Sweet Release (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (20 page)

Two weeks later I was hanging out downtown with Annie; we had both decided to take a much-needed break from our studies to go shopping, drink some coffee and people-watch. Twenty-four hours of not a single care in the world, that was our plan. Her arm was out of the sling, and while it was still bandaged up, I had it on good authority that it was healing up nicely.

We were sitting on the patio of our local favourite coffee place, Buzz, on the first sunny weekend of spring. It felt so nice to be able to sit outside without a jacket on, letting the sun’s rays beat down on my exposed arms, warming them after the long winter.

“This is some crazy stuff, don’t you think?” Annie asked me, motioning towards the headline on the front of the local paper, the Olympus Times.

“Mysterious Thieves Strike Again,” the headline wrote, with a large white question mark over a black background and grey outline of a face that looked purposely vague.

I shrugged. “Is it really that different to what things are normally like here? Gangsters shoot each other, someone’s stealing from the rich businesses in town. It’s just a slightly different crime.”

“I can’t believe you’re being so cavalier about this!” Annie said. “What if it gets worse?”

“Well, what if it does? What are we supposed to do? Shut ourselves up in our apartments and never go outside? So far whoever’s stealing this stuff hasn’t hurt anyone. The media’s just latched onto it because it’s another big mark against the mayor.”

“I guess. But still, it’s a little bit worrying.”

“All the news is worrying. That’s why I don’t read the papers,” I replied. It was all too negative for my liking. Quite frankly, the odds of anything happening to us were so low, I didn’t like to feed into the fear-mongering. Annie was a bit weird that way. She could be so adventurous in some ways – going home with random men, especially – and yet so cautious in others. Like this.

“Fine. It shouldn’t matter too much anyway, a lot of the experts figure another couple weeks of these thieves and the governor’s going to step in.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure the governor’s got a lot of experience dealing with gangs from four different continents and master criminals.”

“You’re such a cynic.”

“That’s true. I’m super salty today for some reason. I think I need another coffee,” I replied, motioning for the waiter.

“Get all the salt out. That’s what today is, relaxing. So we can make it through that final push of exams before summer!” Annie exclaimed.

“You’re right. Plus, this is such a beautiful day, I’m not going to ruin it with negative thoughts. This day is going to be totally awesome.”

At that exact moment, we started to hear a couple police sirens in the background. To be honest, that wasn’t that big of a deal. I mean, we did live in Olympus. Police sirens at all hours was pretty much a way of life. But a minute later, five cop cars came speeding past. Five!
That
was unusual.

I looked at Annie.

“What do you think all that’s about?” she asked. I shook my head.

“Wanna go find out?”

“What? Are you crazy? No. No, I absolutely do not. I will find out from the paper tomorrow, like a normal person.”

I laughed.

“Fine. You do realize I only suggest these things because I know you’re going to say no, right?”

Annie stuck her tongue out at me, then pointed at a news van driving past doing at least 60.

“See? They’ll get all the footage we need.”

Suddenly, from a couple blocks away came a whole bunch of screaming. Something was obviously happening.

I looked at Annie.

“Ok, now I have to go. I’m training to be a doctor, after all. I’m trained in CPR. I need to make sure no one needs my help.”

Annie gave me that resigned look.

“Fine, but you’re crazy if you think I’m not going with you.”

We got up and left some bills on the counter to pay for the coffee, then started moving towards the sounds. Whereas a minute or so ago the crowd was moving towards all the drama, now people were fleeing the area, and Annie and I had to push against quite a few people before we made our way to the centre of the commotion.

Everything was happening at a bank two blocks away from the coffee shop. That much was obvious: smoke was pouring out of the front doors, and the police cars were all lined up in a semi-circle around the entrance to the bank.

The cops had their doors open and their guns raised, but that wasn’t what caught my attention.

No, what I immediately noticed was two men and the woman,
floating
about three stories high, with giant black duffel bags in their hands.

What kind of weird trick were they using? I used my hands to shield my face to try and get a good look at them.

The woman wore a tight jumpsuit, black, with emerald green stripes down the side. A black half-mask covered her eyes, masking enough of her face that it was impossible to tell who she was. Her long red hair was sleekly tied back in a ponytail that ran most of the way down her back, and she had her hands out, as though to warn people to stay away from her. Although, how anyone could catch her when she was three stories high was anyone’s guess.

The two men were standing on either side of her. They both wore baklava-type masks with the bottom half cut out, so their mouths and chins were visible. One of them had black hair poking out from behind his mask, and a grin on his face that looked a little but familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place it.

Of course I couldn’t place it. When had I ever run into people that could
fly
before?

They were both wearing tight shirts, revealing bodies that could only be described as completely ripped, and tight pants as well.

How on earth was this happening?

Before I had a chance to really think about it though, Annie grabbed me by the arm.

“Valerie, look!” she exclaimed, pointing to a spot on the far side of the bank from where we were standing. Lying on the ground was a woman, wearing a suit. She’d been hit in the head by something, possibly the chunk of concrete that was lying next to her. Blood was seeping from the wound and she was lying there, moaning. I knew this was bad, I knew she needed medical attention, and fast.

None of the cops were willing to go near her. I could see why, anyone who did was going to be completely uncovered, in the direct line of fire between the lady and these three… what do you call people who can fly? Mutants? Crazy people?

Thieves. For now, that’s what they were. Thieves.

“Call 9-1-1,” I told Annie as I started to move around the crowd to get closer to the woman.

“I think they know shit’s going down here already,” I heard her call out to me. “You can’t go over there!” she added as she realized what I was doing.

“I have to, or that woman’s going to die.”

“You’re probably both going to die if you try.”

“You said it yourself, they haven’t hurt anyone yet.”

“’Yet’ being the key word in that sentence,” Annie called after me, but it was too late. I waved away her protests and continued to make my way around the crowd. Was it dangerous? Sure. But I had to try. Besides, if there were thieves around that could fly or whatever, who knew what was dangerous and what wasn’t anymore.

I reached the side of the building, away from the cop cars. The woman was closer to me now, only about ten feet away, towards the bank entrance. She had stopped moaning so much. That wasn’t a good sign.

Crawling forward carefully, I looked up at the three thieves from time to time, trying not to think too much about the fact that they were
flying
. No, I had a patient to deal with; I could come to grips with this crazy reality later.

I heard a cop yelling at me to stay back, but I ignored him. As soon as I was next to the woman, all my training kicked in.

First, I checked her pulse. Still there. It was a bit weaker than I would have liked, but at least she was still alive, for now.

Her breathing was shallow, but regular. Good. Regular breathing was always a good sign, and it wasn’t raspy, which meant it was unlikely that there was blood in her lungs.

Looking over her quickly, it seemed like the main source of danger was the cut on her head. I was wearing a light scarf, which I quickly took off and wound it tightly around the wound, trying to staunch some of the bleeding, but it was obvious the woman needed medical attention. And fast.

I looked around. No one was going to come and help me. Suddenly, I heard a voice shouting at me from above.

“Hey, you,” the flying woman shouted. I looked up. She was staring directly at me.

“Me?” I asked, motioning to myself.

“Yeah. You. Get the hell out of here.”

“Ok. I will. But I need to take her with me. She’s hurt, she needs medical attention.”

“What part of get out of here didn’t you understand?” she shouted, and then things got even weirder.

A whole bunch of concrete lifted up from the ground and came flying towards me and the woman. I screamed, and covered her body with my own, knowing how futile the gesture was, knowing that we were both going to die.

Annie was right. This had been a bad idea.

This was fucking enough.

I had no idea why Sam was so pissed at that girl from our class trying to save the woman lying on the ground. After all, we hadn’t actually done this shit to really hurt anyone.

As soon as we got out of the hospital, Keith, Sam and I got together. It took a little bit of awkward fumbling around with words – none of us wanted to be the crazy person who told others they could fly – but eventually we all realized we had the same new powers.

And it wasn’t just flight, either. It wasn’t obvious in the hotel, but very quickly we all realized we were a lot stronger than humans normally were. Keith and I went to the football team gym at midnight, when no one was there. Before, Keith could bench 330 and I could do 355.

This time we loaded up the bar with over 700 pounds, and we pressed it no problem. Then we took the plates off the bar as fast as we fucking could, because there was no way we wanted anyone else to see us doing that.

“This shit’s awesome, man,” Keith told me, high fiving me as I put the bar back. “We’re gonna fucking destroy everyone next year.”

I laughed and high fived him back. At first, that was all these new powers were to us: an awesome way to become football superstars.

We were also a lot faster. I could feel it in my muscles, every time they moved they twitched, like I was constantly set up like a cat ready to pounce, and as soon as I made a move, my muscles pounced towards whatever I was doing.

It was actually kind of stressful, trying to keep looking normal all the time.

It also turned out all three of us had an individual power the others didn’t.

Mine was fire control. It turned out, if there was even so much as a spark around, with just the power of my mind I could mould it to my will: make it bigger, smaller, make it move around. The first time I realized it I almost burnt down my apartment.

Sam could do the same thing with rocks and concrete. And Keith, it turned out, was able to create an acid blast from the tips of his fingers, somehow. That one took a lot longer to figure out, and his landlord probably wasn’t going to be too happy when he next saw Keith’s living room wall.

It was three days after we got out of the hospital that Keith suggested we use our powers for a bit more than just football.

The three of us were hanging out in Samantha’s apartment. We’d become a pretty close group, even closer than we had been before. After all, when you’re the only three humans on earth with superpowers, you get to be pretty tight.

“So, I was thinking,” Keith told us. “We have fucking superpowers. Like, Superman shit. Why not use them? I mean yeah, Zander and I are going to be the best football players ever next year, but why don’t we think bigger?”

“Like what?” Samantha asked. “It’s not like you guys can suddenly start being the best football players on earth, people are gonna figure it out. You’re going to have to be subtle about it.”

“Yeah, but I’m not talking about that sort of thing. We live in Olympus. This is the American financial empire headquarters. The richest companies in the country all have offices here. Why don’t we steal some of their money?”

“I like where you’re going with this!” Sam instantly replied, but I was a little bit more wary.

Sure, some extra cash could definitely come in handy. My mom raised me on her own and I was going to graduate with so much student debt it was going to take years to repay. But still, wasn’t stealing wrong? Even if it was from companies that probably wouldn’t even notice, and if they did would get it back from insurance?

“Yeah, ok, I’m in,” I finally replied. What the hell. What was the point of living if you couldn’t do crazy shit once in a while, and what was the point of having a superpower if you couldn’t do extraordinary things with it?

“Sweet. We’re gonna be fucking rich,” Keith exclaimed, reaching across the couch to high five me.

* * *

Somehow, things had escalated. At first, everything went perfectly. We managed to sneak into offices in the middle of the night by flying up to windows left unlocked – after all, why would you need to lock a window on the 35
th
floor of a skyscraper – and leave without being detected. And we weren’t hurting anyone. No one even knew we were there until the next morning.

Until today.

For some reason, Keith had wanted to go public. He was tired of no one knowing what we looked like.

“For fuck’s sake, we made costumes and everything. It’s not like they’re going to be able to stop us!”

I didn’t want to do it. Stealing from rich people in the middle of the night was one thing, trying to break into a bank in the middle of the day had way more variables.

I might not have been a good guy. But I wasn’t an idiot, either. This wasn’t a good plan.

But as much as I tried to convince Keith otherwise, he wouldn’t budge. He was going to do this. And fuck, I was his best friend. Going along with your best friend’s dumb schemes is pretty much a given.

That’s how I found myself there, floating above the street, holding a duffel bag full of cash.

Things had gone wrong from the start. One of the security guards had way more balls than I would have given him credit for, and started shooting at us as we left. Thankfully I’d started carrying a Zippo with me just in case, and I was able to set enough of the building on fire to cause a distraction and get us out of there.

And even then we were greeted by a whole fleet of cops. I was ready to just fly off and leave. After all, there was bound to be a lot of talk about the fact that we were there in the first place. No one was supposed to fucking know we could fly.

I knew this had been a bad idea.

Then that girl came and helped the woman who was hurt by a falling piece of concrete that Sam had been hurling at the police cars. I couldn’t have given a shit. All power to her, wanting to help that stranger.

“Come on guys, let’s go,” I told the others. We had to leave. But Sam saw the girl too, and for some reason, she got super pissed.

“Not yet, I’m taking this one out for good,” she said, and I saw the sidewalk lift up, as if by magic, and start hurtling towards the girl that had saved our lives.

Enough was fucking enough.

Like a flash, I dropped the bag of cash I was carrying and flew past the concrete flying towards – Valerie, was it? – and the woman she was trying to save. Fuck, someone like that didn’t deserve this shit.

I didn’t even know what I was doing. But all of a sudden I had Valerie in one arm, and the other woman in the other, and we were flying away from the whole scene as the concrete crashed against the spot where Valerie had been just a few seconds before, the shouts from the crowd down below getting fainter and fainter as I carried the two women up, up away from the carnage the three of us had left below.

The faces in the windows of the skyscrapers, watching with eyes wide and mouths open as we flew past became more and more of a blur as I picked up the speed, driving us higher and higher up. I wanted to get above the skyline.

“Holy shit! Holy shit, what is happening?” I suddenly heard Valerie squeal. The other woman was unconscious, but Valerie was now clutching at my arm as she looked down at the city, now hundreds of feet below. I could see her legs dangling, and one of the flat shoes she was wearing suddenly came off and dropped below. I could feel her curves pressing against me, and despite everything, I had to admit, she was pretty hot.

“Don’t panic. Don’t worry, I got you,” I told her as I looked around for the hospital. I spotted the big H of the helipad about a mile to the east, and turned towards it.

“Where are we going?” she cried, obviously stuck between trying to squirm out of my grasp and realizing that meant certain death.

“It’s fine, don’t worry. I’m not going to drop you,” I told her. And it was true; Valerie wasn’t exactly big to begin with, and combined with my new strength she weighed practically nothing in my arms. My words seemed to calm her down, and after a minute she realized where we were headed, and she stopped resisting me completely.

A few seconds later we landed on the roof of the hospital, where I put Valerie down, and then gently put the other woman down as well.

“Who are you?” Valerie asked when I set her down. She looked up at me with a mixture of fear and confusion.

“I’m nobody.”

“That other one you were with. She was going to kill us. You saved our lives. Why?”

I smiled in spite of myself. I liked that even though she was obviously scared, this girl was still grilling me. That took some guts.

“Because I’ve made enough bad life decisions, I figured I’d make a good one for a change,” I replied before flying off. I could sense Valerie’s eyes on me as I left. It was risky, using her own phrasing to me just a few days earlier, but it fit. Plus, it’s not like that had been the riskiest thing I’d done all day.

“Thank you,” I heard her shout out behind me, and a small formed on my lips.