Supervillainess (Part One) (13 page)

Igor turned down the street housing her
warehouse and pulled over. She got out of the car, breathing in the
scent of super heated metal and rain.

“Stay here,” she reminded Igor.

He said nothing, and Reader trotted towards
the action. Her men had formed a ring around the warehouse and were
systematically executing the henchmen displaying the patch of a
cloud and lighting, indicating their loyalty to her brother, whose
villain code name was Thunder.

She hurried towards them. Her black-clothed
ninjas parted for her as she approached, and she made her way to
the center of the circle.

The report of a gun went off just as she
stepped into the center of her men. The last of her brother’s men
convulsed as he dropped.

“Where is he?” she demanded, searching the
dead bodies for signs of her brother.

“Not here, boss,” one of her henchmen
replied.

She double-checked the minds of those
closest to her, ensuring none of them sought to betray her. They
told the truth, and she walked among the dead, sucking up the last
memories from their dying brains before they were gone. The minds
of the recently dead were harder to read, and she squatted in their
midst, closing her eyes to concentrate. She had given strict orders
for no one to be shot in the head, so she had access to their
brains.

Fragments of images formed in her head until
she was able to distinguish an almost complete picture.

Her brother had been among those who
followed up on the leak about the training facility’s location.
According to the memories of the dead, when Jermaine realized it
was an ambush, he used his superpower to set her warehouse on fire
and fled towards the river, leaving those he brought with him to be
rounded up and executed by her henchmen.

Reader bounced to her feet and bolted in the
direction her brother had gone. She ran through the light rain,
breathing in the scent of wet asphalt, and paused at the railing
lining the riverbank. She strained, listening with her mind and her
ears, to find her brother.

Movement from the direction of one of the
piers caught her attention. She ran a short distance, when a splash
of red blood on the railing caught her attention. It was fresh and
bright beneath the glow of the overhead streetlight. Reader scoured
the ground for more drops of blood that hadn’t been diluted in
puddles or hidden by the patches of darkness existing between the
reach of streetlights.

A sporadic trail formed, leading her in the
direction in which she’d witnessed movement. The idea her brother
was wounded filled her with elation – and also concern she tried
hard to suppress. He had tried to murder her in cold blood, she
reminded herself. Jermaine didn’t deserve mercy of any kind.

The trail of blood led her towards the end
of the pier, past the two warehouses and several smaller
boathouses, and towards lights bobbing in the bay a few feet from
the end of the pier.

Reader ran to the end of the pier and leaned
over the railing, squinting to see into the boat. No one appeared
to be in it, aside from the driver, though the motor was rumbling
quietly as it waited. Jermaine hadn’t made it this far, which meant
he was still somewhere on the pier.

Turning around, she drew back and
listened.

…
keep moving. She’ll
…
Her brother was close enough for her to
hear fragments of his thoughts.

Reader darted to the nearest boathouse and
ripped open the door. It smelled strongly of fish and contained a
massive crane for lifting goods and fish off of ships, repair and
support equipment, and a myriad of other tools she cared nothing
about. She stepped inside – and Jermaine’s thoughts grew more
distant.

Retreating, she moved silently back to the
center of the pier, until Jermaine’s thoughts became louder and she
was able to identify the direction in which he was hiding. She
circled one building and spotted the blood trail once more.

He had made his way up the pier, towards the
waiting boat, then stopped to hide, likely when he saw her
coming.

She drew a weapon and opened the door to the
warehouse into which the blood led. Reader closed the door softly
behind her and stood still, listening. She sensed the gun before it
fired and ducked. The sound of a bullet smashing through metal rang
through the empty, dark space, and she whirled, smashing a fist
into her brother’s face.

He gasped and fell back. Reader snatched the
arm holding the weapon and twisted, forcing him to release the gun.
She shoved him to the ground and stared into the darkness,
satisfaction coursing through her.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on
end as Jermaine gathered his superpower to strike her. Reader
backpedaled and slammed the door of the warehouse open. She flung
herself to the side as lightning arced out of the warehouse and
soared harmlessly into the sky. She climbed to her feet, tucked her
gun away, and snatched one of the buckets gathering water at the
corner of the warehouse.

The charge was back when she entered the
darkness again. She threw the water in the direction of the
uncomfortable charge and heard it hit her brother. Lightning
fizzled and spurted around his body, highlighting his position and
temporarily crippling his superpower.

Reader grabbed one of his legs and dragged
him out of the warehouse into the circle created by one of the pier
lights. Breathing hard, she released him and stood over him,
glaring.

“You know I could’ve made you fry yourself!”
she shouted at him.

He didn’t respond. Jermaine clutched his
stomach and rolled onto his side. He climbed to his feet slowly.
Pain was etched on his features, along with defiance.

“It was a warning shot, sis,” he replied,
straightening to face her. “And yes, I know that.”

Reader couldn’t identify where the emotions
originated, or what they were, that left her trembling. She counted
how many times she could’ve killed her brother in the five minutes
since she’d found him but didn’t reach for her gun, despite the
voice of her father in her head ordering her never to take mercy on
anyone.

“I thought we should talk,” Jermaine said.
Tall and lean, he was dressed similarly to her down to the mask.
The only difference was the patch on his shoulder.

“Now you want to talk?” she demanded. “What
is there to discuss?” She listened to the answer in his mind and
drew her weapon, furious he thought to string her along until he
had a better plan.

“Whoa!” he said and held up his hands. “I’m
too weak to fight you. You know what our father did to me, is still
doing to me!”

“What’re you talking about? Still?”

“He’s been twisting my mind as only he can
do, feeding me lies about you. About everything.”

She raised her weapon. “Lies. All of
it.”

“You know he can do it, Keladry.”

She listened to his thoughts.

Jermaine was a jumbled mess. His head was
filled with too much for her to zero in on one solid train of
thought. It had been this way since their father broke him and left
him weeping in front of his own men.

The ache was back, and
Reader hesitated to pull the trigger. Yes, Jermaine’s mind was a
mess and yes, their father had done this to him. But nothing he
said or thought was preventing his death.
Her
thoughts were in the way, not
his.

“You didn’t have to try to kill me,” she
said, her voice cracking with emotion. “You could’ve ambushed me
and let me escape!”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Lie!” She took a step towards him.

Jermaine backed away. “Okay, okay! So I did
have a choice! I fucked up. What else do you want me to say?”

“That you won’t do it again. That we can be
what we were, before the games, before our father fucked you
up.”

“That’s not possible, Keladry.” Jermaine’s
response was quiet, his gaze haunted. For the first time since
confronting him, she sensed he wasn’t trying to lie or deceive or
mislead her. “I’ll never be that person again.”

“Why not? We are … were partners. Good ones.
If we work together, we could easily take him out.”

“Then what? Co-rule the city?” Jermaine
shook his head. “Only one of us can take over, Keladry. It’s the
way it’s always been.”

“But we’re different. We’re a team.”

“We
were
. We aren’t now.” Jermaine
lowered his hands. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will. My
mistake was not seeing the job through myself the first time. Get
used to it, sis. This is the new
us.
”

Her hand shook, and she tried to find some
part of what he said to give her hope, to remind her of the person
who smoothed her hair and told her jokes whenever she cried in the
dungeons.

Everything about Jermaine was different
since their father broke him, down to the hardness in his eyes. It
was a similar expression to their father’s, all that remained of
the horrific deeds shaping him in his past.

“Come home with me, Jermaine,” she said and
lowered the gun. “I can see what’s in your head. I know there’s a
piece of you that wants us to be what we once were, allies against
our father.”

Jermaine looked away. “That part of me is
dead.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“You don’t get it!
I
made the choice to
ambush you! I crossed the gray! Father had nothing to do with it. I
want to make him pay for what he did to me, and the only way I can
do that is if you’re dead and I win the games!”

The words stung, though Reader understood
the sentiment all to well. While there was a whisper of yearning in
his mind for them to return to the relationship they’d had their
entire lives, most of her brother’s thoughts were geared towards
the sole purpose of vengeance, no matter what – or who – he
destroyed in the process. She was an obstacle to him, the only
thing standing between him and their father.

She’d lost him a year ago. There wasn’t
enough of him left to save.

Hurting worse after witnessing the truth of
his mind, Reader raised the weapon again. “I’ll at least make it
quick,” she whispered.

“Do your worst, sis.” Jermaine stepped
towards her and swept his arms outward, exposing his body.

Reader slid the safety off with her thumb
and aimed at his head, willing to grant her longtime ally a quick
death. Jermaine held her gaze, his tortured, broken thoughts
sailing through her mind.

She drew a breath, steadied her breathing,
and counted down.

Three.

Two.

One.

I’m not ready for this.

The corner of Jermaine’s lips curled up.

Her brother hadn’t hesitated in his attempt
to kill her, so why wouldn’t her index finger obey her command to
squeeze the trigger? Why was panic sliding through her at the
thought of losing him permanently?

What was wrong with her?

“I didn’t think you could do it,” Jermaine
said. “Father told me you were the weaker of the two of us.”

“I’m not weak!”

“Then prove him wrong.”

Reader tried again without success. She had
murdered dozens of men point blank and hundreds more from a
distance. Jermaine was one man, the second to her father in his
attempts to murder her. If he were her father, he would’ve been
dead before he had the chance to open his mouth.

But he wasn’t. He was her brother, the man
who had been the anchor of her world until a year before, when her
anchor broke. She’d been adrift since then.

Jermaine was smiling confidently. “Next
time, sis.” He limped towards the railing, holding his stomach once
more.

Reader kept her weapon trained on him and
tried again to squeeze the trigger. Her finger didn’t budge.
Instead, she watched her brother climb the railing with some
difficulty. Jermaine saluted her then leapt off the pier into the
dark waters below and the boat that had shifted to the side of the
pier to fish him from the river.

Lowering her arm, Reader stared into the
space before her, frustrated with her weakness and furious with the
uncontrollable emotion twisting her insides and preventing her from
doing what she had to.

Jermaine’s thoughts faded as the boat pulled
away from the pier, taking him to safety and leaving her alone. Her
brother had turned from her only friend to her first arch-nemesis.
He had crossed the point of no return the night he tried to murder
her. She had to do the same, to pursue him with the same tenacity
and lack of mercy. She had to be ready to kill him next time or
better – prepared to hunt him down.

But not tonight.

The light patter of rain filled the air
around her as she stood, pensive and frustrated.

“Reader!” Igor called from the base of the
pier.

She replaced her weapon and glanced towards
the river. The light of her brother’s boat was visible a quarter
mile away. She still had time to blow him out of the water using
the heat-seeking missiles stored in her lair, or by providing his
position to a helicopter equipped with heavy explosives. In five
minutes, she could resolve the issue of her brother.

Reader turned away and began walking down
the pier towards Igor. She ignored the thoughts of her lifelong
supporter, not wanting to see his concern. She didn’t deserve it
tonight, when she’d failed at living up to the namesake she wanted
so badly to claim.

“Did you find him?” Igor asked.

“No,” she lied. “He was already gone.”

By the split second of silence between her
statement and Igor’s reaction, he knew the truth.

“The cleaners will take care of the
warehouse,” he said. “Your father has sent the next task in the
games.” Igor handed her an envelope containing a single piece of
linen cardstock with instructions.