looking guy had dark eyes and sharp features, with salt-and-pepper hair cropped close to his head. He stood in front of me with his arms folded tightly across his chest, in a crisply-pressed highly-decorated uniform. Definitely the man in charge. He appraised me warily, but there was a glint of excitement in his eyes that made me nervous. “If you think I’m going to let you take me away to study or experiment on, then you’re not as smart as you look. Visticorp didn’t get me, and you won’t, either.”

I let my energy take over completely until it was crackling on the surface of my skin. Several of the soldiers in the room gasped and a few stepped back, raising their weapons as if they considered me a threat—a much more appropriate response to my anger than Ryan’s laughter had been.

Neither Ryan nor his boss flinched. “We only want to help you,” Ryan said quietly. “Please trust us.”

You know what word you won’t see in my personality notebook?
Idiot
. I barked out a harsh laugh and shook my head. “You’re military.”

“We’re the good guys, Angel,” Tyson—I refused to call him Invisidude—said.

I looked around the room at all the soldiers who still had their weapons trained on me, and then glared at the leader. “All I see is a group of guys pointing guns at me.”

After a moment of tense silence, Ryan sighed and looked at his boss. “She has a point, sir.”

The leader considered Ryan’s words, and then nodded. “Everyone stand down.”

All of the soldiers in the room lowered their guns. It was a start, but it wasn’t good enough. “Drop them,” I ordered.

The man in charge held his ground. “That’s not safe, Angel. There are more supersoldiers where your attackers came from, and they’re probably not that far away. We need to leave, and we’d like you to come with us, at least for now. Just to talk.”

Trusting
is definitely not a word you’ll find written in my personality notebook either, but he made a convincing argument about the
supersoldiers
as he’d called them, and the kid, at least, was like me. Still, I needed a little more info before I went anywhere with them. “Who are you?”

“Major Kenneth Wilks.” He puffed up his chest. “U.S. Northern Command, ACE division.”

“ACE division?” I didn’t bother to hide my skepticism. “Most of my knowledge about the inner workings of the U.S. government might come from the Jason Bourne movies, but still, that acronym sounds as legit as S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The soldiers in the room snickered, and Ryan winked, grinning at me as though he thought I was the sun, the moon, and the stars. The major’s lips quirked. “ACE. Augmented Capability Enforcement. We handle all cases dealing with individuals who have enhanced physical, mental, or supernatural capabilities, like yourself.”

Well, that was highly disturbing, and strangely exciting at the same time. “There are enough of us out there that we require our own branch of the military?”

The major shook his head. “We’re a very small organization, Angel, and completely top secret, of course. But we’re well funded and powerful. PACs—or persons of augmented capabilities—such as yourself, are truly rare.”

My eyes flashed to Tyson, and he gave me a wicked grin.

“The ACEs’ primary interest is in finding PACs and recruiting them to help us fight crime and protect the country,” Major Wilks continued. “But we’re also the nation’s defense against them whenever it’s necessary—like with your superpowered friends here.” He gestured to the unconscious men I’d fought.

The ACE division sounded awesome—if they really did what Major Wilks claimed they did. I’d always wanted to be able to use my powers—seriously, what good is having a whole bunch of awesome gifts if I can’t ever put them to use?—but Tony was so anal about staying hidden.

One time after Tony showed me
The
Avengers
, I suggested we make up our own secret identities and give the whole superhero thing a try. He completely freaked. He wouldn’t even pretend to consider it. I asked him if paranoia was one of his superpowers, and he got all pissy. That was the first time I broke up with him. I wonder what he’d think of the ACEs.

If Major Wilks could earn my trust, he’d have himself a new recruit, but I tried not to look as eager as I felt. “And what do you want from me? How did you find me?”

“We’ve been looking for you for a long time, Angel. You and I have a common enemy, and I could really use your help.”

My body stiffened as I realized exactly what he was saying. “You’re looking for Visticorp.”

Major Wilks’s face hardened into something frightening. “Visticorp is gone. You destroyed it. But we believe James Donovan escaped and is working with a new partner, trying to create an army of superpowered thugs. He’s stealing innocent soldiers to use as his guinea pigs, and they don’t all survive.”

That horrifying thought made me shudder, but I brought my face into a scowl that matched his fierce expression. I knew, without a shred of doubt, that if this man was going after the people who stole my memories, then I was going to do everything in my power to help him. Major Wilks saw the bloodlust in my eyes for what it was and curved his lips up into a smile.

“Fine,” I said. “I will leave with you right now and listen to what you have to say, but if you or any of your men try anything funny, I will do whatever is necessary to get myself to safety. Believe me when I say you don’t want that fight.”

I was surprised to see the man smile, even after my obvious threat. “No, Angel, I don’t want that fight. I hope to be allies.”

Giving me another smile, he looked around the motel and barked, “Get this mess cleaned up, and get those PACs in the trucks. ACES, MOVE!” He pointed a finger at Ryan and said, “You take care of her.”

“With pleasure, sir.” The grin Ryan gave his superior caused a bundle of nerves to explode in my stomach. Then he turned that devastating smile on me, and my mouth went dry. “Time to go.” He scooted closer very slowly and said, “I’m going to help you up now. Please don’t zap me.”

I let him help me to my feet. When I immediately started to swoon, he scooped me into his arms. Definitely not a bad place to be. Maybe it was the superconcussion talking, but as he carried me out of the motel, I couldn’t resist teasing him. “My hero.”

Ryan chuckled as if enjoying some private joke, and murmured, “For once.”

He shuffled me into the back of a military truck, where we waited for the ACEs to detain the three superthugs and explain the mess to the local authorities. The truck was one of those canvas-covered trucks with two long benches on either side. I couldn’t see anything outside, but I could still hear what was going on. The ACEs worked quickly and efficiently to clean up the scene. They gave the cops a watered down version of the story—one that had nothing to do with superpowers and that sounded a lot more like three escaped convicts had busted up the joint looking for cash.

Poor Motel Guy was carted off to the local hospital in an ambulance, but the medics said he was going to be okay. Major Wilks told the cops that he’d send someone to question the guy after he was feeling better. I doubted he’d remember much, considering he was still unconscious.

My existence was kept out of the equation altogether. The cops never even knew I was there.

After ten or fifteen minutes, a handful of soldiers began to pile in the truck around me. I muttered a quiet thanks when one of them handed me my purse and another set my suitcases in the truck, suddenly feeling a lot more awkward as I realized they planned on taking me with them for an extended stay. But then, it’s not like I had anyplace better to go. I wasn’t going back to live with Tony after learning how he’d lied to me.

Ryan and Tyson claimed the seats on either side of me. Ryan scooted in closer than necessary, leaving zero space between us. When I questioned him with a flat look, he gave me a shameless smile and slipped his arm around my waist, tucking me neatly to his side. “You still seem pretty dizzy to me. Can’t have you falling over while I’m responsible for you. The major would have my hide.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but I didn’t have the energy—or, if I’m being completely honest, the desire—to pull away from him. Giving up, I relaxed against his shoulder and let my eyes fall shut. I released a slow, deep breath, hoping it might calm some of the pounding in my head.

“I can’t believe that worked,” one of the other soldiers muttered, making everyone in the back of the truck laugh.

“Major doesn’t call him Romeo for nothing,” another joked.

I could practically feel the cocky smirk wash over Ryan’s face and was compelled to burst his bubble. “It didn’t work,” I drawled lazily, not bothering to lift my head from his shoulder or even open my eyes. “I just don’t have the energy to argue. Please tell me one of you has some painkillers.”

“I’ve got some aspirin.”

I opened my eyes and found the soldier sitting across from me holding out a small, white bottle. Another soldier produced some water. As I swallowed a handful of pills, I looked around the truck at the group of men that called themselves the ACEs. There were eight of them in total, not including Major Wilks, who was riding in the front of the truck with the driver. Their ethnicities varied, but they were all guys and all in obvious excellent physical health. They weren’t all gorgeous, but they were the kind of soldiers that would make a girl join the Army just for the chance to see them shirtless every now and then.