Chapter 3
Ellis
Her watch is going off like crazy, the little red light flickering rapidly through the duct tape. That seems like it’ll be a problem.
It doesn’t take a genius to put together that it’s Steel Heel’s tech. We all need to get going or say hello to the big guy ourselves.
People love Clayton Steel. They love dressing up their toddlers in chunky cardboard boots to mimic his steel rocket thrusters on Halloween, they love wearing T-shirts with his company logo like it’s not free advertising.
Can’t say I’m a fan. Mr. Billionaire-Genius-Playboy has plenty of die-hard weirdos defending him online the moment another article about a lawsuit he’s currently embroiled in is posted, mass reporting it until the website host removes it.
I can’t imagine volunteering your free time to make fucking propaganda.
Not to mention, I can’t imagine he’ll react kindly to the mutants that kidnapped his girlfriend.
Ex-girlfriend, I remind myself. I didn’t know that.
Of course, Vin had to go and make it weird by making me sound like an obsessed fan.
It’s not like that, I just used to follow one of her socials because she would post her daily workout routine and ok, alright, I liked to watch her ass jiggle.
She’s one of those girls who props up her phone to film herself aggressively shaking her thermos full of ice water and then walks on a treadmill in the tightest pink spandex workout set and a ponytail.
It wasn’t weird and parasocial, it was totally shallow and unassuming.
I feel like it would have made more sense to leave her inside, but Vin wanted her out on the balcony. He’s thinking Steel Heel will just scoop her up and take her away.
“So, same time next week?”
She slides out of my arms easily, and as soon as she sits safely on the balcony floor, she sighs. “Yeah, see you around. I mean, not that I would know.”
I stifle a laugh. “Oh, I’m sure you would recognize me.”
Even with the blindfold, I can tell she rolls her eyes.
Leaving Ms. Vigil blindfolded and tied up on the roof of the abandoned warehouse doesn’t feel great.
Especially when Steel Heel and the mutant of the month are still tearing up the city.
I know I shouldn’t worry because it’s not my job to worry about people.
We do whatever Maestro needs us to do. Of course people get hurt in the crossfire.
But it’s Lacey Vigil from Channel 6 News. She’s like a beacon of hope and whatever.
I glance through the propped open door to the roof access, and Vin is still fiddling something with the mainframe.
All the screens flip between various security footage angles as he types slowly, two fingers at a time.
A large countdown pops up on one of the screens, and he downsizes it just as the ten minutes it starts at flicks to 9:59, 9:58, 9:57 . . .
Well, I don’t like that.
I take a knee in front of Lacey. Her expression below the blindfold doesn’t budge as I kneel into her personal space, until I touch her cheek. She gasps and then bites down on her surprise.
“Still me,” I breathe, just loud enough for her to hear. We only have a moment before Vin comes back.
I loosen the knot with a tug, and the blindfold slips from her eyes more than I mean it to. Her long eyelashes flutter, her eyes rimmed in smudged eyeliner squeeze momentarily, and then open.
I freeze. I wasn’t quite ready for her to see me. Clearly, she wasn’t ready either, the shock still clear on her face as she takes me in.
There’s something about the first few seconds that anyone really looks at me, when they realize what I am. Most mutants they see on TV are no longer capable of polite conversation.
Lacey stares at me, and I can feel my heart thudding in my chest. I don’t like scaring people.
She doesn’t flinch away.
“Keep this on for another minute, then you can take it off,” I murmur, downgrading the blindfold’s double knot to a single, flimsier one. Hopefully it holds long enough to fool Vin. “Then you should probably tell your boyfriend to hurry up and get here.”
I drag a sharp claw through the duct tape encircling her ankles and then squeeze them together for emphasis. I hope she understands to wait for us to leave.
Lacey holds still as I stand and take a step back. Vin appears, pushes through the doorway quickly. He steps up onto the balcony ledge, readying a grappling hook gun. He catches my eye and orders, “Follow me.”
Vin proceeds to fire the grappling hook at a nearby building, and without a beat of hesitation, ziplines across. A true professional. Sighing, I step up onto the balcony, and when he’s safely across, I unhook this side’s end of the line for him.
“Right. Ms. Vigil, see you on the news,” I say, right before I tip over the side of the ledge, and catch the wind under my wings.
We scale the remaining distance up the adjacent building to the roof, a little higher up from where we left Lacey in the abandoned Steel Industries factory. I make myself comfortable on the newer, colder concrete while Vin sets up another one of Maestro’s devices on the ledge.
“You shouldn’t have talked to her so much,” Vin mutters as he adjusts one of the dials. He can be such a joyless asshole.
“Yeah, yeah. So, what now? We just sit and watch?”
He sighs and rolls his eyes. “You need to start paying better attention during dinner.”
The building has some of that nice older architecture, lots of exterior trim that’s good for perching on. The city looks almost peaceful up here, when it’s just darkness dotted with activity and neon signs, the corners of buildings only made visible by the way the lit windows warp with perspective.
Traffic below is a stream of colors and sound, the harsh din faded and far. It’s not quiet up here, exactly. The wind is loud, and constant. It gusts in waves that have their own invisible shapes to carve around or glide through.
We’re a few stories up from where Lacey is. I catch sight of her without the blindfold. She struggles a moment, and rips her hands apart, duct tape and all. I’m impressed. I honestly didn’t know she had that in her. She gets up and goes back inside the building.
Vin makes a noise of irritation. “We’re going to need something better than duct tape next time.”
“I think that was actually gaff tape.”
“What?”
“It was in the news van. Gaff tape. It’s black instead of metallic, tears easier.”
“Why didn’t you bring duct tape—”
His walkie interrupts in Maestro’s whispery voice: “Steel Heel is headed directly to the abandoned factory.”
Vin and I look up at the same time, and right on schedule, there’s the bright flare of Steel Heel’s trademark rocket boots cutting through the night sky.
It looks a little different. I lean over the edge, squinting.
I’ve lived in Goethal a good while, I’ve seen him fly plenty of times.
He’s twisting around a whole lot more than usual.
Then he veers and crashes through a couple windows on the corner of one of the skyscrapers, and I realize he’s not alone.
“He’s still fighting that mutant,” Vin says incredulously, as the pair streak past us with a flash of light and smoke. There’s mere moments before the pair of them collide with the building we left Lacey behind in, punching a hole through a concrete wall. Hope that wasn’t structural.
Steel Heel throws the mutant, who seems to be shedding layers upon layers of scales every time he moves, through the glass-panel window, and Lacey scampers out of the way on the balcony. I grip the ledge, and Vin grabs a handful of my shirt to hold me down.
“Asshole!” I hiss and shove him off. “She’s right there, what if he hurts her?”
The next moment, what if’s become irrelevant.
Vin yells something, but I don’t care, I’m already leaping off the side of the building. I swoop down through stories in a matter of seconds.
The device reaches its countdown; the windows fill with light and smoke before they burst. I get to Lacey just as the side of the factory buckles and gives way out from under her knee-high boots.
Lacey stumbles and her shoulder goes right into my chest. My arms close around her instantly. My tail wraps around and squeezes her thigh as we start to go over the side.
It’s just about the messiest takeoff I’ve ever done. The pair of us almost hit the side of the building, my wings grazing it as we go downward for a heartrending second and correct upward.
Already, I can feel Vin berating me for intervening.
It’s not as hard as it usually is to bring us up to a decent height, careening around buildings and anything in the way until we’re definitely out of immediate danger.
Maybe it’s all the adrenaline. I’ve never been good at following instructions, but this kind of high-octane making-shit-up-as-I-go-along is new to me.
I let the air currents of one of those several blocks-long wind tunnels pull us a few streets away from the encounter, gaining a safe distance from the collapsing factory. I’m not keen on flying into Steel Heel if I can avoid it, so I check behind us. He isn’t there.
Well, shit. Maestro is going to be so pissed.
This wasn’t part of the plan, I’m pretty sure.
Steel Heel was supposed to rescue her, but I don’t think the boss planned for him to still be tangling with the latest mutant by the time everything blew up.
So maybe it’s a good thing I grabbed her, and he won’t be super pissed at me.
I’m thinking hard about what I’m even going to say to him, when someone reaches out and touches me, brushing some of my hair out of my face.
I startle; I don’t know why I’m not prepared to see her there, her face right next to mine instead of the very safe distance of the hideout TV on the kitchen counter.
Her eyes are so wide, not with fear or shock, but something almost like awe. This close, the scent of her hair catches my attention, and it hits me. I’m flying with Lacey Vigil. Holy shit.
No one’s ever been up here with me before. No one had ever touched me like that mid-flight.
I’ve never startled while flying with someone in my arms either. And even though I’ve been clutching her to me for the last two minutes, the softness of her fingertips on my cheek makes my grip relax.
She slips from my arms, gravity requesting her presence once again as my wings beat against the air, and time slows down.
“Aaaah!” she squeals, kicking and grabbing at the nothing around her—she and her voice rapidly disappear into the dark of the next forty floors down.
Immediately, my wings and arms tuck to my sides, dropping me faster than her flailing silhouette. With the rapidly approaching city lights I’m momentarily concerned I won’t be able to find her, until I feel the air currents change, her body slipping past mine.
My heart nearly thuds out of my chest as I scoop her out of the air again, my wings stretching out, catching on the atmosphere. Her ribs bend and compress briefly against my arms as gravity threatens to pull her out of my arms again.
But I have her, thank fuck.
I wish I had the ability to say something a little more suave and self-assured, like, “Easy there, Miss, I’ve got you,” but that’s not how it comes out.
“Holy crap, oh my God. Shit. I’m so sorry about that, totally my bad,” I ramble, trying not to sound overly panicked as our descent slows. Based on the way her arms clutch around my neck way tighter than before, squeezing on for dear life, maybe we’re past that.
Lacey doesn’t reply, but her shuddery breath is answer enough.
This particular maneuver isn’t ever happening again. For the sake of my body and hers.
There isn’t much remaining of our flight.
As soon as I’m sure I have a firm hold on her, my tail wrapped around her thigh for good measure, I find the skyscraper that reads STEEL on the side in giant neon letters, the red beacon on the tower’s tip, crowning Steel Spire.
It’s some Eye of Sauron looking shit, honestly. Hard to miss.
The top floors of the building are pretty well lit up, thankfully. As we approach, a balcony comes into view.
“You can get in from here, right?” I sort of whisper as I land silently. I’d rather not drop her off at the regular entrance, with bright lights and shops on every side of the streets around it.
“Yeah,” Lacey nods, letting out a breath as she steadies herself, a hand still clutching a fistful of my shirt. Even after her feet touch the balcony floor, I have a hard time letting go of her.
“Again, really sorry. I’ve never dropped anyone before,” I apologize and hate myself for every new word that comes out. That’s not true, I’ve dropped Vin a couple times, but it’s usually on purpose. I should just leave; every word deeper into this conversation is a mistake.
This was bad, let’s never do it again.
Perched on the balustrade, I turn and get ready to take off again, when she reaches out and touches my arm.
“I didn’t realize it’d be so easy to scare you,” she says, making an intense amount of eye contact, with a wild, fascinated amusement in her mouth. “You being . . .”
She doesn’t bother to finish. Mutants have certainly become known for inspiring terror in others.
Lacey doesn’t look scared as she keeps staring at me with the color back in her cheeks, her wide eyes curious instead of panicked. Windswept, maybe. Like she’d gotten off a rollercoaster instead of freefalling.
I nod quickly and try to look anywhere but at her. I never thought I would talk to her in person and didn’t realize how nervous it would make me. The Channel 6 News crew hasn’t done her justice in capturing how expressive her eyes are.
Then she reaches out and touches my wing, fingertips delicately gracing the thin skin, and a shiver runs down my insides at how good it feels. Oh God, now I’m panicking a little.
“Uh, stay safe, um, miss,” I manage to get out with some semblance of finality. I stand up on the balustrade, and from a floor this high, just let myself tip over the edge into the night. She rushes to look over the balcony’s edge as I catch the air current and take it a few streets over.
I spare a glance back when I feel safely enveloped by the dark again. She’s still standing where I left her, watching the sky.
My heart is pounding in my chest, to have been so near her, to have held her in my arms and felt the weight of her against me. It would not calm.
Swallowing, I angle myself toward home and try not to wonder what would have happened if I’d stayed a little longer. Maybe I would have just stayed on that balcony with her for the rest of the night, if she kept looking at me like that.
But I couldn’t. Maestro will be waiting for me.