Villainous (16 page)

Oh, Mary. I took one more piece of information from her mind: the leverage that I’d need to beat her. Then I pulled out of her head before my pity gave away my presence. Even if her plan worked, it was a temporary solution, not a way to build a long-term relationship with a supplier. But it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have taken my advice even if I’d offered it to her. All that mattered was that I knew she was going there with Dave, and if I left immediately, I might be able to get there before she hurt him.

• • •

Mary used to listen to my advice. She used to actually like me. Not sure how it had gone wrong, but it was probably my father’s fault. Nearly a decade ago, when I’d first heard she was going to join the family business, I’d made a rare trip home to the family manor to talk to her. I’d found her in her bedroom, scrutinizing her reflection in a full-length mirror.

“I like it,” I’d said, referring to the costume. There was a lot of our influence—mine and Sonia’s and Bianca’s. I’d worn fishnet stockings as part of several of my costumes, and the artfully torn skirt was a look Lady Nightmare had used in her early days.

“Hey, Val!” She turned from the mirror with a smile. “You don’t think the horns are too much?”

She pointed to two short, slightly curling red horns extruding from her head, whatever headband she’d used to attach them artfully concealed beneath her hair.

“Nah,” I said. “They’re on theme.”

“You think?” She frowned at the mirror again. “I’m worried I might be overdoing it.”

“Not if you’re going to be a supervillain. Remember, you can read minds, but instead of using that to become a psychologist or diplomat, you’re giving yourself a codename and a costume and committing crimes. Don’t run from the ridiculousness; embrace it.”

“If you say so.” She turned her body, trying to see how the outfit looked from behind.

I watched her for a few moments in silence, then said, “I thought you were going to do the whole accounting thing.”

“Huh?”

“Accounting. You were majoring in it. You were going to keep Dad’s books and do embezzling stuff. What happened?”

She shrugged. “I guess I changed my mind.”

“But you loved accounting. You said it was like using math to lie to people.”

She turned away from me. “Dad said… Dad said we pay people to do that kind of work. I need to do something bigger, to make a name for myself.”

“You don’t have to do what he says, you know. The rest of us don’t.”

“I can be just as good at this as you guys. Just because I’m younger doesn’t mean—”

“I know.” I held up my hand in a placating gesture. “That’s not what I’m saying. You’ll probably be better than us because you’ve seen all the stupid things we did and won’t make the same mistakes. I just… I just want to make sure you’re doing something that makes you happy.”

“I am,” she said quickly. “I’m a Belmonte, right? Shooting people and stealing stuff is what makes me happy.”

“Right,” I said after a slightly too-long pause. “So, what’s Dad got you doing for your first night in costume? Shaking people down for protection money?”

She launched into an explanation of a dangerous job, and I gave her what pointers and encouragement I could. I should have stopped her. I should have stopped Dad from pressuring her. I should have let White Knight take her to Child Services on the night I found her instead of bringing her home to a family of thieves and killers.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I suppose.

Chapter 15

I came back to myself.

I was sitting in the same chair in Elisa’s hospital room, Irma’s hand clenched around my upper arms as she leaned over me. Aching emanated from somewhere behind my eyeballs, and everything was silent and empty. No nauseous anxiety that didn’t belong to me. No ghostly pain from someone else’s body. No voices in my head other than my own. I couldn’t sense anything. I reached out with my telepathy, but it was as if nothing was there. Not even the pain I’d had the first time.

Shit, I hoped that was temporary.

“Val?” Irma was saying, and it was strange. Strange for me to be unable to feel her concern even though she was standing right in front of me. “Val, are you all right?”

“I’m…” Fine, I was fine. “Yes.”

Someone’s hand was on my wrist, taking my pulse. A nurse edged Irma aside and looked at my eyes, studying my pupils. “Are you in any pain?” she asked.

“Just a…” The word. What was it? Pain in my head. I knew the word but couldn’t get my mouth to say it. “I have a…”

“Stay calm and tell me what happened,” said the nurse. She didn’t need to sound so patronizing about it.

“I…”
I took psyc and overloaded my telepathy again, and you’re not qualified enough to deal with it, so please leave and get Dr. Klein
,
I wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t come.

“You’re having trouble speaking,” the nurse said. Yeah, no shit.

“She took psyc and lost conscious for… It couldn’t have been longer than two minutes,” Irma said.

“Stay there.” The nurse moved quickly toward the door. “I’ll be right back.”

My heart jumped into my throat and tried to crawl out my mouth. This couldn’t be happening. Fuck.

“I don’t hear your thoughts at all.” Elisa had left her bed and was hovering nervously behind Irma. “Are you blocking them?”

I shook my head and looked at Irma. “I f-found her. She’s… She’s….” Why wouldn’t my mouth work? This was hopeless. I was never going to be able to give directions like this. “Give me a—a—” I snapped my fingers impatiently, but Irma was at an utter loss. She always knew what I needed. I’d tell her telepathically or verbally or she just knew.

I mimed writing, and Irma practically dove on her purse, tearing through it until she produced a pad and pen. I held the point of the pen over the paper shakily. If I couldn’t write….

It was okay. My hand wrote the words as easily as ever. The area of the brain that handled writing was different from the part that controlled speech, right? It must not have been affected. I scribbled the address Mary was heading to as quickly as I could, afraid the information would leak out of my brain before I finished. Then I wrote, “Mary’s taking Dave here. Where psyc is produced. She’s going to use Dave’s powers to threaten the person making it into giving her more. I need to—” I stopped. No, that wouldn’t work. “You need to tell Agent Lagarde. Don’t let her know my telepathy isn’t working.”

Irma scanned the note, nodded curtly, and left the room. I relaxed slightly in the chair. That was the important part. Even if I was a powerless wreck, at least we knew where Dave was.

Elisa was still standing. She looked from the door back to me, her eyes wide and shimmering.

“I’m okay,” I said. Look at that. A full sentence.

Her head bobbed in a quick nod. She wanted to believe me. I was her mother, and she thought of me as practically invincible. Seeing me stuttering and brain-addled couldn’t be easy for her.

The nurse returned with Dr. Klein, and the questions and exams began. But then Irma came back, and I waved them impatiently aside.

“We need to talk in private,” Irma said. “Out.”

“We’re in the middle of—”

“Out.”

They put up a fuss, and I’d have traded just about anything to have my mind-control back, but Irma eventually bullied them from the room. (And without waving a knife in their faces. I was impressed.) When she slammed the door behind them and turned to me, her face didn’t foreshadow good news.

“They’re going to look into it,” she said. “But I don’t think they’ll move fast enough.”

Damn it all. Weren’t the DSA good for anything?

“Freezefire got possessed when they went after Mary on your info,” she elaborated. “Agent Largarde says her superiors think you may have double-crossed them. They need to do reconnaissance and get approval before they raid a house on your word. If it was Agent Lagarde’s call, I think we’d be okay, but apparently, the director has come down from Washington. I wouldn’t hold your breath while waiting for their help.”

I closed my eyes and repressed the urge to throw furniture around the room. They wouldn’t help? Fine. I’d go on my own.

“Did you…” I tugged on my hospital gown and hoped she’d get the hint. She did. She picked up two duffel bags from our pile of stuff in the corner.

“I didn’t know if you’d want to wear the costume or not,” she explained.

My immediate urge was to say no, but I considered it for a moment. Costumes were a message. They said, “I have superpowers, I’m crazy enough to wear this, and I will fuck you up.” If I wanted to show Mary that I hadn’t gone soft, that would be a good place to start. But it wasn’t me anymore—the leather and the corset and the mask. I’d outgrown them. I was older and subtler and scarred now. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I could still fit into the pants.

“No,” I said.

Irma tossed me the bag on the left, and I went into the small bathroom to change. Jeans, boots, a tight black T-shirt. I’d wait until I got to the car to put on the bulletproof vest, since it was conspicuous and I wouldn’t be able to mind-control the cops here into ignoring me. I pulled my hair back with a tie, glanced at myself briefly in the mirror, and walked back out to find Elisa arguing with Irma.

“But I could help—”

“No,” I answered before Irma could say anything. “It’s too…too…”

“Too dangerous,” Irma finished. “You’re injured and you don’t have the experience. You’d be a liability.”

Elisa moped, and I put a hand on her shoulder. “Can I…” Oh, come on. What was the word? This was important. “Can I…t-t-trust…you?”

Elisa cocked her head as she tried to figure out what I meant.

“To go to…” I tried.

“To go home?” she asked.

“No. To go to…s-safe…”

“To go to the safe house.”

I nodded. “There. And not…like before.”

“You want me to go to the safe house and not do something stupid and try to help like I did before.” Elisa’s posture drooped as she realized what I meant.

I put my free hand on her other shoulder, looking her square in the face. “Can I…trust you?”

She looked at me, sighed as only a teenager could, and said, “Yeah.”

Good.

Irma got off the phone with someone. “That was Eddy. He’s out front with the car.” She looked at Elisa. “Take a cab downtown, then take a
different
cab to the safe house. Can you take all this with you?” She gestured at our remaining bags.

“Yeah, got it,” Elisa said.

Irma reached for the doorknob but then paused. “Any chance I can convince you to go with her and leave this to Eddy and me?” she asked me.

I gave her a flat look and didn’t bother trying to reply.

“Of course,” she said. “Forget I said anything.”

I gave Elisa one last encouraging smile, then Irma and I walked purposefully down the hall toward the elevator. Luck wasn’t with us. Agent Lagarde was standing not far away, talking to another woman in a suit, and when she saw me, she immediately came after us.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she called.

Irma pressed the down button on the elevator, but it wasn’t on this floor. The wait gave Agent Lagarde time to catch up.

“I can’t let you leave,” she said.

The doors opened with a ding, and Irma stepped smoothly past the agent and inside. When I tried to follow, Agent Lagarde held out her arm, blocking me.

“You can’t… You…” Ugh, this was the worst. I had a really snappy threat in my head, but it just wouldn’t come out.

Irma, pressing the button to keep the doors from closing, picked up my slack. “What Ms. Belmonte is trying to say is that she’s cooperated with you so far because it was in her husband’s best interest. But his life is in danger now, so she’s done playing along with your DSA bullshit. Try to stop her, and you won’t wake up from your coma until Christmas. Now are you really going to start this?”

Irma Grimaldi, ladies and gentlemen. The woman who raised me.

Agent Lagarde stared down Irma then turned back to me. I met her gaze levelly, backing up Irma’s threat
like
I had use of my powers and could force every other agent to jump out the window Elisa had broken,
like
I wanted nothing more than to match my telepathy against Agent Lagarde’s and see which of us survived.
Like
I wasn’t powerless and desperate and completely unable to take on a hospital full of armed law enforcement.

Agent Lagarde lowered her arm and let me pass.

• • •

Irma handed me sunglasses, and I put them on to help hide my scars as we passed two police officers standing guard at the hospital’s main entrance. A casual walk and easy manner let us exit into the humid evening without getting a second glance from them. The yellowish streetlights around the parking lot had come on, though the sky was still deep blue rather than pitch black. The hum of passing engines and distant honking horns mixed with the chirps of insects and the wind rustling the trees. I kept walking down the sidewalk though I didn’t know where Eddy was parked, trusting him to see us and bring the car.

“I wouldn’t put it past Agent Lagarde to have the highway patrol keep watch for us,” Irma said. “I know Mary has a head start, but we shouldn’t speed.”

“You’re not…” I started. “I n-need you to…”

My mouth might not be able to form the right words, but it couldn’t stop me from groaning in disgust with myself. Maybe I should have stayed with Elisa. I wouldn’t be able to communicate with Irma and Eddy when the fight with Mary broke out. A split-second’s delay could get us all killed, never mind the agonizingly long moments it was taking me to form words now.

Irma handed me a pad and pen. A second later, a car pulled up to the curb beside us. “Evening, ladies,” Eddy greeted. “Need a lift?”

I opened the back door, sat in the seat, but didn’t pull in my legs or close the door behind me. I just used the light inside the car to write down long, detailed instructions. When I finished, I tore off the page and handed it to Irma. She leaned closer to the car’s light to read it, and her eyebrows rose.

“Oh,” she said. “That may just work.”