A New Day (StrikeForce #1) (22 page)

A few days later, I’d just finished my daily exercise, and was pretty happy with myself. The manacles on my arm rests were getting very, very loose and nobody seemed to have noticed. I had to start working on my legs, so I could smash my way out of all of it soon.

What I’d do after that, I had no idea. But it was a step, something to work toward.

I was listening to my ladies. That day’s singing seemed to be Motown-themed, and I liked it. They sounded pretty good, actually. Or maybe I’d just been in so long that I didn’t know what was good anymore. We all seemed to be of a like mind that pre-Confluence music was much better than the crap that came after. Post-Confluence music was all mindless pop or angsty crap about feeling like you were nothing, because you knew a guy who could fly or some shit like that. Gag. Pre-Confluence music, though? They had real artists. All of Motown. Nirvana. Eminem. Michael Bolton.

My door whooshed open, and Portia and Toxxin walked in, a Jenson following close behind them.

“Suit up, Faraday,” Jenson said. She set a pile of fabric on the stool near the door, and I recognized it as my uniform. She hit a button, and my manacles opened, freeing me. The first thing I did was massage my wrists, which were sore, bruised from the way I was working against the manacles. I didn’t want them to see them.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Alpha wants you to suit up,” Portia said. “We need… we need help,” she added quietly.

“We’re not supposed to tell you that, though,” Toxxin said, and Portia nodded.

“Who are we going after?” I asked suspiciously.

“Not who you think,” Toxxin said. “There was another Confluence the day before yesterday. We’ve got a new batch of powered troublemakers to bring in.”

“Are they actually troublemakers, or are you just blindly following Alpha’s orders?”

Portia blew out an irritated breath. “What do you expect us to do, Faraday? Huh? He’s the boss. He pays for this place, he—“

“Why do you stay?” I asked, interrupting her. “She can’t leave,” I said, gesturing at Toxxin, who looked at me in surprise. “But you have every right to leave. And you could. So why stay, and listen to someone we all know can’t lead worth a damn and has no business being in charge of anyone, let alone a team of supposed heroes?”

Portia’s face went blank. “I have nothing else to do,” she said quietly. “This is all I have.”

I exchanged a look with Toxxin, who looked away quickly.

“Suit up, please, Faraday,” Jenson said.

I took a breath. If I didn’t go, he could end up leaving the new powered people to law enforcement, which, based on what I’d seen with Dani, would not go well. Or I could go, and maybe at least bring a few in alive.

Or, better yet, help them escape before StrikeForce got their hands on them.

Jenson left the room, having delivered my uniform.

“Fine. Keep Alpha and Nightbane away from me,” I said, standing up. I felt wobbly on my legs. Despite the exercise machine, I hadn’t stood in over a week, and it felt like it. I felt weak, wobbly, atrophied. The two of them stood off to the side, giving me room. I pulled off my prison clothes, changed into actual underwear (I’d never realized what a luxury that could be, after wearing the equivalent of adult diapers during my time in my cell) and then slid into the StrikeForce uniform, star emblazoned on my chest. When I pulled it on, my fingers brushed the thin band around my throat, my dampener.

I hated it.

“Who has the power to shut this thing off?” I asked as I slipped my feet into my boots.

“Just Alpha,” Toxxin said.

“He’s the only one with a control?”

“As far as I know,” Toxxin said.

“Hm. Seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to get it from him, if one wanted to,” I murmured. I pulled my gloves on, then my mask. My comm was on the counter, and I popped it into my right ear.

Toxxin and Portia were both watching me, looking uncomfortable.

“You’ve got to stop saying crap like that,” Portia said.

“No. I don’t have to stop saying anything. You have to stop trying so hard to make this all okay. Because you know damn well that it’s not,” I said. Then I pressed my comm.

“Daystar, reporting for duty. Let’s see if I can help you assholes actually do something right today.”

Toxxin and Portia groaned, and all I got on the comm was silence. Amy, Dani, and Monica cheered form their cells.

“Get ‘em, girl,” Amy called, and I grinned beneath my mask. Toxxin and Portia led the way out, up the elevator, across to Command. They both stuck close to me, as if trying to make sure I didn’t try anything. Guards, fully equipped with rifles, were stationed at regular intervals along our route. All of them stood, ready, tense. The awesome thing was that, other than acting loud and nuts, I hadn’t done a damn thing to make them so tense.

“Heroes,” I sneered.

“They’re hired guards. Normal people. Give them a break.”

“If they shoot at me, I don’t give a shit who they are,” I said, and we walked the rest of the way to the elevator in silence. We took it up to five, then walked into the meeting room. Nightbane, Alpha, and Crystal were already there.

“Oh, yay. My favorite assholes,” I said, and Crystal glared at me. Nightbane tried to affect a bored look, but he failed miserably. Alpha approached me, and I felt Portia stiffen beside me.

“You’re only up here because I’m feeling generous, Daystar,” he said, looming over me like a typical middle school bully.

“No. I’m here because you can barely wipe your ass by yourself, and everybody knows it. What’s wrong? Some kind of public uproar about how StrikeForce can’t catch anybody, and why is our government working with them anyway? Something like that?” His face turned a few shades of scarlet, and I laughed. “That’s it, huh? So let’s not pretend like you’re doing me a fucking favor, rich boy. I’m the one doing you a favor.”

“I can put you right back down there,” he snarled.

“Go ahead,” I shrugged. “But then nobody gets caught. I bet the public is starting to fear you, huh? Maybe they saw clips of the police shooting at the poor, pretty screamer girl.”

“Normal people are afraid of all of us,” he said, still glaring at me. “They don’t care of one of us gets killed.” His gaze shifted away from me, and just then, Caine walked into the room.

“In general, they don’t,” Caine agreed, apparently hearing what Alpha had said. “Except that there’s all kinds of video out there of you saving the screamer. Jumping in front of a firing squad to save one scared girl. Made for great news clips for a few days. And now they’re all wondering where you are, because, and I quote, ‘she might be an actual hero.’”

“All of which would end the second we told them who you really are,” Nightbane said with an unpleasant smile. “Them and your mother. That would greatly disappoint her, huh, Faraday?”

“Knock it off, man,” Caine said, and I glanced at him, at the hint of warning in his voice. Alpha gave him a bored look, then looked back at me. “Portia, Toxxin, Caine, Nightbane, take Daystar into the field. Bring in as many new supers as you can.”

I kept my eyes on his, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away.

And I sure the hell wouldn’t be bringing any new prisoners or soldiers for him.

A few seconds later, my assigned team and I were standing behind an old Tudor-stye house. The yard had a thick layer of snow covering it, piles of it at the edges of the driveway, and I looked at it numbly, realizing that the world had gone on while I’d been locked up.

“What’s the story here?” I asked quietly.

“Reportedly, the woman in this house can turn just about anything to stone with a touch,” Jenson’s voice said in my ear. I glanced around the yard, noting a porch railing leading into the house, the back door hanging open. Both looked like some kind of surreal statue or something.

“Go ahead, Faraday,” Nightbane said. “You’re our cannon fodder.”

I ignored him, heard Caine tell him to stop being an asshole. I walked up the back stairs and knocked on the side of the house, since the door was hanging open and made of stone.

“Hello?” I paused and pressed my comm. “What’s her name, Jenson?”

“Um. We haven’t gotten that far, Daystar.”

I rolled my eyes. “No fucking people skills,” I said.

“You’re one to talk,” she said, and she sounded amused.

“Hello,” I called again. “My name is Daystar. I’m here to see if you need any help.”

“You’re not here to help me,” a voice said from above. Second floor. I saw Nightbane move, realized he was going outside to fly in through one of the windows and grab her.

She’d definitely go to the detention facility if he got to her first.

I chased him out, and the rest of the team looked on. I reached him, and before he had a chance to respond, I punched him, hard, in the side of the head.

He dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“Sorry, Nightbane. Oh, wait. I’m actually not,” I said, then I walked back into the house. The rest of the team was staring at me, mouths agape.

“He was messing up the mission. He’ll be awake soon.”

“Daystar, you do anything like that again, and I’m calling your mother,” Alpha said in my ear.

“You call my mother, and I won’t be bailing your ass out again.” And then I pulled my comm out of my ear, put it into one of the pockets on my belt, and I heard Portia gasp in shock.

“What?”

“We’re not allowed to do that,” she said and I rolled my eyes.

“I’m not great with rules,” I said quietly. “Stay here.”

I took the stairs, slowly, letting the woman know I was coming up.

“Hey,” I said. She was standing in the hallway, and the wall next to her, as well as the floor beneath her, was pure stone. She was in her fifties, maybe. Short, dark hair, black yoga pants, and a t-shirt that had the Detroit Red Wings logo on it. “I’m Daystar.”

“Frances.” She nodded. “You saved that screamer girl.”

“Yeah. Do you need help?”

“I need to learn how to stop it. I don’t want to keep doing this,” she said, gesturing at the railing, the wall. “I don’t know how to make it stop.”

“Okay. All right. Listen to me,” I said, leaning toward her. She backed away.

“I don’t want you to turn to rock. I don’t know if it’ll happen.”

“Okay. Listen. There are members of my team downstairs who have been instructed to bring you in. If you come with us, you’ll be in confinement. Your powers will be dampened, but you’ll also be imprisoned. Not a great deal.”

“I haven’t done anything,” she said, sounding panicky and weepy.

“I know. I know you haven’t,” I said. “So I’m telling you something here. If you want to stay free, you need to find a way to get out of here, now, and lay low for a while. If that means going somewhere where no one else will see you if you happen to slip up, that’s what it’ll take. Can you do that?”

“I have a place up north. But how do I even get there? It’s not like I can drive like this!”

I held up my hand.

“Portia,” I called down the stairs. “Who’s wearing the body cam today?”

“Nightbane,” she said as she climbed the stairs.

Portia approached us, and I introduced the two of them. “I need you to get her to her place up north,” I said.

Portia stared at me. “Daystar, those aren’t my orders.”

“I know. I’m asking you to do the right thing here. Take us to her place up north, then once I see she’s settled there, bring me back here.”

“I—“

“Does she deserve to be imprisoned? This is hysteria. It’s wrong. Does she deserve it?”

She looked between us for a few moments. “Where is your place?” she asked in a resigned tone.

“Near Mackinac,” Frances said. She gave an address, a location. Portia nodded. “Okay. Are you ready now?”

“I’m ready,” Frances said.

Portia blew out a breath. Seconds later, we were standing in a cozy little cottage, and Frances was thanking us.

“I’ll check in on you when I can. And Portia’s lips are sealed about this place’s exact location.”

“They are,” she said. “But your tracker will give it away.”

“I don’t plan on staying,” Frances said. “Don’t worry,” she told me. “You’ve done more than I ever could have hoped.”

I nodded. Then I exchanged a glance with Portia, and we appeared back where we’d been. We walked down the stairs wordlessly.

“Nobody there,” I told the rest of the team, shrugging. “Just lots of stone.”

“I heard her. And you are in so much trouble, Faraday,” Nightbane said, rubbing the side of his head.

“You fell down. Clumsy,” I muttered. I put my comm back in my ear. “Who’s next, Jenson?”

I heard a sigh. “We have a shapeshifter over on Jefferson,” she said, sounding defeated.

I smiled. “Lovely.”

“Faraday,” I heard Alpha start talking. I took the comm out of my ear and dropped it back into my pocket. “Portia, if you would?” I asked. Toxxin smiled, and Caine seemed to be keeping a close eye on Nightbane as he stood.

“Don’t pull that shit again, Faraday,” Nightbane warned.

“Ooh. Scared. Totally. Really,” I said. “I’d say I wet my pants, but I’ve been doing that for about a week now in my special chair, so I’m not even all that bothered by it anymore,” I said, and I was pretty sure Portia either laughed or sobbed, and then we were being pulled to the next location.

It all went pretty smoothly, through two more confrontations. I got the shapeshifter to shift and fly away before there was even a chance for confrontation, and then we went to a house where there was a woman who kept making everyone around her feel sick. Portia and I suffered for it, but we got her to her mother’s house downstate.

Our next target was a new powered person who seemed to shoot lightning, or something like it. She’d accidentally, or maybe on purpose, killed her loser boyfriend with it.

“Bring this one in, Faraday. She’s a killer,” Alpha warned in my comm before I took it off again.

“Faraday,” Portia said. “We can’t ignore this one.”

“We won’t,” I said. An idea was starting to form. I wanted some time to think about it. “Let me go first.”

“My pleasure,” Nightbane said, and Caine flexed his fist like he wanted to hit him.