One More Day (5 page)

“I’m still doing it,” I said quietly.

“What?”

“Stealing,” I said, not wanting to meet his eyes.

“What? You’re breaking into houses?”

I shook my head. “From Alpha.”

He sat back. “Explain that.”

“My… partner, fence, whatever… was helping me funnel some of Alpha’s money into my own accounts. I’ve made a nice amount so far,” I finished.

He didn’t answer, and after a moment he shook his head. “I’m impressed. I don’t feel sorry for Alpha.”

“So yours is worse than being a superhero and still being a thief?”

“Yeah. I started as a thief, worked my way up, became known as a guy who could find things that nobody wanted found, sell it to you for the right price. I didn’t care what it was, or who wanted it. Or who got hurt as a result.”

“What did you find for people? What kinds of things?”

“Drugs, weapons, secrets… name it, I tracked it down and sold it. I was good at getting into places nobody wanted people to be. Good at keeping secrets and staying on the move. I made more money than I even knew what to do with. Hoarded it all.” He paused. “People died because of the shit I sold, Jolene.”

I nodded. “And this?” I asked, gesturing toward his scar.

“I sold a pretty nasty weapon to some guys who used it. Blew up a daycare to get back at one of the women whose kids went there. Some political bullshit.”

“Jesus.”

“One of the fathers… he lost his wife and his kids in the explosion… he tracked down one of the guys who did it. And before he killed him, he got my name out of him. Where to find me. The guy tracked me down, gave me this. I couldn’t even fight him back. The grief on his face… nothing I could do to him could be wore than what I’d already done. So I ran.”

I nodded. It was all coming together. “So you got powers in the first Confluence, and you decided to use them for good, to try to make up for some of the things you did before.”

He shook his head. “You want to believe that, sweetheart. That wasn’t who I was.”

“So…”

“I became a super villain.”

I laughed, sure he was messing with me, and he met my eyes. I froze at the look in his eyes. “What was your super villain name?” I asked, playing along, because this sure the hell couldn’t be for real. Not him. A tiny voice taunted me, telling me that, in the end, I was just like my Mama when it came to men.

“Raider.”

I did laugh then. “Raider’s a chick,” I said, rolling my eyes. I moved to stand up, and he caught my arm in his hand.

“Jolene.”

“You’re being stupid,” I said.

“I was the first Raider. Look it up,” he said, still holding on to me.

“Then who’s she? And how’d she get the name?”

“She got the name because she was on my former team and they all thought I died in a fight,” he said. Then he took a breath. “And also because I used to be married to her.”

I shook him off then, and this time, he let me go. I stood up and walked over to the window. I wanted to believe that this was his weird sense of humor. This was the same guy who’d once tossed Maddoc out a window at me because he’d expected me to catch the villain. He had to be messing around.

Right?

The silence hung between us. I didn’t know what to say, and he apparently seemed to think he’d said enough. I got up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking downtown. I looked out them for a while, then turned back to him.

“So,” he said, looking up at me. “What has you more pissed? That I was a thief, a super villain, or that I was married to a super villain?”

“Who says I’m pissed?” I asked. I turned back to the window again.

“You have that look on your face, like you wouldn’t mind hitting me hard right now.”

I didn’t answer.

“Aren’t you glad now that I told you this before we did anything you couldn’t come back from?” he asked. I heard him stand. I waited for the sound of his footsteps receding, the door opening and closing, but it didn’t come. Eventually, I turned around to see him still standing there, arms crossed over his chest.

“If you were Raider… if you were anything like the current Raider, it means you killed people.”

“Does it really matter?”

I didn’t answer, and he kept his eyes on me.

“So…how did you get from there to here?” I asked him. Give me something, please, I silently pled. Convince me that the things I believed about you weren’t all lies.

He sat down again. “They thought I died. There was a big fight, our team and a bunch of special ops type superheroes. They kicked my ass, shot me up pretty good, and I fell into the bay where we were fighting.” He nodded. “I came to, after I healed enough of my injuries, in this big warehouse. They kept me alive, talked to me, told me shit about my team that I hadn’t known.”

“Like what? What, was your wife cheating with another of your teammates or something?”

“That bothers you more than you want to admit. Almost like you’re jealous or something.”

“Answer,” I snarled.

“That they were making deals behind my back. All that time, I thought I was in charge. I never really was,” he said. “I got to know them, and the better I got to know them, learned more about them, the more I wanted to be like them, to make sure I never made the same mistakes again. To make sure that I played the game by my own rules and put my trust in the right people.”

I didn’t answer for quite a while, and he seemed content to wait it out.

“I think maybe we should call it a night,” I finally said.

“Is there anything you want to ask me?” he asked, standing up.

I shook my head.

“So… what does this mean for us?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head. “People don’t change that much. And I’ve got plenty of my own crazy to deal with,” I said. “And it seems to me, it’s kind of odd that Raider and the rest of that team are all still out there, running around causing trouble, and no one’s done anything to stop it. You’d think that somebody who knew them as well as you did would have easily been able to step in and stop them, if he wanted to.” I met his eyes then, and he didn’t look away.

“I’m working on it. Raider’s second-in-command is is a precog. Every time I’ve decided to go after them, she knows, and they move before we can get to them.”

“Well, that’s a pretty worrisome power to be dealing with. Even more reason to catch them as soon as possible, huh?” I asked, walking past him toward the door. He reached out and gently pulled my arm, making me stop.

“You were never all in on this hero shit,” he said, freezing me with the intensity of his gaze. “You’re still not. When it comes right down to it, you’re all about you, and that’s fine.”

I didn’t answer.

“We’re a lot alike, Jolene,” he said, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. “I told you this because I think we have something here worth building on. I want you in my life, working with me. By my side.”

“I— ”

“And you can try to shut me out now,” he said. “But I’m not giving up. You’ll remember, once you’re over the shock of what I just told you, how well you and I understand each other. You’ll remember that this StrikeForce shit was never what you wanted. And you’ll be mine.”

I pulled my hand out of his and stepped away. “See, now that? That right there? That sounds kind of asshole stalkery.”

He rolled his eyes then pulled his mask back on. “You’re completely over-reacting.”

“Am I?” Stupid as it was, I wanted him to convince me. I wanted to forget what he’d told me. I wanted to go to him and pretend this conversation had never happened. I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted to learn every contour of his jaw and neck, memorize the taste of his lips. I wanted it not to matter that he wasn’t everything I’d thought he was, that he hadn’t sounded more than a little stalkery just then.

But that wasn’t me. Careful is the way I’ve stayed free. The few times I’ve acted stupidly were the only times I got caught, or even came close to getting caught. Nothing about getting involved with Connor was careful, or smart. “I’m glad you told me, though,” I added.

He let out a short, angry laugh. “Yeah. I bet you are.”

“Not…I’m glad you think enough of me to be honest with me. That means a lot,” I told him.

“You think this is over,” he said. “It’s not.”

“It’s over when I say it’s over, Connor.”

He took a step toward me, and it took everything in me not to take a step back. “No. It’s over when I say it’s over. And that’s pretty much never going to happen.”

“I want you to leave now. Let’s go.”

He didn’t respond for several long moments, then he nodded. “Okay. I have a thing I have to do tomorrow. I’ll probably be gone for a little while again. Which is probably good. It’ll give you time to think and process all of this.”

“I need to know something.”

“What?”

“You’re not doing the super villain thing anymore. Right?”

“Of course not. I see how small and stupid I was before. I want to save the world. Can you say the same?”

I stared at him.

“Deep down, do you actually give a shit about the world, Jolene? Or are you more concerned to trying to tell yourself that you’re a good person? We both know the answer to that.”

I walked to the door. “Now.” I opened it, and he went through wordlessly. I escorted him back down the elevator, to the lobby, and then out the door, ending up in the courtyard again. It was almost ridiculous how much had changed in less than an hour.

I stood there waiting for him to walk away, and he stayed, standing close, looking down at me.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” he finally said. I breathed a sigh of relief when he started walking away. “Oh,” he said, stopping and turning around. “You should learn some wrestling moves.”

I shook my head. “Are you flirting with me now? Seriously?”

He laughed. “No. I was thinking about what you said earlier about how your reaction time still sucks. You knock them down, disorient them with that first impact, right?” I nodded. “Okay, but you can’t punch ‘em once you’ve got ‘em down. Learn a few good wrestling holds, and as strong as you are nobody’d be able to get away from you.”

I thought about it. “That might just work.”

“Course it will.”

“Okay. Thanks for the tip.”

He took a breath. “That was given in good faith, Jolene. I hope you understand that you can trust me. Not many people can; I’ll admit that. But I want you to trust me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Connor shook his head, then turned and finally walked away. I walked quickly back into Command. I looked once more out the front doors to make sure he’d actually gone, then I made my way back up to my suite. It was a lot to process. As I rode back up the elevator, my mind just kept spinning. The guy I was pretty sure I was sort of, maybe, starting to fall in love with was a former super villain. He was also determined to keep this going, apparently whether I was sure I wanted him around or not. I’ve read a few romances where the things he’d said to me just now would have come across as sexy and romantic, but this wasn’t like that. I couldn’t explain it. I just knew that I didn’t feel flattered, or sexy, or excited about him at the moment.

I guessed it was the combination of “hey, I was a really bad super villain!” and “this isn’t over” that had me feeling that way. I just knew I needed to put the brakes on. I needed to stop daydreaming about him all the time. Maybe it would all work out. Maybe he’d somehow convince me that he was who I thought he was, and we’d move forward.

But I was starting to think that he never was who I’d thought he was.

I shook my head. “Making all Mama’s mistakes, even though you know better. Pretty smart, Jolene,” I muttered to myself.

Chapter Three

After my chat with Connor, all I wanted to do was hide in my bed. Preferably forever. Or, better yet, wake up and find that all of it had been one of my stupid nightmares. I’d fallen into bed for a few hours of fitful sleep, then dragged myself out of bed so Caine and I could do our patrol shift. I wasn’t in the mood to talk, and Caine seemed to catch on to that pretty quickly. We did most of our shift in silence, and when we got back to Command, I headed to the elevator without a word.

“Jo,” Caine called after me, and I turned around.

“Yeah?”

He caught up to me. “You okay?”

I shook my head. “Tired. I’m sorry if I was a bitch today.”

He shrugged. “No more than usual.”

I gave him a sidelong glance. “That could be taken a couple of ways.”

“It could.”

I glanced at him again, and he gave me a small smile, just the barest lift of the corner of his mouth. “You’re not a bitch,” he finally said.

“I probably am sometimes.”

He shrugged. “I think if you were nice and upbeat all the time you’d get on every damn one of my nerves during our patrol shifts. Do you know who my old patrol partner was?”

I shook my head.

“Portia. And she’s very no nonsense now, but she’s also one of those people who thinks mornings are just great and likes to talk the entire way through a shift.”

“So… she’s pleasant?” I asked. We got to the elevator and I pushed the button to take us down to the bottom floor. I was starving.