Out of the corner of my eye I studied some of the other villains. They looked a little pale. It could be any of them floating there next to the Countess, I realized. Any of us, I amended.
“I am a business woman, amongst other things,” the Cruel Countess said, “and as a business woman, I’m looking for the most profitable deal. The only time I accept a two-for-one deal is when it is to my advantage. This is not one of those times.
“So,” she said, coming to a stop in front of me, “I’m willing to exchange one of my prisoners for you. Either your sister or your … lover.”
Ashley’s eyes widened, and she cast a glance over at X before her gaze darted back to me. Even now, with the Cruel Countess a few wrong moves away from killing us all, I could see her judge-y gaze. Him? Reeeaaally?
Sister disapproves. Big surprise there.
I focused on the matter at hand. The Cruel Countess wanted to do a hostage exchange, essentially. I’d be stepping in for either my sister or X, and they’d be released.
Hypothetically.
Down here, more than a hundred feet underwater in a supervillain’s lair, there was no safety, no true freedom. But more help was on its way.
“You get three seconds,” the Countess said, “or else the trade is off.”
A no-brainer. “Let go of my sister.”
Abruptly, my sister dropped to the floor. I rushed to her. “Ash—”
No sooner had I knelt than I was jerked up into the air. My lips sealed shut, and invisible hands yanked my arms behind my back.
And to think I’d snickered not an hour ago at a hog-tied Chameleon.
My sister stared up at me from the ground, fear written across her tear-tracked face.
“Guards,” the Cruel Countess snapped her fingers, “take this one and roughen her up.”
My eyes widened, and I tried to shout. Instead, my sealed lips captured the scream. All that came out was a muffled moan. I struggled, just as I’d seen Ashley and X do. No use; the power that bound me didn’t give.
“Wait,” the Cruel Countess said. She swiveled and headed for the glass wall, dragging X and me with her. She stared into the dark water, forcing me to gaze into it as well. My eyes caught movement. From the murkiness, sharks approached the wall, their movements fluid and somehow sinister.
The Cruel Countess stroked the glass, a smile blooming along her face. The sharks approached her.
A swarm of sharks gathered on the other side of the glass, almost as though summoned by her …
The Cruel Countess lifted a finger. “Before you’re finished with the girl, come get me. I’d like to demonstrate to my guests what a live feeding looks like.” She stroked the glass again. “My beasties are hungry.”
I started screaming anew, struggling against my invisible binds. It didn’t matter that my teammates would find a way in soon. Just the prospect of what the Cruel Countess intended to do to my sister had me breaking out into a cold sweat.
“But what about the other intruders?” someone from the audience asked.
She turned towards the room and eyed them. “You’re supervillains. Make yourselves useful and kill them.”
Chapter 26
Angel
The Cruel Countess dragged X and me to a room that branched off the bottom left side of the auditorium.
“So, was it love at first sight?” she asked, tilting her head towards me. “All that muscle and leather—it can take a girl’s breath away.”
When I just stared at her, she sighed. “I suppose it wouldn’t be,” she said. “After all, I assume he tried to hurt you, otherwise, you wouldn’t have discovered your resilience to his touch.”
Crap, she knew that?
“Yes, it makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that you eventually did let him get into your pants. I mean, I’ve heard the rumors that you’re loose with men, but there are standards and there are standards.”
So many reasons to maim this woman; she just added another.
If I looked pissed, X looked murderous. His jaw kept clenching and unclenching, and the muscles of his arms tensed as he strained to free himself.
“But what does that matter?” the Countess said. “Here you both are, a shining example of young love. How romantic.”
We arrived in front of a closed door. “You know what’s even more romantic than young love? Tragic love.
“Now, you two already have that whole Romeo-and-Juliet thing going on, seeing as how you’ve come from opposite sides of the justice system, but you haven’t yet died. Tragically.”
The door swung open, and my lungs seized up. All manner of torture devices lined the room—bottomless chairs, chains that dangled from the walls and ceiling, others that locked to the floor. Cuffs with spikes. Dozens of pliers and knives and implements I didn’t have names for. Some of the devices looked Medieval, and others, such as the chrome instruments lined on a tray, more modern.
Cruel Countess stepped inside, pulling us along behind her. “Hmmm …” She tapped her chin. “A little birdy mentioned a theory to me, and now I want to test it.”
I was moving again, shifting from the Countess’s side to dangle in front of her. She did the same with X, until he and I faced each other.
His eyes searched mine, and I could read anger in them, but also fear. Had the Executioner ever been afraid of anything before this woman?
“Now, that is not the way two lovers interact.” The Cruel Countess tsk-ed. “Kiss.”
She forced our heads together, and my sealed lips pressed against X’s. The action reminded me of when I used to press my Ken and Barbie dolls together as a little girl. Never had I felt more like a toy.
“Okay you two, that’s enough.” She ripped us away from each other. I swear X trembled with the need to kill this woman.
“Hold hands.” One of my arms shot out at the same time X’s did, and he clasped my palm.
“X, I think you’ll like what’s coming next.” The Countess smiled to herself.
Phantom claws pressed into my shoulders until the skin broke. With terrible force they dragged down my back, ripping through flesh and muscle. My back arched, my muffled mouth sealing in my scream. I waited for the pain to abate.
But it didn’t.
Because X and I are touching. Somehow she discovered all our secrets.
My back felt like Cinder had decided to hold an open flame to it, the pain refusing to lessen. So this was what people normally felt when they were wounded. No wonder so many avoided injury.
X squeezed my hand tightly, and I chanced a glance at him. His normally stoic face was gone. Agony, then wrath, then agony once more flickered across his features. His nostrils flared. Wrath.
I felt my cheeks slice open, then my shoulders, down my arms—
A dull thud sounded from somewhere outside the room.
I kneeled over as much as I could, two trails of blood trickling off my boots and onto the ground.
Drip-drip-drip-drip …
“The little birdy was right. How very interesting.”
I tried to catch my breath through my nose, my eyes leaking tears from the pain. All the while the Cruel Countess forced X to keep squeezing my hand.
Another thud, closer this time. The Countess frowned but didn’t pause from her work.
In the next instant our hands broke apart and I began healing, my body stitching itself back together.
“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time for the main event.”
“X, I want you over there.” She pointed to the far wall, where chains of all lengths were bolted.
X’s body barreled towards it. As soon as his back hit the wall, the chains coiled around his legs, arms and torso, pinning him to it. “For now, you will watch.”
The Cruel Countess glanced around the room. Spotting a regular chair, she waved it forward. It scraped across the ground, halting only once it reached us.
“Angel, it’s time to make good on your end of the bargain,” the Cruel Countess
said.
Unless my teammates found us in the next minute, this was it. The Cruel Countess planned on stealing my power here, now.
X renewed his struggles. I could hear his muffled shouts and see the fear that gleamed in his eyes.
“What was that, X? I can’t hear you.” She smiled and hummed to herself as she forced my body into the chair. Unlike the other torture devices, this one had no straps to hold me in. It didn’t need to, not when the Cruel Countess could keep me in place so effectively with her telekinesis.
She leaned over the chair, resting her hands on my forearms, her eyes boring into mine. I’d gotten a good look at my share of criminals, and of them all, her eyes were the deadest.
Her nails bit into my skin and her earlier smile vanished. The cat was almost done toying with its mouse.
“You stupid girl. Thinking to evade me. And you,” she glared at X, “keeping her from me. Breaking into my sanctuary.”
This was her sanctuary? I took a good look at the torture devices and remembered the cells full of broken and battered prisoners. What kind of monster would find this place soothing?
“How dare you defy me,” her voice rose, “how dare you cross me. I am the closest thing there is to God.”
Bitch was cray cray.
That was the only explanation for this nonsense she was now spouting off.
Her nails pierced my skin as she squeezed my arms. “You’ve both cost me. You’ve cost me so much.”
Distant shouts interrupted the Cruel Countess’s tirade. She leaned away from me, trying to hear better.
The sound of footfalls echoed down the corridor, coming towards us.
Boom!
The walls shook.
Hello, Cinder.
The footfalls sounded louder. A second later, a guard in a black uniform skidded to a stop just outside the door, bracing himself against the frame. “Countess,” he breathed, “the intruders have killed the guards and taken the blonde prisoner.”
My heart soared. That had to be my sister.
I saw the moment the last of the Cruel Countess’s control snapped. She threw a blast of wind at the man. “Then go get her!”
The guard fell, then clutched the doorframe to keep from blowing away. “They’ve breached the cellblock. We—we might not be able to hold them off.”
The Cruel Countess shrieked, throwing a blast of fire at the man. He howled as his uniform caught on fire and he rolled, trying to stamp the flames out.
When she rotated back to me, I smiled. Regardless of what happened in this room, my sister would be okay. I could live—or die—with that.
The Cruel Countess looked feral, and at my expression her face contorted further. “You think you’ve won?” She grabbed my jaw. “Do you?”
I stared at her for a long moment. Then I smiled again and nodded.
“Then you’re wrong.” Without looking away from me, she said, “Say goodbye, X. Your girlfriend is about to die.”
The Cruel Countess was done playing with us. Now that she was no longer fully in control of the situation, we were a source of anger, not perverse amusement.
I was about to witness firsthand what X had told me.
She steals powers.
Time to see if she could really kill a healer.
She still gripped my jaw, her nails biting into my skin. Jerking my face forward, she pressed her mouth against mine, unsealing my lips. This couldn’t be mistaken for a kiss. More like reverse resuscitation; rather than breathing life into me, she wanted to take it from me.
She inhaled. My back arched in pain as she began to rip my power from me, and I screamed into her mouth. It felt as though she shredded through flesh, peeling away the part of me that healed like it were a skin she could wear.
Must get it all. Used to be easier. Swifter.
I blinked as the Cruel Countess’s thoughts bubbled up into my head. A barrier broke, and then I didn’t know where she ended and I began.
So many faces. Laughing, smiling, now screaming, screaming as I took, took, took from them.
Never enough. I want more. They are all sheep and I will sheer them of their wool. I am the shepherd. I am God.
Holy shit this woman truly is nuts.
Too many. Hard to keep straight. Harder to keep reaping. My power slows. Don’t halt! Don’t halt! Ate their memories with their abilities. Never bargained for that. Can’t stop. Need more.
I WILL RULE THE WORLD.
I kept screaming into her mouth, breaking under the onslaught of so much pain and so many emotions. The more the Cruel Countess siphoned away my power, the more my memories fuzzed out of focus.
Suddenly, the weight that held me in place lifted. Behind me I heard chains fall, clanging against the wall.
The Cruel Countess released my jaw and stumbled back, horror written on her face. “What did you do to me?” she whispered.
I stood, my body free of her hold. I was tired—so, so tired—but now that her power didn’t bear down on me, my limbs felt lighter than air. My memories slowly seeped back into focus. I’d come so close to losing them.
I heard ominous footfalls approach me from behind. A moment later, X stepped up to my side. Rage rolled off of him like a storm as he stared down at the Cruel Countess.
She lifted her hand, presumably to use one of her powers, but nothing happened. And I knew why.
She no longer could use any of them. They were gone, gone, gone.
The Cruel Countess stared at her hand as though it betrayed her. In a way, it had.
“What did you do to me?” she repeated, glancing up.
I focused my steely gaze on her. “I healed you.”
Chapter 27
Angel
What trumps all superpowers? Life and death.
The woman in front of me had been sick. Very sick. All those powers had deteriorated the Cruel Countess’s body, and they were beginning to claim her mind. My power had eliminated the foreign powers like it would a pathogen.
“No …” Her voice was a whisper. Her eyes finally filled with emotion. Loss, terror, fear played out in them.
I leaned against the chair I’d been forced to sit in not a minute before.
“You okay?” X asked, never taking his eyes off the Cruel Countess.
“Fine.”
X nodded. He stalked past me. Slowly. A wolf circling prey, looking for the right angle to pounce.
His face appeared calm, but his eyes were alight with retribution.
A supervillain will live long enough to carry out a vendetta.
“Two years you’ve taken from my life. Dozens of supers you let die to feed you. And this is how you end. By my hand.” He grabbed the Cruel Countess by the throat.
She began shrieking as his touch burned her from the inside out.
“Executioner … please,” she begged, clawing at his grip on her neck.
He stared her down, his expression morphing into the professional mien he usually wore.
The Cruel Countess made a grab for his face.
“Go ahead,” he said, “Try to steal my ability. You already know that it will kill you.”
The skin along her right hand began to redden and bubble, and sizzling blood began to leak from her left eye.
Sssss—BOOM! Sssss—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
I gripped the chair next to me as the earth shook. The bombs went off in quick succession. Who was the idiot that pissed Cinder off?
A groan worked its way through the walls of the lair, the sound sickening. One of the iron bolts in the wall of room screeched.
I caught sight of it just as it turned ever so slightly.
“X,” I said, backing away, “we need to go.”
“Not until I know she’s dead,” he ground out.
“X—”
Sssss—BOOM!
With a shriek, the bolt shot out and water hissed through the opening.
Not good, not good, not good.
I was done waiting. “Vengeance will come later.??
? I grabbed his arm and yanked. He lost his hold on the Cruel Countess, and she went tumbling, a mass of shiny blisters peppering her skin.
He glanced at where I touched him, then up at me. “You can still touch me.”
I paused, staring at his bare forearm. He was right. His touch didn’t hurt. Somehow I still had my power. A riddle to solve later.
A puddle formed at our feet. We needed to get out of here. I gave his arm a tug and we began moving.
I could feel his eyes on me as he followed me out. “Are you really okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said, my voice breathless as I stumbled onwards.
He let go of my hand. “You’re not,” X growled.
Sssss—BOOM! Sssss—BOOM!
“Let’s worry about that after we get out of here.” We still had to grab my sister, free the prisoners, and somehow surface from this subterranean hellhole.
I stopped in front of the doorway to the auditorium.
And take out a bunch of supervillains, I thought, taking in the fighting mass of criminals and heroes.
Cinder appeared at the top of the stairway, several of the prisoners fanning out around her, one of them Ashley.
The tension that had been tightly wound around my core now loosened. There she was. Safe.
Cinder turned to the prisoners. “If any of you have a bone to pick with these assholes,” she nodded to the villains currently overtaking the room, “now’s you chance.” She glanced across the auditorium, and I followed her gaze to a clock.
6:39 a.m.
“You’ve got ten minutes people,” Cinder said, “then we need to book it out of here.”
I headed towards the group of released prisoners as they descended the auditorium stairs. Towards my sister.
I saw a blur of movement from my left a split-second before a body collided into me. Viper, a supervillain I only vaguely recognized, pinned me to the ground.
His forked tongue flicking out of his mouth. “Healer meat will taste—”
I drew my arm back and socked him once, twice, three times before he rolled off of me. I stood as he held his head.