Chapter 11
CIPHER
One second, Annie was sitting across from me, her eyes narrowed in that adorably suspicious way of hers, and the next, chaos. Glass and debris raining down, threatening to tear into her soft skin.
In a heartbeat, I was across the table, wrapping myself around her smaller frame, my suit’s shield activating automatically as I pulled her to the floor. My mind flashed back to that night of her bloody in the Crucible.
“Are you hurt?” I demanded, scanning her face frantically while my shield deflected the shower of glass above us.
“I’m fine,” she answered, her voice breathless.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I held her beneath me, feeling the rise and fall of her chest. She was alive. She was whole.
I couldn’t stop myself from touching her face, my fingers brushing against her cheek. I needed the tactile confirmation that she was unharmed. Her skin was warm under my touch, her pulse racing at her throat.
For a moment, everything else disappeared, the restaurant, the attack, the screaming patrons. There was only Annie, looking up at me with those impossibly blue eyes.
“You’re sure?” I asked, my voice dropping lower as I searched her face for any sign of pain or fear.
She nodded, and I forced myself to shift my weight off her, though everything in me screamed to keep her protected beneath me. “Stay down,” I ordered, rising to a crouch, positioning myself between her and whatever threat had just crashed our dinner.
Of fucking course. Perfect timing, as always. Just when she was starting to soften toward me a fucking literal cockblock from the ceiling.
Two figures stood in the wreckage, Overload and Technomancer. Their crimson and black suits were a garish display of poor taste. Trying too hard to look intimidating and failing miserably. Custom-built, but derivative. Uninspired.
“Cipher!” Overload called out, voice distorted through their helmet. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Technomancer stepped forward, glass crunching beneath their boots. “Enjoying a romantic dinner while the rest of us do real work? How typical.”
My body shifted automatically, slipping into the arrogant Villain persona that came as naturally as breathing. Inside, however, my mind was racing through tactical options, calculating the fastest way to neutralize these threats while keeping Annie safe.
“Who’s your lady friend?” Overload asked, helmet tilting toward Annie.
I stepped forward, deliberately placing myself to block their view of her. If they recognized her as Havoc’s Keeper, this situation would become infinitely more complicated.
I gestured dismissively at the shattered ceiling, injecting my voice with bored condescension. “I’m disappointed in your entrance. All flash, no finesse.”
Overload stepped forward aggressively. “We’re not here for your approval, asshole.”
“Who’s the woman, Cipher?” Technomancer asked again.
I laughed, pitching it to be as infuriating as possible. Draw their attention to me. Make them forget about her. “My business is my business. Now, what exactly did you want? I’m in the middle of something far more interesting than this conversation.”
“Nothing personal, Cipher,” Overload said, hands beginning to glow with pulsing orange energy. “Just rankings. You understand how the game is played.”
Technomancer let out a harsh laugh. “Speak for yourself. This is absolutely fucking personal.” Their voice dripped with venom. “Remember Bay Side Heights? I certainly do.”
My shoulders tightened involuntarily. Bay Side Heights. A warehouse, a heist gone wrong, Alliance forces closing in. I’d had to make a choice: secure the goods or help my temporary ally escape.
I chose the goods, of course.
“That was business,” I replied coolly. “If you took it personally, that’s your problem.”
“You left me to rot in that Alliance holding cell for five months!” Technomancer’s hands began emitting crackling blue energy that made the air smell heavy with ozone. “Five months while you walked away with the glory.”
Overload stepped forward. “Can we just get on with this? I’ve got plans tonight, and taking down a Super Villain will look excellent on my seasonal stats.”
Without warning, Technomancer launched forward, blue energy coalescing into electrified whips extending from their wrists.
I dodged the first strike and engaged both attackers simultaneously, keeping them focused on me and pulling them further away from Annie.
She’d taken cover behind an overturned table, but I could see her tracking the fight.
A fight that was laughably one-sided.
These two might have had a chance against a regular League member, but against me? They were only playing at being dangerous. Still, I held back, maintaining the illusion that my powers came from technology and serum rather than my Trueborn nature.
Then everything changed.
Annie moved, trying to stay out of the path of destruction as the fight spread across the restaurant. Overload noticed her, abandoning their attack on me to lunge toward her.
“Where do you think you’re going?” they called out.
The villain’s hands glowed orange, energy building for an attack aimed directly at her.
Something dark and terrifying roared to life inside me. I moved faster than I should have, faster than my suit could explain, slamming into the villain and sending them crashing through three tables.
“Stay down!” I shouted to Annie, my voice tight with barely controlled rage.
She dropped to the floor just as Technomancer unleashed those energy whips in her direction. I watched her throw her arms up and something inside me fucking snapped.
I launched myself into the air, flying directly into the path of those crackling blue whips. They wrapped around my torso, electricity arcing across my suit. The pain barely registered, a distant sensation overwhelmed by the cold fury crystallizing in my chest.
Technomancer’s helmet tilted in confusion. I shouldn’t still be conscious, let alone hovering there like their attack was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
I grabbed the energy whips with my bare hands and yanked hard.
Technomancer stumbled forward, clearly shocked by my strength, and dismissed the whips to get them out of my grip.
I felt a deadly calm settle over me. The same feeling I’d had the night I hunted down every last one of Baron Ash’s associates.
“You made a mistake,” I said, stalking toward them. “A very serious mistake.”
Technomancer laughed, energy whips crackling as they reappeared. “What, touching your little date? Didn’t realize you were so—“
I moved at full speed, no longer caring about maintaining my cover. One moment I was standing ten feet away, the next I had them by the throat, lifting them off the ground with one hand. Their energy whips dissipated as they clawed desperately at my grip.
“Cipher, don’t,” Overload shouted.
I silenced them with a pulse of energy from my palm, sending them crashing through a support column. They tried to rise from the rubble but collapsed back down with a groan.
I gripped Technomancer’s neck harder, fingers closing around their throat. A quick twist and the sound of vertebrae separating echoed in my ears. Their body went limp, dead before they could process what happened.
As I stalked toward Overload, they struggled to stand, orange energy flickering weakly around their hands.
My fist punched through their chest plate, enhanced strength making the reinforced material yield like paper. I felt the resistance of flesh, then bone, then the soft give of a vital organ. Their energy signature flickered, then died.
Thirty-two seconds. That’s all it took to eliminate two threats to Annie.
I let Overload’s body drop to the floor with a dull thud. The sound echoed through the now-silent restaurant, punctuated only by the occasional crackle of broken electronics and the soft whimpers of terrified patrons.
Movement caught my eye. A man in the far corner, still seated but tensed. Blackout. Ranked twelfth in the League standings.
A woman behind him pressed against his back, her eyes wide with fear. His wife. Civilian. No powers.
Blackout slowly raised his hands, palms forward. A clear signal. He wasn’t looking for trouble.
I gave him a single, curt nod. Message received. He wasn’t on my kill list tonight.
I turned away and found Annie standing in the center of the destruction, eerily calm amidst the chaos. Tables splintered around her, glass glittering across the floor.
She didn’t move, just watched me with those beautiful eyes.
I stepped toward her, glass crunching beneath my boots. The restaurant’s emergency lighting backlit her, highlighting the curve of her cheek, the soft line of her throat. She was so goddamn beautiful it hurt to look at her.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“No.”
Relief washed through me, but I wasn’t taking chances. Not with her. Not again.
“We need to leave. Now.”
I scooped her into my arms. She weighed nothing against my strength, her body fitting perfectly against mine.
I expected resistance, Annie doesn’t like being told what to do, outside of the bedroom, but she surprised me.
She didn’t fight. If anything, she seemed to lean into me, her body softening against mine.
The unexpected surrender sent a possessive thrill through my veins.
The ceiling breach offered the cleanest exit and we rose through the jagged opening, emerging into the night air where a light drizzle fell. The cool droplets hit my exposed skin, but I barely registered the sensation. All of my focus was on the woman in my arms.
For a moment, we hovered above the chaos, suspended between the destruction below and the vast darkness above. She didn’t look away from my masked face, didn’t glance at the bodies I’d left behind.
She knew exactly what I was. And still, she held on.
I landed on Annie’s balcony minutes later, rain sliding down my suit in rivulets while she clung to me, her body pressed against mine, wet strands of her hair clinging to her face and neck. She looked wild. Alive.
“It’s locked,” she said, nodding toward the door.