One More Day (2 page)

I shook my head. “Two buildings, man. Two. You act like I do that shit all the time.”

We started walking up the beach, and I was more than happy to let Caine take over keeping a hold on Dragon. He smelled strongly of burnt eggs and I had to try not breathing through my nose or I’d end up losing my morning coffee in my mask.

“You forgot about that house in Brightmoor,” he said.

“That didn’t count. It was going to come down any day anyway.”

“Uh huh. The Historical Museum?” he asked, glancing over at me.

“I didn’t break the building. Just some of the stuff inside,” I said with a grimace.

“Have they lifted the ban on you yet?”

I glared at him then, and he laughed and hauled Dragon into the mini jet we’d taken out for patrolling.

“You owe me lunch, by the way. I bagged this one,” I told Caine as I buckled into the seat behind the pilot’s seat.

“It’s kind of unfair working with you. You end up bagging all of them.”

“Yeah. All three of the ones we’ve managed to take down,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Caine strapped Dragon into the seat beside mine, securing his hands and ankles and double-checking the dampener before sliding into the pilot’s seat. Then he turned and looked back at me. “Hey. Better than leaving those three out on the street. We’ll take a win where we can get it, and eventually, we’ll start getting more of them. Right?”

I studied him for a moment. Dark mask covering everything but his mouth, he sported the same gray and black uniform I did. He looked a lot more menacing in his than I did in mine, though. “Who would have guessed you’d be the perky positive one of the two of us?” I asked him.

“Perky. Damn. You didn’t have to get mean about it,” he muttered, but I could tell from his tone that he was smiling. We took off, and I watched the city pass beneath us. I would have rather been flying outside of the mini jet than inside it, any day.

Within minutes, Caine was landing the mini jet at the flight bay at Command. We got out, and Caine talked to the flight crew about something with the jet while I hauled Dragon out of the plane. We took him down to the detention facility, handed him off gratefully to Marie and her people, then went up to Portia’s office to fill her in on everything. By now, we didn’t need to talk about how or when we were going to do something, or who would talk when, or what had to happen next. I’d been unsure about Caine as my patrol partner, and actually went as far as arguing with Portia about it because I would have preferred Jenson, but I had to admit that we worked well together.

It wasn’t the same for everyone she’d paired up. Toxxin and Chance pretty much despised one another by now. Amy, AKA Steel, was kind of creeped out by Jenson and her self-replicating powers; and Monica thought Beta was, in her own often-repeated words, “an insufferable little know it all shit.” Dani was intimidated by being paired with Portia because she was our leader, and she was constantly looking for someone to take her shifts for her.

So, yeah. Things were going really super well. For the most part, Caine and I were the only ones who managed to actually bring anyone in when they caused trouble, and even that wasn’t all that often.

But, we were working on it. Portia had her hands full trying to keep all of us on task, and I didn’t envy her the job.

We were heading for the elevator after dropping Dragon off when my phone rang again. This time it was Mama’s ring, and I gestured for Caine to go ahead without me while I picked it up.

“Hey! What’s up?” I asked, pacing back and forth near the elevators in the lobby between the men’s and women’s detention wings. I turned and paced back toward the men’s wing. Through the window in the entry door, I could just see the cell at the end, and make out Maddoc’s hulking form. I turned back around and put a hand to my neck, hating the way I felt on the verge of panic just from seeing him. The nightmares still hadn’t stopped, and my reflexes and fine motor skills were still shot. Dr. Ali said it was likely I’d never be what I’d been. I still couldn’t hit worth shit, and that had kind of been my thing. All I managed now was barreling into things at high speed. It got the job done, sometimes, but it wasn’t pretty.

I shook my head, forcing the thoughts away and concentrating on Mama.

“Are you busy? I can call back,” Mama said, and I smiled.

“Nope.”

“I was wondering… I feel like a terrible person for even asking this but nothing else seems to work, and— ”

“What is it?”

“You know those guys who moved in next to me? In Patty’s old trailer?”

“Yeah. The bikers?”

“Yes. They’ve been really loud, and we’ve been calling the management on them, but they won’t do anything. And Shelli even called the police twice, and they came but as soon as they were gone, it just started up again. They were shooting guns off out there last night.”

I took a breath. “We have to get you out of there, Mama,” I said, thinking of the house keys I had in my suite at Command. I’d just closed on a house I’d bought for Mama a couple of days ago, and I had some contractors coming to take a look at fixing it up so I could move her in. I hadn’t told her yet, because I wanted it to be a surprise. And also because I didn’t want her to argue with me.

“Not right now, Jo. And it’s not just me. We have kids in this neighborhood.”

“I know.”

“I know it’s not a StrikeForce thing. They’re not powered or anything like that,” she added quickly. “But do you think someone could come by and maybe talk to them? Maybe Beta?” She’d met Beta back when I was in the hospital and she’d taken a liking to him.

“Why not me?”

“I don’t know how intimidated they’d be by a female superhero,” she said.

“Mama. I have a reputation, you know.”

“I know. But you know how some men are,” she said, and she didn’t have to explain, because, yeah, I did know. There was a type, and that type usually believed that anything a woman accomplished was actually thanks to someone else, that there was no way a woman, even a powered one, could beat up a big, strong man. Or, let’s be honest, even a weak-assed one. They were the ones who suggested loudly and often on social media that my fights were all staged, that the villains I took in were actors, that Caine actually did all the work and I just swooped in at the end to look good. And you don’t have to be a costumed superhero to get that shit. All you have to be is a woman who does things.

“Are they around now?”

“Yes. Neither of them seem to work or anything,” she said.

“Okay. Sit tight.”

“Is Beta coming?”

I sighed. “Mama.”

“All right. Just be careful.”

“Okay. Stay in the trailer, all right?”

“Love you, Ladybug.”

“Love you more. Are you planning to make some of those double chocolate cookies of yours?”

“I am now,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll have them ready when you come to visit on Saturday.”

“Yes!” I said, and she laughed again. “Okay. On my way.”

I pressed my comm twice, which would get me Jenson instead of Caine. “Hey,” I said.

“Congratulations on not breaking anything today,” Jenson’s cool, deadpan voice said in my ear.

“You all are really funny, you know that?” I asked, and I heard her laugh. “I’m just letting you know that I’m stepping out for a bit. My comm is still on but there’s something I need to take care of.” I thought for a second. “Oh, and if there are any rumors about me roughing up some biker assholes later, they’re totally made up.”

I was pretty sure I heard a sigh on her end, but all she said was. “Duly noted, Daystar. See you at dinner.”

I grinned and made my way up to the flight bay, then took off toward Warren, which was where Mama still lived and where I’d lived up until a few months ago, in the little yellow and white single wide in the Eight Mile Motor Village.

I landed on the cracked asphalt in the center of Perdition Lane. I could see Mama’s trailer at the end. The flowers she had planted had long since died back from frost, and a light layer of new snow covered everything. The trailer next to hers was an old aqua and white monstrosity that should have been scrapped years ago. The tiny lot around it was strewn with old tires, beer cans and bottles, and empty pizza boxes, and there were three bikes parked there, three long-haired, tattooed guys standing around them. You know the bikers you see on the covers of certain romance novels? Mama loves those books. Anyway, these guys didn’t look like that. Stringy, scrawny, oily looking, but clearly they think they’re something special. I walked past my old neighbor and friend Robbie, who was fixing a car in his driveway with one of his buddies. I heard one of them murmur “oh, shit,” and smiled behind my mask. I walked closer to the biker guys and they finally looked my way.

“There’s no costume party around here, honey,” one of the bikers said, and the other two immediately laughed. Dipshit hierarchy is so easy to peg. That one was the alpha moron, and the other two were his lackeys.

“I received a report that you guys were shooting guns here last night,” I said, keeping my voice low. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched them. They couldn’t see my face at all behind my mask, but I still tried not to look at Mama’s trailer. I could hear doors opening as some of the other neighbors checked out what was going on.

“There’s none of that powered shit going on here. You have no right to be here,” alpha moron said.

I walked closer to them, arms still crossed over my chest, like I was taking a slow, casual stroll.

“If people feel unsafe, for any reason, I have every right to be here. And you are a problem.”

Alpha moron held his hands out in a “come get me” gesture. “You think I’m scared of some bitch in a mask? You got any whips on you? We can make this fun if you like that kinky shit.”

“I just threw up in my mouth a little bit,” I said, and I heard a few quiet laughs behind me. “If you fire those guns again, I’m going to come back here and fucking feed them to you. And if you don’t think I will, feel free to try me.”

“You can’t just come in here and threaten me. I have rights!” alpha moron shouted. Ugh. It’s ridiculous how often we hear that one. It’s like there’s a pre-written script or something with some of these guys.

“And the people in this neighborhood have the right not to listen to your noise and see your garbage all over the place all the time. I’m done talking. I’ll hear about it if you assholes don’t calm down, and I promise you, I will be back. Enough with the loud music, the fighting, the shooting, and the breaking shit.”

“Yeah, I’ll break something, all right,” alpha moron said, and he started coming toward me.

I heaved an exaggerated sigh. Even with my shitty reflexes, I could see his punch coming from about a mile away. He swung at me, and I grabbed his fist and wrenched it down then pulled his arm hard behind his back, twisting it just to the point where he felt like I was about to rip it out of its socket.

Self defense classes. Best hundred bucks I’ve ever spent.

I stood and held his hand behind his back as he shouted at me and called me things I knew Mama would want to hit him in the face with a cast iron frying pan for. The first of his lackeys got brave and took a swing at me and I grabbed his hand in mid-air and squeezed. I could feel the bones in his hand shifting in my grasp, and he screamed.

“Oh. Is that bothering you? Should I stop?” I asked innocently. The alpha moron kept saying rude things to me, and the lackey tried to kick my shin, and I put a little more pressure on both of them.

“Get her, dumbass,” alpha moron said to the third lackey, who came toward me uncertainly.

“Don’t piss me off, man,” I said, and he glanced at his two pals again and backed away.

“Are you going to calm down or should I make it a little worse?” I asked the other two. I pulled alpha moron’s arm back a little more, and he shouted.

“Okay, okay you crazy bitch. You’re gonna rip my arm off!”

I let them both go, and they stood there for a minute, each of them massaging their injuries.

“I’m gonna sue your ass,” alpha moron said.

I laughed. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“Now!” alpha moron said to the other one, and they both launched themselves at me.

I held my hands out, putting a hand over each of their faces and holding them back while they tried desperately to get at me.

“Okay,” I muttered. I lowered my hands to the fronts of their shirts, grabbed the fabric in my fists, and then rose into the air.

I’ve found, in my short time as a super hero, that people don’t like to be dangled from a few dozen feet up in the air. They start screaming, and then they start begging, and usually, there’s peeing involved. And these two were the same way, but I was less than ten feet up into the air when the screaming started.

“So disappointing,” I told them. I rose a little more. I was making a point here, after all.

When we were a good forty feet up, I stopped, letting them dangle, letting them get a good look at the asphalt below.

“So. Boys,” I said. “Are you going to be good, quiet peaceful neighbors, or should I just drop you now and save everyone the trouble?”

“Yes!” alpha moron screamed.

“Yes, I should drop you?” I asked, acting like I was about to let him go.

“No! No, don’t drop me. We’ll be quiet. I swear we’ll be quiet just put me down.”

“What’s the magic word?” I sang.

“You are fucking insane!” alpha moron screamed.

“Now. Was that nice? You could have hurt my feelings, if I had any.” I started to open my hand a little, and he screamed.

“I’m sorry. Sorry. Please. Oh god please just put me back down. I swear.”

“Very well.” I came down for a landing and set them both down. Alpha moron puked at the side of the road and his buddy looked like he was about to do the same. “If I hear about you again, and I will, because I’m letting everyone here know right now that they can contact me anonymously via the StrikeForce hotline, and I’ll come… if I hear about you again, I won’t be nearly as nice. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes,” alpha moron groaned, still hunched over on his hands and knees.