Tekgrrl (25 page)

“I remember, I’m the one that helped design it,” I said, taking the headset and putting it on.

“…going into the bank,” Toby was saying. “I think the silent alarm has been tripped. Should I follow him in?”

“Toby wants to know if he should follow AssaultR in,” I said to Paul.

“Tell him to hold back for a moment,” Paul replied, looking around. “I don’t want him going into a building to fight when he can’t see what’s coming up behind him. Better to wait until AssaultR comes out.”

“Unless he leaves through the other side,” I pointed out.

Paul frowned. “Good point. Tell him we’ll cover the rear exit, have him stay out front.”

As I relayed the directives to Toby, I couldn’t help but be worried. What exactly
was
I going to do if he came blasting out at us? Hide behind Paul?

We skirted the building, sidling around the back. From inside I could hear muffled thumps. It sounded like AssaultR was going to pummel his way through the safe.

“Paul,” I whispered.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “It sounds like he’s destroying the place.”

“So guys, what are we doing?” Toby asked.

“Toby wants to know what to do,” I relayed to Paul.

“Tell him to hold tight…” Paul trailed off, putting a finger to his lips. “Wait, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That high-pitched noise.” He motioned for me to be quiet. “There it is again. It almost sounds like…”

I pointed to the sky. “Someone’s coming!”

“Quick!” He pulled me along, behind the dumpster, for us to slip between it and the wall. It was a very tight fit. I ended up smashed against him, my face buried in his chest. It felt like every part of our bodies was touching. If it wasn’t for the smelly garbage nearby, it might have been weirdly romantic. I certainly felt my entire body heat up.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, squirming against him.

“Shh!”

From around Paul, I watched as two heroes landed in the alleyway where we’d been standing. It was very dark, but I could just make out their faces as they passed the streetlamp. It was two of Simon’s cronies.

“You guys, where are you?” Toby crackled in my ear. Paul yanked the headset off my head and buried the Bluetooth somewhere between my stomach and his. I felt his fingertips brush the edge of my skin, just barely peeking out from where my shirt had ridden up, and my breath quickened. I knew my face flushed. It was wrong to get turned on in a situation like this. So wrong. But I couldn’t help it. I glanced up at Paul in the darkness and could see his dark blue eyes peering down at me. He shifted and ran his other hand down my bare arm. I shivered deliciously and, without meaning to, wet my lips.

The heroes in the alley paused and looked back our way. Paul’s grip on my arm tightened—

A loud crash from inside the building tore their attention away, and they hurried to the front of the bank. Paul yanked the communicator back up and spoke into it. “Toby, get out of there now! Two AA members are heading in your direction!”

A dark figure sailed down from the sky to land in front of our dumpster. “Where are you guys?” I heard Toby whisper.

I eased myself out from beside Paul. “Right here.”

Toby frowned. “What were you doing back there?”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Paul hissed. “I said there were two AA members here.” There were multiple crashes sounding from inside the building. The fight must have commenced.

Toby shrugged. “So? We’re glamoured, remember? They can’t see us.”

From the expression on Paul’s face, he’d forgotten about that. Or maybe he’d just wanted an excuse to press up against me. One or the other.

“We still don’t want to attract their attention. If they’re trying to arrest us, who knows what they’ll do to people lurking around a crime site, dressed all in black.”

“Good point,” Toby said.

I could now hear sirens blaring. The police were here. And there were shouts coming from the front of the building.

“I’ll go check it out,” I whispered, and broke away from the guys.

“Be careful!” Paul hissed after me.

I crept to the edge of the building and peered around the corner. There were Simon’s new team members, one of the women and one of the men, standing there in triumph, holding a bound AssaultR between them like he was the catch of the day. Several of the police had their guns drawn and pointed. Then “the Cage” pulled up: the steel truck used to transport powered villains to the appropriate jailing facility. The policemen clapped as Simon’s cronies led AssaultR over to the truck and tossed him in.

“That should be us,” I sighed. It looked like no one was missing the EHJ. Simon’s crew had replaced us in our building, in our stature with the government, and now in the public eye, and probably no one was going to even blink.

Depressed, I turned back to find the guys.

“They saved the day,” I reported glumly.

Paul nodded, as if unperturbed. “Let’s head home.

We’ll take the long route so we can swing a full patrol on the way.”

“Great, maybe more AA members can show up and beat us to the punch,” I said.

Paul glanced at me. “Toby, why don’t you go on ahead? We can test out the range of the communication system. That way the night won’t be a total wash.”

Toby nodded. “Sure thing.” He looked at me again. “Are you okay, Mindy?”

I shrugged. “Just seeing them like that made it more real, you know?”

He patted me on the shoulder. “I know. But we’re going to find a way to clear our name and get back on top again. You’ll see.”

“That’s right,” Paul said. “Now we better get moving before the police start investigating back here. Let’s go.”

We walked in silence toward home, Toby bounding over rooftops above, while Paul and I took the alleyways. Toby and Paul would randomly speak through our communicator, which I gathered was working as it should. Yay. This was one bright spot in a pretty lousy evening.

I couldn’t explain why seeing the AA members there had bothered me so much, but it had. I had been chased from my home and begun living in a pocket dimension; I knew that, but I couldn’t help but continuing to hope it was all a bad dream. This just proved it wasn’t. It was all real.

And my head was hurting.

You’re nothing now,
a voice in my head whispered.
And when I get there, I’m going to finish wiping out your very existence.

I froze, rooted to the spot. “Shut up,” I whispered. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, or why you’re messing with me, but just shut up!”

Paul must have noticed that I’d stopped, because he came rushing back. “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t pay attention to him. The voice in my head had gotten more insistent.
You’re weak and I’m strong. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. Any of you. You want to save the world, but it’s because of you it’s going to end.

“My friend went through this already,” I growled. I felt something warm and wet run from my nose and I brushed it away in bemused irritation. “She had some weirdo invading her dreams, wanting to use her to end the world. Well, we put a stop to the Dragon’s plan, and she and Wesley sent him to some scary hellish dimension, so unless you want to end up there with him, shut the hell up!”

“Mindy! Mindy!” I heard Paul shout, but it was like he was in a tunnel far away. I ignored him as the voice spoke again.

Silly girl, do you think this is some sort of game with interdimensional gods? My people eat those self-proclaimed gods for breakfast. We don’t play apocalypse
games.
We destroy worlds, well and truly. Which you’re going to find out. Very soon.

“We’ll stop you,” I vowed. The wet heat was running down my lip now. “Me and my friends. I don’t care if the government wants our help or not, we’ll find a way to be around and help.”

You’ll do nothing but allow it to happen. Every time we speak, I get closer to you,
the voice promised.

“Mindy, stop talking to it,” Paul was saying. “Concentrate! You’ve got to block whoever it is out, it’s killing you!”

I looked down at my hand and saw in shock that it was covered in blood. There was blood trickling from my nose! I wiped it away in horror.

I won’t kill you, not when I’m still finding you…

“Shut up!” This time I focused my rage and fear and pushed as hard as I could, mentally. The pressure in my head started to let up.

“You’re doing it,” Paul said. “Keep pushing!”

So alone. What do you want to save this world for anyway?
the voice asked, but it was getting softer, almost a whisper.

“I’m not alone,” I said between gritted teeth, pushing harder. I angrily wiped the blood away. “People care.”

Paul grabbed me by the arms and looked directly into my eyes. “You have friends that care. People that care.
Fight.”

My mind swam. The pressure in my head eased, but I felt weak, tired, like I could slip away and sleep forever. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with being a homeless wanted criminal with some freak-job messing with my brain. I wouldn’t have to deal with being alone.

Paul crushed me to him and kissed me, almost bruising my lips with his fierceness, and suddenly I felt more awake than I had all night.

I kissed him back, hard, opening my mouth to his, tasting his lips, his tongue, and his breath. He smelled faintly of sweat from walking around all night, a scent that was earthy and masculine. I ran my hands up his chest, feeling the muscles hidden beneath his shirt. My hands came to rest against his neck, and I ran my fingertips up to the stubble of his close-cropped hair. As I pressed my body against his, I felt all of my fears from earlier melt away in a haze of lust. The police could come by right now and arrest us and I wouldn’t care. I was beginning to understand the appeal of darkened alleyways, like that couple Luke and I had happened on what felt like a lifetime ago.

Paul’s hands were doing a bit of roaming on their own. They slipped down to my buttocks and stayed there, pulled my hips into him. I gasped slightly with arousal and moved to kiss his neck. His five o’clock shadow was prickly under my mouth. He groaned in a way that was good.

“Wait, wait,” Paul was saying, trying to disentangle us. “This was meant to snap you out of it.”

“I feel pretty out of it,” I said, my voice husky to my own ears. It was like I had developed some sort of strange addiction to kissing him that, once I started, I couldn’t stop.

He laughed, a strange deep sound unlike I’d ever heard. It was a secret laugh, one that probably only Kate or the other women who’d shared his bed had heard. “I meant snap you out of fainting, not turn this into some sort of grope-fest in a back alley.”

I blinked. I never thought I’d hear Paul use a term like grope-fest, much less participate in one. With me. “See what you started?” I said in a light tone. “I’m beginning to see a certain appeal to back alleys.”

“Guys? Guys? Where are you?”

I could hear Toby’s voice crackle through the speaker attached to Paul’s ear; that’s how close we were standing. I sagged in his arms and said, “I think we’re developing a pattern.”

“It’s probably for our own good we were interrupted again,” Paul said. “Back alleys aren’t the most sanitary of places.”

I laughed. “Well, thanks for snapping me out of it.” Inside I was crying out for him to keep kissing me, touching me. I was more than a little shocked to realize how much I wanted him.

“Glad I could help,” he said, giving me a wink. “Let’s go find Toby.”

“I spoke to Luke about starting your meditation training today.”

I looked up from the new shocker I was working on. “Really?”

Paul nodded. “Yes, I think it is important to start immediately after what happened last night with whoever is messing with your head. You need to learn how to block them as soon as possible.”

“What, and no longer require your ‘snapping me out of it’ services?” I flashed him a flirty grin.

He returned it, which warmed my heart. “I will continue to offer those services whenever necessary. But I thought that, for your peace of mind and my own, it might be nice if you could block enemies yourself and not rely on me or other distractions.”

“Very good point,” I agreed.

“And I don’t want to see you bleeding like that ever again. Once is more than enough for a lifetime.”

A flush of pleasure swept my body. “Aw, shucks, you don’t have to worry about little ol’ me,” I said, teasing, then looked up to see him staring at me in concern.

“I’m serious, Mindy,” he said, his voice soft. “I don’t ever want to see you like that again.”

My heart began pounding in my ears. I’d started off glad to have someone worried about me, concerned for my well-being, but now I was a bit freaked out. His intensity was intimidating. My feelings for him were a confused and muddled mess; I didn’t know what exactly I wanted. What did he want from me?

I was still weighing those heavy thoughts when Wesley barged in without knocking. Good thing there was no make-out session in progress, I thought as I said, “Hi, Wes. Knock much?”

He glanced at me. “I knew it was just you two in here working. It’s not like I’m interrupting anything. Was I?”

I shot a quick glance at Paul, who raised a hand to his mouth to hide a smirk. We wisely looked away from each other.

“Paul, I need to see you for a moment out in the common room,” Wesley continued. “You too, Mindy. Actually, this is probably something the whole team needs to hear.”

“Something wrong?” Paul was back to business as usual.

Wesley shook his head. “Just something…interesting.” He focused on me. “Paul told me what happened last night.”

I shot a horrified look at my boss. “He did?” I thought we had mutually decided we were never telling anyone about our momentary leaves of rationality! Everyone except Kate, of course.

Paul was giving me a slight shake of his head.

Wesley continued, “Yes, we’ll have to see about stopping the telepath who is threatening you.”

I shot a relieved look at Paul, who rolled his eyes. I had to admit, I should never have worried. Wesley was probably one of the last people Paul would choose to confide in about feeling me up in an alleyway.