Screwing the Superhero (16 page)

Ace spoke from his spot on the floor. “Give it to me.”

Sighing in frustration, Draco crossed to Ace and handed him the phone. Without pushing any buttons, Ace used his superpower to speak to the machine and commanded it to call up the text messages.

“What’s it like to do that? How do you make the machine listen?”

His brother raised an eyebrow but didn’t look up. “How do you make someone tell you the truth? What is that power
like
?”

Point taken. He could no more explain to Ace what that was like than his brother could explain how he spoke to computers. Damn it, he wished he would hurry up.

Every second he was away from Wendy she was one second closer to losing her head.

“Son-of-a-bitch.” Ace’s head snapped up.

“What?”

“Kyle.”

“The asshole who threw her out of her group because she wouldn’t date him?”

“That’s the one. He’s the one who sent the message. Wanted her to forgive him.”

Draco paced. “We need to get information on him. All the intel we can find. I have to figure out where he would stash her.”

“I can do better than that.” Ace grinned.

“How?”

“I can trace his call and find out the location from where it was sent.”

Draco shook his head. “How can you do that?”

“I’m going to ask her phone to tell me.”

* * * * *

Draco stood, the wind blowing his hair and the spray off the Hudson River hitting him in the face. He did nothing to wipe away the moisture. Wendy was in the building below. Oddly, he could make out her floral aroma from where he perched on the warehouse’s roof—odd, because his sense of smell was his weakest trait. His ability to smell was only moderately better than most humans.

He couldn’t explain why he was so sure he smelled Wendy except he was certain he did. Closing his eyes, he located the heartbeats of every person in the building. There were ten, including Wendy’s, which was separate from the group in the center.

Ace landed softly on the roof next to him.

“Are you crazy? I told you to stay home.”

“These assholes stole Wendy and hit me with a laser. I’m not staying home.”

“An hour ago you couldn’t stand.”

Ace shrugged. “Now I can.”

“What did you do to recover so fast?”

“Call it pent up adrenalin. I need to let it out.”

He glared. “Did you shoot up? A steroid?”

“Stop worrying about me and focus on Wendy.”

“I can do both, thank you very much. I’m capable of that, you know? I can also walk and chew gum.”

“Look, it’ll be me who crashes later if I overdid it, not you. I haven’t done this in a decade. I need to get my adrenaline back up.”

“It’ll be me hauling your ass back home when you can’t fly too.”

“So, let’s make this quick and when I crash, I’ll already be in my bed.”

His brother had a certain logic—a distorted one, but logic, nonetheless. “Fine, let’s do this. I’m grateful for the help. We need to take out the ten people in the main hall. Can you hear their heartbeats?”

“As well as you can.”

Draco nodded. “We’ll start with them. Then we’ll move in to get Wendy.”

“No.” Ace shook his head. “Someone is moving into Wendy’s room. There might not be time.”

His brother was right. “So you go in and get Wendy and I’ll take out the nine in the main room.”

“Again, not going to happen that way. Those lunatics zapped me with a ray and stole your girl when I was supposed to be watching her. I have a score to settle.”

“But you’re injured.”

Ace laughed. “At the moment, I’ve never felt better.”

“Ace—”

“Go get the girl, big brother.”

“I don’t know that there is a happy ending in this for us, even after I rescue her.”

“We’ll see.”

Ace left with that cryptic remark and busted through the ceiling into the main hall where the nine goons waited for him. Draco rolled his eyes. So much for stealth.

Nothing like a ceiling raining down on people to alert them someone was coming.

Following in Ace’s destructive wake, Draco jumped down.

* * * * *

Wendy was in a cage. It made him furious, but what made him even angrier was the little weasel of a man who taunted her from the outside. If this was her “friend,”

Kyle, Draco was going to have to teach her how to make better friends.

“It’s going to be epic. You’ll be on television. Everyone will see Draco Powers couldn’t save you and he’ll be considered inept. By the time the media is done with him, he won’t have one supporter left in the world.”

Stepping out of the shadows of the room, Draco didn’t even try to keep the sneer out of his voice. “Forgetting for a second that you’re not going to lay a hand on her, what do you think the media is going to do to you for killing her?”

Wendy’s voice was unsteady when she spoke. “Draco, he’s going to kill you.”

“No, Wendy, he’s not.” Draco jumped in time to miss the laser beam Kyle shot—

most likely, the same thing they’d used on Ace earlier.

Kyle gasped and ran for the door, firing his laser at Draco like a child might do with a pretend gun. Over and over again, he fired, hitting nothing and wasting his time.

Draco flew and landed directly in front of Kyle. “Not so easy when I know what you’re going to do, is it?”

Kyle blanched and tried to back up. Draco grabbed him. Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, the little man struggled against his fate. Apparently realizing he was not getting out of Draco’s grip, he sputtered. “I have nine men who’ll be here any second to destroy you.”

“Nope.” If Draco’s hearing was correct, and it always was, his brother had subdued them all. Most likely, they were tied up or knocked out. Those two options tended to be Ace’s modus-operandi. “It’s just going to be you and me, little man.”

Kyle shook his head frantically. “It won’t matter. Someone else will pick up where I started. My dream will be realized.”

Looking around the warehouse at the technology, some of which he couldn’t even identify, Draco felt less angry and more tired. Reaching up, he snagged a steel rod that lay on a shelf of building materials and twisted it around Kyle’s arms. He did the same with Kyle’s legs before dropping the surprisingly easy to defeat head of the Organization on the ground. “With all of your genius, if you had used it to do something worthwhile it would have been so much better.”

“I am a genius. My mental capacity rivals your physical ones.”

Draco nodded. “Maybe so.”

Ignoring Kyle’s rants, he walked forward and popped open the metal bars that kept Wendy prisoner. She climbed out and flung herself into his arms.

“I thought he was going to cut off my head.”

Draco rubbed her back. “Never a chance of that.”

Taking her hand, Draco moved her into the next room, a distance away from the cretin who had tried to destroy her life.

“Ace is okay?”

“For the moment.” His brother was going to crash and burn, but they didn’t have to discuss that in front of Kyle. With his super sight, he looked back at the subdued would-be villain and felt a tremendous amount of sadness wash over him. This person had ended Carl’s life and wanted to kill Wendy.

He squeezed Wendy’s shoulders. “There’s always going to be a Kyle, isn’t there?”

Wendy shook her head. “What?”

“Someone who wants to take down what I’ve built, someone who wants to destroy those who I care about.” He knew he wasn’t talking directly to Wendy as much as he spoke aloud, but he thought she needed to hear it. “I knew this when I started Powers. It’s why I changed my name, changed Ace’s, hid our identity, and didn’t tell anyone about how Ace and I were connected.”

“Fake names?”

“You didn’t think our mother actually named us Draco and Ace, did you?”

Wendy laughed. “I did, actually.”

“No.” The names on their birth certificates were much duller than the ones they’d assumed. It had taken years to get used to calling each other by the false ones.

“Draco, what are you saying?”

He looked down into Wendy’s trusting blue eyes and he knew what he had to do. “Powers, Inc
.
is most likely over. You and I both know it.” She started to interrupt but he silenced her by shaking his head. “Someone is always going to want to kill me and I can’t have a soft underbelly anymore. If they want me, let them come and get me.

I won’t be responsible for another beheading or some other terrible death.”

“How can that happen? You live in the world. You’ve created personal relationships.” Wendy pointed to the room with Kyle. “He doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right, he doesn’t.” He nodded. “Other people do. I’m sorry, Wendy. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be what you need me to be. I won’t have someone I can lose to a psychopath with a machete and a bad case of inflated ego. Next time, I might not make it on time.”

“Are you ending whatever this is between us?”

“I’m ending all of it.” He stepped back, suddenly feeling, above all else, he had to get away from her before he suffocated from the need to have her. She could get killed being his girlfriend. That would be a mistake he couldn’t take back.

He saw tears swim in Wendy’s eyes and he looked away. “Ace.” He shouted into the next room, not surprised to find his brother already stood in the doorway, clearly listening where he should have minded his own business.

“Are you out of your mind, Draco?”

He stared at his brother. “Take her home. Call the police to get these guys.”

There was nothing more to say. It was bad enough he’d always worry about Ace.

If he didn’t get away from Wendy now before he got too attached to walk away, he’d be destroyed. Separation was the only answer. Even if doing so killed him.

* * * * *

He was ten miles outside New York City when his cell phone rang, dragging him out of his dark thoughts. Sighing, he landed and tugged the contraption out of his pocket. It wasn’t a number he recognized. He was leery, but finally gave in to curiosity and answered it.

“This is Draco.”

He hoped whoever was on the other end wasn’t calling with bad news. He might find a way to reach through the phone and rip out their throat.

“Mr. Powers, this is George Judge from the insurance company.”

Draco closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as he spoke. “Judge, I have had a very shitty day. It might be best if you just give me the bad news and hang up immediately.”

“That’s the thing, Mr. Powers. I’m not calling to give you bad news.” And if the man’s tone was any indication, George Judge was not happy about that. “I took your appeal to our board of directors. They seem to agree with Ms. Warner’s opinion that the destruction of your building was the result of an act of terrorism and that you are covered under those circumstances.”

“You’re going to cover the expenses to rebuild the building?”

“We’re going to pay to put the building back to where it was before the incident.”

Draco went silent. It seemed impossible. He’d had to fight for everything he’d ever achieved. His father had left when he was just a boy; they’d practically starved; he’d had to feed himself and his brother, help their mother, and find time to study because he knew college was the only way he’d ever get out of the hell hole that had become their life. All this and hide his powers from everyone. Now this man was telling him that a company was actually going to give him what they should?

Wendy had been right. Wendy, with her never-ending optimism fueled from her belief in a science fiction television show she had watched as a child. Wendy, whose eyes had filled with tears … who he’d left crying in a warehouse.

He shook his head. No, he couldn’t start doubting himself now. It was the right thing to do. She would be better off without him.

“Mr. Powers, are you going to hurt me?” Judge’s nasal voice interrupted his thoughts.

Now, he was used to hearing that phrase. “No, George, you are safe from me.”

After ending their phone call, he dialed Ace.

“You better be calling to tell me you realized you behaved like a piece of shit.”

“Powers is yours, little brother. They’re going to rebuild it. Use it or don’t. It’s up to you.”

He hit the end call button.

* * * * *

The kid had been impossibly easy to find. It was amazing the police hadn’t been able to locate him. He might not work for Powers, Inc. anymore, but Draco couldn’t leave this particular stone unturned. The kid didn’t even have a mother because Kyle had blown up her house trying to get to Draco. He didn’t have to be a genius to know Kyle had headed up the charity that had sent the flower-obsessed woman his way.

The news reports that had followed the end of Kyle’s reign at the Organization had given Ace credit for the take down and Draco was thrilled. He had meant what he said to his brother the last time they spoke. The company was his. He could run it, sell it, or close it down. No longer would he put himself out there in a way that got others hurt. Maybe he’d been okay with it when he’d been twenty-two and convinced of his own invincibility, but no more.

The shelter where he stood housed all kinds of runaways. Most of the kids looked to be boys of about fifteen, Lael’s age. But there were some girls and some teenagers who were both younger and older than the young man he’d come to find. As for his particular runaway, Draco couldn’t help but think he looked just like Ace had at that age, except for the brown hair.

Lael wore his hair long, past his waist, with a bandana around his head, which must have been some sort of statement Draco was no longer hip enough to interpret.

He moved forward. Today, he’d dressed in some clothes he’d bought at the local K-Mart the day before. Jeans and t-shirts were going to be his staple until he figured out what to do with himself. He didn’t blend particularly well with his black silk shirts. It was time to move on.

As he approached, he could hear kids talking. One of them pointed to the small, twenty-inch television with the reception that jumped in and out of focus on the wall.

“He’s my favorite. I’ve always liked Superman.” The kid who sat next to Lael was pierced nearly everywhere Draco could see. “If I could do that, I’d turn back time to save Lois, too. I bet she did him hard because of that.”