Strikeforce (Book 4): Day's End Read online

  I was halfway out the window to go after him when the building gave a sickening lurch, then a deafening rumble started from the north end of the building.

  “Shit.” I gestured wildly to the kids and the woman in the bubble, and they came to me. I grabbed them all and flew them out. We were just through the hole I’d made in the wall when the noise got louder, the walls started to sway, and the building gave out, falling to the earth in a blazing cloud of dust and brick. The authorities had gotten everyone back, clearly worrying that this would happen once they’d been unable to make any headway with whatever Killjoy’s people had used to start those fires. I carried the kids and woman to where the other kids were all waiting, and the assembled crowd went nuts cheering when we touched down. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve heard it, but the shouts of joy from the kids and teachers had a certain energy to them. Only people who have been close to death seem capable of making sounds like that, so full of joy and life that it’s enough to make you cry. The bystanders were cheering too, but the cheers and chants from the people who had been trapped in the school were the sweetest sound in the world to me.

  And when they started chanting my name, loudly, wildly, clapping in time to the syllables, “Daystar! Daystar! Daystar!” I did actually start to lose it, blinking back tears while I half listened to Portia filling me in on what had happened on the ground. After a moment, she gave up talking and pulled me in for a strong hug, and the crowd went crazy cheering again.

  “You did good, Daystar,” she said, patting my back while she hugged me.

  “You too, fearless leader. They got away, though.”

  “We’ll get ‘em another day. We saved everyone. That’s more win than I ever could have hoped for in this situation.”

  “It was Killjoy.”

  “I know. He’s like a hemorrhoid you just can’t get rid of, isn’t he?”

  I lost it then and started laugh-crying on Portia’s shoulder and she hugged me harder while the crowd continued to cheer and chant.

  “Oh, damn it,” Portia muttered, and I straightened up, ready to kick ass and expecting Killjoy.

  It was maybe even worse.

  Eve and at least a dozen Tribunal officers stood a few feet away from me. I was about to make a smart ass remark when the whole freaking scene went nuts. StrikeForce, almost automatically, formed a wall between me and the Tribunal assholes, and the crowd started booing and swearing at Eve.

  “Daystar. It’s over. It’s time for you to come with us now unless you want this to get ugly,” Eve said, craning her neck to look between Ryan and Max toward me.

  “Pretty sure it’s already ugly as fuck. You’re here, aren’t you?”

  She opened her mouth to respond, and then realized what I’d said and that there were titters of laughter coming from the crowd.

  “So smug. Typical villainous murderer, thinking you can do whatever you want.”

  “She’s a hero, Eve,” Portia said loudly, and the crowd cheered again.

  “She’s a killer.”

  “She saved nearly a hundred people today and fought Mayhem while doing it. Are you kidding me with this?”

  “She has to answer for Render’s death,” Eve snarled.

  “Yeah, we should all mourn a murderous villain,” I shouted, and the crowd shouted their agreement. “I’d like to know why you’re so set on ‘avenging’ freaking Render, while doing nothing about all of these kids who have gone missing.”

  The crowd shouted their approval again.

  “We are doing our job. Which includes taking in super powered dangers. They all forget, today, what you really are because you just made yourself look good,” she said.

  I laughed. “Bitch, I don’t even have to try that hard.”

  The crowd laughed behind me, and I knew I had them. This is Detroit. We’ve spent most of our recent history getting fucked with in one way or another. You don’t come in here from outside and mess with us. You don’t tell us that we don’t know how to handle ourselves, or that we need to be saved.

  Fuck that. Detroit saves itself. Always has, always will, and that goes for its people too. If it was between a menace they knew, a homegrown girl, and some outsider, they’ll choose the hometown girl every time.

  Didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be back on the news hating me tomorrow. But I was theirs to hate, damn it.

  “Just come quietly. Stand trial like a mature individual and this can get settled,” Eve said through her gritted teeth.

  “Nah. I have shit to do. Why don’t you go find Killjoy, though? Ask him about why he was here, attacking the building and trying to kidnap kids. What did you say at the little hearing at StrikeForce? He’s a hero?” I laughed and turned away. “That all depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it Eve?”

  “For all we know, you set this whole thing up to make yourself look good, Daystar. Improve that sagging public image.”

  “Do we really want to talk about saggy things now, because… ”

  I heard her before anything else. She let out a low snarl, then there were shards of sharp, deadly looking ice shooting toward me. I threw my hands up, pushing my own power at them before they stabbed me or anyone else, and our powers collided in midair.

  I’d been amused before. Now I was just pissed. That ice would have hurt. Not me, so much, because my armor would have taken the brunt of it, but all of the people standing around and behind me had been in danger, too.

  I leapt forward and sent another blast of power at her, and she went flying back into her little army of guards.

  “You should leave, before I get nasty,” I said. “Take your lying ass and get out of my city. You better hope I don’t see you here again.”

  “You’re the one who should be afraid,” she shouted.

  I tilted my head. “And yet I’m not.” I waved my hand, sending a wave of raw power at her guards, and they all went flying through the air, falling in the playground near the back of the school. “Want to keep playing, or are we done here?”

  Her guards were picking themselves up, and she gave me a look of absolute hatred.

  “This isn’t over,” she seethed.

  “It’s not,” I agreed. “Next time we meet, I won’t be nearly as friendly. Get your frigid ass out of here.”

  A moment later, they disappeared, teleporting to wherever egomaniacal slimeballs slither off to.

  The crowd clapped and cheered after they left, and then it was a matter of us talking to local enforcement and trying to get the site secured. I gave my statements to the DPD about what I’d seen and who’d been involved. Not that they could do anything about it, but they were starting to understand that we needed to work together, at least a little bit, and they needed to know what to watch out for. By the time it was all over, I felt dead on my feet. Ryan pulled me toward his mini jet and we flew back to Command in silence. When we got to my suite, he immediately went into my bathroom and I heard the faucet running. He came back out a minute later.

  “Strip and get in the tub. I’ll find something to eat,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrow at him. “Pushy much?”

  “Sometimes. You just saved dozens of kids, fought fucking Killjoy again, faced off against the Tribunal, and almost had a building fall on you. You’re not allowed to do anything for at least the rest of the night.”

  “You fought and saved people too,” I argued. I started pulling my armor off, stripping down to the tank top and panties I wore underneath it. I glanced up to see Ryan watching me.

  He cleared his throat. “Not like you did, though. Go get in the tub. I’ll be back.” He spun around and walked out of my suite, and I chuckled to myself. My poor gruff man and his endless case of blue balls. Someday, I would love to take care of that for him.

  I pulled my tank top off and winced. Not tonight, though. Every damn thing hurt. I glanced down at my body. My entire left side, from my shoulder down to my ankle, was like one massive bruise, the result of me crashing into brick walls repea
tedly. I knew my back probably looked much the same, and it hurt so badly I was on the verge of tears with every breath. My chest hurt, proof that even though my uniform’s filtration system was top-notch, the smoke in the building had been extremely nasty stuff.

  Was it possible for hair to hurt? Because I was pretty sure mine did.

  I gingerly shimmied out of my panties and tossed them in the hamper in my bathroom, then settled into the tub. He’d added my favorite lavender bath oil, and I settled back and closed my eyes. I was just about to drift off when I heard the door open, then Ryan was walking into the bathroom, a wide tray in his hands. He settled it across the bathtub. Fruit, cheese, crackers…

  “Wine?” I asked him, glancing up at him.

  “You deserve it. They had pizza and all that other stuff down there but I know you don’t like to eat anything super heavy after a fight like that.”

  “You have a good memory,” I said, popping a grape into my mouth. He was right. Fights took everything out of me, and I was starving, but my stomach was still in knots from the stress and tension of the fight. A filling but light snack was perfect. I nibbled on some cheese, and then took a sip of the red wine.

  “Was this in your room or something?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you keep a lot of wine around?”

  “Nope. I was saving this for a romantic, candle-lit evening,” he said wryly.

  “Hmm. You’d have to find a different girlfriend to have one of those with, I think.”

  “Not a chance. Quiet evenings are boring anyway.”

  “Good, because I’d kick the ass of anyone who tried to have a romantic evening with you,” I told him, and he laughed.

  He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips. He sat and kept me company while I ate, and then he knelt next to the tub.

  “I’ll wash your hair if you want,” he said. I nodded and watched as he put a dollop of shampoo in his palm. When I looked up at his face, his eyes were on my body, what he could see of it above the bubbles, anyway. He caught me looking at him and grinned.

  “Blue balls,” he muttered, and I laughed. My laughter died the second he sank his fingers into my hair, ending on a contented sigh. I closed my eyes and relished the feel of his hands massaging my scalp, firm yet gentle.

  “How do you do shit like this, Jolene?” he asked, gently running one hand down my bruised back, then back up it again to my hair.

  “I don’t think about it. I just react.”

  “Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “Well, I’m not feeling up to kicking anyone’s ass just now.”

  “Then it must be excruciating,” he joked, and I laughed.

  “This helps a lot,” I said, splashing my hands in the bubbly water a little.

  “Good.” Ryan started working the shampoo through my hair, his fingertips gently massaging my scalp. I glanced up at him to see that he was completely focused as his fingers worked through my hair, and I swore my heart melted a little. Was this what love looked like? Someone being utterly, completely focused on something as mundane as washing another person’s hair? My stomach gave a funny little lurch, remembering what we’d said to one another earlier, about wanting each other forever. This was what my forever looked like, and I knew it the same way I know that the sun will rise in the morning and the stars will continue to shine overhead.

  “You can wash my hair whenever you want,” I murmured.

  “I’m holding you to that.” He worked the shampoo through my hair for a few more moments, then grabbed the shower head and gently rinsed the shampoo from my hair. When he was done, he ran some of my conditioner through my hair.

  “Fucking Killjoy,” he muttered after a while.

  “I was about to say that you were handling that whole fight remarkably well,” I said, and he shook his head.

  “I hate that bastard. He just won’t stop. He’s hiding like the rat he is, but he can come here and do this shit? He’s obsessed and crazy. I can’t figure him out, other than knowing that eventually, he’ll show up to actually, really confront you or whatever the hell it is he thinks he’s doing.”

  I shrugged. “He’s nuts. Trying to figure him out will only make you crazy, too.”

  He didn’t answer. “I know you already know this—”

  “I’ll be careful,” I told him. “As careful as I can be, anyway.” I remembered what Killjoy had said before flying away, that killing me wasn’t the worst thing he could do to me. He was right. Killing my mother had been way worse than if he’d just killed me. If he hurt or killed Ryan, or Jenson, or any of my other friends and teammates, that would be worse. I’m not afraid to die. I mean, I’d rather not, obviously. But I kind of accepted during my burglary days that someday the crazy life I lived would catch up with me, and I wouldn’t win. This was the same, but on a much bigger scale.

  Was that what he had meant? I would destroy him if he went after anyone else I cared about. I would end him, and I wouldn’t even give it a second thought.

  “Jolene?”

  “Hm?”

  “Your heart rate just spiked. What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. “Just pissed off about him getting away again. I don’t like having him out there.”

  “I know.”

  I finished my bath and he went into my room while I dried off and put my pajamas on. When I walked into the bedroom, he was already there, on what was becoming “his” side of the bed. I smiled and lay down beside him and he pulled me into his arms.

  “We have tomorrow night off,” he said quietly.

  “Theoretically.”

  He chuckled. “No, actually. I was wondering if you wanted to do something.”

  “Oh, I want to do something, Mr. Lucas,” I said, and he groaned.

  “I’m so glad to hear that, Ms. Faraday,” he said, nuzzling me. “I need to ask you something.”

  “Hm?”

  “I want you to meet my grandparents,” he said quietly. “I promised them I’d finally come home for a visit since I have tomorrow off. Will you come with me?”

  I turned around in his arms so I could look at his face. This was… well. This was a big deal. Ryan had his grandparents hidden from everyone, including StrikeForce. He was extremely protective of them, and most people didn’t even know they existed.

  “I mean, if you’d rather not, it’s okay,” he said quickly.

  “I’d love to meet them,” I said. “Are you sure, though?”

  He held me tighter. “You are the one thing in this world I’m completely sure of,” he said. “Now sleep. I’m keeping you up late tomorrow night.”

  “Promises, promises,” I said, smiling. I nuzzled his neck and fell asleep curled in his arms and thinking that for all its craziness, my life was really not half bad.

  Chapter Four

  I spent most of the next day busy with Jenson, but also nervous as hell about meeting Ryan’s grandparents. I changed my outfit about seventy-four times and managed to poke myself in the eye putting my mascara on, but eventually it was time to go. The sun was just setting as I met Ryan on the flight deck. He looked too good, wearing dark gray pants and a black shirt that emphasized his broad shoulders in a way that made it almost impossible not to stare at him. I glanced down at myself, at the black skirt and heels I’d finally settled on, with Jenson’s help.

  I felt like a girly girl and the heels were too high. I was going to kill Jenson for this.

  “You look gorgeous. But you also look like you want to hurt somebody,” he said in greeting. He bent down and kissed me, a brief kiss that turned into more. When he pulled away, I nearly forgot what he’d said before the kiss.

  “Oh. I’m just not used to the heels and skirt thing,” I said.

  “I can wait if you want to change. I want you to be comfortable.”

  “Well. I want to look presentable,” I told him.

  “Jolene, you always look way more than presentable,” he said. He ran his hands firmly over my hips, and I shivered agai
nst him. He bent his head and kissed and gently nipped at the sensitive skin just below my left ear, and I shivered again. He let out a low laugh.

  “I love this. Nobody else ever sees this side of you,” he murmured.

  “Nobody else has ever made me feel the way you do,” I told him. Ryan kissed the side of my neck again.

  “Good,” he said, his lips grazing my ear before he pulled away. “Are we ready?”

  I nodded and climbed up the stairs to the mini jet, and Ryan got in, closing the door behind us.

  “There’s a place to park this near your grandparents’ house?” I asked as I strapped myself in.

  “Yep. Their place is in the country. Acreage. I tried to plan ahead a little when I moved them.”

  “Always thinking,” I said. He reached back and squeezed my bare knee briefly, and the second he withdrew his hand, I wanted him to touch me again.

  “I try,” he murmured. He went through his pre-flight check, and a couple of minutes later, we were in the air.

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked when we were about ten minutes into the trip.

  “They’ll love you,” Ryan said.

  “Not about that. I know you want to keep them protected and out of our craziness. I get that. You know I do. Are you sure—”

  “I trust you, Jolene.”

  “I know. But there was a flight plan or something, right? The plane has tracking on it —”

  “David disabled the tracking for me before you arrived on the flight deck. There was no flight plan. I trust David as much as I trust you, which is completely.”

  I felt myself relax a little. “Okay. I feel better now.”

  “I love that you actually worry about stuff like that,” Ryan said.

  “Well, they matter to you, so they matter to me.”

  “She’s gonna ask you about babies,” he said a few minutes later, and I could tell he was uncomfortable bringing it up. “She just will. And I’m sorry in advance.”

  I let out a short laugh. “It’s okay.”