Mirabelle. Thank God.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded as he rushed out of the bedroom.
He stopped abruptly at the sight of DynaGirl striking a goddamn I’m-So-Heroic pose in front of his open balcony door.
Shit
.
“Sorry I’m late,” Darla said with a smug twist of her lips. “Some asshole ran halfway to Mexico trying to lose me.”
Darla held her pose, trying not to let him see how hard she was breathing. The man was
fast
. She’d actually lost him right near the end. It was just a lucky break that she’d spotted him again as he was rushing into this building.
She’d been certain he was just ducking inside to lose her, so she’d hovered outside for several minutes until she realized
this
was his destination. It was hardly what she’d expected of DemonSpawn’s secret lair.
The neighborhood was quiet, mostly upscale townhomes with a few less cookie-cutter buildings thrown in. Lucien’s lair was one of those, a massive brick cube with wrought-iron railings curling around the balconies as the only decoration. The simple exterior certainly didn’t intimidate.
She’d located Lucien on the top floor, spotting him through the window while he was consuming a sandwich the size of his head. She’d lurked outside, looking for signs of the chameleon or that he might be getting ready to run again, but he just made himself at home.
That was the odd thing. She’d expected something sinister. A classic cliché lair, but he continued to defy her expectations. This was his
home
—the tastefully furnished top-floor loft with high ceilings and an open concept.
Lucien folded his arms over his chest, glowering. “Looks like I should’ve kept running.”
“Just accept it, Wroth. There’s no escaping justice,” she said, pleased to have delivered the line firmly in spite of the girly fluttering that erupted in her stomach at the sight of his biceps flexing.
“Justice.” He shook his head, clearly unimpressed by her pronouncement. “You just love throwing around that word, don’t you? Bet it makes you feel important, doesn’t it?”
“Where is she?” She resisted the urge to look around the room. Even if his toddler bride Mirage was there, odds were good Darla wouldn’t be able to see her.
Lucien smiled darkly. “Where’s your backup?”
Darla opened her mouth to blast him something brilliantly witty, but he cut her off with a laugh.
“You didn’t even call anyone, did you? God, that is so typical.”
“I can bring you in myself.”
“This is just about your pride, isn’t it?” he snarled. “You’re only here because I beat you. That’s a crappy reason to ruin a girl’s life, Darla.”
“
I’m
ruining her life? She’s a criminal! There are consequences for breaking the law, Wroth.” She stalked across the room to him, telling herself it was only so she would be close enough to grab him if he tried to make a break for it.
“She’s a kid who made a mistake!” he shouted, clearly forgetting he was supposed to be running
away
from her as he crowded closer, towering over her until it felt like he’d sucked up all the oxygen in the room.
If she’s a kid, why did you marry her, you skeezy cradle-robber?
Darla wanted to shout, but the last thing she wanted was him thinking she cared who he married. “A
mistake
is washing your colors in bleach. Mistakes don’t send people to Area Nine.”
“Not ordinary people, no. But the world plays by different rules when your father is a notorious villain. If our father wasn’t Demon Wroth, there’s no way Mirabelle would’ve been tossed in Area Nine on her first strike.”
Our father
. She sucked in a startled breath.
Mirage was his sister. It shouldn’t change anything, but Darla felt something tight and ugly in her gut unravel and melt away at his words. She was
not
relieved. And he was still talking.
“Instead of going after the bastards who manipulated Mirabelle into stealing for them,
heroes
like you are too busy patting themselves on the back for capturing a
teenager
to even consider the big picture, to think for one second that she’s just a pawn, a piece in someone else’s larger agenda. What’s her crime? Is it stealing something? Is it refusing to rat out her friends? Or is it something more simple than that? Is it just that she’s Demon Wroth’s daughter that landed her in Area Nine, locked away without a trial—”
“That’s impossible! Everyone gets a trial. No matter who they’re related to.”
Lucien snorted. “What world do you live in?” Again he went on before she could reply, cynicism dripping from every word. “Oh, that’s right, the
hero
world, where everything is grand gestures and PR stunts to cover up the lies.”
“Lies?” she yelped. “You’re accusing
me
of being deceitful?” She wasn’t the one who’d used a kiss as an escape hatch.
“Every hero lies in their own way,” he snapped, still looming angrily over her, all that strength and heat so close she just wanted to sink into it. “The entire concept of pure heroism, that you could all be as good as you play at being, is a lie.”
“If your only complaint is that you don’t think it’s possible for anyone to be as good as I am, I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You would.”
Darla gritted her teeth. “Where’s your sister, Wroth?”
“You won’t find her here,” he taunted, his dark eyes flashing with wicked satisfaction. “I gave her a signal. She’s long gone. Running for the hills and you’ll never get her back. Lock me up if you want, but it won’t help you find her.”
“It has nothing to do with what I want.” Darla shoved him in the chest to knock him back a step. He barely swayed. “Breaking someone out of Area Nine is a
crime
. Breaking into the Crypt to steal files is a
crime
. You’re going to jail because of what you’ve done, not because I want you to be there.” Because she didn’t want that. If she was honest with herself, the thought of Lucien Wroth in a cell made her feel a little nauseated.
She struck him again, just to remind herself she should, and he captured her wrists, lightning fast.
“Stop.” He sucked all the angry energy he’d been throwing at her inside himself. Suddenly, he loomed larger and somehow more intimidating for being so contained. Darla almost took a step back, needing an extra few inches to regain some composure. Her blood was moving too fast through her veins, feeling too hot beneath her skin, especially where his thumb brushed the pulse point at her wrist.
“Isn’t there anyone you care about?” he asked, his voice soft and dark. “Anyone you would risk everything for without thinking twice?”
Yes.
She wanted to hate him. She wanted him to be villainous to his core, painted the easily identifiable black of evil. Instead all she could think was how badly she wanted to be the one he would take a risk like that for. She discarded the thought, clinging hard to her pretty black-and-white world. She didn’t have room for greys. “No one I care about would ever ask me to.”
“They shouldn’t have to,” he said quietly, but she barely heard him.
A green light flashed out of the corner of her eye. A lightning bolt shooting back up to the sky. Her signal. For the first time in her life, Darla saw that green bolt and hesitated.
Lucien’s mouth twisted mockingly. He dropped her wrists and backed away. “Your public awaits, DynaGirl.”
She could grab him. Drop him in a cell at the North Courthouse on her way to whatever the latest catastrophe was. There was no denying that was what she
should
do. But for once, the shoulds weren’t ruling her. Lucien Wroth rotting in a cell didn’t feel like justice.
She took a step back. Then another. When ten feet separated them and she could feel the breeze from the open balcony door stirring her hair, Darla stopped.
“This is twice now you’ve gotten away,” she said. “The next time I see you will be the last day you’re walking around free.”
He blinked, clearly surprised she wasn’t dragging him to the nearest cell. She just couldn’t. Not when, against all her better judgment, she’d begun to admire him. She knew a lot of people who were supposed to be good, but real integrity, real caring, wasn’t something she saw every day.
She studied him, memorizing the muscular strength, the day’s growth along his jaw and the dark, sinister cut of his features.
Damn, the man is temptation on a stick.
She’d never wanted anyone so badly, or been so certain she could never have him.
“Don’t let me catch you again, Wroth.”
Chapter Eight
Sibling Rivalry
“Dude, how long have you been schtupping DynaGirl?”
Lucien jumped, tearing his eyes away from the sight of Darla flying off to heed the city’s call and spinning toward the sound of his sister’s voice. Mirabelle leaned against the kitchen counter, rolling a peach between her palms.
“How long have you been standing there?”
She shrugged. “Not so long. Did I miss the good stuff? I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to make my presence known. I don’t particularly want to see my brother knocking boots with DynaGirl, even if that’s what you had to do to get me out. Not that I don’t appreciate it.”
He shook his head, dismissing the topic of DynaGirl entirely. “Are you ready to go?”
“Go?”
“We need to get out of town
now
. How do you feel about Indonesia?” Lucien strode toward the bedroom, intent on collecting the bag he’d started to fill before Darla interrupted him. A single hard word from Mirabelle stopped him in his tracks.
“No.”
“No?” He turned, frowning at his little sister. “We don’t have time for this, Belle. DynaGirl could come back any minute. Grab anything you think will be useful. Everything else we’ll buy on the road.”
“You should leave. I heard what DynaGirl said to you. You can’t hang around here, but I’m not coming with you.”
“What?” His voice was sharper than he’d ever used when speaking with Mirabelle. He usually tried to be gentle, as careful of her as spun glass, wrapped in layers of gauze and never allowed to take a blow. He’d never had a harsh word for her, but the day he had to break her out of prison was the exception to that rule. Maybe if he hadn’t been so easy on her, she wouldn’t have needed breaking out in the first place.
He wanted this day to end, but from Mirabelle’s expression, the universe wasn’t granting any wishes.
“I can’t go with you, Luc. I appreciate what you did. I do. But I only came here tonight to show you I’m okay and tell you not to interfere again.”
“Interfere?” The word choked him.
“I have to get back. Kevin will be wondering what happened to me.”
“You were in prison. He should be doing a helluva lot more than wondering.” Lucien realized he was shouting when Mirabelle flinched, but he couldn’t seem to control his volume. “How can you go back to that asshole after the way he used you?”
“Don’t talk about him like that! You don’t know him!”
“I know you dropped out of school and landed in a cell because of him. And he just left you there. That tells me everything I need to know about him.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. Kevin had it all planned out. It was my screwup.”
“You mean you weren’t supposed to get
caught
. I’m saying you shouldn’t have been in the goddamn bank vault in the first place. What were you thinking, Belle? What did he say to you to get you to do it?”
“He didn’t have to
say
anything to me. I wanted to do it. I would do it again. Some things are worth going to jail for, Lucien.”
“What was it? What did he make you steal?”
“He didn’t
make
me steal anything. I was happy to be able to help. This means something, Lucien.”
“So tell me what it means. Tell me what he’s doing.”
She shook her head, pacing away from the counter and back in quick, jerky steps. “You’d just try to stop us. You’ve never believed we could change things. That we could prevent—” She broke off, turning her face away sharply, but not before he saw the tears brightening her eyes.
“Tell me what it will change, Belle.” He lowered his voice, forcing himself to use the soft, patient tone she expected from him, but she just shook her head.
“You’ve never understood, Luc.”
He couldn’t argue with that. He’d never understood the way she seemed to share their father’s irrational need for someone to blame. Their mother’s death had been an accident, but Mirabelle couldn’t see it that way. She’d always wanted someone to blame, someone to punish, and Kevin was giving her that.
Lucien wondered when she would realize it wasn’t enough. That vengeance was sweeter as an idea than as a reality. In the end, the person she would wreak the most havoc on would be herself.
He should’ve shielded her from their father’s influence more. He’d been a teen himself when his father had fallen off the deep end on his own quest for revenge. Lucien had needed to get away from his father, but that had left Mirabelle growing up with a man whose hatred for the supers knew no rational bounds.
He couldn’t hang on to the should’ves though. He could only try to do right by her now. And that meant taking her with him.
“You’ve done your part, Belle. Whatever it was. Come with me now.”
“I’m not walking away from my cause. I’m sorry, Lucien.”
He heard the finality in her apology and cursed under his breath, using a bolt of superspeed to race toward her, but Mirabelle had already vanished.
“Dammit, Mirabelle. We can talk about this.” He scanned the room, knowing it was futile but unable to help himself. “I know you can hear me. Be reasonable, Belle. At least let me help you. I can be useful to your cause, can’t I? If you won’t leave with me, at least let me watch out for you. Belle? Belle!”
He waited a moment, listening for the sound of her breathing, anything. But all he heard was the sound of his own curse and his fist going through a brick wall.