Authors: Tiffany Allee
Justice flipped his cell phone open and pressed the number one until it dialed. StrongArm’s voice came on the line, clear, like he’d been awake. “Yeah?”
“Silencer’s apartment has been compromised.” He hesitated before giving the building address to StrongArm. Giving out any superhero’s address was serious. But StrongArm led the superhero council in the Chicago area, which meant he could pull her address anytime he wanted. He ran his hand through his hair, rattled off the address, and then snapped his phone shut.
“Let’s go. We’ve got people moving in.”
Brenda nodded and let him lead her to the stairwell with his hand gripping her upper arm. She was surprisingly obedient, but he guessed she had every right to be shaken up. The idea of that freak hanging out on her balcony while she slept….
“Are you okay?” she asked when they reached the lobby.
He grunted, hoping she’d take it for assent. He was far from okay. “I should be asking you that.”
“I’m fine. He just startled me. I shouldn’t have run out of there like a damn chicken.” Disgust laced her voice.
Unable to help himself, he reached out and tucked a wayward piece of her hair behind her ear. “You did the exact right thing.”
She shook her head. “If you say so.”
The image of that creep peeking through her window with a damn butcher knife hit him, and he took a deep breath to calm the sudden rage rolling through his body. Brenda could have been hurt. And it would have been his fault for dragging her into this fight.
He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind. He had to deal with the situation they were in right now. Make sure she was safe. That’s what mattered.
“Do you have keys?”
She looked at him blankly.
“Car keys?”
“Oh. Not my main set, but I have a spare in one of those hide-a-key things.”
He grunted again. After all of this was over, he’d talk to her about how she was inviting thieves to take her car off her hands with that thing, but for now it was damn convenient so he wasn’t going to argue.
“We’re taking your car.”
She crinkled her brows and shot him a glance but didn’t ask him how he got there. “Where are we going?” she asked instead.
“My place.”
Chapter Five
Justice lived in a house so close to the ’burbs she figured it barely counted as the city. But the home was cute, brick, and one-story, a ranch style typical of the seventies. It stood proudly between two McMansions that had replaced the older houses on either side of it. It didn’t look like the house of someone who drove a Porsche, and she wondered for a moment if he spent more money on the car than the house, and then dismissed the idea. A home in a nice neighborhood at a convenient location near—but not too close—to Metra and redline access didn’t come cheap.
He came around and opened her door and she realized she’d just been sitting like a dope, staring at his house through the window. “Sorry,” she muttered and looked away from him to hide her embarrassment.
Justice strode up to a door on the side of the house and unlocked it, letting them in to a small kitchen, not much bigger than the one in her apartment.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” he explained as she glanced around. The sink had his dishes from the night before, maybe from a couple of nights before, by the size of the stack. Or perhaps he hadn’t eaten alone.
She frowned and turned her attention back to Justice. “No problem.”
“I’ll show you the guest room.”
He led her to a small room off a narrow hallway that sported a twin bed and a small dresser.
“Bathroom is the next door on the right,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “My room is on the left if you need anything.” He paused and glanced around the room, before settling his gaze on her. “Do you? Need anything, I mean.”
The intensity behind his eyes burned into her and her mouth went dry. She licked her lips, and he took a step toward her, hands fisted tightly at his side.
“Oh.” She searched her mind for something snazzy or sexy to say. “I’m good, thanks.”
He stopped and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he nodded and shot her a reassuring smile, but the look didn’t negate the fire in his eyes. “He won’t find you here.”
Forcing a smile, she gave a quick jerk of her head.
Awkward silence hung in the air for a few seconds, and then Justice turned and walked into the hall. She shut the door behind him.
***
Staring at the window until the sun came up was not going on Brenda’s list of favorite ways to spend the night. But she’d slept after that, clear until noon. Groggy, she wandered to the bathroom, found a toothbrush on the counter still in the plastic container and used it.
Justice sat at the dining room table hunched over a laptop computer screen. His superhero outfit was back on, but he wasn’t wearing his mask.
She stopped at the end of the hallway and studied him. He was handsome, as she’d known he would be—he couldn’t hide that under a mask that only covered a small part of his skin. Chocolate brown eyes were set into perpetually tanned skin. His hair, which she’d thought black until she saw him up close, was darker brown than his eyes. If he’d been any paler, it would have looked too dark, but against his skin the dark brown looked perfect.
“How was your night?” he asked, not raising his eyes from the computer screen.
She shrugged. “As good as you might expect, I guess.”
“There are doughnuts and bagels on the counter. Coffee’s fresh.”
“Thanks.”
After checking the bagels, all plain or non-fruity flavors, she settled on a doughnut covered in chocolate sauce. For good measure and because she’d had a bad night, she added a glazed doughnut to her plate before pouring a cup of coffee and heading back to the dining room.
Justice shut the computer when she walked in and gave her a quick once-over.
“Did you get any sleep?”
If the expression on his face was any indication, she must look like she hadn’t.
“Some. Did they find anything at my apartment?” She sat at the table and took a sip of coffee. Maybe two doughnuts were too many. Some of the outfits in her closet might not fit after two.
“No. Bastard was gone by the time they got there.” He crossed his arms.
Of course he was. Screw it. She took a bite out of the chocolate doughnut. The night ran through her mind, and though she wanted to shy from it, she knew thinking about what happened was important.
Justice nodded and tapped on the computer; his eyes were affixed to a spot on his wall, and she didn’t have to turn around to know there was nothing of interest on the spot.
“What I want to know is how he got on the balcony,” she said, the thought bothered her the night before, but she hadn’t wanted to think about what had happened, or what could have happened if Justice hadn’t gotten there so fast. “And I want to know how he got down so fast and out of the area. I mean The Council probably had people there what…two, maybe three minutes after you?” She took another bite out of her chocolate-covered doughnut and reveled in the taste.
“Yeah. Three minutes tops.” As he leaned forward, the laptop moved a couple of inches toward the middle of the table, too.
“So…I guess he could have brought a ladder.” She frowned. That didn’t fit the super villain ideal, but that didn’t make it impossible. “But to get down, load a ladder and get out of there before the League arrived?”
“I’ve checked and double-checked into his powers. I spent the morning talking to New York. He doesn’t have any powers outside sonic waves that anyone has ever seen.”
No wonder the undersides of his eyes were just a bit darker than she imagined they should be. He probably hadn’t gotten any rest at all.
“So what do we do now?” She stuffed the final bite of the chocolate-covered doughnut between her lips and eyed the glazed.
“
We
aren’t doing anything. I’m going to go talk to the League, see if I can come up with any leads.” He stood up.
“What am I supposed to be doing?” she asked, or tried to. The large chunk of doughnut lodged itself to the roof of her mouth, so the words came out muffled.
Justice crossed his arms. “You’re staying here.” He raised a hand when she started to object. “Spare my table the chunk of pastry you’re about to spit on it, please. This isn’t up for discussion. This guy wants you. You, personally. He knows your power, knows your name, where you live.”
She frantically choked down coffee to force the doughnut down. Some of the dark liquid dribbled onto her chin, and she wiped at it with her hand.
So attractive
. “So I’m just supposed to sit here?”
“He views you as a threat, Brenda. We can’t risk you wandering out there where he can find you easily. You’ll be putting yourself and the people around you in danger.”
She frowned and thought of Maria and all of the other people she worked with. She couldn’t go to work, not with him knowing her name. It would be all too easy for him to figure out where she was employed if he hadn’t already. Her blood ran cold. “What if they’re already in danger? He’s taken hostages before, Justice.”
“Justin.”
“What?”
“My name, it’s Justin. With everything I know about you, you have a right to know that much. Well,” he waved his hand, gesturing at the room around them, “and where I live, obviously.”
“Your real name is Justin…and your superhero name is Justice?”
He frowned. “Seemed…right.”
His disappointment at her reaction made her grin, but it faded as the distraction of his name wore off.
“You’re right. We should be worried about hostages. With this guy’s track record, it’s more than possible,” he said, and ran his hand through his hair. She wondered if it felt as soft as it appeared. “We’ll put a flyer on it, someone who can keep an eye out and report back if he shows. Violet maybe.”
She thought back to when Violet—out of uniform—had shown up at her pharmacy and the grin crept back onto her face. “Good idea. I don’t think she’ll have a problem finding the hospital.”
Brenda wandered around Justice’s house after he left. The television offered a poor distraction and she diligently ignored her desire to snoop. She showered and put on a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt he’d dug out for her and felt even worse. Nothing like a set of old, too-large sweats and T-shirt to make a person feel really unattractive.
He still hadn’t done the dishes, so she loaded them into his dishwasher and tried not to wonder if they had come from more than one person, or just more than one meal. It seemed the least she could do after he let her stay at his home.
A couple of hours of daytime television later, she was about to go insane when she heard his car pull into the driveway. With its low and mean-sounding engine, the Porsche was unmistakable.
“Hey,” she said, shutting the television off as he walked into the living room. His mask was back in place, but he pulled it off as soon as he reached the couch.
“Hey yourself.” He took in her outfit, and a wide smile broke out on his face. “You’re all rumpled.”
She frowned. “I’m going crazy here. I can’t watch daytime television and stay sane.”
He barked out a laugh and continued to study her clothes with interest.
Crossing her arms, she glared at him. “Seriously, I need to get back to work.”
“Are you even supposed to work today? It’s Saturday.” He sat down next to her on the sofa, and she scooted a couple of inches away to give him room. The smell of his aftershave, spicy and fresh, hit her and she closed her eyes. A man should not be allowed to smell that good.
“No I’m not supposed to be working today, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have things to do.”
“What kind of things?”
“Well….” She’d been planning on cleaning her house, running some errands. But saying that aloud would make her list sound so…unimportant. Just being out of her element, forced to stay in a strange house where she had to constantly fight the urge to search through the underwear drawer of a man she barely knew, that’s what bothered her. But she couldn’t say that out loud.
The sound of her cell phone saved her from having to answer him, and she jumped up from the sofa to retrieve it from the dining room table. The table was only a couple of short steps from the couch, so she reached the phone on the second ring and flipped it open without looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Brenda, how are you?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded worried.
“Oh, I’m fine, Mom. How are you?” she said, airily. Crap. She should have checked before she answered. The worry in her mom’s voice meant she knew about Howler. Although her parents were retired, they still kept in contact with the Superhero League and its council.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d been assigned to a dangerous case? Or at least call me last night?” her mother said, voice rising a few octaves. “I’ve been worried sick about you, but I didn’t want to call since you probably didn’t get any sleep last night.”
Brenda’s mother, Mabel Booth, had two great concerns in life: that her kids might get hurt in their superhero duties, and that they might not be getting enough sleep and eating enough vegetables. The first was usually reserved for her brother, Paul. The second was divided equally between them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I didn’t want to worry you.” She took a deep breath. “And I’m fine, Mom, really.”
“Good,” her mom said, and some of the strain disappeared from her voice. “Well, anyway, that’s not the only reason I called. I wanted to make sure you remembered to bring peach cobbler tonight. Your brother loves it.”
“Tonight….”
“Yes, tonight. Your brother is in town. Don’t tell me you forgot?”
No, I didn’t forget something as exciting as dinner with Paul while being involved with something as banal as being stalked by a super villain
. “Of course I didn’t forget. But honestly, with everything going on I’m not sure dinner is the best idea.”
“Nonsense, your brother doesn’t come into town every day.”