Day's End (16 page)

“This is a goddamn mess,” Toxxin muttered, rubbing her hands over her face. Beside her, Dani seemed unable to tear her eyes away from the screen.

“It’s not her, Dani,” I said.

She swallowed hard. “I know. Jolene saved me. Jolene saved me and was there for me. I know that’s not her.” She blew out a breath. “But they already feared her. And they don’t know her like we do. He made her into the monster everyone already believed her to be. She finally matches what they’ve all been saying about her,” she said, swiping angrily at her eyes. “How the hell could this happen?”

We were still missing something. I watched the videos again. I recognized Jolene, of course. Killjoy, Eve, three Scottish super villain assholes who had worked with Killjoy back when I’d known him as Raider. There was a shorter person there with them, I guessed a women, dressed all in black, her face obscured by a full mask. It hit me, when she spun and kicked out at one of the guards in the bank, and my stomach sank. I pointed at the screen. “I think we know where Chance went.”

“What?” Portia asked, leaning forward.

“That’s her.”

“We can’t just throw out guesses like that,” Portia said, shaking her head.

“I’m not guessing. I trained her. I’d know how she moves anywhere, just as I’d know how you move, how Jo moves, how Toxxin moves. That’s Chance,” I repeated.

Portia shook her head. “That’s not possible.”

“Yes, it is. Do we really want to sit here and try to believe that none of our people would ever betray us? We’ve had it happen too often already,” I said.

“So, Finland,” Portia said, dropping the subject. I knew she didn’t agree with me. Didn’t change the fact that I was right. “It’s a lead at least.”

“Except that it’s probably not,” Jenson said. “Because he can teleport.”

“Jolene said before that his powers were kind of wonky or something though, right?” Dani asked. “The injections Death gave him worked, but they also screwed him up a little. So maybe he can’t.”

“We’ll still check Finland,” Portia said. “But we haven’t seen anything to suggest that he can’t teleport. His strength, his other augmented powers, I know Jolene said she thought she saw those failing. But we can’t count on that. If he chose to publicly come out in Finland, he’s probably headquartered nowhere near there.”

I nodded. They all talked for a while longer, throwing out ideas, trying to come up with a plan. All I could do was watch the screen. One by one, they filtered out, taking on the tasks Portia assigned them. Soon, it was just me and Jenson, and we sat in silence, staring at the screen.

“She killed at least three of those guards, besides that hero at the end,” she said softly. I nodded. “She’s never going to forgive herself for that.”

“It’s not her fault.”

“You know Jolene. Do you think that’s actually going to matter to her?”

I shook my head. I knew better. She held onto every mistake she made, punished herself for every misjudgment, every detail she’d ever missed.

“We’ll get her back,” Jenson said quietly. “I will not goddamn stop until we’ve got her back here.”

I patted her hand. “That makes two of us.”

“Caine,” she said quietly, and I tore my eyes away from the monitor. “We’ll make sure we get her away from him. It doesn’t mean we’re going to get Jolene back. Not the way she was. You get that, right?”

I looked away.

She went on. “Just this, what we’ve seen here… this is going to change her. And we have no idea what she’s been living with for the past three months.”

I gave a short nod. “I know.”

I knew. The thought of what he’d done to her, the things she may have endured in the months he’d had her haunted me. The idea of him hurting her, doing whatever he’d done to turn her into this killing machine… it took everything in me not to put my fist through the monitor in front of me as I looked at her blank eyes again.

“We’ll get her back. And we’ll give her whatever she needs to get herself back. But even then,” Jenson said. “Even then, she’s not going to be the Jolene we know.”

I nodded again, and she stood up, patted my shoulder, then walked out of the room. She was going to Finland, to split herself up and see if she could find any trace of Jolene. Portia had a press conference to give. We were already hearing murmurs about this killer being Daystar, and she would have to address that. David would be monitoring more, talking to his contacts across the world, begging favors. Dani and Toxxin and Amy and the rest of them would be chasing any leads we got, in addition to keeping up with our usual patrol and enforcement schedules.

The irony of it all was, after all this time of being fuck-ups, we’d finally managed to pull together, get our shit straight, and be the kind of hero team we were supposed to be. Jolene would get a kick out of that, I thought, watching the screen again.

Those eyes. Damn it.

“Come on, Jolene. Pull out of this. You’re stronger than him,” I muttered to the screen, as if there was even a chance in hell she could hear me. I blew out another breath and turned the monitors off. I had a mission of my own, and I was more than ready to go.

I was going to Scotland. Back to where the asshole we knew as Killjoy started out. If there was a trace of him there, I’d find it.

And I’d do whatever it took to make sure Jolene came home.

I was heading to the flight bay after stopping off at my room to grab a bag when the comm in my ear beeped.

“Caine?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Laurie at the front desk. There’s someone here to see you.”

“I’m on my way out now,” I said, shaking my head. As if I had time to screw around right now.

“She says it’s about Daystar. She knows her, and she wants to talk to you.”

I stopped in mid-stride. “A powered person?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Laurie said.

I took a breath. “Okay. On my way.” I turned around and took the elevator down to the ground floor, then snaked through the corridors until I got to the central reception area. When I walked into the lobby, there was a tiny elderly woman standing at the front desk, a long navy coat covering her frame, a white scarf wrapped around her head.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” I asked. She turned to me and gave me a once-over.

“You’re Caine,” he said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I affirmed. “What can I do for you?”

“You’re close with Daystar. So am I.”

I watched her. Jesus, even Jolene’s code name was like a knife to my heart. “How do you know her?” I asked her. She glanced around, and I gestured toward a bench across the lobby. She gave a small nod and gracefully walked over to it. She placed a large handbag on her lap after she sat down, and I sat down beside her.

“You know who Daystar really is, and so do I, so let’s not play any games, young man,” she said. I didn’t answer.

“How do you know her?” I repeated.

“I was her fence.”

I stared at her, sifting through my memories about what Jolene had told me about her life before StrikeForce. “You’re Luther?” I asked.

She nodded, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “I was expecting someone more brute-like,” I said, and she gave a low chuckle.

“I get that a lot.”

I studied her for a moment. Now it made sense, why Jolene had the strange loyalty to the person who’d once fenced her stolen goods for her. She’d been tight-lipped about Luther in general, not because she hadn’t trusted me, but because there was a code among thieves, apparently. “Don’t talk” pretty much summed it up. She respected Luther enough to keep to it, even after she’d walked away from that life. Mostly.

“Why’d you ask for me, Luther?” I asked.

She looked up at me, her sharp blue eyes seeming to take in every detail, every angle. “She seems to like you,” was all she said.

“Well, I like her, too,” I said, and my throat felt stupidly tight.

“They have her stealing things. It’s someone who knows her history.”

“Killjoy. We’re working on it,” I told her.

“Find her. Make those who took her pay,” she said sharply.

“We will. Can I ask… why does it matter so much to you? Her fence?”

She glanced away. “Jolene’s a good girl. Hell of a thief, but a good girl. Except when she’s not,” she added with a small smile. “Even bad, she’s good, you know?”

I nodded.

“I like her. I want to see her safe again. She’s lost too much already and her losing more makes me want to break some legs.”

I glanced at her.

“Not that I do that anymore.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Giannotti crime family wants her, too,” she said quietly, and I nodded. “She gets back, I may have a little something for her on that.”

“Oh?” I furrowed my brow. Old man Giannotti had basically become a ghost. We hadn’t gotten a sniff on him in months. Honestly, with Killjoy and his other assholes after Jolene, the fact that the mob had an ax to grind with Jolene had pretty much fallen by the wayside in terms of things that actually worried me. “Uh. I can look into it if you want.”

She gave me a stern look. “I trade information to one person only. When she gets back, have her see me.” I was about to answer when she leaned in toward me, those sharp, creased little blue eyes boring daggers through me. “You’ll try to bring her back. You think you can save her. Of course. But mark my words, I know Jolene Marie Faraday. She’ll bring herself back. Make sure she has something to come back to.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Still, she was someone who cared about Jolene, which made her an ally, whether she was a criminal or not.

She stood up. “One more thing,” she said.

“Yes?”

“She’s doing things Jolene would never do. You know that.”

I nodded.

“Some are going to want to punish her for that. Maybe some in this building, maybe some in your powered community at large.”

I nodded again.

“Don’t let that happen. If she gets sent away for the things she’s doing, I’ll blow up every last building you hero types call home.”

I started to laugh, but the look she was giving me told me she wasn’t joking.

“Uh—”

“Nice meeting you, Caine,” she said. She started walking away, and I watched her go.

“I’ll tell her to come see you,” I called after her.

“You do that,” she said, not bothering to turn around.

I shook my head and headed up to the flight deck. I had a flight to make.

The fact that me, Mr. Clean, who’d spent my entire life trying to do the right thing, was now allied with criminals and thieves was not lost on me. All I could do was shake my head. Jolene. Nothing about her was simple. It was one of the things I loved about her.

Now, I just had to get her back.

Chapter Ten

Jolene

We did three more raids in the next two weeks. I’d grabbed enough money for Connor that the could have bathed in it if he wanted to. We could have burned it to keep us warm, and he still would have had more than enough.

At least, I assumed so, since I had no idea what he wanted all of that money for. But that wasn’t my problem, and I was more than happy not to think about it.

I sat beside Connor on the sofa in front of the fireplace in his private suite. He seemed to be keeping me close to him, more so as the days went by. I glanced at the clock again.

Thirty-three minutes until I could have my evening injection. And it could not come soon enough. I hated when it started wearing off. I started getting these weird feelings around Connor, or when I remembered the things he’d ordered me to do. The people I’d killed. There was always something, just under the surface, some sense of wrongness, but I could mostly ignore it as long as my injections were on time. I’d given in and talked to Lorne about needing them more often. His face had brightened oddly, and then he’d quickly shushed me and told me to deal with it. And he told me Connor would be unhappy to hear that I wasn’t happy and that he’d likely put me under for more programming again.

Just the memory of what it had felt like, the pain, my eyes forced open, those endless images, was enough to ensure I never brought it up again.

I glanced over at Connor. He’d sat too close to me again, his muscular thigh pressed up against mine, his arm slung over the back of the sofa behind me.

“You’re so damn good, sweetheart,” he slurred. I glanced at the mostly-empty bottle of whiskey in his other hand. “I watch you beat these bastards for me, and it makes me proud, you know? You’re the best. Always have been.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut and glanced at the clock again.

Thirty-one more minutes until my injection.

“You make me feel so good, every time you fight for me,” he said. And he moved his arm from around me, settling his hand on my thigh.

My entire body tensed and I seriously, desperately, wanted to puke.

Whatever it was in me that the injections couldn’t quiet seemed to scream when Connor was around. The only thing was, I had no idea what it was screaming. Was this my voice of reason, telling me to be careful? Or was this something else, something screaming at me to let him have what he wanted?