Even Villains Go To The Movies (7 page)

Angela shook her head. Obviously the lack of sleep was causing hallucinations. There was no way she’d just zoned out and flirted with Tyler Running Fox, the butcher of
Hamlet
. Nope. Grandma Meredith would roll in all seven of her graves if that had happened. Proper Southern Ladies did not flirt with men who couldn’t recite the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy correctly.

“Do you see that smile?” Swendon asked the world at large as he shook Tyler by the shoulders. “That will make us all very, very wealthy men. Why couldn’t you smile like that earlier?”

Tyler held up a hand and chuckled.

Angela stared in horror. Heaven forfend, as Othello would say, he chuckled? He was human?

He hit her with another smile, warm, welcoming, the kind of smile that made panties drop. “AJ was seducing me with Shakespeare.”

Swendon narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”

“We had a Shakespeare quote-off. I wasn’t seducing him. I was...teasing him.” She nodded. That sounded believable.

A chorus of groans rose up from the cast. “Glee doesn’t know Shakespeare,” Swendon whined.

Angela smiled sweetly. “Sometimes I don’t think Ty does either.”

Tyler glowered down at her, but mirth danced deep in his dark brown eyes. “Let’s reshoot the scene. I think someone wants to hear the “To be...” bit of
Hamlet
.”

“Done right,” Angela confirmed, smirking.

“On your own time,” Swendon said. He brushed something off Tyler’s arm. “Where’s special effects? Where’s Yandel? Why does Tyler have blood on him in this scene?”

Tyler pulled his jacket off in confusion. “It’s not mine. He glared at Angela. “Are you bleeding?”

“Um, I shouldn’t be? I didn’t have any of the special effects blood on me.” But her arm hurt. She risked a quick glance. Blood seeped from under a torn stitch.

Tyler brushed her arm, his fingers cold on her pale skin. “What happened?”

“I must have popped a stitch out when I landed.”

He motioned for Swendon. “Our stunt lady was improvising.”

“AJ!” the director wailed. “Was any of that in the shot? It was such a perfect shot.”

“Her arm was away from the camera,” Tyler said quickly. He turned his attention back to her. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you’d hurt yourself?”

“How did this happen?” Swendon demanded, pushing Tyler aside.

“I cut myself moving into the new apartment. I’m cleared for stunt work. Look, it’s only a little blood. There isn’t much. It just smeared. I’ll pay to get the jacket cleaned if that helps.”

Tyler shook his head. “You really are new to Hollywood. The Talent never pays for anything.”

Angela glared back. “Then I guess I’m not The Talent. My parents taught me to take responsibility for my actions.”

His eyes narrowed into angry slits. “Must be nice to have a couple grand to spend on a jacket.”

“A couple grand?” Her voice squeaked.

“That’s how much it will cost to replace the jacket.” Tyler shrugged. “But you’re a pretty white girl. I’m sure Daddy can pay for it. If not, there are plenty of people searching for the next porn star.”

Angela rolled her eyes. “Grab a baby wipe from your Whine and Cheese bag, Running Fox. It’s just a little blood.”

Chapter Nine

Dear Mom,

Finding an all-night ER in L.A. isn’t hard. I managed to get there and was only lost for, like, five minutes. Eight days in my new city and I’ve been to the ER! I think that’s a family record of some kind. Do I get a trophy?

I’m okay. I ripped my stitches doing a stunt. It’s not a big thing. I’m sore and exhausted, but hey, the Cupcake Shoppe was open when I drove past at four in the morning, so I grabbed one. With any luck, I’ll be able to sleep until noon without interruption.

Your still tired daughter,

Angela

Arktos focused on chilling the buildings around him so the pyro’s fire wouldn’t bring the block down and wished for approaching police sirens. This end of town was a victim of the last depression, home to nouveaux rich who had fled during the housing crisis, leaving empty buildings that had slowly filled again with vagrants. Though at least the street people were smart enough to run and hide when a flame-covered maniac attacked.

Another fireball blossomed in Arktos’s face. He shot spines of ice at the pyro. The idiot capered backward, letting his heat melt the ice so he was merely splashed instead of skewered. Arktos tried throwing a cage of ice around him. It began steaming immediately.

Gravel crunched behind him.

Arktos pivoted and only instinct kept him from catching a baseball bat with his nose. It grazed his head, leaving his ears ringing. The blonde. Of course, he thought as he jumped to the side. He thought he’d been lucky finding the pyro alone.

Fire roared like a living beast, filling the alley behind him. He fought the fire with ice, but that only produced steam. He turned, trying to focus on putting up a thick glacier wall to cut the pyro out of the fight, and took a bat to the ribs for his inattention. They gave way under the force of the blow and he dropped to his knees.

The blonde swung again, slamming into the side of his knee.

Arktos swallowed a cry of pain and rolled to his back as he entombed himself in ice. He was a triple threat; able to fly, manipulate cold and ice, and heal rapidly, but he still needed time to heal in. If the blonde knocked him out, the pyro would turn him to a charred corpse before he could recover.

The fire outside his blue ice tomb dimmed. Two shadowy figures leaned over him and he felt heat on his back. Wiggling so he had some elbow room, he hit his knee, forcing the joint painfully back into place. He tried breathing and choked on blood. Broken rib. Wonderful. At least he’d be able to run in a few minutes.

His head spun as terror gripped him. This was it. He was going to die. Some dim corner of his mind shouted at him that this feeling wasn’t his, that the terror was alien, but the fear flared higher, consuming the voice, consuming everything. He clawed at the ice, desperate to escape. He couldn’t die like this. Wouldn’t. Aaron needed him to come home.

A third person walked into sight. The ice distorted his view, warping the image so he saw only rippling lines, but even through the ice, the black and red costume—and the sudden drop in his terror levels—had to mean Rage.

Arktos slammed his fist into the ice, punching his way free. She wasn’t a triple threat and there was no way he was going to let some unprotected empath try to take down the pyro alone. He fought the pain and fear and ice until a swell of peace blanketed him.

Exhausted, he let his head drop back to the ground and saw the fleeing pyro burning bright as his ice cage melted away. “This was not the plan.” His ribs scorched. He turned to his good side and saw blood.

“Tell me about it. I hate having my beauty sleep interrupted.” Rage bent over and picked up something silver that glittered in the pre-dawn light. “Cinderella left us a present.”

She walked the battle lines looking for more loot before coming over to him and dropping to her haunches, dangling the silver earring above him. “Beautiful little trinket, isn’t it? Silver or platinum, custom-made, expensive... I think I’ll keep it.”

Arktos winced as he tried to sit. “Give me the earring.”

“I have contacts who can find out who made this and who bought it. I doubt you do. But, if you’re very nice to me and keep talking, I might be persuaded to share my information.”

He grinned through the stabbing pain in his side, panting only a little as bones shifted. “Are you going to scribble your phone number on my hand?”

She tossed the earring up, caught it in her gloved hand, and tucked it away in her pocket. “Do you know that little ice cream shop up on the Pacific Highway? The one near the overlook?”

Taking a shallow breath, he nodded.

“I like to drive up there at nights, watch the waves without the city all around me. I’ll be there Friday. Maybe we can bump into each other, if you’re out of the hospital.”

“De nada. It’s all good. I’m healing. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll only be sore.” He reached out a hand. “Give me the earring.”

“Not happening.”

He coughed and winced again.

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s a convincing impression of a pierced lung you’re doing.”

He smiled up at her. “For someone who missed her beauty sleep, you look great.”

“And a concussion? Are there any other injuries I should tell the EMTs about when I call the ambulance?”

“Give me fifteen minutes.” Arktos forced himself to sit upright, his muscles burning. “It’ll hurt like hell, but I’ve had worse.”

“When?”

“I was twelve...” He gasped and pressed his side. “I was twelve and my mom decided that taking a baseball bat to my head was a good way of reminding me how much she hated parenting me.” Any other time he might have shrugged it off, but right now he couldn’t work up the energy to move. “After lying on the floor overnight I woke up with a headache and the munchies. I blamed it on a bad dream until I saw the blood. This is better. I’ll be hungry and sore, but that’s it.”

“Well, if I’d known this was just a midnight munchie run I would have brought cupcakes.”

“I hate cupcakes. Your choices are either vanilla or chocolate and I hate both.”

Rage leaned over him, crimson lips drawing his attention. “Blackberry-lime cupcakes.”

Arktos chuckled, and regretted it instantly as bone fragments sawed at the muscles on his side. Definitely broken. “Why does ‘blackberry-lime’ sound like a pick-up line?”

“Because you’re a male under age eighty. I could probably say ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ and make you think about sex.” She took his hand. “How about I stay here for a bit, just to make sure you recover enough to get yourself home.”

“This isn’t a death watch,” he said through gritted teeth. Super healing. What a bad idea! Instead of letting a doctor pick out the organic shrapnel while he slept, his body pushed it out like an infection as new bone grew on the rib. His world narrowed to a point of shining light on the roofline where the first rays of dawn hit the metal trim. Pain swallowed him down into the darkness.

And then he felt suddenly light, like floating on a warm, lazy river, drifting away from the world.

“I’d worry less if you were talking,” Rage prompted.

Arktos focused on the woman beside him. She was lovely, in a violent kind of way. The black leather trench coat had to be hot in sweltering L.A., but the humidity made her red silk cami cling in all the right places. Deep summer-sky eyes studied him intently. His hand shook. She’d come out here, alone, to save him. The pyro could have killed her—she had to have known it was a risk—but she’d still come to his rescue. The irony was enough to kill him.

He laced his fingers with hers. “What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?”

“You first.”

Her smile turned seductive. “Statement. One-love.”

He blinked.

“It’s from
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
. The Question Game?” She waved her free hand airily. “At the university we made a game of reciting it to see who knew it best, but don’t worry, most people don’t know it.”

“I know the play,” he said. “I just don’t expect beautiful women to start quoting Tom Stoppard at me instead of giving me their names.”

“Ah. Well then.” Her smile was wry, flirting but mischievous at the same time. He could get used to a smile like that.

“And I don’t know the next line.”

Rage grimaced. “I’m not sure I remember it either. Let me think.” She muttered a few lines under breath, casually rubbing at her ribcage.

He tried to disentangle his hand when he realized what was happening. Rage could make people feel things, and she could feel other people’s emotions, and now it seemed she could take some of it away. The same pathways in the brain that registered emotion would respond to pain, wouldn’t they? “Let go,” he whispered, not wanting to see her hurt.

Arktos tried to pull his hand away. “Stop it. I know what you’re doing.” Rage lifted a delicately arched eyebrow over her domino mask. “You’re taking—” The need to breathe cut him off.

“That’s right.”

The pain ebbed away into nothingness. “I just took one year of your life away.”

“Don’t play the coy ingénue and quote
The Princess Bride
at me. You’re going to kill yourself doing that.”

“Kill myself by exciting your serotonin receptors? Somehow I doubt that.”

“Empaths are like fire bugs, they can overload. Go insane. Burn out.” He stared at the city lights reflecting off the smog overhead. “That’s what’s wrong with the pyro. He’s about to burn out. If I can’t get him in an isolation ward soon he will do his best impression of a firework and leave chunks of burned pyro all over the city.”

“Graphic and unpleasant details that you should have mentioned sooner.”

“Uh huh.” He closed his eyes.

“Hey now! Stay with me here.”

“Why?” He meant to ask why she was helping him but it was too hard to form the words. So easy to fall asleep. Everything would be better tomorrow.

Her thumb caressed the sensitive skin on the palm of his hand. “Don’t leave me. You’re the only man who’s made me laugh in years. You’re kind.”

“Says the woman who’s known me for how long?”

“I can read emotions. It’s there, all of it. Your worry for people, all the drives and concerns, all your insecurities. Simmering away just beneath the pain.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he asked, voice rasping.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Not me or my bare-naked emotions!”

“Do you want to talk about you being bare-naked?”

He opened one eye and saw Rage smirk. Her eyebrows waggled in a suggestive way made famous by silent film. “No.”

She sighed dramatically. “As you wish. Would you like to play at questions?” She held on tighter. “The next line is, ‘What’s your name when you’re at home?’”

Arktos quit fighting. “What’s yours?” Another cough shook him, but the pain was minimal.

“When I’m at home?”

“Is it different at home?”