Super Bad (a Superlovin' novella) (2 page)

A figure dropped out of
the sky, landing hard enough to make the ground beneath her quake. Mirage
froze. He was huge, menacing, dressed in black leather and bad attitude—and her
heart flew to her throat at the sight of him.

“Lucien?”

Her brother crouched in
front of her, his eyes wary. Why would they be wary? Why was he so tentative
with her? So damn cautious.

“What are you doing out
here, Belle?”

Another form floated
down from above, alighting delicately about fifteen feet away. It was dark, but
even with no moon, Mirage recognized the woman with a giant red D emblazoned
across the chest of her black supersuit. Darla Powers. DynaGirl. She must have flown
Lucien here. Why would a hero do that for Luc?  DynaGirl folded her arms,
watching Mirage with an expression that wasn’t even a distant cousin of
friendly.

“What are you doing
with DynaGirl?” Mirage snarled, unable to keep the belligerence out of her
voice when she wanted nothing more than to scream,
Why are you with Miss
Goodie Goodie when you should be protecting me?
Since when did Lucien hang
out with the princess of the superhero set?

At her question, Lucien’s
face shuttered, but she saw the flash of disappointment before it fell into
resignation. What had she done to disappoint him?

“Luc?”

Lucien took her hand,
squeezing it tight—but not hard enough to hurt. He was always careful of his
strength. “I’m here, Belle.”

Her broken mirror
shattered again, the pieces scattering until she didn’t even have a distorted
illusion of who she was anymore. She was a blank slate, which was much lonelier
than she’d imagined it would be. “Luc, what’s happening to me?”

She shivered and he
slipped off his jacket, draping the warm leather around her shoulders. “Come
inside, Belle. I’ll explain everything.”

He nodded toward
Trident Labs and Mirage jerked back, stumbling and sprawling gracelessly to the
ground as something primal and irrational inside her rebelled. “
No.
They
killed
you.”

Lucien flinched, his
eyes unspeakably sad. “No, they didn’t, Belle. I’m fine. See? Eisenmann is
trying to help you. You came to Trident of your own free will so they could
help you.”

“No,” she murmured,
repeating it over and over again, her voice barely audible. She started shaking
her head and found she couldn’t stop, though she wasn’t even sure what she was
protesting anymore.

“Come on.” Lucien
guided her to her feet and Mirage let him tuck her against his side, tugging
her toward the building. Nothing felt right, not even her brother’s familiar
arm across her shoulders, but she went along with him. Docile. Dazed.

DynaGirl fell into step
beside them, giving Lucien a supportive little smile. What was she doing here? Was
he
with
DynaGirl now? Had Lucien really turned hero? Lucien “DemonSpawn”
Wroth gone over to the side of the angels? It was all so wrong.

As they approached the
front of the building, Dr. Eisenmann held a door open for them, nodding to
Lucien with a weary, well-used smile.

Everything felt like an
illusion another chameleon had cast over her eyes, but this was reality. Wasn’t
it?

They didn’t go back to
her cell. No one spoke as they navigated the halls and though Mirage had no
idea where they were going, the other three seemed overly accustomed to their
path. They stopped outside an office with Eisenmann’s name etched in the glass
and the doctor took a moment to unlock it. Mirage stumbled a bit as she crossed
the threshold into a reception area and Lucien caught her, lifting her easily
into his arms.

“She’s exhausted,” he
said, keeping his voice as low and cautious as Dr. Eisenmann had. “On the verge
of burn out.”

Eisenmann nodded toward
a couch. “Perhaps she should rest first and we can speak privately.”

Lucien settled her on
the couch, tucking his jacket around her like a blanket. “Just rest,” he
murmured. Then he straightened and followed Dr. Eisenmann into the office,
DynaGirl sliding her hand into his and entering at his side. Apparently,
privately
included Miss Goodie Goodie.

It was a small illusion
to convince them they’d remembered to shut the door behind them. Barely took
any energy at all and she could eavesdrop with no one the wiser. Mirage curled
on the couch, burrowing under her brother’s jacket, trying to warm her icy
core, and closed her eyes to listen.

“I’m sorry, Lucien.” The
voice was Eisenmann’s. “I just don’t know what else we can do for her. I’m not
sure we can help her.”

“There must be
something more—”

“We’ve tried. The usual
therapies aren’t having any effect. It’s been three months and she’s showing no
improvement. If anything, she might be getting worse.”

Mirage gasped. Three
months? She’d been here for
months
with no memory of it?

“For the last couple
weeks, we’ve spent more time trying to contain her than we’ve been able to
dedicate to healing her. She doesn’t feel safe here and we can’t seem to change
that conditioning. And the more security measures we put in place to try to
hold her when she has a breakdown like tonight, the more convinced she is she’s
being held against her will and the harder she tries to escape.”

It was strange
listening to them talk about her. She knew it was her, but this girl they were
talking about, the one with all those problems, she didn’t seem any more real
than anything else that had happened tonight. A giant illusion. A web of
twisted thoughts and careful lies.

“I’m not giving up,”
Lucien growled. “She can come live with us.”

Us?
Who was
us
?

“Lucien, is that wise?”
came a throaty, female voice, and Mirage realized with a jolt that her brother
was
living with DynaGirl.
What the hell? She wasn’t going to live with
some holier-than-thou hero. She’d sooner go back to Area Nine.

“Tonight was a mild
night,” Eisenmann said—not so much warning as resigned. “Sometimes she wakes up
violent and attacks anyone who comes near her.”

“We can take it,”
Lucien said, with the arrogance of a man whose superstrength made him all but
impervious to harm.

“She digs into your
perceptions. She can make even someone with your strength feel the most
excruciating pain.”

“I know,” DynaGirl said
dryly, and Mirage had a flicker of memory of forcing Darla Powers to believe
she was burning alive, but it slithered away before she could remember why.

Eisenmann continued,
“If we hadn’t been able to sedate her quickly enough, she would have broken an
orderly’s mind last week. And we’re having to use nearly dangerous doses just
to put her far enough under to smother her gift. She’s starting to use it when
she isn’t even fully awake. As much as I would like to be able to entrust her
to your care, Lucien, she’s simply too much of a danger to everyone around her.
At this point, I feel our only option may be to send her back to Area Nine,
where at least they can contain her.”

“Absolutely not.”

“No. It won’t come to
that.”

Mirage was surprised to
hear DynaGirl, of all people, agreeing with her brother’s feral snarl.

Eisenmann sighed. “I’m
sorry, but it has come to that.”

“Suppress her powers.” The
harsh command in Lucien’s voice fell like a blow and Mirage flinched.

He can’t mean it
.

“Lucien—”

“It must be possible. You
have some drug, some chemical that can do it. Don’t tell me Trident isn’t
experimenting with it.”

Mirage wrapped her arms
around herself, as if she could protect the wild light of her power where it
was buried deep inside her. She wouldn’t know who she was without that light. Lucien
couldn’t mean to neuter her that way. It would be like stripping away a piece
of her soul. That he would even suggest it…

“We don’t do that
here.” Eisenmann’s reprimand was low, but steely hard. “Trident has always been
in the business of celebrating those with powers. To be so gifted…” He trailed
off and Mirage wondered if the good doctor realized how evident his raw envy
was in that moment. “I would never violate her by tampering with her powers. Unless
she needed help honing or focusing them—”

“Honing her powers is
not the issue. They are clearly working all too well,” DynaGirl interrupted. “She’s
in control of her powers, just not of herself.”

“She doesn’t know
what’s real and what isn’t,” Eisenmann said flatly. “During her time with
Kevin, he fed her a string of false images that are still embedded in her
memory. There are lingering compulsions and alternate realities, which normally
we would be able to help her undo, but her ability to warp the perception of
others seems to have played into the illusions Kevin implanted in her brain and
it’s exacerbating her condition. She doesn’t have any grounding in reality. Even
on the good days, she can’t even tell when she’s lying to herself.”

A chair creaked with
sudden movement. “Lying to herself?” DynaGirl said, her voice sharp.

“A figure of speech. It’s
what we call it when she can’t distinguish whether a memory is something she
put there rather than something Kevin did. Often even we can’t determine when a
memory is authentic versus implanted—unless we have the records to prove one
way or the other, but memory is so subjective…”

“But the way you put
it, like her brain was lying to her…”

“That is essentially
what’s happening.”

“What if there was
someone she
couldn’t
lie to, whether she wanted to or not?” DynaGirl’s
voice was bright, filled with a hope Mirage couldn’t share. “I think I know
someone who might be able to help.”

“We’ll try anything at
this point, but if this doesn’t work…” Eisenmann trailed off, leaving the
consequences unspoken, but Mirage heard them all the same. Area Nine. Neutering
her powers. Either one was a prison. A life sentence. But would she even know
the difference with her thoughts in pieces? She was already trapped in the
fragmented prison of her mind. Caged by Kevin… had she killed the only man with
the key?

Lies were useful
inventions. At least once a day, Julian Case, known to the general public as
Captain Justice, found himself wishing he could turn off his innate ability and
just believe a lie. This was one of those moments.

Kim Carruthers stood in
his bedroom, hurriedly jamming the contents of her drawer into a bag.
Toothbrush, change of clothes, spare hand-held recorder—everything an
up-and-coming reporter might need on a moment’s notice. She looked up, blonde
hair flipping over her shoulder, and caught him watching her from the doorway. A
wry, apologetic smile twisted her lips. “You know I’ll miss you, Julian.”

Deceit tainted the
flavor of the words. It wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth
either. He provided the word for her, “But.”

Her full lips pursed,
irritation flashing briefly in her eyes. No one liked being forced to complete
honesty. “
But
this is an amazing opportunity for me. Chief Political
Correspondent. I can’t pass that up just to stay here and cover the superhero
beat for the rest of my life.”

“I thought you liked
the superhero beat.”

“I did, and I liked
you.
Like
you. I wasn’t lying about that.”

“You like me. Gee,
thanks.”

She shot him a sideways
glance, still shoving her bag full. “I guess I… love you.”

Neither of them had
said those words before. In their tendency to play their emotions close to the
vest, they were perfectly matched, but her lack of enthusiasm still stung like
a bitch. “You guess.”

Kim’s expression
softened and her hands slowed. “I do.”

She wasn’t lying, but
he almost wished she was. Acid burned in his esophagus. “But you love your
ambition more.”

The softness vanished
into aggravation, her hands moving quickly again. “It’s not about loving it. It’s
who I am. Look, Julian, you’re amazing and I owe you my life a dozen times
over, but I want more from my life than being the girl who gets tied to the
train tracks once a week. You can only play the damsel in distress for so long
before it starts getting old.”

Being a hero gets old
too
.
But it wasn’t something he could walk away from. “I’m sorry you became a target
for supervillains by being with me, but I though you liked the exposure.”

“I do. I can’t deny
you’ve been amazing for my career, but I want to be more than just some
superhero’s girlfriend. No offense.” She snapped the now empty drawer shut and
zipped her bag with a decisive, disturbingly final motion. Just like that, the
chapter of her life that included him was closed.

Julian avoided looking
at the next drawer down. The one holding the extra key he’d had made for her
last week. He’d thought it was about time they made it official and moved in
together. Damn. How could someone who couldn’t avoid the truth be so wrong
about where his own relationship was heading?