I shook my head. “I can’t turn it down. I had so much power built up in me, and it just blasted like that…that was nuts. And I am loaded up again, and how do I avoid blasting the shit out of someone? What if I hurt someone? What if I’d blasted some innocent pedestrian instead of your infuriating ass?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone do that.” I sensed apprehension from him, something else I couldn’t quite pinpoint. “You need training.”
“I do not want you messing around in my head.”
“It’s the only way. I’ll promise to stay out unless I tell you I’m going in first. And I’ll only go in when we’re training.”
I was quiet. My power had receded again. Relief. “This seems unlike you,” I finally said.
“Meaning?”
“You seem like a pushy, entitled, take-what-you-want asshole. Why are you giving in so easily?” I looked over at him, met his eyes.
“Right on all counts.”
“So?”
“One: you need to train. I don’t want distrust of me standing in the way of that. Two: that fucking
hurt
, Molly. Damn.”
I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. I hated him. I really, really could not stand him.
Unfortunately, he was my only chance to get my powers under control and my mind protected from the Puppeteer and anyone like her.
“Yeah, Okay.” I finally said. “But I’m still not super hero squad material.”
“Okay. You want to practice now?”
I looked at my watch, shook my head. “I’m already late for work,” I said. One more irritation. Blasting my boss like that would be a really bad move, too.
“All right.” He wrote something down. “This is my cell number, the phone number and address at the loft. Soon, Molls,” he said; an order. I just glared at him, giving his back the evil eye as he walked away.
♦ ♦ ♦
Two days and about two dozen nagging/threatening text messages from Nain later, I gave in and headed to the address Nain had given me. I pulled into parking garage below what looked like an old warehouse. Expensive part of town, nowadays, between Midtown and Downtown. Something told me Nain had owned the building long before the recent real estate boom in this area.
I got out of the car and walked toward an elevator. It was one of those kind of old-fashioned elevators with a gate that you pull down instead of solid doors. The way it creaked its way down when I pushed the button made me wish for stairs.
And, just my luck, Nain had decided to play welcoming crew. I could feel him before the elevator creaked down to my level, before I got a glimpse of his brown hiking boots, then jean-clad legs, then t-shirted torso. And then there was the ever-present glare he gave me when his face did finally come into sight.
When the elevator squeaked to a stop, he lifted the gate and I got in. He closed it, hit the button to take us back up. “It’s a good time to get acquainted. Everyone’s here, and we’re meeting about some intel we just received.” I nodded, and we rode the rest of the way up in silence. I was more nervous than I’d been about anything in a long time. That was irritating. After everything I’d been through, what the hell did I have to be nervous about now?
“Because you’re about to meet a whole group of people like yourself, people with power,” Nain said. “Your eyes are about to get opened, Molls.”
“Stay out of my mind,” I muttered.
“Learn to shield it, and I won’t be able to hear you,” Nain said. The elevator came to a stop, and he opened the door. We walked into a little foyer-type area, with a large oak door ahead of us. Nain opened it, waved me through. I stepped in and looked around. Someone was doing very, very well for himself. The loft was spacious. Full of natural light and soaring ceilings. Expensive leather furniture in the living room, which was situated near a wall of windows looking out over the Cultural Center. A kitchen with granite counter tops and dark wood cabinets was on the other side of the loft, along with what looked like a small office area. Most of the loft was empty, and mahogany floors gleamed. Two sets of stairs, one at each end of the loft, led to a second level, to what I guessed were bedrooms, bathrooms.
I could have spent more time admiring the (very expensive) decor, but the group of people sitting in the living room caught my attention. Really, they were impossible to ignore. They all looked up as the door opened, and every one of their gazes landed solidly on me. I steeled myself. I was a total badass, right? The Angel, finder of lost girls. Right.
The expressions on their faces ranged from shock to curiosity to distrust. I felt all of that, and something that felt like active dislike, coming from the group of six powerful beings staring at me.
Nain started walking toward them, and I had no choice but to follow. To be fair, I did consider bolting for the door. But that seemed undignified.
“You have something, Ada?” Nain asked as he approached the group.
The middle-aged black woman sitting on the sofa nodded, dragged her gaze away from me. “We know where he’s going to be tomorrow night. It’s not going to be easy, though.” She looked at me again, and I forced myself to meet her gaze. No showing weakness, not now. Ada transferred her gaze to another man, and I followed it. The man was staring at me.
“Hello, Angel,” the man said, warmth in his voice. He was probably around fifty, bald, and built like a brick shithouse (as one of my foster fathers had liked to say) – solid, huge. He wore a leather biker jacket and jeans. Work boots on his feet and a white mustache on his face.
I just nodded. Felt like if I opened my mouth, I’d puke. Definitely undignified. I could feel the power swirling in this room. Nain’s was strongest, and then one of the men, then Ada, then the biker guy, then the others. Emotions ran strong here, a stampede. It was very close to overwhelming me. This was one of the many reasons I avoided groups of people. Too loud, too emotional, too everything. I took a deep breath, worked at deadening myself against their emotions a little. Not completely; I’d still know what they were feeling. But enough so that their emotions didn’t have such a punch to them. Not easy, but it was something I’d been doing for a long time. A few seconds later, and I had managed to deaden their emotions to a dull roar.
Nain was standing next to me. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Molly Brooks. Molly, this is the team. Stone,” he said, gesturing to the biker guy. “Brennan,” pointing at a thirty-something with dirty blond, longish hair and a five-o’clock shadow. “George and Veronica,” he said, pointing to the couple on the loveseat. “And Ada,” gesturing to the woman who’d been observing me.
“A pleasure to meet the finder of lost girls,” Stone said to me, still watching me closely, as if trying to place me.
“She’s more than that,” the blond guy, Brennan, said. “She’s powerful.” He looked at me. “What can you do?”
I felt curiosity, respect coming from him. It made me wonder if there was a social order among those with powers the way there was among animals. This man reminded me of a wild animal, a predator. Something in his eyes, in the way even the smallest movements looked controlled and deadly.
I glanced at Nain. He met my eyes and nodded.
I took a breath. “I can read thoughts. Sense emotions.” I looked at Nain again, and he nodded for me to go on.
All of it, Molls
, he thought at me.
“I can take memories, plant things that weren’t there. I can make people act against their will.” I felt a torrent of emotion, most of it dread, coming from the rest of the people in the room. I gritted my teeth against it.
“And I can self-heal,” I finished. And a storm of emotions — shock, disbelief –hit me, all at once.
Stay strong. I can imagine what you’re feeling from them.
Uh, yeah.
I forced myself to look at them. The man and woman on the couch looked as if they were looking at a cobra that was getting ready to strike. Ada looked thoughtful. I looked back at the man who had asked the question in the first place. Saw open admiration, curiosity on his face.
“But that’s not the only way you rescue lost girls,” he said, standing up and walking toward me. “I’ve heard the stories. About a tiny woman who pounds much bigger men into oblivion. Broken knees, broken noses. I heard about a time you broke all of the bones in a guy’s hand, just because he was being uncooperative. Was that true?” By now, he had reached me, and was practically circling me, like a dog getting ready to fight. “Or was it all bullshit?”
“Do you want to find out?” I muttered, meeting his blue eyes.
He smiled, a flash of perfect white teeth. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Brennan gave a small bow and motioned for me to head to the open part of the loft.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nain asked.
“Of course,” I said, glancing at him.
Nain smiled. “I wasn’t talking to you, Molls.”
I bit back the grin forming on my lips, glanced at Brennan. I reached what I now realized was the training floor — a punching bag was in one corner, and weapons hung on one of the walls. I turned, ready. Brennan stood there, stripped off his shirt and threw it off to the side, revealing the hard, muscled body of someone who clearly did this kind of thing a lot. A long scar slashed across his ribcage.
“Rules?” I asked.
“No punching in the face. No mind control bullshit. Other than that, use what ya got. Time to see if you’re as batshit insane as I think you are.” I nodded. Stood ready. He grinned. “So, how should I kick your ass? As a man or as a beast?”
I was confused for a second, then I realized what he was saying: shapeshifter. Oh, hell. I gave him a bored glance, trying to look much calmer than I actually was. “You do whatever you feel you need to do,” I said.
He lunged for me, and I deflected. He tried to grab my arm, and I twisted out of it effortlessly. I punched, landed one to his abdomen. He shook it off, lunged for me again, knocked me down with a hard kick to my abdomen. I landed and rolled away, bounced up again. I kicked out, landed a solid kick right to his knee, and he fell hard, then sprung up as a tiger, roared at me.
Oh, shit.
I spun, kicked the tiger in the face and sent it flying back into the wall. He changed form again, into a grizzly bear, thundered at me, took a swipe with a clawed paw. I ducked, he lunged again. I could see Nain and the rest of the group all watching tensely. I landed a kick to the chest that sent the bear down on its back, but it came up, lunged at me, and I evaded.
This went on for what seemed like forever.
It landed a smack with its giant paw that sent me crashing into the wall, then it came at me again. I kicked out with both feet and all my power, sent him flying across most of the loft.
“Holy shit,” Stone muttered. Veronica gasped.
And he changed form again, into a man, and he came at me with a knife.
“Not fair,” I gasped. The muscles in my arms and legs were burning. I was sore, but healing. What the hell had I been thinking?
“Like I said, use what ya got,” Brennan said, equally out of breath but grinning as if he was having an absolute blast.
We fought, hand to hand, both of us breathing hard. He was a flurry of movement that I was having a harder and harder time tracking. I swatted the knife aside several times, got a cut across one arm, and he still kept coming. I kicked, hard, at his groin, but he deflected, laughing as he did it. He landed a few solid punches to my stomach, and I landed just as many, including a nice right cross to his jaw.
Then I feinted, making like I was going to punch him again, and instead kicked him, low, sweeping his feet out from under him. He laid there, started to reach for me, and before I could back off, he had me, and we wrestled in earnest. After a while, it felt like my strength was going to give out. Finally, with one last twist, and a good dose of my power to back me up, I got him down, held his arm twisted behind him.
“Give up?” I asked him, barely able to speak.
Quicker than I would have guessed, he reached up, grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the floor. Then he straddled me, held me down by the throat. His grip was steel, and he was completely unmoved by the way I bucked my body and clawed at his arms, drawing blood.
“Never underestimate your opponent,” he said, his voice like a low growl. “Taking the time to gloat after you think you’ve won only opens you up for retaliation. Remember that.” He released me and stood up. He pulled his shirt back on (covering the many bruises I’d given him, I noted with some satisfaction) and then came back and held out a hand, which I took grudgingly, and he pulled me up.
He grinned at me. I had misjudged this one. He played the goofball, the flirt. He was freaking terrifying. I glared at him. I am not a good loser. Whatever.
“Sorry about those kicks to the groin,” I said, stepping back from him.
He was still grinning. “It’s all right. Sorry about the hair pulling. That must have hurt.” He looked at me appreciatively, and I felt respect coming from him. “By the way, you are batshit insane.”
I laughed. Turned to see Nain watching us with an unreadable look in his eyes. Annoyance rolled off of him.
Just then, the door buzzer rang.
“That would be the pizza,” Stone said, getting up from his chair. “You came just in time for lunch,” he said to me, smiling.
Over slices of the best pizza I’d ever had, the team filled me in on powers. Veronica could kill with a touch, thanks to some kind of neurotoxin that she secreted in her body and could call at will. George could turn himself and anyone or anything he was touching invisible. Stone was ridiculously strong.
“I’ve seen him push over entire brick buildings without even getting out of breath,” Nain told me, taking a bite of pizza.
“Remember that time he knocked down the wall of the loft?” Ada asked, laughing. It was one of those rich, infectious laughs that made me smile along with her.
“I thought Nain was going to go all demon on me. Those were the good old days,” Stone said, laughing so hard he started choking on his pizza. The rest of the group laughed, and Nain patted him hard on the back.
The laughter died down, and Ada looked at me, a smile in her eyes. “So, are you with us?” she asked.