Sweet Release (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (23 page)

Still, the wind was knocked out of me, and I struggled to breathe, giving Keith his chance. He kicked me in the midsection, and this time, I had to let him go. We stared at each other, circling each other like wolves, ready to pounce on their prey. I shot forward and kicked him in the face. I connected with his jaw, and he yelled as he punched me back, his fist hitting me square in the eye socket. I heard something crack, but the adrenaline was pumping and the throbbing pain coursing through my face barely felt like a distraction.

We continued to fight in mid-air, dipping and dodging each other’s moves.

I had to admit, Keith was a pretty good match. He gave as good as he got, and as time passed it was obvious neither one of us had a big advantage over the other.

I stopped in midair, breathing heavily. Fifteen feet away, Keith did the same thing. The crowd’s cheers had died down. Now they were watching us, every single eye on the street focused on us. I had to end this. The family that was still waiting for me to rescue them didn’t have forever. After all, the fire was still burning.

Then it hit me!

The fire was still burning.

I closed my eyes and willed some fire towards me. A second later a tennis-ball sized ball of fire came hurtling from the building towards me, stopping an inch above my hand.

It floated there for a minute, while Keith looked at it in confusion. Then, before he could do anything, I hurled it at him as fast as I could, and willed for it to get bigger.

Keith was immediately engulfed in the flames. He cried out as he tried to put them out with his hands, and that was when I took my chance.

Flying towards him, I grabbed him and pulled him up higher. The flames surrounding him did nothing to me, they just felt like lukewarm water kissing my skin.

I flew us both up above the nearest building and I slammed him down onto its roof as hard as I could.

He slammed into the building, and watched as he began to roll around, trying to put out the flames that were burning his body.. This was my chance.

As fast as I could I flew over to the window; I was so close I could see the hope in the family’s eyes. But just before I got there, Sam flew in and grabbed the boy. He screamed as she held him by his pyjama top, dangling him five stories above the ground.

“Sam!” I cried out to her hoarsely, watching the boy. Surely she wouldn’t drop him. Surely not. In his fear the boy dropped his teddy bear, and it dropped slowly down to the ground before landing on the concrete below.

“Come back to me, Zander,” she called out. “We were meant to be together. Who else would have you?”

“Really? You seriously think this is a good way to get me back?”

“You shouldn’t have left. You should have stayed with us. We’ll be rich.”

“Some things aren’t worth money.”

“You’ll be sorry,” she replied, and dropped her grip on the boy.

A thousand things seemed to happen at once.

The boy and his mother both screamed, their cries piercing through the gasp that arose from the crowd.

I dove after the boy as fast as I could. He was clutching at the air while screaming, hoping for an invisible hold to grab. I was so focused on the boy, I didn’t notice the ground coming closer and closer.

When I finally grabbed him around the midsection, at the very last second, and pulled up as hard as I could, I could practically feel the ground scraping my stomach.

Damn, that had been close.

As I set the boy down and went to save his parents – his mother couldn’t stop hugging me and crying while saying thank you – the crowd let out a cheer unlike any I’d ever heard at a football game.

This was different. This was more than football. It started to sink in that I’d just saved a whole bunch of peoples’ lives.

I looked around for Sam and Keith, but they had gone, obviously using dropping the boy as a distraction while they escaped.

Then I finally got a look at the boy, for the first time. He was covered in blood.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered, thinking the only way he could have gotten bloodied was by hitting the ground. But he didn’t seem hurt. Then I looked down, and breathed a sigh of relief.

The blood was mine.

My left arm was scratched, and bleeding pretty heavily. I could also feel a trickle of blood running down my face. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, this was going to be hurting pretty soon.

One of the numerous EMTs around came over, but I waved him away. In no universe did I want any officials looking at me. Absolutely not. Going to the hospital meant I was as good as going to be a lab rat as scientists tried to figure out how the hell this happened to me. I’d be a human guinea pig.

I started to walk through the crowd, which immediately parted for me, like the Red Sea for Moses. As I walked past people clapped me on the back, high fived me, cried out that I was a hero.

A hero.

I didn’t feel like a hero. I just did what anyone would do in that situation. And luckily, no one was hurt. Not seriously, anyway.

As a crowd of reporters bunched around me, I decided I didn’t want to be here anymore. I flew off before they could ask their questions, their cameras trailing after me, and looked over the rooftops.

That was when I saw her.

When I heard what was happening downtown I knew it had to be those flying people again. I was going to have to come up with a better name for them, I thought to myself as I threw some clothes on and headed out. I wanted to see what was happening.

After all, this was big stuff. People that could fly?

And I had to admit, I wanted to see if the guy who saved me was with them or not.

It turned out he wasn’t, but he did show up to try and stop them.

As he fought the other guy, it became obvious that he was hurt. But, I suspected he wasn’t going to want to see a medical professional. He would be smart enough to know that any doctor would just want to explore his powers.

So, when it looked like everything was winding down, I went into the closest building and walked up to the roof. I stood there, waiting. He showed up a few minutes later, flying above the buildings and looking around. I saw his eyes fall on me, and they rested there for a minute.

He knew it was me, I could tell. Was he going to come?

A minute later he made up his mind.  He floated down towards me, landing on the roof ten feet away.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“You’re hurt, and you’re not going to want to go to the hospital. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” he growled.

“Really? Because that wound in your arm’s going to get infected, you probably have a broken cheekbone and the cut on the side of your face is going to need stitches.”

“I can do it all myself,” he told me.

“Even if you had any medical training, which I doubt, you’re not going to be able to stitch up your face, at any rate. If you screw up while looking in the mirror you’re going to stab yourself in the eye, and then where will you be? They’ll have to start calling you Cyclops, and I’m pretty sure one of the X-Men already took that superhero name.”

“Fine,” he muttered. He must have realized I was right. He wasn’t going to be able to stitch up his own face. “What’s your plan then?”

“Take me to the biology building at Loch College. If we go in through the roof, room 507 on the top floor is totally empty this semester, since there are so few classes in the summer, and they leave it unlocked, I’ve been going there to study when there’s too many people in the library,” I told him. It was one of the older rooms that used to be used for medical studies, and had everything I would need to do basic first aid on him.

“Fine,” he told me, and as he grabbed me, one arm under my knees and the other wrapping under my arms, I couldn’t help but wrap my arms around his neck. A moment later he took off, and it took my breath away completely.

It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. The air whipped through my hair as we flew over the whole city, the buildings below only blurs. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, and in this man’s arms I felt… safe.

The trip to the college campus only took a few minutes. He flew so fast!

“This is a way more efficient way to commute than the subway,” I joked as he set me down, and he laughed.

“What’s your name,” he asked me, and I told him. “Valerie.” But something about the way he asked me made me think he already knew the answer. “What’s yours?”

He shrugged as I opened the door leading to the stairwell.

“Well I have a real name, obviously. But I can’t use that. I don’t really know what to call myself.”

I thought back to how he made the fire come to him, how he blasted the other guy with it.

“How about ‘Inferno’?” I offered, and he looked at me for a minute, a weird expression on his face.

“Yeah. Inferno. I like that,” he finally said, grinning. Beneath his mask, for the first time, I could see his eyes smiling too. I suddenly felt like someone had taken my breath away.

Nope. Absolutely not. That kiss had been a mistake. A sweet, passionate, amazing mistake.

Get it together, Valerie,
I scolded myself.

We made it into room 507 without anyone seeing us. It was practically empty, just a few desks here and there. I wasn’t surprised, I figured there must have been three classes happening in the whole building right now.

“Stay here while I go find some supplies down the hall,” I told Inferno, and I went down the hall to a supply closet and grabbed a first aid kit.

When I got back, Inferno was sitting on one of the desks, sitting so casually; even when he was beaten and bruised he looked like he could take on the world.

“Ok, let me start by cleaning up that arm wound,” I told him, motioning to the cut. His costume’s sleeves stopped at the elbow, and the cut on Inferno’s arm spanned almost the entire length of his forearm. I went over to a sink at the back of the room and washed my hands, then soaked a cloth. I went back to him and cleaned off the blood. Luckily, it turned out the wound wasn’t very deep, and stitches likely wouldn’t be necessary.

I spread an antibiotic cream over the wound. I could feel Inferno’s muscles tensing under me, and I did my best to focus on the task at hand. He was just another patient. Just any other patient.

With the cream applied, I took out some gauze and bandaged up the arm.

“That’s gonna be a bitch to take off, by the way,” I warned him.

“Compared to how I’m feeling right now, I doubt it,” he replied. That was probably a good point, and I laughed.

“Sorry. Now speaking of pain, I want to see how this is doing,” I told him, motioning towards his cheekbone. It was bruised, the black patch of skin going all the way inside his mask.

“I suspect a zygomatic fracture of your orbital socket, but can’t be sure, especially without taking off the mask. You’re lucky if the orbital bone and cheekbone breaks is the only thing here. Can you still see fine? Any problems with your vision?”

Inferno shook his head. “No. Everything’s normal sight-wise.”

“Look up, down, and side to side for me.”

He did so, and didn’t seem to have any problems.

“Trouble?”

“None.”

“Good. That means the muscles around your eyes are fine.”

“So what do I do about it?”

“Well, since we don’t have access to an X-Ray machine or a CT Scanner here I can’t confirm the diagnosis. And since you’re not willing to see a doctor, you wouldn’t be able to undergo surgery if you needed it. So basically, ice and antibiotics to prevent infection. The swelling and bruising should go away in 7-10 days, but the fracture’s going to take longer than that to heal. Try not to get punched in the face for a while.”

He smiled again.

“It’s a bit of an occupational hazard.”

“So you’re doing this full-time now, huh? You’re going full superhero?”

“Well with a cool name like Inferno, I guess I have to now.”

I glanced over at him as I got ready to stitch up the wound on the side of his face. It was in an awkward spot, just below the temple, and I knew this was going to hurt.

“That’s a pretty big shift, going from thief to superhero. Sorry, this part’s going to hurt.”

I wiped the wound clean and began to put the stitches in. He winced so little that I wondered if he could feel anything at all in that head of his.

“I wasn’t going to. Honestly, I’m not sure I like the attention. I’m always worried they’re going to catch me and stick me in a lab somewhere. But you saw what K- what those two did today.” He had stopped himself just in time; he was about to mention the name of one of those two thieves. Not that a first name would mean much anyway.

Kieran? Kyle? Keith? Kris? There had to be over ten thousand people in the city with each of those names.

“The cops can’t stop them. They keep sending out press releases we all know are aimed at me, saying vigilante justice isn’t the right way to go about things. But the cops are useless against them. You saw how their bullets just bounce off. It’s because of some sort of polymer or something the girl put in the suits. They feel normal, but they’re hard as steel. And when I saw today what they were willing to do. No, I might not be a good person, but I can’t sit by and watch them do that.”

“Why aren’t you a good person?”

He shrugged. “Lots of reasons. I’m just not.”

“I wouldn’t say that. There’s a lot of people out there that wouldn’t have done what you did today. And who wouldn’t do what you’re doing.”

“Thanks. But I’m just trying to make up for… stuff.”

I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, though the conversation seemed to take his mind off things while I put eight stitches into the side of his face.

“There you go. All done,” I told him, admiring my handiwork. I was pretty good, for someone who didn’t have her MD yet.

“Thanks. If I ever need another almost-doctor, I know where to go,” he told me, standing up with a grin. I suddenly noticed the wound on his arm soaking through the bandage.

“Shit,” I muttered. “Sit back down, you’re not done yet. I think I might have to stitch that one up too after all.”

Inferno sat back down obediently as I unwound the bandage around his arm. It was only one part of the wound that was bleeding pretty hard, it must have nicked a different artery.  Two or three stitches would be fine.

“These won’t hurt as much as the others,” I told him. Like the perfect patient, he sat there and took it while I stitched him up and re-bandaged the wound after re-applying some more antibiotic cream, just in case.

“You’re going to be a good doctor, you know,” he told me softly as I wrapped his arm back up.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, looking up at him sharply. It seemed so out of character for him.

“You care. You obviously care a lot. About everyone. And isn’t that the most important thing in medicine?”

“I think one might argue there are quite a few things more important for doctors to know,” I replied, the slight snark in my voice disguised to hide the warmth that flowed through my body at his words. He grabbed me by the arm, not hard, but enough to get my attention. I looked up into those dark eyes, and the look in them was so powerful I was tempted to look away. But I didn’t.

“I mean it, Valerie. You didn’t have to help me today. You could have left me alone to heal myself, like everyone else did. But you figured out why I wouldn’t go to the hospital, and you came to help. That’s something. That’s good. That’s important. I need you to know that.”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what to say. The air between us seemed to be electrified, like we were connected by an invisible force.

I wanted to resist. I wanted to pull away. But something stopped me. This time, when Inferno’s lips found mine, my body surrendered. I fell into his kiss, my lips matching his like they were made for each other. He picked me up, effortlessly, and pressed me against the wall.

My legs wrapped around his hips instinctively as his lips moved down to my neck, the warm touch of his mouth against my sensitive skin sending ripples of pleasure coursing through every inch of my body.

I pressed up against him, my breasts heaving as they pushed against the hard muscle of his chest. I was no longer just powerless to resist him. I was fully giving into every urge my body had.

Inferno’s hands moved down to my shirt. His fingers grazed over my breasts as he moved them down, slowly, ever so slowly towards the hem. He grabbed it, and before I knew what had happened my shirt was on the ground, discarded, forgotten.