Super: Underground: Book 2 in the Super: Series (40 page)
“Well, come on,” Serena said when Lex hesitated. “You didn’t think we were going to let you go down there all by yourself, did you?”
“I guess not,” Lex grumbled, but couldn’t help smiling as well.
To her surprise, Lex suddenly felt like Serena might have been right as she walked into the living room to see Rolf talking with Victor, Lou, and Mr. Chen. The look he gave her as their eyes met made her heart speed up and brought her blush right back.
“Hi, Rolf,” Lex managed after a moment, smiling across the room at him. Even just dressed in a simple white dress shirt and black slacks, something about him made Lex catch her breath at the sight of him.
She noticed then that he’d stood up when she’d entered the room and somehow managed to look serious while smiling back at her. “Hello, Lex. You look lovely.”
Then pandemonium took over as Serena, Riss, Kate, and Casey came into the living room from behind Lex while Art said he’d been saying the same thing, and questions flew around the room about where Rolf would be taking Lex and what sort of things the guys had been asking Rolf and what everyone had planned once Rolf and Lex left since all the excitement would be gone from the evening then. The last, from Kate, caused Lex to turn to her and laugh since it seemed so unexpected, and then she saw Victor elbowing Kate while shaking his head.
“The next thing that’s going to come out of your mouth is that you want to go along with them,” he said, looking at her and shaking his head.
“Well, no, but I didn’t really think of anything else to do tonight,” Kate said, frowning.
After a few moments of this, Lex caught Rolf’s eye from across the room and gestured with her head to the door. In a voice pitched to be heard over all the conversation and questions in the room, Lex said, “OK, everyone, we’re going to go, so if there’s anything else you wanted to say before we did, now’s your chance.”
“OK, have fun!”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
“Stay out late!”
“Don’t stay out too late!”
“Have a good time!”
Lex laughed as all of the pronouncements her friends made came out quickly and half on top of one another, but she felt sure she could figure out who had said what nonetheless. The group followed Rolf and Lex out onto the porch, and a few waved as they walked down the street to where Rolf had parked his car. Lex still chuckled softly as she waited for Rolf to unlock the door of his black Honda Accord. Once they both got in, they just sat for a moment and smiled at each other.
“They’re quite a group of people,” Rolf said. “It’s obvious how much they care about you.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Lex said, her smile growing. “So, what would you like to do tonight?”
Lex met his eyes as she asked the question, and what she saw there made her realize that she wouldn’t care if they just sat in the car all night. She could feel her heart in her throat again as she found her hand in Rolf’s for a moment.
“I’d like to take you to one of my favorite places to eat, and then I figured we could decide whether we wanted to see a movie or just take a walk or something. Does that sound good?” Rolf asked.
Smiling in return, Lex squeezed his hand before she released it so that he could drive. “That sounds great. Let’s go.”
- End of Book 2 –
See the following pages for a preview of Book 3!
For anyone who can’t stand to wait to find out what happens next, please feel free to check out the next several chapters of the story on the serial website:
http://superwebnovel.livejournal.com/314.html
If you’ve read this book in full, you can pick up cleanly with the chapters listed under Book 3 (chapter 37, etc.).
If you prefer to read on your mobile device, I recommend downloading the Wattpad app and searching on my story number to find this story there: 9430224. Like the serial website, you should be able to pick up where this book leaves off by beginning with chapter 37.
I also created a playlist for this book, with some of the songs I listened to that inspired each chapter. Please check it out at:
http://palladian23.livejournal.com/2216.html
Book 3 Preview:
Chapter 37: Battle Royale
“All right, everyone!” Captain Shapiro said, raising his voice to be heard over the murmurs of several conversations going on between various team members. “Come closer and let me brief you on what’s expected here.”
Lex went with the group who recently emigrated from America as they moved forward in a cluster. As she turned her head, she saw the original Brussels team do so as well, the only link between the two groups seeming to be where she and Rolf stood in the middle.
“I know it isn’t easy to get used to having so many new team members at once, and that everyone is probably pretty curious to see what everyone else can do. So, we’re going to face off against each other, the original team here and our new people. For you newcomers, this room is strengthened so that it should be able to stand up to just about anything you can dish out, so feel free to do what you think you can—if you start breaking it up, though, I’d request you try to hold back since our budget for fixing it isn’t unlimited. Also, for all of you, we’re not trying to kill each other here, just incapacitate or hold our team members. Please try to avoid actual injuries, but if there are any accidents, I’ve asked Lily Chen to stand aside for this fight just in case. Are there any questions?” the captain said, surveying the room.
“Yeah,” said Jan Lindberg, raising one long, pale arm, his jaggedly cut black hair falling over one dark eye. His tone sounded angry and he glared at his future opponents. “For the team that wins the fight, what do they get?”
Captain Shapiro raised an eyebrow, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge Jan’s mood. “The reward of a job well done.”
“How about dinner on the losing team?” Jan asked, his tone still aggressive.
The captain gave him a thin smile. “That’s not in the budget, Jan. If everyone in the team wants to agree that it’ll come out of their own pockets, though…” he replied, not finishing his sentence but turning to the team instead.
Lex turned to look at Rolf, who shrugged and then nodded. Miranda MacAllister, usually on the graveyard shift with Jan, tilted her head to the side as she considered the question, her long grey hair sweeping gracefully out in contrast with her smooth, pale skin and icy blue eyes. She finally nodded as well, then looked over at Tamara De Luca and Marguerite Lambert. Tamara moved her head from side to side as she considered the question, then swung her dark hair with fiery red highlights over her shoulder. “Sure,” she said, then looked to Meg at her right. Meg smiled, showing off beautiful teeth, curly dark hair, and mischievous green eyes. “Yes, let’s do it,” she replied in heavily French-accented English.
The captain nodded and then turned to where the new members of the team stood. “Well, what do you think?” he asked.
Lex couldn’t help but smile as everyone turned to Riss, who gave them a hard look in return. After a moment, Casey asked, “Would that be a problem?”
“Not at all,” Riss replied with a shrug, her small smile in evidence.
“All right, then,” Captain Shapiro continued, “the losers will buy dinner for the winners. This fight means one more thing, which I expect all of you to agree on with no complaining and no exceptions. Once this fight is done, we are all friends and we are all one team. Is that understood?”
He looked all the way around the group then, meeting each person’s eyes in turn. Lex nodded as he turned to her, but she heard grumbling from some other people, and Jan even turned his head away in disgust, but after a couple of long minutes, most everyone had voiced or indicated agreement. When the captain seemed satisfied, he moved back one step.
“Since we’re all in agreement, then, unless there are any other questions, let’s begin. Everyone, pick your opponents.”
No one else had questions, Lex guessed, since everyone seemed to choose that moment to step back and size up the other team. She and her teammates first moved into their favorite beginning fighting stance—the one they’d come to call the deadly flower. Lex and Kate moved nearer to Lou and Casey, and the four of them ended up back to back in pairs with plenty of space in between the four of them for Riss and Victor to stand. She and her friends had originally conceived of this formation as a way to fight and to protect their members who were not as used to hand to hand, but it seemed that Victor and Riss had become adept at protecting themselves nonetheless. Today, Lex noted that Riss had a thin laptop with her and a bluetooth piece in her ear and Victor had brought a couple of strange-looking sidearms with him along with what looked like a newer version of the goggles and gloves he’d tried out in Seattle.
A few seconds of calm descended on both groups, and Lex took a moment to assess the Brussels’ team battle formation. They stood spread-out, facing the former Americans, with the captain in the back. Rolf and Jan flanked Miranda, both appearing smaller as they stood next to her. Tall and graceful, Miranda stood somewhere around six feet, while Rolf stood nearer to Lex’s height and Jan a few inches taller than that. Rolf and Miranda both appeared to be calm, but Jan seemed angrier than he had earlier. Tamara and Meg stood nearer to one another, and Meg’s slim, petite figure contrasted slightly with Tamara’s stronger-looking limbs. As a matter of fact, Lex had met Tamara in the gym several times and knew that the woman lifted weights as well.
After the breathless moment of waiting, both teams seemed to begin moving at the same time.
“I want Rolf,” Kate said, stepping forward in his direction.
“Leave Shapiro to me,” Riss said, her voice low and menacing.
The other team seemed to be picking targets, as well. Miranda and Tamara stepped away from their group and walked together, seeming to home in on Casey and Lou. Meg moved forward as well, but her movement seemed to propel her into the air, and Lex had a breathless moment as she watched the other woman hover then start to move upwards. As Lex glanced to the side, she saw Victor looking at Meg’s progress as well, smiling gently.
“I’ll deal with her,” he said softly as he walked past Lex.
Lex took a step back in order to give Victor and Meg more room, and frowned when she noticed herself standing alone. She tried to take inventory of everyone, but her eyes stuck on Riss and Captain Shapiro, who’d moved into opposite corners of the room, both seeming to be deep in concentration. She raised an eyebrow as she noted what looked like tiny cars rolling along the floor and small flying drones all heading in Riss’ direction. To her surprise, the coordinated groups of drones split, some of them breaking off into different directions or crashing into one another.
A moment later, she felt surprised again as she saw a bright light out of the corner of her eye and turned quickly to see Tamara bent forward, breathing fire out of her mouth. It came out in a small stream, but something seemed to be happening afterwards, something Miranda looked to be doing, because the tall, grey-haired woman stood near the fire with her hands spread out, and after her, the flow of flames had grown and was directly aimed at Lou and Casey.
Movement in the other corner of the room caused Lex to turn her head again, and as she watched, Rolf, now completely transformed into a wolf much larger than any she’d ever seen, all black with stunning deep gold eyes, stood facing off with Kate. They seemed to be focused on each other to the exclusion of all else, moving quickly enough that Lex had to concentrate to follow with her eyes.
Turning her head slightly brought Meg and Victor into view. It seemed that Meg could fly or hover at her discretion, and she’d used that ability to hover at a level with Victor. Lex hadn’t known that Victor had created some boots for himself like the ones he’d made for her, but she smiled to see her friend clinging to the wall as Meg floated, making some kind of signals with her hands.
Lex turned to look at the rest of the room, trying to find her opponent, closely scanning the crowd as she looked for anyone free. She couldn’t even think of who she’d forgotten until she felt someone materialize behind her. The next thing Lex knew, she felt a knife at her throat and a snarling voice in her ear…
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