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

  Thinking of romance novels made my stomach twist weirdly. My heart gave a few hard thumps. I pressed my hands to my cheeks and realized that my face felt warm, as if I was blushing. What the hell even was this, now? I shook my head and walked through a doorway. A bedroom, more white walls. A narrow dresser, a nightstand with a lamp on it that looked like it came directly from some 1980s corporate office: stark, gray, and boring as hell. The enormous king-size bed with its fluffy comforter and excess of pillows seemed out of place. I took a moment to slowly open all of the drawers and closet. There was a red and black uniform in the closet. I guessed that was mine? Beside that was a black and gray one. I couldn’t see myself actually wearing either one of them.

  I clearly needed to readjust to my life. How long had I even been undercover? And what had they done to me, exactly? More answers I guessed I could only get from Connor, I thought with a grimace. In the dresser drawers were lacy, satiny bras and panties that I can’t imagine having picked out for myself. I picked up one silky bra, noting that it was padded. Did I really wear this shit? I glanced down at my less-than-impressive chest. I guess maybe I did.

  I left the bra on the bed and walked through the doorway on the left side of the bedroom. There was a bathroom with a deep whirlpool tub, a pedestal sink, and a small separate room for the toilet. An array of bubble baths and lotions sat on a shelf, and I looked at them. Roses, peonies, lily of the valley. No lavender?

  Wait. Did I even like lavender? Did I like any of this shit? Did I like push up bras and thongs and rose scented lotion? Did I like Connor? And why did the name Killjoy keep floating into my mind when I thought of him?

  What foods did I like? Did I prefer baths or showers? What kind of music did I like?

  I thought, and realized I didn’t know. All I knew about my preferences were what was in this room, and none of it felt right for some reason.

  I slid my body down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, looking toward the whirlpool tub with its array of bubble baths. I closed my eyes and tried to remember something, anything, about what I liked. The only thing I could remember was romance novels, and I wondered why I knew that. I held onto it like a lifeline, like a security blanket as I tried to remember more. Whatever had been there, once upon a time, was gone, thanks to whatever StrikeForce had done to me.

  Wait.

  They were the heroes. Did heroes mess with people’s minds? Would they have just gone in and started erasing shit?

  Maybe it hadn’t been that. Maybe my brain had been damaged somehow. In a fight, maybe? Or if they had actually been evil enough to try to mind control me, maybe the trauma of them messing with my brain had caused me to lose some things? If that was the case, I was definitely going to hurt somebody.

  I felt like I was on the edge of panic. Like I was lost, a stranger in my own skin. In truth, my body felt like an enemy, sensing every single thing too strongly. My skin prickled, abraded by the gentle waft of air coming through the heating vent across the room. The scent of antiseptic cleaners burned my nostrils. Not as badly as it had when I’d first woken up, but still enough to make me want to rip my hair out. Which I might have done, except that I knew it would hurt even more than it should have.

  Why the fuck had he done this to me? Getting me back was one thing. Getting rid of their programming or whatever, fine. But why this? Why the addition of these stupid powers that did nothing but make me miserable? This building, wherever the hell we were, was a cacophony of sound. Heartbeats, at least seven, sounded throughout the building. The endless parade of footsteps on other floors, the creaks of furniture, the laughter, the voices… all of them, so far, male.

  I held onto that last bit of information. Voices. Maybe that would mean answers. I kept my eyes closed, and listened.

  Three men were talking about a hockey game. I filtered that out, because it was useless.

  Two men were talking about a woman named Eve, and how she was not going to be happy I was here. Gossip. Who was Eve, anyway? Another team member? I listened more, and from the way they talked, she was someone fairly important, someone Connor needed who he probably shouldn’t piss off. They debated about how pissed she’d be to find me here next time she came. They didn’t seem happy about it, either way. I filed that away. Then one of them said something, in an even quieter voice, about him needing me because of his powers. Nobody said much after that, and I wondered what he’d meant. What about Connor’s powers? Something to think about later. I kept listening. I could hear Connor’s deep voice, a hint of Scottish brogue, Lorne’s higher voice. They were speaking quietly, and I had to focus harder to hear them.

  “She’s asking questions. I told her to ask you.”

  “Good.”

  “Boss, I think she needs to go under again.”

  A moment of silence. “Why?” I heard Connor ask.

  “She was saying things. About StrikeForce being the heroes, and we’re the villains. About you being a villain. She shouldn’t know that.”

  More silence.

  “You were supposed to fix this, Lorne,” Connor finally growled.

  I scrunched up my face. Why did he want to lie to me? Mayhem were the villains, StrikeForce was the hero team. Everybody knew that. The fact that they were my enemy, obviously, didn’t make that fact change at all. They could be heroes and still be assholes.

  “I’m not putting her under again unless we really have to. So she knows we’re the villains. You better hope—”

  “This is a very inexact science. I explained this to you,” Lorne said quickly. “You get that, right? It’s working with layers of memory and trying to—”

  “I know. I don’t need the fuckin’ spiel again. Just do your job. If she needs to go under again, we’ll decide that after we see how she’s adjusting.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I heard footsteps, and guessed that Connor had walked away. They weren’t Lorne’s light, shuffling footsteps. Lorne walked as if he was always wearing bedroom slippers, shuffling, dragging steps. Connor’s steps were more like a march; staccato, heavy. The guys talking hockey continued talking, and the guys who had been talking about Eve were now talking about whether Lorne was going to be working with anyone else. The consensus seemed to be that none of them liked that idea, and then they stopped talking, and I heard a door open. Maybe to outside? After that, all that was left were the guys talking about sports.

  I shook my head and opened my eyes, and fought the urge to close them again. The light hurt.

  I forced myself up and over to the tub, which I started filling with hot water. I ignored the bubble baths and stripped out of the white cotton pants and t-shirt I’d been in. I tossed them in a hamper, wondering idly about who did my laundry, and I looked down at my body. My arms were a mess. Bruises, swelling. I ran my fingertips over them. Likely from IVs and other injections, I guessed. I glanced at myself in the mirror over the sink. My eyes were sunken, my face pale. My hair was scraggly. I looked exactly as I felt: like a woman who had lost her mind.

  Chapter Six

  Ryan

  I was losing my damn mind. Eight days since she’d disappeared. Eight days in which she could have been killed, hurt, tortured. Every nightmare scenario ran through my mind, all the things that Killjoy could be doing to her, and we didn’t have the first fucking idea where she could be.

  If she was even still alive.

  I brushed that thought aside the second I had it. This was Killjoy and Jolene. He wouldn’t kill her. He was obsessed with her. Yeah, he was fucking insane, and definitely evil, but he wouldn’t kill her. My only fear was that he’d hurt her enough to make her wish that he had.

  “We’ll get her back. It’ll be okay,” Chance said. She was sitting in the seat behind mine in the mini-jet, the seat Jolene was supposed to be sitting in. I’d been patrolling, alternating working with her and with Lindsey, my most recent partner. I’d been determined to start working with Jolene again after everything that happened, but clearly, things didn’t al
ways go my way.

  “We will,” I said. I flew us low over a part of the city full of abandoned old houses. We’d had a tip that someone had seen Killjoy in the area. It didn’t seem like his kind of place, really. Nothing here to steal, nothing here to use.

  “This seems like another bust,” I said. I landed the mini-jet anyway, putting it down in an empty lot that would have been overgrown with weeds if it wasn’t the middle of winter. Instead, all of last year’s weeds and grasses were flattened, matted with the remains of our most recent snowfall.

  “We have to check out every lead though, right?” Chance said, and I nodded. She hopped down out of the jet and we started making our way through the neighborhood. She stayed quiet, letting me listen. It had been a long time since I’d worked with Chance. I’d trained her, back when she’d first joined up. Taught her to fight, taught her to listen. She hadn’t forgotten a thing, it seemed, as we settled back into our old roles easily. Her heartbeat seemed to quicken a bit whenever we talked about Jolene, and my suspicious mind had started working overtime at the fact, until I realized that pretty much everybody’s heart rate spiked when talking about Jolene. We were all stressed out, freaked out, pissed off. Jenson seemed to be nothing but rage-filled adrenaline. She hadn’t been whole since the day Jolene had gone missing, sending her multiples out into the city on foot, searching every square inch possible for Jo. David had every possible monitoring device up and in operation, an army of drones monitoring the city, ready to alert us to any sight of her. Portia was running herself ragged calling in favors from other teams. She had the same feeling I did, that he’d probably moved her out of the city. Killjoy was evil, not stupid. He knew that if she was here, we’d find her.

  But we looked anyway. We followed every lead. David started shipping more drones to other cities, anywhere we could think of where Killjoy had a connection, and there were a lot of them. London. Oslo. New York, Miami, L.A. A few of the Scottish port cities where he’d been seen in his early villainous asshole days. So far, all we had were a lot of dead ends and frustration.

  “This is a waste of time. There’s nothing even moving in these houses but rats,” I said to Chance.

  She looked uncomfortable. “Even so… maybe we’re not looking for something with a heartbeat,” she said gently.

  I didn’t want to think about that. Finding Jolene’s cold, dead body had been a recurring nightmare since the day she’d gone missing. Not that I’d slept much. But when I did, it was all I saw.

  I gave Chance a short nod, and we started looking in houses. Two hours later, we’d looked through every remaining structure, either by physically going in or by me using my x-ray vision where I could. I felt like I could breathe. Not finding her body today meant there was still hope, and I held onto what I knew about Killjoy: he wouldn’t kill her. Knowing that and being out here possibly searching for a body didn’t make me feel any better. I also knew he was seriously unbalanced. What if she pissed him off? What if he lost control and killed her without meaning to? What if she tried to escape, and he did whatever it took to keep her?

  I shook the thoughts away as Chance and I walked back to the jet. No. Jolene was smart. Jolene knew when to push and when to play the game. If he had her, which we knew he did based on what Chance had seen the day she’d gone missing, plus the bits of garbled video we’d grabbed from the courtyard that day… if he had her, she was playing it smart. She’d find his weaknesses and use them.

  She’d been in love with him once, a shitty little voice slithered through my mind.

  She’d never love him again. Not after what he’d done to her mother. I knew that. And kidnapping Jolene would not make her love you. It would make her more likely to find the nearest sharp thing to stab you with, I thought as I climbed into the pilot seat. I smiled, despite how stressed I was. My woman was not somebody you wanted to piss off. Not if you wanted to walk away with all of your parts still working, anyway.

  I had to believe it would be enough, that between her own brand of badass and the way we were all looking for her, she’d come out of this okay. It was the only thing I could hold onto to avoid losing it completely.

  Chapter Seven

  Jolene

  Going by the digital clock in my bedroom, it had been two and a half days since I’d woken up. In that time, I’d had eight meals served to me by an unsmiling woman who wheeled a cart into the room and left without a word. The only utensils allowed, apparently were spoons. Connor had not come to see me, but Lorne had, giving me injections like clockwork, asking questions about what I remembered.

  I told him as little as possible, asked about Connor, and got absolutely no answers. Listening, it was clear Connor was not in the building with us. The two men who’d been talking about Eve that first day remained, along with Lorne and me, but that was it.

  I’d been growing steadier, but not by much. I still walked slowly, feeling off-balance, as if I’d fall at any moment. I’d asked Lorne about it, and he said I’d suffered some permanent brain damage in a fight during my time with StrikeForce, that it was the lingering effect of that.

  I had no idea if he was telling me the truth or not.

  So I practiced walking, feeling like a toddler new on its feet. And I listened, for all the good it did me. I learned nothing at all.

  By the end of the first day, I started looking at the door leading out of my room. There was not a chance in hell I was just sitting here because somebody told me to.

  By the next morning, I decided to check it out. If anyone got pissed that I was out of my room, I’d just say that I’d forgotten that I wasn’t supposed to leave. I mean, I’d apparently had my mind messed with, right? A girl was sure to forget things under those circumstances.

  I dressed in the only non-uniform clothing I’d found in my room, which was a pair of jeans and a v-neck sweater. Pink. I grimaced as I pulled it on. I didn’t remember much, but I was pretty sure that pink wasn’t one of my favorites. They hadn’t given me any shoes, so I pulled on a pair of socks. As if the lack of shoes would keep me in here if I decided I wanted out. As weird as this all was, if I got even the slightest chance, I was making a run for it. I didn’t know where I’d go, but it had to be better than this. I was clearly a prisoner here. I mean, yeah, I was recovering from surgery and whatever had happened in my time with StrikeForce. Okay. But the lack of straight answers from anybody, the lack of communication in general, was starting to weird me out.

  I opened my door and looked out into the stark white corridor. There were cameras, I realized, spotting a small silver one tucked into a corner, near the ceiling. One more point for the “I’m totally a prisoner” side of the argument. Why else would they be watching me?

  The camera also meant that they would notice I’d stepped out. Time to move it.

  I made my way to the stairwell nearby and opened the door. I leaned over the railing. There were two floors above mine, two below. The stairwell was stark white, just like everything else. Another camera.

  I started making my way down the stairs, trying to look like I was just walking casually. One floor. I was still wobbly on my legs, and clung to the metal railing like it was a lifeline as I started down the final flight of stairs. I was hoping there’d be an emergency exit or something here, but there wasn’t. Just a doorway that would lead to a corridor, based on the layout of the floors above.

  I opened the door, and, sure enough, it led to another stark white corridor. There had to be an exit somewhere here, right? I walked down the corridor, looking for any sign of an exit, scenting the air for any sign of fresh, outside air, anything other than the antiseptic sting I was becoming accustomed to.

  After making my way up and down the hall, I had to admit there was nothing. Maybe this was a basement level?

  I headed back to the stairwell, climbed the stairs, which seemed to take forever, to the next floor, and surveyed that floor the same way. Nothing.

  I passed my floor, which I knew didn’t have an exit. Was the e
ntire fucking building underground?

  The fourth floor yielded the same result. By now, I was sweating. My legs were shaking, unaccustomed, or maybe unable, to deal with the work I was making them do.

  One more floor. I could do this. The exit had to be on that floor. I climbed the last flight on aching legs. I had to laugh. I was considered a supervillain? I couldn’t even climb five fucking flights of stairs without getting winded. What the hell kind of threat was I? Was I going to smell them to death? Still chuckling, I pushed the door to the top floor open. I nearly shouted with victory when I saw the vestibule at the opposite end, bright sunlight shining in through the windows. I started walking down the hallway, my clumsy steps becoming quicker. I’d been more careful at the beginning, waiting for someone to stop me, but each floor had convinced me that maybe nobody was watching.

  Maybe I could actually do this.

  It wasn’t until I was about three quarters of the way toward the door that I heard a heartbeat nearby, suddenly, as if it had appeared out of thin air.

  And then the door just to the left of the vestibule opened, and Connor stepped out, standing between me and the exit. I stopped, and he stood there, silently, arms crossed over his chest.

  “What are you up to, Jolene?” he finally asked, his voice icy, not at all the friendly tone he’d used with me after I’d come to.

  “I wanted some fresh air,” I said. “I’m tired of sitting in my room. I’m losing my mind in there.”

  He started walking toward me.

  “You were instructed to stay in your room. You’re still recovering.”

  “I feel better moving. I can’t stand just sitting there,” I argued.

  “You’re not hearing me. You were instructed to stay there, until I told you otherwise.”