Chapter 16

  I looked at her. The room felt silent, apart from the running machines. Her whole demeanor had changed, like someone else had taken her chair and was wearing her face.

  “Huh?” I stretched the limits of my improv.

  “The suit,” she said again, flat.

  “Like a three-piece?” I could hear the anxiety creeping into my voice.

  “Yeah. Black with pinstripes. I’ve got a wedding coming up and I want my chair to look good.” She rolled her eyes. “I know who you are, man. I mean the metal battle mech you run around the city in.”

  The room seemed to shrink. I glanced at the door. I could reach it first. Maybe. But how many cops were outside? What about heroes? My eyes flicked up to the skylight, half-expecting something to streak across it.

  Apparently I’d taken too long.

  “Running won’t help you, Grey Knight.”

  I exhaled slowly. “I don’t use the name Grey Knight. That’s just what the news calls me.”

  A smile curved across her face, a lioness savoring a cornered prey. “First rule of super branding: shout your chosen name to everyone you can, or they’ll pick a dumb one for you.”

  “I hadn’t planned on being public enough to earn one.”

  “So what? You were going to cause five-alarm fires and knock out power to huge sections of the city in secret?” One eyebrow climbed toward her hairline.

  I didn’t have a good answer. So I shrugged.

  “So,” she said again, “where is your mech?”

  “Suit,” I corrected automatically. “You drive mechs. You wear suits.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Is it here?”

  “Is that the plan?” My irritation started bleeding through. “Confirm I’ve got it, then make a call so a SWAT team or a hero crashes through my door? What do you actually want?”

  “I want to see it.” A beat. “Again.”

  Again? “You mean before your people tear it apart?” Why would whoever she worked with send her alone into a rogue’s lair?

  Her smile returned. “Maybe I want a selfie with it before whatever happens, happens.”

  The anxiety in my chest flipped, flashing briefly into rage. I almost snarled. “Well, too bad. Just do whatever you’re here to do.”

  Instead of backing off, her smile deepened. Approval?

  I let out a sharp breath and set down the gloves I hadn’t realized I’d picked up. Something about this was wrong.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “And what do you want?”

  Her eyes narrowed, then her expression shifted, professional now. Controlled. “I guess the fun’s over,” she said. “My name is Rhea Kade. I used to work for the ECD.”

  The acronym tugged at something in my memory but didn’t quite surface. “ECD?”

  “Enhanced Crime Division. We handle investigative work for heroes.”

  A cold slid down my spine. Then the other part registered.

  “Used to?”

  For the first time, she looked away. “Yes. I’m no longer with the ECD.”

  “So I’m your way back in?”

  “No.” She shook her head once. “They won’t be taking me back.”

  “No one’s outside?” I asked, almost hopeful.

  “Not unless they enjoy standing in the rain.”

  The door suddenly seemed very close. Very reachable. So did my blaster.

  “What do you want?” I asked again.

  “I’m here to help you.” Her green eyes locked onto mine. “So you can help me.”

  “Help you?” I was still reeling from the sudden shift in tone. “Help how? And why should I let you?”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Rhea took a slow breath. “You remember the prisoners Rat King got away with?”

  “I do,” I answered carefully.

  “My brother was one of them.” Her eyes didn’t waver from mine. “And you’re going to get him back.”

  “Why not go to the police?”

  “You think you were my first choice?” she snapped. “If the police or the heroes were going to get him, I wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of finding you. Rat King has always been a special problem. There’s always someone pushing to shift focus, or another crisis pops up and suddenly he’s not important anymore.” She shook her head. “The few times a raid gets greenlit, they always breach an empty nest.”

  “That sounds like corruption,” I said quietly.

  “No shit. You think?” She deflated slightly before continuing. “That’s why me and two of my friends from my old unit went in ourselves. No information leaks. Just get in, get my brother, and get out. Ideally without them knowing until afterward.”

  She paused for a heartbeat. It felt wrong to comment, so I didn’t.

  “Only that didn’t happen.” The first trace of pain touched her eyes. “We got in just fine, but we didn’t get far before the alarm sounded.” She wasn’t looking at me for this part. She was looking somewhere over my shoulder. “We fought his regular guards. They were no match for us, but they were slowing us down. Eventually one of his powered enforcers found us. Bastard wrapped in stone. Our bullets did nothing. He rolled right through Will. Micah always loved that heavy revolver he carried. It did crack the stone. But that didn’t help when the bastard shoved a pile of crates over.

  “My fight went about as well. Better, I suppose. After being thrown around like a doll, I at least woke up.”

  That bell that had been ringing in the back of my head since she arrived suddenly became deafening. “You’re the woman from the bed.”

  “I spent two weeks in that bed,” she said evenly. “Used to motivate my brother to work. When I heard the alarms going off, I thought the heroes had finally surprised Rat King for once.” She met my eyes again. “But it was only you.”

  There was a stretch of silence after that. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. Apologize? Demand she leave?

  “It took me a while to beat both of the powered guards,” I said finally, defensive despite myself. “I also had no idea about the prisoners or the back-door escape.”

  That seemed to annoy her more than placate her. “You didn’t know about the back door? The prisoners I’ll give you a bit of slack on — that’s new for him,” she said. “But the back-door escape surprised you?” She scoffed. “Did you not recon the area first?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. “You don't need to answer. Did you think that front door was the only way in or out?”

  “I didn’t think it was the only door,” I said, scrambling for something that didn’t sound pathetic. “But I found it, and I didn’t want to waste any more time.” It sounded dumb even to me once it was voiced.

  If I hadn’t known how angry she was, I might have mistaken the look on her face for amusement.

  “You didn’t want to waste time?” She shook her head, started to say something else, then stopped and looked up at the ceiling instead.

  “Gathering information is never a waste of time. I wanted my brother free, and we still planned for weeks before going in,” she said after a deep breath. “And that back door was our entry point, because it makes sense that the important stuff would be near the emergency exit. We found those people. But my brother wasn’t with them.” The look that crossed her face then, I recognized it. Guilt. “Sometimes you have to run an op with blind spots. But you should never go in blind. You’ll just get yourself killed… or worse.

  “You surprised a lot of people with your raid on Techshield’s facility,” she continued, shifting gears.

  “How do you know about that? It wasn’t even in the news,” I asked, genuinely surprised.

  “I was still with the ECD at the time. I was part of the investigation,” she said. “Techshield was furious.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  She smiled faintly at that. “Whatever you did to take their computer system down, it worked. All we have of you is three seconds of video, you running into the woods. That, and the bits and pieces of your suit you left behind. So when you popped up again with Ringmaster, we knew it was the same person.”

  That felt so long ago. It hadn’t even been a year.

  “Now I’m going to go a little off-topic,” she said. “How did you crack his system? We never figured it out.”

  I stood there for a second, weighing how much to tell her. Then I sighed. What difference did it make now? “I bought a device that shut it down. It was single-use, and I never understood how it worked. It was supposed to take out the security and the bots. It turned out it only prevented bots from coming online. I still had to fight what was already active.”

  “Where did you buy it? You wouldn’t find something like that in an electronics store.”

  “I made a deal with someone I’ll probably regret later.”

  “Rena?” she asked and I nearly jumped back. Her smile went wolfish again.

  “She sends her love. I’m supposed to tell you not to bother with the helmet next time.” She shrugged. “I was deciding whether I’d actually pass that message along.”

  “How?” I asked after a beat.

  “She was how I found you. Or part of it.”

  “She’s not cheap. So you must have had something really good, because I doubt you had the money to pay her.”

  My thoughts stumbled over themselves. She knew who I was. Where I was. And Rena had sold that.

  She caught my silence. “Did you really think the underground information broker was going to protect you?” She almost laughed.

  “I thought I had protected myself,” I said after a second.

  “Her entire business is knowing things and people. Did you really think she would deal with a complete unknown? She probably knew everything about you before you ever spoke to her.”

  I just stood there and felt it. Dumb. Exposed.

  “Don’t worry about other people doing what I did,” she went on, her tone shifting slightly. “I get the feeling she sees you as an investment. She wouldn’t just sell you to anyone. And even with her help, I had to break several laws to find you. That fake ID you’re using is really good. ‘Aidan.’”

  For the first time, there was something like respect in her eyes. “It took some digging to confirm it was fake. Even then, I couldn’t find your original records. And I have a friend who specializes in that.”

  I didn’t respond. If she wanted my old name, she’d be disappointed.

  He was dead.

  After a moment, she continued, “That’s something that confuses me about you.” She shook her head, her ponytail swaying. “You started off thinking. Really thinking things through. Then what? You killed Ringmaster and got bloodthirsty? Or did you suddenly decide you were unstoppable, and stopped thinking? And I’m not giving you credit for how Ringmaster went. I cased that site too.” She leaned forward slightly. “You just went in the front door. And from the news, you’ve stuck with that losing tactic.”

  I didn’t like being called bloodthirsty. Heat crept up my neck.

  “I’m not doing this for some sick need to kill people,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. She didn’t know everything. “I’m doing this to protect people. Almost every day someone dies because these villains just get recycled through the system. Every day I waste walking around is more people dead. So I go as soon as I know where they are. Otherwise everyone they kill after that point is my fault.”

  She scratched lightly at the side of her nose before answering. “That’s almost noble,” she said. “It’s overshadowed by how arrogant and dumb it is. But yes. That first bit's a little noble.”

  “Arrogant?” I blinked. I wouldn’t argue dumb, but the other part stuck. “How is what I’m doing arrogant? I’m not running around trying to be famous. I don’t have a glowing G on my chest giving unhelpful speeches and then letting criminals walk away to do it again.”

  “What you’re doing isn’t what makes you arrogant,” she replied calmly. “It’s your justification.”

  “What — stopping innocent deaths?”

  “The belief that you can.”

  I stopped, mouth open but no words coming to mind.

  “At least all of them,” she added. “My God.” She leaned back slightly. “I didn’t realize you were this…” She searched for the word. “…childish.”

  I opened my mouth again, but she cut me off.

  “Are you Sentinel of Justice?”

  “Of course not.” I waved the idea away like smoke.

  “No,” she said. “And even he can’t prevent every death. Not even when he’s standing right there.”

  “But I—”

  “No. Listen.” Her voice cut sharper. “I’ve seen men like you before. There’s always someone who thinks they’re responsible for everything. Who thinks they can fix everything. Who lets themselves get destroyed over deaths they could never have prevented.

  “You’re a man,” she said, her gaze sweeping the shop. “A smart one. But if you’re not willing to accept reality, then I’ve backed the wrong horse. That mentality stops. People will die even if you do everything right.” She unlocked her wheels and rolled a few feet away. “Figure that out,” she said, “or I’ll just release your information to my old boss and go home.”

  “You’ll what?”

  “Everything I have on you is sitting on a drive set to be sent to my old boss tonight if I don’t stop it.” She reached out and tapped idly at the computer running the caster, like she was checking the weather. “If you don’t work with me, or if you decide to kill me, the heroes will be here in the morning.”

  It was the most casual threat I’d ever received.

  She turned slightly in her chair and looked back at me. “You didn’t think I came in here without a plan, did you?” Her eyes twinkled. “My goal here is to get you functional,” she said. “I’ll give you tactical skills. Real ones. The knowledge you need to run your crusade properly.” She turned her chair slightly so she was facing me head-on. “I’ll even help you hunt your preferred targets. You’ll need that to get sharp.”

  Her voice hardened, the first real steel in it since she’d arrived. “But understand something: the next time Rat King’s skinny tail flicks back into the light, you’ll be there. You’ll kill him.

  “And you’ll bring my brother back.”

  She took a slow breath. “Then you can go back to killing yourself.”

  The ultimatum hung in the air between us.

  “Now,” she said, as I stood there trying to process everything. “I really do want to see the suit.”