Supervillainess (Part One) (19 page)

“Of course she did. It was part of the
game,” Jermaine answered for her.

Keladry glanced at Kimber then back. “Sorry,
Doc. I had to.”

“You’d betray anyone you had to in order to
become your father’s successor.”

“Pretty sure that’s a given when you deal
with a supervillainess,” she replied.

Kimber clenched his jaw. The rational side
of him whispered for him not to be surprised, that he had always
known what she was, while his feelings were scorched by the
betrayal of his trust. He didn’t want anyone knowing about his
past, let alone the three people in the city he definitely couldn’t
trust. She’d revealed his secret to her fucked up family.

It wasn’t the first time Keladry Savage had
surprised him, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. It didn’t
change what he thought he saw in her, but he made a mental note to
watch what he said around her.

“No deal, Jermaine,” he spoke quietly. “I’m
here to stay for now. I plan on becoming an obstacle to both of you
as much as possible. This city deserves better.”

“And you think you can stop us?” Jermaine
challenged.

“Someone has to try.”

“New deal. This one is for you, sis,” the
villain said, gaze on Keladry. “Kill him, and you and I can become
what we once were, a team capable of taking out our asshole of a
father.”

Kimber’s breath caught. He didn’t need to
see Keladry’s expression to know this was the one thing her brother
could offer her that she actually wanted. He had witnessed the look
on her face the day she revealed her brother tried to kill her, and
again earlier, when she admitted to not being able to murder him
when she had the chance.

“I thought you said it wasn’t possible,”
Keladry said guardedly after a pause.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,”
her brother replied. “Our father has tried to drive us apart for
the past year. What if the only way to beat him is to work
together?”

Kimber studied Jermaine, sensing deception.
Keladry’s head was tilted to the side, as if she were attempting to
read his mind. If what they said was true, she couldn’t, not when
Kimber was so close to her. Was Jermaine counting on Kimber’s
alleged power to block his lies?

The protective instinct stirred, and Kimber
had the urge to punch Jermaine.

“I don’t believe you,” Keladry said in a
hard tone.

“Really? I give you a
choice between this fool and your own brother, and you
choose
him
?”
Jermaine snarled.

“I’m not choosing anyone until you convince
me everything you said the other night no longer applies!” she
snapped.

“Leave me out of this,” Kimber added. “This
issue between you two existed long before me.”

“You put yourself in the middle, Doc, the
night you saved my sister,” Jermaine shot back.

“Because you tried to murder her! You can’t
believe a word he says, Keladry.”

“I know what I’m doing, Doc,” she snapped at
him before focusing again on her brother. “Are you serious,
Jermaine?”

Kimber glanced at Igor, whose features were
long with worry. The nanny wasn’t buying Jermaine’s sincerity
anymore than Kimber was. Was Keladry?

“I am,” Jermaine said firmly. He approached
his sister and stopped in front of her, hands clasped behind his
back. “If you don’t want him dead, then exile him. Take him to the
city limits. I’m willing to bend, if it means we’ll team up against
father again and win the city.”

“Father said not to kill him, so this isn’t
you bending. It’s me not taking your bait,” Keladry said.

“That was this level of the games,” Jermaine
replied smoothly. “Once the superhero application is approved or
rejected, the doctor becomes fair game once more. At which point,
Father will probably task us to kill him.”

She was quiet, pensive, her features
betraying nothing about what she thought.

“I have a choice in this, too,” Kimber said
and shifted his weight between his feet, “And I’m not going
anywhere. If your father won’t let you kill me, then you can bet
I’ll show up wherever you try to cause mayhem in this city and
block all your efforts to hurt innocent people.”

Keladry turned at his calm statement. She
motioned to Igor. “Put him in the car.”

Jermaine started to smile.

“My brother as well,” she added.

“Keladry –” Kimber objected.

“Reader –” her brother said
simultaneously.

“Both of you get in the fucking car, or my
ninjas end you where you stand!” she shouted.

On cue, masked men in black materialized out
of the shadows surrounding them. No less than fifty of them circled
the two cars and four people.

Keladry got into the passenger seat and
closed the door. Igor circled the car and opened the door to the
backseat, motioning to Kimber and Jermaine to get in.

Kimber cursed silently as he realized he had
no real choice. Whatever Keladry’s plan was, he would rather wait
and find out than die where he stood. He got into the car first,
frustrated, his mind racing as he considered his options. He was
unarmed and alone with two dangerous criminals. What chance did he
have to survive?

Jermaine slid into the seat beside him. The
tension in the car was stifling, and Igor turned on the air
conditioner as he pulled away from the curb.

The sense of being utterly alone, of being
the one in five million willing to try to stop the Savage twins,
fed Kimber’s uncertainty about what was likely to happen. Whatever
connection he experienced – or thought he did – with Keladry was
nothing compared to the lifelong alliance she had with her brother.
Part of him was convinced they were headed to the city line, while
the other part of him expected Igor to take them to the river,
where Keladry would shoot him and dump his body.

Helplessness was an enemy Kimber knew and
hated after his struggle to recover from drug addiction. He’d
experienced it during his fall to rock bottom then again when he
was sober enough to understand the damage he’d done to those he
cared about, to his own career and life. The final overdose meant
to kill him came after his first month in rehab, when he realized
the extent of suffering he had caused and decided he’d rather not
live with this burden.

But he hadn’t died. He should have, but
didn’t, and he awoke from a week-long coma with a renewed sense of
purpose: to help others like himself as penance.

Seated in the backseat of the car, in the
company of the Savage twins, he couldn’t stop thinking he wasn’t
helping anyone by dying tonight or being exiled from the city.

Igor drove them through the downtown area.
They were followed by a train of six or seven more dark cars,
though Kimber wasn’t able to identify if Keladry or Jermaine’s
henchmen followed.

As he watched the city lights and buildings
morph into the suburbs, Kimber experienced an unexpected sense of
loss. He didn’t want to leave the strange city that had accepted
him when no one else would. He’d found a place that needed him as
much as he needed it, a city suffering from the choice it’d made at
some point in its past not to fight the supervillain-mob boss that
controlled it.

One choice shouldn’t condemn someone
forever. He’d learned this firsthand.

Maybe fate or luck had brought him here to
give the city the same second chance he’d been provided. How he was
supposed to do that, he couldn’t begin to imagine, but it had
something to do with stepping between the twins and the city.

Too soon, Igor slowed the car.

Kimber’s heart began to race, and he gazed
out the window. In the distance, the city’s lights lit up the
underbellies of the low clouds and formed a halo around Sand
City.

The other three occupants of the car got
out. Kimber followed their leads more slowly. He had no weapons and
doubted he’d be able to fight off all of them to escape. He’d come
up with no decent alternative and silently cursed at his lack of
plan for surviving.

“There it is,” Jermaine said.

Kimber looked up. A white sign was just
ahead of the car on the side of the road.

End Sand City
Limits,
it read.

“Go, Doc,” Keladry said.

He faced her. Her gaze was hard. Anything he
wanted to say to her died on his lips when he saw her implacable
expression. It was then another thought bubbled forth from the
maddening flurry in his mind. If fate had brought him here, it had
also planted Keladry Savage directly into his life.

Maybe he didn’t need to
save the city. Maybe he just needed to save
her.
He had seen the small ember of
goodness in her heart that led her to help the people in his
apartment building and to offer him protection.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

Jermaine snorted.

Keladry rolled her eyes but motioned for him
to follow her. She led him a few feet away, out of earshot from the
others.

“What?” she demanded.

Ignoring her defensive bluntness, Kimber
drew a breath. “Have you ever considered leaving Sand City?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should think about it.”

“Why would I?” She appeared confused.

“Come with me, Keladry,” he said
quietly.

Why did I say that?
He thought, startled by his own words. When had he
stopped viewing her as crazy and started to see her as the
complicated woman she was? He didn’t know – but he didn’t regret
what he’d said, either.

She gazed up at him, eyes widening in
surprise. “You want me to request a transfer through the
Supervillain Council?”

“Not exactly.” Kimber cleared his throat.
“We can go somewhere where this villain insanity doesn’t exist,
where you aren’t forced into these games,” he added with a glance
towards the others. “We can both start over.” He resisted the urge
to say more, to add too much meaning to an idea that sounded
reckless the moment he gave it life by speaking it aloud.

“You want me to give up being a
supervillain,” she said.

“Yes. You can do anything,
go anywhere, be anyone. You can be
good
and
walk
away from the mob and life of crime before you end up dead or
broken.”

“You want me to give up being me.”

“Don’t you think you’re
taking this supervillain …
thing
too far? I mean, they aren’t real, outside of Sand
City.”

“You want me to give up being me,” she
repeated, anger flashing in her gaze. “I wouldn’t ask you to become
a supervillain. I know it’s not who you are.”

“I’m not a superhero either, and you signed
me up for it,” he pointed out.

“Becoming Sand City’s superhero would keep
you in the city!”

“Is that why you did it, or was it for your
daddy’s latest challenge?”

“Both!” Keladry drew her weapon. “If you
have a reason to stay, you won’t leave like you did Chicago!”

“What happens if I stay? I become your
mortal enemy? If you want me to stay, why would you make us
enemies?”

Her jaw ticked, and her eyes were stormy.
She didn’t answer.

“Look. I don’t want to argue about it,” he
said, sensing she was preparing to either shoot him or walk away
from him. “But I mean it. If you want to come with me, we can start
over somewhere else.”

“But only if I change.”

“You’re a good person, or at least, you have
the potential to become very good. You don’t have to change,” he
said, perplexed. “I don’t mean that you need to be different. Just
… be the person you already are buried beneath the black jumpsuits
and mask.”

She studied him. She was tense again, and he
had the feeling he’d only managed to piss her off more. Reviewing
what he’d said, he had to admit it sounded worse out loud than it
had in his head.

“You want me to become something I’m not, if
I stay,” he continued. “How is what I’m asking any different?”

“You’ve never been able to
see what’s in front of you.” She bit off the words. “You
don’t
choose
to be
a villain or hero. It’s a calling, one that’s been knocking at your
door since you found me in the alley!”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not that person,
Keladry,” he said.

Keladry took a step back then two. She spun
and started back towards the car, where Igor and her brother
waited.

Kimber rubbed the back of his head,
frustrated, and turned towards the sign, wishing he’d phrased his
request differently while also relieved she hadn’t agreed. With
nowhere to go and no idea how she would handle a life outside of
Sand City, her agreement would send him nose diving into more
trouble than he was already in. Was it so wrong, to want her to go
with him, even if he couldn’t identify what he felt about the
possibility?

The sound of a gunshot pierced the
night.

Kimber jumped and then turned.

Jermaine dropped to the ground, a bullet
hole in his forehead and the back of his head blown off. Keladry
lowered the weapon and gazed down at the body of her brother.

Igor’s startled look mirrored Kimber’s.

Speechless, Kimber moved closer, unable to
believe what he saw.

“This is who I am, Doc,” Keladry said
quietly. She met his gaze. Hers was cold, as if her anger had
frozen into white rage. “I’m not going with you, and I sure as hell
am not about to change. I’m the next Sand City supervillainess, and
I don’t give a fuck what you think about it.”

Kimber’s heart sank to his feet.

“Don’t come back here, Doc. That goes for
you too, Igor,” Keladry added, motioning her nanny away from the
car. “You’re both officially expelled from the city.”

“Reader –” Igor objected.

“This isn’t a request, Igor! If you disobey
me, I’ll throw you in the dungeon!”