Date: 2018-06-25 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance
Description: Secrets. That's what kept Project 12 out of the spotlight for so many years. Who were the doctors? Who hijacked their lives? What was the purpose of the project? And who was behind it? These are all things Astrid is desperate to find out as her city is threatened by outside forces. Will she find the answers? Can her team survive? Why are they so connected? Find out in the final, gripping book in this epic series!

Heroes

Supers of Project 12 (Book 4)

Angel Lawson

Contents

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue

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Heroes:

The Supers of Project 12

By

Angel Lawson

1

The roof of the cabin peeks out of the towering trees. Well, cabin is the wrong word. Mansion? Cabin-mansion? Rural lodge? Whatever it was called, it was gorgeous. Massive, luxurious.

And private. So very, very private.

Astrid steps out of the car and inhales the glorious scent of pine and fresh air. No smog, no pollution, no people or crowds. There was nothing around them but trees, a clear lake, and the mountains surrounding them.

She could get used to this.

Three men follow her out of the car, stretching their arms and legs after the long drive. She watches them, taking in their bodies. Each are different but possess peak physical condition. Muscles line their limbs. Their biceps swell, their pecs curve. Their shoulders and backs are sleek planes of strength. They can run, jump, climb, and punch. The men are strong and limber, having spent hours training and pushing their bodies to peak condition.

Quinn is blessed with more muscles than a Greek god and a soul kinder than a saint. He was Astrid’s first real lover. The one that showed her there was more than just a lonely, solitary life. He yields kinetic electrical manipulation. He can shut down an entire city like an EMP.

Owen, with his floppy blond hair and lean, sexy body. He’s fun, and falling for him has been one of the most liberating aspects of her new life. His ability is illusion manipulation. He can make a person think they see almost anything. He can also alter space and time. The actual fabric of reality.

Then there’s Draco. Her eyes skim over every inch of the newest member of their team. He’s Mr. Perfect in body and mind. He smells like sugar. He feels like sin. He’s strong. Fast. Smart. Calculating, and Astrid’s dying to get him into bed.

She’s not planning on waiting much longer.

And Astrid? Well, she’s an empath. She reads people’s echoes; their memories, their thoughts, and feels their actual emotions. She can sense them. Manipulate them. Control them.

They’re genetically superior—altered humans. Each born with a gift that was later exploited and enhanced by doctors looking to push their abilities. Those gifts came with a price.

Death

Destruction

Greed

Terror

And that’s why they’re on this mountain top. It’s why they’re taking a break—for themselves and for the city they protect. They need a minute to rest and recoup; to heal their bodies and brains.

They need their strength.

And as they’ve learned that strength is maximized when they’re together and up here, nothing will get in their way.

* * *

“So this is Demetria’s little cabin in the woods?” Owen asks. His hands are on his hips and he looks up at the massive wood home with expansive windows overlooking the green lake below. “She doesn’t half-ass anything, does she?”

“No,” Draco replies, “she really doesn’t.”

“How did you even know about this place?” Quinn asks.

“She hosted a corporate retreat up here last year. All the toy makers and designers.” He lifts luggage out of the back of the SUV. “Seemed like a good place to go off the grid for a while.”

Go off the grid. That’s the plan, but laughter from the back seat of the van grabs their attention.

Astrid leans into the car and finds Casper still tucked in the back seat, eyes on his laptop. “Plan on joining us?”

“You k-k-know nature gives me hives.”

No, she didn’t know that and no, that isn’t even true.

There’s a fourth man in their group. Real name: Cedric. Code name: Casper or the Goblin. He’s their brains. Their organizer. He’s gifted with cyberkinesis and the ability to hack into pretty much any computer or technical system that exists. He’s their eyes and ears. He’s also lived the past several years in a bunker, hiding out from society. He’s quirky and a little obnoxious, and has a pretty challenging stutter.

Astrid’s brought him up here to help him heal too. He’s one of them if he accepts it or not.

“You said there’s an office?” she asks Draco.

“Yep. Come on, Cas,” he says, encouraging him out of the car. He relents, grabbing his big bag of tech. Okay, a few of them were going off the grid. Casper? Not a chance.

She watches Owen and Draco lead him into the building, Owen’s voice echoing in the massive foyer. Astrid slings her bag over her shoulder and walks over to the edge of the driveway where it overlooks a path leading to the lake. A dock bobs in the smooth water and a small boathouse sits on the edge of the property.

Quinn follows her and she sighs when he wraps his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her shoulder.

“You really think this is a good idea?” she asks. Leaving the city is a risky move. Rowe is still missing. They have no idea who his boss is or what his major plans are. Quinn’s hands tighten around her stomach.

“I think this is fantastic idea.” He kisses her neck. “You need a break. We all need a break. What we went through with Rowe was pretty intense.”

“He’s still out there.”

“We’ll get him. Just not today. Or tomorrow. Right now, we need a little R&R.”

She twists her head and kisses along his jaw. He’s right and she knows it. “Does one of those Rs stand for ’release’?”

Being with these guys made her pretty freaking horny.

He smiles. “It can stand for whatever you want it to, but if you need a release, you know where to come.”

2

Astrid

The bedroom looks like something out of a magazine—a fancy one—not the Disney Princess insanity of Demetria’s home. This place was for show, probably an opportunity to convince the world she wasn’t insane. Heavy, dark wood furniture, wood plank floors with plush rugs. The walls are a creamy gray. A big window with a private deck. A huge stone fireplace takes up one whole wall.

And then there’s the bed.

King-sized with bedding fancier than that on Draco’s. The duvet is thick, soft. The pillows are massive and fluffy. Astrid runs her hand down the fabric and exhales. She really did need a vacation.

The house is big enough for everyone to have their own room, each one on the second floor where the views are insane. They voted to let her have this one—the master. She drops her bag on the bed and unzips it, digging around for her hoodie. Tossing a few things on the bed, she finds the one she wants tucked deep inside. She kicks off her shoes and walks out to the deck, inhaling more of that clean winter air. It’s cold, but one floor below on the main deck she spots something that warms her right up.

A hot tub.

An image of her surrounded by shirtless, wet men flashes in her mind and she’s no longer cold. Jesus, she’ll definitely be making use of that hot tub later.

A heartbeat at the door draws her attention away from the outdoors and she looks back, finding Owen smiling in the entry. Her heart pitter-patters at the sight of him.

“Hey,” he says, eyes landing on the messy bed. “Just came to check on you. Did you really already make a mess in here?”

“What? I’m just getting comfortable.”

He laughs. “Living in chaos is not getting comfortable.”

“It is to me.”

He rolls his eyes. “Draco’s making a fire in the huge fireplace downstairs, and Quinn is working on some kind of organic, protein-filled dinner. You know he has to eat by six or his muscles breakdown or something.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Sounds delicious.”

He laughs again and they meet in front of the fireplace. Astrid shivers from being on the porch and he runs his hands up and down her arms. In a low voice he says, “Don’t worry. I packed us a box of chips and candy and even a bag of those gross powdered donuts you love so much. Oh, and I got a whole case of Mountain Dew.”

Astrid grazes his chest with her fingers and loops her hands around his neck. His hips bump into hers and they touch foreheads.

“Thanks for thinking about my wants and needs.”

“Babe,” he says, lips ghosting over hers, “I’m always thinking about your wants and needs. Always.”

Goosebumps prick down her arms and she shivers again—this time just not from the cold. Tilting her head, she captures his mouth with hers, thanking him once again before heading downstairs hand in hand.

* * *

Despite Quinn’s attempts to make the most healthy, lame dinner possible, everything is delicious. From the salad to the dessert—some kind of mousse that tastes like chocolate but is probably a trick. There’s no way he’d actually eat real chocolate.

At least the wine is real.

When they’re finished, Astrid grabs the unused plate from the empty seat and says, “I’ll take him some.”

Draco leans over and drops an extra serving of mousse. “Trust me, he’ll want it.”

Those two and their strange, close relationship always surprises her. It shouldn’t, but both Draco and Casper are still a bit of a mystery to her—one she hopes to unravel a bit more during their time at the lodge.

They have Casper the bedroom on the main floor with a connecting office. It’s set up for tech, which is good because otherwise there’s no way he would have come. She walks down the hall and knocks on his door.

His voice is muffled on the other side. “W-w-what?”

“Hey,” she says, leaning on the door frame, “I brought you some dinner.”

There’s a pause. He’s still a little hesitant at times, but Astrid can sense him through the door. It’s a combination of his increased, nervous heartrate, the musk of his scent combined with anxiousness, and the eventual movement toward her that allows her to know he’s trying.

She fights a smile when he opens the door and looks from her face to the food and back again. There are large headphones over his ears.

“Th-th-thank you,” he says, grimacing at the stammer.

“You’re welcome.” She glances in the room behind him. “Want some company?” He takes the plate and shakes his head. “Okay, well, don’t think you’re hiding out in here the whole time, got it?”

Again, he just nods, cheeks slightly red. They were going to have to work through his insecurities. He was too important to hide away. He was one of them. Part of the team. She just needed a way to show him that.

“Call me if you need anything,” she says and he shuts the door.

This one is going to take some gentle care. Baby steps. But she’s got time and patience and has no doubt she’ll figure it out.

* * *

Owen insisted on game night, digging through the closet at the end of the hall. It seems odd for such a swank place to have the classics, but he pulls out an ancient Monopoly box and sets up the pieces while Quinn refills their wine glasses.

“Take the dog,” Draco says, pushing it towards her. He’s clutching the car in his hand.

“Harry Styles will be offended.” She snatches the thimble instead.

Quinn takes the top hat and Owen the dog. He holds it up and says, “I’m not worried about offending your cat.”

She and Quinn share a look, rolling their eyes. Owen’s still in denial about his cat love, although his façade is broken when he immediately says, “I really hope Mick remembers to roll up his cheese. Harry gets super pissed if you don’t.”

“Sounds to me like someone’s pussy-whipped,” Quinn mutters.

She snorts and even Draco cracks a smile, but Owen just glances at Astrid with the heat of a thousand suns and says, “There’s no denying that.”

Damn.

The wine makes their tongues loose and the trash talk increases as the game gets moving. Two hours later, Draco owns half the hotels while Astrid only has a few. Owen can’t stay out of jail and Quinn is quietly hoarding money.

Owen rolls the dice and hits a four. He skips his dog across the squares and lands on Astrid’s priciest property.

“That’s five hundred,” she says.

He picks through his paper money. It’s obvious he doesn’t have enough.

“Don’t send me to jail again.”

“You need a loan?” Quinn the banker asks.

He considers it and Astrid takes a sip of her wine. An idea pops in her head. “How about an alternative?”

“What do you mean?” Owen asks.

“Well, I’ve always liked that sweatshirt. Maybe you can pay me with that?”

“That’s not in the rules—” Quinn starts but Owen holds up his hand, quieting him.

He stares at her with intense eyes. He knows what she’s getting at. Yeah, she wants his clothes. She wants him naked and she’ll bribe his sorry, Monopoly-playing ass to make it happen.

Draco quietly watches their exchange unfold.

There’s one more moment of thought before Owen stands, yanks the sweatshirt over his head and tosses it to her. She frowns when she sees the Elite t-shirt underneath.

Things go downhill from there.

* * *

“Babe, I’m going to have to ask for your shirt,” Owen says, in retaliation.

Astrid’s fingers touch the hem of her tank, the final barrier between her and sitting around in just her underwear. She already lost her pants, and with the guys triple-teaming her, she had little chance.

Sure, they spread their demands around a little. Both Owen and Quinn were bare-chested, and they’d each lost their socks. Interestingly, once clothing removal was the focus of the game, Owen had a massive comeback.

Now it’s almost midnight. Three bottles of wine are empty and the only one still wearing a respectable number of clothes is Draco. Astrid does the only thing she can. She removes her top, revealing the pink lace bra underneath.

After these months of getting to know these men more intimately, she’s used to the feeling of eyes on her—aroused eyes. Hungry eyes. Enamored eyes. It’s an amazing feeling, but having all three of them at once, like this? Her stomach flutters at the feeling.

With everything that’s gone on lately; losing her trust in Jensen, losing her sense of control with Rowe, the Swamp turning on her and her team…this? This feels nice. Knowing that at the snap of her fingers these men would do anything for her. Not just because of the lust rolling off of them like a category 5 hurricane, no, because they respect her. They trust her and in return, she has absolute faith in them.

She places both hands under the swell of her breasts and mocks their glazed eyes, “What? Like you haven’t seen my tits before.” Then she grabs the dice and drops them into Draco’s hand. It’s not without meaning when she says, “You’re next.”

3

Draco

There’s an unfamiliar but exhilarating thrill as Astrid walks out of the room in nothing but her bra and panties. The bottoms are stretchy little boy shorts and the rounded curve of her ass cheeks peek out tauntingly. It’s odd being aroused like this around two other men, none of them pretending to do anything but ogle.

Draco hasn’t fully reconciled the idea of sharing Astrid, but he’s determined to try. So far their intimacy has been confined to kisses and touch, but with every day and Astrid determined to drive him crazy, his resolve to take things slow is wavering. In fact, there was a moment or two during the game that he almost took her right there.

Almost.

Draco knows, as he watches her hips sway with every step as she approaches the staircase, that when he and Astrid finally have sex he’ll take his time and he’ll enjoy every inch of her curvy, enticing body.

“Clean this up tomorrow?” Owen asks, breaking him from his thoughts. The man is shirtless and in boxer briefs and has never looked more comfortable. Draco, on the other hand, still has on an undershirt and his jeans.

“Yeah, I think so,” he replies. Quinn stretches out on the couch, surprisingly lightweight when it comes to alcohol. He holds his fist up and Owen tags it in solidarity. He, too, is stripped down and the hard lines of his fit body relax into the couch.

The friendship between these men intrigues him almost as much as Astrid.

Owen, more perceptive than he imagines, says, “It’s okay to want her, and frankly, it’s okay to give in and be with her. It’s a little strange at first, maybe, but it’s also what she wants.”

“Yeah?” Draco looks up the stairs, eyes following her path.

“We had to deal with our own jealousies and possessiveness.”

This surprises him. “Really? You all seem so…okay with everything.”

“Rowe flirted with her during his training and I almost ripped his head off. I went batshit,” Quinn admits.

Owen nods and jerks his thumb at his friend. “And this guy? Wow. I knew he’d been with her and then she was flirting with me and my head was a mess. Damn I wanted her. So much, and finally I just accepted it was what she needed.”

“Needed,” Draco repeats with understanding.

“She needs us, man. She needs the bond,” Quinn says before yawning. “And you won’t believe how much you need that connection, too.”

“And it’s not weird,” he asks, slowly coming around.

“Nope. Not weird,” Quinn says.

“It’s fucking awesome,” Owen adds, stretching his arms over his head. He grabs his shirt off the floor and tugs it over his head.

“Night,” Quinn says, clearly prepared to sleep on the couch. His eyes are already closed before they reach the stairs.

Draco follows Owen up, considering everything through the hazy fog of drunkenness. Tomorrow he’ll probably forget the entire conversation, but right now, as he parts from the other man in the hallway and closes his own door behind him, he thinks escalating his relationship with Astrid sooner than later is a really good idea.

* * *

Even after the late-night drinking, Draco’s up before the sun rises. He pulls on his shoes and jacket, heading for the front porch. There’s a trail around the lake he wants to explore. The dirt is soft under his shoes, and he inhales the clean mountain air. The lake water is unbelievably clear. He’s glad they came up here; he needed a break.

And no, he hadn’t forgotten his talk with Owen and Quinn the night before, or the way Astrid looked in her lacy underwear. That image is seared in his mind.

He’s halfway around the lake when he hears the thud of footsteps on the trail. His senses kick in and he slips behind a tree. With Rowe on the loose, he’s not taking any chances. He waits but the footsteps slow, then stop altogether. For a minute he thinks they’ve turned around or maybe he made it up, but then he catches the snap of a twig.

Surprise is always the best mode of attack and when he jumps into the path, a shadow slams into him.

“Oof,” he cries, a fist slamming him in the nose. Then an elbow, sharp and pointed, in the gut. “Ugh.”

He grapples with the flash of black and snatches the hands out of the air.

“Draco?”

He blinks.

“Damn, Astrid. What the hell?”

“Oh my god, your face. What did I do to your face?”

He winces where Astrid pummeled his side. “Don’t forget my stomach.”

Her hands reach for him, touching him gently on the cheek. “I could hear your heartbeat and I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I get too in my head when I run I guess. I was close before I realized it and then you jumped out at me and I’m so sorry.”

Her hands are cool and feel like a salve against his heated skin. She drops them and touches the hem of his shirt, lifting the fabric to reveal his stomach. His abs peek out and her blue-green eyes drink them in.

“Where?” she asks, touching the skin. It doesn’t hurt that bad, but he keeps that information to himself. Any excuse.

Her hands splay over his stomach, then flip, brushing the back of her fingers against the hair beneath his belly button. He swallows and meets her eyes, loving the fire he sees in them. She tilts her head and says, “What’s going on? In your head? I sense something.”

He responds by slipping a hand behind her neck and pulling her in for a kiss. Her body folds into his and he holds her up at the waist, dragging her closer. She’s sweaty from her run, her lips tasting like salt. But what he loves is that she doesn’t hold back. Not even for a moment. She wants this. Him. And finally, he can admit he does too.

Flipping her around, he presses her back against a tree, using one hand to brace himself against the damp bark and another to hold her at her hip. His hips push into her, damn he’s already so, fucking, hard.

Astrid’s fingers dip in the waistband of his shorts and he squirms, ready to explode. She breathes into his mouth, teeth tugging at his lip, deep groans echoing in her chest. All of it. It’s too much and not nearly enough.

“I want you,” he whispers. “Now. Right, fucking, now.”

She nods vigorously.

“I’m tired of waiting. I’m in,” he tells her. “Totally in.”

She cups him through his shorts and he trembles in response. This brings a smile to her face. “So sensitive, so big.”

He runs his fingers over her breasts, the peaks of her nipples rising as if on command. “I can say the same to you.”

They’re heightened. Every part of their bodies. Skin, mouths, tongues. He pulls at the waistband of her running tights when a stick snaps behind him and he jerks away, glancing backwards.

“What?” Astrid asks.

“Nothing.” He’s prepared to kiss it away, tugging at the god-forsaken pants, but her forehead furrows and she’s searching the woods behind him.

Leaves shiver on a bush and he mutters, “If that’s Owen or Quinn, I’m gonna kill them,” and he stalks toward the bush, cock hard between his legs. He spots black steel before anything else and fear paralyzes his heart.

Draco the wanna-be lover vanishes, and Draco the Super rises and he lunges for the object faster than conceivably possible. In a split-second the gun is in one hand the neck of its owner is in another. He holds the scrawny man a foot off the ground. The man cries and grapples at his neck.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Draco roars, inches from his face.

“H-hunting,” he man says, fearfully. He eyes Draco’s bulging bicep that’s as big as his head. “Just hunting. Rabbits.”

He’s dressed the part. Army-green pants, camouflage vest with a matching hat. He’s small and a little older; thinning gray hair.

“This is private property,” Astrid says, coming from behind. The man looks at her and flinches. Yeah, she’s terrifying when she wants to be.

“I know, I—” He points to where Draco is holding him. “Can you put me down?”

Still holding the rifle, Draco drops him. “Don’t make a move.” He nods at Astrid. “Or she’ll kick your ass.”

The man nods. “Like I said, just out here hunting. I know it’s private property but no one is ever up here. I live in town and it’s been years since anyone has been up at the lodge. That makes the game plentiful and I figured it wouldn’t hurt…” He swallows. “I heard movement. I thought I’d caught my prey. Instead I just…”

His face turns bright read.

Astrid watches him closely, obviously trying to get a read on him. Draco waits it out, knowing she’ll get to the truth. He’s pissed off and a little embarrassed to be caught going at it in the woods. She deserves better than that and if this little man hadn’t interrupted them, he would have taken her against that tree.

What the hell has come over him?

Astrid nods, giving him the clear. She takes a step closer. “This is private property. Stay clear, got it?”

Draco cracks open the barrel, removing the bullets, before handing it back to the man. “If we catch you out here again, we’ll call the police.” He gives him a hard, dangerous look. One that implies that no, they won’t call anyone. They’ll handle it themselves. The man seems to get the message.

“Got it. I’m really sorry and I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?” Astrid asks.

“Mean to intrude.” Dammit. “I apologize.”

Draco sighs and waves his hand. “Just go.”

The man turns and heads back the other direction and they stand for a moment watching him until he disappears into the brush. Draco faces Astrid.

“Well that was a mood killer,” she says with a laugh.

He smiles in return because he likes everything about this woman. Her humor, her strength. His eyes skim her body. Yeah, everything.

“Let’s finish that run,” he tells her, heading to the trail.

She cocks her head. “Need to work out some energy?”

She sets the pace and he matches it. “You have no idea.”

“Yeah, actually I do.”

4

Astrid

Quinn has breakfast ready when we return from our run. Disgusting-looking kale protein shakes that he and Draco consume with a look of contentment. They’re so weird, but when she tries her hardest not to stare at Mr. Perfect and the way the sweat-soaked shirt clings to his curves or the broad lines of Quinn’s back, she understands the value. She should encourage them to eat like this if muscle-packed bodies are the result.

“Want me to make you an egg?” Quinn asks her.

She pulls her hand out of the bag of powdered doughnuts Owen brought her. “Uh, I’m okay.”

The run worked to get a little bit of the pent-up energy out of her system, but she’s got a craving and she’s pretty sure three doughnuts may help cut the edge.

Damn, she’s wound up. Really wound up, and until Draco scratches that itch she’s not sure she’ll feel any sort of relief.

“Any interest in checking out the boathouse?” Draco asks Quinn.

“Yeah, sounds good. I saw some keys in the cabinet over there.” Quinn looks at Astrid. “Want to come?”

“No thanks, I need a shower. But I’ll wave at you when you drive by.” Astrid has plans of cleaning up, sitting on the deck, and relaxing all day. “Where’s Owen?”

“Still asleep,” Quinn replies. “And he thinks I’m the lightweight.”

“He’s just lazy,” she laughs. “Anyone check on Cas today?”

“Yeah,” Draco says. “He’s alive. And playing some game with trolls and pillaging barbarians.”

Astrid takes a sip of her soda. Soon she’s going to need Draco to pillage her. Very soon.

“Have fun,” she tells them, knowing she needs to get away before she gets hot and bothered again.

The bathroom is like everything else in the house; decoratively on point for the cabin style while also being ridiculously luxurious. The walls are made of slatted wood, white washed and bright. The floor hardwoods have soft, gray, furry rugs. A huge open-air shower is built into the wall, with a window that looks out over the water. It’s hard not to wonder if someone could see you up there but maybe the glass fogs over? Astrid can’t decide how she feels about that but she does know the massive clawfoot tub is calling her name.

Like everything else, it’s a mixture of rustic and contemporary, the shape and fixtures seemingly antique but small jets along the sides tell her it’s been modernized. She spins the tap and water rushes out.

On a whim, Astrid checks the cabinet over the sink. Sure enough; bath bombs, shower gel, bubbles. She grabs them all and a small bottle that catches her eye. She needs to relax. Really relax, and this may do the trick.

She drops in the lavender bomb, strips and climbs in, the hot water immediately easing her aching muscles. So much has gone on lately she feels overwhelmed. She’s let down her community. They hate her and her team. Rowe is out there probably planning his next attack and there’s someone leading all of this, someone she doesn’t know.

Stop, she tells herself. Just stop. Breathe, relax.

The word relax bounces around her brain. There’s one way to make that happen, something she can control, and she eyes the small bottle sitting on the edge of the bath.

She pours a liberal amount of the lube in her hand, getting her finger sticky. It’s waterproof, and she leans her back into the tub and bends her knees, resting them on the sides.

She’s already on edge from the morning in the woods with Draco and simply being around all of the men. Their bodies, their laughter…everything is a turn-on. Even the kale smoothie, because she loves how true Quinn is to himself and how he wants her to be healthy. She thinks about Quinn and his rock-hard body, the way he dotes on her, cares for her, and she strokes her fingers along the sensitive spot between her legs, feeling a jolt of energy.

She sighs as the stress begins to melt away.

Her mind wanders to Draco and the heat of his kisses. God, it felt good when he lost control, tossing her hard against that tree. Her body can take it, and damn she wants him to handle her. Take charge. Let go. Fuck her good and proper.

Her fingers tweak her clit, giving her a shock of pleasurable pain, and she groans into the sensation.

Too loud she thinks, embarrassed with herself. She hits the button that turns on the jets in case it happens again. The motor roars to life and bubbles surround her providing a new burst of arousal. Her breasts bob in the water, her nipples rising and falling from the movement. One jet rushes against her clit and the vibration edges her along. She drops her head against the tub, fully immersed in the moment, jaw lax, fingers quick, clit hot and pulsing.

She’s tipping over the edge and hears the fast pace of her breathing over the roar of the jets. She grabs the edge of the tub, close, so very, very close when she catches something—the faintest thump, thump, and she opens her eyes.

And freezes.

“Sweet mercy.” Owen watches her from the doorway, and when she doesn’t move he says, “Look babe, one of two things can happen here. You can keep going and fulfill a teenage fantasy of mine or you can let me do that for you.” He thinks for a moment. “Also a teenage fantasy of mine. But whatever you do, don’t stop. Got it?”

She nods, knowing she couldn’t stop if she tried. She’s cranked up, engine high, body about to explode.

He’s in his boxer briefs, cock tenting against the fabric. His shirt is off and a line from the sheets imprints across his chest. She feels the heat on her cheeks, a combination of the water temperature and her humiliation, but the hunger in his eyes doesn’t warrant embarrassment. There’s no doubt in her mind Owen isn’t lying. He’s certainly fantasized about a scenario moment similar to this a million times before.

Really, it’s only fair. He brought her doughnuts. She can fulfill his dreams.

She jerks her chin at him and his tense look shifts to an ecstatic grin. Her hand moves beneath the surface, fingers finding their pace. Her eyes are glued to his as he drops to his knees and crawls over to the tub. “You are so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, planting his mouth to hers. The kiss is all she needs to cajole her body back where it was moments before, and he dips his hand in the water, tweaking her nipples one after the other and grazes his hand down her belly.

Sweet mercy, indeed.

Her fingers are still slippery with lube and her clit is a bundle of frayed nerves. His mouth never leaves hers, kissing and kissing as the wave of euphoria climbs and climbs. The water sloshes with her movements, her body tingles from head to toe. Owen, not known for his patience, takes over, pushing beneath her fingers and sliding his inside, providing a whole new wave of feeling.

Together they stroke, fuck, and move until her breathing grows erratic, desperate, and her teeth clamp down on his lip. She comes in a wave of jerking movements crying against his mouth, and all the pent-up tension rolls away, shedding from her like a layer of discarded weight.

When she stills, her legs exhausted, her body content, she lifts a wet hand to his cheek. “Thank you,” she says. “You have no idea how much I needed that.”

He smiles and lifts an eyebrow. “That one goes in the vault,” he tells her. “The one that’s for me and for me only.” He brushes her hair out of her eyes. “Because damn, babe, just when I think you can’t get sexier. Just when I think I can’t be into you more, you do something like that and blow my world.”

She licks her lips and looks at the sleek curve of his chest and the fine trail of hair leading below his bellybutton. She thinks about how happy he makes her, always being there right when she needs him and know she’s the same.

“If you want, I can really blow your world.”

His lips quirk. “Oh yeah?”

She sits up, water running down her body. His eyes dart to her chest, then his finger wipes a glob of foam off the peak.

“Yeah.”

Together, they test the shower.

* * *

She parts from Owen at the bottom of the stairs. He goes in the direction of the kitchen and turns toward Casper’s room. With a steadying breath, she knocks and then just enters, pushing what she knows is a personal boundary for him.

It’s time for him to lighten up.

He looks up from his computer monitor in alarm but his eyes do soften when he sees her. His heart hammers with anxiety and she gives him a reassuring smile.

“Hey.”

“W-what are you doing here?” His dark eyes take her in and slowly she feels his heartbeat return to normal.

“Just checking on you.” She sits on a chair next to his. “And I wanted you to look into something for me.”

“S-s-sure.”

“Earlier this morning Draco and I were down by the lake, on the trail, for a run. We were surprised by a hunter. Or he says he was a hunter.”

A line slashes between his eyes. “D-d-did you read his e-e-echo?”

“No, not by touch, but I got something off of him.”

“W-wh-wh-what did Draco think?”

“He threatened him but I think he bought his story. And maybe he’s legit. Just a guy out hunting on rarely used property. But I wanted to see if you could check the security cameras and see if there’s anything there.”

He nods. “It m-m-may take a while.”

“No worries.” He immediately pulls up the footage and Astrid walks into the adjoining room. The bedroom. She’s pretty sure he hasn’t slept on the bed—the covers are straight and perfect. But the sight of the plush mattress and fuzzy blanket on top calls to her and she yawns.

“I’m just going to hang out in here for a minute, okay?” she calls into the other room. She gets a grunt in reply and burrows under the blanket.

So far, she’s capitalized on her vacation. Late-night board games, early morning runs, and a make-out session in the woods. Then back for breakfast and the sexiest bath she’s ever taken. She’s relaxed but worn out and Casper has the quietest little cave in the house, perfect for a quiet nap.

Nuzzling her face into the soft, down pillow she closes her eyes and sleeps.

5

Astrid

She wakes to the discombobulated feeling that happens when you sleep during the day. The room is dark but bright light comes from under the curtains. There’s a weight next to her, the smell of soap, and the easy rhythm of a heartbeat.

Rolling over slowly, she tries not to react with surprise at finding Casper in the bed next to her.

He’s asleep, curled up facing her, and it’s the first time she’s been so close to him in a moment of quiet. She takes him in, his long eyelashes and sharp cheekbones. Her eyes linger over the pink of his lips and the way one of his hands reaches in the empty space between them. His nails are short, his fingers long and thin—elegant is the word.

With her empathic abilities though, what hits her the hardest is his spirit right now. He’s calm. Peaceful and more relaxed than she’s ever seen him. She craves to touch him—place her fingers against his palm and find out what happens in his closed-off brain. But she knows if she does it without his permission, she’ll lose the little bit of trust she has, and it’s not worth it. So instead she lies quietly and soaks in the unexpected moment.

She’s dozing off when a light tap on the door rouses her again. She slides off the bed and walks to the door, looking over her shoulder to make sure Casper didn’t wake up. Nope. He’s out like a light.

Opening the door, Quinn stands on the other side, his eyes instantly darting to the bed. They meet hers again, and she pushes him on the chest to go into the hall.

“He’s sleeping?”

“Yeah.”

“With you?”

“Next to me. I was just taking a nap.”

“Huh.” He doesn’t frown. He just looks…perplexed.

“Huh, what?”

Quinn leans against the hallway wall. “Draco says he doesn’t sleep. Hardly ever.”

That news isn’t a surprise. Casper is always lurking around, playing video games, digging around in the dark web. He often looks tired with dark rings under his pretty, soulful eyes.

“Maybe he decided to relax too. I know I needed a chance to just chill out.”

“Maybe.” He’s not convinced.

“What then?” she asks.

“Maybe it’s just you that makes him comfortable enough to let down his guard long enough to relax.”

There’s nothing more that Astrid wants than to bring Casper into the team. Like, really bond them together. It’s not about sex. She has a feeling that may not be something he’s into or even wants. She really doesn’t know. All of the survivors have their own damage and Casper has more than the others. She just wants to help him heal.

She changes the subject. “Did you need me for something?”

“Oh, yeah, right,” he says, holding out her phone. “Found this on the kitchen counter. It’d been ringing—it’s Jensen.”

“He called?” She’s surprised.

“A couple of times.”

She inhales and says, “Shit. Do I have to?”

It’s been really nice not dealing with life stuff for a few days and she’s not ready to go back.

“No,” he says. “You don’t. They pushed us out and he lied to us. So many times. We’re taking a break and doing that means you can say no when you want to.”

She looks at the red dot on her phone, telling her she has three messages from Jensen. She swipes at it with her thumb and erases them.

If he’s got a problem, he’ll have to figure out how to fix it on his own.

6

Owen

If ignoring Jensen’s phone call is bothering, Astrid there’s no way to tell. The last call came a day ago and she’s put her phone in the kitchen drawer and hasn’t looked again.

Owen is pretty impressed.

Getting Astrid to relax, have fun, and push her obligations aside isn’t easy. She tries. She does, with little things like going bowling or bocce ball at the bar, but he knows there’s always an edge. He feels it—they all feel it, and it’s why it’s so important to him to keep her relaxed and connected.

Quinn told him about finding Casper asleep next to her in the bed. It’s a big move, one that may help them get closer. She’s determined to bond with them all—and he approves, which is why he and Quinn have done everything they can to help her and Draco take the big step in their relationship.

Seriously though, it’s time for them to just fuck already.

He hears a grunt across the room and looks up. Casper is sitting on the big leather couch by the fireplace. Yes, in a common area. It’s new and no one is discussing it. He has his headphones on and until this moment has been staring intently at his laptop with the constant clickity-clacking of the keyboard.

Everyone else is down by the lake, so Owen walks over. “Everything okay?”

“A-A-Astrid asked me to look up the guy she and D-D-Draco saw in the woods.”

He’d heard about this. “The hunter?”

“Y-y-yeah.”

“Did you find something?” He sits next to Casper and the man pushes the laptop in his direction. The screen is paused on a black and white video. He presses play.

Owen squints at the screen trying to make out what is happening. “Is that a bear? Mauling a smaller bear?”

Casper snorts. “D-D-Draco and Astrid. D-d-d-ry humping in the woods.”

Owen’s eyes pop wide open. Sure enough. “Wow. Okay.”

The scene unfolds, the two of them making out against the tree, stopping and confronting the hunter. They watch the exchange and it takes place exactly as they’d described. Owen is about to point this out when Casper holds his hand up.

“W-w-watch.”

They let the hunter go and the screen splits into two different screens. One follows Astrid and Draco down to the lake as they continue on with their run. The other picks up the hunter. The small man heads back off the property, but darts up a small side hill.

“How many cameras does this place have?”

“A-a-a fucking lot.”

The hunter, gun in hand, runs up the hill to a small, expensive black car sitting on the edge of the property. A man in a dark uniform gets out of the front seat. Another rushes around to open the back door, where you could see the silhouette of a man. Casper pauses the screen and enlarges the man in the car. Owen squints, because the quality is grainy and it worsens with the enlargement, but he makes out the shadow of dark hair and a stocky body.

“L-l-look familiar?”

“Yeah, a little bit. Who is that?”

“I-I-I could be wrong, b-b-b-ut I think that’s Blaze.”

His heart stops beating. “He’s dead.”

Casper shakes his head and the video resumes. The hunter hops inside and the door shuts, then they drive off. The camera loses the vehicle once it goes off- property. He grabs a partial image of the license plate.

“Do you really think that’s him?”

“N-n-no proof, but I can dig around some. Death records or police reports from that n-n-night.”

Owen claps him on the back. “Good catch. Holy shit, if Blaze is still alive and knows where we are…” His eyes dart to Casper’s. “Do we tell her? What if this is what Jensen was calling about?”

The goblin is silent. It’s a tough call and Owen knows that neither of them wants to stress her out. She’d finally begun to relax. He exhales and says, “Okay, let’s do it like this. You find what you can about Blaze and the hunter who obviously isn’t a hunter. I’ll see if I can figure out what Jensen was really calling about. Once we know, we tell her.”

Casper nods, already down the rabbit hole of his computer.

Owen stands and walks over to the massive window that looks down on the lake. He can see Astrid and Quinn lying on the dock, sun beating down while Draco tools around in a kayak. For the first time in months, everyone is at peace. He doesn’t want to be the one that shatters that.

Something nags at him and he crosses the room, opening the kitchen drawer. He grabs Astrid’s phone and checks the screen.

Twenty-five messages.

All from Jensen.

He grimaces and looks at Casper.

“B-b-bad?”

“It can’t be good.” He looks down at his friends by the water. Seeing Astrid in a bikini isn’t just awesome for him—it’s awesome for her to be wearing a different kind of ’suit’ for once. “Guess the vacation’s over, huh?”

Casper nods, snapping his laptop shut. It was good while it lasted, but they all knew it was going to end sooner than later. That’s the curse of being a superhero; there’s no such thing as time off.

7

Astrid

The weird thing about saving a city is that it doesn’t make people calmer. Instead, a ripple of fear rolls through the community, exposing nerves and tension. People are scared. They’re panicky. They’re tired. If you need a team of genetically superior, masked vigilantes running your town, things have reached an epic, destructive level.

And that causes a problem. A problem Astrid and her team are forced to handle.

“Echo! Watch your back!”

She ducks and spins, finding herself face to face with a terrified and angry masked man carrying a shovel. He swings it at her, but she kicks the wooden handle, snapping it in two. He lunges again, swiping at her with the rusted, pointed top. Another kick, a jab and a spin. Astrid disarms him and shakes her head. His dark eyes widen, glinting in the lamplight.

“Go,” she tells him, feeling the fear radiating off his body. “Before you get hurt.”

He drops the garden tool and runs.

It’s one thing to battle men and women with abilities similar to her own, on an even playing field, but basic men? It’s a lose-lose situation.

“Pan needs a little help.” Casper’s tinny voice directs. “He’s—”

“I’ve got him.” She no longer has to look for her teammates; between the mask and her senses, she can track them. Pan is half a block away behind a shield, trying to protect some kids that stumbled into the mob. Charger is the opposite direction, stabilizing the live wires from an electrical pole. Draco is single-handedly keeping the two sides out here from killing one another.

The two sides. The Swamp vs. The City.

“Someone tell me again why we left that mountain top?”

“Get through this, babe, and we’ll go back.”

Somehow Astrid doubted that. They left for a few days and the whole fucking place fell apart.

The Harbor Line falls in the middle and that’s where the riots started. They’d been staying out of it, lying low since the event at the stadium. The whole city knew what they did and what side they were on, but that didn’t keep tensions from broiling between the affluent and the poor in the community. A line was drawn and neither wanted to co-exist. Out of building tension came the riot; the two sides covered their faces in masks and took to the streets.

Her team had no choice but to come out and stop it. They’re trying, but people are just so angry.

Astrid pushes through the crowd or tries to, at least, but the mob is too thick. She looks up and taps the schematics on her mask. A diagram of the height and distance to the metal sign appears.

“You’ve got it, babe.”

“Don’t call me babe.”

“Why not? You are a total babe. I’m just calling it like I see it.”

Astrid’s only half listening, getting to a running start. She has to plant her foot at the exact angle to push off the sign and clear the group surrounding Pan. He’s got four kids back there and she feels the hummingbird flutter of their panicked hearts.

“Pan,” she says, running hard and fast.

“Yeah?” She can sense the worry in his voice.

“Be there in two seconds, okay?”

“Thank god, you know I can’t with little kids.” He’s bluffing, of course. Owen basically is a little kid—in a super-hot, lethal body. But the nervous vibration in his voice gives him away. He’s scared.

Her foot hits the sign and she goes airborne, flipping over the heads of the crowd. She lands perfectly, one knee bent, her fingers touching the ground.

“Nailed it!”

She stands, eyeing the wavy surface of Pan’s shield. A sharp sting bites at her neck, and she slaps at it.

“Echo?”

Her vision blurs. “Cas…”

She takes a step forward. Strong hands grasp her arms and she looks over her shoulder, but her vision is too blurry.

“Echo, get out of there. Now.”

“Chargur?” Her words slur. But she knows it isn’t him. She feels him across the Harbor Line. The person holding her…she blinks and tries to see the face, but there’s nothing but the same black mask the rioters are wearing.

“Echo!”

Her vision spins and her arms and legs feel heavy. The hands move to pick her up and the sensation of falling limp is the last thing she’s aware of before the world turns black.

8

Astrid

Astrid wakes in the dark. Hot. Cramped.

How long has passed, she doesn’t know, but disorientation rolls through her body, as though she’s been asleep for days. Her arms and legs ache with stiffness and when she reaches out, she hits something hard.

A wall.

She feels around, the surface is smooth, like plastic, and it’s on all sides. She’s shifts but can’t move—but she can push up to a standing position.

In a movie with a girl captured like this, the first thing she would do is start yelling—screaming for help, but that’s foolish. Whoever drugged her (she was drugged, no doubt) and locked her away isn’t going to place her where she can get help. She touches the spot on her neck where the sting spread, drugged, she gets that now. It’s tender with a bruise.

Who did this?

One name pops in her head.

Rowe.

Fucking. Stupid. Bastard Rowe.

His name makes her want to beat her fists against the inside of the box.

Taking a deep breath and refocusing her mind, she places her hands on the walls. She’s a superhero, for Christ’s sake. She has powers, and while she’s freaking out about the box and Rowe, she hasn’t even tried to use her abilities. Again, she inhales and exhales and searches for life; smell, sound, emotions. She opens her eyes and stares into the dark. Nothing comes back. Not even the slightest vibration, and that’s when it hits her.

She’s in an echo-proof box.

Her stomach twists with a newfound fear. She’s always had her echo—always—it’s like a second itchy skin.

For the first time, she wants to really yell. To scream. To call for her team. Where are they? Do they know she’s gone? Are they looking for her?

She’s still wearing her suit. Casper? She reaches for her mask but it’s gone. They cut her off. Leaning against the wall, she slides to the floor, overcome with anxiety.

Whoever’s taken her knows who she is and what she can do and they’ve found the two ways to dismantle her; take away her power and take away her team.

* * *

Dammit. She fell asleep again. What else is there to do, other than panic? She stands, feeling the increasing tightness in her arms and legs. Moving them up and down, she tries not to focus on the lack of space, the darkness, and the void of her echo. Tries and fails.

Whoever has her locked in here--Rowe, his mystery boss, or some other villain--they know how to get to her. It’s working. She hates it.

Her foot knocks against something. A plastic box. She opens it and finds a bottle and two packages. Even she can’t make out what it is because of the dark, but she’s starving and definitely dehydrated. She opens the bottle and takes a sniff. Water—at least, she thinks so. She doesn’t have a choice.

After consuming half the bottle, she rips the first package open with her teeth. In the airtight box she’s assaulted with the scent of wheat and sugar. Whatever, she’ll take it.

Her mouth is full when she hears the first sound—the first voice—since arriving.

“Good morning, Echo.”

“Hello?” she swallowed the unappealing food. “Who is this?”

The voice continued. You’ve been chosen to participate in a series of tests to establish the extent of your abilities. When the door opens, you’ll have thirty seconds to acclimate yourself to your simulated environment. When you hear the signal, the test will begin. Your job is to become the sole survivor. Sole. There can only be one.”

“What? Job? Who the hell are you?” Astrid finally shouts and bangs on the wall.

“Good luck, and hopefully we’ll see you on the other side.”

“Who’s we? Who are you?” Testing seems a little beyond Rowe.

She’s in the process of swallowing the panic when she hears a hiss and light floods the box. She covers her eyes and realizes one side of the box is open, a panel swung outward like a door. Astrid blinks, adjusting her eyes, feeling fresh but muggy air on her face. She gasps, gulping it in, not realizing how stuffy and stale the air in the box had turned.

Fog swirls in the air outside and she still keeps quiet, opening her echo, searching for anything. She catches a heartbeat and similar, quiet gasps for air. She presses her hands against the walls, realizing for the first time she’s still in her supersuit. Everything but her mask. She touches her hips. And her tools.

Shit.

“Welcome,” a robotic female voice says from above, and Astrid looks around. The fog is too thick. She steps out of the box and the ground beneath her feet is soft like dirt. She’s outside? “Testing commences in thirty seconds…twenty-nine, twenty-eight…”

Oh god, this isn’t a joke.

She tugs on her gloves. The crunch of dirt a few feet away catches her attention. The heartbeat races as fast as her own. Wherever she is, she’s not alone.

“Twenty, nineteen…”

The fog lifts and trees appear. Long vines and broad-leafed plants. Is she in the jungle? What the hell is going on?

She hears a zap and crackle to her left, away from the prior sound. It’s familiar and she turns to face it. The scent of sulfur tickles her nose, followed by the faint smell of roses and vanilla wafting through the air. She knows those smells, who they belong to, and what they mean to her.

She’s about to open her mouth and call out their names when the voice from above says, “Three, two, one…” and a buzzer blasts into the air. She’s not alone in here but she hasn’t forgotten the instructions.

There can only be one survivor.

They want her to eliminate her team.

9

Astrid

The blaring signal stops and Astrid tentatively steps away from her box.

Her box.

Five minutes ago, she never wanted to see the thing again. Now it’s her base. Whoever is behind this crazy game is already fucking with her head. She hears another zap and this time she doesn’t bite her tongue.

“Quinn?”

There’s a beat.

“Astrid?”

Her heart pounds with relief. She calls out, “To your right.”

He emerges from the fog and eyes her skeptically.

“What?” she asks. “Is something wrong? Well, besides this whole thing.”

“You real?”

She frowns. “Of course.”

He stalks towards her and touches her chin. A chill runs down her spine and he doesn’t hesitate, pressing his lips to hers. The same heat, the same intensity that’s always there arises. “Yeah, okay, you’re real.”

“That’s all it took?” she asks.

He licks his lips. “Yeah, that’s all.”

Astrid stomach flutters even in this insane situation.

Quinn continues, “They said it was a simulation. I wasn’t sure. It’s not the first time we’ve been manipulated like this.”

“Yeah, but where’s Owen? This isn’t his doing.” At least, she hopes not.

Quinn looks behind her. “I came out of one of those. One minute I was fighting on the streets in Crescent City, then the next—”

“Yeah, in the box. Same. Got it. You think the others are here?”

“Unless they got away, but whoever these people are, they seem smart.”

She nods. “I think they are too.”

The trees overhead whisper and he grabs her arm, both quieting. “My instructions said I have to be the sole survivor to win.”

“Mine too,” she whispers.

A wicked smile brightens his face. “Good thing you and I don’t follow the rules.”

She’s about to agree when the weird noise from the trees slips around her like a creepy, invisible noose. She instinctively crosses her wrists. Damn. No cuffs.

“I see they took your weapons too,” he said, pointing to his empty belt.

She doesn’t acknowledge him, too focused on the sound, then the movement coming from the trees. At first, she thinks they’re spiders, falling from the branches on a string of silk. Bodies black, faces covered other than a small slit revealing eyes.

“What the hell?” Quinn whispers, flicking his fingers. Electricity sparks from his fingertips.

The spiders—no, people—leap off the rope and fling toward her and Quinn, sailing through the air. Astrid squints.

“Are those ninjas?”

Quinn mutters, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

The attack comes like a dark sea; black and rolling like a wave. She and Quinn run before the first hits the ground, passing their boxes, eyes searching for a spot of safety.

They’re in the jungle, or something that looks like it, running past trees with thick, scaly bark. The tops spread into canopies. Twisted roots criss-cross the path. Broad-leafed bushes and the skittering sound of animals catch her echo and bounce around her brain.

Astrid has never lived outside the cement streets of the city. Trees? These are things in the park or out in the suburbs. Things in movies, but Quinn thinks faster than she does and races toward one with a low-hanging branch.

“You’re going to climb that?” she asks, following him.

“Only to get a minute to think.” He holds out his palm. “Like the ladder to the water tower our first night out. I’ll give you a boost.”

Water tower. Right. She can climb. City or jungle, it’s all the same.

The whisper of the ninjas pushes at her back and she doesn’t hesitate further. She runs and leverages her speed against Quinn’s strength, flinging herself in the air. The branch sways on impact and she grips the bark with her gloves. Quickly, she heaves a leg over and looks down for Quinn. He’s not following her but instead holding up his hands and igniting a full charge.

She watches, impressed as they descend and he manages to take them on one by one. His moves are fast—skilled. She knew, but damn, he’s freaking fast. She gets to a perch, her feet and hands on the branch, and waits until he needs her.

Yeah, Quinn is good, but this place is crazy.

He fights off the ninjas one at a time. He uses his whole body; kicking, punching, dodging, and the occasional zap when he lays his hands on an attacker. Six lay on the ground around him and he pauses to catch his breath, glancing up at Astrid.

“Comfortable up there?”

She smiles just as another wave of whispers comes through the trees. She grips the branch with both hands and swings over, dismounting and landing with a thud next to Quinn, wrists crossed.

What she sees makes her heart sink. It’s a simulation, she tells herself. Simulation. She glances at Quinn and despite knowing it’s fake, says, “I love you.”

He nods and charges the baton. A swath of black rolls from the jungle like a wave. “I love you, too.”

Then they fight to the death.

10

Astrid

The door on the box opens and bright light shines in her eyes. The familiar sounds of the jungle are gone. This time, there’s the hard surface of pavement under her feet. She blinks and shades her eyes until they adjust. She’s not in the wild anymore, that’s for sure.

No. She’s indoors, surrounded by the stale, oily air. The ceilings are tall. Metal, with long beams from one end of the room to the other. It looks like a warehouse. She blinks, wondering if she’s gone insane, but the voice has made it clear. This is a simulation.

“Fuck.”

Astrid can’t remember what happened in the ninja-jungle world, just that she didn’t win or survive. Maybe Quinn did?

“Quinn?” she says into the quiet. There has to be something here that wants to kill her. Ninjas? Vampires? An army of angels?

The sound of footsteps above catches her attention and she cranes her neck to the floor below. A lone figure appears in the middle of the warehouse. His shiny blond hair and green suit clearly visible.

“Owen!” she shouts. “Thank god.”

“Happy they trapped me in here?” he calls back. The smile on his face tells her he’s as relieved as she is, but the dark circles under his eyes imply a different story.

“No, but I’m happy you’re alive.” She starts to the metal staircase, running down the steps. Owen meets her at the bottom, pulling her into a tight hug.

“Is this your first time in one of these things?”

“No,” she says. “Quinn and I fought off some ninjas in the jungle.”

He nods. “Draco kicked my ass in the apocalypse. I mean, I don’t think he meant to, but…”

“Yeah. One survivor. I got the memo.”

He looks around. “So what do we think is waiting for us down there?”

Astrid doesn’t have to answer. Tall, rolling doors open on all four sides of the building, blasting sunlight into the dark space. Figures enter. Hundreds of them. Not sneaky. Not sly, but decidedly familiar.

“What. The. Hell?” Owen says, clenching his fists.

Astrid spins, realizing they’re surrounded. Not by demons or angels or vampires.

But by clones. Hundreds of identical faces, dressed in identical outfits, with identical eyes and devious smiles. The scene chills her to the bone.

Owen throws up a shield, the hum of his cloaking manipulation loud in her ears.

“There’s no winning this one,” he says, reaching for her to look him in the eye. She knows why. He wants to see her face one last time. Before diving into the onslaught of a thousand clones wearing both their faces.

“There’s no winning any of them.”

“So what’s the point?” he asks. “To prove ourselves? To die a thousand deaths? To watch each other die? Break us?”

She touches his cheek, wanting a lifetime with this man, not the brief seconds they really have. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out.”

He nods and kisses her fast on the lips before dropping the shield, allowing the army to descend.

* * *

The door opens and the bright light glares in her eyes. Astrid washes down the mouthful of granola with water and drops the bottle on the ground. This is the sixth time the doors have opened. She’d lost five times. Or won? She has no idea what the score is in this crazy game.

She smells. She’s exhausted. She’s done.

Two tests ago, she and Draco fought drowning in a fast-rising river.

One test ago she was on her own, face to face with the ten-year-old version of herself. Doctors in white coats strapped them to chairs, injected them with poison and stripped them both of their memories, their abilities, and their life.

Today she’s determined not to play. Her resolve is confirmed when the fog vanishes and the simulation unfolds. Astrid swallows back rage and leans over the peeling, rusted railing and stares down on the narrow streets of The Swamp below.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Quinn says, leaning next to her. Owen and Draco approach from the other side, the metal scaffolding creaking from their weight.

“I guess fighting you guys, an army of clones, and then a version of myself as a kid wasn’t enough mind-fuckery for them,” she says. “They decided to go for the gut.”

There’s no doubt Astrid loves this place. Loves the people of The Swamp and all three men standing next to her. Why the people behind this are intent on destroying her is beyond logic. Is it for fun? A test?

She’s too tired to care.

Quinn throws his arm around her shoulder and pulls her close.

“I’m not doing it anymore,” she tells them. “I’m done.”

Their grim expressions tell her they feel the same. Draco though, surprises her. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, a slight breeze ruffling his hair. “And there may be a way out of here.”

“How?”

He crosses his arms, looking slimmer than usual after so many days of granola and lack of real food. His cheeks are gaunt, the gray of his eyes dull. It hurts her to see her men so worn out. “During every challenge we do the same thing. We assess the simulation, identify our competition and…”

“We fight,” Quinn says.

“We fight.”

Owen blinks. “What other option do we have?”

“We’re just pawns in the machine,” Astrid says. “Doing exactly what we’re told.”

“Yep,” Draco says.

Owen narrows his eyes. “What do you think we should do?”

His question is interrupted by the sound of people gathering below the water tower. A feeling of déjà vu rolls over Astrid as she looks down into the masked faces carrying anything they could grab for a weapon.

Draco rests his hands on the railing and stares below. “I think it’s time we break the game and get the hell out of this place.”

* * *

The crowd grows larger, banging against the metal supports of the water tower. People fill the streets carrying torches and wearing black masks. Astrid would give anything to have Casper in her ear right now, even if it meant having to listen to his non-stop comments about how sexy she is.

Not that it’s the worst thing ever, it’s just a little distracting in the middle of a fight.

“What does the simulation keep forcing us to do?” Draco asks, shouting over the voices below.

“Kill each other,” Owen says.

“Kill myself,” Astrid adds.

Quinn chimes in, “Messing with our heads. It’s hard to know what’s real.”

We eye each other warily.

Astrid thinks over what everyone is saying, closing her eyes and searching with her echo. Even blind, she feels her teammates. She senses the false reality of the people below. They don’t have heartbeats. They don’t breathe. She’s never noticed that before—not in the adrenaline of the fight. An idea comes to mind and she peels off her gloves.

“What are you doing?” Quinn asks, but Draco holds up his hand, giving her space.

She rests her hands on the railing of the water tower and shakes her head. “This. It’s not real. No more than anything else.”

“What’s not?”

“The railing. There’s no vibration. It’s hollow.”

She turns and places her hands on the cool metal of the faded blue tower. The words Crescent City peel beneath her fingers. Her eyes open. “There. Behind this—there’s life.”

Quinn watches her closely then strips off his gloves. He mimics her position and touches the wall. “You’re right. There’s a current running back here.”

“So the wall is real,” Owen says, eyes narrowed in thought. “And we need to get on the other side.”

Astrid smiles. “Yep. A doorway would work. Anyone know how to make one of those?”

Owen kisses her on the cheek and concentrates, focusing on the pale metal. The crowd below starts to chant, loud and distracting.

“Focus,” Astrid says, placing a hand on Owen’s back, pushing a wave of calm through him. He exhales, using his hands to crate the smallest of rips. Having no idea where they were meant he couldn’t just transport them anywhere. He needed a location and the one they needed was on the other side of that wall. The place they could hopefully get answers.

The three of them watch as Owen rips a hole in the fabric of time and space, the air around the metal wall shimmering. He spreads his fingers, widening it, and he nods, encouraging the others to pass through.

“Go. Fast.”

Feet rattle the ladder, the people in the simulation aren’t real but they could stop them. Draco takes the lead, fists balled, ready to fight whoever waits for them. Quinn follows, fingers sparked and ready. Astrid steps through, feeling the odd shift as her body processes that she’s in the middle of two different places at the same time.

“Come on,” she tells him, seeing the rioters coming. She has a feeling these people won’t run when they see who she is. They’ll kill her just like the others and they’ll have to start over once again. “Hurry!”

Owen drives through, crashing into her, closing the rip with the snap of his fingers. She falls backwards, landing into something hard and unwieldy. Owen’s weight hits her hard.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know,” she replies, getting her first look around. One thing’s for certain. They aren’t alone and wherever they are, she hasn’t been here before.

11

Astrid

“Who are you?” Astrid asks, the group of people standing in the small room. There’s no doubt they’re stunned to see them break through the simulation barrier. The room is filled with high tech. One whole wall is a giant screen looking out at the world they’d just escaped from. Her hands clench. “Answer me.”

A woman steps forward. Her dark hair, roped with gray, is pulled back in a tight bun. Her green eyes are covered by thick-framed glasses. She’s wearing a white lab coat and swallows nervously. “That entrance was a bit more dramatic, and expensive, than I expected, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m Dr. Paige Monroe. One of the facilitators of the test.”

Test.

But that’s not the biggest shock.

“You’re Project 12,” Draco says.

His statement hits her like a load of bricks, but she has no time to react before the woman replies, “Yes, I am. We all are and, frankly, so are you.”

“No,” Astrid says, rubbing her eyes. “You kidnapped us. Again. You’ve been fucking with our heads for days—weeks? This is not happening.”

Dr. Monroe steps forward and Astrid hisses at her like a wild animal. The other lab-coats standing at their desks shift nervously.

“Astrid,” she says in a calm voice. “We’re not trying to hurt you. We just had to be sure, really sure, before we brought you in.”

“Really sure about what?” she snaps back. “That we were pliable enough for you? That we’re submissive and happy to do your bidding?”

“Of course not.” The doctor looked offended.

“Bullshit,” Owen says. “It’s always a game with you people. Pushing, testing, experimenting to see what we can do. Well, watch the fucking news if you want to see what we can do—we’ve been saving Crescent City and taking down your failures for a while now. It’s all on tape.”

Monroe nods. “We’ve been watching—don’t worry about that, but what we had to do was make sure you hadn’t been compromised.” Her gaze lingers on each of us. “Like some of the others—the failures you mentioned.”

Astrid’s mind was reeling. Quinn still hadn’t said a word. And Casper? Where the hell was Casper?

She’s snapped out of her thoughts when Quinn folds his arms over one another and asks, “Why did you bring us here? What do you want?”

Monroe glances at the other men and women in the lab. “We brought you here to train you. Make you stronger.”

“We’re already strong,” Draco says. “You saw that in the tests.”

“We need you to be better.”

“Why?” Astrid asks. “Why do you need us at all?”

“Because the Big Bad is coming, the one that took out the group home. The one that killed your parents and then your mentors. Now they’re coming for you.”

Astrid’s voice is quiet when she asks, “You know who it is?”

“We know who it is, and together, we’re going to stop them.”

Quinn steps threateningly toward Monroe and the sound of guns clicking into place sounds from above. They look up and a dozen guards aim their weapons at him. Quinn holds his hands up innocently but there’s no doubt of the pain under the surface. “Tell us what you know. Now.”

“I’ll tell you everything,” Dr. Monroe says and pushing her glasses up her nose. “Trust me, Mr. McCrae, we’re on your side. We always have been.” She nods at a door across the room. Draco is closest and he opens it. The door leads outside to a lush tropical landscape. Blue skies are overhead and Astrid gets the strong feeling this isn’t a simulation but actual paradise. She looks back at Monroe, who gives her a small smile. “Welcome to Project 12, and welcome home.”

12

Astrid

“What do you mean ‘welcome home’?” Astrid’s stepped outside the door into the fresh, clean air. She now realizes how artificial the air she’d been inhaling in the simulation was.

Dr. Monroe follows her outside. An armed guard isn’t far away. She shouldn’t begrudge her. Astrid and her team are deadly with incredibly heightened skills. “This is our base and has been since the inception of the project. The plan all along was to bring you here after we did the initial tests at the group home. But then the house was destroyed and you all scattered. It took years to find some of you and a few we didn’t discover until you all linked up as a team.” She glances at Owen.

“But why here? What is this place for?” Quinn asks.

“Look, I won’t deny you’re all very talented and skilled. You’ve adapted to your abilities very quickly, especially with little to no training, but you can do so much more. The time has come for you to explore and expand your skills.”

“Because the Big Bad is coming,” Draco adds.

Dr. Monroe nods. “Exactly.”

She leads them down a stone path, under pink flowering trees. The front door is made of solid wood and the house itself is more mansion than anything else. Smaller than Demetria’s house but bigger than Draco’s cottage. The front door is opened from the inside and an older man in a crisp gray shirt and pants stands in the entrance.

Before they get to the door, Astrid grabs Monroe’s arm with her hand and asks, “Where’s Casper? Is he okay?”

“We grabbed all of you at the same time. It was a coordinated effort. No one could be tipped off or we’d never get you all.”

“But where is he?” The tone of Astrid’s voice is more stressed than she’d like to show but she’s worried. She can’t hide it. Monroe seems to sense this and gives her a sympathetic smile.

“He’s safe. And undergoing his own intensive training. You’ll be reunited soon.” She turns to the man in the door. “This is Warrick. He runs the house. Any issues or concerns go to him. This includes the kitchen or any necessary repairs.” Monroe passes him with a tight smile and he nods at each of them as they enter the house.

“Did you say food?” Owen asks, rubbing his stomach. “Because I can tell you now, we need food.”

The foyer is beautiful. It has an island flair. Tile floors and wood walls. Astrid worries it’s not real. She’s unable to shake the discomfort from being in the simulation for so long—or the anger that lingers from being put there in the first place.

Owen stands next to her, taking in the house, and she grabs his hand. It’s warm. Familiar. He looks down at her and smiles. Real. This is real.

“You’ll live here while training over at the facility. As you know from the simulation chamber, our systems are state of the art. There, you’ll be able to experiment with everything from your own abilities to your physical conditioning to practice simulations for any event.”

Draco scans the room and his gray eyes land on Monroe. “How long do you plan on us being here?”

“Until you’re ready to take on the enemy.”

“And how long do you think that will be?”

Astrid wonders the same thing and waits for the doctor’s reply. “I’ll be honest. The clock is ticking and we don’t have much time. Two weeks? Sooner?”

She looks at her teammates, connecting with their eyes. The gray of Draco, the blue for Quinn, the candy-apple green of Owen, and sees her own decision reflected back. They’ll do it, and not just because they’re trapped in the unknown; they could fight their way out if they wanted to.

No, they’ll do it, because they have no choice. It’s who they are.

It’s what they are.

Astrid frowns at Monroe. “Then you better get us up to speed.”

* * *

Dr. Monroe leads them down a short hallway and into a glaringly bright, sunny room. The windows make up the walls and parts of the ceiling, and the warm light feels good against Astrid’s cheeks. A circular table is in the middle of the room and the top is covered in heaping plates of food. Her stomach rumbles at the sight and Owen nearly knocks her over to get there first.

“Eat,” the doctor says. “Get some nourishment and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“Don’t tell us what we need to know,” Astrid says, watching her teammates shift their focus to food. Quinn loads his plate with protein. “Tell us everything. All of it.”

“Very well,” she says, taking a seat at the table.

Astrid gets her own plate and fills it with food. She spots the water glass and says, “I’m going to need some caffeine. Tell that butler guy to get me a soda immediately.”

“We don’t have soda on the island. Your nutrition is very important.”

Astrid stares at her and Quinn snorts through a mouthful of steak. “That’s what I’ve been telling her.”

“I have the mother of all withdrawal headaches. Seriously, I’ll even drink a Pepsi.”

Owen turns to look at her, mouth full of food, and gapes. “She’s delusional. I’d give her what she wants.”

Monroe rolls her eyes and nods at Warrick. The man returns a few minutes later with a cup of coffee. “It’s the only caffeine we have.”

She sighs but picks up the cup and sniffs the bitterness. So, this is the day she becomes a coffee drinker. She knew it would happen eventually. At least there are pastries on the table for consolation.

“Now that you’re settled, let’s get started.” She lifts a small remote from her pocket and clicks it at the solid wall. The panel disappears and a large screen takes its place. “I think you all understand your history. You were each born with unique differences, slight enhancements; increased empathy and sensitivity, electrical current, incredible strength, and in Owen’s case, the ability to manipulate people into seeing what he wanted. Demetria’s imagination ran wild, Rex survived more than one deadly event, and Blaze had an intense fascination with fire.”

A sleek digital presentation appears on the screen. Photos of each of them as children roll by. Skinny, dark-haired Quinn. Owen with his white-blond hair and devilish grin. Draco, bigger than an average thirteen-year-old even then. Lean, hard muscles run under his Batman T-shirt. They roll through, flicking past children Astrid remembers and some she doesn’t. Until the last one appears and it’s her standing on the porch with Harry in her arms, her head covered with her pink cat-eared hat and wearing three coats. Quinn’s hand touches hers under the table.

“When I was in college, my professor started a research project to study kids with different abilities. It began more about prodigies and how their minds and bodies worked. You know, the four-year-old that can play the piano or the eight-year-old that can compute mathematical equations better than adults in the field. Doctors agreed to put information into his database. Slowly, during the course of gathering information, a few anomalies appeared. Kids with heightened abilities. Strange ones. And we began isolating those differences instead. Suddenly we weren’t looking for the next Albert Einstein, we were looking for the next Clark Kent.”

“Clark Kent’s an alien, you know,” Draco says. “You were looking for aliens?”

She shrugs. “We were looking for anything or anyone that fit our criteria, and we started tracking your medical data.” Her voice wavers for the first time. “Then the unexpected happened. Junior—uh, Draco’s parents died, and my professor knew he couldn’t lose him to the system. So he set up the group home. Then inexplicably, more deaths happened and the house was full of—”

“Misfits?” Owen asks.

“Lost Boys,” Draco adds, eyes darting to Astrid’s. “And girls.”

“Children,” Monroe clarifies. “We had a house full of children and an assignment. Our mentor wanted us to cultivate your skills, enhance your abilities, lure them out and eventually help you control them, but—"

Quinn cuts her off. “But the explosion happened before any of that except the enhancement.”

She nods. “Yes. Your mentors whisked you into hiding. It wasn’t until you were all gone and the dust settled that I discovered the truth. See, the other researchers and I had a feeling something was off. The isolation and coincidental deaths of your families. It was too much. We’re scientists after all, coincidence isn’t something we really believe in. So, with a few others, I started a back-up plan. What happened if all hell broke loose? We assigned you to trustworthy people. Other scientists, a few with legal connections. Sure enough, once you all had a few doses of the enhancement drug and started exhibiting increased skills, the directive of the program changed. My professor wanted to test you harder—further, and ultimately he is the one that destroyed the house.”

“What? Why?” Owen asks.

Astrid answers, “It was another test—one to see who survived.”

Monroe nods. “Correct.”

“So the guy was a psycho?” Owen says.

“Is a psycho. He’s spent the last decade looking for you and it’s pretty obvious he’s found you. He killed your mentors and infiltrated the training program run by Jensen. He recruited Rowe and Rex. He bought the bombs and materials to take down the stadium.”

“Because he wants us, like Rowe said,” Draco tosses out. “He wants us to be his weapons.”

“For what?” Quinn asks. “Is there a bigger plan?”

“He wants what every ego-manic wants,” Dr. Monroe says. “To rule the world.”

“So we have to stop him,” Astrid says. “Fine. Done. Can we at least see who we’re fighting?”

Monroe presses a button on the remote and a photo slides into the frame. “Meet Sebastian Scheid.”

The man is unfamiliar. Everything from his light hair streaked with gray to the cold turquoise eyes behind wire glasses. His frame is thin, his jaw tense. He’s a handsome man other than the darkness in his eyes. Astrid thought their enemy may be someone they knew, like every other twist in this game, but other than cold dread in her stomach, he’s nothing more than their enemy and that’s all that matters. A glance around the table tells her that none of them recognize him either.

“That’s him?” Quinn asks.

“Yep. He looks benign but he’s a genius. Smart, manipulative, and just enough off his rocker to be a serious threat.” Monroe flips through more photos, these including images of the man with Rowe and Rex. Any question Astrid had about the validity of this fades away.

“And he wants us,” Owen confirms.

“For his arsenal.”

Astrid leans back in her seat and crosses her arms, taking in the man in the photo. “You said two weeks?”

“Max.”

She nods at Monroe and her team around the table. “We’ll be ready.”

* * *

After dinner, Warrick leads them upstairs. On the second-floor, light streams into the main hallway from a wide window facing out. From here they have a magnificent view of an orange-pink sunset dipping behind crystal blue water. Dr. Monroe said they were on an island. A tropical one it seems, and that maybe more unnerving than Astrid realized. Places like this are for vacation. Honeymoons. Romantic getaways. Not torturous testing and training. Not for plots against evil.

“There are rooms for each of you along with clothing, training wear and a fully stocked bathroom,” Warrick announces. The rooms sit across from one another, kind of like their dormitory at the Elite building, you know, if that was located in paradise. “I’ll alert you in the morning when breakfast is ready and then Dr. Monroe will return to gather you for your activities. Your name is on the door, with clothing and accessories suitable for each of you. If you need anything, I’m just a ring away.”

The older man points at a button on the hallway wall and a quick glance in the room shows a similar one next to each bed.

“Thank you,” Draco says. “I think we need a little time to process everything.”

“And sleep.” Owen groans. “I need so much freaking sleep.”

“Of course,” Warrick says, turning to leave. None of them say a word until he’s out of sight and Astrid can tell he’s gone. She faces them and for the first time since this nightmare began, they’re alone.

“None of this feels comfortable,” Astrid says. “This whole thing is insane.”

“Come here,” Quinn says, needing her touch as much as she needs his. She falls into his arms, craving his strength. His chest is warm, solid, and his arms clench around her and she finally feels safe.

A hand touches her neck and she squeezes Quinn before separating and curling into Owen. He’s tall and lean and her body fits perfectly against his. She feels his abs tight under his suit and his heartbeat racing against hers. Holding her face in both hands, he kisses her and she tries not to melt into the floor. God, she missed him. This. All of it.

He releases her and spins her around to Draco.

Draco. Mr. Perfect. An Adonis of a man with striking looks and a genetically superior physique. He’s one man she hasn’t fully bonded with yet. She’s trying and they’d been moving slow, due to his hang-ups. His concerns are legit and she’s giving him time and space. These reasons make the fact he reaches for her and drags her into a tight, powerful hug all the more shocking. She can feel the tremble in his muscles as he cradles her.

“You okay?” she whispers in his ear. He nods back, wordlessly, into her neck. When he lowers his arms, it’s with a reluctance she can feel deep in her bones. What’s going on with him?

Down the hall near the window is a small sitting area. Astrid gestures to it and walks over. They need to talk. Once situated she asks, “Are we all okay with this?”

“Do we have a choice?” Owen asks. He’s unzipped his jacket and the others do the same. They’ve been wearing these suits for days. None of them smell good.

“I don’t think we do,” Quinn replies.

“Do you think we can trust Monroe?”

Draco shakes his head. “No. Not at all.”

“So then what? We fight our way out of here?” she asks.

“We use them the way they want to use us,” Draco replies. “We’ll take their training. Use their tools and weapons and figure out what the hell they’ve done with Casper, and then we take back our lives, once and for all.”

“I’m tired of being a pawn,” Owen agrees.

Astrid nods. “Then we do this our way, but first you guys need a shower. You smell awful.”

“You’re no field of daisies either, babe,” Owen replies with a laugh.

“Shower, then sleep,” Quinn says, he looks like he may pass out where he sits. Astrid taps his foot and he stands.

She walks to the first room on the right, the one marked with her name. At the doorway she pauses, seeing her men caught in a quiet conversation.

“What’s up?” she asks. Three sets of eyes look at her, each intense. “What?”

Quinn answers first. “We’re going to take shifts watching the rooms.”

She narrows her eyes. “You mean watching me.”

Owen shrugs. “Yep, we’re going to keep you safe. And each other. You have a problem with that?”

Her heart swells. In the midst of this--the confusion, the tests, the crazy situation--her guys have her back. First. Always.

“No,” she replies. “No problem at all.”

13

Astrid

With the water hot enough to peel off her skin, Astrid washes away the dirt and grime. She’d hung her suit behind the door, thinking she never wants to put it on again. It stinks. Literally.

Like Warrick said, the drawers and closet are filled with clothes, and she can’t decide if it’s creepy or expected that they got her size and personal style accurate. She pulls on a white tank, a pair of tight black shorts, and secures her hair in a messy bun. Cracking open the door she spots Owen in the sitting area, feet propped up, reading a book he found somewhere. He’s freshly scrubbed and smiles sleepily.

“Good night.”

“Night.” She frowns. “Don’t stay up too late, okay? You need your sleep too.”

“Don’t worry. We’ve got it figured out.”

She shuts the door and she’s on the way to the bed when she hears a soft knock. Turning around, she opens it, expecting Owen on the other side—probably looking for a goodnight kiss—but is surprised to find Draco instead.

The look in his eyes startles her.

“Hey,” she says, feeling a vibration rolling off his skin. She touches his arm and feels it first-hand. “Is everything okay?”

“Can I come in?” His voice is gruff.

“Of course,” she opens the door and his eyes sweep down her body—her skin-tight pajamas. Astrid glances out the door and locks eyes with Owen. He jerks his chin up in approval. Approval of what?

She shuts the door and feels him before she even turns around. His heat. His hunger. Everything that’d been bubbling under the surface for weeks. His fingers touch her shoulder and travel down her spine. The chill runs through her, heightening all her senses, raising goosebumps on her skin and setting her belly on fire.

Even without her echo she would know what he wanted.

“In the box I realized I was wrong,” he confesses, his breath warm on her ear. “Completely, fucking, wrong. What was I thinking, holding back on a woman like you? Taking it slow? Trading on borrowed time?” His hand clenches around her hip, his lips sear into her neck. “We aren’t the kind of people who have time. We’re the people that live on the edge—court danger and death.”

She gets it, goddamn she gets it. The box was hard. Awful. The absolute worst. Lonely and deprived, and inside her deepest fears surfaced--what if she never saw them again? What if she never saw him again. Without tasting him. Touching him. Feeling him deep inside?

It’s a regret she’s not willing to carry. Not any longer.

The restraint she’s been holding for weeks now with him cracks and she turns and tugs him by the shirt. “I don’t want to wait any longer either.”

There’s a switch, a flip, and his mouth crashes into hers as he pushes her into the door. His lips taste like sugar, his tongue sweet and sweeping. Astrid’s body ignites against the force of his, every part of her wanting what she’s resisted for so long.

“Take me,” she tells him, wanting him to be in control. He needs it, she craves it. His hips push into hers and he lifts her, slamming her back into the wood. She cries against the hard pressure in his pants, desperate for friction. Desperate for him.

“I’ve never wanted someone—or something so badly.” His hands graze over her breasts, skimming her nipples with his thumbs. They harden and peak and he squeezes them together before planting a kiss between them.

He lifts his chin and they’re face-to-face, nose-to-nose, she licks his mouth and speaks again. Her words are true, deep from inside her. “Fuck me, Draco.”

At her words, his heart kicks into high gear, thudding like a man on speed. His fingers, agile and quick, push at the hem of her shirt.

Her skin itches against the fabric, begging to be freed; she tugs at his shirt, wanting to feel his flesh against her own. He drops her to her feet, giving them a chance to remove their shirts. Off they go, one after the other, landing a few feet away. His body is perfection. Actual perfection, and her eyes drink him in. He plants both hands at her sides and kisses her again, blazing a trail from her mouth to her neck to her shoulders. When he gets to the sensitive spot between her breasts, Astrid arches her back and flattens her hands against the door. He’s not done, not by a long shot. She has no doubt Draco is a diligent man, even revved up like an engine. He licks at one nipple while twisting the other gently between his fingers. She mewls, feeling the wet heat between her legs. She told him to fuck her but dammit, this is good too.

It's only when she reaches for him, grabbing his hard length with both hands, that he picks up the pace. She knew he was large, but she wants to see him. Feel him, and even if his hasn’t, her patience has run out.

“Take these off,” she says, pointing to the soft cotton of his jogging pants. He tugs the string and they fall, giving her an eyeful. His cock bounces in the air, a heat-seeking missile.

She’s a willing target.

He grabs her again, lifting her into his arms. He doesn’t go back to the door, instead walking over to the bed. She feels weightless in his massive arms and he proves this further by tossing her on the bed like a feather. She bounces and laughs at his playfulness, but it’s cut short by the intense look in his eyes. Her belly flip-flops and he reaches for her booty shorts and tugs them off, eyes widening at the sight of her exposed body.

“You’re beautiful, you know that, right?”

It’s an impossible thing to answer but the way he looks at her, she feels beautiful.

They’re both naked now, fully revealed. There’s no doubt about his arousal and god, she can smell her own. Draco grabs her hips, kisses her mouth, and says, “Do you trust me?”

Her fingers graze the soft velvet tip of his cock. “I do.”

His next move is quick, sure, and he flips her to her stomach. He pulls her to the edge of the bed and a shiver runs through her body. Draco, normally predictable, is not and when he leans her over and pushes against her backside, she braces her hands on the bed, he says, “I can’t wait to be inside you.”

She’s never done it like this, where she can’t see her partner’s face, but she wants to. God she wants to. “Please. I want that too.”

Reaching around her, he dips his fingers between her legs, feeling the wet warmth. His breath is hot on her neck and his cock grazes her ass. She bends over further, wanting to feel him.

Oh yeah, she fees him.

The hard length of his cock eases between her legs and runs across her core, she’s slippery and it makes him slippery, too. The tip runs over her clit, bringing her a thrill and she groans, wanting more. Much more.

She wanted him to take control—own this—and he does, entering her from behind. Something unlocks when he’s fully in, expanding, stretching her insides, and Draco’s long body covers her back, and he goes for her hands. Her bare hands. They clasp right when he begins to move and it’s a jolt to her system. He may have her in the submissive role, but this? She looks at their hands, feeling the rush of his echo spilling into her. He’s giving her everything.

Astrid; the first time he saw her months ago. Astrid; standing in her suit. Astrid; laughing on the couch, standing in his room, lying in his bed. She feels the restraint, the absolute thin string of self-control he had every time they were together. He skips to the time in the box, the fear, so much fear and god, something else. Something that blooms from his chest and hits in the here and now.

Love.

Love. Love. Love.

It comes in the rhythm of his thrusts. It’s sealed in the sweat between their hands, their bodies.

Damn, he fucks her, but it’s more than that. He pounds into her and she holds on for dear life. The feelings wave over her, mind and body. She hears his heart pounding, his breath catching. She feels his ecstasy building and his echo shifts, growing lost—foggy but she doesn’t care, the feeling is still there and she’s no longer in the here and now. She’s gone to a higher place, one where he has to wrap his arm around her waist to hold her up. One where he feels so, so good and her body aches with every thrust. One where she wants him to go faster and slower at the same time. Make this last forever, her mind begs...

Tip me over the edge, she pleads…

Draco, a man of his word, does both, shattering and taking her along with him, while letting her know through his echo that this is just the first of so many times.

He may have claimed her body, but she touched his soul.

* * *

“I get it now.”

“What?”

He’s playing with her fingers and she’s curled against him, half asleep, trying to decide if they should do that again or just rest. Tomorrow is going to suck, which means either could make it better.

“The bond. The connection. I felt it the instant I buried myself in you.”

She wants to laugh at the word “buried”, it’s so literal and so very romance novel (yes, she’s read a few) but it’s also true. “It makes us stronger as a team.”

“I believe that now. Before, I admit it, I wasn’t sure.”

She touches his chest and looks up at him. “I know it can be overwhelming, but I promise it’s a good thing. It’s clear we need one another more than ever now.”

He kisses her and it triggers the butterflies in her belly. They’re different than before. Those were about what could happen. These are from knowing what does happen between them. They’re more intense. Her craving for him hasn’t decreased the slightest. If anything, it’s worsened. She kisses the area above his heart and feels the stirring beneath the covers. His hand cups her breast.

Astrid makes a decision.

Fuck sleep.

Fuck the tests.

She hitches a leg over Draco’s and eases herself over his hips. He swells beneath her and she heats in response. If there’s any experimenting going on tonight, it’s going to be in this bed.

Unsurprisingly, with a grin on his perfect lips, Draco agrees.

14

Quinn

“What I need to know,” Astrid says when they enter the testing facility the following day, “is where the hell is my cat?”

Owen nods vigorously next to her. “Seriously. Harry has a lot of needs. Someone has to be there to give him his morning cheese.”

Quinn watches the exchange with interest—not because he cares that much about the cat, unlike Owen, but because he’s been wondering about the gym and everything they left behind, too.

Dr. Monroe pushes her glasses up her nose. Now that he’s not so exhausted, he notices the fine lines around her eyes and mouth and the gray streaks in her hair. “Jensen is taking care of arrangements in Crescent City. The cat, your business, employees.”

“Jensen.” Her lips turn down in a frown. There’s no doubt Astrid is still salty with him. He took them all by surprise announcing his connection to all of this, including being Demetria’s mentor. “I suppose he knew about all of this too. Well, my cat better not be dead when I get back or there will be hell to pay.”

Owen mutters his agreement, as well as tossing a few threats.

Dr. Monroe raises her eyebrows like she’s asking if they can move on. Truthfully, he has a lot of questions, so many he doubts the woman has the time to answer him, so he keeps quiet and waits for instructions. All of this seems surreal, but if she predicted bringing them to this place and stressing them with the tests would motivate them, she was right.

He glances at Draco, who has been quiet all morning. There’s no mistaking the blissed-out glaze in his eyes. He’s seen it in Owen’s before and reflected back in his own. Making love to Astrid changes a man and he’s glad they finally crossed that bridge. Even if the noise did keep him up half the night.

“The testing will come in three phases. Physical, supernatural, and mental, you’ll do a round of each. By bringing you in here blind, we were able to get a solid assessment of your actual abilities so we know where to begin.”

Astrid grunts at that. Okay, she’s salty about a few things.

Monroe pulls her tablet to her chest and says, “Would you like to see your new suits?”

“New suits?” Draco asks with interest. He has been paying attention. Owen perks up as well.

“Yes, the boxes had scanners inside. They processed your exact size and muscular build. The tests gave us the data we needed to give you maximum protection built directly in the fabric.”

“Our old suits were good,” Quinn tells her. He doesn’t like Casper’s work being discarded.

“They were,” she agrees. “Adequate, but Casper’s materials were limited. He gave us his notes and these are built from his designs as well as Atticus and Holden’s.” Her eyes hold his. “This is a team effort, Mr. McCrae. It always has been. Always will.”

He notices Astrid’s eyes dart to Draco’s. They’re one. He gets it and to his shock, so does Monroe.

“Okay then,” Owen says, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s suit up!”

* * *

There’s no doubt in Quinn’s mind that Casper was involved in the development of the new suits. Not because they are amazingly state-of-the art, perfectly suited to each of their needs and incredibly effective, no, but because Astrid looks like the sexiest vigilante of doom he’s ever laid eyes on in the black leather outfit that hugged every inch of her curvy body. The one thing he forgot was extra room in the crotch of his pants to contain his raging hard-on when she walked in the room. Damn.

She’s focused on her belt, touching all the little tools attached. Her cuffs are newly designed just like the baton and the coiled, electrified whip on his hip. Draco rubs his shield with his thumb before flipping it onto his back, and Owen tinkers with the pockets on his pants, the ones that hold a variety of objects that help him in a fight.

The suits are lightweight and flexible, the boots sturdy but not too heavy. Fire- and water-resistant, with an added layer of Kevlar to prevent bullet wounds.

“I feel like a knight,” Owen says, beating his hands against his chest. Astrid flicks her eyes at him and then over to Draco while adjusting her gloves. The heat still boils between them, and if they don’t watch out, it will bubble over and consume them all.

Four techs walk up and Monroe says, “Ready?”

They all agree and Quinn fidgets with the fingers of his protective gloves. They allow him to control the current strength on command.

A tech takes each one of them in an opposite direction. He feels his heart kick in watching Astrid walk away. This may be the dumbest thing they’ve agreed to. He’s not sure he can protect her here.

The tech positions him in front of a door. It’s a woman, and she says, “Once you step in, the test will begin.”

“Which kind is it? Mind, body, or simulation?” he asks.

“You’ll find out once you enter.”

He exhales, controlling his nerves. Of course. They need clean data. That’s what this amounts to. It’s all about data.

The door slides open and the light is so bright he can’t see anything. He pulls on his mask—because yeah, they gave them those this time—and turns it on. The schematics adjust and he steps inside. It’s the simulation. Not a jungle. Not anything he’s done before, but he knows where he is the instant the virtual world becomes clear.

There’s a man walking toward his car. A man he knows, and a lump forms in his throat. Not real. Not real. Not real, he tells himself. But that doesn’t stop him from moving quickly, running down the street and calling the man’s name.

“Holden!” he shouts.

He looks up. But not at Quinn. In another direction, and that’s when he sees him. They both do. A man dressed in black.

“No!” Quinn says, but his feet feel like they’re made of lead. He knows the end of this movie but he’s here. He can stop it. Right?

Holden says something to the man and the man replies, their words too quiet to hear. But he does see the gun, the glint of the barrel, at the same time Holden does. His mentor recoils, pushing his back to his car.

Quinn scrambles and runs as hard as he can but he hears the gun fire. He watches Holden fall against the car. The man walks away and Quinn is faced with a decision. Go to the man that raised him or follow the man that shot him.

The mask shows him Holden’s heartrate dropping. His blood pressure slowing. He knows the end. He knows it. He lived it. But if he got one more chance…

He looks between his mentor and the shooter, the seconds slipping away, and does what the simulation wants him to do. He makes a choice.

15

Quinn

“That,” Astrid says, climbing the stairs to the second floor of the house, “fucking sucked.”

Quinn hadn’t said a word since he left the simulation. He knew there was no failing of the tests. They were experiments, a measure of reactions, how they used their abilities, the choices they made, their strength.

He runs his hand over his face.

Knowing that and feeling it are two different things.

“What did you do in your session?” Owen asks her. The blond looks shell-shocked, maybe more than the rest of them. What did they make him see? Do?

“You know we’re not supposed to discuss it,” Draco says.

“What?” Owen gives him a sharp look. “Suddenly we’re playing by the rules?”

“Fine,” Draco says, stopping at the landing. His boulder-sized arms cross in front of him. “Go for it. Share first.”

Quinn looks back and forth between the men. Owen holds the massive man’s stare and sets his jaw. It dawns that Draco’s calling his bluff. No one is going to tell what happened in their tests, because they were all equally bad. Whatever it is they all just went through was deeply personal, challenging, and possibly reveals a weakness no one wants to share.

“I’m taking a shower,” Astrid declares. “And going to bed.”

Owen catches her arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just need sleep and a little decompressing.” The firm way she said “sleep” made it clear. None of them were to interrupt her tonight.

The three men go to their separate rooms and Quinn washes the day from his body. He’s wound up ten different ways. Astrid was right. That did fucking suck. Dragged out shitty memories. Forced him into inconsequential decisions.

He leans against the tile in the shower, hot water pouring over his weary muscles, and tries to think of something better. Something good.

His mind goes directly where it always does.

Astrid.

Every time he thinks of this woman, his woman, he starts with her eyes. The turquoise-blue that looks past his face and his body, burning deep into his soul. He knew the instant he met her, even in the chaos, that she was the one for him. That he’d do anything for her.

His thoughts wander, conjuring up her body, the curve and swell of her tits. The lean hardness of her stomach, the way it tapers into the widening of her hips, the round arch of her ass.

His cock twitches—tightens—and he exhales into the steam. Soap gathers in his hand and he lazily strokes the length, thinking about the way she moves. The way the leather curves around her body, accentuating her hips, her breasts and everything in between. He closes his eyes and recalls the way she tastes, the way she looks above him. Damn, damn, damn…he picks up speed, feeling the tension in his lower stomach, deep in his balls.

He places a hand on the tile before him, conjuring up the feel of her hand, the pink of her lips and how fucking breathtaking she is when she comes. The imagery, along with quickening speed, brings him to the painful edge, and one final thought of Astrid riding him from above pushes him over.

Pressing his forehead to the tile, Quinn catches his breath, and realizes that with Astrid calling it an early night, and the building stress of the day, he’s probably not the only one taking care of himself in the shower.

He’s just glad he finished before the water runs cold.

* * *

Warrick, Quinn assumes, brought a full feast upstairs to the small sitting area and both Draco and Owen sit with loaded plates in their hands.

He grabs his own, loading it with roasted chicken and vegetables, only stopping for the most nutritious carbs. He’s starving. Who knew a day of mind-fuckery would make him ravenous?

He sits next to Owen and nods at Astrid’s closed door. “Did she eat?”

Owen snorts and points to an empty spot on the table. “That was a pie. She took the whole thing.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Ah. Right.”

Draco makes a sandwich on his plate, splitting a roll in half and piling it with chicken, cheese and peppers. It’s a tall stack when he’s done, and Quinn watches with amusement as he shoves most of it in his mouth at once.

After he chews and swallows he says, “So is that normal? Her holing up like that?”

Owen nods. “Oh yeah, she needs her space. She’s probably freaking out about not having her cat here.”

“And probably in caffeine withdrawals,” Quinn adds.

“Definitely.”

“Okay.” He looks relieved. “I didn’t know if I did something, you know…” his jaw tenses, “wrong, last night.”

Owe and Quinn glance at one another. They don’t normally discuss their bedroom activities with one another, but it’s known, definitely understood, and when they all made out on the couch that one time all lines of awkwardness vanished. Draco is in the fold now, as much with them as Astrid.

“Yeah, I don’t think that was a problem,” Quinn says, eating a forkful of pasta.

“No?” He still looks worried. “I mean, I kind of barged in there and I know she’s the kind of woman that likes to be in charge…”

Owen leans forward, his blond hair falling in his eyes. “Trust me, Astrid likes it more than one way. She’s uh, pretty adventurous. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is all new for her, probably for all of us since we were so isolated, but, I’m just saying, don’t be afraid to be yourself with her.”

This information doesn’t seem to make him feel better and Owen frowns and looks at Quinn. “What?”

Quinn rests his plate on his knees. “Draco, we don’t compare ourselves. Honestly, we don’t even really talk about it that much. This situation is definitely unconventional, but it works. It works for her and there’s no doubt it helps on the field—when we’re working as a team.”

What he’s saying sounds so weird but it’s also the truth. There’s not one part of him that’s jealous of the others and he doesn’t really care what they do in the bedroom, outside of a basic interest. The idea of watching Astrid with Owen or even Draco actually kind of turns him on.

He shoves food in his mouth and doesn’t say that out loud.

Mr. Perfect’s shoulders finally relax. He leans back in his seat and says, “You know I held off for a long time. I just wasn’t sure if it was right, if I could, you know…share…but being in that box and away from her did something to me. It made me realize that in all of this I’m damn lucky to have someone like her in my life.” He looks at both Quinn and Owen. “You too. After everything with Demetria, I was hesitant to trust anyone else, especially other survivors.”

Owen holds up his glass and gestures to the others. They both do the same, bringing three glasses of sparkling water into the middle. “To Draco, for finally joining the team.”

“To Draco,” Quinn adds, enjoying the bond after such a crazy day. It’s nice to have companions that understand. That’s definitely something he and Draco have in common. Trust is hard, and that simulation earlier shook the foundation of what he’d built recently.

“So,” Draco says, after taking his drink, “is there anything I do need to know?”

“Don’t touch her doughnuts.”

“Or try to make her eat healthy.”

“Or,” Owen says, pointing his fork, “let her cat move into your room. I can’t get rid of him.”

“She likes to have her back rubbed,” Quinn adds. “And she gives amazing—”

“Head.” Owen nods vigorously. “Like epic. Her mouth is like magic. She does this thing with your balls—”

“Thanks.” Draco blinks. “Good to know.”

“Just enjoy it,” Quinn says in a quiet voice. “Love her and she’ll love you back. For every bullshit day like we had today, preparing to save the world from some jackass that wants to destroy it, we deserve it, and one another.”

Draco nods. “Good point.”

“Anyway,” Owen says, propping his feet on the table. Quinn knocks them off and gestures to the food. “I know we’re not talking about our tests today, but I’ll just say I nailed mine.”

“Mine was awful,” Quinn admits. “Simulation.”

“Fuck right.” Owen nods and looks at Draco. “What about you?”

“Physical strength.”

Quinn groans. “Not fair.”

He shrugs, but yeah, totally not fair.

“So you nailed it, too,” Owen says.

Draco laughs and pops a cherry tomato in his mouth. An ease of friendship ebbs between them now. “Yep. Nailed it.”

16

Astrid

Birds chirping, along with the bright sun reflecting off the ocean outside the window, woke her up early. She stretches, spreading her arms wide across the mattress. With no interruptions, she’d slept like the dead. She needed it. She’d been moving like a zombie for days now. But now that she’s slept and a shade of the caffeine withdrawal headache subsiding, her mind is clear. And there’s one thing on it.

Casper.

Yesterday sucked. They tested her echo for hours. Forcing her to push into the minds of the techs. To show what she’d learned to do. How she could alter emotions, change them into what she wanted—not just what they felt or tugging on their memories. She’d grown her abilities in the last few months and Monroe wanted to see it. Not because she was impressed, but because she wanted Astrid to do more.

Before she gave them another drop of her blood, sweat, and mental tears, she wanted to know about Casper.

Grabbing a pair of leggings and a hoodie, she steps out of the room. She stops and stares at the scene at the end of the hall. All three of her men are passed out, surrounded by the remains of their dinner. Draco’s long legs splay before him and his head is tilted back against the arm chair. Owen is curled onto his side, his nose scrunched up. She’s not even sure how Quinn has twisted himself into a pretzel on the tiny loveseat. She blinks for a minute, trying to figure out why and how this happened, but in the end, she mutters, “I don’t even want to know,” and turns down the stairs.

She heads down the main hall and exits the house, heading straight to the testing facility. The sun is bright, forcing her to shade her eyes. For a fleeting moment she wishes they could enjoy this place for what it is: paradise. One thing she learned long ago was that her life wasn’t made for vacations and happiness.

She was born, then created, for so much more.

The testing facility is secure, but they’d been scanned to pass through. Astrid places her hand on the sensor and allows the laser to scan her eye. The door clicks and slides open, giving her access to the building.

Every tech in the room looks up when she enters. More than one holds fear in their eyes. The one she used her echo on yesterday? He looks away and exits. She knows his secrets and they’re not all pretty.

“Where’s Monroe?” she asks. Faces look to the ceiling—no, to an office above the lab. She heads that way, passing the rows of computers and other technology. It’s designed to track and categorize everything about them. She runs up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. The door opens before she gets to the top.

“Astrid.” Dr. Monroe stands before her in a crisp, white lab coat. “You’re here early.”

“Just wanted to get a few things out of the way before we started.”

The doctor replies with a tight smile. “Of course. Come in.”

Her office is as sterile as her personality, and Astrid knows it’s not worth wasting her time on small talk. She cuts to the chase. “Where’s Casper?”

Monroe blinks. “I told you, he’s safe.”

“I want to see him.”

She eases into her seat behind the desk. “He’s in training. Like you are. I don’t want to interfere with his program. It’s highly sensitive.”

Astrid crosses her arms. She’s getting an odd vibe off the doctor. She doesn’t think the woman is lying but…there’s something she’s hiding.

“Casper made incredible progress before we got here. He’d started talking to us more. He saved our lives. He broke free of his agoraphobia.” She studies the doctor. “He’s part of the team and if he’s here he should be with the rest of us in the house.”

Dr. Monroe leans back in her chair and gestures for Astrid to sit across from her, evening their positions. Astrid sits, but doesn’t take her eyes off the older woman. “I’ve been watching you all for a long time, Astrid. Some of you longer than others. Seeing you all come together has been a dream of mine. I knew if you could find one another your lives would change—society would change. There were risks. Rex. Blaze. Demetria. They allowed the dark side of their nature to overtake their abilities. They were raised by Scheid, not in the loving care of an actual mentor.”

“I get it. A few of us were luckier than the others. What does this have to do with Casper?”

“As you know, when Casper’s mentor died it left him in a fragile state. He’d long suffered from his debilitating stutter and overwhelming shyness. He found security and socialization in his games. Then purpose working with Atticus and Holden behind the scenes while you all found one another. While you developed your bond with one another.”

There’s meaning in her words. Especially the last ones. “We did our best to include Casper.”

“I know. We saw. But the four of you have forged a strong, intimate, relationship that he’s not a part of.”

She knows. She knows about their relationship—their relationship outside the fights and battles. If they’ve been watching, what all have they seen? Do they watch her and the others when they make love? Explore and experiment with one another. Anger, filled with bitterness and betrayal, rises in her. She manages to say, “That is none of your business.”

“But isn’t it?” Monroe asks. Everything about her implies the question is genuine. “I’ve seen what your intimacy can do. How it changes the dynamic of the team. How you trust and support one another. I always knew you would work together, it was part of the original serum we gave you, the ability to forge a bond, but something about your empathy combined with that connection. It created a whole other level of unification. You’ve exceeded all expectations.”

Astrid blinks, absorbing all of this, but she’s speechless. She feels violated. Embarrassed. Angry.

Monroe dares to continue. “We knew all along that under that pink hat and the layers of clothing was a very, very strong little girl. We knew you had the shoulders to bear the weight of what was coming. Atticus knew. Jensen knew.”

“This is a joke,” Astrid finally says. “I’m not the one to carry the weight. What about Quinn? He’s steady and even. And god, Draco. Seriously. Mr. Perfect can do anything.”

Monroe’s eyes soften and she stands walking around the desk. “They’re good, but you’re the bond. You know that, right? Scheid is bigger than one of you—to fight him you have to be at your physical peak. He’ll expect almost anything—but what he won’t see is how you work together. He’s too much of a narcissist. The idea of you teaming up for the greater good, bonded by your feelings for one another? It’ll blindside him.”

“Good,” Astrid said, feeling for once like maybe they have the upper hand.

“So you came here with a question,” Monroe says. To Astrid’s surprise she leans over and takes her hands, opening herself up.

A wave rolls through her echo, a tougher barrier than she’s ever felt. The doctor is protected by her intellect, ideas, dreams, but she pulls on a thread, the one that leads her to what she came here to find out.

He’s deep in her mind, way behind the data and figures and blood types at the front of her mind. Astrid latches onto a feeling, because underneath it all that Monroe is revealing what she came here for: Casper. He’s scared, snarky, loyal. With her eyes closed she finds him, tucked in a room surrounded by computers, but there’s another person there. A woman. A flare of her own emotions ripples through Astrid, knocking her out of the echo.

“Who is that?” she asks, jealously boiling over.

“Sometimes there are problems bigger than even you can handle,” Monroe says. “I’m getting Casper the help he needs so that he can fully integrate into your team.”

Astrid frowns. “What does that mean?”

“Casper was damaged. Broken. Too many years of loneliness, lack of supervision and therapy for his speech impediment. There’s no doubt he needs you and he needs the other survivors, but he also needs something else. Something I can give him, the same way I can help you develop and hone your skills.”

“You’re treating him—his stutter—”

“And some of the psychological issues from being alone for so long.”

A new wave of emotions comes over Astrid; gratitude. She’d always known Casper was just out of reach. She could teach a man to fight, to box, or how to disarm an enemy. She could love them, touch their soul, and give them internal strength, but Monroe was right. She couldn’t help Casper the way he needed. Not yet.

“When can I see him,” she asks.

Monroe gives her an understanding smile. “When he’s ready.”

Astrid nods. “Then I’ll be ready, too.”

17

Astrid

The testing sucks. Pushing and pulling through a dozen variations of events. She gets better at the simulations. Excels at using her echo. Commands at the physical. At night they don’t talk about it, instead they eat, refuel, sleep. Twice she’s pulled Draco into her bed, building their connection. As much as she hates this place, after a week she feels stronger. The clear intent in the guys’ eyes tell her they feel the same.

It’s after a vigorous workout that she spots Owen, waiting for her outside the locker room. She’s covered in sweat, drenched head to toe.

“How’d you do?” he asks.

“Five-minute mile.” She can’t keep the smile off her mouth. “I can’t believe I’m getting faster.”

“You spent a long time training other people. Your body probably appreciates being pushed.” He leans against the doorframe. “Can I get a minute with you? After you clean up?”

“What?” she says, tugging at her sweaty top. “You don’t want to hang out with me like this?”

“Babe, I’ll hang out with you anyway you want, you know that.”

She leans in and kisses him. He tastes like mint and smells like soap. He’d already freshened up after his training. “Give me twenty minutes.”

He nods, licking his bottom lip. “Meet me down by the water?”

“Sure.”

She doesn’t waste time; showering and changing into a loose tank and cut-off shorts. They’ve been so busy they haven’t explored the island much, and the idea of walking down to the water sounds nice.

Owen waits by the edge, waves lapping at his toes. She hears his heartbeat over the sounds of the ocean, guiding her like a compass. When she reaches him, she wraps her arms around his waist and kisses him on the neck.

“Thanks for coming down here.”

“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

His hand slips in hers. “I think I just needed to recharge.”

She laughs. “Is that what I do for you?”

He doesn’t answer right away, instead taking her face between his hands and kissing her again and yeah, she feels him relax instantly. He needs her as much as she needs him.

“The worst part about this place is not seeing you enough,” he confesses.

“Most people don’t work and live together the way we do back home, you know.”

“I got spoiled.”

She smiles, pulling him closer, enjoying the heat from his body. “Oh, you’re definitely spoiled. And entitled. And definitely bratty.”

He jerks back, expression offended. “What did you say?”

There’s no mistaking the smirk tugging at his mouth. It only eggs her on.

She latches her fingers in the waist of his pants. “I said you’re probably dying out here without your video games and recliner and the all-access to walk in my room any time you please.”

His eyebrow shoots up. “You think I can’t do that here? Walk in your room. Take what I want.”

She runs a finger down his hard, muscular chest. “I just know that you haven’t.”

“Because I have control.”

“Do you?” she tilts her head.

“Yep, and a spoiled brat doesn’t have control.”

“Mmhmm.”

A spark flickers in his bright green eyes. “And who has control…you?”

There’s a beat between them. One where things shift from playful to something different—something intense. Astrid knows she shouldn’t toy with these men. Especially under the circumstances, but she can’t help herself. She likes to see him riled up. It makes her stomach twist with desire.

She opens her mouth to reply back, something witty and smart, but Owen lifts her off the ground and carries her toward the ocean. She clings to him.

“Owen—no.”

“No? Are you telling me what to do? Are you saying I’m not in control?” he mocks, taking a step deeper. The water splashes his calves.

“Don’t get me wet! I just showered! And washed my hair!”

“Bossy, bossy.”

He takes two more steps, a wave crests high, hitting the bottom of her shorts.

“I’m fully clothed! This isn’t funny.”

He holds her over the water and holds her eye. Warm water spreads across her jeans and the way he’s holding her, straddled around his hips, ignites stirrings where their bodies meet.

“Apologize.”

“For what?” she asks.

“Thinking that I’m spoiled.”

She rolls her eyes, knowing he knows he’s a brat. God, he’s such a brat.

“I’m sorry for calling you spoiled.”

“And?”

“And saying you’re a brat.”

“And?”

“You’re not entitled.” She searches her mind for another slight. “Or out of control. Nope. Not at all.”

He narrows his eyes. “You don’t particularly sound sincere.”

She looks down at the crystal-clear water now up to his hips. “You’ve dragged me out to the ocean, are holding me hostage fully dressed, and have forced me to apologize. I’d say you’re in control of the situation, Owen.”

“Yeah, I’d say so, too.”

In the fading daylight, he lowers them both in the water, her legs still wrapped around his waist. Water surrounds her, instantly heightening her senses.

“What—” she starts but his mouth crashes into hers, taking command.

Her loose tank rises, floating at the surface of the water. Owen’s hands reach for her breasts, feeling a million times more sensitive. His hands fumble with her shorts, easing them over her hips. He tosses them toward shore and she tugs away his clothing, feeling the pebbling of his nipples, wet against the cool air. He shudders and his cock grazes against her thigh, her core, sending an identical shiver up her spine.

He leads and she follows, giving this moment for him to assert his control. They bob with the water; her breasts floating, grazing, nipples peaked.

“You feel so good,” she tells him, tilting her head so she’s floating on her back. He explores the hidden place between the legs. Her body burns.

“What do you want?” he asks, lifting her up. His voice is raw with desire.

“You.”

“To do what?” His fingers tweak her breasts and she groans with delight.

“Do whatever you want to me. I told you, you’re in control.”

Her concession pleases him; if only that it makes him the winner of their silly game. Her eyes widen, caught in his impenetrable gaze when he stands suddenly. Her body tenses, assaulted by the contrast of the heat of her skin, the water dripping from her body and the cool breeze. He carries her out of the water, exposing both their bodies. The moon rises to the east, casting a faint glow. She has no idea where he’s taking her. But she’s definitely surprised when he lowers her to a soft blanket and stands over her naked and proud.

“You set this up?”

“I told you,” he said, dropping to his knees. He parts her legs and moves between them. “I’m completely, totally, one-hundred-percent in control.”

Owen lowers his mouth, kissing the peaks of her breasts, down her belly, across her hips and between her thighs. He works his magic, like he’s done so many times before, bringing her to the brink.

She’s a quivering mess, dying for relief, but knowing Owen, he’s nowhere near done. There were truths to her accusations of him being spoiled and entitled. Impulsive too. She loved that about him, but in moments like these she knew it was the opposite.

He’s diligent.

Patient.

Focused.

And fucking amazing with his fingers and mouth.

He unwraps her like a gift, peeling away the layers, until he reaches the raw, frayed nerves that give her the most pleasure. And just when she thinks she can’t take a second longer, he enters her swiftly. Hard. And her eyes widen from the impact.

She holds on to his muscular shoulders, loving the sensations all around her. She may as well still be floating in the ocean with every inch of her body engaged, and she moans her approval as he grabs her hips, gaining speed and friction.

Owen grunts and she watches his jaw tighten and clench. His lips part, his tongue darts in and out and she’ll never, ever tire of seeing his face just before he comes.

“Come on, baby,” she whispers, knowing it alters the balance they’ve established tonight but that’s the truth about them. There’s no one in charge. No dominant personality. It’s just the two of them; naked, raw, and enjoying the hell out of each other’s bodies.

His eye catches hers and he smirks, flipping her over so that she’s on top. He loves it when she calls him that and he loves it when she’s on top, and their roles shift and now she rides him hard until he pulls up on his elbows, plants his mouth on hers and together they shatter into a million pieces.

18

Astrid

She showers for the second time that day, carefully drying her hair and picking a clean, dry outfit. She frowns at the abrasion left by the sand rash on the back of her upper thigh. Her lips are swollen and puffy from Owen’s hard kisses.

She can’t help but wonder if Dr. Monroe or the other technicians watched them make love on the beach. She’s not sure she cares. She’s read their echoes. She knows their secrets.

“Hey,” Quinn says from her bedroom door. “Warrick just came up. They need us in the testing facility.”

“But it’s after hours,” she whines.

“It wasn’t a request,” he replies. “Definitely a demand.”

She grabs the band for her hair off the counter and lifts her hair. Quinn stops her. “You should wear it down.”

“Yeah?”

“It looks good like that.”

She tucks the band in her pocket. She never really thinks about how she looks—more about what’s effective. The best for work and fighting. Quinn makes very few requests from her, other than eating and drinking right. If he likes her hair down, she can appease him a little bit.

“Where’s Draco and Owen?”

“Already there. I told them I’d come find you.”

“Any idea what this is about?” she asks over her shoulder as they descend the stairs.

“No, but I have a bad feeling.”

“Why’s that?” Her question is met with a grim expression.

“Because Monroe gave us two weeks and something tells me we’re running out of time.”

They step outside and gain access to the testing facility. The main room is empty—not a surprise since it’s after nine. A solitary guard instructs them to head upstairs to Dr. Monroe’s office.

Draco waits for them at the door, his knuckles brushing against Astrid’s as she enters. She gets a blast of tension—apprehension—and glances at him. His face gives away nothing.

Owen’s still oozing post-coital bliss and his body heats when she approaches him. He offers one of the seats across from Monroe’s desk. The doctor sits on the other side. Her normally calm exterior seems a bit shaken. Her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail and strain tugs at her eyes.

“Thank you for coming. I apologize for interrupting your downtime, but we’ve been alerted to movement on the outside.” She points to the screen on the wall and presses a button on her remote. It’s already queued up to a video.

“This went out to every major news outlet at 8 p.m. tonight.” Monroe clicks play.

Rowe’s smug face fills the screen.

“This is a message for citizens of Crescent City, particularly those that reside in the area known as The Swamp. After months of increasing tensions and deteriorating relationships, the city government would like to announce that the full and complete takeover of The Swamp will commence in the next 48 hours. The tax payers and responsible property owners of Crescent City are no longer interested in supporting the downtrodden and poor. You’re being asked to leave. Immediately. Where? We don’t care. When? Now. Why? Because when the city clock tower reaches zero, the Swamp will be decimated. And anyone left behind will go with it.”

The camera pulls back and there’s no doubt where he is. Rowe’s standing before the Elite gym. Her home.

“If you’re wondering if your good friends and local vigilantes will come save you, the answer is no. They’re gone. Vanished. Probably aware that they can’t beat the firepower of the impending wave headed your way. There is no hope. No second chances or heroes coming to save the day. If you want to survive, vacate The Swamp immediately, otherwise prepare for the worst.”

The camera holds on him for one moment longer, capturing his disturbing, evil smirk before blinking out. What follows is a quick recap from a dozen news sources; much of it the Mayor of Crescent City declaring a state of emergency. It seems Rowe and Scheid have taken over.

No one says a word, but Astrid feels the emotions of the room, ranging from bitter hatred to pure rage. That doesn’t even include the homicidal urges surging under her skin.

Her hands clench the arms of the seat and she looks around the room. Dr. Monroe finally says, “Obviously this is—”

“Just to get us to come out. They have no idea where we are,” Astrid says, completing her thought.

“No. They’ve never had access to us or this facility.”

“Do you think he’ll do it? Destroy The Swamp?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“Scheid will do anything to get his hands on you.”

“Then we have no choice,” Draco says. “We go. Now.”

Quinn and Owen nod. Quinn says, “We have friends there. People we’ve come to know. They depend on us.”

Astrid takes a deep breath. “I agree. We go, but not until I do something first.”

“What?”

She stands, pushing her chair back, staring at Monroe. “Take me to Casper.”

“No,” Monroe replies. “It’s too soon. He’s not ready.”

Astrid holds the woman’s eye. “That’s not a decision you get to make.”

“I’m his doctor.”

All three men stand, backing Astrid up. She knows this is the right thing to do. “Trust me. This isn’t something we can do without him.”

19

Astrid

Monroe, followed by an armed guard, leads the way from the testing facility, past the house and down a rocky path. Astrid can’t figure out why there is so much security. Are the techs afraid of them? Of an outside attack? It’s obvious that if her team decided to revolt they’d probably win, which is why the doctor is taking Astrid to Casper despite her reservations.

They arrive at a small cottage directly off the beach. Thick clouds roll in from the south, blocking the moon, and the gentle breeze from earlier has shifted into a strong wind. She thinks how just hours ago she and Owen were in the calm ocean. Now the waves are rougher. A hammock rocks between two trees.

“This is where he’s staying?”

“Yes,” Dr. Monroe replies. Tendrils of her hair blow around her face. “A team of therapists have been coming daily to work with him. They help with everything from his speech impediment to basic social interactions.”

“You know, he didn’t need changing. He was already part of us—despite his differences.”

“I know and I agree,” she says, her tone genuine. “He’s the one that asked for help.”

That news surprises Astrid, at least a little. Casper had always been so forceful. So adamant. But maybe it was a cloak to hide his insecurities. He seemed to want his independence but was that a charade? Part of her hoped so, because it meant he wanted to be with them more than she suspected. She wanted him with them too.

“I’ll take it from here,” she says to Monroe. The doctor eyes her skeptically.

“He may not like this. I promised him I wouldn’t bring you over.”

“If he has a problem, I’ll deal with it.”

Monroe looks at her watch. “You have a few hours. We’ll need to prep to go by dawn.

Astrid nods and climbs the steps to the wooden porch. The weathered planks creak under feet and she knocks on the door. A flapping sound catches her attention. Swim trunks and a towel hang pinned from a clothesline. Flip flops rest by the entry mat. There’s no light outside but soft lamplight glows in the window. Closing her eyes, she touches the door. She feels him on the other side—just out of reach. She knocks again and calls out over the increasing wind, “Casper?”

There’s movement and the uptick of his heartbeat. She waits another moment thinking maybe the doctor was right, maybe he didn’t want to see them—her—but slowly the door opens.

It’s only been a few weeks since she’s seen him, but from the way Casper looks, stands, and carries himself, it could have been much longer. The man before her isn’t skinny and pale. His skin glows from days in the sun. His muscles lithe from use. Casper stares at her in surprise but not anger—none of the hostility and fear she’d seen so many other times consumed him. She felt it. Saw it.

He’d changed.

“I didn’t know this storm was going to wash a sexy mermaid up on my doorstep.”

Okay, maybe he hadn’t changed that much.

She broke into a smile. “I thought sunlight would turn you into ashes.”

“I-I’m a goblin not a vampire,” he says, rolling his eyes. He still had his stammer but it was different. More controlled. His words flowed easier off his tongue.

Astrid takes a hesitant step forward, unsure how far she could push him. How much had he changed? Casper answers for her, crossing the threshold and engulfing her in his arms. He holds her tight with strong limbs and a fast-beating heart. Emotion overtakes her—she’s not sure if it’s her or him—but tears pool in her eyes and she nuzzles her face in his chest.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he says in her ear.

She rests her ear on his chest, listening to his hammering heart. “Do what?”

“Hug you. Touch you.”

She remembers what Draco told her, that Casper held her up on a pedestal, but now she realizes it’s something more. It’s the bond. The connection between them all, and not only had he been separated from them, he’d been lacking the emotional connection that kept them strong.

They needed each other more than anything else.

“There’s been a threat,” she tells him. “Back home.”

He pulls back and frowns. “By who?”

“Rowe. Scheid.”

“W-what do they want?” The concern in his eyes says he knows.

“Us.”

He rubs his chin. “So I guess the vacation is over?”

“Yep, and we only have a few hours to prepare. Then we’re headed back.” She watches him closely. “You’ll come with us?”

He nods.

“Good.” She makes her move, stepping past him and entering the small cottage. His eyes never leave her and she feels the intensity when she adds, “Then I think there’s something we need to do first.”

20

Draco

Once Astrid and Dr. Monroe leave, they head to the weaponry room to prep for Crescent City. The tools and tech developed on the island is far superior to what they’d had before. Their suits are lightweight and durable, literally bulletproof. Their equipment is easily manageable and perfectly suited to each of their abilities. Draco stands before the long row of accessories and begins filling a bag. Owen and Quinn do the same.

Something’s been nagging at him since they watched Rowe’s video. It wasn’t the basic rage he felt seeing his city threatened and under attack. It was the betrayal of their own, by this doctor, Sebastian Scheid. He’d fucked up their lives severely and without Astrid bringing them all together, Draco knows he easily could have found himself in the hands of this man.

Without Astrid and frankly, without someone else.

He shoves a stun gun in the bag and says, “Do we have anything here that can take down Rex?”

Quinn casts him a wary look. “Rex is invincible.”

“Exactly.” He runs his hands through his hair. “How are we going to stop him.”

“We catch him. Lock him up.”

“Where?” Draco’s not convinced.

“Here,” a voice interrupts them. Dr. Monroe stands in the doorway. “We have a maximum-security prison on the island. Created for this moment.”

Quinn grunts, tossing his baton in his bag. “You knew it would come to this.”

“As soon as Scheid betrayed you, yes.”

Draco’s quiet. He can’t stop thinking about how this started for him. Finally, he says, “We’re going to need more than the five of us to stop Rowe. He’s got Blaze on his side and Rex. He’s got the entire Elite squad and god knows who else.”

Quinn nods. “What are you proposing?”

Draco glances over his shoulder, making sure they’re alone. “I’d like to bring in someone else.”

Owen stares at him blankly. “There is no one else.”

“That’s not true,” he replies.

Recognition dawns and Owen throws up his hands. “Fuck no.”

“What?” Quinn asks, clearly a few steps behind. “Who are you talking about?”

Owen’s cheeks flare red and his eyes shift dangerously. “We are absolutely not asking that fucking psycho for her help.”

“She’s strong,” Draco says. “Stronger than all of us and she’s better. I’ve seen her.”

“I knew it!” Owen roared, running across the room and grabbing Draco by shirt. “I knew your loyalties were with her all along!”

He easily pushes Owen back, trying his best not to hurt him. Owen turns and kicks the leg of the work table, denting it with his boot.

“My loyalties are with Astrid and this team. Don’t ever doubt that.”

“Demetria?” Quinn finally asks, incredulously. Monroe stands quietly to the side. “You want to ask Demetria to help us?”

“She’s not our enemy. She loves The Swamp.”

“Yeah with the passion of a thousand fiery dragon monsters,” Owen bites back. “She may not actually be evil, but she has zero self or ability control. No. No. She’s evil. You can’t prove otherwise.”

Draco looks at Monroe. “How’s she doing?”

“Excuse me?” she replies, startled.

“Don’t tell me you have no idea where she is. You rounded us up. Squirreled Casper away. You have a secluded island/testing facility/torture chamber.” He crosses his massive arms, aware of how threatening he can be. “How is Demetria?”

Finally, she relents.

“Better. Working hard. Controlling herself.” Her eyes dart between them. “With an increase in medication, her delusions of grandeur are gone,” she admits slowly. “She’s still a little flamboyant and prone to fancy, but the extreme symptoms are gone.”

“What,” Owen says, “the hell are you talking about?”

Quinn turns to him. “Draco?”

He doesn’t miss the genuine concern and question in his tone.

“After Demetria destroyed the Harbor line at the parade, she went to the treatment facility. She was extremely delusional and heavily drugged. I went to see her a few times, hoping there would be a change, but to keep her abilities suppressed she had to be physically and mentally secured. It was dangerous for her and the staff. One day when I got there, she was gone. The doctors told me she’d been removed for specialized treatment.” He looks at Monroe. “It didn’t click until the last day or so that she was probably here. If you picked us up, there was no way you’d allow her to stay unsecure.”

“You knew she was gone and never told us?” Quinn asks, forcefully controlling his tone. His hands fist and Draco eyes him carefully.

“I suspected she was safe.” Again, Monroe has gone silent, but Draco notices the strained tension in her eyes. The pulsing vein at her temple. Suddenly she looks tired when he says, “We’d like to see her. Assess her progress ourselves.”

“Speak for yourself,” Owen mumbles.

“As much as I’d think you’re right, that Demetria would be major asset to the upcoming fight, it’s not possible for you to see her.”

“Why not?” Quinn asks.

“Because we’re not the ones that removed her from the facility.”

Dread builds in Draco’s chest. “Then who did?”

“Who do you think?” She can’t bring herself to say it. To admit that she lost a survivor—a Super.

“Scheid?” Quinn asks. Owen picks up his bag of equipment and tosses it across the room, a stream of curses following.

“You lost Demetria?” Draco’s voice is soft. Controlled.

“It’s why we picked you up like we did. Performed the early tests. We had to make sure you weren’t compromised.”

“Where is she?” he asks, tired of her explanations. “Where did he take her?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he’ll use her,” Owen says. “You know he will.”

“Fuck,” Quinn mutters. “God knows what she thinks of us…what they’ve brainwashed her into thinking.”

“She was better,” Draco says. “Maybe that stuck.”

“Do you really think Scheid and Rowe want her better?” Owen declares. A small smile quirks at his mouth. He turns to Draco. “Promise me one thing.”

Draco sighs. “What’s that?”

“I want to be there when you tell Astrid, okay? Front row seats.”

The room falls into an uncomfortable silence.

A siren screeches from the desktop.

“What’s that!” Quinn shouts over the sound.

“It’s a signal,” Monroe says, grabbing the device and shutting it off. She flips on the screen hanging on the wall and a figure appears in a live feed. It’s not Scheid. Or Rowe.

It’s Jensen.

21

Astrid

The door shuts with a click, leaving the escalating storm outside and a different one building between them.

Casper watches her with intrigued brown eyes, his cheekbones accentuated by the shadowy light in the room. There’s a door open to a back room. It’s filled with his computer setup. Astrid spies a virtual reality headset on the desk.

“Can I get you something? A drink? Something to eat?” he asks.

There’s no doubt the politeness is part of his therapy. It’s adorable and she shakes her head and says, “No thank you.”

He scratches his neck, “I-I- uh…”

He’s speechless and not because of any impediment. She sits on the couch and pats the space next her. Casper follows and she cuts to the chase.

“When Quinn walked into my life, everything changed for me. I learned how to trust and count on a partner. That grew with Owen and compounded with Draco.” She touches his knee. “There was something beyond just being a team. A sort of connection. Dr. Monroe confirmed this for me. The original serum we were given as kids had a component that linked us together. It was to make us work better as a team, but with my empathy some different bonding occurred.”

Casper hangs on her every word.

“You know that the guys and I have different sort of relationship, right?”

He nods.

“It helps us fight better. Work better. I can feel them and anticipate their moves. It solidified us as a team and without it I think we would have lost a long time ago.”

“I’ve seen the adaptation to your molecules,” he says in a quiet voice. “Project 12 super-charged our genetics. W-we continue to evolve because of the small adjustments created with the original serum. There’s a bonding component that most humans don’t have. And Monroe is right, something about your empathy alters the chemistry of your mates.” He swallows. “We’re naturally attracted to one another. It’s how we so easily find one another and work in tandem. B-but once your pheromones link with another and your body releases oxytocin at the same time as another Super…”

“Things go to another level.”

“R-right.”

There’s little doubt where Astrid is going with this and the scent of nervous energy rolls off him in waves. He’s trying to compose himself, it’s obvious, but it may be too much for him, too soon.

Holding his eye with hers she takes his hand, spreading his palm flat. She rests her palm against his and releases calm. He exhales and his heartbeat slows and he gives her a small smile.

“W-who needs drugs when you can get a hit of that every once in a while.”

“It comes in handy.”

It’s with a steadier voice he says, “I-I talk a big game, Astrid, but I’ve never had any experience with a woman.” His cheeks turn red. “Well, not a real one.”

“We’re all a little behind where this is concerned, Cas. Some more than others.”

He looks down at their hands. “I just don’t think I’m ready. Not, to…you know.”

She nods in understanding. “It’s okay. We don’t have to. I just—”

“I don’t want it to be like this. Rushed.” He cuts her off. “Y-you’re too important. It shouldn’t be forced, like we have to save the world.”

“No,” she replies. “It shouldn’t. But we also agreed to protect people.”

She feels his internal struggle. There’s no doubt that he wants her. She can feel that without even touching him. He’s nervous. Unsure. And she certainly doesn’t want to pressure him before he’s ready. She watches as the knot in the back of his jaw tics with aggravation.

An idea pops in her head.

“You’ve been getting a lot of therapy, right?”

“A shit-ton. And lessons and training and whatever the hell Monroe wants to call this torture island.”

Astrid laughs. “Well, what if I give you a little lesson of my own.”

He raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean.”

“You said it’s about releasing oxytocin…how does that happen?”

“Right before you orgasm.”

She leans over and runs her hand up his leg, stopping at his upper thigh. “There’s more than one way to make that happen, Casper. We can save the other stuff for later. When we’re ready.”

He stares at her hand and there’s no doubt he’s already worked up and excited. She can see it. Smell it.

“I guess I can take one for the team,” he says, with a little laugh. “And saving the city.”

She smirks in return, moving a little closer. She touches his face and licks her lips before kissing him gently on the mouth. Casper is so bawdy. So vulgar and full of himself when he’s on the other side of the screen. In person, he’s very different. Subdued. Nervous. He has no idea what to do with his hands, his tongue or body. So, Astrid decides to take control.

“Lean back.”

She stands over him, starting with his mouth, kissing and luring him out. Slow, lingering movements. She touches his cheek, his shoulders and chest. He trembles with each connection, a man wound up with years of building tension.

She trails kisses down his neck, to his collarbone. She explores the planes of his chest, the hard swell of his muscular shoulders, the smooth skin of his ribcage.

His hands lay by his side clenching with every kiss, balling when she places one on each of his round, brown nipples. She moves lower, surprised at the hard muscle of his abdomen. Excited by the soft, dark hair stretching from his belly button downward. She runs her fingers through it and he flinches, grunting softly.

“Too much?”

His eyes flick lazily to hers. “Or too little.”

His shorts have an elastic waistband. His cock is already erect, pressing against the satin fabric. She fights the urges coursing through her own body, the desire she feels from doting on him alone—the cravings she has from his lack of touch.

“I’m going to take these off, okay?”

He nods, watching her every move.

He lifts as she drags them over his ass, pushing the shorts to the side. Her eyes widen when she gets a good look at him.

“W-what?” he asks.

“Uh, nothing,” she replies, genuinely shocked at his size. He’s not porn star humongous, but for the slightest guy in the group, he definitely doesn’t have the smallest one. “I’m going to touch you.”

“I’m probably going to come, just from that. Fair warning.” He clenches his jaw. He’s not kidding. He’s hard as fuck.

“Noted.”

She doesn’t take the time she normally would, dragging it out for her man’s pleasure. She swipes her thumb over the tip, sending a shiver down his spine. There’s no hesitation when she takes him in her mouth, dipping her hand below. His hands finally move, from the couch to her hair groaning with pleasure. He stands suddenly, knocking her and her mouth full of cock back.

Then he starts fucking her mouth and god, if he didn’t think he knew what he was doing, he was mistaken.

Astrid reaches around, grabbing his ass to hold on tight. He’s hard, ready, and the ache between her legs is real. Very real. He doesn’t go for long, his breath growing ragged, his movements erratic. She holds on, feeling the clench of his fingers in her hair, the jerking of his cock, until he finally comes, hot cum filling the back of her throat.

She pulls away and swallows, before reaching for him once again and licking the tip. He falls back on the couch; sweaty, naked, and reaching for her. She climbs in his lap.

“That was barbaric. I think I owe you an apology.” He brushes her hair out of her face, kissing her on the lips.

She laughs. “No, you don’t.”

He watches her through half-closed eyes and she can’t help but study him, wondering if he feels it. If there’s been a change.

“Will the others know?” he asks her.

“They always seem to.”

“And they don’t get mad.”

She shakes her head. “No. Can you handle it?”

That’s a side of this they hadn’t discussed, but she also thinks it’s programmed into them. Jealousy doesn’t help the team.

“I-I think I can.” He’s joking—she feels no animosity coming from him. Just a strange sense of contentment that is not his norm.

“And if you can’t?” she teases.

“I’ll fake it, because those guys? Any one of them can kick my ass in a flat second.”

She sits on his lap, feeling the swell of emotions grow. She was never sure if she could bring Casper in. No clue if it could ever happen, but it did and that means she’s capable of the impossible.

An alarm sounds from Casper’s setup and he doesn’t hesitate, lifting her off his lap and dashing from the room.

“What is it?” she asks, following with his pants.

“Something’s coming through,” he says, pressing a few buttons. While it boots up he tugs the pants over his legs and grabs a T-shirt off the bed. His muscles flex when he pulls it over his head.

The screen pops to life and Astrid freezes when the image comes clear. She grips Casper’s arm. There’s no doubt from the background, where he’s streaming from. The Lair under her gym.

“Dr. Monroe, I hope you’re receiving this message. Things have taken a turn in Crescent City. Scheid has infiltrated the mayor’s office and the police force. Evacuations of the Swamp have already begun. Luby, Mick, and I have opened the gym to the refugees, allowing them space in the facility and upstairs dormitory. We’ve moved into the apartment but have now barricaded ourselves down here, protecting your equipment and secrets.”

He glances over his shoulder.

“Things have escalated quickly and I don’t know if you can get here in time. It’s not just the Swamp that needs your help, it’s the entire city.” Wrinkles crease by his eyes. “We’ll hold the facility as long as we can. The residents are your allies but let me warn you, not everyone in the city has your back. They feel abandoned. Lost and, most of all, afraid.”

A voice shouts in the background—Luby?

“Get here fast, Astrid. Your city needs you.”

The screen blacks out and Casper turns to her. “Are you okay?’

“No,” she replies, feeling a thousand emotions at once. “But we have our orders. It’s time to go fight for Crescent City.”

22

Owen

“Perfect. Everything is going to hell,” he says, perfectly summing up

Jensen’s live-stream once it’s over. “Goddam, fucking, hell.”

He watches both his teammates handle the information about the gym and The Swamp differently. For he and Quinn it’s their home, and now it’s overrun with evacuees. That isn’t the problem. The problem is, they’re losing any bit of control they had over the situation and every minute they stay here, on this island, makes it worse.

Astrid bursts in the room, disheveled and red-faced, with Casper on her heels. Draco smiles when he sees him and Quinn goes in for a hug.

Yay, he thinks and manages not to say. The band’s back together again. Even in his mental sarcasm he’s happy to see her again and know that she’s safe.

He bends down, reaching for the bag of equipment he threw in his rage earlier.

“Did you see the live stream?” she asks.

“Yep,” Quinn replies. “Looks bad.”

“How fast can you get us there?” Draco asks.

Monroe says, “I can have the helicopter ready within the hour.”

There’s an elephant in the room. A big one and it’s dressed in glitter and sparkles. “Someone needs to get Astrid up to speed.”

She looks between them. “About what?”

Owen takes a breath, ready to go on a tirade but Quinn holds up his hand. “Not you. You’re too pissed.”

“I can’t believe you’re not!”

“Pissed about what?” Astrid asks. Her forehead is lined with worry.

“Fine, you tell her, Draco. Tell her how you effed us up big time. How we’re going in blind against our biggest enemy!” He can’t contain his anger. Demetria is a weak spot for him. She’s haunted him for too long, toying with games about Lost Boys and luring him into her sick ventures. He knows they shouldn’t have partnered with her before. All it did was expose her gifts to the world, to Rowe and Scheid, and lead them right to her.

“Owen!” Astrid shouts. “What is your problem?”

Owen glares at Draco and Mr. Perfect shakes his head and sighs.

“We just found out Rowe and Scheid have another weapon in their arsenal,” Draco explains. His eyes dart to Monroe. They’re the ones that let this happen.

“W-what kind of weapon?” Casper asks.

“The worst kind,” Draco acknowledges. He holds her eye. “He has Demetria.”

Astrid’s eyes blaze. “He what?”

“He has her. How or exactly when, we don’t know, but he has her and he’s planning on using her to bring us down.”

Owen’s not sure what reaction to expect and it’s obvious no one else in the room does either. Anger. Rage. Betrayal all seem likely choices, but instead, a cold steel settles in her eyes. “He wants to use Demetria to destroy the Swamp and come after us?”

“We think so,” Monroe says.

“He can’t do that,” she says. “I won’t let him use her like that. I won’t let him mess with her head.”

“Astrid—” Quinn starts, knowing she’s going down a dangerous road.

“No, Quinn, Demetria is our responsibility.” She looks at Draco and he nods. “This is no longer just a battle for our city. It’s a battle for the survivors. Demetria. Rex. Blaze.”

“What if it’s too late?” Monroe asks. Owen can hardly believe this conversation.

Her jaw tightens. “Failure is not an option. Not with this.”

There’s a shift in the group. They’d always known Astrid was their team leader but they usually agreed anyway. Not now. There’s hesitation and it’s not just from him. Quinn looks wary. Monroe, concerned. Casper’s mind is running a million miles. Only Draco seems to be in her corner and that only makes Owen more skeptical.

Owen finally says, “I’ll follow your lead on this, Astrid, but if she tries to hurt you or anyone else on the team, I won’t hesitate to take her down.”

“It won’t come to that. I won’t let it.”

They stare at one another for a minute, daring the other to back down. Quinn finally breaks the standoff and says, “We need to get ready.”

Astrid nods and turns on her heel, walking out of the room. The others are frozen in their spots and Owen says quietly, “I’m serious about what I said.”

Draco silently grabs his bag and follows Astrid out the door. Casper and Monroe follow. Quinn reaches for his equipment bag and says, “Don’t make this personal, Owen. We have a job to do. We’re not out there to settle scores.”

Quinn follows the others, leaving him in the room alone, knowing that this isn’t about settling scores. It’s about ridding the world of a danger, even if it hurt to do it.

23

Astrid

Allowing the others to pass, Draco lingers back until he’s walking next to her.

“I should have told you all weeks ago that Demetria was no longer at the facility, but with everything going on there didn’t seem to be a good time.” He grimaces. “And I was worried about their reactions.”

“You were right to be worried.” Astrid holds his gray eyes with hers. “Owen had a lot of damage when it comes to Demetria. She zeroed in on him for her Lost Boy fantasy. He’s the Pan to her Wendy.”

He rubs his face. “I know. I fucked up huge—just when I’d earned their—your trust.”

“We all came into this from different places in our lives. Different connections and loyalties. I don’t fault you for caring for Demetria.”

“But…”

“But the team comes first, Draco. It’s a rule we have to live by, and one you’ve broken.”

“It won’t happen again.”

She stops in the middle of the walkway and presses her finger into his rock-hard chest. “It’s not something you can promise. It’s something you have to prove.”

The others enter the house and the minute they’re gone, he pulls her close, linking his palm with hers. “I’m committed, Astrid. Fully.”

He offers up his everything; mind and soul. She feels the rush of honesty. “I believe you, but I’m not the one you have to convince.”

He bends down and brushes his lips across hers and she feels the shiver of his intent down her spine.

“We may not be perfect, but it’ll come together.” They reach the door and she hears the others climbing the stairs to the second-floor living quarters. “For the sake of our home and community, it has to.”

* * *

“W-wait, you guys got to live here while I stayed in that shack? What the fuck?”

“You didn’t have to listen to Quinn snoring so loud he ripped paper off the walls,” Draco replies. Quinn shoots him a glare. “Dude, it’s true.”

“You’re here now and that’s all that matters.” He smiles at her gratefully. It’s odd having him here—in the flesh. It’s strange having all of them so close. “Grab what you need. Monroe will call when the helicopter is ready.”

She slips away for a moment alone in her bedroom, but nearly jumps when she catches a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror.

Good god.

Hair wild from wind and sex. She looks exhausted, not like a woman prepared to take down a major enemy.

She eyes the shower, then her watch, trying to determine if she has enough time. With a defeated sigh she settles on washing her face and brushing her teeth.

The water runs hard and if not for her enhanced senses she may have missed the vibration of her phone. It hasn’t run since she’d been here. She didn’t even think she had service. She doesn’t recognize the number but something nudges at her to answer it and she does. She swipes the bottom.

It’s not a call but a video.

“Hello Astrid.” Rowe’s mean face leers at her. Her heart skitters to a stop.

She forces herself to speak. “Rowe.”

“I was going to tell you how lovely you look but…what the hell is going on with your hair?”

She rolls her eyes. “Really? You called to talk about my hair? How psychotic.”

“It took me a while to track you down and truthfully, I don’t have a location—just a hack into your line.”

“Yay. Good for you. What do you want?”

“Just making sure you got my invite to the party.”

“Sorry, must have been lost in the mail. All I got was a nastygram filled with threats and lunacy.”

He laughs. “Always so witty. And beautiful. What’s it like hiding away with all your men? I bet they love it.”

“I bet they do,” she replies. He’s not going to rattle her.

“I figured you may not want to walk away from all that dick and fucking to fight me, especially since the Swamp had turned on you even more than the last time you were here, so I decided to up the ante.”

She keeps her face straight. What can he take from her? Everyone she cares about is in the room next to her. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“You left your gym in good hands while you were gone. Luby…he’s a good kid. A fighter.” Astrid’s stomach sinks. They’d already beaten Luby once. “I thought he learned his lesson but he’s not as smart as I thought he was. Came back to that dump you call a home. Tried to fancy it up. He and your manager, Mick? They opened it up as an evacuation point for residents of the Swamp. It was a kind and generous move.”

He doesn’t know Jensen got a message to them. Maybe he’s one step ahead. “They’re kind and generous people. But you wouldn’t understand that.”

“Look,” Rowe says, “I have a fond place in my heart for that gym. That’s where I got my start. Where I found my purpose. Where I met you.” He grins. “And I don’t want to destroy it. I really don’t. In fact, I plan on making it my headquarters once the riff-raff is gone. But your people…they’re breaking the new order. Harboring refugees isn’t permissible, and the last thing I want to do is torch my new office to make the rats scatter.”

“You’re disgusting. And the only way you’ll get that building is over my cold, dead body.”

“Don’t tempt me, Astrid.” His voice is hard. “I had no problem taking out Jensen or the others. I have no problem eliminating you, too.”

He looks at his watch.

“The destruction of the Swamp begins in ten hours. Collateral damage is a bitch. You need to come back here and face your past, Astrid, or I’ve got a trigger-happy blow torch ready to burn that sucker to the ground, because now that I think about it, a sleek modern building overlooking the park and harbor may be the perfect thing for that location.”

Astrid’s voice comes out in a whisper. “Why are you doing this, Rowe. What’s the point?”

“The point is that I’m sick of bitches like you telling people like me what to do. And if the good guys don’t want me on their team, then fuck them. I don’t have to be a hero, but I will be your reckoning.”

His face blinks out and she stares at her reflection in the black mirror.

Something tugs at her…something deep and buried.

Leaving her room, she sees the boys have settled into the sitting area, all dozing or asleep. She passes them, headed for the stairs and the testing facility. There’s no time to waste, but this is important. Inside, Monroe is in her office and she takes the steps two at a time.

“Astrid,” she says, face showing surprise. “I thought you were preparing.”

“Who is Rowe?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who is he? Like really, because there’s something I’m missing.” Astrid can feel it. Not in Monroe. Not in the others. In herself.

The doctor sighs and walks around the desk. The monitor remote is in her hand. She presses a few buttons and a photo of a child comes up on the screen. He’s skinny but looks tall. Light hair and dark eyes. He’s got a distant glint in his eye, like he’s not exactly looking at the camera.

Astrid reaches behind her for something to steady herself.

The boy walked through the backyard, picking up rocks. Astrid sat on the porch; Harry curled up in her lap. She kept an eye on this one—something about him felt weird. Not weird like Owen or Demetria where they made ships and forts out of thin air. Or scary like Devin and the fires he made in the pit behind the garage. He wasn’t quiet like Quinn or strong like Junior. He lurked around and kept to himself. He didn’t seem nervous. Just…angry.

Restless, Harry jumped from her arms, skittering across the porch. The boy looked up, eyeing the cat, and in a move too fast to comprehend, threw a rock hard in Harry’s direction. It landed hard, hitting him in the side and the cat squealed, leaping high before jumping over the fence.

Astrid stood, tiny gloved hands on her hips. “Don’t hurt my cat.”

The kid laughed. “You going to make me?”

He lifted another small rock and reared his arm back, beaming it in her direction. Astrid jumped out of the way and it slammed into the house behind her.

“Can’t stop me? Don’t have special powers? No fire? No super strength? No magic toys?” he cackled, inching closer. The pebble rolled in his fingers. “What can you do?”

She shook her head. Astrid didn’t know what she could do. Everything about her just hurt and she knew everyone else hurt. She felt it and tried to dull the pain beneath the layers of clothes.

“Don’t lie to me. I know why you’re all here. I know why he loves you so much. Obsessed over you.” The boy’s eyes were filled with anger. “You’re special.”

Astrid hoped, prayed someone would come outside. The kid was moving closer, his shoulders tensed and chest heaving. He wasn’t as big as Junior but lean muscles corded his skinny arms and there was a sense about him, a danger, and she desperately wanted him to stop looking at her.

He moved so close she could smell the sweat on his body, feel his breath, hear his heartbeat. She covered her ears with her hands.

“What makes you special, you little freak? What makes him love you more than me?”

She saw the intent of evil in his eyes interrupted by the screech of the screen door, pulling at the rusty spring. The sound was followed by the heavy clomp of Ms. Rosalie’s shoe.

“Baby girl, what’re you doing out here? Come get ready for dinner.”

Astrid turned, relieved, but noticed that Ms. Rosalie isn’t looking at her. She’s staring down the monster on the porch. The one holding a rock in his hands. The one barely containing his rage. Astrid darted inside, past the long skirt of her guardian.

“He was there,” Astrid says. “At the group home.”

Monroe sits in one of the leather seats across from her desk. “Rowe isn’t one of you—that’s the problem. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much his father wanted it, he didn’t have the specific qualities required to be in the project.”

“His father is Scheid.” The pieces start to connect.

“Yes. He put Rowe in the group home, hoping it would draw out some latent ability. He was convinced something was hidden. I think, unfortunately, what he saw was simply sociopathy.”

“Okay. Wow.”

“After he confronted you at the group home, Ms. Rosalie made him leave. She had enough on her hands with fire-starters and electricity users. Scheid raised him on his own, channeling the rage he had for losing you all into his son. Rowe, desperate for his father’s approval, located you and entered your Elite program. From there he overtook the entire agency, kicking out Jensen and threatening the city.”

“So he really does hate us.”

“He thinks his father loves you all more.” She shrugs. “I wouldn’t call it love, but he’s probably right. Scheid cares more about you than anything else.”

“Rowe contacted me tonight, hacking into my phone. He’s threatened my building and the refugees my people have housed there.”

She sits up in alarm. “He found you?”

“He said through my phone.”

Monroe jumps from her seat and says, “We need to get moving.”

“Now?”

“Scheid plays by a firm set of rules. He gave us a timeline. If Rowe contacted you now and pushed it…I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“I’ll get the others.”

“Warrick will tell you where the helicopter pad is located. Get there ASAP.”

“Got it.”

She pauses and gives me a sympathetic smile. “Good luck, Astrid. Promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Remember the training you had here. The simulations and using your mind as well as your abilities to get through a tough spot.”

Astrid nods, but doesn’t tell her that seems ridiculous. Sure, she taught them to think fast on their feet, but in the real world, dead is dead and destruction is real. Monroe may have been living on this island a little too long.

“Thanks for the tip. And good luck.”

The doctor laughs. “We’re all going to need it.”

24

Astrid

The helicopter sits on the cement pad in a clearing in the middle of the island. This place is full of wonder and mystery and a small part of Astrid is sad to leave.

Warrick leads them from the lodge, each with their suits on and equipment strapped to their backs. Casper has his own uniform—a different sort of super suit—modified to give him full online accessibility through voice, mental, and physical commands. With the suit, he no longer needs a computer system to help them. He is the computer.

Astrid hasn’t told any of them about Rowe and his true identity or the message she received from him, but she did see the fear in Monroe’s eyes and knows they need to get moving.

“What about the doctor?” Quinn asks.

“I think she’s staying here.”

Owen frowns. “Why?”

The sound of jet engines rumble through the early morning sky and she motions for them to get in the helicopter. “She’s got an island to protect.”

Draco looks conflicted—like he’s not sure if they should go or not, but Astrid pushes him to the helicopter. “She’s got this and we have a job to do.”

He nods and pulls himself inside. Astrid is the last in and he grabs her by the hands, yanking her inside. The helicopter rises, flying away from the island as the first sounds of battle begin below.

25

Casper

The helicopter curves around the city, giving the team their first glimpse of home just as the sun sets. Astrid pushes over Quinn for a better view, desperate for a look.

The Harbor Line cuts between the two halves of the city and a large fence has been erected between the two. Busses line the streets to carry citizens of The Swamp away. The whole scene is devastating but Astrid gasps, pulling their attention to a specific spot.

“Is that the gym?” Casper asks, leaning to the window. The pilot planned to land on the rooftop and if anyone thought it would be hard to locate they were wrong. The flat roof had been painted, tagged, in bright, bold colors. Portraits of each of them with stylized names; Pan, Charger, Casper, Draco and, of course, Echo.

“Luby is a genius,” Quinn mutters, completely in awe.

“Or he made the building a bullseye for Scheid and Rowe,” Casper mutters.

The helicopter lands, the propeller coming to a slowing halt. They hop out of the building and she’s struck by the powerful feeling of being home. Rowe isn’t going to take this away from her.

A figure exits the small door at the end of the roof, shading his face from the wind. She recognizes the gait and a second wave of emotion rolls through her. Coming from Jensen and from herself.

“What are you doing here?” she asks when he gets close enough.

“Luby and Mick needed my help.” He notices the confused expression on the guys’ faces. “You didn’t tell them?”

“There’s been a lot going on the last twenty-four hours.”

“The dormitories are full. Luby, with my approval, opened them to your supporters. We’ve got a full house in the gym as well. But Rowe has made it clear any collaborators will be punished. I’m worried about the building and the people inside.”

“If you’ll protect the gym, we’ll take care of the Swamp.” She nods at Casper. “Can you set him up somewhere safe? Maybe the Lair?”

“Yep, it’s all ready.”

She turns to Casper and gives him a hug, whispers in his ear, “Don’t leave me hanging out there, okay?”

“Not a chance, babe. You’re gonna kick ass.”

He wraps his arms around her and kisses her hard on the mouth right in front of the other guys. Who is this guy and how did Monroe pull him out of his shell?

She needs to thank her for that later.

The guys slap him on the back and shake hands in that bro-kind of way. Whatever, she’s just glad they’re together, synched up and ready to end this ridiculous terrorist crap once and for all.

“One last thing,” she says, turning to her team. They stand before her; packed, hard muscles, determined heroic faces. Knowing all hell is about to break loose, she takes a step toward Draco and reaches for the mask pushed into his sandy brown hair. She pulls it down, securing it into place. “Be careful. Be strong.”

He nods and pulls her into a tight bear hug, lifting her from the ground. “You, too.”

“Stay perfect for me, okay? I’ve got a lot of plans for you and your body.”

He grunts in response, kissing her twice before walking to the edge of the building.

She goes to Owen next and lowers his mask over his brilliant green eyes. Before she can speak he says, “Don’t do anything impulsive.”

“Me?”

“No running off, no picking fights, no diving into danger,” he ticks off one-by-one on his fingers. She grabs them and he flips the table, pulling her close. “Promise me.”

“I won’t be stupid,” she swears.

His eyes hold hers and his fingers dig into her hips. “I love you, babe.”

“Love you, too.”

He kisses her goodbye and she drags her eyes away from him to stand toe-to-toe with Quinn. He says nothing, just takes her face in his hands and kisses her passionately. She feels his everything in that kiss; his heart. His love, his trust and protection. He’s her rock and she knows damn well that she’s his. They got into this together and they’ll finish it the same way. They break apart and she pulls his mask down over his eyes.

“No lecture?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “I know you’ve got this, Astrid. And I know we’ll come home when it’s over, fuck and fight and laugh and do everything it takes to keep this city safe. It’s everything Atticus wanted for you and Holden wanted for me. We end this today and reclaim our city.”

She nods, feeling the passion in every word; she squeezes his hand and he joins the others.

Astrid takes a final moment on the rooftop of her home and business, knowing this could be the last time she sees it. Rowe may destroy it. He may destroy her.

She gazes over at her team, noting that they’re looking at her, not the city. They’re clad in supersuits, fierce and ready to take on the biggest villain they’ve ever challenged—as well as three of their own. As the sun sinks below the harbor, one thing is for certain: none of them will go down without a fight.

26

Astrid

Reluctantly, they agree to separate, taking the swamp from different directions.

“We’ll meet on Fourth and Main,” she says, synching up their maps. “Pan and Charger, you take the southside. Draco and I will head north.”

Owen frowns at this decision. “How about Draco not go with you.”

“Are you saying I can’t be trusted?” Draco retorts.

“No, but you just did. How do we know you won’t lead Echo into a trap? Hand her over to Scheid?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Shut.The.Fuck.Up,” Casper says over the com. “And stop being dicks. Are you seriously playing this game right now? Pan, get the fuck over it. Draco, stop being defensive. Don’t you see this is what Scheid wanted? How Rowe played you? He’s in your head. Get him the fuck out.”

Both men are silent with their eyes cast the ground.

“Echo, babe, I love you, but I’m taking the lead on this and my intel says to nix Fourth and Main. Meet at the gates of Crescent City homes.”

“The housing project?” she asks.

“Yep. Just do it. Intel is too sensitive to transmit.”

Their schematics adjust to the route he wants them to take.

Under the cloak of darkness, they separate on the roof, she and Draco descending the fire escape.

They have three goals tonight:

Protecting the citizens of The Swamp

Getting to the meet up spot

Stopping Rowe and his father once and for all.

* * *

Astrid flips herself over the fence, landing on both feet on the other side. Getting around the crowd unnoticed wasn’t easy. Once the sun went down, bright lights flooded the streets and armed guards roamed around. She recognized more than a few as recruits from the Elite program—Rowe’s men. Draco paused when he saw them, ready to take them on, but the crowd was too testy—like Rowe said, they don’t like her, and what happened if they turned on her and Draco before they even got over the fence.

Too risky.

The chain link shakes when Draco climbs over easily. His landing is quiet as a cat.

They’re in the park across from the gym, somewhere Astrid has been many times. She came here with Atticus as a child, roamed the park alone as an isolated adolescent and jogged through as an adult. It’s as familiar as her home, which is why she immediately senses something is off.

She touches her com. “Cas, I’m getting something weird here.”

“What?”

“It’s just…wrong.”

“My map overlay and satellite imagery come in clean. Is it through your empathy? You feel something?”

Draco also studies the park, forehead furrowed. “You sense it?” she asks him. He may not be an empath but Draco’s core ability is enhanced everything—peak human condition. So yeah, if there’s something going on, he feels it.

He doesn’t get a chance to answer before the night air is consumed with the sound of crickets chirping louder and louder. The sound ricochets off her ears and she covers them with her hands.

“What the hell?” Draco says, covering his own.

Tiny shadows leap from the trees, jump out of the shrubs; small, black, and moving.

Like a plague.

The chirping sounds more like screams and Astrid fights one building in the back of her throat. The bugs cover her feet, her legs, and jump for her fingertips. Draco flails. On her screen her vitals shoot up—heartrate, pulse, breathing. She pushes Draco in the back and shouts, “Run!”

Exoskeletons crunch under their boots as they race toward the fountain on this end of the park. They need to get somewhere high. Somewhere clean, and the statue in the middle of the fountain looks like a good target.

The bugs follow them, leaping and screeching at her heels. Draco arrives at the fountain first, bugs floating in the water. “Can you jump?”

“Yeah,” she says, zooming past him. She uses the momentum of her speed and panic and careens over the pool, landing hard against the bronze statue of a man riding a horse. Draco follows, his boots clanging against the hollow metal, and they stop to catch their breath.

The crickets don’t stop. They leap, most dropping into the fountain, but they don’t stop—piling high around the edge of the water, creating a wall.

“Draco, what do we do?”

He looks around and shakes his head. “I have no fucking clue.”

27

Quinn

Normally, the good thing about partnering up with Owen is getting through tough spots with his power. Unfortunately for them they’d agreed to not use any abilities where the crowd could see—they’re too volatile. Fighting the bad guys right now was enough, they didn’t need an entire city on their backs.

Since the roads were thick with refugees, they traveled to the south by rooftop; leaping building to building.

“How many of Rowe’s men are down there?” Owen asks, leaning over the last building. They’re by the harbor and it’s clear the new order doesn’t want the evacuees to cross into the historic area.

“Eight?” I reply.

“Try ten,” Casper confirms. He pops them up on the screens. Fuck.

“They’re carrying massive firepower,” Owen says. “Assault weapons. Heavy artillery. You sure we can’t use some Super juice to get past them?”

A row of streetlights brightens the main road. Quinn’s hand twitches.

“Don’t even think about it.”

He curses and eyes the soldiers below. “Look, we can fight them. I can blind them or Pan can get us through. Otherwise we’re never getting on the other side of that fence.”

Owen leans over the rooftop wall and looks down. “Charger’s right.”

“Ugh. Well don’t tell her I gave you permission, but fine. Use Pan’s cloak. It’ll get you in safely.”

“You sure you don’t want us to fight them? Because I’m down with that.”

“A trail of bodies may be a tip-off we’re back.”

A strange movement catches Quinn’s eye in the park. It looks like something fluttering—a wave of something dark. He climbs to the edge of the roof and holds on with the grip of his gloves. “Something tells me they already know.”

* * *

They shimmy down the side of the building, timing it perfectly with the passing soldiers. Using Owen’s cloak, they move quickly and quietly through the street and climb over the fence, only stopping when the metal wire rattles under Quinn’s weight. Two guards stop and look around. A sharp wind blasts past them and he jumps to safety, blending in with the shadowy dark of the park.

“Thanks for the assist,” he says about the wind gust.

“No problem. Just don’t tell Cas or Echo. I didn’t spend all that time training not to use my abilities.”

They jog across the park, knowing they lost time getting over the fence. Hopefully they won’t be too far behind Astrid and Draco. The park is eerily quiet with so much of the southside of the city cleared out. He does pick up on a strange hum of electrical current and as they reach the kids’ playground he says, “Have I ever told you that when you use your manipulations, I can sense a shift in the electricity in the area.”

“No. You haven’t.”

“Are you doing something now?”

“Not at all,” he replies, slowing his gait. They’re under a large climbing structure surrounded by five or six slides. The hair prickles on the back of Quinn’s neck and a sense of dread bears down on his chest. Owen reaches into the air—toward something on the playset that Quinn certainly can’t see, but it’s out there—something’s out there.

“What is it?” he asks.

Owen shakes his head but his feet are already moving when the first sound of rumbling shakes the ground. In a blink the structure shifts and turns, no longer a playground but a monstrosity of thick woven vines, erupting and twisting…

“Run,” Owen whispers.

Quinn does, keeping an eye behind him as the vines chase him like oversized snakes. The ground crumbles below them, thorny vines snatch at their feet. He follows Owen, trying to keep up, but the plant attacks his legs like jagged, sharp fingers.

Without looking back, he charges his hands and sends out a bolt of electricity, shocking the vine. It does little but skitter and jump before splitting into three long tendrils that lunge and wrap around his calves, dragging him to the ground.

He grabs for his whip, unfurling it and lashing out at the tentacles. He yanks, snapping the three threads apart and getting to his feet.

“Charger!”

Quinn searches the mass of leaves and thorny vines and spots the top of Owen’s head as he’s engulfed by the rope-like assault.

“Pan!” he uses his whip again but finds himself overwhelmed, thicker, stronger vines wrapping around his legs and torso. He fights, squirming, but they get tighter and tighter, crushing his body.

Finally, he stops, relaxing this body and allowing a thin noose to wrap around his throat.

Disoriented and confused, Quinn succumbs to the lack of oxygen and pain, drifting into nothingness.

28

Astrid

“Bugs,” he says, watching them surround the fountain. “I mean…bugs? It’s like we’re back in the—”

“Simulation,” Astrid says, finishing his sentence. “She knew. Monroe knew we’d come up against something like this. She warned me.”

“And trained us.”

“But how? How is this a simulation.” The crickets piled against the edge of the fountain and even away from them, Astrid’s skin crawled.

Draco’s gray eyes caught hers. “This isn’t a simulation,” he says. “But it’s also not real.”

“But how—” She curses under her breath. “Demetria.”

“Yep.”

Astrid gazes around the park at the cricket plague surrounding them, realizing now they’re not real, it’s all just mind games. “Monroe knew we’d face her.”

“And Demetria’s upped her game.”

“Hell yeah she has.” She smacks the back of her neck. “But we beat the simulation and we’ll beat her.”

He nods and they count to three, jumping off the statue and onto the ground. Crickets crush under their boots with a crackle and snap but they don’t flinch—well at least not much--and run toward the other side of the park.

She senses the bugs behind her, knowing she just needs to get to the street. It’s fake. It’s fake. It’s fake, she tells herself over and over, focusing on the far exit. Without realizing it, she’s chanting the words like a mantra, balling her fists with every repetition. Demetria’s manipulations are so good, so real that the terror she feels consumes her. She won’t let that stop her. Not the bugs, not the mind-games, not the fear.

We’re not doing this, she calls to Demetria. We’re not playing your games. You fight us, you fight us with your fists, face-to-face. Don’t be a coward.

The fear slowly fades, replaced by a strong sense of understanding. Monroe prepared her for this. Jensen prepared her for this. And Atticus raised her to face this moment. A feeling of peaceful understanding washes over her and she barely notices as Draco races past her, using his strong, fast legs to get to the gate. There’s no going through it—just over it to get to the Swamp. He leaps to the top and hangs, arm down to pull her over.

Until he looks past Astrid, mouth slightly agape, forcing her to glance back and slow her run. The path behind her is littered with dead and decaying crickets. At the gate, Draco grabs her hand and lifts her to the top.

“What the hell happened?” he asks incredulously.

She looks down at the littered path behind her and then down at her hands. “I think I did it. I think I killed them with my echo.”

“Holy shit.”

“You know what else?” she asks.

“What?” he jumps to the other side. She follows, feet landing quietly.

“I think we’re going to win.”

29

Owen

A moment, that’s all he had before the vines wrapped around his body like massive fingers on a giant. Prickly with thorns, it attacked his hands first, like it knew he needed them to escape. Quinn’s feet and legs were next and Owen watched helplessly as Quinn was consumed, swallowed whole by the slithering vines.

But in that moment, just before darkness overtook him and the loss of air and light made things worse, Owen grapples with the vine, scratching at it with his nails. He feels a vibration, a shift. The hum of his own power jolting back at him.

This isn’t real, he tells himself.

Not real.

He closes his eyes and clears his head and incredibly, even with the pressure of the vine around his chest, he inhales.

Not real.

If he had to guess he’d say he was doing it, but that’s ridiculous. He isn’t, but there’s someone else they know who can.

Demetria.

He’s not surprised Wendy would take them down. He knew it—never trusted her. Never trusted Draco when it came to her. They underestimate what she can do—why she does it.

She’s fucking batshit crazy.

And Owen? He’s not crazy, but he’s passionate. He’s in love. He wants his girl and her cranky, cheese-eating cat and everything that comes with it.

That little kernel of want builds in his chest and he knows that this trap is nothing but mindfuckery and a distraction. A distraction to get her alone.

“Charger!” he calls, voice muffled by the vines. He visualizes the man. His teammate and friend.

The air shifts before him, not quite ripping—not opening a portal or a door to another place but cutting through the vines, revealing the dark, curved sides of a tunnel.

Owen looks at his hands—they’re free. His feet, unbound. He moves into the dark hole, propelling forward on hands and knees.

“Charger!”

The name echoes back, bouncing off the walls.

The tunnel twists. Turns. Narrows in awkward places. Owen shimmies, crawls, squeezes through. There’s no light behind him. Not light ahead, but he’s creating this crevice, with his mind—his gift--so he forges ahead until he sees light.

Small, blue charges flickering in the dark. Owen stills, hearing the volatile zap, the surge of current building. He waits a beat. Then two, before scrambling toward the faint, weird light. The kind of light created by one man who could wield it to take down an entire city.

“Quinn,” he whispers, using his friend’s name. “Can you hear me?”

A muffled grunt comes in reply, but the light brightens enough for Owen to see. Their eyes meet. Quinn’s mouth is gagged with a thin band of vine.

“Hey man, do you see this bullshit? It’s bullshit,” he says approaching his friend. “It’s fake. False. Demetria’s doing.”

Quinn’s eyes widen and Owen finds a tendril of loose vine, squirming with life. He shoves it between Quinn’s fingertips and says, “Blow this fucker to pieces.”

Owen wraps them under a shield and Quinn blows it up.

30

Astrid

The explosion knocks her over, hurtling her across the sidewalk. Draco catches Astrid, rights her and pushes her on her way.

“What the hell was that?”

“I hope it was Quinn,” she replies.

“Definitely Charger,” Casper says in her ear. “His electrical levels just went through the roof.”

“Where the hell have you been?” she mutters. “We could have used your help back there.”

“I got knocked off. Something big.”

“Yeah, big and dangerous and out of her loving mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wendy’s in the game, Cas, get ready for it.”

Footsteps sound ahead and Draco holds his hand up for Astrid to stop. “Casper, what do you see?”

A pause. “Eh, not sure you want to know.”

“Cas…”

“Looks like fifty or so uh…well I don’t know what they are. None have a heartbeat.”

“So manips.”

Astrid catches a familiar scent, two heartbeats, and turns, crossing her wrists protectively—just in case.

Draco pulls his gun, but Quinn and Owen come around the corner, weapons drawn. There’s a beat, masks clearing each of them and they sigh with relief.

“You okay?” Quinn asks, eyes pinned to hers.

“I’m fine. The park is a freakshow, but I suspect you know that already.”

“Yeah, took us a minute to figure out how to get out of Demetria’s trap.” Owen pauses and listens. “What is that?”

“Fifty simulated somethings. Bodies. Enemies.”

We’d seen a lot on the island.

“Between us and Crescent Homes?” Quinn asks. He touches his mask to get intel. There’s no doubt when he sees it. “Fuck.”

“We have to fight them all,” Draco says.

“Like those bastard ninjas in the jungle.”

Quinn sighs with exhaustion already.

“We can’t go around them?” Owen asks hopefully.

Astrid shook her head. “Nope.”

Quinn unfurls his whip, the tip blue with electricity. Draco clutches his shield, the edges razor sharp. Owen hooks his thumbs in the twin blades hanging on his belt, and Astrid tugs at her cuffs.

“We get through them and then we go after Rowe.”

“And if there’s more after that?” Draco asks. He’s speaking of Rex, Blaze, and Demetria.

She takes a step forward. “Then we keep fighting until The Swamp is won.”

31

Draco

The battle begins in a heartbeat; the indistinguishable shadows Casper saw on his tracker attacking the moment they turn the corner. It doesn’t take long to understand Demetria didn’t send an army of simulated men to fight them. Where’s the fun in that? She sent monsters instead.

It’s the stuff out of horror books—or deep in the recesses of her haunted mind. Things with teeth and claws.

“What the fuck?” Owen mutters after running his blade through one. It lands on the ground with a thud. “Where’s the ponies. The unicorns? The glitterbombs?”

Draco breaks the neck of one of the monsters and replies, “You do remember the dragon, right?”

Two beasts are on him immediately, claws extended. He spins and kicks one in the jaw while Owen flicks his fingers, creating a hole that swallows the monster. “At least dragons are cool. These things…” he shudders, tossing two more in the hole.

Draco frowns and looks into the dark abyss. “Where does that go?”

“Hell if I know but there are limits on how far our power goes. I don’t think those things can exist outside a certain range.”

Draco throws himself back in the fray. While killing, he hears the zap and crackle of Quinn’s whip stunning and decapitating the beasts. Astrid uses her whole arsenal to stop them; explosives on her belt, stunning spray from her cuffs. Her cheek coated the black spray of death.

But like a mirage, they never seem to make a dent in the monsters coming their way. They just expend themselves; their energy, their explosives…

“It’s all a diversion,” he says, breaking the drooling jaw of a beast.

“What?” Quinn asks, stomping his heel on a thick, muscular neck.

“Follow me.” He slams his shield into a row of animals and runs to the highest object he can find. A green metal dumpster pushed against a building.

He waves to Astrid and calls out to Owen. They follow, leaping to the top of the container—the sound of claws against the metal sides. “Why do we keep doing this?” Draco asks. “How does it continue to happen? It’s not real.”

Astrid wipes the goo off her face and holds it up. “Real enough.”

Quinn’s arm, muscular and strong, reveals a deep cut.

“They want to deplete us before we get out of here. Demetria won’t let up until we’re worn down.”

“The only way to stop these illusions is to stop her.”

“Where is she?” Draco says into his com; they’d cut Casper out so he could scan the Swamp for the other Supers and Rowe.

“I don’t know.”

“Find her!” Draco says, filled with rage. He’s tired of fighting. He glances at Astrid, her long hair messy, her shoulders slumped. The battle rages but he scans the city streets. Owen’s right. She can’t be far away to maintain this level of power.

The beasts converge around them, surrounding the box. Quinn places his hands on the building.

“What are you doing?” Astrid asks.

“I’m going to wipe them out.” His hands shake, absorbing all the energy coursing through the wires and lines running into the building. Draco scans the block looking for anything that could lead him to Demetria. There’s nothing down here. It’s a broken-down, lost community. It’s a wasteland.

One thing catches his eye—and he knows it’s his only chance.

“Everyone stay on the plastic lid,” Quinn says, preparing to jump. He watches as Astrid and Owen follow directions, hunkering down. Draco turns the other way, scaling the side of the building, reaching for the jutting bricks to leverage. He looks down and makes eye contact with Astrid at the very moment Quinn jumps into the mass of hungry beasts, slamming his palms on the pavement.

The hairs on Draco’s neck stand on end as the whole city is electrified. He jumps from building to building—in the air when Quinn lays his charge. The scent of burned hair and flesh fills the air.

Draco eyes the building he knows is Demetria’s refuge—the only place it can be—and plans to take her down once and for all.

He lands on the rooftop of the stone building, one of the oldest in the area. The small yard around it is well-kept. The sides are windowless but the front door is large and welcoming. It’s the only place offering refuge in The Swamp, including the church spouting fire and brimstone from its marquee.

Draco slides down the column by the door and tugs the handle. As suspected, it’s open. He crosses under the sign affixed to the top of the door.

All Imaginations Welcome

There’s one place that would feel like home for Demetria—a place she can feed on to bring out these horrors and awful illusions. A place every community has the right to.

The public library.

32

Astrid

The monsters, conjured from Demetria’s damaged mind, sizzle on the street, no more than empty shells.

Quinn is crouched on the ground still, hands flat on the ground as though he’s waiting for them to resurrect, but they’re gone—Quinn’s powers obliterating Demetria’s. It may not be the source, but at least they can compete.

“Where’s Draco?” Owen asks.

She’d seen him climb to the rooftops, but as to where he went? She has theories she doesn’t share. Not with Owen. She shrugs and notes the question in his eyes. Those two still haven’t worked out all their issues.

“That was fucking epic!” Casper shouts over the com. “The path is cleared and if the heat signatures are right, you’ve got a few frenemies waiting down the block.”

“Why does this feel like a video game or something? Level after level? Challenge after challenge?”

“Because all of this is a well-constructed game,” Astrid says, jumping off the dumpster. Her boot lands on the leg of one of the charred beasts and she kicks it away. “All being manipulated by Rowe and his psychotic father.”

“Well, you just leveled up sweetheart,” Casper says. “And you need to bring your best because if the sensors are working, those are Supers waiting for you at the end of the road.”

“One of them invincible,” Owen muttered.

“That just means you may have to use your brain instead of your fists,” Casper tells him.

“Any sign of Rowe?” she asks.

“Nope.”

“Clock’s ticking,” she says, starting down the road. Owen moves with her but Quinn? He’ still lingering behind, quiet and scratching his chin. His gloves held up through the massive blast. Monroe’s tech works well. “What’s wrong?”

“I think Owen and I need to take this one on, As. You go ahead.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rowe is clearly trying to slow us down, but this is really about him, his ego and you.”

“I’m not leaving you to handle Blaze or Rex alone.” A tremor of fear rolls through her. Draco had already wandered off. She felt vulnerable without him by her side. She’d come to depend on them too much—as a unit. A team.

And what if something happened and she wasn’t there? What then? How would she go on?

Quinn runs his hand through his hair and takes a step forward. He brushes her wild hair over her shoulder. “We can’t keep fighting one battle at a time. You and I both know where Draco went. He’s cutting off Rowe’s arm. We’ll take care of the others.” His eyes penetrate hers. “You’ve fought Rowe before. And beat him.”

“So have you.”

He touches her chin. “Go kick his ass, Astrid. Find him and destroy him.”

“I don’t like this,” she whispers.

“Then let’s end it.” He brushes his lips across hers.

Owen squeezes her hand.

“Meet me at Crescent Homes?” she says.

“Deal.”

And like that, they go in opposite directions. Quinn and Owen off to take on two Supers—the strongest and most depraved among them. She pushes aside the question of ever seeing them again and slips into the dark, taking her usual back way to the housing project.

“Echo—” Casper says, buzzing into her ear. She cuts him off.

“Follow the others. I’ve got this.”

“Fuck no. I am not leaving you alone.”

She leans against the cool stone of the wall that separates the housing complex from the rest of the community. She feels the faint hum of life behind the barrier. A sole heartbeat.

“Casper, if I’m going to do this, I need to know you’re with them. I need the peace of mind of knowing you’ve got their backs, because if I win this fight and there’s nothing to come home to,
then I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“If you lose this fight and I wasn’t here to help you, then they will never forgive me, Echo.”

“I love you, Casper. I love your filthy mouth and dirty mind. I love the scared boy and the emerging man. I love that you’ve loved me before I even knew you existed.” She touches the mechanism in her mask with her finger. “But I need to do this alone.”

“Echo, don’t.”

She sends a pulse through the wiring, a flare of energy strong enough to disable the system. There’s not a moment of second-guessing. This is between her and Rowe, a battle long brewing.

She climbs the stone wall, passes the now-abandoned apartments, stopping to look at the one Luby shared with his grandmother. That’s who she was fighting for—the weak and oppressed. The victims of ego-driven bastards that wanted to own and control the rest of the world. The Swamp first, Crescent City next, and…she didn’t want to think of what would come after that.

Fuck this guy and his insane father. Fuck them both to Hell.

Cool rage collects in Astrid’s mind and body now that she’s separated from the others. She’s pushed them from her mind, refusing to linger on worries. She focuses on the solitary heartbeat, the steady breath of her foe. She’s honed in, catching his scent, the leather of his jacket, the sulfur on his weapons. The lingering scent of charred flesh carries on the night breeze. Astrid rounds the corner on one of the buildings that she knows leads to the small green space between homes, that is no longer green and probably never had been, expecting to find Rowe.

Instead she finds a massive building, a home, three stories high with wide windows on the top. Marble columns and two arching staircases frame the front. It isn’t real. Of course not, but Rowe stands on the front porch, leaning over the railing.

“Welcome to Crescent Homes,” he said, wicked smile on his face. “I’ve been waiting.”

Astrid stares at the man whose father has caused so much pain for him and wishes she could show him mercy, but the breeze picks up and she catches two additional heartbeats, slow and fading.

The movement is what catches her eye. The sway from the railing. It was lost in the magnificence of the building and cold dread fills her stomach.

Hanging from thick ropes tied around their necks are two of her reasons for being here. For fighting in the first place.

Jensen and Luby.

33

Draco

The library remains untouched; quiet and serene. The scent of paper fills the air and he uses his heightened senses to seek out Demetria. It isn’t a surprise to find her in the children’s section, sitting on a soft green chair under a canopy of paper butterflies and flowers. Her eyes are closed, deep in concentration. She looks different from the last time he saw her. Cheeks gaunt, skin sallow. Gone is her flamboyant clothing and styled hair. There’s no glitter or glamour. Just a woman sitting in an oversized chair, surrounded by books.

Draco approaches her quietly, noting her shallow breathing and twitching nose. She’s in deep concentration, maintaining whatever illusion she’s created at the moment.

He pulls a blade.

He doesn’t want to kill her, but her power is too strong. Her mind too unbalanced. With the knife aimed and ready, he rears back and releases it.

Her dark eyes pop open and she waves her hand, blowing the knife out of the way. It buries itself in a shelf across the room.

“Draco, sweetheart,” she says, giving him a dangerous smile. “Sent to kill me?”

“No one sent me, Demetria. And I’m doing what I have to.”

She frowns. “So, you finally betrayed me. Like the others.”

“You’ve betrayed yourself.” He looks at the books on the floor. All dark fantasy, filled with monsters and evil. Inspiration. The top one has an image of a grand house. Her left hand is held steady, no doubt maintaining illusions he can’t see, most likely hurting his friends. “I never wanted it to come to this. I worked for you. I protected you and I thought maybe we could join forces.”

“You were all supposed to be mine,” she says in a soft voice. “My lost boys. But then she came.”

“This is not about Astrid.”

Her eyes lit up with anger. “Isn’t it? Don’t you know fairy tales always have a villain?”

“So do comic books and superhero movies,” he replies, standing tall over her. She may be weakened but she’s not without great power. The beasts outside proved that. His hand is close to his shield. “I’ve never been a lost boy, Demetria. And the villain always thinks they’re right. That they’ve been treated unfairly, betrayed, wronged.”

“So you’re saying I’m the villain?”

He bends down so they’re face to face. “No, Demetria. You’re not the bad-guy. You’re the pawn.” Her face contorts like he slapped her. “Scheid is behind this. Rowe. Their quest for power and control over us. They’ve exploited your weaknesses, Demetria. Your mental illness and ability to do exactly what you’ve never wanted.”

Her eyes falter at the undeniable truth. “And what is that?”

“In your rage to take out Astrid and to get us back, you’ve destroyed your home. The Swamp is no more. It’s a skeleton. Nothing but bones and the carcasses of your beasts.”

The words hit her hard but she’s not one to accept reality. Her eyes slide to the knife protruding out of the shelf. “You came to kill me, even after I gave you a home. A job. A purpose.”

Guilt. It weighs on him even though it shouldn’t.

“We can do it another way,” he says, knowing it may be too late. Draco values loyalty. Honor. Killing one of his own seems too much.

“What?” she asks. “Lock me in another cage? Numb me to take away my powers?”

“There are others out there—people that aren’t like Scheid. The doctors that tried to help us when we were kids. They weren’t all bad.”

She stares at him. Jaded. Guarded. “You realize he’s going to kill you all, don’t you? No one can stop them.” She looks at her hands—her nails no longer painted but short and plain. “No one can stop him.”

He looks down at her, sad that she’s so small. So lost. He can end this now.

“Draco—there’s an extraction helicopter on the way. Monroe’s men will take her.”

He already hears the faint beat of helicopter wings. “Take her where?”

“To safety—for now. We can negotiate later.” He hears the sympathy in Casper’s voice. He carries the same weight. This woman took care of them, but she’s also done so much damage.

He slides the blade back in its sheath and removes the handcuffs off his belt; they’re the kind that disable powers. She doesn’t fight when he clamps them on her wrists.

They walk outside and she doesn’t struggle but they both look overhead.

“Friend or foe?” she asks with the tilt of her head. She nervously eyes the road that leads to Crescent Homes. The next battle is there and with Demetria out of the picture, Rowe may get desperate. He must hurry.

“Friend,” he replies, recognizing Monroe’s symbol on the side. It’s a lie. He has no idea what they’ll do with Demetria, but it can’t be worse than what Rowe has planned. “I can’t guarantee what will happen if you hurt someone.”

She smiles and with her hands bound touches his chin. “I know. I know.”

A soldier drops from the helicopter, attached to a cord. Draco warns him about the cuffs then straps Demetria in. A tug later and they zip back up, hurtling toward the sky.

The helicopter circles around the city and Draco moves on to the next fight.

34

Owen

His heart races when Astrid disappears around the street corner. Every fiber in his being tells him to go with her—to back her up—and he takes a step in her direction.

A fireball shoots into the air like a flare, bringing him back to reality.

They have their own battle to fight, and Astrid? She can take care of herself. He has no doubt about it.

“Fire balls?” he adds a string of curses. “I am so sick of these bastards.”

Fucking Rowe and his fucking monster-mind. He wonders for a brief moment if he does have a super power. Evil counts, right?

“Well, then, let’s go stop them for good.”

Owen lifts his hands and creates a shield; if anything it’ll buy them time to assess the situation.

“You really think Draco went to take down Demetria?” he asks. Owen doesn’t deny his distrust of the man. He knows Astrid has brought him in. He’s encouraged it, but there’s something about his relationship with Demetria that rubs him wrong.

Quinn shoots him a hard glare. “Draco is solid, Owen. You’re being paranoid.”

He looks forward and Rex stands in the middle of the road, arms crossed. No weapons are visible. No special suit or tech. Just a man that can’t die. He seems completely sure of himself.

Cocky. Fucking. Bastard.

“How are we going to do this?” Owen asks.

“We break him. Restrain him.”

“And the Human Torch?”

“We kill him if we have to,” Quinn replies with a set jaw. Murder didn’t suit him and Owen knew he’d do what he could to spare these men’s lives. He personally just didn’t see the alternative and was prepared to do the deed if necessary.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” Rex sings, knowing they are there—just not visible.

“I hate this guy,” Owen grinds out.

Another fireball flies into the air, this time crashing down on the street ten feet away. The heat of the fire singes the tips of his hair. Before they can react, another falls down with a massive explosion. Then another. Blaze isn’t going to give them time to work out a plan. He’s going to keep firing until he hits his mark.

“The fire is coming from down that rooftop,” Quinn says. “I’m going to take him.” He charges his fingertips, the blue flame sparking from his gloves.

“You’re leaving me?” Owen asks. “To fight that guy by myself? What the hell, dude?”

Quinn nods. “You’re a good fighter and really good fucking with people’s minds. Show him what you’ve got.”

His partner slaps him on the back and runs away from the shield in the direction of the fire. Rex watches him run and Owen mutters, “Fuck it,” and races straight toward him, shield up, until he’s inches away from Rex. At the last second, he drops the shield and Rex’s eyes widen. Owen punches him hard in the face, then again in the ribs, and kicks his feet out from under him. He channels all his physical power, all his rage and goes in full force.

“Here I am, bitch,” Owen says, smashing his fist into Rex’s cheek. “Ready to play and shut down your crazy ass—”

Rex grabs him by the throat, his massive hand cutting off Owen’s air. He stands easily, while holding Owen by the neck, hot, dank breath in his face.

“Shut up.”

Owen flicks his fingers, turning the cuffs of Rex’s shirt into imaginary manacles. Reality shifts in his opponent’s mind, thinking his hands are bound and he jerks back, giving Owen a chance to breathe. He doesn’t hesitate, kicking him hard in the stomach, hard enough to drop him to the ground.

“You can’t kill me,” he says, narrowing his eyes and breaking the chains.

With both hands Owen calls into his power, shaking the buildings all around him. His mind grabs at the buildings, tearing at the brick, the cement and beams. They fall like an earthquake, an avalanche of solid rock. Rex barely gives it a look. Why should he? He won’t die. He’ll keep surviving regardless, and he stalks toward Owen with a dark gleam of evil in his eyes.

Owen reaches for his belt, filling his palm with hard pellets that he rolls across the ground. He stumbles backwards, watching as they melt and turn into an acidic goo. Rex laughs and steps out of his boots, walking over the acid, feeling no pain. “You can’t stop me or Rowe or his father. All you have is tricks and illusions. Sure, you’re strong, but how long can you really last?”

He unleashes his fury on Owen, every ounce of rage he’s carried all these years. Scheid cultivated evil in that house and Rex is an example of that hate. He breaks through every challenge Owen tosses his way. He grabs him by the wrist, breaking each of his fingers on his right hand.

Owen bites back a cry of pain.

“Did you really think you’d be of value to your team? You’re useless,” Rex says, pushing him to his knees and standing over him with a murderous glint in his eyes.

A shadow crosses over him—them—and Owen realizes he has one chance. One chance to lock this bastard up for good. He stares over Rex’s shoulder, eyes pinpointed, tugging and tearing at the fabric of time. He’s tired, worn out from the vines in the park, the battle with Demetria, the beatdown from Rex. He hasn’t recharged but if he can get a door open…

Rex leans over him, hands coming for his neck. He ignores him, mind focused, but he sees the man lurch forward, a gasp emitting from his throat. Owen scrambles backward, feet moving, hand wailing in pain, widening the tear, slowly ripping it open.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Rex spin, a hulking beast slashing a sharpened shield across the bastard’s throat. Blood spills, spraying across them all, and the beast calls out, “Pan!”

With a clenched jaw, Owen yanks hard against reality, opening the door big enough to toss a man into. The other side is visible. Dark. Solid. “Do it. Now!”

His energy wanes, falters, and the door flickers with wobbly edges. Rex, bloody but not dead, sails through the opening just as the fabric weaves shut.

Owen falls back, head landing with a thud. The beast stands over him, touching his forehead gently.

“Casper, we need help. Pan is down,” Draco says into his com.

“Roger that. On the way.”

“You came back to help me?” he asks.

Draco frowns. “Of course, I did. We’re a team. You’re my brother.”

Owen nods, feeling lightheaded. Looking to the sky, the beating wings of a helicopter comes their way.

“Sorry I’ve been a dick.”

Draco shrugs. “Love makes us do weird things.”

Owen laughs, then swears, because dammit his hand is fucking shattered.

Seriously though, love makes them do weird things.

35

Quinn

By the time he climbs up the side of the building, Quinn is pissed. Not a little pissed, but mega-pissed, and the entirety of this whole fucking nightmare is wearing him down.

He heaves himself over the edge of the rooftop, eyes leveled on Blaze, who is joyously burning down The Swamp. He’s an asshole. A dick. A complete and total pain in the ass.

And Quinn is done.

Done.

So. Fucking. Done.

Blaze pays him no attention, too obsessed on the fires burning below, and Quinn unleashes everything he’s got into barreling across the rooftop full speed. His hands are charged, his body primed, his mind focused. Blaze looks up when Quinn is mere feet way, hands blasting a full pulse of heat.

The dry wave of heat flips on a switch in Quinn’s suit, one made especially for him. Fire with Fire, Monroe told him during a long training session. He knew he was the one that had to take down Blaze. Their powers were similar. Their energies compatible, and Monroe’s team designed this suit not only to protect, but to absorb.

A fire-resistant shield covers his face, and the full thrust of fire crackles at the suit. Conduits shifted the flickering flames into modified electricity, giving Quinn an additional dose of current; one that spreads down his limbs into this hands.

Blaze stares at him for a brief moment, trying to figure out why he wasn’t a pile of ash on the ground. Quinn smiles and lifts his hands, long ropes of electricity hanging from his fingertips.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Blaze cried. He threw fire in a panic, each one landing with a hard thud before being absorbed in the suit.

Quinn had perfected his skill with the whip months before, but now he didn’t need a weapon in his hand. His hands are the weapons, and with a grim expression he swings the blue-white coils through the air and eliminates Blaze in a single, sweeping motion.

“Casper?” he calls into the com.

“Charger? You okay?”

Quinn looks down at the man hog-tied and face-first on the rooftop. He’d seen the helicopter swooping through the air. He lifts his hand and waves. “I could use a ride.”

“You’ve got it. Be there soon.”

Exhaustion sets in. Mental and physical, the adrenaline that carried him over the past few days and weeks drain from his system.

He wants to go home.

He wants a shower.

But most of all, he wants his girl.

36

Astrid

Rowe’s black gloves grip the rail and he watches her as she crumbles.

Jensen and Luby, hanging by their necks. Other than the faint sound of their heartbeats they appear dead, arms hanging limp by their sides.

“Like my prototype? I’m going to build this right here. Once the land to the south is cleared, I’ll have a view of the harbor. I’ll be able to see the lights of Glory City.”

She runs to the building, toward her friends, removing a sharp blade from her belt. Astrid leaps, flying through the air, but she slams hard against an invisible boundary—her body crashing, then slumping to the ground.

“Mother-fu--,“ She cries, hand still gripped around the hilt of the blade.

“Oh, I forgot to say, we’ll have immense security to keep out the riff-raff like yourself. The freaks and criminals. We’re changing the entire city.”

Astrid tries to discern if the men hanging from the railing are real or part of the illusion. Her echo says real, but Demetria is good. Draco needs to work fast.

“Too scared come down here and fight me?” she taunts, hauling herself off the ground. “Built yourself a little fortress to hide behind? Typical, Rowe. You’ve always been pathetic. I knew it the minute you walked in my gym. Sure, you have muscles and stamina, but you’re weak mentally. You let your emotions get ahold of you.” She raises an eyebrow. “I should know.”

The truth, though, is that she can’t get a lock on his mind. There’s something blocking it—the shield surrounding the illusion or something else. No wonder he won’t come down to fight her—let her get inside that head.

Oh well, she thinks, tugging at her gloves. If he won’t come down, she’ll have to force him. Those are her friends—her family—standing there. Gathering the threads of her echo, every last bit of it, she slams it against the illusion. She reaches for that place inside, the one of calm control. She’s looking for Rowe—for his person past the façade, but the shield between them is too strong. A blank emptiness.

Taking a deep breath, she zeroes in on what Monroe told her about Rowe. His father, his rage and weakness. His lack of true gift and the darkness she knows burns in his soul.

She’ll have to get through the illusion first.

“Come on, Draco…”

She feels a gap and slips a tendril of her echo through the fissure in the shield. It coils around Rowe’s brain, past the smug exterior and into the deep well of his psyche. Astrid stumbles on his most recent memory and holds tight when she realizes it’s of Scheid.

This is your last chance. The final opportunity. If she beats you today, there will be no other chances.

I have the devil at my back, Father. Walls to protect me. Beasts at my disposal. She won’t get through.

Bring them to me. I want them all. They’re so close, they’ll all be on the battlefield at the same time. The walls will go up and they’ll be mine. Finally.

A twist of fear rises in Rowe. Paranoia. He verbalizes it. Is this about them or is this about us taking over the Swamp. Claiming the city for ourselves?

Scheid’s face is full of scorn. I’ve waited years for this day and you think this is about land? Property? Cleansing? This? This is why you’re a waste. We have power at our fingertips and you want to be a Lord.

The doctor turns, eyes narrow with hatred. I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re a human with human wants and expectations. You’re nothing compared to them. Why should you believe you can lead a team of exceptional humans? Why do you think you’re worthy?

The clashing hatred shakes Astrid at the knees. She holds on to the thread—the memory. It’s ruthless and shifting. She understands the heightened darkness now. She watches as Rowe unleashes all he’s carried against his father in one fast moment.

You think I’m unworthy? He strips off his jacket, revealing the bulging muscles of hours of relentless training. He takes the weapons off his belt, laying them calmly on the table. You think I’m not exceptional?

Scheid’s incredulous, scornful face watches the display.

Rowe steps forward and in a series of quick moves renders his father useless. The man hangs from the neck in Rowe’s strong grip. “I will not rule this city on the backs of others. I will rule it by my own fist. You’re the one that’s pathetic, Father. Weakened by the desire for children that were never your own, when you had the most loyal here all along.”

He tightens his grip and in the echo Astrid hears the sound of the man’s neck breaking. The shock and horror of the memory jolts her from his mind, the cord severed and the fissure closing.

It only makes Astrid push harder. The wall doesn’t keep her out. Instead it crumbles, shattering in a fell swoop. Her eyes pop open and she knows in her heart she didn’t do it.

“Good work, Draco,” she says as the illusion blinks out, vanishing for good. Luby and Jensen fall, landing on the ground in a solid thump. She hears heartbeats, she reaches for her com to call for help but curses. She’d destroyed her access to Casper. A foolish move that may kill them both.

Rowe no longer stands on an elaborate balcony but at the top of a metal jungle gym. He looks…ridiculous; massive and rageful on a children’s play set. The full force of Astrid’s echo slams into him, charged up and ready from before the illusion fell, hitting him full force, and he falls backward off the structure.

She’s not stupid enough to think he’s down but she takes the time to check on Luby. His body is crumpled on the ground, his eyes closed. She doesn’t have to touch him to feel his faint heartbeat or hear his shallow breath. Astrid takes off her gloves and presses her fingertips against his forehead. She’s not looking for his echo but using it for him, giving him a dose of pain relief until help can arrive.

“Jesus, Casper, if you’ve hacked my system or added in a second com that you use to spy on me in the locker room that I don’t know about, please get help here. Now.”

“Astrid,” she hears, followed by a distressing cough. It’s not Casper, but her adrenaline spikes at the sound of his voice. She turns to Jensen but a shadow falls overhead.

“Fucking bitch.” A hand grips her back. She falls forward, using all her strength, and pulls him with her. His head hits the side of the structure and she manages to get in three punches before he grabs her fists.

“You killed your father,” she spat. “I knew you were a psycho, Rowe, but even for you that seems low.”

Astrid knows his weakness was of the mind, not the body. He has so much deadly rage, and she’d thought it may be where she could get the upper hand. But now, face to face, feeling the absolute rage pour off his body, she realizes any emotional connection with him was gone. He’d lost it when he snapped and killed his father.

Hand to hand. Fist to fist. That is how the battle for the Swamp, the City, will ultimately be handled. She shouldn’t be surprised.

“You should be happy I killed him,” he seethes. “He wanted to cage you. Harness your power for his own uses. Me? I just want you destroyed.”

He kicks her in the side, powerfully knocking her back. His punches are brutal, but she trained him and uses her speed over his size to gain leverage. It’s like they’re back in the ring; bobbing and weaving, taunting one another. Astrid won all of those fights but this one is the most important.

Blocks away, a ball of flame explodes in the sky. Rowe smiles through bloodied teeth. “Another Super bites the dust.” He looks around, well aware that Astrid is here alone. “Or is it two?”

She has faith that Casper is coming. She has to believe that someone is coming to save Luby and Jensen, and she doesn’t want to be here when they arrive. She won’t give Rowe the chance to hurt someone else, so she edges back toward the maze of buildings, giving Rowe what he wants.

A chase.

She’s familiar with the territory from her nighttime visits for Luby and his mother. Her eyesight allows her to see the cracks in the sidewalks, the busted glass and piles of belongings left by the residents on the run.

His footsteps are loud behind her. Lumbersome. He’s gained massive amounts of bulk over the past few months, working on his muscles, stroking his ego. He never learned, not in all of their training or lessons, that strength doesn’t make the strongest player.

Quick wit. Sharp mind. Clear intentions.

That’s how she survived the simulations. The gala and parade with Demetria and the terrorism at the stadium.

Astrid isn’t human, she’s super-human, with enhanced gifts of speed and strength. Eyesight and senses. And yes, she fucking feels, so goddam much that it hurts, but that’s the difference between her and Rowe. She cares about this city, her friends, and her family.

She spins, whirling around when he’s mere feet away, kicking him in the gut. He grabs her leg but she jumps, twisting out of his grasp. Punches land on his jaw, hard and bone-breaking. She’s gloveless and filled with pure adrenaline, which fuels her to jump on him, tackling him to the dirt.

They grapple on the ground and she gets him in a chokehold, leg wrapped around his waist. She pulls at his neck, knowing she can snap it. “You took everything from me. My parents, my family, the home we grew up in. Then you came for Atticus and my gym. You can’t take anything else. I won’t give it to you.”

“You think I’m the one that can’t get over my anger,” Rowe says, eyes clenched in pain. “You’re the one that wallows in emotions, Astrid. The one that can’t let go. Break free from the chains.”

In a blink she drops her grip and grabs his face with both hands, palms flat on his cheeks. His eyes bulge when she releases her wrath on him, her power. She shoves her pain inside of him. The house exploding. The loss of Atticus. Losing Demetria in the parade. The simulations and the beasts and fighting day after day for this moment. This very moment. With her face close to his, she grinds out, “You want me to be free? Then get the fuck out of my neighborhood. Leave my family and friends alone.”

Blood pours from his eyes, his ears, and he grins. “I’ll always be in your head, Astrid Petta. An echo along with everyone else. That may be worth it.”

The pain comes quickly, unexpectedly; slicing into her side. With a twist, Rowe takes a final breath, eyes fading. His weight falls heavy, she drops him and reaches for her ribs. Blood soaks her hands and she looks down, seeing the knife in his hand. He got in one last blow.

She falls to her knees, the pain too much. Her heart races in her ears, beating like a drum, and when the cool breeze washes over her she knows for certain no one came. Luby and Jensen are still down. Astrid closes her eyes, knowing that she may have won the battle, but wonders if there will be anyone left to care.

37

Casper

From the helicopter, the view of the sun rising over the harbor is magnificent. Monroe sent an army of physicians and soldiers that dropped into the Swamp to clean up the mess left by rogue superheroes and villains intent on battling it out.

Even the hint of gold and pink from the morning sunrise doesn’t help the bleak, abandoned housing project. Neither does the blood.

Draco, Owen, and Quinn are with the prisoners, seeking their own medical help back at the gym. None were in good shape. The fight with Rex and Blaze took its toll. A helicopter took them back just as Casper was headed in.

“She cut me off,” he’d told them over the com. “Yanked the fucking system out.”

“Can you find her?” Charger asked in a strained voice.

“Hell yes I can find her.” He shook his head and climbed into the waiting helicopter. Monroe’s pilot nodded. Two doctors were already in their seats. “I installed back-ups in all of your suits. I knew she’d pull something like this.”

She knew it, too, which was why she called for him.

He jumps out before the helicopter lands on the barren field left after one of the units burned to the ground. The playground is in sight, two limp bodies on the ground. He directs the physicians to go to them.

He peels off, watching her beacon over his display. Her heartbeat is low and singular. He gets nothing off Rowe. He rounds the corner of the building, morning light along with drops of blood guiding his way.

He picks up his pace, running now, fearful of her fading pulse. It bleeps in the display, slowing…until he sees the crumbled forms on the ground. Pulling out a taser, he checks Rowe, but he’s lifeless, neck and head askew. His display shows no sign of life, and he circles him to get to Astrid.

She’s lying in a pool of blood, knife jutting from her side.

“Babe,” he says, bending next to her. He does his best to keep his voice level. “B-babe…wake up.”

There’s no response.

He slaps the button on his chest. “I-I-I…f---fuuuck!” Blood oozes from the wound; he presses both hands over it. Taking a deep breath, he calls again, “I need help. Echo is down. Rowe is dead. I repeat: Echo is down.”

He knows better than to remove the blade, and his display shows the faintest of heartbeats. She’s still alive. He gets to his knees and lifts her, steadying under her weight.

“Help!” he calls, needing anyone, someone, to come help her. Casper isn’t big and he curses sending Draco and Quinn back, regardless of their injuries. His heart races, panicked about losing her. Losing everything. One of the doctors runs around the corner, eyes wide when he sees them.

“Get the chopper ready,” Casper says, holding her tight.

“Is she alive?” the medic asks.

“Barely.”

Blood soaks from her suit through his own. He feels the stickiness on his skin but only clenches her tighter as he’s helped into the helicopter. Luby and Jensen lie on the floor, both clinging to life.

The chopper rises and the medics tug Astrid from his hands. He looks down at the community below, Monroe’s olive-green-clad soldiers pouring in to secure the neighborhood.

Rowe may have lost the battle but we won the war, he thinks, feeling the adrenaline drain from his system, his eyes shifting back to the woman he loves. If he loses her, if the city loses her, they may never bounce back.

38

Astrid

Wet sandpaper tickles the bridge of her nose, pulling Astrid from the deep grasp of sleep. Dread fills her chest at the thought of opening her eyes. Is she back in the box? Down in the Swamp? Is there another battle ahead? She knows without looking that her body is bone-weary and in no shape for a fight.

Soft fur rubs her cheek, along with a deep rumble that forces her eyes open.

“Harry?” she whispers, coming eye-to-eye with her best friend. “Did we die and go to heaven together?”

“Seriously? You think people and cats go to the same place in the afterworld?”

Her head whips to the side, eyes snapping to connect with familiar bright green. His words are sarcastic—lighthearted, but the worry lines etched on his face, along with a stitched-up lip and heavy bruising, tells a different story.

Astrid’s hand goes to her ribs and she winces in pain.

“Rowe got in one last shot.”

“I snapped his neck.” The sound—the feeling echoes through the fog of her mind.

“Hell yes you did.” He moves closer to the bed and brushes her hair back. “God, I have never been so worried.”

“I had to end it.”

He nods. “You did. You ended it. Him.”

“Blaze? Rex?” If Owen’s face looked like this, she couldn’t guess what happened to them.

“Locked up. Along with Demetria. We got them all.”

“Locked up where?”

“Monroe has a prison facility on the island,” Quinn says from the doorway. His arms are crossed over his chest. He studies her carefully from a distance. Assessing each part of her body, but mostly lingering on her face. “They’re secure.”

She almost cries when she sees him and Owen wraps his hand around hers. She sucks in a breath. “Draco? Cas?”

“Both alive. Good. They’re down the hall. Lucky for all of us, Casper had you wired twice. He had his eyes on you the whole time.” She opens her mouth to speak but he adds, “Jensen and Luby are fine, too. We’ve got a whole medical bay set up in here.”

Here, she realizes belatedly, was her old apartment—her old room from before she moved to the dormitory. Harry circles her lap, looking for a comfortable spot, and she grimaces when he gets too close to her wound.

“Come on buddy,” Owen says, lifting the yowling cat. “Let’s get you some cheese.”

He kisses her on the forehead and leaves the room.

“So Rowe and Scheid are dead.”

Quinn nods, entering the room. He looks terrified to touch her. “Both confirmed.”

She wished this made her feel better, but the loss of it all is too much. “How’s the Swamp?”

“Honestly? A mess. The mayor is asking for federal assistance.”

Tears build and she blinks them back. “How did this happen? How did it get so out of control?”

“Those sins are not on us, Astrid. We’re the result of years of corrupt experimentation, not the cause.”

She watches him, this rock of hers, she’s loved him almost since the day they met. “We’re going to keep fighting, right?”

He smiles. “Always. Like Atticus and Holden wanted.”

He takes her hand and kisses the back, his lips chapped from what she assumes was the heat from Blazes fire. She reaches for him and runs her thumb over the dry skin. “You’ll have to tell me what happened.”

“Don’t worry. We will. Even the part where Owen and Draco almost beat the shit out of each other instead of dealing with Rex.”

Her jaw drops. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Please tell me that drama is over.”

“It’s amazing what almost losing someone you love does to you.”

She links her hand with his and says the only words that come to mind. “I love you, too.”

* * *

Even with a fast-healing body and a dedicated medical team, Astrid’s wounds take time to mend. Along with the stab wound, she suffered a concussion, a few cracked ribs, and too many bruises to count. But just because she’s out of commission doesn’t mean the rest of the city is. Jensen, using leverage from his days at the agency, is appointed Deputy Mayor with direct orders to oversee the reconstruction of the Swamp.

Astrid releases a pent-up breath of tension when she hears that. It’s time for a change in Crescent City.

A week after the final battle, Draco leads her to the rooftop. She’s in her hoodie and leggings and the warm heat of the day lingers on the roof. She walks across the mural Luby painted, marveling in his creative ability.

“He’s been approached by several art representatives,” Draco says, following her gaze. “When the national news crews came in, they got a good look at this painting as well as a few others he’s made around the city.”

“That’s incredible,” she says, feeling conflicted. “I don’t want him to leave, but if he can find a future out this disaster, one that allows him to create his art…” She wipes away a tear. She can’t stop crying and the constant surge of emotions is pissing her off. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Draco takes her face in his hands. “You’re exhausted? Overwhelmed? Burnt out? I know I feel all of that.” He leads her to the edge of the rooftop and they overlook the park and the Swamp beyond. There’s not a lot to see from this distance, but cranes are being assembled and the fences blocking residents from entering and exiting the south side of town are gone. “But that fight wasn’t for nothing,” he says. “They’re rebuilding. Jensen has a new focus. The community is coming together instead of apart.”

There’s truth to his words—she can see it with the gates gone and the refugees back home.

“How do we keep it from happening again?” she asks. “How do we know there aren’t more of us out there?”

His jaw is a hard line as he considers her words, gray eyes focused on the horizon. His hands, the ones that have touched her—loved her--grip the wall surrounding the rooftop and he sighs. “We keep the suits,” he declares. “And we establish ourselves as the guardians of this city—of the powers we hold. We align with Monroe and keep tabs on her and her experiments and the prisoners on the island.”

“You think that’s enough?”

Draco faces her, his intensity burning high. “We owe it to our mentors and parents to do everything we can.” He leans in and kisses her, mouth hard, tongue hot. “I’m in this ‘til the end, Astrid. With you. With the team.”

She links her arms around his neck, careful with her injury. Draco is a beast of a man—her beast of a man—she feels so lucky to have him by her side.

“So what do we do now? Are you going home? Will we stay here? What about the gym?” There’s a million questions and she’s still too overwhelmed to think about them all. The future of the city, what she can do to help, and when she can just simply be with her boys again.

“I think that’s something we’ll have to figure out together, don’t you?”

She nods and they shift their gaze back to the sunset slowly dipping below the horizon. Astrid leans into his side, feeling safe and warm and for the first time in months, like she can finally breathe.

* * *

She finds him down in the Lair, plugging away at something on the computer. He looks up when she walks in, dark eyes brightening when he sees her in the doorway in a T-shirt and shorts.

“What are you working on?” she asks. It’s late. Prime Casper hours when everyone else is asleep and he’s down here doing his thing.

He leans back in the chair and reaches his hand out to her, skimming the back of her thigh with his fingers.

“Figuring out the best way to get high-speed internet into the Swamp. The infrastructure down there is a nightmare. I’ve spoken to Jensen. Upgrades are a priority.”

“Look at you, turning all civic-minded.”

He smiled up at her. “S-someone taught me how to use my powers for good and not evil.”

She nudges his chair back and takes the liberty of sitting in his lap. His arm links around her waist. “You’ve never been evil, Cedric. A little mischievous. Dirty-minded for sure, but not evil.”

“I’ve also upgraded all your systems for the gym. Membership, accounting, trainer schedules. It was like 2003 up there.”

“Thank you.” She bends and kisses him on the neck softly.

“You know I can’t be involved with a company with antiquated programs.”

She brushes his hair back. “I know babe, I really appreciate it.”

He watches her closely. “How’s the concussion?”

“A few headaches but way better.”

“And the stitches?” His hand slides to her side.

“Out. Just a little bruised on the ribs.” He nods, eyes flashing. “What?”

He shrugs.

“What?” There is definitely something on his mind.

“I’m just thinking about when you’re all better.”

“What about it?”

“Just all the dirty things I’m going to do to your body. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

Her eyes shift to his lips. For a semi-recluse, Cedric is an amazing kisser, and sitting on his lap makes her remember how he felt in her mouth. She touches his chest. She’s well aware the boys have taken him into the gym and started him on a full training regimen. “Dirty doesn’t necessarily have to mean rough, you know.”

“I’ve got a lot to learn.”

She smiles slowly. “I am a fantastic instructor.”

There’s no denying the growth between his legs. “So, you take beginners?”

“All levels.” She licks her lips. “And there’s one thing I’m especially good at.”

“What’s that?” His Adam’s apple bobs.

“I’m not one of those people that stands on the sidelines. I get in the ring. Lead by example. A fully immersive lesson.”

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“Only because you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven, babe.”

He groans and she eases into his chest, knowing that soon she’ll make all of this man’s dreams come true.

39

Astrid

She’s read stories about soldiers coming back from war. How they need time to process before rejoining society. How before planes and helicopters they travelled by horseback, by boat, to and from the battlefield, giving them time to prepare for what was coming and time to decompress from what they had seen.

Astrid and her team didn’t have that choice. They were stuck on the battlefield of their city, in a home filled with refugees and wounded. Even after they get the all-clear, their roles aren’t easily defined.

Who are they now?

Teammates?

Friends?

Family?

Lovers?

In her heart she knew it was all of the above, but how does one express that? How does one declare the path ahead when the journey to this place was created from fear, destiny, and a bundle of raging, intimacy-deprived hormones?

These are the questions on Astrid’s mind as she steps into the gym for the first time in weeks. Her gym. She trained here. Worked here. Fought here.

The sound of padded gloves slapping against one another catches her attention.

“Steady,” Draco says. “Keep your arm up. Don’t let him sneak one in there.”

“This is a bad idea,” Quinn says.

“What? I literally have one hand tied behind my back. If Casper can’t take me like this then he’s a total wuss.”

“Shut the fuck up, Owen,” Cedric huffs.

“Make me.” There’s a smile behind the threat.

Astrid walks around the corner and finds her boys in the ring. Well, two in the ring, two on the sidelines. Cedric and Owen square off while the other two watch from the outside.

Owen’s right hand is still in a cast, his fingers re-set after the fight. He has two more surgeries to go and that’s exactly why Astrid shouts, “What the hell are you doing?”

All eyes shift to her. Owen slips the glove off his left hand and it falls to the floor.

“We were sparring,” Cedric says.

“I know that.” She approaches the ring, eyes pinned to Owen. “You have a broken hand. Why are you in the ring?”

“We thought it would be a fair-er fight.” Owen smiles with pride. “You know, since I’m down a hand. You didn’t expect him to get in the ring with one of those two, did you?”

Draco and Quinn avoid her gaze. She shakes her head. “I didn’t expect him to get in the ring at all.”

Cedric approaches her, his lips curved in a smirky smile. “C-come on babe, you didn’t expect me not to learn the ropes? Not now that I’m part of the active team and not just hiding behind my computer.”

She touches his chin. “You weren’t hiding. We need you there. That’s your job.”

“I’ve been working on my skills lately. I think I can probably hack into a computer—with my mind.”

She stares at him, at the possibilities. Holy shit. The others seem equally impressed. “We’re not hacking into anything. We’re taking a break. To heal. The city is better. They don’t need us anymore.”

Cedric spreads the ropes and nods, encouraging her to enter the ring. She does, still not pleased with any of this. Draco and Quinn step inside and they’re all together, mostly healthy—definitely alive.

“Look,” she starts, “I just think we all need to take a break, maybe. Figure out what we want to do with our lives. What we want to do with…you know.”

“No,” Quinn says, crossing his arms. “We don’t know.”

“I don’t want to force any of you to stay. We fought the battle our mentors prepared us for. If we want, we can…” She can’t say the words.

Owen’s jaw drops for a brief moment before he recovers. “Are you breaking up with us?”

“No!” She cries. “I’m just confused. Are you confused?”

Draco shakes his head. “Not in the slightest.”

Quinn works his jaw and says, “Nope.”

Owen rubs his chin. “Absolutely, fucking, not confused at all.”

Cedric sighs. “If you think you’re going to ditch us, we’re going to have to get a therapist or something. Like Superhero family counseling, because four of the five of us are a hard no.”

Astrid swallows. “I just thought that after all that you may want to explore other options.”

Slowly they’ve crowded around her, she feels their heat, their strength. Fingers touch her hair, a hand lands on her hip, a soft kiss on the back of her neck.

“That bond?” Quinn says, “The one that brought us together? It’s still with us, Astrid, even if the fight is over.”

A thrill runs up her spine.

“Do you really think the corruption in this city is over? That the gangs are off the streets? The criminals are gone?” Draco asks.

“No, but…”

“There’s no but, Astrid,” Owen says. “This thing we’ve got? It’s not going away. We’re not going away.”

She looks at each one of them, sees the love in their eyes, feels it in her heart.

“So, we’re good?” she asks, trying to figure out where the doubt had even come from. Exhaustion, most likely.

“Better than good,” Cedric says. “And Draco’s right. I have a long list of criminals we need to keep an eye on. That dark web shit is for real.”

That’s when it hits her. She wasn’t confused about these men. No. She was just lost without a purpose. But they’re right, evil will always exist. They may not even be the only ones with powers out there.

“So we keep working?” she says.

“In the gym,” Quinn says.

“On the web,” Cedric adds.

Draco nods. “In the business community.”

“And in the bedroom,” Owen says with a cheeky grin. “Because I’ll be there when you’re ready.”

“Dude, you did not just say that,” Quinn chides.

Draco shakes his head and picks up the boxing gloves on the ground before walking off in disgust.

“You have one hand,” Cedric says, “How much pleasure can you give a girl with one hand?”

“As much pleasure as I can get from kicking your ass with one hand,” he growls and the two start circling.

Even though she shouldn’t, Astrid laughs, and Quinn tosses his arm around her shoulder. She leans in.

“Do you think they knew about this?” Astrid asks.

“Who?”

“Atticus and Holden. Do you think they knew we could build a family like this?”

He thought about it for a minute. “They probably knew we needed each other—although I doubt Atticus knew about the sex part.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah, probably not.”

“I do think they’d be happy to know we found one another. I really do.”

She smiles, feeling the tug of loss and love in her chest. She may have lost her father and mentor, but she gained so much more. Astrid gives Quinn a kiss in the cheek. “Me too.”

Epilogue

The fresh-churned soil, balloons, banners, and bright, sunny day make Astrid feel like she’s entered an alternate reality. Days ago, this was a warzone. Now? The future is coming to the Swamp.

“Stop,” Owen says. He looks handsome in his green leathers, face obscured by his mask.

“I’m not doing anything,” she claims.

“You’re stressing out,” Quinn adds, squeezing her hand. “It’s for the best. The community will be better this way.”

“He’s right,” Cedric says. “Crescent Homes should have been razed decades ago. The rebuild looks amazing. New apartments, playgrounds, community center with programs for all ages. Jensen outdid himself.”

Jensen stands under an archway made of red and blue balloons, speaking with reporters. She doesn’t know if it’s out of guilt, retribution or what, but like Cedric said, he’d outdone himself with the Swamp revitalization project. He looks up and gives her a proud smile.

The wall surrounding the community is still there, but it’s no longer gray and oppressive. Luby has spent the last few months working on his own project—approved by the city and with the help of a selected crew of artists. It’s bright, cheerful, and uniquely him. He’s talking to his own group of reporters and can’t keep the smile off his face.

Astrid and her team are across from the spectacle, waiting on the rooftop of a nearby building. They’re each dressed in their Supersuits. Their identities are still something of a secret to the community at large. The mayor wants to thank them publicly for their actions during Rowe’s siege, and asked them to be at the ground-breaking for the new Crescent Homes.

The rooftop door opens and Draco appears, tugging on his mask. “Working double duty today?” Quinn asks.

“WIND-E has donated a considerable amount of money to the healthcare facility being built. The press wanted to talk to me about it.” Draco still oversees the corporation. Demetria, from her cottage on the island, requested it. “But we all play multiple roles in this city. Mine just requires a suit and tie.”

“You look good in a suit and tie,” she tells him. God, all she wants is to be back at the house with them, eating doughnuts and playing video games. This—the attention, the reporters, everything about it—is painful.

Working through the pain of everything that happened has been as difficult as her physical healing. She longs for normalcy but is that even possible? Astrid eyes each of her men; they’re dressed up in costumes. They’re all in love with her and she with them. They fight crime and make love.

No, nothing about this is normal at all.

And that’s okay because she isn’t normal. She’s a fucking empath. And these guys? They are totally not normal. Not their powers or muscles or heroism or the way they love her with the ferocity of a thousand suns.

“You okay?” Draco asks, watching her watch them. All four of them stop and face her.

She thinks about everything they’ve been through. The pain, the death, the battles. The love, the lust, the commitment. Astrid has no idea what will happen in the future, but she does know the bond she has with these men is unbreakable and the future looks brighter than ever.

That’s too much to say though, and she can’t start crying before accepting her gold medal from the Mayor—that is totally un-superheroey. Instead she just kisses them all, one at a time, and says, “You know what? I think I am.”

To keep up with Angel for fun, entertainment and exclusive book updates please join, Angel’s Antics, on Facebook! This is the final book in this part of the Super’s series. I am hoping to send these incredible characters on new adventures at some point but for now I’m wrapping it up here!

My next release will be in mid July 2018 with the second book in the Allendale Four series! Can’t wait to share! For information on my other books, check out Amazon.

FYI: I’ve added an excerpt for my NON-reverse harem book, Vigilant. If you liked the Super’s series I think you’ll be into this one too! Scroll down!

Vigilant

What kind of person robbed a hardware store?

That was Ari’s first thought as she lay on the cold dirty floor. Her second was to keep her eyes down and away from the armed robbers.

The linoleum floor felt cool under Ari’s cheek. Once white, it now had a filthy, grayish tint. She tried not to think about the last time it had been cleaned. Not that that was her big worry at the moment, anyway. She focused on the men running through the store, shouting orders and making demands.

Ari took a deep breath, exhaling hot air across the slick floor, producing a light sheen of fog. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. Ari spent her days working with the criminals of this city, and now, on her day off, she walked into the middle of an armed robbery at her neighborhood hardware store. It was only a matter of time before she became a victim to Glory City’s incredibly high crime rate. Again.

A noise nearby reminded her that she wasn’t alone in her position on the floor. She looked at the customer closest to her. His panicked eyes darted around, while he clutched a silver wrench in his hand. Great, she thought, this guy was going to get killed over a leaky pipe.

She’d been shopping in the tool aisle, looking for a Phillips head screwdriver, when the armed robbers burst through the front door, yelling and making demands. Like everyone else, she dropped to the floor, never looking back at the men, because if working with a full caseload of juvenile delinquents had taught her anything, it was to never be able to identify an attacker. Instead, she put her head down, allowing her short hair to obscure her face, and she listened to the robbers demand money from shoppers.

They roamed the aisles. Well, at least some of the aisles. Multiple voices had shouted when they’d entered the store and Ari had caught a glimpse of at least two guys. At the moment, though, it seemed clear there were more than that. She heard two across the store fighting with an employee while at least two others trolled through the aisles.

“Give me your wallet.”

“Here…take it…” said a trembling voice on the other side of the shelf.

Ari heard feet shuffling and raised voices near the counter. The cashier cried out, something about not having a key to the safe. A loud thwack echoed through the store. Ari flinched at the sound of metal against flesh.

As the struggle continued over the locked safe, the other men patrolled the rows of hardware, stopping at each customer asking for their money and jewelry. The escalation in violence kick-started Ari’s heart and she began to panic, too. As the men came closer to her row, she looked at the antique diamond ring on her right hand, and with a resolved ‘hell no’ under her breath, slipped the ring off her finger and shoved it in her mouth, pushing it into her cheek with her tongue.

She nudged her purse in front of her face. They could take her money—the little bit that was in there. She just wanted to get out of here alive. For five years Ari worked as a caseworker for Glory City. The job had taught her several things: always pay attention; never turn her back, not even for a minute; and always wear shoes she can run in. She flexed her toes in her black leather boots and cursed the blind spot she had from her position on the floor. Congratulations Ari, at least you have two of the three…

Her self-congratulatory thoughts dissipated and her heartbeat quickened as the footsteps came closer to her row. She glanced up and caught sight of the stocking cap and shaggy hair hanging out from underneath. She knew that kid. Jace Watkins. He wasn’t on her caseload but he’d been in the office. He had a reputation and Ari could have sworn he’d been remanded over to the adult system and had been in prison. Obviously not, because he was definitely one of the robbers. He turned his head, and for a brief moment, their eyes locked.

Crap.

She’d broken rule one.

Trying not to freak, Ari braced herself for Jace’s approach, running her tongue along her grandmother’s ring for confidence and pressing her palms flat against the floor. Maybe he didn’t recognize her.

That thought was short-lived as a pair of boots kicked her bag aside and warm, calloused hands wrapped around her mouth. Another hand grabbed onto the waist of her jeans from behind. Ari’s body slid across the floor backwards. She fought back, twisting and kicking, trying to make contact. Whoever had their hands on her was too strong and very fast.

The four rules Ari just thought about vanished because there was one rule that trumped all the others.

Never get moved to a second location.

Past the point of panic, Ari bit the inside of her attacker’s palm. He cursed but didn’t move his hand. She heard a low whisper in her ear, “Trust me.”

“Screw you!” Ari yelled, or tried to, into his hand.

A commotion across the store made Ari jerk her head in that direction. Four guys ran through in baseball caps and sunglasses. Jace held a gun to an elderly man’s head and asked him for keys to the office.

Four? The guy who had her was a fifth. Not one she’d counted before and not one seeming to work in conjunction with the others.

Her abductor stopped at the back of the store and hoisted her against his chest. Ari’s mouth was still covered, but she watched as his free hand covered the door handle. The muscles in his forearm flexed as he twisted it and again, she noticed how strong he was. Her eyes widened as the knob stopped at the locking point, but he continued rotating until there was a sharp crack, breaking the metal off in his hand.

He swung the door open and pushed her inside a small, cluttered closet, lit by a single blub hanging from the ceiling. Ari turned quickly, looking for an escape, but he had her blocked. Anger welled up inside her chest, surpassing the fear. But, instead of a gun-wielding criminal, Ari found herself face-to-face with him.

He wore a baseball cap under a thick, black hooded sweatshirt. The brim shaded much of his face and Ari couldn’t see his eyes. All the same, she knew it was him. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing muscular brown arms and on his left wrist she saw a blur of letters tattooed in dark ink.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, working around the ring in her mouth. She spit it into her palm. He ignored her and started to leave. Ari realized he was going back out to the front of the store.

“Hey,” she said, gripping his arm.

He turned sharply and put a finger to his lips. She looked up at his eyes, which were shadowed completely by the bill of his cap. Despite the obscurity, she was mesmerized by the intensity and control brimming from within, and Ari found herself nodding, willing to do whatever he asked her.

“Don’t leave until the police get here,” he said in a gruff voice. He closed the door, leaving only a sliver of light between it and the frame. Ari pressed her back against a wall, catching her breath.

Within moments, Ari heard a loud smashing sound. Shelving? The shouting increased, and the distinct sound of grunts and curses exploded from the other side of the door. Someone was getting their butt kicked for sure; she just hoped it was the bad guys. Ari listened to the fight, wincing here and there as fists landed on flesh and objects toppled over. The inside of the closet felt increasingly stuffy and hot. Sweat pooled at her lower back from nerves, heat, and the mere fact that she couldn’t see what was going on outside.

She should’ve been scared, but she wasn’t. He was a legend, a myth. Even though she’d never laid eyes on him before, she knew. It was him. Although there were documented accounts of his existence, there was no solid proof. Ari now knew the truth. He was real.

He didn’t have a name. Well, obviously he did, but not publicly. He was that guy who walked in the shadows and appeared in the nick of time. He saved drowning babies and appeared out of nowhere to help those in need. He was on the playground when the bad guys tried to sneak away with other people’s kids. He was like Batman or Superman or The Green Arrow, but not the made-up fantasies of men who never grew up and who sketched their heroes into comic books. He was real, and he’d just saved Ari from four armed gunmen.

He was the Glory City Vigilante.

Ari sat in the familiar office waiting on Detective Bryson. Nothing much had changed since the last time she was there four years earlier, except the pictures of his wife now included two children.

She’d given her statement at the robbery, claiming to have hidden in the closet while the men ransacked the store. She lied in her report, not including any information about the mystery guy singling her out. She wondered if this was why Bryson had asked her to come to the station, or if it was about her parents. He hadn’t said.

“Thanks for waiting,” Detective Bryson said, closing the door behind him. They met when she was 21, when he showed up at her apartment, grim and bearing bad news. “How have you been?”

“Pretty good,” she answered. “Busy with work.”

He sat behind his desk, shuffling some papers around. When he looked up, he frowned and said, “You cut your hair.”

Ari ran her hand over her short hair. The last time she saw him, her hair went halfway down her back. Now it was short, other than the long pieces she tucked behind her ear. “Spontaneous decision,” she said.

“It looks nice.”

They looked at one another over the top of the desk. Detective Bryson had rich brown skin and pretty, grayish eyes. She barely knew this man at all but he’d seen her at her worst. “So,” she said. “Any particular reason you called me down here?”

“I’ve been assigned to this robbery you witnessed and wanted to ask you some follow-up questions.”

Ari breathed a sigh of relief. Not about her parents. That had been put to rest. She saw no need to open that wound again. Good. “Sure, how can I help you?”

“The report says you didn’t see the guy that stopped the robbery.”

“The mystery man?” Her face reddened when she said the made-up name out loud. “That’s what I call him. You know, since no one knows who he is.” Ari took a deep breath. “No, I didn’t see him. I wasn’t aware there was anyone in the store other than the robbers and the customers.”

“He disabled three of the men, but one got away.”

“Jace Watkins. I recognized him from our office.”

“Do you think this ‘mystery guy’ would have let him go for some reason?”

Ari frowned. “Why would he let him go? Isn’t that kind of his thing? Stopping bad guys?”

“That seems to be his motive but between us, we don’t know what this guy is up to. It’s important for us to cover all angles and get him off the street. Vigilantism is never a good thing. Unfortunately, he’s as much of a suspect as the other men.”

Ari was as pro-police as a person could get, but she didn’t agree about the mystery guy. He seemed to do what the police couldn’t. They had rules and procedures that kept them from catching criminals without wading through a pile of bureaucracy first. Regardless, she kept this opinion to herself. “Well, I didn’t see anything, promise. Once I saw Jace, I hid. I’d worried what would happen if he’d recognized me.”

“Good thinking.” Bryson smiled and flipped the file on the top of his desk shut. “So, how have things been for you other than armed robberies and ‘mystery men’?”

“The same. Still living with Oliver and trying to keep the juvies out of trouble. Clearly, our work with Jace Watkins wasn’t much of a success story.” She saw the concern in his eyes and cut him off before he could bring them up. “I’m taking it one day at a time. Or more like one week at a time now, I guess.”

“Good,” he said. He stood up and she did the same, thankful the meeting was over. Ari had no intention of reliving the accident again today, and being with Bryson brought her emotions to the surface.

“It was good to see you,” Ari told him.

“You, too,” he said. “Please let me know if you remember anything, okay?”

“Sure,” Ari said. She left Detective Bryson in his office, hoping she wouldn’t be back at the police station for a long time.

* * *

Ari scrambled up the steep incline of steps to the court house with only minutes to spare. Inside the dated, 1970’s style industrial building, she waited in line behind a mother and her three small children, each having to pass through the metal detectors and a search by the security guards before being allowed inside the building.

“Good morning, Carl,” Ari said to the guard, dropping her black leather satchel, keys, and phone onto the conveyer belt. They disappeared behind the curtain and into the x-ray machine.

“Ms. Grant,” he replied and waved the wand over her body. No alarms rang and he allowed her to pass through and gather her things.

“Is she here?” she asked, eyes darting to the courtroom over his shoulder.

He nodded and said, “She just arrived. I saw her Mercedes pull into the parking lot.”

“Thanks.” Ari walked across the crowded waiting area and found a seat near the judge’s chambers. She hoped the wait wouldn’t be long. Judge Hatcher had a notorious reputation for being late, but as Carl had just confirmed, she might be on time that day.

Ari rummaged around in her satchel and pulled out a small stack of paperwork she needed to catch up on. She also took a moment to search the room for Hope’s family. She didn’t see Hope’s father, which wasn’t that surprising, but she thought perhaps her grandmother would make it for the hearing.

Sixteen-year-old Hope had been on Ari’s caseload for over a year. Half feral, she’d spent over nine months at a long-term detention facility for an assault charge. Hope had been out for three months and had been doing well until Ari received a call on Friday night that the girl had been arrested for prostitution.

The idea that Hope sold herself was upsetting, but not a stretch. Almost all the girls on her caseload had prostituted themselves at one time or another. It was a common practice for them. Too common, and this wasn’t the first time Hope had been charged. That had been a while back, and Ari had thought they were past this type of behavior.

Ari opened the file and reviewed the information in preparation for the hearing. It would determine if Hope could return home or if Judge Hatcher would send her to an out-of-home placement—possibly detention.

Twenty minutes later, the bailiff came out of the courtroom and announced Hope’s case. Ari slid her file back into her bag and followed him into the room. She nodded to a different guard before sitting down on the long, narrow bench in front of the judge. Judge Hatcher sat above the room at her podium. She caught Ari’s eye and smiled. The two of them had a history of working together on behalf of Glory’s children. There were days when they each had to be tough and break hearts, but doing so had been a necessary evil. The tiny judge was dark haired and pretty. On first sight, most of the kids thought she’d be easy to manipulate, but they were mistaken.

They had the same misconception about Ari.

For the first year, Ari faked it. Pretending to be tough as nails, but swallowing back the fear and sadness that consumed her daily. Over time, though, she’d realized that the best way to reach them was by providing consistency and a firm approach. They had to know she was there for them—no matter what—but that she would also lock them up in an instant.

Ari wasn’t tiny by any means, but slim and tall. Her short, black, cropped hair, streaked with red made her appear less girly, and she wore her makeup heavy on her eyes, but light everywhere else. Scattered over her body were a dozen tattoos.

The minutes ticked by while the judge spoke quietly with the lawyers, and they all waited for Hope to exit the back hallway and enter the courtroom. The door near the front of the room opened and a corrections officer brought Hope in. Dressed in standard blue coveralls and generic tennis shoes, she shuffled over to the seat behind the defendant’s desk. She looked exhausted and her normally well-kept hair was a tangle of knots at the back of her head.

Ari offered Hope a wary grin but was met with a heavy eye roll and a snarl. Ari stared back, refusing to feel guilty about the girl’s choices. Hope’s reaction wasn’t exactly shocking. Ari cared for her, as much as she could allow herself, but the lifestyle Hope led tipped the scales out of her favor. Not just illegal, prostitution was risky—often deadly. As her probation officer, Ari’s job was to make sure Hope stayed on track and she worked diligently to help her stay in school, get a job, and stay off the streets. Ari couldn’t do that if she was in jail.

With a bang of her gavel, Judge Hatcher announced to the court the start of the hearing, reading Hope’s full name aloud and reciting the numbers of her case. Ari waited in the galley, behind her client. It was now in the hands of the judge to determine Hope’s fate.

To read more of Vigilant check out Amazon or other retailers

Dear Readers,

Thank you for following me on this journey. I hope it lived up to expectations. Writing in a new subgenre can be a challenge and Superhero Fiction proved that for me! Add in a family crisis mid series and it was a tough final book for me to write. A brief thank you to my support team: AngstG, VCedits, LJ Swallow, Ava Mason, Soobee, A Norton, Jennifer and all the others that keep me pumped up and motivated on our Facebook group!

As always, I have more books in my brain I will be putting on paper soon! We’ll meet again then!

Angel

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