Darkest Day (StrikeForce #3) Read online

  It went off again, and I reached my arm out from under the blankets, felt around on my nightstand, then picked it up and hurled it as hard as I could at my bedroom wall. It died with one final drawn-out wail, and my suite was silent again.

  Maybe the alarm clock had been better.

  I blew out a breath and pushed my covers off, then swung my legs out of bed. I usually waited until after my patrol shift to shower, but I felt like shit and any help I could get in waking up would be worth it. I stood under the searing water, focusing on scrubbing, washing, rinsing. Every time my mind started to wander, I brought it back to the task at hand. It was harder than I thought it would be.

  After my shower, I pulled my uniform on, grabbed my mask, and headed down to the dining hall for my coffee infusion. I was glad that the dining hall was empty. I grabbed a to-go cup of coffee, added cream and sugar, and considered a donut for about a half a second before my shaky stomach convinced me otherwise.

  I closed my eyes for a second before I had to go up and get to work. How the hell was I supposed to get through this day? The last thing I wanted to do was try to be a hero today. Not a single emotion I was feeling, on a day when I should have been celebrating Mama’s birthday with her… none of it felt even remotely heroic or even sane. I didn’t want to be faced with any villainous assholes and the messes they lived to create. Mostly, I didn’t trust myself to act even the tiniest bit merciful if we came up against someone today.

  I knew Ryan would keep me from totally losing it, but I didn’t want to face any of it. And on top of everything else, feeling this way just made me feel weak. I took one more breath, then forced one foot in front of the other, got onto the elevator, and took it up to the flight deck. When I got there, Ryan was already there, of course, talking to the flight crew and doing his final checks. He glanced at me, caught my gaze for a moment, then went back to talking to one of the flight crew members. I gulped down as much coffee as I could, tossed my cup in the trash, and made my way toward the plane, pulling my mask on. I numbly greeted a couple of the flight crew people who said good morning and climbed into the plane. A couple minutes later, Ryan climbed into his seat and started his takeoff procedure.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Morning.”

  He turned around and glanced at me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He kept looking at me, then seemed to decide that he wasn’t going to get much more than that out of me. “Portia mentioned that we had another missing super overnight,” he said as we took off.

  I took a deep breath. “Another one here in Michigan?”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “It was a kid this time.”

  “Shit,” I groaned. “How old? What kind of powers?”

  “Eleven years old. Telekinesis.”

  I thought about that for a while as we flew and I looked out at the city below. We were seeing an uptick in these super powered disappearances. At last count, there had been a total of eleven supes reported missing worldwide. All except for one had been solo, unaffiliated with any of the super teams. One member of the Scottish team had gone missing without a trace just this past week, and it had shaken everyone up a little bit more. I hadn’t known hm personally, but Portia and Jenson had both been pretty freaked out about it.

  Kids, though. Kids were something else entirely. I thought about that for a while as we patrolled. It didn’t seem like a Killjoy thing, no matter how much I’d love to blame him for everything wrong in the world. He was all about getting power for himself and adult heroes who came to him willingly were his thing. He knew how to deal with people, how to use their emotions and desires to get them to do what he wanted without ever having to utter a single threat, let alone force anyone to join him.

  No, this was something different, and I didn’t like it. Honestly, any scenario I could think of in this situation was bad. On one hand, maybe it was some nut job going after supers and taking them out. Which means we’d be finding bodies eventually or some kind of evidence. With that many missing, the clues wouldn’t stay hidden for long. Then there was the possibility that they were being held against their will and used for nefarious purposes. Maybe someone trying to create an injection like the one Death had been working on. Which, again, would point to Killjoy as a really neat and easy solution, but it just felt off to me. Were they being cloned somehow? Or held to gain leverage over someone else?

  “Any ties between those that have gone missing that we know of?” I asked Ryan.

  He shook his head. “The only similarity is that they have powers. And not even a specific set of powers. They’re kind of all over the place. Different abilities, different ages, races, genders, backgrounds. We’ve got nothing so far.”

  I bit my lip, continuing to think. “Where was this one?”

  “Marquette,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything for a while and forced myself to focus on the case of the missing supers. Thinking about anything else was just too much to handle, and it felt good to have my mind busy. My reverie was interrupted by Portia’s voice in my ear. “Guys, we have a firestarter on Livernois not too far from U of D’s campus. Can you respond?”

  “Roger that,” Ryan said, and he veered the mini jet toward the university.

  “Do we have a description?” I asked.

  “Female, early twenties, black. Long braids, a mix of black and purple. Dressed all in black,” Portia answered. “It’s sounding like something set her off and she didn’t mean to do it, but now she’s in panic mode and she’s causing more damage.”

  “Do we have a name?”

  “Vivian Arthur, according to the prof who was teaching the class she was heading to at the time,” Portia answered.

  “Thanks.”

  We touched down in the baseball fields near the university a couple of minutes later and I picked Ryan up and we flew on my power toward where there was a crowd as well as quite a bit of smoke wafting from one of the large brick buildings nearby. We landed near the building, which was engulfed in flames on the side nearest to us. A crowd stood a few hundred feet back, and they erupted into applause when we touched down. A young woman fitting the description Portia had given me stood near the building, hands over her ears, eyes shut tight. Her entire body was rigid, as if she was in pain.

  I started walking toward her, and Ryan put a hand on my arm. “Watch it. Something’s wrong. She might lash out,” he said.

  I nodded and took a few more steps toward her.

  “Please don’t come any closer,” she said through clenched teeth. “Please don’t.”

  “Vivian, I can help y—“ She seemed like she was trying to press her hands harder to her ears.

  “It hurts,” she sobbed. “It feels like something’s stabbing my brain.”

  “Whisper. I think she’s got powers similar to mine,” Ryan said quietly over my comm.

  I looked toward Vivian again. “Vivian,” I whispered. Ryan walked toward the crowd, I guessed to get them to quiet down. “Vivian, is this any better?”

  She nodded once, and then moaned. “What’s happening to me?” she whispered in a harsh voice.

  “I think your powers just manifested,” I whispered. “And you seem to have a few of them. I know it hurts. We can help you. My partner has similar powers. He can help you figure this out.”

  “I set everything on fire,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to. That asshole grabbed me—“

  “Which asshole?” I asked, thinking about our spate of missing supers.

  “This guy who keeps harassing me about going out with him. I’m not interested and he’s starting to scare the hell out of me.” She was still talking in a faint whisper. Ryan came back to us and stood just behind me, where I knew he was keeping an eye and an ear out for anything suspicious or dangerous. “I was heading to class and he threatened me. I kept walking, and then he grabbed me. It was all crazy after that.”

  I took another step closer to her. “I know you’re in pain,” I
said. “Will you let us help you?”

  She let out a weak laugh. “You think you can help? I want to die.”

  “It’s hard at first. I went through it too. Every sound hurts. Is your eyesight stronger, too?”

  She shook her head. “Just my hearing. Christ, I swear I can hear the buildings creaking.”

  I glanced at Ryan, who seemed to be listening closely. “I bet you can. Your hearing’s stronger than mine, though.” He glanced at me.

  “You need time to adapt,” I whispered. “We can help you. We have special rooms that are totally soundproof so you can get some relief—“

  “Like a prison cell?” she asked with a weak laugh.

  “No. Not that.”

  “I burned shit down,” she said, choking on a little sob.

  “Nah. It’s just a little charred. Look, they’ve already got most of it out.”

  “They should lock me up. What if I’d hurt someone?” she asked.

  I took one more step toward her and gently touched her arm. She opened her eyes and looked at me. “You didn’t mean it. And you didn’t hurt anyone. If you want help dealing with this, come with us. We can help you, and Portia will deal with any questions from the police. This isn’t exactly the first time we’ve had a situation like this.”

  “I remember that little girl from a couple months back,” she said. I nodded. Darla was an eleven-year-old girl who’d set her house on fire by mistake. We’d gotten her out of the blaze and given her methods for managing her powers, and now she was living in the house I’d bought and had restored for Mama. In all the mess over losing her, that was a bright spot at least, that her house was helping someone. It was fitting.

  “She’s a good kid. I think fire is a fairly common power.” I wanted to keep talking. I wanted her to calm down before I brought up the subject of the dampener. She had to have one on before we tried to put her on a plane. I glanced at Ryan and he gave me a little nod. He could tell what I was doing and agreed that it was the best way to handle this. “But you seem to have a power combo going. That’s pretty rare.”

  “You can fly and have super strength,” she pointed out, and I smiled behind my mask. She was loosening up. This was good.

  “Yeah. But most of us have a single power. We can fly or have super strength or super senses or whatever. I have a combo, so does Caine here, and a few others.”

  She kept her hands over her ears, but she looked a little more calm and hopeful. “You really think you can help me?”

  I nodded. “We can. We can take you to our headquarters and our people can work with you. We need a little help from you first, though.”

  She looked unsure. “What do you need?“

  I dug in my belt pouch and pulled out a dampener. It was nothing more than a small metal band. Very thin, silver in color. “This is a dampener. If you want to come back with us, you’ll need to let me put it on you. It holds your powers back so you don’t set the plane on fire or anything. And it will give you a little break from the super hearing thing.”

  “Yes, please,” she practically begged. I nodded and put the dampener around her throat, clasping it tightly, which activated it. A couple of seconds later, Vivian removed her hands from her ears and glanced around.

  “Oh, thank God,” she breathed. Then she looked at Ryan. “You’ve been through this?”

  He nodded. “You’ll be okay.”

  I saw the police nearby and blew out an annoyed breath before I started to head over to deal with them.

  “Want me to do it?” Ryan asked.

  “You don’t have to. Neither of us love this part.”

  He laughed. “If I say that you talking to the police doesn’t seem like a good idea today, are you going to want to kick my ass?”

  I tilted my head at him. “I’m not going to argue with you. If you don’t mind, I’ll take it.”

  “Okay. Get her on the jet, I’ll meet you in a few.”

  “I owe you one,” I called after him as he started walking away.

  “Yes, you do.”

  I shook my head and turned to Vivian. “So can I fly you there, or are we going to have to walk with everyone staring at us?”

  “Fly, please,” she said.

  “Good answer.”

  I put my hands under her arms and hoisted her into the air, well aware of the cameras and phones lifted to catch us on the move. We didn’t say anything as I flew, keeping an eye out, always, for any nonsense. We got to the mini jet and I got Vivian settled into the seat beside mine.

  “Um. Thanks for everything,” she said. “And for not tossing me in jail.”

  I shrugged. “We don’t have any reason to do that. Unless you give us one,” I added. “We’re assuming it was a response to your powers coming on and surprising you, triggered by the added stress you just told us about.”

  She nodded.

  “If you ever use your powers against innocent people, or any of my teammates, for that matter, it’ll be a different story. Right?“

  She nodded again. “Honestly, if I could just wear this thing forever, that would be great.” She gently traced her fingertips along the thin metal band at her neck, and I fought back a shudder. That thing had been my worst nightmare back when Alpha had forced me to wear one. Ryan had been forced to wear it, too, but his had been a threat, a warning not to piss Alpha off or his powers would be dampened. Mine was a reality. He’d sent me out to fight, dampened.

  Because he was just that kind of asshole.

  “Well, that will totally be up to you,” I said. “If that’s what you want, we can do that. But you still need to learn how to handle your powers in case it ever has to come off for some reason.”

  “That makes sense,” she said, just as Ryan climbed into the plane.

  “You’ll be happy to know that they were totally depressed to not be dealing with you today,” he said to me.

  “Yeah, I’m sure they were heartbroken,” I answered, and he chuckled. We took off, and I pressed my comm.

  “We’re bringing her in. She’s collared. Super hearing and fire starter powers,” I said.

  A moment later, Portia answered. “We’ll have a room ready for her. Nice job out there, Daystar. The media is loving the way you talked her down. Lots of positive feedback.”

  “Well, I’m feeling a little off my game today,” I said.

  “I figured it wouldn’t last,” she said wryly. “Bring her to my office when you’re back.”

  “Will do,” I said, and then I released the button on my comm and settled back in my seat. While part of me, the part that seemed to always be looking for a fight, kind of wished this had been a tougher call, I was mostly relieved that she hadn’t pushed me. I was grateful that she hadn’t given me any reason to lose it. Mama wasn’t far from my thoughts, and it was a blessing and a curse. On one hand, remembering her and trying to be who she thought I was helped keep me keep a bit of restraint and not just lose it completely. On the other hand, of course, remembering her and knowing that she’d been cheated out of the rest of what should have been a long, happy life, just made me either want to scream or cry. I swallowed and tried to stop thinking. That is so much easier said than done, though.

  When we arrived back at Command, we walked Vivian up to Portia’s office, dropped her off, then went back out. This time, Ryan flew the jet, and I took to the skies by myself. It was better than being in the jet, and I knew Ryan knew something was up and he would either not talk, trying to put me at ease, or he’d ask me what was wrong and I’d end up blubbering or something. This was better. Flying usually cleared my head. It didn’t do that this time, but I tried to focus on my job, on the feel of cold air seeping through my body armor, the sight of the city stretched out far below. All too soon, we came to the end of our patrol shift, and when we got back to Command, I was less than thrilled at the prospect of the free time I had ahead of me, just me and my thoughts and a room empty other than me and my many, many regrets.

  I landed on the flight de
ck moments after Ryan landed the mini jet. I talked for a moment with one of the flight crew members as Ryan climbed down out of the cockpit, then I started to leave. I glanced toward Ryan and the flight crew members as I did, trying to catch his eye so I could give him a quick wave or something, but he was already watching me. He held a finger up, gesturing for me to wait a second as he finished talked to the mechanics. I stopped near the exit to the flight bay, and after a few more words, he jogged over to me, held open the door to the corridor beyond, and then we headed toward the elevator.

  Once we were on the elevator, he looked down at me. “Okay. Now that that’s over with for today I can finally talk to you.”

  “About what?” I asked him.

  “You seem completely down in the dumps today. Last night, too, when we weren’t busy with the mission. So. Is there anything you want to talk about or is there anything I can do?”

  I met his eyes. Warm, golden brown eyes. I shook my head. Debated whether I wanted to talk about it or not. And then, because somehow Ryan has managed to work his way past the way I keep a wall between myself and just about everyone else, I sighed. “Today would have been Mama’s birthday,” I said. And then I looked away because I felt like an idiot.

  He reached for my hand. Both of our hands were still clad in our uniform gloves, but I could feel the warmth of his hand anyway when he gently squeezed mine. We didn’t say anything for a bit, and the elevator came to a stop on my floor. He kept his fingers twined with mine as he walked me to my suite.

  “You know you don’t have to go through this alone. And you shouldn't,” he said as we came to a stop in front of my door. “Does Jenson know? You know she’ll be here if you ask.”

  “Jenson and David are going out tonight, remember? And I don’t want to tell her because if I do, she’ll cancel and stay here with me.” He was about to say something, and I shook my head. “I’m kind of hoping they’ll get it together and realize how perfect they are for one another.”