Locked Out of Love (30 page)

 “You betrayed my guild.” It came out hoarse.

Melanie winced. Her arms dropped away from him and she took a step back.

“You betrayed me.” His voice grew in strength. He rose onto shaky arms.

Melanie reached for him but stopped herself short. “Joel, I—”

“You lied to me! In the worse possible way.”

His throat clogged with emotion. He felt like someone was squeezing his heart—killing him slowly. He pushed the pain aside, let the anger take over. It felt better—stronger.

“Why?” he spoke again when he was certain his voice wouldn't shake. “Was it all a sick game? Lead me on, make me feel for you, and stomp around on my heart a little bit until you had your fill?” Something clicked in his brain. “You used me to become full-forced, didn't you?” He reached out for a chair to keep himself standing. He needed to get away from Melanie—far away. Now.

“Joel, please, it wasn't like that. Let me explain.”

“Explain what? How I lost the Mirror Mate lottery by a landslide?” He snorted. “I think we've already established that.” He took a tentative step. The world spun. Still woozy, but not as bad.

“I did this for you,” she called after him.

He paused and slowly turned to face her, his vision going red. “You did all this,” he spread his arms to encompass the clinic, “for me?”

She sighed in exasperation, glancing at the clock. “Look, we don't have time. You have to—”

“You took away my entire guild—probably sentenced them to a fate worse than death, and it was all for me?” He spat the last words.

“Yes,” she said desperately. “Juliet would have taken you, too, if I didn't cooperate. I had to go along with it, but if we hurry we can make it in time and save them!”

“How the fuck are we going to storm a castle in this condition?” He pointed to himself, disregarding her statement and the flare of hope it brought him.

She looked like she was torn between crying and smacking him upside the head. “Because I took the entire guild's powers! I have them all inside me and I can use them, if we hurry.”

Joel blinked. That spark of hope inside his chest flared. Could Melanie be telling the truth? Could he be wrong about her intentions? Had she been playing Juliet the entire time, working as a double, double agent?

His head spun.

He had no idea who to believe.

He had no idea what to do.

He stomped that little flare of hope right out.

“Why the hell should I even think about trusting you? You betrayed us all.”

“Because I didn't have a choice,” she nearly yelled, clearly trying to hang on to what little patience she had left. “This was the only way I knew I could stay in the loop with Juliet and keep you safe. If I had warned you of the attack, they would have tried again. But they're done in Orange County. I know where they're taking the rest—it's a small pit stop before they load up their trucks and drive away. If we hit them now, they'll cut their losses, turn tail, and run. Plus, Niella mentioned you guys are looking for another girl, Hazel Benedict? This might give you another chance at finding any information about her before it all disappears.”

“Niella is in on this?”

Melanie gave him a small smile, some of the tension and sadness leaving her face. “Yes. She helped me plan.”

His jaw metaphorically hit the floor. “Seriously? Niella? Why didn't you come to me? I would have helped you in a second. I would have protected you.”

Her hands fisted and rested on her hips. “I don't need saving all the time. I'm not that Zelda princess to your Link."

"Wait." Joel held a hand up. "You actually know who Zelda is?"

Melanie fumed. "That's not the point!"

"Right," he said hastily. He rubbed his temples, trying to concentrate and ignore the pounding in his head.

Some of his pain must've shown because Melanie went to her purse on the floor and dug around inside until she produced a small pill bottle. She held out two tablets for him. “Here. This should help.”

Joel swallowed them dry and grimaced. Hopefully, they'd kick in soon so he could focus better. His mind was a jumbled mess. He didn't know what to feel.

Maybe that was for the best. If the terrible pain in his chest was any indication, he was being ripped apart from the inside out and the only cure was space apart from Melanie. But if what she was telling him was true, that wasn't an option right now.

“Say I believe you. What then?”

“You need to believe me, otherwise your friends are screwed. And what we need to do,
now
I might add, is drive to this address.” She thrust a small piece of paper at him.

He stared down at her bubbly script and had to blink a few times.

She took the paper back. “You know what, I'll drive. You focus on getting better. I'll need you as strong as possible. I'm not sure what Trina can do, but right now I'm powered up on eight different abilities.”

“Eight?” Joel narrowed his eyes at her. “You only touched five of us, and if you add in your own powers, that brings the total to six. I may have hit my head, but I can still do simple addition. Where did the other two come from?”

Melanie avoided his gaze. “Missions with Juliet, before I realized what a monster her organization is.”

His heart kicked against his ribs. “How do you have them for this long?”

She reached for the leather around her wrist and the action wrenched his heart even more.

No
.
Anything but what I think she did.

“Melanie?” It came out hesitant, nervous.

She looked up at him through guilt-lidded lashes. Tears threated to fall on her cheeks. “I took them. Permanently.”

He knew that answer was coming, braced for it even. But hearing her say it hit with the force of a wrecking ball. The air left his lungs; he wrapped his arms around himself because what he really wanted to do was wrap them around Melanie, but he couldn't allow himself to.

“I told you I had secrets,” she said. “I wanted to tell you all of it, but I couldn't. I was going to when it was all over. I never knew it'd escalate to this.”

He didn't know who this woman before him was. She was a stranger, deceiving him from the beginning. She was worse than Sydney.

“Did you ever believe any of it?” he asked softly.

Melanie frowned. “I don't understand.”

The pain in his gut turned to anger. He fisted his hands to keep them from shaking. “Everything you told me, about free will, about making your own choices, was any of that real?”

She blanched.

“You're a hypocrite,” he accused. “Have you ever stopped to realize that what you're doing is taking away other people's free will?”

Her mouth opened and closed. The tears fell this time, but Joel refused to be moved by them.

“You're worse than Juliet.” He held up his hand to stop her from speaking. “Save it,” he told her. “The only thing I'm interested in now is helping my guild. They're all that matter to me.” He stared at her without blinking as he said the words. But instead of feeling satisfaction at the hurt in her crystal-blue eyes, he felt an answering pain.

Melanie thought for a moment they weren't going to make it. Mrs. Kegler's crappy car had rumbled and protested all the way as she'd driven with the pedal flush to the floor. But it was worth it. She had only one shot at this, and she had no idea how much time she had with these powers. She needed all the advantages she could get.

In the passenger seat, Joel shifted uneasily.

The wound in Melanie's soul cracked open and bled a little more.

He hated her.

Did you really expect anything else?

She knew what she was getting herself into from the beginning. She wouldn't bitch and complain about what couldn't be fixed. She had only right now, and she was going to right as much of her wrong as possible. Starting with putting an end to Juliet's plan with the Guild of Truth. Then she was going to promise to use her powers only for good, like Joel and his friends, because the last thing she wanted to do was hurt anyone else.

Melanie knew Juliet wasn't going to strip any of them that night. After Joel was knocked out, they'd tranquilized the rest of them.  She'd watched as they loaded them into their van, careful that no one saw. Melanie had kept an extra eye out for Tom. The last thing she needed was some innocent witness harmed for something he shouldn't have seen. But, thankfully, Tom stayed in his pizzeria and the rest of the shopping plaza had closed up for the day.

Juliet's plan was to take them back to their headquarters in L.A., where Melanie bet Hazel was being kept too. Juliet didn't want to risk giving Trina too many powers. It appeared that the woman was already getting too cocky, which had been precisely why they'd wanted Melanie so much. She was a newbie, someone with no other powers, and who hated abilities to boot. If everything had gone to plan, Melanie would have been Juliet's perfect little weapon, doing what she wanted—helping strip others of their abilities but never using those powers, until eventually—from what Melanie understood from little bits she'd overheard—she'd be stripped of all her abilities by another newbie when she became too hard to handle.

It was a vicious cycle. It ate her up inside that she'd had to pretend everything was okay after that stunt in the herbal shop. She felt dirty, but she'd needed the information. It was the only thing that could help the guild now.

“I need a quick run through of everyone's powers.” She turned to Joel.

She hated how his eyes stared at her with no flicker of amusement, no affection—just emptiness. Whatever fresh start she'd thought she'd be able to have with him was crushed. She'd screwed up. Joel might never look at her again, and she couldn't blame him. She never knew it'd come to this, but that wouldn't matter to him. Betrayal was betrayal no matter how one painted it.

He held up one finger. “Felix, Eraser—pretty self-explanatory. He concentrates very hard on an object he wants to vanish, waves his hand, it disappears.” He held up two fingers. “Cali, Silencer—she can manipulate sound. Hers is more complex, but think of it as a sound vacuum; she can make herself soundless and sneak anywhere she wants, and also can project sound into a physical element, like that woman, Trina.” Three fingers. “Sydney, Shielder—activate her powers and no one else will be able to use theirs. If you need some kind of visualization, think of erecting walls all around you. Merrick, Decoder—he can learn information from an object when he touches it. Luke, Rejuvenator—used to be called the Generator, but he didn't like it, thought it sounded too much like terminator.” Joel's face softened momentarily. “He can heal faster than any normal human, making him pretty resilient when it comes to fights.” All five fingers were raised by then and he wiggled them before dropping his hand. “That's everyone you touched.”

Melanie quickly committed everything to memory.

“What are the other two powers you have?” Joel asked, his voice carefully neutral.

“Super strength and the ability to enlarge anything I touch.”

For a moment the nerdy little boy inside of Joel came out. His mouth opened in awe, his midnight eyes wide with wonder.

She couldn't help it. She reached out and cupped his face.

Wrong move.

He jerked away, his expression shutting down instantly.

Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest, the hurt radiating through her body with every beat.

“We need to hurry.” Joel stepped from the car and Melanie was happy to see that he didn't topple over. His equilibrium seemed to return, and she hoped he was strong enough to help her. She hadn't counted on him getting injured at the clinic.

Maybe that had been Juliet's plan all along, a safety measure to make sure Melanie didn't stick her nose into their business anymore?

Well, too bad, bitch, 'cause here I am.

Juliet didn't know Melanie knew the whereabouts of this place. That's where Niella had come in handy. The last couple of sessions together had been devoted to Melanie forcing Dream upon Dream on herself in an effort to glimpse as much of today's events as possible. Including where they would be taking place.

Melanie made sure to park a safe distance from the location to avoid detection, and together she and Joel walked the half block to the warehouse. A semi-truck took up most of the front parking lot and the warehouse stood dark and empty, the wooden exterior worn and weather-beaten. It looked ready to collapse with the slightest breeze. No lights shone in the windows, but that didn't mean no one was home.

“You're sure this is the right spot?” Joel stared up at the abandoned building. The smell of fish greeted them, and Melanie quickly switched to breathing through her mouth.

Joel gagged.

Melanie reached the front door, which was actually a large, wooden planked slider with a padlock.

Game time.

She reached for her powers, felt the tingle in the back of her neck, and focused on the lock. Taking a deep breath, she held it and waved her hand.

The lock vanished.

She exhaled in relief.

“Nicely done.” Joel's voice held a hint of reluctant admiration. Melanie ignored it. She couldn't let her fantasies of winning Joel's trust sidetrack her concentration.

“Thanks. I had a pretty amazing mentor.”

Joel's eyes glittered. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“That's what I'm hoping for.”

Maybe there was still a chance for them after all.

 Inside the stench of fish was worse. Twice, Melanie had to stop and breathe into the sleeve of her shirt. The warehouse had been divided into different sections using large, pleated metal sheets; from the back she could see a faint yellow glow and hear voices. She kept her powers on high alert, using Cali's at the moment to keep Joel and herself quiet as they crept over wrappers and dried fish bones and God knew what else that littered the floor.